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June 20, 2009
King Solomon's Mines
When I was twelve years old, one of my favourite books was KING SOLOMON'S MINES by Rider Haggard. A treasure map, a quest for gold, one gripping African adventure after another, this was a book that had everything. As it happens, it was the very first African adventure novel written in English - its publication in 1885 was surrounded by a huge publicity campaign, with posters all over London declaring it 'The Most Amazing Book Ever Written'.
Would you believe it, KING SOLOMON'S MINES was written as the result of a five shilling bet between Rider Haggard and his brother: namely, that Rider could not write a book half as good as Robert Louis Stevenson's TREASURE ISLAND. I'll leave it to you in the comments section to judge whether or not Rider Haggard should have claimed that five shillings!
Back in England this April, I watched the film of KING SOLOMON'S MINES one Sunday afternoon on Channel 5. Okay, so there are parts of the story (including its colonial attitudes) which grate, but basically it's still a cracking yarn. And I like to think of HACKING TIMBUKTU as a KING SOLOMON'S MINES for the twenty-first century. The hero Danny Temple is a hacker and traceur. The villains are a gold-crazed Facebook group with members all over the world. The African backdrop is as modern and authentic as I could make it. But at their heart, the stories are the same and Danny is basically a young Allan Quartermain. Boy finds map, boy embarks on quest, boy encounters many and various obstacles: will he get the gold?
Making the book trailer has been a hugely enjoyable process. I met Jason Brink in Ouagadougou back in January – an amazing stroke of luck – here was someone with the exact skill-set we needed, an IT professional who was also a parkour enthusiast. It was like meeting Danny Temple himself! Jason filmed many stunts in different parts of Burkina, and a hacking scene in Ouaga, and I'm very happy with the result. Thanks again to Helen Simpson, IT guru of Andersen Press, who did all the editing for the trailer.
If Jason's antics leave you wanting more parkour, here are my two favourite YouTube parkour clips:
If you get addicted, just click on 'Related Videos', or you could even sign up for a parkour lesson yourself at www.parkourgenerations.com
For the lowdown on the writing of HACKING TIMBUKTU, have a browse of the Hacking Timbuktu blog archive
Salam aleykum.
Posted by sahelsteve at June 20, 2009 01:26 PM