A dirty, weaselly word

The word ‘reboot’, is the most weaselly term I’ve heard in film since people started talking about scripts needing ‘edge’ twenty years ago. A reboot is not a remake or a prequel or sequel or any of that cheesy commercial fare; it’s a reboot, a subtly different, very sophisticated, creative endeavour that has been employed to bring an old film to life, usually by making it in 3D. Remember when Sellafield was called Windscale or even Calder Hill?  

I owe my new career to that horrible word, reboot. I was a screenwriter but recently crossed to writerly shed to become a novelist — or, in deference to the pigeon-holing world in which we live, a ‘young adult historical novelist’. (For the record and hopefully everyone reading this with a boy or girl between the ages of 11 and 14, my new book is called Hitler’s Angel,  a thriller set in Germany 1941 with two young people from Germany and Austria sent back by the British as SOE operatives to extract a young girl.)