Vampires in the Sunburnt Country

Vale: Samuel Youd, aka John Christopher

jason nahrung — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:43:01 +0000

Word is spreading of a sad loss in the speculative fiction community, that of British Writer Samuel Youd, on February 3, only two months shy of his 90th birthday. Locus has confirmed Youd’s passsing.>

As John Christopher, Youd provided two of the great texts of my childhood, both of which have survived the recent pogroms of excess literature cluttering the household shelves: The Tripods and The Sword of the Spirits trilogies. Tripods in particular made a strong impression.

This is barely scratching the surface of his output published under numerous pseudonyms.

He ranked up there with the likes of Garner, Cooper and Le Guin in my early reading. I hope more generations come to appreciate his legacy.

Tales from the Bell Club TOC

jason nahrung — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:22:16 +0000

I’ve only just stumbled across the table of contents for Tales from the Bell Club (edited by Paul Mannering for KnightWatch Press), in which I’ve managed to place a story entitled ‘The Kiss’.

It was one of those yarns that popped up out of the ether, a happy collision between a visit to the gallery to see an exhibition about the Secessionist painters of early 20th century Vienna and the announcement of the anthology. In particular, a painting of Count Verona by Oskar Kokoschka and the unavoidable if enigmatic presence of Emilie Floge. It took a while to get this one to come together; I was dreading trying to reconfigure it if it missed the mark for the Bell Club. I realise now that, with last year’s riff on the disappearance of Harold Holt, I’ve definitely joined the ranks of alternative history; bless you, Emilie Floge, and your crazy band of artists! It will be interesting to see who else is rubbing shoulders in the Bell Club halls…

Emilie Floge

Count Verona, 1910

The TOC:

The Adventure of the Laboratory – Kathleen Brandt
Tell Tom Tildrum – Edward M. Erdelac
The Quarrantine Station – Lee Zumpe
A Gentleman’s Folly – Phil Hickes
The Kiss – Jason Nahrung
Divine Providence – Robert J. Santa
The Widow Dotridge – Jason D. Moore
Spawn Of The Crocodile God – John McNee
Life and Limb – Andrew Freudenberg
The Girl In The Cabin – Richard Barnes
The Wager – Jeff C. Carter
Sayuri’s Revenge – Helen Stubbs
Fluke (originally: untitled) – Lynne Jamneck
The Shrieking Woman – Doug Manllen

Aussies on Locus recommended reading list

jason nahrung — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:21:57 +0000

A few Australian writers appear on Locus magazine’s list of recommended reading from 2011 — novels by Kaaron Warren, Alison Goodman, Jo Anderton, Scott Westerfeld (who straddles the Pacific divide); collections from Margo Lanagan, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Lucy Sussex; anthologies edited or co-edited by Jack Dann and four (!) by Jonathan Strahan; novelettes by Peter M Ball, Isobelle Carmody and Margo Lanagan; and short stories by Peter M Ball, Damien Broderick, Terry Dowling, Thoraiya Dyer, Margo Lanagan, Chris Lawson, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Kaaron Warren.

Apologies for anyone I’ve missed through oversight or ignorance.

AWWNYRC #2: The Shattered City, by Tansy Rayner Roberts

jason nahrung — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:41:31 +0000

This is the second book I’m reading as part of my list of 10 for the Australian Women Writers 2012 National Year of Reading Challenge.

The Shattered City

Book 2 of the Creature Court trilogy
by Tansy Rayner Roberts
Harper Voyager, 2011, ISBN: 9 780 7322 8944 7

IN WHICH the Tasmanian author furthers the tale begun in Power and Majesty (reviewed here). For those who came in late: the city of Aufleur is under attack, with interdimensional rifts trying to destroy it overnight. Defending the city is a bunch of hedonistic and political shape shifters, led by a Power and Majesty. In book 1, the ruling P&M was whisked away through a split in the sky, and was replaced — not by the most likely candidate, the damaged and reluctant Ashiol, but seamstress Velody.

It’s a complex world, with Italian Renaissance overtones, and both the workings of the magical world and its relationship with the physical are explored further in The Shattered City. Velody grows into her role on the great chess board, introducing a new regime of polite behaviour — of community — into the fractious, scheming Court, while her fellow seamstresses — Rhian, all but neglected for much of this story, and fiery Delphine — also find their place in the new world order.

The actual story that drives this book — an assassin in the ranks and the sense that the city faces its most deadly threat yet — takes a while to get going, but there’s no time for slacking off. There are so many points of view, often thrown altogether within each chapter, and some make only one or few appearances: it’s easy to lose track of just whose head you’re in.

It’s a strength that the immediate story arcs of books 1 and 2 are both resolved between their covers, while the larger story stretches across them. As with the first, the second delivers some delicious moments, beautifully dressed and dead sexy, and what a relief it is to finally have the plot point that kicked the whole thing off finally out in the open. Rayner Roberts is wise to not present it as a surprise, but use it as leverage for a greater goal. The Creature Court series offers a layered, detailed, credible world, peopled with a cast of complex, motivated individuals. How fortunate that, given the impending showdown foreshadowed here, that book 3, Reign of Beasts, is out now!

This review has also been submitted to Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, who made the review copy available.

Previous Challenge reviews:

Frantic, by Katherine Howell, crime.

Fantastic news: Lanagan, McGahan and double the Alison!

jason nahrung — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:38:51 +0000

Firstly, Margo Lanagan is being feted at Adelaide Writers Week. A thoroughly deserved recognition of a very fine author.

Secondly, the Wheeler Centre is back in the swing, and has posted a video of Alison Goodman and Alison Croggon discussing their approach to fantasy: something both write extremely well (cf The Two Pearls of Wisdom/Eon and The Gift, respectively).

And thirdly, I’ve reviewed The Coming of the Whirlpool, the first book of Andrew McGahan’s YA fantasy series, over at ASiF. An enjoyable, intriguing read for anyone who’s had an eye(patch) on swashbuckling.

AWWNYRC Review #1: Frantic, by Katherine Howell

jason nahrung — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:16:21 +0000

I joined up with the Australian Women Writers 2012 National Year of Reading Challenge and have started on my list of 10 books by, you guessed it, Australian women writers to read this year, the national year of reading. Here’s the first review:

Frantic

Katherine Howell
Pan Macmillan, 2007, ISBN: 978 1 4050 3797 6

FRANTIC by name, frantic by nature. And intriguing, too.

This is the debut novel from Katherine Howell, who drew on her experience as a paramedic in telling the story of heroine Sophie, a Sydney paramedic. Sophie’s husband, Chris, is shot at the door of their house and their baby, Lachlan, is kidnapped. Every parent’s nightmare, right?

Add in a vicious bunch of bank robbers who might be coppers and a relationship going through a rough patch, and you’ve got a compelling thriller anchored in the world of the emergency services.

Also starring is police detective Ella Marconi, whose career has stalled due to her run-in with a boss.

It’s not hard to see why the novel has brought Howell kudos, a series and a following. The medical and police procedural rings true, without the bells and whistles of a Hollywood performance. The law is not so much an ass as a mule that we trust to plod its way across the legal terrain, getting there in the end. But of course, Lachlan doesn’t have time for plodding: Sophie is prepared to do anything to get him back. Howell’s portrayal of the mother’s anxiety is spot-on. Frantic, indeed.

The story puts the reader in an interesting seat. Certain medical emergencies attended by Sophie have varying degrees of import with the core storyline, and the reader must decide which are relevant, and how. The event that triggers the story — the shooting of Sophie’s policeman husband Chris — is clearly not what the police, a little mysteriously, seem to believe it is. Why isn’t Chris dead? Why is Lachlan missing? Why the note? It just doesn’t add up.

And then Chris gets his own point of view, so his role, while murky, is largely understood. And then, perhaps halfway through the book, the villain is revealed, and the reader is no longer left in the position of a whodunit but, rather, the position of an observer watching the web being woven, and why, and wondering who will be ultimately trapped.

It’s a methodical tale, competently told, with attention to detail — leaves in drains, the smell of food — and no grandstanding. Marconi is neither Sherlock Holmes nor Dirty Harry. Sophie is not an action hero. Chris is not Chuck Norris. No one gets out unscathed or unaffected, not even Marconi.

That down-to-earth approach is perhaps the novel’s most endearing feature. The resolution leaves the questions satisfactorily answered. It’s no surprise that Marconi is still going strong, five books later.

Brisbane Writers Festival dates announced

jason nahrung — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:35:17 +0000

The calendar of literary events has been updated, including the dates for Brisbane Writers Festival (Sep 5-9), the Sunshine Coast’s Reality Bites in June (recently seeking submissions for attendees) and the Aurealis Awards ceremony in Sydney in May. Additions and corrections to the calendar are welcome.

Aurealis Awards tickets on sale, Chronos nominations open

jason nahrung — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 08:52:19 +0000

Just in case you hadn’t noticed, tickets for this year’s Aurealis Awards ceremony are now on sale. The ceremony will be held at the Independent Theatre in North Sydney on Saturday May 12. Last year’s awards, organised by the same organisation, SpecFaction NSW, and held in the same venue, were enormous fun. It’s a great opportunity to catch up with friends from across the country, rub shoulders with some damn fine writers, maybe meet some editors, agents and publishers … The staff at the nearby Rydges, which became the default ‘con hotel’, were wonderfully accommodating when it came to the post-awards ceremony. They might have a few more bar staff rostered on this year. Heh.

WHILE we’re on awards, the Chronos Awards are calling for nominations. The awards recognise excellence in speculative fiction arising from Victorian residents. A fairly comprehensive list of eligible works is available, and welcomes additions. I take my hat off to the person/s who assembled this list! (I note that Paul Haines’s The Last Days of Kali Yuga and his short story from that collection, ‘The Past is a Bridge Best Left Burnt’, is absent, and I’ve let the organisers know that my listed story ‘Mending the Fences’ isn’t in fact eligible — it’s publication has been delayed till next month.) Nominations are due by March 18 and will be voted on by members of Continuum 8, the national science fiction convention being held in Melbourne in June.

Angry Robot opens its doors again, and other writerly news

jason nahrung — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:55:31 +0000

Hot on the heels of Penguin’s new open door program, British press Angry Robot is again appealing to unagented authors — they signed three debut novelists from last year’s program — but this time are being quite specific about what they want: classic fantasy and YA SF and fantasy. The submission period is April 16-30 using a website uploader. Details are here.

Tansy Rayner Roberts is sharing the love — a combined book launch with Margo Lanagan for those lucky enough to have easy access to Hobart (Lanagan has riffed her Sea Hearts novella from X6 into a novel, how tasty!) — and a reprint that shows even a story written for a specific universe can have legs outside it (and indeed, TRR’s yarn breaks more boundaries than that little piffle).

Alan Baxter has shared his love, too: the forthcoming ‘paranoirmal’ anthology Damnation and Dames from Ticonderoga with its whoop arse cover and two collaborations in its TOC. I look at the bare scraping of confused and contradictory notes on my hard drive and lament; there are two more upcoming titles I doubt I’ll be able to submit to, but they’re worth a look: issue 7 of Midnight Echo, closing this month, and another paranormal anthology, Bloodstones, open February–May.

And here’s pause for thought in the aftermath of Australia Day, in which Lit-icism considers the call for renewed focus on Australian literature. The part that especially struck a chord with me was this, from Italian academic Tim Parkes:

Parkes laments what is essentially a globalisation of literature in which novels provide no authentic sense of place at all, but are instead tailored to a global market by dealing with ‘universal’ – read: more widely marketable and international prizewinning – themes.

This is partly why I took up the pen with a view to being published — to see my country, my culture, reflected in the types of stories that I like to read. It’s heartening to see authors such as Trent Jamieson able to set their fiction in Brisbane — Brisbane! — and still find not only a wider audience, but an overseas publisher willing to run with it. It’s pleasing to see someone send some Aussie sensibility across the water, rather than regurgitating a trope-laden backdrop of New York or London.

It’s not just eucalyptus trees (hey, they have plenty in California, anyway) — it’s viewpoint. It’s attitude. It’s how we see the world. Sharing these things is how we help us all to understand each other — not just the different priorities or approaches we might take, but also the similarities: parents what a better world for their children, for instance. Language plays an incredibly powerful part in informing culture, and where else to find its evolution than in literature?

Parkes is talking about more than setting: he’s talking about themes and those, he suggests, can be culturally specific and deserve attention. Sure, though I’m not convinced that domestic themes don’t have wider resonance.

Australia doesn’t have the history of European countries in dealing with certain social ills, for instance — no civil war, no religious schisms — but the social history of those events can still impact on us; we can see movements here, we can relate to the humanity of the issue, we can learn a lesson.

And I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss universal themes. Harking back to Australia Day, is the Australian experience of colonialism, from invader or invaded viewpoint, any different to that of Canada or South Africa? How? What does it do to us? Perhaps a culture’s, or a subculture’s, response to those universal themes is equally important as those purely domestic discussions (assuming they exist).

Penguin opens the door to unsolicited manuscripts, and oh yeah, Disney sux

jason nahrung — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:01:13 +0000

The good news: Penguin has joined the open call of Allen & Unwin and Pan Macmillan with its Monthly Catch. You can email an MS and synopsis during the first week of each month. It’s almost like the good old days when you could send your creature to the slush pile most any time of the year, but this is likely to get a reply a lot faster. Poetry, text books and scripts/plays not eligible.

The ugly: Disney, you suck. Corporate wankers corrupting Joy Division’s iconic Unknown Pleasures cover art with your pathetic mouse. Sod off back to screwing over fairtytales, you gits. And no, I’m not linking to it.