books

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Independent Literary Awards

Some recent writerly chat about the benefit of getting your book reviewed in the blogosphere, as opposed to trying to get mainstream media such as newspapers to show interest, has been given some extra pause for thought by the announcement of this year’s Independent Literary Awards. When I first saw the title, I thought it was awards for books published by independent publishers, but no, the independent refers to the judges themselves: bloggers. Bloggers with blogs concerned primarily with books. Readers, in fact. Avid ones. Not writers, not publishers or publicists, but the folks who we write books for. (Note: there is a conference coming up in Brisbane devoted entirely to readers.)

The beauty, and perhaps it’s a two-edged beauty, as with POD and e-pub, of the internet is that anyone can not only have an opinion, but they can voice it. And unlike newspapers, for instance, there are very few gatekeepers on an indie blog. Biased? Parochial? Slaveringly devoted? It’s all out there, and it’s up to the reader to read between the lines: why is this person saying this? Is it fair? Is it informative? I like to think that, in both blogs and publishing, the quality will rise to the surface. Call me naive.

This is the technological age where we see reviews being used, not just by readers wanting to pass judgement, but by those looking for political clout. We’ve seen this in an ugly form, where readers sacrifice the reputation and skill of writers to protest against the price of e-books — something over which the author has, unless self-publishing, got very little if any control. (cf the Jacqueline Howett debacle, covered neatly by Kirstyn McDermott here.)

Times, they are indeed a’changing…

But back to business: the Independent Literary Awards, now in its second year, shows a new flexing of muscle from the ranks of not just fandom, but a rising and genre-spanning sector of the publicity machine. And these guys are taking it seriously — the list of last year’s winners shows that with a worthy to-read list. It makes sense; literary discourse is increasingly moving online, where it can become not just an essay, but a discussion. Look at the number of podcasts nominated in recent Australian spec fic award shortlists, for instance (Alan Baxter provides a neat overview here). The ILAs are juried by lit-minded bloggers, and accept nominations (Sep-Dec 2011) only from their peers — you have to pass their muster as a lit blogger (‘independent’ from the publishing business) to be considered eligible to nominate. Guidelines are on the website. It’s a step towards recognition and professionalism in what is still, to some extent, frontier territory. Good luck to them!

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Anywhere But Earth … T minus X and counting…

anywhere but earth short story anthology

Coeur de Lion has released the table of contents for its forthcoming anthology Anywhere But Earth, and wow, I’m very glad indeed to be in this one. Editor Keith Stevenson’s summary of my ‘Messiah on the Rock’: “Arse kicking atheists and messianic alien vampires”. Twenty-seven yarns all set somewhere that isn’t there — this is gonna be fun! This isn’t necessarily the final cover, and the anthology is due out late 2011.

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Books! King, Powers, After the Rain, Shaun Tan, the Man Booker International shortlist

After the rain

The news:

The Man Booker International shortlist (NOT the Man Booker, for a book, but rather for a lifetime achievement) features John Le Carre and Philip Pullman, and Aussie David Malouf is in the 13, too. I find it cool that Le Carre wants to stay out in the cold — he’s not competitive, it appears, and the organisers have politely declined his equally polite request to be withdrawn.

And FableCroft has opened pre-orders for After the Rain, which includes my cyberpunk homage to misspent RPG days. The story has been fine-tuned since it was included in FableCroft’s flood relief charity e-version. The physical release is due out for Easter.

And it would be remiss to fail to mention the ongoing Year of the Shaun Tan, with the Aussie artist adding the mortgage-killing Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award to this year’s Oscar. Huzzah!

And the reviews, briefly:

Full Dark, No Stars, by Stephen King, collecting four yarns all uniformly bleak. The opening novella, ‘1922’, is classic obsession/haunting stuff, I had a couple of wee niggles, but I can’t go past the man’s command of character and, in this collection, the economy of words and gorgeous phrasing. ‘Big Driver’ is an ugly tale where the ugliness is not just foreshadowed but announced — you’d think that’d kill the suspense, but it doesn’t. The short story ‘Fair Extension’ is probably the least engaging, a Faustian exercise in human bitterness with surprisingly few twists. And ‘A Good Marriage’ is another simply domestic bliss gone bad, an one way in which we can handle home-grown evil. Even when the story has a kind of happy ending, there are no real winners here: such an apt title. King at his best or even his mediocre is a great salve.

And the other novel to have travelled from the to-read pile to the finally read one is Tim Powers’ The Stress of Her Regard, a fetching alternative reality in which the poets Byron, Keats and Shelley battled very literal demons. It’s clever and I can only imagine how much fun the author must’ve had digging up the poetic extracts to head each chapter, selecting not only for theme but to set the mood on the action to follow. It’s a pedestrian pace but well worth the stroll through this superbly imagined fantasy.

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Tasty reviews for Ticonderoga’s fangtastic anthologies

more scary kisses paranormal romance anthology

dead red heart Australian vampire anthology

Publishers Weekly has posted reviews of two forthcoming Ticonderoga Publications anthologies — Dead Red Heart (“solid”) and More Scary Kisses (“beguiling”) — and that’d be a thumbs up for both — yay! Both anthologies are due out around Easter. And yup, I’m chuffed to say that I’ve got stories in both of them.

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Some speculation about the Miles Franklin award aka ‘this is Australia’

good daughter by honey brown

The longlist for this year’s Miles Franklin award has been announced, and there’s Honey Brown on the list. Brown won the Aurealis Award for best horror novel a couple of years back with Red Queen, and last year, Miles Franklin winner Andrew McGahan took the gong for best science fiction novel. I wonder how many others have managed to likewise span the annoying, unnecessary genre gulf?

Last year’s Miles Franklin caused some forelock tugging when it went to a crime novel, Peter Temple’s Truth. This year, it seems, the forelocks will be safe. Here’s the longlist, with an annotated description based on the blurbs:

  • Rocks in the Belly (Jon Bauer, Scribe): a family power play told from the POV of both a child and the man he becomes.
  • The Good Daughter (Honey Brown, Penguin): a mysterious disappearance in small country town, Australia.
  • The Mary Smokes Boys (Patrick Holland, Transit Lounge Publishing): small country town threatened by progress as a young man worries about his sister’s future.
  • The Piper’s Son (Melina Marchetta, Penguin): a sequel to Saving Francesca, all about family and friends and disappointment.
  • When Colts Ran (Roger McDonald, Random House): slice of life among the blokes of a, ahem, small country town.
  • Time’s Long Ruin (Stephen Orr, Wakefield Press): based loosely on the disappearance of the Beaumont children from Glenelg beach.
  • That Deadman Dance (Kim Scott, Pan Macmillan): culture clash in colonial WA.
  • The Legacy (Kirsten Tranter, HarperCollins): a woman disappears in the dust cloud of New York City’s 9/11, causing secrets to be uncovered.
  • Bereft (Chris Womersley, Scribe): family secrets and strife in smalltown NSW in the aftermath of the Great War.

    The shortlist will be announced on April 19, with the winner announced on June 22.

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    Librarians take HarperCollins to task

    Here’s a video from a library in the US, suggesting that HarperCollins’ plan to limit e-book loans to 26 times (ie approximately a year’s worth of lending, based on a fortnight’s turnaround) before libraries have to re-buy the title is more than a little misguided. It’s interesting that libraries are reinventing themselves as not just providers of reading matter, but social hubs; publishers are struggling to reimagine their profit models in an e-age, so this won’t be the last bullet through the foot thanks to a trigger-happy beancounter.

    With the ‘shelf life’ of e-books a factor, could libraries end up functioning like video libraries, where e-books are rented rather than loaned? Or should publishers simply forsake the income from backlist replacement copies, and be happy that their authors are getting exposure through the public lending system and hope that borrowings translate to purchasing? I wonder what types of inducements we’ll see added to e-books to encourage upgrading — deleted scenes? commentaries? maybe some discount coupons for the gorgeously bound hardcover collector’s edition?

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    Australian Shadows shortlist announced

    The Australian Horror Writers Association has announced this year’s finalists for the Shadows award, presented in the categories of (eclectic) long fiction, short fiction and edited publication, and I can safely say I’m happy I’m not trying to judge such a strong field — leastwise because my wife has two works in the running! I’ve read all but one of the final field, and they’re all darn fine yarns. Congratulations to all for making the final cut!

    The Shadows are announced in April, just ahead of the fan-based Ditmars at Swancon at Easter, and the country’s premier genre awards, the Aurealis Awards, at a gala bash in Sydney on May 21. Last year offered a bumper crop of tales spilling from Aussie pens: if you’re looking for some reading material, the shortlists make a great place to start.

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    The Tough Guide to Fantasyland — don’t travel without it

    tough guide to fantasylandI’ve just finished reading The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones, first published in 1996 and updated in 2006. It’s something of a classic, and now I see why.

    Laid out like a guide book, it provides an A to Z of fantasy tropes as though the reader was a traveller about to take a tour of a generic fantasy world. From Adept to Zombies, she lists the likely events, people and places you’ll encounter,all delivered with a deliciously acerbic twist.

    There’s a bit of repetition as the various entries cross-reference each other, but there’s much to take home from this guide, from cliched character tropes to the commonality of stew to the formulae of epic fantasy: bar brawls, eccentric wizards, lost heirs, vestigial empires.

    For anyone interested in writing fantasy, it’s a wake-up call about just how entrenched certain tropes are, and just how blase we might’ve become about travel and culture in fantasy settings.

    I’m filing it next to my copy of The Writer’s Complete Fantasy Reference, should the day ever come when I’m tempted to revisit my misspent youth and pick up the sword with my pen: nothing like a dose of salt with your how-to.

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    100 Stories for Queensland

    The list of authors appearing in 100 Stories for Queensland has been announced and it’s a great looking list drawing writers from all over the place. The anthology is to raise money for Queensland flood victims.

    The book is due out on March 8.

    I’m particularly interested in seeing what Alan Baxter has contributed, given the antho was looking for uplifting yarns *grin*

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    Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres – is there an award for book trailers?

    And now for the good news (goddamn it, we lost another Digger in Afghanistan today, as if a frigging cyclone wasn’t enough sadness for one day/week/lifetime):

    How yummy is this? I mean, I’m a sucker for pretty much anything with music (well… certain music!) and BATS! Yeah! Go Marianne!

    It’s funny, seeing this today, because I only just caught up with Marianne’s chat with Tara Moss about her crime series, and I was thinking, though I don’t read a lot of crime, this Tara Sharp sounded like a pretty cool investigator.

    Good things happening for good people. Good stuff.