Kirstyn and I will be at Brisbane’s Pulp Fiction in Edward St from noon on Wednesday (Sept 15) where she will be signing Madigan Mine. She also has stories in the anthologies Macabre and Scenes from the Second Storey, both launched at this month’s Aussiecon4 (the World Science Fiction Convention). Please do pop in to say hello if you are able 🙂
gothic
Worldcon/Aussiecon appearances
I’ve scoured the Aussiecon4 program online and come up with these appearances at the convention, at Melbourne’s Convention and Exhibition Centre, for those who might like to catch up (outside of the bar area):
Saturday, Sept 4, 5pm
If anyone has a dusty copy of The Darkness Within lying around they’d like signed (or maybe an anthology such as Dreaming Again), I’ll be in Room 201-02 with pen in hand. (I believe Guest of hHnour Kim Stanley Robinson, amongst others, is also signing at that time.)
Sunday, Sept 5, noon
A reading in Room 215
Sunday, 1pm
Presenting a chat (for teens only) about the evolution of the vampire from Dracula to now, in Room 218.
Sunday, 2pm
I’ll be joining some very cool people indeed to support the anthology Dreaming Again (probably my proudest publishing credit), in Room 211 (keep your eyes, or ears, peeled, as there *might* be an audio version of my story ‘Smoking, Waiting for the Dawn’, available during the con).
Monday, Sept 6, 1pm
Joining a discussion on the taboos in dark fantasy, again with some very cool people, in Room 211.
I’m very happy indeed to be able to support the worldcon through this participation, so I hope some folks can come along to any and all of these: the more input the better 🙂
Zola Jesus — what happens when you listen to too much Siouxsie Sioux!
Oh nom, nom, nom… and how good is the clip from Future Primitive Films? Find out more about Zola at her MySpace. There’s more discordance in store! (Good gracious, check out her version of Jefferson Airplane’s Somebody to Love for starters … yipes!)
And in other recent net musical explorations to raise an eyebrow if not an ear:
Meanwhile, still waiting for those Concrete Blonde Australian tour tix to go on sale… not that I’m impatient or anything, no not me!
Footnote: I only found out today that Tim Burton (now on show in Melbourne, will get there I swear!) is teaming up with Johnny Depp to shoot a new Dark Shadows. Could be/should be wicked cool! (If you’re asking wassit, check out the original soapie and the remake with Ben Cross. Neither of which should be confused with Australia’s Dark Shadows, a rockin’ Sydney band!)
Neuromancer, Henry and Madigan
Something old, something new, something cool …
Neuromancer, by William Gibson, blew my socks off when I first read it. It came out in 1984, helped forge the cyberpunk movement and threw a few words into our technical lexicon. It still rocks. A sweet moment: reading this masterpiece of cyber intrigue and corporate shenanigans with Billy Idol’s Cyberpunk album drowning out the worst of the commuting interference. I love Gibson’s style, his flawed characters, his requirement that the reader keep up, his depictions of cyberspace and razorgirls, the plot twists and stinging conclusion — all of it, really.
Today I rolled another yarn, putting that commute to good use: a brand new story from Chris Bongers, a Brisbane writer who’s in the zone with her first book getting attention from the Children’s Book Council, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Henry Hoey Hobson does too. Chris sent it down as a nod, one I was proud to receive — it seems my penchant for using a coffin as an ice box at our Halloween parties has made an impression! In the Twilight age, it might be easy to think the Fright Night-style cover indicates yet another slipstreaming YA love-in-the-dark affair, but thankfully, it ain’t so. Chris grew up in the central west of Queensland and that dry, larrikin humour is tickling under the surface of this book, an affecting tale of a young fellah and his mum trying to cut it in the big smoke. It’s a yarn about family and fitting in and acceptance, the voice is spot-on, and the Addams Family elements made my day. The details of the Brisbane launch are here.
Which leads me to the other big news: Lucy Sussex (who has her own book launch coming up soon as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival — details TBC) is to launch Kirstyn McDermott’s Madigan Mine at the Carlton Library on August 2 at 7pm. The book is now officially out. Do come along if you can and help make a night of it. More details here.
Funky trailer for an awesome book
I’m proud to share the trailer for Madigan Mine, by Kirstyn McDermott. Hitting shelves early July. Huzzah!
Vampirefest, or, how I spent World Goth Day
Yesterday was World Goth Day (appointed by goths, for goths), so it was appropriate that I donned my Nosferatu t-shirt and headed out to the Melbourne Science Fiction Club’s annual mini-con, this year branded Vampirefest!
The mini-con wasn’t all about the Undead: there was a Tardis and a light-sabre and a tricky standee of Dr Who who kept staring at you, no matter where you were standing in the church hall, and a Stormtrooper made an appearance. There were booksellers and fan groups and interest groups and it was all good, especially once the sun started to come through the windows and warm the winter chill – hooray for the coffee pot! No Twilight shirts in the audience that I saw, but there were a few “And then Buffy killed Edward: the end” ones — clearly, this was a gathering of true believers.
I was chuffed at the attention paid to my talk about the evolving nature of the vampire, and how cool was it to see the young readers in the front row showing discernment in their vampire literature. There is hope for the monster yet!
Unfortunately, that message didn’t quite make it through the debate, where my team failed in our bid to overturn the premise that ‘vampires should just lay down and die’. But again, I took heart from the youth vote!
The Dr Who club had the invidious task of opening proceedings with a presentation of vampires depicted in the TV series; they didn’t quite get the attention they deserved due to stalls still being set up and general greeting chit-chat, but I enjoyed the snippets they showed, and found it interesting that the Time Lords had an edict to kill or be killed should they encounter any bloodsuckers. The vampire mythos, it seems, is truly universal!
I utterly failed at the trivia contest, managed to keep my hands in my pockets during the auction, and got to revel (even if she did go on to kick our butt in the debate) in Kirstyn’s first public reading (from behind the vampire balloons!) from her forthcoming Madigan Mine (not a vampire story, but a Gothic one, with blood and obsession and maybe-ghosts).
All in all, a fine day, further enhanced by lunch with a pal from Brissie and after-con drinks with another Queenslander and her gal pals.
The vampires are rising
Great news from the Melbourne Science Fiction Club: we have reinforcements! Foz Meadows, Mary Borsellino and George Ivanoff have joined the coterie of guests at the club’s annual mini-con on May 22, this year billed as Vampirefest!! It’s going to be very cool to compare (bloody) notes with these guys.
Kirstyn McDermott and I will be facing off in a debate about whether vampires should just “lay down and die”, and Kirstyn will be revealing her debut novel, Madigan Mine (due out in August).
There’s also a talk about vampires in Dr Who — was it just me, or did the most recent episode about ‘vampires’ in Venice kind of suck? — and an auction. A whole bunch of Melbourne’s fan clubs are piling in under the one roof, and there’s a call for attendees to wear costume.
That Vampirefest is being conducted in a church hall is the icing on the cake!
World Goth Day
Apparently, May 22 is World Goth Day. I’m not sure what that entails — I thought every day was Halloween for the children of the night. The website suggests it’s about music and shopping. Maybe it’s mainstream appropriation that’s pushing the subculture, or a motivated part thereof, to stand up and be counted, even if it’s better known for slouching in the shadows, content to be, if not revelling in, not understood. But hey, if it means someone’s playing Siouxsie and the Mission and the like, well, I’m all for it. And the good thing is, I can go as I am.
Talking vampires at the Melbourne SF Club’s mini-con
The Melbourne Science Fiction Club is having its annual mini-convention on May 22, and yours truly will be a joint guest of honour, sharing the stage with Kirstyn McDermott. I’ll be giving a wee talk on the evolution of the vampire (from Dracula to, um, Edward et al). And Kirstyn will, I believe, be giving her first reading from her forthcoming debut novel, Madigan Mine (spoiler: there is no vampire per se in the novel, but it’s good and dark and there will be blood…)! The mini-con is a gathering of the fan clans, with support from some key purveyors of SF and fantasy goodness. Sounds tasty!
More bloody vampires
Marianne de Pierres is scoping for readers’ (and viewers’) favourite vampires at her blog, while Nicole Adams has assembled a dubious top 14 vampire stories at hers. Good to see Dracula and Nosferatu made the Phlebotomy cut, despite their lack of supplementary cross-media tie-ins that seem to inform the rest of the selection. Nothing like a list to get tongues wagging, eh?
To whit, I’ve already listed my favourite vampire movies, so, riffing off MdP, here’s my pick of the screen vampires:
Bela Lugosi’s Dracula
Max Shreck’s Orlok
Klaus Kinski’s Orlok
Gary Oldman’s Dracula
Christopher Lee’s Dracula
Ingrid Pitt’s Carmilla
Near Dark’s vampire gang
Buffy’s Drusilla (and Spike, and Darla)
Catherine Deneuve’s Miriam
Willem Dafoe’s Shreck
Tom Cruise’s Lestat
Kirsten Dunst’s Claudia
Udo Keir’s Dracula
That’s 15 and quite a mouthful. I wonder if Kiefer Sutherland and David Boreanaz are unjustly omitted? And you know better than to mention Edward here, right?
So what is it about these screen portrayals that makes them stand out for me? Let’s see. Udo’s a maniac, Cruise excelled where no one expected him to. Shreck is impossible to forget and both Kinski and Dafoe paid amazing homage (Kinski in Vampire in Venice was also divine). Lugosi and Lee are likewise iconic. Near Dark is gritty and nihilistic. Dunst, Oldman, Deneuve and Pitt all offer nuances of characterisation you just don’t often get in a screen vampire. Buffy’s bunch are simply damn good fun, each in their own way. If there’s a theme running through these portrayals, it might be one of dealing with immortality – there’s a loneliness to these vampires, an otherness, that strikes deeper than the usual predator of the night depiction. They might be sexy, zany, insane, downright nasty, but all seem to suffer from the common malaise of being more-or-less alone in their timelessness. Maybe that’s part of why their performance lingers long after the credits have ended.