2012snapshot

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Snapshot 2012: Robert Hoge

australian speculative fiction snapshot 2012 logoBRISBANE writer Robert Hoge has never had a job that didn’t involve writing. His first job was working on a sports newspaper at the University of Queensland where he spent time interviewing future Olympic gold medallists before they were famous. Since then he’s worked as a full-time journalist, a speechwriter, a science communicator for the CSIRO and a political advisor. Robert has had a number of short stories, articles and interviews published in Australia and overseas. You can visit him at www.roberthoge.com.

You had a beautifully poetic short story in last year’s After the Rain anthology and there’s a similar atmosphere to other shorts: is that a preferred mode or just what best suited those yarns, a space you were in at the time…?
Glad you liked it.

I kind of hit on a series of shorts about the elements – especially water – almost by accident. I certainly didn’t plan it that way but I think I kept coming back to it because it was simple but brutally powerful at the same time.

I like taking the elements we’re so familiar with – water, rain, fire – and throwing them onto the page and seeing what happens.

You’ve got an autobiography occupying your time — where to after that, writing-wise?
Yep, I haven’t finished any new short stories in a while because I’m still really focussed on that. But by the end of the year, I want to knock a few new short stories out and get stuck into a novel about civil disobedience that keeps rattling around my head.

After the awards ceremony at Perth’s natcon last year, you wrote an open letter to the spec fic community about ensuring access to such ceremonies. What was the response?
The response was very heartening – especially from the event organisers themselves. Everyone seemed to immediately understand and acknowledge that we need to do better – as a community.

I think the community has a tremendous capacity to self-organise and self-correct when we need to. We can get an awful lot done when we put our mind to it.

What Australian works have you loved recently?
Well, if I keep it to the last year or so…

The Courier’s New Bicycle by Kim Westwood; the collections by Paul Haines, Angela Slatter (2) and Lisa L. Hannett; and a lot of the really high quality stuff that’s coming out from Twelfth Planet Press.

I’ve also really been enjoying the artwork Kathleen Jennings has been producing – it’s great and you can tell almost immediately that it is a work produced by her.


What have been some of the biggest changes in Australian speculative fiction in the past two years since Aussiecon 4?
That’s a hard one. I think it’s so much easier for everyone to organise now, to communicate, that the changes seem – and probably are – less pronounced. And I think some of these things would have happened without Aussiecon 4 anyway, but I’m really impressed with the development of some of our independent presses. The people running them are doing great but I’m also really impressed with how much it is allowing other creatives like Amanda Rainey and Dion Hamill to develop as well.

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THIS interview was conducted as part of the 2012 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’re blogging interviews from 1-8 June and archiving them at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. You can read interviews at:

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Snapshot 2012: Sophie Masson

australian speculative fiction snapshot 2012 logoNEW South Wales writer Sophie Masson has written more than 50 books ranging from fantasy to history, mystery to graphic novels. In 2011 her historical novel, The Hunt for Ned Kelly, won the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, while her alternative history novel, The Hand of Glory, won the Young Adult category of the 2002 Aurealis Awards. She has also written several novels for adults, and four romantic thrillers for teenagers under the pen-name of Isabelle Merlin.

Her latest novels are The Boggle Hunters (Scholastic), a fantasy adventure for young readers 8-12, and My Brother Will (AchukaBooks), a novel for adults and young adults about a year in the Shakespeare family’s life, as told by William Shakespeare’s younger brother Gilbert. Forthcoming are the YA fairytale thriller Moonlight and Ashes (Random House) and the historical adventure novel for younger readers, Ned Kelly’s Secret (Scholastic).
www.sophiemasson.org


Your list of fairytale books is getting long! The latest, Moonlight and Ashes, is out this month. What was it about Cinderella that attracted you?
Well, I’ve always loved the story and been fascinated by it and how it’s probably the most common fairytale theme across all cultures and different times — the theme of the neglected, abused, oppressed young girl who is gifted a better life and love of her own. It is a common human longing. The versions of the story I know best are the classic French one, Cendrillon, as told by Perrault (with the fairy godmother); the English one, Tattercoats, collected by Joseph Jacobs (which has a flute-playing gooseherd as the magic-worker, and which I used for my earlier novel Cold Iron) and the German one collected by the Grimm brothers, Ashputtel , which has no fairy godmother or gooseherd but instead a magic tree which grows from a hazel twig that Ashputtel hears about in a dream sent to her by her dead mother. I always liked that version because the Cinderella figure there is much more active than many of the others, and a lot depends on her own strength of character. It’s that which drove the creation of my own Cinderella character, Selena — though I’ve pushed it even further with her. And I’ve made a complete setting for her too — a fully fleshed out world, which is actually an alternative-world version if you like of the late 19th century Austro-Hungarian Empire, with the main setting, Ashberg, based on Prague, which I visited a couple of years ago. Fairytales are extraordinary and always reveal so much when you work with them and this one was no exception. It was an intense emotional experience, writing it.


Your bibliography covers so many genres. In the recently published The Boggle Hunters, you seem to have mixed science fiction with fairy folk fantasy — did that pose any particular challenges?
Not really. What I’ve done is updated many fairytale and folklore motifs and given them a modern twist, so that the Fays and Grays, the rival faery tribes in The Boggle Hunters, invent all kinds of very science-fiction sounding gadgets and suchlike, but in truth they are jazzed-up versions of very traditional things: the IWish card is an update of three wishes, for instance; the ‘glammer’ which the boggle hunters carry with them is a cross between a magic wand, a computer, camera and many other things! It was immense fun to do!


With such a diverse back catalogue of genres and readerships, have you noticed any common themes? Or have you found that some genres suit different themes better than others?
Well there certainly are common themes — among them that Cinderella theme of the neglected and left behind winning through to love and happiness; also an examination of courage and its antithesis, which to me isn’t cowardice so much as cruelty; the world within the world rather than beyond it — I am firmly imbued with the idea of what the Welsh called Annfwn, the ‘In-World’ — the magic world is not outside of ours but living by it and behind it. I think my own experiences growing up as a child between two worlds — France and Australia — and two languages — French and English — have contributed to that. I am also very much interested in metamorphosis in all its forms, and dreams.

What Australian works have you loved recently?
Very recently, I’ve loved Kate Forsyth’s gorgeous riff on the Rapunzel story, Bitter Greens, which weaves three different stories within its historical and magical framework. Richard Harland’s extraordinary steampunk Worldshaker series is also a great recent favourite. And though it’s not brand new, I’ve just read Heart’s Blood by Juliet Marillier, which is a beautiful, suspenseful and unusual version of another of my favourite fairy tales, Beauty and the Beast, which Juliet has set in Ireland around the 12th century, I think — anyway, there are Norman invaders, so I thought probably that time. (Incidentally, I’m at present writing my own Beauty and the Beast novel , titled Scarlet in the Snow, which is inspired by the Russian version of the story, The Scarlet Flower and set in a country called Ruvenya, within the same basic world as Moonlight and Ashes.)

What have been some of the biggest changes in Australian speculative fiction in the past two years since Aussiecon 4?
I’m not sure — but perhaps the biggest change, and challenge, has come actually from general trends in publishing including the global financial crisis, which sort of made things harder for both writers and publishers, and the disruption but also opportunity afforded by e-publishing. Things are still shaking down from all that.

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THIS interview was conducted as part of the 2012 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’re blogging interviews from 1-8 June and archiving them at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. You can read interviews at:

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Snapshot 2012: Ian Irvine

australian speculative fiction snapshot 2012 logoIAN Irvine, a marine scientist who has developed some of Australia’s national guidelines for protection of the marine environment and continues to work in this field, has written 28 novels. These include the internationally bestselling Three Worlds fantasy sequence (The View from the Mirror, The Well of Echoes and Song of the Tears), which has sold over a million copies, a trilogy of thrillers set in a world undergoing catastrophic climate change, Human Rites, and 12 books for younger readers, the most recent being the humorous fantasy quartet, Grim and Grimmer.

Ian’s latest fantasy novel is Vengeance, Book 1 of The Tainted Realm trilogy. He’s currently doing the final edits of the second book, Rebellion, which will be published in Australia in October 2012, and the US and UK in early 2013.

Keep up with Ian at his website www.ian-irvine.com and on Facebook.

Your eco-thrillers have been recently re-released: how has the market for such stories changed since they were first published?
I don’t know that it has, actually. As far as I can tell, the market for eco-thrillers has never been a huge one. Even at times when the public had a high level of concern about environmental issues, and has been flocking to eco-disaster movies such as The Day After Tomorrow, I’m told that sales of eco-thriller books have generally been modest. I’m not sure why – perhaps it’s a bit close to home.


Your latest novel is called Vengeance. What topics have you found that fantasy can talk about more easily or more effectively than other genres, if any?
I’ve long been fascinated by the ways that seizing or maintaining political power can undermine the legitimacy of a realm – it happens all the time in history. For instance in Australia, the current Gillard government is constantly being white-anted because of the way its previous prime minister was overthrown. Malcolm Fraser’s government 30 years ago also suffered from the way the previous Whitlam government was deposed.

This issue formed the germ of the idea behind The Tainted Realm – a nation, scarred by a deep sense of national guilt about its own origins, that now faces a resurgent enemy it has no idea how to fight.


Your recent releases include a series for younger readers and now this new, epic fantasy. What are the different joys and challenges you’ve experienced in writing for these two audiences?
One of the best things about being a writer is the ‘next-book dream’ – that the story I’m about to write will be original or provocative or funny or life-changing, or non-stop, edge-of-the-seat suspenseful. Sometimes, in moments of authorial madness, I imagine that it can be all of the above. And everything in my life: every snippet of research, every odd idea jotted down or moment of inspiration can go into the pot, get a good stir, simmer for weeks or years, then miraculously and effortlessly flow into the story. Ha!

One of the worst aspects is grinding out the first draft. It usually starts well, and sometimes runs well for as much as eight or 10 chapters. Vengeance did. And I was lulled, poor fool that I am. Yes, I thought, this book is going to be a snap.
Then suddenly I was in the writer’s ‘death zone’ where every word came with an effort, every sentence sounded banal, every character was done to death, every situation boring and repetitive. Nothing worked; nothing felt inspired. What had gone wrong? Had I used all my ideas up and burned myself out as a writer? I started to think that I’ll never write anything worth reading again.

Nearly every novel has this stage, which generally occurs about a quarter of the way in, and sometimes lasts until half-way. Of all my books, the only ones I’ve not been stuck on were the last two books of my humorous adventure stories for younger readers, Grim and Grimmer. They were written to such short deadlines and with such wild and wacky enthusiasm that there wasn’t time to get into the death zone. It was the first time I’d ever completely let go as a writer, and they were the most fun I’ve had writing.

Vengeance, on the other hand, was one of the worst because I had so many interruptions from other deadlines – pre-existing commitments for the last Runcible Jones YA novel plus the four Grim and Grimmers. Writing is hard work at the best of times, but doubly hard when I’m forced to jump back and forth between different kinds of books.

Also, because really big books present a writing challenge that doesn’t occur with small ones – it’s difficult to keep the whole vast canvas in mind at once. The only way to write such books (for me, anyway) is in long, uninterrupted slabs of time, otherwise every interruption hurls me out of the characters’ heads and I have to laboriously write my way back in again. And no matter how well yesterday’s writing went, each new day presents the same challenge.


What Australian works have you loved recently?
I’m a big fan of Richard Harland’s steampunk world, as exemplified in his terrific World Shaker and Liberator. I’ve also enjoyed Stephen Irwin’s dark thriller The Dead Path, and Trent Jamieson’s excellent trilogy The Business of Death. Apart from that, I’ve bought lots of Aussie speculative fiction recently but it’s still on the ever-growing unread pile.

What have been some of the biggest changes in Australian speculative fiction in the past two years since Aussiecon 4?
Sorry, I don’t have the faintest idea. I’m only now emerging from the busiest time of my writing life, and I rarely read short stories, so any emerging trends in Aussie speculative fiction have passed me by.

However, looking at the publishing and bookselling side of things, we face challenges we haven’t seen in the past decade and a half, since Aussie SF publishing, sales and international success exploded in the mid-to-late ’90s. From now on, due to the high dollar, the demise of book chains and the explosion in e-books and self-publication, it’s going to be a lot harder to get published by a traditional print publisher than it has been at any time since 1995, and sales, for the most part, are liable to be smaller because we’re also competing with a million self-published e-book titles. They might only sell a handful of copies individually, but because there’s so many of them, they add up to a significant chunk of the market. So, tough times ahead, but fantastic opportunities as well.

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THIS interview was conducted as part of the 2012 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’re blogging interviews from 1-8 June and archiving them at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. You can read interviews at:

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Snapshot 2012: MK Hume

australian speculative fiction snapshot 2012 logo
Queenslander MK (Marilyn) Hume worked as an English teacher for 40 years. She has studied art, English and ancient history and, armed with a doctorate, she has put this background to good use: the eight-book Arthuriad series, of which five have been released so far. The latest is Death of an Empire (Hachette). All up, she’s written 11 books, has another trilogy in negotiation and has a new series set in ancient Egypt underway. She is online at mkhume.com.au .

What do you think keeps readers, and writers, coming back to the Arthurian story?
The Arthuriad is a universal tale that encompasses every human emotion, trial and strength. The characters have flaws which allow us to find points of comparison and similarity with the feelings and ethics of the reader. The plots are exciting, but they are also life-changing and transcendent. The heroic ideal of Arthur, although weakened in some literary versions of the Arthuriad, still extol honour, bravery, courage, duty, sacrifice and love, characteristics which strike a chord in the human imagination.

Was it hard separating history from fantasy/myth when writing the Arthur and now Merlin series?
It was actually fun. After having studied the history carefully, and knowing that legend grows out of something that will last throughout the ages (although disguised in the mythic elements of the plot), I enjoyed finding the beginning of such elements of the tale as the Round Table.

Ironically, I conceived that the Round Table of the legends was not a table, per se, but was probably an old Roman building that had been roofed and walled and then adapted for use by Arthur as a meeting place for the leaders of the various tribes of Celtic Britain. It seemed reasonable to me that to travel to Cadbury all the time would put a huge strain on the northern tribes such as the Brigante and the Otadini. I considered it likely that a central location was likely and searched my charts for a suitable meeting place. My choice inserted in the Merlin novel was Chester.

Twelve months after inserting my educated guess in the novel, I was quite amazed to receive an e-mail from an historian friend in Glastonbury advising me of an article in the British press (Mail Online, July 11, 2010) stating that Arthur’s round table had been found during the excavation of a building site in Chester. The small arena was an ancient Roman Amphitheatre used for gladiatorial contests in the 4th and 5th centuries. The find occurred almost one year to the day after the manuscript of the novel was completed.

Guessing, using all available information, what created an element of the legend was a fascinating process. The Sword in the Stone, the Lady of the Lake, the oak tree that traps Merlin and the Rape of Ygerne were all aspects of the Arthuriad that provided me with the opportunity to think laterally and find a plausible explanation to tie the Arthurian strands together.

I found it easy to remove magic from the equation. Morgan is largely powerless in my stories, and so psychologically damaged that she is more to be pitied than feared. I really didn’t want to weaken the huge endeavour that Arthur/Arturius attempted (culture clash of huge destructive proportions) by placing any reliance on magic by my major characters. After all, if Merlin had the power to wave his hands and make the enemies of Arthur disappear, why didn’t he do so? Merlin’s contribution to the legend is for less heroic if he has magic at his disposal.

Second Sight, or prophecy, is another matter entirely. Many people experience such forms of paranormal intervention. My own mother, a Christian and an intelligent woman not prone to hysterical imaginings, always knew when a member of the family was under threat, a talent that she hated. Like her, I have experienced things that my rational mind can’t explain, so the Sight enters into my Arthuriad in much the same way as it is used in many novels and non-fiction works. But the Sight in my stories doesn’t give unnatural advantages to its bearers. It is very much the curse that my mother considered it to be.

You did a PhD on Charles Williams, who wrote ‘esoteric Arthurian literature’. Did that influence your fiction in any way?
Charles Williams, the flawed genius who wrote the Arthurian poems ‘The Region of the Summer Stars’ and ‘Taliessin Through Logres’, was a seriously troubled man. Like him, I included Constantinople into my story but so much of his content is unpleasant and he seemed to me to be as idiosyncratic as any other Arthurian writer. I enjoyed The Once and Future King by TH White, but I couldn’t bear the overly sensitive, weak and fragile Arthur. I did enjoy his sympathetic, almost comic view of some of the other characters. I found The Idylls of the King, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, to be sheer brilliance.p>Of course, something must have rubbed off among the melange of Arthurian sources, but I genuinely don’t recognise those influences. I had to read everything written in the Arthurian tradition while studying for my Masters’ degree and that exposure was of major significance in that I could place the legends against the historically accurate period of the Dark Ages and make something that is mine and quite valid, from my point of view.

What Australian works have you loved recently?
The Miss Fisher series is good fun and I really liked Tomorrow When the War Began <by John Marsden> and introduced it and its fellow titles into schools where I was the head of department for English. I am often frustrated by Australian literature which seems to have a point to make, for some reason known only to the perpetrators of these bullies. My favourite poet is the rebellious AD Hope with his attacks on the status quo. I can’t stand bush stories, although I grew up on them in my grandfather’s house and am still stirred by Banjo Paterson’s ballads. There are so many heroic possibilities in the Australian nature that I’m surprised that there aren’t many novels written in this genre (Except for Bryce Courtenay). I absolutely loved Colleen McCullough’s crime novels set in the 1960s in a forensic laboratory, but I loved her Caesar series as well, especially The Grass Crown.

Basically, I don’t see why Australian writers have to write about Australia!

What have been some of the biggest changes in Australian speculative fiction in the past two years since Aussiecon 4?
I can see more creativity battering down the walls of the literati. ‘Why not!’ is now a recognisable and valid answer to the unspoken accusation of not following the Australian model. Speculative fiction especially sets out to stir the imagination, prompt discussion and push the boundaries, so I feel very hopeful that young Australian writers won’t be crippled by the disasters of the past, such as the lionising of Darville/Demidenko because she followed this spurious model. I think those days are dead and speculative fiction can now thrive in a more creative landscape.

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THIS interview was conducted as part of the 2012 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’re blogging interviews from 1-8 June and archiving them at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. You can read interviews at:

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Snapshot 2012: Paul Garrety

australian speculative fiction snapshot 2012 logoQUEENSLANDER Paul Garrety says he started to take writing seriously about nine years ago, when he began writing his debut novel The Seventh Wave. It and its sequel, The Emerald Tablets, were published by HarperCollins Voyager last year. He’s also written a number of short stories and picked up ‘an occasional’ prize both here and overseas.

He says, ‘When The Seventh Wave and its sequel The Emerald Tablets were released last year, instead of trying to establish a personal profile, I made the mistake of using the book name as the website URL (www.theseventhwave.com.au). This might work if you happen to be promoting a movie, or have a few more zeroes in your publishing advance than I did to support a sophisticated viral and mainstream marketing campaign, but it’s not a route I’d choose again.’


You scored a deal with HarperCollins Voyager for a two-book series in which you mix magic and technology. How many headaches did that genre-blending cause you? What about joys?
I really don’t think there is any difference between magic and technology. What once would have been magic even a hundred years ago, now is commoditised. Magic as we all know comes at a price and now comes to us in window-faced envelopes.
I suspect genre blending can be a challenge for some dedicated spec fic readers though; those who like to keep their peas and potatoes separate — I acknowledge that. However, I was incredibly humbled by many (yes, there were many) emails that I received from readers who weren’t fans of spec fic, had even gone out of their way to avoid it in the past, yet when they happened to stumble across my books they went to the trouble of letting me know how much they enjoyed them. I think that’s a kind of magic, too.


You’ve also had success with crime short stories. What’s your favourite genre to write and why?
As a species we love to categorise, don’t we? Give us a lifestyle threat or a fatal disease we know absolutely nothing about and the first thing we’ll do is give it a nickname, or, preferably, an acronym. The reason, I guess, is to make it appear that we are in control. I’ll fess up now. I’m not in control. I’m a ‘pantser writer’ so even though I like order with my chaos, when I sit down to write there is no plan around what, if anything, will appear on the screen. Of course I have a vague idea, perhaps even a clever acronym, but always-always-always it will come out differently with gravy slopped all over those carefully positioned peas and taties. Hopefully, though, it will taste better as a result.


What are you working on now, and is it easier or harder now that you’ve got two novels under your belt?
I’ll use a hackneyed analogy here. Like most writers getting my first book to publication was like climbing the proverbial. I believed that when I finally cleared the summit I would have made ‘It’. However, when publication day finally arrived, not only did I just see a lot more mountains on the horizon, but I also realised that the one I’d just climbed was only a hill by comparison. Right now, I’m on the other side, slogging my way down towards the valley in between.

The novel I’m half way through is another ‘bitzer’: crime/urban fantasy/sci-time. Biting at its heels though is an idea for the next book that wants to jump the queue. I haven’t worked out yet whether it’s a bling thing –- bright/new/shiny diversion — or whether there’s a stronger yarn underneath waiting to be revealed. I hope it’s the latter.

What Australian works have you loved recently?
Black Glass, Meg Mundell; The Business of Death, Trent Jamieson; The Rook, Daniel O’Malley; When We Have Wings, Claire Corbett.


What have been some of the biggest changes in Australian speculative fiction in the past two years?
I think the biggest change, certainly for speccy writers, is that the blinkers are now well and truly off around publishing opportunities. Increasingly writers are submitting e-globally instead of waiting for a shot at the traditional hard copy (read credible) route within their home market. This huge rush towards e-publishing and the 0.99c reading hit is perhaps reminiscent of the 1800s penny dreadful, where new markets were created simply by making writing more accessible and affordable. Sure, there’s a lot of material floating around out there and for many it’s like sifting through the Yellow Pages without a directory, but the number of sales being made debunks the theory that reading as an entertainment form is dying.

This naturally impacts on all genres, but the beauty for spec fic writers in Oz is that they now have easy access to specialist online publishers who can sell to anyone, anywhere. Combining clever target marketing and low overheads, many e-publishers are providing quality reads cheaply and rewarding authors with relatively — often absolutely — higher royalties than they would otherwise have earned.

In tandem with this is the increased pressure for spec fic writers to produce work faster, establish a back list, and at the same time grow their profiles across multiple awareness platforms. There is a definite quickening in the pace. Where it is heading? Well that’s another story.

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THIS interview was conducted as part of the 2012 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’re blogging interviews from 1-8 June and archiving them at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. You can read interviews at:

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Snapshot 2012: Traci Harding

australian speculative fiction snapshot 2012 logoTRACI Harding’s books blend the esoteric mysteries, time travel and quantum physics in adventurous romps through history, alternative dimensions, universes and states of consciousness. She has had 16 books published by HarperCollins Voyager (four trilogies and three stand alone novels). The first book of The Timekeepers trilogy, Dreaming of Zhou Gong, is due for release in February 2013, with another trilogy to follow. Her first book, The Ancient Future, has featured regularly on the Dymocks’ Top 101 Books. It also made the ABC’s lists of Most Loved Books of All Time and Favourite Australian Book, and has been reprinted more than 35 times. It and her stand-alone novel The Alchemist’s Key have been published in Complex Chinese, while The Mystique Trilogy has been published in Russian, Czech, Slavic and Romanian. The Alchemist’s Key has been optioned to Dragonlight Productions and is being developed as a feature film project.

Traci’s website is at traciharding.com.


You were able to arrange to have free short stories made available as part of promotion for your most recent novel. Did you find that readers appreciated this?
The readers loved this, and it certainly served to get the traffic flowing through my web pages and Facebook Fan pages. This was actually an idea I came up with while chatting to Kim Falconer and our editor at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival last year – thanks girls – it was a great success! It was a hell of a promotion to get organised to happen over the Christmas break, but HarperCollins did an amazing job and the entire promotion flowed really smoothly.


What are some of the outstanding perils and pleasures of writing in historical periods other than the present that you’ve encountered?
The pleasure of writing ancient history is uncovering little know facts buried throughout time; the peril is not finding them LOL.

I have just had an extended stint in Ancient China, and although I felt really very at home there, I have found a gentleman in Hong Kong who has kindly agreed to proof read the MS for me and he has already pointed out several amusing mistakes – when I mess with other cultures I like to get it right, if I can.


Is there a genre you’re dying to write in other than your SF/fantasy realm? Perhaps another collection of supernatural stories?
I wouldn’t mind having a crack at non-fiction, actually. I have shares in a company Gamma Power who have recently rediscovered Tesla’s free energy and are doing all sorts of amazing things with it. They are calling it ambient energy and I would very much like to write about that rediscovery in the not too distant future.


What Australian works have you loved recently?
So many good Aussie authors, but here are those I’ve enjoyed lately: my fav Aussie author is Kim Wilkins aka Kimberley Freeman, Belinda Alexandra, Grant Hyde, Christopher Ride, Kate Morton, Nathan Burrage and Jessica Shirvington. There is so many really great Australian authors out there; I wish I had more time to read them all!


What are some of the biggest changes in Australian speculative fiction in the past two years (since Aussiecon 4)?
The most obvious change that I am aware of is that e-books have sent hardback book sales plummeting – we’re seeing the collapse of the big book chains, and its a much tougher market now for new authors. But, on the upside, I see the independent book stores doing better and they’ll keep local authors alive and thriving, and e-books can reach a bigger a market. Yet with so many different delivery formats and troublesome data transfers, one wonders how long it will be before people discover that you cannot beat having the book in your hand.

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THIS interview was conducted as part of the 2012 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’re blogging interviews from 1-8 June and archiving them at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. You can read interviews at:

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Snapshot 2012: Scott Westerfeld

australian speculative fiction snapshot 2012 logoSCOTT Westerfeld is the author of five books for adults and 13 for young adults, including the New York Times-bestselling Uglies and Leviathan series. The latter was illustrated by Keith Thompson, and the former has just been adapted as a graphic novel series scripted by Devin Grayson, with art by Stephen Cummings. Scott’s work in progress is a meta-paranormal romance. Find Scott online at scottwesterfeld.com.


How exciting is it to see Uglies being given a manga treatment — the sign of more cross-platform excursions to come?
I’ve always wanted to rewrite the series from Shay’s point of view, simply as an exercise in perspective, but it seemed a bit lazy re-tell a story I’ve already told. But when the idea of a graphic novel adaptation came up, I realised that a different medium would be the right place to effect the shift in perspective. I’m working on an original graphic novel at the moment, having learned a lot from watching Devin Grayson adapt my outline for Shay’s Story.


When you were writing your Leviathan series (which includes illustrations), did you expect it to be such a fashion hit in terms of the fan art? (I note that Uglies seems pretty popular, too…)
Lots of people think that adding pictures to a book makes it younger, but in reality it just means reaching a different set of readers: those with a more visual bent, many of whom come out of manga and graphic novel traditions. So yes, there is a lot more fan art and cosplay for Leviathan than any of my other books. It really does change the kinds of questions readers ask. What are the dominant colors in this society? How do people dress for breakfast? Like fan fiction, fan art opens up countless new kettles of fish and makes the world of the book much bigger.


You were on a panel about the fiction of the fantastic at the Sydney Writers Festival. What are some of the key ideas about writing fantasy and science fiction?
World-building is a fundamental concern of our genre. Speculative writing quite often starts with a world and lets the stories, characters and conflicts come out of that world.


What Australian works have you loved recently?
Sea Hearts is a glorious read. It’s full of lovely sentences, as one would expect from Margo Lanagan, but also it’s one of the few multi-generational sagas I’ve read that doesn’t lose its flow as the decades pass. The bleak island setting is so unchanging and inescapable that the story can last a century and yet you always know right where you are.

I’m also enjoying Library of Forgotten Books, a collection by Rjurik Davidson. The shorts stories are all darkly atmospheric, both in their themes and their language, which gives them an impact that’s more like a novel than a divertimento.


What have been some of the biggest changes in Australian speculative fiction in the past two years since Aussiecon 4?
I don’t know.

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THIS interview was conducted as part of the 2012 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’re blogging interviews from 1-8 June and archiving them at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. You can read interviews at:

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Snapshot 2012: Peter Docker

australian speculative fiction snapshot 2012 logoWEST Australian Peter Docker studied writing at Curtin University of Technology and acting at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. His fiction credits include Fremantle Press novels Someone Else’s Country (2005) and Aurealis Award nominee for best science fiction novel The Waterboys (2011) (review) and short story collection The Kid on the Karaoke Stage (2011), one-act play A Million Miles from Ulcer Gulch and radio play Marrying My Family (1995). He has outback revenge thriller Sweet One, YA illustrated comedy Toecutters and autobiographical TLC (The Love of Country) in the works.

Does setting a story such as The Waterboys in the future and the alternate past allow you to discuss topics more freely than a contemporary story?
The trouble with white Australia is that we’re not black enough. With Waterboys I went searching for answers, which led me simultaneously to the past and the future (no doubt influenced by my rudimentary understanding of the only true Australian expression of spirituality -– The Dreaming –- which is a place/time/situation existing simultaneously in the past, present, and future). This certainly gave me the freedom to explore themes like the inevitable failure of democracy, and the ultimate outcomes of ‘constant growth’-based capitalism on the land, and the peoples whose entire material and spiritual existence is tied to that land. I am constantly searching for grand metaphors to discuss the soul of our nation.


The Waterboys, as well as being a study in race relations, depicts a future where water is a scarce resource. Are these themes likely to recur in your work?
In some ways it’s a great irony to me that, on the eve of publication of Waterboys, eastern Australia was experiencing the worst flooding in a hundred years. The secret of timing is comedy. My forthcoming work Sweet One is set against the background of the mining industry and the undeclared on-going secret war that the states are waging against the traditional owners.


In what ways has your background in acting helped or influenced your writing?
The vast majority of my acting work (once I got away from Neighbours and Blue Heelers) has been on Aboriginal projects -– in many ways they are like research tours. I certainly use acting techniques in my writing. For example, a great acting dictum is ‘give the problem to the character’. When a plot point or character illumination issue arises, I allow the problem to be solved by the character and not the writer. This means that I often don’t know which way the character will jump until I get that pen in my fist and give the character power over my hand. I also use filmic techniques to avoid the very tricky issue of me putting thoughts into the heads of my indigenous characters. I report dialogue but the inner workings are left to the reader. This also allows the reader to realise that I am no expert in Aboriginal people or cultures, although I do know something about what happens when we come together.


What Australian works have you loved recently?
5. The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage is a meticulously researched game changer for everything Europeans have ever thought about pre-Cook Australia. Carpentaria by Alexis Wright is an Australian War & Peace, or Great Expectations. And That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott: the layering in Kim’s work is mind blowing. He takes us into a profound emotional place in such a subtle way that we are deep inside the emotional and spiritual system without quite realising how we got there.


What have been some of the biggest changes in Australian speculative fiction in the past two years?
We are a new country with an emerging culture and the spec fic we produce reflects this. It is no coincidence that as we mature the literature from here is finding a bigger international audience. The rawness of Aussie lit compared to nations with much longer histories and traditions than ours seems to be part of the appeal. I particularly like the way that brilliant writers like John Birmingham do not confine themselves to just writing about Australia (unlike yours truly) but are capable of taking on massive issues like the end of America.

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THIS interview was conducted as part of the 2012 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’re blogging interviews from 1-8 June and archiving them at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. You can read interviews at:

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Snapshot 2012: Australia’s speculative fiction scene

australian speculative fiction snapshot 2012 logo
The Aussie Spec Fic Snapshot has taken place three times over the past eight years. In 2005, Ben Peek spent a frantic week interviewing 43 people in the Australian spec fic scene, and since then, it’s grown every time, now taking a team of interviewers working together to accomplish! In the lead up to Continuum 8 in Melbourne, I will join Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, Helen Merrick, Ian Mond, Alex Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Tehani Wessely and Sean Wright in blogging interviews conducted over the past couple of weeks. To read the interviews hot off the press, check these blogs below daily from today to 7 June 2012.

As we celebrate the breadth and depth of the Australian spec fic scene, 2012 Snapshot is also a bittersweet time and we take the opportunity to remember two well-loved members of the community who sadly passed away in the past year; Paul Haines and Sara Douglass.

You can find the past three Snapshots at the following links: 2005, 2007 and 2010.

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Snapshot 2012: Vale Sara Douglass

australian speculative fiction snapshot 2012 logoAUSTRALIAN writer Sara Warneke, who wrote as Sara Douglass, died in Hobart after a long battle with cancer on 27 September 2011 at age 54. She was one of the vanguard who opened international doors for Australian fantasy writers with her Axis Trilogy (beginning with her debut novel BattleAxe in 1995). Her last publications were the novel The Devil’s Diadem and a collection of short stories, The Hall of Lost Footsteps, which both came out last year. She wrote more than 20 books; three won Aurealis Awards for best fantasy novel.


From the obituary by Sara’s friend and carer Karen Brooks:
She was a very solitary person who lived in her imagination as much as she did in the real world. I think she would be overwhelmed by what people are expressing on various forums now; she would be laughing in her unrestrained and contagious way and shaking her head in bewilderment. Read the full post.


Writer and critic Lucy Sussex, in an obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Middle Ages history informed the imaginary sword and sorcery realms of her novels, and made them credible, lived-in worlds. Read the full article.

Sara, from a 1999 interview:
I work in life as an historian, but not in academia as such, no. I found that life very restrictive where one has to justify every statement one says and add at least 56 footnotes to every page. Writing historical fantasy — or fantasy as a genre is tremendously liberating. I am having such a ball! Read the full interview.


Sara, on her Silence on the Dying blog post:
When it comes to death and dying, we impose a dreadful silence on the dying lest they discomfort the living too greatly. Read the full post.


A Locus review appearing with the 2003 edition of BattleAxe (HarperCollins Voyager):
Douglass has the breadth of vision necessary to create sweeping epics and the storyteller’s gift that makes readers love her.


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THIS tribute is posted here as part of the 2012 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’re blogging interviews from 1-8 June and archiving them at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. You can read interviews at: