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Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

This is my Pimp Hat

Three things worth noting: 1) Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts @ Podcastle The audio version of Ben Fransisco’s story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts is live over at Podcast. Go forth and feast your ears upon it; you will not be sorry. 2) Fantasy Magazine Best Story of 2009 Poll If you haven’t had the chance yet, hie yourself over to Fantasy Magazine and place a vote in their 2009 reader poll to determine the favourite story published there last year. My votes swung towards Angela Slatter’s The Chrysanthemum Bride and Lisa Hannett’s The Good Window, but as usual you can’t go wrong with the majority of the stories that Fantasy publishes. 3) Apex Magazine’s First Annual Reader Poll Apex Magazine is also looking for your vote on the best story they published in 2009, although I’m steering clear of recommendations given that two of the stories involved were mine.

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12/01/2010 2 Comments
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Two-Track Mind

I spent the first ten days of 2010 listening to exactly two albums: Regina Spektor’s Far and The best of Bauhaus. And when I say “album” I may mean “the following two songs replayed endlessly, with the rest of the album getting a guernsey when I eventually step away from the stereo to do other things.” Yeah. All in all, it’s been that kind of year thus far.

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11/01/2010 2 Comments
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things About 2009 – the Rest of the List

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I ran out of 2009 before finishing the list. Given that I’ve managed to start 2010 with a whole bunch of stuff unfinished, much of it urgent and really needing to be done, I give you the truncated version of what would have rounded out the fifteen awesome things about 2009. 10) Non-Fiction, Part One: Booklife, Jeff VanderMeer I’ve been known to bemoan the fact that there are very few resources for writers that actually teach you the stuff you need know once you’ve got the basics of things like “plot” and “character” and “not looking like a crazy freak when submitting” under control. In many ways the learning curve for writing becomes a hodge-podge of received wisdom and scraps of knowledge gleaned from conversation, with the occasional outright question being asked of friends and contacts further along the path when need be. From that point of view, Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife is one of the best writing guidebooks I’ve come accross in a decade. Very little in this book actually focuses on how to write, but there’s a lot of detail on how to be a writer. The chapters on how book promotion works and what VanderMeer does off his own bat are worth the cover price on their own (part of me dearly wishes it’d been released before Horn came out – it might have saved me from sounding like a rambling goose when people interviewed me). The book itself is freaking awesome, but there’s also a blog

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01/01/2010 2 Comments
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

A short review of Avatar in 10 parts

1) I’m going to find every mother-fucker who tried to convince me I’d like this film and I’m going to punch them in the arm. If they trotted out the “you just have to turn your brain off” logic, I’m going to punch them twice. I turned my brain off, as advised. It was still too stupid for me to actually like it. 2) To be fair, there were some good bits. Many of them recycled from Aliens, the last film James Cameron made that I actually liked. I liked Giovanni Ribbisi’s evil corporate guy far more than I liked Paul Reiser’s evil corporate guy. And Michelle Rodriguez in an ornithopter makes up for a variety of ills. 3) At the end of the first hour, I hoped that this might not be an utter disappointment. The opening is solid, the characters get onstage pretty quickly, the set-up is full of bad naming conventions but otherwise okay. Conflict is established: the marine among the field researchers; the humans against the world; Ripley versus Paul Rieser; that second Avatar pilot getting jealous of Jake’s success with the Navi. Sure, most of that conflict disappears once Sully is inside the Avatar, but maybe it’ll come back. 4) At the end of the second hour, I decided there really should be some Disney song about A Whole New World playing over the top of the long sequences where we learn that the world is magical and interconnected for the ninth or tenth time.

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30/12/2009 8 Comments
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things about 2009 (9/15): Amanda Palmer, Live

Once or twice a year I get out to see a live gig that reminds me why I like going and seeing live music. It happens far less often these days than it did in the past, but as a Dresden Doll’s fan it was kind of inevitable that I’d sell internal organs in order to go see the Amanda-Fucking-Palmer solo tour when it passed through Brisbane. Short version: Awesome Long version: totally worth living without a spleen until I can buy mine back from the pawn broker.

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18/12/2009 No Comments
News & Upcoming Events

Some *Really* blatant blatant self promotion

Data Point the First: There’s about seven days left of Twelfth Planet Press’s Silly Season Stocking Stuffer Sale, whereby Australians can pick up a copy of my novella Horn with free shipping (and everyone else in the world gets a massively discounted postage). Given Horn’s cover price of $10, that’s a pretty sweet deal. Data Point the Second: As of about six minutes ago, there were only 9 copies of Horn left in Twelfth Planet’s inventory. Data Point the Third: The free shipping on Horn is a total “while stocks last” kind of deal (and there are plenty of other awesome books included in the sale. Now I’m not mentioning this to suggest you should go buy a copy of the book right away. Nope, not at all. This is the silly season after all, and folks are generally watching their budgets in order to ensure maximum goodwill and festive cheer for those they love. I’m not even saying “get it now or forever lose the chance,” since it sounds like we’ll be doing a reprint at some point in the future. I’m certainly not say that Horn does make a kinda neat Stocking Stuffer for those friends who might be inclined to like a story about unicorns written specifically for people who hate unicorns. ‘Cause some people just don’t dig unicorn squick, and I’m okay with that. What I might be saying – just maybe – that it’d be pretty damn neat for yours truly if those last nine copies went

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17/12/2009 No Comments
News & Upcoming Events

Announcing the first Apex Magazine Story of the Year award–They need your vote!

I’m just going to snurch this one straight from the Apex blog: To celebrate the end of our first year of becoming a professional level digital magazine, I’m pleased to announce that we will be presenting an award to the best original fiction published by Apex Magazine. The award will be voted on by the fans, meaning you! Voting starts tonight and will continue through January 30th. The story receiving the most votes will be announced on February 1st. The author of the Apex Magazine Story of the Year will receive a trophy and the unique distinction of being the best Apex had to offer during 2009. Presented below are the twenty-two original stories published during 2009: “59 Beads”(4300) by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz “Overclocking”(2600) by James L. Sutter “After the Fire”(2900) by Aliette De Bodard “Benjamin Schneider’s Little Greys”(2100) by Nir Yaniv “A Poor Man’s Roses”(2400) by Alethea Kontis “To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer’s Lament” (5500) by Peter M. Ball “Fungal Gardens”(6100) by Ekaterina Sedia “Advertising at the End of the World”(4100) by Keffy R.M. Kehrli “Kenny 149″(2700) by Brad Becraft “Pimp My Airship”(6000) by Maurice Broaddus “She Called Me Sweetie” (4500) by Glenn Lewis Gillette “…That Has Such People in It”(2300) by Jennifer Pelland “Hideki and the Gnomes” (500) by Mark Lee Pearson “Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens” (7500) by Peter M. Ball “Waiting for Jakie”(3000) by Barbara Krasnoff “Hindsight, in Neon” (2400) by Jamie Todd Rubin “The Mind of a Pig”(3000) by Ekaterina Sedia “The Puma”(6700) by Theodora Goss

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17/12/2009 No Comments
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things About 2009: Hail to the Peeps edition

Among the many things to be thankful about in 2009 is the fact that it’s been a very good year to a lot of my friends who also toil in the wordmines. There’s nothing quite so awesome as being part of a community full of folks doing cool stuff, and it seems like virtually everyone I know has spent the last twelve months firing on all cylinders. Among the highlights are Ben Francisco‘s story Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts in Realms of Fantasy, seeing photographs from the set where one of Angela Slatter‘s stories being transformed into a short film, and the news that Chris Lynch will be launching his publishing company’s first anthology before the year is out. Basically, lots of folks have done lot of cool things this year.  And given the time you can bet that I’d loudly and assertively celebrate the awesomeness of every single one of them until you too became a fan of what they’re doing. Sadly, I still have a novella to rewrite, which means I’m going to pick two of the folks who have had a particularly big year and declaim their awesomeness as a kind of representational stand-in for my writer-peeps as a whole. Jason Fischer (7/15)  A few months back I got a text message from Jason saying “I just won the WotF.” This was a good thing – Jason’s been chasing the elusive top-spot in WotFfor three years now and had more close shaves than anyone would really care for.

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16/12/2009 1 Comment
Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Awesome Things About 2009 (6/15): Write Club

I keep saying it, I know, but write club is awesome (For those wondering what the hell I’m talking about, I recommend this post and this post on Angela Slatter’s blog*). Turns out it’s a remarkably popular idea too – I’ve had a couple of conversations where people wondered how Write Club worked, and it seems Angela gets asked about it as well, so I figured I’d share my** thoughts on why write club works for those who may be curious. Reason 1) Angela Slatter is Fricken’  Awesome Granted, I say this quite a bit on this blog as well, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that it’s true. Even if you ignore the fact that she’s a superb writer whose keen critical eye has stopped me from looking like a goose a couple of times this year, and the fact that she’s generous with both her time and connections, she’s one of the people I enjoy catching up with once a week.  If you’re going to hang out and write regularly, I suspect it’s handy to actually like and respect the person you’re hanging around with. Reason 2) Low Numbers The more people present, the more likely you are to find someone looking for a distraction at the same time you are. When there’s two of you, you’re only likely to simultaneously hit a break-point in the writing about once or twice in a four-hour period, and even then it’s easier to have a quick chat about the problem you’re pondering and make a

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11/12/2009 6 Comments
Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Awesome Things about 2009 Fiction Edition

2009 is totally going down as the year that I rediscovered how much I enjoy reading for pleasure. It’s one of those habits that eluded me a while back, which was kind of unfortunate given that my book-buying habit didn’t exactly die off at the same rate. And it’s not that I stopped reading, exactly; I just fell into the trap of rereading old favourites with the occasional new work creeping in. By the end of June I’d made the decision that this should be rectified and promptly started ploughing my way through the seemingly endless array of novels and non-fiction that fill my too-read bookcase. Since then I’ve managed a fairly steady pace of two books a week. I’ve barely made a dent on the unread book read pile of doom, but it’s still exposed me to a lot of kick-ass fiction. To whit, I give you the fourth and fifth instalment of Awesome Things about 2009:  The City and the City, China Mieville (4/15) ‘Tis probably not to everyone’s tastes, but for my money The City and the City was a phenomenal novel that utterly blew my minds and reminded me why I enjoy reading fiction in the first place. There’s a part of me that’s a little bit in awe of this book, even as the other half of me is busy rereading chunks and trying tofigure out how Mieville pulled of the neat trick of taking such an absurd idea and making it seem totally fricken’

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09/12/2009 No Comments
News & Upcoming Events

Stocking Stuffers and Clockwork Jungles

Twelfth Planet Press Stocking Stuffer Sale In celebration of the release of the Aurealis Awards shortlist, Twelfth Planet Press is having a Silly Season Sale! All through December they’re offering Shipping deals on all orders of their books that earned a spot in the short-list (that’d be Horn, the New Ceres Nights anthology, Deborah Biancotti’s Book of Endings collection, and the Sirenbeat/Roadkill double). Right now, that means you can pick up Horn for $10. And it’s just about the right size to fit into a stocking (if, say, you knew someone who really deserved a noir tale about evil unicorns and snuff films for Christmas). Shimmer: Clockwork Jungle Book Issue Shimmer Magazine just released its Clockwork Junglebook theme issue, chock-full of steampunk animal fables for your reading pleasure (including mine – The Clockwork Goat and the Smokestack Magi). The website has short teasers of all the stories, links to author interviews (me included), and order details if funky steampunk is your kind of thing. ‘Course, if it were me, I’d subscribe instead of ordering the single issue. Not only is Shimmerthe magazine with the good sense to publish a whole bunch of Angela Slatter’s work in the past, but I know a bunch of fine writers whose stories they’ve got sitting in inventory for future issues. Trust me when I say you won’t regret it.

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08/12/2009 No Comments
News & Upcoming Events

Awesome Things About 2009 (3/15): Aurealis Awards Short Listings

The 2009 Aurealis Awards short-list was released over the weekend and it contained a whole mess of good news – Horn secured a berth in the short-list of both the Fantasy and the Horror novel categories, and I made the Science Fiction Short Story list twice with both Clockwork, Pathwork and Ravens and To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer’s Lament. There’s even more good news on the short-lists in the form of nominations for peeps such as Chris Green* (for both SF, Horror & Fantasy short story), Angela Slatter (Fantasy short story) and Twelfth Planet Press (a seemingly unending parade for various projects – I think every book they released this year is up for something). ‘Course, most of the folks who read this blog have already heard this news from other sources (I was having a slack weekend, internet-wise), so I figure I’d just make a note, say “awesome” and off my congratulations to the other finalists – it’s a shiny list of folks to be sharing a short-list with and I’m looking forward to the Awards weekend when Brisvegas gets flooded with writer-folks. *The best part about this is, of course, the possibility that Chris way actually come to Brisbane for the ceremony and give us a chance to catch up in person – somehow I keep missing him when I pass through Melbourne.

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07/12/2009 2 Comments

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