Tsana's Reads and Reviews

Tankborn by Karen Sandler

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:06:46 +0200

Tankborn by Karen Sandler is a one of not that many YA dystopian novels I’ve read that is also proper science fiction. As well as the political aspects requisite in dystopian novels, it also deals with genetic engineering with a backdrop of planetary colonisation. I’d been meaning to read it for a while, since Shaheen recommended it, and I’m glad I finally got around to it.

Part of the blurb (last paragraph omitted because spoilers — why do publishers do that?):

Best friends Kayla and Mishalla know they will be separated for their Assignments. They are GENs, Genetically Engineered Non-humans, and in their strict caste system, GENs are at the bottom rung of society. GENs are gestated in a tank and sent to work as slaves as soon as they reach age fifteen.

When Kayla is Assigned to care for Zul Manel, the patriarch of a trueborn family, she finds secrets and surprises; not least of which is her unexpected friendship with Zul’s great-grandson. Meanwhile, the children that Mishalla is Assigned to care for are being stolen in the middle of the night.

The most prominent aspect of Tankborn is the rigid class structure that segregates the society. Natural-born humans are ranked from the rich, land-owning high-status trueborns down to the servant class low-borns. Beneath them all are the GENs — genetically engineered people with small amounts of animal DNA included in their make-up giving them extra talents and making them less than human. As one might expect with the main characters being GENs, a lot of the social commentary revolves around non-GENs being varying degrees of horrible to the GEN main characters. However, there’s definitely more to it than that.

For a start, the GENs have a different religion to trueborns. The trueborns follow a religion that is implicitly vaguely Christian (or at least monotheistic and involving worshipping a similar god), while the GEN religion involves worshipping the Infinite, who whispered to the prophets how to create GENs and whose plan for GENs involves servitude. It’s a case of using religion to control the masses, hardly a new idea, but not one that I think I’ve come across in YA. It was done well, even as it unravelled, and Sandler didn’t pull any punches.

She knew it was the Infinite’s will, that a GEN’s trial of servitude was the only way back to His hands.

The GEN religion is very much based around keeping GENs in their place. A further example:

But liberation for GENs on Loka [their planet] would violate the Infinite’s laws. It would only be right for GENs to taste true freedom in the palm of the Infinite’s hand.

And so forth.

As with any dystopia, we see the fabric of the society start to unravel, partially at the hands of our main characters. Despite this being the first book in a trilogy, I was pleased to see that it’s story was self-contained, hooks for the sequel notwithstanding, as I was half expecting the main action not to be resolved. Since book one merely described the first step in the (standard YA dystopian trend of) dismantling of society, I look forward to reading how it all progresses.

I had only two small peeves with Tankborn. The first is that both the romantic couples liked each other a little too suddenly and their relationships became serious a bit more quickly than I would have expected. I can see why it fit with the plot that way, but it did make me go “Hrm.”

The other thing is the technology. Tankborn is set on a colonised planet with the GENs being invented (for lack of a better word) some time after the colony had been established. (Incidentally, I hope we learn more about the colonisation process in the future books. I am deeply curious and would be disappointed if some form of Conspiracy didn’t surround colonisation.) So it’s a future where interstellar space travel has been perfected. But the technology they were using on the planet — aside from the GENs who had fancy artificial neural networks — consisted mainly of readers similar to iPads and smartphone-style wrist watches. Which isn’t exactly bad per se, but that’s kind of he level of technology we’re at now. It struck me as a bit unimaginative. On the other hand, the Author’s Note did mention that the story originated as a screenplay in the mid-80s, which could account for it.

All in all, Tankborn was a good read. I highly recommend it to fans of dystopias as well as fans of general science fiction. Although it’s marketed as YA, I see no reason for readers of all ages not to enjoy it.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2011, Tu Books
Series: Tankborn, book 1 (of 3?)
Format read: ebook on iPad
Source: US iTunes store (ebook not available outside of US, paper book only available as an import, as far as I can tell)

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/10Z6Gv6. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:02:49 +0200

School Spirits by Rachel Hawkins is the first in a new spin-off series from the Hex Hall books (Hex Hall, Demonglass / Raising Demons and Spellbound). You definitely don’t have to have read the Hex Hall books to enjoy this new series, however. The blurb:

Fifteen-year-old Izzy Brannick was trained to fight monsters. For centuries, her family has hunted magical creatures. But when Izzy’s older sister vanishes without a trace while on a job, Izzy’s mom decides they need to take a break.

Izzy and her mom move to a new town, but they soon discover it’s not as normal as it appears. A series of hauntings has been plaguing the local high school, and Izzy is determined to prove her worth and investigate. But assuming the guise of an average teenager is easier said than done. For a tough girl who’s always been on her own, it’s strange to suddenly make friends and maybe even have a crush.

Can Izzy trust her new friends to help find the secret behind the hauntings before more people get hurt?

I enjoyed this book a great deal. Izzy’s inner monologue had me laughing out loud many times, particularly as she tries to work out how to be normal (often comparing the situations she finds herself in with a teen soap opera she bought as “research”). It had me from the first chapter, in which Izzy fights a vampire pretentious enough to wear body glitter (best Twilight jab I’ve read so far).

School Spirits has shades of typical new girl and new school YA, but with the twist that Izzy has never actually gone to a school before. And before moving to Ideal, Mississippi she didn’t even own a TV. So fitting in and pretending to be normal is slightly more of a (hilarious) challenge for her. And although Izzy doesn’t have any magic powers (other than an ability to sense magic/magical creatures) she does have a lot of skills that normal teenagers don’t. Like vampire fighting and a knowledge of ghosts.

On a side note, I liked the way the love interest plot line played out. There was mercifully no love triangle and while there wasn’t much mystery about which boy was in fact the love interest, it was enjoyable to watch it play out.

While most of School Spirits was light and fun reading, it took an unexpected serious turn at one point which added some depth and, dare I say, reality to the story. I can’t elaborate further without spoilers but for me it was that moment that took the novel from pure fun to something a bit more serious. Also, the ending was a bit unusual and I’m dying to see how that plays out in the sequels.

All in all, I found School Spirits quite an unputdownable read. It was fun, hilarious and over too soon. I am very much looking forward to the next book in the series. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an enjoyable quick read and, of course, to fans of paranormal YA.

5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2013, Disney Book Group (US edition — no word yet on UK/Aus release dates)
Series: Yes. Book 1 of ? (3?). Same world as the Hex Hall trilogy, but does not have to be read after Hex Hall.
Format read: eARC
Source: the publisher, via NetGalley

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/18Hrqiq. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

New Booksies

Sun, 12 May 2013 20:17:22 +0200

Time to regale you with my new bookish acquisitions once more. This time, I purchased two books and received two review copies.

From Harlequin AU and Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry via NetGalley, and Andrea K Höst I received the following review copies:

Ink by Amanda Sun
Hunting by Andrea K Höst — already reviewed
iD by Madeline Ashby
Playing Tyler by TL Costa

And I purchased

Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik (in paperback! Gasp!)
Tankborn by Karen Sandler

both prequels to review copies I’d got earlier, although both books I want to read anyway.

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/12rRgCy. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

Hunting by Andrea K Höst

Sat, 11 May 2013 09:02:50 +0200

Hunting is Andrea K Höst’s latest release. Unlike the earlier books of hers that I’ve reviewed in the past (And All the Stars, The Touchstone Trilogy), Hunting is definitely fantasy, not science fiction. The blurb was what really got me keen to read this one:

Ash Lenthard doesn’t call herself a vigilante. She’s merely prone to random acts of derring-do, and occasional exhibitions of tomfoolery. Her friends, the Huntsmen, have never stepped over the line while patrolling the streets of Luinhall.

That was before the murder of Ash’s beloved guardian, Genevieve.

Now, Ash Lenthard is out for blood and even when the hunt sends her to the palace, on a collision course with a past identity she would do anything to forget, Ash cannot, will not, back down.

I have to say, when I first started reading, I was a little bit disappointed. Not because it was bad, but because it wasn’t as funny as the blurb sounded like it would be. Mostly, this is because things start on a sombre note, with Ash’s aunt dying and Ash’s circumstances being turned on their head. It wasn’t boring, it just wasn’t what I expected. But then! From about the halfway point it really picked up and I found myself laughing out loud several times. I enjoyed the second half a lot more. (If I rated them separately, I’d give the first half 4 stars and the second half 5 stars.)

Ash is a runaway who dresses as a boy. Before the opening of Hunting she was living with Genevieve, a herbalist who took her in when she was younger (she’s now 20 but dresses as a 17 year old boy). When Genevieve is killed, Ash swears vengeance but isn’t allowed to go at it alone, partly because others think she’s an underage boy. She is taken in by a foreign noble, Thornaster, who is investigating a spate of herbalist murders, and becomes his page-like servant. A lot of the humour comes from the banter and interactions between Ash and Thornaster, and there were some very amusing moments. I also liked that Höst didn’t make Thornaster a strict or cruel person, because that would have changed the overall tone of Hunting significantly.

The world Höst has built is detailed and not limited to the one city most of the action takes place in. It was a little tricky at first to keep all the places and titles straight in my head and I think the earlier parts of the book could have been improved with more backstory/descriptions. On the other hand, the full details of Ash’s past don’t come to light for a while, and I quite liked the circumstances in which the full story was revealed (and of course I had some idea of what was coming from hints earlier on).

An aspect I particularly liked was the way in which so many little threads all came together in the end. There were some things which I took in stride as “just” being part of the set-up or backstory which turned out to be relevant to the main story. Hard to say more on this without spoilers. Also, a small thing but the fact that the main character’s mentor was female not male was gratifying. And even though Ash was a girl dressed as a boy in a male-dominated society, there were actual other good female characters in the story (and only one of them was a laundry maid) who showed us other roles women could play in the society without having to dress as a man.

There was one particular aspect of worldbuilding that I found quite fascinating and that was the matter of religion. The gods in the world of Hunting are associated with the sun and moon (the two main gods) and planets (the minor gods which aren’t important). When people die, one of three things happens: their soul goes straight to heaven carried by the sun god’s butterflies, their soul is taken by the moon god’s moths for cleansing before later going on to heaven or the gods decide the person’s soul is beyond redemption and they’re damned — trapped on the mortal coil indefinitely, before eventually deteriorating into nothing. Somewhat painfully. What this means is that after you die, assuming you don’t die alone where no one finds you quickly enough, everyone knows what the gods ultimately thought of you. There was one character who was a horrible person and, as part of the backstory, was damned when he died. The repercussions on the family members that survived him, who generally weren’t terrible people, were not insignificant. This aspect made me think a lot about how people might change or police their behaviour if they knew there were real afterlife consequences for them. Food for thought.

Finally, there was a romantic storyline but it didn’t start until a good chunk of the way in. I liked that there were several possible love-interests and that it wasn’t until Ash realised she had a crush on someone that I knew which way it would go.

I ended up enjoying Hunting a lot and, as the length of this review may suggest, getting more out of it than I necessarily expected. I recommend it to fans of fantasy, particularly the kind of fantasy that is confined to one city. I’m tempted to call it “ye olde urban fantasy”. I think readers of Tamora Pierce’s earlier books (I haven’t read her later stuff) will also enjoy it, although I admit my reasoning may start and end with the “girl dressed as a boy” element.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: April 2013, Self-published (SmashWords link)
Series: No. Although there would be scope for another book in the same world.
Format read: ePub on iPad
Source: Review copy courtesy of the author
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/YAt1SZ. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

Valley of Shields by Duncan Lay

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:47:30 +0200

Valley of Shields by Duncan Lay is the second book his Empire of Bones trilogy. Last year, I read and reviewed the first book, Bridge of Swords.

I had forgotten, when I first picked up Valley of Shields, just one much of a cliffhanger the first book had ended on. This second volume starts pretty much the same second the previous one ended, jumping straight into the action. As such, it was a very in medias res beginning, without any recapping. It took me a little while to remember everything that had been going on nine months previously when I read the first book. I suspect this is the kind of sequel that would be perfect to read straight after the first book. So if you haven’t had the chance to pick up this series, now might be a good time (and Valley of Shields doesn’t end on the same sort of cliffhanger).

Cast out from his homeland, Sendatsu has used his sword-fighting talents to survive in the foreign land of the Vales. With the assistance of Rhiannon – the first human to use magic in hundreds of years – Sendatsu has helped Huw and the Velsh defeat an invading army. Better still, Sendatsu now has the key to reclaim his children.

It will mean a return to Dokuzen – a city where deceit runs deep and Sendatsu expects an unwelcome reception. How will Sendatsu and his unlikely allies, Huw and Rhiannon, know who to trust when they can barely trust each other?

And when Dokuzen comes under fierce attack, Sendatsu’s fight to survive will need to be more desperate than ever. Especially when this attack reveals who the real enemy is …

Valley of Shields again follows Sendatsu, Huw and Rhiannon but this time a lot of the action takes place in Dokuzen, the Elfaren city. This brings a lot of different political struggles to the forefront and I think there was a bit more intrigue going on (those who know me know I’m a fan of intrigue) from all sides, including the main characters.

An interesting aspect which was present in the first book but is much more important in the second is the love triangle between Sendatsu, Asami and her husband, Gaibun. The thing that made it interesting for me is that it was seen predominantly from Sendtatsu’s perspective (since he’s the most central character), rather than from Asami’s as is common, especially in YA (not that this is YA, of course). I also appreciated that while we saw the two men trying to undermine each other, we also got to see Asami being annoyed at being treated like a prize, which made me happy. And while everyone (especially the men) made fools of themselves, it struck me as a pretty realistic state of affairs. I am looking forward to seeing how the matter is resolved in the final volume.

As fans of Lay will have come to expect, battles and training for them are again central to this book. If you’re the kind of reader who doesn’t like graphic violence (I wouldn’t call it at all gratuitous in this case), then I’m not sure this kind of fantasy novel (what I like to call BFF — Big Fat Fantasy) is for you. But for fantasy fans, I highly recommend Duncan Lay’s books. I also strongly recommend starting with the first book in this series, Bridge of Swords.

I enjoyed Valley of Shields a great deal. After a long string of not BFF books, it was nice and comforting (yes, I may have issues on that front) to get back into a nice long fantasy novel. I look forward to February, when the concluding volume is scheduled for release.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: April 2013, Harper Voyager Australia
Series: Empire of Bones, book 2 of 3
Format read: ebook on iThings
Source: purchased from iTunes store

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/10deT2H. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

My First Twenty #AWW2013 Challenge Reads

Mon, 06 May 2013 18:20:11 +0200

The time has come when I’ve read my first twenty books for the Australian Women Writers Challenge this year. (Well, actually, I’ve read 21, but let’s just look at the first 20 for now.)

It’s been quite a mixed bag. I’ve been actively trying to read more horror and science fiction from Australian writers so the list is skewed a bit in those directions. In fact, looking at it now, there’s only one Big Fat Fantasy (BFF) series on there, where those sorts of books used to dominate my reading. Part of that is because of intentionally branching out, part of it more annoying factors I won’t go into right now. And I think there are probably more short stories than I would read if left to my own devices without challenges to motivate me.

The full list is at the bottom, with review links, in the order I read them. I’ve already highlighted the horror books I’ve read, in this post. Of the novels there was After the Darkness by Honey Brown, a contemporary novel with nothing supernatural in it but with an excellent sense of creeping dread, and Perfections by Kirstyn McDermott, a tale of two sisters and something that’s not quite right in their relationships.

Of the fantasy I read, the Fallen Moon Trilogy trilogy by KJ Taylor is the aforementioned BFF. The trilogy, consisting of The Dark Griffin, The Griffin’s Flight and The Griffin’s War deals with griffins (shockingly) and racism, oppression and discrimination. Highly recommended and worth a read for all fantasy fans.

I also read the YA fantasy book Wolfborn by Sue Bursztynski, set in a more traditional fantasy world, but with a YA protagonist. And werewolves. And the multi-award winning Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan, with selkies.

On the urban/suburban fantasy front, I read Narrelle M Harris’s two Melbourne vampire books, The Opposite of Life and Walking Shadows. They’re an excellent read if the idea of a librarian teaming up with a geeky vampire appeals to you. I also read the YA (sub)urban fantasy Rise of the Fallen by Teagan Chilcott which treated angels and demons in a way that didn’t irritate me, in a way that angel books often do.

The Australian science fiction I read will soonish be summarised in its own post (I’m only two books away from my first milestone of the), but briefly, I read a novella, Rayessa and the Space Pirates by Donna Maree Hanson, a verse novel, The Sunlit Zone by Lisa Jacobson (which was shortlisted for a Stella Award), and an excellent trilogy by Andrea K Höst — Stray, Lab Rat One and Caszandra — in which a Sydney girl accidentally wanders though a portal onto an alien planet.

On the short story/collected works front I read two collections in the Twelve Planets series, Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren, containing three creepy short stories and a disturbing novella, and Asymmetry by Thoraiya Dyer, containing four diverse and incredibly well crafted stories. There was also Ishtar edited by Amanda Pillar and KV Taylor, a collection of three horror novellas all dealing with the Assyrian/Babylonian goddess Ishtar in the past, present and future. And finally, I read a collection and an anthologyfrom FableCroft Publishing, The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories by Joanne Anderton, which was wonderful and disturbing, and One Small Step edited by Tehani Wessely, a diverse collection of what Australian female spec fic writers can do.

All the reviews:

After the Darkness by Honey Brown (review)
Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren (review)
The Dark Griffin by KJ Taylor (review)
The Griffin’s Flight by KJ Taylor (review)
Wolfborn by Sue Bursztynski (review)
Rayessa and the Space Pirates by Donna Maree Hanson (review)
The Griffin’s War by KJ Taylor (review)
Walking Shadows by Narrelle M Harris (review)
The Opposite of Life by Narrelle M Harris (review)
The Sunlit Zone by Lisa Jacobson (review)
Ishtar edited by Amanda Pillar and KV Taylor (review)
Asymmetry by Thoraiya Dyer (review)
Stray by Andrea K Höst (review)
Rise of the Fallen by Teagan Chilcott (review)
Lab Rat One by Andrea K Höst (review)
Caszandra by Andrea K Höst (review)
Perfections by Kirstyn McDermott (review)
The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories by Joanne Anderton (review)
Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan (review)
One Small Step edited by Tehani Wessely (review)

Content imported from Blogger http://tsanasreads.blogspot.com/2013/05/my-first-twenty-aww2013-challenge-reads.html. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

The Eternity Cure by Julie Kagawa

Fri, 03 May 2013 15:33:12 +0200

The Eternity Cure by Julie Kagawa is the second book in the Blood of Eden series, which started with The Immortal Rules. The premise of the series is: when a virus threatens to wipe out humanity, vampires come out of hiding to protect their food supply and more or less set up “safe” areas where humans won’t die of the plague (which causes rabid zombie-like creatures) and can provide uncontaminated blood for their vampire protectors.

I enjoyed The Immortal Rules a lot. I thought the writing was cinematic with just the right amount of action and tension. By contrast, when I first picked up The Eternity Cure I was very disappointed. The writing was much more pedestrian and lacklustre. After about 60 pages I put it down and read something else. When I came back to it, about six weeks later, with severely lowered expectations, I found I was ultimately still able to enjoy the book. There were some descriptive and action passages which I found myself skimming over to get to the dialogue which was more enjoyable to read.

The mundanely written action scenes were a particular let-down since there was so much action in the story. And a lot of twists. It was nice to be surprised by expected developments but by the end there had been so many twists and turns, it was wearying. It did keep me turning the pages because the tension rarely let up, but many of the developments had me groaning.

On to more positive things! The worldbuilding and plot were well thought out. Every time I though “hang on, that doesn’t make sense” it would soon be explained how that particular element fit seamlessly into the plot/world. Although the ending sets us up for an obvious showdown in the last book, it also left me keen to find out how the worldbuilding questions will be resolved. (Will there be a cure for rabidism? Will humans be able to live independently from vampires on a large scale? Will Allison and friends indeed save the world?)

The characterisation was also well done. Allison continues to be a believable character and her angst about pretty much everyone else is justified and not angst for its own sake. The character that got the biggest rise out of me was Stick. In the first book, he was Allison’s friend pre-vampirification, but then things change. When we encounter him in The Eternity Cure, his new situation makes him a massive prat and I really wanted to bash him over the head with something every time he appeared. He was so frustrating! But getting an emotional rise (on purpose) is a mark of good character writing.

Unfortunately, unlike in The Immortal Rules, there weren’t any female characters other than Allison which was disappointing. Hopefully that will be remedied in the sequel.

I recommend The Eternity Cure to readers who enjoyed The Immortal Rules, with the caveat of not having overly high expectations. I think the story is worth continuing with despite some of this volume’s shortcomings. I am looking forward to reading the last book and seeing how everything turns out. For readers who haven’t picked up The Immortal Rules yet, I highly recommend doing so, particularly fans of vampires or dystopias who might be sick of the usual stuff.

3.5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2013, Harlequin Teen Australia
Series: Blood of Eden, book 2 of 3
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/15e9tcn. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

Charlotte's Army by Patty Jansen

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:17:45 +0200

Charlotte’s Army is a novella by Patty Jansen set in the same universe as several of her other works but which stands alone. I’ve previously reviewed her novel Shifting Reality and short story “The Rebelliousness of Trassi Udang” from the same universe.

Since I first heard about it, I’ve found the premise of Charlotte’s Army interesting: an army of artificial (clone-like) soldiers were all created with the same flaw. All of them are in love with Charlotte, one of the army’s senior medical staff. I was interested to see how it would all play out and what caused the flaw. The fact that it wasn’t Charlotte’s fault was kind of gratifying since she was quite a likeable character.

Other issues explored in this novella were how human the constructed soldiers really were. The human soldiers in the story generally treated them as second class and highly expendable citizens. Where the top brass see erasing one of their minds as nothing more than recalibrating a piece of machinery, Charlotte sees it as deleting a real person. It was an interesting dynamic.

Charlotte’s Army was a quick, enjoyable read. It rounds out the world I’ve read about in Shifting Reality nicely (although I want to stress again that it completely stands alone). I highly recommend it to science fiction fans and anyone interested in giving the genre a go.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2011, self-published
Series: Set in the ISF-Allion Universe but stands alone.
Format read: ePub on iThings
Source: Purchased from Smashwords a while ago.
Disclaimer: Although Patty is a friend I have attempted to write an unbiased review
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Australian Science Fiction Reading Challenge

Content imported from Blogger http://tsanasreads.blogspot.com/2013/05/charlottes-army-by-patty-jansen.html. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

Zenn Scarlett by Christian Schoon

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:03:02 +0200

Zenn Scarlett is the début novel by Christian Schoon. The titular character is a seventeen year old girl living on Mars who is studying to become an exoveterinarian — a vet for alien animals (although they do treat Earthly animals too).

Part of the blurb (which, in my opinion, is a bit too long and too detailed but could be worse):

Zenn Scarlett is a bright, determined, occasionally a-little-too-smart-for-her-own-good 17-year-old girl training hard to become an exoveterinarian. That means she’s specializing in the treatment of exotic alien life forms, mostly large and generally dangerous. Her novice year of training at the Ciscan Cloister Exovet Clinic on Mars will find her working with alien patients from whalehounds the size of a hay barn to a baby Kiran Sunkiller, a colossal floating creature that will grow up to carry a whole sky-city on its back.

Zenn lives in a sort of veterinary abbey with her uncle, a nun and a small number of other workers. I wasn’t entirely clear why there was a religious order dedicated to caring for alien life forms, but I hope we’ll learn more about that in the sequel. Most of the other characters, namely the townspeople, where the abbey was set apart from the town, were very irritating. In a good way, from a writing point of view, but in a very “need a good slap in the face for being a bunch of red neck xenophobic hicks” way. A lot of the tension in the novel arose from the townies being afraid of aliens and barely tolerating the abbey’s continuing presence, even when the vets were actively helping them with their own pets and livestock.

In some ways, I felt the story didn’t tackle the issues of xenophobia and tolerance deeply enough. For a start, it wasn’t until a good way into the story that we learnt why there were so many hicks on Mars — it was used as a transportation colony — a point which rather baffled me up until then. To some extent, it boiled down a bit too much to “good guys nice to animals” vs “bad guys hate the good guys” although it did get more complex towards the end.

A lot of things about Zenn Scarlett improved towards the end. I felt the writing grew more readable as we went along, particularly since there were so many flashbacks near the start. I was also gratified that there wasn’t a very long gap between my guessing a plot point and it being revealed in the text. The last quarter or so was full of excitement, albeit the very end, after the main climax, culminated in a very frustrating cliff hanger, however. Frustrating because I could see it coming when there weren’t nearly enough pages to resolve new events. I want to read the sequel cliff hanger or not, but there’s something slightly soul-crushing about the looming inevitability of not having a proper resolution at the end. (I think I prefer the kind of cliff hangers that sneak up on you… or softer ones with less in the balance.)

I feel like I need to comment on the science in Zenn Scarlett, since that’s my thing. I can’t say much about the biology because that’s not my area, but as the blurb suggests, almost all the animals involved were quite giant. If they were on Earth I’d be questioning the biophysical plausibility, but with Mars’s lower gravity, there’s more chance of them being OK. There was one slightly creative physics moment that had be heckling the page, but in the scheme of things, it could have been much worse (it could also have been better justified…).

All in all, Zenn Scarlett was a fun read. I recommend it to fans of YA science fiction. I want to say it’s good for fans of something a little different, but I have to admit there were aspects which reminded me a little of Avatar (the James Cameron movie), more thematically than literally. I’m not sure I’ve read any YA on a similar theme, however. Anyway, fans of aliens and alien creatures in their SF will also enjoy this book, I think. I look forward to reading the sequel.

4 / 5 stars

First published: (early) May 2013, Strange Chemistry (Angry Robot)
Series: Yes. Book 1 of 2?
Format read: eARC on my iThings
Source: the publisher via NetGalley

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/11TMo8S. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

One Small Step edited by Tehani Wessely

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:03:00 +0200

One Small Step: an anthology of discoveries is edited by Tehani Wessely and has just been launched by FableCroft at Conflux, this year’s National SF Convention. The blurb:

Sixteen stories of discovery from Australia’s best writers. Each story in some way addresses the idea of discoveries, new beginnings, or literal or figurative “small steps”, but each story takes you to places you far beyond the one small step you imagine… Journey through worlds and explore the reaches of the universe with this collection.

The theme of One Small Step is addressed quite diversely between the stories. My personal favourites (in a very subjective way) were the ones that dealt with discovery in a more literal kind of way. “Always Greener” by Michelle Marquardt opened the anthology strongly with human colonists on another planet and I felt it set the tone of expectation for what followed. The idea of deadly grass also stuck with me. “Firefly Epilogue” by Jodi Cleghorn about scientific discovery also struck me. “The Ships of Culwinna” by Thoraiya Dyer is another story that really stuck with me. Very well done, it’s a story about old discoveries but, I thought, freshly told. “Morning Star”by DK Mok was another space-based journey of discovery and quite an emotional note to end the anthology on. Although they were quite different stories, there was some symmetry between the opening and closing; a search for safety in a hostile universe.

I also quite enjoyed the stories by Deborah Biancotti and Rowena Cory Daniells for their ties to other stories of theirs I’ve read as much as the great writing. And Tansy Rayner Roberts’s story made me smile for certain references sprinkled throughout. “Sand and Seawater” by Joanne Anderton and Rabia Gale was also one of my favourites, with its richly painted setting. (I fully acknowledge that this paragraph is quite biased of me, since they’re all authors I was a fan of a priori.)

Because I can’t mention every story, I’ve included some brief comments/notes below that I made as I finished reading each of them. And author name links go to my other reviews of their works.

One Small Step is a showcase of some really great Aussie spec fic. (And, as I just learnt, it’s the first all-female Aussie spec fic anthology.) I highly recommend it to fans of the genre or to anyone looking to sample a variety of spec fic authors.

“Always Greener” by Michelle Marquardt — colonists on a difficult frontier world. There are aliens and hardship, but at least the grass is greener.

“By Blood and Incantation” by Lisa L Hannett and Angela Slatter — Loosely speaking a story about motherhood and magic and things going horribly wrong.

“Indigo Gold” by Deborah Biancotti — A journalist in the same universe as Bad Power. Over much too soon. Would love to see a novel in this world.

“Firefly Epilogue” by Jodi Cleghorn — a surprisingly sweet story about fireflies in Malaysia and brain waves.

“Daughters of Battendown” by Cat Sparks — a post-apocalyptic story set in a well realised world. A story of hardship and hope.

“Baby Steps” by Barbara Robson — grabbed me from the start. A fairytale told though emails.

“Number 73 Glad Avenue” by Suzanne J Willis — A story of time travel and the twenties. Like if the Doctor was a woman and also threw parties (so quite dissimilar to Doctor Who).

“Shadows” by Kate Gordon — Quite readable. About a girl who sees shadows. Thought it ended a bit abruptly.

“Original” by Penelope Love — Post-human people, spread throughout the the galaxy, come face to face with an original human.

“The Ships of Culwinna” by Thoraiya Dyer — People of a primitive culture encountering other cultures less and more technologically advanced.

“Cold White Daughter” by Tansy Rayner Roberts — A tale of the Frost Queen’s daughter, carved of ice. Inspired by Narnia, I suspect.

“The Ways of the Wyrding Women” by Rowena Cory Daniells — One of the longer stories. A tale of power, loyalty and plots. Set, I believe in future world of the Outcast Chronicles.

“Winter’s Heart” by Faith Mudge — A woman goes in search of a sorcerer for help. Interesting shift of perspective towards the end.

“Sand and Seawater” by Joanne Anderton and Rabia Gale — Creepy sentient dolls (kind of cute, I thought, when not being creepy), protection magic and a volcano island.

“Ella and the Flame” by Kathleen Jennings — Sisters and villagers with burning torches. I liked the story within a story.

“Morning Star”by DK Mok — When most of the human population of Earth suddenly dies, an android, a sentient ship and a peculiarly immune boy set out to look for survivors among the stars. A lovely and at times sad tale. The longest in the anthology.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: April 2013, FableCroft
Series: no
Format read: eARC
Source: review copy courtesy of the publisher/editor (but you can get a copy here)
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/165xotC. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

And the Ditmar winners are...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:03:00 +0200

The nice thing about the internet and Twitter age is the prevalence of live-tweeting events one cannot attend. It almost feels like being there. Sean has also made a nice Storify collection of the event here. Meanwhile, I’ve attempted to collate all the award winners in this post. They’re not in the order they were announced (roughly reverse order, actually, because I copy-pasted from my shortlist post) and I hope I didn’t miss any of the extra awards. I think I got them all, but please correct me if I accidentally skipped something.

And of course, a big congratulations to all the winners!

Best Novel

Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)

Best Novella or Novelette

“Sky”, Kaaron Warren, in Through Splintered Walls (Twelfth Planet Press)

Best Short Story

“The Wisdom of Ants”, Thoraiya Dyer, in Clarkesworld 75

Best Collected Work

Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)

Best Artwork

Cover art, Kathleen Jennings, for Midnight and Moonshine (Ticonderoga Publications)

Best Fan Writer

Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work including reviews in Not If You Were The Last Short Story On Earth

Best Fan Artist

Kathleen Jennings, for body of work including “The Dalek Game” and “The Tamsyn Webb Sketchbook”

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond

Best New Talent

David McDonald

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review

Tansy Rayner Roberts, for “Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy. Let’s Unpack That.”, in tor.com

Peter McNamara Lifetime Achievement Award

Nick Stathopolous

Norma K Hemming Award

Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)
With special honourable mention to Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth

A Bertram Chandler Award for outstanding achievement

Russell B Farr

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/160VTZa. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

New Booksies

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:17:20 +0200

I have been a little slow on the reviewing front of late. This is partly medical (I’m well enough to go to work, but not to do much else besides) and partly because I’ve been One Small Step which is a short story collection and it’s much harder to plough through several unrelated short stories by different authors than it is a novel.

But, that said, since my last New Booksies post, I’ve acquired a small number of exciting new books, all of which I’m really looking forward to.

From Simon Petrie and the lovely people at Peggy Bright Books, I received Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear, an anthology edited by Edwina Harvey and Simon Petrie, and filled with Aussie spec fic.

From Del Rey Spectra via NetGalley, I received Blood of Tyrants, the latest (upcoming-est?) instalment in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, set around Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, I believe. I haven’t actually read the previous one, Crucible of Gold (set in South America), because Harper Collins UK/Aus seem to not have got the rights to it (yet?) but I’ve ordered the almost released paperback from Book Depository so I’ll have plenty of time to read it before Blood of Tyrants. And in case you haven’t heard of the Temeraire books, think Napoleonic Wars plus dragons.

And from Angry Robot, also via NetGalley, I received Any Other Name by Emma Newman, the sequel to Between Two Thorns which I reviewed quite recently (fast publication schedules and fairly advanced ARCs FTW). I’m excited to get back to this world, too.

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/15K9cgO. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

Norma K Hemming Awards

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:02:58 +0200

Another award shortlist has been announced. This time it’s for the Norma K Hemming Award, which “marks excellence in the exploration of themes of race, gender, sexuality, class and disability in the form of science fiction and fantasy or related artwork or media.”

The winner will be announced during the Ditmar ceremony at Conflux this weekend. In the meantime, here’s the shortlist. Links go to my reviews.

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth
Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan
The trilogy The Outcast Chronicles (comprising the novels Besieged, Exile and Sanctuary) by Rowena Corey Daniells
Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier

I’m quite pleased that I’ve already read all but one of the books. It’s also nice to see a trilogy being treated as one work (and the fact that all three books were released in the same year definitely helps with that).

Of the books I’ve read, I particularly liked the way disabling injuries were dealt with in Winter Be My Shield and the Outcast Chronicles. It’s also difficult to go past the detailed exploration of gender politics in the Outcast Chronicles (and on a smaller scale Sea Hearts). All the books were really great reads.

Also, I don’t think Winter Be My Shield has gotten as much reader attention as it deserves, so hopefully it’s inclusion on this shortlist as well as the Aurealis will help with that.

It’s a strong shortlist and I wish all the authors luck.

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/11FIoHf. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 18:47:09 +0200

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan has been nominated for all the awards (Ditmar, Aurealis x 2, Stella…) and, reading it, it’s easy to see why; the writing is lovely and the story is thoughtful. The blurb gives an idea of what it’s about:

On remote Rollrock Island, the sea-witch Misskaella discovers she can draw a girl from the heart of a seal. So, for a price, any man might buy himself a bride; an irresistibly enchanting sea-wife. But what cost will be borne by the people of Rollrock - the men, the women, the children - once Misskaella sets her heart on doing such a thing?

But this doesn’t get to the heard of the story. Sea Hearts is told in several sections from the points of view of different characters. Is spans several generations of Rollrock residents, and one lifetime (Misskaella’s). There’s a lot to discuss in this novel and I fear my review won’t really do it justice.

Misskaella is one of the two characters we spend the most time with. Growing up as a social outcast, mostly because of her dumpiness and strange affinity with seals, Misskaella discovers there’s more to her abilities than that. Upon discovering that she can turn seals into beautiful (and docile) women, she sees an opportunity to make the town respect her (and pay her), even if they don’t like her. The rest of the novel deals with various ramifications of that decision.

It’s not just that a man can pay to get a beautiful wife and prevent her from leaving him by hiding her seal skin, the men are also enchanted by their seal wives, despite previous relationships. The tensions this inevitably causes with the human women of Rollrock, leads to an unusual dynamic on the island. The strength of Lanagan’s story telling method in this novel is that it allows us to watch Rollrock change and more and more men take sea wives. And then what happens when the seal wives have been trapped on land too long.

Sea Hearts is a thoughtful read rather than a fast-paced adventure. It is marketed as YA, but aside from having mostly young point of view characters, I wouldn’t say it deals with uniquely teenage problems; it’s a story for readers of all ages. I highly recommend Sea Hearts to all fantasy fans.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2012 Allen & Unwin (titled The Brides of Rollrock Island in the US/UK)
Series: No
Format read: Real paper book
Source: Purchased from a real Australian bookshop (Dymocks, I think)
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/13pb6it. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

Emilie and the Hollow World by Martha Wells

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:48:07 +0200

Emilie and the Hollow World by Martha Wells is the latest offering out from Strange Chemistry, the YA branch of Angry Robot. Those of you who have been paying attention will be aware that I’ve loved almost everything Strange Chemistry have put out, and Emilie and the Hollow World is no exception. A blurb excerpt:

While running away from home for reasons that are eminently defensible, Emilie’s plans to stow away on the steamship Merry Bell and reach her cousin in the big city go awry, landing her on the wrong ship and at the beginning of a fantastic adventure.

This is a first and foremost an adventure novel with a large dose of exploration thrown in. It’s maybe the sort of thing Jules Verne would have written if he’d written YA in modern language and had a tendency to include subtle feminist commentary (so, OK, not that similar to Jules Verne except for the exploration and adventure part). It’s also a more steampunkish setting, with magic and aether currents powering the vessels which travel to the inner world — the one on the inside surface of the planet’s sphere.

Emilie was a great character. She constantly compares her current situation with books (always nice to have something in common with the main character) and she takes the dangerous and outlandish situations in which she finds herself in stride. I also appreciated that she didn’t have a particularly morbid and depressing reason for running away from her aunt and uncle, but also that her reason wasn’t too trivial. She had a proper plan when she set out that could have worked if things hadn’t gone awry.

This is above all a fun read. If tales of adventure and exploration of exotic and completely unknown lands appeal to you, give it a shot. Equally, if you’re looking for lady adventuresses and some of the opposition they might face (mild sexism, nothing too hideous although a few of the male characters said and did punch-worthy things, in my opinion), definitely give this a shot. As well as Emilie, there’s also Miss Marlende, the adult daughter of a scientist-explorer who takes Emilie under her wing, and Rani one of the inner-world people, who seem to have different ideas about women and their place (whereas the outer-world people’s opinions are similar to real-world Victorian times, more or less).

I’m rather excited to discover that there’s another Emilie book in the works, Emilie and the Sky World, due out next year. I did feel the first book set things up nicely for an indefinitely long series of adventures with Emilie. That said, it stands alone perfectly well if series aren’t your thing (but I’m usually a fan of getting more of a good thing).

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: April 2013, Strange Chemistry
Series: Yes! Book 1 with more to come, but reads as a standalone.
Format read: eARC on my iThings
Source: The publisher via NetGalley

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/17pvDDT. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

Aussie Horror Reading Challenge, Round-up One

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:02:27 +0200

It’s only April and it seems I have already completed the Australian Horror Reading Challenge I set myself. A large part of the reason is that I was only aiming for a minimum of five books. I was concerned that I would have difficulty tracking them down, but apparently I needn’t have worried.

This post is just a summary of what I’ve read so far. I plan to write down more interesting thoughts I’m having on the genre as I learn more about it. My brain is a bit goopy at the moment though and I figured more posts is better than fewer.

The books I’ve read with excerpts from my reviews are below. Surprisingly, three of the five are collections of short fiction, not something I particularly planned. And not that there’s anything wrong with short stories, but it’s interesting to note how many more horror short stories there are out there by Australians, compared with novels (see my recent Aurealis stats post). I hope to read more novels in the future (not at the expense of short stories, hopefully). I also notice this list is entirely made up of female authors, again, not entirely intentionally (although the AWW Challenge did contribute). I do have some male-authored stuff lined up, so that probably won’t be the case the next time I write a round-up.

After the Darkness by Honey Brown (review)

Although the book is called After the Darkness, it’s really about how hard it is to leave the darkness behind. … It’s also about how darkness is often contagious, touching on the way in which abuse victims often go on to re-enact their trauma as a way of coming to terms with it. And the hopelessness that comes with fearing for your life. And having to relate to people in a life you have to pretend is normal.

Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren (review) — one of the Twelve Planets, containing three short stories and a novella.

“Mountain” — The mountain and its ghosts hold many secrets, which they don’t always share with passers by.

“Creek” is about quaking women who drowned in creeks. They claw their way through Australia’s shallow creekbeds and call out, demanding to know what happened to their loved-ones.

“Road” is a tale about an older couple who [are] quite used to injured people running up to their house and asking to use their phone … and they always lay out a wreath for the accident victims.

“Sky” — The protagonist, Zed, is not very likeable at all (he is, in fact, a rapist — you’ve been warned). From when we first meet him as a child, seen through his school-teacher’s eyes, to the main action when he finds himself in Sky, I didn’t relate to Zed at all, but kept reading because I wanted to know what happened next.

Ishtar edited by Amanda Pillar and KV Taylor (review) — A collection of three novellas about the goddess Ishtar, in the past, present and future.

“The Five Loves of Ishtar” by Kaaron Warren is a story spanning thousands of years in the Mesopotamian region. Told from the perspectives of a series of Ishtar’s washerwomen — each the daughter of Ishtar’s previous washerwoman — it focuses partly on the men in Ishtar’s life and partly on life generally at that time.

“And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living” by Deborah Biancotti follows Adreienne, a detective given an unusual set of homicides to investigate. Of course we know the supernatural origins of the bodies — since Ishtar has to show up at some point — but it was still a compelling story. I enjoyed watching Adreienne slowly uncover the truth.

“The Sleeping and the Dead” by Cat Sparks — My favourite aspect of this story was all the allusions to earlier events, particularly to Ishtar’s roots. It relies on knowledge of the previous stories more than one would expect from an ordinary collection, but in this context it works beautifully.

Perfections by Kirstyn McDermott (review)

McDermott made me think about the relationship between the mundane and the horrifying. One doesn’t have to peel back many layers to find unpleasantness in the sisters’ lives, but McDermott keeps peeling until all they’re left with is reality (or some facsimile thereof) and each other.

The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories by Joanne Anderton (review) — a collection, as the title implies.

Overall, I was very impressed with Anderton’s worldbuilding in all the stories. Each story read like a glimpse into a complete and carefully constructed world. Just because the stories are short, Anderton in no way skimped on the thought put into them. Even for the stories set in some approximation of the modern world, careful details made them stand out.

Content imported from Blogger http://tsanasreads.blogspot.com/2013/04/aussie-horror-reading-challenge-round.html. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at this link: http://tsanasreads.blogspot.com/2013/04/aussie-horror-reading-challenge-round.html.

tabithadarlingsbedroomfloor: The bad news is that Australia...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:05:41 +0200

tabithadarlingsbedroomfloor:

The bad news is that Australia Post have raised their postage prices again - to compensate and use all the prepaid parcel envelopes, Twelfth Planet Press has announced a special!

Grab A Trifle Dead by Livia Day direct from the site
and you can get the awardwinning “Siren Beat/Roadkill” by TansyRR & Robert Shearman for just $5 extra!

Use the coupon ATrifleDead upon purchase.

Both A Trifle Dead and “Siren Beat” are set in Hobart - one has a murder mystery and really great coffee, while the other has a sexy sea pony and kraken tentacles. Compare and contrast!

Meanwhile Random Alex and her awesome Mum have done a joint conversational review of A Trifle Dead - which also happens to be the first review I’ve read of the book!

The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories by Joanne Anderton

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 20:48:23 +0200

The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories by Joanne Anderton is, as the title suggests, a collection of short stories. For those of you who’ve read Debris and/or Suited, these stories were very different in tone, surprising me a little with just how macabre they were.

Overall, I was very impressed with Anderton’s worldbuilding in all the stories. Each story read like a glimpse into a complete and carefully constructed world. Just because the stories are short, Anderton in no way skimped on the thought put into them. Even for the stories set in some approximation of the modern world, careful details made them stand out.

I’ve included some thoughts on each story below, but I’m afraid they’re not as coherent as I’d like them to be. Each story blew me away and, quite frankly, I think we’re lucky I managed to say anything coherent at all, immediately after reading.

Anderton’s stories in this collection can be loosely grouped into three categories: macabre fantasy world stories, macabre more-or-less real world stories, and macabre post-technological science-flavoured stories. (There may be a common thread running through them.) All the stories involve dead things and/or death, and often constructions from dead things. My favourite of the bunch, “Sanaa’s Army”, falls into the latter category and has my favourite cat of the bunch in them.

I’ve said, repeatedly, that the stories are macabre and deal with death, but I didn’t find it to be in a depressing way. Well, OK, some of them were a bit depressing. But generally, there were many stories about life coming out of death. Or art or solace or something else constructive.

The more futuristic stories generally dealt with the struggle to live on in a world become more hostile. “Mah Song” deifies the vestiges of advanced technology in a world that’s all but forgotten how it works. These stories brought to mind Arthur C Clarke’s third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Anderton takes it a step further at times, calling one of the AIs in “Out Hunting For Teeth” the Witch and her cyborg constructs Spells. (That was another of my favourite stories, in part for the ending.)

Ultimately, ~~I was glad I didn’t have a cat watching me while I read~~ I really enjoyed this collection. Not all the stories were the kind of thing I would usually read, but it was mostly those which I ended up enjoying most. I’m not at all surprised that two of the stories have picked up award nominations and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the collection itself shortlisted for next year’s awards.

The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories is being launched at Conflux in Canberra on April 26, but in the meantime, you can pre-order a copy from the publisher here. I highly recommend this collection to spec fic fans who like their fantasy dark or who might want to venture out of their comfort zone and become a little more acquainted with dead things. But really, if any of the above or below piqued you’re interest, I urge you to give it a go; it really is an excellent collection.

Some very brief reactions/descriptions of each story which I jotted down immediately after reading it:

The Bone Chime Song — (Ditmar shortlisted) Eerie, well imagined. A complete world glimpsed through a short story.

Mah Song — Cyborg technology, a future world where computers are alive and revered as gods and people depend on them for food and heeling. The main character desperate to take her brother’s place as cyborg sacrifice. Technology mixed with mysticism.

Shadow of Drought — Nothing like the first two stories. A story of modern rural teenagers in a horror movie scenario who are aware of the fact.

Sanaa’s Army — (Aurealis and Ditmar shortlisted) Another set in the real world. Another about bones, in a different way to “The Bone Chime Song”, but not that different. Interesting that these two should be the Ditmar shortlisted stories.

From the Dry Heat to the Sea — A strange story of drought, of industrial poison, of water, of being an outsider.

Always a Price — Short, contemporary, magic and a cat.

Out Hunting for Teeth — Not what I expected from the title, although making things our of human remains comes up again. A science fiction story of the “sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic” variety, somewhat literally.

Death Masque — Eternity in an afterlife or a final death? This is the choice a grieving father makes for his son.

Flowers in the Shadow of the Garden — Floating gardens in a desert. This is another story that particularly impressed me with its worldbuilding.

A Memory Trapped In Light — Another post technological world with scraps if technology left behind. A girl protecting her younger sister from dystopian forces.

Trail of Dead — Zombies, the ones who fight them and the one who summoned them.

Fence Lines — Post-apocalyptic, but that wasn’t the point. A sugarcane plantation as a safe outpost, guarded by ghosts.

Tied to the Waste — Post-apocalyptic, making things out of dead things. Cats.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: April 2013, Fablecroft
Series: No.
Format read: eARC
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Australian Horror Reading Challenge

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/14nD6Yn. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at this link: http://bit.ly/14nD6Yn.

Aurealis Statistics

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:17:00 +0200

Last night, hubby and I were talking about the Aurealis Awards shortlist and the topic of there being more fantasy books published by Australian authors than science fiction or horror came up. In the course of events, I went to have a look at the entries for this year’s awards and before I knew it I had a spreadsheet and graphs and things. It just happened.

So since I have these graphs, I thought I might as well share them with the world. I don’t think they reveal anything ground-breaking or terribly exciting, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

The abbreviations I use in the charts below are the same as from the Aurealis entries page:

SFN = Science Fiction novel
SFSS = Science Fiction short story
FN = Fantasy novel
FSS = Fantasy short story
HN = Horror novel
HSS = Horror short story
YAN = Young adult novel
YASS = Young adult short story
CN = Children’s fiction
CPB = Children’s picture book
AC = Anthology/Collection
IW = Illustrated Work

First up, the number of entries in each category:

So among the short stories, no surprises that fantasy are the most numerous. Perhaps slightly surprising that there were 1.5x as many horror as science fiction. Keep in mind, however, this counts works submitted to multiple categories as one entry per category, so many of the horror and science fiction short stories could also have been submitted as fantasy and so forth. Also no surprises in the novel categories, except perhaps that there were more children’s novels than YA (well, I find that surprising at least, but other probably won’t).

If we turn the above data into a pie chart to show the proportion of all the reading that was done for each category… we get something that probably shouldn’t really be represented as a pie chart, especially given the multi-category entries I already mentioned, but eh, pie charts are fun. For these purposes, I’m counting children’s picture books as short stories.

Then we come to entries which were submitted in multiple categories. The next chart shows the percentage of entries in each category that were submitted to one or more other categories as well.

Children’s picture books, as well as graphic novels and collected works which I omitted from the chart, do not have any crossover. Not surprising.

Making equivalent pie charts but only looking at entries into one category each… we don’t get anything terribly different to the first set of pie charts except that most YA short stories are also entered into other categories. Given that they short stories have to be spec fic due to the nature of the awards, perhaps what we should be surprised about is that not all the YA entries also made it into other genres.

So do these results surprise you? Alarm you? Make you go “hmm”? Let me know in the comments!

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/ZTxDad. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at this link: http://bit.ly/ZTxDad.

Also, I’ve since made quite a few changes and added some graphs to this post which you can only see at the Blogger link above.

Australian Shadows Awards Winners

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 22:02:19 +0200

The Australian Shadows Awards winners have been announced! You can read the official announcement here. From the website:

The Shadows are awarded to the stories and collections that best typify the horror genre, delivering a sense of ‘creeping dread’, leaving the reader with chills and a reluctance to turn out the light.

And the winners are…. (with links to my reviews)

NOVEL
Perfections – Kirstyn McDermott

LONG FICTION
Sky – Kaaron Warren

SHORT FICTION
Birthday Suit – Martin Livings

EDITED PUBLICATION
Surviving the End – Craig Bezant

COLLECTION
Through Splintered Walls – Kaaron Warren

Congratulations to all!

Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/XHV1G1. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at this link: http://bit.ly/XHV1G1.