Valley of Shields by Duncan Lay
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
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My First Twenty #AWW2013 Challenge Reads
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)
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Charlotte’s Army by Patty Jansen
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
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One Small Step edited by Tehani Wessely
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
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
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Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan
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
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Aussie Horror Reading Challenge, Round-up One
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.
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.
“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.
“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.
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.
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.
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The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories by Joanne Anderton
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,
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.
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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
Series: No.
Format read: eARC
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Australian Horror Reading Challenge
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Perfections by Kirstyn McDermot
Perfections by Kirstyn McDermott is the author’s second novel and has been shortlisted for a pile of awards this year, despite having only been released last December. It’s picked up shortlistings for Aurealis Horror Novel, Ditmar Best Novel and Australian Shadows Award Novel. Reading it, the award nominations are hardly a mystery. The blurb is short and sweet:
Two sisters. One wish. Unimaginable consequences.
Not all fairytales are for children.
Perfections is about two sisters, Antoinette and Jacqueline, who live in Melbourne. The story opens with Jacqueline going off to Brisbane for work shortly after Antoinette’s boyfriend dumped her. They don’t have much in common other than a shared childhood and a mother. The story follows their separate issues as their lives become increasingly entwined.
Perfections isn’t what I think of as psychologically-scarred for life horror (a la Slights) but there is a distinct creepiness to it and there were definitely a few disturbing bits. (Not enough to keep me up at night, but your mileage may vary.) For a large chunk of the book I thought it could be classed as the horror version of magical realism but it got a bit too… much towards the end for such a tentative label.
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.
As I write this, I realise that going into Perfections I had little idea of what the book was actually about, beyond that there were two sisters. None of the reviews I read prior to picking it up (via AWW, one, two, three) reveal the instigating event near the start that kicks off the plot. Which strikes me as odd because it’s not what I’d usually consider a spoiler. But I suppose I’ll jump on the bandwagon; leave a comment if you want to know.
Perfections was an enjoyable read. McDermott is a skilled writer and uses a few different stylistic tools in some chapters to great effect. I definitely want to pick up her other novel, Madigan Mine, and will be keeping an eye on what she writes in the future. I recommend Perfections to fans of horror and speculative fiction generally. I suspect there’s much in there to appeal to a fan of dark contemporary fiction as well (it’s not that similar to After the Darkness, but if you enjoyed that book and you don’t usually read genre fiction, I’d suggest giving Perfections a shot).
4.5 / 5 stars
Series: No.
Format read: eBook on iThings
Source: Purchased from iBooks (publisher page)
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Australian Horror Reading Challenge
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Lab Rat One by Andrea K Höst
Lab Rat One continues to tell Cassandra’s story, the Sydney girl that took a wrong turn and ended up on another planet. The story continues with more of her training with the Setari — psychic space ninjas — and more discovery’s of the alien people’s past. As with the first book, the plot is driven in large part by things unexpectedly happening to Cass, often as part of the larger experimentation with her still mysterious powers. It gave me the inescapable feeling that she is both terribly unlucky and very lucky to still be alive. She continues to almost die a lot.
The writing has gotten tighter in this volume. Whereas in book one I felt there were some slow bits, I didn’t get that feeling in Lab Rat One, where everything moved things along or was hilarious. The last quarter or so of the book (roughly from the snowball fight onwards, for those familiar with it) made me giggle a lot and the very end, though slightly surprising, was well done and made me happy and keen to keep reading.
The way the romance was done (or not done) in this book appealed to me. Without spoilers, Cass has a crush (since Stray, actually) on one of the Setari but decides that a relationship between them is unlikely to happen. She spends a lot of time trying not to have a crush on him, unsuccessfully but without it getting tedious for the reader. The former aspect struck me as realistic in the circumstances. She also doesn’t let her feelings get in the way of
One thing that didn’t quite fit for me but I couldn’t quite put my finger on when I was reading Stray is the YA label for this series. At first I put it down to the diary entry style being unusual, but I think it’s more than that. Yes, Cass is eighteen so if the only requirement for YA is a teenage protagonist, it does technically fit the bill. But the story starts after she’s finished school when — aliens notwithstanding — she would be starting to make her way in the world as an adult. Much as I’m not fond of the moniker, perhaps “new adult” is more apt than “young adult”. Don’t let either of those labels put you off though; it’s first and foremost a science fiction book and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to readers of all ages. (Or if the term “science fiction” puts you off — why are you reading this blog? — my all means latch onto one of the other labels.)
I loved Lab Rat One and I couldn’t not pick up the third book after I finished it (which was very inconvenient, since it was the middle of the night). For anyone who enjoyed Stray, this is a must read. If you thought Stray was kinda all right but weren’t sold on reading more, I strongly encourage you to give Lab Rat One a go.
5 / 5 stars
First published: 2011
Series: Touchstone trilogy, book 2
Format read: ebook on my iThings
Source: Purchased from Smashwords
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Australian Science Fiction Reading Challenge
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Ditmar Awards Shortlist Announced
Wow, it really is awards season, isn’t it? Now we have the Ditmar Awards ballot announcement. You can read the official page here which also includes voting instructions. Don’t forget to vote if you’re eligible!
The full list is copied below with links to my reviews where they exist and some light commentary.
Best Novel
- Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)
- Bitter Greens, Kate Forsyth (Random House Australia)
- Suited (The Veiled Worlds 2), Jo Anderton (Angry Robot)
- Salvage, Jason Nahrung (Twelfth Planet Press)
- Perfections, Kirstyn McDermott (Xoum)
- The Corpse-Rat King, Lee Battersby (Angry Robot)
- “Flight 404”, Simon Petrie, in Flight 404/The Hunt for Red Leicester (Peggy Bright Books)
- “Significant Dust”, Margo Lanagan, in Cracklescape (Twelfth Planet Press)
- “Sky”, Kaaron Warren, in Through Splintered Walls (Twelfth Planet Press)
- “Sanaa’s Army”, Joanne Anderton, in Bloodstones (Ticonderoga Publications)
- “The Wisdom of Ants”, Thoraiya Dyer, in Clarkesworld 75
- “The Bone Chime Song”, Joanne Anderton, in Light Touch Paper Stand Clear (Peggy Bright Books)
- “Oracle’s Tower”, Faith Mudge, in To Spin a Darker Stair (FableCroft Publishing)
- Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
- Epilogue, edited by Tehani Wessely (FableCroft Publishing)
- Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth Planet Press)
- Light Touch Paper Stand Clear, edited by Edwina Harvey and Simon Petrie (Peggy Bright Books)
- Midnight and Moonshine by Lisa L. Hannett and Angela Slatter, edited by Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)
- The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011, edited by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene (Ticonderoga Publications)
- Cover art, Nick Stathopoulos, for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 56 (ASIM Collective)
- Cover art, Kathleen Jennings, for Midnight and Moonshine (Ticonderoga Publications)
- Illustrations, Adam Browne, for Pyrotechnicon (Coeur de Lion Publishing)
- Cover art and illustrations, Kathleen Jennings, for To Spin a Darker Stair (FableCroft Publishing)
- Cover art, Les Petersen, for Light Touch Paper Stand Clear (Peggy Bright Books)
- Alex Pierce, for body of work including reviews in Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus
- Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work including reviews in Not If You Were The Last Short Story On Earth
- Grant Watson, for body of work including the “Who50” series in The Angriest
- Sean Wright, for body of work including reviews in Adventures of a Bookonaut
- Kathleen Jennings, for body of work including “The Dalek Game” and “The Tamsyn Webb Sketchbook”
- The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond
- Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex Pierce
- Antipodean SF, Ion Newcombe
- The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
- Snapshot 2012, Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, Helen Merrick, Ian Mond, Jason Nahrung et. al.
- Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, Alisa Krasnostein, Tehani Wessely, et. al.
- Galactic Chat, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Sean Wright
- David McDonald
- Faith Mudge
- Steve Cameron
- Stacey Larner
- Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, and Tehani Wessely, for review of Mira Grant’s Newsflesh, in ASIF
- Tansy Rayner Roberts, for “Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy. Let’s Unpack That.”, in tor.com
- David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Tehani Wessely, for the “New Who in Conversation” series
- Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene, for “The Year in Review”, in The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011
- Rjurik Davidson, for “An Illusion in the Game for Survival”, a review of Reamde by Neal Stephenson, in The Age
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