Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony By Eoin Colfer. Published by Penguin Books.

ARTEMIS FOWL AND THE LOST COLONY By Eoin Colfer

When Artemis Fowl first came out, it was, as usual for children’s books at the time, acclaimed as being just like Harry Potter. Come to think of it, that’s still happening today - if it’s a fantasy story and the main character is a boy, it’s Harry Potter, please buy it. Which is a pity, because I think the Artemis Fowl books, at least, will become classics in their own right and attract their own audiences, without any need of support from J.K. Rowling.

Of course, this series isn’t remotely like the Potter books. About all the protagonists have in common is that they’re both eleven year old boys in the first book and grow up in the course of the series. The same can be said of The Dark Is Rising, which was written long before either the Potter or the Fowl books and even has a wizardly mentor (Merlin, actually, still around in modern Britain) - so what?

Harry was a good boy, having adventures with his friends. Artemis was a young criminal genius. He didn’t, at the time, have any friends except his bodyguard, Butler, who genuinely cared about him. While Harry was trying to save the world by finding and destroying the philosopher’s stone, which confers immortality and turns base metal into gold, Artemis was busy kidnapping a fairy, in order to steal gold from her people. Just like Harry Potter? Hardly!

Now we’ve got that out of the way, on to the review.

Fairies in this universe are technologically advanced centuries beyond humans, though they’re magical beings who need contact with the earth to keep themselves going, but have been driven underground long ago. Still, these fairies kick ass, especially their police force, the LEPrecon (get it?). The fairy races are many things, but cute and sweet are not among them. Take the dwarfs, for example. They tunnel by unhinging their jaws and eating their way through the soil - and of course, the gas has to come out somewhere, to help propel them along, hence the “bumflap” in the dwarf’s garment... Ouch!

I haven’t read an Artemis Fowl novel for some time - the last one was the second, in fact. This novel is the fifth and it makes me want to go back and fill in the gaps. I found myself falling comfortably back into the universe. One character, alas, has died since the last time I read a Fowl novel. Artemis is now fourteen and has matured. He’s made friends among the fairies, including the one he kidnapped in Book 1, and is starting, shock horror, to act like a good guy! Oh, yes, and trying to handle puberty.

Just as well, then, that there’s another junior criminal genius to attract him, a sort of female Artemis called Minerva. To be fair, Minerva doesn’t want to harm anybody or steal anything, she just wants to be the youngest winner of the Nobel Prize for physics and has no problem with grabbing a magical being to do it. The trouble is, her ambitions might, unintentionally, destroy an entire lost fairy race, the demons. Time is running out to save them, and Artemis and his friends are relying on a small imp who’s the last demon warlock alive...

A series like this could quite easily have gone downhill by Book 5, but it hasn’t. You really want to know what happens next and this one has an ending that lets you know, quite clearly, that there’s more to come and that the author has been thinking quite carefully about Artemis’s future. After all, he is a teenager now, one who is starting to notice girls, but he needs a girl with his own intelligence. It would have worked better if Minerva had played a larger role in the events at the novel’s climax, but I’d be very surprised if she wasn’t back in the next book.

There’s a “gnommish" alphabet at the end of the book, with a long message throughout the book, disguised as a pretty border. Anna Ciddor’s Viking trilogy had rune messages in it, but at least she put them at the end of each chapter. Runes might have worked better in this one than the picture-based letters, because children can actually copy runes and write their own messages. Oh, well.

Excuse me, I’m off to make my way through the book again, to see what the message says...

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Before The Storm By Sean McMullen

BEFORE THE STORM By Sean McMullen


This is one of the first two books to be published by Ford St Publishing, a new company formed by Australian writer and editor Paul Collins, co-editor of the Quentaris series of children’s fantasies. The company seems to have got off to a good start, with two young adult tales by a couple of Australia’s better writers.

Teenagers Emily and Daniel live with their parents in Melbourne. The year is 1901 and the Australian colonies are about to become one country, with a huge ceremony in the beautiful Exhibition Buildings. They go to their nice middle-class schools and row on the Yarra river on weekends and the last thing they are expecting is a visit from two young refugees from a future in which the world is at war and teenagers like themselves are brought up to fight. Something bad is going to happen at that ceremony which makes Australia one country and if it isn’t stopped, that future world will happen. Emily and Daniel’s help is needed urgently.

The story was huge fun, an entertaining romp with a lot of humour. Emily is a strong character who has been frustrated by not being allowed to do the things she wants because of being female, but there’s a lot of humour in her flirting with the wounded BC, one of the two visitors from the future, especially when she finds out the truth about BC late in the book. Her brother has been doing some not-strictly-legal things with Barry the Bag, a teenager who helps his father at the railway station and sells - er, French postcards, among other things (and in this era, French postcards don’t just mean postcards from France...), but both boys help with the urgent mission to save the future.

In the end, we find that it isn’t necessarily going to be the middle-class characters who save the day - and when Barry does save the day, it isn’t necessarily for the right reasons, but whatever works...

It’s also nice to visit a part of Australian history that isn’t often the subject of historical novels, though it’s sometimes studied at school in Australia. We do forget, in this day and age, that Australia was once just a bunch of different colonies. The author has researched the era carefully, making it believable, and the history is just as important as the science fiction. I happen to live near some of the places described in the book, and it’s fascinating to think of how different they were over a hundred years ago. Even if you live on the other side of the world, though, it is an interesting bit of history.

Sean McMullen is best-known for his adult science fiction; most of his books have become international bestsellers. In his first book for young people, the Quentaris novel Ancient Hero, he showed that he has considerable ability in writing for younger readers. With Before The Storm, he’s confirmed he can do it and it’s to be hoped that he will continue along this route and write some more YA fiction. The universes of his adult books are highly complex and they require a lot of concentration to read, but when writing for children or teens, a writer needs to refine his or her universe and tell a story that the young reader can enjoy without having to worry about complexities. In this one, and the previous story, Mr McMullen has shown he can keep his story simple and keep it going.

I had the feeling, at the end, that there might be a sequel at some stage, but even if there isn’t, it stands well on its own and should entertain readers about twelve to fourteen. Well, someone might have to explain the French postcards for the younger readers, but I suspect most of them have seen worse on the Net...

On seeing a movie of a beloved book

All I can say, after watching the movie supposedly based on Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising is - thank goodness J.K. Rowling had control over what was done to her Harry Potter novels!

I first discovered The Dark Is Rising series in the 1970s. I remember a lot of people were reading it then. I loved the mood, the atmosphere and the British background. I suspect, like a lot of people, that a certain J.K. Rowling got some ideas from these books, though she made them her own.

Anyway, when someone asked me what The Dark Is Rising, the novel, was about, I said it was about a boy who finds, on his 11th birthday, that he's a wizard. Well, a lot more than a wizard - the last of the Old Ones. With the help of other Old Ones, he has to collect a number of Signs, created over the centuries for him, so that they can be used to beat back the Dark in the battle between Light and Dark. His mentor was a gentleman called Merriman Lyon, an Oxford University professor in our time, though you know, through hints, and it's finally confirmed in later books, that he's Merlin. There was a large, loving family who lived in Buckinghamshire, a thrilling night chase with Herne the Hunter, travels through time and a tragic character who betrayed the Light and suffered for it.

So when I heard, recently, that they'd made a movie of it, I got terribly excited. I was impressed to hear that the villainous Rider was Christopher Eccleston (who, in the end, was the only thing that made the film worth bothering with, with a deliciously evil performance, so you could hold down the notion he was going to invite Will into his TARDIS).

This morning I went to see it. Urk! Why did they bother to use Susan Cooper's name? Even if I hadn't read the novels, I wouldn't have cared for it. One kid who's on a quest for the Signs and being nagged by the other Old Ones to get on with it, a final fight with the Rider, in which the Old Ones attack him physically, a scene in which two of them are attacked by the Rider's rooks in a deserted pub - - yeuk!

Will's family has become American, his age upped to fourteen, probably so he can be nearly seduced by the evil Maggie Barnes, his huge, loving family is dysfunctional, his brother Tom is suddenly his twin, being held by the Dark instead of a first baby lost to illness, Miss Greythorne of the Manor is the boss of the Old Ones and Merriman just her not-too-cluey butler (in the novel Merriman was playing the role of butler while her regular one was away, so he could be near enough to help Will)who happens to be an Old One. If this guy is Merlin, no wonder Arthur stuffed up!The tragic Walker, evidence that Merriman once made a huge mistake, is just not there.

I have nothing against American actors as long as they get it right - look at the four wonderful American actors in Lord of the Rings - they were the perfect Aragorn, Arwen, Frodo and Sam - well, Viggo M was probably a few years too young for the role of Aragorn and Elijah Wood way too young for Frodo, but when you saw the movie, you didn't care. But why, oh, why, did the CHARACTERS have to be American? How would they like it if some British film-maker set Huckleberry Finn in England? Or if Tom Sawyer was re-set in the Australian outback? Why do these folk think their audiences are too dumb to be able to handle anything "furrin"? Hadn't they noticed how well Harry Potter did, without being Americanised?

I know that you can't make a movie exactly like the novel, but surely you can avoid making it so different that it's like a different story altogether.

I have been re-reading the series and finding it just as good as the first time around.

I didn't want to comment on this movie, despite all that I had heard, without seeing it, but if they do any of the sequels, I'm not bothering.

Anyone who reads this post - go read the book. And wait for the movie The Golden Compass - despite the change of title, it looks, from the trailers, like a wonderfully faithful adaptation of Northern Lights, well-cast, stunningly beautiful visually.

Watch this space.

New link added - Moira Dahlberg

Moira Dahlberg is a Western Australian teacher, writer and science fiction fan. I met her through Blake's Seven fandom and remember her wonderful fiction. She is also writing some great stuff to support teachers in the classroom and believe me, when you're trying to come up with some ideas that will entertain them and teach them something at the same time, it's always worth checking out books and black line masters by people who know how to do both! We used her writing game as an activity in the children's room at Aussiecon 3, back in 1999. The kids loved it.

When I first knew Moira, she had only a manual typewriter. Now she has a web site, with not only her own stuff, but links to other writiers and artists. Go take a look - all you need to do is click on the side bar.

Fremantle Impressions review

This review is currently awaiting publication by January Magazine. January Magazine has quite a big backlog of my reviews and I have kept the publicity folk at Fremantle Press waiting a while, so I thought I'd publish it first, till JM has the time.

FREMANTLE IMPRESSIONS By Ron Davidson. Published by Fremantle Press

The port of Fremantle in Western Australia is old. Founded in 1829, it's actually older than Melbourne, which didn’t begin until 1835. It has been a centre of whaling, of imports and exports, it has had convicts and Aboriginal rebels and union strikes and has seen the foundation of business dynasties. In the 1980s, it was the site of the America’s Cup. This was the first time in many years that the Cup was won away from the US - won by a millionaire yachtsman who later lost his hero status in Australia when he was arrested for crooked business dealings.

“Impressions” is probably a good description of this book, written by journalist Ron Davidson, who has lived in the city most of his life. Although it begins with the early days of the colony, describing the characters who lived there at the time, and the place itself, this is not a history of Fremantle - not really. A history, even a local history, is usually in some sort of chronological order. This book is more of a stroll through town, from place to place, with comments on what has happened over the years in each spot.

First, the book’s positive aspects: Fremantle is a fascinating place, and this is made clear in the course of the literary wander around town. As well as its long-past history, the author interviews people who have their own memories of the place and what was happening during the historical events. Every second page is a beautiful sepia photo of Fremantle’s past.

Ron Davidson clearly loves his town. If you’re visiting a place as a tourist, it’s always good to learn something about it - and have something to take home, to remind you of your holiday. You don’t need to read about famous historical figures to get a feel for the past of any place. The lives of ordinary people tell you far more than battles and politics ever could. Even the notion of a stroll around town gives you the feeling of being there, with a guide.

The trouble is, if you actually do want to wander around Fremantle by yourself, and learn something about the various buildings and wharfs you pass, this book isn't going to be as helpful as it might be. There are no chapters, no themes and no index. If you want to find your way around, how do you do it if you can’t even look up the information about where you are? If you simply enjoy reading local history, it won’t help much either, as it doesn’t run in chronological order. Even chapter divisions with a theme for each would help - the history of a particular part of Fremantle, for example, or of an industry, or even a family dynasty.

If there is a new edition of this book, it really would be a good idea to give it an index, if nothing else. It’s too dense for a coffee table book - and too small in size anyway - but would come in handy as a self-guided tour book if the tourist could look up information about where he or she was. A current map would also be useful.

This is a good book, but could be better, with a better layout.

Review: Heart of Gold

This review has been sent to January Magazine and will probably be published there sooner or later, but probably later, as there are a number of my reviews awaiting publication, so here it is!


HEART OF GOLD By Michael Pryor

In Blaze of Glory, first novel in the Laws of Magic series, we met Aubrey Fitzwilliam, son of an aristocratic family in the land of Albion, an alternative universe version of Edwardian England. In this world, magic is a science, totally unconnected with superstition or the summoning of demons, ouija boards or midnight rituals. Well, admittedly it’s done best in such ancient languages as Chaldean... The laws of magic of the series title are a lot like the laws of physics - “ye cannae change them, Captain” although you can mix and match and adapt them if you know what you’re doing. Unlike the magic of the Harry Potter universe, it isn’t genetically-based, but something you can learn at school and then practise as a career.

Aubrey is a magical genius. Like other geniuses, he simply can’t resist experimenting and at the start of the first novel, he did something truly stupid, experimenting with horribly dangerous death magic. As a result, he ended up dead.

Well, sort of. He is - literally - holding body and soul together, to avoid having his soul float off into the realm of true death, and finding that being dead can really mess up a chap’s lifestyle.

With his schoolfriend George and a brilliant and feisty young lady called Caroline, he saved the Crown Prince Albert (otherwise known as his cousin Bertie) and foiled a plot by the realm’s head magician which would have started this world’s version of World War I.

At the beginning of Heart of Gold, Aubrey and George, who desperately need a holiday before starting university, head for Gallia (France) where Caroline is already studying at the university of Lutetia (Paris). Aubrey isn’t allowed to relax, though; each member of his family gives him an item to add to a “shopping list” of tasks to perform while he’s over there. His grandmother wants some embarrassing letters back. His mother wants contact with a fellow scientist. His father wants him to keep an eye out for certain things he needs to know. Cousin Bertie needs some important information about his ancestors. All of them, of course, end up being connected and sending Aubrey and George into danger .

Aubrey being Aubrey, he can’t stay out of trouble, and while filling the shopping list and trying to find a magician who might have information that will cure his condition, he finds himself contending with more plotting, spies, a city full of lurching zombies (living folk whose souls have been stolen by a nutter with a magical camera), prehistoric animals erupting all over Lutetia, terrorists, the theft of a magical artefact - the Heart of Gold - that must be kept in the city’s centre, in a nun’s lap, or Gallia will fall apart - oh, and inviting Caroline to an embassy ball...

Like the first novel, Heart of Gold is great fun. The action is almost non-stop - even in the first few pages, Aubrey and George are flying an ornithopter to rescue an airship in trouble. Immediately on arriving in Paris, they’re fighting a zombie. Among the prehistoric monsters they have to face is a scary dinosaur, probably a tyrannosaurus.

Despite all the action, the author never forgets that as well as story, you have to have characters the readers can believe in. Aubrey is brilliant, but not perfect; he does something idiotic yet again, though this time it could lose him Caroline’s affection rather than his life. George, while filling the role of the comical sidekick, is really not dumb at all, and Aubrey doesn’t underestimate him for a minute, though others do. Possibly only Caroline is too perfect; as well as intelligence and beauty and ability with a gun, she turns out to be a martial arts expert.

Still, the characters are likeable, the plot funny and delightful and I do like this universe. Women don’t yet have the vote, but they are respected as scientists and artists and their strength is taken for granted.

The series has been compared with Harry Potter, which seems about standard right now. Sorry - not remotely alike, except that both protagonists are teenagers who are good at magic, hang out with two other teenagers and can’t get up the nerve to ask a girl to a dance. If anything, it reminds me of Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom trilogy - Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen - and the world of Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy. Fans of both series should enjoy this one.

Anyway, much as I loved the Potter books, I’d rather go out to a party with Aubrey than Harry; at least he doesn’t whinge or worry about what the Dark Lord is plotting when he’s supposed to be giving his partner a good time. Sorry, J.K. Rowling.

Vale Centero!

Centero is no more, alas!

I remember getting my first copy of what was then a print newsletter centred around Blake’s Seven, which was the reason for the name of the zine; in the British TV science fiction show, Centero was the location of the federation’s communications centre.

Nikki White, the editor, has been a passionate media fan for many years, though she has also been writing for periodicals relating to Dracula, a favourite historical figure, as well as having an interest all the literature about him, and, in recent years, has become a member of the rabbit-breeding community, writing for this “fandom” as well. Her activism and energy in many areas has been amazing and I, for one, am really going to miss Centero, though I do understand her reasons for finally dropping it.

Centero started as a duplicated zine. I remember going to the newsagency to pick up stencils on which I carefully typed my contributions, getting really upset every time I made a typo. I rolled them up and sent them to Nikki, who duplicated them on her machine and, at her own expense, sent the fanzine out to the contributors. Eventually, she had to charge something towards the postage expenses. Also, with the end of Blake’s Seven, quite a few fans found other interests. At this point, Nikki considered cancelling, but expanded into media science fiction and fantasy in general and there was a re-birth of the zine, as people wrote articles and letters about whatever their favourite shows and films were at the time. Nikki wrote reviews of quite a few media-related books and brought us up to date with whatever was happening to actors from Blake’s Seven and other shows.

Stencils gave way to photocopies, as the years went on and technology changed. It meant we no longer had to worry about what happened when we made typos, especially after we all got computers. This went on for some years – and, to be honest, it became my last contact with media fandom in between cons, because I dropped out of one Star Trek club and another closed down, and the Blake’s Seven club to which I had belonged went on-line.

Media cons, for that matter, thinned out; older fans retired from active fandom and new ones seem to think a con means you get an outrageously expensive actor and charge hundreds of dollars for people to sit in an auditorium and be entertained, as the actor who played second Romulan from the left in some obscure Trek episode talks about how great it is to be here in “Mel-born.” Well, it’s a con all right, but not in the way they think. Media fanzines, in Australia at least, have gone the way of the dodo, for the most part, as people discover the joys of the Internet. Viacom closed down Trek fanzines in Australia, one of the few countries where there isn’t a technicality in the law that allows them to continue, but they would probably have died anyway, as people decided that it was more fun to go on-line and choose stories by theme and character and, for that matter, write and publish their own stuff without having to go through the filter of an editor.

Eventually, fed up with the incompetence of her local post office, which had been messing up deliveries, Nikki declared that that was it – no more Centero! It was not as if a whole lot of people were writing any more anyway. Around then, I suggested she have a go at doing it as an e-mail newsletter. It continued in this form for some time; Nikki even kept print copies going for a few people who didn’t have the Internet, and goodness knows, she has to be considered a saint for patiently reproducing contributions from some folk who didn’t even have a computer.

It was a joy to read the reviews and the news and the articles about films and media-related books and new TV shows, and stay in contact with other fans. I looked forward to it every quarter, and made myself sit down and write something every time (I did miss the odd issue for one reason or another, but I think I’ve been in all but three or four issues since the start).

However, I was one of the few who did have that self-discipline, so Nikki finally decided enough was enough. With Issue #103, the party is over.

I’m considering re-publishing some of my own contributions on a new blog and will be inviting anyone else who is interested in writing media-related stuff, to submit. Stand by.

Meanwhile, thanks for everything, Nikki. You deserved a Ditmar Award for this zine, but you at least have the Sue Bursztynski Award for giving me a lot of enjoyment over the years.

Me 'N Harry

In a few hours, I will be going to the offices of Allen and Unwin in East Melbourne to collect my reviewer's copy of the very last Harry Potter book. It's been quite a journey, for me as well as for millions of other people. Thing is, I discovered it by word of mouth in 1999, when a fellow member of the committee of the 1999 World Science Fiction Convention, recommended the first book in the series. I'm a regular reader of children's books, but I hadn't heard of that one. I picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone at that year's Children's Book Week Fair, and quite enjoyed it, though I thought it rather reminded me of Diana Wynne Jones' Lives of Christopher Chant and its sequels(and not for nothing - when the Potter books became a world phenomenon, guess which series was reissued in bright new covers?). Then there was Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series, which not only had a boy wake up on his 11th birthday to find he was a wizard - well, okay, the last of the Old Ones - but had a rather Dumbledore-like version of Merlin as his mentor. Luckily Merlin - or Merriman Lyon, as he was known in the 20th century - didn't die.

I also thought HPPS read like a cross between Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton's boarding school stories. The boarding school story has always been popular, because it's a fantasy in its own right - who hasn't imagined for themselves the midnight feasts (read "Gryffindor common room parties"), the sports matches, the noble heroes and heroines solving mysteries and fighting crooks?

While I liked the first two stories very much, I only became a fan with Prisoner of Azkaban, which was starting to become dark. There had been a hint in Chamber of Secrets that the wizarding world was not as glamorous as it seemed, when an innocent man, Hagrid, was sent to prison, to be tormented by Dementors, merely on suspicion, with no evidence whatsoever. But in Prisoner of Azkaban, I, at least, decided that I wouldn't want to live in the wizarding world! Mind you, this was the last book in the series in which nobody died.

While it's true that the novels published since really needed severe pruning, there's no getting around the power of the storytelling. I became well and truly hooked and the nice thing was that I could discuss the novels with colleagues and students alike, and go on-line to read lengthy posts on Harry Potter forums, with everyone having their own theories about what would happen, what had happened in the past, whether Snape was or was not a villain, what really happened to Professor Umbridge when she was carried off by those centaurs. I was even sucked into some of the fan fiction, I blush to admit - a guilty pleasure, but then I used to write fan fiction myself, based on media universes and there was just as much discussion of, and arguing about, those universes, just as many people coming to verbal blows over their respective theories. At least in the Harry Potter forum I frequent, there are moderators to request everyone play nice and remind them that they're just books, for heaven's sake, not Holy Writ!

There has been much arguing that harry Potter has 'got kids reading." Wrong. As a teacher-librarian, I know that kids have never stopped reading - and I work, not at some exclusive select-entry school or a middle-class private school, but a secondary school in the working-class suburbs, where many of the students are the children of parents on benefits - those of them who aren't refugees living with older siblings or aunts. What they read may not be to the taste of some of those who say so, but they read - books, magazines, newspapers, graphic novels, web-based manga...

No, what I love about the series is that it has drawn adults' attention to how wonderful children's literature can be. Before the series began, you'd constantly be meeting folk who sneered at "kiddielit" and asked children's writers like me when they were going to write a "real book". Now, they have had to set up a separate list on the New York Times because this kiddie series was hogging the regular one week after week, and you see everyone from workmen in uniforms to businessmen and women in suits reading the books on the train and the tram and not all of them with adult covers, either.

Whatever happens, I'll miss Harry after tomorrow, but always be grateful to his creator for making my life as a lover of children's books so much easier!

Further musings on the slushpile and rejections

I'm one who has seen the slushpile from both sides - I have made a number of sales, books, short stories, articles, though I have received enough rejection slips to wallpaper the smallest room in my house, and I have also done slush reading for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Once, I was called on to do a reader's report for a book proposal. The writer concerned was a personal friend. The publisher wanted to publish it if they could, but had problems with it. However, they wished to be fair. As it happened, I felt that there was nothing wrong with it that a bit of chopping and changing wouldn't fix, about two hours' work. I said so, the publisher agreed and the book was duly published. Just as well - I would have hated to have found it unpublishable!

As a member of the ASIM list, I have found a bunch of people who feel terribly guilty every time they have to turn down a piece and have long, long discussions about what we should and shouldn't be considering in our reading. But with about 8200 submissions over the years, we just haven't been able to take everything, not even everything publishable.

Most submitters understand this and appreciate receiving comments, even when they hurt a bit. Occasionally we get someone who is so angry that we have called their baby ugly that they complain about it on their blogs. One, recently, referred to ASIM as "an amateur" publication in Australia - sorry, semi-pro, which means that everyone gets paid for their work except us - and us as "those clowns" because his (already much-rejected) masterpiece had been rejected again and he hadn't liked the comments and - shock, horror! - had been kept waiting for a couple of months. I admit that we rarely keep anyone waiting for longer than a couple of weeks, unless they are in our "slush pool", which means they have some chance, at least, of being published. This was an unusual case, but there was good reason for the delay. In this case, my opinion is that the only amateur was the author. Such unprofessional behaviour is unlikely to get him published by one of the bigger magazines, and if he does succeeed, it will probably be once only, after which his behaviour will get the hard-working publishers offside.

My experience with rejections has been varied. In the early days, there was the printed slip. I usually get a personal response these days, though occasionally still a printed slip. Once, I even got a slip, in an envelope, from a publisher to which I had not actually submitted anything! Well, I had, a couple of years previously, but that MS had been returned and I had had a phone call from the head honcho, who explained that they didn't publish that kind of fantasy, but that she had liked it very much and did I have anything else to submit? I was very flattered! She had CALLED me! No doubt, there are some folk out there who would have been upset by it. Anyway, when I got the puzzling slip two years later, I wrote to ask what it was they were rejecting, and received no reply. To this day, I don't even know who sent it.

Once, I got a printed slip from a publisher which had published two of my books - now, that did hurt, but I am prepared to believe that there had been a mix-up somewhere along the track as I had handed the MS to the publisher in person. She must have dropped it on the slushpile, from which it was given to a reader, or lay around the office, and some publishing assistant who was new to the company sent it back without comment. In any case, I didn't take it too personally and that company has since published another of my books.

It also hurts when the MS is returned after you asked the publisher to dispose of the MS and just send you a yes or no in the supplied envelope and postage. If it's covered in coffee stains, at least they probably read it, but you can't re-submit it anyway, so why return it if they have been asked not to do so? It hurts when you do your calculations and figure out that it was sent back the day they received it. I don't try any of the tricks people do to see if something was read - publishers are on to the hairs and such. I just check the postage date.

My usual reaction to rejections is to mutter, "Stuff you!" and submit it elsewhere - immediately! That way, I can hope again.

In the end, I don't take it personally. I may not agree with their decision, but I just get on with it and I smile at the publisher if I meet her at some event, and talk about other things. (One lady felt so guilty about turning down my MS, twice, that she avoided me at such events for some time, until the company accepted my next MS, then it was all smiles ... poor woman!) You just can't afford to take it personally. If they send you comments, you have to be flattered - they liked it enough to tell you why. When the company gets several thousand MSS a year and yours is probably the latest of a huge pile that this particular editor had to look at in a few days, you just have to be pleased if they took that trouble. If you don't want to be hurt, there's no point in submitting. Self-publish or leave it in your bottom drawer.

Bjo Trimble once said you should cherish your rejection slips, because they prove you're a writer. Only writers get rejection slips. By that definition, I am many times a writer ...

By the way, on an unconnected topic, I would like to thank the person who took the trouble to say something nice about my last published story. Unable to find my e-mail address, he/she sent it to this blog as a comment. (The reviews of that story have varied between the glowing and the utterly negative ... can't please everyone, eh?)

Collected Works Bookshop - 84 Charing Cross Rd in Melbourne

I have just added a link to the new web site/blog of the Collected Works Poetry and Ideas Bookshop. It's located in Melbourne in the Nicholas Building, on the corner of Swanston Street and Flinders Lane. You go in through the Cathedral Arcade and walk up some steps to the first floor, which is shared between the bookshop and the Victorian Writers' centre. A lot of writers and artists have rooms in the building, on the upper floors. There are two old-fashioned lifts with those double doors you have to close by hand before they will go up.

If you loved the book 84 Charing Cross Road, this is the closest you'll get to that kind of bookshop in the middle of Melbourne. It's the sort of place where you can go and ask for a prose translation of the Iliad and be asked which version you'd like, they have two. I never know what I will walk away with, though I do have my favourite corner, which features the Inklings books and books about them, as well as mediaeval literature and books about it, nineteenth century books, both the well-known ones and some lesser-known books by well-known writers. Who would have thought Edith Nesbit wrote suspense fiction? Or, for that matter, Rudyard Kipling?

I have also bought a copy of Alice B Toklas's cookbook there, a history of drinks in England, some children's classics, poetry... whatever I was in the mood for at the time.

It's run by the personable Kris Hemensley (a poet) and his wife Loretta, a teacher, who have Bloomsday celebrations each year. complete with drinks and homemade Irish soda bread.

There are so many chain bookshops around these days - and,yes, they serve a purpose and I do go to them - but it's nice to find a shop of the old-fashioned kind, a small business, right in the middle of Melbourne.

Go and take a look if you're in town, but be warned - you will almost certainly go out with books under your arm, they're just too good to resist.

Nullus Anxietas - Australia's first Discworld Con

This is my report of a con held at the Carlton
Crest Hotel, Melbourne, February 2007.

I hadn't planned to go. It was almost the last minute when, on an
impulse, I sent in my money. My friend and fellow Andromeda Spaceways
co-op member, Lucy Zinkiewicz, was on the committee and asked if I
wouldn't like to do a panel. As it happened, the panel I volunteered
for didn't run, but I was invited, instead, to do a public reading of
Terry Pratchett's picture book, Where's My Cow? It sounded like fun
and I agreed.

Alas, I had to miss the con's beginning on Friday; I have to
work that day, and you don't get flex time in the school system, plus
I have a standing commitment to go to my parents' place on Friday
nights. But there was plenty of good stuff left for the Saturday and
Sunday, including the con banquet. I hadn't been able to get a ticket
to that, but they'd put me on the waiting list and in the final week
before the con, they told me someone had dropped out and I could go.

I arranged to meet my friend Jasna, a fellow teacher, on the Saturday
morning. Jasna is a passionate Terry Pratchett fan – and a media fan
who has, in the past, attended cons, worn costume and even read media
fanzines. She hadn't been in years and, though she could only afford
to go on the Saturday, was very much looking forward to it.

Jasna was a little late that morning, but while I waited, I looked
around. The huckster's area was in the main foyer, consisting only of
a couple of club tables and a major spread of Pratchett books by
Dymock's book store. In every other respect, it felt like a good
old-fashioned con of the kind I remember from when I got into fandom.
The "fan lounge" was an area where people sat playing Thud, a game
based on Pratchett's novel of the same title. In his GoH speech,
later, Terry said he was lost in admiration at what fans could do – he
had just made up the game for the book and here were people actually
playing it! A bit like three-dimensional chess, I suppose, for those
of you who are old enough to remember the early Trek episodes and how
people were making 3-D chessboards and working out how to play the
game that way.

People were wandering around in hall costumes, something I haven't
seen at a con in years. The beauty of Discworld is that you can really
put on just about any historical costume and it will work, because
Ankh-Morpork, in which many of the stories are set, is a mish-mash,
with suggestions of the Elizabethan era, but often Victorian or late
seventeenth century – and, of course, you can always come in black,
with a pointy hat, and be a witch. Some of the best costumes turned up
that evening, at the banquet, but even during the day there were
people doing terrific things. One "Granny Weatherwax" not only dressed
up, but stayed in character throughout the con. There was a delightful
"Death of Rats", who won a prize at the end of the con.

Jasna turned up and, after coffee, we went off to choose our first
event of the convention. There were a lot of things going on, but we
went to see a performance of Mort, based on one of Pratchett's novels.
A man called Stephen Briggs has been adapting a number of the novels
as plays and, furthermore, adapting them especially to be performed by
amateurs, though I do remember hearing that there was a professional
production of Guards! Guards! in which the lead role of Sam Vimes was
played by our own beloved Paul Darrow, who was well and truly old
enough to play the role by that time. He hasn't aged gracefully, but
in the photo I saw he looked pretty good in his Elizabethan doublet
and tights.

Mort was performed by a group of students from Melbourne University,
who have been doing the plays for some time and one of the cast turned
out to be the daughter of a former colleague of mine, so that was
nice. It was very well done. Jasna and I had to sit on the floor,
because we got in late and all the seats were taken, but nobody
minded.

There were a few panels during the day, and Terry Pratchett gave his
GoH speech, in which we heard about the film of his novel Hogfather.
It's a telemovie, which, alas, hasn't been shown here yet. Terry was
very pleased with it, and had played a cameo role, of which there are
pictures on the Net. There was a good cast, including David Warner and
Tony Robinson. And there were thousands of plastic teeth, for the
scene at the Tooth Fairy's castle. He'd brought a large bag with him
to Australia, much to the bemusement of the customs inspectors, and he
wasn't taking them home! I managed to get a few, though I'm not sure
yet what I'll do with them – earrings, perhaps.

I stood with Jasna in the autograph queue, though I wasn't getting
anything signed, because I have quite a few of his books autographed
already and wanted to let others have a go. The queue was good-natured
and chatty, and it was an enjoyable three-quarters of an hour when,
hopefully, Mr Pratchett didn't get RSI.

At six o'clock, I got up to read Where's My Cow? This is based on a
book which Sam Vimes has to read every night, at precisely six, to his
little boy, and is a lot of fun. The idea is to read it to the
audience and get them to make the animal noises as you go. The whole
thing took only a few minutes, so we spent the rest of the half hour
making animal noises and guessing what they were.

The banquet started late-ish, but it gave everyone a chance to see
some of the clever costumes people had made. I wasn't in costume, but
was wearing something formal, and one of the band members kindly let
me put my tote bag under the stage, so I could wander around freely
and not look silly. The band was very good, though it seemed quite an
expense for a fan-organised con.

The really exciting thing happened later that night, after the
banquet, when Terry did a reading from his as yet unpublished novel.
The man was amazing – he read for nearly two hours, non-stop, and only
ended then because his laptop computer's batteries ran out. So now I
know what's happening next in the Discworld.

The hotel wasn't too far from my home by car and I got a lift from a friend.

Sunday was a little quieter, but there was still plenty to enjoy. I
ordered a T-shirt, which I have recently received – black, with "Ook!"
on the front (the cry of the Librarian at Unseen University – I mean
to wear it to work…).

I was sad to say goodbye at the end of the day, but with luck there
may be another con next year, when Terry Pratchett will be touring
Australia again, to promote a book. He suggested to the con committee
that they make it then, if they could, and save themselves the expense
of bringing him out. Nice man! And it was very nice to attend a con
that was so much like the ones I remember from my early days in
fandom. Only the art show was missing, but few cons have those
nowadays.

The Last Days - review

Although this book is new in Australia, where the author spends part of every year, it has appeared in the US already, in 2006. I thought it well worth commenting on. Here's my review.

THE LAST DAYS By Scott Westerfeld

Scott Westerfeld is a prolific - and versatile - writer for teens. His characters are believable teenagers in situations that are often bizarre. His novels begin with lines that pull the reader in. I won’t quote the opening of this one, but it’s no exception.

This novel is a sequel to Peeps. The main characters are new, but it’s set in the same universe and the protagonists from the previous book appear towards the end. While you can more or less pick up what’s going on in this one without having read Peeps, it’s probably a good idea to have read that novel first. It saves time and means you can pick up clues that the novel’s characters can’t.

In Peeps, we met Cal, a nice young man from Texas who had lost his virginity to a woman he met in a New York bar one night. He discovered, soon afterwards, that he’d caught something a lot nastier than a venereal disease - and he’d spread it. Joining a mysterious organisation called the Night Watch, he tried to make things right.

Vampirism, in Westerfeld’s universe, is not about being undead, but about being infected by a parasite. Vampires don’t need to bite you to make you one of them, though they might eat you if they think you’re pretty enough. A kiss will do it, or even a cat breathing on you while you sleep. If you’re lucky, like Cal, the hero of Peeps, you might be a carrier, rather than a victim. If you’re not lucky, you find yourself hating things you used to love, running away from it all to live in holes and tunnels, with rats for company and possibly having a taste for human flesh. It’s controllable; the vampire members of the Night Watch, known as angels, go “vampire hunting” with the aim of catching and treating other victims. Vampires are always hungry and usually horny, because the parasite needs feeding and wants to spread. In exchange, the vampire gets unusual speed and strength and centuries of life, just like the traditional kind. And they’re here for a reason. They’re the only ones strong enough to fight something much worse...

In The Last Days, five teenagers form a rock band in a New York which is being gradually abandoned. Parts of the city are overflowing with rubbish and rats, because the rubbish collectors will no longer go there. The lead singer is a vampire girl whose parents have tried to keep her illness under control. The drummer is a girl with some psychic abilities. There are two boys and a rich girl who doesn’t understand, yet, why all her friends from music school are leaving the city.

As they come to realise the truth, they also find that their music has the power to help save the world - at huge risk to themselves.

This is one helluva rip-roaring thriller. It’s also closer to SF than horror. Westerfeld takes a lot of trouble to explain how it might work, and very convincing it is, too.

Well worth a read.

Latest reviews - Anna Ciddor, Simon Haynes

This review was written before Livre Hachette closed down the Quentaris series. I thought I’d sent it to January Magazine, but as it has never appeared, I assume I didn’t and it’s now too late to send it, so it will appear here instead. Fans of the series will be pleased to know that there will be two more books before the series is officially closed down, and the existing books should still be available in the shops. I do recommend them.

PRISONER OF QUENTARIS By Anna Ciddor. Lothian, 2006.

In the 1970s, a series of fantasy stories were published centred around a place called Sanctuary, in a series known as Thieves’ World. The difference between Thieves’ World and other series fiction was that it was a shared universe. There was a set-up - a world, a certain number of characters, rules about what could and couldn’t happen. It was edited by Robert Lynn Asprin and several well-known writers, including Marion Zimmer Bradley, wrote stories set in this universe. The concept of shared worlds is, of course, well-known to science fiction fan writers, who write their amateur tales set in other people’s universes, but this was deliberate, and written by professionals, who shared characters and events.

During the last few years, Australian children’s/YA writers Paul Collins and Michael Pryor have created a sort of Thieves’ World for children, centred around a city called Quentaris, which is meant to be equivalent to Renaissance Italy in culture and technology (though at times it bears a certain resemblance to Terry Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpork). Quentaris is next to a set of caves known as the Rift Caves, which open on to other worlds, cleverly making it possible to send young Quentaran heroes and heroines out on adventures or bring adventure - often invasion - to Quentaris. Each novel in the series has been written by a well-known Australian fantasy/YA novelist, including Lucy Sussex, Jenny Pausacker, Sean McMullen, Isobelle Carmody, Gary Crew, Margo Lanagan and, of course, several by the series editors themselves. They have ranged from very funny to terribly serious and, between them, the authors have built up the universe and shared the characters they have created. The Commander of the City Watch is a Xena-like woman called Storm. The city is run by a fussy little man who is not as silly as he looks, though not as smart as Ankh-Morpork’s Patrician. There is strong rivalry between the city’s two patrician families, who have the familiar-sounding names of Duelph and Nhibelline.

The entire series is great fun and the book covers feature gorgeous art by Australia’s top cover artists. It introduces children to fantasy without patronising them. Best of all, the books are stand-alone and don’t have to be read in any particular order.

Anna Ciddor’s Prisoner of Quentaris is the most recent book in the series. Those children who have read and enjoyed her Viking Magic trilogy and expect her work to be funny won’t be disappointed. Who else but Anna Ciddor would decide that the latest invasion of Quentaris should be, not by monsters or sky pirates but by leprechauns?

The whole problem begins with the apprentice bard, Heaney, who stumbles into Quentaris by accident and, returning to report his visit to a land of giants, is ordered to bring something home to prove it. He makes an unexpected ally in Quentaran child Seb, whose older brother runs a market stall and wants to trade for the leprechauns’ cute little artefacts. When the leprechaun king wants to have a look for himself, he is captured by Lord Chalm, the Archon, who isn’t going to be dictated to by this bunch of rabbit-riding beings, waving their tiny swords at him, thank you very much. The leprechauns will have to find some other way than direct attack. Their various attempts to free their king make for a hilarious romp - and yes, they do succeed in the end, in a way that might not have been expected, although if you know your legend, or even if you have been reading the Harry Potter series, you will know why it’s not a good idea to accept gold from leprechauns.

An interesting feature of these leprechauns is that, far from being green-dressed little men wearing buckled shoes and hats, saying things like, “Top o’the mornin’ to ye!” they’re a miniature version of early Irish society, including court champions who argue over the “hero’s portion” of the roast (though a leprechaun roast is likely to be a mouse rather than a boar or deer.). They have families and jobs and a human lifestyle.

This is a delightful addition to the series. Children love series fiction and there are, so far, nearly two dozen in this one. They are not only a good introduction to fantasy, but a good introduction to the authors, if the young readers haven’t discovered them yet. They should appeal to children from late primary school to early secondary and to older reluctant readers.


HAL SPACEJOCK #3: JUST DESSERTS By Simon Haynes Fremantle Press, 2007.


This is the third in what is likely to be a long-lasting series. At least, the author says at the front of the book that there will be about fifteen, or until someone takes away his keyboard.

In the first novel, we met Hal Spacejock, the utterly incompetent, luckless interstellar truck driver. Hal’s spaceship was held together by chewing gum and rubber bands. By the end of the novel, he’d acquired a much better ship, the Volante (meaning “stolen”?), courtesy of the villains. Well, they didn’t need it any more. He had also acquired a robot companion, Clunk, who was, fortunately, a lot brighter than Hal, unless you count his willingness to stick by Hal.

The universe of this series features no super-villains in breath-masks, no Dark Lords trying to take over the universe or Imperial Storm Troopers, only multimillionaires trying to become even wealthier and the thugs they employ to help them in their plans to rip off everyone. People are still people and just as likely to be fooled. All Hal wants, in this book, is a cup of coffee and a sweet snack, but it’s not to be.

This time, the evil plot extends beyond scheming businessmen to planetary trade. There’s a beautiful woman who is actually a robot. She has a mission, but doesn’t know what it is. She does have a large budget to offer Hal to transport a certain cargo, but the Volante, still a good ship, needs replacement parts which aren’t available locally. Hal and Clunk have to take a job on a space liner to get where they can buy the parts. When they return to find the Volante missing, they’re stuck with another chewing-gum and rubber-band ship with which to pursue the thief and - quite accidentally - save the day, while causing the usual mayhem. Think “A Night At The Opera” or any other Marx Brothers movie.

At times, I wondered if the author was throwing in unnecessary scenes just to add to the humour, but somehow all loose ends were tied by the end. The female robot was actually a sympathetic character who didn’t, in my opinion, deserve what happened to her. Oh, well.

The book is pretty much stand-alone, a separate adventure, but you’ll probably get more out of it if you know who the characters are and how they relate to each other. If you enjoy Golden Age comic space operas, such as Harry Harrison’s, you’ll like this.

Harmony Day at Sunshine College

I usually keep my more general posts for my other blog, but since folk seem to have been finding their way to this one rather than the other, I think I might start off posting here.

This week in Australia we celebrated Harmony Day, March 21st. It's sort of an adaptation of the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Because the school where I work is a United Nations in itself, with sixty nationalities studying there, one of our staff suggested we make a week of it and have a big party/concert on the last day.

The kids had been rehearsing for weeks - Vietnamese girls with Australian accents who are, all the same, studying their language with Anh Le, one of our Vietnamese teachers, who has been doing this sort of thing with students for the last few years, Islander girls and boys, who worked out their own routine and used the library reading room because they had to have a teacher "supervising" them (I let them get on with it, but I was there) and African girls, most of them my students, who also had their own routine worked out. The Vietnamese girls helped Anh prepare a lunch, and staff also brought their traditional foods - alas, I hadn't the energy or time, but there was food in plenty, a real feast. I promised one of the African language aides my mother's honey cake recipe in exchange for the recipe for Sudanese-style porridge.Staff and students alike were encourage to come in national dress. I, alas, have none to wear, unless it's a t shirt, shorts and a tembel hat, but I would NOT look good in shorts at this point in my life... However, my African students came looking like exotic, jewelled birds, even one of the boys who can be a bit of a pain, looking great in a red kaftan. Arok, one of the Dinka aides, looked quite spectacular in an embroidered lavender robe and hat, as did Margaret the other in her African clothes. I overheard an Anglo girl sighing to a Vietnamese student that she wished *she* had a culture. I tried pointing out to her that England does have a culture and that Tolkien practically wrote a love letter to it, via the Shire. I must work on her some more.

In the library, we have an ancient, but working, video camera. I really should have asked for a tripod, but I hauled it up on to my shoulder, after some of my students helped me work out how to set the thing up, and recorded.

And wasn't it wonderful! The Vietnamese girls, who had been rehearsing a dance and a song (that awful Disney song, "It's A Small World After All"), opted for a sort of fashion parade in which they glided gracefully down the library in Vietnamese dress, carrying parasols and fans. They all looked utterly gorgeous and I was startled when it was announced by one of the guest speakers that there would be a "Miss Harmony" title, voted on by the students. There were no hard feelings among the girls, but I still think there was nothing to choose among them.

The African girls did their routine, firstly the four who are in my Year 7 class, all of them delightful young women (one of them is the younger sister of Amani, who made me laugh so much last year, but is much gentler, another the sister of Gum, whom I taught last year - she and her other brother both share Gum's sense of humour and are very likable.). Other girls joined them, Year 9 girls, and Winnie, who is quite large, made me realise why large women are valued in some countries. She shook her backside at the audience like a belly-dancer shakes her hips and with just as much control. I caught it all on video!

The Islander students were amazing. The girls danced their gentle, swaying hula, while the boys sat in the front, pounding their hands in rhythm, waving arms and rowing invisible canoes, colour fully dressed in sarongs. Somehow it all fitted together. I knew most of the students personally and believe me, some of them - a minority, true - are right royal pains, but you could forgive everything in those few moments. One of the boys, in particular, may be a pain, but he walks as if he's dancing, at all times, and is passionate about dance of the macho, strutting type. We actually had a laugh together, the other day, about family members who *will* play Sound of Music over and over...

New Kate Constable and Catherine Jinks books - rejoice!

As it will be a while before these appear on January Magazine, I am going to park them here for the time being. Kate Constable and Catherine Jinks are top Australian writers who deserve wide exposure. Both of them are getting it, with overseas editions of their books, but hey, another review won't hurt!

THE TASTE OF LIGHTNING By Kate Constable. Published by Allen and Unwin, 2007.

Kate Constable’s “Chanters of Tremaris” trilogy presented a well-realised universe in which magic was divided into individual types - fire, ice, earth, animals and such, all of which was sung, or, rather, chanted, and only the heroine, Calwyn, the “Singer of All Songs”, could practise more than one kind. There were a lot of countries which she didn’t actually visit in the course of the series, but which the reader might well have wished to see.

In The Taste of Lightning, we get our wish. We are back in the world of Tremaris, about twenty years after the events of The Tenth Power, the last story in the original trilogy, and in a different part of the world. Here, magic - or chantment, as it is known on Tremaris - is not actually practised, although a woman called Wanion, known as the Witch-Woman is terrifying everyone by making them believe she can practise sympathetic magic. She can’t, but she knows something which will enable her to control those who can do magic if allowed to continue. She has her own, very good, reasons for wanting to have control over Skir, the young Priest-King of Cragonlands.

Skir, a laundry-maid called Tansy and Perrin, a soldier, flee together, with a number of pursuers after them. Skir is a sort of lama, of the kind who’s been recognised as someone’s reincarnation and taken to a temple to rule the faithful of that particular religion. The trouble is, the Priest-King is supposed to be able to practise ironcraft magic and he just can’t. He has been held as a hostage by Baltimar, the country at war with his own, but now his life is in danger, not only from the country holding him hostage but from a country called Rengan, which has its own agenda and reasons for wanting him dead. As a baby, Skir was hit by lightning and survived. This is significant, but we don’t find out why until nearly the end, when Skir learns who he actually is. When he gets home to the temple, he is not as welcome as he might have thought he would be, and he also discovers - eventually - why he can’t practise ironcraft in spite of all his efforts, and it isn’t only to do with himself.

As in the original trilogy, the main characters are likeable, the females are strong and Tremaris is still a believable world. There are ordinary soldiers rather than fantasy-universe warriors, and like soldiers everywhere they swear, though Constable has created her own swear-word, frug; she allows her readers to work out what that probably means, as in Red Dwarf’s swear-word smeg. If you have read the “Chanters of Tremaris” series you will be pleased to realise that one of the characters in this one was a main character in the original trilogy, though now an adult, many years older. You also find out what happened after Calwyn’s success, and it’s something that might have been predicted if the reader had thought about it, and not necessarily “happily ever after”.

There is plenty more that can happen in this world. The story doesn’t end on a clffhanger, but there are still plenty of things we don’t know at the end of it, and there is a strong possibility that there will be more novels to answer the questions raised at the end of this one.

Those who have read the orignal trilogy will fall comfortably back into this universe. If you haven’t read it, you should still enjoy this but why not go back and find out how it all started?

As with “Chanters of Tremaris”, The Taste Of Lightning should appeal to fans of Tamora Pierce.

ELYSIUM By Catherine Jinks. Published by Allen and Unwin, 2007

This is part of the “Allie’s Ghost Hunters” series, one of which, Eglantine, I have read and reviewed. Eglantine was an enjoyable children’s ghost story, in which the heroine and her friends played detectives, using their research skills and the school library to work out why a child ghost was haunting a room and how to lay it to rest.

In this story, Allie Gebhardt, President of the Exorcists’ Club, travels with her mother and brother and her mother’s boyfriend to stay at a hotel near the famous Jenolan Caves in New South Wales’ Blue Mountains, where she is going on a Ghost Tour at Caves House, a haunted hotel. The novel is written as a report to those other members of the club who can’t make it on the tour.

While there, she offers advice on someone’s dreams about a dead grandmother and encounters - sort of - a creature from local Aboriginal myth which is supposed to capture its prey by making it faint from the awful smell. Without question, there is something very smelly around the place, and somebody is going to end up covered in disgusting goo!

At the same time, she has to deal with family issues, such as her father’s utterly ridiculous New Age girlfriend, her friend Michelle’s family troubles and others.

There’s a lot of humour in this story and it’s written in Catherine Jinks’s usual entertaining style. What is doesn’t actually seem to be is a ghost story, or even a monster tale, or the “Paranormal Adventure” on the cover. If it was a stand-alone story, or promoted as just a light-hearted tale about family issues with a little monster and ghost stuff in the background, this would be fine.

In fact, it can be read more or less stand-alone, though the cover and internal references make it clear that this is one of four novels so far.

But a child who has read the other three, or even the cover blurb on the back of this one, would assume they were going to read something at least a little scary, and it’s not remotely scary. No ghosts appear, nobody is ever in any real danger from the Otherworld and while Allie gives advice about laying to rest the ghost of the grandmother of one of the characters, the ghost doesn’t actually appear on stage. No ghost appears, actually. One supposed haunting turns out to be a joke played by one of the less-sympathetic characters. The Mumuga - the dung-smelling creature - does nothing worse than make the ridiculous girlfriend smell awful. That’s assuming it is the creature that is responsible. The author never commits herself about this.

I quite enjoyed it, myself, but I suspect children expecting a ghost story will be disappointed.

It’s a pity. Catherine Jinks is a fine, versatile writer who has created everything from historical fiction in the Pagan series to science fiction, from children’s fiction such as the “Allie’s Ghost Hunters” series to adult fiction. This one is entertaining as always, but just doesn’t quite work as the kind of story it is supposed to be.

New Kate Constable and Catherine Jinks books - rejoice!

As it will be a while before these appear on January Magazine, I am going to park them here for the time being. Kate Constable and Catherine Jinks are top Australian writers who deserve wide exposure. Both of them are getting it, with overseas editions of their books, but hey, another review won't hurt!

THE TASTE OF LIGHTNING By Kate Constable. Published by Allen and Unwin, 2007. *This review has now been published at January Magazine, sooner than I expected, so go and have a look at it there. I will be removing this one from here shortly, as soon as i have sorted out a couple of things. I'll leave the Catherine Jinks review for the present.*

Kate Constable’s “Chanters of Tremaris” trilogy presented a well-realised universe in which magic was divided into individual types - fire, ice, earth, animals and such, all of which was sung, or, rather, chanted, and only the heroine, Calwyn, the “Singer of All Songs”, could practise more than one kind. There were a lot of countries which she didn’t actually visit in the course of the series, but which the reader might well have wished to see.

In The Taste of Lightning, we get our wish. We are back in the world of Tremaris, about twenty years after the events of The Tenth Power, the last story in the original trilogy, and in a different part of the world. Here, magic - or chantment, as it is known on Tremaris - is not actually practised, although a woman called Wanion, known as the Witch-Woman is terrifying everyone by making them believe she can practise sympathetic magic. She can’t, but she knows something which will enable her to control those who can do magic if allowed to continue. She has her own, very good, reasons for wanting to have control over Skir, the young Priest-King of Cragonlands.

Skir, a laundry-maid called Tansy and Perrin, a soldier, flee together, with a number of pursuers after them. Skir is a sort of lama, of the kind who’s been recognised as someone’s reincarnation and taken to a temple to rule the faithful of that particular religion. The trouble is, the Priest-King is supposed to be able to practise ironcraft magic and he just can’t. He has been held as a hostage by Baltimar, the country at war with his own, but now his life is in danger, not only from the country holding him hostage but from a country called Rengan, which has its own agenda and reasons for wanting him dead. As a baby, Skir was hit by lightning and survived. This is significant, but we don’t find out why until nearly the end, when Skir learns who he actually is. When he gets home to the temple, he is not as welcome as he might have thought he would be, and he also discovers - eventually - why he can’t practise ironcraft in spite of all his efforts, and it isn’t only to do with himself.

As in the original trilogy, the main characters are likeable, the females are strong and Tremaris is still a believable world. There are ordinary soldiers rather than fantasy-universe warriors, and like soldiers everywhere they swear, though Constable has created her own swear-word, frug; she allows her readers to work out what that probably means, as in Red Dwarf’s swear-word smeg. If you have read the “Chanters of Tremaris” series you will be pleased to realise that one of the characters in this one was a main character in the original trilogy, though now an adult, many years older. You also find out what happened after Calwyn’s success, and it’s something that might have been predicted if the reader had thought about it, and not necessarily “happily ever after”.

There is plenty more that can happen in this world. The story doesn’t end on a clffhanger, but there are still plenty of things we don’t know at the end of it, and there is a strong possibility that there will be more novels to answer the questions raised at the end of this one.

Those who have read the orignal trilogy will fall comfortably back into this universe. If you haven’t read it, you should still enjoy this but why not go back and find out how it all started?

As with “Chanters of Tremaris”, The Taste Of Lightning should appeal to fans of Tamora Pierce.

ELYSIUM By Catherine Jinks. Published by Allen and Unwin, 2007

This is part of the “Allie’s Ghost Hunters” series, one of which, Eglantine, I have read and reviewed. Eglantine was an enjoyable children’s ghost story, in which the heroine and her friends played detectives, using their research skills and the school library to work out why a child ghost was haunting a room and how to lay it to rest.

In this story, Allie Gebhardt, President of the Exorcists’ Club, travels with her mother and brother and her mother’s boyfriend to stay at a hotel near the famous Jenolan Caves in New South Wales’ Blue Mountains, where she is going on a Ghost Tour at Caves House, a haunted hotel. The novel is written as a report to those other members of the club who can’t make it on the tour.

While there, she offers advice on someone’s dreams about a dead grandmother and encounters - sort of - a creature from local Aboriginal myth which is supposed to capture its prey by making it faint from the awful smell. Without question, there is something very smelly around the place, and somebody is going to end up covered in disgusting goo!

At the same time, she has to deal with family issues, such as her father’s utterly ridiculous New Age girlfriend, her friend Michelle’s family troubles and others.

There’s a lot of humour in this story and it’s written in Catherine Jinks’s usual entertaining style. What is doesn’t actually seem to be is a ghost story, or even a monster tale, or the “Paranormal Adventure” on the cover. If it was a stand-alone story, or promoted as just a light-hearted tale about family issues with a little monster and ghost stuff in the background, this would be fine.

In fact, it can be read more or less stand-alone, though the cover and internal references make it clear that this is one of four novels so far.

But a child who has read the other three, or even the cover blurb on the back of this one, would assume they were going to read something at least a little scary, and it’s not remotely scary. No ghosts appear, nobody is ever in any real danger from the Otherworld and while Allie gives advice about laying to rest the ghost of the grandmother of one of the characters, the ghost doesn’t actually appear on stage. No ghost appears, actually. One supposed haunting turns out to be a joke played by one of the less-sympathetic characters. The Mumuga - the dung-smelling creature - does nothing worse than make the ridiculous girlfriend smell awful. That’s assuming it is the creature that is responsible. The author never commits herself about this.

I quite enjoyed it, myself, but I suspect children expecting a ghost story will be disappointed.

It’s a pity. Catherine Jinks is a fine, versatile writer who has created everything from historical fiction in the Pagan series to science fiction, from children’s fiction such as the “Allie’s Ghost Hunters” series to adult fiction. This one is entertaining as always, but just doesn’t quite work as the kind of story it is supposed to be.

New Kate Constable and Catherine Jinks books - rejoice!

As it will be a while before these appear on January Magazine, I am going to park them here for the time being. Kate Constable and Catherine Jinks are top Australian writers who deserve wide exposure. Both of them are getting it, with overseas editions of their books, but hey, another review won't hurt!

THE TASTE OF LIGHTNING By Kate Constable. Published by Allen and Unwin, 2007.

Kate Constable’s “Chanters of Tremaris” trilogy presented a well-realised universe in which magic was divided into individual types - fire, ice, earth, animals and such, all of which was sung, or, rather, chanted, and only the heroine, Calwyn, the “Singer of All Songs”, could practise more than one kind. There were a lot of countries which she didn’t actually visit in the course of the series, but which the reader might well have wished to see.

In The Taste of Lightning, we get our wish. We are back in the world of Tremaris, about twenty years after the events of The Tenth Power, the last story in the original trilogy, and in a different part of the world. Here, magic - or chantment, as it is known on Tremaris - is not actually practised, although a woman called Wanion, known as the Witch-Woman is terrifying everyone by making them believe she can practise sympathetic magic. She can’t, but she knows something which will enable her to control those who can do magic if allowed to continue. She has her own, very good, reasons for wanting to have control over Skir, the young Priest-King of Cragonlands.

Skir, a laundry-maid called Tansy and Perrin, a soldier, flee together, with a number of pursuers after them. Skir is a sort of lama, of the kind who’s been recognised as someone’s reincarnation and taken to a temple to rule the faithful of that particular religion. The trouble is, the Priest-King is supposed to be able to practise ironcraft magic and he just can’t. He has been held as a hostage by Baltimar, the country at war with his own, but now his life is in danger, not only from the country holding him hostage but from a country called Rengan, which has its own agenda and reasons for wanting him dead. As a baby, Skir was hit by lightning and survived. This is significant, but we don’t find out why until nearly the end, when Skir learns who he actually is. When he gets home to the temple, he is not as welcome as he might have thought he would be, and he also discovers - eventually - why he can’t practise ironcraft in spite of all his efforts, and it isn’t only to do with himself.

As in the original trilogy, the main characters are likeable, the females are strong and Tremaris is still a believable world. There are ordinary soldiers rather than fantasy-universe warriors, and like soldiers everywhere they swear, though Constable has created her own swear-word, frug; she allows her readers to work out what that probably means, as in Red Dwarf’s swear-word smeg. If you have read the “Chanters of Tremaris” series you will be pleased to realise that one of the characters in this one was a main character in the original trilogy, though now an adult, many years older. You also find out what happened after Calwyn’s success, and it’s something that might have been predicted if the reader had thought about it, and not necessarily “happily ever after”.

There is plenty more that can happen in this world. The story doesn’t end on a clffhanger, but there are still plenty of things we don’t know at the end of it, and there is a strong possibility that there will be more novels to answer the questions raised at the end of this one.

Those who have read the orignal trilogy will fall comfortably back into this universe. If you haven’t read it, you should still enjoy this but why not go back and find out how it all started?

As with “Chanters of Tremaris”, The Taste Of Lightning should appeal to fans of Tamora Pierce.

ELYSIUM By Catherine Jinks. Published by Allen and Unwin, 2007

This is part of the “Allie’s Ghost Hunters” series, one of which, Eglantine, I have read and reviewed. Eglantine was an enjoyable children’s ghost story, in which the heroine and her friends played detectives, using their research skills and the school library to work out why a child ghost was haunting a room and how to lay it to rest.

In this story, Allie Gebhardt, President of the Exorcists’ Club, travels with her mother and brother and her mother’s boyfriend to stay at a hotel near the famous Jenolan Caves in New South Wales’ Blue Mountains, where she is going on a Ghost Tour at Caves House, a haunted hotel. The novel is written as a report to those other members of the club who can’t make it on the tour.

While there, she offers advice on someone’s dreams about a dead grandmother and encounters - sort of - a creature from local Aboriginal myth which is supposed to capture its prey by making it faint from the awful smell. Without question, there is something very smelly around the place, and somebody is going to end up covered in disgusting goo!

At the same time, she has to deal with family issues, such as her father’s utterly ridiculous New Age girlfriend, her friend Michelle’s family troubles and others.

There’s a lot of humour in this story and it’s written in Catherine Jinks’s usual entertaining style. What is doesn’t actually seem to be is a ghost story, or even a monster tale, or the “Paranormal Adventure” on the cover. If it was a stand-alone story, or promoted as just a light-hearted tale about family issues with a little monster and ghost stuff in the background, this would be fine.

In fact, it can be read more or less stand-alone, though the cover and internal references make it clear that this is one of four novels so far.

But a child who has read the other three, or even the cover blurb on the back of this one, would assume they were going to read something at least a little scary, and it’s not remotely scary. No ghosts appear, nobody is ever in any real danger from the Otherworld and while Allie gives advice about laying to rest the ghost of the grandmother of one of the characters, the ghost doesn’t actually appear on stage. No ghost appears, actually. One supposed haunting turns out to be a joke played by one of the less-sympathetic characters. The Mumuga - the dung-smelling creature - does nothing worse than make the ridiculous girlfriend smell awful. That’s assuming it is the creature that is responsible. The author never commits herself about this.

I quite enjoyed it, myself, but I suspect children expecting a ghost story will be disappointed.

It’s a pity. Catherine Jinks is a fine, versatile writer who has created everything from historical fiction in the Pagan series to science fiction, from children’s fiction such as the “Allie’s Ghost Hunters” series to adult fiction. This one is entertaining as always, but just doesn’t quite work as the kind of story it is supposed to be.

It's all Tolkien's fault!

Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien submitted his much-re-written manuscript of Lord of the Rings. He described it as having been written in his heart's blood - and it showed. He'd spent years of his life working on it. It was poetic, passionate, exciting, funny, sad, and had characters you could care about. Because it was so very long, the publishers decided to divide it into three volumes, to be released separately.

Understandable, but this basic publishing decision led, eventually, to what I call The Dreaded Trilogy! (Exclamation mark intended) That is, of course, when it's limited to three volumes. A few months ago, I agreed to be put on a publisher's list for "spec fic", assuming I was going to be sent newly-published SF. So far, I have been sent Volume 13 of one series which I haven't read (well, I did start Volume 1, back when it was going to be a ten-volume saga, and gave up around Page 250) and Volume 7 of another series I haven't read.

Publishers have all gotten the multi-volume bug. Even Star Trek novels, which I used to read, even buy, when such wonderful writers as Diane Duane and Barbara Hambly were writing them, are now trilogies. There's no point in buying a remaindered volume for my school library because you can't read it without having read the others.

I remember once hearing a fantasy novelist at a con saying, "I'm starting my next trilogy next year ..." Automatically, a trilogy. Having been sent Volume 1 of the occasional saga to review, I have noticed that nothing much happens in some of these, because a story that could have been told in one book, perhaps two at most, has been stretched so that it can be sold in three or four or even five volumes. I don't blame the writers, who are only doing what they've been told, perhaps not even the publishers who are, after all, running a business. But I'm blowed if I'm going to read them.

I have always assumed that I'm in a minority - the publishers wouldn't be doing it this way if it didn't sell - but once, at a con, I suggested a panel on the subject "The Dreaded Trilogy", thinking it might attract a couple of dozen people in a small room. It filled up the convention's main room. I was on the panel because it was my idea, the rest of the members were trilogy-writers. I was embarrassed and felt sorry for my fellow panellists, when I realised how hostile the audience was. People were angry at being forced to buy multiple books to read one story.

Not to mention the irritation of being left on a cliffhanger when the author writes two volumes, say, and gets on with other works while you wait years, in vain, for the final volume. This has happened to me before. There was "The Sword and the Dream" trilogy which ended with a cliffhanger in Volume 2. If the third volume has ever hit the bookshops I have never seen it.There was a novel written by a friend of mine, which they made her cut down in length - and then let the first story go out of print and refused to publish the sequel. I believe she has ended up self-publishing it on-line, but it just isn't the same.

And then there's a certain prolific Australian novelist who produced two volumes of her trilogy over about ten years and has yet, at this writing, to come up with Volume 3, because she has been flat out working on other stuff in the mean time.

To be honest, I have rather gone off fantasy, anyway, with a few exceptions - I love urban fantasy, such as written by Charles De Lint, and humorous fantasy. I can read Terry Pratchett's series because, although it helps to have read the others, you can more or less get by starting with nearly any of his Discworld stories. There are series within the series, of course, but there are enough stand-alones that it doesn't matter so much. I like alternative universe, although you can't quite describe that as either fantasy or SF, unless, say, the aliens arrive in a world in which the South won the Civil War, or there are fairies in an Elizabethan England ruled by the Spanish. Mostly, though, since I have concluded that no one can do it as well as Tolkien, fantasy has to be damned impressive to interest me these days. And it will interest me more if it is told, simply, in one stand-alone novel, or a series of stand-alone novels.

I much prefer SF (preferably hard, but with characters you care about, such as the novels of Stephen Baxter) and space opera.

It's such a shame that some writers whose SF I used to love, such as Lois McMaster Bujold, have taken to fantasy, however good - and she does write it well. Multi-volume fantasies. Sorry, Lois. You've lost me.