The Aurealis Awards Shortlist 2017!

So, here are this year’s shortlisted books for the Aurealis Awards! For my non-Australian readers, this is the annual Australian spec fic award. They are judged, not voted - I was a judge a few years ago, a fascinating experience. Our equivalent of the Hugos are the Ditmar Awards and a couple of states have their own awards, the Tin Ducks in Western Australia and the Chronos Awards here in Victoria.  

Congratulations to all those on the list. I admit that I’ve only read the short stories from the LoveOzYA anthology, but I see that Allen and Unwin has republished “Singing My Sister Down” as part of a collection of stories by Margo Lanagan. That one is a classic, but I have to say it’s not a story I could bring myself to read again, not because it’s a bad story - it’s amazing! That’s the whole problem. Too sad for me. It’s the same reason why I am not sure I can read Dan Simmons horror fiction again. He makes you care about his characters and then kills them off! 

But Margo Lanagan is a wonderful writer, so don’t let me put you off. 

I seem there are two short stories from my old stamping ground, Andromeda Spaceways. Best of luck! 

I’ve finally downloaded Gap Year In Ghost Town, which the author has been promoting non stop on Twitter. I just didn’t get around to it till now - anything Michael Pryor writes is likely to be great fun!

Anyway, check out this list and let me know if you’ve read any of them and what you thought. 

BEST CHILDREN’S FICTION

How to Bee, Bren MacDibble (Allen & Unwin)

The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone, Jaclyn Moriarty (Allen & Unwin)

The Shop at Hoopers Bend, Emily Rodda (HarperCollins Australia)

The Exile, Jo Sandhu (Penguin Random House Australia)

Accidental Heroes, Lian Tanner (Allen & Unwin)

Nevermoor, Jessica Townsend (Hachette Australia)

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL / ILLUSTRATED WORK

Action Tank, Mike Barry (Mike Barry Was Here)

Changing Ways book 3, Justin Randall (Gestalt)

Dungzilla, James Foley (Fremantle Press)

Giants, Trolls, Witches, Beasts, Craig Phillips (Allen & Unwin)

Home Time, Campbell Whyte (Penguin Random House Australia)

Tintinnabula, Margo Lanagan & Rovina Cai (ill.) (Little Hare)

BEST YOUNG ADULT SHORT STORY

“One Small Step”, Amie Kaufman (Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, HarperCollins Australia)

“I Can See the Ending”, Will Kostakis (Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, HarperCollins Australia)

“Competition Entry #349”, Jaclyn Moriarty (Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, HarperCollins Australia)

“First Casualty” Michael Pryor (Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, HarperCollins Australia)

Girl Reporter, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Book Smugglers)

“Oona Underground”, Lili Wilkinson (Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, HarperCollins Australia)

BEST HORROR SHORT STORY

“Reef”, Kat Clay (SQ Mag 31, IFWG Publishing Australia)

“Outside, a Drifter”, Lisa L Hannett (Looming Low, Dim Shores)

“Angel Hair”, Deborah Sheldon (Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories, IFWG Publishing Australia)

“The Endless Below”, Alfie Simpson (Breach Issue #02)

“Old Growth”, J Ashley Smith (SQ Mag 31, IFWG Publishing Australia)

“On the Line”, J Ashley Smith (Midnight Echo 12, Australasian Horror Writers Association)

BEST HORROR NOVELLA

The Mailman, Jeremy Bates (Ghillinnein Books)

Hope and Walker, Andrew Cull (Vermillion Press)

“Grind”, Michael Grey (Pacific Monsters, Fox Spirit Books)

“The Stairwell”, Chris Mason (Below The Stairs – Tales from the Cellar, Things In The Well)

“No Good Deed”, Angela Slatter (New Fears 1, Titan Books)

“Furtherest”, Kaaron Warren (Dark Screams Volume 7, Cemetery Dance)

BEST FANTASY SHORT STORY

“Hamelin’s Graves”, Freya Marske (Andromeda Spaceways Magazine #69)

“The Curse is Come Upon Me, Cried”, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Please Look After This Angel & Other Winged Stories, self-published)

“The Little Mermaid, in Passing”, Angela Slatter (Review of Australian Fiction Vol 22 Issue 1)

“Duplicity”, J Ashley Smith (Dimension6 #11)

“The Rainmaker Goddess, Hallowed Shaz”, Marlee Jane Ward (Feminartsy)

“Oona Underground”, Lili Wilkinson (Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, HarperCollins Australia).

BEST FANTASY NOVELLA

The Book Club, Alan Baxter (PS Publishing)

“Remnants”, Nathan Burrage (Dimension6 #11, Coer de Lion)

“The Cunning Woman’s Daughter”, Kate Forsyth & Kim Wilkins (The Silver Well, Ticonderoga Publications)

In Shadows We Fall, Devin Madson (self-published)

“Braid”, Kirstyn McDermott (Review of Australian Fiction Vol 24 Issue 1)

Humanity for Beginners, Faith Mudge (Less Than Three Press)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY

“The Missing Years”, Lyn Battersby (Andromeda Spaceways Magazine #66)

“A Little Faith”, Aiki Flinthart (Like a Woman, Mirren Hogan)

“Cards and Steel Hearts”, Pamela Jeffs (Lawless Lands: Tales from the Weird Frontier, Falstaff Books)

“One Small Step”, Amie Kaufman (Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, HarperCollins Australia)

“Conversations with an Armoury” Garth Nix (Infinity Wars, Solaris)

“Hurk + Dav”, Alfie Simpson (Breach Issue #01)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVELLA

“This Silent Sea”, Stephanie Gunn (Review of Australian Fiction Vol 24 Issue 6)

“I Can See the Ending”, Will Kostakis (Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, HarperCollins Australia)

“The Wandering Library”, DK Mok (Ecopunk!, Ticonderoga Publications)

“Island Green”, Shauna O’Meara (Ecopunk!, Ticonderoga Publications)

Matters Arising from the Identification of the Body, Simon Petrie (Peggy Bright Books)

Girl Reporter, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Book Smugglers)

BEST COLLECTION

The Birdcage Heart & Other Strange Tales, Peter M Ball (Brain Jar Press)

The Silver Well, Kate Forsyth & Kim Wilkins (Ticonderoga Publications)

Beneath the Floating City, Donna Maree Hanson (self-published)

Singing My Sister Down and Other Stories, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)

Please Look After This Angel & Other Winged Stories, Tansy Rayner Roberts (self-published)

Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories, Deborah Sheldon (IFWG Publishing Australia)

BEST ANTHOLOGY

Midnight Echo #12, Shane Jiraiya Cummings & Anthony Ferguson (eds.) (Australasian Horror Writers Association)

The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2015, Liz Grzyb & Talie Helene (eds.) (Ticonderoga Publications)

Dimension6: Annual Collection 2017, Keith Stevenson (ed.) (coeur de lion publishing)

Infinity Wars, Jonathan Strahan (ed.) (Rebellion/Solaris)

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 11, Jonathan Strahan (ed.) (Rebellion/Solaris)

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

In The Dark Spaces, Cally Black (Hardie Grant Egmont)

Ida, Alison Evans (Echo, Bonnier Publishing Australia)

Frogkisser!, Garth Nix (Allen & Unwin)

This Mortal Coil, Emily Suvada (Puffin UK)

Psynode, Marlee Jane Ward (Seizure)

The Undercurrent, Paula Weston (Text Publishing)

BEST HORROR NOVEL

Aletheia, J S Breukelaar (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Who’s Afraid Too?, Maria Lewis (Hachette Australia)

Soon, Lois Murphy (Transit Lounge)

BEST FANTASY NOVEL

Crossroads of Canopy, Thoraiya Dyer (Tor Books)

Gwen, Goldie Goldbloom (Fremantle Press)

Cassandra, Kathryn Gossow (Odyssey Books)

Godsgrave, Jay Kristoff (HarperCollins Publishers)

Gap Year In Ghost Town, Michael Pryor (Allen & Unwin)

Wellside, Robin Shortt (Candlemark & Gleam)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

Closing Down, Sally Abbott (Hachette Australia)

Terra Nullius, Claire G Coleman (Hachette Australia)

Year of the Orphan, Daniel Findlay (Penguin Random House Australia)

An Uncertain Grace, Krissy Kneen (Text Publishing)

From the Wreck, Jane Rawson (Transit Lounge)

Lotus Blue, Cat Sparks (Skyhorse)

Treasures Found While Cleaning Up...

Okay, my home looks like a hurricane hit it! It has for a very long time. I no longer have - or need - my day job, due to the fact that I can claim my superannuation and go right on living the way I want, so I have begun a massive clean-up, so that I can finally invite family and friends to visit again.

I've been sorting stuff I want from stuff I should never have hung on to. I've sorted rubbish from recycling stuff.

And while doing all that, I've unearthed stuff I had forgotten I had. Treasure! Books I had long mislaid, such as Simon Schama's history of the French Revolution, and Jack Dann's alternative universe novel The Rebel, set in a world in which James Dean survived that car crash. I'm reading both now. My five copies of Mythic Resonance. I asked for five copies instead of payment, which was not very much.

And photos. Family ones, in which my nephews and niece and my great-nieces appear as babies and toddlers. My nephew Max's first birthday party(he's turning twenty the week after next.). Max as a toddler, smiling at the camera, being allowed to hold someone's fishing rod in Portsea. Amelia, his sister, playing on the sand or sitting on her Dad's shoulder. Mum and me in Sydney, walking across the Harbour Bridge, gazing at the Opera House and the ferry from our height, Mum with the Three Sisters behind her in the Blue Mountains.

I can't share those with you, due to privacy reasons, but I also found another treasure - a CD full of photos from the one and only time I was ever a guest of honour at a con. It was the MSFC minicon in 2011, and I was invited when the person they asked first couldn't make it. But hey, they did think of me.

Have a look at this.

I didn't even remember getting this CD -ROM, but someone must have sent it to me. Nice, eh?

This is what you get for doing a tidy-up. And there's plenty more I hope to share with you. I promised my Mum I would bring along the album into which I put those photos when I go there today. The family will be there to share and enjoy.

Have you ever found something you thought was gone for good? Or forgotten you had?

Compulsory Valentines Day Post - Adapted Romances

A couple of years ago, I did a Valentine’s Day post. Time for another.

Right now, on Goodreads, people are talking about their favourite romantic reads. It has got away a bit from the original theme, which was about fiddling with beloved romances. But hey, who cares? It’s fun!

I’ll be writing about how people fiddle with famous romances, though. Just a few!

I have a confession to make: I have an unfinished version of my YA version of  Much Ado About Nothing on my computer - time to get back to it...

Shakespeare certainly gets played with - and why not? He played with other people’s stories himself. Plus his stories are so very good! I haven’t seen Gnomeo And Juliet, but imagine Romeo And Juliet with garden gnomes! And don’t forget West Side Story, that amazing dance musical with the lovers being from opposing street gangs! I’ve always liked that cheeky young man Mercutio better than Romeo anyway, and in the film version he was played by dancer Russ Tamblyn. I remember reading a short story, wish I could remember who wrote it or where I read it, told from the viewpoint of Rosaline, the girl Romeo gatecrashed the Capulet party to see. She thinks Romeo is a puppy, but does fall for Mercutio. And she manages to arrange a happy ending with a bit of magic, bringing back the lovers and Mercutio - Tybalt’s bronzed head ends up on Rosaline and Mercutio’s mantelpiece...

These days Shakespeare and other classic writers end up in YA fiction and film. Ten Things I Hate About You brings The Taming Of The Shrew to an American high school. In it, Kate has a very good reason for hating boys - in particular a certain boy. This being modern times, she isn’t “tamed” as such. It is a good idea for a romantic comedy in some respects, ie the younger sister can’t date till the older one is dating, so get her a boyfriend.

She’s The Man is one I used to show my Year 8 students when I was doing an intro to Shakespeare. It takes Twelfth Night to a boarding school soccer team. Viola disguises as a boy when her twin brother goes overseas and joins the soccer team at Illyria high school because her own girls’ team has been scrapped. A very funny film! I made the kids research Twelfth Night so they would get the jokes.

And what about Pride And Prejudice? Apart from all the adaptations, it became Bride And Prejudice, a Bollywood musical. That was delightful. The Bennets become the Bakshis. Mr Darcy is an American who has come to India with his Anglo-Indian friend, whose name isn’t Bingley, though I can’t recall the character’s name. Darcy is investigating the possibility of opening a chain of hotels in India. I liked that they managed to rescue the Lydia character before she got into any real trouble - and she punched Wickham! (Johnny Wickham in this film). Lady Catherine De Burgh was Darcy’s mother, not his aunt, and was the head of their firm.

Another Austen romance was also translated for teens - Emma became Clueless, set in America among wealthy families in California. And very funny it was! That film has becone a classic in its own right, don’t you agree?

Over to you - do you have a favourite book or film adaptation of a classic?

Book Blogger Hop - Who Have You Met?

Okay, this week’s question for book bloggers is ... which writer s have you met? And where did you meet them? 

You’re kidding, right? Mind you, the web site where I found this question had an impressively long list. It’s just that I can’t remember them all. I’ve been at so many conventions and children’s lit events and library conferences that they blur together. And the writer community in Australia is not big. Chances are that sooner or later you’ll run into most of them, especially if you’re in children’s or SF fandom. 

But I’ll just mention a few off the top of my head. They are all people I’ve actually spoken to, or had speak to me personally, not just those I’ve heard. It narrows it down a bit and even so, there are plenty more I won’t have mentioned.

Off The Top Of My Head

Robert Bloch - at Cinecon in Melbourne. Very pleasant! And funny. I remember him sitting with us one evening and chatting. As he was leaving, he turned to the most silent member of our group and said, “You talk too much!”

Jack Dann - various conventions over the years. Delightful man! Very friendly, calls everybody his pals.

Juliet Marillier - I attended her fairy tale workshop at Swancon. A very knowledgeable lady! She really know her fairy tales and uses them in her writing.We’ve been in occasional email contact since then and she has been interviewed on this site. 

Justine Larbalestier - at SF conventions. 

Susan Cooper - at a library conference in Hobart. But I couldn’t speak, too overwhelmed with fan girlishness.

Jan Needle - same conference. A very funny man who looks a bit like Harlan Ellison and writes depressing YA fiction! 

Melina Marchetta - at a YA event at the State Library. I got a hug for giving her such a good review - well deserved! 

Margo Lanagan - various conventions. Stops for a chat. Nice lady! 

George R R Martin - at a tiny convention in a motel in Melbourne many years ago, just before he finished Fevre Dream. That was before anyone except SF fans had heard of him and he sat chatting with us all in the motel foyer. We couldn’t afford him now! 

Queenie Chan - graphic novel writer and illustrator who lives in Sydney these days. We did a panel together at Continuum. Lovely lady! 

David Gerrold - at two conventions, Con Amore in Queensland and one at a small convention in a suburban motel in Melbourne. Very enjoyable company; a couple of us took him out to dinner and interviewed him for a fanzine. 

Terry Pratchett - was kind enough to speak to the children at Aussiecon 3. I was running the children’s program. I also met him briefly at a Discworld convention in Melbourne. 

Some children’s writers

Morris Gleitzman- the new Aussie Children’s Laureate, whom I once chatted to at a Penguin Books evening, when I had to admit my students had chosen to hear Andy Griffiths instead at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. That was rectified last year when we went to hear him. Different kids. 

Andy Griffiths, Felice Arena - two true gentlemen! I met them both at the YABBA Awards. 

Gabrielle Wang - at various book launches and SCBWI events.  Lovely, gentle lady, the author of beautiful fantasy for kids.

Anna Ciddor - various children’s literature events. Most recently at the Jewish Writers Festival. Author of The Family With Two Doors and a lot of Viking-themed children’s fantasy novels. A funny, delightful lady - and I went to school with her husband! 

Ellie Marney - Reading Matters and Continuum. She writes about a teenage Holmes and (female)Watson in modern Melbourne. A fellow schoolmarm. 

Michael Pryor - various conventions. My favourite of his fiction was a YA steampunk series called The Laws of Magic. 

Roll Of Drums... The New Children’s Laureate Is...

 ...Morris Gleitzman!

A wonderful choice! I have been reading his beautiful, gentle books for a long time. They range from funny to deeply sad, sometimes both at once. He creates characters we readers can care about. My favourite, of course, is Felix from the Once series, but there are plenty more. I have yet to encounter a Gleitzman hero or heroine I didn’t find worth loving. Which makes it sadder when a character dies. When they do, though, it happens for a reason. He doesn’t just say, “I think I’ll kill someone off to make it more exciting.”

Last year, I took some students to the Melbourne Writers’ Festival to hear him speak. It was a delightful morning and several of them bought copies of his books to get signed. One young man hadn’t read his work, but was intrigued enough to start reading Once the next day in his literacy class - and became a fan.

And, see, this is the thing - I’ve known kids ranging from reluctant readers to passionate ones to love his work. In recent years, at my library, the Once series has been the most borrowed, but I remember a very reluctant reader who loved Boy Overboard, Gleitzman’s tale of a refugee boy and his family on their way to Australia by boat. I give kids who love that one the sequel, Girl Underground, in which a girl doing a school assignment works to help the hero of Boy Overboard escape from a detention centre.

We used to have Two Weeks With The Queen as a Year 7 text. A boy sent to England to stay with relatives because his little brother is dying tries to get the Queen’s doctor, who must be the world’s best, to come home to Australia for his brother. While he is there, he helps a gay couple, one of whom is dying of AIDS, to spend time together, with a “borrowed” wheelchair. (That one made a rather nice play which I saw at Melbourne’s Midsumma Festival with a gay friend.)

Anyway, I’m thrilled to hear of this choice and I wish Mr Gleitzman a terrific two years in his job. 

Rereading... We Haven’t Got There Yet by Harry Turtledove

I have actually had this ebook for some time and read it ages ago, but was in the mood for a bit of Turtledove over breakfast. It’s a short story originally published by Tor.com. Actually, I subscribed to Tor.com because they were advertising free ebooks... and discovered that you could only get those if you lived in the U.S. Sigh! Some sort of copyright issue I don’t understand, though kudos to the U.S for protecting creators’ rights. Pity this doesn’t apply in Australia, where the powers that be keep trying to introduce new laws to take away authors’ rights and get “cheap” books imported here. I still subscribe to Tor for the articles and comments.

Anyway, this must be one of those stories Tor-subscribing Americans got free and it’s now available quite cheaply on iBooks - I think I paid about 99c, always worth it for a Turtledove tale.

William Shakespeare hears that someone has been pirating Hamlet yet again and the performance is on at the Rose next day. Furious, he invites his mates at the pub to come with him next day and let the bastards know what they think of them. Nobody turns up at the theatre, of course and, by himself, he actually has to spend a penny just to get in. At which point there is an amusing double entendre on the slang meaning of “spend a penny.”

The play is Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard - and he loves it! What he discovers when he gets into the dressing room afterwards to congratulate the author(Stoppard isn’t there) I will leave you to find out, but that last line will definitely make you grin. Buy it! 

Book Blogger Hop...Found On Dreaming About Other Worlds

It sounds like fun. Once a week, you  visit Ramblings Of A Coffee Addicted Writer and answer the question of the week on your blog. Then you visit other blogs answering the question and see if you want to follow them. As it happens, I was already following Dreaming. I can’t seem to find any reference to Book Blogger Hop on Ramblings, but I’ll answer the question anyway and see what happens next week.

Here is this week’s question: Do you prefer to blog about (a) specific book genre(s), or do you have an eclectic blog?

I’m happy to answer this one although I have something about that in my guidelines, because quite a few people don’t seem to check them, and then I have to say no. I hate doing that! 

I prefer to post about children’s and YA fiction and genre books of whatever variety, especially speculative fiction. Actually, I should add that my genre books don’t usually include romance, but hey, this is my blog! I’ll write about what I want. If the romance is YA or has fantastical elements it may just be right for me. I’ve reviewed the delightful Girlfriend Fiction series for teens and written posts about YA romantic tropes in my time. 

On the other hand, I admitted to someone who asked me to review a secondary world fantasy that I prefer my fantasy light and/or urban, but I did invite her to send me a guest post. She is a well known author of short fiction and I think this is her first or second book-length work. She deserves the promo. Her guest post will be up some time in April. Watch out for it! 

And sometimes I just write a blog post about a film or This Day In History. The film is usually a spec fic one and I try to include something writerly or at least quirky in the historical memes.

Right now, I’m reading a horror thriller. It’s not my usualtype of thing,  but hey,  it does count as spec fic and the author has been shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards a couple of times over the years. I haven’t decided whether it gets a review or an interview. This blog is fairly flexible about these things!. 

So, that’s my Book Blog Hop! If you’re a fellow book blogger, do put a link in the comments. I will follow it.

Dr Who And Douglas Adams

I’ve just seen the Tom Baker Dr Who story, Shada, by the amazing Douglas Adams. You may recall that a chunk of this was filmed in the 1970s and cancelled, unfinished due to a tech strike at the BBC.

Well, they’ve finished it - at last! Obviously, the actors were too old to play their roles again, but there was nothing wrong with their voices and the Beeb has been completing episodes with missing bits via animation. They have often been using fan-recorded dialogue - I used to do that myself years ago, with Star Trek episodes, before I got my first VCR. This time, though, they had access to the actors, who were still around and able to record the dialogue for those animated scenes.

If you’ve read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency - I did, but many years ago - you’ll know what he did with the Dr Who storyline that wasn’t going to be filmed. I really must go back and reread it, along with The Long, Dark Teatime Of The Soul.

Interestingly, I hear that another Dr Who story - rejected - was the basis of the third Hitchhiker’s Guide novel, Life, The Universe And  Everything. I am not familiar with the Dr Who storyline, but I do recall the over-the-top story of the Hitcher’s novel, in which people from the planet Krikkit decide to wipe out the rest of the universe and their weapons and how they use them resemble a game of cricket. Thing is, they are using robots to do this and Marvin the Paranoid Android saves the universe  by accident because they make the mistake of attaching him to the ship’s computer and he passes on his depression to the Krikkit robots... And that was the novel in which the Magrathean coastline designer Slartibartfast turns up in his spaceship which is designed to look like a small Italian bistro. Anyone chuckle like me when Clara flies off in her TARDIS shaped like a small diner? That wasn’t by Douglas Adams, of course, but I bet Slartibartfast’s ship was somewhere in the back of the  author’s mind. If it wasn’t it should have been!

Before I leave you, dear readers, I’d just like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Shada, and there was a delightful surprise in the last scene. Buy it or watch it on streaming, but watch it! It was well worth waiting for. 

Just Finished Reading...The Hate U Give By Angie Thomas

Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed. 

I have to say, this is one time when the hype - and there has been a lot of it -  matches the quality of the book. I bought it at Dymock’s on an impulse, last week, along with a British YA novel I’m still reading, and read it over a couple of days. I will be passing it on to my niece Dezzy, who will be very likely to enjoy it.

After recently reading a novel with an unlikeable heroine, it was a pleasure to find one I could care about. Poor Starr is, I think, suffering post traumatic stress disorder even before the story begins, from seeing a childhood friend killed in a drive-by shooting, but she deals with both deaths and does what she thinks is inportant, while denying that she is brave.

This  novel is full-on! There was very little time in it when the tension let up. Even when Starr’s family are relaxing and enjoying themselves you know something serious is about to happen.

And Starr’s family are likeable. Her parents adore each other and their children. Her little brother is sweet and funny. It’s rather nice to read a YA novel where the parents play an important role in the story. Too often they only appear when necessary, to ground the kids or tell them the deep dark truth about their paranormal Dad.

I did wonder how a family making a living from a small grocery store(her father) and nursing(her mum) could manage fees for a horribly expensive private school for all three kids. Starr does mention something about a scholarship, but only once and presumably only for her.

The last chapters were even more full-on intense than the rest of the book, but no spoilers. You do see it coming.

I believe that there were elements of this story inspired by the author’s own life as well as the true stories of young black kids murdered by police and given no justice.  She was passionate about this and it shows. It should be interesting to see what comes next, but even if this is the “one book” Angie Thomas had in her, it will be worth it.

Blog Tour: The Harper Effect: An Interview With Taryn Bashford

Today's guest is debut YA author Taryn Bashford, author of The Harper Effect, set in the world of pro tennis. Here are some details from the Pan Macmillan website:

Harper Hunter doesn't know how it came to this.

Her tennis dreams are collapsing: her coach says she doesn't have what it takes to make it in the world of professional tennis.

Her new doubles partner is moody, mysterious and angry at the world. What is he hiding?

She is in love with Jacob, but he is her sister's boyfriend. Or, he was. Harper could never betray Aria with Jacob ... could she?

As Harper's heart and dreams pull her in different directions, she has to figure out exactly what she wants. And just how hard she's willing to fight to get it.

Taryn has had a lot of adventures around the world and done a lot of different jobs before settling in Sydney with her family. She knows a lot about how professional tennis works and uses it in her novel. This interview is a part of the blog tour organised by Clare Keighery of Pan Macmillan. Enjoy!

GR: What inspired this story? 

TB: I wrote this story when I was 14 years old. Obviously, it’s had a fair few re-writes since then! But the seed was sown. As an adult, I’m fascinated by teens who surpass the norm – in sport, music, academics – and so it was natural for me to pull this novel out of the trunk it had been stored in for decades, and re-visit it. I also have a deep belief in the benefit of sports for teens. I believe I learned many skills from my own days in athletics, skills that I use every day of my life, and skills that probably helped me get published; the dedication to one thing, the self-motivation, the extreme focus needed, the ability to get up again and keep going after a rejection, and the knowledge to know my future is down to me and the effort I put in, and nobody else. I also search for YA books with a sporting theme – and there are some great ones out there – but just not many. So, I wrote the book I wanted to read.

GR: I believe your brother was a pro tennis player, now coaching - did you ever feel as if you were basically Aria, the sister left at home? 

TB: That’s a great question, but I actually didn’t. I think this was because both my brother and I were chasing a dream. Mine was the Olympics. And I wanted to be a concert pianist and a novelist. I got one of my dreams! But as a teen, while he played tennis, I was training hard at the 400m track event and practicing the piano to be the best, and writing stories. I don’t think I had time to think about what he was up to on the other side of the world. All I knew was that I was incredibly proud of him, and that’s why I dedicated The Harper Effect to him. 

GR: Are any of your characters, including famous tennis players, inspired by real people? 

TB: No, not at all. Not even my brother is in there as ‘himself’. 

GR: Who, if anyone, is your favourite character? Why? (Mine is the coach, Milo!) 

TB: I have to say a few people have said the same thing about Milo. I liken him to Mr Miyagi in The Karate Kid. But I think my favourite character is Colt because he really gives me the feels – to have been through what he went through as a kid, and to refuse to give up on his dad and his dream, I did shed a few tears for him. Then when he must make the choice to give up his dream or lose his dad – well, that got me too. He’d retreated behind a wall to protect himself, he’s hurting so badly and is so alone, and when he begins to blossom and come out of himself, I was so thrilled for him. I just wanted to give him big hugs!

GR: Playing pro tennis seems, judging by your novel, to be very expensive, requiring coaching, travel and complete focus on the sport, which means being unable to make a regular living while you train and travel - is this right? How would a gifted young player who had no money manage to get started in his or her career? 

TB: You’re right. It’s not an easy sport to excel in because of that. My brother travelled the world in a florist’s van (with a mattress thrown in the back) so that he could play in as many tournaments as possible. It’s a vicious circle – the more tournaments you play, the more money you earn and the higher your ranking so the more money you make. But if you cannot afford to be at loads of tournaments, the less money you make and the lower your ranking is, so the less money you make. You can see where the determination comes in. I’m talking about the 80’s though, so things may have changed. It seems you still need to compete as much as possible, and play for your State, then Nationals and so on. This then leads to sponsorships to pay for the tournaments you must attend. There are more local level tournaments these days that do get you ranking points, so that’s the place to start. Tennis Queensland has a lot of information on their website. The Harper Effect also covers this: Colt cannot afford to go to a big tournament in Europe so he increases his participation in the local tournaments in Australia.

GR: This seems to be a novel about learning to move on. What does this mean for each of your main characters? 

TB: Yes, it is about moving on – well, leaving childhood behind I suppose. For Harper it’s about leaving behind the place she felt the safest, represented by the Purple Woods, and also leaving behind the people she feels the safest with. For Colt it’s about leaving behind the things he’s had to endure in the past, dumping his guilt, and reaching for the stars so that he reaches his full potential. 

GR: What is your writing process - plotter or pantser? And why?

TB: Pantser for sure. When I start a new novel, I ensure I have a clear two weeks ahead of me. Then I write voraciously - non-stop about 18 hours a day (I do stop to feed the children – sometimes). I do it this way because I find that I can fully immerse myself into the story world and the characters. Then about a quarter of the way in, the characters feel like they come alive and they tell me the story and tell me what they’re going to do next. I’m then left trying to type fast enough to keep up with them. Without that continuity of writing, that doesn’t happen for me. It sounds odd, doesn’t it? But I’ve chatted with other pantsers and they have a similar experience. I find the story is then more dynamic and the characters more authentic. 

GR: Tell us about Taryn Bashford. I see from your bio that you did quite a lot before arriving in Australia - has any of this had an effect on your writing? 

TB: Yes, I’ve somehow divided my life into decades starting from being an athlete, to being an advertising professional, to running my own recruitment business, and now writing. Everything I did in my past has helped develop and hone the skills I need for writing. I covered how sport helped already, but being in business helped me understand the commercial realities of publishing. It’s important to realize that publishing is a business. I also did a lot of travelling and this comes into my novels, both in The Harper Effect and the current manuscript I’m working on in which Jacob is in Vienna and London.

GR: How did you celebrate your first sale? 

TB: I jumped around the room a lot, whooping and cheering. Then I phoned my mum. And then I got back to writing. I have a very fixed work day, because without that, it would be too easy to go for coffee, go shopping, sit by the pool and read. But that night, I did share a bottle of champagne with some friends.

GR: Do you have anything else in the works? Tell us about it! 

TB: I’m writing a companion novel to The Harper Effect. It can be read out of order, so it’s not a follow up. My beta readers really wanted to know what happened to Jacob after The Harper Effect ended. So, this is his story. It’s set in the world of music, but still explores teens who go above and beyond the norm. Harper makes an appearance in one scene – unless she’s edited out before the publication date!

Thank you for visiting The Great Raven today, Taryn!

For anyone who would like to learn more, here are some links.

Author website: www.tarynbashford.com

https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781760552091/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TarynBashford

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009813250572

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs7zV9t8YPY

Australia’s Favourite Author - Vote Now!

And here is the link to the finals! The short lists from the individual heats have all been put together into one big list. That will be shortened until some time next week.

An interesting list. There are several who have been on it before. More writers for adults than children's and YA writers, but there are several of those too, plus genre writers. Kate Forsyth is one. Juliet Marillier is another. Kerry Greenwood is on the list - yay! Isobelle Carmody. Melina Marchetta. And some of the top children’s writers - Mem Fox, Alison Lester, Jackie French, Paul Jennings and Andy Griffiths and Felice Arena.

There are many more, of course, but these are the ones whose work I’ve read, whose names came into my head first. Of course, I voted for them all.

So - go check it out and, if you live in this sunburnt country, vote! And let me know who you voted for, or would have voted for if you could. 

Australia’s Favourite Author 2018 - Heat 5!

And here is the link!

A lot of good ones here, including some of my favourites. Will Kostakis, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Robin Klein, Kate Forsyth, Leigh Hobbs... and more. I nearly missed Judith Roswell, who has been writing those delightful Victorian era stories, and illustrating them. Fortunately I went through the list again. Some classics writers such as May Gibbs. Thomas Keneally is there. So is fantasy writer Sara Douglass, who passed away some years ago, and Jennifer Fallon, who wrote, among other things, the Second Sons trilogy, a science fiction series posing as fantasy! Premise: there’s this planet with two suns. Every so often one sun is hidden for a while, which is called an Age of Shadows. The priests have been persuading people that this is because they are sinful, and even talked the king into sacrificing his child some years ago. And now they are after a young mathematical genius who has worked out when the next Age of Shadows is due. The fact that it can be predicted might just lead to questions being asked about them... it reads like fantasy, but isn’t. I loved it! Of course she got a tick from me!

I’m glad to see there are so many YA and children’s writers and authors of speculative fiction.

The votes for this round close at noon on Friday and then we will have the short lists, beginning with 75 and narrowing down until the winner is announced on January 24. Do visit the site and let me know what you think, even if you live outside Australia and can’t vote. If you do live here, there’s that $1000 book box! 

Appreciate A Dragon Day 2018

Last year I was a bit late. This time I will do it on time, although I might have to insert the book covers later, from my laptop, as you can’t do it on an iPad.

I believe Appreciate A Dragon Day is really aimed at the primary school classroom, but what the heck! Even if I was a primary teacher there are no classes at this time of year in Australia. And I would be sorry to miss out.

Anyway, let’s think about dragons! There is a big difference beteeen the western and eastern varieties. The Asian dragon is a more or less benign being. The western one is connected with evil. Which hasn’t stopped people from creating their own amazing dragons, presented the way they want them.

One of my creative writing students wrote a piece about a vegetarian dragon who makes an arrangement with the knight who comes to the cave to slay him. It was inspired by a cartoon of a dragon holding a knight in its claws.

There are a lot of them in fiction - here are just a few I’m fond of., that I didn’t mention in last year’s post. In R.A McAvoy’s Tea With The Black Dragon, a middle-aged folk musician, Martha McNamara, is searching for her missing daughter with the help of Mayland Long, a Chinese gentleman who is... well, a dragon. One who has turned into a human. I liked the gentleness of this one, plus the fact that the protagonists were not young. (She’s middle-aged, he is quite a lot older, being a dragon)

Then there’s Smaug in The Hobbit. Smaug is a typical western dragon, representing greed. He sits on a hoard. Tolkien tells us that he doesn’t appreciate the beauty of the stuff he is sitting on, but has an excellent idea of its market value. Goodness, a capitalist dragon! Because of him, an entire dwarf colony has lost its home. Also, there is something called dragon sickness, which you can catch if you’re not careful, an obsession with the treasure - “Mine! You can’t have any of it!” It affects Thorin Oakenshield, leader of the group of dwarves with whom Bilbo Baggins is travelling. So sad!

 Barbara Hambly’s Dragonsbane was another favourite when I read it many years ago. In it, you can’t kill a dragon in the standard fairy tale manner. They are tough critters and, in fact, only one man has ever succeeded, and he did it with poisoned harpoons. He didn’t want to - it was a beautiful creature - but he had to. Now another dragon is menacing a kingdom to the south, and then you find out it’s sentient ...

How about Norbert - later discovered to be a female - in the Harry Potter series? We all know Hagrid the Hogwarts gamekeeper has always wanted a pet dragon. He manages to get hold of a dragon egg, which he hatches in his little hut, but those things grow! Before long it outgrows the hut and Harry and his friends have to arrange for Norbert to go to Albania to be looked after by Ron’s brother Charlie. We see dragons again in the fourth book, Goblet Of Fire, when Harry and the other champions have to get golden eggs away from them. During the final book, our heroes encounter the dragon under Gringott’s bank, a sad, badly treated animal that is there to get rid of potential thieves. And that’s the thing: dragons in this series are just animals. You really can’t keep them as pets, but they’re animals.

Beowulf, slayer of Grendel and his Mum, finally slays a dragon from which some idiot hsx pinched a cup, but dies himself. A classic poem!

There are plenty more dragons in literature, but let’s keep some for next time. I just want to mention some short fiction. Edwina Harvey’s children’s story “Rocket And Sparky”, in the Fablecroft anthology Worlds Next Door, featured a dragon, Sparky, found in the Australian desert as an egg, by a girl who wanted a pony but got a camel instead. Like Norbert, this dragon grows way too quickly. It gets through a lot of barbecued chickens. The girl makes money offering dragon rides, but never gives up on her dream of having a pony.

When I was writing fan fiction, many years ago, a friend and I created our own planet, New Wales, settled by the last of Arthur’s followers after the battle of Camlann. There are shaggy little Shetland pony unicorns which wandered through the teleport gate with the humans. And there are dragons. We were inspired by a throwaway line about “Berengaria dragons,” mentioned in Star Trek. our dragons were about human size, more like small tyrannosaurs than the typical dragon of fairy tale. They do breathe the occasional flame. And they’re not only sentient, they have jobs. The head of the New Wales space fleet, created by my friend, was a female dragon called Admiral Kirilli, who appears in several of the stories. My dragon was Rhisiart, a University lecturer who affects a pipe because he has probably read too many Earth books with pipe smoking professors in them.

I know, silly! But we enjoyed writing them and people enjoyed reading them. I was planning to try my hand at a New Wales novel without the Trek universe, but Patricia Keneally Morrison got in before me with a series of novels set on a New Wales type world, only she was terribly  serious; my stories were humorous.

Oh, well... So that’s a few of my dragons - do you have any favourites?

Australia’s Favourite Writer - Heat 4!

I’ve voted again - here!

Some good ones this time - again, I made it my rule only to tick the boxes of those authors I had read, even if it was only one book or a couple of short stories. I was pleased to see some writers for children and teens there.

Anh Do was there. I think of him as a writer for kids. Apart from his autobiography, The Happiest Refugee, which our kids did at Year 9 last year and generally enjoyed, he’s done a series of humorous stories for younger kids, which older kids whose reading is not so good also seem to enjoy.at least, mine did last year.

Jackie French was on the list and got my vote. She has written some wonderful historical fiction, set in many different eras, and seems to be the only historical novelist the students at my school will read, apart from Morris Gleitzman’s Once series. Oh,  by the way, he was on the list too - nuff  said!

Tim Winton got a gong from me for his Lockie Leonard books.

Colin Thiele - only read one of his books, but he is a classic children’s writer. I think I may have met him once, when he was doing a book signing, but where and when I don’t recall. I just recall being surprised he was still around...and then he wasn’t any more. :-(

John Birmingham is funny, so yes,he got a tick, despite not writing for kids.

Henry Lawson - well, he was one of our classic writers!

Damn, I missed Margo Lanagan! Just spotted her name now. She deserves a gong for her powerful fantasy writing. Her short stories AND her novels. Do vote for her!

Then the fannish ones, such as Justine Larbalestier and Amanda Pillar - and John Flanagan, whose Ranger’s Apprentice books I’m re-reading now!

I ticked Andrew Rule, though I only know him as a journalist, because I got good use out of Underbelly when I was writing Crime Time. That, whatever you may think, was a collection of previously-published articles he and a John Silvester wrote for the Age, not a novel and not even written as a true crime book. And it was very useful to me!

Sean Williams got my tick for his Twinmaker YA trilogy. Non stop action and he really wrecked the Star Trek replicator and transporter for me! ;-)

Other children’s and YA authors: Paul Jennings, Ruth Starke, my lovely publisher and children’s writer Paul Collins, Scott Gardner, the amazing Jaclyn Moriarty, for her Colours Of Madeleine trilogy... Emily Rodda, Pamela Freeman, the hilarious Oliver Phommavanh, who started life as a primary teacher and is now entertaining lots more kids!

Well, I’m biased toward writers for the young, but if you follow this blog you probably enjoy these books too.

Go to the web site between now and Wednesday January 17 to vote or just to check it out. This round closes as noon on Wednesday.

Discovered While Listening To Radio Over Breakfast

Listening to a program on Radio National, promoting a new  children’s non fiction book, Goodnight Stories For Rebel Girls,  which is stories about amazing women of history, I couldn’t help being startled at some of the things said. The lady explained they were beginning each chapter with “Once upon a time” because they didn’t want it to feel like homework stuff. Pardon me? Does she really believe that she’s the only one ever to write non fiction for entertainment? Or that you even need to pretend it’s a fairy tale to make it clear that this is not for homework? I think this lady needs to do some reading of children’s non fiction. I’ve written the stuff! Never once did I use,”Once upon a time...” and believe me, the kids got it that this was for enjoyment. The school had five copies of my book Crime Time and all of them were battered and worn by the time we packed up to move campuses. 

 There was a serious discussion about how girls are usually shown as weak and passive in children’s fiction. This may have been true once, though not entirely, but these days pretty much all the dystopian YA novels feature a girl saving the world. And not only the dystopians. Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom. Hermione in Harry Potter. He may be the Chosen One, but she is the one with the brain, whose research saves the day time after time. Even her common sense - at the start of The Deathly Hallows, who is it who packs camping equipment, supplies and even some books into a tiny TARDIS bigger-on-the-inside bag so that they’re ready to go when the Deatheaters turn up? Not Harry or Ron! How about Evanlyn in The Ranger’s Apprentice series? Caroline in Michael Pryor’s The Laws Of Magic? Not to mention the hero Aubrey Fitzwilliams’ mother and grandmother? 

These are just some of the ones I’ve read, off the top of my head, and I’ve just noticed that all but one of my examples were written by men.

Fairy tales? Full of stereotypes, says the author. Yes, there’s one kind of story in which the princess needs rescuing or is handed over along with half the kingdom, for a job well done.  But that’s only one kind, along with the ones where a pretty peasant girl wins a prince for being - well, pretty.

How about Kate Crackernuts? Which, incidentally, shows two stepsisters as loving each other. So the wicked queen’s daughter saves her stepsister and lands a prince for both of them, while rescuing one of the princes. 

How about East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon? That is only one of many stories of its type - Girl has to go on a quest to get back her man when an error on her part has lost him and he has forgotten her and is about to marry someone else, a long way off. Another of this kind is The Singing, Springing Lark, a variation on Beauty And The Beast, in which the girl has to do a lot more than cry over her dying Beast and say she loves him. 

How about “The Wild Swans” in which a sister goes through hell to save her brothers and nearly dies herself? 

Even the Grimm version of Cinderella has her doing more than waiting around for a fairy godmother to supply a dress for the ball. 

There are plenty of clever girl fairy tales out there. You just need to find them. 

I’m sure the book promoted this morning is great stuff. What it isn’t, judging by the interview,  is new or original and it’s unfair to writers who have done it before to imply it is. 

January 15 meme - Happy Birthday, Dad!

If my wonderful Dad was still around today, January 15, would be his 93rd birthday. Dad was a true silver surfer who loved Googling stuff and learning things. So it’s appropriate that we should all learn something today. 

On this day, January 15:

January 15 birthdays

1412 - Jeanne D’Arc, aka Joan of Arc. Now a saint, I believe. Personally, I have to wonder about someone who was hearing voices - one of my students who heard voices told me she was told she was the Chosen One - but she did achieve a lot in her short life. 

1893 - Ivor Novello - Composed “Keep The  Fires Burning”, a World War I song that many found inspiring

1913 - Lloyd Bridges - actor, best known for all those comedies, but I remember him in Sea Hunt. Father of two other actors. 

1927 - Phyllis Coates - Lois Lane in Season I of Superman back in the 1950s. She did a lot of forgettable films and serials, BUT - she was apparently the most consistently employed actress ever. In other words, she always had work. Take a look at her filmography- wow! The only reason she was replaced by Noel Neill is that after season 1 they had a hiatus and by the time they started filming the show again she had another job. Apparently, it’s become traditional for former Lois Lanes to play Lois’s mother in later versions, and she was no exception. She played the role in an episode of Lois And Clarke in the 1990s. She’s still around, by the way, th3 last surviving cast member. 

1929 - Martin Luther King - no need for introduction. I believe it’s Martin Luther King Day in the US, or will be once the Northern Hemisphere catches up. 

Events

1559 - Elizabeth I crowned 

1759 - British Museum opens - Dad would like this one. Pity he never travelled overseas once he arrived here. I would love to take him for a walk around the BM. When I was little, he took me walking around the museum in Melbourne, which was also the art gallery at the time. He kept whisking me past paintings I wanted to stop and look at. 

2001 - Wikipedia goes on line - Dad would LOVE this one! I never asked, but I bet he used it a lot. 

Also, Teacher’s Day in Venezuela, when all teachers, including kindergarten teachers, are honoured - nice! Dad would like that. He was terribly proud of his teacher daughter. 

Happy birthday, Dad! 

The Ranger’s Apprentice Books 1 To 4 - a Re-read

The last few days I have been bingeing on The Ranger’s Apprentice series, my second time, and enjoying it all over again. True, the first novel, The Ruins Of Gorlan, is perhaps the slowest of the series, setting up the universe and introducing us to the hero, Will, his mentor, the Ranger Halt, and Horace, who was a childhood enemy and becomes his best friend. It takes you through some of the training done by Will and Horace(and Horace’s being bullied by three older students at Battleschool)and introduces Will’s trusty pony Tug, along with a description of things Rangers’ horses can do that others don’t. And finally, it gets around to the fighting stuff, with an attempted invasion by the banished Morgaroth, a sinister dark lord type who uses scary critters to help him. But that’s about two thirds of the way through, though Morgaroth appears briefly in the prologue. Interestingly, I think this book and its immediate sequel, The Burning Bridge, seem to be the only two  to include fantasy elements. The rest of those I’ve read are only fantasy in that they are in a world other than ours. I kind of like that. 

The Burning Bridge speeds up. Will and Horace go to the kingdom of Celtica with a Ranger called Gilan, to get help against Morgaroth and find it’s the Celt# who need help. They also meet a girl called Evanlyn, who becomes the third member of the teen trio, and who is more than she seems... 

The novel ends on a cliffhanger after a lot of fighting the villain, and goes immediately to The Icebound Land, in which there is some suffering and some rescuing, as Will and Evanlyn are enslaved in Skandia, the equivalent of our own Scandinavia. Halt has to get himself banished to be able to go after Will(he’s not allowed to leave otherwise)and takes along Horace, who finds himself getting a reputation in Gallica (France) as the fearsome Knight of the Oak Leaf(Halt’s idea, though he can’t remember if his French name for Horace means Oak Leaf or Oak Pancake), after having had to fight various knights right out of  Monty Python And The Holy Grail and acquiring an embarrassing number of horses and armour. Horace is delightfully innocent and this part of the novel is very funny. Halt also explains to him that the young ladies in skimpy clothes have short dresses because they’re couriers and short skirts make running easier. There are grimmer elements in the later parts of the book, as Halt and Horace encounter a truly nasty local warlord and Evanlyn has to try to get Will off a drug to which he has become addicted to stay warm. 

The one I have just finished, Oakleaf Bearers, gets even more exciting as Skandia is about to be invaded by the Temujai, this world’s answer to the Mongols, who will invade Araluen, our heroes’ home,  next if not stopped. Will, Halt, Horace and Evanlyn agree to help the Skandians, whose idea of warfare is to simply charge at the enemy, something on which the Temujai are counting. But Halt has actually lived with them, back when he was about to steal some of their horses to breed as Ranger ponies. He knows their fighting style; it’s a lot more elaborate than the Skandians’, but predictable if you know them.   The likeable Skandian Jarl, Erak will appear in future volumes, including the Brotherband spinoff series. 

I’m about to reread The Sorcerer In The North, the fifth in publication order, but set five years later - the seventh volume goes back to Will’s Apprentice years. A bit like Morris Gleitzman’s Once series, really, in that respect. 

So, what did I think in general? A wonderful series and I mean to read and reread the lot, including the prequels and Brotherband, although I think Hal Mikkelsen of Brotherband, is s male Mary Sue in some ways. 

There were a few - a very few - glitches I don’t think I noticed the first time. A kidnapped Evanlyn is tied up. Her hands are tied behind her and she is shoved against a tree for the night. When she later defends herself from a Temuj’ who is about to kill her, her hands are tied in front of her. A small error an editor could have picked up easily enough and should have. 

When Erak helps the two teens to escape, he gives them a pony and a few supplies and gives them directions to a hunters’ hut in the mountains, where they are to spend the winter; nobody uses the hut till spring. The hut has a lean-to stable and some more supplies, but not much. Evanlyn wonders briefly how she is going to feed the pony, but decides to worry about it later. Much later, it seems; we never learn how that horse is fed - and not only that, but when our heroes are unexpectedly forced to leave the hut, the pony stays behind. Much later, near the end of the fourth novel, Will goes back to give the horse some oats. It’s still there, though it has managed to break away and nibble on some spring grass near the hut. Nobody has thought of that animal in - weeks? It’s just fine. 

I do wonder, too, if you can actually shoot a longbow from horseback, as Halt does. That’s something I need to check up, just out of interest. I sort of  thought that was why the Mongols used short bows? Ah, well. A wonderful series of adventures and a handful of glitches in four books is pretty good going. 

If you haven’t read them, do!