WRITERS: ON NOT ALIENATING YOUR MARKET

I found the above image on a blog called The Physics Geek, which had got it from somewhere else, while I was looking for a cliched image of a librarian, but couldn't resist. Of course, there's always Terry Pratchett's wonderful Librarian...

I wear two hats - well, three if you count the reviewing, but then, I have always thought of reviewing as an extension of my work as a teacher-librarian. I get excited when a new box of books arrives from the publisher, just as I do when there’s a book display at school - what goodies will I find this time? And when I have donated the beautiful new book to the library, I can tell the kids what it’s about, because I have read and reviewed it.

Writing for children is one of my hats, the other is librarianship. Both have to put up with folk who don’t understand what it is they do and why. As a children’s writer, I’m always hearing people ask carefully, “So - are you planning to do an adult book at some stage?” Translation: “When are you going to write a real book?” My answer to that is always:Never! I love what I’m doing and I enjoy the company. I remember one time when I went to a party at Allen and Unwin. When I arrived I chatted politely with those I saw there, but there were no familiar faces. The writers I met seemed nice enough, but the party was very dull, as far as I was concerned. Then Ann James, illustrator extraordinaire, appeared on the stairs and said, “The children’s writers are upstairs.” Up I went and there was a REAL party happening.

Most children’s and YA writers I have met are delightful. They know how to party. They know how to talk to kids. They share information about markets. They’re fun to be with.

But there are some, a minority I should add, who just don’t seem to understand that they are depending on the schools market for a large chunk of their income, who make clear their contempt for teacher-librarians, in their writing or in person. Their publishers really should explain it to them.

For example, there are those who whine about “gatekeepers” at conferences and writers’ festival panels. It seems that these library “gatekeepers” are preventing their works of genius from reaching what would be their adoring public if only...

Has it ever occurred to these folk that maybe their books aren’t going into the libraries for other reasons? Maybe Book Club wouldn’t take them, or Australian Standing Orders, so they didn’t turn up in schools as much as otherwise?

Or maybe the librarians just didn’t think their particular students would enjoy them? Any teacher-librarian worth his or her salt knows about this stuff - some of us write it ourselves. With an annual budget the sze of the average Grammar School’s petty cash, I can’t afford to buy books the kids are unlikely to read. I invite students in to help me choose from the book displays brought to the school and if they are choosing this book rather than that one, it’s the kids themselves who are the “gatekeepers”, not me. Only occasionally will I reject a book for my own library that I have read for reviewing, and that usually goes to our senior campus, so we're not actually keeping it out.

Tell you what, though, I have no complaints of school libraries with my own books! My Education Lending Right payments have always been about three times my Public Lending Rights. I expect a very good ELR payment for Crime Time:Australians behaving badly when the time comes, from what booksellers tell me.

If schools are not buying your book, perhaps a survey might help to find out why. If nothing else, it will bring your books to the attention of people who might not have come across them. But publicly calling librarians “gatekeepers” definitely won’t help!

Then there are those whose idea of a school librarian is based on one they remember from their childhood, who perhaps didn’t let them borrow from the adult shelves or maybe told them to be quiet. You know - the cliched woman with glasses and a bun? I wear glasses myself and ended up haing to get a haircut to avoid the cliche. In summer, of course I had to put my hair up!

The worst offender, in many ways, is J.K.Rowling, with her Madam Pince, whose first name you never learn, unlike the school nurse (Poppy Pomfrey). Madam Pince works her guts out, day and night, every day except Christmas, with no assistance (unless there’s a house-elf doing the shelving) and never even appears at Christmas dinner. (Maybe she has a loving family to spend it with?) She is described as thin, irritable and “vulture-like”. Talk about cliches! Of course, I love the Harry Potter books, but I wish she hadn’t done that. It jars me every time I re-read the series.

Naturally, I wouldn’t boycott her books, they’re too good in every other way and Hogwarts is a fantasy school. And at least there is no doubt that Madam Pince more than pulls her weight at the school and she only kicks out kids who are eating in the library. Well, wouldn’t you? How would you like to remove half-eaten sandwiches from between the books and banana skins from the carrels after every lunchtime, before going off to teach your own class?

Other writers are less kind about their library teachers. I’m thinking in particular of one whose first book I read and loved and showed to all the kids. I even recommended it for a class text.

Then her second book came out and I bought that for the library and opened it eagerly to read it.

I was horrified and disappointed to find her portrayal of the school librarian in her novel. The woman lurks in the library like some sort of spider and throws out any student who dares to enter, let alone want to borrow a book. Pardon me? Any librarian who behaved like that wouldn’t last a week in a modern school! (Well, maybe Rupert Giles of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer would, and he does kick out kids who aren’t there to look up monsters for slaying, but he’s cute. You can forgive him)

And it shows a huge misunderstanding of the role of the modern teacher-librarian which I will come to shortly.

Call me a gatekeeper if you like, but I don’t see why I should spend my precious budget on a writer who has shown not only a misunderstanding of my job but contempt for me and my colleagues. If a student requested one of her books I would buy it, but fortunately I have received some for reviewing, so those are the ones on my library’s shelves. I won’t go out of my way to look for her books othewise. That said, I have never allowed this to affect my reviews of them. I just won't buy them - and if I feel that way, there may be others. Is it worth alienating your market for one moment of satisfaction getting fictional revenge on the horrible librarian who terrified you as a child?

Contrast this with Australian SF writer Sean McMullen, whose first novel featured a world ruled by librarians. Word got around and suddenly Sean was a bestseller. And libraries have continued to buy his books ever since.

Nobody says your librarians have to be heroic, but for heaven’s sake, check your facts before subscribing to the image of the cross woman in bun and glasses! Would you buy books by someone who sneered at what you do? Hey, think of all the people who do sneer at children’s writers! Think of the adult novel image of the fluffy children’s writer. Yet you’re doing a job that requires skills that few people possess. So is the teacher-librarian.

Which brings me to my next point. Teacher-librarians don’t just process books and check them in and out. They work with their colleagues to design curriculum. They use their knowledge of children’s and YA literature and what kids are reading to choose books and match them to readers. They teach research skills, something that is vital in this day and age. They teach literacy skills. They arrange writer events - yes, the events to which you might or might not be invited. They run reading programs.

Yet since Principals got access to the purse strings in the state system, they have mostly had the responsibility to save money and the first place they always save it is in the library. In Victoria, Australia, where I live, you can’t even study teacher-librarianship any more, unless you study it on-line through an interstate university. There is a perception that you don’t need anybody in the library or that any idiot can stamp books when needed.

Pity I didn’t know this when I was one of thirty students chosen out of five hundred applicants to study librarianship. It was the toughest course I ever did, harder and more exhausting than my Honours degree. And you have to keep up to date, as in any other profession.

Of course - it’s all stamping books! Why didn’t I realise this?

Some primary schools have no one at all; a friend of mine is currently fixing up a library abandoned since the school got rid of its library staff altogether. It’s her son’s school, she’s a volunteer and she’s a qualified librarian. Lucky school. At least until he goes to high school.

Of course, there are those who think hard copy books are already out of date; I recall one of our Principals who was furious when a librarian bought a set of encyclopaedias, because “they look it all up on the Internet now!”

So watch out - you could be next.

If you want libraries to keep buying your books and inviting you to speak and run workshops, you should be fighting to keep professionals in them - they are the ones who know what you do and work with you to keep literacy going and get the school to buy your book in multiples for reading circles and class sets. If you think it can all be done by English teachers, forget it - they are busy with their own teaching and I wish I had a dollar for every English teacher who admitted to me that they read very little outside of the class texts because they just have no time for anything else. It’s true, too, they don’t, really they don’t have time, with all the things expected of teachers these days. If they do take on this job because the Principal got rid of the professionals in the library, then something else has to go.

And the few books they read may not be yours.

Think about it.

F2M: The boy within. By Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy. Melbourne, Ford Street, 2010.

Eighteen-year-old Skye is a member of an all-girl punk rock band. Skye has never felt like a girl. Inside, (s) he is Finn, a boy. Making the decision to let Finn be outside as well as in involves a lot of work. How do you tell your family and friends and the members of your feminist rock band that you’re going to undergo female-to-male treatment and surgery? Fortunately, there’s a family precedent: great-uncle Albert … or is that great-aunt Alberta?

Skye/Finn could easily be a victim, but refuses. It isn’t going to be easy for anyone, but (s)he decides, finally, that family, friends and rock band will just have to live with it. And they do.

The book goes into enormous detail about the procedures involved in what is known as FTM. It’s a lot less common than the other way around – male to female – although it has been in the news in the last couple of years, when a man who had kept his female “equipment” had a baby because his wife couldn’t. I knew a female-to-male myself. Unlike Skye, "Jan" became “David” in her/his forties. Nobody, but nobody dared to call Jan a woman, even when she was! And David’s family and friends accepted it as Finn’s family do in the novel. At his funeral, the nephews and nieces referred to "Uncle David", even when he was no longer there to get upset.

The novel also explores the punk rock sub-culture, which is interesting in its own right.

Ford Street Publishing has become known for taking on controversial subjects. It probably needs an author as well-known and respected as Hazel Edwards to get away with this one. Ryan Kennedy, her co-author, is himself an FTM, so knows what he is talking about.

Perhaps an afterword with a URL or organization, if any, within Australia might have helped, so that those to whom the book applies don’t have to do all the web searches that Skye/Finn did in the course of the novel.

It’s well-written and answers a lot of questions. There are some likable characters in it and some nice touches of humour. There’s even the whimsical presentation of a couple who are a female-to-male and a male-to-female. Who are, incidentally, managing just fine. Finn doesn’t like the FTM, Rodney, but hey, he doesn’t have to.

It will certainly appeal to those teenagers who are asking themselves questions about their own gender identities.

Whether or not it will have appeal for ordinary teenagers I am not sure. I suspect they will be uncomfortable with it, though this doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be out there. Will kids who say, “That is so gay!” about anything negative get enthused about characters who are not actually gay but have gender issues? I won’t know until I have put this in my library and seen how the students react. Watch this space.

Emel Alp Sari - new link

Recently, I got a "friend" request from SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) from someone of whom I'd never heard. Usually, it's from people I have met. You can never tell with these things; sometimes people's details are hijacked. I couldn't take a chance. So I Googled Emel Alp Sari and found that she was a freelance children's book illustrator of German background. I emailed her to make quite sure the request had come from her, in case it was an attempt at a virus and she replied that the request was indeed from her - she had come across a book of mine, Your Cat Could Be A Spy, in Turkey of all places! Nice, eh? :-)

So I have accepted her friend request and I am adding a link to her page in case you're a publisher of children's books or education titles (she seems to have a lot of those under her belt) and would like to take a look at her web site.

Welcome to my blog, Emel!

What I'm re-reading #3: Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone

I have read this series many times, mainly because it's my comfort reading, like the books of Tolkien, Kerry Greenwood and Terry Pratchett. I know how it's going to end. I know for sure that Snape is a tormented good guy, not a villain (but then I suspected this from the second book onwards, though I must admit, I never suspected why he was with the Forces of Light and I still can't see any hints during the series, but other fans did).

And now I am back at the beginning, back where Harry, the "male Cinderella" (a term we used in second year Middle English Literature at Monash University)discovers the truth about his heritage. I did suspect, even then, that his aunt Petunia was simply jealous of her sister and resented her gifts. I was right about that.

I remember buying this one at the Children's Book Week Fair after it had been recommended to me by Alison Goodman, a fellow writer who has gone on to do a lot better than me in the world of speculative fiction. We were both on the committee of Aussiecon 3, the last Melbourne World SF Convention, and used to chat on the way to meetings.

I enjoyed it enough to buy the next one when I saw it. By Prisoner of Azkaban I had begun to realise that this was going to be more than just another children's series. Already we had a world where an innocent man, such as Sirius Black and even the lovable Rubeus Hagrid, could be imprisoned and tortured by nightmarish creatures on the Minister's say-so. Not to mention that the word "democracy" doesn't seem to be in the vocab of the wizarding world.I knew now that there was slavery in the wizarding world that seemed so glamorous in the first novel. And I was never easy with the casual way in which animals were turned into inanimate objects by the wizards. I mean, why would you need to turn a living animal into a pin cushion?

But mostly, I wondered about the life of a teenager in Harry's world. Think about it: if you're a young wizard, you may be able to do magic (but not at home!) but you can't hang around the mall, except on occasional visits to Hogsmeade. You can't go on Facebook or Myspace or Livejournal. Your probable only source of clothes is Madam Malkin's Robes - hardly the height of fashion!

And forget about being on the phone with your friends for hours on end - not unless you want to kneel in the fireplace with your head stuck in among the ashes. Eeew!

It is indicated in the novels that there are wizarding rock musicians and maybe even that they have concerts, but you'd probably have to go by Floo Powder or with your parents or on your broomstick if they trust you, because the wizarding community is small and scattered and you can't do Apparition till you're seventeen.

And you can probably only hear them play, the rest of the time, on the same radio station as Celestina Warbeck, that star of the sixties! No doubt there's wizarding technology of which we haven't heard, but the thing is - we haven't heard of it, right?

No TV. No movies unless you sneak off to the local Muggle cinema. Probably Fred and George do. But it's not a part of wizard culture and I suspect parents who would rather not take a chance on having Muggle neighbours find out about their world get very stroppy if their kids do this.

As a teacher-librarian, I don't envy Madame Pince, who, with no computers and not even typewriters, must have to put up with hand-written card catalogues and seems to be working day and night, every day but Christmas Day, alone. If she has a budget and a collection policy, we never hear about it. And getting back to the teens, imagine her reaction if some Hogwarts student wanted to read Twilight or Dolly Magazine instead of spellbooks!

No, thanks, I'm glad I was not brought up in Harry's world. But I do love reading about it. And as an adult I love the references to folklore and alchemy in even the first novel. I intend to keep re-reading them.

JESSICA’S GUIDE TO DATING ON THE DARK SIDE By Beth Fantaskey. Camberwell:Penguin, 2010

Jessica Packwood knows she was adopted as a baby by the Packwoods, who were in Romania at the time, studying a local culture. She has grown up in the US and attended a normal high school with the standard complement of bullies, bitchy cheerleaders and nice farm boys.

When gorgeous Romanian exchange student Lucius Vladescu informs her that she’s a vampire princess and his destined bride, their union needed to prevent a vampire clan war, she reacts as you’d expect – no way! But Lucius isn’t that easily deterred. And he has a useful gift for her: Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide To Dating, Health and Emotions. Of course, there are a couple of things to distract him, such as the above-mentioned bitchy but attractive cheerleader, and his success on the school basketball team…

This is the latest teen vampire romance. The ending is predictable (isn’t it always?), but kids like predictable, so fair enough.

I always wonder, when reading these novels, what would happen if the male vampire was pimply, fat and picked his nose. I’d really love to know why these vampires always seem to be aristocrats (a bit like Tolkien Elves, really), why the heroine is always vital to the survival of the vampire world. (Of course, I did read some years ago that folklore vampires tend to be aristocrats because aristocrats in general are bloodsuckers…)

But then, I’m just a cynical adult who has read far too many of these books since they became popular. And right now, this is what teenage girls want to read. At least this one has a sense of humour. There are some very funny scenes in it, including several letters home from Lucius to his Uncle Vasile about the weirdness of American culture, how you can’t get decent food (apart from pizza, he likes that) or clothes, how they decorate grubby bits of forest in their homes at Christmas and how his betrothed is attracted to a peasant!

The book is well-written and will, among other things, appeal to reluctant readers who will appreciate the shortness of the chapters.

Despite my cynical-adult feelings, I thought it was fun and I know that teenage girls will enjoy it too.

HARRY, A HISTORY By Melissa Anelli. London: Penguin, 2008

Some time in the late 1970s, I went with my family to the airport to wait for my aunt to arrive. It was going to be a long wait and I went for a browse in the airport shop. There, I saw a book called Star Trek Lives! which had been written by some women who’d been heavily involved in Star Trek fandom, right back when it first started in the 1960s.

I’d sort of known other people liked the series and had a vague memory of a campaign to keep it on the air, but that was all. After reading the book, I went off to find fellow fans and the local club and fanzines… Hey, I’d never dreamed that people wrote fan fiction to keep themselves going when there was no Star Trek to watch, or to answer questions for themselves and others – like, what happened in the Mirror Universe after Kirk and his friends went home? What kind of people are Vulcans in a universe where everyone is violent and nasty? What kind of society do the Klingons have? Star Trek Lives let me know that this sort of thing was going on, and what kind of activities fans got up to. For many years, I wrote fan fiction, went to conventions and hung out with fellow Trek fans, some of whom are still my friends.

When I opened Harry, A History, written by Melissa Anelli, American Potter fan and webmistress of the hugely popular web site The Leaky Cauldron, I found myself nodding in recognition. I’d been there. I, too, had found something that excited me and gave me something to discuss, that let me be creative. I’d made costumes, stitched tapestries and appliqués (one as part of a hanging for a children’s ward in a hospital), written dozens of fan stories and articles and zine reviews that led to professional writing. I, too, had been involved in charity fundraising ( still am – a bunch of Melbourne fans go out collecting for the Royal Children’s Hospital during its Good Friday Appeal). I, too, was familiar with fannish politics and the kind of fans who just don’t understand that this is fiction.

Melissa Anelli wasn’t one of the original Potter fans. She discovered the first book when her sister made her get a copy for light reading while shopping for university text books. While she enjoyed it very much, it took another couple of years and a job she hated to get her further into this universe. Somehow, she found herself becoming more and more involved, even taking time off work for supposed family emergencies to go to England when new books in the series came out.

In this very enjoyable and entertaining history of the American branch of Potter fandom, the author also tells how Jo Rowling managed to sell her first book and how many people promoted and supported her manuscript.

And yes, I think as a history of a fandom, it's a Potter parallel to Star Trek Lives!, though not as gushing, thank heaven.

Forbidden Fruit by Kerry Greenwood. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2009. ISBN 9781741759822

This is the latest novel about the baker Corinna Chapman, who runs her bakery, Earthly Delights, in the middle of Melbourne, with the help of her apprentice Jason (a muffin-making genius), her two shop assistants, Kylie and Goss, who want to get into soap opera and her cat Horatio. Lucky Corinna has a gorgeous lover, Daniel Cohen, who is the actual detective, but shares in his cases.

As usual, the novel is a hoot. No murders, just a case of a missing couple, Joseph and Mary - er, Manny and Brigid, two teenagers who have run off together just before Christmas, Corinna's least favourite time of year (bah, humbug!). Brigid is part of a rich but nutty evangelist family who subscribe to a cult that believes Jesus was rich and who are waiting for a miraculous child called Shiloh, Child of Peace. Of course, there are miracles and miracles and in the twenty-first century there is more than one way to create your own. Brigid is heavily pregnant and her horrible parents want her back, but not for her own benefit.

And then there is Serena the rose-loving donkey and the carol-singers upstairs who have their own animal-rights agenda, despite their pretty voices.

The author carefully sets up her Christmas story so that you have the full Holy Family scene. But she does it with a broad wink.

As usual, the novel ends with recipes, after the usual group feast at Insula, the Roman-themed apartment block where Corinna lives. I haven't tried the recipes yet, but will - unlike the recipes at the end of some books, Kerry's actually work - she makes them herself.

You could probably read this book on its own, but why not go back and read the rest in the series if you haven't? They're well worth it.

On Writing and Agents

I write. I haven't got one. An agent, that is. I did have one, sort of, for a short time, a nice lady in Perth, who did try, but didn't get anywhere with selling anything for me and went out of business soon after. Well, she wanted to concentrate on her own writing. among other things. I got her through an introduction from a friend who had already signed up with her.

All I wanted was to have someone to concentrate on doing the business side of things and send my stuff around so I could get on with the writing. For this, I was happy to surrender a percentage of any money they got for me.

Also, publishers even then were announcing that they would not deal with anyone who didn't have an agent. This is a lot more the case now.

Strictly speaking, as I discovered, this wasn't quite true. If they knew of you, they would at least take a look at your MS. And by the time I tried getting an agent I had already sold a couple of books. I had a manuscript for a novel that I felt passionate about. It was a YA werewolf fantasy called Bisclavret, pinched from the story by Marie De France and I still think it's good, having come back to it after years. In fact, I nearly sold it a number of times. Nearly.

But when I tried all the big names - you know, the ones people dedicate their books to, "To my wonderful agent Jane Smith, who believed in this book", etc. - the various Jane Smiths were simply not interested. I guess they were running a business and a business works best with a sure thing and a sure thing is someone who has a much bigger track record than mine. But you'd think they would have had the courtesy to reply, at least, or even look at the MS. Those who did reply said that their books were full, so sorry. One even said, "I know of you, you're a good writer, I just don't have space on my books." At least she gave me a little egoboo.

Then there was the Big Name fantasy writer who, having offered to introduce me to a certain Big Name agent who represented him, never replied to any subsequent emails I sent him about it. So I set out to find her myself.

She was Selwa Anthony, praised by so many writers. I Googled her and tried all my librarian research skills, but she was elusive. I finally managed to contact someone who did know how to get in touch with her and was told that she might at least consider me if I got a couple of referees. I did. One was my friend Natalie Prior. The other was Lucy Sussex, who had been the commissioning editor at Hodder and thought highly of my novel, though Hodder had not taken it for their own reasons, unconnected with the quality. At least Ms Anthony did take a look at the MS, though she wasn't interested. She was the only local agent who did give me a go. From overseas, there was Cherry Weiner, who did read three chapters, but said it would have to be at least 100,000 words long and a trilogy for her to be able to get anywhere with it and from what I have seen in recent years, she is right.

There was the Big Name agent who took a year to reply to my simple query, when I persisted, and then with nothing relevant to my inquiry. This was one of the Jane Smiths whom her Big Name clients so raved about in their introductions. Well, whatever her fine qualities, courtesy wasn't one of them. She couldn't just say no?

I contacted a couple in Melbourne. One said, "We're full." The other said no because while I already had a book contract and just wanted her to negotiate for me, possibly followed by other representation, she explained that it was an education contract and she wouldn't touch one of those with a ten-foot pole. At least she gave me a little free advice on the phone.


After doing the rounds for a couple of years, I simply gave up and have been doing it myself since then. It's not as hard as it seems, as long as you have already got some track record. If you haven't, agents are unlikely to take you on anyway.

Mind you, I have come across some abysmal first novels whose authors have raved about their agents, who must be pretty good to have gotten them through and they obviously had no trouble with agenting first books - but not usually by Australian writers. Maybe I should check those out, if I want an overseas agent.


I'm writing this after having seen yet another request for opinions on agents on the Pass It On e-newsletter. The last time there was such a request, I wrote a reply on why you can manage without one and it turned out the lady didn't really want opinions on the necessity of agents, she wanted an introduction to one. So I'm not going there again in Pass It On.

For anyone starting out and trying to get published, there are still publishers out there who will at least look at your manuscript as long as you send it according to their guidelines and as long as you don't mind waiting a while to hear from them. And they're not all small presses. Allen and Unwin's children's section in Australia will read your MS. So will Penguin. There are others. You need to check out their web sites.

Once you're a Big Name, perhaps the Jane Smiths will even come to you. But for the most part, you can live without them.

MY LOVE LIES BLEEDING By Alyxandra Harvey. London: Bloomsbury, 2010

Lucy and Solange have been friends since childhood. Lucy’s parents are hippyish New Agers who make her eat tofu. Solange has a large number of gorgeous brothers, including the especially yummy Nicholas. Solange’s parents have always been good to Lucy. So far, so teen romance. Only one problem: Solange’s family are vampires.

Hey, it’s a medical thing. You’re born with it, though it doesn’t take effect till your sixteenth birthday, around when you hit puberty (perhaps immortal vampires hit puberty late). If you survive it, you become immortal and lose your ability to go out by day or eat anything but blood and maybe human flesh if you’re a nasty vampire. Otherwise, you just die. And Solange’s sixteenth birthday is fast approaching. As the only girl born in her family in 900 years, she’s the subject of a prophecy, which means any number of bounty hunters have been sent after her, as the vampire queen, Lady Natasha, doesn’t want any threat to her power.

And then there’s a secret society of vampire hunters called the Helios Ra, who might consider breaking their treaty with Solange’s family, who don’t kill humans (and why would they when their pheromones just allow them to seduce people and when there are blood banks for emergencies?)

While this is an entertaining teen romance with a variation, plenty of strong female characters and ass-kicking, I don’t think it’s any threat to Stephenie Meyer, if only because it’s so short. It may be a small snack for fans of the Twilight saga who have run out of reading material. Mind you, what with the number of teen vampire romances out now, they’re unlikely to run out any time soon.

As a grumpy old librarian who reads a lot of spec fic, though, I have to ask: what’s with the sixteenth birthday? In all fairness, this one merely has the bad luck to be the umpteenth novel I have read in which the heroine is in danger because of something that is going to happen on her sixrteenth birthday. A curse, such as the one in the novel Beautiful Creatures, is okay. And I suppose there needed to be a deadline, to move the action along.

However, I think this writer ought to have decided on fantasy or SF and stuck to her choice. Puberty doesn’t turn up on a specific birthday, it just turns up when it feels like it. Unless there’s magic, of course. And wouldn’t immortals be a lot less fertile, to avoid overpopulation? Yes, there are Tolkien’s Elves, such as the Sons of Feanor, but they tend to kill each other a lot, so that’s okay, and Tolkien never pretended it was anything but fantasy anyway. When one of Solange’s uncles, a scientist, explained that it wasn’t quite magic and it wasn’t quite science, I thought: ”Cop-out!” Just as well we never found out the formula for Hypnos, a very convenient spray drug that makes the victim do whatever the caster wants.

That said, I suspect young readers will mostly not notice or worry about it. But the only YA vampire novel I have ever read that has believable science elements was one by Scott Westerfeld in which vampirism is caused by parasites and can be spread by breath and touch. It’s a lot of work to research for science fiction and most people can’t manage it. Alyxandra Harvey, alas, is no exception, at least so far. With a deadline to meet for her next novel she may simply not have time.

I really think the next volume in this series should stick to the fantasy and play down the supposed scientific elements. I just don’t think they work.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SLUSHPILE#2 By a grumpy Andromeda Spaceways slusher

I am still reading slush for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (aka ASIM). I read them as a reader, not as an editor. I ask myself, “What would I want to read in a magazine?”

People are still asking me why I do it, given how many of the submissions are truly awful. And I’m still saying it’s because I’m an optimist and always hope that the next story I open is going to be wonderful. And I have still not found more than a handful of wonderful stories in all the years I have been slushing. Some are good, or very good. But very rarely do I come across one that moves me deeply, or touches me, or makes me laugh for all the right reasons.

Still, you never know - the next one, maybe...

Meanwhile, here are some things I love about slushing and far more that are pet hates. Hopefully, someone thinking of submitting may be reading this and it will perhaps give them food for thought. We do buy good or very good stories, after all; it’s too much to expect that every piece is going to be a potential Ditmar or Hugo winner. There is a blurb on the web site about “what we’re not looking for right now” but there are still people not reading it before sending us their works of genius. Maybe a surf for markets might find this.

Things I Love About Slush Reading:

1. Every now and then, there is a truly wonderful story to read (see above)

2. Sometimes there is a good or very good story and it might even be the next one you open.

3. Once in a while, a story I got in Round 1 slush (we have two rounds - the second is “refined”) wins an award and I know I chose well. Of course, I didn’t select it for the magazine, because I haven’t edited an issue yet,, unless you count #38, which I finished off, with a lot of help. But I know I helped the story get into the slushpool, where it was chosen by someone else. (The slushpool is where we keep the stories that are considered good enough to be published).

Things That Cheese Me Off When I Am Slushing:

1. Non-spec-fic stories that I just know came from some mainstream writing student who has simply fired off the piece to every single market on the list supplied by the writing class, whether it’s appropriate or not, in hopes that one of them will take it.

Come on, guys, didn’t your teachers ever tell you to check your market? I bet they did tell you how much publishers loathe multiple submissions. Okay, there are times when multi-subbing is justified. I’ve never done it myself, but I know the frustration of waiting six months and sending inquiry letters only to get the thing back squashed and not reusable, with a printed slip.

But this is not a problem with ASIM. The very most you will ever wait to hear from us is two months and that’s only if your story made it into the slushpool. Otherwise, you’ll get a reply in a matter of a few days - by email, so you don’t have to buy reply postage (and there are plenty of publishers who still want their submissions by snail mail). And you get it with helpful comments.

Of course, you know all this if you’ve bothered to check us out. Also, I repeat, we are a speculative fiction magazine. Don’t send us your mainstream fiction. We won’t buy it. And don’t multiple submit. Keep that for the markets that make you wait six months.

2. Stories that are full of mistakes in spelling, grammar and/or punctuation. I see red when I get a story that can’t even punctuate dialogue correctly. I reject them automatically, only allowing a couple of mistakes in case they’re typos. If you think I’m nitpicking, I’d like to point out that editing is not about fixing your errors, it’s about making a good story look its best. If you don’t care enough about your work to check it or have a friend check it, I don’t care enough about it to finish reading it, let alone pass it on to the next round.

3. One-joke stories that go for several thousand words. Even if it’s a shaggy dog story, you shouldn’t telegraph the fact. It should be a good story that suddenly hits you over the head with an unexpected punchline.

4. Stories that assume you know what the author is talking about, but which only make sense if you come from the same country. I’m sorry to say that the worst offenders in this category - at least in the slush I have read - are Americans. We certainly see a lot of US films and we get a lot of American fiction too, but in the end, a story that has them rolling in the aisles in New York may not make a lot of sense in Sydney or Auckland or London. There’s nothing wrong with sharing your culture with others, but remember you are writing for an international market and don’t assume we know what the joke is.

5. 20,000-word stories which should have been about a quarter the length. Sometimes a story has to be long. Most of the novellas I have slushed are just self-indulgent, written by someone who hasn’t edited. Bear in mind, too, that while we have occasionally published stories of this length, they have been brilliant. Each issue of ASIM has a fiction “budget” of 40,000 words. If your story is going to take up half of that, it has to be something about which the editor is passionate. After all, how would you like to buy a magazine which had one very long story you hated? A story that took up half the issue?

6. Cutesy themes that are the entire point of the story (see above, one-joke stories). It can be short. It can be very short - as long as the punchline suggests there is more. For example, the famous world’s-shortest SF/horror story. “The last man in the world sat alone at home. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.” Think about it.

7. Really good stories that are let down by their endings. When a story has kept me gripped right up till the last page, then suddenly ends illogically, I say, “Huh?” Then I leave it overnight just in case, but thinking about it, I usually realise that there are other bits of illogic in the story. Before you submit, put the thing away for a few days and re-read.

You may find the same thing I would have found if I had read it, and have time to fix it before this grumpy old slusher rejects it!

UNSEEN ACADEMICALS By Terry Pratchett. London: Transworld, 2009

Who would have thought it? They play football in Ankh-MorporK! Well, there were those street urchin games run by Captain Carrot, it’s true. But in this novel, we learn that not only is the game played, but there are teams and passionate supporters of one or another. It’s not the kind of football(or even soccer) we know. It’s the early form played out in the street hundreds of years ago in our world.

And the wizards of Unseen University have discovered a clause in the will that gave them quite alot of money - only on condition that they play football. They have no choice, really; the bequest pays for most of their food - and what would the wizards be on a mere three meals a day?

Although the closest thing to a protagonist in the book is Night Kitchen chef Glenda (who makes the best pies in the city), there are plenty of other characters of importance. There’s Trevor, who is fabulous at kicking cans, but won’t play a game that killed his father. There’s his beloved Juliet, who isn’t too bright, but just might become a Discworld supermodel. In this novel, we find that there is actuazlly a Dwarf fashion scene, and all Juliet has to do is put on a fake beard to join in.

And there’s Trevor’s friend, Mr Nutt, who is believed to be a goblin, but may be something more. Even Mr Nutt doesn’t know. Yet.

This novel is as strong as ever, possibly better than Making Money, the last one. We get to take a good look into the kitchen of Unseen University. Some characters from other books appear (Rincewind, who appears briefly, seems actually to have succeeeded in living the boring life he wanted). There is a mention of Mightlily Oats, who appeared in Carpe Jugulum, and, it seems, has turned out to be the kind of decent holy man we hoped he would become. The only minor disappointment I felt was that, with the factor of awful pies at the football, mentioned early in the book, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler only appears once, and he’s selling souvenirs rather than pies. But there’s an emphasis on Glenda’s superb pies and perhaps the author didn’t want them to clash.

Normally, I wait for the paperback, but I just couldn’t, this time. And I don’t regret it. Another fabulous Discworld novel!

Of Qualified Teacher-librarians

Below is a link to a petition that has been running on-line in Australia. I am a qualified teacher-librarian. In Victoria, we've been a dying breed since the previous Premier gave State School Principals the control of the purse strings in their schools (something the current government has not changed back). Well, I say control, but in the end, they have to find ways to save money and they save it by cutting library staffing and employing people who are less qualified or not qualified at all. It's easier and less noticeable, unless you actually work in the school.

I believe in California, the "Governator" is trying to get rid of libraries altogether - at least it hasn't gone that far yet here, although it's not for want of trying; some years ago, I heard about a school where they planned to get rid of the library altogether, buy a lot of computers and replace library staff with a computer technician who could not only help kids do their web searching (after all, nobody reads books any more, do they, they just go on-line) but could fix the computers and would cost less and have to work longer hours!

It didn't happen, thank heaven, but we're not far off. The other day we had a college-wide planning day. One of the things we discussed was a unit of work centred around research skills and I suggested that the folk from each campus worked with their teacher-librarians - of course, there's already one campus where a good quality teacher-librarian, who had been involved in curriculum planning, was replaced by an unqualified library aide - not a library assistant, because you need a certificate for that. An aide. She does what she can, but she is not a teacher or even a librarian. She can't plan or help in planning curriculum. She can't teach.

If you read this and live in Australia, and you want your children literate, please
visit this site and add your signature. Then let your friends know about it and ask them to spread the word in their turn.


Online petition - A Qualified Teacher Librarian in Every School

PASTWORLD By Ian Beck. London: Bloomsbury, 2009

The year is 2048. Daily life is a bore - except in Pastworld. The whole of London has become a Victorian-era theme park, complete with nightly fog, old-style technology and (robotic) rats and pigeons. Most of the residents have chosen to live in the past, accepting old-fashioned laws, and put up with tourists who pay big money to visit and enjoy the Victorian lifestyle for a while.

The whole thing is run by the sinister Buckland Corporation, which is constantly coming up with new entertainments for the tourists, known as Gawkers.

So what happens when their designated Jack the Ripper gets out of control and starts killing whoever he wants? And what is the mystery behind seventeen-year-old Eve, who can’t remember anything before two years ago and thinks she is living in Victorian London?

This cross between The Truman Show and Westworld is a nicely-gripping thriller. It is fast-paced, bouncing around from one drama to another till all the ends are tied. The pace is speeded up by the shortness of most chapters.

I worked out what was happening well before the end, but I’ve read far more than the average teenager for whom the book is intended. Chances are that they won’t work it out so easily.

Recommended for mid-to-late teens.

THE GENIUS WARS By Catherine Jinks. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2009

It began with Evil Genius, in which orphan Cadel Piggott was being raised to become a criminal matermind. As part of this, he was sent to the sinister Axis Institute in Sydney, where he studied such subjects as Fraud and Disguise and improved his already considerable skills in computer hacking. By the end of the second novel, Genius Squad, he had rebelled against all this and was trying to live a nornal life, though villain Prosper English, who had been responsible for his upbringing, had done everything he could to prevent this.

Genius Wars opens nine months later. Cadel, now fifteen, has settled down with police detective Saul Greeniaus and his wife Fiona, who are hoping to adopt him. Despite his youth, he has begun university and is in contact with some of his friends from the Axis Institute and the Genius Squad, who also want normal lives. Life is pretty good, and he has used his computer hacking skills to make life easier for his best friend, mathematical genius Sonja, who suffers from cerebral palsy. All he wants is to make it possible for her to get around easily in her wheelchair.

But old enemies haven’t forgotten him - and the very things he has done to help his friend may work against him..

This has been a fascinating series. The original premise sounded humorous - and there are certainly some over-the-top ideas, such as Cadel’s friend Gazo, a human stink-bomb who produces a smell that can literally knock people out when he is stressed. And what about brother-sister computer hackers Dorothy and Compton , mostly known as Dot and Com?

But this is not a comedy. Cadel is angry, frustrated and terrified that even knowing him may kill anyone he cares about. The series has, predictably, been compared to Harry Potter, as anything with a young hero is these days. If anything, it’s reminiscent of Artemis Fowl, if you can imagine that young Irish genius as an orphan, being manipulated by nasty guardians rather than supported and protected by his loyal bodyguard and loving family - or, for that matter, Mark Walden’s H.I.V.E. novels.

In any case, teens who liked either of those series should enjoy this one. I’d describe it as borderline SF. It never ceases to amaze me how many different genres this writer has clocked up over the years - SF, fantasy, ghost stories, historical fiction, suspense. She is the writer equivalent of the kind of actor who refuses to be typecast.

There’s no point in reading this book if you haven’t read the others, so if you haven’t, go and get them. You won’t be disappointed.

A Day At The Opera - AIDA without Elephants

I've used this opera in my fiction, in a short story called "Nefer", in which a cat mummy follows a kid home from the museum, then proceeds to wreck the arena production of Aida in which her ballet class is taking part. The story appeared in a short anthology for kids, one of the Spinouts series edited by Meredith Costain and Paul Collins.

Also, I am very familiar with the music, because in my early teens I bought a boxed set with Leontyne Price in the title role, and saw the very old film in which Sophia Loren was darkened and someone else sang for her.

Till today,though, I had never seen it on stage. The Australian Opera tended not to do it, presumably because of the expense of the sets and such.

In 2009, it's still expensive, with the large chorus and costumes, but the sets are no longer an issue. Most of it is projected on to backdrops, including strips of fabric posing as Egyptian columns. Very clever, and they can get on with the singing and dancing (the choreographer was the legendary Graeme Murphy). After this, they will have the costumes and the software to do the projection, so the main expense will be the performers. You don't need elephants, no matter what the old stories say!

Of course the story is silly - opera plots always are. Terry Pratchett certainly had fun sending them up in his novel Maskerade.

Aida loves Radames. Radames loves Aida. Princess Amneris also loves Radames. Aida is a captive Ethiopian princess (but keeping her ID secret, very sensibly). After Radames has gone to fight her homeland and she has sung about it a lot, he comes back and Princess Amneris says, "Nyah, nyah, I'm the Pharoah's daughter and I'm having him." But Aida's Dad is captured and manages to persuade her to winkle military secrets out from her boyfriend, who is then arrested and sentenced to death, despite Amneris's pleas for the idiot to defend himself. Fortunately for all the singing in the last scene, he is sentenced to live burial and he and Aida, who has returned to die with him, can do some final singing, while Amneris sings above them on a spectacular double stage.

In this production, they did have to sling a bridge across the stage to get in the double stage scene.

The fanfares in the Grand March were played by six trumpeters in Egyptian costume on the stage - were they regular members of the orchestra, I wonder, or hired for the occasion? Anyway, it looked good.

Amneris looked good, as did the High Priest Ramfis. Aida was, as the lady next to me described her, a "rather solid girl". I was immediately reminded of Rita Hunter, a fabulous singer of many years ago, whose personality was as huge as her body. She played Abigaille in Nabucco and Norma in the Bellini opera. But her voice made you forget her size. And this one had a fine voice too. (Radames was also rather solidly built.)

Only trouble was, Aida didn't look remotely Ethiopian, apart from a wig. I mean, I know what Ethiopians generally look like. We have several kids from that country at my school. They're generally not as dark as the Sudanese kids, but still, they're - well, dark. Was it the recent issue over white people here going blackface on a TV skit, offending a visiting American? I think the singer was American. Had they decided to be "unconventional"? Did it not go well with the sets?

Hard to tell, but it made her less convincing to me.

And now, having seen the opera on stage, I don't feel the need to see it again. I'm just as happy to listen to a good recording. I have lost my enjoyment of both Il Trovatore (another silly storyline) and Madama Butterfly (not so silly, but they've done it too many times) because Melbourne tends to get all the repeats, while Sydney gets the new productions. I don't want to lose my taste for this one.

Final opera for the year is Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, which should be good fun. Stand by.

Seeing Things Differently.SLAV Conference November 13 2009

I have just been to this year's end-of-year library conference. I usually hold out for this one, because, unlike the earlier ones, it's book-related. Writers and artists speak about their work and some of the talks are directly related to libraries. It's not that I have anything against conferences that give you ideas for running the library. It's just that I have found most of them are aimed at the kind of school where they have more than one part-time teacher-librarian and part-time support staff and that have budgets I can only dream about. The last straw was when I attended a SLAV conference at which one of the guest speakers, who came from a Grammar School, stood on the podium and told us smugly about all the fabulous things they were doing at her school ... with dozens of staff and budgets in the 100,000-or-more range. And then expected us all to applaud her for doing writers and publishers out of their hard-earned money by scanning their work on to a school web site. As if the rich kids at her school couldn't afford about $12.95 for a copy, or the library couldn't buy some class sets of them! It was illegal, of course, but what point in getting up and accusing? I just stopped going to "those" conferences. That was years ago.

So I was looking forward to this one, which was held at the National Gallery of Victoria on St Kilda Rd.

Well, there were some very good presentations. I took notes on the use of Web 2 in libraries and on graphic novels in the curriculum. I did wonder if having to study them wouldn't spoil them for the kids, but I'm prepared to try it out. "Visual literacies" was the theme of this conference, which was natural for a conference held at the gallery. And the keynote address by Dr Mark Norman, marine biologist and children's non-fiction writer, was worth the price of the conference by itself. He was delightful. I could hardly wait to get down to the book stall to pick up some of his books which I knew would thoroughly engage our reluctant readers. He began by showing a picture of a vampire and a real-life fish with fangs and showed us, in the course of the talk, how truth really is more bizarre than fiction and that there are so many wonderful things in real life that you couldn't invent.I was sitting next to Sue Ann Barber, programmer for Aussiecon 4, and suggested she see if we could get him for the con's science stream. I am certainly going to get hold of some of his books for myself, before my new budget next year, to use in my own research.

The only trouble was: there was no book stall. No publishers showing off their stuff. No useful stuff for schools. No graphic novels of the kind that speakers were urging us to buy for our libraries. A library conference with no books, except those on the screen? It reminded me of the time, years ago, when a friend and I took her son to the Book Week Fair at the Arts Centre and the poor boy stopped and asked, "Where are the books?" The only books at that event were on the YABBA stall, on display, not for sale.

Now, I know I can't get at my budget for next year as yet, because the books are closed and there has been a death among the admin staff and no time to replace her, not to mention a business manager on leave. But I have never seen a book stall not swarming with customers, even in November. What happened? Did the gallery object, perhaps, because they have their own bookshop? But that wasn't connected with the sort of stuff normally sold. Did the booksellers simply not bother this time? I'm sure I will find out eventually, but right now I am puzzled and disappointed.

No writers as speakers, either, except for the delightful Dr Norman. I really look forward to this conference because of something that wasn't there this time. While I found the talk on Asian art enjoyable and the talk by a painting conservator fascinating, including his description of the research he had to do to get it right, they just weren't what I attended the conference for.

I assume they had to use the gallery's caterers too. There was no afternoon tea, as in the past, so we had both sessions before lunch,when we went to the Great Hall - a lovely place for lunch. And if you like dead animal on your plate, I'm sure the egg and bacon and chicken sandwiches and party pies and sausage rolls were fine. For those of us who prefer not to eat meat, there were only roast vegetable sandwiches, and while I am in a minority in this, I believe vegies belong on the side of the plate, not in bread. I ate them because there was nothing else except fruit on sticks, which I also ate. I was hungry when I left, though, and dinner with my family wasn't till 7.30 p.m. And no coffee urns when we arrived. When coffee was available at morning tea, you had to wait for a staff member to pour it for you.

Still, there was Dr Norman and there were some really useful suggestions about the use of Web 2 and graphic novels in the library and classroom (we are already buying lots of graphic novels, especially manga, though not teaching them).

I can only hope that next year, though, the event is held elsewhere and is more like what I look forward to.

HEART’S BLOOD By Juliet Marillier. Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 2009.

Young scribe Caitrin, fleeing an unwanted marriage with a violent cousin, finds herself on Whistling Tor, whose chieftain, Anluan, needs a scribe to do a summer’s work, translating Latin documents. Anluan’s family has been cursed for a century, since an ancestor conjured up a ghostly horde from the Otherworld and then couldn’t either control them or send them back. Anluan can handle them as long as he stays on the Tor, but if he leaves, the spirits could go on the rampage. They want to go back too, and something- or someone - is driving them insane, unable to control themselves. There may be a counter-spell in the Latin documents that will help. Everyone is relying on Caitrin to find it.

Despite the curse and the fact that Anluan can’t be the chieftain his people need, Caitrin finds friends on the Tor, some of them supernatural, and also finds love.

This Gothic-style romance has moved the story of “Beauty and the Beast” to mediaeval Connacht, a part of Ireland facing imminent invasion by Normans from England. Anluan is not a fairytale Beast, but crippled by a childhood illness. The “heart’s blood” of the title is a plant used to make very expensive ink, but also has a much more important use, as Caitrin finds.

It’s an interesting setting for the story, and it works. Western Australian-based novelist Juliet Marillier’s other Celtic fantasies are set in Ireland and she knows her period well. She reminds her readers that Irish law was fairer to women than the laws in other places at the time. Women had positions of responsibility and they had more property and inheritance rights.

The story is very readable; it was my first time reading one of this writer’s books and it won’t be my last. It is, admittedly, something of a Mary Sue. But I have been known to enjoy Mary Sue when well-written and at least this one is lacking long-lost princes, quests, elves and high priestesses. The only evil sorcerer is the hero’s ancestor, who was unpleasant and stupid, but hardly Sauron. And I must admit that "Beauty and the Beast" is a fairytale I like, and the author has done a good job of putting it into an historical context.

If you haven’t read Juliet Marillier’s other books, this one might be a good place to start, as it is a stand-alone and not part of a trilogy. If you have read her other novels, you probably won’t need me to convince you!

AND ANOTHER THING … Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Part Six of Three. By Eoin Colfer. Camberwell, Penguin, 2009.

I first discovered The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy when I was studying librarianship, many years ago. We used to throw quotes at each other over coffee, between classes. “Forty-two!” we would cry. “The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything!” We needed the humour; librarianship was a heavy, exhausting course which gave us very little time to ourselves.

At home, my brother was taping the radio series. We listened to it and developed a passion for that. The story was over-the-top hilarious. It became a TV series and a movie and recordings.

I loved the first two books. The third was not quite as good, though it was still very funny - and since then, I have listened to Douglas Adams reading the talking book and decided I liked it better than the first time around. The fourth book came along and it was not as good as the third. It still had some fun, but it was almost serious. In it, Arthur Dent got a girlfriend, Fenchurch, but she suddenly disappeared from his side and never returned. The fifth book, Mostly Harmless, was such a disappointment to me that I gave away my copy and never read it again. My re-reading rarely goes beyond the second book and never past the fourth

I mention all this so it will be understood that I am a major fan of this universe, but I acknowledge that even Douglas Adams, who created it, had lost the plot, so to speak, by the end. So when I heard that Eoin Colfer, author of the wonderful Artemis Fowl novels, had been commissioned to write a sixth book in the series, I was in two minds about it. If Douglas Adams couldn’t keep it up, how could anyone else, even Eoin Colfer? But the author’s widow had approved him and of course, I was curious to see how he would get Arthur, Ford and Trillian out of the impossible situation in which they had been left at the end of Mostly Harmless.

This book has been written to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Hitcher’s. It starts with a summary of the story so far, written in an Adams-esque style. It may have been to refresh the reader’s memory, and in any case, Douglas Adams did it himself. It may have been for any potential new readers, but my advice to these readers is not to read it till they have read the original. There’s no point. And Another Thing... was clearly written for people familiar with the universe.

I must admit, Mr Colfer does a good job of getting Ford, Arthur, Trillian and their daughter, Random Dent, out of the fix they were in at the end of Mostly Harmless. I couldn’t imagine how it could be done, but he did it.

He makes a fairly good fist of Adams’s style, except for an irritating tendency to stop for asides. Douglas Adams did it, but nowhere near as often.

The story brings back a lot of characters from the third book, Life The Universe And Everything, including Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. He was the green-skinned immortal who was trying to liven up his eternal existence by insulting everyone in the universe in alphabetical order. Now, he has returned and he wants to get rid of the immortality; we learn that his insults are aimed at getting someone to kill him.

The original character was there as a single joke. He was funny. Now he has become, of all things, a romantic interest for Trillian. He isn’t funny any more.

Zaphod Beeblebrox is back too, with one head; the other one has replaced Eddie as the ship’s computer on the Heart of Gold. He has a quest of his own: helping Wowbagger get killed. This involves searching for the Norse god Thor, original owner of Wowbagger’s ship.

Also in the novel are the Vogons, who are still trying to wipe out the last humans to tie up loose ends - not only Arthur and Trillian, but a colony of middle-class Earthlings who have bought the Magrathean-built planet Nano. The Vogon captain, Prostetnic Jeltz, who destroyed Earth in the first novel, is back, with a son who may not agree with him.

The story bounces around from one storyline to another, but all the ends are tied, although the very end suggests there may be more to come.

I got the occasional chuckle out of this book, but no more. It starts well enough, but just isn’t funny. A friend of mine suggested that Tom Holt might have been a better choice, but personally, I don’t think anyone could handle it.

Eoin Colfer is a brave man to have had a go at something like this, which has a passionate fandom. I commend him for it. I don’t believe anyone could have done it, but he has done as well as anyone could and at least he seems to be a fan.

If you are completist, buy it by all means - hey, if you’re reading the book at all, you almost certainly are a completist. At least this story extracts our heroes from an impossible situation!

WHO WASHES THE DISHES IN RIVENDELL? THOSE ARISTOCRATIC ELVES

This was written for a fanzine, some time ago. I can't recall which one, alas! But I think it's worth a re-visit.


I have recently read a glut of fantasy novels and have been re-reading the original classic Lord of the Rings in preparation for the films and it has occurred to me that no one in any of them ever seems to explain how all those elves can be aristocrats. Tolkien, I’m afraid, much as I love him, is the worst offender. All his elves are rulers; we’re never told who they rule.

At a literature conference I attended recently, Tamora Pierce, a great Tolkien fan, remarked - not without affection - that no one ever seems to go to the bathroom in Tolkien, but it’s worse than that. We know Bilbo Baggins can cook, from The Hobbit, which may be why he is so welcome in Rivendell, because no one else appears to do any menial work, yet they seem to have no trouble whipping up a feast. The Elves who meet Frodo and Sam early on their quest apologize for their plain fare, but of course, it tastes superb - bread, fruit, wine - as you would expect of Elvish cuisine.

Everyone in Rivendell is a warrior or a musician or a scholar. No one is ever seen growing food or preparing it, let alone cleaning up after the party. There are elven smiths, true, but they are all too occupied creating magical rings or repairing swords for long-lost kings to be bothered doing horse-shoes or nails or anything so plebeian. I keep picturing some pointy-eared elven smith wiping his sweaty forehead as he says apologetically, “Sorry, sir, we’re a-makin’ of a mass order of armour for Ragnarok next week, no time to look after your ‘oss’s cast shoe. You tried the hobbit smith down the road?”

We know that Galadriel and her maidens in Lothlorien weave fabulous cloth for magical cloaks, but this, like making magic rings, is an acceptable aristocratic occupation. Somebody makes the lembas (journey bread), I suppose, but we’re not told who - or where the ingredients come from. Come to think of it, who looks after the sheep whose wool is used in elven cloaks or grows the cotton or flax?

They do make rope in Lothlorien; when Sam is leaving, he's told that actually, they would have shown him how if they had known he was into rope-making. But it's magical rope, of course!

Possibly they trade with the communities of Men or hobbits, but this wouldn’t be a very practical way to survive in out-of-the-way Rivendell or Lothlorien - what if you were cut off from your suppliers by war or the Dark Lord or something?

In folklore, we are told that the Fair Folk live on illusion. Their palaces only seem to be beautiful, their clothes grand. In fact, they live in holes, their clothes are rags and their food, if you’re silly enough to eat it and be stuck in Faerie, is tasteless. Not only that, but their gold turns into dead leaves overnight. My theory is that the reason for this is because they’re all aristocrats and find it beneath their dignity to cook, clean or make and repair clothes.

To be fair, we do see some plebeian Elves in The Hobbit - but this is in Mirkwood, whose Elves are not of the High variety and never went to the West back in the earlier ages.

Perhaps Rivendell and Lothlorien are Elvish artist colonies? ;-)


If anyone knows of a serious fantasy novel that presents elves, Faerie, whatever, who actually work for a living - or go to the bathroom - I’d be interested to hear of it.

Jacinta washes dishes for the tsunami victims

It's nearly 4.00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. I am the last person left in the library. The last three weeks have been exhausting if satisfying. I meant to be out of here by 3.30.

Jacinta didn't care for the other Girlfriend book, but is now reading my book, Crime Time: Australians behaving badly, which has short chapters and is easy for a reluctant reader to get through in bites.

This afternoon, she and some other girls were washing dishes that had been donated for the Samoa appeal. Some were so filthy that they simply couldn't bring themselves to send them out, even though the recipients will wash them anyway. It is disrespectful.

They continued to pack boxes. We can't get anywhere near enough boxes for all the donations flowing in!

The girls who had made cakes and sweets finished selling them to staff and students and raised $82.30 in all.

Three students went to the local charity shops today and picked up what must have been $2000 worth of second-hand - but clean - toys for about $160. They had raised the money and were entitled to have a say in how it was spent. The token male student made sure there were toys for boys.

These will go to the children who have lost homes and perhaps parents through the tsunami.

Two of my students designed a card to go with each box. They asked me for suggestions about what they should write, but I advised them to write what was in their hearts - and they did. One of them, James, had shown a gift for design, so I asked him to do it, while Adrian had been on the shopping trip for the toys - which range from small plastic dolls of both genders to huge fluffy toys. We scored a Pooh Bear, giant animals, and someone seems to have donated a purple elephant!

We hope that next week we can get one or both of our large newspapers to come and grab the photo opportunity, as long as they don't dismiss it as an education story.

And yet, the kids have learned a lot - some have discovered talents they never knew they had. They have shown entrepreneurial skills which will stand them in good stead later.

This is all I can say about it for now. Stand by for some book reviews - I have the new Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy title, the new Juliet Marrillier book and the latest Scott Westerfeld YA title.

Forgive the diversion!