Light Touchpaper: Rob Porteous on The Subjunctive Case

I’m pleased to say that, just as I thought we were finished, I received a post from Rob Porteous, the newest writer in the anthology, with only a couple of sales so far, but one with a terrific future ahead, if this is any example of his work! Since Simon has already had his say on this piece, let me add my own. I started reading it and thought, "Yes, but what’s going on here? And why does it jump around so much?" And then I realised why all the leaping from place to place and thought, “How clever!” After that, I loved it. No other detective I’ve come across has quite the advantage of this one.

Rob sent his post in the form of an interview. I’m happy to have the author create his own interview questions, so take it away, Rob!

Q: How did you get your inspiration from the theme of Light Touchpaper?

Rob: The image I got was of a burning match and the smoke. For me, that felt a bit retro so it drew me towards something with a seedy, thirties feel – I love Raymond Chandler's writing so, from there, I suppose a detective noir story was almost inevitable! Anyway, smoke pervades this story – it inspired the paranormal ability of the detective character at the beginning and it's there on the lips of the Lauren Bacall moment at the very end.

Q: Melbourne provides a perfect setting for this story – is that where you're from?

Rob: No! I'm originally from the windswept plains of Perth. But I needed a big-city canvas for the story and I really like the different boroughs of Melbourne's inner city. Plus, there's the great story of how the world's tallest tower almost got built there in the 90s (originally designed by Harry Seidler); in my story it's actually under construction in the heart of the city and that becomes a crucial element.

However, I have to admit that, before the detective turned out to be paranormal, I was thinking of a straight, hard sci-fi setting off-world. Bringing it back home let me work in some Australian themes that added a bit of interesting texture.

Q: Some of the other characters have a lot of personality and you hint at their history with the detective. Did you plan out a prequel?

Rob: No, I've only been writing for a little over a year so everything I write is sort of first-of-kind and a bit unplanned. I wrote this story pretty fast (for me) over a couple of weeks, but I ended up developing a lot of affection for the characters. Though, now you mention it, I have some other 'perfect murder' plots I wouldn't mind trying out (don't ever cross me!) so, maybe, there could be a sequel.

About Rob:

Rob Porteous lives in Canberra, Australia and has been fortunate enough to have careered through a curriculum of interesting jobs, including stints as a speechwriter and a research physicist.  Although he has only started writing fiction in the last year or so, he is an active member of the Canberra Spec Fiction Guild.  Between writing lots of short stories, he is planning a novel and is co-editing the next CSFG anthology (scheduled to be launched at Conflux 2013), which is called... 'next'! 

Musing On An Anthology - Thoughts from The Editors

This post was going to appear tomorrow, but I will be out all day with two little girls, my niece Amelia and her cousin Dezzy, and I'd like to know the post will be up before I leave.

When I invited guest posts, I started with the editors, Edwina Harvey and Simon Petrie, who really have a lot to be proud of in the work they have done for this. I cut up Simon's comments into individual pieces to go with the author guest posts, and Edwina added her thoughts. Below you will find what he said about those stories whose authors didn't have time to contribute posts here, as well as his overall thoughts. I may just be able to add a short piece by Edwina to go with the announcement of the winner of the giveaway on Wednesday. (So far, I have more entries on Goodreads than the blog, and these will go into the draw.)

Enjoy, guys! 

Simon Says...

Dave Luckettt’s ‘History: Theory and Practice’ is one of those stories that makes much more sense on the second read-through than the first. It’s entirely true to itself, utterly misleading, and I found it thoroughly enjoyable.

Katherine’ Cummings's ‘The Travelling Salesman and the Farmer’s Daughter’ plays it significantly straighter than any of the stories that precede it—which is not to imply that it’s lacking in complexity. But what appealed to me about it was its classic clarity, its faithful reworking of the tropes and dilemmas of golden-age SF.

Like just about anything else in one of Anna Tambour’s stories, the ‘murder’ in ‘Murder at the Tip’ is not what you’d expect. Anna’s story is ... well, ‘unusual’ seems kinda inadequate in the circumstances. Its two halves, connected by the slenderest of narrative threads, careen in sharply divergent directions, and seem to bear little relation to each other. And yet there is a commonality between them, of a sort. Plus, of course, Anna’s writing is always word-perfect.

‘The Subjunctive Case’ is the book’s longest story, by the newest author in the bunch. And SF and crime aren’t the easiest genres to merge seamlessly. But Robert Porteous rises to the challenge admirably, with a surprisingly topical mixture of hardboiled pulp detective fiction and near-future extrapolation. It helps, too, that the murder is ingenious, well-executed, and purposeful.

Sean McMullen’s ‘Hard Cases’ is, I hope, science fiction. I’d much prefer to think of it that way, rather than a glimpse into a world we’re currently only a hair’s-breadth distance from. And the naming convention Sean’s adopted here gives this story an entirely inappropriate sense of levity, which only serves to twist the scalpel further.

Overall?


 I’m not sure that editing an anthology is supposed to be ‘fun’, but this was. Any differences of opinion between Edwina and myself were minor, and quickly worked through. And the stories that made it into the anthology didn’t require a lot by way of reworking—we had very good material to work with in the first place, and a bunch of authors with unfailingly professional attitudes to their craft. There are stories in here—and I’m hoping here that readers would agree—without which the speculative fiction community would be significantly poorer, and that, for me, justifies the anthology’s existence entirely.

Would I do it again, were there a prospect of Light Touch Paper 2? Hell, yes. In a flash.

AN INTERVIEW WITH FIONA WOOD

Last year, one of the shortlisted books for Children’s Book of the Year was Six Impossible Things by TV writer and now YA novelist Fiona Wood. It was funny and sad at the same time and contained characters who were over-the-top but lovable. This book got a mention during a YA panel I was on at Continuum a few weeks ago, from an American writer, so it has already made it overseas as well as Australia.  And given that the panel was on speculative fiction in YA and this book is very much set in our own world, it has DEFINITELY made it!

In this interview, Fiona talks about her work – hope you enjoy!

SB: What inspired this particular story? Why, for example, have a boy as your main character when so much mainstream YA these days is about and for girls?

FW: My point of departure was not: ‘What gender should my protagonist be?’ but rather, ‘What story will I devise for this character who keeps knocking on my door?’.

Because Dan was where it all started. He was the first element of the novel to appear. I was working on something else entirely – a film script ­– when ideas for a shy, angsty, nerdish fourteen-year-old boy started suggesting themselves. I decided it would be fun if this ‘boy least likely’ got to go to the ball, or, in his case, the year nine social, and from that point I included some elements from the Cinderella story. Boys and girls have both enjoyed the book.

SB: You’ve said your hero’s name, Dan Cereill, is “Cinderella” jumbled up. What other elements of the Cinderella story are in there? (He strikes me more as a much brighter Adrian Mole, actually, with a Pandora who’s worth caring about. ;-D)

FW: Yes, naming him was the first Cinderella element. Dan could also have been a Ned or Ed, but when I wrote down Cereill as a possible surname, I could see there was fun to be had with mispronunciation – cereal/surreal – and so Dan Cereill it was. Then because I wanted Dan’s appearance to change through the course of the story as a concrete image of his ‘growing up’, it gave me an opportunity to have Oliver and Em play a fairy godmother role. And Dan’s mother’s wedding cake business gave me a good clamp to require him to be home by midnight. (I really like the character Adrian Mole, but I think he and Dan are very different.)

SB: You’re a TV writer in your other life - has this had an effect on the way you wrote the story?

FW: I’m sure TV writing influences the way I tell a story. For example, I really enjoy a narrative that rolls along, and I’m pretty hard-line during the editing process in cutting out any passages that stall the flow of the story. TV writing has also given me the habit and discipline of plotting and planning. I couldn’t start writing without having developed the plot, and knowing the end points to which I am heading for each character, and for the story overall. But that’s not to say it doesn’t change a lot along the way.

SB: I really liked Estelle and her friends and thought they deserved a book of their own - are you considering giving them one?

FW : Thanks, Sue. Lots of readers have asked about a sequel to Six Impossible Things, and though I haven’t written a direct sequel, my new book Wildlife (out next year with Pan Macmillan) does feature Lou from Six Impossible Things as one of the two point-of-view characters. Wildlife sees Lou starting at a new school, and going through a phase of readjustment following a tragic event that happens between the two books. She is still in touch with Dan and Estelle, and we hear what they are up to. The third book in this very loosely linked trilogy will take up the story of two characters who first appear in Wildlife in minor roles.

And I’ve just written a short story with Estelle in it. But it’s set in the future. She’s twenty-five, and breaking up with her boyfriend in Prague. The characters certainly live on in my mind beyond the narratives for which they have been created. 

As a reader, I love coming across characters who move between novels. Alison Lurie was the first writer I was aware of who does this, and more recently I adore the way Melina Marchetta takes up the story of some of her characters from ‘Saving Francesca’, five years later, in her recent release, ‘The Piper’s Son’.

SB: Did you have any beta readers for this? If so, what kind of people did you ask? Teens? Teachers? Girls? Boys?

FW: Yes, I tick all those categories of beta readers for Six Impossible Things, and have asked the same readers, plus two additional readers, to look at Wildlife in unedited manuscript form.

SB: Are any of the things that happened in your novel based on real events?

FW: Nothing directly, but so many little details of character and dialogue, music and humour, are based on my world.

SB; Finally, tell us about your new book. What’s it about?

FW: Wildlife is a story about first love, friendship and betrayal. It's set over one term during which year ten students board at their school’s outdoor education campus. I’ve written a post at my blog on the various working titles it has had, and why they didn’t make the cut.  http://fionawood.com/2012/07/01/coming-up-with-a-title/

Thanks for giving your time to the Great Raven, Fiona! I’m sure your fans will be delighted to know that some of your characters from the first book will be appearing in your new one.

MORE ABOUT FIONA:

Fiona Wood has been writing television for more than ten years on shows ranging from ’MDA’ and ‘The Secret Life of Us’ to ‘Neighbours’ and ‘Home and Away’. 

Her first novel Six Impossible Things was shortlisted for the 2011 CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers. Her second novel Wildlife is out next year.

Web site: www.fionawood.com

Yet ANOTHER spam inquiry!

This time I received an inquiry from someone who claimed to find the posts on my blog engaging, but didn't name my blog other than the URL, didn't call me by name or say what they found so engaging about them or give any examples. In other words, the same email was sent to however many bloggers they thought might respond. They offered a guest post on changes in the English language connected with workplaces and said they worked for a "resource" but didn't name it. PUH-LEASE!

The topic of changes in the language might have been interesting and if this person had shown the slightest hint of having actually been reading my blog, they would at least have had a polite reply from me saying I appreciated the offer, but my guest posts are by invitation only and are connected with books and writing.I might have directed them to another blog which could help them. Or hell, I might even have asked them for further details.

As it was, I deleted without replying, and this is how I will respond in future to any such email. I agree with my friend Lan Chan that this is the only way to treat such inquiries.

Watch this space for Fiona Wood

Just letting you know that I have received an interview from Fiona Wood, the author of Six Impossible Things, which was on last year's CBCA Awards shortlist. Fiona is not only a YA novelist (this was her first) but a TV writer whose skills in this area have made a difference to her novel writing. She has some great stuff to tell us about her work. I will post this later today when I've done some housework and maybe done some of my own writing. See you then!

Guest posts coming to an end

I hope you have been enjoying these posts and will be interested enough to check out these authors' other work and their web sites. I want to thank Edwina and Simon for their help and co-operation in getting this going and for liking one of my stories enough to publish it.

Okay, I have an interest in this, with a story in it, but I also happen to think this is a very special anthology, with some top writers in it. One nice thing about small press in Australia is that even bestselling writers will happily accept a token payment and write for it. They don't have to - they just do. If you do check out Light Touch Paper Stand Clear, you'll notice that there are some writers in there who have won major awards, have been on the New York Times Bestseller list and at least one who has given us a guest post who has co-written with Larry Niven! Of course, they're modest enough that I had to check these things out when I was looking for photos and information about them.

Before I sign off for now, I'm just reminding you that there are only two days left to enter our giveaway. Gentle readers, this is your chance to read this wonderful anthology wherever you live. If you have a blog with a spec fic focus you can get one for review.  What is there to lose by clicking the comment button? :-)

LIGHT TOUCH PAPER: HELEN OF - WHERE? SUE BURSZTYNSKI

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Helen

Greek mythology and - rom-com, Simon? Com, yes, but - rom? More like everyone trying to AVOID the romance! :-) But thanks for liking my story enough to take it, Simon and Edwina!

Read on, gentle readers...

Simon Says:

Sue’s ‘Five Ways to Start a War’ is delightfully playful; it’s a substantial piece, but it has the frothy, fizzy feel of rom-com. But, of course, when you mix rom-com with Greek mythology, something has to give ... The decision to juxtapose this story hard against Jo’s was a deliberate one on the part of Edwina and myself, and I really like the contrast between them.

Edwina says:

Sue’s story is a hoot! I loved it!

Sue Says

Greek mythology has been a part of my life since I was in primary school. I remember reading Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths cover to cover around halfway through. Of course, my school library didn’t have it; my sister had to borrow it from the public library several times for me.

One of my favourite characters was Odysseus who,  alone among all the Greek heroes at Troy, had something I could recognise as brains. Truth to tell, he is still my favourite character in Greek mythology. I loved the story of Heinrich Schliemann, which made me dream of becoming an archaeologist myself.

Then I went to university and learned that, if it ever happened, the Trojan War was probably about economics, not honour.

Another thing: there was a play by Euripides in which Helen never went to Troy. This version of the story had been mentioned in Graves’ book. This Helen was replaced by a woman made from cloud, while she herself spent the war years in Egypt.

All these elements came together in my first draft of “Five Ways To Start A War”.  I interpreted the author brief as ‘beginnings’ and wrote accordingly. So how did the war start? Was it the Judgement of Paris or did it start before that, with an offended goddess of strife? What about the suitors of Helen? Would there even have been a war if Odysseus hadn’t come up with a way to keep the peace? I imagined that each of the leading characters would have had their own ideas about how and why the war began and decided I would give some of them the chance to argue their viewpoints.

Suddenly, an opening line formed in my head: “It began with that stupid wedding invitation - the one I didn’t get.” After that, the story simply flowed out of my brain - I could hardly stop it. And I surprised myself by giving Helen all my sympathy.

But be warned: I was in a very silly mood when I wrote the story! Don’t expect a Greek tragedy when you read it. You won’t get one.

About Sue:

Sue is a Melbourne writer with ten books and many articles and short stories to her name. Her short fiction has been published by ASIM, Fablecroft Publishing, Ford Street, Peggy Bright Books and Pearson. Her 2010 YA novel Wolfborn is a Children’s Book Council Notable Book and her book Crime Time: Australians behaving badly was on the longlist for the Davitt Awards in 2011. She is currently working on a novel set in the Wolfborn universe, in between teaching Year 8 and running a school library.

You can find sample chapters from both books on this web site.

LIGHT TOUCH PAPER: IAN MCHUGH ON KIPLING AND GODBREAKERS

Ian works hard, listens to Johnny Cash

I’m just reading Rudyard Kipling now. It’s always nice when someone pays tribute to the classics in their fiction. We stand on the shoulders of writers before us. Kipling is a giant, so many writers pay tribute - Neil Gaiman, for example,  in his Graveyard Book. Great to know Ian has been inspired by him, too!

The Editors


Simon says:

Ian’s ‘The Godbreaker and Unggubudh the Mountain’ has a bit of history, for me at least. I first encountered Ian through his story ‘The Godbreaker of Seggau-Li’, in April or May 2007, in a CSFG critiquing group. I was tremendously impressed by Ian’s depth of world-building, his deft characterisation, his propulsive plotting. I must have seen over a dozen McHugh stories by now, in styles ranging from out-and-out fantasy to magical realism to Orwellian futurism to all-too-plausible alternate history, and none of them has ever been the slightest bit substandard; most have been excellent. ‘Unggubudh’, I reckon, might just be his best yet.

Edwina Says:

While I have to stop and think every time before I pronounce "Unggubudh", Simon selected a tract of Ian's story to read at the NZ launch of "Light Touch." Ian's created such a rich tale with this story, and really knows how to capture his audience with his engaging, intriguing characters. The interplay between Big Ung and Little Ung was so natural, and beautifully written that I would like to read more of the backstory to their lives. I hope Ian intends to continue writing in this world.

Ian Says:

The Godbreaker and Unggubudh the Mountain" is a sequel of sorts to "The Godbreaker of Seggau-li", which Simon published in issue 50 of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine in 2011 - and which Ellen Datlow HM'ed for The Best Horror of the Year #4. I landed on the idea of "Unggubudh" because I was struggling to find a way into the theme, beyond writing a story that just launched. Flailing about for a place to launch from, it suddenly occurred to me that revisiting something Simon had bought from me previously might work in my favour - or not, since I had very little idea of Edwina's tastes. But, dammit, I had a place to start.

The first Godbreaker story was based on Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book story "Rikki-tikki-tavi", with the animals way more anthropomorphised and the Godbreaker in the role of Kipling's mongoose. The characters in the new story, Unggubudh (Big Ungg) and his son Little Ungg, derive from that most common pairing in children's picture books - an adult bear and its child/grandchild. (I have two young kids. I read a lot of picture books.)

The stories are both Westerns, as a lot of my stories are - as "Rikki-tikki-tavi" is a Western, or perhaps even the archetype of modern Westerns. I tend to write fairly complex worlds, so need easily recognisable skeletons to hang them on. And Westerns are fun, besides. 

Of all Western character archetypes, the Drifter is my favourite, but when I write Drifter stories, I tend to use other Western character archetypes for point-of-view. In "Bitter Dreams" it was the Weary Lawman, in "Seggau-li" it was the Feisty Townswoman, in "Unggubudh" it's the Retired Gunslinger. Although in this case, the Retired Gunslinger is an anthropomorphised bear with a motherf___ing huge sword (because is there anything more badass than a bear with a sword?) 

The first Godbreaker story can be read at http://ianmchugh.wordpress.com/stories/ for those who're interested to dip in before they read the sequel.


About Ian

Ian McHugh is a graduate of Clarion West and a member of the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild. His stories have appeared in publications including Asimov's, Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Daily SF. They have won grand prize in the Writers of the Future contest and been shortlisted four times at the Aurealis Awards (for one win). In 2011, his work made its first appearance on the Locus Recommended Reading List. 

Links to read or hear Ian's published stories free online can be found at ianmchugh.wordpress.com

LIGHT TOUCH PAPER STAND CLEAR: BRENDA COOPER BETWEEN LINES

Like so much other dystopian fiction I've read, Brenda's story is oddly optimistic. I will also say that it's very appropriate for the author of  dystopian fiction set in Australia to have been brought up on the work of a man who wrote about the end of the world happening Down Under.

The Editors:

Simon Says:

Brenda’s ‘Between Lines’ is a warm-hearted portrayal of a somewhat dystopian near future. I found it fascinating for its description of Sydney as a foreign city (Brenda’s a Washingtonian—the state, that is, not the ‘D C’) and for its free-running but completely logical connection of concepts. Given our hope that the anthology would be seen as a patchwork of distinctly different pieces, it made perfect sense to interpose ‘Between Lines’, a straighforward but moving SF story, between two of the collection’s more extravagant fantasies.

Edwina says:

Brenda Cooper: Ted Scribner and his wife Ros kindly invited me up to Blackheath for the day to meet US writer, Brena Cooper. We all had a nice day, checking out the rhododendron gardens, having a leisurely lunch and chatting. At the end of the day Brenda and I shared the train trip back to Sydney. It was interesting reading parts of her story and thinking "I know what inspired that. I was there!"

And Finally, Brenda Says:

First, I have to say I was just honored to be included.  I had the great good fortune both to visit Australia and to meet Edwina while I was at it.  A mutual friend, Ted Scribner, introduced me to her, and we shared a train ride down from the Blue Mountains to Sydney.  I loved all things Australian, and all of the people that I met – both at the tech conference I attended and in the SF writing/fan community.  I hope to return.

So I guess I should say something about the story.  I wrote “Between Lines” because a TED talk had gotten me thinking about hiding things in plain site the Internet.  The talk was by Eli Pariser, and is about what he calls “Online Filter Bubbles.”  In our current world, many search engines will feed us information based on what we usually look for.  I’m a liberal:  when I search a topic, the conservative view is probably further down the rankings.  I took that idea one further, in order to explore the idea of something being completely hidden., and for circumstances to then make that hidden thing important.  I’d give away spoilers if I said much more, but I set part of the story in Australia since I’d just been there, and part of it here in the US. 

The story is unique for me.  It’s narrated (which I’ve only done one or twice before – put in an actual narrator’s voice on purpose) and he’s a tiny bit of an unreliable narrator.  In addition, he’s an old man.  This was a challenging voice for me; getting it right took a lot of work. 

About Brenda:

Brenda Cooper is an American writer living near Seattle, in the rain and the wet.  She grew up stealing her father’s Nevil Shute books, which formed her first introduction to Australia.  She writes science fiction and fantasy, works in technology, and also does a bit of freelancing as a futurist. Her web page is at www.brenda-cooper.com.

Things To Come ...

Tomorrow's guest blogger is Brenda Cooper, followed on Sunday by Ian McHugh,whose story in Light Touch Paper is set in the world of one he wrote for ASIM. Monday, you will hear from me about how I came up with my story,"Five Ways To Start A War." You may hear more than you ever wanted to know about Greek mythology! Finally, Edwina and Simon, the hardworking editors of the anthology, will share their general thoughts before I draw for the free ebook. So far my responses have all been on my Goodreads friends list.

Hopefully, before I have to return to work, Fiona Wood, the author of Six Impossible Things, will share her thoughts on her writing with us in an interview.

See you on the blog!

LIGHT TOUCH PAPER: ADAM BROWNE ON TERRAFORMING HELL

I love reading about how each story in this great anthology came about. Adam’s story went right over the top and stayed there, for me. I read Inferno in old issues of Galaxy Magazine that I'd unearthed in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv second hand bookshops - at least, two thirds of it, I had to wait till I got home to Australia to find out how it ended. And I loved Riverworld. Who would have thought these two works would have helped inspire this delicious bit of steampunk?

The Editors 

Simon Says:

‘The D____d’ could hardly have sprung from anywhere other than the meticulously warped mind of Adam Browne. Adam’s precision of language, his care with tone and his exquisitely rococo style of world-building make his writing a joy to read; ‘The D____d’ is vintage Browne.

Edwina Says:

I remember reading Adam's story, "The Girl from Bora Bora" and thinking "That's so different, but oh so right." I felt the same way when I read "The D- - - - d" He shines with his own individual genius. And it was great to meet him at Continuum 8.   

Adam and friend with their ASIMS

The story: Adam's thoughts

I work at an academic library. I’m a library assistant, sometimes abbreviated to ‘library ass’. There are a few of us here, nonlibrarian librarians, all artists of some breed or stripe.

I’ve done many shitkicker jobs to support the writing habit, and this has been the best of them – an environment where you work with books -- and a culture that’s egalitarian to the extent that if you’re erudite, then you’re respected (quite a relaxed environment too, evidenced by the fact that I’m writing this on work time…)

Another advantage is that they ‘weed’ books here, take them out of circulation; ah, feeding time! Vulturely, we squawk and squabble over the dead or dying monographs, stealing them away to our lairs or gory aeries. One I recovered was on the Solar System, written in the early 1960s, but quite visionary (someone said that with hindsight, speculation about future technologies is often seen to be almost ridiculously conservative). I no longer have the book – I weeded it from my own collection a few years ago -- but there was a tidbit in there, a juicy flap of liver, that nourished this story.

The passage was about terraforming: it said ‘trying to terraform Venus would be like trying to terraform Hell.’

Where writers usually turn things to metaphor, I literalised it.

I started working on the story maybe five years ago. I floundered, lost control of it; when I thought it was finished, I sent it to an editor of a prominent Australian sf/f magazine, a very nice fellow who’d once said he’d accept almost automatically everything I submitted.

He rejected it. His notes, and those of another editor, suggested it should be steampunk; there were other suggestions I tried too.

I floundered some more -- until late last year, after contracting a friendship with the excellent Anna Tambour. She told me she would have something in the antho, and would like to share the TOC with me.

I took another stab. I added Richard Burton to the story, of whom I’d first heard from Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld books (I should mention, too, that I read Niven/Pournell’s Inferno a dozen times as a teenager; I’d loved the science fictionisation of a literary creation - early postmodernism - I’d wanted to set a story in Hell ever since.)

A few times in my career I’ve had to wait until I was sufficiently mature as a writer to exploit a certain idea. It happened once before with a story of mine called ‘Neverland Blues.’ It was the case here also. I’m a bit worried the story’s not perfect, that the writing’s too economical and twisty, if that makes sense, for the reader to relax into it, but I’m still a bit too close to it to tell.

But at least it’s done. Vladimir Nabokov once said something about writing a story in order to be rid of it. Now, at last, I’m rid of ‘The D____d’.

About Adam:

Adam Browne, 48, lives in Melbourne, Australia. He won the Aurealis Award for best sf short story in 2002. His first novel, Pyrotechnicon: Being a True Account of the Further Adventures of Cyrano de Bergerac among the States and Empires of the Stars, by Himself (dec'd), will be released by Coeur De Lion http://keithstevenson.com/CDLblog/2012/05/23/the-art-of-pyrotechnicon/ in September this year. His blog can be found here: 

http://adambrowne.blogspot.com.au/

Adam says: I did the internal illos  - here's a spooky one; he's a Black Frantic, one of the villains.

 - and a depiction of the moment Cyrano approaches the moon in his elephant-shaped spaceship (he gets so close he starts to suffer menstrual symptoms) - the latter is for sale at Signed and Numbered, in Greville Street, Prahran, a suburb of Melbourne. http://www.signedandnumbered.com.au/

            

Newly Arrived In My Letterbox!

Yesterday morning I was about to head off with my nephew and niece for a day's outing when I noticed a very fat parcel waiting for me in the flats' entrance. I knew what it was - it came from England and I had been expecting it. It was a copy of Into The Valley Of Death by the delightful Louise Berridge, who insisted on paying extravagant postage so she could personalise it for me and a lovely autograph it was, too, "in memory of (your) father, who was at least as great a hero as any in this book ". Too right he was. And many thanks, Louise!

I couldn't open it or even take it with me, because it's a hardcover and heavy, so had to shove it into my letterbox till I got home last night. Gorgeous book! It's about the Crimean War. I will have to try focusing on the serious theme here, because the last book I read centred around this was a Flashman novel. And those books are, yes, ultimately, serious, but use humour to make their point and they're laugh-out-loud funny!

Stand by for a review further down the track.

Light Touch Paper Stand Clear: Thoraiya Dyer and Faet's Fire

Let me tell you about slushing. You read stories sent by hundreds of hopefuls from all over the world. You try to do them justice, remembering each one is somebody’s baby, but mostly, they’re not very good. Some are quite good, even publishable - but once in a while, you get a story that makes you sit up and say, “YESSS!” - a story that reminds you why you keep reading slush, hoping something like it will come along. And once, making my way through the Andromeda Spaceways slushpile, I found such a story which we later published. It was, of course, one  of Thoraiya’s. She is a very special writer.

The Editors

Edwina Says:

I found the mental images created by Thoraiya’s story incredibly intense and I think she’s a first class author who will go far.

Simon Says: 

Thoraiya’s ‘Faet’s Fire’ is a searing, white-hot lightning bolt of a story, and one that dies away with the afterimages still playing across the reader’s retinas. At least that’s the way it was for me—maybe I need to see an optometrist. Thoraiya always packs a lot of story into as few words as possible, and ‘Faet’s Fire’ is an excellent example of her skills in this regard.

                                         Thoraiya says:

The Hunter Valley in NSW is rodeo country, and when I first saw the anthology guidelines, I thought I'd write something about a rodeo. There's nothing like tying a rope around a bucking bronco's nads, jumping on its back and opening the gate to fit the very definition of "Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear."

But, you know, characters never listen, do they? When I started writing, it turned out Theo didn't want to be a bull rider. He wanted to be in the campdraft; he wants Lisa to admire him for his knowledge and skill, not his bravado. The pivotal moment in the story when he flicks his cigarette lighter is all about being knowledgeable, not reckless. He thinks he knows what will happen.

Just like the coal seam gas industry thinks it knows what will happen if it hydraulically fractures the ground beneath our feet using high-pressure chemical cocktails, allowing methane trapped in pores in the rock to flow into their wells. The Lock the Gate Alliance believes otherwise. The point is, there's no going back once you've done it.

In real life, unlike in my story, there are unlikely to be alien gods able to reverse time and bestow a second chance.

About Thoraiya's Writing

Thoraiya Dyer’s work has appeared in Apex magazine, Cosmos, Nature. Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and Redstone SF. Her fantasy short story, “Fruit of the Pipal Tree,” won the 2011 Aurealis Award in its category. An original collection of her short fiction, Asymmetry, will be published in 2012 as part of Twelfth Planet Press’ Twelve Planets Series.

If you want to find out more about this wonderful writer, go to her web site: http://www.thoraiyadyer.com/