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Love and Romanpunk

by Tansy Rayner Roberts (Goodreads Author), Alisa Krasnostein (Goodreads Author) (Editor)

4.23 of 5 stars 4.23 · rating details · 71 ratings · 28 reviews

Thousands of years ago, Julia Agrippina wrote the true history of her family, the Caesars. The document was lost, or destroyed, almost immediately.
(It included more monsters than you might think.)

Hundreds of years ago, Fanny and Mary ran away from London with a debauched poet and his sister.
(If it was the poet you are thinking of, the story would have ended far more happil...more

Paperback, 105 pages

Published April 2011 by Twelfth Planet Press (first published 2011)

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Jun 22, 2012 Jenny Schwartz rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: aww2012, history, fantasy, paranormal, rewriting-history, steampunk

Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts was an unexpected addition to my Australian Women Writers 2012 Reading & Reviewing Challenge. I was actually doing a shout-out for #steampunkchat on Twitter and asking for other-punk recommendations and @KaelaJael said “Romanpunk! by @TansyRR”.

So when I was reading Love and Romanpunk I was split between looking for the ‘punk and trying to analyse (for this review) what it was that made the book so good.

For a start, there’s no faking expertise. Tansy...more

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Nov 28, 2011 Mark Webb rated it 5 of 5 stars

Love and Romanpunkis one of the Twelve Planets series published by Twelfth Planet Press(made up of 12 boutique collections of stories by Australian writers). It is made up of four shorter stories, including:

Julia Agrippina's Secret Family Bestiary
Lamia Victoriana
The Patrician
Last of the Romanpunks

The four stories are connected (although thousands of years apart in timeframe and tracing some very bizarre family history). It's hard to tell from the title, so I'll say immediately that there is a di...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Melina rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, 2013-aww, 2013-first-time-read, adult-fiction, australian, australian-women-writers, fantasy, favorites, fiction, family, historical-fiction, kindle, short-stories, owned

(Disclaimer – I know the author through the internet)

Back in the olden days before I became a teacher, I completed an arts degree with a double major in Ancient History. My real love was Ancient Athens (I even learned Ancient Greek), but I did have a certain fondness for the early empire.

Which, luckily for me, is what Love and Romanpunk is based around.

The book is part of the Twelve Planet series and consists of four short, related stories. In the first one, Julia Agrippina’s Secret Family Besti...more (Disclaimer – I know the author through the internet)

Back in the olden days before I became a teacher, I completed an arts degree with a double major in Ancient History. My real love was Ancient Athens (I even learned Ancient Greek), but I did have a certain fondness for the early empire.

Which, luckily for me, is what Love and Romanpunk is based around.

The book is part of the Twelve Planet series and consists of four short, related stories. In the first one, Julia Agrippina’s Secret Family Bestiary, we are introduced to the background to our story, told by my favourite of all Roman women (I studied Nero a little, so spent way too long designing collapsible boats with other wayward students. Did I mention we drank a lot of wine in the Ancient History department?) It turns out that the twists and turns of the early Roman empire where not caused by revolution and jealousy and a certain fondness for horses alone. Instead, there were numerous creatures and beings, some of them members of the ruling family. While we learn about the Roman world, which is kind of as we knew it, we are being fed information which sets up the next three stories – including the introduction of Lamia – Roman vampires.

In Lamia Victoriana, we follow these creatures to Victorian times. We then slip forward in history to a Roman City built in the Australian outback in The Patrician, before heading into the future in Last of the Romanpunks. Each story builds on the last, and I must admit that I really feel like I should read the whole lot again so that I can really understand it even better.

I don’t read a huge amount of short stories, but I understand that it’s a delicate balancing act to create fleshed out characters, without getting bogged down in lengthy character exposition. I think Love and Romanpunk does an excellent job of doing this, building on characters that we ‘know’ and creating characters that are very easy to care about. I would easily want to read more about the different ‘worlds’ we are introduced to.

I really loved this book and I would recommend this book to history lovers, of course, but also to people who aren’t usually interested in speculative fiction, but would like to dip their toes in a bit. The format is a great way to be introduced to Australian speculative fiction, and I look forward to reading more of them. I believe Love and Romanpunk had sold out in the print form, but is easily found through Kindle or the Twelfth Planet Press website.

This review originally appeared at Adventures of a Subversive Reader (less)

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Mar 21, 2012 Victoria (vikz writes) rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, modern-epic-fantasy, myth-punk, unmissable-reads, australian-women-writers, contemporary-fiction, weird-fiction, roman-punk

summary

I have beeb listening to Galactic suburbia http://www.galactisuburbia.podbean.com/ for quite some time and I was interested in reading this book. It couldn't have been better for me. It takes the Roman world, turns it into a mythological sphere and then brings it forward to the modern world.

structure

The narrative is told in a series of short stories that contain a overarching narrative arch. Each is set in a different historical period. Each one shows the fight that takes place between t...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Bree T rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: australian, speculative-fic, short-stories

Love And Romanpunk is a collection of four stories, loosely connected. The first story tells the family history of Julia Agrippina, who details the unusual members of her family and the amazing strength that lay behind the name Julia and what it meant to ‘be a Julia’. Her family members all had hidden sides and hidden depths and the detailed history includes dragons, the lamia (sort of like vampires) and werewolves.

The second story moves to the Victorian Era, where girls Fanny and Mary run away...more Love And Romanpunk is a collection of four stories, loosely connected. The first story tells the family history of Julia Agrippina, who details the unusual members of her family and the amazing strength that lay behind the name Julia and what it meant to ‘be a Julia’. Her family members all had hidden sides and hidden depths and the detailed history includes dragons, the lamia (sort of like vampires) and werewolves.

The second story moves to the Victorian Era, where girls Fanny and Mary run away with a poet and his strangely compelling sister. The poet and his sister are hiding a dark secret which binds the sisters to them and when the secret is let out, via a mysterious man who has the duty of hunting them down, the pattern of connection begins to emerge in the stories.

The third story is set in futuristic Australia, where a depiction of Ancient Rome has been built as a tourist attraction. There are citizens that live there, paid to look and act as authentic as possible to give the tourists the full experience. Clea is one such citizen, who is but a teenager when she meets a man named Julius, who is tasked with something very special. Julius and Clea form a strange and unusual friendship and he reappears at sporadic intervals throughout her life long after the Roman replica has been closed to the public and Clea has moved on, living elsewhere. Through Julius, Clea’s eyes are opened to the mysterious creatures that inhabit the Earth, unbeknownst to its regular population.

The fourth and final story revolves around Clea’s grandson who is deceived by his ex-girlfriend into being onboard the launch of a floating airship bar. Whilst they are high up in the air, her sinister plans and the real reason for him being there are revealed but he meets someone who can help him – someone who just happens to be called Jools. She’s oblivious to the power of the name Julia but she’s about to learn what it means.

I am the first to admit – I’m not much of a short story fan. They seem choppy, contain ambiguous endings and often, no ending at all, which bothers my need for a finite ending and closure! But Marg has been raving about the Twelfth Planet Press series of short stories and when Marg recommends me something, I am always pretty keen to give it a go! Twelfth Planet Press are a small, independent Australian press and there are some exciting names attached to this series. Marg has a lot more information about the series over at her review of Love And Romanpunk, which can be found here.

The stories are only quite loosely linked but they definitely need to be read in order and this enhances the overall experience. I found the first one a little daunting – there’s a lot of names and a lot of them are very similar and it was a bit hard for this non-Roman scholar to keep them all straight in her head. I did enjoy it though once I settled into it, even though by the end I still felt like it was mostly a blur of names!

The third story was by far my favourite. Set in Australia, it opened with a depiction of ancient Rome, built in the desert for tourists to come and visit and experience an authentic ancient Roman city. Clea is a young girl who assumes she’s found a tourist who has wandered away from his group. She soon discovers that Julius is no tourist and though he only appears in his twenties, he’s in fact, much much older than that. He opens Clea’s eyes to the ways of monsters that inhabit the world, and throughout Clea’s life they meet up several times. I loved their interactions and the development of their rather unique relationship. Tthis story was rich, full of life and colour and true to my nature, I found myself almost wishing there could be a full novel spun out of it. I’d have loved to have read more about Clea and Julius, their detailed time together.

The writing is beautiful – concise and neat but vivid and beautiful, conveying much more than the slimness of the volume suggests. Weighing in at just over 105p, Love And Romanpunk is quite tiny, but packs a large reading punch. It’s my first introduction to Rayner Roberts, who is well known in Australian YA science fiction and fantasy circles and I’m definitely impressed. I’ll be tracking down some of her other work to try.

As for short stories? I’m not quite a devoted convert yet, but I enjoyed this collection. Marg has also loaned me another of the Twelfth Planet Press volumes and I’m looking forward to being able to give that a go too.(less)

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May 13, 2011 Alexandra rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011, lss

This is not a review. It can't be, really. Partly because it's by a friend - although I have reviewed Tansy's work before, and that by other friends too (fortunately, I usually like it, so that's no hardship). No, the main reason why this isn't really a review is the dedication. It's dedicated to meeee!! Tansy says that this is dedicated to Random Alex (heh), and that I am totally wrong for liking Marc Antony more than Octavian.

Of course, she is totally wrong about that. How could anyone appreci...more This is not a review. It can't be, really. Partly because it's by a friend - although I have reviewed Tansy's work before, and that by other friends too (fortunately, I usually like it, so that's no hardship). No, the main reason why this isn't really a review is the dedication. It's dedicated to meeee!! Tansy says that this is dedicated to Random Alex (heh), and that I am totally wrong for liking Marc Antony more than Octavian.

Of course, she is totally wrong about that. How could anyone appreciate a psychopathic megalomaniac, who played up his relationship with Caesar in order to capitalise on Roman sentimentality and killed opponents willy-nilly, who rewrote history to make him and his look better and changed laws to suit himself, and who was utterly ruthless when it came to his family? Especially when said ego-tripper is set in opposition to a man who evinced so much humanity that he loved a non-Roman woman and anticipated that his children with her would actually inherit from him, whose prowess in battle didn't need to be eulogised by an imperial flunky, and whose generosity was legendary.

Ahem. So Tansy and I have some... issues. Clearly, however, she loves me despite our differences, and that's very nice indeed. She did put me in a slightly awkward position, though, when I made her sign my copy: she said (in caps no loess), that I HAVE TO LOVE THIS BOOK.

Oh yeh, no pressure.

I am, of course, a fan of Roman history. I studied at uni, and I even wrote my honours topic on Nero and his love of Greek things. Thinking about Tansy's area of study, though - Roman imperial women - makes me realise that my study of Rome was entirely typical. That is, a bit of the Gracchi, Marius-Sulla-Caesar, a run through of the Empire... and a little bit of 'daily life' blah. Not a whole lot on women , really, except where they happen to be interesting either for genealogical reasons or because of their notoriety. Like Julia Agrippina Minor. I've always liked her.

The first story in this collection is "Julia Agrippina's Secret Bestiary." It gives a potted history of the Caesar family... with added monsters. I really enjoyed Tansy's characterisation of the various members of this crazy family. She captures an essence, I think, of the various emperors and their wives/sisters/mothers that actually rings quite true. I particularly liked that although Gaius - Caligula - is shown to be a bit nuts eventually, he's handled much more sensitively than most other fictional representations bother. Of course. And the monsters made a bizarre sort of sense; they fit in delightfully well with the overall vibe of the story.

The stories progress chronologically through what Tansy affectionately calls the Agrippinaverse. The second story is "Lamia Victoriana" - lamias being the Roman equivalent of female vampires. Here, in Victorian England, Fanny and Mary run away "with a debauched poet and his sister," as the blurb has it, with the coda that "If it was the poet you are thinking of, the story would have ended far more happily, and with fewer people having their throats bitten out." The blurb is, by the way, one of the most enticing and true to the story that I've read in a long time. It gives an accurate, and seductive, portrayal of each story, and teams that with snarky comments which perfectly fit the tart, sometimes lovingly exasperated, voice of the stories. This second story is the odd one out in some ways; it's a great story, still, but it's different in mood and tone from the other three. Darker.

"The Patrician" is the story written in a time most clearly like our own... if Australia had a recreated Roman city somewhere. This is in many ways the centrepiece of the collection. Clea Majora meets a stranger visiting her town, and gets drawn into an adventure even weirder than living in a town called Nova Ostia. There's not much to say without giving away the awesome way in which the story develops. It's brilliant. Everyone should read it. It stands by itself as well as being perfect within the context of the other stories.

Finally, the collection is rounded out with "Last of the Romanpunks." Where the first story is basically historical fantasy, and the second riffs off the Gothic sensibilities of the Victorian era, and the third is beholden to urban fantasy, the fourth ventures into science fiction territory. Managing all four of those genres, clearly connecting the stories through characters and ideas but keeping the vibe of each distinct, is quite the feat. Anyway, Tansy decided to close the collection with a bang, since I think of this story as the most action-based of the four. And again, very enjoyable.

So... it wasn't going to be a review, but I guess it sort of has. Oops. (less)

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Jul 02, 2012 Deborah Biancotti rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: oz, aww2012, writer-women

This is a brilliant read, a fantastic, engaging, fun-packed, occasionally melancholic read that kept me cackling like a madwoman on a three-hour bus ride (I got a whole seat to myself that day, it was awesome).

To my mind - and I could be wrong - the 4 stories fall into either more of the 'love' field or more of the 'romanpunk' field & I realised to my surprise I probably loved the love field more. (I'm usually bored witless by the subject of love - I like to think this is because love is so...more This is a brilliant read, a fantastic, engaging, fun-packed, occasionally melancholic read that kept me cackling like a madwoman on a three-hour bus ride (I got a whole seat to myself that day, it was awesome).

To my mind - and I could be wrong - the 4 stories fall into either more of the 'love' field or more of the 'romanpunk' field & I realised to my surprise I probably loved the love field more. (I'm usually bored witless by the subject of love - I like to think this is because love is so hard to write about & get right, but it might be because I'm a stone cold kinda gal with little evident emotional life, *bwahaha*.) Anyhow.

What impressed me most of all - what had me curling into a foetal position of pure delight while rocking my iPad out of the sunlight so I could keep reading in the glare of a crappy winter's afternoon - was Roberts .... er, was Rayner Roberts ... er, was the author's ability to *hold two opposing forces within the one story*.

For example, in the first story, "Julia Agrippina's Secret Family Bestiary", we read the story of Julia via the alphabetical encyclopaedia-style compendium of beasties she has fought. We start off lightly, with a delicate humour. But as the story progresses we realise we're witnessing the tragic downfall of Julia's supernatural family. Humour and tragedy, told alphabetically. Brilliant!

"Lamia Victoriana" may be my favourite of the four, though I vacillate. This is the story of a woman who becomes a familiar for the world's last vampire hold. Somewhere a page or so before the end (iPads, they have their downsides) I realised there was *no good way out* of this story, that both possible endings were tragic, that no other endings were at all possible. I was sure of it. And I found the author's mastery of those two opposing forces had infected me, the reader. I wanted one ending, I wanted it a lot, even though it would make me sad to have to read it. And when I didn't get that ending - when I got surely the only other possible ending - I was just as sad as if I'd gotten the ending I wanted. No way out. Damn! I remember saying when I realised which ending I wanted. DAMN! I said when I didn't get it.

See what she's done there? Brilliant!

Occasionally I had to stop reading this slim volume just so I could grin, my eyes squeezed nearly shut by the joy! oh, the JOY! of reading something SO GOOD. Kudos to Ms Roberts ... er... Rayner Roberts ... er...(less)

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May 17, 2011 Ben Payne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts is the second of Twelfth Planet Press’s series of short collections by Australian female writers. It’s a laudable project in itself, and also a sign of the fine work that Twelfth Planet, among other critics and publishers, have done in promoting female voices in what remains a male-dominated marketplace.

Love and Romanpunk is the second published book in the series, but the first I read, although I dipped into Sue Isle’s collection while reading this one...more Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts is the second of Twelfth Planet Press’s series of short collections by Australian female writers. It’s a laudable project in itself, and also a sign of the fine work that Twelfth Planet, among other critics and publishers, have done in promoting female voices in what remains a male-dominated marketplace.

Love and Romanpunk is the second published book in the series, but the first I read, although I dipped into Sue Isle’s collection while reading this one and it was impossible not to compare them, to some extent. While Sue’s book is fairly closely linked and consistent in tone, Tansy’s book is much more stylistically varied. And while Nightsiders is quite a dense read (in a good way), I found Love and Romanpunk a much easier read. The author’s prose is really smooth, and I found I sped through at least three of the stories in the book. Without turning this into a comparative review, I’d say that both books will appeal to slightly different readers, but that both are good enough to expand their readership into the other’s market. I would be hard pressed to select a favourite of the two.

Love and Romanpunk opens with its weakest story, which is unfortunate but probably necessary, both because of the chronology of the stories, but more importantly because it sets up a lot of the groundwork which the latter stories will riff off. “Julia Agrippina’s Secret Family Bestiary” takes the form of an alphabetical list of mythological beasts which have affected the author’s family. This bestiary structure felt a bit unnecessary, and I pretty much forgot about it, because the family history quickly takes over. The author’s love and knowledge of Roman history shines through in her working of the mythology through the story. Perhaps this love was the problem, because ultimately I felt that the story tried to cram too much in, with the result that the majority of storyline is “told” to us by the narrator, at one remove from events. I didn’t feel any real immediacy or connection to what was happening. I imagine other Roman historians will enjoy the cleverness in the story, but to me it felt more like a summary of events.

The exact opposite is true of the following three stories, which is why they work so well. “Lamia Victoriana”, the second, brief, story, doesn’t tell us anything; it just dumps us into the middle of complicated relationships and events which quickly spiral out of control. Set, as you would expect from the title, in Victorian times, it is a kind of whirlwind romance with a dark ending. It works, because it’s subtle, moving toward its end powerfully but gently, and also because the emotions feel real.

“The Patrician” is the strongest story in the collection, for my money. Set in a neo-Roman theme town in contemporary Australia, it tells the story of a young girl who encounters a mysterious man who fights monsters, and who reappears through her life at irregular intervals. There is a bit of Doctor Who meets Buffy here, but I mean that in the most positive way, because while the story may be indebted to the themes and tones of those two shows, the author has created a story which stands proudly on its own without comparison. The monsters help to drive the narrative, but at heart this is a story about the relationship between the two central characters, skewed off-centre by the mysterious man’s perpetual youth, as he reappears through the protagonist’s life as she ages. A lot of the poignancy of the relationship derives from this contrast. Again, it’s the subtlety of the story that most impresses here. The author doesn’t need to explain any of the emotional impact of their encounters, because the characters and dialogue are so well realised that the reader lives it, feels it for themself. I was surprised, on looking back, that the story was only twenty-seven pages, because it felt so epic, on an inner scale.

The book could have ended with “The Patrician”, but Tansy provides a kind of sequel/coda in the final story, “Last of the Romanpunks”. Set on an airship in a steampunk/scifi future, it features the grandson of last story’s protagonist thrust unexpectedly into his own drama. This is the kind of swashbuckling, fun ride that I expected on opening the collection. Again, though, the author manages to throw a couple of messy relationships into the mix. It felt like a small come-down after the depth of the previous story, but it’s still a very nicely written action piece, and an enjoyable way to end the book.

I have been thinking for a while about how to best sum up Love and Romanpunk. In some ways it delivered what I expected, but in others it surprised me. I expected this book to be smart, to know its history, to have a sense of fun, and some laughs, and some steamy romance. Those things are almost Tansy trademarks. And it does have all those things, but in the end, all of those things felt almost peripheral to the things I liked most about the collection.

What’s not often talked about, with Tansy’s writing, is the fact that there is a real emotional courage to her best works, a sense that she is ready to get into her gumboots and rubber gloves and muck about in the messiest, ugliest, most confusing of human emotions and relationships, and to try to find a path through them. It’s that depth of emotion, sometimes sweet, but just as often brutal and painful, that drives the best of these stories into being something a cut above the majority of works out there. The fact that they are also smart, and fun, is just the icing on the cake.

Recommended.(less)

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Dec 16, 2011 Tehani rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: australian, fantasy, short-stories

The BEST book I've read so far this year. Four short intertwined stories, beautifully written and packaged. What makes them really stand out is that the stories (set in different time periods) are written in styles that reflect those time periods - clever and classy. LOVED IT!

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Apr 30, 2011 Thoraiya rated it 5 of 5 stars

Really, I want to give this 4.5 stars. Because I consider this a step up for Tansy, and she has the whole rest of her career ahead of her, and what will I do when she steps up again? But I gave 4 stars to Siren Beat, and this is even more impressive than Siren Beat was, so 5 stars it is.

These stories work so well together, but they are also perfectly constructed individually. I think the first one is my favourite, but maybe because of the shock factor (don't hate me, but I was not expecting the...more

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Apr 14, 2012 Dave Versace rated it 5 of 5 stars

The four short stories that make up Love and Romanpunk wrap around the premise that the Rome of Augustus and his heirs was crawling with mythological beasts, in particular vampires and lamia. So far, so here-take-all-my-money please. I’m not a particularly dedicated history buff (unlike Rayner Roberts, who has a doctorate all up in that bizzo) but I am drawn to the lives gleefully depicted in I, Claudius, Rome and even goddamn Gladiator. There’s just something about the series of debauched lunat...more The four short stories that make up Love and Romanpunk wrap around the premise that the Rome of Augustus and his heirs was crawling with mythological beasts, in particular vampires and lamia. So far, so here-take-all-my-money please. I’m not a particularly dedicated history buff (unlike Rayner Roberts, who has a doctorate all up in that bizzo) but I am drawn to the lives gleefully depicted in I, Claudius, Rome and even goddamn Gladiator. There’s just something about the series of debauched lunatics who paraded through Octavius’ wake that captures the imagination – Nero, Tiberius, Caligula and dear old Claw-claw-Claudius. Rayner Roberts cannily folds inhuman monsters into that mix and serves up a delicious alternate history in which lamia plague humanity over the course of centuries.

First up is my personal favourite, ‘Julia Agrippina’s Secret Family Bestiary’, which recounts the rise and disintegration of the Augustine Emperors, as told by Nero’s mother Julia Agrippina Minor. It begins – and wins my undying affection – with this passage:

Let us begin with the issue of most interest to future historians: I did not poison my uncle and husband, the Emperor Claudius. Instead, I drove a stake through his heart.

Colour me delighted. It goes on to detail, in alphabetical order, the specific mythological monsters that helped or beset or sometimes comprised the various branches of the Imperial family. Basilisks, centaurs, harpies – and of course the much-reviled Livia (Augustus’ wife) was a blood-drinking lamia. The story centres around the Julias, the three sisters of Caligula (Julia Agrippina, Julia Drusilla and Julia Livilla) who fight to preserve themselves, their brothers and their children from various brushes with mythology and from their fiendish relatives.

The choice to tell the story in an alphabetical-order series of vignettes seems a catchy gimmick at first, but the story so comes alive with Julia Agrippina’s passionate ferocity that the gimmick completely fades into the background. Looking back on it, it’s a clever artifice that gives ‘Julia Agrippina’ the feel of a real old-world bestiary as well as an epic family saga.

‘Lamia Victoriana’ is a gothic retelling of the romance between Mary Wollstonecraft and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, which somehow despite the presence of bloodsucking monsters, gratuitous murders and a rather steamy lesbian seduction is rather less sordid than its real-history equivalent. The characters swan about The Continent being determinedly romantic and inevitably tragic, which makes it sound like a romp, albeit one where the consequences of thoughtless indulgence and frequent acts of murder are always lurking. The ending is upliftingly chilling, which is a bit of a neat trick.

‘The Patrician’, a YA romance featuring a young woman and an ancient monster hunter (set primarily in an Australian tourist attraction only a little more improbable than most of the real ones) which explores the dynamic of a Doctor/Companion relationship without once making even an oblique reference to Doctor Who. Instead, ‘The Patrician’ concerns the hunting of ancient Roman monsters and their kind, with the focus on the young protagonist’s lifetime journey to becoming an unmitigated badarse. This is the story in the collection that picked up a nomination for an Aurealis Award, for which it is more than deserving, though as I mentioned it’s not my favourite. I loved the line “She did not see him again for five years, and when she did, he was too busy stabbing harpies to stop and chat.” Sweet.

Finally there’s ‘The Last of the Romanpunks’, which is a straight-up action-adventure set on an airship crawling with monsters. It ties directly back to the previous three stories in amusing and unexpected ways, but Rayner Roberts never lets that get in the way of the hardboiled Die Hard antics. Snappy dialogue, clever and determined protagonists and – yeah, well, she had me at airships.(less)

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Jun 13, 2011 Marg rated it 5 of 5 stars

Some times when you read a new author, you just know that you are going to enjoy their books because you enjoy their voice! Tansy Rayner Roberts is one of those authors. She is a new author to me this year. I first read her story Relentless Adaptations in the Sprawl anthology, and then she guest posted for me, and finally, on the strength of loving this short story collection I have also now purchased the first book in her Creature Court trilogy, Power and the Glory.

Before I talk any more about...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Sally rated it 5 of 5 stars

A solid 4.5 stars, marked up for originality.

What a magnificent jaunt. As alternative Roman history meets ancient mythology meets urban fantasy with a dash of steampunk for good measure, it's hard to imagine better.

Love and Romanpunk is comprised of four connected short stories, set some centuries apart, some of which were more enjoyable then others and all of which contributed to the overall; so that by the time the last one was read, and there's a James Bond -v- Moonraker like scene set in an...more

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Sep 12, 2011 Celia Powell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-books, australian-author, short-stories, fantasy

Love and Romanpunk is a slim volume of four interlinked short stories. They centre around a fantasical version of Roman history and myths, where Julia Agrippina’s family fights monsters of legend, particularly the lamia (a monster similar to a vampire). The first story is told by Julia, the second moves to lamia in Victorian times ("Lamia Victoriana"), the third is a modern urban fantasy set in... a near future Australia? In a Roman theme town anyway, and featuring a young Australian girl who be...more

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Oct 01, 2011 Sean the Bookonaut rated it 5 of 5 stars

Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts is the second in Twelfth Planet Press’ Twelve Planets series.

I have been HANGING OUT for the ebook version of this book and fully appreciate the work that has gone into making my wish a reality(yes they did it just for me[1]).

What does one get?

For the meagre sum of $5.95 the reader is treated to 4 original and reasonably independent works, lovingly woven together.

Julia Agrippina’s Secret Family Bestiary
Lamia Victoriana
The Patrician
Last of the Romanp...more

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Dec 06, 2012 Catherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have read this collection twice now. The first time, the award-winning 'The Patrician' was my favourite. On second read, still loved that one, particularly the way the across - the - ages relationship was handled, but found the first story in the book - the Bestiary, really grabbed me and I loved it too. The other two stories are also good, but not quite to the same effectiveness for me.

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Jan 16, 2013 Elanor Matton-Johnson rated it 5 of 5 stars

This collection is utterly brilliant. As a reader trying to re-enter the world of fantasy, I picked up Love and Romanpunk after listening to a few of Tansy's podcasts. Even working around work and dancing committments, I devoured it within 24 hours. I love the concept of a group of short stories forming a larger narrative and I adore the idwa of romanpunk. Cheers, Tansy.

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Mar 30, 2013 Andreas rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, short-stories

An interesting mix of fantasy and Roman mythology. I loved the first story in the collection which serves as a great introduction into the world of Tansy Roberts. The second one was good as well with nice twists but the last two were a bit too ordinary and didn't touch me. Female readers might enjoy them more than I did.

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Jan 10, 2013 Peter Johnston rated it 4 of 5 stars

Compelling fun, this series of three short stories shows you need to know your history before you can do a pastiche of it. I'm looking at you, Steampunk. Lamia and gorgons and the Julio-Claudians, oh my!

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May 05, 2012 Tamara Felsinger added it

Shelves: tpp-people

I'm so, so sad that I'm finished :( I had no idea it would immerse me so much.

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Aug 07, 2011 Katharine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: anthologies-collections, aurealis-awards-2011, read-2011

Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.

~~To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.~~

Despite one of two formatting issues, I really loved this book, as I enjoy all of Tansy's work I've read to date. If Tansy ever wrote a historical fiction novel, I would be all over it the...more

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Apr 30, 2011 Aifin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent work.

1 like · like · see review

Apr 30, 2012 Charles rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ambitious, unique, and a refreshing take on Roman myth.

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Aug 14, 2011 Narrelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: anthology, australian, fantasy, historical, vampire

Feisty, funny, clever, powerful and full of awesome historical Julias. And vampires. A magnificent kickoff to Twelfth Planet Press's 12 Planets series, and a brilliant introduction to Roberts' work. If you love the idea of powerful women in Ancient Rome, Roman theme parks in the Aussie outback and fighting to save the world on an airship full of monsters, this is so the book for you.

1 like · like · see review

Nov 19, 2012 Lynne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction-and-fantasy

Really enjoyed this group of 4 short stories messing with Roman history and adding vampires and the paranormal. Great fun, verve, and fantastic writing. Well worth a read!

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Aug 23, 2011 Liz rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: anthology, australasian, fantasy, historical, paranormal, urban-fantasy

My review is here: http://ticon4.com/2011/08/review-love...

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May 02, 2013 Tammy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This collection of loosely linked short stories is fantastic. It starts with Julia Agrippina recording a history of her family, and, most importantly and specifically, of the Julias in her family. Each story follows another Julia throughout history, and where Julias go monsters follow.

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Apr 07, 2012 Sally906 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories, fantasy, horror, historical

A very quick read and a new for me Australian female author - will look up more of her work for sure

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May 24, 2013 Julia marked it as to-read

May 08, 2013 Affreca rated it 4 of 5 stars

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About Tansy Rayner Roberts

Hi, my name’s Tansy Rayner Roberts. I’m a Tasmanian writer. I work from home, in between daughter-juggling and doll selling.

My fantasy trilogy (HarperCollins Voyager) features flappers, shape-changers and bloodthirsty court politics. It tells the story of Velody, a dressmaker who discovers a hidden war being played out in the night sky of the city of Aufleur, and of Ashiol, the exiled Ducomte who...more

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Books by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Power and Majesty (Creature Court trilogy #1)

The Shattered City (Creature Court trilogy #2)

Reign of Beasts (Creature Court Trilogy #3)

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