Tim Jones's Blog, page 45

Tuesday Poem: The Balcony, by Iain Britton

 





Painted lines



criss-cross this universal playboy

of the Polynesian world.





A strange masochism is at work

threading hot wires through veins



connecting me to him

                           to this epiphany in progress.







He compartmentalizes the morning



inhabits a caption          written for him



for a picture



of his maidservant       her dog       her cat.





He explores by touch

strips of sunlight              draped over a balcony.





He's neither soldier



                        sailor                   butcher



but carries a helmet for his journey.







From the balcony



blunted-blue agapanthus

choke in numbers.



Credit note: "The Balcony" is the opening poem in Iain Britton's new collection Punctured Experimental, published by Kilmog Press and available from Parsons Bookshop in Auckland.



Tim says: I interviewed Iain Britton in 2009, shortly before his collection Liquefaction was published by IP. Iain subsequently got in touch to let me know about Punctured Experimental and to let me know that his work was moving in a more experimental direction - as reflected in the title of his new book, which continues the impressive publication schedule of Dunedin's Kilmog Press.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.

What I Listened To In 2010

Rock (and funk, and disco, and metal, and punk, and blues)



I started listening to rock music in the early 1970s, and the sorts of music I like mostly date from that era: progressive rock, heavy metal, punk and new wave, funk, disco. For a long time I was like a dinosaur trapped in amber (actually, make that a mosquito trapped in amber which has sucked the DNA of a dinosaur trapped in the La Brea tar pits), listening to old and new albums by the same groups I used to listen to in the 1970s.



Then along came YouTube, letting me get a little taste of new bands that sound intriguing. Now I roam across the landscape of new music like a dinosaur that avoided the La Brea tar pits and passed through a temporal rift into 2010 - oh, all right, 1974 then. But at least I listen to some new music sometimes.



Here's a selection of current favourites:



Warpaint, Bees (2010). Some say "shoegaze", but I hear echoes of later King Crimson and of Public Image Ltd in their sound. Their late-2010 album The Fool is well worth listening to.



Arcade Fire, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (2010). For me, the best song on The Suburbs.



Ana Popovic, Blues for M (2010). A live performance of the final track from her 2009 album Blind for Love. There's 50 secs of Ana talking to the crowd before the song starts, but if you like blues guitar, it's worth waiting for.



Joan Jett, A.C.D.C. (2006). Her cover of the old Sweet song.



Opeth, The Drapery Falls (2001). Gorgeous progressive metal - and cookie monster vocals never sounded so good.



Metallica, Fade To Black (1985). I never get tired of this. The sound is not brilliant on that 1985 version (with iconic bass player Cliff Burton), so here's a 1989 version with better sound.



A Taste of Honey, Boogie Oogie Oogie (1978). Forget the silly song title and, as the song itself suggests, listen to the bass now.



Boston, Don't Look Back (1978). You can make a whole career out of songs that sound a lot like "More Than A Feeling" so long as they are all as good as this.



David Bowie, Stay. A 2000 performance of Bowie's funky excursion from 1976's Station to Station - and the same song from the Dinah Shore Show in 1976. Check out Bowie's crazy legs in the 1976 version, and Earl Slick on guitar.



The Isley Brothers, Summer Breeze (1973). Their version of the Seals & Croft song, with Ernie Isley outstanding on guitar - as recommended by Chris Bell.



Classical



I got a CD of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 1 for Christmas (thanks, Dad!). I was especially pleased to get Symphony No. 1, Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony, on CD: a charming 14-minute Haydnesque pastiche. Here is the lovely 4th movement.



Beethoven's Triple Concerto has been one of my favourite pieces of classical music from the time I first heard it. I have a version with David Oistrakh on violin, Mstislav Rostropovich on cello and Sviatoslav Richter on piano, and the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan: heavy hitters indeed! Here are the same three soloists playing the opening of the first movement in Moscow in 1970.



The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra recorded all three of Douglas Lilburn's symphonies, and I have them on one CD. Here is the NZSO playing Lilburn's single-movement Symphony No. 3.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.

What I Read In 2010

I read 57 books in 2011, five more than the 52 I managed in 2009. Just like last year, I hit a point in the final months of the year at which I could no longer summon up the concentration to read anything more complex than a web page or a newspaper article. Once I had met my final deadline for the year, my concentration returned, and I have happily got back into reading over the holidays.



Below is the list of what I read. Links are to reviews that appeared on my blog or in Belletrista, or to author interviews. Beneath that, I've selected my favourite reads of the year.



The List



1. The Temple Down The Road by Brian Matthews - nonfiction/history

2. Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson - novel/science fiction + historical

3. Kalpa Imperial by Angelica Gorodischer - collection of linked stories/science fiction

4. Smiley's People by John Le Carre - novel/thriller

5. Speak Softly, She Can Hear by Pam Lewis - novel/thriller

6. Sappho: A Garland, translated by Jim Powell - poetry collection with translator's notes

7. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov - novella

8. Etymology by Bryan Walpert - poetry collection

9. Spinners by Anthony McCarten - novel

10. This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin - nonfiction - science/music

11. Ithaca Island Bay Leaves by Vana Manasiadis - poetry collection

12. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 6: Retreat by Jane Espenson and others (graphic novel)

13. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute - novel

14. Selected Prose and Prose-Poems by Gabriela Mistral

15. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson - novel/thriller

16. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson - novel/thriller

17. Cornelius & Co by John O'Connor - poetry collection (review below)

18. Alternate Means of Transport by Cynthia Macdonald - poetry collection

19. The Ice Museum : In Search of the Lost Land of Thule by Joanna Kavenna - nonfiction/travel

20. The Chanur Saga by C J Cherryh - novel/science fiction-space opera (This comprises books 1-3 of a 5-book series. the other 2 books are listed separately below.)

21. Leaving the Tableland by Kerry Popplewell - poetry collection

22. The Norse Atlantic Saga by Gwyn Jones - nonfiction/history+ geography

23. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson - novel/thriller

24. Chanur's Homecoming by C J Cherryh - novel/science fiction-space opera

25. Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks - novel/science fiction-space opera

26 Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin - novel/historical with fantasy elements

27. Magnetic South by Sue Wootton - poetry collection

28. Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford - novel/Austenia

29. Ephraim's Eyes by Bryan Walpert - short story collection

30. Spark by Emma Neale - poetry collection

31. Chanur's Legacy by C. J. Cherryh - novel/science fiction-space opera

32. Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge - novel/historical fiction-political fiction

33. The Loneliness of The Long-Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe - fiction/short stories

34. The Word Book by Kanai Mieko - fiction/short stories

35. Digging for Spain by Penelope Todd - nonfiction/memoir

36. Whoops! by John Lanchester - nonfiction/economics

37. Bartering Lines by Michael Steven - poetry collection

38. Daybook Fragments by Michael Steven - poetry collection

39. Prosperity Without Growth by Tim Jackson - nonfiction/economics

40. 'A Tingling Catch': A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems, edited by Mark Pirie - poetry/sport/anthology

41. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - fiction/novel

42. Lonely Planet: Greenland & The Arctic - nonfiction/travel

43. Heading North by Helen Rickerby - poetry/chapbook

44. There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya - fiction/short stories

45.
46. Out Of It by Michael O'Leary - fiction/novella

47. Capitol Offense by Mike Doogan - fiction/thriller

48. Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight Volume 7: Twilight - graphic novel/horror

49. McGrotty and Ludmilla by Alasdair Gray - novella/satire

50. This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland by Gretel Ehrlich - nonfiction/travel

51. Barefoot by Jennifer Compton - poetry/collection

52. After Dark by Haruki Murakami - fiction/novel

53. Katherine Mansfield: The Story-Teller by Kathleen Jones - nonfiction/biography

54. Elementals by A. S. Byatt - fiction/short stories

55. A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson - nonfiction/memoir/travel

56. The Game by Lee Pletzers - fiction/thriller

57. Time Traveller by Robin Fry - poetry/collection



My Favourite Reads of 2010



The list above comes from my account on the social cataloguing site LibraryThing, where I keep track of what I read each year.



Fiction:



I gave just two of the 57 books above 5 stars out of 5: historical novel Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin, and short story collection There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, which I reviewed for Belletrista.



Just behind those was Kalpa Imperial by Argentine author Angelica Gorodischer, translated by Ursula Le Guin. It's a collection of closely-linked stories which hovers between sf and fantasy, and it's excellent. Other notable fiction reads of the year included Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy (a.k.a. the Lisbeth Salander books), which gripped me even as I wondered how books with so many structural issues could be so gripping, and C. J. Cherryh's 5-volume Chanur Saga, which I re-read with as much pleasure as I'd had reading it for the first time twenty or so years ago. It's space opera done right.



Nonfiction:



I read a lot of good nonfiction this year. Two of the books I enjoyed most were about Greenland, a place which fascinates me but which I am never likely to visit. I read The Lonely Planet Guide To Greenland with rapt attention alongside This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland, by Gretel Ehrlich. I also very much enjoyed This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitan, Kathleen Jones' excellent new biography Katherine Mansfield: The Story-Teller, and Penelope Todd's writer's memoir Digging for Spain.



Poetry:



The two books of poetry by individual authors I most enjoyed in 2010 were Jennifer Compton's collection Barefoot and Sappho: A Garland, translated and introduced by Jim Powell. Other favourite poetry collections for the year included Magnetic South by Sue Wootton, Spark by Emma Neale, and Ithaca Island Bay Leaves by Vana Manasiadis.



As for anthologies, cricket poetry anthology A Tingling Catch, edited by Mark Pirie, was a highlight of the year.



And now, onwards to 2011's reading!You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.

Anarya's Secret: An Earthdawn Novel - Now Available On The Kindle

My 2007 novel Anarya's Secret: An Earthdawn Novel is now available on the Kindle from Amazon US and Amazon UK.



It's the third of my books to become available on the Kindle. My short story collection Transported and the NZ science fiction poetry anthology Voyagers, which I co-edited with Mark Pirie, are also available.



You can find out more about Anarya's Secret in this introduction to it [note: some of the links are now out of date] and read the first part of the Prologue, which gives the context, derived from the Earthdawn universe, in which the novel takes place.



Anarya's Secret is also available as a hardback, paperback, or e-book (via RPGNow or DriveThru).



Anarya's Secret was the first in RedBrick's line of Earthdawn novels, which includes both originals and reprints, and you can see the full line of novels (and other Earthdawn products) on their site.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.

Tuesday Poem Secret Santa

As things turned out, I didn't wind up with a Secret Santa partner for the Tuesday Poem - but no matter! Check out all the pairs of poets and poems, plus the hub poem by James Brown chosen by Sarah Jane Barnett, on the Tuesday Poem blog.



It's been great to be part of the Tuesday Poem this year - so, big thanks to Mary McCallum for organising it. I'll be back into it next year, until I completely run out of poems...You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.

Things To Make And Do

In no particular order, and with varying degrees of seriousness:



Turbine 2010 is now online: an impressive selection!



Wu Ming on translating Stephen King - into Italian



Aimee L Salter's competition for bad poetry - the worse, the better! (Closes Christmas Eve)



The Government may be ignoring Parliament's report into the imminence and consequences of Peak Oil, but at least Dunedin City Council is paying attention to the issue.



The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment lays out why digging up and burning Southland lignite is a very bad idea.



South Pacific Book Chat (aka #spbkchat) has its own blog.



There is no Zuul. There is only Lovelace & Babbage.



For drawing my attention to various of these, thanks to @modernletters, @wwborders, @AimeeLSalter, @ttnz, the whole #spbkchat team, and @sydneypaduaYou can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.

Tuesday Poem: Accountant

 

Accountant



He went up the Murrumbidgee for the GST

helping drovers, helping contractors

learn to welcome change.



North of Wagga Wagga

there was a woman. Her brothers,

big men all, found out



and ran him out of town.

Lost for words, he drifted west by north

until the desert took him in.



Six months later, caked in dust,

he hitched a ride from Hawker Gate.

He downed a beer



to wash the silence from his throat.

"Mate!" he said, and "Thanks."

They dropped him off in Narromine



where drought drove farmers from the land.

He helped them straighten their affairs

then went to ground in Sydney



where he checks the weather daily,

watching the western horizon

for the tongues of fire and sand.



Tim says: "Accountant" was first published in Bravado Issue 7 (2006). Anyone who's read "Rat Up A Drainpipe" in my short story collection "Transported" will recognise the basic storyline - this is how I treated it as poetry.



When Goods and Services Tax, referred to as "GST" in New Zealand and "the GST" in Australia, was introduced in Australia in 2000, it was reported that a number of New Zealand accountants, already familiar with its operation, crossed the Tasman to help Australian companies come to terms with it.



You can read all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.

How To Buy Books By Tim Jones: Transported, Voyagers, Anarya's Secret And More

Welcome! Since I'm between blog posts at the moment, here are details about how to buy some of my books. You'll find my recent posts listed on the left-hand side of this blog.



My short story collection Transported, which was longlisted for the 2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, has recently become available for the Kindle.
Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, an anthology I co-edited with Mark Pirie, won the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work. You can buy Voyagers from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book, or buy it directly from the publisher at the Voyagers mini-site.
My fantasy novel Anarya's Secret is available in hardback, paperback or ebook format.

You'll also find my work in these recent anthologies:

For a great sampler of NZ science fiction and fantasy, try A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction, which includes my story "The Last Good Place".
For the cricket fan, or the poetry fan, in your life: A Tingling Catch: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009, which includes my poem "Swing".
You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.

Tuesday Poem: Immigrant Song, by Sugu Pillay

 

Immigrant Song



no, I will not hijack your life

though I climb every mountain

ford every river

cherish every taonga

this land holds sacred



no, I will not plant a bomb

on the banks of the Avon

though willows weep over waters

too shallow to drown



no, I will not bring Avian flu

to this fair far-flung land

though I flavour my food

with spices from Asia



no, I will not steal your thunder

though you rain on my parade

play political games

impale my tongue



no, I will not say

Canterbury, take my bones

no, not till I've seen

the fabled nor'west arch

streak across the sky

a new covenant

for this other Eden



Tim says: Sugu Pillay is a poet, playwright and short story writer. She's currently focusing on writing plays, and I enjoyed her play "Serendipity", which I saw at BATS last year.



"Immigrant Song" is one of three poems by Sugu that I included in JAAM 26, which I guest-edited. I too was an immigrant to Christchurch, although, as an immigrant with white skin (and, to be fair, a 2-year-old), my experience was somewhat different.



You can read all the Tuesday Poems at the Tuesday Poem blog.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.

Writing Speculative Fiction Is Hard Work

My novel manuscript is with those who've kindly agreed to be its first readers. A potential publisher is taking a look at my poetry collection manuscript. So, for the first time in a long while, I have gone back to my first, and perhaps best, love: writing short stories.



It won't be news to anyone who has followed this blog that I like to have a couple of projects on the go at once, but I don't usually work on a couple of short stories at the same time. At the moment, though, I'm alternating between writing two stories. One's long(ish), one's short(ish). One's light-hearted, one's more severe. One's science fiction, one's literary/mainstream fiction.



And I'm here to tell you that the science fiction story is a lot harder to write than the mainstream story. This doesn't mean that the science fiction story is better, or worse, or more valid, that the mainstream story. Both might be good - or both might be dreadful. But it's certainly harder work to write.



Why? It's because so much more has to be packed into the SF story - which is, admittedly, the shorter one - to make it work. A story set in the world with which most of its readership is familiar doesn't have to spend a lot of time in scene-setting, in finding ways to make the world in which it is set clear to the reader without overburdening that self-same reader with exposition.



There are only so many words to go around in a short story, and the more that are spent cuing the reader in to what distinguishes the world of the story from the world they are familiar with, the less there are to delineate character and advance the action.



This won't be news to speculative fiction writers, of course, but it may be to writers and readers of literary fiction. One of the criticisms often advanced of SF is that it suffers from poor characterisation. To the extent to which that is true, it may simply be because only the very finest writers of SF - the Ursula Le Guins, the Gene Wolfes - can show the reader a new or changed world, keep the story moving, and create memorable characters at the same time.You can buy books by Tim Jones online! Voyagers: SF Poetry from NZ from Amazon.Transported (short story collection) from Fishpond or New Zealand Books Abroad.