Tim Jones's Blog, page 59

The Listener Likes Voyagers. A Lot.

Voyagers has already received a very positive review from the US science fiction poetry journal Star*Line, and has also had good reviews in the Capital Times (Wellington) and Waikato Times. This week, Voyagers has received an excellent review in the New Zealand Listener.

The full review won't be available online until 24 October (at which point I'll provide a link), but the preview is now online. Reviewer David Larsen notes the inclusion of poems by more than 70 different writers, including...

Voyagers Book Tour: Who Is Reading Where?

Here is the lineup of venues and readers for the Voyagers Book Tour of New Zealand. Like any lineup of readers, this one is subject to change - but I am very much encouraged by the enthusiasm Voyagers poets around the country have shown to take part in the tour.

A Hamilton event is still to be confirmed, but I hope this will go ahead - if so, I'll add the details here as soon as possible.

It's a real fillip for the tour that Voyagers has received a very good review in the latest issue of the

The Voyagers Book Tour of New Zealand: The Press Release

The Unexpected in an Unexpected Form

IP presents Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand

Speculative poetry! Never before has a unique anthology like this been released, and New Zealand is leading the way.

Voyagers is where poetry meets the essence of science fiction: aliens, space travel, time travel and the end of the world - as well as concepts you may not previously have thought of as science fiction. The result is a brilliant insight into the world of science fiction that will...

4 Unrelated Topics A Writer Can Shoehorn Into One Blog Post

Apparently blog titles with numbers in them, like "6 Writing Lessons From Jane Austen", are very effective in attracting traffic. So I thought I'd try one.

Kapiti Date Added To Voyagers Book Tour

The Voyagers Book Tour of New Zealand has added an extra date: There will now be a Voyagers event at the Kapiti Library on Tuesday 20 October. Up and down the country, Voyagers poets will be reading their poems in the home towns. I'll be taking part in the Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington events...

Three Changes I'd Like To See To The Author's Fund

Former talkshow host and media consultant Brian Edwards has kicked up a storm with his suggestion that public libraries are just a form of theft. I disagree with him: I think public libraries are great, and I like it when people borrow my books from libraries.

All the same, those borrowings do, potentially, represent foregone income: some of those people might have bought one of my books instead of borrowing a copy from the library. The mechanism that is designed to compensate New Zealand...

Recognition And A Steaming Heap Of Disney Money: On Stranger Tides

Recognition, and a steaming heap of Disney money. That's what I hope Tim Powers gets for the use of the title, and presumably at least the basic plot, of his 1987 novel On Stranger Tides as the basis of the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, due out in 2011.

I enjoyed the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and endured the next two. (I got a sore buttock about half an hour into No. 2.) But I couldn't escape the nagging feeling that it had all been done before, and better, by American...

Recognition And A Steaming Heap Of Disney Money

Recognition, and a steaming heap of Disney money. That's what I hope Tim Powers gets for the use of the title, and presumably at least the basic plot, of his 1987 novel On Stranger Tides as the basis of the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, due out in 2011.

I enjoyed the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and endured the next two. (I got a sore buttock about half an hour into No. 2.) But I couldn't escape the nagging feeling that it had all been done before, and better, by American...

The Voyagers Book Tour Of New Zealand

This is a post for New Zealand Speculative Fiction Blogging Week, though I'm pushing it a bit because it's really about speculative poetry.

With the lights barely down on Fantastic Voyages, it's time to announce the next bit of book promotion I'm going to be involved in — although I am not responsible for organising it, which is a mercy.

Interactive Publications, the publishers of Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, which I co-edited with Mark Pirie, are organising a book tour...

Fantastic Voyages: Credits, Thanks and Podcast

Fantastic Voyages: Writing Speculative Fiction went very well last night, in this reporter's opinion - and also in the opinion of my fellow panelists. Under the expert chairpersonship of Lynn Freeman, Helen Lowe and I each read from our work, and fielded questions from Lynn and from an audience which included many writers and readers of speculative fiction. Some people told me afterwards they felt inspired by the event, which makes me very happy!

Anna Caro, initiator of New Zealand Speculatve...

Like A Virgin, Published For The Very First Time

This is a post for New Zealand Speculative Fiction Blogging Week.

I think New Zealand Speculative Fiction Blogging Week is an excellent idea, but that hasn't meant it has been easy to decide what to post for it. I started the week with a post advertising Fantastic Voyages, this Thursday evening's speculative fiction event in Wellington, and I thought I might dip into nostalgia for my next post, and talk about the first time I had a speculative fiction story published.

The year was 1986 (and...