Angela Slatter's Blog, page 37
July 28, 2017
Over at the Book Smugglers: New Weyrd
Over at the lovely House of the Book Smugglers, I talk about the New Weyrd:my updated mythology for Corpselight and Verity Fassbinder.
We are delighted to welcome Angela Slatter here today to celebrate the release of a new Verity Fassbinder novel – Corpselight, the sequel to Vigil – by talking about the new monsters in it.
So a new Verity Fassbinder novel – that would be Corpselight – required some new monsters. As is my wont, I like to dip back into the depths of mythology and folklore to find my inspiration before adding a bit of a Fassbinder twist to my creatures. I give you my Five New Fassbinder Monsters.
The Undine:
Undines are elementals associated with water. They are generally found lazing around in waterfalls and forest pools, and are cousins to nereids and mermaids et al. They don’t have souls, poor things, but can acquire one if they marry a mortal. Here’s the thing: the man who marries an undine? He needs to be sure he can remain faithful. If he strays, he’s kaput – and why not?
In Corpselight I wanted a water creature, but not a mermaid – there are always mermaids, we know what they’re like – so I went for the undine. They seemed a bit more relaxed and I really liked the idea of them as the slackers of the watery folk. Specifically, I say they’re the Yogi Bears of the Weyrd world, given to stealing picnic baskets and lazing on rocks in the Brisbane River. The one Verity talks to has a taste for donuts and is a source of some interesting information that leads V to a surprising series of discoveries about her own family …
The rest is here.
Speculative Fiction Festival 2017
Superheroes Panel, Speculative Fiction Festival 2017. L-R: Margo Lanagan, Robert Hood, Maria Lewis. Photographer: Cat Sparks
Nice write-up of the NSW Writers Centre Spec Fic Festival of last weekend!
Thanks, Dr Katie Lavers.
The biennial Speculative Fiction Festival is an extraordinary festival organised by the New South Wales Writers Centre, the peak organisation for writers in New South Wales. Held in the historic building of the NSW Writers’ Centre surrounded by beautiful grounds and complete with evening drinks on the verandah, this event is less like the stampedes, crowds and commercial trafficking of books that we have come to expect with the larger writing festivals, and more like a select party with special friends.
The festival feels like a Sydney secret and provides a rare opportunity for a small but remarkably diverse group in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity to come together and discuss fiction that sits outside the field of so-called ‘literary’ fiction. Interestingly, during the panel discussing short stories, when the audience was asked the question how many people actually wrote short stories themselves, a good three quarters of the people in the room put up their hands. It would appear that the audience for the Speculative Fiction Festival is largely writers and it is probably this aspect of the festival that gives it its own very distinct flavour and feel.
This festival does however provoke some questions about other writing festivals in Australia which often seem to ignore Speculative Fiction.
The rest is here.
July 24, 2017
Over at Alan Baxter’s Place …
… I answer 5 Big Questions.
Angela Slatter has just had Book 2 of her fantastic Verity Fassbinder Series, Corpselight, published. It’s the sequel to the wildly successful Vigil. I asked Angela 5 big questions about her work.
1. Why did you choose to set your series in Brisbane?
Coz I live here! I love the city and there’s a strangeness to it that works well with urban fantasy. The city looks so very normal that there must be something strange going on underneath, right?
The rest is here.
Thanks for letting me play, Bax! I tried not to eat all of the cookies in the jar. Not saying I succeeded. Just saying I tried.
When your very dear friend pops the most important question of all …
Dr Kim, you know the way to my heart! 
July 18, 2017
Review of Corpselight
Cupcakes by K, once again superb.
First review of Corpselight! And a great one it is, too. All of the lovehearts!
Five out of five caramel marshmallow logs!
If you haven’t read the first of the ‘Verity Fassbinder’ series, ‘Vigil’, then you’re going to miss something of the story. Definitely read ‘Vigil’ first- which means putting aside two days to binge read if you’re that kind of reader. Normally I’d hesitate to say it, but a warning is necessary here: if you think you’re going to be able to put ‘Corpselight’ down and go about your day, or read a chapter a night, you might want to practise your fake-sick ‘reader flu’ voice before you get started. You might just need it.
The rest is here.
Thanks, Kylie Thompson!
WorldCon 75 Draft Programme
And the WorldCon 75 Draft Programme is up! You can view it here. My appearances are below. Please come up and say ‘Hello’!
Wednesday Aug 9, 2017
How to Adapt a Fairy Tale and Make it Your Own Story 1 hour, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM | Messukeskus, 210
Workshop
Literature
Thursday Aug 10, 2017
Signing: Angela Slatter 1 hour, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM | Messukeskus, Signing area
Signing
The Aussies Are Coming! 1 hour, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM | Messukeskus, 207
Moderator Alan Stewart | Cat Sparks | Russell Blackford | Angela Slatter | Janeen Webb | Thoraiya Dyer
Panel
Literature literature science fiction fantasy horror
Friday Aug 11, 2017
Other Side of the World: Space, Place, and Australian Fantasy 1 hour, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Messukeskus, 101d
Moderator Kim Wilkins | Angela Slatter | Lisa L. Hannett | Juliet Marillier
Panel
Literature
Horror and the World Fantasy Award 1 hour, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM | Messukeskus, 103
Moderator Ian Whates | Ellen Datlow | John Clute | Angela Slatter | Stephen Jones
July 17, 2017
The Corpselight Blog Tour
Yes! It’s on the road. Lock up your cupcakes, folks.
And we’re starting over at the blog of the delightful Lisa Reads Books!
I am delighted to be involved in the blog tour for Corpselight by Angela Slatter which is the second volume in the Verity Fassbinder series. If you haven’t already read the first book Vigil then get it and read it now, for your own good. This is a gritty urban fantasy set in Brisbane featuring Verity a half Normal, half Weyrd so she has a foot in each world but since she works for the Weyrd council she spends a lot of time dealing with Weyrd and weird stuff. Working for the Weyrd council is a bit like working for the city council only more dangerous and with greater probability of encountering tails and fangs. Verity is tough, brave, super strong, pigheaded, cynical, smart thinking and soft hearted. Imagine Phyrne Fisher transplanted to modern day Brisbane and clothed in doc martens, jeans and leather jacket except on top of all that, in this instalment Verity is also …
For the rest, go here.
July 16, 2017
The Realm Recommends …
… over at The Realm I recommend five books!
This is one of those books I discovered back in the old days when I was a sixteen year old checkout chick at Woolies and grocery stores used to have remainder bins (do not denigrate the remainder bin, many’s the reader who’s found new authors there and then spent years tracking All Of The Books and buying them at full price). I picked up Night’s Master based on the rather gorgeous cover, and took it home (I also subsequently found Delusion’s Master there, but alas never Delirium’s Mistress nor Death’s Master), and was immediately hooked.
The rest is here.
Over at The Realm of Hachette …
White fox by Kathleen Jennings
… my post on Ten Scary Creatures from Fairy Tales and Mythology is up!
As an avid reader and self-confessed story junkie I’ve spent most of my life reading books of fairy and folk tales, legends, myths, religious texts, apocrypha, and demanding the people around me tell me stories. My mind, therefore, is a really big treasure chest of, well, stuff. When I say “treasure chest” I mean like that drawer in the kitchen where you put EVERYTHING: all the useful stuff, like the good scissors, the different lengths of string, the cool cookie cutters, that allen key you need for the Ikea shelves, the last couple of headache tablets and cough drops, the sharpie, a tiny scrap of ribbon for when you’re wrapping an emergency birthday present … you know, the stuff that seems like crap but is in fact entirely useful in the right situation. So I offer some items from the top sedimentary layer of my personal kitchen drawer/brain treasury: my Top Ten Scary Creatures from Fairy Tales and Mythology
1. Trolls
Generally found in Norse fairy tales and mythology, trolls come in various forms, some live in caves, mountains, under bridges, some look more like humans, but most seem to be generally described as lumpy, bumpy and not at all attractive. They’re nasty and smelly, overly fond of treasure, not too bright and, if you believe Tolkien, tend to turn to stone in the sunlight. Plus there’s their nasty habit of swapping human babies for their own, leaving a squalling changeling in the cradle like a cuckoo for harried parents to bring up. In “Tatterhood” while the ugly sister is fighting the trolls, the pretty sister opens the window to watch ? and a troll snatches off her head and replaces it with a calf’s (of course!). Eventually the ugly sister beats the trolls and gets her sister’s head back, but it’s touch and go for the pretty one’s modelling career for a while. My favourite version of this story is Mike Mignola’s The Troll Witch.
The rest is here.
Over at Avid Reader …
… the delightful Trent Jamieson says lovely things! And I’ll be at the Avid Reader Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club on 31 July.
Spinning a Fairytale Web
The fairytale is a rich soup of story. As a starting point their foundations are strong and deep, but it’s the way each writer builds on them that makes them at once universal and incredibly unique, and Australians are amongst the best writers at reworking, revisualizing and remaking them Margo Lanagan, Kate Forsyth, and Shaun Tan have all brought us wonderful and powerful retellings of fairytales.
Angela Slatter definitely belongs on that list too. Her short fiction is dazzling, breathe-stealing, and jewel-like. She is truly one of Australia’s finest stylists and her work sings, full of ideas, magic and energy expressed with a true mastery of prose. There’s a very good reason why she has won the World Fantasy, and British Fantasy Awards, as well as numerous Aurealis Awards.
The rest is here.
