Angela Slatter's Blog, page 48

Winter Children and Other Chilling Tales …

… is shipping out and selling fast! From the PS Publishing newsletter:

Angela Slatter’s WINTER CHILDREN AND OTHER CHILLING TALES arrived just yesterday and we’re hoping to send out pre-orders this coming week. If you remember, we’ve just done the one edition of 200 signed and numbered copies. They’re selling fast, understandably so, given the praise it’s been receiving from some of the genre’s heavy hitters.

‘Angela Slatter is a powerful and eloquent voice in horror fiction. Every story in this collection is a dark and polished gem.’ ~ Stephen Jones

‘Angela Slatter’s stories are enviably original, and told in prose as stylish as it’s precise. Not just disturbing but often touching, her work enriches and revives the tale of terror.’ ~ Ramsey Campbell

‘Angela Slatter is an international treasure. She blends horror, fantasy and fairy tale to create something entirely fresh, but which feels too like the nightmares half-forgotten when you were a child.‘ ~ Robert Shearman

You can order it here if you’re so inclined. It is a reprint collection, except for “The Red Forest” and a little seen tale called “Pale Tree House”, but it’s also the first book collecting my proper horror tales!

Aliette de Bodard and The Dominion of the Fallen

Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris, where she has a day job as a System Engineer. She studied Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, but moonlights as a writer of speculative fiction. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Obsidian and Blood trilogy of Aztec noir fantasies, as well as numerous short stories, which garnered her two Nebula Awards, a Locus Award and a British Science Fiction Association Award. Works include The House of Shattered Wings (Roc/Gollancz, 2015 British Science Fiction Association Award), a novel set in a turn-of-the-century Paris devastated by a magical war,  and its upcoming sequel The House of Binding Thorns (April 2017, Roc/Gollancz). She also published The Citadel of Weeping Pearls (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2015), a novella set in the same universe as her Vietnamese space opera On a Red Station, Drifting. She lives in Paris with her family, in a flat with more computers than warm bodies, and a set of Lovecraftian tentacled plants intent on taking over the place.

1. First of all, what do new readers need to know about Aliette de Bodard?

I’m a writer of fantasy and science fiction–both long and short fiction–with a couple awards under my belt (two Nebulas, a Locus Award and three British Science Fiction Association Awards). I’m the author of the Xuya series, a space opera series of short fiction inspired by Vietnamese culture and featuring a Confucian galactic empire, of the Dominion of the Fallen series (The House of Shattered Wings/The House of Binding Thorns, out from Roc/Gollancz), dark fantasies set in a post-magical-apocalypse, turn-of-the-century Paris, and of the Aztec noir fantasy novels Obsidian and Blood (reissued as ebooks by the JABberwocky agency).

2. What inspired your new novel The House of Shattered Wings?

A deep-seated desire to destroy Paris? *grin* I originally started writing House of Shattered Wings as a urban fantasy set in 21st-Century Paris, focused on families of magicians – except I could never make it gel, and the magic system didn’t feel meaty enough to me. So, when I took it back to the drawing board, I changed the setting to have Paris in ruins, and a society based on the Belle Epoque (which is entirely based on my deep abiding love for 19th Century novels, and period anime like Full Metal Alchemist and Black Butler). And I also changed the magic system, so that you had magical beings (Fallen angels, Vietnamese immortals) who were themselves a source of magic–and people who could take magic from them, either by asking nicely, or by force (it got dark, let’s just say. Very dark *grin*).

3. What can you tell us about the sequel The House of Binding Thorns?

The House of Binding Thorns is a standalone book set in the same universe as The House of Shattered Wings: it benefits from having read the previous book as it has returning characters, but you can dive right in and still enjoy it! The House of Shattered Wings was focused on House Silverspires, the oldest and most powerful House in Paris; The House of Binding Thorns is focused on rival House Hawthorn and on its interactions with the Dragon Kingdom. It’s (hopefully) a book with a slightly different focus: not as claustrophobic as The House of Shattered Wings, and with more locations in the Houseless areas, and a slightly larger cast that draws from all walks of life in Paris. And it’s also got diplomatic wrangling between magical factions, bloody murders, kissing, and stabbing (not necessarily in that order!). It will be published April 2017 by Ace in the US and Gollancz in the rest of the world.

4. How does this new series differ from your first books, the Obsidian and Blood trilogy?

It’s a very different mood I would say, though there are a bunch of common elements. Like Obsidian and Blood, Dominion of the Fallen is very much a fantasy of a city (I don’t use “urban fantasy” because the term has come to mean something else): it’s set within Paris and within a relatively small setting. It’s also got some of the same dark/horror elements that existed in Obsidian and Blood, and some focus (but less) on a mystery. And there the similarities end, I’m afraid. Dominion of the Fallen leans more towards the epic fantasy end of the spectrum: the canvas is very much larger, and focused on several main characters (instead of just one in Obsidian and Blood). It’s focused on the question of survival–of its price, and the morality of it–and is very much a cross between Game of Thrones, Vampire: The Masquerade, and 19th Century books like Count of Monte Cristo.

5. Your gorgeous novella On a Red Station, Drifting is set in your Xuya universe ? are any novel-length works likely? 

Possibly! One of the things I really want to work on is a fix-up novel composed of several short stories/novellas, focusing on several generations of the same family, over several years/decades/centuries. But I’m perpetually putting back because it’s large and scary!

6. What inspired the Xuya universe?

A lot of things. Partly it was my wanting to write an alternate history timeline where China and other Confucian countries would be dominant: I started writing noir stories set in that universe because the plots were easy to come up with, and I could focus on getting the changed features of the world across. Then I moved to the space age; and this is going to sound odd, but one of the largest inspirations there was Star Wars III – which I saw twice in the theatre due to my then-boyfriend being absent at the time of its release. By the second time we got to the birth of Luke and Leia, I was feeling rather sarcastic about a universe that had all those wonderfully modern spaceships and cool weapons, and seemingly couldn’t be bothered to solve maternal mortality problems – a very screwed-up set of priorities insofar as I was concerned. In the future I was planning, I assumed childbirth would be routinely well-attended and well-survived (as, indeed, it mostly is today in a lot of countries), but I also wanted to focus the first stories on births, and to have some sort of jeopardy associated with birth. Human childbirth wasn’t realistic (for the reasons above), so I thought, “hang on, maybe if they gave birth to AIs”? And that was pretty much the start of the Xuya space age and the ongoing series.

7. Who were/are your literary heroes/influences?

Er, rather a lot of them! David Gemmell – I found him while I was (briefly) living in the UK in my teens, read Wallander and The King Beyond the Gate, and was hooked. I love the way he portrays both heroes and villains as flawed human beings struggling against their natures to do the right (or wrong) thing. Ursula Le Guin – not only was The Earthsea Quartet a read that stuck with me, but her Steering the Craft contained some of the best writing I’ve ever received, focusing on plot that wasn’t necessarily defined by conflict, and on the nuts and bolts of writing sentences and point of view in an open-minded fashion. Dorothy Dunnett – I read Game of Kings, the first book in her historical Chronicles of Lymond, when I was 17 or 18, and still reread the entire series every few years. Her depiction of history is masterful, blending different languages, different points of view and a host of different countries from the Ottoman Empire to Scotland. And it’s got one of the most affecting romances I’ve ever read (and a rape scene that is actually treated like the traumatising event it is, rather than for titillation). Terry Pratchett, without whom I probably wouldn’t be reading quite so much in English (I taught myself so I could read the books that hadn’t been translated in French yet). And, of course, Vietnamese myths/fairytales and folktales from my family, and the vast canvas of history, which always helps for inspiration!

8. You get to invite five fictional characters to dinner: what’s your guest list look like?

Uh. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, who would make wonderful conversation. Tenaka Khan from David Gemmell’s King Beyond the Gate. Susan Sto-Helit from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, though I suspect she’d make me feel nervous halfway through the proceedings. Prudence Gentleman from Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown, because I suspect she’s one of the few people who could successfully entertain Susan!

9. Which book, either fictional or otherwise, would you say taught you the most about writing?

Ursula Le Guin’s Steering the Craft (see above!).

10. What’s next for Aliette de Bodard?

I have a few projects on the backburner: I finished a novella set between The House of Shattered Wings and The House of Binding Thorns, featuring Emmanuelle, the archivist of House Silverspires, and am desultorily working on a genderbent retelling of Count of Monte Cristo set in my Xuya universe. I have a couple commissioned short stories, and I just turned in a retelling of Tam and Cam for Ellen Oh’s, Elsie Chapman’s and Martha Mihalick’s anthology of Asian fairy tales retellings LEGENDRY.

Midnight and Moonshine

You know what? Four and a bit years ago, Lisa L. Hannett and I wrote this book, Midnight and Moonshine. We’re very proud of it.

Feeling a bit Norse mythology-y? Want white ravens, Fae, werewolves, moonshine makers, fire giants, voodoo, the Fates weaving folks’ fortunes from their hair, an Introduction by Kim Wilkins and a cover by Kathleen Jennings? Go here.

Publishers Weekly gave it a star and said this: “Marked by imagery both beautiful and grotesque, and unnerving twists that recall the uncanny horror of original fairy tales, this collection contains a unifying, multilayered plot that draws upon Norse mythology to take the reader on a thrilling, unsettling journey.”

The gods are dead, but will not be forgotten.

When Mymnir flees the devastation of Ragnarok, she hopes to escape all that bound her to Ásgarðr — a heedless pantheon, a domineering brother, and her neglectful father-master, Óðinn. But the white raven, a being of memory and magic, should know that the past is not so easily left behind. No matter how far she flies, she cannot evade her family…

In planting seeds of the old world in the new, Mymnir becomes queen of a land with as many problems as the one she fled. Her long-lived Fae children ignite and fan feuds that span generations; lives are lost and loves won because of their tampering. Told in thirteen parts, Midnight and Moonshine follows the Beaufort and Laveaux families, part-human, part-Fae, as they battle, thrive and survive in Mymnir’s kingdom.

The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2015

Huzzah! The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2015 is due out very soon. You can order here. Yet another glorious cover.  The stories are:

Joanne Anderton, “2B”
Alan Baxter, “The Chart of the Vagrant Mariner”
Deborah Biancotti, “Look How Cold My Hands Are”
Stephen Dedman, “Oh, Have You Seen The Devil”
Erol Engin, “The Events at Callan Park”
Jason Fischer, “The Dog Pit”
Dirk Flinthart, “In the Blood”
Kimberley Gaal, “In Sheep’s Clothing”
Stephanie Gunn, “The Flowers That Bloom Where Blood Touches Earth”
Lisa Hannett, “Consorting With Filth”
Robert Hood, “Double Speak”
Kathleen Jennings, “A Hedge of Yellow Roses”
Maree Kimberley, “Ninehearts”
Jay Kristoff, “Sleepless”
Martin Livings, “El Caballo Muerte”
Danny Lovecraft, “Reminiscences of Herbert West”
Kirstyn McDermott, “Self, Contained”
Sally McLennan, “ Mr Schmidt’s Dead Pet Emporium”
DK Mok, “Almost Days”
Faith Mudge, “Blueblood”
Samantha Murray, “Half Past”
Jason Nahrung, “Night Blooming”
Garth Nix, “The Company of Women”
Anthony Panegyres, “Lady Killer”
Rivqa Rafael, “Beyond the Factory Wall”
Deborah Sheldon, “Perfect Little Stitches”
Angela Slatter, “Bluebeard’s Daughter”
Cat Sparks, “Dragon Girl”
Lucy Sussex, “Angelito”
Anna Tambour, “Tap”
Kaaron Warren, “Mine Intercom”

Eileen Mueller: Call of the Sea

Eileen Mueller lives in a cave on the side of a hill in New Zealand with four dragonets and a shape-shifter. Awarded a 2016 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Youth Novel with Dragons Realm – A You Say Which Way adventure, she writes for children and young adults.

She was placed first in SpecFicNZ’s Going Global and first equal in NZSA NorthWrite Collaboration literary contests in 2013. Eileen co-edited The Best of Twisty Christmas Tales and was a sub-editor on the Sir Julius Vogel Best Collected Work, Lost in the Museum. A New Zealander of the Year Local Hero and marketing consultant, she managed Wellington’s 2014 & 2015 Storylines children’s literary festivals–having fun with authors, illustrators and thousands of kids.

1. What inspired your At the Edge story, “Call of the Sea”?

Thirteen years ago, I lost a child when he suddenly died at two years old. He was the healthy half of our premature twins—his sister had been battling with illness since birth. She’d been well for three short months, and I’d finally been able to leave the house and enjoy life with them and their older brother.

Our world was shattered. Luckily, I still had two small kids. They made me face each day with courage—but it took fourteen months before I laughed again.

I was at the gym one day, right on Wellington’s waterfront, in the middle of a storm. Waves were surging over the promenade, smashing into the boatsheds. The floating jetties were roller-coasting in the surf. I knew I had a story to tell—of love, loss insanity, grief and triumph.

My story, “Call of the Sea”, in At the Edge, explores how people lose their sense of identity when they lose a child. In order to survive, we need to be nurtured. Kendra, estranged from her cheating ex-husband, doesn’t get this support. As her life disintegrates, she journeys to the edge of insanity. Or is she sane? Maybe the rest of the world just can’t see what she does.

2. What appealed to you about this project?

I worked with Lee Murray and Dan Rabarts on Baby Teeth, (an Australian Shadows Award best edited work) and knew they were an amazing editing team, so I wanted to be part of this anthology.

3. What do you love about short stories?

Start late and leave early is a must for short stories. I love the opportunity to paint a vignette that resonates with readers long after the story has ended. Short projects are a refreshing change from writing novels, which immerse me for months. I usually write fun middle grade fantasy adventures and young adult novels, so short stories give me a chance to explore deeper, more difficult emotions.

4. Can you remember the first thing you ever read that made you want to write?

I’ve enjoyed writing and reading ever since I was young. I wonder what my first picture book was—that must’ve been my inspiration for writing!

 5. What’s next for you?

I’m currently a judge in a Dragon Limerick Contest closing on June 30 2016, which is open to writers of all ages–kids, teens and adults. The result will be Clawsome Dragon Limericks—an eBook for kids, although I suspect a few adults will enjoy dragon limericks too.

After winning Best Youth Novel with Dragons Realm in the 2016 Sir Julius Vogel Awards, The Fairytale Factory has asked me to write more interactive fiction for kids for their You Say Which Way series. I’ve just sent them Mystic Portal, a mountain biking adventure that takes you through portals to meet ogres, talking camels and chatterbox turtles. They’ve also requested a follow up, Mystic Portal 2, so I’m about to start that.

My young adult dragon rider series Riders of Fire is currently under revision, with Ezaara (book 1) to be completed by the end of the year. I also have a young adult paranormal urban fantasy under submission, so it’s a busy time for me. Anyone who likes YA and kids’ fiction is welcome to download free books from my site and have adventures with me.

You can find Eileen’s Amazon page here.

Free ebook giveaway of Some of the Best from Tor.com

With stories by Charlie Jane Anders, Laurie Penny, N.K. Jemisin, and more!

Tor.com are very excited to offer a free download of the 2016 edition of Some of the Best from Tor.com, an anthology of 25 of our favorite short stories and novelettes from the last year. Readers worldwide can download the ebook for free by signing up for the Tor.com Publishing newsletter from 12:00 PM EST on January 10th until 11:59 A.M. EST on January 17th.

These stories were acquired and edited for Tor.com by Ellen Datlow, Ann VanderMeer, Carl Engle-Laird, Liz Gorinsky, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Justin Landon, Diana Pho, and Miriam Weinberg. Each story is accompanied by an original illustration.

Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2016 — Table of Contents

“Clover” Charlie Jane Anders
“The Art of Space Travel” Nina Allan
“The Destroyer” Tara Isabella Burton
“Traumphysik” Monica Byrne
“The High Lonesome Frontier” Rebecca Campbell
“Lullaby for a Lost World” Aliette de Bodard
“A Dead Djinn in Cairo” P. Djeli Clark
“Breaking Water” Indrapramit Das
“Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage” Alix E. Harrow
“The City Born Great” N. K. Jemisin
“Everything That Isn’t Winter” Margaret Killjoy
“The Weight of Memories” Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu
“The Maiden Thief” Melissa Marr
“The Caretakers” David Nickle
“Your Orisons May Be Recorded” Laurie Penny
“meat+drink” Daniel Polansky
“The Three Lives of Sonata James” Lettie Prell
“The Great Detective” Delia Sherman
“Finnegan’s Field” Angela Slatter
“The Weather” Caighlan Smith
“Terminal” Lavie Tidhar
“Her Scales Shine Like Music” Rajnar Vajra
“La beauté sans vertu” Genevieve Valentine
“That Game We Played During the War” Carrie Vaughn
“A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers” Alyssa Wong

How to redeem the free ebook edition of Some of the Best from Tor.com: Visit this link between noon (12:00 PM EST) on Tuesday, January 10th, and 11:59 A.M. EST on Tuesday, January 17th to sign up for the Tor.com Publishing newsletter and download the DRM-free ebook. This offer is available globally. Note: The giveaway URL will not be live until 12:00 PM EST on January 10th.

For additional updates about the giveaway on Tuesday, follow @TorDotComPub on Twitter. If you have further questions about the giveaway or Some of the Best of Tor.com, contact Katharine Duckett: katharine.duckett@tor .com.

2016 Productivity

Just to remind myself that I did achieve stuff last year (and just in case anyone’s curious), here’s the list of the writing things I did/produced/appeared at in 2016.

Novel:

Vigil (Jo Fletcher Books, July 2016)

Short Story Collections:

A Feast of Sorrows (Prime)

Winter Children and Other Chilling Tales (PS Publishing)

Short stories:

“Finnegan’s Field”, at Tor.com, Ellen Datlow (ed.).

“Change Management”, in Dead Letters, Conrad Williams (ed.), Titan Books.

“Tin Soldier”, Dark Discoveries Magazine, Aaron J. French (ed.) Issue #35, Summer 2016, JournalStone Publishing.

“Neither Time Nor Tears”, Dreaming in the Dark, Jack Dann (ed.), PS Publishing.

Reprints:

“The Bone Mother”, Beyond the Woods: Retold Fairy Tales, Paula Guran (ed.), Night Shade.

“Home and Hearth”, In Your Face, Tehani Wessely (ed.), FableCroft Publications, 2016.

“Ripper”, in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2016, Paula Guran (ed.), Prime Books.

Awards:

Ditmar Award for Best Novella for Of Sorrow and Such (Tor.com).

Tour/Appearance Things:

UK book tour for Vigil

Established Writer-in-Residence at Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre (June-July)

Appeared at the Brisbane Writers Festival (Sept)

Appeared at Contact 2016 (NatCon) (March-April)

Taught a writing workshop in Melbourne (Oct)

Appeared at the University of Melbourne’s Symposium on Popular Fiction (Oct)

Gave a reading at the Wheeler Centre’s Next Big Thing series in Melbourne (Oct)

Appeared at Supanova in Brisbane (Nov)

Appeared at Supanova in Adelaide (Nov)

 

Sorcerer to the Crown: Zen Cho

Photo by Jim C. Hines

Zen Cho was born and raised in Malaysia, and lives in London. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Selangor Young Talent Awards and the Pushcart Prize, honour-listed for the Carl Brandon Society Awards, and translated into French, Spanish, Italian and Finnish. Cho was a 2013 nominee for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, joint winner of the Crawford Award for her short story collection Spirits Abroad (Buku Fixi, 2014) and winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer for her debut historical fantasy novel Sorcerer to the Crown (Ace/Macmillan, 2015).

Sorcerer to the Crown was also a Locus Awards finalist for Best First Novel, RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards nominee for Best Fantasy Novel and official nominee for the ALA/YALSA Alex Awards, as well as being longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Awards and the Tiptree Award. Sorcerer to the Crown has appeared in Best Books of 2015 lists from Library Journal, ALA, Barnes & Noble, NPR, io9, Tor.com, BookRiot and the Seattle Times.

Cho is the editor of anthology Cyberpunk: Malaysia (Buku Fixi, 2015), a Popular-The Star Readers’ Choice Awards 2016 finalist. She was a juror for the Speculative Literature Foundation 2014 Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds grants and serves on the Board of non-profit Con or Bust. She has appeared at festivals and conventions in Malaysia, USA, UK, the Netherlands and Finland, and co-organised UK convention Nine Worlds Geekfest’s first Race & Culture programming track. Cho has spoken on feminism and social justice in genre on Minnesota Public Radio News, BBC Radio 4 and Al Jazeera’s online daily TV show The Stream.

1. First of all, what do new readers need to know about Zen Cho?



I’m a fantasy author from Malaysia who grew up on a diet of Jane Austen, P.G. Wodehouse, Terry Pratchett, Edith Nesbit and Diana Wynne Jones books, and my writing is a mix of these and other influences closer to home. I’ve published a collection of short stories, Spirits Abroad, and a historical fantasy novel, Sorcerer to the Crown, which is about England’s first African Sorcerer Royal.

2. Which book, either fictional or otherwise, would you say taught you the most about writing?



That’s an interesting question! Every book teaches you about writing, if you’re paying attention, but if I had to pick one I guess I’d go for Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Pratchett’s work was what taught me that you can be incredibly funny and deal with the big issues at the same time.

3. What was the inspiration for Sorcerer to the Crown?



Like any novel it came from any number of initial sparks, but its ultimate source was the old-timey British books I grew up reading, and how they often referred to characters as “dark”. This used to puzzle me as a kid because in my world when you said someone was dark, you meant they were dark-skinned – but I knew English storybooks were all about white people. It took me a while to figure out that they simply meant “dark-haired”. But I thought it’d be interesting to write a book in the style of those novels I grew up reading, only about someone who was actually dark-skinned.

4. Do you prefer long form or short form?



Long form gives me tremendous difficulty, but I probably prefer it. You have more space for exploring character, which is what I’m really interested in.

5. How do you balance writer with other day job requirements?



With difficulty! I’m lucky enough to work part-time, which means I’m assured of a set amount of time per week to write, but you still need to be very organised and very protective of that writing time.

6. What’s the story behind The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo?



That was directly inspired by Uncommon Arrangements by Katie Roiphe, a book about the tangled love lives of the Bloomsbury Group. I thought the story of feminist writer Rebecca West and Victorian superstar H. G. Wells made a perfect romcom – they met when West savaged a book by Wells in a review, and had a relationship that went on for years – so I wrote it. But I made the heroine an obscure Malayan Chinese writer living in London to cut down on the need for research.

7. Can you remember the first story you read that made you think “I want to be a writer”?



No. My earliest recorded short story dates from when I was six, so the urge must have begun early!

8. When you’re in the mood to read, who do you choose?



It depends on what I’m in the mood to read … I read a lot of history, particularly of Britain in the Regency period, and Malaysian and Southeast Asian history of any period. With fiction I read across genres a fair bit. I reread more than I probably should. My “guilty pleasure, no effort required” reads are middlebrow fiction by British interwar female writers – the sort of books published by Virago and Persephone Books – and biographies of female writers.

9. You get to invite five fictional characters to dinner: what’s your guest list look like?



(1) Chirrut Imwe, Donnie Yen’s badass warrior monk character from Star Wars: Rogue One, because I just watched it and I love him.

(2) Grace Delarua from Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds, because she’s smart and down-to-earth and could teach us to swear in a dozen space languages.

(3) Stephen Maturin from Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series. He’s canonically bad company at the dinner table but would probably exert himself due to the demands of Regency etiquette, also, he’s one of my two favourite fictional characters of all time.

(4) Temeraire from Naomi Novik’s Temeraire novels. We’d have to cater a whole cow or two just for him, but he’d tell us about draconic rights and Chinese literature!

(5) Kuchiki Rukia from Kubo Tite’s Bleach series, the other of my two favourite fictional characters of all time. She’s dead but she likes cucumbers and rice dumplings so she’d be easy to feed.

10. What’s next for Zen Cho?

I’m working on the follow-up to Sorcerer to the Crown, which will hopefully be out some time in 2018.

A Belated Christmas Blog

Why yes, I do look like crap, but I haz a crown.

Well, 2016 was for me (as well as a lot of other people) quite challenging. Professionally, it went really, really well – Vigil launched in July and is still going strong, I published two short story collections, four new short stories, and had three stories reprinted. I handed in Corpselight and am now plotting Restoration to finish off the Verity Fassbinder series. I wrote a further eight short stories for publication in 2017 and 2018. I had a lovely book tour of the UK (and yes, I know I still need to finish off that blog series), and was the Established Writer-in-Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre in Perth.

Personally, however, it was poop. The less said about it, the better, but highlights include several family deaths and illnesses, the breakup of my eight year relationship, having to move house, and the stuffing up of both my old lady knees. It got to the point where I started to look at the sky, slightly fearful that a safe or a grand piano was going to fall on my head.

But I got through it. I got through it and there was one thing I was holding out for as a proper full stop on the Year of Brown Stuff. What I really looked forward to at the end of 2016 was the annual Trivial Pursuit contest with my mother and sister.

Every Christmas, my sister and nephew and I head to our parents’ place in order to do the Christmas thing.

In Australia, the Christmas thing for a chunk of the population generally seems to involve pretending we’re somehow in the UK or Europe, and my lot were no exception for many years. Despite the heat, the legions of flies and mosquitoes big enough to saddle, despite six generations of living in the Sunburnt Country, we still somehow thought that the Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English, German, French, Danish and Portuguese blood we’ve accidentally ended up with meant we were obliged to cook and eat a hot feast. To turn the ovens on and up, up, up whilst outside the sun tried to jokingly bake us in forty degree Celsius temperatures.

Fortunately, in recent years cooler heads and meals have prevailed. There’s invariably a moment for most Australians with Western backgrounds when they realise the heat emanating from the roasting turkey, chicken, duck, potatoes and pig, is enough to give a small outback town radiation burns. If you by some horrible, horrible mistake end up outside during the day – say, after 8.30am or before 6pm – you’re a goner. If you’ve got hot food inside you you’re basically spontaneous human combustion waiting to happen.  Do not get me started on Christmas pudding.

Of course, in many homes some idiot filled with bonhomie and beer will suggest a friendly game of Christmas cricket – cricket, a game meant to be played in a balmy British summer, not under a sun that is trying to kill you and everyone you love. This person should always be knocked unconscious and left under the Christmas tree for his husband or wife to find – tying a red bow around some body part is optional, but freaking hilarious.

Fortunately, no one suggests cricket chez nous nowadays. Those with an interest in such pastimes know the best way to participate is by sitting in a recliner-rocker in air-conditioned comfort with drinks and leftover pavlova easily accessible. That’s my dad taken care of. The nephew has all manner of electronic devices to keep him happy and no interest in cricket, bless him.

My mother, sister and I have another holiday pursuit entirely.

Trivial Pursuit, in fact.

It’s highly competitive. It has been known to be played until two in the morning, when considerable sledging occurs – something we’d never normally consider passable behaviour, but when it comes to Triv (yes, said exactly like The Young Ones’ Rick-with-a-silent-p) all bets are off. Three otherwise delight, intelligent women turn into Trivial Pursuit Hooligans. It is possible we might have invented full contact Trivial Pursuit. Anything’s possible. Getting one of the piece of pie questions right results in shouts of “Pie me!” ringing out at ungodly hours of the night and/or early morn.

Keep in mind this particular edition of Triv was purchased in the Eighties. It’s almost an antique. We’ve answered these questions so many times, it’s amazing we get any wrong ? that’s where the aging process and only playing once a year work in our favour. It all seems new and exciting every year (the goldfish effect, I guess). I remember enough to be able to float the answer “Albert Schweitzer” mostly at the right time, but my Achilles Heel, as Mum and Sis well know, is the area of sport. On more than one occasion my victory lap around the kitchen wearing the crown of superiority has been delayed for a couple of hours by the careful and cunning deployment of a question about Olympic fencing or soccer players or how many points a particular part of the dartboard gets you. Apparently neither “I don’t care! Nobody cares!” nor  “Albert Schweitzer” is the correct answer.

Did I mention there’s a crown for the winner?

There’s totally a crown for the winner.

Actually it’s a party hat shaped like a cat, but it’s a crown if we say it is.

I have worn it more times than anyone else.

Am I a gracious winner?

No.

Am I a gracious loser?

I was robbed! Who are you calling a loser? You mother—

Err, no. No I am not.

Trivia is in my wheelhouse, people. I look forward to it every Christmas, I think Mum and Sis do too even if I do occasionally catch strains of peasant’ish rebellious rumblings. But this is the one time all year that my years of collecting useless, wedgie-attracting, nerdalicious knowledge finally pays off at the annual Slatter Ladies’ Triv Tourney.

And I am once again reigning champion. But my family love me anyway. Or they say they do, at least. *looks up to check for falling safes and/or grand pianos*

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2017

Huzzah! The lovely Paula Guran has released the ToC for The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2017 (Prime Books). Most excellent company to be in! My story “The Red Forest” (the new story from my reprint horror collection Winter Children and Other Chilling Tales) is in there too.

“Lullaby for a Lost World,” Aliette de Bodard (Tor.com 06/16)

“Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies,” Brooke Bolander (Uncanny #13)

“Wish You Were Here,” Nadia Bulkin (Nightmare # 49)

“A Dying of the Light,” Rachel Caine (The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft)

“Season of Glass and Iron,” Amal El-Mohtar (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales)

“Grave Goods,” Gemma Files (Autumn Cthulhu)

“The Blameless,”Jeffrey Ford (The Natural History of Hell)

“As Cymbals Clash,” Cate Gardner (The Dark #19)

“The Iron Man,” Max Gladstone (Grimm Future)

“Surfacing,” Lisa L. Hannett (Postscripts 36/37: The Dragons of the Night)

“Mommy’s Little Man,” Brian Hodge (DarkFuse, October)

“The Sound of Salt and Sea,” Kat Howard (Uncanny #10)

“Red Dirt Witch,” N. K. Jemisin (Fantasy #60)

“Birdfather,” Stephen Graham Jones (Black Static #51)

“The Games We Play,” Cassandra Khaw (Clockwork Phoenix 5)

“The Line Between the Devil’s Teeth (Murder Ballad No. Ten),” Caitlin Kiernan (Sirenia Digest #130)

“Postcards from Natalie,” Carrie Laben (The Dark #14)

“The Finest, Fullest Flowering,” Marc Laidlaw (Nightmare #45)

The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle (Tor.com)

“Meet Me at the Frost Fair,” Alison Littlewood (A Midwinter Entertainment)

“Bright Crown of Joy,” Livia Llewellyn (Children of Lovecraft)

“The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch,” Seanan McGuire (Lightspeed #72)

“My Body, Herself,” Carmen Maria Machado (Uncanny #12)

“Spinning Silver,” Naomi Novik (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales)

“Whose Drowned Face Sleeps,” An Owomoyela & Rachael Swirsky (Nightmare # 46/What the #@&% Is That?)

“Grave Goods,” Priya Sharma (Albedo One #6)

“The Rime of the Cosmic Mariner,” John Shirley (Lovecraft Alive!)

“The Red Forest,” Angela Slatter (Winter Children and Other Chilling Tales)

“Photograph,” Steve Rasnic Tem (Out of the Dark)

“The Future is Blue,” Catherynne M. Valente (Drowned Worlds)

‘‘October Film Haunt: Under the House’’, Michael Wehunt (Greener Pastures)

“Only Their Shining Beauty Was Left,” Fran Wilde (Shimmer 13)

“When the Stitches Come Undone,” A.C. Wise (Children of Lovecraft)

“A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers,” Alyssa Wong (Tor.com 03/16)

“An Ocean the Color of Bruises,” Isabel Yap (Uncanny #11)

“Fairy Tales are for White People,” Melissa Yuan-Innes (Fireside Magazine Issue 30)

“Braid of Days and Nights,” E. Lily Yu (F&SF, Jan-Feb)