Angela Slatter's Blog, page 51

Appearance at the Wheeler Centre

I’ll be in Melbourne over the weekend teaching on Sunday, and on  Monday 24 I’ll be doing a reading from Vigil as part of the Wheeler Centre’s The Next Big Thing.

Speculative Fiction


What if?Untether your imagination as we explore the wild, the weird and the wondrous, in a Next Big Thing devoted to realms both impossible and eminently possible. Come and hear new stories drawn from fantastical and futuristic speculative fiction by Angela Slatter, Rjurik Davidson, Rose Mulready and Jamie Marina Lau.

Location: Monday 24 October 2016, 6.15pm-7.15pmat The Moat

It’s a free event but you’ll need to book.

A.C. Buchanan: And Still the Forests Grow though we are Gone

A.C. Buchanan lives just north of Wellington. They’re the author of Liquid City and Bree’s Dinosaur and their short fiction has most recently been published in the Accessing the Future anthology from FutureFire.net and the Crossed Genres Publications anthology Fierce Family. Because there’s no such thing as too many projects, they also co-chair LexiCon 2017 ? The 38th New Zealand National Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention and edit the recently launched speculative fiction magazine Capricious. You can find them on twitter at @andicbuchanan or at www.acbuchanan.org.

1. What inspired your story?

A chapter of my MA thesis focused on John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids and as part of my research I began exploring the tiny “floral apocalypse” sub-genre – which can be summarised as “plants gone bad”. I wanted to experiment with writing this kinds of story – but also to see what the genre would look like when removed from its overwhelmingly English, mid-twentieth-century setting (although I enjoyed adding a few direct references to The Day of the Triffids into the story, which I hope some readers will pick up on).

I’ve also thought a lot (it perhaps comes from living next to a major fault line) about decisions people make in the face of danger, when they stay and when they decide to leave. I wanted to create a slow apocalypse, one in which people treat each other well, until they don’t, and one in which the decisions they make are sensible, or at least understandable, until they’re not. When I’ve written this type of story before it’s been characterised by emptiness and abandonment, wide-open, disintegrating spaces – so this time I tried to add a sense of claustrophobia to the isolation, the forests closing in day by day.

I chose kelp (which is being explored as a renewable energy source in reality) mostly because it was a different type of “plant gone bad” to those I’d read about before but as the story went on it added its own flavour to my writing. Somehow German fairy tales found their way in too, and in the end it ended up as much about stories as anything else; about the stories we carry with us, and the impact they have which isn’t always within our control.

2. What appealed to you about this project?

I’ve previously co-edited two volumes of New Zealand speculative fiction, so I was thrilled to see others giving it a go (although this time extending it to include Australian specfic as well) and interested to see what spin they’d place on it. There was clearly a great team behind making it happen, and I also loved the choice of theme; not too restrictive, but enough to generate ideas.

3. What do you love about short stories?

While the word-count might seem to be restrictive, I love the flexibility and creativity that is possible within short stories, the ability to experiment with form, and how much can be said by what is left unsaid.

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

I seem to be in a constant cycle of reading fiction I love so much that I simultaneously want – no, need – to write something inspired by it, and am left feeling so intimidated that I don’t know how I could possibly write again when there is work this good out there in the world.

My very first inspiration though? When I was five I was placed second in a local bookshop competition for a story about Mog the Cat from Judith Kerr’s series. (Mog ran away and pretended to be a horse. I’m not sure I’d ever seen a horse, and I was certainly very confused about the relative sizes of cats and horses.)

I have another very clear memory, from my mid teens, that relates back to my previous answer. I worked in a public library on Saturdays and took the liberty of flicking through books as they were returned. One of the stories I came across was James Kelman’s “Acid” which is this tiny, brutal story of only 150 words or so and yet carries more meaning and emotion than many novels. I remember standing there, stunned (and I stayed that way for a long time – perhaps I still am) not just at the horrific nature of the piece, but that so few words could do so much.

Even though there are some standout experiences, this keeps happening one way or another. Today I read A. Merc Rustad’s “Iron Aria” and was blown away – I just wanted to write something that good. I hope I never stop having this feeling!

5. What’s next for you?

I always have short stories on the go – right now I’m writing one about a post-industrial town that moves of its own accord, and experimenting with some interactive fiction pieces.

When it comes to longer fiction, I’m working on a short novel called Ice Flight, which is set in the same world as my earlier novella Liquid City, and planning an urban fantasy series set in Wellington.

I also edit a speculative magazine, Capricious, so there’s always work to be done on that – I’m currently putting the finishing touches on Issue 4, which is food and drink themed and which I’m very excited about.

 

 

 

Review: Of Sorrow and Such

Well, a year since its release and my lovely Ditmar Award winning Tor.com novella, Of Sorrow and Such keeps getting nice reviews. Huzzah! Thanks, Alasdair Stuart.

Mistress Gideon is a witch. The people of Eddas Meadow, the village where she lives, either don’t care or choose not to see it. Mistress Gideon is simply the woman who heals them, who helps them, who greases the wheels of the village’s quiet little society.

Until one night, a woman visits Mistress Gideon. Her visitor is bleeding to death. Her visitor shares Mistress Gideon’s secret. And her visitor is bringing chaos with her. To save a life is to take responsibility for every future action in that life.

But what if the person you save is dangerous?

Especially to you?

Slatter’s work moves with the same quiet, confident awareness as her lead character. Eddas Meadow is sketched out for us in the first few pages with a combination of affection and sarcasm that neatly defines the tone for the rest of the novella. Mistress Gideon lives in the village but she’s not of the village and she can see everything the other residents choose not to. That gives her emotional distance if not physical and it also means she can see the village, and by extension society, for what it is; a polite lie we all tell ourselves to keep the peace. It’s a remarkable, contemporary approach to fantasy that sidesteps any romanticism and makes the book instantly immediate, relatable and real.

The rest is here.

 

Interview: Angela Slatter and Of Sorrow and Such

Somehow I missed the posting of this! The delightful Man of Words, Alasdair Stuart, about my Tor.com novella Of Sorrow and Such (with the amazing Balbusso cover).

Yesterday I reviewed Angela Slatter’s excellent Of Sorrow and Such, published by Tor. Today here’s an interview with Angela about the book, the way it uses community and history and the other stories in this vibrant and brilliant fantasy world.

Tell us a little about Of Sorrow & Such.

Well, a few years ago I wrote a collection called Sourdough and Other Stories. There was a story in there called “Gallowberries” and it featured a bright young witch called Patience Sykes. Patience had just taken revenge on some righteous townsfolk for the murder of her mother … instead of getting out of Dodge quick smart, she hung around … and stuff happened.

I’d maintained a soft spot of Patience and always thought I’d like to tell more of her story … then the chance came along to do a Tor.com. Of Sorrow and Such sees her in her middle years, she older, wiser, a little less feisty, but still no less dangerous to cross. She’s dedicated to her own survival and that of those she loves; she’s pragmatic and ruthless, loyal and clear-eyed. Oh, and a witch. A true witch.

The rest is here.

A Feast of Sorrows – The Magic of Well-made Things

The lovely Alyx Dellamonica gives good review! Over at Tor.com she gives my first US collection, A Feast of Sorrows: Stories a thorough going-over (in a good way)!

Magical Banquet in a Minor Key: Angela Slatter’s A Feast of Sorrows

A quilter, a baker, a candlemaker: these are just a few of the young and vulnerable crafters in Angela Slatter’s first U.S. collection, A Feast of Sorrows, newly out this month from Prime books. This is a book where discarded wives, abandoned children, and princess assassins-in-training fight to make something of their lives, or struggle to restore them after their families and fortunes have been reduced to shambles. It has enchantments, ghosts, killers and many a terrible curse.

The rest is here.

Certain Dark Things: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The fabulous Silvia Moreno-Garcia, editor, author, publisher, all-round multi-talented person, has a new book out: Certain Dark Things.

You need it.

1. First of all, what do new readers need to know about Silvia Moreno-Garcia?

My debut novel, Signal to Noise, about magic and music, came out last year and did very well critically. Locus finalist, top 10 lists, etc. Before that I wrote short stories and my collection This Strange Way of Dying was a finalist for a Sunburst Award. I also edit anthologies and was guest editor for a special issue of Nightmare, out now. My second novel is Certain Dark Things.

2. What inspired Certain Dark Things?

I wrote a story for a vampire anthology called Evolve 2 a few years back. The story was called “A Puddle of Blood” and was about a teenage garbage collector who bumps into a vampire in Mexico City. Like most things I write about, it was inspired by my life. Isn’t everything autobiographical at some point or every point? Anyway, the inspiration were the street kids that begged for money at a nearby intersection near my home, as well as the Mexican noir movies I watched or read as a teen.

The characters were still interesting to me and I wanted to expand the original idea, so it became a novel.

3. How does it differ from your debut novel Signal to Noise?

Someone who read it for review purposes said the only thing they have in common is they both take place in Mexico City.

Signal to Noise is a quiet, little novel about teenagers who cast magic spells using vinyl records, and then reunite as adults. It’s a story about growing pains, both in our adolescence and our later years, since I don’t think we ever stop growing, or that the aches of our youth simply disappear.

Certain Dark Things is an urban fantasy, it’s a bit noir, and it has a different vibe.There’s a vampire on the run so you get people killing each other, cops getting involved. Mexico City *is* a noir novel, so I hope the book captures that a bit.

4. Can you remember the first vampire story you ever read and what effect it had on you?

I can’t remember the first thing I read, but I remember the first story I heard. My great-grandmother used to narrate movies to me. She was illiterate, but she liked films. So for a bed time story instead of reading me something, she might tell me Frankenstein, as she saw it in movie theatres back in 1931. The story got changed, of course, in the telling.

She narrated a vampire movie for me once and that was my first vampire story. I thought it had probably been a Christopher Lee movie, but now I think that it’s likely she was re-telling The Vampire’s Coffin, which is a Mexican film starring Germán Robles. Or maybe she was just amalgamating different movies. Anyway, the book is dedicated to Robles.

5. Do you prefer long form to short?

Whatever gets the job done, although I don’t like to write using the same characters or universe, and I like to jump between categories a lot, so shorts have been really good for that. Now that I’m writing novels I’m planning on being a stand-alone novelist.

6. You’ve recently graduated with a Masters in Science and Tech – does your academic work/interest bleed into your fiction at all?

I have to clarify that I got my degree part-time, because I have a full-time job. So I am not an ‘academic’ by trade, I am not going to be a teacher probably ever. I work in communications, and specifically in the field of science. Because I am surrounded by science, I don’t write as much science fiction as I write horror or fantasy, simply because I get to deal with science all the time in a different capacity. I don’t want to go home and take my ‘work’ with me, so to speak. With that said, my scholarly interests are in history of science and specifically the biological sciences at the beginning of the 20th century. My thesis was on eugenics, women and the work of Lovecraft. At some point I want to do an “eugenic” romance novel because I’ve seen snide comments about science fiction and how “hard science” is the way to go, oh, and don’t mix any romance into the plot. I’ll probably do the complete opposite of what you are supposed to do, write a period and science accurate eugenics novel with a big love story.

7. You recently published She Walks in Shadows, a revisiting of female characters in Lovecraft’s work – what inspired that?  

Amazing cover art by Sara Diesel

Someone on a popular Lovecraft board wondered if women just didn’t like writing Mythos stories and that’s why there weren’t very many women writers. People had a hard time mentioning even one Mythos story written by women. So we decided to show people that there are women writers, and have them write about women. The horror scene is still very male-dominated. It’s not unusual to see anthologies where all 20 writers are men. Our hope was She Walks in Shadows, which has now been re-issued in the USA as Cthulhu’s Daughters, allows people to discover writers they have never heard about and inspire women to write horror stories. There are very many themed anthologies these days, everything from Steampunk Cthulhu to Welsh Cthulhu, and this theme seemed a lot more cohesive than other ones I’ve encountered.

8. Name your five favourite books.

I hate doing lists because I change my mind and I just don’t like lists. With that said, books I’ve re-read a bunch of times are Lolita and Madame Bovary, I have a love affair with them. I own a lot of Tanith Lee books from the 80s, I thought she was fabulous, and I also have many things by Daphne du Maurier. I like Mexican noir novels and crime fiction, which means stuff like Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Rolo Diez. I also like to read crap. I mean really crap, pulp fiction books I find for a dime at used bookstores, although all the used bookstores seem to be disappearing.

9. What’s the Canadian spec-fic scene like?

The literature scene (and spec scene too) is in Toronto and I live on the other side of the country, so there’s really not much going on here. I like it this way, I don’t know if I’d be able to stand being part of any scene. It seems like literature in Canada is a lot about applying for grants, to be honest, and I am not good at that. So I just do my own thing and keep to the west coast.

10. What’s next for Silvia Moreno-Garcia?

Thomas Dunne, which is publishing Certain Dark Things, also bought my third novel, Proper People. The first draft is finished, so I’ll be doing rewrites in the summer or fall. It’s a romance inspired by the Belle Epoque. I’ve also begun work on my fourth novel, which has no title yet and which I’m calling a multi-generational horror novel.

Bio: Mexican by birth, Canadian by inclination. Silvia’s debut novel, Signal to Noise, about music, magic and Mexico City, was listed as one of the best novels of the year at io9, Buzzfeed and many other places. It won a Copper Cylinder Award and was nominated for the British Fantasy, Locus, Sunburst and Aurora awards. Her second novel, Certain Dark Things, will be out October 25, 2016.

A Feast of Sorrows – In My Hands, However Briefly

Got my paws on a physical copy – my sister’s, alas, so I had to sign it and give it back!

And so I wait (im)patiently by the mailbox, waiting for my author copies to went their way across the sea, schlepped by very tired and overworked carrier pigeons.

David Versace: Seven Excerpts from Season One

David Versace (Twitter @_Lexifab) lives with his family in Canberra. He occupies his time between meetings of the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild with minor acts of public service. His work appears in the CSFG anthology Next and in the forthcoming The Lane of Unusual Traders from Tiny Owl Press. Today he talks about his story in At the Edge.

 1. What inspired your story “Seven Excerpts from Season One”?

“Seven Excepts from Season One” was initially inspired by a very late-night brush with one of those American ‘reality’ cable TV shows where over-caffeinated college bros hunt ghosts with night-vision cameras. I don’t know which one. There’s probably about twelve of them. The question I asked myself was “Well, what would that look like if there were really ghosts for them to find?” (instead of mildly surprising noises, ignorance of basic camera techniques and worrying indications of cardiac arrhythmia).

I haven’t been a teenager for…um, a while now, but investigating ghosts and reporting about them to YouTube is exactly the sort of thing my high school friends and I would have done to amuse ourselves under different circumstances.

 2. What appealed to you about this project?

This is the part where I shamefacedly admit that before this project I knew almost nothing about the New Zealand speculative scene (and I’m still a rank novice). I had read some of Dan Rabarts’ work and knew of him through his work on the Fan Fund for Australia and New Zealand (FFANZ) so I was pretty confident the project was in safe hands.

I have since learned that Lee Murray is, of course, both a delight to work with and a terrifying force of nature.

But the main appeal was the chance to experience speculative themes through a different lens to the Australian one I’m used to. Kiwis and Aussies can tend to look a bit similar from a distance, if you’re squinting and the sun is behind them, but I was excited to see where the subtle differences in perspective lie.

3. What do you love about short stories?

That’s a hard one to answer. I consume so much short fiction that it’s less about emotional attachment than an embarrassing but mostly manageable addiction. Partly it’s the sheer invention of them, especially in the speculative realms, where the author has to set up not only the characters and situations but often invent whole new places, cultural behaviours, technology, ecosystems etc all while telling a complete story.

I think as a reader I respond to the craft of it; the discipline of telling just the right amount of story, and the precision of selecting the right words to convey meaning as concisely as possible. I’m also an unabashed sucker for a well-executed final-page twist, probably as a result of exposure to Roald Dahl’s work at far too young and impressionable an age.

As a writer of short stories, mind you, all that stuff is excruciating work at times. Depending on whether I’m reading or writing, it can be a bit of a love-hate relationship!

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

Oh, yes. It was almost certainly the couple of Doctor Who novelisations I got for my eighth birthday, penned by the inestimable Terrance Dicks. He wrote with such spare, breathless elegance that he fooled probably multiple generations of kids into thinking writing stories is easy. So I started writing stories. I’m not sure at what point I branched out from terrible Who fanfic (*coughnevercough*)

By the time I figured out that writing’s a disease you can never shake, it was too late for me.

5. What’s next for you?

I doubt I’m the only writer around with a shame pile of unfinished projects stacked untidily in an office corner. Once I’ve completed a couple of upcoming short story commitments, I have a first draft of a novel to edit and two sequels to outline.

Somewhere along the way I need to refine my writing process so I can marry more effective and productive work habits to my magpie attraction to shiny new projects.

 

Martin Livings: Boxing Day

Perth-based writer Martin Livings has had over eighty short stories in a variety of magazines and anthologies. His first novel, Carnies, was published by Hachette Livre in 2006, and was nominated for both the Aurealis and Ditmar awards, and has since been republished by Cohesion Press.

1. What inspired “Boxing Day”?



“Boxing Day” has been gestating for years.  I always thought that the day’s name was evocative, for a start, and the idea of a strangely primitive tradition in modern day Australia appealed to me.  I wanted to write a character story told essentially in fight scenes, with that competitive structure like a sports movie or Sam Raimi’s underrated western movie pastiche “The Quick and the Dead”.  And I loved the idea of a family torn apart by its own pride and inflexible traditions.  But it was the moment the lead character went from being a boy to a girl that the whole thing coalesced.  After that, it virtually wrote itself.

2. What appealed to you about this project?



Lee and Dan want me to say that it was the chance to work with them, and that’s not entirely a sycophantic lie.  But I love antipodean tales as well, love writing in my backyard and reading stories set in other people’s backyards.  How could I resist?

3. What do you love about short stories?



As much as I enjoy novel writing, it’s a hell of a slog.  Short stories are a chance to tell a story and make your point quickly, which is both liberating and challenging.  Plus it’s where I started, and I always like going back. It makes writing fun again!

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



I read a science fiction book as a kid called SPACE EAGLE, basically just an adventure story in space, very simple, but that was a wakeup call.  Then short stories by Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, all inspirational stuff.  I was amazed by the imagination they showed, and I wanted to do the same kind of thing.  I may have strayed somewhat from that hard SF path, mind you!

5. What’s next for you?



I’m currently shipping around for an agent/publisher for my zombie spy thriller SLEEPER AWAKE, which I’m very proud of and hoping someone other than me will like it!

 

Marin Livings: Boxing Day

Perth-based writer Martin Livings has had over eighty short stories in a variety of magazines and anthologies. His first novel, Carnies, was published by Hachette Livre in 2006, and was nominated for both the Aurealis and Ditmar awards, and has since been republished by Cohesion Press.

1. What inspired “Boxing Day”?



“Boxing Day” has been gestating for years.  I always thought that the day’s name was evocative, for a start, and the idea of a strangely primitive tradition in modern day Australia appealed to me.  I wanted to write a character story told essentially in fight scenes, with that competitive structure like a sports movie or Sam Raimi’s underrated western movie pastiche “The Quick and the Dead”.  And I loved the idea of a family torn apart by its own pride and inflexible traditions.  But it was the moment the lead character went from being a boy to a girl that the whole thing coalesced.  After that, it virtually wrote itself.

2. What appealed to you about this project?



Lee and Dan want me to say that it was the chance to work with them, and that’s not entirely a sycophantic lie.  But I love antipodean tales as well, love writing in my backyard and reading stories set in other people’s backyards.  How could I resist?

3. What do you love about short stories?



As much as I enjoy novel writing, it’s a hell of a slog.  Short stories are a chance to tell a story and make your point quickly, which is both liberating and challenging.  Plus it’s where I started, and I always like going back. It makes writing fun again!

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



I read a science fiction book as a kid called SPACE EAGLE, basically just an adventure story in space, very simple, but that was a wakeup call.  Then short stories by Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, all inspirational stuff.  I was amazed by the imagination they showed, and I wanted to do the same kind of thing.  I may have strayed somewhat from that hard SF path, mind you!

5. What’s next for you?



I’m currently shipping around for an agent/publisher for my zombie spy thriller SLEEPER AWAKE, which I’m very proud of and hoping someone other than me will like it!