Joshua Donellan's Blog: JM Donellan's substack, page 6
August 11, 2015
TODAY’S HOROSCOPE: TAURUS
Your flesh will be devoured by a rare, unpronounceable and utterly incurable disease. You will die poor, alone and in agony. Your funeral will be unattended, dogs will defecate on your grave and you will never again utter the words: ‘horoscope writing? Is that even a real job?’
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We Are All Ghosts tix are available right now and you should get them. Stories are important because___________ Birthday letter to the queen by Jake Marshall Dunhill, grade 2 Casino Battle Royale Eighty-Nine teaser trailerCopyright © JM Donellan [TODAY'S HOROSCOPE: TAURUS], All Right Reserved. 2015.
July 26, 2015
100 books a year
For the last five years I’ve read a minimum of 100 books each lap around the sun. Here’s a quick rundown of my most rated, most hated, most celebrated and most complicated from the first half of 2015.
Have you ever wished that a renowned author would tackle Arthurian legend in the form of an insufferably dull quasi-fable that employs scenes where two knights spend multiple pages discussing sword etiquette? Me neither, which is probably why I hated this so much.
I adored Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (even if the movie was a huge disappointment) and I have a huge amount of respect for authors who aren’t afraid to switch up styles and genres. However, this book is terrible.
The central themes of love and memory and revenge are all great starting places, but it reads like a cast of senile army vets trying to remember where they left their keys. Also, one of the main characters, Axl, refers to his wife as ‘princess’ after every goddamn sentence, which is just as annoying as it sounds, princess. See, it’s annoying after even one sentence, isn’t it princess? Let alone two, or even three, am I right princess? Princess, why are you unsheathing a broadsword princess? Did you want to spend several hours discussing sword etiquette princess?
I remember when I read DeLillo’s Underground some years ago, it was one of those books that makes you want to give up writing forever because you know you’ll never be that good whilst simultaneously wanting to pour your heart and soul into just attempting to capture a sliver of that genius. In any case, this is one of DeLillo’s ‘lesser’ works, which means it’s a million times better than most people’s greatest novels. The premise is weird; a rockstar named Bucky Wunderlick – who is a vaguely Cobain/Morrison style cult leader of the world’s most popular rock band retires mid-tour and resolves to sit around and do nothing. Obviously this sounds this the worst premise ever imagined, but because this is DeLillo we’re talking about he scribes an incredible study of excess, madness, isolation, a study of the human condition etc. It’s weird and it’s beautiful and now I have to go back and read everything he’s ever written.
A beguilingly beautiful collection of the personal and the political. Words that weave like limbs on trees. Simultaneously melancholy and uplifting. Make sure you grab at the opportunity to see her perform if she’s ever in the same corner of the world as you.
I just started writing the first volume of the YA sci-fi trilogy I’m working on (Jennifer Cellardoor, it’ll be in stores…whenever I get it finished) which means I’ve been reading all kinds of stuff in the same ballpark. I was interested in this because it was billed as ‘literary YA science fiction’ which is one of those literary terms that makes no sense at all, much like ‘indie’ in the music realm. In any case; the plot has a comet rapidly approaching earth with a 66% per cent chance of catastrophic impact. Everyone goes crazy, anarchy ensues and we watch it through the eyes of five teenage protagonists. To be honest I found the character development quite shallow and I’m still not sure about the ending, but it was entertaining enough. The author does get massive points for also recording a companion album though, nice skills.
Reading this novel felt like trying to run through molasses whilst having dictionaries thrown at my head. It is reads like literary math rock; appallingly weighty prose coupled with sentences constructed in much the same way as the Winchester Mystery house. I assume there was some kind of plot in much the same way that I assume Greenland has cafes, although I am unable to provide personal evidence of either.
By way of demonstration, here is an honest to god authentic actual excerpt:
So this is how it works, I said to myself, as if I’d caught an ideological mechanism in flagrante delicto: you let a young man committed to anticapitalist struggle shower in the overpriced apartment that you rent and, while making a meal you prepare to eat in common, your thoughts lead you inexorably to the desire to reproduce your own genetic material within some version of a bourgeois household, that almost caricatural transvaluation of values lubricated by wine and song.
If you got to the end of that sentence without screaming at your screen, congratulations and also could you please tell me what is it like being a Zen master?
I read this after hearing a hilarious an insightful interview where Sacks described using hallucinogens as an inspirational tool as employing a ‘chemical launchpad’. In this book he explores the nature of hallucinations – drug-induced and otherwise – in his famously entertaining and engaging prose. I’m still haunted by the stories of musicians who lose a portion of their sight and then start hallucinating sheet music in that section of their vision.
Over the last couple of months I’ve read dozens of books targeted at teenagers; some good, some bad, some that actually seemed like they shouldn’t so much be sold in bookstores as preserved in museums as examples of the appalling literary atrocities committed in the early 21st century. What makes Feed stand out is that Anderson treats his audience with respect rather than thinking of them as a ‘target market’. He uses actual swear words rather than having characters say ‘and then I swore at her’, and he tackles difficult and complex philosophical questions using inventive and believable slang. If you’re one of the many people who is worried about how a constantly connected digital world is affecting our human interactions, I urge you to check this out.
One of my favourite things to ask someone I’ve just met is: “What’s your all time favourite book?” If they reply “I don’t really read” then I know they probably aren’t worth talking to and they must hate life and spend their weekends punching puppies. If they answer anything else then I have a new book to check out. This one was recommended to me by director Nathan Sibthorpe, and I’m incredibly grateful for the tipoff. These forty vignettes describe various imaginings of potential afterlives, and they are all impossibly beautiful and captivating. In style and concept it also reminds me of one of my all time favourite books Einstein’s Dreams. An absolute wonder of a book.
In my experience, if you ask someone “What do you think of Miranda July?” they’re either going to say “Who the hell is that?” or “OH MY GOD are you kidding me she’s the best and most amazing and I want to have ice cream and cake with her and can we please spend three hours talking about everything she’s ever done? Okay great I’ll start…”
I would definitely place myself in the latter category. This is a strange, beguiling and wonderful novel that draws you in and wraps you up and spits you out a slightly better person. The plot (such as it is) explores the relationship between a shy, confused introvert and a young girl named Clee. What makes this novel such a joy is they way the July unmasks the wonder, anxiety and beauty of the everyday.
If you can’t relate to this novel, you are probably some kind of sentient killer machine and if so hello how are you please don’t kill me.
PS If you feel like reading/reviewing my latest novel, Killing Adonis, I would be very grateful. Unless you hate it, in which case SHUT UP!
xoxo
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Diet Tips from the Vampire Girl With a Dragon Tattoo Who Played a Game of Thrones With Fire Illustrator acquired! Poetry is Dead FUTURE SPECS: putting the "art" in party Growing pains. Copyright © JM Donellan [100 books a year], All Right Reserved. 2015.May 25, 2015
Sydney Airport: Please Tell Your Robots To Stop Sexually Harassing Me In The Bathroom
Dearest Sydney Airport,
I like to think we know each other pretty well. You’ve made me remove various items of clothing and screened me for explosives many times. I’ve slept in your chairs, consumed your Krispy Kreme products with jet-lagged jaws and recently you’ve even been kind enough to stock my latest novel in your bookshops. Now, I’ll grant that over a breadth of time and experience a certain intimacy develops, but there are boundaries to such a relationship and one of those boundaries should very clearly be the bathroom. The shitter, the lavatory, the outhouse, the thunderbox, the bog, the porcelain wonderland. Whatever euphemism/dysphemism you want to employ for that tiled little collection of cubicles and piping where humans go to accomplish the natural – and completely disgusting – process of expunging waste. Our relationship is important to me, Sydney Airport, so let me state this clearly: When I am in the bathroom, LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.
Recently I visited your fair city in order to attend the Sydney Writers’ Festival. How was it you say? Why, it was wonderful, thank you for asking! I spoke on some panels, signed some books, performed some poetry and got to meet many of my favourite writers. I did accidentally smack someone’s microphone out of their hand as I exited one performance but I’m going to pretend that the audience thought it was just a sort of hip-hop ‘dis’ move rather than the clumsy flailing of a terminally uncoordinated man. Plus, I got to see the Vivid festival and the luminary Sufjan Stevens. What a magical couple of days, what a grand, kaleidoscopic adventure, what a shame it had to end with a robot asking me “Wanna get naked?” in the airport bathroom.
I applied Occam’s razor to the situation and logically concluded that someone had slipped me a drug from a Phillip K. Dick novel. It turns out, however, that a video vending machine was attempting to sell me Four Seasons Naked condoms. You’ve crossed a line Sydney Airport, the bathroom line. You see, the problem is, I’m unable to boycott the use of these repugnantly invasive machines. Sometimes, I have to use airports, and during my time in said airports I have to use the bathroom. There’s no ‘ad-free’ option. There is no opt out.
Also, Four Seasons, what the hell is wrong you with you? You have a product that prevents diseases AND is directly related to sex, surely that’s got to be a marketing agency’s wet dream? Whatever agency landed your account must have wept into their champagne and sacrificed a few goats in celebration when that deal got inked. How hard can it be to write some ads that move product without invading bathroom privacy? Look, I’ll write some ad copy for you right now:
“The cost of raising a child in Australia is $300 000+. This costs $2. Enjoy your flight.”
“Hi. Buy one of these for $2 and it could stop you from dying of AIDS. I like your outfit, have a nice day.”
“If you don’t have one of these s/he won’t have sex with you. Thank you.”
Seriously Four Seasons, most ad agencies fall over themselves trying to tenuously connect sex to their products. Just look at this:
You can just imagine the conversation that preceded it can’t you?
“Morning Terry, what’s the new account?”
“Hearing aids! Dumb, stupid, bloody useless hearing aids! I mean, how are you supposed to sell a technological marvel that does nothing but restore one of your vital senses?”
“Sex?”
“Yeah, I reckon I’ll go with sex.”
It’s worth noting that condoms can also be purchased from pharmacies, at a better rate and with a superior selection. I wouldn’t dream of discouraging anyone from using such a vital and important product, so I’ll just politely remind people that you’d have to be a complete moron to buy a single condom for $2 from a robot with no sense of bathroom decorum when you can buy a whole pack for just a couple of dollars more from an actual person.
Whilst shopping for reasonably priced prophylactics sold by humans who haven’t harassed you in the bathroom, you might also want to pick up some chewing gum. It’s an inexpensive and delicious treat that if chewed during takeoff helps reduce that irritating popping in one’s ears. Also, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but once chewing gum is jammed into a small space – the coin slot of an outrageously invasive video vending machine for example – it serves as a surprisingly effective adhesive that would likely be very difficult and expensive to remove.
Now, I know what you might be thinking, if it was so bloody awful and invasive why didn’t I just take a video of the damned thing to prove it? And the answer is BECAUSE RECORDING ANYTHING IN BATHROOMS IS A DISGUSTING THING TO DO (much like using sexualised robots to solicit you to buy products.)
We’ve had a long history together Sydney Airport, so I have every confidence that you’ll rectify this error soon. I look forward to shitting in peace next time I visit your otherwise fine facility.
Kind regards,
J. M. Donellan
______________________________________________________
PS I’m very curious to know if the vending machines in the female toilets have been displaying equally aggressive behaviours. Visitors to Sydney Airport drop me a line if you have a similar story to tell.
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Soon soon soon... Chali 2na at the BNE hifi reviewed for Rave magazine A regicidal thank you story. Jerks vs. the internet 7 Best Writing AlbumsCopyright © JM Donellan [Sydney Airport: Please Tell Your Robots To Stop Sexually Harassing Me In The Bathroom], All Right Reserved. 2015.May 5, 2015
Love and Psychopaths
Oh hey there everyone! In super magic big plus exciting times news: I recently handed in the manuscript for my new novel to Pantera Press! Hopefully they like it, otherwise I’ll just print it out and drive around throwing it onto people’s lawns which will be very expensive and time consuming and also possibly injure their pets.
This has meant I’ve had some time to finish up and release a couple of short stories for your digital media bookreading simulator device. One is (sort of) a love story about a man who is enraptured by someone who isn’t really there and the other is a (sort of) horror story about a bromance between psychopaths. They are only $1 each, so it’s either get one of these stories or some used underwear from your local charity store, your call.
PS a quick thank you to the folks on Twitter and Facebook who helped me put together some ideas for House. Hunting. by sharing their stories about the strange/psychopathic behaviour of their housemates. You guys have shared roofs, bathrooms and bodily odours with some seriously fucked up individuals.
PPS I’lll be at the Sydney Writers’ Festival in a couple of weeks and it will be crazy and amazing! There will be heaps of other great authors like David Mitchell, Emily St John Mandel, Annabel Crabb etc. Come and say hi if you’re in that corner of this particular universe.
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Cut Chemist @ BNE Hi Fi reviewed for Rave magazine The Eternal sneak preview #1 FOR SALE: 1 x reincarnation of historical figure Franz Ferdinand. How To Do Your Xmas Shopping Without Losing Your Will To Live ATTN: THE UNIVERSE! ZEB IS HERE! Copyright © JM Donellan [Love and Psychopaths], All Right Reserved. 2015.April 26, 2015
The Eternal Artist Callout
Look, I’m old school about these things. I know I could go to comic book conventions and try and ‘network’ and all that jazz but it just feels awkward and unnatural. I’d rather spend my time eating all the delicious buffet food that the actors take for granted and try to explain to security guards that yes, actually, I am supposed to be in the VIP area and no I’m not a Moby lookalike.
Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. I NEED AN ARTIST. Not an ‘I made a sculpture out of my hair and threw it at my laptop as a protest against data retention‘ artist, an artist who draws things. Specifically comic shaped things. The story in need of the aforementioned art skills is called the Eternal, and it charts the adventures of O aka Orion/Ophelia/Omid/Orchid/Olof and a few other aliases as they travel alongside a Goddess who has lost memory of her divinity, the two of them used as pawns played by various cosmic forces.
It will be a sweeping fantasy epic beginning in 18th century India and ending in modern day Japan with a cast featuring gods, assassins, thieves, devils and poets (the worst of the whole bunch). It is influenced by graphic novels like The Maxx, Saga, The Unwritten, The Invisibles, Sandman and movies like The Fall, Inglorious Basterds and Snowpiercer. I want it to be philosophical and poetic but also action packed and laden with snappy dialogue.
This is going to be a grand undertaking that will roll out over a few years. I’ve written plays, novels, poems and a whole bunch of other stuff but this is my first time tackling the comic book format. I’d love to work with someone who is also based in Brisbane but then again the internet is a wonderful thing.
My original artist, the incredible Tony Gilfoyle, has had to pull out of the project due to various personal reasons but will be staying on to consult and perhaps help out with later instalments. The sketches displayed here are all his, and ideally I’d love to work with someone who has a similar(ish) style. If you’re interested, you can email me at jmdonellan [AT] gmail [DOT] com and we can throw ideas at each other. Please only hit me up if you are really serious about taking on a large, longterm project and you are a supercool person who is invariably friendly and fun even in stressful situations and you love puns and always gets stuff in by deadline and possibly play drums so we can jam out between sessions to unwind and if you have a helicopter of some sort that would definitely be taken into consideration.*
THANK YOU AND HAVE A NICE WHATEVER TIME IT IS WHEN YOU ARE READING THIS.
PS Re: payment, I’d most likely be looking to split royalties and enter into this as a partnership but I’m open to discussion.
*I am aware that no person this great exists, but it is literally my job to live in a world of fiction.
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Bright Eyes @ the BNE Hifi reviewed for Rave magazine Eighty Nine now available for pre-order HOUSEMATE WANTED (OR: would you live here?) INTELLECTUAL CELEBRITY GOSSIP FILE: RICHARD DAWKINS + JESSICA SIMPSON Interim parliament vows to keep Australia 'one nation under a groove'Copyright © JM Donellan [The Eternal Artist Callout], All Right Reserved. 2015.April 19, 2015
Microplanes and magic: Poetry is Dead remix
I’m very excited to announce that the wonderful Microplane has remixed one of the songs from last year’s Poetry is Dead EP. I had the pleasure of meeting Fancisco aka Microplane in Porto a couple of years ago. I was already hopelessly in love with Portugal and visiting this city, home of one of the world’s most beautiful bookstores and the birthplace of port wine, only deepened my adoration.
Microplane’s new EP is based on the idea that ‘planet Earth is becoming a huge “waiting room”. We are spending more and more time seated on chairs, downloading stuff in our mobile devices to help spend time and smiling to touch screens…’ which fit perfectly with the track Mike and I put together for our Cycle One EP. We’re very excited to have it reincarnated here. Plus having my voice transformed so I sound like a philosophical supervillain is pretty great. Also, having one of our songs released on an Italian label by a Portuguese musician makes me feel muito exotico.
If you want to check out the original recording you can get it from Poetry is Dead’s bandcamp page.
PPPS Black flamingo.
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The String Bridge is a thing that you should acquire post-haste. Launch party photos Killing Adonis launch party sneak preview. Can you hate the artist but love their art?Copyright © JM Donellan [Microplanes and magic: Poetry is Dead remix], All Right Reserved. 2015.March 26, 2015
You Have the Right to Not Remain Silent
SHUT UP! Sound familiar? If you work in the arts or do anything vaguely interesting with your life, you’ve probably had this phrase or variously profane iterations hurled at you more often than you’d like. We’ve all heard the stories of people who move next to bars and complain about the noise (if you can’t figure out that bars make noise, then disturbance to your serenity is most likely the least of your problems). But what about the smaller operations? Indie theatre companies, folk musicians and other dregs of society?
Last year we hosted an intimate theatre performance at our house that had an audience of 25 people and featured three actors talking for around an hour with no amplified music or sound of any kind. It was basically a dinner party with only three of the guests doing all the talking. Our show ran for a grand total of five nights.
The neighbours across the street were furious. The noise, they claimed, was unreasonable. On the night of our second last performance, they decided to protest the disturbance of the peace by blasting triple M at an insane volume. I went over to talk it out and endured several minutes of screaming about the fact that we were making too much noise. I considered raising the delicate concept of irony but decided to pick my battles. I assured our neighbour that we only had one remaining show and then he could go back to his life of staring rancorously at passersby for the rest of his days.
Then our other neighbours – who hadn’t screamed at us but had also told us in no uncertain terms that they thought that she show had been ‘too noisy’ – started renovations. And when I say renovations, I mean they tore away one side of their house and built three new rooms. This went on for around four months, usually starting around 6am (earlier than the legally allowed commencement). When the renovations were finally complete, we all breathed a sigh of relief…until their new baby arrived the following week. Have you met a babyperson before? They can be quite adorable, it’s true, but they also come equipped with advanced sonic weaponry that grants them the ability to obliterate the eardrums of everything within a 300m radius and also disrupt the sonar capabilities of any bats or dolphins in the same timezone.
There are many people (like me) for whom making a reasonable amount of noise is part of their livelihood. When you tell them to shut up you may as well be walking into a restaurant and telling the proprietors to stop producing so many cooking-related scents. Obviously, people don’t have the right to crank up Skrillex at 2am because that’s just fucking unreasonable (and also displays terrible taste in music). But if your neighbours are rehearsing for (or performing) a show, try and show the same consideration that they show you when your goddamn baby screams at three in the morning. Now I know what you’re going to say, you don’t HAVE to work in the arts. Well, that’s true, but only in the sense that you don’t HAVE to have children or renovate your house. Take a moment to think how you’d feel if someone knocked on your door and said “Look, I’m trying to watch Australia’s Biggest Loser Idol’s Kitchen Rules and your child is really fucking loud. You really shouldn’t have ever procreated. Is there any way that you take your screaming progeny back to the babyfactory so I can hear who they vote as this week’s best emotional meltdown dancer?”
Quiet for it’s own sake isn’t always a good sign in any case. If you’ve seen any action movie ever you’ll know what follows the line “It’s quiet….too quiet…” is usually a large amount of bloodletting and/or explosives. Societies that are too quiet on the whole usually have something very creepy or oppressive going on, as shown in this very informative documentary:
If you really want to live in a world where you hear nothing but the sounds of your favourite reality TV show or talkback host I have a solution for you: noise-cancelling headphones. A decent pair will set you back around the same price as one of the many massages you’d probably require on a weekly basis if you spent your entire life being stressed out and complaining about your fellow humans discourteously producing decibel levels greater than a bunch of Buddhist monks on a vipassana retreat.
One simple purchase will allow you to enjoy all of the infomercials and hate-crime inciting current affairs programs you want without the outside world disturbing you. Hell, with these things on there could be a zombie apocalypse raging outside and you wouldn’t notice because you’d be so engrossed watching one of the many zombie apocalypse TV shows currently on offer.
In conclusion:
PS
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On the making of monsters. Jerks vs. the internet DYING IN DIGITALCopyright © JM Donellan [You Have the Right to Not Remain Silent], All Right Reserved. 2015.January 15, 2015
Last Drinks Before the Apocalypse casting callout
Thespians of Brisbaneland, I want YOU! Well, not all of you. Just a few. Four to be precise. This year as part of the Anywhere Theatre Festival I’ll be writing a new script for a show entitled Last Drinks Before the Apocalypse. It’s going to be an overnight performance, and as far as I know it will be the first original script to be performed in this way in Australia (please let me know if I’m wrong about this so we can correct it before we send out press releases!)
I’m super excited to have an A++, nine million gold star creative team featuring Jessica McGaw, Nathan Sibthorpe and Lucas Stibbard. We’re looking for a cast of two guys and two girls in their mid-late 20s/early 30s.
SYNOPSIS
It’s the night before Eve and Victor’s wedding and also – rather inconveniently – the night before the end of the world, at least according to their two best friends Lilith and Ivan. Together with a couple dozen of their favourite people, they are about to indulge in a night of revelry that only the end of the world can initiate. Secrets will be body slammed onto dinner tables, confessions will swing from chandeliers, love and lust will be smeared all over the place like blood at a violent crime scene. The morning will eventually arrive in much the manner it usually does, but between then and now the whole world’s about to change – just in time for it to end.
OVERVIEW
LAST DRINKS BEFORE THE APOCALYPSE will be a performance that directly incorporates the audience, enrolling them as the wedding party guests and assigning challenges and roles ranging from the hilarious to the heartbreaking. The story will progress according to a randomised process of prompt questions being selected by the audience occurring as a party game within the reality of the story. This will be an intensely interactive, partially improvised show that will offer a multitude of different experiences within the house in which it is performed. The main part of the story will occur in the first two hours, with the audience then invited to spend the night and participate in various smaller experiences throughout the evening. The final part of the show will take place at breakfast the following morning, and one of two endings will be chosen based on the audience’s guiding of the piece.
If you’d like be involved please download the following documents with all the extra details and we look forward to seeing you at the auditions on January 25th! If you need to arrange an alternate time please contact our producer Jess (jess_mcgaw AT hotmail DOT com). Please forward this on to anyone who might be interested, I guarantee it will be a once in a lifetime experience.
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A regicidal thank you story. Campbell: The Shocking True Story of a ‘Man’ Who Hated The Arts So Much You’d Think An Artist Stabbed His Puppy As Part of an Abstract Performance Piece Ball Park Music review (for Rave Magazine) How to Turn Your Child Into a ninja-scientist-guitar-soloing-human rights champion in one easy step. Copyright © JM Donellan [Last Drinks Before the Apocalypse casting callout], All Right Reserved. 2015.December 22, 2014
100 Books A Year 2014 part II.
Here Come the Dogs by Omar Musa
There’s a reason why this book is appearing in a myriad ‘best of’ lists this year – well more than one actually – in short; it’s really fucking good. It’s a bleak, unflinching and sometimes hallucinatory piece of work that flips between poetry and pose with disconcerting ease. Omar’s finely honed skills as a poet and lyricist are well manifested in his debut novel. I had the pleasure of featuring on a panel with Omar at the National Young Writers’ Festival earlier this year and he is a fiercely intelligent and yet incredibly good natured and friendly soul. His music is also highly engaging and arresting, well worth a listen.
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Okay, I’ll be honest. I’m only halfway through this one, but it’s nevertheless one of my favourites I’ve read this year. I saw the film some years ago and it was passably entertaining and featured a great cast, but the book is exponentially more interesting. Saramago uses the allegory of a strange infectious blindness to examine complex themes such as morality, governance, greed and politics. There are elements of scifi thriller here, but it’s a primarily a work that examines humans at their best and worst and basically exemplifies all the strengths of the novel as an artistic format. No wonder he managed to bag himself one of those peskily elusive Nobel prizes. I spent some time in Lisbon last year and in Portugal Saramago is revered as a national icon, it’s easy to see why.
Five Wounds by Johnathan Walker & Dan Hallett
This was a profoundly fascinating piece of work, but not an easy read by any means. Visually it is inventive and captivating, simultaneously old and new. The story content is interesting but quite hard to follow and incredibly dark. I tend to enjoy fairly morbid territory in literature but this was a little to grim even for my tastes. However, if you enjoy particularly macabre writing then this might become one of your favourites.
Definitely worth the cover price just to see what the creators have done in terms of aesthetic and layout, but if you’re into conventional structures or are looking for an easy read you’re probably better off searching elsewhere.
The Tainted Trial of Farah Jama by Julie Szego
I’m not usually a fan of true crime, but I was invited to interview Julie about the book at the Reader’s Feast Crime & Justice Festival earlier this year and it ended up becoming one of my favourites of 2014. The book follows the trial of Jama; a young Somalian refugee who has been falsely accused of rape via inexplicable DNA evidence. The way that Szego unpacks the multitudinous issues surrounding the case including race, religion, rape culture, assimilation vs integration and the limitations of the justice system is relentlessly beguiling. I also recommend Anna Krien’s Night Games, which covered some similar territory and was equally brilliant.
Adulthood Rites (Xenogenesis book 2) by Octavia E. Butler
While not quite as fascinating as the first book in the trilogy, the second book of the Xenogenesis series is nevertheless essential reading. Butler remains one of the (unfortunately) few African-American authors to be really successful in the scifi genre, and her work is a fascinating study on human nature and behaviour. The story follows a group of humans who have been interbred with an alien species and their return to a ruined earth. The complications in the narrative come from the various groups attempting to eek out an existence and warring over various genetic modifications they have undergone during their time away from earth. Recently there has been a push for Butler to be used in place of H. P. Lovecraft as the World Fantasy Award Statuette. More on that here.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
This book was recommended to me by Black Cat Books, one of my favourite book stores in the world which is sadly about to close its doors. If you live in Brisbane, you have a couple of weeks left to check them out before they are gone forever. Lately I’ve found myself increasingly frustrated with the commonly held attitude in the Australian literary scene that ‘scifi is not a high literary art form.’ Despite the fact that the Booker of Bookers was awarded to Rushdie’s novel about kids with superpowers, there remains a prevailing attitude that if a novel isn’t literary realism, it’s just pulp fiction. This work is one of many (see also the Bone Clocks) that happily and successfully blends genres. The story follows an acting troupe that roams across a post-apocalyptic world where 99% of the population has been wiped out by disease. It flips between characters and eras in a manner that is spellbinding and highly satisfying.
The Special by David Stavanger
Despite having appeared on countless stages in Brisbane and all over the country both as himself and alter ego Ghostboy, this is Stavanger’s first published volume. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing him perform a number of times and he is always wildly unpredictable and incredibly entertaining, and this collection lives up to Stavanger’s live performances. Dark, philosophical and funny, this is by far one of my favourite modern poetry collections. Stavanger has just been named as one of the cohosts of the Queensland Poetry Festival, so we’ll certainly be seeing plenty more of him in the very near future.
A Difficult Place To Be Human by Anthony Anaxagorou
I met Anthony at the December edition of Brisbane’s infamous Ruckus Slam (where I managed to take home 2nd prize and win a woodford ticket yessssss). I was completely astonished by the way he weaved words together, a very honest and passionate performer. Poets are often admonished for putting on airs, and I personally am very fond of poets like Anaxagorou who are more concerned with speaking from the heart than trying to sound like the reincarnation of Wordsworth. I was particularly impressed by his piece The Master’s Revenge, which features in this collection. Check out the video here:
Thirst by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi
Lately I’m trying to read more Middle Eastern novels (feel free to send me recommendations!) and I found this slim little piece of genius in the Kinokuniya bookstore in Kuala Lumpur when I was on tour there earlier this year. Apparently Dowlatabadi was arrested by the Iranian regime, not for any specific infringement but because so many dissidents were found to be in possession of his work that the secret police just assumed he was up to no good. What an absolute superhero. This dream-like allegorical story within a story looks at war, humanity and propaganda. His writing is lyrical and captivating and I will certainly be seeking out more of his work.
Rat Queens by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch
There’s a hell of a lot to love about this series. It’s subversive, action-packed, beautifully illustrated and so fucking funny it should be illegal. It also manages to subvert a lot of classic comic book tropes. Thanks to Scott Wings for the tipoff.
Saga by Brian K Vaughn and Fiona Staples.
IT’S JUST SO FUCKING GOOD. A beautiful, complex story about war and family and destiny filled with humour and fantastic, insane characters. The art is the best in the business right now. Just read it, for the love of all that’s holy.
That’s my favourites for the second half of 2014! The full list of books I read this year is here. What did you love (or hate) in 2014?
PS I released my latest novel Killing Adonis in October. Let me know if it made it onto any of your lists (favourite books, least favourite books, books I used to fend off Mormons, books I used to prop up creaky coffee tables etc.)
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Exit Stage Zed Diet Tips from the Vampire Girl With a Dragon Tattoo Who Played a Game of Thrones With Fire 350 PROJECT A BOOK. ITS COVER. #BWF13Copyright © JM Donellan [100 Books A Year 2014 part II.], All Right Reserved. 2014.December 2, 2014
SUPANOVA 2014
Hello there internet, how are you? I’m fine, thanks for asking. Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve been insanely busy promoting Killing Adonis and finishing off the script for the new graphic novel. I’m going to quickly share a couple of highlights from this year’s Supanova festival, because it was one of the best weekends of my life. As a diehard fan of anime, comic books, scifi and video games this whole festival was definitely my bag/jam/cup of tea (bag of jam tea?) Here’s some of my highlights. Apologies in advance for dropping names like I usually drop glasses (frequently, and with much embarrassment).
1 Robin Hobbs educating me on the finer points of bong engineering.
2 Meeting heaps of super enthusiastic fans. After years of tapping away at the keys alone in my room, it’s REALLY nice to meet people who are genuinely excited about this new book.
3 Talking gender in fiction with Robin, Kylie Chan, Steve Worland and Peter Hambleton. It’s a subject that I’m very passionate about and it was great to explore it in this forum. Also I had a few people ask about the ‘ungendered’ story I mentioned: there’s a link here. PS Hambleton loves whiskey. True story.
4 This bullet time photo with all the supanova authors:
5 Alan Tudyk throwing a massive box of maltesers onto the writers’ table.
6 A giant dalek offering the crowd tea and biscuits.
7 Amazing costumes
8 The pineapple.
9 Usurping Matthew Reilly’s signing desk while he was at lunch (sorry Matt!)
10 Getting my ‘yearbook’ signed by some amazing writers and the Supanova staff.
There’s a few more pics on my facebook page. See you next year!
L to R: Kylie Chan, Matthew Reilly, Juliet Marieller, Robin Hobb, Famous Pineapple, Some Total Loser, Steve Worland, Sean Williams, Scott Baker, Ian Irvine, Colin Taber.
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NEW DAN BROWN NOVEL LEAKED ON THE INTERNET! Quotes BLACKLIGHT featuring Pigeon / Lunch Tapes / The Medics reviewed for rave magazineCopyright © JM Donellan [SUPANOVA 2014], All Right Reserved. 2014.
