Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 141

Chronos Awards 2011 (with commentary)

The Chronos Awards were presented this weekend at Continuum 7! I really wish I could have been at the con.

* Best Long Fiction: Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott (Pan MacMillan Australia)

AKA book teetering at the highest point of my to read pile and piling scorn upon me for not reading it yet, with every new accolade it gathers. Yay Kirstyn!

* Best Short Fiction: "Her Gallant Needs", Paul Haines (Sprawl,Twelfth Planet Press)

As with most Haines stories, I both loved and hated this one in equal measures. Yay for Paul and for Sprawl, a fabulous book.

* Best Artwork: Australis Imaginarium cover, Shaun Tan (FableCroft Publishing)

Nice to see Shaun Tan continue his run of awards, large and small, in 2011… and extra hoorays for Tehani, who commissioned this cover for one of the flagship books of her new press, Fablecroft.

* Best Fan Writer: Alexandra Pierce

* Best Fan Written Work: "Review: The Secret Feminist Cabal by Helen Merrick", Alexandra Pierce

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Having followed the awards on Twitter, I only just got that Alex in fact took out two awards here. Some of us have known for some time what a smart & committed book reviewer our Random Alex is, and it's beyond awesome to have her acknowledged by the wider community. And in her home town, no less!

* Best Fan Artwork: Continuum 6 Props, Rachel Holkner

Hooray for Rachel! She has been so committed over the last several years to making interesting fan art in conjunction with the Continuum conventions.

* Best Fan Publication: Live Boxcutters Doctor Who at AussieCon IV, Josh Kinal and John Richards

Congrats to Boxcutters! I am genuinely happy about this – while Galactic Suburbia was nominated in the same category, thanks to being 1/3 Melbournite, and it would have been cool to have awards from two different states after picking up the Tin Duck, the Live Boxcutters event was just such a highlight of Aussiecon, that I am utterly delighted for Josh and John. Being in that audience was exciting and exhilarating, and I'm sad that I will miss their contributions to Continuum's programming this year.

* Best Achievement: Programming: AussieCon IV, Sue Ann Barber and Grant Watson

Again, losing gracefully here, as the Snapshot was up in this category – and again, it would have been lovely to win for that, though Kathryn's crazy amounts of work and commitment to running that project (and the rest of us for participating in that high velocity fortnight or so) was already honoured by a trophy at the Ditmars. But it's awesome to see Sue Ann and Grant honoured for the huge amount of work they had to take on at Aussiecon 4, in many cases at the very last minute, to make that event happen. So hooray.

Hooray for everyone! Hope there were some gorgeous frocks at the ceremony.

And of course don't forget to check out , featuring the autographs of nearly 100 authors and illustrators from Aussiecon4.

Return of the Friday Links

image by perpetualpanda on Deviant Art

I've had a request (hi Thoraiya!) to start up my occasional series of Friday links posts again. Since I have been slacking off from blogging for quite a few weeks now, I am making up for it today!

Timmi Duchamp at Aqueduct Press looks at the Women's Hour SF discussion with particular concern for what Gwyneth Jones said about feminist SF vs. SF written by women.

EDIT: Gwyneth Jones' right of reply, also on Aqueduct Press.

My Mum passed me this link to a cheering and inspirational article about the new generation of activist feminists in the UK (though as Kirstyn McDermott pointed out to me, obviously whoever composed the photograph of the group was not thinking with the feminist half of their brain)

Niall at Strange Horizons links to some Wiscon panel summaries. Sniff. One day my Wiscon will come.

A powerful post by Colleen at Chasing Ray about the 'are books too dark for our teenagers because everyone knows bad things don't happen unless you read about them' stupidity.

Diana Peterfreund on why her latest book was so hard to write, how having babies makes books even HARDER to write, and why it's important to own the hard work as well as the magical moments of the writing life.

Nicola Griffith (she has been on fire lately!) comparing two LAMBDA acceptance speeches and considering the gendered differences between them.

And oh, the piece of news that most excited me this week: the new Chameleon Circuit album has finally finished production and is available for pre-order, shipping in July. Eeeeee!

Agathon 3. Murder on the Links (1923)

Tansy and Kathryn have taken the challenge to read every book written by Agatha Christie, in order of publication and we're blogging as we go along. We're calling it the Agathon! As a warning, there may be spoilers.



3 – The Murder on the Links (1923)

Featuring: Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings

KATHRYN SAYS:

Well I'm happy to report that in 'The Murder on the Links', Poirot is not longer housesharing in the countryside with seven other Belgians, but is instead flatsharing in London with Hastings! We find him at breakfast, bemoaning the lack of interesting cases for him to solve – rather he is receiving requests to speak to the local Scout group. But, of course, an interesting letter then turns up almost immediately, urging Poirot to travel to France to aid a millionaire apparently in fear of his life.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The book actually open with Hastings meeting a mysterious and somewhat irreverent young lady on a train, AND HE FALLS IN LOVE. Perhaps not right there on the train, but during the course of the book, Hastings finds his Cinderella. And we're not just talking about the normal misguided Hastings-love, but a full-blown, sacrifice-his-friendship-with-Poirot-if-he-must type of love. Indeed having read this book before, the thing I remembered most from my first reading was Hastings defiant actions to save his beau (Small spoiler: she didn't do it, phew.). What's more, Hastings' Cinderella appears to be delightful. She is impertinent, devious, acrobatic, and not afraid to call him prehistoric when he expects her to be more horrified about a murder than she is.

Barring the fact that I have read this book before, 'The Murder on the Links' does make me question what I consider the 'typical' Poirot mystery. Rather than occurring in one location, there's a lot of travelling in this book and scenes change quire rapidly. Furthermore, after wondering in my review of 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles' whether there would ever be a Poirot book without the traditional Poirot-gathers-everyone-in-a-room-and-tells-em-who-dunnit scene, here we are in only his second book and THERE ISN'T ONE! Instead the murderer is revealed after Poirot sets a trap to catch them in the act.

As noted in previous reviews by Tansy, Christie still seems to be making a commentary on murder mysteries in her text, with the appearance of a rival Detective to solve the mystery – Monsieur Giraud. He is the polar opposite of Poirot and from Christie's description we know we should not like him from the start. Poirot's commentary on Giraud's detective style is entertaining and I particularly liked his commentary on the 'romantic' idea that all important clues must be infinitesimal. As Poirot says, 'A clue of two feet long is every bit as valuable as one measuring two millimetres!"

Finally, as a postscript, 'The Murder on the Links' was available from my library as a graphic novel, so I got that out too. Alas, I didn't think much of the translation. I found a lot of characterisation and plot details missing, while the smooth rendering of Poirot's figure seemed to border on parody. It simply didn't have the emotion or drama of the original novel.

TANSY SAYS:

Yep, we're back in meta commentary territory again – or in fact, this being only Christie's third novel, we've never left it. The story opens with reference to a compelling opening to a story ("Hell!" said the Duchess) and then goes on to rework it for Hastings' own purposes. I also felt that the whole plot (which is utterly preposterous, relying on several coincidences colliding at once) hinged largely on a couple of people designing an imperfect murder mystery scenario based on the conventions of the genre. Christie's universe is one in which her characters are immersed in the appropriate (for the story they're in) body of pop culture, which goes to show that all those film & TV makers in the 90's weren't as smart as they thought they were!

I love Cinderella – though I'm not sure she's ever as awesome as she is in that opening scene, bowling Hastings over with her unladylike declarations and wicked sense of humour. I haven't yet decided if she's played by Katherine Hepburn or Lauren Bacall, but she's just that type, and I can't for the life of me see what she sees in him!

Poirot is intriguing me as a character, probably because I was so uninterested in him in my younger days (I preferred Miss Marple) and because I never read these early books. He's so enabling of Hastings' bad behaviour, and a complete matchmaker, though he also delights in being several steps ahead of everyone. If he reminded me of Sherlock Holmes in his first book, his twinkly eyes in this one are making me think more of the Doctor. He seems to live on a different plane of reality to everyone else!

I think the solution is over-complicated for a Christie, as I said before. Such a mish mash of events colliding on the one night! I also think it's odd that no one ever suggested that the young pair at the centre of the story might actually be brother and sister, which seemed to me to be a definite possibility considering the timing of the whole thing. On the whole, the pleasure of this one is from the interactions between Hastings, Poirot and Cinderella rather than the story itself, though I did appreciate that Hastings did so much working-out-of-stuff in his own brain, even if he was often wrong. And I liked the little detail with the daggers, and how the 'one of a kind' murder weapon was actually not, which can be seen as symbolic considering the storyline of the sisters, Bella and Dulcie.

As a side note, did you notice that the sisters in this story are called Bella and Dulcie? Their parents weren't giving them a lot to live up to at ALL!

Can't help thinking Poirot is so keen to marry Hastings off so he can be rid of him! Though I see there's at least one more book coming which features the duo, so look forward to seeing how things turn out with the romance. Will we be seeing Mrs Cinderella Hastings? I loved the bit where her acrobatic skills and sturdy wrists came in super handy, and can totally see Poirot thinking she might actually make a better partner in crime.

COMING SOON

4. The Man in the Brown Suit (1924)

Anne Beddingfeld, Colonel Race

Poirot Investigates (1924)

Short Stories.

5. The Secret of Chimneys (1925)

Anthony Cade, Superintendent Battle

Galactic Suburbia Episode 34 Show Notes

New episode up! Grab it from iTunes, by direct download or stream it on the site.

EPISODE 34

In which we surf the wave of feminist SF news that has deluged the internet this fortnight, plus Margaret Brundage, why YA books are allowed to be as dark as they want to be, the Tiptree Award, Connie Willis, were-thylacines, Ted Chiang and Alex finally discovers Bujold…

News

Nicola Griffith on the m/f imbalance in an informal SF favourites poll in the Guardian

The Guardian: Damien Walter, author of the poll & followup articles revises his comments in response to Griffith

Niall Harrison follows up on Strange Horizons

Cheryl Morgan on invisibility of women (some really interesting discussion in the comments, too)

The Guardian again, asking with wide innocent eyes if SF is inherently sexist

Ian Sales announces the SF Mistressworks blog project

Nicola Griffith asks you to take the Joanna Russ pledge

Gwyneth Jones, Karen Traviss & Farah Mendlesohn talk on radio about the perception of women in British SF http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011c220

Transcript here: http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com/20...

MK Hobson on the term 'bustlepunk' and why there is a place for a domestic sub-genre of steampunk

MK Hobson's follow up post on the assumptions made about works coded 'female'

2011 Chesley Award Finalists

Cheryl Morgan on female & trans artists

Nine Reasons Women Don't Edit Wikipedia

(interesting, I think, in light of the recent spout of incidents we've watched, notably the one with Nick Mamatas where winning World Fantasy Award was considered too regional to be significant)

Wall Street Journal on YA fiction

Change to the Norma eligibility guidelines

Why Galactic Suburbia T-shirts are no longer available through RedBubble.

Con Quilt

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Tansy: Thyla, Kate Gordon; Will Supervillains Be on the Final? Naomi Novik

Alisa: Coode St Podcast with Ellen Klages, Eileen Gunn and Geoff Ryman; Connie Willis – Even the Queen; Octavia Butler – Bloodchild

Alex: Chill, and Grail, Elizabeth Bear; The Lifecycle of Software Objects, Ted Chiang ; Welcome to the Greenhouse, Gordon van Gelder; Steampunk! Kelly Link and Gavin Grant.

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don't forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

Heroes, Villains and Thylacines

The Shattering, by Karen Healey

Thyla, by Kate Gordon

Will Supervillains Be On The Final? Vol. One, by Naomi Novik & Yishan Li

I haven't been reading nearly as much as I want to lately, but I have made some great YA discoveries.

Guardian of the Dead, by Karen Healey, was one of the most interesting YA debut novels last year, with its mixture of serial killer horror and Maori mythology, featuring contemporary New Zealand teenagers with both snark and substance. I was delighted to receive an early copy of Karen Healey's follow up novel, The Shattering – so much so that I took it as my in flight entertainment for the Aurealis Awards weekend, at which Guardian of the Dead ended up winning Best Novel!

Set in an idyllic New Zealand tourist town, this book has a very simple premise at the heart of it – teenagers uncovering supernatural wrongdoings – but it becomes something far more crunchy and intriguing thanks to the complex, diverse protagonists and Healey's sensitive handling of some pretty major issues, including teen suicide, grief response, mental health, bullying and coming out to your parents. The absolute heart of the novel is the friendship between the three main characters, who all bond over the shared grief of losing an elder brother to suicide, and decide to investigate whether there is a more sinister reason behind their loss. I loved each of these characters deeply and enjoyed how flawed they are as well as how strong. I also *adored* the fact that, while there is romance here, the novel took a very pragmatic attitude towards teenage love stories, and that the central triad (two girls and a boy) was about as far from a love triangle as it is possible to get.

Original, fast paced and richly detailed, The Shattering is a powerful second novel from a writer whose narrative choices are never dull.

Thyla by Kate Gordon is also a second novel, though Kate Gordon's debut was a straight teen friendship story, without spec fic elements. This one, however, is paranormal all the way, and interesting to me for several reasons: Kate is a local writer friend, and this story is set in and around areas of Hobart I know very well.

Also… paranormal YA with werethylacines? How could anyone resist?

One of the things I liked most about this book is the way it played with the idea of a truly unreliable narrator. This is a technique I love, which was handled especially well in Holly Black's White Cat last year. In this case, the heroine is a lost girl found in the wilds of Tasmania (our wilds get pretty wild, and some of them are not that far from suburbia) with most of her memory missing. She knows her name is Tess, but very little else, and she clings to Connolly, the police woman who found her, and is nursing her own hurt about a daughter who was lost in the same area of bush where Tess was found.

Narrated with lyrical ease, another element of the story is that it is told for the most part in second person, Tess fixating upon the largely absent figure of Connolly as she describes to her what happened after Tess arrived at the boarding school where she is to be housed until the police figure out more about who she is, and where she comes from. There's a gothic sensibility to the story as Tess literally takes the place of the missing-presumed-dead girl Cat Connolly, taking over her bed and roommate, and soon begins to suspect that there was rather more to Cat's disappearance than a bushwalk gone wrong.

She and the reader both start to realise, piece by piece, that Tess doesn't fit into this world, and the confusion she has about Aussie slang and culture might actually have nothing at all to do with her memory loss…

Fair warning that this is the first part of what I believe is a duology, though I felt this volume answered enough of the mystery to be satisfying for now… as long as Vulpi comes out soon! This highly original revamp of common paranormal tropes blends with the historical urban myths of Hobart Town and a snappy contemporary style to make a story which is part Tasmanian Gothic, part Picnic at Hanging Rock, part Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Naomi Novik has moved into whole new territory with her recent release, Will Supervillains Be on the Final Vol. One. Far from the Napoleonic dragon bromance of Temeraire and his many sequels, this is the first in an American manga series that I really enjoyed. It has the fluffy romance of a Fruits Basket, mixed with a whole lot of US superhero traditions, and is beautifully drawn by Yishan Li.

This first volume introduces nervous student prodigy Leah, who has been allowed into superhero university Liberty Vocational a couple of years early because her immense powers are greatly needed in the war against supervillainy.

There's a whole world lightly sketched here, with hints of far bigger stories in the past and the future. I'm particularly intrigued by the background character of Calvin Washington, once the greatest superhero ever, now a quiet professor who has lost his powers. I also genuinely enjoyed the classroom challenges, and the left-of-centre lessons being thrown at the students. As a sucker for magical school stories, and someone who has been hanging out for a new fluffy manga to fall in love with, I'm signing up for this one!

The only down side is I'm not sure of when the next one is coming out, and whether there is a regular schedule planned or if they're just putting out one to see how well they sell. Wahhh!

Look Over There!

I wrote a post for the Ripping Ozzie Reads post today, on why I need to Read to Write – come on over to talk about how reading material inspires your writing and vice versa!

Galactic Suburbia Episode 33 Show Notes

New episode up! Grab it from iTunes, by direct download or stream it on the site.

EPISODE 33

In which we wax lyrical about awards, short stories and the love of reading. Because it's that time of year!

News

Aurealis Awards winners as reported by roving reporter Tansy

Nebula Awards winners

Translation Awards

Aqueduct links to 25 commemorations of Joanna Russ

New podcast – How I got my Boyfriend to Read Comics

Last Short Story is on Twitter @lastshortstory

New Galactic Chat: Kirstyn McDermott



What Culture Have we Consumed?

Tansy: The Shattering, Karen Healey

Alex: The Wise Man's Fear, Patrick Rothfuss; How to Suppress Women's Writing, Joanna Russ; Welcome to Bordertown, Ellen Kushner and Terri Windling; finished Stargate SG1 for the second time.

Alisa: Ken Liu's Paper Menagerie (F&SF March/April), Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To



Pet Subject: Last Short Story 2011

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don't forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

Galactic Chat Update

Our lovely producer has just put up the fourth interview in the Galactic Chat series – we have one more pre-recorded from Swancon to go, and then we'll have to start burning up those Skypewaves again! I've been vaguely teeing up some future interviews for later this year.

So far we have:

Marianne De Pierres

Tansy Rayner Roberts

Glenda Larke

and now…

Kirstyn McDermott!

Like my interview with Glenda, Alisa recorded this one with Kirstyn at Swancon, but luckily Kirstyn went and won an Aurealis Award this weekend so the interview is extra topical. Hooray!

Night of Necklaces, Day of Ferries

I felt like such a jet-setter, getting on a plane yesterday morning for a single night in Sydney for the Aurealis Awards. I arrived in the early afternoon and met up with Tehani, Helen and baby Max at the airport so we could taxi in to the hotel together. It felt so decadent to hang out and chat with friends I normally don't get to see more than once every few years – twice within a month!

We went down to the hotel restaurant for a (very) early dinner, correctly guessing it would be our last chance to eat for the night. Some familiar faces were already down there, with the same idea, and we added a table on the end of theirs – and as more and more people arrived, kept doing so, until we had at least 20 people there, and the table had turned into a long L-shape!

Then of course we all had to disappear to frock up, as the new arrivals were looking increasingly glamorous.

The Aurealis Awards were held at the Independent Theatre, a lovely venue only a few minute's stagger (a bit longer in high heels, but I was wearing flats, hehehe) from the hotel. We met and mingled at the cocktail party (sponsored by HarperCollins), many of us marvelling at how utterly weird it was to be together again so soon after Swancon – when we're used to an 18 month separation! Of course there were people there who hadn't been at Swancon, too, so it was a general crowd of happy reunions, gossip and hugging. With champagne. I had lots of lovely conversations with lots of adorable people, though the highlight for me was getting to meet IN PERSON the amazing Nicola, who has edited all three of the Creature Court books with me, one way or another. To get to talk to her in person about the choices we made and how much we love each other's work was very, very cool.

And oh, the fashions! We are a gorgeously dressed bunch. Tehani referred to it as the 'night of necklaces,' and there was certainly some spectacular jewellery on display. Kirstyn wins the prize, of course, for her bird skull necklace that made people go ooh, and then, erkhhhh when they looked more closely…

The theatre itself was the perfect size for an event like this – grand but cozy at the same time, if that makes sense? Tehani and I decided to start a trend by sitting in the front row, since we knew I had to go on stage at some point to present (and we knew Helen would be going up too, but more on that later!). Spec Faction deserve a huge amount of kudos for the event – it ran smoothly, with any dramas rendered pretty much invisible to the rest of us. Cat had put together a hilarious and touching montage of Aurealis Awards photographs (the overall theme was people we knew looking overheated, a bit drunk and terribly happy) which broke the ice marvellously, and there was a really good vibe in the theatre, all that community spirit stuff.

Rob Hood had put together the powerpoint presentation for the awards presentations, with a bunch of quirky images and animations, which added a lovely tone to the whole thing. Garth Nix was a dapper and eloquent MC, and the whole thing went very well I think with a different presenter for each pair of awards. There were some very nice speeches from various presenters, and some lovely ones from the winners. I cannot stress ENOUGH how important it is to prepare what you're going to say at these things! I felt so much more calmer than my last in-person AA ceremony because I had my little just-in-case speeches there. As I did say eventually in my acceptance speech for Best Fantasy Novel (ahem, because yes, there was that) I think we all learned at Swancon that I in particular lose all ability to improvise when actually winning an award.

I was delighted with all the winners, which seems silly, but isn't really. I think in most cases there were such strong shortlists that I had many opportunities to be delighted, whatever the outcome. Obviously I knew the results of the Children's section up front, because I was a judge (and didn't I panic quietly to myself when Nick Stathopolis, dizzied by the presentation of two tropies, announced it was a tie! But no, in fact there was a trophy for the writer and illustrator of Best Picture Book which was a lovely touch)

Kaia and I lost Best YA Short Story happily to Margo Lanagan, for one of my favourite short stories last year, "A Thousand Flowers," and it was totally worth it to see Garth Nix (himself Team Unicorn) give both the unicorn salute and the much ruder zombie salute. Poor Tehani was kicking herself she didn't have her phone ready to snap that particular picture! (you so got off lightly there, Garth) I was also hugely excited to see Karen Healey win Best YA Novel for Guardian of the Dead, not only because it was a book I loved and championed last year, and because Karen's a friend, but also because I had spent my plane trip to Sydney reading her new upcoming (and amazing!) novel The Shattering, so she was very much on my mind.

I wasn't familiar with the work or author which won best Graphic Novel, but Helen was squealing beside me, and delighted with the result!

Then it was my turn to present Best Collection and Best Anthology, which was a little nervewracking, especially as I realised at the last minute that my little speech about the importance of indie presses to a thriving short story scene was actually more appropriate to Best Anthology than Best Collection, so I had to extemporise another speech for the first award! I think I was mostly coherent, and was delighted to present Best Collection to Angela Slatter, even if a small part of me would have preferred her to win it for Sourdough because I loved that book so much last year!

Best Anthology was the big one I felt so honoured to present, because I knew Jonathan and Alisa and Marianne were at home together, hanging out for that particular result. And while I was a little wistful for Sprawl, I am delighted that Marianne won her first work nominated for an Aurealis Award! That's so exciting. Obviously it's nice for Jonathan too, but he has a lot of trophies at home already Deborah Biancotti gave a very nice speech on behalf of Jonathan and Marianne.

It is a lovely thing about our community that you get to be happy for the winners no matter what, because you end up in a situation where almost everyone on the shortlist is a friend! So I was delighted to see Richard Harland win for Best Horror Short Story (the second ROR win for the night!) and for Kirstyn McDermott to win for Madigan Mine – especially because they were both there to collect, which makes it extra special.

Then we got up to Fantasy and I stopped relaxing again! The short story award was won jointly by Angela Slatter & Lisa Hannett for "The February Dragon," a gorgeous story that I think was my favourite from Ticonderoga Press last year – dragons and Ancient Rome; and also Thoraiya Dyer for "Yowie." Now, you all KNOW how much I love Yowie, right? It's a story I have been raving about for, oh about a year now, so it was hugely exciting to see Thoraiya win for it. She also got bonus points for her lovely speech in which she mentioned how she had been practicing her "Congratulations Angela" face for the last five minutes, and credited Alisa with rejecting several stories from her, without which she never would have written "Yowie" at all!

Then Tehani and Helen started getting all excited about Best Fantasy Novel and I was shushing them to stay cool because you CAN'T get excited about these things, because then if they don't happen, you look silly. So, you know, I was practicing my best 'congratulations Glenda/Trent' face for non existent TV cameras! Hee. So much for staying cool. It was very exciting to have my name read out, and to go up again on stage and see everyone grinning at me! And BOY OH BOY was I glad I had written a just-in-case speech. Extra hooray that Stephanie Smith & Nicola were both there to hear me credit them for their work and support – and Richard was beaming at me from the front row when I thanked ROR for their, lets face it, YEARS of work & support getting this damn book as good as it was.

So yes. That was rather awesome. Thanks everyone who was there to share that with me! It was especially inspiring to have Sean Williams whisper that I was only the second person to have taken out Best Novel Ditmar and Best Fantasy Novel Aurealis with the same book – and he knew that because he was the first. So that's a rather stylish & exclusive club to be in.

Science fiction was next, and while everyone was laughing at Rob's exploding robot animation, I still couldn't relax because I was still nominated in one category! But then I lost gracefully to KJ Bishop (congratulations face), and hooray, I was done for the night! But the Aurealis Awards, weren't of course. Richard and I still had another ROR flag to fly when Marianne won Best Science Fiction Novel for Transformation Space, the final book in her Sentients of Orion series. This was wonderful, as I know how proud she is of those books, and how they haven't always received the critical attention they deserve. I think it's also worth noting how rare it is for the last book of a series to win an award! First and standalone books have a much better chance generally because it's unfair to expect judges of a particular year to have read all previous volumes… but I liken this one to Return of the King winning all the Oscars. It feels like an award for her entire series, and it's a magnificent endorsement that she won for this one.

Next up was the Peter Mac – hilariously I had completely forgotten that this award existed and that this was why Helen Merrick had come all this way for the awards. I knew she was the winner because I was one of the convenors who AWARDED it to her, but I was ditzy enough to have forgotten in the mean time. So she legitimately pointed and laughed at my surprise, earlier that afternoon, when I realised. Anyone who knows Helen knows how much she has done, academically and personally, to advance the discussion and critical appraisal of science fiction in this country so yes, she was an obvious winner of this particular award and it was delightful to see her get up and receive it, and know how much it meant to her.

It was also lovely to see the Kris Hembury Encouragement Award continued, from Fantastic Queensland, presented in this case by Kate Eltham to Jodie Cleghorn. I only met Kris a couple of times, but I taught him at EnVision and was so inspired by his commitment to his work, and to the Queensland writing community – very fond memories.

After that, it was party central! We drank the Independent Theatre's bar dry and then tripped back to the hotel for a very cruisy and relaxed after party. The bar could have done with more staff (HOTELS NEVER LISTEN) but it was really hard to pick any holes in the event at all. As an attendee with little to do but presenting a couple of awards, I have to say that Nathan and Susan and the team did an extraordinary job, and if you didn't know it was their first time putting on the AAs in Sydney, you would never have guessed. From a professional point of view, I can't help but think that having it Sydney-based for a while will be excellent as far as increasing the profile with publishers, editors and authors. I know that a big draw for me in coming was a rare chance to see the people I work with in person, and I'm sure that's the same for many others.

Tehani demanded everyone say happy birthday to me just after midnight!

I crawled into bed at 2am, and rose in surprisingly good spirits for the recovery breakfast – well, Helen and I had to start earlier than most because I had morning plans & had to rush away from everyone (when she FINALLY woke up!). She was an utter sweetheart, though, and as well as getting to chat about Wiscon and academia over eggs & mushrooms, she sneakily got a bunch of people to sign a makeshift birthday card for me, made out of a placemat stolen from the hotel room! I got a present, too, but she has to post it to me because my tiny suitcase was already overstuffed.

Then for the final leg of my whirlwind weekend, I met @zeft for the first time IN PERSON, despite the fact that she's among the half dozen people I speak most to online, and has been for the last 5 years or so. Since my previous trips to Sydney have always been on the way somewhere and lacking in tourist satisfaction, she took me down to the river and we caught a variety of ferries back and forth, so I could admire the bridge, opera house, Darling Harbour, Luna Park and Circular Quay from a variety of different angles. She also got to laugh at my extreme geographic ineptitude as I repeatedly lost my bearings.

It was a brilliant sightseeing tour packed into only a couple of hours. We also saw giant Lego statues at the Aquarium and failed to steal pieces even though it was RIGHT THERE and so tempting. (Audrey Hepburn would so have walked off with a wodge of Lego horse's rear in her handbag) Also after we missed one ferry we got to accidentally witness an opening ceremony for a Wall of Welcome at the maritime museum, complete with circus acts and (apparently) celebrity chefs. Oh and entirely by accident, I completed a pilgrimage to the site of the 1996 Aerobics Oz Style episodes, by the fountain in Darling Harbour. Hooray!

A fabulous weekend, but nothing beats that feeling of the plane skimming over the water, coming into Hobart airport. I got home to little girl hugs, stories of family dramas while I was gone (including car disasters and nappy explosions), distributed presents (yes even though I was gone only a day and a half, I'm just awesome like that) and received chocolate, champagne, oysters, pickled octopus and birthday cake.

Raeli's present to me was a gorgeous Doctor Who picture, which she refused to give me straight away because, spoilers! She and Daddy had already seen The Doctor's Wife (which went out on the ABC during the Aurealis Awards) but now I got to sit down with them and finally, FINALLY watch it myself. It was worth the wait, as was Raeli's drawing, which included a little picture of Idris saying 'hello' out of the TARDIS as well as pirate Amy (I think Raeli will be drawing her in that outfit for perpetuity and why not?) Rory with cross hatch marks on his hands, River and her gun, the Doctor saying "I've got mail," the Silence and an Ood. Her art makes me happy.

All in all, it was a birthday weekend that will be hard to top in future years!

Pics all by Cat Sparx except the following: Helen & Richard by Tehani, Sydney Harbour & Raeli's Doctor Who pic by TansyRR

How My Six Year Old Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Doctor Who (thanks to the Ood Cast)

For a while there, I lost the ability to watch Doctor Who with my daughter.

When Raeli was tiny, Doctor Who was as familiar to her as the Wiggles. I often joked that the music she had heard most often in the womb was the classic theme tune – because when I was pregnant, the ABC were still on their 'repeat all the classic eps in proper order' kick. She was born early in 2005, a date forever associated (for some of us) with the launch of New Who.

When she was 2-3, Raeli adored Doctor Who, as did her friend Inigo, a year older – they were familiar enough with the show that when his mum and I discussed how to break it to the kids that Greg was leaving the Wiggles, the Doctor's tendency to regenerate seemed like the easiest metaphor to grab! Our Christmas tradition was making gingerbread or shortbread daleks.

But while Inigo and his brothers stayed true to their Doctor Who obsession (if sometimes only peeking at it behind fingers) Raeli pulled away from it as she got older, as she found it quite scary and had developed a deep horror of Daleks as well as many other monsters. I couldn't even show her The Sarah Jane Adventures because even her fear of Daleks was nothing to the shrieking meltdowns we had to deal with if she even caught sight of a picture of a Sontaran (AKA "the Humpty Dumpty men!"). K9 had worked for a while, but it was a pale imitation of the real thing, and she only remembered the show when I pushed it on her, though she and the boys did enjoy drawing multiple versions of K9.

By the time the Matt Smith era came along, Raeli was steadfast in her commitment to quite liking Doctor Who as long as she never ever EVER had to watch it. The only episode of the whole season she watched live was The Hungry Earth, because she was staying at Glammer's house and anything Glammer likes is automatically awesome. It had scared her enough, however, that she absolutely refused to watch part 2, though she did ask me quietly for a summary as to how it ended. I seem to recall that in true parental cop-out style my version went something like "and then it all ended happily and they said goodbye and nothing bad at all happened, especially to Rory."

That was when she was five.

But this year, something changed. Raeli and I started listening to music in the car together, on the school run. I created a 'Raeli favourites' folder in my iTunes, and regularly dropped new songs into it for her to try out and decide if she wanted to keep them there. Real music, not Wiggles music! And I introduced her to Trock.

Any introduction to Trock (Timelord Rock, aka music about Doctor Who) starts with Chameleon Circuit, of course. Raeli very much liked some of their songs, a particular favourite being Journey's End, which details the whole plot of that episode with great humour and joy. She learned the song forwards and backwards, and could sing along perfectly ("Harriet was killed and then everyone was sad, awww…") but any attempts I made to suggest we watch that episode were met with horror. She could sing about Daleks, but she didn't want to have to watch them.

Enter Laura Simpson, and the Ood Cast. If you're a New Who (Matt Smith era) fan and you haven't listened to The Ood Cast, you're missing out. It's a short, sweet podcast which combines enthusiastic, positive discussion of the show with sketch comedy and most of all, songs. During Season 5, they went weekly, with an episode and at least one song for every story. I love them for many reasons – the chemistry between the friends, the cute English accents, the Littlest Doctor, the fact that there's an actual woman on the team – but Laura's songs add a whole extra level to the show. It's filk, plain and simple, but her creative choices are so clever as well as being very well executed that it's exciting to hear what she will do next.

So Raeli started listening to the first Album of the Ood Cast. She didn't like some of the songs at first – and in fact was so repulsed by their version of "Vincent" that she insisted on taking it out of the folder straight away. She also wasn't keen on the River Song themed version of The Streets' "Wipe your Eyes, Mate" which is one of my favourites.

BUT.

She really liked "Amelia Waits," the Eleventh Hour song, to the tune of the Dawson's Creek theme tune. She laughed like a drain every time she heard the line "he climbed up all wet, he destroyed her shed." And when she asked me to explain the song as a bedtime story, she was excited to hear that the episode featured a little girl. So we watched The Eleventh Hour together, finally, and Raeli fell in love with Little Amelia.

I'd like to say 'and the rest was history' but in fact it turned out this was the only episode that was safe. It wasn't that safe, of course… the barking dog scenes and several others were scary and Raeli watched them from behind the couch (LITERALLY, I'm so proud) and sometimes from the doorway. But she has two ways of dealing with scary things: blind panic, and dogged attempts to repeat the experience until it's not scary any more, and she worked on The Eleventh Hour with the latter technique. Buoyed by the success, I tried for The Beast Below, only to discover that, um, those Smilers? Are apparently quite scary. Cue shrieking, running away & refusing to watch any Who except the Eleventh Hour, on high repeat…

I tried running through all possible other Matt Smith episodes. Any reference to Daleks, Vampires or Silurians was met with screaming and running away. Football, though. Could we do football? So I tried her on the Lodger, to moderate success, and she was so fascinated by images of a pregnant Amy on the DVD that we went with Amy's Choice. Which became her new favourite.

"Amy's Choice" is also a song on Laura Simpson's Ood Cast Album, and I'm not quite sick of it yet, which is good, because I've apparently listened to it nearly 40 times in the past couple of months. The thing about our school run, is that there's time for at least 3 songs, and so we also got to hear a lot of the songs straight after "Amy's Choice" on the album, which were the boppy, cheerful 'going underground' and 'sound of the underground' from The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood.

After listening to those songs more than a dozen times, Raeli decided she was ready to revisit the episodes. From there it spread rather quickly. She would listen to the song for an episode, several times, ask me questions about the episode, and then we'd watch it together, usually several times over several days. Then she would move on, and back and forth.

She even made it through Victory of the Daleks, though she spent most of the episode outside the room, and decided from there her new rule: less than 3 Daleks are fine, 1 is acceptable, more than 3 is TOO SCARY FOR WORDS. Are you listening, Mr Moffat? Five Daleks is too many.

We were told she wanted a Doctor Who party next birthday, and that she wanted to dress as a Silurian. Raeli drew picture after picture of the lady Silurians in their natty military outfits, and I sent pics to my Mum, reminding her that she had always said that in another life she would have loved to work in a BBC Costume Department, and here was her chance.

Vincent and the Doctor was the last episode she came to, in part because we'd wondered how to deal with some of the adult issues like depression/mental illness/suicide in it. But she was determined, so we let her, and she watched intently, and then she watched it again. She had a lot of questions about Vincent and why he was sad, and how he saw the world. She listened to the Ood Cast Vincent song, and where she had resisted it before (it occurs to me now that her earlier dislike probably had more to do with the male, unLaura voice than anything else) she now fell in love: with the song, with the episode, with Vincent Van Gogh.

At a friend's place, given a bucket of chalk and some empty concrete, she set about recreating the paintings featured in the episode. Starry Night, and the self-portrait, and the church, and the bedroom, and – and – and. We bought her chalk for her own concrete at home, and she did the pictures again, more, better. She reproduced them as faithfully as she could in biro and pencil, as well. She declared she was going to become an artist, like her Glammer, "and Vincent."

When I went away at Easter, the gift I brought her back was a picture book of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings, and it blew me away how delighted she was. She now knows more about his art than she learned about from Doctor Who, and squealed at the revelation that he painted irises, as that's her middle name.

In recent weeks, Raeli and Inigo started working on The Tardis News. I overheard them discussing how one of the headlines should be 'Hello Sweetie.' Honestly, we have one such a good job raising those kids! They draw page after page of illustrations – and it fascinates me what Raeli chooses to draw. The Silurian sisters, one dead at the other's feet. Vincent's paintings. Little Amelia and Big Amy holding hands. The Doctor, of course. The TARDIS. River and her gun. (the gun, I am told, is essential) Roman Rory (she knows the way to her mother's heart). Vampires.

She still doesn't draw Daleks.

I wondered what we would do about this new season, though. It looked scary, at least for a 6 year old. I wasn't sure that my little girl would be up to dealing with the Silence. I asked her if she wanted to watch it with us on Saturday night, or if she wanted to wait so we could tell her how scary it was. She decided to wait. Then once I had assured her there were no Daleks in it, she watched it. Sometimes she ran out of the room – oddly at parts that we would not have dreamed might be scary, while she seemed unpeterbed at scenes we assumed might be disturbing. She thought about it. She watched it again. She drew lots of pictures of River and her gun.

And she asked me where the song was.

I couldn't provide it to her easily, as the new podcast episodes have the song right at the end, not available yet in album form. But it occurred to me that she might be interested in hearing the whole episode. Raeli was unsure.

But then came the pirates episode, which she loved with a fervent passion that surprised me (though the Siren was Quite Scary) and as we had a longish drive to a party last week, I let her listen to the Ood Cast pirate episode in the car. To be honest I don't think it's one of their best – it's enjoyable, but none of the sketches struck me as being especially clever, especially on (by now) the third or fourth listen. But Raeli is in love. She loves the Ood Cast News, and the jokes, and the silly voices, and the song. She was horrified when I told her the podcast disappeared from my phone after the first listen, and demanded it several times when it wasn't there. I changed my settings, and now the Pirates episode is there for perpetuity.

I'm getting a bit sick of it. So I also put on all the episodes that correspond to last year's season of Matt Smith stories. I'm hoping that she will recall her love of The Eleventh Hour, and Amy's Choice, and those daffy Silurian wenches, by listening to Chris Alpha, Chris Sigma, Andrew & Laura chatting and being silly. I'm hoping that I don't have to listen to the pirates episode a zillion more times this month.

But I'm also really grateful, because the Ood Cast has been a vital tool in my daughter's processing and learning to appreciate the new era of Doctor Who. Maybe if they also did classic episodes, I'd finally get her watching Carnival of Monsters or The Three Doctors! I love the fact that for my daughter, loving a TV show is also about creativity, whether that be fan art, or playground imagination games (she used to choose to be K9 or Amy or Litle Amelia, I am hanging out for her to tell me that today she played River Song), singing trock songs at the top of her lungs in the car, or dressing up as a Silurian for her birthday party.

I hope she's over the Dalek thing by then. Not sure other parents would approve of a cake shaped like River Song's gun.