Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 148

Galactic Suburbia Episode 24 show notes

There's a new episode up! Grab it from iTunes or stream it on the site. You will be able to direct download it tomorrow.

EPISODE 24

In which we flit over the first shortlist of the year and some charitable links, sweep though a fortnight of culture consumed, and then leap with both feet into the pet subject of Inside Indie Press.

News

BSFA Awards Shortlists

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

QLD Flood fundraisers for writers & readers:

After the Rain: http://bit.ly/AtRFloods

Authors for Queensland auction http://authorsforqueensland.wordpress...

QWC appeal launches Saturday, on Twitter at @writersonrafts

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Tansy: no books for me, shockingly! More Big Finish audio plays. (http://tansyrr.com/tansywp/no-end-in-...

http://tansyrr.com/tansywp/science-fi...)

Alex: Agatha H and the Airship City, Phil and Kaja Foglio (http://randomalex.net/2011/01/14/smel... Transformation Space, Marianne de Pierres; Dust, Elizabeth Bear (http://randomalex.net/2011/01/18/dust... two stories from James Tiptree's Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (spoilery discussion at http://dreamsandspeculation.com/2011/... The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss (http://randomalex.net/2011/01/19/the-...). Also begun a rewatch of BSG…

Alisa: No Ordinary Family, Dexter season 5

(diversion on the subject of Whether Alisa Should Watch Doctor Who)

Pet Subject: Inside Indie Press

Big news in TPP space is the closure of Speakeasy.

Is there an obvious point at which a project becomes a non-viable project?

How do you know that you're ditching a project just because the stories don't fit your particular idea/viewpoint?

The older books are harder to use as examples because lots of things about them were learning.

Horn – first to break even BUT i got caught on the selling to bookstores so i ended up having to sell 80% of the print run after review and buzz copies (1/4 of the print run) to break even.

Pay scales, writing contracts, competing with the US indies…

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!

Science Fiction on the Radio

After years of flirtation, I have descended into a full blown love affair with Big Finish audio plays. I'm completely crazed about them, and acquiring one hell of a collection. Naturally, me being me, I also feel the need to analyse this new obsession to within an inch of its life.

I've always enjoyed listening to really good audio books. I spent large chunks of my teens performing the more dull tasks in life to the soundtrack of Tony Robinson reading Discworld novels, Jon Pertwee and Leslie Phillips in the Navy Lark, or the pre-Goodies in I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again. I still remember the deep and abiding joy of receiving a Christmas gift that I had requested but not quite expected to get – a lovely shiny box set of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy original radio series, glossy cassettes wrapped in cellophane. I still don't have digital versions of those, though I love them beyond all reason (far more than the TV series or bleh, the books) because I am so personally attached to my pretty cassette box set.

There was Doctor Who, too. My mum had got hold of Slipback, and Doctor Who and the Pescatons, and Tom Baker reading "his own" adventures in audio versions of Genesis of the Daleks, and State of Decay. I also first experienced Asimov's Foundation as an audio presentation which I found by accident on the radio – and, like Hitchhiker's Guide, the books came as a disappointment in comparison. Later, my honey introduced me to Earthsearch, a truly marvellous original SF radio play. Still later, when I was pregnant with Raeli, he took me on a very memorable birthday date: we drove up to the top of the hill where we lived, sat in the backseat of his car, and had a picnic while listening to the original Orson Welles War of the Worlds.

There's something really special about science fiction on the radio. The easy explanation for this is the one about how the imagination provides the best special effects, and that's absolutely true. But there are other reasons, too. The claustrophobia of space can be expressed marvellously through sound. Also, as Sylvester McCoy said in an 'Extras' interview I heard recently, audio allows for us to hear what the characters are thinking, which gives it an advantage over television for the actors. It's a very enjoyable medium between the book, which is all words, and TV or film, which is all visuals and performance. Writing matters in audio – every word counts – and yet it's a very collaborative medium, and quite a theatrical one.

I do wonder if the success of the form in the case of Big Finish is because I'm already highly invested in the Doctor Who universe and characters. On the other hand, many of my favourite characters (Charley, Hex, Evelyn) are original to Big Finish, and there are many others (Nyssa, Peri, Benny) whom I like much better in audio than I did in their original media. The Doctor Who format combined with audio is just magic, as it allows for so many different kinds of stories: space opera, mystery, pure historical, war, adventure.

Something else that interests me, and which only occurred to me recently, is that Doctor who is predominantly a universe written and created by men. There are less than a handful of women writing for the new series or the audio range. This is of note because of the high hit rate for me in enjoying the stories – in books and stories I usually gravitate towards work written by women and I have a higher success rate when I include gender in my filters. In science fiction in particular, I struggle to enjoy or even access so many stories by men.

So there's something about Doctor Who, or audio plays, or both, which transcends my normal filters. Or there's something that the (male) Doctor Who writers are doing right, and so many 'straight' (male) science fiction writers are doing wrong. Or I'm generally not finding the stuff I love when it's written by men in the literary side of SF, and tripping over all this brilliant audio stuff because of the Doctor Who brand.

Or something. But for whatever reason, Big Finish is hitting all my fictional buttons right now, to the point where I am neglecting books. It's giving me intense, interesting characterisation, plenty of strong and complex female characters, lots of crunchy science fictional and historical backgrounds, and… let's face it…

It's all about the dialogue. And I'm a dialogue junkie. It's difficult to convey quite how much of a dialogue junkie I am. I'm a total slut for banter, and repartee, and conversation, and chat. Audio is all about people talking to each other in interesting, clever revealing ways, while running away from monsters. I'm in heaven.

Linksauce

Over at the Swancon blog, I guest-posted about retro-futurist fashions with particular reference to June Hudson and Blake's 7, and a healthy side helping of Doctor Who.

Get an early e-book edition of Aussie spec fic anthology After The Rain (Fablecroft) in exchange for a donation for QLD flood relief.

While you're at it, you can also bid on one of a huge selection of writerly donations for flood relief in the Authors for Queensland auction. There are lots of signed books here, and many offers for manuscript assessments and mentorship from some of the best in the business. Pick up a bargain and help Queensland recover!

And it's never too late to read Joanna Russ. Always cool to hear someone else's take on trying to educate yourself about one of SF's most important women.

Calm Under Pressure: loving The Avengers

I've been having trouble getting back into blogging this year, and in an attempt to kickstart the habit again, I'm going to try doing a series of posts about things that inspire me. If anyone has a pet topic they'd like to see me write about, I am also taking requests!

Whenever I think about feminist heroes, Mrs Peel is the first person who comes to mind. I love my retro TV, and you all know by now about my deep and abiding love for Doctor Who, but for all my defending of various Doctor Who companions as feminist heroes, none of them quite come close to Emma as far as the strength they are allowed to display by the writers, directors and even performers of the time.

The Avengers started out as a show about men, showcasing a casual partnership between a doctor who had lost his wife through tragic circumstances, and a mysterious possibly-a-secret-agent fellow "from the Ministry" called Steed. The two of them fought crime together, and generally got all British on the arses of various criminal types. While Doctor SadLostLove was played by the most famous actor, and supposed to be the key character, he wandered away quite early, and Steed took over as the centre of the show. It's a common TV trend for a non-protagonist to prove more awesome than the lead and eventually take over the show, but rare for it to happen quite so quickly – it took Avon two years to take command of the Liberator, after all!

For a while after that, The Avengers paired the debonair Steed with a variety of characters: another everychap doctor, a glamorous club singer called Venus, and the snarky, witty Mrs Cathy Gale, who kept a gun in her suspender belt, was played by Honor Blackman, and was generally awesome. Before long, the show shifted again, with a new focus on the duo of Steed and Gale. She was feisty and shot things; he rapped people over the head with his bowler hat, and offered champagne in between mysteries solved. It was a most excellent combination, and Mrs Gale was most definitely a feminist hero, despite the skirt and suspender belt.

But again, Steed lost his partner, and the replacement made for such startlingly good chemistry that this new pair, of Steed and Mrs Peel (Diana Rigg), would become absolutely iconic as the centre of the show. It helped that it was during this era that the show went to colour and developed far shinier production values, and also that it sold most successfully into America, but… all of these things paled into significance next to the glory that was Mrs Emma Peel.

The cleverness of the show is that Mrs Peel was allowed to be strong, and smart, and that Steed respected that strength and intelligence. He was the professional secret agent, and she was the talented amateur whom he brought in on his cases, because she brought skills and knowledge that he did not have. He was as likely to sit back and watch her fight the bad guy as he was to do it himself – and they both rescued each other on a regular basis.

What made Mrs Peel so important to me as a character and as a feminist hero was that when she was in danger, she would always remain utterly calm and unflappable. Even when tied to a chair, she never allowed herself to look or feel like a victim. She didn't have to be armed (after all, she had her lovely choppy hand fake-martial arts and a whole team of burly stuntmen flinging themselves around if she so much as tapped them) to have complete control of the situation. Even while being rescued, she would exude an aura of 'well obviously I could have done that myself if you hadn't turned up.'

What made Steed such a sexy, interesting male character, was that he was entirely unthreatened by Mrs Peel's awesomeness. He enjoyed the fact that her brilliance made him look good, because he was the one clever enough to apply her to any given situation. He basked in her successes. In a time when a lot of TV was about the traditional male hero, he modelled a very different kind of masculinity – often choosing to use his brain before employing violence, and rarely using a gun. Like Tom Baker's Doctor was to do, ten years later, Steed's most common way of foiling a villain was with a humorous application of a clothing accessory: his hat, his umbrella, or a suddenly thrown coat.

Thinking about the way that both characters transcended gender expectations reminds me a lot of Olivia and Peter in Fringe – the power dynamic is different there in that Olivia is the professional and Peter the amateur with exploitable skills, but she has the gun and is more likely to utilise the traditional tools and techniques of the male hero. The American tradition means that Olivia's model is closer to Philip Marlowe than John Steed, but I think there's definitely an argument to be made that Peter is the Mrs Peel of Fringe Division… useful, clever AND decorative.

Both Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee give highly mannered performances: Avengersland is a stylised version of England, quite old fashioned even at the time it was made. It's a vision of a world where everyone is upper or middle class, where there are no policemen, and the whole thing is entirely whitewashed. But the joy of the show is in the banter, the dialogue, the beautifully tailored clothes, and the odd not-quite-speculative-fiction crimes and mysteries to be solved.

Dry Feet Guilt

Gah, I haven't been blogging for days because really, it's hard to think of anything remotely relevant to say. I'm just nursing my Dry Feet Guilt as I watch the news reports coming in from Queensland. It's scary, scary stuff, far too close to home, happening to people and a city that I'm very attached to.

If you don't already know about it, here's a link to the Premier's appeal for flood relief – Tasmanians may be interested in the Rotary Appeal, as our state government has pledged to match donations dollar for dollar up to $250,000.

Meanwhile, it's raining in Hobart too, and Tas has its own flood warnings here and there. I've been shut up in the house with my two girls for a week, because Raeli was nursing an unexpected sunburn (damned UV getting through the clouds) and then because of the rain, rain, rain. Raeli is delighted at spotting snails from the window, but miserable at not being able to play on the trampoline. We have our moments of wanting to kill each other, but they pass.

Normally I'm completely delighted by rain, but considering what's on the news, it's hard to enjoy it right now. At least the birthday party we're going to this weekend is a pool party!

That's all pretty depressing, isn't it? Mostly I've been twiddling my thumbs a bit because I was expecting to be editing this week, and it's been postponed. I'm not bored, nor lacking in things that need to be done (please, no suggestions), but I'm in limbo, knowing that as soon as the manuscript arrives back, I'm going to have to throw myself into a sudden high gear to get it done. Which means that I need to spend this time conserving my energy – doing holiday activities with the girls, catching up on house cleaning, and preparing myself so that I can cope when the work hits.

Today was a good day because we had a visit from  godiyeva and two of her three hordelings. The children played surprisingly quietly in the living room for a few hours while we chatted, did jobs (I was sewing, she was writing party invitations) and caught up with each other. Possibly there was tea and cake. Later, I braved the supermarket. It's the first day that I've actually managed to get Raeli fully dressed (that sunburn did a number on her) and keep her that way all day.

Tomorrow my planned highlights, with Jem in daycare (it's sooooo weird having the baby in daycare on days when I don't have a writing deadline), are to visit the post office and to clean house more.

No complaints here! With everything going on in other parts of the country, I am immensely grateful for my quiet, utterly mundane housewifely week.

No End In Sight for Big Finish

Okay, my Big Finish addiction is getting a little out of hand. Luckily it has coincided with my newfound financial need to budget, in order to make a lump sum of money last all year rather than having a nice little fortnightly sum be replenished every week SO THAT MORE BOOKS CAN BE BOUGHT.

Anyway, I decided I would repeat my two months of not buying books at the beginning of the year, as I did last year, since I have a groaning shelf of books to read and not actually a lot of inclination to read them. Meanwhile, I'm churning up audio plays like nobody's business. My excuse was initially that there weren't as many podcasts out over the holiday period, but now I'm just plain hooked.

Listening to the Big Finish Podcast didn't help. It was bad enough when they were an anonymous bunch, but after listening in to a year's worth of their office antics and discussions of creative decisions, I feel entirely invested in the entire business. That, and I now have a very specific and detailed list of the many, many plays I desperately want but can't have yet because of This Thing, It Is a BUDGET, It Has A Specific Clause Regarding Online Shopping.

A few people have mentioned being keen to get in on Big Finish but not sure where to start, which is very understandable as they have been going for more than a decade. In the interest of getting other people to join my current obsession, here are some recs of bits and pieces I've listened to lately, which don't require a decade's back story to get into:

The Settling (May 2006)

[Seventh Doctor, Ace & Hex]

A pure historical, dealing with that old chestnut about how you can't change the past. Hex has been in the TARDIS for a while now but you get everything you need to know about him as a character, and how Ace has grown up, through scenes in the TARDIS that show the two of them recovering after a far-too-intense visit to a bloody period of Ireland's history, indispersed with scenes of what they witnessed.

An Earthly Child (Dec 2009)

[Eighth Doctor, Susan Foreman, Alex Campbell]

A story that many Doctor Who fans have been waiting for a long time, in which we get to see the future that Susan made for herself in the post-Dalek-invaded-Earth. Now a widow, and the mother of a university student, Susan is frustrated by the xenophobic and technophobic attitude that has become so culturally entrenched since the end of the war. She is certain that the only way humanity will survive to become the great empire she visited in her youth is by seeking help from other alien races… but her rebellious son has other ideas, and is less than impressed at the appearance of his utterly alien great grandfather! I really enjoyed this one, especially the scenes between the Doctor, Susan and Alex – my only complaint was that the story wound up far too fast, and I wanted to see more of this particular version of the future. The good news is that Susan and Alex have returned in recent episodes, but the bad news is that I *think* I have to listen to four seasons of the Eighth Doctor and Lucie before I can get to them. This one is very much a self-contained story, though.

Solitaire (June 2010)

[Charley, the Celestial Toymaker]

The Companion Chronicles are a great series of monologues and two-hander plays which have allowed Big Finish to explore new stories even for those era for whom the actor playing the Doctor is no longer with us, or in the case of Tom Baker, not participating (though this has changed, apparently, and plans are afoot for Baker to join the monthly range along with some of his companions). These stories have involved some really clever and innovative storytelling – and this one breaks the mould again, being mostly an excuse for Big Finish to tell another Charley story even though she has been retired as an active companion.

India Fisher is always compelling to listen to, and this is an excellent short play in which she finds herself trapped in a toyshop with a mysterious stranger, a marionette that looks like the Doctor, and no memory of her former life. You don't need to know anything about her, or indeed the Toymaker (a villain from the 1960′s) to understand to the story.

Home Truths (2008), The Drowned World (2009) and The Guardian of the Solar System (2010)

[Sara Kingdom]

While not a single standalone, this self-contained trilogy of plays by Simon Guerrier is very clever and innovative as far as getting some extra stories out of a companion who had such a limited run. Like Solitaire, these are two-hander plays, though they also involve long periods of descriptive storytelling in Jean Marsh's rich, emotional voice. I'm not sure if these would mean much to anyone who didn't know Sara Kingdom's character, but they are just lovely.

===

I was also very tempted by the Big Finish Textbook Stuff range, which pairs great voice actors with classic stories and poetry on the British Exams Syllabus. Couldn't resist Miriam Margolyes reading Christina Rossetti, which has become my favourite casual listening on my phone. I've never been a poetry sort of person, but I make all exceptions for Christina Rossetti.

Galactic Suburbia Episode 23 Show Notes

There's a new episode up! Grab it from iTunes, from direct download, or stream it on the site.

EPISODE 23

In which we greet a brand new year with discussion about digital media, awards, books, feminism, feedback, more books, anti-heroes, gender roles and take a look at what to look forward to in 2011.

News

Follow up on the Jewish fantasy discussion by Rachel Swirsky

Locus to go digital with issue #600

Launch of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, new critical zine with focus on women's work

The i09 Power List: 20 people who rocked SF & Fantasy in 2010

Carl Brandon Awards: Hiromi Goto and Justine Larbalestier

Hugo nominations open – last year's members of Aussiecon 4, don't forget you're eligible to nominate!

Feedback: Kaia, Kathryn & Thoraiya

What Culture Have we Consumed?

[AND what culture are we most looking forward to consuming in 2011?]

Alisa: Fringe Season 3, Dexter Season 4, Being Erica (ep 1), Nurse Jackie, How I Met Your Mother, reading Managing Death

Looking forward to: LSS 2011

Alex: Zombies vs Unicorns, ed. Larbalestier and Black; Factotum, book 3 of Monster Blood Tattoo, by DM Cornish; Dervish House, Ian McDonald; The Killing Thing, Kate Wilhelm; Surface Detail, Iain M Banks.

Looking forward to: Blue Remembered Earth (probably), by Alastair Reynolds; books 2&3 of The Creature Court, Tansy Rayner Roberts; the 2011 Women in SF Book Club; Bold as Love sequence (Gwyneth Jones); Twelve Planets (from Twelfth Planet Press).

Tansy: Wiped, Richard Molesworth; The Doctor Who Christmas Special! The Gene Thieves & the Norma, Ascendant, Diana Peterfreund, Big Finish Podcast

Looking forward to: Doctor Who and Fringe (SHOCK, I know), Sherlock, Torchwood, The Demon's Surrender by Sarah Rees Brennan, Burn Bright by M. de Pierres.

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!

Happy Birthday, Marianne De Pierres!

Marianne De Pierres turns 50 today, which seems incredible. Surely she moves too fast for birthdays to catch up with her? Marianne is one of my favourite people, and an absolute inspiration to me. When I first met her and Rowena in 1999, they were writers just at the beginning of their careers, and yet already had amassed a wealth of knowledge and know-how. I will always be grateful that they seized on me and treated me like a peer, when I would have considered myself lucky to have them as mentors.

Marianne's career has just exploded in the twelve years or so I have known her, and there is nothing random about it. Sure, getting actual publishing contracts relies at least as much on luck as skill, especially at the beginning, but I have never seen anyone make the most of writing career opportunities as Marianne! She writes enough for three people (quite literally) and has made a name for herself writing mostly science fiction in a time when Australian SF has become something of an endangered species. She writes powerful female characters and deals with feminist themes in novels that nevertheless preserve mainstream appeal and popularity.

She has made a home for herself at media conventions, which famously have little interest in authors of books. She makes friends everywhere she goes, simply because she is so very interested in people, and stuff, and her energy is so very infectious.

In short, Marianne is magic. I totally want to be her when I grow up. And while popping over to one of her blogs such as Burn Bright to wish her happy birthday would be a fantastic thing to do, I am sure that picking up one of her books this week would be an even better thing to do.

You can choose from:

The Parrish Plessis books, sexy post-apocalyptic Australian SF, with a heroine who would eat all those tattooed, leather-clad urban fantasy chicks for breakfast.

The Sentients of Orion series, space opera centred around female characters and themes.

Glitter Rose, a boutique quartet of short stories that are a little bit SFnal, a little bit fantasy, and all beautiful, available in a gorgeous mini-hardback edition as well as an e-book from Twelfth Planet Press

The Tara Sharp series (under the name Marianne Delacourt), fun crime novels in the tradition of Janet Evanovich

AND

Most importantly, get on to your local bookshop now to pre-order Burn Bright, a paranormal YA novel with hints of SF. This book is dark and strange, and interrogates the paranormal YA traditions, while also being a high-paced, deeply emotional read. I am so excited it's finally hitting the shelves!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARIANNE!!!!

Super Bumper Catchy Uppy Review Post 2010

I've actually got to the point where it BUGS ME if I like a book and for one reason or another, don't get around to reviewing it on my blog. Sometimes I don't have time, or I can't figure out what to say, or what I have to say is too big, or I just read too many awesome books in the one fortnight and some get lost along the way. Or I talked about it on Galactic Suburbia and lost impetus to write my thoughts down. There are also the books that I feel odd or uncomfortable about reviewing, because they're written by friends (weirdly sometimes I do feel okay about doing this and sometimes not, and it has nothing to do with the degree of friendship) or because there's some other perceived conflict of interest – there are some TPP books where I have contributed more editorial input than others, and of course there are anthologies in which a story of my own appears.

And there are the ones I just forgot about at the time. And the ones I finished really close to the end of the year, when all my blogging mojo was directed at Ace and the baseball bat.

Part of me wants to go, "REALLY? You REALLY can't let it go? You're going to actually feel guilty about not reviewing a small handful of awesome books that people probably know about anyway, rather than feeling proud about the zillions you have reviewed?"

To which I reply, "Okay, you're obviously a part of me that does not know me very well AT ALL."

Here then is a super post of a bunch of books I meant to review in 2010 but didn't, so I can move on into 2011 with a clear conscience. Or something.

Russell T Davies & Benjamin Cook, The Writer's Tale: the Final Chapter

I very much resented having to buy this book a second time, even if the extra amount added to the paperback was totally worth the price. I now have TWO copies on my shelves, and who's going to want my hardback of the first half? It was, sadly, completely worth it. A fascinating behind the scenes look at the creative genius (and it has to be said, creative flukitude) of Russell T Davies, it's a very candid correspondence and one of the best books I've ever read as far as capturing what it's like to be a writer. All writerly spouses should read it, regardless of their interest or lack thereof in Doctor Who!

Helen Merrick, The Secret Feminist Cabal

A fascinating, crunchy examination of the history of fan culture, which happens to have an awful lot in it about women, attitudes to women, feminism, and attitudes to feminism. Awesome stuff.

Clayton Hickman (ed), The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who

One of two very well-chosen Christmas presents I bought myself! I've never bothered with the annuals or any of the tie in books about New Who, because they seem to mostly be aimed at kids – this was totally aimed at kids, but luckily the kids in question were mostly TWELVE YEAR OLD ME so I enjoyed it very much as a lazy Christmas read. Far closer to a Doctor Who Magazine Special than some boring old annual, this was full of cool bits and pieces, Moffatt quotes, cast interviews, making of features, and extras. The Brian Aldiss story was a bit of boring old tripe that didn't capture the character voices at all, but the rest of the book was tip-top. My favourite bit was the collection of Churchill diary entries with mentions of all the Doctors who have crossed his path over his lifetime, which was genuinely funny and sweet.

Poppy Z Brite, The Value of X

A very touching prequel to Brite's marvellous Rickey & the G-Man novels, set in the New Orleans restaurant scene. I had forgotten how much I love these characters, and it made me want to read Prime and Liquor all over again, as well as reminding me how sad it is that Brite is no longer writing.

Jennifer Chiaverini, The Aloha Quilt

I adore these books, set around a small town quilting community. Some of them are quite awkwardly written, and some are amazingly sincere and thematically clever. This was one of the latter ones. Though to be honest I LOVE THEM ALL, even the ones that make me want to hurl beginner level creative writing handouts at the author. The love of craft and the focus on women's stories is just so good, it transcends everything else. And sometimes she really really gets it right – this story of a woman putting herself back together during the divorce process (and the very mixed reactions of her children) through friendship, craft and a spark of a new romance is just so very good. Also the history of Hawaii and exploration of Hawaiian quilting techniques was really, really interesting. I knew what Hawaiian quilts looked like but had never known anything about the processes.

Catherynne M Valente, Palimpsest

Apart from anything else, this one had the honour of being the first book I ever read on the iPad. It's also really beautiful, lyrical and strange. Many other people have said much cleverer things about this one than I could, but I thought it was a really impressive story and the use of sexuality as magic was extremely cleverly handled, with surprising subtlety. I was even more impressed by the end of it that such a literary and subversive novel had clawed its way into the Hugo ballot. Times, they are a changing.

Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

I was really fascinated to see how the story would continue in this one, since the first book, The Hunger Games, was structured so closely around, well, The Hunger Games. Collins didn't disappoint! I was fascinated by the way the world set up in the first book slowly began to unravel, and Katniss certainly has cemented herself as a heroine for the ages. There's some marvellous feminist crunchiness to unpack in these books, not least the portrayals of femininity and masculinity. I was quite uncomfortable with the romantic expectations of both the boys in Katniss' life, since they both basically fell in love with her without her knowledge, and put her on different but matching pedestals. I liked very much the way that Katniss was as uncomfortable with this as I was, and that romance was so low on her priority list. Quite my favourite thing about this book was the developing friendship and understanding between Katniss and Haymitch, who seemed to be a fairly thin cypher of a character in Book One, but who has now become the person who understands her most.

Trent Jamieson, Death Most Definite & Managing Death

I feel like I've been doing nothing but talk about Death Most Definite all year, and yet have never reviewed it, for the obviousish reason that Trent's a good friend, and in particular that book is one close to my heart because I helped crit it a couple of years ago. Still, to echo what I've been saying on Twitter and in Galactic Suburbia, this is an excellent and original very AUSSIE take on the urban fantasy genre, a fun and yet bleak Brisbane-based series with a thriller sensibility and a huge serving of doomed romance on the side. I only read the sequel last week, with absolutely no idea what to expect – and what I got was a marvellous, crumbling hero (you all know I love my fictional men to be as damaged as possible, right?) who is struggling to balance his new power and responsibility. I particularly liked the relationship aspects – having seen Steve as the Orpheus hero in the midst of a tragic, star-cross'd love affair with a dead woman in Book 1, it's really fascinating to see how absolutely crap he is at maintaining a real relationship with a real live, quite-understanding-but-can-only-take-so-much woman in Book 2. Can't wait for Book 3 now because OH WOW, were the stakes ever raised in this one.

Nisi Shawl, Filter House

a gorgeous collection of short stories that fit together like a puzzle. Lots of young female protagonists, lots of crunchy, thought provoking themes. I can absolutely see why this one won the Tiptree.

Diana Peterfreund, Ascendant

This is the one I feel most guilty about not giving a proper review to! I really liked Rampant, with its clever attitude towards unicorn myths and virginity, and also enjoyed Peterfreund's two 'unicornverse' stories in 2010, "Errant" and "The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn." I was expecting to like Ascendant, but wasn't prepared for how blown away I would be. Astrid continues in this novel much as in Rampant, hunting unicorns, developing her friendships with the other teen girl hunters, working out problems with her budding romantic relationship, and trying to deal with the hand fate has dealt her. Her interest in medicine and determination to get vengeance leads her to Paris, to a secret laboratory, and to a whole different way at looking at the life of a unicorn hunter. The novel rollicks along nicely with lots of interesting new characters and themes, and then BANG! Peterfreund throws a pretty awful and overwhelming obstacle at our heroine, and suddenly everything is different. I was awed and impressed at the story, and how far she was prepared to go, to explore the harsh reality of being a teen girl with a warrior destiny. It's not as pretty as Buffy made it look! And I hope, hope, hope that Peterfreund does get a chance to continue this series, because it's just such an interesting story to be telling about young women, and I think it's an important series for the way it interrogates so many urban fantasy and YA tropes that many of us kind of take for granted.

Nick Hornby, Slam

I'm counting this one even though it was an audio book – I love a bit of Nick Hornby, with his strange compelling, self-involved protagonists, and was very interested to see how he handled YA. This book was the very compelling story of a young skateboard fanatic who accidentally gets his girlfriend pregnant at sixteen. I don't want to spoil this one because I went into it knowing nothing about it and was quite joyfully surprised, but there is one of those spec fic twists to it, which provides enough of an out that non spec fic readers can pretend it didn't really happen, but for those of us who love this stuff, actually makes the book more interesting. I heartily recommend it, especially the audio version I have, which is presented in a very authentic laconic teen boy voice by Nicholas Hoult.

Jeph Jacques, Questionable Content Vol I

My other Christmas present to myself this year! Couldn't resist this one – the first 299 strips of my favourite webcomic. It's really cool to go back and read those old strips, especially with the running commentary by the creator, and I hope he gets the other volumes out soon! The format translated really nicely to the pages, with nice layout and the whole thing was a terribly enjoyable re-reading experience.

The Year Starts Here

It's the last day of my honey's holidays, which means the last day of having a second parent at home to help with the girls. I'm on my own for the rest of the school holidays! (apart from, you know, grandparently help, baby daycare, and weekends)

I've been slugging away at my page proofs, which are due back on the 10th – not quite as bad as some of my writerly peeps who have Jan 4th deadlines! I feel for you, my darlings. One of those secrets about the publishing industry you probably wouldn't think about unless you are on the inside is that editors clear their desks before Christmas by sending edits and proofs to writers, which means if you're working under contract, you're probably working over the holidays!

Still, 'under contract' is totally not old yet, so no complaining here

I just finished reading the January issue of Locus as a digital epub on the family iPad – it's brilliant! After years of sadly reading 1-2 month old news and updates in the magazine, it feels a lot more current. It took us (which is to say, my honey) some squiggling around to figure out the best ways to download, transfer and set up the file, but now we have it sorted and it's SO NICE to read.

I've been subscribing to Locus for years now, even with the postal time delay, (much of the news like books sold was stuff I wouldn't read anywhere else anyway) and with the proliferation of news blogs and the like, there really is nothing to match it for explaining the industry we work in. Only recently, I psyched myself up to turf out a decade or so of the magazines, to clear out space, and have been trying to throw them out as I read them, but it's a wrench each time.

I'm really impressed that the Locus crew were smart enough to offer the digital download free to international print subscribers – as well as getting our news earlier (and can if we choose save the more substantial articles and reviews to read later when the print version arrives) it's a fantastic way to audition the format, and make the choice as to whether we go fully digital when the subscription is due.

Subscribing to Locus is a pretty major expense for those outside the US – it's something I try to do when I get in a big writing cheque, so I don't notice it (often subscribing for two years in those instances) – and I've tried to quit it in the past only to resubscribe in a panic. I'm sure there are plenty of Australians who have balked at the expense – however worthy a magazine it is (and it really is), it's a major investment and international postage is only getting more and more expensive…

I am a little askance at subscribers only getting a month (later 2 weeks) to download the issue, as I would have thought one of the benefits of being a subscriber would be getting a chance to re-download past issues that you 'own' – if you accidentally delete it, or need it for a different platform, for instance. I think letting past issues disappear is a bit of a holdover from print publication – one of the things I love about buying audios directly from Big Finish rather than getting a slightly cheaper price somewhere like Book Depository is that I often get the digital version too, on an electronic bookshelf, and can get hold of it again.

But, hey, that's a minor niggle compared to the glory that is Digital Locus – I may have to wrestle with my own nostalgia about tiny print and red bordered covers, but this might finally be the thing which weans me off the paper subscription. I suspect quite a few Aussies will be following me, and many more might take the plunge now that postage is out of the equation.