Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 176
April 26, 2010
The Return of Blake's 7
Quite by accident, while surfing the iTunes shop, I made a discovery. A marvellous, exciting, utterly delicious discovery. Blake's 7 audioplays.
We all remember how much I love Blake's 7, right?
I was a bit confused by them at first, because I downloaded the wrong one to start with (When Vila Met Gan, a flashback "origins" story which referred to the fact that the crew of the Liberator didn't know the ship had teleport. That's just weird, I thought to myself. That's not right.)
But then I ...
The Case of the Imaginary Detective, by Karen Joy Fowler
Karen Joy Fowler writes novels the way Kelly Link writes short stories – painstaking, elaborate, funny, with surprisingly modern sensibilities alongside beautiful language. (the kicker of course is that Karen Joy Fowler also writes short stories like this, but that's not the point of this review) I've read several of Fowler's novels now, including the hugely successful The Jane Austen Book Club (really must get around to seeing the movie), my favourite being The Sweetheart Season, about...
April 24, 2010
Domestic Days
Jem is growing up. In the last week she's gone from slithering over soft toys to flat out crawling, head high, getting into everything. Which is awesome and exciting, but it's amazing how fast in parenting the 'oh wow' moment goes to 'oh shit' as you realise that your child is gradually developing the superpowers they need to evade and thwart you.
I managed a pretty good writing week, but I'm relying very heavily on those three naps a day and it's hard not to be aware...
Not All Mothers Want Cookbooks and Trinkets
Twelfth Planet Press has a new webstore set up and are celebrating with a Mother's Day sale!
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1. Preorder Glitter Rose* and/or Horn and buy Roadkill/Siren Beat or Angel Rising for $6 plus postage.
OR
2. Buy any 3 books** and buy Roadkill/Siren Beat or Angel Rising for $6 plus postage.
Offers till May 7, 2010
* All prior preorders of Glitter Rose will be honoured.
** Cost of postage will be corrected on payment.
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The erudite Peter M Ball rather charmingly sums up Siren...
April 22, 2010
Films Romana: Demetrius & the Gladiators (1954)
Starring:
Victor Mature – Demetrius
Susan Hayward – Messalina
Jay Robinson – Caligula
Barry Jones – Claudius
Ernest Borgnine – Strabo
Debra Paget – Lucia
Anne Bancroft – Paula
Michael Rennie – Peter
Summary: This sequel to Christian martyr film "The Robe" follows Demetrius, a minor character from the previous film, who is entrusted with an iconic red robe which was worn by Jesus of Nazareth on the cross. In protecting his girlfriend Lucia, and the secret of where the robe is hidden...
April 21, 2010
Ticking the Boxes
Hard to get used to the idea that the book is actually out there in the wild, even though I won't be seeing a copy of it myself for at least a month (wow it is way closer to the beginning of June than I had allowed for).
But today brought the first official review, which has sparked much happiness and rejoicing. Stefen Brazulaitis, whom you might recall (if you remember such finicky details) said something so clever about Siren Beat that we put his quote on the cover, has done it again, this ...
April 20, 2010
Gladiatrix, by Rhonda Roberts
A time travel fantasy about Augustan Rome? Featuring a female gladiator? This one was an insta-buy for me. I was a little trepidatious starting out – much though I adore fiction set in MY era, I'm very picky about it, and small details that wouldn't bother anyone else will smack me squarely between the eyes.
In the first few chapters, I became rather irritated with the main character. She reminded me a lot of some discussions I had had with people about how the kickarse female lead was so ...
The Return of Katy
Okay so the big Doctor Who news of the last 24 hours is that Katy Manning will be turning up AS Jo Grant in the next season of Sarah Jane Adventures, WITH the Eleventh Doctor, in an episode written by RTD.
Wow. There's just so much to unpack there, for a Classic Who fan.
Sarah Jane Smith and Jo Grant meeting for the first time! Sarah Jane and the Eleventh Doctor! A grown up Jo Grant! (unlike Sarah who returned three times before getting her own series, Jo hasn't been seen on tv since she l...
April 19, 2010
On Eleven (and Amy)
I was sooo good. I didn't use any nefarious means to watch the new Doctor Who before its Australian release – it wasn't that much of a challenge, given that we only had to wait 2 weeks rather than the 3 months that was standard back when we last had regular episodes (it's been a long year, hasn't it?). And then of course I wasn't going to watch the iView Australian internet release just to get it a day and a half early, because if I'd wanted to watch it on my laptop or sitting...
April 18, 2010
Red Velvet Roses
Today was a baking day! I'd declared to Raeli that we would make a cake this weekend to use up any leftover Easter chocolate (damn there's a lot of it, even if you try to keep things restrained). We also had some pretty funky new cupcake silicon moulds to try out.
I'd also been craving red velvet cupcakes all week which is weird, because I've never tried them before! One of the cupcake sets we bought were shaped like roses and I couldn't help thinking how awesome they would look with...
