Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 181

Stealth Worldbuilding & the Other Kind of Standalone Fantasy

I have been talking this week about the value of standalone fantasy, and composing a list of my favourite single volume fantasy novels, just to prove that yes they exist, and yes there are good ones. But what came up most commonly in the discussion surrounding those posts is how many standalone fantasy novels actually are less standalone than they appear – once you start reading the other works in that author's backlist, you may discover that you have in fact been subject to Stealth...

Reason Why Sesame Street is Awesome No. 473

Raeli (who is, we will remember, five years old and the youngest in her Prep class) got a sticker today for startling the new teacher the same way she startled me this morning – in playing the 'what words can we think of that start with M?' game she belted out 'Metamorphosis' complete with the tidy summary "transforming into something, like a caterpilla into a butterfly."

Thank you, Elmo, and your quest to find out what an amphibian is! According to Raeli, her teacher's response was "I'm not ...

Ladylike is a Sometimes Food

One of the nice things about my work-free (ha) month is the taking of weekends. Now, I've always been pretty bad about weekends. Between my various years of studenting, writing, etc. I have come to view weekends as that time when you get things done. Once I became a Mum, it was 'the time when the other parent is here, so you can get things done.' It means I've ended up with a screwed up kind of sensibility where all time is potential work time…

Last year, I got into a great routine where I...

Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest

This is one I have taken a while to read; I think because it's so unlike what I normally do that I have had to wait between stints to be in the right mood again. I finished the last third at a fine lick today and enjoyed it greatly. This is the first steampunk novel I've read that was aimed at adults rather than children/YA and I enjoyed the extra crunchy levels of relationship drama that this entailed. (it's also, incidentally, the first steampunk novel I have read which is written by a w...

My Top Ten Super-Solo-Unsequelled-Standalone Fantasy Novels

After yesterday, I've been thinking about how many fantasy novels are truly standalone. Girlie Jones declared on Twitter that she doesn't read fantasy because she's not interested in waiting for volumes to be written. It's a fair cop – if the concept of a journey through an elaborate magical world doesn't grab you from the outset, it's hard to find a half-decent gateway drug to introduce you to the genre.

Fantasy certainly lends itself to extended series, either of the to-be-continued type o...

To Be Continued

I had a great chat tonight on Twitter with @JonathanStrahan, @charliejane, @charlesatan and others about fantasy and the way that publishers are reacting in different ways to the reader resistance phenomenon: readers turning their back on extended fantasy series, and in some cases refusing to start reading a series until it's complete, so that they can happily get invested in the characters without worrying the author is going to drop dead, or make them wait.

Some of the techniques publishers ...

Scary Kisses

Lovers of paranormal romance may be interested in this new Australian anthology: Scary Kisses, edited by Liz Grzyb for Ticonderoga Publications. There have been a couple of attempts to get a paranormal antho off the ground in Australia. One that I know of fell through due to lack of submissions, and another due to not being able to secure a publisher (right at the time the global financial crisis hit). It's lovely to see one that's finally made it out into the public eye.

Featuring authors ...

Why are Pilates Plural?

I've been feeling a bit blog-blocked in recent days. I suspect it's because I'm not actively writing. My most energetic blogging happens when I am also writing up a storm – we all remember the twice a day Nano blogging, don't we? – with my brain firing on all cylinders. This month is about prioritising other things, and I am a little concerned that my brain is going pulpy at the lack of horrific deadlines looming.

That would be bad, right?

I teeter between wondering what to do with myself...

Crumpets and Tea?

Does anyone remember the British TV series Nanny, starring Wendy Craig, from the early 80's? It follows a 1930's nanny through her first year after graduation. She's a divorced woman (scandalous!), a mature age student, and has been utterly spoiled by an introduction to Freud and other theories of psychology. Also, it turns out there are many handsome gentlemen with nanny complexes, who have to be beaten off with a stick! I bought the Season 1 DVD set on a whim a few months back, when...

Neptune Noir, edited by Rob Thomas

I fell in love with the idea of the BenBella Smart Pop Books some time ago, and between actually finding the Jane Austen/Jenny Crusie one in my library, and the free essays that BenBella put up every week, I became an absolute convert. I bought a couple of piles of the books directly from the publisher in December, mostly to give away as presents. But I kept a couple for myself, including the one that made me bounce with excitement when I discovered its existence – Neptune Noir, a...