Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 185

Dick Francis 1920-2010

I was very sorry to hear this morning that Dick Francis had died. It always seems startling to lose an author who is still writing, even as in this case where the author in question was 89 years old. (Obituaries and articles here, here, here and here.)

Like Robert B Parker, Dick Francis was one of the authors I discovered through my Dad, who was one of my main sources of reading material before I hit my teens and started listening to my friends instead. (I wouldn't reverse the tradition and ...

Australian Spec Fic Carnival

The Australian Spec Fic Carnival for the month is up at Ripping Ozzie Reads.

Snapshot 2010: Margo Lanagan

Margo Lanagan has won three World Fantasy Awards, four Aurealis Awards and four Ditmars, and been shortlisted for many other awards, including a Hugo, a Nebula, the James Tiptree Jr (twice), a Bram Stoker, a Theodore Sturgeon, a BSFA and an International Horror Guild Award. She is the author of the novel Tender Morsels, and three speculative fiction short story collections, White Time, Black Juice and Red Spikes.

1. The new Australian edition of Tender Morsels has an awesome Shaun Tan cover –...

Australian SpecFic Snapshot

In 2005, Ben Peek spent a frantic week interviewing 43 people in the Australian Spec Fic scene. In 2007, a group of ASiF! reviewers took up the challenge and did it again, this time interviewing 83 people.

In the lead-up to Aussiecon 4 in Melbourne, and the great opportunity offered by the local Worldcon to see some Australians get a shot at the Hugo ballot, some of the ASif! reviewers will be doing it again, and blogging interviews from this coming Monday until Sunday 22nd Feb.

To read them...

In Other News

I'm working away at my scene-by-scene edit of Cabaret of Monsters. Reached the halfway point of this today, which very much puts me on track for submitting the book at the end of the month. I'm getting to that lovely point where I'm not only marking progress and feeling confident about getting the job done, but am having some genuine moments of inspiration. The books I've been reading lately are so good they have been pushing me to lift my game.

Raeli and I are constructing a paper...

Links that are Linky

Shiny #6 is out! With, among other things, the latest Dirk Flinthart short story within.

This is sadly the final issue of Shiny, a labour of love for those of us involved. I was very pleased with the issues I had editorial input in (1-3), enjoyed reading issue 4 as a civilian, and was very proud to be published in issue 5 with "Like Us," one of the two Shiny stories that scored an Aurealis Award nomination last year.

Back issues of the ezine are available here.

Elsewhere on the internet,

No Bookshelf Big Enough

So after my thwarted attempt to have a no buying books for myself month in December (I swear, feminist tomes kept hurling themselves at my head, it was a moral imperative to take them home) and because my bank balance is looking somewhat sickly, I decided that I was going to refrain from buying books for the months of February AND March.

This is a very big deal.

What this means is nothing that gives me the 'hit' that comes from purchasing a book – which includes clicking pre-order buttons. So ...

Strong Women

In my I talked about how there are many different kinds of strength in female characters, and it rubs me up the wrong way when an emotionless, damaged and violent 'Ms Kickass' is the only acknowledged type – as if that is the only alternative to the fainting damsel.

So in the interest of giving some actual examples, a variety of strong heroines I have been thinking about lately:

Emma Donohue in White Tiger and other novels by Kylie Chan

I once had a long conversation with someone...

Kicking Arse and Taking Names

I've been thinking about urban fantasy and the kickass heroine lately, and chatting about her over at Marianne de Pierres' Facebook page.

I first started turning this over in my mind when I read a piece on critiquing groups in one of the Wiscon Chronicles by a woman who struggled because her female characters, who acted logically within her own cultural context, were being criticised for not being more active, aggressive, "kickass".

And I wondered if the kickass heroine had maybe become a...

Reading Nancy

Feeling wrecked at the end of a long day, and a longer weekend. My honey and I have both dabbled in the life of a solo parent and found it not to our liking. Soooo much better to be able to swap out when the children are driving you crazy. I'm definitely happy to have my family under the one roof again.

(I ate an entire schnitzel lunch one-handed today, because Jem wanted joggling. This is what the second parent is for!!)

Meanwhile, Edit Boot Camp brought me 46 scenes edited in 3 days (yes, ...