Mark Webb's Blog, page 21

A Trifle Dead by Livia Day – review

This review forms part of my contribution to theAustralian Women Writers 2013 Reading Challenge. All my 2013 AWWC reviews can be found.

I know, I know. I said I’d only review speculative fiction books this year. I extolled the virtues of purity and staying faithful to the one true genre. I disparaged my own ability read anything else. And now I’m reviewing a crime novel.

I can hear what you’re all thinking. “Where are your ideals now, Webb?”, “So much for your love of speculative fiction, y...

Aurealis Awards 2013

Had a fantastic time at the Aurealis Awards last night, lots of catching up with people, lots of excellent speculative fiction rewarded, lots of alcohol imbibed by others making me seem more interesting than I actually am. Who can ask for more?

The remote summary dejour is looking at Sean the Bookonaut’s Storify record of any given event, and this year’s Aurealis Awards is no different. You can find the summary here.

But now for some more personal reflections on the evening.

I got a chance to ca...

The Regersek Zone to be published on Antipodean SF

It’s been a long time between publications. A few “life gets in the way” events late last year really threw me out of the writing zone. That, combined with my attempts to write some longer short pieces, has meant it is a long time between story publications for me. As a result, I am ridiculously happy that Nuke (the editor atAntipodean SF)has accepted one of my flash fiction pieces for publication.

The Regersek Zoneis currently scheduled for issue 184 of Antipodean SF, published in October 201...

New Ceres Nights edited by Alisa Kranostein and Tehani Wessely – review

This review sort of forms part of my contribution to theAustralian Women Writers 2013 Reading Challenge. All my proper 2013 AWWC reviews can be found.

I don’t think I can officially claim this as an Australian Women Writer’s challenge book, as only 6 out of the 13 stories are penned by Australian women. However, it show the work of many of Australian speculative fiction’s current batch of award winning female authors (think Kaaron Warren, Angela Slatter, Thoraiya Dyer, Sue Isle, Tansy Rayn...

Conflux 9 – and that’s what it is all about

So, after some last minute travel plan changes (my wife realised that 4 days in Canberra with me attending a SF convention does not a happy holiday make… for her at least), I rose ridiculously early on Thursday and hopped on a bus. Yes, a bus. To Canberra. From Sydney.

I wasn’t convinced either.

But fortunately for me, not that many people had an urgent need to get from Sydney to Canberra via bus early on ANZAC Day, so I had plenty of room to myself and managed to do some reading and catch up o...

Feedburner – hopefully working again

For those few who have subscribed via email. I have been using Google’s FeedBurner email subscription service, which inexplicably stopped working about a month ago. For those that don’t subscribe via email:

Why not? I mean, are these posts not interesting enough that you could stand getting theoccasionalemail letting you know they exist? I’m hurt, hurt I tell you.
You can ignore the rest of this post!

It turns out some of my anti-spam measures have been blocking the FeedBurner attempts to access...

Conflux 9 – the workshops

As I’ve mentioned in a few other posts, I’m off to my first Conflux convention (Conflux 9) next weekend. I’m looking forward to it, this convention I’ve signed up for some workshops to complement my tendency to generally lurk around.

It was very difficult to pick out workshops, there were often a couple on at the same time that I would have loved to go to. I chose sessions on the basis of how much they might help with my own writing (it needs all the help it can get!). My final selection inclu...

Bitter Seeds review – now at a podcast near you

Those that follow Antipodean SF will know that the editor, Nuke, also does a podcast where all the stories are read out, usually by the authors themselves.

The recent review I did ofBitter Seedsby Ian Tregillis was narrated by yours truly on the latest edition of the podcast. It kicks in at around the 44m mark.

Enjoy!

The Accidental Sorcerer by K. E. Mills – review

This review forms part of my contribution to theAustralian Women Writers 2013 Reading Challenge. All my 2013 AWWC reviews can be found.

The Accidental Sorcererby K. E. Mills has been on my to be read list for quite some time. The main reason I hadn’t read it was fairly simple – Amazon kept telling me it wasn’t available on Kindle. Later books in the Rogue Agent series were, just the first one wasn’t. I liked the blurb. I was intrigued by the concept. But the website kept telling me that th...

What is the sound of one hand writing? Or is it typing?

Another interesting thread from a writing mailing list has inspired another slightly tangental post on my behalf. The question – do you write long hand or directly into the computer?

My early career was in the computer industry and I’ve always had computers in my working life, so when I started to write I got myself set up with a laptop and the Scrivener writing software package and did all of my drafting electronically.

However, recently I realised that I have a lot of trouble turning off my i...