T.R. Napper's Blog, page 2

News Update: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Award Nominations, New Projects, and Toxic Fandom)

It was a huge honour, about a month back, to receive two nominations for the Aurealis Awards, Australia’s premier prize for speculative fiction. I got category nods for ‘Best Science Fiction Novel’, (Aliens: Bishop) and ‘Best Fantasy Novella,’ (A Marked Man).[image error]
It’s important that Australia has a respected award for speculative fiction, and the consequent opportunity to celebrate our writers and artists. The awards are juried, taken very seriously, and it’s tough to be shortlisted. I’m proud to be...

Double the Punk – Two New Releases – Ghost of the Neon God and The Escher Man

I have not one, but two books coming out this year. Which makes me appear incredibly productive, but it’s all an illusion, as you will see. The books:

Ghost of the Neon God is a novella set in Australia. I pitched it as Mad Max meets Johnny Mnemonic. I’ll link to the blurb in this article, but in short it’s about two petty crooks steal the wrong[image error] thing from the wrong woman. It has everything you’d expect, given the pitch: the neon-lit streets, the gritty underworld of the dark city, a desperate f...

My Favourite Reads of 2023

Finally hit my target of 50 books this year. Reading is part of my job as a writer, and I aim to do so every evening. I’m not fast and wouldn’t want to be. I savour what I read (when it’s good), study it (when there’s a lesson to learn), and take inspiration.

I’m not sure why, but I always get creative ideas while reading, even if (especially if) the book is completely unrelated to what I am writing. I’ll write those ideas down in the margins, straight away, so I don’t lose them. Sometimes it wi...

Year in Review – Awards, Book Deals, and Incandescent Rage

Big year. It started relentlessly, and never really gave up. January kicked off with my finishing a tie-in novel, Aliens: Bishop.

Never thought I’d write a tie-in novel, never thought I could write any novel in 4.5 months, never thought I’d be writing canon in a universe I was obsessed with as a teenager. Never say never, [image error]hey? I cover my experience writing the tie-in here. Not sure I’ll ever do it again, but I’m glad I did it once.

For the foreseeable future I’ll be focussing on my cyberpunk, an...

Aliens: Bishop (why I shut up and took the gig)

I wrote an Aliens novel. I did it in five months and I can’t quite remember how. My previous record for completing a full-length novel was about three years.

I didn’t want to write an Aliens novel. Not at first. My agent came to me with the offer, and I was sceptical. For a number of reasons, which I get into below.[image error]

But first, several people (writers, in the main) have asked how I got this offer, and the answer shows how much luck plays a part in publishing. My agent was shopping around my new n...

Awards Eligibility – Ditmars

Ditmar voting is open. For the uninitiated, the Ditmars are the annual Australian peer-voted awards for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.

What does peer-voted mean? Well, that you are either attending the National Convention (this year it is Conflux – in my home town of Canberra), or that you are ‘active in fandom’. What does the latter mean? As I understand it: you’ve been to a convention in Australia, are in a discussion group (online or live), [image error]interact regularly on social media, or simply...

The Line Between Success and Failure in Publishing

This originally was going to be my acceptance speech for the Aurealis Awards, but my wife talked me out of it, saying it it was ‘too sad’. I’d been nominated in the SF Novella and Novel categories. I didn’t think I’d win, of course (though I desperately hoped to), but if you’re nominated you need to have something prepared. And if I had to bloody well speak in front of an audience, I wanted to direct it at the new and struggling authors in the crowd, those still waiting for that first big break....

Two Book Deal

Fuck yeah.

I have more than one novel* in me, apparently. At least two more, to be precise, after signing a new deal with Titan Books (UK).

The first is The Escher Man. It takes place five years after the events of 36 Streets, and while some characters cross over, it is a stand-alone novel.[image error]

When submitting, I blurbed it as follows (though this will of course change by the time the novel comes out):

Endel ‘Endgame’ Ebbinghaus is a violent man, a street-level enforcer for a drug cartel. Or is he? ...

Update: Two Aurealis Award Nominations, & other news

I received two Aurealis Awards nominations, and it is fair to say I’m pleased. These are (easily) Australia’s premiere speculative fiction awards. They are also juried – which while carrying its own flaws, I’d take any day of the week over a popular award.[image error]

The first is in the ‘Science Fiction Novelette/Novella’ category for my story The Goruden-Mairu Job. This appeared in the cyberpunk anthology ‘Night, Rain, and Neon’ (NewCon Press).

The second is for my debut novel, 36 Streets. Strangely, the ...

Radio Interview – ABC – ‘Out of this World’

I really enjoyed this interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) with host Kim Huynh. Kim is a man of many talents. He lectures in international relations at the Australian National University; has written about the refugee experience – both fiction and non-fiction (Kim came to Australia from Vietnam, at a very young age, as a refugee), and often writes about Vietnamese politics and society.

I was fortunate to have Kim as one of the academic advisors on my creative writing PhD – ...