Alan Baxter's Blog, page 104
August 1, 2010
The nominations are in
Aussiecon 4, the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, has announced the ballot for the 2010 Hugo Awards.
Best Novel
(699 Ballots)
•Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor)
•The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
•Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
•Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
•Wake, Robert J. Sawyer (Ace; Penguin; Gollancz; Analog)
•The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)
Best Novella
(375 Ballots)
•"Act...
LiveJournal crossposting
This is a bit of a test post, so apologies for wasting your time. By way of explanation, I also use a LiveJournal blog as I have a lot of writerly friends who blog with LJ. In order to keep everything organised, anything I post here I also post over there. I've just discovered, thanks to Jason Fischer and Aidan Doyle, that there's a plugin for WordPress (which runs this site) that will automatically crosspost to my LJ account. So I've just installed and configured it and now I'm posting this ...
July 31, 2010
Movie review – Inception
I think I love Christopher Nolan a little bit. He's made some of my favourite movies of all time – Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight. I am constantly going on about the homogenous rubbish coming out of Hollywood and lamenting that there are no clever, interesting, new stories being made into film. That's not just because I have two novels out that would make awesome films. Incidentally, I'd give a testicle if Christopher Nolan would make my books into films, but ...
July 30, 2010
Font fight!
I found this via Cat Sparks and Jason Fischer who themselves found it on the Ban Comic Sans site. Those three links alone are worth the price of this post, but check out the video.
Nerdy font based fun. It's brilliant.
See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.
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Halloween horror book signing at Dymocks Southland
Here's a little something I'm quite excited about. On October 31st, which as you all know is Halloween, there's going to be a little horror-fest at Dymocks Southland bookstore.
A bunch of us dark writer folk are going to be doing a group book signing there in celebration of all things… well, dark. It's a great idea and I'm honoured to have been asked. I'll be sharing the signing table with some truly notable writers. Joining in on the day will be Bob Franklin, Kirstyn McDermott, Jason...
July 27, 2010
Singing My Sister Down – the play
Margo Lanagan is a great spec fic writer from Sydney. She's incredibly talented and quite justifiably well recognised for her work. Recently you may remember me talking about her novella Sea Hearts in the X6 Novellanthology from Coeur De Lion. Her latest novel is Tender Morsels, published by Allen & Unwin in Australia, Knopf in the US and David Fickling Books and Jonathan Cape in the UK. And that's just a small cross-section of her work.
Anyway, one of her short stories that she's perhaps...
July 24, 2010
New Aussie spec fic to check out
It's a good time for Australian speculative fiction at the moment. There are a bunch of new books coming out or recently released by awesome Aussie authors. Some of these people I'm lucky enough to count among my friends and some of them I don't know personally, but know them as their reputation in the field precedes them. I also know that I'm going to be pretty poor coming back from Aussiecon4, as I'll inevitably be buying a lot of books there. I hope I can sell a few books myself to maybe e...
July 23, 2010
The Nightmare Ball at Aussiecon 4
Aussiecon 4, better known as Worldcon, is fast approaching. Looks like I'll be doing a few bits and pieces there in the way of panels and workshops as well as having a top time with friends and colleagues. I'll write more about that stuff later. In the meantime, check this out. I'll be going and it should be quite a laugh.
The Nightmare Ball
The Nightmare Ball is a way to pursue your wildest dreams and face your deepest fears in the best possible way: behind a mask!
Staged by the Australian...
Murdoch University are out of their freaking minds
This situation has suddenly cropped up all over the web, with lots of my friends (and plenty of people I don't know) justifiably furious. It is, in a word, fuckingridiculous.
Via Chris Creagh- Murdoch University have told Grant Stone that his services are no longer required. He has been given 10 days to respond. He was told that SCIENCE FICTION and POPULAR CULTURE are no longer core to the librarys activities! More news on what we might be able to do about this on Monday. Please post this as...
Friday Flash – Idle Chatter
It's been a while since I posted a Friday Flash piece so I thought I'd offer up this one today. It's a nasty little piece, so brace yourself if you're of a sensitive disposition. Then again, I don't imagine you'd frequent this site if you were of a sensitive disposition. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.
Idle Chatter
by Alan Baxter
Incident Report: Sgt Greg Moran
Thursday, 18th March 2010, 21.45 hours
Apartment 14/4 Broughton Street
Response to repeated calls from multiple callers re: home...
