Alan Baxter's Blog, page 87

Anywhere But Earth anthology ToC announced

I'm really pleased to have a story coming out in this anthology from couer de lion publishing, edited by Keith Stevenson. It's a science fiction anthology featuring 27 original stories of humanity's adventures out there, anywhere but Earth. It's a great theme and the full Table of Contents has been released now, along with cover art. I'm not sure if this is the final cover or not, but I like it. What I like even more is the names I'm sharing the ToC with. Seriously, check out the awesome talent in this book:

Margo Lanagan 'Yon Horned Moon'

Richard Harland 'An Exhibition of the Plague'

Sean McMullen 'Spacebook'

Lee Battersby 'At The End There Was a Man'

Jason Nahrung 'Messiah on the Rock'

Angela Ambroz 'Pyaar Kiya'

Kim Westwood 'By Any Other Name'

Steve De Beer 'Psi World'

Robert Hood 'Desert Madonna'

Cat Sparks 'Beautiful'

Penny Love 'Sibo'

Wendy Waring 'Alien Tears'

Simon Petrie 'Hatchway'

Jason Fischer 'Eating Gnashdal'

Robert N Stephenson 'Rains of la Strange'

Alan Baxter 'Unexpected Launch'

Chris McMahon 'Memories of Mars'

Liz Argall 'Maia Blue is Going Home'

Calie Voorhis 'Murmer'

Damon Shaw 'Continuity'

Donna Maree Hanson 'Beneath the Floating City'

Patty Jansen 'Poor Man's Travel'

Tristan Davenport 'Oak with the Left Hand'

Colum Paget 'Pink Ice in the Jovian Rings'

Erin Stocks 'Lisse'

William Wood 'Deuteronomy'

Steve Cameron 'So Sad, the Lighthouse Keeper'

I'm honoured to be listed among so many fantastic writers. This is shaping up to be a brilliant book – I can't wait to read it.

.

RealmShift video review at Mystery Thriller TV

This is pretty cool – I've never had a video review before. Joanna Penn, from The Creative Penn and author of the thriller, Pentcost, also hosts Mystery Thriller TV. I know, she's a bit of an over-achiever. She recently posted a video review of RealmShift, which makes me very proud. Here tis:

.

Write The Fight Right ebook available now

The public demanded it, so I've delivered. Well, quite a few people, after attending one of my Write The Fight Right workshops, asked if there was any further resource they could get on the subject. Short of suggesting martial arts classes, I had no advice. After I did the workshop at Worldcon, several people were chatting to me afterwards and the suggestion was made that I write the workshop content up into an ebook and sell it. I thought that was a great idea, so here it is. A short, approximately 12,000 word, ebook discussing all the things involved in fighting to help authors write more realistic and convincing fight scenes in their fiction.

I wouldn't presume to tell anyone how to write – I don't think I'm really qualified for that. But after nearly 30 years as a martial artist and working as a martial arts instructor for a lot of that time, not to mention a lot of fights in and out of tournaments, I do know a lot about fighting. So I know what's real and what's not, I know what it feels like, and hopefully this book will convey some of that stuff so fiction writers can factor it into their books and stories.

It really bugs me when an otherwise excellent read is marred by a daft fight scene, with the writer clearly having no idea what a fight is really like. Of course, I'm biased, because I do know. But even people who have no more experience of fighting than the author are often bored by fight scenes. Equally, even though they may not be able to put their finger on why, they recognise a visceral, authentic fight scene when they read one. I developed a bit of a reputation for writing good fights, which is what originally led to me being asked to do a workshop at Conflux a while back. I've since done the workshop elsewhere, including Worldcon last year – which was a real honour – and I'll be doing it again at Swancon at the end of this month. Hopefully now people can buy this book to back up the stuff they learn at a workshop, or buy the book and learn all the stuff I cover in the workshop if they can't make one. Of course, the workshop gives people a much more hands-on experience and allows them to ask questions and so on, but I'm hoping this book is a valuable resource for writers nonetheless.

It won't teach you how to write and it won't teach you how to fight, but it will hopefully give you lots of information to help you write better fight scenes. The book is available on Amazon Kindle and in a variety of formats at Smashwords (including a PDF for general reference) for US$1.99. That's less than a cup of coffee. If you like the book, please do rate and review it and, most importantly, tell all your friends and help me spread the word. Learn more here.

.

100 Stories for Queensland has a cover

I posted a while ago that I have a story in the forthcoming 100 Stories for Queensland anthology. This is a great book, with 100 stories by a fantastic range of authors, with all profits going to the Queensland Premier's Flood Appeal to help the survivors of the terrible floods in Queensland earlier this year. It's dropped out of the news cycle now with so much else going on in the world, but those people up there are still struggling and are really in need of continued help. I'm so pleased to have a story in this book and I hope it sells like crazy to get some well-deserved funds up to those survivors.

As you can see, the book now has a cover. Click on the image for a bigger version and you'll see all the contributors names are included. Cool!

The book also has a release date – it's going to be available worldwide on Tuesday 3rd May, 2011. Make a note so you can get your copy and please do spread this around so as many people as possible hear about the book. The authors all contributed their work and the publisher and editors are all donating their considerable time and effort for nothing to make this thing happen, so let's reward all of them by buying copies and getting the proceeds up to those people in desperate need as soon as possible. Please, share the link to this post and you can keep up with things on the official 100 Stories site and on the 100 Stories Facebook page.

.

Religious quote of the week

Possibly religious quote of the year. I simply could not let this one go by, for I nearly laughed my morning cereal out of my nose when I read this. To be honest, there's a plethora of fantastic quotes in this story. The Reverend Avril Hannah-Jones of the Uniting Church in Romsey, north of Melbourne, is having a themed service where sci-fi and fantasy fans are encouraged to show up in costume for a "Sci-Fi and Fantasy Friendly Church Service". They will hear passages from The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter as Hannah-Jones explores parallels between fantasy and Christianity, taking inspiration from Dr Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Wars.

You can see where this is going, right? I was already sniggering at this point.

The whole thing is aimed at increasing church attendance, but it has many flaws. For starters, a lot of SF fans are agnostic or atheist, but even putting that aside, when you start comparing the teachings of the Bible to great fantasy epics, while you're being surprisingly honest, it does little to promote the supposed "truth" of the Bible. Especially when those literary classics are far more cohesive and interesting.

And naturally, the religious community is rather split on the whole thing. Here's where those fabulous quotes start coming in. Brace yourself for a +10 Crushing Irony attack and be sure to don your Pot-Kettle-Black armour:

Catholic priest Gerald O'Collins said, "There should be no need to dress it up." He's referring to the Bible and the Christian message, of course. "There is a magical story there already. We just have to start selling ourselves properly."

That's right – what you need is a better PR department.

Uniting Church moderator Isabel Thomas Dobson said, "We're always looking for ways in which we can connect the community with the truth of the gospel. We're talking fantasy, not reality."

Wait, are you talking truth or fantasy? In two sentences she sums up all the problems with religious scripture as fact. I know I'm being slightly facetious here in my interpretation, but the point is clear.

But all this pales into insignificance in the light of this gem from Mentone Baptist minister Murray Campbell: "I don't have a problem with people enjoying sci-fi, but church isn't the place to encourage escapism and fancy dress."

Has he been to a church lately? The clergy love a bit of fancy dress, with their robes and hats and dog-collars and habits (denominationally determined, of course). And what more escapist activity is there than sitting in a building dedicated to communicating with your big imaginary friend who's supposed to sort out all your problems and grant all your wishes, while hearing about virgin births, walking on water, raising the dead and so on?

Given that the Bible is one of the greatest fantasy epics of all time, even if it does need the input of a good editor, this whole thing amuses me no end.

Source: Herald Sun

.

You can't be a fan of SF and lament the rise of ebooks

The title says it all. You just can't. I won't allow it. I hear it so often and I find it baffling. I know what it means to love books. I love books to a degree most would consider unhealthy. I'm a bibliophile of the highest order. The feel, the weight, the smell, the sound of a page turning. Awesome. And there will always be books. But they will be less and less common, as I've said here so many times before, and ebooks will be the mainstream before much longer. And that's okay.

You know what I like more than books? Stories. I love stories. I love to read the tales of others, to marvel at a great writer's turn of phrase, to be transported by a great author's incredible ideas. Rarely do I ever find that sense of wonder so much as I find it in science fiction and fantasy.

Now, I know there are fantasy fans out there who don't really like sci-fi. They're the kind of people who wish we all lived in castles and rode horses and wore sack-cloth vests and said things like verily and thou art. I get that, I really do. Those people lamenting the slow demise of books as a mainstream delivery system for stories is fairly understandable. The hardcore fantasy fans lament all technology and yearn for an older, more agrarian society. Of course, they also yearn for magic and dragons, which is fine, but unlikely. About as unlikely as them surviving in a truly medieval world. Even the most hardcore fantasy fans would be chafing at the bit for some modern technology when they badly needed a bath to wash off the flea bites and smallpox.

But I digress. On the whole, most fantasy fans are sci-fi fans too. You don't have to be into hard sci-fi to qualify. That really scientifically accurate stuff you need degrees in maths and physics to really understand is very cool, but there's other sci-fi out there too. The softer, more accessible stuff, like Star Wars or Serenity to offer some mainstream examples. There are equally un-dense sci-fi books and short stories out there too – all the sci-fi I write is very light on the sci and heavy on the fi. But regardless of your particular flavour preferences, you can't be a fan of science fiction and then sit there all miffed and put out at the rise of ebooks.

It happens so often, people that are such big reading fans saying, "Gods, no, I'll never read an ebook! You can't curl up with a good ebook!" Bollocks, of course you can. Curling up with a Kindle or Nook is easier than reading an actual book, in fact.

"I like the feel and smell of a real book." Yeah, so do I, as I said before, and an ereader doesn't have those attributes. But not everything we read has to be a tactile, olfactory delight.

Let's be honest about this. Why is an avid reader really an avid reader? Do they like to go and buy a new book every week and run their fingers over it, sniffing deeply? Maybe. But is that the primary reason for buying it? No, of course it's not. You'd have to be pretty fucked up to prefer the smell of a book over its contents. People buy books because they love stories. The delivery system is hardly relevant – it's the content we want. We want that transportative magic of well-crafted fiction.

And in science-fiction we've been reading about technological advancements since… well, since there's been science fiction. When I read a book on my iPhone, which I regularly do, I'm living something that just ten years or so ago was still science fiction. The phone in my pocket does more than most of the gadgets on Star Trek – even Star Trek: The Next Generation, and that's only twenty five years old.

Only? Merlin's Cock, that makes me feel old! Star Trek: TNG ran from 1987 to 1994. If you watch repeats of it now you see how far we've come in that time, not only in television and production, but in ideas too. Though some of those shows had awesome ideas that are still fresh now. Even Classic Star Trek had ideas like that.

But I digress again. I do that.

My point is this: If you're a fan of science fiction, you have to be a fan of ebooks. Because a pocket- or handbag-sized electronic device that stores thousands of stories, that you can wirelessly connect to other devices or locations to get more stories, IS science fiction.

Get over yourselves, people that don't like ebooks. It's all about the story, the wonderment, not the delivery system. Also, if you're sitting there saying, "But, but, but!" and you have all these reasons why ebooks are shit, let me see if I can address them first:

I don't like reading off a screen – Then buy a Kindle or Sony Reader or equivalent that uses e-ink and is essentially just the same as reading off a printed page. And before you crap on about it, have you actually tried a Kindle? They're amazing.

I don't want to spend money on a reading device – What, like you spend money on books? With the cost of ebooks being lower than most print editions, you'll get your money back and then start making savings in no time.

I like the smell and feel of real books – So do I. See above. Buy a special edition hardback once in a while and get your touchy, sniffy fix. Then carry on reading on your chosen e device.

I don't want to see real books disappear – They won't. There will always be real books. Just fewer of them and mostly in special editions or collector's editions. But I bet most books will be available POD as well as ebook, just for folks like you.

You have to remember to charge up a reading device – You have to remember to pick up a book. What's your point? The Kindle, even under heavy use, has a battery life of at least two weeks. You can cope with that, surely?

Ereaders are heavy and cumbersome – No, they're not. They used to be, but the Kindle, Kobo or Sony Reader, among others, are lighter than most paperbacks. Sure, iPads and stuff like that are heavier, but they're electronic devices that also have the ability to deliver stories, so it's a different situation. My iPhone is like that as well and is far lighter and smaller than any paperback. There's lots of choice.

I like to read in the bath – Good, so do I. Go for it. You're really careful not to drop your precious book in the water, right? Just do the same with your ereader. And if you're worried about being electrocuted, I suggest some basic science lessons to ease your fears.

Did I miss anything? If you have some other reason to stand against ebooks, put in a comment below and I'll address it.

I understand that some people are complete paper book purists, and I get that, I really do. Although it's an anachronistic and soon to be redundant position. But if you're an SF fan, I don't get it at all. Get over your elite self and embrace the future, or forever hang up your SF fandom.

Stop struggling, all you ebook haters – in a few more years everyone will be doing it. You can't stop change or hold back the future. If you're an SF fan, why would you want to?

.

Short stories and contests and podcasts, oh my

Please excuse the post title. That's probably one of the most overused cliche phrases ever, but I couldn't help it. I've had a really good weekend of news regarding my short fiction. First off, something I've been pleased about for a while but not allowed to announce. As you can see from the image, I won a contest. Well, I was one of two winners.

Every month Wily Writers opens a theme for short story submissions. From all the submissions, the best two stories are selected and published on the Wily Writers site and also podcast by them. You'll have heard me mentioning Wily Writers before. They published and podcast my story, Stand Off, back in 2009. That story was subsequently collected and reprinted in Night-Mantled: The Best Of Wily Writers Volume 1 in February this year. For this month Wily Writers announced some time ago that instead of a particular theme they wanted submissions from people previously published by them (over 50 writers) for a Wily Writers Short Story Contest. Guest editor, Stacey Janssen, then went through those submissions and selected the two winners. The winners were Dragonborn by Kelli D. Meyer and Declan's Plan by myself.

Declan's Plan is a post-apocalyptic story, about a man, his dog and his reprogrammed alien probe, wandering through the destroyed wastes of the Australian outback. They have a plan. The story has been ably read by Philip Pickard. It's always strange to hear my work read by a voice actor, but always a thrill too. I was a bit concerned with this one, as the story is so strongly Australian and I wondered how the actor would cope with the accents. I have to say, Philip Pickard has done a sterling job. He's really brought the characters to life and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to his rendition. Thanks, Philip, and well done – I owe you a beer if ever we meet.

You can find the text or podcast of Declan's Plan here. I highly recommend the podcast!

In other good news on the short fiction front, I found out this weekend that my story, In The Name Of The Father, has been accepted for publication in the Dark Prints Press anthology, The One That Got Away. That book is due for publication in early 2012 and they're planning to announce a list of some of the contributors soon. I'm looking forward to seeing who I'll be sharing a ToC with in that one. This book is edited by Craig Bezant, an accomplished writer himself, and I think Dark Prints Press is going to be putting out some really good books. I'm thrilled to have a story picked up by them.

This post is starting to sound very boastful, for which I apologise, but I'm not done yet. It seems that short fiction success is a bit like waiting for a bus. You stand there for ages and nothing happens, then several buses arrive at once. The next bit of good news, which I have mentioned before, is that my story, Mirrorwalk, is being published in Murky Depths, Issue 16. This is a fantastic publication, a British Fantasy Award winner and well worth your time and money. I'm so pleased to get a story Murky Depths. I mention it now as Issue 16 is out in April and available for pre-order now.

I did get one other piece of awesome news over the weekend that had me Snoopy dancing all over the place, but I can't mention that one yet. I'll be sure to let you know as soon as I'm allowed. (And for those keeping score, no, it has nothing to do with the "big submission". It'll be months, I'm sure, before I hear anything about that one.)

So apologies for all the self-satisfied, look-at-me content of this post, but please do go and read me and listen to me. I'm very proud of all these stories and selling a short story, seeing it published, hearing it podcast, never, ever gets old. Of course, as ever, feel free to leave me comments and let me know what you think. If you listen to Declan's Plan over at Wily Writers you can leave comments there too. Enjoy!

.

Podcasts are coming of age

Podcasting has been around for a long time now, by internet standards. Anything that lasts more than a few months is long-lived by internet standards, but you know what I mean. Some things have their blaze of glory and disappear, though they leave a kind of legacy, like MySpace. Some things fire into the stratosphere incredibly briefly, incredibly brightly, and then are forgotten forever, like Chocolate Rain or the Star Wars Kid. They live on in infamy, in memory, but that's about it. So it's hard for anything, be it a person or an idea, to stick around for any length of time. Of course, podcasting isn't really like a specific website or internet meme, but it is something that was either going to fly or sink.

With video-casting on YouTube and a website or three in every home, I did wonder back in the day (about 2008) if podcasting would really generate that desired state of normalcy, or if it would be something a geeky few would love briefly, before moving on. Here we are in 2011 and podcasting is unbiquitous. I co-host one myself, all about thrillers and other genre fiction. I listen to loads of them, especially fiction podcasts like Escape Pod and Podcastle. I'm still dancing with joy because my favourite podcast of all, Pseudopod, bought one of my stories recently. I can't wait for that to come through.

But you know that podcasting is becoming truly accepted when it starts to win awards. Not podcasting awards, obviously, but other awards that have been around for ages and have now started recognising podcasts. I noticed this when I was going through the recently released Ditmar Awards ballot. Here's the Best Fan Publication in Any Medium nominations list:

* Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, edited by Alisa Krasnostein et al.
* Bad Film Diaries podcast, Grant Watson
* Galactic Suburbia podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex Pierce
* Terra Incognita podcast, Keith Stevenson
* The Coode Street podcast, Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan
* The Writer and the Critic podcast, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond

Out of six listed nominations, five are podcasts. Among them are podcasts that I listen to regularly and one of them got my vote. The sixth one is a review website.

Here's the same category last year:

Best Fan Publication

* Interstellar Ramjet Scoop, edited by Bill Wright
* A Writer Goes on a Journey (awritergoesonajourney.com), edited by Nyssa Pascoe et al
* ASif! (asif.dreamhosters.com), edited by Alisa Krasnostein, Gene Melzack et al
* Australian Science Fiction Bullsheet (bullsheet.sf.org.au), edited by Edwina Harvey and Ted Scribner
* Steam Engine Time, edited by Bruce Gillespie and Janine Stinson

No podcasts.

In the 2010 Hugo Awards, the Best Fanzine award went to StarShipSofa edited by Tony C. Smith. A podcast. It won a Hugo! It is brilliant, but even so it's a great step in the acceptance of podcasting.

And this is just the genre podcasts that I'm familiar with. I'm sure there are thousands more out there covering all kinds of subjects. It seems that the audio magazine has really come of age. Even radio stations now are offering their shows as podcasts to appeal to people that might not be able to listen at a certain time, or may have missed a show. More power to the podcast, I say, and not just because I'm involved with one. Podcasting is a great example of utilising the power of the internet for good, producing quality, interesting content. Long may it continue.

.

Scenes From The Second Storey – review

If you think you recognise the title Scenes From The Second Storey from previous posts, you'd be right. It's been nominated for Best Anthology in the Aurealis Awards, Ditmar Awards and Australian Shadows Awards, and numerous stories from it have been nominated all over the place as well. It's got a lot of attention and deservedly so. I picked up a copy after the launch at Worldcon last year and it's just made it to the top of my reading pile.

Scenes is a strange but rather cool concept. Mark Deniz of Morrigan Books came up with the idea, based in his love of the God Machine album of the same name – Scenes From The Second Storey. He wanted to pay homage to that, one of his favourite albums, by editing an anthology of short fiction, with each story being named after each track on the record. In the end two anthologies emerged – one with international contributors and one with Australian contributors. It's the Australian edition, edited by the ably talented Amanda Pillar and Pete Kempshall, that I read. The talent commisioned for this book is awesome – here's the ToC:

Dream Machine – David Conyers
She Said – Kirstyn McDermott
The Blind Man – Felicity Dowker
I've Seen The Man – Paul Haines
The Desert Song – Andrew McKiernan
Home – Martin Livings
It's All Over – L.J. Hayward
Temptation – Trent Jamieson
Out – Stephen Dedman
Ego – Robert Hood
Seven – Stephanie Campisi
Purity – Kaaron Warren
The Piano Song – Cat Sparks

Each story takes its name and inspiration from a song on the album, with each author penning a speculative yarn in their own unique style. There's really not a weak story in this book, but the real standouts for me were Kirstyn McDermott's She Said, a creepy exploration of art and muse; Robert Hood's Ego, an out there ghost story that takes some great twists and turns; and Kaaron Warren's Purity, a tale exploring a cult of purity and laughter that is just beautiful in concept and execution. Seriously, Kaaron's work is invariably mind-blowing, she really is a prodigious talent. Her collection, Dead Sea Fruit, is quickly rising to the top of my reading pile and I can't wait.

So Scenes manages to be that rare thing – a different, intriguing anthology with no weak spots. It's also made me deseperate to hear the record now, so I'll be picking that up soon. It sounds like it's just my cup of tea. After each story the author has written a paragraph or two about how their story came to be, based on their listening to the track in question, which only adds to the depth of the book.

So get yourself a copy – you can get it in print or ebook. All the details here. Highly recommended.

.

New ThrillerCast – villains

The latest ThrillerCast podcast is up now. This time, David Wood and I talk about villains. What makes a good villain, what motivations and backstory make a villain believable and interesting and so on. We talk about the really popular villains already out there – Tony Soprano, The Joker, etc. – and try to figure out what makes them so powerful.

It's a longish episode for us – our crapping on reaches new heights – but I think it's a good episode too. All the details here: www.thrillerpodcast.com

.