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Transported
A well-known poet pursues his elusive muse; a Kiwi makes himself indispensable in OZ; a revolutionary fast-food franchise revs up Russia's economy; a racing-car driver is airborne; a Frenchman called Foucault puts in the hard yards at an antipodean dairy farm - all while water laps at our feet, our homes, our lives . . . With Tim Jones' stories you should expect the unexpected. This remarkably refreshing collection uses a lively mix of genres, taking readers on flights of fancy, transports of delight and even occasional trips of nostalgia. Some of the stories are unique ways of looking at the everyday and ordinary, others take us out of this world.
272 pages, Paperback
First published June 6, 2008
9 people want to read
About the author
Tim Jones
14 books31 followersI'm an author from New Zealand who writes climate fiction, science fiction, literary fiction, and poetry. I won the New Zealand Society of Authors Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship in 2022.
Here's how you can buy my books, and some recent anthologies with my work in them:
Books
Emergency Weather is my new climate fiction (cli-fi) novel from The Cuba Press, published in October 2023. Three people find themselves in Wellington, New Zealand as the climate crisis crashes into their lives. A giant storm is on its way – what will be left of the city when it’s over?
Where We Land is my climate fiction (cli-fi) novella from The Cuba Press, published in 2019. An earlier version of this novella, Landfall, is available from Amazon.com as a Kindle ebook.
My latest full-length poetry collection is New Sea Land: poems about climate change, sea level rise, and the way the sea and the land interact with each and with us.
My latest anthology is 2014 poetry anthology The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, co-edited with P.S. Cottier. You can buy The Stars Like Sand from the publisher and from Amazon.com. You can also get special offers and more information on the Stars Like Sand Facebook page.
Ever wondered what makes men tick? Then buy my latest poetry collection Men Briefly Explained from Amazon.com in Kindle or paperback format.
My short story collection Transported, which was longlisted for the 2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, is now available for the Kindle.
Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, an anthology I co-edited with Mark Pirie, won the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work. You can buy Voyagers from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book, or buy it directly from the publisher at the Voyagers mini-site.
Here's how you can buy my books, and some recent anthologies with my work in them:
Books
Emergency Weather is my new climate fiction (cli-fi) novel from The Cuba Press, published in October 2023. Three people find themselves in Wellington, New Zealand as the climate crisis crashes into their lives. A giant storm is on its way – what will be left of the city when it’s over?
Where We Land is my climate fiction (cli-fi) novella from The Cuba Press, published in 2019. An earlier version of this novella, Landfall, is available from Amazon.com as a Kindle ebook.
My latest full-length poetry collection is New Sea Land: poems about climate change, sea level rise, and the way the sea and the land interact with each and with us.
My latest anthology is 2014 poetry anthology The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, co-edited with P.S. Cottier. You can buy The Stars Like Sand from the publisher and from Amazon.com. You can also get special offers and more information on the Stars Like Sand Facebook page.
Ever wondered what makes men tick? Then buy my latest poetry collection Men Briefly Explained from Amazon.com in Kindle or paperback format.
My short story collection Transported, which was longlisted for the 2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, is now available for the Kindle.
Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, an anthology I co-edited with Mark Pirie, won the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work. You can buy Voyagers from Amazon.com as a paperback or Kindle e-book, or buy it directly from the publisher at the Voyagers mini-site.
You can find details of all these books at my Amazon.com author page.
Ratings & Reviews
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 20, 2011
Excellent short story anthology by New Zealand author Tim Jones.
Jones writes with a light touch, pulling us into his bizarre little worlds with a shrug and a smile. And the journey is more than worth it! The stories are deftly written, the voice laconic and restrained even when the subject matter is painful. I absolutely loved this anthology. Tim Jones is one to watch!
Jones writes with a light touch, pulling us into his bizarre little worlds with a shrug and a smile. And the journey is more than worth it! The stories are deftly written, the voice laconic and restrained even when the subject matter is painful. I absolutely loved this anthology. Tim Jones is one to watch!
November 12, 2016
Words expressing and telling and crafting. Images that linger and others that drift off into void of time. Fragments of stories, of lives. Anthologies can be like that, snippets and impressions that can leave one pondering or pass through one’s mind like the wind through trees. Tim Jones’s stories are no different.
What separates Jones’s tales, however, are their range and their kiwi flare. Beginning with realistic fiction, they flow between satire/humor, sci-fi/fantasy, alternate history and back again. “Flights of fancy” as the back cover describes.
Jones’s realistic fiction is soft and sad, wading in melancholy that drives at the heart of everyday life. Often revolving around relationships, the stories—like “Said Sheree,” a tale of a relationship between two writers that came and went or “Alarm,” a sweetly despondent story about the end of a relationship in Wellington and the man’s struggle to accept it—comment on the endings we all face and the need to continue on afterwards.
But as it such the case in a lot of New Zealand fiction, the melancholy is often balanced out with humor and absurdity. Memorable examples include: “Win a Day with Mikhail Gorbachev!,” an silly look at an “average” day in the life of the Russian premier, including discussions of Arthur C. Clarke and appearances from alien representatives; and “Best Practice” in which corporate cuts are taken to the extreme out in the mountains of the South Island.
In a similar vein, Jones takes some satirical notes and expands them into science-fiction and fantasy tales, commenting on New Zealand culture and its’ place in the world. For example, “The New Neighbors” looks at a kiwi community as they struggle to welcome and accept their new alien neighbors. The future effects of climate change is a common topic, bringing the melancholy back into the heart of the narrative. “Going Under” is a personal tale of a climate scientist who can’t swim but still studies the rising seas. Taking the concept even farther, “The Wadestown Shore” is a distant dystopic depiction of Wellington post-climate change flooding. Other future visions include: “Homestay,” in which computerized consciouses visit Earth with wing-clad bodies; and “The Seeing,” set during a future war, in which one former astronaut turns his eyes into stargazers.
Jones also turns his creative gaze into the past, rewriting and dramatizing stories and worlds of history. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge makes an appearance in “Measureless to Man,” in which he struggles to write his famous poem. Alternate worlds are explored in “When She Came Walking,” which details a past in which inanimate objects are moved by sentience, and one boy strives to find a solution and attract the love of his life; and “A Short History of the Twentieth Century, with Fries,” a brief account of Russian history told as if Lenin started a fast food chain instead of a revolution.
The thing with Jones’s tales, however delightful and insightful they may be, is that they’re also often very short. Extremely brief stories that sometimes only span a few pages. While consequently some have slipped through the grasp of my memory, others left me salivating for more. They are so inventive and engaging that I would easily gobble up a whole novel upon the theme.
At the same time, part of me knows that the stories and tales and lives that I found so engaging and thoughtful, are the perfect length. They say what needs to be said and no more. Nothing is rushed or forced to an ending. They’re the prefect snippets, impressions that are succinct but often lingering. That’s all you can ask for in an anthology really.
What separates Jones’s tales, however, are their range and their kiwi flare. Beginning with realistic fiction, they flow between satire/humor, sci-fi/fantasy, alternate history and back again. “Flights of fancy” as the back cover describes.
Jones’s realistic fiction is soft and sad, wading in melancholy that drives at the heart of everyday life. Often revolving around relationships, the stories—like “Said Sheree,” a tale of a relationship between two writers that came and went or “Alarm,” a sweetly despondent story about the end of a relationship in Wellington and the man’s struggle to accept it—comment on the endings we all face and the need to continue on afterwards.
But as it such the case in a lot of New Zealand fiction, the melancholy is often balanced out with humor and absurdity. Memorable examples include: “Win a Day with Mikhail Gorbachev!,” an silly look at an “average” day in the life of the Russian premier, including discussions of Arthur C. Clarke and appearances from alien representatives; and “Best Practice” in which corporate cuts are taken to the extreme out in the mountains of the South Island.
In a similar vein, Jones takes some satirical notes and expands them into science-fiction and fantasy tales, commenting on New Zealand culture and its’ place in the world. For example, “The New Neighbors” looks at a kiwi community as they struggle to welcome and accept their new alien neighbors. The future effects of climate change is a common topic, bringing the melancholy back into the heart of the narrative. “Going Under” is a personal tale of a climate scientist who can’t swim but still studies the rising seas. Taking the concept even farther, “The Wadestown Shore” is a distant dystopic depiction of Wellington post-climate change flooding. Other future visions include: “Homestay,” in which computerized consciouses visit Earth with wing-clad bodies; and “The Seeing,” set during a future war, in which one former astronaut turns his eyes into stargazers.
Jones also turns his creative gaze into the past, rewriting and dramatizing stories and worlds of history. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge makes an appearance in “Measureless to Man,” in which he struggles to write his famous poem. Alternate worlds are explored in “When She Came Walking,” which details a past in which inanimate objects are moved by sentience, and one boy strives to find a solution and attract the love of his life; and “A Short History of the Twentieth Century, with Fries,” a brief account of Russian history told as if Lenin started a fast food chain instead of a revolution.
The thing with Jones’s tales, however delightful and insightful they may be, is that they’re also often very short. Extremely brief stories that sometimes only span a few pages. While consequently some have slipped through the grasp of my memory, others left me salivating for more. They are so inventive and engaging that I would easily gobble up a whole novel upon the theme.
At the same time, part of me knows that the stories and tales and lives that I found so engaging and thoughtful, are the perfect length. They say what needs to be said and no more. Nothing is rushed or forced to an ending. They’re the prefect snippets, impressions that are succinct but often lingering. That’s all you can ask for in an anthology really.
July 14, 2008
Since I'm the author, I won't review my own book. Instead, here's what Jessica Le Bas, reviewing Transported in the Nelson Mail (New Zealand) had to say about it:
"I read Jones's first story, Rat Up a Drainpipe, and couldn't put it down. I laughed out loud, and felt unusually good. It was fast paced and full of quirky incidents. When it ended I wanted more.
Typical of Jones, Transported crosses genres. There's science fiction, comedy and satire, and even a few tales involving global warming. The Wadestown Shore has Pete rowing around a drowned Wellington foreshore between high-rise buildings, trawling for treasures. The seat of government has moved to Taupo. You have to laugh, but should we?
Jones's bag of literary tricks is witty and refreshingly humorous. He's not new to the literary scene, but with Transported, his second short story collection, he will not linger in the background again. Bring it on, Tim Jones!"
Transported is available from New Zealand Books Abroad: http://www.nzbooksabroad.com/shopdeta...
"I read Jones's first story, Rat Up a Drainpipe, and couldn't put it down. I laughed out loud, and felt unusually good. It was fast paced and full of quirky incidents. When it ended I wanted more.
Typical of Jones, Transported crosses genres. There's science fiction, comedy and satire, and even a few tales involving global warming. The Wadestown Shore has Pete rowing around a drowned Wellington foreshore between high-rise buildings, trawling for treasures. The seat of government has moved to Taupo. You have to laugh, but should we?
Jones's bag of literary tricks is witty and refreshingly humorous. He's not new to the literary scene, but with Transported, his second short story collection, he will not linger in the background again. Bring it on, Tim Jones!"
Transported is available from New Zealand Books Abroad: http://www.nzbooksabroad.com/shopdeta...
January 16, 2009
It seems only fitting - given that my reading resolution to read more new Zealand literature - that I kick off the year with a short story collection by New Zealand author Tim Jones.
I was hooked on Transported from the very first page, as Jones’ wastes no time in drawing the reader into his stories. My personal favourites include: Said Sheree, Books in the Trees, A Short History of the Twentieth Century, the Wadestown Shore and Robinson in Love.
Transported really does live up to its title – transporting the reader from the former USSR, to Wellington, to Dunedin, to Antarctica and America. Jones’ book also transports through genres, effortlessly flitting from sombre post-apocalyptic tales, to love stories to light historical satire. Given the short length of many of the stories, and the wide range of Jones’ writing, most kiwis will find something to their taste in Transported.
I was hooked on Transported from the very first page, as Jones’ wastes no time in drawing the reader into his stories. My personal favourites include: Said Sheree, Books in the Trees, A Short History of the Twentieth Century, the Wadestown Shore and Robinson in Love.
Transported really does live up to its title – transporting the reader from the former USSR, to Wellington, to Dunedin, to Antarctica and America. Jones’ book also transports through genres, effortlessly flitting from sombre post-apocalyptic tales, to love stories to light historical satire. Given the short length of many of the stories, and the wide range of Jones’ writing, most kiwis will find something to their taste in Transported.
January 8, 2009
Great collection of short stories with a sci-fi / climate change theme running through them.
December 5, 2012
I enjoyed this collection of short stopries by Tim Jones.
The variety in subject matter, genre, tone and length makes for an entertaining and thought provoking read.
The variety in subject matter, genre, tone and length makes for an entertaining and thought provoking read.
March 14, 2015
I've admired all of the short story collections by Tim Jones. Extraordinary range and humour.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews