Talking Writing
Once upon a time, the job description for a writer was fairly straightforward: you sat down and wrote. After that, you worked with an editor and revised your work through to publication. Now, the requirements of the job are somewhat different, particularly if you are a writer...
Alternative History
I’ve nominated a bunch of top Alternative History books here. But how does one go about writing in this challenging, but alluring, sub-genre? Alternative Histories are where the writer changes something in our past and imagines what difference it would make t0 the now divergent timeline. For example, because of...
5 Things I’ve Learned About Writing
My first novel was published in 1996. I was publishing short stories for four or five years before that, which means that I’ve been in the writing game for about twenty-five years. Time to reflect, perhaps, and this is what I came up with. It’s useful if writers can...
Ten Steampunk Novels I Haven’t Had a Chance to Write Yet
Force 10 from Westminster The Disraeli Identity Mary Shelley, Princess of Power Gilbert and Sullivan and International Domination Have Pith Helmet, Will Travel The Revenge of the Colonies Dirigibles, Digging Machines and Great Big Tanks The Tea-time Ultimatum Giant Cats Destroy London via the Underground (some work...
Four Important Lessons I’ve Learned from Fairy Tales
Lesson 1: Never Trust a Wolf. People like David Attenborough would have you believe that wolves are harmless creatures, wonderful examples of nature at its finest – strong, noble, dignified. Well, he’s wrong. Fairy Tales have taught me that wolves are evil, nasty and cunning beasts who will stop...
TIME TRAVEL IS ESSENTIAL TO OUR WAY OF LIFE
Occasionally, one hears pundits and savants assert that Time Travel is dangerous. Moreover, the same gurus even go on to aver that the very idea of Time Travel is fraught with peril. Nothing could be further from the truth, which is that Time Travel is essential to our way of...
Aurealis Awards
I’m extremely pleased to note that ‘The Laws of Magic’ series has been shortlisted for the inaugural Sara Douglass Book Series Award. From the Aurealis Awards website: This Award is named for one of Australia’s best known speculative fiction writers. Sara Douglass was the flagship author of the HarperVoyager...
Fantasy and the Pharmaceutical Industry
After a recent trip to the chemist I’ve become convinced that the pharmaceutical industry has hundreds of Fantasy writers working for it. I’m not sure if this has been a deliberate policy of recruiting down-at-heel Fantasy writers whose last trilogy was cut short after Book 2 or if hordes...
Radio Times
A couple of weeks ago, I was asked in to 774 ABC Melbourne for Raf Epstein’s monthly ‘Read with Raf’ book club, to chat about ‘The Martian’. I’d sent in a review based on my blog piece and Raf enjoyed it enough to want more. Raf, Alicia Sometimes and...
10 Australian YA Dystopian/End of the World Novels Not To Be Missed
Ah, definitions, definitions, definitions! It’s always the way with genre fiction that we have to grapple with definitions and borders and ruling in and ruling out. It’s funny how mainstream fiction doesn’t get all het up about things like, but that’s an issue for another day. This selection of...