Hal Spacejock 3: Just Desserts by Simon Haynes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review first appeared in the now-defunct webzine, The Specusphere, in January 2008.

Hal and Clunk are back! (Did they ever go away? Their fans would say not.) Again they create inter planetary mayhem and somehow manage to come out unscathed. Well, almost unscathed. Simon Haynes is a master of the close shave, contriving to rescue his unlikely heroes from all manner of danger, including their own stupidity, with nothing worse to show for the adventures than the odd bruise or blazing headache.

As usual, it is Hal, the human half of the partnership, who is the stupid one: his metal off-sider, Clunk, is both the brains and brawn of this outfit. Without Clunk and good ol’ Navcom, Hal would no doubt be drawing the dole on some obscure planet while he drinks his coffee and dreams his Walter-Mittyish dreams. But with the help of his long-suffering nursemaids, Hal actually manages to live out his dreams, albeit precariously, and that is perhaps half the charm of this series. There is a bit of Hal in all of us. He often embarrasses us, frequently annoys us and repeatedly amuses us. And in the end, he saves the day, convincing us that no matter how limited we seem to be, we might, one day, win out over forces more powerful than we are.

In this episode, Hal and Clunk are pitted against a robot enemy who engages hit men to see them off. In fighting for their lives and their cargo, they find themselves stewarding aboard a shuttle, risking arrest for impersonating army officers, enjoying all the fun of the fair while shying at coconuts and making utter fools of themselves at a formal dinner. How Haynes dreams up his improbable scenarios is a mystery to an unimaginative clod like me, but I’m glad he does it.

This is the third book in the series and there is a strong possibility of more. This brings one to wonder just how long a writer can get away with the same formula. Mind you, this is a formula that works – and it sells, too. Many a writer would like to dream up such a formula. Yet now Haynes has really hit his stride, one feels that perhaps he could start to take the odd risk; to play with the formula and subvert it – or lift it to greater heights than even Hal might dream of. The potential is certainly there. But meanwhile, enjoy another fast and furious ride with Haynes's zap-happy, zany rapscallions.

Between books, readers can continue to follow Hal and Clunk on their blog: http://haldiary.blogspot.com/ Their official biographer also has a blog: http://halspacejock.blogspot.com/ and a website http://www.spacejock.com.au/ They are all worth checking out.

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Wonders of a Godless World by Andrew McGahan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This review first appeared in the now-defunct webzine, The Specusphere, in January 2010

Allen and Unwin, Sep 2009: ISBN 978-1-74175-809-2

Andrew McGahan is a mystery man. He does not appear to have a blog or a website — and he hasn't, so far as I can tell, written any other science fiction. Yet he's been around for fifteen years and has produced six novels and three plays. And he burst onto the SF scene with this very different book — immediately winning an Aurealis, even ousting Sean Williams, the undoubted King of Aurealisland.

Whatever else our mystery man may be, he is undoubtedly highly versatile. His first novel, Praise, won the Australian Vogel Literary Award. His third, Last Drinks, won a Ned Kelly Award for crime writing, and his fourth won multiple awards including the Miles Franklin and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. This dude is one seriously talented scribe.

Did he intend to write science fiction when he began work on Wonders of a Godless World? Or is he, like Margaret Atwood before him, somewhat bemused and embarrassed that he should win awards for genre writing? To win any award is a noteworthy event: to win awards for crime and science fiction as well as the highest literary ones must be very rare indeed. Not bad for a guy who left uni before finishing first year to work on the family farm.

Wonders of a Godless World is a good read. It does have certain literary features, such as having no named characters (not many genre writers would dare to try a trick like that, at least, not in a full-length novel) and we are never quite sure whether the events in the story are real or only happening in the mind of the protagonist. But it is certainly speculative, and it works.

The gist of the story is this: the orphan finds she can hear the foreigner speaking inside her head. The archangel, the duke, the witch and the virgin start behaving strangely and bizarre deaths occur. Although the archangel is not really an archangel; nor is the duke a duke, nor the witch a real witch. And as for the virgin – well, let's say she's not a virgin by the time the climax arrives (Yes, bad pun, I know…)

The blurb claims this to be a head-stretching story and one can only agree. It questions the nature of consciousness and even of what we call reality. Highly recommended, but don't expect it to be like any other work, speculative or otherwise, that you have ever read.

To learn more about Andrew McGahan, you have only to Google. There is an article worth reading on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_M.... 




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A friend recently posted on Facebook –‘Been looking for freelance writing/proof-reading work in
London. Amazed at how many jobs are advertised as “unpaid but providing a wealth of experience and a well-known name for your CV”.  Next time I need the plumber, I'll tell him I won't pay for him to fix my tap but he can certainly list my name on his website. Actually, I might just try that at the supermarket.’

I know how my friend feels. I get the odd query from a first-time author with inflated expectations, asking if they can pay me a percentage of the book’s take instead of paying up front. No way José – I know how much most self-published authors make, and that’s 'very little'. If you self-publish, you must be prepared to do it for love. Even authors published by the big houses might not make a living wage – it’s said that the average author in Australia earns less from writing than they would on the dole. And given the tough economic times and the state of flux of the publishing industry, it's going to get worse.

It’s not just writers and editors who suffer, either. In all the arts, there have always been more good people than available jobs. It's more apparent than ever today, and part of the problem, I think, is that the tertiary institutions are turning out too many graduates. These graduates have to create their own employment, and usually their projects can’t be realised without some kind of subsidy. Or they work in community theatre for nothing. Or they self-publish books. As one of my writerly friends puts it ‘Centrelink’ (Australia’s social security department) ‘is the biggest patron of the arts since the de Medicis’.

As long as there is cheap or free labour around, the arts will remain a buyers' market, and inevitably, this 'amateurisation' of the arts will continue. Yet if you are an artist of any ilk, you are probably also a rugged individualist. An office job would drive you insane. Routine bores you, and lack of a creative outlet can make you severely depressed. Furthermore, trying to be creative while selling your soul to the system is a sorry task.

It’s a conundrum, and I don’t think it’s a new one. As Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote: ‘The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the collective. If you choose to fight, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened ... but no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.’

Nietzche is also reported as saying And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. May there always be those few of us who do hear the music, either as creators or consumers of the arts. We might be thought insane – but I do believe we keep the rest of society out of the madhouse.

Barbara Wolfencamp (Zahraa)

Ozgen

Tamalyn Dallal