BOUND Alex Caine #1

OBSIDIAN Alex Caine #2

Over at http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/australian-scifi-fantasy-horror-megalist-xmas-books/ Alan Baxter has put together a huge list of books by Australian SF authors. Can there ever be a definitive list? Probably not, because books go out of print all the time and new ones appear daily - but this is a thoughtful list of currently available books, representative of all the speculative genres. No excuses, now - go and find your next read, or a suitable Christmas gift for a friend or family member! And if you have a favourite that is missing, tell Alan in a comment (or better still, ask the author to check it out and send Alan the same information as is contained in the existing entries) and perhaps he'll add it on the next update. I can see this growing into a valuable resource for readers and writers alike. There are other lists elsewhere but this one gives more information on individual entries.

ABDUCTION Alex Caine #3

Oh, and don't forget to check out Alan's  new  Alex Caine trilogy while you're there. Click on the book covers for reviews, previews and purchase options.

For the past 18 months, I have conducted classes in Theatrical Dance at Trinity School for Seniors here in Perth, Western Australia. I have a lovely class of eight ladies, all over 55 years of age and all keen as mustard to carry on dancing as long as they possibly can.

Each lesson, we do a conventional ballet barre (but no grands pliés or big extensions) followed by ports de bras and centre practice. Our allegro, however, deviates from the normal glissades and pas de chats etc of a classical class - instead, we draw on the modern musical, folk dance and jazz ballet. There are many reasonably simple steps that don't require magnificent turnout or elevation, and we combine these in various ways to light music.

My lovely dancing ladies and their proud teacher

Some of the ladies have never danced before: others learnt ballet as children and have always wanted to take it up again. I am humbled by their enthusiasm and commitment. Quite honestly, if I were to front up one day and find the stars of the Australian Ballet waiting to take class, I would not respect those dancers any more than I do my Trinity ladies. They take the classes seriously, arrive on time, and work hard. What more can a teacher want?

I should tell you a bit about Trinity School for Seniors. An outreach program of the Uniting Church in Perth city, TSFS offers courses in a huge range of subjects, including languages, literature and writing, art, music, fitness classes of various schools of thought including yoga, several kinds of dance, walking tours of the city - the list is a long one and grows longer each year. Fees are extremely moderate and affordable even for pensioners, so the courses are extremely popular, with some classes being booked out as soon as enrolments are open each term.

This Thursday the annual concert will be held in Trinity Church, and six of my ladies are taking part for the first time, dancing to the carol 'In Dulce Jubilo'. We've had a lot of fun putting the dance together and the ladies have cheerfully chipped in to pay for simple costumes, designed and created by class member Nola who has a real flair for making something classy out of a bolt of stretch fabric. If I get pic of the team in costume I'll put it up next week. 

Update 19 February 2015! It's taken a while, but here's the photo, taken by Ruth Points from the office team at Trinity School for Seniors. It shows some of the ladies in their smart costumes, designed and made by Nola. The performance went very well, by the way, with loud applause and cheering for my 'girls'!

Another blog swap, this time with Gillian Polack. Gill is a Satalyte author like me, as well as being a blog-buddy of long standing. 
  
Thank you, Satima, for inviting me and letting me share my new book with your readers.

The novel is a time travel one. I’d love to say "not as you know it”, but that would be a Star Trek joke and it’s not a Star Trek kind of story. Langue[dot]doc 1305 http://satalyte.com.au/product/langue-dot-doc-1305-gillian-polack/ was originally called Probabilities, because it needed a name and one hadn’t found it yet. Before that, it was called Timestream. Langue[dot]doc 1305 was merely the title that stuck. It was interesting that the novel didn’t find a title easily, because it was telling me how it wanted to be written the whole way through. It had a mind of its own. It wasn’t the only one.

I’m a historian. A Medieval historian, to be precise. This means that I know the Middle Ages from the historian’s approach, which is dynamic and amazing and wonderful… and really hard to fictionalise. A character (Artemisia) presented herself to me and said “I am the solution to your problems.” And she was. She’s the link between the historian side of me and the fiction side of me. Also, she’s a fictionalised historian. A literary historian, which is quite a different kind of historian to the one the time team needs, but nevertheless a historian.

Literary historians are wonderfully sophisticated. They can get their heads around cultural differences and personal contexts for texts and weird dynamics, like having to explain to a bunch of scientists that the world outside their cave is real and that the history they refused to study at school is happening. They can’t guarantee the scientists will listen to them, but they have the intellectual capacity to negotiate a particularly dangerous space. Artemisia was perfect for my story, even if she did things a bit differently to the way I had planned.

Technically, she was a fix for a technical problem. I wasn’t going to wimp-down my history and I wasn’t going to write a bad novel. Artemisia was never that technical, though. She stole my Zombie Ancestry History theory from me, for one thing. My Zombie Ancestry History Theory is the way I used to deal with the really bizarre assumptions about the Middle Ages that some students carry into class. I’ve developed a new method of describing it because now all the zombies in Medieval Europe belong to Artemisia.

Because Artemisia is also a historian and from Melbourne, people have started asking me if I’m she. I’m not. I’m only partly a literary historian and am not an expert in Clemence of Barking and am not Italian-Australian and… I’m getting defensive, aren’t I? The trouble with characters that overtake in that way is that they can change peoples’ view of you. I got a letter from a reader asking “Is Artemisia you?” in fact, which is what turned me defensive. I knew Artemisia had taken over the explaining most of the history in the novel. I knew she’d stolen my zombies. Maybe she was me and I was missing it because I was too invested in my own writing?

I asked my mother. She laughed at me. Apparently Artemisia is not me. Not even close. So even when a novel has a mind of its own, the characters in it can be themselves, not just shadows of the writer. That’s comforting.

You can read my post on Gill's blog at  http://gillpolack.livejournal.com/1343734.html 

Half a King by Joe Abercrombie

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Prince Yarvi has vowed to regain a throne he never wanted. But first he must survive cruelty, chains and the bitter waters of the Shattered Sea itself. And he must do it all with only one good hand.

Fascinating characters, well-depicted, and an intriguing plot. Abercrombie shines, as always, but this time his story-telling approach appears at first to be rather more conventional than usual. We have come to think of Joe Abercrombie as a cynical joker whose characters have even more than the average number of human flaws, but in Half a King, the 'hero', Prince Yarvi, has flaws more physical than emotional. Even so, this is very much a coming of age story, of a young man who must learn about life the hard way. Fortunately he's a fast learner, because there are obstacles to trip him at every step along the trail.

The surprise ending comes as a jolt, and we are left wondering - did Yarvi really just do what I think he's done ...? But we can see that yes, indeed, he did, and he did it out of necessity. Pragmatism is essential if one is to claim power and hold it. So Yarvi is no noble-minded knight in shining armour, and we have to have a quick rethink about this personality we've been barracking for. I wonder what he will get up to in the rest of the series?

The second book, Half the World, is due for release on Feb 17, 2015.

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Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A new book by Juliet Marillier is always cause for rejoicing, and as usual, this opus does not disappoint. Marillier is a craftswoman of the first water: her words flow like runny honey, with the odd dash of lemon to cleanse the palate now and then.

Dreamer's Pool, like the bulk of this author's ouevre, has as its protagonist a young woman with a problem. If there has been one criticism of Marillier's characters it is that they have a certain sameness. A typical Marillier heroine is a girl in her late teens who has a huge problem to solve, and the fate of the family/tribe/kingdom rests on her ability to 'get it right'. Blackthorn (an assumed name that represents her profession as a healer - we never do learn her real one) and her partner in crime-solving, the taciturn but loyal Grim, are older characters. I'd place them in their early to mid twenties, since Blackthorn is fully qualified in her work and has been active enough in society to come to the notice of the powers-that-be, notably the tyrannical Mathuin, who has thrown her into prison for speaking against him. Sentenced to die, Blackthorn wakes on what she thinks will be the last day of her life to be confronted by the fey lord Conmael, who promises to help her as long as she gives up her desire for vengeance and always uses her gifts to help and never to harm. She and Grim travel north, aiming for Dalriada where Blackthorn plans to set up her healing practice.

But it's a long journey with many mishaps and delays. The resulting adventures of Blackthorn and Grim intertwine with the love story of Prince Oran and his betrothed, the gentle poet Flidais. There is also a dog (a must in a Marillier novel!) together with confused identities and a magical pool. The resulting tale is somewhat more adult and rather darker than much of this author's previous work, and it makes good reading.

As usual, Marillier has drawn skilfully on folklore and traditional tales, rounding out stock characters and developing the magical elements so they become credible plot elements. The cover tells us this is 'a Blackthorn and Grim novel', so it seems we can expect more adventures involving this likeable pair. The contrast between them makes their friendship all the more interesting, and I shall look forward to further books in the series.

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