Meanwhile, over at SF Signal: The Dream Anthology

The delightful John DeNardo at SF Signal asked a few people to pick and choose for their dream anthology, citing what you’d choose and why. The answers were so big, they had to split the post in two.

Mine is here, as is that of Nancy Kress (hallowed be her name), Violet Malan and other interesting folk.

Part Two is here.

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And so, post-book launch

So, Kaaron Warren and I had our joint book launch Friday last at WorldCon. It was awesome.

Publisher Russell B. Farr wore his kilt and mix’n’match gym boots, Kaaron had a lovely grey frock, and I was pleased that I had changed my mind and wore something a bit better than the jeans and Darth Vader t-shirt I was planning on.

We had a great crowd – made more impressive by the fact that we were scheduled against a China Miéville panel – the purchasing-signing line was loooooong and in the end they had to kick us out of the room to make way for the next session. We, of course, had something Dr M didn’t – a metric buttload of Haigh’s choclit frogs :-). And thanks to Jack Dann who, Gods love him, popped back and forth between a panel he was on and our launch.

By end-of-con, both The Girl with No Hands and Other Stories and Dead Sea Fruit had sold out, much to Russell’s (and our) unmitigated delight. Huge thanks to everyone who bought the books, to Lisa Hannett who did my lovely cover, to Russell for being such an awesome publisher and to Kaaron for graciously sharing the launch with a newbie.

Weirdness: signing things. Trying not to make spelling mistakes whilst signing and carrying on conversations at the same time. Trying to write something meaningful – I failed. Man, dunno how Neil Gaiman does it!

Photos have been snurched from Bob Dobson (#2) and Jason Nahrung (#1 and #4) as my camera gave up the ghost at the beginning of the launch – of course it did! But #3 is mine, taken in the millisecond before camera-crash.

#1 Russell B Farr

#2 Kaaron & I

#3 Moi & Lisa

#4 Russ & kilt

And this one snurched from Flinthart: Kaaron, moi and Lisa.

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Kraken

Yesterday also included a sybaritic book-buying binge. One of the books purchased is Dr Miéville’s Kraken. You want to know why he’s so damned good? His opening lines:

“The sea is full of saints. You know that? You know that: you’re a big boy.”

It’s an awesome opening: it invites the reader in. It tells them a secret, but also co-opts the reader – even if the reader doesn’t know the sea if full of saints, s/he doesn’t want to admit it, right? To admit it would be to put oneself on the outside and to risk being given no more secrets. And we all love secrets.

This opening creates a kind of intimacy, a strange warm welcoming that makes the reader want to go on … to find out more … “Well, of course the sea is full of saints,” we say and nod sagely. And we keep reading because we want to know more.

Dr M, rocking the kasbah once more.

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Drive-by from the Diogenes Club: Kim Newman

Kim Newman is an amazing writer of both fiction and non-fiction as well as a commentator on all things horror, fantasy and science fiction’ish. He’s an expert on Dracula and his bloodsucking kin, a scriptwriter, a director and, let’s face it, a dandy of awesome sartorial heft. 

His awards include, but are not restricted to, a Bram Stoker, an International Horror Guild Award, a British Fantasy Award, a British Science Fiction Award. If you haven’t read Red Reign, or The Man from the Diogenes Club, or The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club … or indeed anything he’s written, then kindly go and correct this omission forthwith. Off you go, we’ll wait.

Okay, now they’ve gone … here are the stray questions Mr Newman was kind enough to answer.

1. Christopher Lee: best screen vampire ever – discuss.
He’s in my top five, with Max Schreck, Delphine Seyrig, Lina Leandersson and Mariclare Costello.

2. Anno Dracula came from …
A footnote in an extended essay on turn of the century apocalyptic literature I wrote for a course called Late Victorian Revolt at the University of Sussex in 1979.

3. A story can always be improved by the removal of …
Excess words. Except sometimes, when prolixity is the point.

4. The best Hammer Horror Heroine was …
Angharad Rees in Hands of the Ripper. And, having worked with her, she’s just as lovely in person and didn’t stick hatpins into anyone. Unlike some other scream queens.

5. Donuts or danishes?
Ah, we call them doughnuts here. My favoured pastry is Pains aux Raisins*, which I get from the cafe on the corner in Islington. I understand the cafe gets them from Belgium.

His official website is here.

* There is no truth to the rumour that he keeps China Miéville at bay with the raisins. Okay, I started the rumour.

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A Drive-by from Perdido Street Station: China Miéville

China Miéville continues to distinguish himself by writing stuff that is good …very good … come to think of it, that’s probably why he also continues to win awards. His short story collection, Looking for Jake, will blow your socks off (so carry spare socks) and The City & The City confounded expectations – something his books always do in a good way.

In return for my (spurious) promise of a tofu-based pastry item, he answers my random questions with random answers in between writing more genius stuff, hating raisins and using microwave ovens for nefarious and novel purposes.

1. If I wasn’t a writer I would be …

… a melancholy jurisprude. 

2. All novels could do with 32% more …

… or less.

3. I know a book/story is done when …

… the microwave pings.

4. The book(s) I wish I’d written is …

… about 20% finished.

5. Donuts (or doughnuts) or danishes?

Danishes, preferably cinnamon, and on condition that they don’t contain the abominations known as raisins.

For those of you not familiar with his work (and I cannot imagine who you might be), here is the brief guide to the œuvre. The Scar will infect you with a desire to swashbuckle. His latest work is Kraken and it should in no way be judged on the grounds of Liam Neeson’s heinous line in the recent version of Clash of the Titans. If for no other reason, Un Lun Dun should be read for the extreme librarians. And Iron Council = flesh gollum – what more do you need? For the more cerebral among ye, there is his PhD-thesis-made-book, Between Equal Rights. And lest we forget, the one that started it all, King Rat. I’ll stop talking now.

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Day Five …

… of a migraine and I’m over it … days 1-2 were low level annoying throbbing pain behind the eyes … day 3 was OMG-give-me-painkillers-or-take-off-my-head-please agony … days 4-5 are back to low level aching … I just want it to go away … and so, a lolcat in lieu of actual content until my brain and eyes stop trying to kill me. Should be writing something, but just can’t. Meh. Just call me “Fluffy”.

Oh and btw, tomorrow’s drive-by is China Miéville – he thinks raisins are abominations.

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Avatar = “wow-porn”

China Miéville on Avatar (aka Pocahontas in Blue) and its ilk … which was fun and visually spectacular (hell, I saw it twice), but let’s be honest: filled with narrative fail and in need of a good edit.

Why the Na’vi Are Making Me Blue (Essay)

There’s a bumper crop of science-fiction wow-porn either currently or recently in movie theaters. We have James Cameron’s majestically tottering blue gelflings in “Avatar”; the truculent Kirk in “Star Trek”; fight-y robots in Michael Bay’s “Transformers” franchise; and the refugee insects of “District 9,” plus their rather splendid floating mothership.

The rest lives here http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/01/13/why-the-navi-are-making-me-blue-essay/

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And Now the Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For …

China Miéville is blogging. Well, he’s starting … more words will be added as they occur … words in progress …

Fer real, ya-huh.

Over here at the fabtabulously named “rejectamentalist manifesto” http://chinamieville.net/.

Bring a dictionary, the man has seven (7) brains and is not afraid to use ’em. Throws out Latin phrases like pieces of used gum …

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Melbourne Writers Festival 2009 – A Flying Visit

Quick and dirty visit to Melberlin (actually, not dirty at all, not even slightly soiled; very, very clean and pristine visit).

Arrived Thursday night, checked into hotel at 9.30pm, ordered room service, sat in front of tv for a few hours channel surfing as my brain wound down like the clockwork monkey it is … kept thinking how I should take the chance to transcribe the notes in my Moleskin for the final draft of Gallowberries … and yet could not get my ass out of the chair. This, I think, is the universe’s way of saying ‘Y’know, you’re tired. Why don’t you just rest, dumbass?’

Friday: woke up at 4am – so unfair. Went back to sleep until 9am. Had late breakfast, wandered down to Federation Square – which is a great space filled with some tremendously ugly buildings. Buildings so ugly it’s quite breathtaking and, in a way, admirable. Awesomely, defiantly ugly buildings. The BMW Edge lecture theatre is quite cool though, looking out over the river and this is where I went to the first of the two sessions I attended.

The Future of Fiction with authors Stephen Amsterdam (Things We Didn’t See Coming, winner of The Age Book o’the Year – http://www.stevenamsterdam.com/Things_We_Didnt_See_Coming_by_Steven_Amsterdam.html), China Miéville (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, The City & The City, etc) and the able and amusing Ronnie Scott (editor of The Lifted Brow http://www.theliftedbrow.com/?page_id=14) as the moderator. Some very interesting discussion about whether books will survive and in what form. I’m still reeling after hearing Dr Miéville had recently scanned in about 80% of his book collection and then recycled the bodies. The book-loving luddite in me screams ‘Vandal!’ and gets a nervous rash. I’m trying not to think about it.

It was the night of two dinners – first one was with my colleague, friend and all-round clever clogs Meg Vann, she of AWMonline, at The Quarter in Degraves Lane (which, for some reason, keeps coming up in my brain as ‘Gravesend’). Then there was a brief stop at the Sofitel 35 (fabulous bar on the 35^th floor) and meeting Harvest editor and poet, Geoff Lemon and poet Josephine Rowe (http://harvestmagazine.wordpress.com/contributors/words-and-art-issue-three/). Next, dinner the second at the Melbourne Wine Bar with Ronnie and Pete. V nice!

Saturday: lunch with fellow Clarionite, Suze Willis, at Blue Train – much noise and laughter and very good food (bacon makes everything better). Then a wander across the bridge, back to Fed Square and into the line for the next session, Visions of the City, starring China Miéville (awesome), Margo Lanagan (awesomer) and Jack Dann (awesomest), and moderated by talented spec-fic writer Rjurick Davidson. Some interesting stuff, but a little meandering … and as usual, there are the members of the audience who ask questions that aren’t really questions, but incoherent burbles with a subtext of ‘This is actually about me, I really, really want to hold a microphone!’ A dead giveaway is when a question starts with ‘This is a two-part question’ … There was also the horror of the city councilor who had apparently not seen her speech before she read it out; did not seem to know the word ‘renaissance’ and, I’m pretty sure, pronounced ‘version’ as ‘virgin’ … it was a bit hard to swallow the trumpeting of Melbourne as a city of literature at that point. Maybe that’s just me being cruel and unreasonable (it happens), but I do think public officials should be better at speaking in public. Call me crazy …

Good to see some other fellow Clarionites, Amanda Le and Steve Mitchell; and then to go for a far-too-brief drink with Kirstyn McDermott (amazing writer, soon-to-be Picador author and general cool chick http://kirstynmcdermott.com/). And then to the MWF launch party with Meg V once again – met lots of people, drank passable wine, ate some great finger food … and then back to Sofitel 35 to discuss writing with the Steel Megnolia. Listened to outgoing festival director, Rosemary Cameron talk – and she’s wonderful. She used to direct the Brisbane Writers Festival and it’s great to see she brought the same energy and vibrant life to MWF that she did to BWF.

Sunday: off to the airport, arrived early in order to sit through a 2 hour delay. Huzzah. Back home about 5.30pm.

I’m not sure I had a real festival weekend … but I had a weekend and it involved a festival and there were writers …

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Some Brain-work …

… from my more-than-clever friend and fellow Clarion South survivor, Brendan David Carson. On why vampires are no longer scary, but clowns are terrifying. His brain is only slightly smaller than China Mieville’s.

An excerpt is below and the rest lives here  http://brendandcarsonsfiction.blogspot.com/2009/08/vampires-anticlowns-or-something.html.

Vampires – the anticlowns. Or something.

Hail,
I have been having an interesting discussion with one of my best friends about the whole toothless* vampires thing.

We all know that vampires – well, I was going to say suck, but that’d be wrong. Vampires do not suck. They do not suck any more. They do not feast, or terrify, or evoke pretty much anything except peripubescent teengirl lust and whatever the word is for that deep, soul yearning after someone else’s consumer products – ipod envy, or something.

They are no longer what we fear, either in ourselves or others, other genders, other races, other people – now they are what we envy. Ridiculously rich, impossibly beautiful, adored without needing to work, able to behave like bad children but be treated like good adults (killing animals and sneaking into people’s rooms at night?) – vampires are what our inner child wants to be.

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