When I first saw this book described by the author as being the book Jane Austen might have written had she lived in a world with magic, I did think that was a bit much. Obviously I wanted to *read* such a book, but really, comparing yourself to Austen? Isn’t that reaching a tad high, especially for a debut novelist? Also, let’s face it, a lot of authors have jumped on the Austen bandwagon. I’ve been burned by a lot of bad sequels to Pride and Prejudice, and while I never actually got around to trying that novel with added zombies, I did read a page of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and I’m never getting that thirty seconds of my life back!

But then I read this book, and I realised what was going on here.

Shades of Milk and Honey is a novel so immersed in Austen and what for the purposes of this review I shall call Austenalia, that it seems impossible to read it any other way. It verges on parody, though the clever use of language and extreme authenticity of characters keeps it on the right side of that line. Which is not to say that there is not a hint of mockery about Austenian conventions in this book – but it’s the gentle kind of mockery that comes from someone who genuinely loves that author’s work, as opposed to, for example, the clumsy and appallingly offensive Red Dwarf episode written by Robert Llewellyn who had obviously never even watched a costume drama all the way through to the end…

Where was I?

I can’t speak to the reading experience of Shades of Milk and Honey if you are not familiar with Austen – I think it would still be a very enjoyable story, a pleasing combination of magic and historical romance with strong family relationships and much social detail. It fits very nicely into the current fashion for women’s historical fantasy, and while it differs a great deal from Alaya Johnson’s Moonshine and Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series, I can see it sharing their reading audiences. There is a potential here for mass reading appeal among the non-spec-fic community, as with The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, the Naomi Novik novels about Temeraire, or the admittedly-not-genre The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler, and the book seems packaged to make the most of that potential readership. I hope it finds it!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mmmm coffee cake. I have just returned from Raeli’s Book Week parade. She dressed up as Rhapsody from the Fairies which isn’t overly literary (though she has several of their books!) but she came up with the idea herself, based on a trouble-free costume she already had, so who was I to argue? I was also delighted that her obsession with Cats the Musical has gone viral, as her friend Inigo insisted on going as Macavity. Not sure if he had a copy of TS Eliot with him.

The coffee cake came from the cake stall. Mmmm. Also from the Book Fair, I picked up a classic Alice in Wonderland colouring book and Egyptian sticker book for Raeli for our upcoming plane trip, and got myself a biography of Beatrix Potter purely because I adored the cover, plus she was heralded on it as a ‘Victorian genius’ which blew my mind. A female children’s author who drew slightly morbid pretty pictures (seriously, have you ever read Jemima Puddleduck, that book is MESSED UP) heralded as a genius! And a Victorian rebel, too. Had to buy it.

Anyway, getting distracted. On the way back I was listening to the latest Coode Street podcast in the car, and very pleased to get a shout out from some conversations I’ve had lately with Jonathan Strahan. Am totally working for my Feminist Advisory Committee t-shirt.

Once you get past the 10 or so minutes of discussion about what might or might not be happening with Gary’s microphone (SERIOUSLY, guys, learn to use the pause button!) I was interested to hear further discussion of the ongoing conversation they’ve been having about the core or centre of science fiction, and how that may or may not be the same thing.

Personally I really dislike the idea of science fiction having to have a core, mostly because I’m pretty sure the stuff I think should be in it is different to other people’s – I’ll have my own, core, thanks! And Jonathan acknowledged this, referring to a conversation we had when I pointed out that the younger you are, the more off-putting it is to be told (or have it implied) that you basically have to catch up on 60 or 70 (the younger you are the bigger the number gets) years worth of core material, before your opinion is worth something.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve spent the last several weeks sinking into a slow swamp of rewrites, but I can finally see a glimpse of sunshine, and if you don’t record the good days, somehow they get forgotten faster than anything else.

So today I:

edited seven chapters of Book 2, including three really tricky ones that needed New Writing, and one scene I’ve been planning to write for several months and only just got around to.

while also: shopping for baby food, doing laundry, ridding the kitchen of a scary large pile of washing up, cooking a beef casserole for dinner, baking a batch of cupcakes for Raeli to take for a school fundraiser tomorrow (Children’s Book Week means CAKE)

Partly I want to point out to myself that I can in fact do enough work to justify putting Jem in a full day of daycare a week (though she’ll be back to half days from next week – this was an emergency measure put in to help deal with a sudden extra workload.

And then I get worried that I’ll expect myself to achieve that level of domestic/professional awesomeness all the time, and fall in a heap.

Then I remember all the other things I should have done today – or, more properly, BEFORE today.

Then I tell myself not to be so hard on myself, because I had a good day, and the chances of a day available to work and a GOOD DAY’S WORK actually colliding are pretty rare, actually, and the very fact that I have only had a few full days of daycare in itself piles SO MUCH PRESSURE on that day that the fact that I get anything creative done is in itself a miracle.

So um yes. It was a good day, which is not something I take for granted. And I’m almost done with this book. Then I get a few days of leisure (ha!) to plan the trip to Melbourne, prepare for my panels, and hang out with my girls before I neglect them for a week.

Tomorrow I will take Raeli to school (the one day a week I do the drop off), take baby Jem in later to visit Raeli’s school for the Book Week Parade, take Jem to daycare in the afternoon, spend the next two hours doing a small amount of work such as editing two chapters and possibly posting some dolls, then pick up Raeli and take her to gymnastics.

Heh. Possibly all my days contain awesome achievements, just of different varieties. Thank goodness all my favourite podcasts have new episodes out. It makes the drudge work so very undrudgey. I look forward to housework now!

1.13 Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards
Gabrielle is tempted by a cute boy to enter a storytelling contest in the hopes of fulfilling her dream to attend Bard School. There are hijinks.

Oooh AND we find out how Xena and Gabrielle have been surviving. Xena might not sully herself with money, but Gabrielle earns a few dinars storytelling in a tavern.

Basically this is a clip show, but right from the beginning, the Xena production team (and later, Hercules) embraced the challenges of a clip show, making them more batty and ingenious each time, and I swear spending more money on them than any other episode. This one doesn’t quite reach those heights, but it uses clips from Steve Rees Hercules movies and Kirk Douglas in Spartacus (yes, Spartacus) to illustrate the stories that the boys tell, indispersed with Gabrielle’s own illustrated stories of her life with Xena, and is lightweight but enjoyable. The script cleverly uses bits and pieces from the Hercules episodes that introduced Xena’s character as well. Ultimately though, it’s a clip show, and nowhere near the brilliance that was to come only a season later to justify the format. But let’s move on, shall we…

Read the rest of this entry »

This wasn’t going to be a themed link post and then at the last minute I looked at the list of links and – well, yes!

NK Jemesin is interviewed for Locus.
This is only a taste of the full interview which I really enjoyed reading from the paper version of the magazine last week. The last pullquote on this page is particularly good but I liked the expanded version better where she discusses some of the amazing roles women and people of colour have had in history, that are often forgotten about by people reproducing “history” in their fantasy novels. This is a call to arms for better, more diverse fantasy and if you can get hold of the magazine, it’s well worth reading the whole thing. Makes me very excited to read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms which is currently climbing to the top of my To Read pile and waving a bunch of flags at me.

Karen Healey, meanwhile, is guestblogging at The Book Smugglers, a blog with I have to say the best header banner ever! Karen is talking about awesome female characters, and why she prefers that phrase to “strong female characters” and why cheerleaders are particularly excellent. Karen also talks about Teal Sherer, the actress who plays the fabulously evil Venom in The Guild and yes, does use a wheelchair in real life. (but hopefully is less SCARY MEAN than Venom in real life). As if that isn’t enough for a blog post, Karen also recs a whole bunch of cool girl books, some of which I agree with wholeheartedly (The Demon’s Covenant, Moonshine & Princess Ben), some I’ve been meaning to read (Girl Overboard) and many, many, many I have never even heard of but now am piling on to my Buy After Worldcon list.

Also, over on Alas! A Blog which reposted my Joanna Russ review, I was pointed towards this article about women of the Literature genre complaining publicly about the difference in review coverage between male and female authors in the field. I really don’t approve of the title because “all the sad young literary women” sounds awfully weak and disempowering when the article is really about some literary powerhouses such as Jodi Picoult getting vocal on Twitter about some really important issues of gender imbalance. They’re not being sad, they’re being ANGRY.

Over here, Margaret Atwood discusses her latest spec fic novel, “The Year of the Flood” and talks about science fiction, climate change and some other things, generally managing to sound about 10 times smarter than whoever it is interviewing her.

The whole provisional programme for Aussiecon is up here, but it is very much subject to change. I wasn’t available for the two panels I am listed for on Thursday, sadly.

But you will be able to find me here:

Friday 1000 (Room 204)
Galactic Suburbia
Alisa, Alex and Tansy record a “live” episode of their SF discussion
podcast, Galactic Suburbia. On the menu for this episode: regular
segments SF News and What We’ve Been Reading, plus Worldcon gossip and
highlights. Pet Subject: our Favourite Female Heroes of SF/F.
Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts

Friday 1200 (Room 207)
Non-traditional publishing in YA spec fic
A discussion of the opportunities beyond traditional print-based
publishing and the challenges that lie ahead.
Peta Freestone, Kate Eltham (chair),Tansy Rayner Roberts, Patrick
Nielsen Hayden

Friday 1500 [30 mins] (Rm 207)
Reading
Probably from Power & Majesty!

Saturday 1100 (Room 211)
Capes and skirts: The plight of female superheroes
Superman has starred in six feature films. Batman has starred in
seven. Wonder Woman has starred in none. The female superhero has been
a constant presence through the history of American comic books, but
yet has never managed to reach the traction of their male
counterparts. Who are the super heroines who succeed? Which ones fail?
Why can’t theyfind as big an audience, and what needs to be done to change that?
Why haven’t we seen a Wonder Woman movie?
Tansy Rayner Roberts, Karen Healey, Peter V. Brett, Seanan McGuire

Saturday 1700 (Rm 203)
Academic Panel: Fantastic females: reworking feminism in women’s fantasy
Is fantasy the new vanguard of feminist politics in specfic?
Fantasy authors discuss the role of gender issues in their work
Delia Sherman (mod), Catherynne M Valente, Gail Carriger, Alaya Johnson,
Glenda Larke, Tansy Rayner Roberts

Sunday 1200 (Room 204)
The case for a female Doctor
He’s transformed from an old man into a young one, so why not from a
man into a woman? Doctor Who remains one of the most imaginative and
open-ended science fiction programmes ever produced, but can the
format extend to include a female Doctor? What other elements of the
series are necessary? Does he/she have to have a TARDIS? Does there
need to be a companion? Must the series be British? An examination of
how far you can stretch the world’s most stretchable science fiction series.
Tansy Rayner Roberts, Carolina Gomez, Kerrie Dougherty,
Catherynne M. Valente, Paul Cornell

Monday 1300 (Room 213)
The world of YA spec fic reviewing
Those who know will share their experiences of reviewing YA
Speculative Fiction – and might make some suggestions.
Lili Wilkinson, Ian Nichols, Tansy Rayner Roberts,
Megan Burke (chair)

A mixed weekend, many highs and lows. I ran away from my family on Saturday to do some work on my book at the State Library in Hobart (it stays open an hour and a half longer than my local on Saturdays) and worked up a storm. I haven’t been in there for years, and was pleased to see how gorgeous it is now! It was my childhood library and it was exciting to see what a nice space it is.

Then I swung by to vote before going home. No sausage sizzle! Either I was ripped off or it was over well before 2pm which seems a bit lacking in forethought. Sadly this proved to be an omen for how the rest of the election was going to go.

The family had breakfast for dinner and settled down to watch the election results unfold. Towards the end, the only thing that would have made me happier was if they had cut back to Kerry O’Brien and Stephen Smith and they were in their pyjamas, having a pillow fight.

I was glad to see how well the Greens did in the Senate, but otherwise the whole thing was extremely demoralising. Oh, the stress and lack of closure!

At least Arsenal came to the party by giving us a 6-0 win over Blackpool. Happymaking

Today there was more work. See how you haven’t been missing much by me not blogging about my daily activities? WORK IS DULL TO HEAR ABOUT. Five more days and my structural edit is done, done, dusted, leaving me a few days to plan, shop and prepare for Worldcon. I think maybe I need a new coat. We’re going to be tramming all over the place and mine has bits falling off it constantly.

I will post my Worldcon schedule separately. I’m excited about lots of the items (though unfortunately wasn’t able to make the ones I was programmed for on Thursday) and especially that we are doing a “live” Galactic Suburbia episode on Friday morning.

Day 30 – What book are you reading right now?

I was looking forward to this question all along, because it was so far in the future, and how can you know what you’re going to read in a month’s time? There was always the possibility that I would completely cheat and fix the question, but I hoped I wouldn’t.

And I woke up this morning and realised I couldn’t answer the question at all, because I finished reading Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente on the iPad last night, and I wasn’t reading a book at all. Horrors!

Luckily, despite a chaotic day of editing, rain, Worldcon stress, the internet getting all in my face, and general childrenness, I managed to rectify the situation by lunchtime. I was very stern with myself, deciding I had to pick up the book on my current to read pile (um yes I now have a prime pile separate from my two tier shelf, don’t judge me) that I was most excited about reading RIGHT THIS SECOND, in order to be completely honest and not just pick something I thought made me sound smart or serious or cool or awesome.

So I would like to announce that I am now reading Mary Robinette Kowal’s debut novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, which is as promised EXACTLY like reading a Jane Austen book with magic in it. It even has oldey timey rough-ripped page edges, and uses the word ’shew!’ I love it already.

And with that, we come to the end of the book meme. Well, that was fun! It was kind of nice to take a break from talking about myself and explore some of my history of reading. Back to normal tomorrow, I guess, coming up with my OWN topics to blog about…

See you there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 14 is available now at iTunes! It should be available from the Galactic Suburbia site for streaming & direct download later today.

In which we rise above a chorus of dogs, babies and technological glitches to discuss Grand Conversations, why we have no opinions about Robert Heinlein, and why we’re crazy enough to be part of a project which means reading (almost) ALL the short stories.

News

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi wins Campbell Award

Jeff VanderMeer announces the closure of the Best American Fantasy anthology series

The WSFA shortlist – an award for short stories published small press.

Controversy caused by Sarah Hoyt’s Tor article on why all those women who don’t like Heinlein are actually wrong (yes, really). Hoyt also blogs here similarly, with a bit more revelation as to why she is so pro-Heinlein and again why those who are not are just WRONG.

What have we been reading/listening to?
Alisa: Watching – District 9, Caprica, Scott Pilgrim
Reading – The Grand Conversation, Timmi DuChamp,
Alex: Permutation City, Greg Egan; Galactic Suburbia, Lisa Yaszek; Shadow Unit (www.shadowunit.org); When it Changed, ed. Geoff Ryman; Swords and Dark Magic, ed. Jonathan Strahan
Tansy: Joanna Russ, How to Suppress Women’s Writing; Rosemary & Rue, Seanan McGuire
Listening – Angry Robot #2 with Kaaron Warren & Lauren Beukes

Pet Subject
How To Find the Best Short Fiction, and the Not If You Were the Last Short Story On Earth Project (LSS)
Why we LSS
What we learned from LSS
What we’re looking for in a great short story, where to find them, and what we have liked so far this year.

Rich Horton (part of our inspiration)

Feedback, etc: galacticsuburbia@gmail.com or on Twitter @galacticsuburbs

Day 29 – Saddest character death OR best/most satisfying character death (or both!)

Ha, this one is surprisingly easy, and for once I don’t feel the need to give a million different answers to a simple question.

To my mind, one of the absolute worst literary deaths of all time was Sirius Black, in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

[spoilers for all but the last Harry Potter book in the post below, on the grounds that some of you are following the films rather than the books and don't know yet which Weasley twin is doomed]

Read the rest of this entry »