Day 19 – Favorite book cover (bonus points for posting an image!)

For once I’m just putting up one answer! Though as usual, struggling not to put up one of my own!

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Some thoughts raised by the recent episode of The Coode Street Podcast, featuring Locus editor/debut novelist Amelia Beamer:

Amelia’s first zomromcom novel The Loving Dead sounds all kinds of awesome and if I hadn’t already pre-ordered it, I would be doing so on the strength of this podcast! The discussion of Kelly Link’s influence on how zombie stories can be told was also really interesting. Also the most recent zombie contingency plan I read was in a Glee fanfic. They get around!

The gang discuss the growing divide in the scene between short and long fiction as one is increasingly published by small/independent presses and the other by mass market. While I agree with this discussion in the main, I do think it should be pointed out that the one area this seems to not be true (and is becoming less true if that makes sense) is YA. I’ve been saying for the last couple of years that some of the most interesting work in spec fic seems to be coming out of the YA field. I’ve also noticed more and more mass market short fiction collections emerging from that field – they might have trashy titles and seem to be mostly about vampires, zombies, boyfriends and prom dates, but they are also featuring some of the most respected writers in the field, such as Holly Black, Libba Bray, the Larbalesterfelds, and so on. I see these books popping up in places like the local Big W (the closest thing Australia has to a Wal-Mart, I think) and can never resist picking them up, because even though sometimes they will have a bunch of cheeseball Buffy wannabe tales in them, there is almost certain to be a couple of real gems, and even the average stories are a lot more readable to me than the contents of an average issue of F&SF.

This is particularly noteworthy, I think, considering the massmarket paperback release of Kelly Link’s YA collection, Pretty Monsters. I’ve seen it a few places and didn’t buy it because I knew I had all the stories, but since then the very existence of that book has (quite appropriately) been eating my brain, to the point that I know next time I go into town I am going to pick it up. It’s a freaking Kelly Link book, and seeing it on bookshelves in my home town instead of having to order a pretty hardback from Small Beer Press is all kinds of awesome. I regularly lend out her first two collections, and I know that this is a book I will regularly press into people’s hands. So yes, I’m going to be buying it.

I’m actually completely in the mood to reread Kelly Link’s body of work, and not just because of Gary Wolfe reminding me how awesome Magic For Beginners was.

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So was anyone else bizarrely entranced by the finale of Lost, despite having never watched it apart from occasional glimpses and one random episode after it was already universally judged to have jumped the shark?

Or was it just me?

I’ve always been remotely fascinated by Lost, actually, mostly because the first season was a phenomenon that I missed out on entirely, and the waves of disappointment started coming in round about the first episode of season two, and there were so many comparisons to the ways in which X Files both failed and succeeded, and yet… the show kept going. For six years.

And for most of those six years, the two kinds of sayers (doom and nay) have been gleefully reporting that, you know, it was never going to end well. Seriously. It was going to disappoint. All of you who love it? DOOMED to be disappointed.

Now the episode has screened the reports are in, and it’s a mixture of wailing, gritted teeth, WTF, disappointment, and even a few ‘well I liked it actually’s sneaking in here and there. Opinions seem to be divided, depending on expectations – those who never wanted explanations for every event are certainly the happiest! I’ve been fascinated to read the various viewer responses, despite having little to no investment in the show itself.

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Galactic Suburbia Episode 7 is now live! (that is, you can play it on the website and it’s up on iTunes, the download should be available by tonight our time) In this episode we welcome our first special guest to the show, editor and anthologist Jonathan Strahan. Jonathan is the Locus Reviews Editor. He is a three time Hugo Award nominee and Locus, Aurealis, Ditmar, Peter McNamara, and William J Atheling Jr award winning editor of nearly fifty books. His most recent books include Legends of Australian Fantasy and Swords and Dark Magic. Coming up are Godlike Machines and Engineering Infinity.

Check out our show notes below!

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Justine Larbalestier is a writer.

1. What most pleased and most disappointed you about last year’s release of Liar, and the public response to it?

The response to Liar has been very intense. It is the most loved (and hated) of my books to date. Some of the letters teens have been writing me about Liar have made me cry. Especially the ones from readers who identify so strongly with Micah and her isolation. It’s been a very moving experience and I’m thrilled the book has been so important for those readers.

2. You’re co-editing the high profile anthology Zombies vs. Unicorns which will be released later this year. What was it about this book that excited you most, and why are you so committed to Team Zombie?

Ah, yes, the book that began as a joke. Zombies versus Unicorns started with me saying mean things about unicorns to tease my friend Diana Peterfreund who had a wonderful book, Rampant, coming out about killer unicorns. Then Holly leapt to the defence of unicorns in the comment thread of my blog: http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2007/02/15/blurbs, asking me what I had against unicorns. Holly is a passionate unicorn lover. I countered by demanding to know what she has against zombies. (Because I knew she hated them.) And it grew from there. Before long lots of bloggers were joining the debate (and there were a million suggestions of zombie-unicorns. Yawn.) So I suggested the idea of an antho to Holly and we went from there. The truth was that when all this began I didn’t have a particularly strong opinion about either. I definitely preferred zombie movies to unicorn ones and was a Romero fan but that was about it. Of course, now that I am head of Team Zombie I am completely devoted to zombies and against the dread scourge of unicorns.

And look you can vote for which you prefer: http://promo.simonandschuster.com/zombiesvsunicorns/

3. What’s next for Justine Larbalestier? What writing project is top priority right now?

I am writing an epic fantasy set in the 1930s in New York City. There is lindy hopping in it. I am also working on a Top Sekrit project.

4. Which Australian writers or work would you like to see on the Hugo shortlists this year?

You know if I answer this question I’m just going to get in trouble cause I’ll forget the work of someone wonderful who’s a good friend and they’ll kill me.

5. Are you planning to go to Aussiecon 4 in September? If so, what are you most looking forward to?

I’m hoping to be able to get there but right now the odds are not with me.

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Also interviewed today: Marianne De Pierres, Richard Harland, Karen Miller, Margo Lanagan, Ben Peek, Narelle Harris, Paul Collins, Damien Broderick, Shane Jiraiya Cummings, Angela Slatter, Dion Hamill

Snapshot interviews will be blogged from Monday 15th until Sunday 22nd Feb.

To read them hot off the press, check these blogs daily:
http://random-alex.livejournal.com/
http://girliejones.livejournal.com/
http://kathrynlinge.livejournal.com/
http://www.mechanicalcat.net/rachel
http://tansyrr.com/
http://editormum.livejournal.com/

Will we beat 83 this time? If you know of someone involved in the Scene with something to plug, then send us an email at 2010snapshot@gmail.com.

So after my thwarted attempt to have a no buying books for myself month in December (I swear, feminist tomes kept hurling themselves at my head, it was a moral imperative to take them home) and because my bank balance is looking somewhat sickly, I decided that I was going to refrain from buying books for the months of February AND March.

This is a very big deal.

What this means is nothing that gives me the ‘hit’ that comes from purchasing a book – which includes clicking pre-order buttons. So far what I have learned from the exercise is that yes, I am an addict.

I thought I would track the experiment (and keep myself from clicking ‘buy’ buttons) by keeping track of all the books I had more than a fleeting impulse to buy – ones that I definitely wanted for at least three moments. I should add that it is unlikely I would have bought all the books on the list without the pledge holding me back – at least, I really hope not.

So far I’m ten days in and I have 17 books on the list.

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A couple of months ago, my editor at HarperCollins asked me for some initial thoughts on type of cover that might work for The Creature Court. We talked about potential themes, subjects and the choice between iconic/illustrative/character-based covers. I ‘m still waiting to see what I end up with (not my job, out of my control, and yet and yet and yet IMPATIENT).

I wish I’d seen these images of electricity photographed by Hiroshi Sugimoto before I was asked for my imput, though. More iconic than illustrative, certainly, and probably not appropriate for selling otherworld fantasy (though definitely appropriate for my books). Wouldn’t they look wicked on a book cover?

Justine Larbalestier talks here about the job of book covers.

The great thing about having a houseguest (especially the awesome kind that you want to talk to all the time), is that it has all the benefits of going away for the holidays (especially ‘I can’t possibly get any work done so this is enforced leisure time’) but with the comforts of home. Yesterday we had the girls around for a sewing circle for them to meet or catch up with GJ. I haven’t been able to go to sewing group since I had Jem, so that was rather lovely. I finally dug out my needles and yarn to start making the iPod cozy I desperately need, after spending most of the session trying to demonstrate to Raeli how awesome French knitting is (mostly she likes unravelling it).

Today, we capped off the main part of  girliejones’s visit with a trip to the Mt Nelson signal station, in order to watch the boats come up the river for the Sydney-Hobart and share some more lovely Tasmanian scenery with GJ.

Then we put her on the bus and sent her off to the land of dodgy internet (aka Flinthartsville) for the second half of her holiday. It’s sad to see her go (“I miss Alisa,” Raeli said sadly, two minutes after we had left her at the bus station) but we are looking forward to the weekend at which apparently  flinthart will be bringing her back early and setting up an overnight camp in our garden with his kids. House party!

It’s hot and the house feels empty without Alisa, so we are zoning out in the living room, inhaling a Christmas DVD of Justice League Unlimited. The belated turkey is cooking in the oven (we got distracted!) and there’s still plenty of chocolate in the house. Life is really not that hard.

Back in the world of the living (which is to say, the internet), Justine Larbalestier wrote a blog post post in response to my review of Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, confirming my theory on the book appealing to a different (though overlapping) audience to Scott’s other YA books. Definitely worth a read!