The October issue of Ikarie (Czech Republic) has been released. It contains my story ‘The Title of this Story’, which first appeared in Paper Cities through Senses Five Press. This issue also contains fiction by Susanna Clarke.
I’m off to Japan for a brief holiday with the boy. Blogging will likely be light, with a slight chance of hilarity. I’m carrying an umbrella just in case.
I’m at 4k on the YA zombie love novel now, and it’s turning into something quite interesting.
I’m writing from two separate first person perspectives, and I’m aiming for quite a deep, thoughtful perspective. I find a lot of first person can be quite chatty, so I’m seeing what I can do/achieve in staying away from that.
I suspect that my 1k a day shall soon go to pieces with the imminent Japan trip (Thursday), but by then I shall have at least made a reasonable start, and plan to do what I can in terms of lugging about notebooks and those strange things apparently known as pens.
I am having vast amounts of fun with the zombie love novel, and have knocked out about 3k words so far, with hopefully more to come tonight. No, I won’t be participating in NaNo, as I have a holiday to Japan smack bang in the middle of November, which would make things a little difficult.
But for the next week or so, I shall be writing about gloriously romantic murderous mayhem. My main difficulty so far is making various types of fresh/raw/rare/decaying meat sound appetising, which is somewhat of a stretch given my vegetarianism. . .
I’m supposed to be writing a respectable young adult novel about a gambling syndicate at the moment.
But instead I have something called ‘Red Eyes and Blue Lips: A Zombie Love Story’ on my screen.
Kaaron Warren writes fabulously disturbing and, well, generally fabulous short stories, some of which have been collected in the recent The Grinding House through CSFG publishing. As Kaaron has recently moved to Suva, Fiji, I was curious as to how her book buying habits had changed, and whether she had managed to find a particular shop that spoke to her.
Bookshops are both rare and odd in Suva, so much so that it’s not possible to have a favourite. You have to find pleasure in a combination of all of them. You have to be investigative. One fabulous thing about Suva is that the shops have hidden treasures. Behind a pile of carpet you’ll find a stack of mid 50s pulp fiction. Beneath some smelly old shoes you’ll find “Atonement” or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. We found a stack of Goosebumps books for my son in a locked-tight grocery store. I think we were the first Europeans ever to enter.
So you can’t go out with a list. You have to keep an open mind; you want books and you don’t care what they are.
Suva Book Shop has maybe three hundred books, not many more than that, but there are treasures if you dig. I found a Richard Brautigan I hadn’t read, and Andrew Lang’s Myth, Ritual and Religion (volume 2 only. I doubt I’ll find volume 1).
You can’t ask for a specific book and there’s no such thing as pre-ordering. BookMasters did take my name for the Guiness Book of World Records. They never called, but they took my name.
The bookshop as a lucky dip is a great concept. It forces you to step out of the confines of your standard reading preferences and to try something you otherwise might not have. I love secondhand books for this reason. As they’re so much less expensive, you’re far more likely to take a risk on something new and unknown.
Charles Tan has been doing a fascinating series of posts on bookshops in the Philippines over at his blog. Post 1. Post 2. Post 3. You should go read those whilst I’m off writing a new novel. Yes, a new novel! Something that isn’t Downtown. Frabjous day, calloo, callay, and all that.
Previous Favourite Bookshop posts: Margo Lanagan; Lucy Sussex; Marshall Payne; Michael Pryor
Synopses are difficult to write.
How’s that?
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m trying to curtail my rather excessive book expenditure by ensuring that the only books I purchase are second-hand. This is not only a rather cheaper way of working, but I’m also more likely to pick up books by authors unfamiliar to me as there’s less financial risk involved. Yes, investment bankers should look to me in learning how to use money.
Anyway, one of my forays into the secondhand bookshop near Puckle Street, Moonee Ponds resulted in my picking up Blaze of Glory by Michael Pryor. Michael’s name rang a bell, but I hadn’t previously read any of his work. (Wait, it seems I lie–I just checked out Michael’s bibliography, and I read Mask of Caliban when I was about twelve, and thoroughly enjoyed it.)
Given my self-imposed frugality, I was very happy to hear that Michael is rather a fan of the bargains table in the Readings of Port Melbourne:
I love Readings, Port Melbourne. It’s the almost perfect combination of books, music and coffee - plus excellent cakes. Knowledgeable, helpful staff (good ’shelf talker’ staff recommendations), top coverage of off-beat stuff and it has an always tempting bargains table. Gotta love a bargain book!
Word of Honour, the third book in the Laws of Magic Trilogy, of which Blaze of Glory is the first, was released earlier this month. You can view a rather spiffy trailer for it here.
Previous Favourite Bookshop posts: Margo Lanagan; Lucy Sussex; Marshall Payne
Sam Tomaino reviews the latest issue of Shimmer in SF Revu. This issue contains my story ‘The Glass Girl Looks Back’.
L Timmel Duchamp reviews Paper Cities over at Strange Horizons. Another review of the anthology will go live on Strange Horizons on Wednesday, which might allow for an interesting point of comparison.
Novel edits are going rather well–I’m almost done with what is hopefully one of the last passes. Which is a touch daunting in and of itself, but also rather cool.
I had a chat with Marshall Payne recently about his favourite bookshop, and what he had to say made me smile. I think a lot of booklovers would love to have a local bookshop where the staff know everything that’s on the shelves–and even better, have read the books and can offer a considered opinion and some discussion. Getting a friend and mentor out of it as well all sounds a little bit dreamlike:
I found my way to becoming a fiction writer via an odd path. I was a pro musician for many years, and in 1984 at the age of 27 I awoke one morning on the road and wanted to be a fiction writer. Precisely, I wanted to be a science fiction writer. Odd thing was, I’d never read much of the stuff. Somehow I suspected the field might accommodate my outré ideas, and that there was probably a little niche in it that wasn’t all ray guns and rocket ships. I talk about it in this interview here, if you’re curious, but basically a friend of mine gave me a list of writers to read: Zelazny, Delany, Phil Dick, Le Guin, etc. I had a lot of catching up to do!
So I set out on my search and found The Book Nook, a used book store in Wichita, Kansas, where I was living at the time. It was typical in a lot of respects, divided into sections: mainstream, romance, mystery, Westerns, and yes, SF/F. That day I met its owners, Jim and Cindy Jones. Turns out, they we’re quite well educated and loved speculative fiction. I got more than I bargained for when I walked through their doors. Not only did I get two really great friends, but Jim was instrumental in introducing me to our field. He was also quite helpful in reading over my first few dismal attempts at fiction and telling me what I was doing wrong. Sometimes his crits were harsh, but that’s exactly what I needed. While not a fiction writer, he was a smart man and a voracious reader.
One time he asked me what I meant by ‘her esoteric beauty’ in a story I had just written. I told him I thought it meant that she had an odd beauty about her. He set me straight on what ‘esoteric’ meant: ‘Only for the initiated,’ he said. For one thing, Jim taught me to question word usage and consult my dictionary when in doubt, though a couple of years ago I did finally slip that phrase into a story where it made sense. Mostly to prove I could do it, but also to wink at my old friend.
When Stephanie asked me to write about a bookstore that stands out in my mind, I fondly remember The Book Nook. After that first fledging attempt, I gave up fiction writing for many years to pursue music, so Jim and I lost touch with one another, but today I vividly remember those formative times. The Book Nook wasn’t unique as a book store, but its owner made it that way for me.
Marshall’s been a prolific chap of late, selling stories all over the place and writing thoughtful reviews at The Fix. You can check out his biography at his page there, or his livejournal.
Previous Favourite Bookshop posts: Margo Lanagan; Lucy Sussex
