Snapshot 2007: Garth Nix
Garth Nix is the author of the Keys to the Kingdom series, as well as the Old Kingdom series (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen). He can be found online here.
Q1: The fifth book in the Keys to the Kingdom series, Lady Friday, was published this year, so there’s just two more to go – Superior Saturday and Lord Sunday. Have you already completed these? If so, how does it feel to have to sit on them for years before they actually get published – does it get frustrating? (Also, as a bonus: what did it feel like to have the UK bookstore WH Smith give away Mister Monday free to people who ordered Harry Potter 7?!)
I wish I had already written them, but unfortunately I’m still working on SUPERIOR SATURDAY and will have LORD SUNDAY to do after that. But it’s a nice feeling to be most of the way through the series, and also to be able to begin to reveal in more detail the entirety of the ‘big story’ that I had in mind when I started thinking about the series back in 2000-2001.
The WH Smith promotion was a good one, and I always like my books being part of some clever marketing. They ended up giving away more than 250,000 copies of MISTER MONDAY and if all has worked out as planned, some appreciable proportion of those readers will pick up the rest of the series or some of my other books.
Q2: You’ve been a guest at a number of conventions now: the Brisbane and Sydney Writers’ Festival, for example, and most recently at Conflux in Canberra. Is this just to keep the fans happy and get a chance to travel, or do you get something out of it as well?
The whole festival/convention scene is a funny one. Like everyone else, when I first started out I didn’t get invited to be a guest at any of them, but I had time to go and would have liked to be a guest. Then as time passed and I had more books published I started being invited to some, and then a few more and now I get invited to so many that I could probably be a guest at some sort of festival or convention somewhere in the world almost all the time. But now I don’t have time, and of course, I couldn’t do that and live my normal family life, let alone get any writing done. I have met other authors who can write when they’re at festivals or on tour, but I find it very difficult myself. Nowadays, I tend to accept invitations that tie in with when I’m going to be on tour anyway, like the Bath Festival of Children’s Literature in the UK in September, or where I have not been able to take up an invitation for a few years, like Melbourne Writers Festival later this month. I also decided to try to get to the World Fantasy Convention every two years, mainly to catch up with fellow writers from all over the world. Apart from the social aspect of catching up with other writers and publishing folk, festivals and conventions are also a good way to connect with a lot of readers in a short space of time.
Q3: You’ve written a number of novels, and quite a few short stories – those collected in Across the Wall, as well as being published in the webzine Jim Baen’s Universe and anthology Dark Alchemy. In the next five or so years, where do you see yourself concentrating your efforts – novel or short? And will you stick with writing for young adults?
I don’t really plan the short fiction, just every now and then an idea crops up and it turns out to be a short story rather than part of a current novel or notes for a future book-length work. So I expect that I will keep writing occasional pieces of short fiction as well as working on novels. I have a story in Jonathan Strahan’s forthcoming ECLIPSE anthology, for example, and another in Ellen Datlow’s and Terri Windling’s CINDERELLA GAME. Some of these stories are for young adults, some are slanted older, but I don’t really think much about that either, they just turn out to have a natural reading entry age which may be younger or older.
Q4: Amidst the traveling and writing you’ve done this year, hopefully you’ve squeezed in some reading too: what do you think is the best thing you’ve read so far in 2007?
I don’t read as much as I used to, nor as much as I would like, and a lot of my reading is non-fiction. One of the best things I’ve read this year is DOUBLE EAGLE AND CRESCENT: VIENNA’S SECOND TURKISH SIEGE AND ITS HISTORICAL SETTING by Thomas M. Barker, which is quite an old book. In terms of new genre fiction, I’ve enjoyed SATURN RETURNS by Sean Williams and many of the stories in THE NEW SPACE OPERA edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan. Apart from that, I’ve been re-reading some old favourites, including a bunch of children’s historical novels by Ronald Welch, KNIGHT’S FEE by Rosemary Sutcliff and to round out the eclectic mix, the GUNNER ASCH books by Hans Helmut Kirst.
Q5: Finally, to finish on a silly note: are there any fictional characters that you would like to meet, and be… intimate… with?!
Oddly enough, given that I love the deep immersion of reading and I love writing and trying to make characters ‘real’, I never think of my real life and any world of fiction or the people in it intersecting, either intimately or not. I suppose that even when engrossed in a book I am also observing it and my own experience reading it, so am forever fated to be detached. I also have a strong instinct for the ‘rightness’ of stories, they are whole constructs that exist in themselves, and taking characters out of the story or out of their relationships within the story to have one with me feels like breaking an 18th century porcelain teapot to run off with the handle. There, plenty for the amateur psychologists to think about!
Snapshot 2007: DM Cornish
DM Cornish is the author and illustrator of Monster Blood Tattoo, and can be found online here.
Q1: You’ve been shortlisted, with Monster Blood Tattoo, for the Children’s Book Council of Australia awards – congratulations! And for your first published work, too… tell us about it: how did you find out, how did you feel, what does it mean to you to be shortlisted?
Thank you very much, ma’am. My publisher, Dyan Blacklock, called me and told me and it felt very good; my hope and desire is to write good stories, to write them well, I have no idea if I have achieved this with MBT but a short-listing is certainly encouraging. As for what it means, in purely banal, fiduciary terms it means extra sales – the shortlist is viewed as a buying guide for most schools and libraries – but more especially it just feels like a big gold star (in the right kind of way), a “well done and keep going†– and I am very very grateful to be included.
Q2: Monster Blood Tattoo is one of the prettiest books I’ve seen in a long time – the illustrations are lovely, and the whole book is an experience of the world you’ve created, the Half-Continent, down to the name-plate at the very beginning. (Who me? A simpering fan?!) Was it your idea, to market the book that way, or some bright spark with your publisher?
It was very much my hope to make a book that was a complete experience and Dyan Blacklock was equally as keen (as long as the numbers worked – as in $$$). In 4th year uni I had a visual journal that was blue and black and cloth covered. I loved that book, loved sticking weird collages and doing odd doodles in it and when it came time to publish my very own book (woohoo!) I wanted to make something that replicated that loved tome of my younger years. Indeed, I took a reduction in my royalty to make it possible to afford the production of the MBT series in the hardback form (Australian & New Zealand) readers can buy. That blue hard bound edition is very much close to my heart.
The name plate was very much about me wanting to make the reading experience as rich and immersing as possible – this is all about suspending disbelief and escaping into another place after all. I figured that for the right reader the idea of a) feeling like you just might be holding a book made in the Half-Continent, and b) even identifying with the protagonist by naming yourself as a foundling too just might make the immersion just that much more deep. By way of a sneak preview, the book plate for Lamplighter (MBT Book 2) will be of a book given to you from the Empire itself.
As to the character illustrations, they are there because of the influence of Mervyn Peake’s books and those wonderful character studies that pepper his works. The way the illustrations appear in MBT is more formal – with frames and name plates – but the heart of the idea is Mr Peake. I might just add to this that I only wanted to show characters rather than whole scenes, to still allow the reader space to imagine these scenes for themselves – the reader of a novel has to have that freedom, surely.
In the end, I think of the Half-Continent itself like others might remember great holiday destinations they have really been too, and regard its characters like recalling close friends who happen to live in another city at the moment – and I would love to impart some of that to my readers. If I do then joy!, mission very much accomplished.
Q3: Monster Blood Tattoo is going to be at least a trilogy, I presume – there seems to be a lot of scope in the Half-Continent for Rossamund to keep getting into, and out of, trouble. Paint yourself a prophet, and look at the next 5 years: where to? Will you stay with young adult fiction? Are there short story ideas lurking in your mind, that might fill in some odd corners of the world you’ve created? Or is writing going to take second place to world domination?
In the next 5 years, Lord willing, I would love to write other stories about other characters in different situations – to explore the H-c (as I abbreviate the Half-Continent) from other points of view. I have swilling about my noggin a couple of ideas, one being an whole novel about two characters thrust together by circumstances and off to see the world, the other a collection of short stories – just as you said (ma’am, after reading your review of Book 1 and the above bit of foresight I reckon you and I might be on a sympathetic wave-length). The very first proper narrative writings of the H-c were short stories (barely a handful and poorly written at that) and it is a form I can see being very liberating as I explore all sorts of aspects of the H-c and the lands around it from many different periods in its history too. I reckon it might be a great way to show folks the breadth of my ideas – Rossamünd’s story only goes a small way into the ideas I have in my head and scribbled in my notebooks. There is even a notion for a graphic novel of short stories too, but we shall have to wait and see.
The YA section is such a rich and vibrant part of publishing currently and my working relationship with my publisher so fruitful I see no need to venture anywhere else. I just wish people would stop thinking that doing things for children is somehow less than writing for adults; you can see the , look in some folk’s eyes when they find out I’m a writer then I tell them it’s YA, it is a look that goes from keen interest to “oh, so you’re not a real writer then…†Very disheartening. Still, if I did or did not do things based on the comprehension of others there would be no H-c or MBT.
As to world domination, I had a great idea about it that I wrote down but – stupid me! – I left them in the pocket of my jeans and they went through the wash, paper utterly destroyed plans lost. So that was a bit of a setback I can tell you, ah well…
Q4: Hopefully you’ve had the chance to do some reading this year, along with the excitement of Monster Blood Tattoo coming out: what has been the best thing you’ve read this year?
I, Claudius, Robert Graves – wonderfully written (and much plundered for possible concepts that fit the H-c); “Red Spikes,” Margo Lanagan – I love the short story form and this is such a sweet sweet example of the craft; Ock von Fiend, Luke Edwards – a fellow stable-mate at Omnibus Books and one of the best picture books I have in my largish collection; Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell – a superb book on re-thinking Christian thought and expectation.
Q5: And finally, if wishes were fishes is there any fictional character you would want to get it on with?! (Don’t worry, everyone is getting this question!)
Umm… well, those who know MBT might think I might say Europe, yet I tend not to think of my characters that way. If I made my wife, Tiffany, into a fictional character then I would say her – but I get to be with her for real so that kinda covers it for me. (This is a nice, boring answer I’m sure, but there you go…)
Snapshot 2007: Juliet Marillier
Juliet Marillier has been a full time writer since about 2002. She has written nine novels so far, with a tenth due out later this year. She can be found on the web here.
Q1: Wildwood Dancing has been included in the Books Alive promotion this year. Was there a process you had to go through for that to happen? And you’ve also been doing talks at libraries and bookshops in conjunction with that: have they been a good experience for you?
I earn my living as a writer, and it’s a standard part of my work to deliver talks at libraries, bookshops, writers’ festivals and so on. Libraries and librarians played a big part in fostering my childhood love of books, so I especially like being involved in library events. The Q&A sessions this time around produced some interesting discussion about the craft of writing.
With Books Alive, I had no involvement in the process for inclusion. I do know the book choices for each category were made by different panels of experts. This year about 80% of the titles chosen are by Australian authors – a vigorous campaign by ASA helped that come about.
Q2: You’ve written about quite different countries and cultural groups in your books – the Bridei Chronicles set with the Picts, Wolfskin and Foxmask with the Vikings, Wildwood Dancing in Romania. How much research have you done for each area, and has it been difficult to maintain their distinct cultural voices over extended periods of writing?
I do extensive research for every novel. Generally by the time I begin writing I am pretty much immersed in the appropriate culture. For Wolfskin and Foxmask, for instance, I read a lot of the Icelandic sagas and also visited both Orkney and the Faroe Islands so that my portrayal of place would be as accurate as possible. And I studied the history. Researching Wildwood Dancing took me to Transylvania, and although I didn’t meet any vampires, I learned far more about the Romanian people’s attitudes to their own culture than I could ever have found out by reading background material.
Cultural voices – I do my best to capture them, but it can be hard to get the balance right between cultural authenticity and a mode of storytelling that will work for a present day audience. The core of the story should be in some way relevant to the reader’s own life, and the challenge is to achieve that while pulling the reader right into the time and place of the book. My stories contain human dilemmas that are common in any age and culture (for instance, tangled relationships, divided loyalties, tests of faith and courage, political imperatives warring with personal beliefs and so on). Dialogue can be tricky. None of the cultures of my books was English-speaking. The question is how to phrase the characters’ everyday, casual language so it is neither too archaic nor too modern. I veer towards modern idiom for informal dialogue and some readers don’t like that. But a lot of our colloquial expressions would have had their medieval Pictish equivalents, after all.
Q3: The sequel to Wildwood Dancing, Cybele’s Secret, is due out fairly soon, and you’re also working on a couple of adult novels. Would you see yourself working on more adult, or more young adult, novels in the next five years or so, and why?
Because writing is the way I make my living, I have to consider three questions: What do I want to write? What do my readers want me to write? What are my publishers prepared to publish? I have two stand-alone adult novels under contract and after those are done I hope to write a fourth instalment of the Bridei Chronicles. So if there is another YA book to come, it won’t be for a while. I generally work at the rate of one novel per year.
I’ve enjoyed writing Wildwood Dancing and Cybele’s Secret and I feel there should definitely be a third in this series, featuring the youngest sister in the Piscul Dracului family, Stela. But overall I prefer to write for adults, partly because I struggle to tell a story within the shorter length of a YA novel and partly because I found editorial requirements for my YA books a little restrictive. Having said that, I’ve learned some economy of style through writing these two YA novels and that is a good thing.
Q4: Apart from writing, hopefully you’ve had time to do some reading this year as well. What would you say has been the best thing you’ve read so far in 2007?
I just finished Kushiel’s Justice by Jacqueline Carey, which I really loved. This is Carey back in top form, an intricate, absorbing, utterly stylish novel.
Q5: Finally, as a completely inappropriate way to conclude this interview: if you could get it on with any fictional character, who would it be?!
One-night stands are not my thing, so I’d be looking for long-term partner material. Good character would matter more than physical attributes. When I wrote my first novel, Daughter of the Forest, I deliberately gave the hero, nicknamed Red, all the qualities I’d like in a real-life partner: kindness, consistency, honour and integrity. Also, he’s physically rather well endowed. Alienated, difficult men make interesting lovers on the printed page, but they’re a lot less appealing in real life.
Snapshot 2007: Tansy Rayner Roberts
Dr Tansy Rayner Roberts’ novel for children, Seacastle – book 1 of The Lost Shimmaron series – was published this year. She is also involved in the Young Adult-focussed ezine Shiny, and can be found online here.
Q1. So. Shiny and Shimmaron. What’s the go with the Young Adult focus? And the alliteration?
The alliteration is coincidental! I’ve been moving towards doing children’s and young adult fiction for some time, because I really believe that’s where the exciting stuff is happening in our genre right now (plus, the books? shorter!) but it’s something of a coincidence that it’s all happening for me this year. The Shimmaron has been a project in motion for four years that just happened to appear Right Now, and as for Shiny… well, I take total credit for the idea, if not the project!
Internationally, as the profile of YA SF has increased, there have been a number of anthologies released to appeal to that audience (that audience including teenagers who don’t want to be talked down to, and adults who like to read about smart teens) but no magazine markets that follow up on that. So we made one! We’re really excited with some of the authors and stories we’ve picked up so far, and will be making a splash with our first issues later this year. Stay tuned!
PS: The Lost Shimmaron series is actually aimed at children – it occasionally gets listed as YA, but it’s definitely the lower end, as in 8-12 yr olds. I keep getting fan comments from people who read it to their 4 year olds! I don’t want people to expect there are going to be, like, faery drugs and troll sex and all those other good YA things in it. It’s a mermaidy adventure story.
Q2. You’ve had a few short stories published in places like Andromeda Spaceways, and more recently Fantastical Journeys to Brisbane, as well as novels. Do you have a preferred length to write towards? – do you always know whether an idea is a short or a novel?
Actually, the perfect length for a story for me is about 13,000 words. Which is tragic, really. It’s a cross I have to bear.
I’m a novel girl at heart, it’s how I think. I’m always surprised and delighted when I get a short story idea that will actually work in 6,000 words or less, but it doesn’t come naturally to me. Having said that, I *loved* writing Seacastle, Book 1 of the Lost Shimmaron, because 20,000 words is such a beautiful novel length. Should be more of it!
My trouble is that I think in worlds, so even when I write shorts, I usually want to jam them into a series. It has to be all about the novels right now, though, because last year I swore I’d have three new novel-length manuscripts completed by the time I was thirty, and I have just under a year to go. Score is currently at one with just minor edits to go, one which needs about 30,000 words added to the front of it, plus edits, and one that needs to be written from scratch. I can totally do it.
Q3. You’ve just completed your PhD looking at the use of the term ‘Augusta’ and how it was applied to various Roman women. Can we look forward to a historical fantasy story from you sometime in the future – perhaps with Agrippina or Julia meeting a mermaid? And if not, why not, choose your favourite colour… or explain what else might be coming up.
Heh – I have just completed it, as of about 6pm yesterday [Friday]! Hooray! You may address me as Dr Tansy.
I’ve been wanting to write about my period of Ancient Rome for years, but never quite got up the nerve. I had an alternate history all planned for a while, kind of Roman steampunk (because there’s this legend that steam engines were invented but the Emperor dismissed them because “what would we do with the slaves”) and I was researching Egyptian technology for ages, but I’ve never followed through.
I’ve written half a short story about Caesar being haunted by Pompey’s severed head when he meets Cleopatra. I want to finish that, but as usual, I have no idea how to finish the damn thing. Maybe I need to add smut…
I *really* want to write about the romance of Octavian and Livia, because that story fascinates me (she was pregnant with her second child to first husband when he married her), and none of the historical novelists seem willing/interested to cover it. I adore young Octavian, he was such a little psychopath and yet he reinvented himself so effectively later on.
And I had this whole idea about writing a story about the afterlife of the deified members of the Julio-Claudian family. Drusilla and Livia, in particular. Such a catfight waiting to happen. Livia died first, but her great-granddaughter got to be a goddess first! Imagine the tensions.
I actually have a huge epic book/series planned which incorporates magic and Roman women’s history, but it’s way down the list of manageable projects, because it’s going to be so damn big! And of course there’s the ‘history fear’ thing to get over, where the more you know about a historical era, the more paranoid you become about getting it Wrong.
In the mean time, the novel I’m working on (the one that needs the beginning added to it) revolves around a festival calendar directly inspired by the Ancient Romans, and the city itself is grounded in my memories of Rome. So that will have to be enough for now!
PS: My favourite colour is green.
Q4. You’re part of the Last Short Story crew, and well known as having a Harry Potter fanfic obsession: what’s the best thing you’ve read this year?
Ooh, that is a really difficult question. I’ve read over 90 books, over 1000 short stories and um, mumble, over 1500 fanfics (including at least 50 novel & 100 novella length ones).
Having said all that, the one piece of reading I’ve picked up this year and adored uncritically is the Fruits Basket manga series – I resent it when I really like something that’s hugely popular and have to join the crowd, but I couldn’t resist this one.
I also loved Castle Waiting by Linda Medley, The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke, The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton by Kathryn Hughes, everything that fanfic writers mistful and sam_storyteller have ever written, and two stories from Aurealis #37: “John Wayne,” by Ben Peek and “Domine” by Rjurik Davidson. And I’m ordering Steve Berman’s novel Vintage on the strength of his gingerbread boys story “Bittersweet” in the new Endicott Studio zine.
Q5. Last, but most salacious: choose one fictional character to get it on with. Who would it be?
Colleen McCullough’s version of Julius Caesar. Mmmm.
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This interview was conducted as part of the 2007 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’ll be blogging interviews from Monday 13 August to Sunday 19 August and archiving them at ASif!: Australian SpecFic in Focus. You can read other interviews at:
http://kathrynlinge.livejournal.com
http://girliejones.livejournal.com/
http://benpayne.livejournal.com/
http://kaaronwarren.livejournal.com/
http://cassiphone.livejournal.com/
If you’re involved in the Scene and have something to plug, then send us an email and we’ll see what we can do!
Snapshot 2007: Justine Larbalestier
Justine Larbalestier is the author of the Magic or Madness trilogy, editor of the anthology Daughters of Earth, and her website can be found here.
Q1. The Magic or Madness trilogy has, deservingly in my opinion, been nominated for a number of awards – and won one, congratulations! Do you get actual trophies for these awards, and if so do you use them as bookends? As well, what do you see as the value of being nominated for, and winning, such awards?
Yes, it [the award] was an actual thing: A big lump of lucite with a galaxy inside. But as there’s only one it’s failing me as a bookend.
Awards exist for readers not for writers. The purpose of most awards is to draw attention to a particular genre or country or whatever. Like the Miles Franklin Award was to encourage more people to take Australian literature seriously. Same for the National Book Award in the United States. In the US the big YA award is the Printz Award which was created with the purpose of helping librarians build their collections.
I think it’s a big mistake for writers to think that awards have anything to do with them. Being shortlisted or winning is a big old fluke. Be happy, but don’t be thinking it actually certifies you a genius or anything. Many many brilliant books get overlooked and crappy books have been known to win awards. Also I’ve been part of the award process and seen the best book be hated by other jurors, while I hated their fave books. And when an award is popularly voted it’s still a crap shoot.
Certain awards have a huge effect on a writer’s career. In Australia winning a Children’s Book of the Year Award means lots of guaranteed sales and the Premier’s awards mean a nice big cheque. In the USA winning a Newbery means HUGE guaranteed sales and your book never going out of print. However, there are very few awards with anything like that impact.
If I had to choose between winning lots of awards and having huge sales I’d take the sales any day of the week. I’d also take sales over critical acclaim.
Q2. You collected together eleven short stories written by women for Daughters of Earth. Did you choose stories you already liked, or have to go out hunting? And – as a bonus – what was the inspiration for the collection?
I did not choose any of the stories. I chose the scholars who wrote essays about the stories. I figured it would be a lot more fun for them to write about a story they were passionate about so I let them pick out which story to write about. I had the fun job of clearing copyright. The inspiration was Wesleyan University Press asking me if I would put together an anthology for them. Ah, the romance!
Q3. Magic or Madness is aimed at the young adult audience. Do you see yourself continuing to aim at this audience in the future, or changing focus? And why?
I’ll be writing YA for as long as they’ll publish me. I love reading the genre even more than I enjoy writing it. Because it’s a genre defined by audience more than subject matter I feel unconstrained writing it. I know that my editors will not freak if my next book is crime fiction or literary realism or a comic novel or an historical. They also have no problem with graphic novels. That’s a lot harder to get away with as an adult writer.
Q4. Looking further afield now: presuming that you’ve had time to read, in between award nominations and writing, what’s the best thing you’ve read this year?
I can never recommend just one. So far this year I’ve loved Dramarama by E. Lockhart, Helsing by Kohta Hirano (manga), Emma by Kaoru Mori (also manga), and The Scandal of the Season by Sophie Gee. Though I feel like pretty much every book I’ve read this year has been fabulous.
Q5. And finally, the all-important question: you’ve got the chance to get it on with any fictional character. Who would it be?
I must be a total weirdo but I have never thought about having sex with fictional characters. Sorry!
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This interview was conducted as part of the 2007 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’ll be blogging interviews from Monday 13 August to Sunday 19 August and archiving them at ASif!: Australian SpecFic in Focus. You can read other interviews at:
http://kathrynlinge.livejournal.com
http://girliejones.livejournal.com/
http://benpayne.livejournal.com/
http://kaaronwarren.livejournal.com/
http://cassiphone.livejournal.com/
If you’re involved in the Scene and have something to plug, then send us an email and we’ll see what we can do!
Year of Reading Dangerously
So I’ve got together with three other people – Alisa Krasnostein, Ben Payne, and Tansy Rayner Roberts – to try and read all the Aussie short stories published in 2007 and most of the overseas ones as well. Woohoo! Go us.
Are we nuts or what?
Thanks to Ben, the community where we will be discussing the very best we will come across is called Not if you were the Last Short Story on Earth, which I’m quite fond of, myself. Come along for the ride! Read good and useful reviews! Watch us crack under the pressure!
Dreaming of Amber
I read this while we were on holidays. It’s by Tony Shillitoe – and it’s one of the few books I have ever read that is really, truly set in an Australian context: mallee country, numbats, bilbies… and it was very appropriate, since I was in the mallee when I read it. I’ll have a review of it up on ASif! soon.
Lady Friday
It was good; I enjoyed it. That is, I really just want to find out how Nix is going to resolve the whole issue, so I was bound to enjoy it unless it was dreadful. This wasn’t dreadful. Some of the characters were a bit annoying, and the action seemed to take a while to get going, but it was still fun. Lady Friday wasn’t quite the same opponent as some of the others, though… and the Piper only appeared personally for a couple of pages. Most of the time it was Arthur dealing with lots of issues, which is the same in the others but I seem to remember that there were more personal conflicts in the others. Probably one of the more interesting things were that Dame Primus is being more dreadful, which is a bit of fun – will be interesting to see how that turns out – and Arthur starts to wonder more about Superior Saturday and Lord Sunday.
Now I have to wait for the next one. Again.
Bridge to Terabithia…
looks crap.
No: as a movie, it looks ok, possibly quite good.
As an adaptation of the book, it looks ridiculous. The book doesn’t talk very much at all about what happens in Terabithia – and there is certainly no indication that their imaginations populate it to the degree shown in the trailers for the film. Looks like they are moving it completely out of the family-centred story, which is what the book is all about – her family being different from his and how you live with yours – into the fantastic.
This might make for a good film, but it’s negating everything that makes it such a classic.
Of course, that might just be the trailer… but I doubt it.
So many books
I’ve read heaps over the last while. Lots for ASif!, but all of those have been ones that I’ve enjoyed too, so it’s not like it’s a hardship!
Days of Allison by Eric Shapiro – robots, as partners that you can programme, basically. A novella, so you don’t really have time to get jack of Louis, your utterly spineless (for most of the book) protagonist. I guessed one of the twists, but not the last.
Monster Blood Tattoo by DW Cornish, which it turns out girlie jones hated; there you go. I really liked it – an interesting take on monsters, where they’re pretty much like the Huns or Goths: barbarians at the gate, to be kept away, but not all of whom might be bad. It’s the start of the series, and I don’t mind that there will be more – I hope they’re as good as this. Rossamund (male; a bit of a Boy Named Sue thing happening, I think) is a fun little hero.
There have been others, but they escape me right now. And I just found out yesterday that Lady Friday has been published!! Hurrah!!!
Randomly Yours, Alex 