February 9, 2010 by Wendy
Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading (via, for me, fellow Australian book reviewer Booklover). To play along: Grab your current read, open to a random page and share a teaser two sentences long from somewhere on that page. No spoilers!
Iain M. Banks. Use of Weapons, pg 77 (of 399 pages).
The day he found the little chair he ignored it, but it was still there when he walked back past that stretch of beach on his return. He went on, and the next day combed in the other direction towards a different flat horizon, and thought the gale the following night would have removed it, but found it there again, the next day, and so took it, and in his shack repaired it with twine and a new leg made from a washed-up branch, and put it by the door of the shack, but never sat in it.
a) Boy, this guy does long sentences
b) So. What’s with the hang-up about little chairs? Maybe we’ll find out in about 300 pages, you think?
Posted in Reading fiction | Tagged book meme, book teaser, genre fiction | Leave a Comment »
February 8, 2010 by Wendy
A short story of mine is out in the current issue of Future Fire. You can download the whole issue, or read my story, Silent Song, for free online here. It’s a feminist science fiction themed issue, with stories that “focus on sex and gender, on women’s experiences and the forces that shape their lives”.
Posted in Reading fiction | Tagged feminism, short story, women in genre fiction | Leave a Comment »
February 7, 2010 by Wendy
The Aurealis Awards winners for 2009 were announced a few weeks ago (oh yes, always up-to-date news on this site): lots of Australian SF/F books to add to your reading list if you hadn’t got to them yet, and it’s always interesting to read the judges’ comments on the almost-winners.
The February Bullsheet and other Australian SF organisers are doing a big push for Australian authors this year. If you’re eligible to nominate someone for a Hugo Award, why not make it an Australian? To help you get started, Twelfth Planet Press is letting you try some of their publications free.
The Perth Writers Festival line-up is out. Lures for me include Saturday afternoon’s It’s Not Just the Cover… and From Cyber to…?, Sunday’s Escaping the Pigeon Hole, and, weirdly enough, the Haircuts by Children, which is exactly what it says it is. Surrender to an 8-year-old with scissors…
A great set of tips [from Book Thingo] for writing Australian characters — add your own tips in the comments. And they also have an Aussie Authors challenge for the year too [hosted by Book Lover Book Reviews, as per the clarification in the comments].
And via that site, I discovered that ebooks.com, one of the oldest ebook retailers, is actually based in Western Australia (their prices in are in US dollars though).
And, lastly, this article exactly encapsulates why I’m puzzled as to why Amazon was so universally vilified in last weekend’s Macmillan debacle, especially by authors. Yeah, it behaved like a dick, but authors — you (generally) won’t see a single extra cent when publishers put their ebook prices up…you might even lose sales as readers turn to the cheaper options. The whole situation smacks of things the big companies know that we the reader don’t, all related to the iPad/iBook release.
In personal news, I got a very nice email from a very nice reader who really enjoyed my latest book, The Frog Prince’s Daughters. Readers: make an author’s a day — email them to let them know you like their work.
Posted in Reading fiction, Writing news | Tagged awards, ebooks, festivals, writing tips | 3 Comments »
February 5, 2010 by Wendy
I’m just trying out different “page flipper” (look inside a book) type widget thingos. You can try them out yourself by taking a look (more than 100 pages of my upcoming genre fiction book here for you to read) but I’m really just experimenting for my own purposes. Continue Reading »
Posted in Reading fiction, Writing tips and techniques | Tagged ebook samples, ebooks, page flippers | 2 Comments »
February 2, 2010 by Wendy
Title: The Magicians
Author: Lev Grossman
Year of publication: 2009
Genre: Fantasy — Literary
My rating: 4.5 stars or A-
Quentin Coldwater is on his way to his college admissions interview. He thinks he’s off to Princeton. He’s not happy, though, despite having “painstakingly assembled all the ingredients of happiness” — he sees that his life is all mapped out, and it is anticlimatic. To counter how mundane he finds real life, he holds on to his childhood fascination with the fictional Narnia-like world of Fillory, where happiness is possible.
But Quentin is very quickly hijacked away from his friends, family and plans and into a college of magic, the Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy. That’s right, boys and girls, it’s Harry Potter but American and set after high school. Except it’s nothing like Harry Potter and the only reason I feel obliged to mention Harry Potter is that every time a magic school comes up these days, Harry Potter has to be mentioned, even if to say, as with this case, that it’s nothing like it. Continue Reading »
Posted in Book reviews | Tagged fiction reviews, literary fantasy, reviews | Leave a Comment »
January 31, 2010 by Wendy
eBooksale this weekend: 50% off on all titles purchased on AllRomanceeBooks.com and OmniLit.com if you use the code SBTBARe1. My romantic fantasy book, The Frog Prince’s Daughters, is usually only $4, but you can try it for $2 if you buy it today.
The big news in ebook world is of course the release of the Apple iPad. It’s such big news there seems little point linking to any of the thousands of articles about it, since I’m sure you’ve read about it already. It has, as usual, garnered the usual backlash and griping that results when any product gets this much hype. [Some of the complaints are just silly -- it's too big? That's what the Touch is for. It hasn't got a camera? Why the hell do people want cameras in every device anyway? It doesn't have a phone in it? That's because it's not actually meant to be a phone; it can be used with the Skype app; and who planned to hold something that size up to their head anyway? The name is dumb? Did iPod sound all that sensible when it first came out?] I read the same sort of complaints about the Touch, and yet the Touch is incredibly successful among the people it was actually designed to be sold to…The real test comes from real use of the iBook app and store, and I look forward to reading those specific reviews.
Teleread has a link to and commentary on an essay about Picard’s Syndrome, the attitude that physical books are better than ebooks. Teleread is great to follow if you’re interested in ebooks and ebook reading.
Posted in Reading fiction, Writing news | Tagged ebooks | Leave a Comment »
January 26, 2010 by Wendy
Title: The Name of the Wind
Author: Patrick Rothfuss
Year of publication: 2008
Genre: Fantasy — Noir Epic
My rating: 3.5 stars or B+
This book has been on my reading pile for almost two years: I’ve left it alone for a long, long time and to explain why, I’m going to quote the back cover.
‘I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.’
Doesn’t that sounds fantastic (though slightly Gary Sue-ish — is there anything Mr Wonderful can’t do?)? I knew nothing about this book but that people were raving about it and that the back cover indicated it was going to be a fantasy book of a different ilk.
And then there’s this next line on the back cover:
My name is Kvothe.
Me: I’m sorry, Cough? The name of the wind is Cough? Oh, come on. Back on the pile with you. Continue Reading »
Posted in Book reviews | Tagged books, fiction reviews, genre fiction | Leave a Comment »
January 24, 2010 by Wendy
It’s almost a year old, but it’s a bloody good analysis of what’s going on with the adoption of ebooks, from someone who was there the first time round.
And Amazon/Kindle offer a 70% royalty split for authors. Also, they’re now allowing international publishers onto the Kindle store.
And to continue the ebook theme, Smashwords, some months ago, published its stats on which ebook formats are popular on its site. It’s seems very hard to find hard data on how each format is selling, so this is nice, even if it’s old news now.
Posted in Reading fiction, Writing news | Tagged ebooks, Kindle | Leave a Comment »
January 19, 2010 by Wendy
Title: Court of the Air
Author: Stephen Hunt
Year of publication: 2007
Genre: Fantasy — Steampunk-ish
My rating: DNF
This is the first victim of my new stringent abandon-book policy. The plot and the first few pages sounded interested: we meet Molly, an orphan at the workhouse, thrown out of her latest near-slavery job and dreading what the Beadle (boss of the workhouse) is going to do about it. Amid a whole lot of info-dumping (the first warning bell for me), we learn what he’s going to do about it: ship her off to a brothel.
Then we meet Oliver, who is an outcast in his town, suspected of harboring dark powers due to a childhood accident. Before he knows it, his uncle’s been murdered and he’s on the run. Meanwhile, Molly too has had those around her murdered and is running for her life. I would suppose they meet eventually to work out why a lot of bad people want to kill them. Continue Reading »
Posted in Book reviews | Tagged books, DNF, fiction, reviews, steampunk | Leave a Comment »
January 17, 2010 by Wendy
An SMH opinion piece in love with the Kindle. Some lively comments…including the point that the Kindle is not the only e-reader out there. But the Kindle’s ease of use is hard to beat.
You know how women are supposed to go nuts for handbags and shoes? Well, okay, I have a little thing for handbags, but what I really, really have a thing for are handmade notebooks, and these ones are cute and eco-friendly too. Remember, writers, your little notebook is a tax-deductible expense.
The big publishers are continuing their creeping progress towards acceptance of new technologies, with Penguin Book’s release of a try-before-buy iPhone app for new SF/F book The Left Hand of God. It’s got a great blurb…and the chapters certainly held my interest…unfortunately, paying $20 for an ebook I can get in physical form for less than $15 kind of lost my interest (I’m not a pay-more-for-instant-gratification kind of gal — I like going to the bookstore). To be fair, books in Australia do cost more than $20 so we are getting the printing cost subtracted with that app price.
Posted in Reading fiction, Writing news | Tagged ebooks, iPhone apps, Kindle, the writer's notebook | 2 Comments »
