What I've been reading....

Sub-title:

If you totally lost your memory, and never regained it back, are you (the previous you) dead?

 I have been reading quite a few things lately.
Asymmetry by the Thoraiya Dyer.
Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig.
The Man Who Forgot His Wife by John O'Farrell.
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley.

Asymmetry is a -- tantalisingly short -- collection of short stories by a talented writer which left me with a strong desire to read any novel written by Dyer in the future. (She recently won an Aurealis Award for a short story.) Keep an eye on her -- this lady can write.

Blackbirds is a brutal novel in the urban fantasy genre, lots of blood and gore and an intriguing dilemma for the main (female) character--which kept me glued to the page until I'd finished.

Which brings me to The Man Who Forgot His Wife and The Rook. On the surface, they appear to be very different stories. The first is a literary novel, set in London of the present day, part comedy and part a telling look at a modern marriage. It's a wonderful read and I highly recommend it. The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley, won the best SF novel of 2012 in the recent Aurealis Awards. Although it is arguably a fantasy rather than science fiction, I shan't quibble over that. In fact, I'll say that it deserved a win, because it's a great read. It's also a book with no real male hero, but with several fabulous female characters and a gamut of extraordinary minor players.

What then do those two books have in common?

They both deal with main characters who have lost their memory.

The character in The Rook is aware from the beginning of that she is going to lose her memory and she will never get it back. The character in The Man Who Forgot His Wife, on the other hand, has a normal chance of regaining his memory, and in fact the story deals with this process. However, it's not all smooth sailing. His personality -- before and after -- plays a large role.

I don't want to say any more about either of the books for fear of spoiling two wonderful plots. If you can, read both books.

They both left me thinking about what we are –- are we more than our memory of our life? If you lose your memory (retaining only your learning and factual knowledge) what is left? Would life still be worth living? What makes personality? What would it be like to know you're going to lose your memory and never regain it? What would you do if you knew you were going to lose all your memory of your life and the people you've loved?

If you totally lost your memory, and never regained it back, are you (the previous you) dead?

What do you think?

Another reason to like this place...

Just out of the back gate of the village I'm living in is the Len Howard Conservation Area.  And as those of you who know me know... that is exactly the kind of place I like. 

It has BIRDS!

And boardwalks!

And GORGEOUS scenery!

And I can take my exercise in places like this!

Every day!

Peel Estuary

Inland Thornbill

Black ducks, and if you look carefully, a Black Swan...

Yellow-rumped Thornbill

New Holland Honeyeater on a Banksia

Paperbarks

Our New Place....

This is the village... with a rotunda...

One of the streets

And this is our house. Still a bit bare looking...

This is our street, our house towards the end on the left

The village is what is known as a lifestyle village, aimed at people who want to downsize their living space, live more communally yet still be independent. It is quiet (wonderfully so after where I was living!) and as an environmentalist, I appreciate the green living -- the catchment of water off the roof, feeding sunlight back into the grid, recycling, scraps to the chooks, and so on.

I was wondering if I'd find the house too small after our last place. But no, it's just right and so easy to look after. It will look better once the garden grows; I look forward to the flowering of the grevilleas  in our yard. I wake in the morning to the sound of the ravens and the parrots; dusk comes with the flocks of galahs crying their way to their roosts and the silent ibis vees cutting across the sky. I go to sleep with the sound of the Moaning Frog in the garden.

The Lascar's Dagger

I made this big announcement at Conflux, the Australian National Convention, and I believe the news has also been sent to Locus, so I am making it public.

I have sold another trilogy, the name of which has yet to be determined.

The first book is called

THE LASCAR'S DAGGER

To be published worldwide by Orbit early next year

-----------------------

"Lascar" is not a made-up word. It has Persian/Bengali origins, where it means "soldier", but in English it came to mean a sailor from one of the southern or south-east Asian countries who worked on European-owned ships.*

So is the trilogy about a lascar? 

No, not really, although he's part of the story. It's about the spice trade between two countries (evocative of the Netherlands and Britain of the 18th century) and the spice islands (evocative of the eastern archipelago of Indonesia during that same period). 

It's about great wickedness and enormous sacrifice and amazing bravery. And love. And unique magic systems, both evil and good, of a kind you won't have read before.

It's also the story of a clash of cultures...

 

____________________

*And if you think there weren't all that many of them, you're dead wrong. By 1660, the number of lascar seamen employed on British ships was so great that a new law required 75% of the crew of a British ship carrying Asian goods to Europe must be British! Lascars often settled in England, and were thus the first wave of Asian immigrants to Britain.

Conflux

I'm home again, after a wonderful convention.

The best part was sharing with writer par excellence, Karen Miller, and talking writing, books, publishing, ideas...and even discussing a writing problem I was having at 5.30 a.m. one morning and having the solution handed to me by Karen before 6 a.m.!

Karen was the Australian Guest of Honour, along with Kaaron Warren and Rose Mitchell, and the two international guests,  Nalo Hopkinson (writer) and Marc Gascoigne (publisher) -- an array of talent and knowledge and wit that was mind boggling. Fabulous, fabulous people.

And so many old friends to meet and chat with as well... far too many to name.

I find that SF/F conventions rejuvenate me. I plunge back into the labour of writing with renewed enthusiasm and ideas.

I returned via Sydney. And here is the view from where I stayed, courtesy of someone's
remarkable and much appreciated generosity...

Conflux

I am hanging out with Karen Miller at the SF/F convention in Canberra, Conflux.

If you are here and want to chat, I'm available if you can catch me between panels, kaffeklatches, signings, and so forth.

And Karen, bless her, solved a writing problem for me at 5 a.m. by a suggestion that was awesome...

Swancon 2013

I intend to drop by Swancon 2013 in Perth on Saturday or (and?) Sunday next.

If you see me around, please feel free to come and say hi! Look forward to seeing old friends, making new friends, and chatting to readers and writers.

As I will only have day membership, I won't be on any of the programmes.

The poignancy of goodbye

As most readers of this blog know, I am relocating to Australia. After Wednesday I won't be living in Malaysia on a permanent basis. Which means saying goodbye to much that has meant a lot to me over very many years.

I came to Malaysia in 1970, and here it is forty-three years further on and I have no idea where the time has flown. There is so much that I will miss, and of course I expect to be back often, especially as my husband is remaining behind to complete his contract and the selling of our house.

It seems appropriate that on my last weekend here I should attend a family gathering, in which a close relative sealed her engagement to a longtime friend. Over the years, attending such functions -- and recognising the beauty of a rich cultural life and strong family ties -- has become part of my life.

Senior members of my Malaysian family

The decorative tent (for lunch) in the garden of the house

 And so I will share with you these photos. For those of you from other cultures,  this engagement ceremony may seem unusual because it is not a private moment between  two people exchanging a ring; it is a family ceremony, in which the man's family arrives at the house of the prospective fiancee bearing gifts, delivered on an uneven number of trays. In return, they too are given gifts.

The dais for the ring ceremony

Bringing in the gifts

These presents can include things like fruit and chocolates, flowers and items of clothing.

The patriarch of our family negotiates with the head of the other family over terms of the engagement

 The bride price and the length of the engagement are discussed, the date of the wedding is agreed upon. (Nowadays the prospective bride and groom have doubtless settled this first with each other beforehand!) This coming wedding will also mean the union of different Malay cultures, (our family follows the matriarchal adat berpatih customs), so some attention was given to this as well today.

After all is agreed upon, the engagement ring is placed on the woman's hand, not by her prospective husband, but by one of his married female relatives, in this case, his mother.

In fact, at another family engagement some years ago, I was the one to slip an engagement ring onto the hand of another woman. Traditionally, the respective bridegroom does not attend!

The bestowing of the ring by the groom-to-be's mother

Proud mother of the bride shares a photo moment just afterwards...

The gifts are beautifully decorated

Me and members of my Malaysian family with the now-engaged woman

Of course, this being Malaysia, food plays an important role, and everyone goes home well fed.

Thoughts on Head-hopping PoVs.

If there is one writing "fact" that comes up again and again on blogs on writing and in writing groups and writing courses, it is this:

Don't head-hop in a single scene.

Or to put the matter another way: stay with your point-of-view (PoV) character. Get inside their skull and stay there. See and hear and experience everything through their eyes and ears and thoughts.

Why?

Reasons to maintain a single PoV:

Because that's how you make the character real to the reader. Because that's the way you make the reader care about your hero -- or hate your villain. You share the scene with a single person's PoV, just as you experience in real life.

If you head-hop, intimacy is lost. Besides, it confuses the reader about who is thinking what, or who knows what. It can bewilder as well as annoy, because you often end up with an omniscient PoV, the author as god, inserting themselves into the story too much.

For example:

Take a scene like this: Character A walks into a room full of men, men experienced in her chosen career. She's a novice photographer in a strange country at war. You are inside her head, experiencing her bravado, her nervousness. Then without warning you are in Character B's (macho male) head, looking at her and assessing her and wondering how long she'll last. Then the omniscient author tells you a bit about Character B, things Character A couldn't possibly know. Then you're inside Character C, proprietary male half in love with her who brought her there, and who is now worrying that was a mistake. Then you are back with character A and her embarrassment when she tries to deal with all the things going on. All in the space of a page, and the head-hopping continues..

Poor writing, right? Hmm. One would think so, and yet...

And yet:
 
What prompted me into wondering about this is the book I am reading at the moment: Tatjana Soli's bestselling debut novel, The Lotus Eaters, winner of the James Tait Black Prize for 2010,  and a New York Times Notable Book for 2010. It was also a finalist for the LA Times Book Award. It had good reviews from top review sites. Over on Goodreads it has a huge number of ratings with 66% giving it either 4 or 5 stars, and only 7% giving it 1 or 2 stars. And Goodread readers are much harder in their ratings than, say, Amazon.

Must be a good book that really resonated with readers, right?

I'm about halfway through and I will definitely read it to the end. It's a page turner, a poignant realistic love story, yet a book that deals with some really heavy issues. There are some heart-rendingly beautiful passages.

And the author head-hops all the time in a single scene. Which does annoy me. But I am wondering why it annoys me. Is it simply because I've been told so many times that it is bad writing? If I hadn't been told, would I have even noticed? Or would I just caught up in the story?

Is head-hopping really so bad -- or is it just another way of writing which, in the hands of a skilled narrator, becomes an asset?

What do you think?

Kinda sad...

Why do you re-read a book?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Partly because I am packing up my gigantic collection of  books, trying to decide which ones to keep and which ones to give away or discard. I am shifting continents and I do have to make decisions based on cost–effectiveness. Do I want to take up so much of a container with reading matter I may never look at again?

It's been a very hard task. Sometimes the criteria is clear; if I am going to use a non-fiction book as a reference, then I keep it. With fiction, it's often less clear-cut. A much-loved book seems to cling to me. How can I throw away something that has given me several hours of pleasure?

I wonder what makes a reader decide a book is worth re-reading.

Sometimes I make the decision based on how much of it I can remember. This is particularly true of the early books of the series. If Book 2 of a trilogy is a long time appearing, I might reread Book 1 again. With G. R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice, I continue to buy the books -- but I've actually stopped reading them. When the last book is due out, I shall reread the early books from the beginning and so on until the last volume.

One of the criteria which I use to help me make the decision about whether I want to keep a book is  indeed whether I will  ever read it again. If it's likely that I will once again dip into it, then it's a keeper. The only trouble is: which will I reread? There are books I want to reread simply for the pleasure. I just can't  quite work out just what their commonality is. Why this one, and not that one -- when I enjoyed them both? When the book has a surprise ending, is it worth revisiting? Will it be fun to see all the clues that I missed first time around? Or will the plot disappoint because I now know the ending? Why have I re-read Georgette Heyer's complete oeuvre multiple times when I don't normally even read romance??

I have republished Havenstar as an e-book and I'm astonished by the number of people who have bought it even though they have read the paperback version, and may in fact still have the paperback. So many of them comment that Havenstar is a book they read and reread, sometimes on a yearly basis.

So, tell me: why do YOU re-read a book?

My wildlife adventure of the day

 And where's the wildlife, you may ask? Well, it was in that vase. I disturbed it and it fled out the sliding doors...

Yep, that pesky tree-shrew (neither shrew nor tree-dweller, remember) was at it again, building a nest in the vase. When I emptied the vase on the floor to check if it had babies in there yet, this pile of leaves was the result!

The vase is about 30cm (12") high,  and the animal (see here) is -- if you in include the tail -- about 34 cm in length, so I am not sure how on earth it thinks it can use the vase as a nest.

Last week it was tearing around the front lawn pretend-fleeing its amorous mate. This week, it's in my lounge room. Typical!

A New Australian publisher for Havenstar

I haven't posted in so long. Too much going on with the house sale, packing up and stuff. Still lots of uncertainties because we haven't yet found a definite buyer for the house, even though we have dropped the price yet again.

But I have good news:

Havenstar was found a new home. I have already been selling it for most e-readers from Apple to Nook to Kobo. (You can find the downloads at Smashwords here.)

But now I have an Australian small press who has taken on the book, to reprint it and sell it -- paperback, hardback and a limited hardback edition! Fabulous! It will also be up on Amazon for folk who like to buy from that site. And thanks so much to Ticonderoga Publications for having the faith that this book can be republished, 14 years after its initial publication -- and still sell. Watch this space for the publication date, in May.

It never sold many copies in its original form, because the publisher (an imprint of Virgin) went belly up with months of starting up.

It was the first book of mine to be published, but alas, there has always been a ... sadness about that too.

I received the news that it had been accepted for publication just two days after my mother died. She never knew that I was finally about to accomplish a childhood dream by becoming the author of a published book.

 I wish she had known.

However, Havenstar, as the very first, has always been close to my heart. It wasn't actually the book that snagged me my agent -- that was The Aware -- but it was the first in print. It has resonated with people so much that many read and re-read it, again and again.

Anyway, I am delighted to see that it is going to be available again with a new cover for another generation of readers. And I'm doubly delighted to be able to say I still have an Australian publisher -- which is very important to me!

My morning walk yesterday...in the snow

We are staying in Kaisermuhlen, which is an area squeezed between the Donau (River Danube) and what we Australians would call a billabong that used to be part of the Danube, the Alte Donau.

The ugliest modern belltower ever, for a lovely 19th century parish church

Kaisermuhlen in the snow...

Part of the front of Stefansdom (Cathedral)in the main square

Enlarged portion (it was snowing...)

I feel so sorry for this lion, trapped forever behind the anti-bird wire...

One statue is Samson fighting a griffon. Not sure if it's this one.

Here's the Graben fountain in the snow...

...with snow on the lion's nose

No, the lion is not smoking.That's the waterpipe.

Snow on umbrellas, a Fiaker and the Stubentor bus. I really am back in Vienna.

Oh, my. Nice cover.

 This is the third and final book of the German translation of the Mirage Makers, Der Bund der Illustionisten. It is a gorgeous lush cover, worth clicking on to have a look at in big size.

The German title for Song of the Shiver Barrens is Brennender Wind, or Burning Wind. Unfortunately, it won't be out until July ... even the second book, Trügerisches Licht (Deceptive Light) isn't out until February. Nice to see they are both already selling well in advance on Amazon.de

Aurealis Awards

These awards are the yearly Australian awards for science fiction, fantasy and horror short stories and novels. Every year, a dedicated band of folk interested in spec-fic of all kinds gets together to organise the awards, a task which includes selecting panels of judges to read works entered in the various categories, finding sponsors for the event, ordering the trophies, organising the actual prize giving ceremony, etc, etc. You can see the website here.

The most impressive thing about this is that they are all volunteers. All of them. And when you consider that anyone can enter their work, and that it will be read and considered, their achievement is truly impressive.

I don't have entry this year, because I haven't published anything this year, which is one reason I am writing this -- no one can accuse me of smarming up the judges, right? I just want to say that I think everyone who devotes time to this in the interests of Australian spec-fic is, in my book, pretty damn special. You rock, every single one of you.

Thank you.

The Next Big Thing

Last week, Rowena Cory Daniells tagged me to write a post about my "next big thing" by answering a number of questions.

Which presented me with a problem: I certainly have a next big thing coming -- my next trilogy, but I don't really want to talk about it, other than saying the first book, The Lascar's Dagger, is finished and the second book is started ... But to be published by whom, and to be out when, is not settled yet. Let's just say, discussions are ongoing.

So I am going to talk about my immediate thing, which for you may be BIG or not -- depending on whether you have read Havenstar, or not. So here goes.

1) What's the name of your Next Big Thing?

Well, it's actually an old thing big thing. A stand-alone fantasy, Havenstar, that was first published in 1999 in the UK under the name of Glenda Noramly, and which was soon out of print because the Virgin sf/f imprint folded. (Yes, that Virgin. You didn't know they published books, did you?) Havenstar was also published in German and Russian.

As a very new author at the time, I found it hard to figure why a book should wend itself up to 81 on the general Amazon best seller list (of all book types) only to be out of print the very next day...  Talk about from supreme happiness to despair in 24 hours! (I know better now -- weird stuff happens all the time in the world of publishing!)


2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

Long before the days of GPS or Harry Potter, I had a conversation about how cool it'd be if you could look at a map in the car and see what was happening on the ground in real time -- and dodge traffic jams, accidents etc. And my niece, the same one who did this map for Havenstar, said, "That's an idea for a book..."  Which is kinda like waving a sardine under the nose of a starving cat...


3) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I wouldn't. I think the great glory of reading a book instead of seeing a film is to imagine everything yourself. So go read Havenstar and imagine! 

4) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Do you really want me to reduce a 160,000 word novel down to one sentence? Go read it instead! Oh, all right. It's a book about a mapmaker. And magic maps. And the looming end of a world. And ... ah, see? I can't. 

5) Will your book be self-published or...?

I am self-publishing it as an eBook. With help from my friends (thanks Patty and Rowena for advice, Jo for helping with the copy editing after I made a mess of it, Perdy for art work and gorgeous map) of which you can see a clearer version here.

6) When will your book be available? 

It is available already. You can buy it at here at Smashwords. Just scroll down and click on the title, pay and download it straight onto your Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Sony reader, iPad, iBook and just about any app you care to name! It's also already up for sale on the Kobo site and will eventually turn up on Barnes and Noble sites too. I am in the process of putting it up on Amazon as well, but it will take a few more days for it to go live.

You can also buy a paperback version for $US486, brand new on Amazon.com (or so they say!) ...but believe me, I won't see a cent of that, and I'm not sure you'll ever see a brand new book either, seeing as it has never been reprinted.  (Prices have been crazy for Havenstar ever since it became unavailable.)

7) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I don't need specific inspiration to write a book! I was born wanting to write books...

8) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?  

It's a book for those who love traditional fabulist stories -- it has all the tropes of the very best fantasy: a fellowship of unlikely companions, going on a journey, a land under extreme threat, a Dark Lord and his minions, adventure, tormented heroes, unlikely heroines, adventure, battles and unexpected twists and turns. And a love story, of course. And no, even though it has all those things, it's not at all like Lord of Rings.

I guess the other intriguing thing about it  is how many people have told me they have re-read it multiple times.

_______________________________

So that's my big thing. 

Now I am supposed to tag 5 more authors for their big thing. Trouble is, everyone I asked was already tagged or not interested. I even put out a general call and got nothing. 

I think this meme has chugged to its natural close...

 Oh, and don't forget to buy Havenstar.

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And here for your amusement (its preservation showing just how obsessed I was with ratings at the time) is Havenstar at 81 on Amazon's bestseller list, beating Visual Basic 6 Objects by Peter Wright...
Tom Clancy was at No 78 and 79, while Sword of Honour by Alexander Kent came in at No 80...

 (I wonder if it was possible to take screenshots back then? I just printed it off...ah, how things have changed!)