AWWC2014 – markwebb.name

Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014 – wrap up

Well, another year another Australian Women Writers challenge. In 2014 I read 10 books by Australian women and reviewed all 10. The reviews can be found here in all, and individually:

In previous years I found it relatively easy to complete the challenge, whereas this year I was reading right up until Christmas, and had to post the last 6 reviews into January. I’ve been reflecting on why I had more trouble this year with the challenge.

First up, it can’t be denied that I don’t actually get time to read very many books in a year. 10 books actually represents a not insignificant percentage of my total reading for the year.

Secondly, due to my work and home schedule, I did find myself diving into some less challenging “comfort reading” of series that didn’t tax my brain too much. This included reading a set of Star Wars novels and revisiting one of my reading loves of my teenage years, the Wild Card series. While these novels had a mixture of female and male authors, none of them were by Australians. This took out a fair chunk of my reading time between about July and October in 2014 – and didn’t help me contribute to the challenge at all.

But when I strip out these “time poor” excuses, I also noted another trend. Over the last couple of years I have been reading more women (and Australian women) authors. However, I’ve continued to buy books by a mixture of men and women, but just not reading a lot of the books by men. As a result, my “to be read” shelf has become weighted towards male authors. So when I started to feel guilty about the to-be-read shelf and decided to try and reduce it a bit before buying more books, I found myself reading mostly male authors. This seemed to hit a bit of a critical mass during 2014. Something to keep an eye on in the future.

What else have I noted about my 2014 reading? Six of my ten novels were made up of two trilogies. Reviewing books in trilogies so close to each other was challenging – my reviews felt repetitive to me and I found myself without many interesting things to say.

I also cheated a bit in this years challenge. One of my reviews was of a work in progress by Tansy Rayner Roberts, who is releasing Musketeer Space as a serialised novel. So the book isn’t actually finished yet. I also reviewed Kaleidoscope, which is an anthology made up of many writers, only a few of which were Australian. However it was co-edited and published by an Australian woman, so I decided to stretch the definition a little.

In both cases, including the reviews was partly to help me hit the target, but was also because each endeavour represented something innovative and a bit different creatively, showing Australian women at the cutting edge of what the speculative fiction scene is doing at the moment. I’ll leave it to others to judge whether those reviews were “really” part of the AWW challenge – I’m still claiming a challenge “win”!

I also realised that I’ve leaned pretty heavily on the Twelve Planets series published out of Twelfth Planet Press, and that The Female Factory (my last review of the year) was book 11 of a 12 book series (although I believe a “13th planet” may have been added to the lineup). So, I’ll have to look a bit further afield in 2015!

Once again, the AWW challenge has pushed me to seek out and read more books by Australian women. I’m definitely signing up for the 2015 challenge – and if you’re reading this, you should too!

The Female Factory by Lisa L Hannett and Angela Slatter – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

The Female Factory by Angela Slatter and Lisa L Hannett is the 11th book in the Twelve Planets series by Twelfth Planet Press. The series aims to showcase Australian women writing speculative fiction and has produced some stellar, award winning work over the last 3 years.

Hannett and Slatter have collaborated before, most notably in the collection Midnight and Moonshine. The Female Factory has the polish of a well practiced collaboration, where the voice of the stories is smooth and doesn’t show any seams between the two story teller’s work.

The collection is made up of four stories:

Vox – where the souls of children that are never born are used to give voice to electronic devices.
Baggage – in a world where the very rich are willing to pay big money for a baby, Robyn’s ability to undertake multiple, simultaneous pregnancies should be an asset.
All the Other Revivals – a haunting story where people born in the wrong body can make a change in the waters of the local billabong.
The Female Factory – we all know about genetic engineering and the possibility of designer babies. But what about designer mothers?

In most of the stories the collection puts a strong emphasis on fertility, and the mother-child relationship. It provides perspectives that I found fresh and very engaging. It is a mature treatment of topics that are often glossed over or ignored completely.

The writing is very sophisticated, and the authors are able to draw the reader into the protagonist’s world view effortlessly, portraying them very sympathetically while still showing the warts and all. The language is deceptively simple, while still creating imagery and atmosphere that I found compelling.

Another excellent addition to the Twelve Planets series, and one I have no hesitation in recommending.

Regular readers will know that I am an occasional contributor to the Galactic Chat podcast. Back in September 2014, one of the authors, Angela Slatter, was interviewed for the podcast. The interview was conducted by Alex Pierce, and contains some very interesting insights. You can find it here. And if that isn’t enough, Sean Wright also interviewed Lisa L. Hannett for Galactic Chat just before Christmas 2014 (the interview can be found here).

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my Goodreads reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Kaleidoscope edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

OK, I’m cheating a little bit here. I’ve decided to review a collection of short stories that are not all by Australian women for the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014. Indeed, they are mostly not by Australian women. But wait, before you throw your monitor at the wall in disgust and walk out I have reasons.

It is from an Australian small press that is run by a woman (Alisa Krasnostein).
It has stories by three Australian women (Tansy Rayner Roberts, Faith Mudge, Holly Kench) and one New Zealander (Karen Healy), which is almost Australian.
One of the editors is an Australian woman. OK, it’s the same woman as in 1. above, but in a completely different role. Editor versus publisher. Come on, it still counts as a third reason.

So, if you’re still not buying what I’m selling, then you should stop reading the review here. But you’ll be sooorrrryyyyy!

Kaleidoscope was a crowd funded anthology that sought out YA speculative fiction that was written by a diverse range of writers and featured diverse characters (e.g. people with a disability, mental illness, suffering marginalisation because of race or religion or sexual orientation etc). However the mandate of the book was very clear – while characters needed to have a diverse background, they were not to be defined by their background. I particularly liked the requirement that characters were not to be “cured” of their diversity. Kaleidoscope is a mature treatment of the issues of diversity in the speculative fiction scene, and for that alone I’m hoping it is a sign of much more diverse fiction to come.

(As a side note, and because I’ve justified this review in part by pointing at an Australian small press run by an Australian woman, I might insert a plug here for Twelfth Planet Press. TPP has been supporting Australian women authors and championing this kind of diversity for quite a few years. Alisa Krasnostein, the owner of the press, is also one of the voices on Galactic Suburbia – a must-listen podcast for anyone interested in advancing the conversation on gender equity in the speculative fiction scene. If you haven’t already, go and check out their offerings, in particular the Twelve Planets series which has showcased some fantastic Australian women writers over the last few years. I’ve reviewed all the Twelve Planets books so far for the AWW challenge (including most recently Secret Lives by Rosaleen Love) – if you have even the slightest interest in understanding what is happening in the Australian speculative fiction field, you need to read these books!)

I won’t talk about all the stories, but as this is a AWW review I will briefly mention the stories by Australian women.

Cookie Cutter Superhero by Tansy Rayner Roberts opens the collection. The story is set in a world where superhero producing machines have appeared in major centres around the world and people are selected at random to do a stint as a superhero. It tells the story of Joey, a young woman with a physical disability who has “won the lottery”. It is a funny, and not very below the surface, dig at the comic book industry, well written with Roberts’ trademark snarky style. Very nice opening to the book.

Signature by Faith Mudge was one of my favourite stories in the book, which focuses on the dangers of entering into a deal with Fate. Well written and characters that were well fleshed out, especially considering how little space there was to do it.

Holly Kench’s Every Little Thing gives a few twists on the trickiness of love spells. I enjoy Kench’s writing style, and this story was well constructed and a delight to read.

And for completeness, I will mention that I also enjoyed New Zealand’s Karen Healy story Careful Magic, which focuses on the perils of being a bastion of order in a chaotic world. Healy’s story hinted at a much bigger world, and left me with the desire to read other stories set in the same world.

There are also stories by Australian male writers Garth Nix, Dirk Flinthart and Sean Williams, as well as an array of international authors including Ken Liu, Sofia Samata, Jim Hines and John Chu.

As long term readers of the blog know, YA is not my favourite genre to read. I don’t mind young protagonists as such, but as I complete my transformation into a cranky old man I find myself less and less engaged by some of the themes that seem to resonate with teenagers. I also find the more restricted use of language (i.e. slightly simplified and “cleaned up”) creates more of a distance in the work. Some of the stories in Kaleidoscope suffered from this for me – the writing was excellent, but I found myself unable to “get into” the stories.

That minor (and particular to me) quibble aside, this is an excellent anthology and I commend it strongly to you. If you have ever despaired at the lack of variety in who is represented in speculative fiction, this is the book for you. If you love YA oriented speculative fiction, this is for you. Highly recommended.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Musketeer Space by Tansy Rayner Roberts – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

OK, more cheating. I’ve selected Musketeer Space by Tansy Rayner Roberts for my next review and the book isn’t even finished yet. “Why?” I hear you ask. “How? Isn’t your cheating just getting super blatant now?”

All valid questions, but stick with me people. Have I ever steered you wrong?

Musketeer Space is the latest endeavour by Tasmanian based speculative fiction author Tansy Rayner Roberts. It is a gender swapped retelling of The Three Musketeers, in a space opera setting. In an interesting twist though, Roberts is writing the book in serialised form. She is releasing a chapter each week on her website, and has invited patronage through the Patreon system, where interested subscribers can pay to support her writing efforts. There are also a variety of perks depending on the level of subscription that you enter into (including an eBook of the whole novel once completed).

So a book you can read for free, but if you want to tip some money in you can also consider (and call) yourself a patron of the arts. What’s not to like?

At the time of writing, Musketeer Space is at chapter 33 and a little over half way through the story. One of the reasons I wanted to review it at this point was to signal boost an endeavour which is interesting both creatively and from a business standpoint. I’m fascinated with how people are experimenting with new forms of publishing in the internet age, and this is a great case study to follow.

A note on the Patreon model. It very much is a patronage relationship you’re entering into. For an effort like this that goes for at least 12 months, even at the lowest contribution of $1 per month you would be over-paying for an eBook if that was your only goal (I don’t know how much Roberts will charge for the eBook at the end of the process, but I very much doubt it will be $12). So unlike something like a Kickstarter campaign, you are not “pre-purchasing” the final product. You are making a conscious decision to support an author create a work that wouldn’t other exist – very much like patrons of a bygone age, just distributed through the power of technology.

To the story itself. The prose is characterised by Roberts’ sly wit, and filled with feisty, brave and competent characters. It has been very interesting to watch Roberts adapt the original storyline, and the choices she has made to accommodate both the new setting and new genders. The Three Musketeers was originally a serialised novel as well, and the parallels have been interesting to watch there too.

There is a lot of humour in the book, and if you enjoyed any of Roberts’ other books (e.g. The Creature Court trilogy) you’ll love Musketeer Space.

The pacing is excellent, especially considering the need to stick to the overall structure of the original text. Roberts balances action with emotion in the stories, and has created some very well rounded characters that it is very easy to care about.

As a part of meeting one of the targets of her Patreon campaign, Roberts has recently (as of Christmas 2014) released a novella length Christmas themed prequel to Musketeer Space called Seven Days of Joyeux. I haven’t read it yet, but extra content is just another reason to get on board this Musketeer road train!

In summary, this is a great book that is supported by an innovative funding mechanism. I’d highly recommend that you all go directly to the Patreon page and throw your support behind an Australian author doing interesting things in this brave new age of the internet.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads (although a cut down version of this review without the Patreon discussion). View all my Goodreads reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Secret Lives by Rosaleen Love – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Secret Lives by Rosaleen Love is the 10th book in the Twelve Planets series from Twelfth Planet Press. It is a very quick read, coming in at 80 pages.

Now what did I think of the collection? In summary: beautifully written, surreal verging on absurdist, punchy, insightful and satisfying.

I’ve debated how much to write in this review, as I’m almost certain that my attempts to describe the stories will represent their magic poorly and may even put you off reading the collection. With that in mind, I’ve tried to briefly capture the flavour of each story below. Hopefully you’ll get a sense of the madcap and slightly bizarre nature of the collection (in a very good way).

The collection is made up of five stories:

Secret Lives of Books – a recently deceased man comes to terms with his sentient and increasingly militant library
Kiddofspeed – a woman bike rides around Chernobyl… or does she? And does it really matter where she did or not? With the help of the Internet.
Qasida – where do lost things go? To Mars of course. A story of a lost love with appropriate flashbacks to the British Empire’s flirtation with the colonisation of Mars.
The Kairos Moment – tells the tale of the search for that moment of pure musical rapture in the name of academic research, and then considers the potential military applications.
The slut and the universe – a family discussion between three generations of women, and the inevitable cross-generation misunderstandings, becomes a therapy session of sorts for Gaia.

I’m hard pressed to pick a favourite, but if forced to I’d probably lean towards The Kairos Moment. The sheer fun of the describing the attempts to capture a moment of musical departure was hilarious. In fact, hilarious is a word I’d use often in a longer review of this work. There are some serious themes explored in this book – feminism, relationships, colonial ambitions etc. But it is delivered with such a strong thread of humour that I spent the entire read being delighted by various turns of phrase, and only really considered the implications of the stories once I’d finished.

The writing of this collection is superb. The language dances from sentence to sentence, and concept to concept. The stories are only loosely plotted, but that hardly seems to matter. While the ideas get more and more outlandish, the prose stays clean and pragmatic, which only adds to the deliberate dissonance of the read.

I enjoyed this book very much, but to describe it further has diminishing returns. It won’t take long to read. Go and buy it. Now.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

North Star Guide Me Home by Jo Spurrier – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

North Star Guide Me Home by Jo Spurrier is the third book in the Children of the Black Sun trilogy. You can read my review of the first book, Winter Be My Shield, here and the second, Black Sun Light My Way, here. There are some spoilers for the first two books in this review, so if you haven’t started on the trilogy yet, you might want to wait until you’ve read the first two books before reading this review.

The Blood Mage Kell, who loomed so large in the first two books, is gone and the three mages (Isidro, Sierra and Rasten) have to come to terms with what their lives are without him in them. I mentioned in the review of the second book that I was surprised by the ending but didn’t mention what that ending was for fear of spoilers. The death of Kell was that ending – I had assumed that at least one thread of the story would have focused on Kell right until the end of the trilogy. However, in retrospect, killing Kell in the second book made sense. It was clear that Sierra and Rasten wouldn’t really be able move on without confronting Kell, and their stories (in particular Rasten’s) faced limitations without moving through that issue.

The story isn’t all good cheer though – Spurrier still puts the characters through the ringer. Hands are chopped off, a lot of blood is spilled and most of the characters are given an emotional workout. However, there isn’t as much graphic torture or degradation in this book. Indeed, while the atmosphere of the third book is just as hard and unforgiving as the first two, I found that the story more oriented towards recovery.

As with the previous books, there was some interesting exploration of how people from different cultural backgrounds interact and form families. The politics of the world were also well realised and expanded in this third book.

I normally don’t comment on endings as I don’t like to spoil the books I review too much (and indeed, please feel free to skip this paragraph if you’re yet to read the book). The whole trilogy came together well and I didn’t have any issues with the ending as such. However, I was expecting more major characters to be killed, and killed in a heart wrenching way. As it was, the ending seemed a little, well, nice considering the tone of the rest of the books. Still, given how much hell the characters went through, I should begrudge them a little happiness, should I?

Overall this is an excellent end to a trilogy. If you’re interested, definitely go back and start with Winter Be My Shield though. North Star Guide Me Home isn’t really a stand alone book, and you won’t get anywhere as near as much impact without having seen the characters through their earlier trials.

As in the last review, I should also mention that back in 2013, Sean Wright, leader of the intrepid Galactic Chat crew, interviewed Jo Spurrier for the podcast. That podcast can be found here.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Black Sun Light My Way by Jo Spurrier – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Black Sun Light My Way by Jo Spurrier is the second book in the Children of the Black Sun trilogy. You can read my review of the first book, Winter Be My Shield, here.

The political and social system that was introduced in the first novel is solidly developed in this second novel. We learn a lot more about other societies, and the gradual expansion of the readers world view is handled well, with information provided at a good pace. There are nice touches which show the depth of the world building – for instance, the marital structures of a society mired in a harsh environment that incorporate multiple parters of both genders into a family unit. These elements provide some real depth to the story.

The series continues the portrayal of a hard and dangerous world, where characters aren’t trying to be too nice. Issues of torture and rape are canvassed, and Spurrier doesn’t shy away from exploring the real consequences of these actions. To that end, the character of Rasten (the main bad guy’s apprentice) is used as a vehicle. Over the course of the novel, the readers perception of Rasten transforms from a pure villain to a more complex, tragic figure who has been scarred, both physically and emotionally, by long term abuse. While his actions remain unsympathetic, he becomes more understandable.

In the first novel, I found one of the main characters (Isidro) was a little bit too understanding of other people’s points of view. A lot of interpersonal drama was resolved by him seeing things from the other point of view and then disarming the situation. While this was very sensible of him, it did sometimes feel a little too “easy” as a way of moving the plot forward. In this second novel, the character is portrayed with more issues, including bouts of severe depression. This lent a better balance to the character, and given that he features strongly it helped the balance of the book overall.

The book ended with at what seemed to be, at first blush, a surprising point. Spurrier sets up a particular “quest”, which is actually resolved by the end of this book. While reading, I kept waiting for another complication to be introduced that would delay the completion of the quest and was surprised when that complication never emerged. However in retrospect I can see that it was a necessary step to allow the characters to grow. Without it, the third book would have run the risk of being repetitive. So, when I sat back and considered the book, the confusion I felt on first reading was well and truly resolved.

Overall this is an excellent second book to a trilogy. Well worth the read, however I wouldn’t consider it a stand alone book. If you’re interested, definitely go back and start with Winter Be My Shield.

I should also mention that back in 2013, Sean Wright, leader of the intrepid Galactic Chat crew, interviewed Jo Spurrier for the podcast. That podcast can be found here.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier is the first book in the Children of the Black Sun trilogy. This was Spurrier’s debut novel and she has subsequently gone on to finish the trilogy.

This book has sat on my to be read shelf for a long time. I received it at an Aurealis Award ceremony a couple of years back, and it has sat staring accusingly at me from my bookshelf for all that time. And it is too bad that I waited so long to get into the book, because I really enjoyed it.

Spurrier has constructed a cohesive political and social system that sits on top of an interesting and imaginative form of magic. It took me a little bit of time to place the different countries and their relation to each other, but it clicked into place about a third of the way through the book. Something about the politics seemed fresh, I enjoyed the discovery process as we learnt more about the world.

The setting is well realised, the kind of biting cold that it is hard to imagine in Australia (or at least the parts of Australia that I’ve lived in).

It is not for the faint of heart though – the story is definitely on the grimdark end of the fantasy spectrum. There are some very cranky people that express their crankiness in some very direct ways. However the violence and grit never seem gratuitous, rather they add texture to the world.

The main characters were an interesting lot, and Spurrier explores interesting questions of diversity in her treatment of the recently physically disabled main character and the treatment of magic users in one of the societies in the world.

It is a good start to a series and I will be reading the rest.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Traitor Queen by Trudi Canavan – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

The Traitor Queen is the third book in the Traitor Spy trilogy. I reviewed the first book, The Ambassador’s Mission, here and the second book, The Rogue, here.

OK, so I’m starting to see the issue with reading all three books of a trilogy in a row and reviewing each separately – you end up with a lot of repetitive thoughts on the series as a whole. I think from now on if I’m going to read through a series consecutively I might do a single review for the whole series. Lesson learnt!

So, my feeling on The Traitor Queen don’t deviate much from my comments on the previous two books. Strong characters, good line-by-line writing, a little lacking on the plot/tension side of things, great world building and good attempt to integrate same sex relationships as a normal part of the world. If you’re interested in more thoughts on that front, I’d recommend my previous reviews (links at the top of this review).

In terms of a third book in a series, all the major plot points were closed off by the end. The final battle between the Traitors and the Sachakans happened, but was a little anti-climactic. I actually enjoyed the smaller scale drama of the roet/Thieves/Lillia storyline much better.

I quite enjoyed the sense that the Guild was having to adapt on many fronts at once – politically, technologically, internally. It gave a sense of change and time marching forward, which doesn’t always happen in a fantasy world.

Canavan has introduced several younger characters, and if she was to ever revisit this world again (which I don’t believe she has any plans to), I think leaping forward into the future and not focusing on any of the older characters at all would be the way to go. Anyi and Lillia would form a solid basis for a new series, especially if combined with dealing with the results of the world changes mentioned above.

Overall a solid series that I enjoyed reading.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

The Rogue by Trudi Canavan – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

The Rogue is the second book in the Traitor Spy trilogy. I reviewed the first book, The Ambassador’s Mission, here.

The story follows straight on from The Ambassador’s Mission. I found myself gravitating towards the “home” plot, involving Cery the thief, Sonea the Black Magician and some internal shenanigans in the Guild, rather than the one that followed a trail of international intrigue. Still, The Rogue expanded even more on the politics wider world and introduced some tantalising glimpses into other societies, which I found quite interesting. Canavan has created a complex and intriguing world and I’m sure there was a depth of world building that went on to create such a coherent narrative.

As with the first novel, the pacing was a little slow for me. At the end of the day I just wasn’t worried for the main characters. I suspect this was one of the reasons that I warmed to a sub-plot involving a new character tricked into learning black magic. As the character was new, I wasn’t as certain that they’d survive, and that added an extra dollop of tension, which I quite liked.

Great to see a normalisation of homosexual relationships, with the same attention given to the gay character’s love life as the straight ones. Truth be told, there were points where I found all the relationships a little vexing (“you’re the Ambassador man, no good can come from sleeping with a senior official in another government!”) but then I’m becoming a cranky old man (who apparently dislikes other people’s happiness) faster than I’d like.

All in all a very solid middle novel to an enjoyable trilogy.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.