Tansy Rayner Roberts – markwebb.name

Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Patreon

Long suffering readers of this sparsely populated blog will recall that I’m a big fan of Tansy Rayner Roberts’ work. I’m one of her many Patreon subscribers, and it is a monthly investment that more than pays for itself in good reading and listening time.

Tansy posted an update today talking about some upcoming special offers for Patreon subscribers, including audio books and paperbacks. I’m excited about the upcoming work (especially looking forward to the next in the Teacup Islands series – The Frost Fair Affair). If you enjoy Tansy’s work then this seems like an excellent time to get involved with supporting her Patreon.

Of course, in these difficult times not everyone has cash to spend, but if so why not support your favourite author or content creator through other means? Signal boosting, watching content to increase viewing numbers and word of mouth all can play a great role in giving your favourite author the visibility they need to get their work out there.

What’s shakin’? – July, August and September 2018

What have you been looking at lately?

I tore through season 2 of the Marvel’s Luke Cage. I’m enjoying the various Netflix Marvel series and Luke Cage is not exception. Like in season 1, there is a level of African-American cultural references that I suspect are going way over my head, but not in such a way as to make the story incomprehensible. I’ve enjoyed the course they are charting for Luke Cage, and I think they’ve set up for an interesting third season down the line.

Likewise I worked my way through season 2 of Marvel’s Iron Fist. This is still very newly out, so I won’t give away any plot spoilers. Suffice to say I enjoyed it more than season 1, and it seemed like they engaged with a lot of the issues people raised re: cultural appropriation and gender bias (maybe not completely, but they seemed to at least be acknowledged). My perspective should be treated with suspicion though, as I’m as likely as the next person to have biases and blind spots. I’ll be very interested to see how people who have direct experience around those kinds of issues engage with the show.

Final Space is a cartoon space comedy on Netflix. Season 1 is 10 episodes, and I liked it. A little bit Futurama, but a lot more blood and guts. I may have been reading too much into it, but the straight, white guy protagonist was such a doofus that it almost seemed a commentary on sticking someone like that at the centre of a narrative. A bit stupid, but a lot of fun.

Speaking of stupid, I also watched Future Man, another sci-fi comedy. Again a lot of blood and guts, and some funny and self-aware commentary on time travel as a plot device.

The Good Place season 3 has just started – the whole household is very excited by its return.

Books

Hidden City by Alan Baxter – an urban fantasy with strong horror elements (as you’d expect from Baxter). I enjoyed it, pace was good and Baxter develops the characters quickly and well. From Goodreads:

When the city suffers, everyone suffers.

Steven Hines listened to the city and the city spoke. Cleveport told him she was sick. With his unnatural connection to her, that meant Hines was sick too. But when his friend, Detective Abby Jones, comes to him for help investigating a series of deaths with no discernible cause, Hines can’t say no. Then strange fungal growths begin to appear in the streets, affecting anyone who gets too close, turning them into violent lunatics.

As the mayhem escalates and officials start to seal Cleveport off from the rest of the world, Hines knows the trouble has only just begun.

Cabaret of Monsters by Tansy Rayner Roberts – got this through Robert’s recent Kickstarter to resurrect her Creature Court trilogy. I enjoy Robert’s writing a lot, and this was no exception. Very much stand alone, although it I think it adds something if you’ve read the Creature Court trilogy (I’m planning a re-read when the new editions come out). From Goodreads:

Saturnalia in Aufleur is a time of topsy-turvy revels, of the world turned upside down and transformed before your eyes. The city’s theatres produce an annual display of reversals, surprises and transformations.

In this city, flappers can transform into wolves. Even the rats are not what they seem.

Evie Inglirra is on a mission to infiltrate the theatrical world of Aufleur and discover what lies beneath their glamorous cabaret costumes and backstage scandals. Has she bitten off more than she can chew?

Luna and Luna: Wolf Moon by Ian McDonald – great space opera.

I’ve been enjoying the Murderbot series by Martha Wells (not the only person on the planet that this is true of) so I decided I might try one of her fantasy books, and picked up Death of the Necromancer. Really good fantasy, set in a secondary world with a kind of 18th/19th century feel (muskets and swords, not medieval). Unfortunately, a lot of the books she has written based in this world don’t seem to be available in Australia, but I’ll keep looking.

Starting the Galactic Suburbia book club where they are reading How to Suppress Women’s Writing by Joanna Russ. Only up to chapter one at the moment, but I can tell it will be a very interesting experience.

I’m not reading as much as I should!

Movies

Normal superhero palaver – Ant Man and the Wasp, Deadpool 2, even went and saw Venom last night. I remain a sucker for superhero movies, even the bad ones. Ant Man and the Wasp I really enjoyed – funny, light hearted enough to be a good antidote to the slightly depressing Infinity Wars. Deadpool 2 was funny, I’ve just picked it up on DVD and looking forward to watching the extended edition. Venom… wasn’t great, but watchable and I do like the anti-hero trend at the moment.

I suspect my daughter will insist on going to see the Teen Titans Movie some time these school holidays, and I’m also looking forward to the Spiderman cartoon with Miles as Spiderman.

Games

I’ve downloaded some old games onto the iPad – Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2. I loved those games when I was younger, and I love them still! Have completed BG1 and working my way through BG2 as a Cleric/Ranger character (which I’ve never played before).

I also bought the new Tomb Raider game, but haven’t had a chance to play it yet as my 10yo daughter has decided she is going to be Laura Croft when she grows up and is devouring the game herself.

Writing

I’ve gone back to my novel manuscript, and have been slowly working my way through it editing. It is a very slow process – I don’t have a lot of time to devote to writing at the moment, and what time I have tends to be late at night when I’m not at my freshest.

Monthly roundup culture consumed – November 2016

Hope everyone has had a great November, and you’re not freaking out about how close Christmas is all of a sudden.

Books

As foreshadowed last month I finished Revenger by Alistair Reynolds during November. This is an excellent book. Set in the far, far future, the matter in the solar system has been reconfigured to be a lot of small planetoids, using tame black holes and other sciencey things to maintain things like gravity at Earth levels. There have been a series of civilisations that have risen and fallen in this environment, and as a result the planetoids are littered with the junk of many civilisations, some of it much more advanced than the current civilisation. Treasure hunting spaceships travel between worlds, and the whole thing has an 18th century naval adventure feel to it. I won’t give away much of the plot – you should go and read this book.

I started another couple of books – a new anthology edited by Jim Butcher called Shadowed Souls and the second book in Ken Liu’s Dandelion Dynasty series, The Wall of Storms. Not far enough through either to have much to say as yet, although I can say that I really enjoyed Liu’s last book, and this one seems to be continuing on in a very satisfying way.

I’ve been watching The Expanse on Netflix. The special effects on this series are amazing, and while it is a while since I read the book, the plot seems to follow pretty faithfully. Still got a couple of episodes to go, but a great show so far.

A couple of years back I watched the first two episodes of the sci-fi series Orphan Black, and while I enjoyed them I never got around to watching any more of it. I watched the first couple of episodes again in November, and again enjoyed them but I’m not finding myself drawn back to them. I’m going to try to power through at least a few more episodes – I’ve heard so many good reviews of this series and I feel like I’ve missed an essential part of the shared community experience.

The new Australian animated series Pacific Heat has started. At the time of writing, I’ve only watched the first episode. Very much like the American series Archer – same style of animation, very similar premise. I suspect the series will take a few episodes to find its feet – the humour was a bit hit and miss. The voice actors are a lot of the crew from the D-Generation (an Australian phenomenon) so there is a nostalgia angle here as well. If you’ve watched Archer and liked it, give this a go.

Movies

Didn’t go to the movies at all in December, but I did finally get around to watching The Martian. I found it surprisingly enjoyable. In some ways it is very old fashioned sci-fi, where the main enemy is a cold, uncaring universe and the problems can be solved by science and engineering. But Matt Damon played the main character with just enough wry humour to make him sympathetic and as a result the movie kept me very much hooked in.

Other

One of the podcasts I really like, Tea and Jeopardy, is starting its annual “Advent Calendar” style run – with very short episodes being published every day in the lead up to Christmas. An excellent podcast – usual format is a speculative fiction author interview with a small “radio play” around it.

Another favourite podcast, Sheep Might Fly, has just started a new audio story – “Dance, Princes, Dance” by Australian author Tansy Rayner Roberts.

So, what have you been up to?

Monthly roundup culture consumed – October 2016

I’m a bit late with my October roundup – many apologies.

Books

I finished the first book in Tansy Rayner Robert’s Mocklore series, Splashdance Silver – more detailed review to come for the Australian Women Writers reading challenge.

For anyone who has read and enjoyed Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series, the latest book (Mistborn: A Secret History) is a fun read. No point reading this book by itself – it only really makes sense if you’ve read the other books (or at least the first trilogy). If you’re a fan of the other books, you’ll like this one. It runs parallel to the original trilogy, fills in a few blanks and brings back a favourite character. However, I must admit it has been quite a while since I read the original story and I spent half of this book trying to remember how it all fit together.

And finally I started on Revenger by Alistair Reynolds – more to say next month once I’ve finished.

I finished Luke Cage on Netflix – an excellent series. It was very refreshing to watch a show that deals with themes of masculinity, but does it in a way that is respectful to women. I loved the nods to the seventies as well – even though it is set in the modern day, it had a 70s aesthetic which was cool. I kept expecting the theme song from Shaft to kick in. It was also good to see Rosario Dawson playing a larger role in this series. Clearly she’s going to be the person that pulls the heroes from Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist together, but she had a much bigger role in this series.

I just realised that The Expanse is also on Netflix. I’ll definitely be watching that one, the special effects and general look of it is amazing. Really liked the books, and keen to see a solar system sci fi series.

Movies

Got away to a movie in October – went to see Marvel’s Dr Strange. In some ways a very different Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, in other ways a lot of the same formula. I liked the way they brought magic in, some of the scenes were very trippy (a bit like Inception with buildings twisting and gravity going all weird). Enough humour to keep me interested as well.

Other

A lot of family and work related activity in October, so not much more from me.

So, what have you been up to?

Monthly roundup culture consumed – September 2016

I hope September treated everyone with dignity and respect. I’m afraid my culture consumption has been a little light on this month – too many work events and family obligations preventing a good read!

Books

I finished Lois McMaster Bujold’s Falling Free (Book 1 in the Vorkosigan Saga). I enjoyed the book, but my initial concern that it didn’t seem to contain anyone called “Vorkosigan” in it was born out. I am assuming that it was some kind of prequel book, that has been listed as Book 1 for anyone wanting to read chronologically? In any case, the book was a good story, but not enough to make me immediately want to pick up another in the series. I’m told I should definitely try the next one, Shards of Honour, which I might do in the fullness of time.

I started the first book in Tansy Rayner Robert’s Mocklore series, Splashdance Silver. It is interesting to go back and look at the earlier work of an author you admire. I won’t say much here, because I’ll probably do a full review once I’m finished the book.

You know what I did? I got lazy and missed the last couple of episodes of the second series of Marvel’s Agent Carter on Channel 7’s catch up TV. Really kicking myself on that front – now I’ll have to wait to be able to obtain it through alternate legal means to find out how the story ended. Very disappointing. I believe that is the last series of Agent Carter, which is a damn shame.

Have been catching up on the latest series of Musketeers, but must admit to be finding it harder going this series. Not exactly sure why, I think the clash of modern sensibilities with the realities of a 14th century French monarchy are starting to overwhelm the show. Still, there is still a nice balance of both swash and buckle, so I keep going back.

Lots of the DC universe TV series are starting up this week – Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow. I’m in two minds about a couple of these series – almost ready to let some of them go. I might give them each a few weeks and see how I feel.

Speaking of superheroes, I watched the first episode of Luke Cage on Netflix last night. Looks really good – that is one superhero show I’ll definitely be sticking with.

Movies

Besides taking my daughter to see Secret Life of Pets I’ve been once again cinema free this month. I’m considering going along to see The Magnificent Seven, but that isn’t really SF so not much point in mentioning it.

I did watch the extended cut of Batman vs Superman on Blu-ray last week. It’s still not the best superhero movie of the year, but I did find that the extra material plugged a few gaps for me and made the movie seem a bit more coherent. I especially felt that Lois Lane came out seeming much more well rounded, which was good.

I rewatched Captain America Civil War as well (a father’s day gift). I really like Spiderman. Just sayin’.

Other

Issue 219 of Antipodean SF is out now, including my eBook versions (I actually got them done on time this month).

I have an Xbox, but I don’t really play it much anymore. I did, however, purchase a new game – Deus Ex – recently, which I’m looking forward to giving a whirl. I’ve always been a sucker for an futuristic augmented human game (harking back to my favourite game back in the day, System Shock).

From a writing perspective, things have been meandering along slowly. I’ve almost finished a first round of edits on my 27,000 word novella, The Reclaimers. Next I’ll be typing out the first 20,000 or so words of a science fiction novel or novella (depending on how much more story there is in it). I quite like the characters in this one, so looking forward to revisiting them (I hand wrote the story about 6 months ago).

So, what have you been up to?

Monthly roundup culture consumed – May 2016

So, what did everyone else do in May?

Books

Not a lot on the reading front this month. I’ve been picking away at a Star Wars novel, based on the Rebels TV series (which finished its second season this month as well). At the moment I only seem to be reading a page or two each night. That will have to change.

Are any of you watching The Magicians, the new TV show based on the Lev Grossman novel of the same name? We’re only a few episodes in, but it seems pretty good. A more sophisticated fantasy than a lot of the shows on TV at the moment – I’m liking it a lot more than the Shannara Chronicles for example. Well worth watching if you get a chance, but I’ll save final judgment until the end of the first season.

Also finished Supergirl, Flash and Arrow through the month, although I must admit both were getting a bit stale by the end. The Flash in particular is getting silly, with alternate dimensions and timelines. The end was particularly bad – after fighting and saving at least two universes, the Flash went back in time and changed everything. Crazy stuff to create faux-drama. I’ll probably keep watching next season, but I’ve been preferring the Marvel Netflix superhero series.

Movies

I went to see the X-Men movie X-Men Apocalypse. It was very visually spectacular, with an OK but not super-interesting storyline. If you like mutants, you have probably already seen this. If not, wait until it becomes available through streaming or something.

Other

I’ve been “patreon-ising” a podcast, Sheep Might Fly, where author Tansy Rayner Roberts reads some of her short fiction (both old and new). This month she completed an original story called “Glass Slipper Scandal” in her Castle Charming universe (scandal-mags in a fairytale kingdom). A very enjoyable story, and I’ll be looking forward to the next “Castle Charming” story. Roberts has moved on to a story from her Love and Romanpunk book, “Julia Agrippina”.

Monthly roundup culture consumed – April 2016

So, what did April have in store for me?

Books

Not a lot of reading through April. I’ve been reading a lot of Tansy Rayner Roberts work lately (see recent reviews of Musketeer Space and Sheep Might Fly), and decided to have another crack at her crime series (writing as Livia Day). I didn’t love the first book in the series (see my review of A Trifle Dead) but recent reading/listening has reminded me how much I enjoy Roberts prose, so I decided to give the series another chance with Drowned Vanilla.

I enjoyed the book more than I did the first one. The characters felt more grounded this time around, and when combined with Roberts/Day’s delivery, I found myself more attached to the story.

I don’t think I read much more than that through April, it was a very slow reading month.

The Flash is starting to annoy me a bit. There was a recent episode where the Flash gave up his powers to save someone, only to put millions of people under the sway of a psychopathic superpowered mad-man. It was silly, and clearly done only to further an increasingly unrealistic plot. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’ll watch pretty much any superhero show and sheer bloody mindedness will probably keep me going with the series. But if it doesn’t improve soon, The Flash might have the distinction of being the first superhero show that I’ve given up on.

My daughter and I have been watching the Clone Wars cartoon series and the Rebels cartoon series, both set in the Star Wars universe. It has been fun to watch something with my daughter, and we’re both really into both shows. We’re getting towards the end of the Clone Wars, so soon we’ll only have Rebels to keep us going. I’ve found that watching Clone Wars has made watching Episodes I – III a lot easier. Having a lot more story time with Annikan Skywalker when he is an actual hero makes his fall from grace more moving. There was an episode of Rebels recently where Annikan’s former apprentice comes face to face with Darth Vadar and realises who he is, and that was a lot more emotional than anything the movies have managed to produce. Lots of fun.

I watched the first episode of the US TV series House of Cards and I think I’m going to be hooked. More on that later.

And season 5 of Teen Wolf has come back onto Foxtel, which is excellent. I’ve rabbited on about Teen Wolf in other posts, so I won’t continue that here, but as a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the 21st century” type show, it has a lot going for it.

And finally, I can’t not mention Game of Thrones. We’re only a couple of episodes in, and I still find it compelling watching. I can’t believe how fast the hour goes by! I’ve read a lot of critiques, and I intellectually agree with a lot of it, but I can’t deny the fact that I love watching the show.

Movies

Captain America: Civil War was a great movie – lots of fun, and with very interesting fights. The last couple of Avenger movies have suffered from having bad guys who are very “same same”, robots, generic aliens etc. The fights got a little repetitive after a while. But in this movie, by pitting superheroes up against each other you got much more variety. Hero A uses Power X against Hero B, which gets trumped by Hero C and Power Y. The combinations and permutations were very entertaining.

The plot was intelligent enough, and they avoided enough cliches to make it hard to guess where they were going.

And of course Spiderman (my favourite superhero of all time) was a lot of fun to watch.

Coming Up

Looking forward to some XMen action at the movies in a couple of weeks. Also, trying to pick my next Australian Women Writers Reading Challenge book.

What about you? Anything juicy that you’ve been consuming?

Sheep Might Fly (a fiction podcast) by Tansy Rayner Roberts – a review

Australian Women Writers' Challenge 2016 This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2016 Reading Challenge. All my 2016 AWWC reviews can be found here.

I’ve been on a bit of a Tansy Rayner Roberts kick of late (for example see my recent review of Musketeer Space, and I’m currently reading her crime novel Drowned Vanilla). What got me onto this dash was listening to Roberts new podcast, Sheep Might Fly.

Sheep Might Fly is a fiction podcast, with Roberts alternating between “reprint” and original fiction. She seems to be taking longer short fiction works, and dividing it up into bite sized chunks which she is releasing on a weekly basis. Roberts narrates the stories herself.

This is another innovative form of releasing fiction into the world, from an author who is clearly experimenting with all the new world of publishing has to offer. Her serial release of Musketeer Space, use of Patreon and now this venture into audio delivery of fiction has been interesting to watch. Combined with her more traditionally published fiction, Roberts seems to have really embraced the “hybrid author” approach championed by writers like Chuck Wendig (amongst many others). I love seeing people branch out and try so many different things, it’s the only way we’re going to find out what works in the 21st century for publishing..

Roberts launched the podcast with a 10 part serial, “Fake Geek Girl”, which was originally published in Review of Australian Fiction Volume 14, Issue 4. From the website:

Meet Fake Geek Girl, the band that plays nerdy songs at the university bar every Friday night, to a mixture of magical and non-magical students: lead singer Holly writes songs based on her twin sister Hebe’s love of geek culture though she doesn’t really understand it; drummer Sage is an explosive sorcerous genius obsessing over whether Holly’s about to quit the band to go mainstream; shy Juniper only just worked up the nerve to sing her own song in public and keeps a Jane Austen themed diary chronicling the lives and loves of her friends. When the mysterious, privileged Ferd joins their share house, everything starts to unravel…

Line by line, this story is trademark Roberts, with a playful wit and real focus on character development and relationships. In a remarkably short space of time, Roberts is able to provide enough world building elements to really whet a readers appetite. The characters are marvellously drawn, with Roberts switching voices deftly as she switches the point-of-view character. I loved listening to the piece week on week, but I must admit I only just felt like I was getting to know the characters and world when the story finished rather abruptly. The central mysteries of the story (will Holly leave the band? What’s up with the mysterious Ferd?) are wrapped up neatly, but I was left wanting more. I hope we see some expanded fiction set in this same world soon.

At the time of writing (early May 2016), Roberts has started on her second story, “Glass Slipper Scandal”. Again from the website:

Charming is a kingdom where fairy tales come true, which has been bad news for its troubled royal family, but good news for the gutter press that thrives on the scandals and gossip provided by their teenage Princes Gone Wild. Kai is a rookie reporter at the Charming Herald. Dennis is a new Royal Hound, charged with protecting the self-destructive princes from disaster.

Disaster arrives in a pumpkin coach… The story of the century is wearing glass slippers… and Castle Charming will never be the same again.

I’m only four episodes in, but I’m liking the premise again for this one. I’ll be interested to see how long this story goes for – it could be wrapped up rather quickly, but again I see real potential for how the story could move forward and expand.

If you’ve read and enjoyed any of Roberts work, I’d highly recommend downloading Sheep Might Fly and giving it a go. Excellent bite sized morsels of fiction, delivered free of charge to your electronic device of choice. Can’t ask for more than that!

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

Musketeer Space by Tansy Rayner Roberts – a second review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2016 Reading Challenge. All my 2016 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Now a little while ago I did a review of Musketeer Space by Tansy Rayner Roberts that was a bit of a cheat, in that Roberts was publishing the book at the rate of one chapter each week, and I was only about half way through. I was doing a bit of cleaning up on this site last week, and I realised I never went back and gave any final thoughts. You can read my original review here.

From Goodreads:

Musketeer Space is a (mostly) gender-swapped retelling of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas as a space opera.

The Three Musketeers is a messy, uneven, glorious romp of a novel, and with Musketeer Space the plan is for the story to remain essentially intact despite the addition of advanced technology, racial and sexual diversity, and a whole lot of women with swords.

When last we spoke of this book, I was on chapter 33 (around half way through the book) and going strong. So how about the rest of the book? Well, the wit remained sharp. The characters remained well rounded. The diversity remained broad. The adaptation to a space opera setting remained clever.

I was interested to see how Roberts would keep in line with the original text, when so much of the context was incredibly different. For the most part, the underlying construction and plot lines were remarkably consistent, and the use of a wide array of sexual orientations meant that relationships could be maintained even where some gender swapping from the original characters had taken place. But for all that drive for consistency, the novel remained fresh – a real feat all things considered.

Now, as a warning for the faint hearted, there is so much sauce in this book you could bottle it and hold a sausage sizzle. This very much fits in with the tone of the novel, and due to the afore-mentioned diversity of sexual orientation there is pretty much something for everyone as the plot rolls on.

And speaking of the plot, it is a very satisfying read from that point of view. I found that part quite remarkable, given that Roberts was writing a few weeks ahead of publication and that introduced some real risk of inconsistency that come from an inability to go back and change an earlier chapter that was already written. The threads of the story came together very well, and I think most readers would be satisfied by the conclusion.

As I said in the previous review, if you’re a fan of Roberts’ work, you should get yourself a copy of Musketeer Space. Stretching my memory back, I don’t recall a lot of science fiction in Roberts’ body of work, but hopefully this will be the harbinger of much more to come.

Now, I got the book in eBook form for being a Patreon supporter, but a quick scan of the internet doesn’t seem to throw up anywhere where a new reader might source the book in that form. The original blog posts are still available and 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.

Monthly Roundup – January & February 2015

Welcome to the first monthly roundup post for 2015. Can you believe it is March already? The pace of year scares the bejeesus out of me, I don’t mind telling you.

Earlier in the month I reviewed The Marching Dead by Lee Battersby, and what an excellent read it was. Go and check out the review. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Welcome back.

I also went back a bit in time I read Garth Nix’s Abhorsen trilogy (plus bonus novella). I usually review Australian authors separately, however the trilogy is from a while ago and Garth Nix is popular enough that I very much doubt he needs my signal boost! The individual titles of the series are Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen. I enjoyed the world building and background to the story, the late 19th-early 20th century feel of the non-magic land and the fantastic world “over the Wall”. The stories were interesting, but I must admit the head-hopping between characters was quite distracting and kept throwing me out of the story. I note that Nix has recently released a prequel Clariel – still deciding whether to purchase that one.

Brandon Sanderson’s latest YA novel Firefight was released and I had a quick read through. I enjoy Sanderson’s writing, and Firefight is another fast paced, interesting read with an interesting premise. Apart from the main character’s “bad metaphor” schtick (which was very distracting and felt quite forced) I enjoyed the ride. I also read his short novella Mitosis which is set between the two books in the series. I’ve probably succumbed to a shameless grab for cash from the hordes of Sanderson fans, but it was only a small amount of money and was a good read in and of itself. One of the things about Sanderson’s writing that I’m thinking a lot about is how he maintains a certain high octane pace through his books. It’s something that I think is missing from my own writing and reading these 1.5 books has given me a lot to think about.

My power drive through True Blood continued at lightening pace, and in late February we finished season 7, and therefore the whole series. I enjoyed True Blood more than I thought I would – the delivery of a few of the characters was hilarious (Eric, Pam and Jason in particular for those that have watched the show). The seventh season did feel like a bit of a clumsy add-on – I suspect it probably should have ended towards the end of season 6. Still, all up some great genre television.

I finally got the chance to listen to the sci-fi radio play series Night Terrace on a Sydney – Wollongong – Canberra – Sydney drive one weekend. My 6 year old daughter listened to it with me, and was quite taken by it all. “Is there any more of that Eddie show?” she asked me just the other week. If that’s not an endorsement for a second season, I don’t know what is. Very funny and clever writing, if you haven’t checked it out you should be very disappointed in yourself.

I’ve been to the movies more than normal over the last couple of months. Actually out to the cinema. I know, I was surprised too. I enjoyed the final instalment of The Hobbit although I don’t think I’ll need to see another CGI orc for quite some time. Penguins of Madagascar was hilarious – it is great that one of my kids has got old enough to justify me going to see goofy cartoons. Big Hero 6 was a surprisingly good super hero animation – Ms 6 loved it too. I definitely didn’t take her to see Kingsmen – that movie has a LOT of violence, but so over the top that it is hard to be too grossed out. Very much enjoyed that too. Most recently we saw The Imitation Game which is a very good bio-pic of Alan Turing’s life and well worth a look if you’re interested in the history of computing.

And it wouldn’t have been the holiday season without watching the Doctor Who Christmas special. I enjoyed it – some very funny Santa Claus action. But was it just me or did it seem like the ending was left open so Jemma Coleman could make up her mind about staying on with the show at the last minute? Probably just me.

I enjoyed Tansy Rayner Robert’s Musketeer Space prequel novella Seven Days of Joyeux, all about the lives of the three Musketeers pre-Dana. If you’re reading along with Musketeer Space, the novella adds some great depth to some of the main characters and fills in some interesting backstory. If you’ve been thinking of investing in this interesting experiment in serial novel writing, Seven Days of Joyeux is an excellent way of trying before you commit to a whole novel.

In preparation for watching the movie on Foxtel, I reread Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card during the holidays. It has been very many years since I read the book, and I was struck by the bleakness of the narrative and the extent to which Ender perpetrates such atrocities in the name of survival. An interesting blast from the past, although I don’t feel particularly compelled to read any more of the series.

I’ve recently finished Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal. I’ve read reviews that say “Pride and Prejudice with magic thrown in”, which about sums it up. Kowal is one of the presenters on the podcast Writing Excuses, and I’ve heard her talk about the series of books, in particular how she has combined the base characters with different styles of novels (e.g. regency “manners” novel, heist novel etc). I’m interested in reading more of them, to see how she does it. The writing was good and the story pulled me through – not normally my cup of tea but a refreshing change.

I also finished Cold Comfort & Other Tales by David McDonald, but I’ll write that up separately.

That’s all for now. What have you been reading/watching/listening to?