Tag: Archie Weller

Monthly roundup – May 2015

Work’s been busy during the month of May, so not a lot to report back.

I continued my Ditmar Best Novel reading with Bound by Alan Baxter and Clariel by Garth Nix. Both good reads if you like Australian speculative fiction.

I also continued my Aussie reading with The Dagger’s Path by Glenda Larke. I’ll be reviewing that one for the Australian Women Writers’ challenge, so no spoilers here.

I’ve started to think about what kind of books to recommend to Ms 7 as her reading improves, so when I saw the first two volumes in the Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan for $2 at a local library book sale, I decided to dive right in. The books were much as I expected, with a relatively simple plot and themes more relevant to those still at school than a 40-something adult. Still, I found myself turning pages at a rapid rate and I kept reading until I’d finished both books, so they must be doing something right!

I’ve got three books on the go at the moment:

  • Phantazein edited by Tehani Wessely from Fablecroft – an anthology of short fiction. I’ve quite enjoyed the stories so far, but I’ll say more in my wrap up (I think I’ll review it for the AWW challenge as well).
  • Dodger by Terry Pratchett. I was saddened to hear of the death of Terry Pratchett recently – his Discworld novels were a great source of joy through my adolescent years, and have remained firm favourites ever since. I’ve put off reading Dodger for quite some time – not really sure why. I’m about 25% of the way through now and loving it – but it is love tinged with a slight sense of sorrow that this will be the last piece of “new” Pratchett writing aimed at adults I will probably ever read.
  • Land of the Golden Clouds by Archie Weller. This has been on my bedside table for way too long now, a victim to my preference for eBooks over physical. I have at long last made it past the first chapter – and it is a very interesting read. Not the sort of book where you can skim read anything though, so I’m finding it slow going. The overlay of Aboriginal culture onto a far future landscape is deeply fascinating though – more once I’ve got a bit further.

Finally started on season 5 of Game of Thrones in May, and ripped through the first 5 or 6 episodes. I won’t say much more for fear of spoilers, but excellent television (as the first four seasons led me to expect!).

A fair bit of SF has started up recently, eating into my productive time. I’ve started:

  • 12 Monkeys – OK first 3 episodes based very loosely around the movie of the same name but haven’t been compelled to keep watching. This one is teetering on the edge of being sacrificed to the gods of Foxtel hard drive free space.
  • Wayward Pines – interesting show – I’m about 4 episodes in and the central mystery is keeping me hooked. Not sure how much beyond any big reveals I’ll last though – still, I’ll keep watching for now.
  • Arrow season 3. It really annoyed my that The Flash and Arrow were played separately from each other. I enjoy both shows, but the crossover episodes from The Flash gave away too many plot points from Arrow. I have heard other commentators complain about the flashback format, slowly revealing what happened to Oliver Queen when he was presumed dead for 5 years, but I really like it.
  • Gotham made a return to our screens and I’ve kept watching. I quite like it – I was even inspired to go back and start watching the Christopher Nolan Batman movies again. Seems to be hitting its stride.

I’m hovering on the brink of succumbing to the lure of Netflix, just so I can watch Daredevil, which I’ve heard good things about.

On the writing front, I went back to an old story I’ve tinkered on here and there for quite a while. At 11,000 words it is an inconvenient length for submission – I really needed to either cut a few thousand words and submit it as a short story or flesh it out to novella length. To be honest the world is starting to grow on me, so I’ve written the first cut of another few thousand words so far, and will probably write quite a bit more before I’m done. None of this is helping get anything published of course, but I find as long as I’m actually writing, the not being published part isn’t quite so hard.

Oh, and of course my piece for Antipodean SF issue 200 was played on the Anti SF radio show, episode Gemma, released on 23 May 2015. It’s surreal to hear my work in audio form, and I’m always grateful to Nuke for providing that extra channel for people to enjoy the fiction.

Monthly roundup – April 2015

So, what have I been reading this month? I read Glenda Larke’s second book in the The Forsaken Lands series, The Dagger’s Path. I’ll write up a review for the Australian Women’s Writer’s Reading Challenge eventually, so not much more to say.

Having read two of the five “Best Novel” nominations for the 2015 Ditmar awards, I decided to make my way through the other three. I’ll be posting reviews, but for the record I finished:

I’ve just started an Archie Weller novel, but it is a bit heavy going. Hopefully I’ll get the hang of the language soon.

Game of Thrones started again, but I haven’t watched any of it. Don’t spoil it for me. Seriously.

I did however manage to see the series Agent Peggy Carter from the good people at Marvel. Really liked the setting and the 1950s vibe. With the high tech gizmos that fill the other Marvel Cinematic Universe offerings, there is something refreshing about getting back to some simpler material. The acting is good and some interesting takes on sexism and other gender related issues. I liked the fact that it was only 8 episodes long – kept the story tight and moving at a fair clip. Hope we see more in the future.

Speaking of TV, I also watched a series on Foxtel called The Librarians. It has sort of a Warehouse 13 vibe going for it – the Library collects magical artefacts and stores them away. A bit simplistic in parts, but it is one that I can watch with the kids which is always a bonus. I had the feeling I’d missed some backstory, and a little bit of research told me that the series was based on a series of three “Librarian” movies produced in the 2000s. We had to immediately track them down, and having watched the first two they are indeed as cheesy as I expected. Still, anything that avoids my 600th watching of Frozen gets my vote at the moment.

12 Monkeys is definitely not a show to watch with the kids. I’ve only watched the first couple of episodes, but seems OK. Will give it a couple more before making a final thumbs up/thumbs down decision.

So, should I get Netflix? Pretty much it is only the Daredevil series that is attracting me, but given the other Marvel series coming down the pipeline I suspect I’m going to cave at some point.

On the writing front, I’m still struggling with the editing phase of Unaligned. To help get my groove back, I’ve started a first draft of the second book in the series and I’m back to writing every night which is good. However, I really need to work out a way to build in some proper editing on the first novel manuscript!