\n
The Female Factory<\/em> by Angela Slatter and Lisa L Hannett is the 11th book in the Twelve Planets series by Twelfth Planet Press<\/a>. The series aims to showcase Australian women writing speculative fiction and has produced some stellar, award winning work over the last 3 years.<\/p>\n Hannett and Slatter have collaborated before, most notably in the collection\u00a0Midnight and Moonshine<\/em>. The Female Factory<\/em>\u00a0has 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.<\/p>\n The collection is made up of four stories:<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The writing is very sophisticated, and the authors are able to draw the reader into the protagonist’s\u00a0world 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.<\/p>\n Another excellent addition to the Twelve Planets series, and one I have no hesitation in recommending.<\/p>\n Regular readers will know that I am an occasional contributor to the Galactic Chat<\/em> 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<\/a>. And if that isn’t enough, Sean Wright also interviewed Lisa L. Hannett for Galactic Chat<\/em> just before Christmas 2014 (the interview can be found here<\/a>).<\/p>\n I also reviewed this book on Goodreads.\u00a0View all my Goodreads reviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n This\u00a0work\u00a0by\u00a0Mark Webb<\/a>\u00a0is licensed under a\u00a0Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n <\/p>Hi,\n
\n<\/a>![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/23510370-182x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
\n![\"Creative](\"http:\/\/i.creativecommons.org\/l\/by-sa\/3.0\/au\/88x31.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
![\n<\/a>](\"https:\/\/www.markwebb.name\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/8411749.jpg\"){kind=link}