Original 1922 Cover

Today is international “Talk Like a Pirate” day and to join in the fun I thought I’d list some favourite  pirate reads:

Captain Blood Rafael Sabatini

Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson

Peter Pan J.M. Barrie

The Man Whose Mother Was A Pirate Margaret Mahy

The Princess Bride William Goldman

Missee Lee Arthur Ransome

The Hotel Under the Sand Kage Baker

How about you? What are your favourite pirate books?

Terri Garey

As you may know, I post once a month on the Supernatural Underground, a blog for HarperCollins USA speculative fiction authors.  On Tuesday, fellow Supe author, Terri Garey, posted this this fun piece of zombie flash, titled “Love Stinks and So Does Your Breath”:

“Is that a femur in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Even embalming didn’t help, and she didn’t care for waxy buildup on her fingers any more than she did her floors.”

…

To read the rest, click here.

Enjoy!

As I’ve already mentioned in earlier posts this, this is NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week and there have already been several interesting posts on what it means to write speculative fiction in New Zealand and as a New Zealander. (By the way, you can check this week’s blog posts out here.)

I don’t think I have a lot of profound insights to offer, but the theme of the week has caused me to pause and reflect. For a start, I am a writer (check), I am a New Zealander (check) and I write Fantasy-Science Fiction (which falls within the aegis of  “speculative fiction”—so “check” again.)

But what does that mean, to be a New Zealand speculative fiction writer, any more than to be, for example, a British, American, or Japanese  speculative fiction author? Does it mean that one “should” write self-consciously New Zealand stories, with NZ characters, and NZ cultural themes and settings, i.e. with the speculative literary equivalent of buzzy bees and No. 8 wire on every other page?

Yet what, then, of UK author, China Miéville, whose novel The City & The City has just jointly won this year’s Hugo Award for Best Novel and is set in the fictional East European city of  Beszel/Ul Qoma. Does that mean that China Miéville is not writing UK speculative fiction, or is not a UK spec-fic author? Or his Hugo co-winner, Paolo Bacigalupi, who is American and a spec fic author, but whose novel The Windup Girl is set in a dystopian future Thailand, with many characters therein who are not American, although a handful are. But is this enough to make it American speculative fiction?

And where does Neil Gaiman’s American Gods fit in? Some would claim it as the quintessential American spec-fic novel in a cultural sense, but although now resident in the US, Gaiman was for a long time a UK author. So how does that work?

Or what about when Japanese anime director, Hayao Miyazaki, made the film of UK author Diana Wynne Jones‘ novel Howl’s Moving Castle, which is about a Welsh wizard in a Fantasy world—doesn’t that just make your head hurt when trying to tie nationality to story?

It makes mine ache a fair bit, I have to say. So maybe I just need to keep things simple. I’m a writer. I write Fantasy-SciFi, which is a form of speculative fiction. I also happen to live in New Zealand. By and large, I like living in New Zealand (although like everyone else in Christchurch I’m ready for the whole earthquake and aftershock experience to be over; about now would be good) but I am not personally convinced that my place of residence and what and how I write are deeply or intrinsically linked. I certainly don’t feel the need to consciously include the literary equivalent of buzzy bees or No. 8 fencing wire in my books—in fact, I find the whole idea of actively tryng to do so decidedly naff.

As a writer, I try to tell the best stories I can, in the best way that I can. If others, reading my writing, find elements they consider distinctively New Zealand, then I’ll be very happy about that as well, because these associations will have arisen naturally, out of who and what I am. And for this Kiwi writer, in NZ SpecFic Blogging week, that’s exactly the way it ought to be.

So what about you? Do you agree? Disagree? Don’t care?

US Cover

AU/NZ Cover

Before going to Worldcon in Australia, I prerecorded this interview with Ruth Todd of Women on Air, Plains 96.9 FM ahead of the Christchurch Writers’ Festival, then scheduled for 9-12 September.

Sadly, the festival had to be cancelled because of the earthquake and its aftermath, but the interview is currently available on podcast.

To listen, click here, then either click on the play icon or download the mp3 (it’s free.)

Lord of the Rings Panel with Alison Croggan (l) & Rose-Marie Lillian (r)

Still in the spirit of NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week, I have just blogged about my experiences at Worldcon on the blog of my UK publisher Orbit—so do check it out!

As with the Out of this Eos post on the Hugo Awards, the accompanying photos are by fellow SpecFicNZ member, Joffre Horlor. (The one with this post, sadly, is just a “snap”, but you can click to enlarge.)

Phil & Kaja Foglio, Accepting their Hugo Award for "Best Graphic Story"

This week is NZ speculative fiction blogging week and you can find out more by visiting the Speculative Fiction Writers of New Zealand (SpecFicNZ) blog, here—as well as linking through to many great posts.

In the spirit of NZ SpecFicNZ, I am providing a link through to the final in my series of articles on this year’s Hugo Awards, which was published yesterday on the Out of this Eos blog of my US publisher, Eos.

The photos that accompany the article are by fellow SpecFicNZ member, Joffre Horlor.

In the midst of the plain
sings the skylark
free of all things

Matsuo Bassho 1644-1694

—

Haiku is such a popular form, both in New Zealand and internationally, that I felt it was time to include one as a Tuesday Poem. This poem, by the Japanese master, Matsuo Bassho, is a personal favourite, both because of its simplicity, but also the way it “speaks” to the deeper yearnings of our humanity. Despite that, it’s also very “zen”, which resonates with my martial arts background.

Local Landmark

It’s over a week now since the 7.1 earthquake hit Christchurch, and 5 days since I returned home form Aussiecon to be greeted by another 5.1 ‘quake. So ok, we’re still getting “aftershocks”, which vary between a sharp jolt with a bit of shake and rattle thrown in, to what I call the “long roll”, which feels quite  a bit like being caught in a deep swell at sea.  Since the experts say that the original ‘quake was very much like a big wave rolling through the earth, perhaps it’s not surprising that some of the aftershocks also feel like wave action.

For me, the tidy up is pretty much done, but for

Red Carded

others the news is not so good. A kind of building triage has been done, so some of those buldings with “Not OK” scrawled over windows and doors when I returned from Australia now have yellow or red “cards”  on their doors. You may recall I mentioned my favourite local bar last week—sadly, it has a red card and given the damage to the building overall, I have to say that the prognosis is not looking good.

So not over yet—not by a long way, the people I know who work in infrastructure tell me—but settling down, and what the experts advise us to do is get back into a normal routine, as much as we can. For me, this means back into the writing, because book contracts and delivery deadlines wait not for time, tide, or earthquake! But despite the disappointment of the Christchurch Writers’ Festival, which was scheduled over last weekend, having to be cancelled, it feels good to get back into things and work on a few of the fresh ideas for WALL2 that emerged while I was in Melbourne.

The Heir of Night is being launched in the US on 1 October—and very cool news, John Scalzi has offered me a Big Idea slot on his Whatever blog on 21 October!

There is a “big idea” behind Heir and The Wall of Night series, one that has driven the writing of the book “from the beginning” —as my friend Ruth will bear witness given that I used to talk to her endlessly about it over coffee when we both lived in Dunedin–oh my goodness—a decade ago now. It took me a little longer to actually get started with the writing, but it is very exciting that the book, and now also the big idea, are going to be getting out there, into the world.

So don’t forget to stay tuned and check out Whatever, and the Big Idea, on 21 October.

You may recall that I had the Booker longlisted Room, by Emma Donoghue to read two weeks back—and I loved it. I was doubtful when I read the back, because the “room” in question is one of those ones where women and children are kidnapped and held captive for years on end. (And no, that’s not a spoiler, it really is right there on the back cover.) But I found it a wonderful read and so was delighted to see that it has made it onto the Booker Short List this week, together with Andrea Levy’s The Long Song. I was privileged to interview Andrea Levy earlier this year for Women on Air, Plains 96.9 FM, and to compere her public event here in Christchurch, which makes the progression of The Long Song to the short list that much more personal.

In terms of what I’m reading right now, because of being away at Worldcon and coming home to earthquake clean up, I haven’t had time to do any new reading. But what I have brought back is Sara Douglass’s Battle Axe (Book One of the Axis Trilogy), which I was given in my gift bag as part of Voyager’s 15th anniversary celebration, held at Worldcon. I have never read Sara Douglass before, but I have heard good things–and Joanna Preston even compared Heir to Sara s’s Axis series a few weeks back, so I am looking forward to checking it out.