Galactic Chat 36 Devin Madson

I reviewed Devin’s first book here.  Earlier in the week we sat down and chatted for a Galactic Chat interview.  Please enjoy the episode posted below:

 

This week Sean talks with author/publisher Devin Madson who has recently released her debut novel.  They talk about overcoming the self publishing stigma, the highs and lows of funding your project through crowd sourcing sites such as Pozible and sourcing publishing professionals when you don't have the commercial weight of traditional publishing behind you.

 

  You can download here.

Devin's website www.devinmadson.com

Devin on Twitter

Devin on Facebook

Credits

Interviewer: Sean Wright

Guest: Devin Madson

Music & Intro: Tansy Rayner Roberts

Post-production: Sean Wright

Feedback:

Twitter: @galactichat

Email: galactichat at gmail dot com

Book Review – The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

The Bone Season is Samantha Shannon’s debut novel, one of a planned seven to be rolled out by Bloomsbury. It launches today with much fanfare, and a push from Bloomsbury to be the next Twilight or Hunger games. Imaginarium Studios have obtained the film rights, so it seems there’s a considerable effort being put behind Ms Shannon.

The Bone Season is an alternate history dystopia that has that wonderful gloomy English tone.  An oppressive and moralistic government with religious trappings (the reader assumes it’s Christian) attempts to track down and imprison rogue or free Voyants (any number of different types of people who can manipulate/talk to spirits).  Various criminal syndicates exploit these free voyants while keeping them out of the government’s way.

Our protagonist Paige Mahoney, an Irish immigrant, is working for one of these syndicates until she is captured and taken to the government's holding facility. There begins an unravelling of the truth, the real workings behind the curtain the state has erected.

Imagine Orwell’s 1984, cut with some of the dark fantasy from Storm Constantine’s Stalking Tender Prey but without the sex and you come close. 

I wanted to like The Bone Season with as much vigour as Andy Serkis, who blurbs the back of my paperback copy calling it, “Truly Extraordinary and Thrilling”.  I prefer my dark fantasy to have that gloomy, cynical edge that British writers seem to evoke naturally and I do love a good gritty dystopia. Sadly I didn’t find it thrilling or extraordinary and if I had to choose between The Bone Season and Twilight I think the later edges out the winner, at least in terms of telling a compelling story. 

Despite being written in first person I never felt drawn into the character of Paige, never felt that she was truly in danger or that she was going to lose anything of value.  She does lose friends and acquaintances, she is put in mortal danger but I wasn’t immersed enough to care.  I do wonder if the knowledge that there are six books to come undercuts some of the tension.

I also found some of the world building got in the way.  Any time a new type of Voyant is revealed in the text we get to know if they are an Astragalomanceror, a Chiromancer or an [insert]-omancer and my reading brain just skips over the word when I read it, because mostly its not relevant to the story.  I’m also not sure if the flashbacks, that added depth to Paige’s character, didn’t actually break the flow of the story.

It’s not all doom and gloom though, Shannon can write and there were places in the novel which glided effortlessly by.  Overall it was a middle of the road read for me, entertaining enough not to skip pages with some niggling bits and pieces that might just be my personal taste. 

Is it the next Twilight or Hunger Games?  Time will tell.

This book was provided by the publisher.

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Margo Lanagan’s Sea Hearts longlisted for the Stella Prize

Sea Hearts or as its titled in the northern hemisphere – The Brides of Rollrock Island, has been longlisted for the Inaugural Stella Prize. The prize will be awarded on the 16th of April and the winning author will receive $50,000 for their efforts.

So go Margo!

You can see the other longlistees here.

I reviewed Sea Hearts here.

The Stella Prize:

The Stella Prize will be an annual prize celebrating Australian women’s contribution to literature. It is named after Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin and is partly modelled on the very successful UK Orange Prize. Both non-fiction and fiction books by Australian women will be eligible to enter.

The prize will reward one female writer, the winner of The Stella Prize, with a significant monetary prize of $50,000. The Stella Prize also seeks to raise the profile and sales of books by women generally, and specifically through The Stella Prize longlist and shortlist. In doing so, The Stella Prize will encourage future generations of women writers by increasing the recognition of Australian women’s writing and providing role models. [Source: Australia Business Arts Foundation]

You can donate to the prize it’s tax deductable.  Just click the source link above.

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Night Creatures to go live on Amazon

The excellent Night Creatures series by Marianne de Pierres – Burn Bright , Angel Arias and Shine Light will be available in eBook form on Amazon at the end of March. 

Previously its only been legally available in electronic form in Australia and New Zealand.  Which I am sure has been frustrating for Marianne and some of her international fans.

 

I have read Burn Bright, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I found it to be a fascinating mix of teen Goth culture, social comment, sci-fi action and adventure.  It’s one of those books that can be enjoyed by adults and mature teens. A boo that has something to say without beating you around the head with it.

For more news about the series hang out over on Marianne’s page here.

 

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Verity! Episode 1 – The Snowmen

Episode one has arrived.  How did it go? Well pretty damn good for a first episode.  Sometimes a show needs a bit of settling in before it hits its stride, but these women of Who, these Mistresses of Time have got their game on.

Now if I can only differentiate the American accents. No matter.

The discussion on Moffat’s Christmas special was good and the breadth of knowledge and experience in the team meant that I got an inkling for tracking down some some Troughton era stories.

Download: verityep01.mp3 (runtime 1:00:48) 

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Book Review– Besieged by Rowena Cory Daniells

Besieged is the first book in The Outcast Chronicles by Rowena Cory Daniells.  The Chronicles see Daniells return to the world which she created in the T’En Trilogy.  The Chronicles are a prequel to that series and take place at a considerable distance from the evens featured in the earlier works.
It is not necessary then to have read the earlier trilogy, to understand or enjoy Besieged.

Where to start on Besieged?

There are good books that you can appreciate and enjoy, then there are books that you will lose sleep over or have to get you significant other to hide from you so you can get work done.  Besieged, for me is the latter.  I found its story and Daniells’ writing tugging at my consciousness at every waking moment of the two days it took me to read it.

The dark and twisted tale

Besieged is a saga of blood, family inheritance and the struggle for acceptance. A tale of political scheming, intrigue, and up close and personal violence.  A tale of character’s wants, desires, and ambitions causing misery and misfortune for those around them.  It is a story of two people and two cultures and a path of destruction they seem unable to avoid.

Sorne is the half blooded son of King Charald in a kingdom where T’En and the half blooded Melanjue are slandered as Wyrd’s, abominations in the eyes of the true men who follow the Churches of the Seven.  He is raised in secret by a high priest and forged, through deprivation and holy torture, into a weapon to use against the T’En.

Imoshen is secretly raised by a T’En Brotherhood, an action the breaks the 400 year old covenant between the male and female factions of T‘en culture. She has an untrained talent for wielding the T’En gift and an inquisitive nature unfettered by the dictates of the covenant.
Imoshen searches for acceptance and a home for her children.  Sorne searches for love and affection from a father who will give him none.
Both these characters are agents of change in two cultures set to collide with one another.

Dark fantasy not for the squeamish

I have been a fan of Rowena’s since consuming the King Rolen’s Kin Trilogy last year. Besieged features the same pacey writing but with much darker content.

The battles in Besieged occur off page.  Daniells focuses on the interpersonal, which makes some of the content darker than your general fantasy tale.  There’s not much left untouched – children die, and characters are tortured.  The violence isn’t gratuitous but Daniells’ skill in getting you to love characters and invest in them before she hurts them in front your eyes, is superlative. You simply must read on to ensure that characters obtain justice or carry out revenge.

If you were squeamish about the inclusion of a gay character in the King Rolen’s Kin series, then you may have to put on your big boy/girl pants to read Besieged.  The T’En culture is split into Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods, same sex coupling is common and expected, in addition to trysts that result in offspring. 
There’s also aspects of sexual politics within in the Brotherhoods that might make male readers squirm uncomfortably.

Similar in tone to a Song of Ice and Fire, but complete

I have made comparisons between Daniells’ work and that of George R.R. Martin before, stating my preference for the former.  If you are looking for dark, gripping adult fantasy, but in a finished product, Besieged and I venture, the rest of the Chronicles, will sate your palate.

This book was provided to me by the author.

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This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012.  Please check out this page for more great writing from Australian women.

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eBook Review– Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

Shades of Milk and Honey is the first in a series of Regency Era novels with magic.  Kowal’s debut novel, it was nominated for the 2010 Nebula¹ Best Novel category. 

Kowal is no newcomer to awards, she also received the Campbell Award² for Best New Writer in 2008 and received Hugo³ nominations for her short work, including talking out the Hugo with her short, For want of a Nail.

So what do you get when you mix a talented speculative fiction writer with the Regency Period?  Shades of Milk and Honey been likened to Pride and Prejudice meets Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell or Austen with magic. 

While that gives you an idea of the type of book it is, it does define the novel in terms of other works. While I understand the need for catchy marketing, it does not do justice to the work itself.
So in answering my own question, what do you get? A delight.  Now I will admit that I am a fan of Austen and works set from the Regency era on to the Victorian.

The Tale

Shades of Milk and Honey is an intimate portrait of Jane Ellsworth, a woman ahead of her time in a version of Regency England where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality. But despite the prevalence of magic in everyday life, other aspects of Dorchester’s society are not that different: Jane and her sister Melody’s lives still revolve around vying for the attentions of eligible men.
Jane resists this fate, and rightly so: while her skill with glamour is remarkable, it is her sister who is fair of face, and therefore wins the lion’s share of the attention. At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, Jane has resigned herself to being invisible forever. But when her family’s honor is threatened, she finds that she must push her skills to the limit in order to set things right–and, in the process, accidentally wanders into a love story of her own. [source]

Kowal, like the director of a good Austen dramatization strikes the right chord in presenting regency mores and dialogue without trying to mimic Austen’s style exactly.  It prevents the work coming across as a pastiche and makes entry into the regency world a little easier for the less dedicated regency reader. 

Some examples will illustrate:

The Ellsworths of Long Parkmead had the regard of their neighbours in every respect. The Honourable Charles Ellsworth, though a second son, through the generosity of his father had been entrusted with an estate in the neighbourhood of Dorchester. It was well appointed and used only enough glamour to enhance its natural grace, without overlaying so much illusion as to be tasteless. His only regret, for the estate was a fine one, was that it was entailed, and as he had only two daughters, his elder brother’s son stood next in line to inherit it. Knowing that, he took pains to set aside some of his income each annum for the provision of his daughters. –  Shades of Milk and Honey

and

The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it. In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children, the old Gentleman's days were comfortably spent. His attachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the children added a relish to his existence. – Sense and Sensibility

Kowal gives you all the things that you love about Austen, the banter, the mores, the misunderstandings and then she seamlessly adds magic or Glamour,as it is called.

A subtly woven magic

So well is Glamour woven into the story, so well is its practice and place within regency society portrayed, that instead of jarring the reader as some might find with works such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it flows and enhances the various tropes of regency romance.

Jane took the folds between her fingers and thinned them to a gossamer weight which she could barely feel. When she stretched them out, they spanned the corner in a fine web. Once she anchored the folds to the corner, the glamour settled into the room, vanishing from view. The gentle scent of honeysuckle filled the air, as if from a sprig of flowers. It took so little effort that she barely felt light-headed.

Glamour (the creation of illusion for artistic or cosmetic effect) is integral to the novel without seeming so and I think that is Kowal’s greatest achievement with the book.
For those readers out there who think “Pah! romance who needs it” .  Well Shades does have romance, but there’s action, duels for honour and really… everyone needs a little romance.  I found myself sitting on the edge of the seat unable to put the book down, in much the same way that once I start watching Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle) I lose 6 hours of my life.
There are characters who remind us somewhat of our Austen favourites, Mrs Ellsworth shares some characteristics with Mrs Bennett, especially her nervous disposition.  This is handled well though and I see it as somewhat of a polite allusion to Austen.

I would recommend the book to fans of Austen as I think Kowal has captured the drama and feel perfectly.  For fans of speculative fiction Glamour is a perfect example of a thoroughly thought through and implemented magic system that doesn’t have roots in Tolkien or Dungeons and Dragons.

Adding value 

In an era where some authors think it is a good idea to put Zombies into Austen or to cut explicit sex scenes into Bronte.  It is refreshing and inspiring to have a talented author add something of worth to the genre.

My only disappointment with this book was that it ended and for some reason I have yet to discern, the sequel Glamour in Glass is not available for sale as an ebook in Australia⁴ .

I have had to order the hardback, and I can’t tell you how much it vexes me to know have a broken set- one ebook and one hardback. Vexes me, I say. 

My poor nerves.

Thank you Miss Kowal, you keep writing them and I'll keep buying them, in whatever format I can.

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<sup>1. The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year. [source]↩
2. The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer is an award given annually to the best new writer whose first professional work of science fiction or fantasy was published within the two previous calendar years.[source]↩
3. The Hugo Awards are a set of awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year[source].↩
4. Neither does it appear that Shades is available as an ebook anymore ↩</sup>

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Shades of Milk and Honey on Sale

Mary Robinette Kowal’s Shades of Milk and Honey ebook is on sale for under $3.  I bought mine through Kobo but its also available on Amazon AND available to fans in Australia.

It’s English Regency meets fantasy, so if you are a fan of Austen or Georgette Heyer you might like this one.

Mary’s Blog can be found here

I’ll let you find your own way to Kobo or Amazon. Its on sale until the 6th of April.

 

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Luna Station Quarterly Number 9

Please join me in congratulating the crew at Luna Station Quarterly for entering their third year of publication, beginning with issue number 9.

 

 

 

Open publication - Free publishing - More fiction

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Margo Lanagan interviewed about Sea Hearts

A gorgeous 9 minute video where Margo talks about Sea Hearts and about the way she writes.

It’s also the first time I have heard Margo speak. Enjoy

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eBook Review–The Shattered City (Creature Court 2) by Tansy Rayner Roberts

The Shattered City is book 2 of Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Creature Court Trilogy following on from Power and Majesty. The third and final book Reign of Beasts is to be released February 2nd¹.

Don’t let the cover fool you- the Red Hot Chilli Peppers fifth album, Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic could have been an alternative title for this book. 
Bloody action, liberal use of Animor (magic) and some very saucy sex scenes and the sugar…well there’s honey cakes.

In my review of Power and Majesty I stated that I felt that Roberts had written a well balanced story with all of the above ingredients – I feel that she’s “one-upped” herself with the second installment of the series.

The Story
When we left Velody in Power and Majesty she was coming to terms with her position as the head of the Creature Court and had vanquished Lord Dhynar a rogue member. At the beginning of The Shattered City we are still not sure why the sky falls some nights nor what the big picture is, though there is a hint of malevolent intelligence behind it all.

Velody is firmly cemented as the leader of the court, though some lords still test her, forcing her to apply some muscle.  A series of murders threatens to throw all her good work into disarray, as it appears that  member of the court is targeting their fellows.  Compounding this is the break down in the rituals of the daylight world which help sustain and rebuild the city after each skybattle. 

Ashiol is haunted by hallucinations of Garnet and he begins to fall into madness.  Rhian, a largely secondary character in Power and Majesty comes to the fore and reveals a secret.  Delphine is dragged reluctantly towards becoming a Sentinel and Velody will have to make a sacrifice to save her city.

Visceral
Visceral is perhaps the best way to describe this book.  It’s fantasy with a distinct mythic flavouring.  The Creature Court, not surprisingly reminds me of Greek and Roman gods, decidedly human in their ambitions and passions.  So on the one hand I get a sense of the fantastical, the changing of the court members into their various totemic animals or their larger Chimera form but on the other the politics and passions are very human.

Things to like
I am finding it hard not to keep referring back to Power and Majesty, which I found to  present an original characters, setting and story.  The Shattered City continues this pattern – Velody’s occupation as a dressmaker continues to play an important part in the actions and outcomes in the story. 

How often in Fantasy does the heroine drop what she is doing to become a <insert weapon here> wielding Valkyrie? How refreshing is it that Velody holds on to her daylight work as a way of keeping her grounded.

In Power and Majesty Rhian was in danger of falling prey to the trope of “female character who has been raped” which explains why they are either tough angry women or skittish wall flowers.  I will say nothing more than Roberts has turned this trope on its head.

Finlay I love the way Roberts lets the reader think at least for a brief moment that Velody has everything under control before sweeping the rug out from under our feet and revealing the depths to which some betrayals go. Never turn your back on the Creature Court even in a world ending crisis.

Summary
Action, blood and lust and a little bit of dressmaking.  If you enjoy well written action, political intrigue, anime like transformation of characters into monstrous beasts and well written sex scenes give the whole series a go.  

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^{1. If you are lucky enough to live in Hobart, Tansy is holding a book launch, details to be found here} 

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This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012.  Please check out this page for more great writing from Australian women.

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Goodreads Giveaway by Claire Corbett

Claire Corbett, Australian author of the acclaimed When We Have Wings is offering to copies for giveaway on goodreads.

You can enter here.

The story

In a dystopian near-future, genetic engineering, radical surgery and a regime of drugs can give you something humans have always dreamed about: the ability to fly. If you have the money, you can join this self-created elite: the winged.

These fliers are not only given wings; they have their own architecture, fashion, religion and politics, and build floating towers in the sky. Those who live outside The City in the rural slums of RaRA-land can only look up at this new species of human in wonder and despair.

Except for one remarkable girl, Peri, who is prepared to sacrifice everything to get her own wings. When she kidnaps a rich family’s child, the investigation threatens to undermine the glittering world of fliers and reveal its ruthless secrets.

 

What others have said

“This book is mischievous with scientific meddling in a way that echoes Margaret Atwood's dystopian fiction Oryx and Crake. Corbett creates a world where cars have artificial intelligence ….plants glow at night.. spliced with jellyfish genes and… lions are shrunk to the size of a cat….Corbett's prose has the clarity, luminosity and beauty of a well-cut diamond.... this flight of fancy deserves to soar.”

Thuy On. The Weekend Australian

“This is what makes When We have Wings unsettling--the realisation that this is a metaphor for today's world….Humanity is still the force that matters and endures.”

Mary Philip - The Daily Telegraph

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Galactic Suburbia Number 48 is out

Regular readers should already be subscribed to one of Australia’s premier podcasts on Speculative Fiction. 

If you haven’t heard about Galactic Suburbia then you have been missing out.  Now owing to a busy work schedule I am still catching up on last fortnights podcast. But you can jump right in now.

Here’s the show notes for number 48.  You can stream from the flash player below or go to the website and download the mp3 file.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

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Twelfth Planet Press Supporting Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012

I mentioned in this post my plans to participate in the Australian Women Writers Challenge.

I am heartened to see publishers and booksellers throwing their support behind it as well.  Twelfth Planet Press has decided to offer a discount to those participating in the challenge.

Twelfth Planet Press is getting behind the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012.

We are offering a 10% discount on all of our books which fit the challenge – ie written by women – for the whole of 2012.

To access the offer, simply send us a link to your own challenge post via email – contact@twelfthplanetpress.com – for an invoice for your chosen book(s) with the discount OR in the instructions to the seller in your paypal purchase for the refund.

[Source]

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Free - Luna Station Quarterly Issue 8

Issue 8 of the Luna Station Quarterly can be read below through the embedded Issu.com link or you can go to their website.  Read it, it’s free.

What is the Luna Station Quarterly?

From their about page:

The on-going mission of the Luna Station Quarterly project is to display the vast and varied talents of female genre fiction writers.

[Read more]

Open publication - Free publishing - More fiction

 

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Book Review–In Other Worlds: Science Fiction and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood

In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination is a curious book. But to understand some of its raison d'être you need a little background.

Once upon a time…
Margaret Atwood seems to have had tense relationship with some elements of the science fiction community( and vice versa) since her release of the novel The Handmaid's Tale in 1985. 

Atwood was awarded the Arthur C Clarke¹  for The Handmaid's Tale , which was also nominated for a Nebula² and a Prometheus ³ – all science fiction awards.  It was also a finalist for the prestigious Booker Prize for literature.
She has previously distanced herself from the science fiction scene stating that she doesn’t consider what she writes to be science fiction, that she writes speculative fiction.  Perhaps her early response to praise from the science fiction community, in the form of awards, can be viewed understandably as an impolite rebuff and characterising science fiction as “talking squids in space” as late as 2003 probably hasn’t helped either.

She has been accused of protecting her brand as a writer of serious literature of not wanting to be branded or pigeon holed as genre fiction writer.  I don’t think that there’s enough evidence to back this claim and Atwood herself dismisses it within the book.

Answering her critics or simply,”this is me take it or leave it”
In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination is an interesting a mix of biography, essay and fiction. 

The first hundred or so pages are heavily biographical, while simultaneously being educative.  This section consists of three chapters that grew out of her Ellman Lectures delivered at Emory University in 2010.  They chart her development and her changing experience with what many would term science fiction.  The Chapter “Flying Bunnies” covers her childhood and the origins and development of superheroes in popular culture. 

The second chapter covers her undergraduate years and deals with her interest in the mythologies and metaphysics that were the fertile soil in which earlier science fiction grew. 
The final chapter explores the Victorian underpinnings of Utopias and Dystopias, Metaphysical Romances and in terms of biography, covers her writing of the Dystopian fictions, The Handmaids Tale, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. 

Her execution of this section of the book is seamless, like having a conversation with a learned friend, where you gain the benefit of learning about their life and developing a connection, while at the same time walking away with your brain firing on all cylinders due to the intellectual stimulation it’s received.

It goes some way to explaining her position i.e.  She generally doesn’t write science fiction, her lauded science fiction works aren’t science fiction they are speculative fiction and I think her argument for her position is sound. 

We could argue that in this day and age it doesn’t really matter.  But I’m inclined to sit back respect her definition of herself and her writing - essentially I don’t care, I’d read her fiction regardless of whether its speculative fiction, science fiction or romance – I think at times we get too hung up on labels and squeezing what should be a fluid art form into rigid categories.

The Analytical Atwood
Wherein she turns the analysis outward.

The next section labelled “Other Deliberations” an is a collection of what I suppose you would call her analytical pieces, this is Atwood the Academic/Reviewer, commenting on science fiction.
It was the discussions of Swift, Orwell, Wells and Huxley that really impressed me.  I don’t know that I am used to the sort of analysis and knowledge that Atwood can bring to the discussion of these writers but she has awoken a desire in me to reacquaint myself with them.

Now this is science fiction
The final section is some selected science fiction that she has written over the years. It’s science fiction by her definition and distinct from her speculative fiction.  I can’t help but think she’s being a bit playful here, saying “look I’m not afraid to write science fiction and here it is”. 
While all the pieces are short they demonstrate the skill that she can bring to bear on the genre. Her short,  “Cold-Blooded” about a race of sentient moth like creatures discovering Earth and observing and interacting with us is a truly beautiful piece and as expected full of the wit and cutting observation that Atwood weaves in her fiction.

Who is this book for?
I think it has broad appeal.  It is perhaps easier to say who wouldn’t be interested.  I think if you are too invested in the to and fro between arguing that her work is science fiction then there’s not going to be much to persuade you here.  If you are an Atwood fan you’ll love it, if you a science fiction fan you’ll appreciate and enjoy it.
Atwood is a writer, a brilliant writer of poetry, fiction and non fiction.  Arguing that she is a science fiction writer seems to miss the point - that her while her science fiction as other might label it, is well regarded, it is but a small part of her overall body of work.  Focussing on that aspect of Atwood alone is reducing her to a very small part of who she is.
For an interesting discussion on this book please check out the Coode Street Podcast featuring Ursula K Le Guin (download)

Podcast Powered By Podbean

This book was provided to me by the publisher

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Footnotes
1. The United Kingdoms best Science Fiction novel of the previous year
2. The American equivalent of the best science fiction/fantasy novel
3. A libertarian science fiction award.

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Luna Station Quarterly Issue No 7 is out

The Luna Station Quarterly is a magazine focused on speculative fiction written by up and coming women authors.  Issue 7 is below for your reading pleasure, you can checkout their site here.

Open publication - Free publishing - More spec fic