The Godless by Ben Peek on special at Booktopia

I had the pleasure of reading Ben’s book earlier in the year.  You can take a look at my review below if you are interested.  

 

It’s a big step moving from writing condensed, powerful and original short fiction to a multiple book, epic fantasy.  As different as say running a 5km run and a marathon.  In each case you use the same skill but the end objective, your tactics, how you cross the finish line or complete the work is different, enough to challenge the best runners or writers when they are used to one kind of event, one format.

So how did Peek fare?  He’s a very good short story writer (see Dead Americans) and The Godless is an epic in every sense of the word.

Granted a trilogy is not an uncommon sight on fantasy shelves but I get the sense that in some at least there’s a fairly straightforward structure designed to move the story along, hook in readers who will become loyal – an understanding if you will between commerce, story and entertainment that produces an easily digestible product, where the text is transparent. 

Then there are books like The Godless that I think need the space for the scope and definition of the storytelling.  The Godless is an epic, not just in terms of size but in its selection of characters and its apparent scope.  [read on]

 

The reason why I mention Ben’s book again is that Booktopia have this first paperback printing going at about half price and they are also running their last free shipping promo for the year.  You’ll have til next Tuesday night to take advantage of the free shipping using the code SMART.  Click here if you want to go direct to Ben’s book.

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Cover Reveal - The Female Factory

Another awesome cover for what I am confident will be another great book in the Twelve Planets Series.  Congrats to Twelfth Planet Press for securing the artistic talent of Amanda Rainey and the writerly talents of Hannett & Slatter.

What is The Female Factory?

In The Female Factory, procreation is big business. Children are a commodity few women can afford.

Hopeful mothers-to-be try everything. Fertility clinics. Pills. Wombs for hire. Babies are no longer made in bedrooms, but engineered in boardrooms. A quirk of genetics allows lucky surrogates to carry multiple eggs, to control when they are fertilised, and by whom—but corporations market and sell the offspring. The souls of lost embryos are never wasted; captured in software, they give electronics their voice. Spirits born into the wrong bodies can brave the charged waters of a hidden billabong, and change their fate. Industrious orphans learn to manipulate scientific advances, creating mothers of their own choosing.

From Australia’s near-future all the way back in time to its convict past, these stories spin and sever the ties between parents and children.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Vox
• Baggage
• All the Other Revivals
• The Female Factory

You can check out publication and order details here.

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Book Review – Selected Poems by Thom Gunn

Thom Gunn has been one of the happy discoveries wrought by my self imposed regime to read more poetry and to read more widely.  I can’t remember how I stumbled across the name but I am glad that I did. 

I am very glad to have picked up this particular Selected Poems edited by August Kleinzahler, because I think, in my limited knowledge of the poet, that Kleinzahler has done a very good job of presenting a cross section of Gunn’s work.  I also found the introduction by Kleinzahler to be one of the best I have read in a book of selected poetry in recent times. I was left with a very well rounded sense of the poet. While that in itself was not necessary for enjoyment, I felt it beneficial nonetheless.

I am a fan of form poetry, of rhythm and rhyme.  I like writing and reading it and although I write free verse as well, I never seem quite so happy as when I discover a well wrought form poem or manage to crank out one myself. 

Gunn, writing from the mid 19,50’sright up to the turn of the century begins as a formalist, transitions through syllabic poetry and ends up writing free verse.  And looking at the whole of his work (as presented here) I can gain an appreciation for all of it.  An appreciation for what’s possible along that continuum.

This collection spans some 50 plus years but I did feel as though I was reading a very contemporary poet, much of this is owed, I think to the content. With my penchant for nostalgia I really enjoyed Last Days at Teddington (which sadly doesn’t appear online anywhere) and likewise Hug, although Hug is as much a love poem.

The Hug

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined

    Half of the night with our old friend

        Who'd showed us in the end

    To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.

        Already I lay snug,

And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

…

 

Gunn covers the big topics, like love and death.  There’s also a strong vein of poems that focus on nature or a simpler life.  Indeed, a poem like The Night Piece reminds me very much of Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

 

Here are the last few streets to climb

Galleries, run through veins of time,

Almost familiar where I creep

Toward sleep like fog, through fog like sleep

 

and

 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

 

The collection is broad enough to have something for all readers.  What I like in particular though is his consistent use of rhythm and rhyme.  The content and the language changes from earlier to later poems but to me shows what’s still possible with form poetry as we edge into the 21st century. If you like poetry that sounds like poetry, that plucks at emotions and that doesn’t shy away from topics like sex, suicide and illness, then I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

 

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