Books of May: The Fifth Miracle, by Paul Davies (1998)

The Fifth Miracle is a wonderfully engaging popular science book by Paul Davies, that runs through the theory, evidence and arguments for how life on Earth actually began. It's one of the best science books that I've read because it's very readable, and Davies has a very concise and entertaining manner of writing. It's also more than 15 years old, which led me to ponder the fate of old science books.

Science is constantly changing. New theories are developed and hypotheses tested. Information gets superceded, or contradicted, or replaced.

There is a half-life to scientific writing that simply doesn't exist for fiction. A work of art remains valid no matter how old it becomes, or how many other works of fiction are printed or performed after it's released. This simply isn't true for scientific writing - once the science is out of date the book is arguably worthless.

Books of May: Salamander, by Thomas Wharton (2001)

An 18th century London book printer, Nicholas Flood, is drawn to a castle on the Transylvanian-Hungarian border. There he is tasked with creating an eternal book for the grief-stricken Count Ostrov. As the story unfolds, Flood's adventure incorporates clockwork automata, imprisonment, escape, and an epic journey around the world in search of the finest components with which to manufacture the perfect book.

The whole adventure is told in lyrical, dream-like fashion by its author, Canadian Thomas Wharton. I'm not certain what drew me to pick this book up about a decade ago. I suppose the blurb on the inside of the dust jacket sounded interesting. What I do know is that Salamander knocked me sideways: it's a stunning work of fantasy, and one that the traditional fantasy crowd seemed to ignore entirely because of how it was packaged and marketed.

It's genre fiction by stealth: in books they call it 'literature', and in cinema it's called 'arthouse', but in both cases it's the same thing.

Books of May: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, by Alan Garner (1960)

Books of May highlights books - both fiction and non-fiction - that have engaged, entertained or otherwise made a significant impact on me over the years. I aimed to review 31 books in May 2013, and managed to get through nine. Hopefully we'll go better this year. Today, book #10: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, by British author Alan Garner.

Is it just me, or has the science fiction and fantasy establishment completely forgotten about Alan Garner. To my mind he's one of the giants of children's fantasy. While I'm highlighting his 1960 debut novel here, I could just have easily picked its sequel The Moon of Gomrath, or Elidor, or The Owl Service, or even Red Shift. He tells such beautifully constructed stories that are generally immersed in the folklore and culture of his native Cheshire. He's been writing them for more than 50 years: eight novels, a bunch of short story collections, all demonstrating the same strength of narrative and a beautiful turn of phrase.

Go to the average science fiction convention, however, and it's like you can hear crickets. People still go on and on ad nauseum about J.R.R. Tolkien, and the likes of Ursula LeGuin and Diana Wynne Jones both get a healthy amount of discussion. Garner, however, seems like a shadow: a major figure in British fantasy who's all but ignored by the fans. More educated fans can probably say better than I can, but I'm pretty sure he's never been a Guest of Honour at a Worldcon or a World Fantasy Convention, or even a British natcon (Eastercon). He's already 79 years old - if fans plan to give Garner the respect he's due, they're probably running out of time.

Odds'n'Sods: Nine things unrelated to the new Doctor Who

The Internerds are aflame with news that the BBC will reveal the actor playing the next Doctor in Doctor Who this Sunday. In the interests of balance, here are nine other geek/nerd news stories doing the traps at the moment.

• Avatar. I actually quite enjoyed Avatar in a mindless eye candy sort of way, although I agree with many critics of the film that it has some pretty serious issues in regards to how to treats the disabled. All that said, I've never really felt the need to watch a sequel. James Cameron doesn't agree, and he's now going to shoot three sequels in one mega-shoot, for release in 2016, 2017 and 2018. (link)
• Continuum. I haven't a single episode yet, but have many friends who recommend the Canadian science fiction TV drama Continuum. They'll be happy to hear that it's received an order for a third season. (link)
• 24. May Lynn Rajskub, aka Chloe, aka the best one, is rejoining the cast of 24 for its 12-episode ninth season, coming out on Fox next year. This pleases me. Did I mention that she's the best one? (link)
• Pacific Rim. Pacific Rim has opened strongly in China, making it a lot more likely that Warner Bros will greenlight a sequel after all. (link)
• The Cuckoo's Calling. Did you know that J.K. Rowling is donating 100% of her royalties for her pseudonymous crime novel to charity? (link)
• Don't Go Breaking My Heart. Hong Kong's best director Johnnie To has commenced shooting a sequel to his rather excellent romantic comedy Don't Go Breaking My Heart. The film is scheduled for release in Hong Kong and China in mid-2014. (link)
• X-Men: Days of Future Past. Bryan Singer has tweeted a photo of the Sentinel prop from his upcoming X-Men movie. It's rather large and appropriately purple. (link)
• Wander Over Yonder. Craig McCracken (Powerpuff Girls) has a new cartoon starting on the Disney Channel, Wander Over Yonder. Its opening titles are pretty much the happiest thing you'll see today. (link)
• Haunter. Director Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice) has a horror movie coming out, a trailer for which has been released onto the Internet. (link)

Kindle Worlds, and why it may be bad for fandom

Amazon has attracted a fair amount of attention this week with the announcement of Kindle Worlds, an e-book initiative that allows fans of particular American TV dramas to write their own fan fiction based on those shows, publish it online via Amazon and earn a profit from it. Responses have varied from excitement to horror, and as a part-time professional writer who first developed his writing skills using fan fiction, I was particularly interested in the concept. Rather than simply rely on my opinions, I thought it might be worth talking to a few of Australia's prominent science fiction and fantasy writers, editors and publishers to get their feedback as well.

Here's how it works: you write a fan fiction (10,000 words or longer) based on Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars or The Vampire Diaries. They're all Warner Bros properties, but Amazon are reportedly planning to add more properties down the road. Assuming the deal with WB expands, future properties that could be incorporated may include Person of Interest, Nikita, Supernatural and Arrow. You then used Amazon's special Kindle Worlds web portal to design a cover, publish it online exclusively via Kindle and then receive monthly payments (35% of the sale price) for any copies of the fanfic sold. While you retain copyright on your story, Amazon claim an exclusive license on all elements in the story for the duration of that copyright: basically a slightly tortured way of Amazon taking your copyright any from you. Create a new character, or a specific story, and Amazon effectively own it. They could on-sell that concept to Warner Bros for use in the actual TV series, and you'd have no rights or participation in that whatsoever. Thinking of creating a fan fiction turned literary bestseller in the vein of 50 Shades of Grey? Forget it: you won't own your story any more, and any profits generated from a quick name replace will be going straight to large corporations.

Books of May: Them!: Adventures with Extremists, by Jon Ronson (2001)

Books of May highlights books - both fiction and non-fiction - that have engaged, entertained or otherwise made a significant impact on me over the years. The goal is to highlight one book a day for the entire month. Today, book #9: Them!: Adventures with Extremists, by English journalist Jon Ronson.

Jon Ronson is a fantastic English journalist whose radio and television documentaries combine both fascinating reporting with a remarkable sense of humour and absurd. His most famous book is probably The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was adapted into a popular feature film starring George Clooney, but I still think his best book is Them! which was published in 2001 as a tie-in to his documentary series The Secret Rulers of the World.

The book basically recounts Ronson's encounters with a string of extremists and conspiracy theorists around the world. As he goes he begins to actively follow the mysterious Bilderberg Group, as several conspiracy enthusiasts have cited that group as the one that secretly rules the world.

Books of May: Archer's Goon, by Diana Wynne Jones (1984)

Books of May highlights books - both fiction and non-fiction - that have engaged, entertained or otherwise made a significant impact on me over the years. The goal is to highlight one book a day for the entire month. Today, book #8: Archer's Goon, by English author Diana Wynne Jones.

 Diana Wynne Jones cast a long shadow over the landscape of children's fiction, and is rightfully held up as one of the giants of English language fantasy. I wasn't certain which of her books I wanted to mention in this series, but in the end I went for Archer's Goon. I don't think it's as well known as some of her more famous novels - Howl's Moving Castle being a key example - but for whatever reason it's a book that stuck in my head, and one that immediately came to mind.

The novel follows thirteen year-old Howard Sykes, whose father is an author. One day a huge thug arrives at the house to collect two thousand words that Howard's father apparently promised to write for somebody named Archer. Hijinks ensue, as they say, and before long Howard is off on an adventure involving town secrets, magic, time travel and more. It's a wonderfully off-the-wall sort of a book.

Books of May: All Tomorrow's Parties, by William Gibson (1999)

Books of May highlights books - both fiction and non-fiction - that have engaged, entertained or otherwise made a significant impact on me over the years. The goal is to highlight one book a day for the entire month. Today, book #7: All Tomorrow's Parties, by Canadian author William Gibson.

 William Gibson is probably the most famous science fiction author of the 1980s. His debut novel Neuromancer crystallized the cyberpunk genre and helped influence an entire generation of science fiction writers and filmmakers. His novel The Difference Engine, co-authored with Bruce Sterling, helped to prefigure the current craze for steampunk. Pretty much all of his other books have been hailed as classics of their genre: Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Spook County and others.

All Tomorrow's Parties (the title is lifted from a Velvet Underground song) is the third part of a trilogy, and was preceded by Virtual Light and Idoru. While all three novels are incredibly good, for some reason it is this third novel that has made the greatest impact on me. It may not be the best William Gibson novel - that's probably wide open to extensive debate - but it's definitely my favourite.

Books of May: The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin (1969)

Books of May highlights books - both fiction and non-fiction - that have engaged, entertained or otherwise made a significant impact on me over the years. The goal is to highlight one book a day for the entire month. Today, book #6: The Left Hand of Darkness, by American author Ursula K. LeGuin.

On the distant planet of Gethen, a diplomat named Genly Ai negotiates with the Gethenians in an attempt to convince them to join the galaxy-wide civilization known as the Ekumen. When the political situation on Gethen suddenly shifts, Genly finds himself displaced in the freezing tundra with a betrayed prime minister and little hope of survival.


I was highly fortunate to be teaching a university course on science fiction when I first came to The Left Hand of Darkness, which meant that not only did I get to read an amazing science fiction but I was able to effectively get paid to read it too. Let's be honest, though, I would have read this for free. I always intended to get around to reading it, and when I did I discovered an eye-opening masterpiece of science fiction.

Books of May: The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks (1977)

Books of May highlights books - both fiction and non-fiction - that have engaged, entertained or otherwise made a significant impact on me over the years. The goal is to highlight one book a day for the entire month. Today, book #5: The Sword of Shannara, by American author Terry Brooks.

 People generally cite J.R.R. Tolkien as the father of modern fantasy, thanks to his epic three-volume novel The Lord of the Rings. I've always figured this to be rather inaccurate. Tolkien always struck me as an author on the bridge between two styles. While he certainly prefigures many of the tropes we consider to be modern fantasy he also harks back to lots of pre-medieval and Scandinavian epics. There's a very old-fashioned sensibility to The Lord of the Rings. It feels old, as if Tolkien not so much wrote it as discovered it in a vault.

I contend that if you want to find the real father of modern fantasy (certainly late 20th century fantasy) look no further than American author Terry Brooks and his debut novel The Sword of Shannara. It is a very derivative work. Some may accuse it of being somewhat plagiaristic. What it does do, however, is take Tolkien's slow, ponderous and highly literary three-book epic, streamline it, and strip it down to its most engaging and populist elements.

Whereas The Lord of the Rings saw Frodo Baggins leave the village of Hobbiton at the behest of the wizard Gandalf and embark on an epic adventure to the dark land of Mordor, The Sword of Shannara saw farmboy Shea Ohmsford leave the village of Shady Vale at the behest of the druid Allanon and embark on an epic adventure to the dark land of the Skull Kingdom. Frodo fought to destroy the spectral Sauron, whereas Shea fought to destroy the spectral Warlock Lord.

Books of May: The Wasp Factory, by Iain Banks (1984)

Books of May highlights books - both fiction and non-fiction - that have engaged, entertained or otherwise made a significant impact on me over the years. The goal is to highlight one book a day for the entire month. Today, book #4: The Wasp Factory, by Scottish author Iain Banks.

Frank Cauldhame is a deeply troubled sixteen year-old boy who lives on a small Scottish island with his father. He tortures small animals. He may be a murderer. When Frank's older brother escapes from a mental institution and plans a return to his family, he sets Frank onto a collision course with the truth about his family.

The Wasp Factory was the debut novel for acclaimed Scottish novelist Iain Banks, and it is a rough, scabby and quite unpleasant book. It's also distinctive, strikingly original and gripping from beginning to end. Banks has certainly written better novels than this, but like many first novels I think it retains an extraordinary amount of energy. It's a relatively short novel, and it rockets along like nobody's business. Ever since reading it the first time, I've never quite managed to get it out of my head.

Books of May: Orlando, by Virginia Woolf (1928)

Books of May highlights books - both fiction and non-fiction - that have engaged, entertained or otherwise made a significant impact on me over the years. The goal is to highlight one book a day for the entire month. Today, book #3: Orlando, by English author Virginia Woolf.

 Orlando, a young man in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, lives for more than 400 years and changes sex along the way. That's pretty much the one-sentence premise of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, and it's pretty much my favourite fantasy novel.

Not that you'll find it in the fantasy section of your local bookshop, of course. Since it was written by one of the great authors of 20th century literature, you'll have to go find a copy in either the classics or the literature section. It's both a classic and literature, of course, but first and foremost for me it's also a profoundly effective fantasy.

Books of May: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams (1987)

Books of May highlights books - both fiction and non-fiction - that have engaged, entertained or otherwise made a significant impact on me over the years. The goal is to highlight one book a day for the entire month. Today, book #2: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, by English author Douglas Adams.

The late Douglas Adams was many things, but to be brutally honest a good author was probably not one of them. He started his career as a sketch writer, and his first major work - the BBC radio comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was pretty much just a loose series of comedy sketches that simply happened to feature the same characters in each scene. He was a remarkable humourist, and a very perceptive social commentator, but if there was one thing he seemed relatively incapable of doing it was developing a proper plot.

His Hitchhiker's novels (five in all) either meandered, road-trip style, from one event to another, or they simply felt very woolly. They were slackly drawn, mainly because he generally hated writing so much that when forced by his publisher to deliver a manuscript he'd simply lock himself in a hotel room for a fortnight and bang the whole book out in one draft.

So why am I recommending one of his books? Because Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is simply brilliant. It's possibly my all-time favourite novel.

Books of May: Underground, by Haruki Murakami (1997)

Books of May highlights books - both fiction and non-fiction - that have engaged, entertained or otherwise made a significant impact on me over the years. The goal is to highlight one book a day for the entire month. Today, book #1: Underground, by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

Haruki Murakami is one of Japan's most respected and acclaimed authors, and certainly one of the few to break out via translation to English-speaking readers around the world. His books have a marvellous sense of unreality to them, combined with a large amount of wit and charm. He's very often described as one of the world's best postmodernist authors - I like to think of him as one of the world's best authors.

The book I wanted to highlight today, however, is not actually one of his novels. It is Underground, a collection of interviews that Murakami undertook between 1997 and 1998 that focuses on the 1995 Tokyo subway gas attacks by the Aum Shinrikyo cult.

Chicks Unravel Time (2012)

Mad Norwegian Press has, over the last few years, managed to carve itself a niche as one of the best publishers of independent TV criticism out there - particularly in regards to Doctor Who. Their six-volume About Time series by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles is possibly my favourite series of its kind, analysing each Doctor Who serial in turn with humour and incisive critical comment. Last year the company received its biggest plaudits ever for their collection of essays titled Chicks Dig Time Lords (edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O'Shea), which won a Hugo Award. A few months ago they released a hotly anticipated follow-up: Chicks Unravel Time, edited by L.M. Myles and Deborah Stanish.

This is a set of essays by women about Doctor Who. Each essay tackles a different season of the series (both old and new). They are arranged in... I don't want to say random order, because I'm sure there was thought put into it. They're not in chronological order is what's important. As a result the book dips in and out of Doctor Who history, guaranteeing that any reader not enamorous with a particular period in the show's history is never going to encounter a lengthy down patch.

The essays are remarkably varied, but are for the most part highly enjoyable to read. There has been a dearth of high-profile analysis of Doctor Who by women, and this book takes another step in redressing that imbalance. I don't want to over-emphasise this, however, because the bottom line is that you shouldn't consider reading this book because it's written by women: you should consider reading it because it's a great book about Doctor Who.

Five Questions for Lee Battersby

I first encountered Lee Battersby by reading one of short stories. I then met him a few weeks later at a science fiction convention, and I'm very pleased to be able to call him my friend. I'm also in the weird position where I have been his friend for almost exactly as long as I have been a fan of his writing. I've read his short fiction, including his excellent solo collection Through Soft Air, and now I'm immensely happy to be able to read his debut novel, The Corpse-Rat King (available now from Angry Robot).

I'm halfway through the book at the moment, and enjoying it immensely. Lee is exceptionally good at juggling humour and horror - not the "ooh, ahh, vampires and werewolves" kind of horror, the "ah! ah! fetch me the mind soap!" kind - and that talent is boldly on display here. A sequel novel is due early next year, I can't imagine how Lee won't have a long, lucrative career ahead of him. If the nicest thing for a writer is to succeed, the second nicest thing is to see a deserving friend succeed - and succeeding he certainly is. This past weekend I asked Lee five questions.

Your debut novel The Corpse-Rat King has recently been published by Angry Robot Books. I'm struck by its grit: for me fantasy is often a genre of beautiful mountain vistas, rival aristocratic houses and enormous wars. Your book seems to be the opposite of that: the battle seems to be over at the start of the book, half the aristocrats are dead, and the story itself seems caked in mud and shit from the first page. Was this a deliberate attempt to find a different approach to the genre, or were there other inspirations?

"I guess you could say my inspirations are the opposite of what you read in the book - the novel was written in frustration at all those soft-focus phat phantasies that seem to say "Weren't medieval times just so grand and flowery and wasn't it great when we had Kings and nobles to do all our thinking for us so we could get on with the task of being jolly yeomen?". I wanted to write something foul and smelly and with dirt jammed so far under its fingernails that they split. And then my absurdist self snuck into the process while I wasn't looking and kind of subverted that aim too, so I ended up with something partway between all of it."

The Racketeer, by John Grisham (2012)

John Grisham is one of those authors who sells so overwhelmingly well that he's relatively ignored in critical terms. Literary readers will generally dismiss his work with an elitist sniff, mainstream readers will greedily consume his books without question, and everyone in between pretty much takes his presence for granted. He's in that envied tier of authors whose books line the shelves of airport bookshops worldwide, a group that includes other writers such as Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy and the late Michael Crichton.

Within that tier, however, there's a pretty wide spread of talent. I'm not keen to simply dismiss the appeal or talent of authors like Stephanie Meyer or Dan Brown, but they do have a prose style that is to me relatively depth-free and simplistic. On the other hand, I think authors such as King, Rowling and, yes, Grisham, provide a lot more texture and depth beneath the surface of their narratives. They write books that are both populist and popular, and while their works may not entirely challenge readers they certainly satisfy them a great deal.

The Racketeer is the latest in John Grisham's long line of legal thrillers (the 25th, for those keeping score), and actually presents something a little different.

Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste (2007)

33 1/3 is an excellent range of short non-fiction books, each of which takes a classic or groundbreaking musical album and provides an in-depth critical analysis of it. Coming up in 2013 and 2014, for example, will be books on Devo, Sigur Ros, Bjork, Aphex Twin and Serge Gainsbourg.

I've recently read one of these books, albeit one with a big difference. American music critic Carl Wilson chose not to write a book on the Beastie Boys, or Johnny Cash, or Nirvana, or any number of acclaimed, artistically worthy albums. Instead he wrote one about a very different kind of an album: Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love.

You heard me right: it's a non-fiction book about Celine Dion, and I'm giving it my wholehearted recommendation.

Mathilda, by Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley is one of the most famous female authors of all time, despite having only written one novel: Frankenstein. Right? Right? Of course not. In truth Shelley wrote a bunch of stuff, very little of which has managed to receive a fraction of the fame and attention that her most famous novel got. One of these obscure works is Mathilda, a novella that Shelley completed in 1820 but which did not see print until 1959.

Why the 139 year wait between completion and publication? It is a book about, among other things, incest and suicide. Shelley submitted the manuscript to her father and publisher William Godwin, and he was so scandalised by its contents that not only did he refuse to publish it, he also refused to return the manuscript to Mary. We can all be thankful he wasn’t scandalised enough to throw the manuscript into a fire.

Tell-All, by Chuck Palahniuk (2010)

Chuck Palahniuk is a terrifyingly talented author. He has a remarkable gift for odd turns of phrase, describing people, events and places in ways that the reader would never have previously imagined, but which fit perfectly. He’s laugh-out-loud funny when he needs to be, and frighteningly confronting when he wants to be. His first published novel, Fight Club, was a well-deserved cult hit and spawned an even better motion picture from screenwriter Jim Uhls and director David Fincher. Follow-up novels such as Survivor, Choke and Invisible Monsters continued to cement his reputation as one of America’s best novelists. He’s an author with whom you can make some easy comparisons – the deceptive simplicity of Stephen King, the highly evocative phrasing of Bret Easton Ellis – but also one who stands up as a very original writer. Nobody else writes exactly like Palahniuk. Ten novels into his career and he has effectively created his own niche genre.

Tell-All, published in 2010, is Palahniuk’s latest novel. Like several of his recent books it’s comparatively short, running for roughly 180 pages or so in a B-format paperback. It is a satirical pastiche, tracking the attempted career comeback of an aging movie star through the eyes of her long-standing (and long-suffering) personal assistant. When a young man arrives with an eye to woo and exploit the movie star, it’s up to her assistant to see him off and protect her employer – whom the manipulative assistant clearly sees as her own life’s work.