He's Dropped the Easiest of Marks: The Trouble With Being Average.

In the recent AFL Grand Final, a player dropped a mark.  And the commentator announced "he's dropped the easiest of marks."  It's been bugging me ever since.

This is the Grand Final.  The Big Dance.  The culmination of a gruelling pre-season, a winter's worth of Home and Away games and an incredible month of finals football.  The entire year has been preparing for this game, and the chance to win a flag is something all players have dreamt of for decades.  Every kick, every mark, every handball will contribute to the outcome of the game, will decide if you'll leave elated or heartbroken.  With all that pressure, nothing is easy.  I probably couldn't have tied up my bootlaces without losing my breakfast.

People say writing is easy.  People say art is easy.  People say writing blogs is easy.  I think that saying something is easy is easy.

We don't know the struggles other people are going through.  We don't know how much they sacrificed and how much they struggled, getting through University, getting their work to a place that they're happy with, how scared they might be of sharing their work, let alone submitting it for fear of rejection or criticism.  Some people even struggle to get out of bed.

For me, even deciding to start writing was a hard one.  For twenty years I've been an avid reader, losing myself in the works of some of the greatest authors.  Like Le Guin whose words flow like poetry, simple and beautiful, yet cutting to the core of the deep questions.  Like Donaldson and Herbert, who built incredibly vivid worlds, inhabiting them with wondrous species with their own rich histories, mythologies, creeds and customs.  Like Dick and Burgess whose intellect, linguistic skills, creativity and imagination are out if this world.  How could I even try, with the benchmark so impossibly high?  How could I hope to write anything comparable to the works of those incredible gifted people?  I couldn't, so I didn't.

What I write is nothing like that of my literary idols.  I always wanted it to be, though.  I always wanted my writing to be as eloquent, as powerful, as funny and as beautiful as theirs.  But it isn't.  It's the story if my life, to some extent.  I've always wanted to be better-looking, to be stronger, to be better at sport, at art, at languages.  I never even liked my own name as a kid.  But as I've grown up I've started to appreciate myself more.  I even chose to keep Austin as my pen-name, when it would have been the easiest thing in the world to use something else.  And I've accepted that even though my writing isn't awe-inspiring like that of my heroes, that doesn't mean it's not good enough.

Thanks for reading,

Austin P. Sheehan.

Change. It's in the air. It's everywhere.

Change.

That's what it's all about.  Everything is in a constant state of change, that's true of our planet, ourselves, and our communities.  Is change always good?  No.  But neither is resisting every change, and spending your days longing for a return of "the good ol' days."

Before I continue, I have to let you know that while writing this piece about change, I am listening to 'Around the Fur' by Deftones, which has been one of my favourite albums since I first heard it in 1997.  And despite it still being an amazing album, the entire entertainment industry has changed since it's release.  Digital streaming of TV and music, the vinyl revival, e-readers and the ease of self-publishing your own books online, and the increasing influence of social media.

One of the biggest changes though is the diversity of the creators.  Of course, People of Colour have always been creating and contributing, but now they are no longer on the periphery.  Well not as far out as they used to be.  The success of Tomi Adeyemi's 'Children of Blood and Bone,' Kevin Kwan's 'Crazy Rich Asians,' Angie Thomas' 'The Hate U Give,' and N. K. Jesmin's  Hugo Award Winning 'The Broken Earth' series are each stunning examples of this.  And it's amazing and wonderful that this change is happening, that we can all enjoy these stories.  And I've got no way of knowing how it would feel for people of African or Asian heritage to have these books and movies where the characters they can identify with are the main characters, not just token, stereotypical side characters.  But that's got to be powerful.  That's got to be revolutionary.

Let's go back to 1987's 'It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)' by R.E.M.  I once subscribed to a theory that with every second, with every breath, the world as we knew it ended. Every new piece of information that we received changed the world, or our perception or what we knew about it. Change on a much smaller scale. My own life has changed.  Three Septembers ago I got married to an amazing, funny, beautiful woman, and my life changed.  Two Septembers ago my wife and I had just brought a house.  And my life changed.  Last September I had almost finished writing my first novel, and this September the Aussie Speculative Fiction group, which I'm a part of, is getting ready to publish an anthology of short stories.  Submissions are still open, so if you're a Australian Speculative Fiction writer, feel free to go to the website and submit a short story (obviously check the guidelines first).

Despite the submissions still being open, the other panel members and I have announced our first successful submission.

Every book, every story, is about change. The characters change, and perhaps through their actions, they change the world.  Or the world changes, and the characters need to find their place in the new world.  The change in 'When The Lights Went Out' is subtle, unnerving, wonderfully thought out and executed.  It's a short story that keeps you guessing, and stays with you after you've finished reading it.  I am really excited about getting this anthology out there, and sharing a selection of wonderful stories with the world.

   

A Critique of Dragons.

Dragons have been a consistent feature of European and Asian folklore for centuries.  Very few creatures - mythical or otherwise - can produce such awe, wonder and fear in us.  And as a result, many books are still written and movies made featuring these monsters.

I never set out to write a book about dragons.  Hell, I never had any ambitions to write at all until just recently.  But you may recall from this post that I have a project in the works about dragons in an alternate-history Germany.  Because of this, I have been researching dragons - by that, of course, I mean reading a whole bunch of books with dragons. 

In this post I will review not the books themselves, but the dragons they contain.

'THE GREAT ZOO OF CHINA' by Matthew Reilly gives us dragons in the modern world.  How?  Okay, they are actually several species of very territorial dinosaurs who laid their eggs in the same place under a massive zinc deposit, protecting them from the cataclysm that killed the rest of the dinosaurs.  What I liked about Reilly's dragons is his vivid detailed descriptions of what they look like, how their sensory organs are similar to other reptiles, and how they behave.

But the way they were named (a minor detail, sure) was wrong.  These dragons were part of a zoo that was to make China the cultural capital of the world.  But did they get Chinese names?  No, they were names after existing animals - the Eastern Grey, Red-Bellied Black and Yellowjackets for example.  They came in different sizes as well, Prince dragons (as big as a 4WD) King dragons (as big as a bus) and Emperor dragons (as big as a plane).  And only the biggest could breathe fire. Now that's all well and good for dragons, but these are meant to be dinosaurs, and there's no evidence whatsoever of dinosaur groups working like that.  Oh, also they could talk.  I mean, through a computer translator and earpiece thing, but yeah.

'DRAGON HEART' by Cecelia Holland was about a sea dragon in a rich fantasy world.  What was compelling about this story is the main character, a princess, was unable to talk to other humans.  She was smart, and could understand them, but when she spoke only unintellegible animal noises came out.  But after sinking the boat she was travelling on and killing the crew, when she was trapped by the dragon on an island she and the dragon could talk to each other.  The dragon wanted her to tell him stories.  Honestly, it's very weird.  Most of the time the dragon keeps to itself, hunting and resting, like your regular monster of the deep.  The folk on land don't even know that such a creature exists.  Yet it has the intelligence to speak to the princess, to understand the stories she weaves, and has an element of sexual attraction for her and even assaults her.  I know, right?  What's going on there?  Anyway after escaping the dragon and returning to her family's castle, which is under seige from a powerful army, she calls out to the dragon to rescue her and her family.  Which he does, and then the princess goes off with the dragon.

'DRAGON KEEPER' by Robin Hobb is something different again.  This book is set in a fantasy world, and for something different, has one of the novel's several points of view being that of a dragon.  This shows us not just what the dragon looks like and does, but also what it thinks, feels and remembers from it's past lives.  The dragons in this world have many points of difference, one being their life cycle.  The book starts with Sisarqua, a sea serpent, struggling up the river to their ancient cocooning grounds.  After, well frankly insufficient time in the cocoon, it hatches and the dragon Sintara emerges.  What is done really well is the dragons' memories of its past lives, when it emerges it expects itself to be fully formed, ready to hunt, ready to fly. So she is horrified to find that she - and the other hatchlings - are stunted, weak, and incomplete.  This gives us a great, yet heartbreaking glimpse of the majesty of what she should be compared to the disappointing reality of what she is.  Normally proud and peerless in the air, on land and underwater, the hatchlings who remain misshapen and incapable of flight become a burden on the human community that supports them.  The humans re-assess their perception of dragons, and the dragons struggle to accept their dependence on humans.  The dragons can understand human speech, but not all humans can understand dragon speech, in an interesting twist.

And now the 'EARTHSEA' cycle by Le Guin.  These are the dragons that first come to my mind. They are an ancient, integral and magical part of the world.  I won't spoil the amazing 'THE OTHER WIND' - the last book in the series - but it's a must-read.  It's hard to talk about *just* the dragons here, because to understand them, you need to know that the whole magic system is based upon knowing the true names of things, the Old Language which was used in the making.  Magicians spend decades learning this ancient lost language, and know only fragments. But dragons, they know the Language of the Making inherently.  They are old, wise, and neither good nor evil by human standards, they are true to themselves and are very dangerous. 

So what have we leaned from these books? Most of them deal with the typical dragon or wyvern, four legs, wings, and the ability to breathe fire, with the exception of 'DRAGON HEART' which deals with a wingless sea dragon.  Regardless, they are all extremely dangerous, act act upon their own wild impulses.  That's not to say they aren't intelligent, there are instances where they communicate with humans in every book.

Next time, I will summarise the dragons from 'SERAPHINA' 'TOOTH AND CLAW' 'PERN' and 'THE DRAGON DIARY'.  Feel free to suggest other dragon novels I should grab as well!

The Reality of Being an Australian Writer #1

As a writer, we want our books, our stories, our worlds to have some kind of impact or influence on our readers. We want readers to be moved or inspired by our characters. As a rule, if a person decides to become a writer, one can assume that they've read something that has changed their life.

And that's true for me. I can think of several books that have had a profound affect on me. But today I'm writing about something that has perhaps a greater impact on my life, and as a consequence, the books I write and the worlds I create. That is Australia, our Great Southern Land.

As an Australian writer, Identity is important. The English-speaking world is dominated by American and English cultures, which don't always resonate strongly with Australians. For example, when I was twelve I remember lying amongst a grove of gum trees near a creek in my home town, considering the story of Saint George slaying the dragon, and asking myself what that had to do with me, how can that be relevant or part of my culture or identity as an Australian, millennia away from knights or dragons. And to this day I still shudder whenever I read the Americanised "mom" in any novel.

I knew that the story of St George was part of the folklore of England, where my father is from. You could say I went through a process of assessing these elements of foreign cultures and dismissing the ones that were too far removed from the world that I had grown up in. And I think it's fair to say that everyone does that to some extent, and continues doing that throughout their lives. But the more isolated you are, the greater the disparity becomes with your reality and that of the stories.

But there's much more to living in Australia than distance and isolation. The natural beauty of it's coasts and mountains, it's deserts and rain-forests, it's rivers and stone formations all mask it's harshness, it's underlying menace. If I'm ever asked "what books best sum up Australia?" I would say 'Wake in Fright' (Cook, 1961) 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' (Lindsay 1967) 'Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence' (Pilkington 1996) 'He Died With a Felafel in His Hand' (Birmingham 2000).

'Wake in Fright' is a wonderful yet terrifying tale, about the divide between city and country, about the harsh nature of life in these remote towns, presenting not only the country itself but those who live in it as menacing. 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' is a wonderful mystery set in rural Victoria, which I discussed in this list of books and movies that I love. It's sinister, it's brooding and it captures rural Australia so well. 'Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence' shows us one of the many horrors of Australia's colonisation, the forced removal of First Australian children from their families. The argument here is that the darkness and cruelty of Australia lays within the culture of it's white colonisers, and is hard to refute. 'He Died With a Felafel in his Hand' is a more comedic look at the country through stories of living in shared houses. As funny as it is, it's still grim.

Many great Australian writers have written Speculative Fiction; Isobelle Carmody, John Marsden, Sara Douglass and Garth Nix just to name a few. Personally, I don't read books just because the author is Australian. I often look into who they are a bit more if their books particularly grab me. But every now and then when reading a book, a uniquely Australian landmark will appear, or an Aussie slang expression or turn of phrase will be used, and then you just know the author is Australian. I am not going to go out and say that the best Speculative Fiction Writers are Australian, but I will say that we have an advantage. It's easy for us to write about post-apocalyptic wastelands or desolate alien planets, barren environments and the types of people who thrive amongst the hardships and the types of people who succumb to the horror of it all, because that is our reality.

The Twenty Best Books I Read in 2017 (Part 2 - The Top 10)

In my first blog Evidently I'm Going to Regret This I mentioned reading 52 books in 2017 as part of the Popsugar Reading Challenge. In a year where I also wrote an 80,000 word novel while working full-time, by my standards that's a bit of an achievement.

Anyway I thought I could share with the world the twenty books I enjoyed the most from last year, and started last week with Part One. So without further ado, here are four more books I rated as 4 out of 5,

THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND - Endō (1964).
Wow. This is a really sad yet beautiful novel. A salesman (Yoshioka) seduces then abandons Mitsu, a sweet and honest village girl, who he considered beneath him. It's set in post-war Japan, and the characters are strong and thoughtfully put together, and you get a really good insight into life in Tokyo in those days. Throughout the novel you get the story from both character's perspectives, and see how the betrayal of Mitsu effects both their lives as the years pass. I really loved this book, and if any that I gave a 4 to probably should have been a five, this is the one.

THE LITTLE PRINCE - Saint-Exupéry (1943).
What can one say about The Little Prince? One of the sweetest stories ever, adorably illustrated, and full of heart. It's one of those children's books that contains profound meaning and insight that can stay with someone all of their lives.

ANNA KARENINA - Tolstoy (1877).
This novel, a literary classic, is approaching it's 150th birthday. I'm not a history fanatic by any means, but I really appreciate books like this which are basically time capsules from the time they were written (mind you, Verne's 'Around the World in Eighty Days was also written in the 1870's, which I also read last year, has aged so badly it was a struggle to read). The Russia that Tolstoy so vividly described was swept away in the 1917 Revolution, and there are too few accounts of what life was like in those days. It's about Countess Anna Arkadyevna Karenina, who, despite being married, is seduced by Count Alexei Vronsky. It's about Princess Ekaterina "Kitty" Shcherbatskaya, who was counting on an engagement to Vronsky. It's about Konstantin "Kostya" Dmitrievich Lëvin, a friend of Anna's husband and a suitor to Princess Shcherbatskaya. It's a wonderfully detailed and complex novel, which I highly recommend.

THE CHILDREN OF MEN - James (1992).
This is a dystopian novel, similar to that of Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' as both are set in the near future under totalitarian governments after massive infertility epidemics. The people of James' world have about given up on the survival of humanity, as no cure to the epidemic has been found, and no child has been born for over 20 years. The protagonist is contacted by a local resistance group, who have become aware of some of the crimes the government has been hiding. It's a really clever story, but does lack the intensity of the 2006 movie adaptation.

Ok. Now are the books that I rates as 5 out of 5. With the previous fourteen, I've pretty much listed them in the order I read them, but the following five I am going to list in order of my preference.

#6 THE REAL STORY - Donaldson (1991).
I gave this book 5 out of 5 because it is the absolute best set-up story for a series I have ever read. Is 'The Real Story' (Book one of 'The Gap Cycle') we are introduced to Captain Angus Thermopyle, an absolute brute of a space-pirate, the lowest of the low, who is the sole crew of his ship, Bright Beauty. Nick Succorso is the opposite of Angus, a clean, handsome, and seemingly honourable captain of Captain's Fancy. And appearing with Angus at one of the scummiest bars on Com-Mine Station is ensign Morn Hyland, a beautiful young woman who works for the United Mining Companies Police. From the outset everyone know's something's up, and everyone has a plan for getting what they want. Donaldson has put this together so cleverly, every chapter there's a new critical piece of information that's revealed, or a new perspective that's provided that changes everything. If you like sci-fi, read it. But be warned, It's not for the squeamish.

#5 DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? - Dick (1968).
Oh, the humanity! That's what it comes down to, for me. It's probably no secret to you that Philip Kindred Dick is one of my favourite authors. What he does so well is write the stories of regular people; people with issues at work, people with not-so perfect relationships, people with drug issues, and put them in mind-bending sci-fi settings. So he wrote a lot about what it means to be human, and that doesn't change whether it's a story set in the 60's, or on a post-apocalyptic Earth, or on Ganymede, or on 'The World Jones Made'. And here he's writing about a bounty hunter trying to eliminate androids that are so well made that he has to determine their humanity, in a world where real animals are almost extinct and imitations are everywhere. He's writing about 'specials' - people impacted by the radiation and their humanity. Where does one draw the line? And by the way, I prefer the book.

#4 A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA - Le Guin (1968).
From a book that has amazing movie adaptions to a book whose adaptions completely suck. I did mention my love of the Earthsea cycle in this earlier blog Books and Movies that I Love. It's often overlooked, but the protagonist is a Person of Colour, who through trials and struggles becomes the greatest Archmage of the islands. It's amazing because Le Guin's magic system and dragons are the best that I've read, and the prose is so deep, simple and profound that I have no words. It's a simple story, but it stays with you. It's quite simply perfect.

# 3 A SCANNER DARKLY - Dick (1977).
Yes. I know. Philip K. Dick again. A Scanner Darkly is a semi-autobiographical book, focusing on the lives of a group of drug users, with the protagonist (Robert Arctor) an undercover narcotics officer, who is given the job of spying on himself. The police are trying to discover the source of the deadly Substance D, Arctor's drug of choice. Over time, the drug starts to impact on Arctor, and he becomes more and more unstable, and is forced to go to a rehab clinic. Was he a pawn in the hands of the police, who knew his addiction and impossible task would lead him there? Was it worth it? Do the ends ever justify the means? At the end, Dick dedicates this book to the friends he had lost or who were permanently damaged due to the drugs they took, which I found really touching.

#2 A CLOCKWORK ORANGE - Burgess (1962).
Another book mentioned in this Blog, A Clockwork Orange is one of my all-time favourites. Why it's so great is the creative use of language, the devotchkas, the tolchocks, the droogs, and all the ultra-violence. Very horrorshow. The author created a new language 'Nadsat' which is borrows heavily from Russian for this novel, and while it may take a while to get used to, there's usually enough context provided to understand the words. So as a reader and someone interested in languages, I just love it. It's so creative and brilliant and just gets in your head like nothing else. But Burgess' linguistic skills aside, the novel itself, the story it tells, is just great. Put simply, the message from this book is that children will always rebel. No matter what the schools or parents or police do, the kids will always do their own things, and discover who they are in their own way. But they will not stay miscreants and hooligans forever, they will grow up and grow out of the madness of their teenage years.

#1 ALONE IN BERLIN - Fallada (1947).
This is not a fun read. It was one of the first anti-Nazi novel to be published by a German after World War II. 'Alone in Berlin' (or 'Every Man Dies Alone') tells the story of a middle aged working-class husband and wife who, after receiving word that their son had died serving their country, join the resistance. This is based on a true story, the couple wrote messages denouncing Hitler and the Reich, (“Hitler’s war is the worker’s death” for example) and dropped them throughout Berlin. They knew this was a capital crime, and should they be caught, would be executed. So it's the story of ordinary heroes against impossible odds. But it's also the story of the ordinary Berliner during the war years, the menacing and dangerous times they faced, especially those who disagreed with Hitler's policies and just wanted the war to end. And that's one of the reasons that I've given this book the Number 1 position, because my mother's family were Berliners, and they hated Hitler. It gave me an insight into what they endured, and then - after surviving the war and Nazi rule, they suddenly found themselves citizens of The Soviet DDR (German Democratic Republic).


So that's my list. Go ahead and let me know your favourite books that you read last year. One of the telling things is that very few recent books made the top 20 - 'The King's Justice' and 'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children' - so one may ask, out of the 52 novels I read last year, what else was published since 2010? I read 'The Long Earth' (Pratchett & Baxter) 3 Stars. 'Here I Am' (Safran Foer) 2 Stars - absolutely awful. 'The Lords of Salem' (Zombie) 3 Stars. 'The Martian' (Weir) 3 Stars - good, funny, engaging but zero character development. 'Ready Player One' (Cline) 2 Stars. I guess for what's left of 2018 I'm going to try to read a lot more recent books! A already have 'Children of Blood and Bone' 'The Fifth Season' and 'The Astonishing Colour of After' on by TBR pile, feel free to suggest any other recent must-reads!

The 20 Best Books I Read in 2017 (Part One).

In my first blog Evidently I'm Going to Regret This I said that I'd read 52 books in 2017 as part of the Popsugar Reading Challenge.  I honestly surprised myself by reaching that goal. 

Anyway now's as good a time as any to share my favourite books from last year.  I say 'from last year' but honestly I read more books that are 10 to 50 years old than books read the year they're published.  Anyway, here are ten of the books I gave 4 stars to (in the order that I read them).

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN  - Lindqvist (2004). 
From the start, I am not a fan of Vampires.  But I'd seen the movies (and probably don't need to say that the original is better than the remake) and really enjoyed them, so I thought I'd give it a go.  and it was great.  Really dark and creepy, almost Lolita levels of creepy, basically.  What was great about it was how it was not the usual vampire story.  The protagonist was a boy in Sweden who was bullied at school and befriends a young girl in their apartment complex.  Who turns out to be a vampire.  There is a lot of killings and brutality, and at the centre of it all are these sweet kids who help each other out of nothing but friendship.  It's tense, it gritty, it's written really well. 

THE COLLECTOR - Fowles (1963).
This was a really clever book set in England about a socially awkward clerk who comes into a large sum of money and his plans to win the affections of Miranda, a middle-class Art student he has long admired.  He eventually convinces himself to kidnap her, and win her affection by being nothing but a gentleman to her.  But he didn't think his plan through, nor count on the intelligence and desperation of his prey.  The second part of the novel is told from Miranda's POV and is entirely compelling.  It it well written, it gives one the chills, and leaves you breathless.  Highly recommended.

MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN - Riggs (2011).
Miss Peregrine's is a really fun YA novel, where Jacob finds there might be some truth to his grandfather's crazy stories shortly after his disturbing death.  When he has an opportunity to go to a place that was special to his grandfather with his dad, he jumps at the chance, and starts putting together pieces to a mystery lost in time.
It's a different take on the standard YA fantasy, it's engaging, and feels quite familiar all the way through.  Meeting the 'Peculiar' children (and Miss Peregrine, of course) is a delight, however the further you go, the darker and scarier it gets.

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK - Lindsay (1967).
The very first few pages absolutely transported me to my youth, growing up in country Victoria, the sights, the sounds, the scents are exactly as Lindsay described.  This novel actually featured in a recent blog post of mine, Books and Movies that I Love.  Basically Picnic at Hanging Rock is a superb mystery full of eerie events, curious characters and sinister undertones. 

LAVINIA - Le Guin (2008).
Ursula K. Le Guin, one of my all-time favourite authors, wrote Lavinia in 2008.  It is an unusual book in a sense, as the titular character is a character in Virgil's Aeneid.  A significant character, too - the wife of the hero Aeneas, yet in the Aeneid she was not given a line.  Le Guin gave her a voice, and made her real - but not only that, but brought her family and community of Laurentum to life, and describe's not only Lavinia's conflict with her family marvellously, but also the war between Laurentum and her neighbours and the invading Trojans, lead by Aeneas. 

RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA - Clarke (1973). 
This was a childhood favourite of mine, I am not ashamed to admit.  The imagination that Clarke had, the skills to bring such wonders to life, absolutely phenomenal.  Anyway, Rendezvous With Rama  tells the classic sci-fi story of first contact with alien intelligence.  An unidentified object - a massive cylinder - enteres out Solar System and slows down, and a crew of astronauts is dispatched to investigate it.  The tale of the crew and their exploration of the cylinder is so clever, and the ending is just so perfect, that I can't say a bad word about it.

PERFUME:  THE STORY OF A MURDERER - Suskind (1985).
Another novel that I had read after seeing the movie.  This is an original story though, in that it tells the tale of a man whose sense of smell is so powerful that his perspective of the world is unique.  He becomes a perfumer, one who creates perfumes, and becomes obsessed with capturing all the scents and creating perfumes to make people see him as angelic or god-like.  Unfortunately, some of the scents he must capture and use he can only obtain my murder.  The whole thing is very clever and really well-written.

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY - Adams (1979).
I have to say that I used this book for the 'about an immigrant or refugee' prompt.  I don't think there's much for me to say about this one.  There's no dispute it's hilarious and an absolute sci-fi comedy classic. 

THE KING'S JUSTICE - Donaldson (2016).
This was a very interesting fantasy story.  A man rides into a town in the Kingdom attempting to solve a disturbing murder, which soon turn into a series of murders.  The characters are great, the story is captivating and complex with many twists and turns, and Donaldson has created another amazing fantasy world with a brilliant system of magic.

MARTIAN TIME-SLIP - Dick (1964).
I have to say Philip K. Dick is one of my favourite authors.  I have read most of his 44 novels and 120 short stories, and this is one of the ones that I think is the most under-rated.  What Dick does so well is really get right into the day-to-day life and concerns of the average person in whatever insane world he comes up with.  In Martian Time-Slip, the protagonist Bohlen is a repairman on a struggling colony on Mars.  His relationship with his wife is on a downward spiral, his employer is taking advantage of him, but what can he do?  Just get through as best he can and try keep his schizophrenic episodes at bay.  When Bohlen's path crosses with Arnie Kott's, the leader of the Water Worker's Union, his life gets turned upside down.  The most outstanding yet terrifying part of this book is Dick's description of what Manfred Steiner, an autistic child who becomes one of Arnie Kott's many pawns perceives. 


So that's the first ten books of my top twenty.
Next week I'll summarise the top ten, and share which six books I gave 5 star reviews to.

Please comment on whether you agree or disagree with my reviews, or the best books that you read last year!

The Excitement of a New Beginning

As I may have mentioned, my novel with the working title of 'Emma and the Madhouse Kids' is currently being beta read. So what am I doing in the meantime?

Well, I've been doing the usual nose to the grindstone, 9-5 day work. I've even come up with a fun game to play, and you can play it too! Just count the number of times you say "for fucks sake" while doing your job. Whoever says it the most wins. Or loses. But the big news is that I've started a new novel!

It's exciting. Anything is possible in my new world. Dragons? Why not. Mysterious Druids? Have a bunch! Mythical creatures? Of course!

Who are the main characters? Who better than a family who love hiking in the Bavarian alps? A mum, a dad, 16 year old son, 11 year old daughter. Maybe they harbour a terrible secret? Maybe the marriage is falling apart?

So it's set in Germany then? Yes. Well no. But still maybe yes? We are talking Alternative History, folks! In this book, Germany was never unified, and we have Prussia, Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, etc as separate Republics, Monarchies or Kingdoms. Honestly that's the part I am the most excited about. Like I mentioned in this post my wife and I have travelled in Europe a fair bit, and what always strikes me is the distinct history and culture of each main city and state. So one of my goals is to try and incorporate that into my book.

Um. Ok. Are you serious about the Dragons though?  Yes. I mean, I know they're a bit cliché. And I've never written anything 'fantasy' before. I mean, this time last year I hadn't even thought about writing anything before, so not knowing what I'm doing is kind of business as usual. But they fit. Dragons are part of the folklore of Germany, and I can really see them working in this story. I want to pay homage to Le Guin's Dragons from Earthsea as well. If you have any suggestions of other books or series to read that feature dragons, feel free to suggest them!

What should I call it? I am unfortunately 200 kilometres shy of being able to call it 'Dragons of Bern' but l am sure a good title will come to me soon. And I am sure an amazing title will come to me after I have published it. In my earlier post An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again. I mentioned I wanted to self-publish a novel before trying to get Emma and the Madhouse Kids traditionally published, and this is the one I'm going to self-publish. That itself is exciting, so not only do I have lots of dragon lore and history and geography to study, but I also have to figure out the best way to self-publish as well.

So yeah. Time to stop blogging and get back to writing.

Say true, people. And please do the needful.