Focus on Reviewers

[Ben Payne]

The first Troy Game book was kinda hard to get into at the start because the characters weren't exactly likeable, which normally is a big thing for me, but I've read enough Douglass now to trust that she will develop them...

I suspect you and I are never gonna agree on McMullen though... all I can say is that with characters this unlikeable, I expect a big payoff:)

[Lee Battersby]

I was surprised to realise that I haven't read a single Australian SF novel this year, and doubly shocked when I realised just how little in the way of short fiction I've read. I've pretty much abandoned the genre for reading purposes during 06. Most of my reading material has been made up of auto/biographies and graphic novels, almost without me realising it.

probably says something about me. I'm sure you'll all have theories

[Alisa Krasnostein]

We do Lee, we do.

But then I've mostly *only* read Aussie stuff this year and I've gone a little bit cuckoo. A balance is always good I think.

I spose we could always give you the shorthand catch up version of what to read.

[Alisa Krasnostein]

I thought I might take advantage of the current lull in this thread (Plug: next week the 2007 series begins with Jonathan Strahan) to talk a bit about the Aurealis Awards judging.

I judged the SF panel for this year's Aurealis Awards. After I'd finished reading the shorts for that, I decided to join Ben Payne in his annual "read everything published" challenge and compile my own list of the Year's Best according to me to compare to his, for interest's sake. For those interested, we intend to publish our lists this weekend so look out for those on our blogs.

Aside from the interesting things I have learned along the way from consuming that much focussed fiction in such a short space of time, I have also learned a few things about the mechanics of the Awards.

"Nomination" for these awards is not really a rite of passage to anywhere interesting. All works published by Australians are eligible for consideration. The process of nomination is merely the act of placing the works in front of the appropriate judges. As a judge, I found it difficult to get hold of all the material myself. I did the best I could as I really wanted to read everything as it became available to avoid the (inevitable) last minute cram (that I am currently doing).
* For online material, I am subscribed to as many mailing lists as possible and these outlets are very good about notifying you when new issues are posted. And access is easy.
* For material published in hard copy at home, access is a little more difficult but most, if not all, of this material eventually made its way to me.
* For material published overseas, access was the hardest. Several kind writers, experienced themselves as previous judges, made sure that their work got to me and usually in a timely fashion. Contacting the Director will allow you to get the correct mailing addresses for the approproate judges and $4 later, your work can be in their hands.

I won't be reading the complete list of material published this year, I may come up about 50 stories short. This is for two reasons. The first, I just couldn't get access to the stories. In many cases I have contacted the writers themselves for pdfs where I could. Or I have scavanged about with other judges. But I have fallen short.

The second reason, is that I am rapidly getting over the reading of the material. I knew coming into this that the year would be uneven, with a massive load at the end of the year, reading wise. I really tried to counteract that by being proactive where I could. But I found that a lot of people don't want to think about the awards till the end of the year. It's probably more an issue with the novels but even with the shorts, I had more to read from October onwards than the earlier months put together. I wondered at first if maybe it was a strategy thing - be the last story the judges read so it's fresh in their mind. The truth is, when you have that much material to consume in a very short time, you become more ruthless and irritated. I stopped reviewing what I was reading for that very reason. I think I became harder on writers as the year went on. And the chances of me having read *that* story earlier on in the year increased.

So I guess this is a call out to everyone for this year. Please please please, nominate your work as soon as humanly possible for the 2007 Aurealis Awards judging. As the writer, you can nominate your work, so don't just rely on your editor/publisher to do it for you. They might do it as a lump nomination in October and your work will be lost within hundreds of other entries.

Nominate early and often. Your judges and the Director will love you. And your work can be given the time it deserves to be considered. And maybe we can reduce the turnover/burnout of judges.

[tansyrr]

I agree with everything Alisa says about judging & the importance of seeing your work reach the judges.

I've seen a few authors get snippy about the idea of "nominating" their own work, but basically - if the publisher or author doesn't provide copies of the works to the judges, there isn't much the judges can do.

And GJ, I'm glad you've decided not to be completely completionist -really, I think you've read enough "have to" stuff for now. Replenish your brain!

(not sure where the $4 comes in, though?)

[Alisa Krasnostein]

It's a dollar something to send a manilla envelope with your printed out story to each judge.

Incidentally, you can do that for your overseas publications for ASif! And in fact anything that you have had published and is not reviewed on ASif!

Tansy, I would very much like to quit now and just post my list today. Unfortunately, I have some stories still left that really do need to be considered.

[tansyrr]

Hope it's okay to post this here - I'd be interested to hear other people's lists as they get sent to GJ for compilation...

Tansy's Recommended Reading List of Australian Spec Fic 2006 (in no pertickler order)

Short Stories
Mary Bennet gets a Life - Sue Isle - Borderlands
Daughter of the Clay - Margo Lanagan - Red Spikes
The Devil in Mr Pussy - Paul Haines - Cock
The Dark Ages - Lee Battersby - Through Soft Air
A Fine Magic - Margo Lanagan - Eidolon 1
Goodfellow - Lee Battersby - Through Soft Air
Why the Balloon Man Floats away - Stephanie Campisi - Fantasy
The Revenant - Lucy Sussex - Eidolon 1
The Bridal Bier - Carol Ryles - Eidolon 1
Winkie - Margo Lanagan - Red Spikes
A Pig's Whisper - Margo Lanagan - Agog! Ripping Reads
Summer Seltzer Missive - Deborah Biancotti - Ticonderoga Online
The Hanging Tree - Lyn Battersby - Borderlands
Ghosts of 1930 - Lily Chrywenstrom - Borderlands
See Here, See There - Anna Tambour - Agog! Ripping Reads
The Juniper Tree - Angela Slatter - LCRW
The Sun King - Adam Browne - ASIM 22
Marco's Tooth - Trent Jamieson - ASIM 22
Aspies and Auties and Long Leggedy Beasties - Alison Venugoban - ASIM 26
Under Hell, Over Heaven - Margo Lanagan - Red Spikes
The Red Priest's Vigil - Dirk Flinthart - ASIM 25
Persuasion - Trent Jamieson - Reserved for Travelling Shows

Books (novels, anthos & collections)
26 Lies/1 Truth - Ben Peek (not necessarily spec fic although I'm pretty sure it counts as alternate history...)
Midnighters 3 - Blue Noon - Scott Westerfeld
Blaze of Glory - Michael Pryor
Voidfarer - Sean McMullen
Wildwood Dancing - Juliet Marillier
Heart of the Mirage - Glenda Larke
White Tiger - Kylie Chan
Emissary - Fiona Macintosh
Magic Lessons - Justine Larbalestier
The Dreaming Vol 1 - Queenie Chan (Manga)
Daughters of Earth - Justine Larbalestier (ed)
Eidolon 1, Jonathan Strahan & Jeremy Byrne (ed)
Agog! Ripping Reads, Cat Sparks (ed)
Red Spikes, Margo Lanagan (collection)
Through Soft Air - Lee Battersby (collection)
Reserved for Travelling Shows - Trent Jamieson (collection)
Troy - Simon Brown (collection)

PS: I didn't read everything. I didn't even try. But I read a lot.
PPS: Diomedes story by Brown removed cos of being a reprint

[Ben Payne]

Hi Tansy,

I've posted my list here:

http://benpayne.livejournal.com/

Will be interested to go through and compare.

Cheers

ben

[Ben Payne]

PS. I don't think that Diomedes one was 2006...

[tansyrr]

Damn, you're right of course! What happened is I got to the end of my list, then realised I'd forgotten Troy, and added it to the book list, then thought "Hang on, some of those stories were really good, I must be able to recommend at least one of them individually." And I chose the one I liked best.

D'oh! I didn't much like the one that was original to the collection, sadly. It didn't have the same fire & kookiness of the earlier stories.

[Alisa Krasnostein]

Mine:

1. The Dying Light by Deborah Biancotti (Eidolon 1)
2. The Imprisonment of Marianne by Lee Battersby (Borderlands 6)
3. Dark Ages by Lee Battersby (Through Soft Air)
4. Love Affair by Jacinta Butterworth (C0ck)
5. Sacrifice for the Nation by Monica Carroll (The Outcast)
6. The Subtle Hand of Gpd by Jay Caselberg (Borderlands 6)
7. Aftermath by David Conyers (Agog Ripping Reads)
8. Down to the Tethys Sea by Stephen Dedman (Science Fiction Chronicle 266)
9. Riding the Crocodile by Greg Egan (One Million AD)
10. One Night Stand by Dirk Flinthart (Agog! Ripping Reads)
11. Father, Father by Paul Haines (C0ck)
12. Going Down to Jennifer Aniston's Breasts by Paul Haines (Ripples 5)
13. Burning from the Inside by Paul Haines (Doorways for the Dispossessed)
14. Pet by Richard Harland (Tales of the Talisman)
15. Empire of the Willing by Sean McMullen (Future Washington)
16. Spare Parts by Emma Munro (Borderlands 6)
17. The Pain Threshold by Jason Nahrung (Agog! Ripping Reads)
18. Mono by Ben Peek (Phantom)
19. The Souls of Dead Soldiers are for Blackbirds not Little Boys by Ben Peek (Agog! Ripping Reads)
20. Rosebuds by Tansy Rayner Roberts (Agog! Ripping Reads)
21. In Infinite Night and Memory by Andrew Sullivan (Potato Monkey 4)
22. An Offer too True to Be Good by Andrew Sullivan (The Outcast)
23. Woman Train by Kaaron Warren (The Outcast)

Flash:

1. Silk and Pearls by K J Bishop) (Shadowed Realms 9)
2. The Gift by Brendan Duffy (Potato Monkey 4)
3. Child Care by Katie G (AntiSF 99)
4. Scream by Adrian Gibb (AntiSF 101)
5. The Cross Talk by Rick Kennett (AntiSF 100)
6. You May Wish to Fall Asleep by Geoffrey Maloney (AntiSF 100)
7. Snow Puppies by Joan Malpass (AntiSF 93)
8. An Open Letter to the WWWorld by Natalie J Potts (AntiSF 93)
9. The Doctor by Brenda Steedman (AntiSF 96)
10. The Cat Story by Anna Tambour (ASIM 24)

Honourable Mentions

1. Stealing Free by Deborah Biancotti (Agog! Ripping Reads)
2. The Blow off by Stephen Dedman (Brutarian 47/48)
3. Obituary Boy by John Dixon and Adam Browne (ASIM 26)
4. The Red Priest's Vigil by Dirk Flinthart (ASIM 25)
5. The Crying Man by Richard Harland (Sinister Tales 1)
6. Hieronymus Boche by Chris Lawson (Eidolon 1)
7. The Seventh Letter by Sean Williams (Bulletin Summer Reading)
8. Dying for Air by Sean Williams and Simon Brown (ASIM 23)
9. Sepulchra by Tony Williams (Borderlands 7)
10. Dead Sea Fruit by Kaaron Warren (Fantasy 4)

[kathryn]

In the interest of transparency , here's the list I've submitted to A for the ASif! Reading List. I've taken it from the lists published on the AA website and it's highly skewed cos I've only read a handful of anthols from this year (Outcast, c0ck and Through Soft Air, i think) and very little in the way of anything else. The order means nothing, it's just the order in which I found them on the AA list (although obviously Peek wasn't on that list!)

Lee Battersby, Mikal (TSA)
Deborah Biancotti, Summa Seltza Missive (Ticonderoga Online #6)
Lily Chrywenstrom, The Rubbish Witch (The Outcast)
Paul Haines, The Devil in Mr Pussy (c0ck)
A. M. Muffaz, The Mudfish Goddess (The Outcast)
Deborah Biancotti, Surrender 1: Rope Artist (Shadowed Realms #9)
Jacinta Butterworth, Love Affair (c0ck)
Kaaron Warren, The Gibbet Bell (Borderlands #8, although actually I'd recommend the The Writing Show Podcast version of this, as I haven't *read* it, just listened to it. Kaaron is an excellent reader)
Ben Peek, 26 Lies/One Truth (it's the only thing I've actually read of his from this year but also the best of the lot)

[tansyrr]

This was a cool idea, Alisa. I know our forum is supposed to end as Jonathan's starts, but it would be good if we could come back here and discuss the Recommended Reading list when it's released properly.