The Wildcard is your debut novel. Tell us a bit about how the novel came to be and the journey you went on to publication.

I wrote the first draft of The Wildcard when I was studying professional writing and editing at RMIT University, with a 15 month-old-baby and a day job. I’d write on the train, as a passenger in the car, in my lunch break, or when the baby slept. Except my baby never slept. So I’d push him around the streets in a pram going over plot problems in my head.

For six weeks I obsessed over this story, until the first draft was written. Then almost five years, many more drafts, two job changes, a million re-writes and another baby (who also didn’t sleep) later, I had the final version that ended up published by IFWG.

I’m the sort of writer who writes every day and have been doing so since I was about ten years old. But I didn’t start taking it seriously until I was in my mid-30s. That’s when I enrolled in the writing course, started submitting short stories to magazines, and committed to writing novels with an aim to be published. It took almost ten years to the day of making that decision before I had my first book contract, with IFWG, for The Wildcard.

I guess if there’s a moral of the story it’s that writing and publishing doesn’t necessarily move fast, and hanging in there for the long haul is more important than just about anything. Except writing. You’ve always got to write.

On your website you mention working with libraries/in archives and records/with information management and even as a business corporate writer. Does any of that experience influence your writing? How does it manifest in your debut, The Wildcard (if at all)?

I often find my ‘other’ non-writing career bleeds into my fiction in unexpected ways. During the day, I work with information in a myriad of formats and forms, developing ways to capture and classify it, to manage and store it, to protect it, and most of all, to ensure those who need to access it can find it and use it.

Information is also at the heart of the underground subculture of card players in The Wildcard. This is a world which relies on information to operate—who is playing and in what games, who wins those games, what the bets are, what the bets mean, because they’re never straight-forward monetary amounts. Who owes what to whom and who gets to collect on those debts.

It all comes down to who controls the information, who determines its veracity, and who derives power from doing so. Though I never deliberately drew parallels with my career in information management and governance, it was undoubtedly an influence. The world of The Wildcard is one dealing with the shift from analogue to digital, where the old guard are clinging on against change. Libraries, records and archives have been successfully managing that same shift for some three decades now, so I was on familiar territory when writing such themes in the novel.

You also say you write about dark stuff and the political. Could you elaborate on that a bit? How does it show up in The Wildcard?

I wrote The Wildcard as a fun, exciting, thriller adventure with a twist. I certainly didn’t aim to write anything dark and political.

And yet, the world of these card players is one in which businesses gain advantage by using what is effectively slave labour, politicians trade secrets over the cards, and political movers and shakers bet information and favours between themselves.

Money, power and influence corrupt what was intended to be “only just games.” When Anna, one of the card players in the novel, cries out that nobody should die for a game, she is genuinely shocked it’s reached that point. Yet as Jem, the protagonist, understands, when you get those kind of stakes involved, of course it’s going to end up like that.

So I guess I got a bit dark and political with this story anyway, despite my best intentions.

It seems like you love to read and write across a broad spectrum of genres. Have you mashed them up in The Wildcard? In your published short fiction?

I love a good story, no matter what the genre. And I do tend to mash up genres as suits me. The Wildcard certainly does this, slipping between the cracks of several genres. It is a thriller that is part heist-fiction, except they’re not stealing anything. Part murder mystery, except everyone knows who the killer is. Part dark underworld crime story, except they’re not criminals or gangsters, they’re just card players who want to play games.

It’s a con artist story without the con artists, and owes a great deal to my growing up obsessively watching The Sting and similar movies as a kid. It also draws a lot on my love for speculative fiction, which is where I feel most at home when it comes to genre.

The Wildcard isn’t speculative—it’s set in the real world and everything in it obeys our real world laws of physics and nature. Yet, the subculture the story is set within is entirely fictional and couldn’t realistically operate. It’s a community with its own intricate rules for operation and organisation, which required just as much worldbuilding as anything speculative I’ve ever written. It’s kind of like the world of secret assassins in John Wick, or the underground of Fight Club—both stories ostensibly set in the real world, but which couldn’t actually operate for real. At least, we hope not.

In The Wildcard, Jem (the protagonist) is thrust into a world where people bet on everything through card games. What made you choose to write about card games and gambling? Was it a particular experience or situation that spoke to you?

Honestly, the very first, earliest spark of an idea for this story came from a game of strip poker when I was about 19 and an undergraduate at university. Which sounds more exciting than it really was—the actual strip poker game fizzled into nothing pretty fast as we all chickened out in the first few rounds.

However, that game did leave me thinking about card games with bets other than money and I subsequently wrote a short story about a gathering of card players on a city rooftop making strange, non-monetary, slightly sinister bets on the cards.

Fast forward twenty-odd years and I stumbled over that short story in my archives. Something about the world described and the strange bets still grabbed me. So I decided to rewrite it and see where it took me … which was to this book, The Wildcard.

The book is very different from the early short story, but the Rooftop Games are still in there, as are the characters of Jem and Anna, whose friendship remains the beating heart of the tale.

Speaking of Jem, tell us about him and why the reader will love him (or not). 

Jem is a young man, a uni student, who is smart and kind and resourceful and loyal, and who finds himself trapped in something he has no way of understanding. His girlfriend—ex-girlfriend, as he quickly points out—tricks him into signing for her debt, only it’s not money he ends up owing, it’s his loyalty. Eleven years of it.

Which he has no way of understanding. So in steps his best friend from uni, Anna, who does understand, because these card games are her life … only she lives her life like she plays a game of poker, and has her own issues with her on-again/off-again relationship with a powerful player in this world, and isn’t entirely reliable. Then there’s Crispin, another player Jem meets, a young man who Jem’s increasingly drawn to, but who he isn’t sure he can trust…or if Crispin should trust him, either.

I love Jem, he’s fiercely intelligent in some ways and utterly naïve in others, and he is thrown into this world of twisting rules nobody ever explains, except that the stakes are really high. Which is kind of like real life: you’re left to flounder around trying to figure it out, while everybody else seems to have it together and know what they’re doing.

And I think we’ve all been there at times.

If you were to elevator pitch this book to a reader, how would you sell it to them? Are there other books you’d compare The Wildcard to?

Others have described this book as: “John Wick for card players.” Which I love. It’s not that there are gun-toting assassins shooting each other in this book, but it does have a twisting underworld society with its own strict rules and complicated hierarchy and power games and organisation. And a community which adheres to all these complex rules and policies them without mercy. All mostly hidden from the everyday world of everyone else going about their lives.

What research, if any, did you do for The Wildcard? Do you enjoy this part of the process?

One of the challenges of writing The Wildcard was the fact I was writing a character who is, in many ways, so much smarter than I am. Jem is a mathematician with an interest in applied mathematical computing, doing his PhD at uni. While I failed maths in high school.

As subplots revolve broadly around Jem’s research interests, I really had to figure out what I was talking about. Fortunately, my brother has a background in robotics and is a software/hardware guru, and he put up with my incessant questions, talking me through the current and future directions in the field, and giving me lots of feedback. I also researched various aspects of mathematics and probability online, looking for layman’s explanations I could understand, which was fascinating.

When it came to the card games, I haven’t actually played cards for twenty years. But I do know how the standard games work and I researched online to get the terminology right. I also spent a lot of time watching card-trick buskers in the city and asking them questions, such as how long they’d practiced to develop their skills, and why they first got into playing with cards. They had no idea who I was, but they were always very generous with their time and answers.

In other words, the research for this book was definitely great fun.

What do you love about crime and speculative fiction as genres? Do you have any favourite novels you’d like to share? Why do you love them?

Speculative fiction is my first love. It’s what I grew up reading and where I feel most comfortable. Even when I’m writing “real world” stories, such as The Wildcard, there’s usually some speculative element of them, such as in this case the card playing subculture with its twisting rules and underground organisation and elaborate player hierarchy of ranked power.

But I do love all genres and I love playing with genre when I write. That is, understanding what the genre expectations are, and something of what the audience will bring to the text when they’re reading, and then either supporting or subverting that in order to tell the best story.

As for favourite novels … that’s a massive question to ask a lifelong reader and writer! My all-time favourites are classics, actually—The Count of Monte Cristo and Jane Eyre have long been tied for my favourite ever novels. They both touch on the gothic and the dark, they’re both very subversive novels in their own ways, with complicated, flawed characters and twisting plots, and most of all, they’re rollicking good tales.

As for more modern favourites … that depends on what I’m reading on any given week, but I’ll tell you what I’m currently reading and loving: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt and The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel.

What’s next for you on the writing horizon?

I have a book coming out next year, a Western with a feminist twist—a stranger rides into a highly authoritarian town and she shakes things right up.

I’m also mid-draft on a couple of other works-in-progress: a speculative fiction novel set amid the urban decay of a near-future city verging on post-literacy, about the ways we use stories to understand ourselves and each other. And a quirky murder mystery set in an academic library overnight, with poisoned books and obsessive librarians, with an unconventional love story at its centre.

Thanks so much for your interview, Kathryn!

You can read more about Kathryn’s novel here with The Wildcard available for purchase in all good eBook and print outlets. It is distributed through Gazelle (UK/Europe), Novella (Australia) and IPG (North America).

Kathryn is a Melbourne writer of speculative and thriller fiction with a taste for blending dark genres in twisting ways. Her short fiction has been published in several anthologies and magazines, including Aurealis and Midnight Echo. When not writing, she works in archives, libraries and records management, and has a couple of small children to keep her busy. The Wildcard is her debut novel.

Shirley Jackson award-winner Kaaron Warren published her first short story in 1993 and has had fiction in print every year since. She was recently given the Peter McNamara Lifetime Achievement Award and was Guest of Honour at World Fantasy 2018, Stokercon 2019 and Geysercon 2019. Kaaron was a Fellow at the Museum for Australian Democracy, where she researched prime ministers, artists and serial killers. She’s judged the World Fantasy Awards and the Shirley Jackson Awards.

She has published five multi-award winning novels (Slights, Walking the Tree, Mistification, The Grief Hole and Tide of Stone) and seven short story collections, including the multi-award winning Through Splintered Walls. She has won the ACT Writers and Publishers Award four times and twice been awarded the Canberra Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Her most recent novella, Into Bones Like Oil (Meerkat Press), was shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson Award and the Bram Stoker Award, winning the Aurealis Award.

In the ‘about’ section of your website, you say you wrote a novel at 14 called ‘skin deep’ which you need to type up. What sort of story was it and have the ideas in it shown up elsewhere in your writing? How? 

I have typed it up now! This story was hugely inspired by The Outsiders, and followed a very similar story line. Two groups in suburban Melbourne battle it out. I moved beyond this kind of realist fiction into horror and science fiction, for a number of reasons, but I’m still looking at the way we treat each other and the way we judge each other at face value. 

What appeals to you about speculative fiction, particularly horror, as a genre? What do you think makes you keep coming back to that horror space?

I love that anything is possible in spec fic. In horror, this means I can explore the afterlife and ghosts, think about what happens to us when we die, and look at crime and punishment in a new way. I keep coming back to horror partly out of habit now! But it’s also because that’s where a story tends to lead me. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always been fascinated with the darker side of life, and I’m not a fan of contrived happy endings, so I think that’s a part of it.

In November 2020, Screen Canberra announced development funding to adapt your excellent novel, The Grief Hole, into a film. Are you able to say anything about that project and where it’s at? What’s your role in the collaboration and how are you finding the experience? 

This is such an exciting adventure! Josh Koske approached me a couple of years ago, having read The Grief Hole. He saw the filmic possibilities in it and wanted to have a go at making that happen. He’s the main scriptwriter, with me helping as far as elements of character and plot. I’m really loving the experience. It makes me look at my work from a different angle and really forces me to re-examine why I did the things I did on the page. Once you start to collaborate, the work changes, as does the story. We’re having lots of cool discussions about motivations and that sort of thing. I’ll keep you posted on developments! 

You’ve lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and even Fiji for three years (aside: what were you doing there and please tell me more). How does place come into your story-telling (whether through theme, setting or something else)?  

Place is absolutely vital. You absorb the atmosphere of a place you’re in, even if it’s only a visit. The sounds, the smells, the sights. All of that imbues my work. In Fiji, the air is different, and the colours. We were there as part of the diplomatic corps, an amazing experience in itself. I got the chance to make friends with people from all over the world, and to connect with Fijians as well. I explored the streets and shops of Suva, ate food I’d never eaten before, had amazing conversations with fascinating people. It was an unforgettable experience. 

And now let’s talk about Slights. Here’s the blurb for those unfamiliar with this novel:

When Stevie Searle almost dies in the accident that kills her mother, she doesn’t see a shining path or a golden light. Instead, she sees everyone she’s ever slighted, waiting to take a piece of her in a cold, dark room. The person whose place she took in the queue, the schoolmate she cheated off, the bus driver she didn’t pay? All waiting. All wanting to take their revenge when she finally crosses over.

Stevie is fascinated by the dark room so she sends herself there again.

And again.

And Again.

Slights is a re-print of one of your novels (first published 2009) and features a pretty disturbing protagonist. Can you tell us a bit about how the idea for that novel started and how you created Stevie (and coped with being inside her head haha). 

It was a really intense six months or so, living in Stevie’s head. The first draft was written with a grant for the ACT Government, so I was at home writing solidly for that time. I’d never done that before (apart from a couple of weeks here and there) and I think that total focus helped the intensity of the character.  

Stevie was really created out of the concept that hell is a place where everyone you’ve ever slighted is waiting to take a piece of you. I can’t remember how I came up with that idea! But I wrote it as a short story first, then realised I wanted to tell the story of all of those slighted people, so it needed to be a longer work. Once I started to tell their stories, Stevie began to emerge. Each slight helped build her as a person. 

I wrote the book three or four times. The final version I completed in Fiji, when my kids were little. So I had that weird situation where I was in Stevie’s head during school hours, then slipping back into my own real life when the kids were home! 

Is there a favourite/interesting passage from Slights you could share to tease readers?

I do have lots of favourite bits! There are scary bits and funny bits and sad bits. Part of what I wanted to create around Stevie was a sense of loneliness, even though she has people who care about her.

SO here’s a funny little bit. It’s an essay Stevie writes at school!

The Sacking of Troy

by S. Searle
There are great things afoot in the workings of mankind. Only one man can save the day and it is always a strong man, a good man, a man who shows up on time to work and does not take sickies. A man who has only one girlfriend at a time and does not keep three women waiting while he performs nebulous duties. This man is always honest. This man does not steal food from his employer.

This man is not Troy.

Troy got his job at Woolworths because his big brother worked there for years and was now head manager of the cigarette booth.

Brad had an attendance record which was being noticed in high circles, and he never blew his nose on his sleeve. He was popular because he was going places and there was always a chance he would give out free cigarettes when the floor manager took her tea break.

Brad looked good in his short red coat. He had a smile which was quite believable and a laugh which didn’t shock anybody.

There was no reason to think his little brother Troy would be any different.

Brad knew, but he was under the control of his mother, who insisted Troy be given a chance. She could not see Troy in the light everyone else saw him in, because he was charming and he gave her kisses still, although he was fifteen.

The Starting of Troy caused a stir of anticipation. The customers were no cause for gossip – only the ones who liked to catch the cashiers out in errors. They received slow, painstaking service. The best gossip to be had was about each other.

Troy arrived with sunglasses on, greasy hair, sandshoes. Brad received a word of warning; had he not drilled the dress-code into his brother?

Troy wore scuffed school shoes the next day and declared that his ignorance of the difference between a Naval orange and a Valencia would remain just that.

He began to feel besieged the next day when he did not properly pack a customer’s bags, and he lashed out. Brad was called to speak with him.

“Troy, you must be careful. The people here are very unforgiving. They don’t like temper or any other emotion. Perhaps if you were in Paris things would be different, because the French are a passionate race. But you are here, where we are dispassionate, and you must abide by the laws, however unfair or invasive you find them.”

On his next shift, Troy was discovered having sex with Diana, who had gone out the back for a cigarette and been surprised.

“What can I say? He’s built like a horse. I could hardly resist.”

With that, Troy was sacked.

THE END

What’s next on the writing horizon?  

I’ve had some good story sales this year so far, but not sure they are all announced yet! I’ve written stories set in a failed world, stories set 5000 metres in the sky, stories set in mythical pubs about cursed brooches. All out this year, I hope! 

I’ve got the next two re-releases coming from IFWG. Walking the Tree and Mistification. Really looking forward to having those out in the world again! 

Thanks so much for sharing with us today, Kaaron! You can read more about the book at the publisher’s website with Slights available for purchase in all good ebook and print outlets. It is distributed through Gazelle (UK/Europe), Novella (Australia) and IPG (North America).

Anthony Horowitz is one of those authors who has been on my radar for a long, long time. I’ve never read his popular Alex Rider series, but they’ve been on my to-read pile for years. Midsummer Murders was a family staple when I was in high school, and Foyle’s War is one of the best crime and historical dramas ever written for the television in my opinion (why oh why ITV did you cancel it? Please tell me there will be more, Horowitz. Please). I’m also interested in Horowitz’s sanctioned Holmes stories, House of Silk and Moriarty. Even if I’m not a fan of Holmes stories, I do enjoy some good Moriarty fan fic. As part of his transition to adult fiction, Horowitz’ most recent two stories are meta crime. I haven’t read Magpie Murders (yes, it’s on my list too), but when I read the super interesting interview I re-blogged from Sophie Masson about The Word is Murder with Mr Horowitz and saw that there was an e-book sale happening, I jumped right in with Horowitz’ most recent. And what an odd beast it is too…

Where Magpie Murders sees Horowitz experiment with the book within a book trope (an author is killed and his editor reads his manuscript to source clues), The Word is Murder goes much further. In a Holmes/Watson dynamic, the fictional detective Hawthorne teams up with author, Anthony Horowitz, to uncover who killed Diana Cowper just after she arranged her own funeral. Diana’s son is famous and much of the story follows various people involved in acting and the fame game.

I enjoyed this unusual crime read, though I suspect writers and avid crime trope and genre fans (such as myself) are more likely to enjoy the novel’s central gimmick. Horowitz posits that he writes the novel at fictional private (sometimes police) consultant, Hawthorne’s request and the novel is written in the first person from Horowitz’ perspective. There is a lot of time dedicated to Horowitz’ own experiences writing crime drama for TV and plotting books, which I found fascinating as a crime writer. Judging by Goodreads reviews, other readers mileage may vary. I did find that sometimes Horowitz became too obtrusive in the story, too self-aware and this detracted from the very well-written, very clever mystery around Diana Cowper. Inventing fictional characters who had CVs rooted in the real world was also a bit distracting for me as I’d seen most of the dramas mentioned and knew no such actor had been in them!

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve never read a Horowitz novel before so had no idea what to expect in terms of writing quality (I knew he could plot a crime story from various dramas). There is no denying that Horowitz is a brilliant writer. I found myself reading passages of dialogue and trying not to weep in despair at how trite my own conversation passages in my manuscript read compared to his. He has a way of sketching strong characters quickly through conversation which brings his story to life.

The overall crime plot was clever, even if I guessed a portion of it. Towards the end there were a number of twists I didn’t see coming and I had no clue who the murderer was till the big reveal. Aside from the more obtrusive Horowitz biography moments, this is a taut, suspenseful work.

The Word is Murder: 3/5 inky stars

You can purchase this book from Book Depository.

1. The Merlin trilogy by Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart was famous for her thriller romances in exotic locales (man, Madame will you talk? is a brilliant debut and brilliant title). In the 70s she surprised everyone with her Merlin trilogy, an imagining of the King Arthur legend from Merlin’s first person perspective. In this series, there is a focus on historical realism over fantasy and magic, and I have the entirety of the series to thank for my obsession with the historical basis for the legend. As a young teen, I liked The Crystal Cave best with some of The Last Enchantment (with the sexually promiscuous Morgause) also an eye-opener at that age. I thought the ending to the series in The Last Enchantment was particularly beautiful.

You can buy the entire trilogy from Book Depository

2. The Dragon Prince and Dragon Star trilogies by Melanie Rawn

Sometimes I wonder at my mother. There was A LOT of sex and violence in these books and I lapped up every moment. My favorite characters by a long shot were Sioned and Rohan and I liked the original trilogy more than the second because of this. One of the first times magic and dragons felt well done for me. People accuse these books of being soapie, and I guess to some extent they are, but there were (and still are) moments of genuine emotion for me, particularly around Pol mucking everything up and Andry too. I liked the combination of Machiavellian politics and magic and in the first book, Roelstra and his children sure were terrifying villains.

You can find the entire series on Book Depository starting with Dragon Prince

3. The Deverry Saga by Katharine Kerr

I don’t much care for this series past The Fire Dragon (which in my opinion was the perfect place to end the saga), but I did love this series to death as a child. My favorite sections were the ones where Rhodry and Jill had adventures and bested the dark dweomer as silver dagger outcasts and I think the series lost its lustre when Kerr pulled back from this. I understand she wanted to get away from the swords and sorcery generic trope, but she was onto a good thing with those two.

This series pulled at my heart strings like no other. I cried a lot. I wanted to throw books across the room a lot. There are still lines I can remember off my heart because in my opinion they were just that damn good. I’ve written poetry about Jill. I’ve participated in livejournal comms and started livejournal blogging as a result. I even won a signed copy of The Silver Mage. I still re-read this series up to The Fire Dragon every couple of years. Also Arzozah is the best dragon personification I’ve read in fiction ever. Period.

Again, Mum, not sure how I got away with these. There were rape, incest, sex, blood sacrifice, graphic battle and death scenes galore. But they all served a purpose and were necessary to the story.

You can find the first book in the series, Daggerspell here

4. Agatha Christie crime novels

I was bored at my grandma’s once and found a copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd to read. The shock ending caught me well out and I was sold on the genius Christie ever since. Endless Night made quite an impression, scarring me a little for life and it is probably still my favorite Christie. And Then There Were None, Halloween Party and The Clocks also made strong impressions.

My love for Christie never died. I still re-read her on and off and I am currently in the process of re-reading all of her novels in publication order. I’m up to the 1940s and will blog my least favorite to most favorite Christie’s once I finally finish (see you in another three years, interested reader). In 2016 when I met with a friend in London, it was a dream finally fulfilled when we saw The Mousetrap together.

My favorite Christie by a long shot is Endless Night and you can find it here

5. A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

Anyone who has ever met me knows I like this series A LOT. The Netflix show will be reviewed on this blog shortly. I have reviewed Snicket’s newer series All The Wrong Questions before. I was going through a tough time as a carer and my Mum and Dad divorced and my Granddad died when I was 15. I found it oddly comforting to know that those three children had it worse than me. I loved trying to solve Snicket’s tantalizing asides, the word play and the absurdism too.

The Bad Beginning and the next few in the series may be a little formulaic, but it’s best to start at the start. You can purchase the first book here

6. The Sevenwaters trilogy by Juliet Marillier

I’m sure my best friend, Tegan, would agree with me; this series by an Australian author is seriously good! Beautifully written, full of good research, beautiful romances and held together within an Irish first person oral story telling framework, this is some of the best modern fantasy you’ll ever read. Daughter of the Forest must be one of the strongest fantasy debuts ever penned and is my favorite of the series. There’s one scene that is brutal and is guaranteed to make you cry or throw the book across the room. Anyone who’s read this will know the scene I mean. Keep going. It’s a scene with purpose. Trust me. The trilogy’s end in Child of the Prophecy is one of the best fantasy endings to a series I’ve ever read too.

Find Daughter of the Forest here

7. Harry Potter

What can I say about this series that hasn’t already been said? I didn’t much like the series post Book 5, but there’s no denying the power of the original Potterverse. How I longed to visit Honeydukes and drink butter beer, or journey through Diagon Alley. How I wished I’d get a letter from Hogwarts (I did once. From the President of UOW Harry Potter Society anonymously I believe). I lined up at crazy hours to get the next book in the series and stayed up all night to avoid spoilers (how dare people spoil Dumbledore’s death in book 6!). I got to see the first two films with school as a library monitor and the last two on exchange in the UK(!). I’ll never forget the surreal experience of sitting in a packed theatre at Oxford to watch the final film and the sound of tissues rustling and everyone sobbing their hearts out at the Snape mini film section.

After all this time?
Always.

You have a heart of stone if that doesn’t get you. I made a lot of friends through this fandom and did a lot of crazy things (like dress as Boggart Snape for a Yule Ball Party once).

I’m not bothering to link to Harry Potter. If you don’t already own it there’s something wrong

Honorable mentions: Everything by Isobelle Carmody but especially the Obernewtyn series and Alyzon Whitestarr. I only omitted her because I included her in my tender years too. Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. The tried and true staples: The Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings.

Lemony Snicket

Publisher: Put Me In The Story

First Published: 2015

RRP: $16 US

Regular readers of this blog and my Goodreads account know that I am an enormous Snicket fan. I love the word play and the ambiguities and the sadness and the grey moral pit which is humanity and the quiet humanism which underpins both A Series of Unfortunate Events and Snicket’s newer series, All The Wrong Questions. Regular readers also know that in some ways I love this newer series more: the writing is sharper and packs more punches, the characterizations are all spot on and the film noir spoof suits VFD’s early days perfectly. So it was a delightful surprise when I received an email from American publisher, Put Me In The Story, requesting a review of the customized reprint of the series. Children have always loved placement in stories, especially detective style ones where adults are wrong and children fix things (and adults who are young at heart love these too) and I could see immediately that the Snicket world of VFD, book readers beating out followers of violence and a story filled with codes and secret handshakes would suit a customized medium perfectly. Snicket had practically gone there with An Unauthorized Autobiography anyway. I leaped at the chance.

In this final story, Lemony Snicket must board a train returning to the city to finally uncover Hangfire’s diabolical plot and help his friends try to save Stain’d By The Sea one last time. At first I was afraid the story was a spoof of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. It wasn’t at all. Strange and bitter and sad, instead the story reveals the source of the VFD schism, the corruption already alive in VFD long before Olaf came along, and the beginnings of Snicket’s lonely journey to being both a part of, and seperate, to his secret society. The ending definitely leaves room for a follow-up series exploring Snicket’s romance with Beatrice and subsequent parting as the schism saw them labelled to different sides.

I have always loved Snicket’s ambiguity about people and their actions. The third story in this series saw Snicket make a rousing speech about literacy and decency and passive fights and him and his friends seem to be all on the same side. By this novel’s end, we feel sorry for the hapless and confused Theodora S Markson, the fatherless Ellington Feint and the wild and disillusioned Hangfire. The mysterious villain is revealed to be deranged, but not without cause, and it is a mark of how brave this series has been that Snicket is forced to do wrong to save the town and his friends and concede to some of Hangfire’s perspective. It is clever, if deeply tragic, that Snicket loses his friends to save the town.

Ellington Feint and her terrible coffee have always been an interesting component of the series and the story picks up the second she spars with Snicket: ambiguous, lost, alluring and childish. Snicket’s love for her is a precursor to how he loves Beatrice; with all of his heart and soul and damn the consequences. Her imprisonment with Kit leaves open many possibilities. All of them interesting.

I recently attended a Writers Party where someone said Lemony Snicket was a children’s author. Maybe that’s how he is marketed. That’s definitely not how his series can be read. Yes, the early Series of Unfortunate Events books are juvenile. But later books, and this most recent series, teach adults as well as children and make us question our values about good and bad, right and wrong. For there is still a kernel of hope if you see beyond the terrible waste and sadness of the ending to this series, just as there always was in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Tor books had a great review exploring this element here

“We are an aristocracy,” Snicket tells Moxie in “Shouldn’t You Be In School?” “Not an aristocracy of power, based on rank or wealth, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky. Our members are found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between us when we meet.” He goes on to say, “Our schisms and arguments might cause us to disappear. It won’t matter. People like us always slip through the net. Our true home is the imagination, and our kingdom is the wide-open world.” It is a beautifully telling quote amongst a series of beautifully telling quotes. Yes, people are good and bad like a chef’s salad, including Snicket himself, but if we can try to be good and kind and decent and well-read, perhaps we can leave the world a little better than when we began in it. It’s the perfect story to share through customization because it’s the moral all of us want for our children.

All four books were presented  as an associate’s training guide, and include:

·         Personalized covers with the reader’s name and initials cleverly integrated in the front and back cover art

·         Reader’s initial designed into the opening artwork page

·         Photo of the reader included on a character portrait page

·         Unique customized letters and interactive messages to the reader from Lemony Snicket

·         Two of the reader’s friends’ names incorporated in the letters and messages

·         Dedication page for the gift giver to write a personalized message to the reader

 Only the most recent book was printed in hardcover. The rest are paperback.

My brother loved this Christmas gift. He loved the messages addressed to him and the photo on the opening page of each book and the references to places and people he knew, as though he himself had joined VFD. And he’s twenty-three. So what are you waiting for? Interested in children’s books with meat? Go forth and purchase!

“Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?”: 4/5 inky stars

All four books in this series were supplied by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

http://www.putmeinthestory.com/favorite-characters/lemony-snicket

The Hestia

My hips wedge against the boat rim. I can taste the roughness of knotted rope at my mouth. Thick braids constrict my hands, feet, waist. With the movement of the boat, I roll into cracked and peeling painted edges.

The Hestia.

I had defined myself by him and me: Paul and grey stone pylons, pebbled sand underfoot, waves crashing, shoreline to shoreline. Back then, I imagined that our love would run free, our feet taking wing. Like Jesus we’d walk on water into sunset, coming out the other side, unscathed…

“Hestia, Hestia,” he said early in.

“Not Hestia. Ruthie, remember?”

Too dark. Too reticent to be flaming Hestia.

He stroked my cheek.“My island worshipping Hestia, darling.” His eyes burn smoke rings on my retinas as he flings liquid all over.“Sacred heart, sacred flame, burn bright for me.”

The boat lulls gentle on cresting tips. He hasn’t shared salt spray or the scaly damp of silver fishies. Rainbows reflect in slick oil.

He drops the match, leaps ashore and pushes the crackling boat into deeper sea.

Blistering skin. Obscured by smoke and flame.

Behind me, the pylons and Paul’s mad shadow. Ahead, the promise of blurry sunset.

My interest is predominantly in depictions of people with intellectual and/or sensory disability and autism but the complete list is below and includes, authors, book titles, publishers and specific short story or anthology suites. I hope to build on this list as I go and review the books on the list. Contributions are definitely welcome! This has a strong Australian focus given that most of my list knowledge here comes from the Australian writing scene.

Novels:

Vorkisigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold – features a physically impaired protagonist (Sci fi)
Gridlock by Ben Elton – the protagonist has cerebral palsy (Sci fi/Ecological Disaster)
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes – the protagonist has intellectual disability (Sci fi)
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon – two of the protagonists have intellectual disability and Down’s Syndrome (Sci fi)
Diamond Eyes and Hindsight by Anita Bell – depicts protagonists with vision impairment (Sci fi)
The Homecoming Saga by Orson Scott Card – a mainish character, Issib, is in the world equivalent of a wheelchair (Sci fi)
Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert – the main protagonists is blind (Sci fi)
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simpson – the protagonist has Asperger’s Syndrome (Romance)
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon – the protagonist has autism (Sci fi)
Hover Car Racer by Matthew Reilly – an important secondary character has autism (Sci fi/action/thriller)
The Starkin Crown by Kate Forsyth – a protagonist has epilepsy (Fantasy)
The Starthorn Tree by Kate Forsyth – a protagonist has a physical disability (Fantasy)
The Beast’s Garden by Kate Forsyth (Forthcoming 2015) – has a protagonist who has synaesthesia (Historical fiction)
The Obernewtyn Series by Isobelle Carmody – a mainish character is blind (Fantasy)
The Twelve by Justin Cronin – has a protagonist with autism (Horror)
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin – has multiple protagonists with physical disability at various points (Tyrion, Bran, Arya, Jaime) (Fantasy)
The Millennium Trilogy by Steg Larson – Salamandar has Asperger’s Syndrome (Crime)

Short Stories

‘Tam Likes Green Bananas’ by Kate Eltham – the protagonist has synaesthesia (Fantasy)

Comics:

Marvel Universe, Hawkeye is blind

Publishers:

Visibility Fiction

Anthologies:

Kaleidoscope (Twelfth Planet Press) (YA Fantasy and Sci fi)

I made two resolutions to do with my reading habits at the beginning of this year:

1. To read a wider range of genre fiction, including genres I am not so keen on
2. To review, read and interview a wider range of Australian authors, editors and publishers for this blog

I have pushed myself to read a bigger amount of horror and short story collections, so I jumped at the opportunity to read Simon Dewar’s new anthology Suspended in Dusk: a collection of fresh horror shorts from new and established writers. I am no horror aficionado, but as a layman on the outside looking in, this anthology has much to offer to any eager readers.

From the blurb:

DUSK
A time between times.

Introduction by Bram Stoker Award Winner and World Horror Convention Grand Master, Jack Ketchum.

The collection features a range of horror writers from UK, USA, South Africa and Australia and includes tales of the weird, the zombie apocalypse, unexpected spirits and murder, graveyards, spraying body parts and ghosts of history past. All 19 stories are inspired and linked by the theme of ‘dusk’ – whether the literal definition of the transition from light to dark, or more metaphorical permeations of evil or the in between space between good and evil, moral and immoral, good and bad.

Highlight stories were those by Alan Baxter (on the darkness within), Anna Reith, Arman Rosamilia, J C Michael, Ramsey Campbell (with a clever take on the universal fear of being buried alive), Wendy Hammer (with her tribute to the late Ray Bradbury) and Angela Slatter (with a spin on who’s playing at villain and victim, hunted and hunter). My absolute favorite story, however, came from Brett Rex Bruton with his thoroughly post modern hard boiled crime story told out of order, featuring tongue in cheek cliches left, right and centre, and literary plot devices that were central to the crime taking place (the object of everyone’s desire is a literal maguffin in a box).

The anthology is currently 99c on Amazon, so if you like horror or short stories or just taking punts on emerging writers, this is the anthology to buy!

Suspended in Dusk: 4/5 inky stars

You can buy the anthology here.

1. You write across a lot of genres and markets. Have you always been so eclectic or when you started out did you have a ‘go to’ market and genre?

Wow, what WAS I thinking when I started out? Feels like it was a long time ago.

I think I mostly just suck at knowing what the genre boundaries actually are. My reading is pretty eclectic, hence my writing is, too. I was surprised when people started telling me I was writing horror. I never really set out to write horror, but it was a big influence on me in my teen years so it inevitably appeared in my writing. Maybe that’s the reality of writing: you become your influences.

I don’t recall having a ‘go to’ market or genre. Not on purpose. Starting out was all a bit random.

Nowadays what I most love to read and write are stories with a contemporary setting and an element of the weird or supernatural. But even then, I don’t stick to that preference completely. I’m always going to need something different and new and maybe even apparently random in my reading and writing life.

2. You got your writing break by publishing short stories over a number of years. What are your top tips for writing a powerful short story?

Oh, man, there’s probably a different answer for every short story writer — or every short story. Short stories are a sprint, whereas novels are a marathon, so the needs are different. What I like in a powerful short story is the sense that the story has ended before it has finished. If you know what I mean? I like the feeling there’s *more* to the story, but the storyteller just didn’t have the time or space to share it. That, for me, provides a kind of urgency to the telling. You get to the end and start to wonder what in hell is about to happen next.

For example, powerhouse Karen Joy Fowler ends her story Younger Women with two possible ways forward. But you just know there are more options she’s not telling you about. And you leave the story wondering which way it went after Fowler ended it. Check it out here.

But that’s just one answer and I’m sure there are dozens more ways to think of powerful short story writing.

3. While we’re discussing short stories, which is your favorite short story that you’ve written and why?

My favourite short story is always whichever story I’ve just finished writing. Srsly. It really is. I spend quite some time thinking my most recent story — whatever it is — is the best work I’ve managed so far. And then I replace it in my affections with another, newer story. My newest short story is coming out in Fablecroft’s Cranky Ladies of History later this year and features the Countess Bathory. So you just know that’s gonna be a blast!

And apart from always loving my newest story, I admit to being particularly proud of No Mercy For The Executioner which appeared in the Review of Australian Fiction in late 2014. (So, it’s my second-most-recent short story.) That story began in a dream, which turned into the first line: ‘When the world ends, it’s the Jewish guy who brings the sake.’ I grew up on post-apocalyptic stories: when I was a teenager, we all thought nuclear war would decimate the world any second. Plus, as a kid raised quasi-Catholic, I can remember earnestly discussing the imminent second coming in first grade. But I’ve never been much attracted to actually writing post-apocalyptic stories until I wrote Mercy and then I just kinda let loose. Teenagers, holed up underground, drinking the last of Earth’s liquor and eating tinned peaches. And then the violence begins… Oh, yeah, that’s a fun story.

4. Bad Power mixes police procedural with speculative fiction. What are your top 3 crime reads? How about top 3 spec fic reads?

Ooooohhh!! Top reads! I love questions like this. Yeah, BAD POWER mixed two things I love. Well, maybe three. 1) crime stories 2) spec fic, and 3) contemporary settings.

Okay, top 3 crime reads would have to start with Kate Atkinson’s CASE HISTORIES, which I loved. I grew up on Agatha Christie books, and THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD stands out. Then maybe Nicola Griffith’s THE BLUE PLACE counts as crime. But it was probably Walter Mosley who made me want to write crime, so I’m going to sneak in DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS (plus, this is really five now, but a special mention to the first of Craig Johnson’s Longmire books, THE COLD DISH (which is a kind of western cosy, if you can believe that)).

Spec fic is harder because *cough* it seems so much broader (not that I want to play favourites). Also I never classify spec fic as spec fic in my goodreads reading list, so now I’m screwed trying to remember all my favourite spec fic reads. ;p

But I do have to mention Ben H. Winters’ THE LAST POLICEMAN, since it’s a mix of crime AND spec fic. And so is the excellent BAD THINGS by Michael Marshall Smith.

My all-time-favourite spec fic reads would have to include Tanith Lee, though, so let’s say THE BIRTHGRAVE. Oh! And Mary Gentle’s ASH! Aaaaaand, crap, so many others. I’m trying to think of something that’s really stayed with me, so I’ll go with Shirley Jackson’s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. But, y’know, so many.

InkAshlings: I am so updating my Goodreads with some of these suggestions! Also, I love Christie!

5. Will there be more books or short stories set in the world of Bad Power and can you tell readers anything, even a cryptic clue?

I didn’t actually set out to write BAD POWER, you know. It started as two stories that shared some eerily similar traits: Shades of Grey and Palming the Lady. I realised I had this strong woman cop in both stories, so I decided to make her the same character. I was probably just being efficient. I think I was also influenced by the fact a couple of early readers both said they loved Detective Palmer. Which kinda surprised me, because I didn’t have a lot planned out for her at that stage. But she’s become a bit of a hero of mine.

She’s also pretty similar to the strong woman cop I invented for my ISHTAR novella, even though I wrote those stories at completely different times. See? Random. It’s like I never plan out anything in my ‘career.’

And then, of course, the stories were saved from the obscurity of individual publishing by the Twelfth Planet Press project: Twelve Planets. TPP collected those two stories and three more that I’d only kinda started working on in one volume. We called the BAD POWER collection a ‘pocketbook police procedural.’

I did start plotting a BAD POWER novel out in my head, but certain other projects have gotten in the way. But Bad Power: The Novel might become a labor of love one day when I get some time. I mean, I had this whole structure and back story for it. Hopefully I’ve written that down someplace. Actually, y’know, even if I haven’t I still remember it pretty clearly. I’ve really got to get faster at finishing stories. I have a WHOLE BUNCH MORE I want to write.

And BTW: Fablecroft published a 6th Bad Power story in their anthology One Small Step in 2013. The story was called Indigo Gold and featured a new character, some new powers, and a hat pin. So, yeah, I’m sure I’ll end up writing more of those stories in one way or another. I love my BAD POWER world and I love all those crazy, creepy characters. BAD POWER is one project I’m inordinately proud of.

6. You are currently collaborating on a couple of projects, including a novel and a graphic novel. What does the collaboration process look like for you?

It looks like a whole lot less stress & a heck of a lot more fun than coming up with all the answers yourself! And suddenly the planning becomes really fun. The writing is pretty much just as hard (or not hard, depending), but the planning is really where collaborating shows its strength. I recommend it heartily!

7. What’s your advice for those writers that want to try collaborating on a project?

Pick someone to lead the project. You might not know who that person is at the very beginning, but sooner or later you all have to agree which member of the team owns the vision & voice. Without that, the project runs the risk of becoming a ‘writing by committee’ project. And the thing about committees is, all the best, more unique and risky stuff often gets dissolved in favour of relentless compromise. In a good collaboration, one person knows whether or not what you’re pitching is going to fit the project.

My other advice would be: if you’re NOT the leader or the owner of the vision, never stop pitching. Sometimes you might want to give up on sharing your ideas because you think they’re stupid or you think people will laugh. And people will often laugh. But the team will miss out on some good stuff if you give up on yourself too soon. Believe that!

8. You’ve also written a novella for the Ishtar collection and have an upcoming novella called Waking in Winter coming soon. What is it that appeals to you about the novella and what are the ingredients for a great novella?

I’m so excited about WAKING IN WINTER. PS Publishing bought that novella in 2013 & scheduled it for around mid-2015, so I can’t wait to see it on the page. We’ve just finished copy edits. And I’m still really proud of my ISHTAR novella with the comically long name, And the Dead Shall Outnumber the Living (for real, I started out with that title as a kind of joke, but I just love the enormity of it, so it stayed.)

I’ve only tried novellas those two times, but I’ve fallen madly in love with the format as a reader and writer. I think it lets you play with all the best aspects of novels — character, adventure, stakes, narrative — without the dross that people often have to use to make a novel more novel-length. So many novels feel like they sag in the middle, just IMHO. Or maybe I’m easily bored. Actually, yeah, I am easily bored.

I think the other thing I like about novellas is that they’re short enough to sustain the kind of mood a short story can deliver. A very mannered or stylized novel can feel very long indeed. But a stylized novella can still pack a punch without losing any momentum.

So that’d be my pick for novella ingredients: character AND style AND narrative AND mood AND momentum. Love novellas. Wish they were easier to find. PS Publishing has put out some doozies, so it’s worth checking their pages first.

9. What’s one question you’ve never been asked before but wish you had been asked?

I racked my brain for an answer to this question. Then I eventually realised that no one has ever quite asked me this: What’s the one piece of advice you wish you’d been given when you were starting out?

10. Now answer it!

Sabotage and salvation will come from unexpected sources. Srsly. Very unexpected sources. The entire idea of a writing ‘career’ is unpredictable in the extreme. The only thing you can do is keep writing. That way, you’re practised and ready for the salvation when it happens. And you can move past the sabotage when it’s delivered. So that’s it, the best advice you’ll get as a starting-out writer: Just. Keep. Writing.

Deborah Biancotti is the author of two short story collections from Twelfth Planet Press: Bad Power and A Book of Endings. She is co-author of the Zeroes trilogy with Scott Westerfeld and Margo Lanagan. Deborah’s novella Waking in Winter will be out with PS Publishing in mid-2015. The first Zeroes book is published in September. You can find Deborah online, but she spends more time on Twitter than anywhere else.

You can read my review of Bad Power here. Thanks again for a great interview, Deb!

I first heard of Deborah Biancotti two years ago at a Conflux Convention. I encountered her in a crime panel when I decided to break up my steady diet of epic fantasy, doctor who and steampunk panels with some discussion of the police procedural. Her books sounded like a deliciously wicked blend of speculative fiction and gritty police drama along the lines of the stuff Robson Green did in shows like Touching Evil and Wire in the Blood. Besides, Deborah was so entertaining at the Ditmar Awards that I decided to follow up on her work. As usual, my backlog of books ran away from me and it took me an entire year to read Bad Power, a collection of five linked short stories which combine gritty police procedural with supernatural abilities in an Australian setting.

From the blurb:

Hate superheroes?
Yeah. They probably hate you, too.

From Crawford Award nominee Deborah Biancotti
comes this sinister short story suite, a pocketbook
police procedural, set in a world where the victories are
only relative, and the defeats are absolute. Bad Power
celebrates the worst kind of powers both supernatural
and otherwise, in the interlinked tales of five people —
and how far they’ll go.

I loved this read. First of all there is the language. Such unusual, disturbing and beautiful use of language. The only other writer I know of who operates in the same language space is Margo Lanagan, whose novel Sea Hearts is one of the best I’ve ever read in the genre. Back to Biancotti. I felt like I could visualize everything that happened in all five stories. At the same time, there was a cynical realness to dialogue that grounded me in the moment.

The collection is also clever and fairly unique because of the way that each story ties explicitly into the next. Setting and characters carry over, revealing gradually more and more about the world of Bad Power. This also means that interesting characters bound up in noir ambiguity, darkness and light and confusion and pain can make continual comebacks. My favourite stories were those that featured Detective Palmer, she who slowly begins to realise that there are people in this world with powers, some of them used for good, some for bad and all leading back to the mysterious Grey Institute. In particular, Palming The Lady and Cross That Bridge stand out. It probably goes without saying that Detective Palmer is a wonderfully feminist character.

Bad Power is exceptionally well written, but it is also exceptionally smart, investigating the common crime themes of corruption, power play and desire through the lens of humans who discover their super powers and begin to use them for ill as much as for good. Powers might vary, Biancotti seems to say, but human foibles do not, with even the police force having their moments of greed and doubt and insecurities. You’d think that this would make for a rather depressing read, and it does to an extent, but Biancotti is humanist and small acts of kindness and decency protect against a modern world which smothers us in deception and lies and deceit.

This book was so good I teetered on the verge of giving it five stars. The only reason I haven’t is because the story ends in medias res with quite a few elements unresolved. I presume this is because Deborah is working on the novels or a follow up collection set in the same universe. If she isn’t there is no justice in this world and I will chuck a temper tantrum. This is the most I’ve enjoyed a short story collection since Gaiman’s Fragile Things.

Bad Power: 4.5/5 inky stars

You can purchase Bad Power from Twelfth Planet Press here. Other books by Deborah Biancotti are A Book of Endings and The Dead Shall Outnumber The Living from the Ishtar anthology.