Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

Sorry life intervened since the last post. Too many hassles, work, family, you name it I dodged it not so successfully. So where were we? York I believe.So in York we went to Leeds, to the Royal Armories, then  Nottingham and Bath. It was not much more than five weeks ago and now it’s minus temperatures and lots of snow. The poor peeps.

So to the Armories. Lot’s of armour and stuff, lots of photos.

Nice little archer there on display

Inside the caves under the city Nottingham.

Nottingham and caves.

A cave tannery-Nottingham caves

Mathew and James with the lovely Marc Gascoigne

Dirt layers under the mall where the caves exist

Then a quick trip to Chatsworth House where the camera had a dead battery. Lucky I had an iphone.

Baby carriage from inside Chatsworth House

View of the ground from within Chatsworth House

That famous veiled statue.

You would have seen this in the Keira Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice. I had a nice fanish ooh moments all over the place.

There was also lots of statues, Greek, Roman and Egyptian.

One of the Eygptian statues on display Chatsworth House

Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire as Diana, portrait from Chatsworth House

The Grand Staircase Chatsworth House

Oxford. We stayed in Woodstock, right next to Blenheim. No pictures of the inside of this palace was allowed but I have a few of the outside and the town of Woodstock and the bloody noisy carnival that was outside our room at the pub!

Exterior shot of Blehheim Palace Oxfordshire

Another frontage of Blenheim Palace

A couple of statues just hanging about on Blehheim Palace's outer wall

That’s Matthew and James gasbagging in front of the palace. This was my second time to Blenheim Palace. I am fascinated by Consuelo Vanderbilt’s story so this time I bought her autobiography. There is also a lot of Winston Churchill paraphernalia here too as he was born here, proposed to his wife here and was related to the Duke of Marlborough family. The grounds are lovely too.

Lovely shot of the lake and the bridge Blenheim

There was a film crew there at the time of our visit. No intelligence on what they were filming nor any famous actor spotting. We did visit a film set in Leeds, but that’s another, damp story.

More countryside porn coming up as we did a walk around the gardens, got lost a bit and then took the side entrance out to Woodstock.

Statue in garden

A tree I liked

Too many photos. Next one is the detail from the arch on the way out.

Gate to Woodstock

Street view and that darn carnival which played very loud 80s music till late.

A narrow lane Woodstock, Oxfordshire

Carnival glare

Matthew and his slice of coffee cake at Blenheim Palace

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I had a number of reviews up on Specusphere this month.
Walking the Tree by Kaaron Warren
Small Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson
Death Most Definite by Trent Jamieson
and A Thousand Sons by Graham McNeil

Check out here http://www.specusphere.com/joomla/index.php

To see these.

I also wrote a review of Gail Carriger’s Souless, Changeless and Blameless. Unfortunately due to some confusion my review wasn’t needed for the site and I am too lazy to go looking for an alternative review home. So I thought I’d post it here rather than waste it.

Looks like I did a lot of reading and reviewing rather than writing last month.
Soulless ISBN 9780316056632
Changeless ISBN 9780316074148
Blameless ISBN 9780316074155
By Gail Carriger
Orbit Books
Gail Carriger brings a lot of fun to the fore with the first three books in The Parasol Protectorate series. This is paranormal romance set in an alternate Victorian England, complete with corsets, manners, lots of cups of tea and a parasol. Enter with steampunk influences, werewolves and vampires, who live openly with humans, and you have an addictive setting. Ghosts hang around near their dead bodies and interact with humans. In fact, the prosperity of Great Britain seems to be owed to these supernatural creatures. Ghosts can make good spies, for instance. Carriger’s witty dialogue and penchant for humour carries this series off, perfectly well.
Soulless
Alexisia Tarabotti is a spinster, living at home with her mother, step sisters and step father. Her real father was an Italian so she has a dark complexion, an unfashionable nose, is buxom and has an ample behind. Combined these awful characteristics leave her entirely unsuitable for marriage. Then there is the fact she has no soul, which makes her an anathema to the supernatural. Her touch can stop a werewolf turning and make a vampire human again.
Enter Lord Maccon, big, tall, handsome, gentry and a werewolf besides. Here the sparks fly as attraction battles life threatening attacks, strange automatons bent on kidnap and Lord Maccon’s temper, to which Alexia seems able to match. The wooing begins, with clandestine meetings, improper touching (including searing kisses) and mother hysterics.

To this rich tableau Carriger adds colourful characters, such as Lord Akeldama, a rather gay member of the beau monde, who leaps off the page with drama, flamboyant clothes and vampire fangs.
The Victorian England in Carriger’s books is convincing enough to be fun, but may not assuage the grumbles of the purists. Carriger is half-English, so I think she has the tea consumption down tight. While the language endeavours to be period, there are a few present day colloquialisms interspersed throughout to raise the eyebrows. However, as the work is so much fun, these little flaws are barely noticeable and do not detract from the overall effect. If you love Austen, period romance or a good paranormal fantasy then Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate is going to set you on fire.
Soulless was a lot of fun to read, so good in fact that Changeless was soon devoured in a similar fashion.

Changeless
Changeless of course, picks up where Soulless leaves off. More interesting characters are introduced, including a female French inventor, who dresses like a man, talks to ghosts and has a passion for pretty young French maids.
The steampunk elements evolve further and so too does the exploration of what makes a werewolf and a vampire and Carriger has her own little variances on the tropes that work well within the story. There is more exploration of what it is like to live with a werewolf pack too, including more than a pinch of sex and male nudity.

Alexia is an alpha female, not a werewolf mind you, but she does know how to throw her weight or parasol around to get overzealous males and werewolves to pay attention. She’s a member of the Shadow Council, where Queen Victoria deals with the supernatural concerns of her kingdom.

While there are intrigues in Scotland, there is also someone trying to kill Alexia. Egyptian artefacts also put in an appearance as well as some Scottish clan infighting to spread the action thickly around.
Changeless ends on such an emotional punch, it was lucky that Blameless was right there beside me to continue on as I experienced something very much akin to shock at the latter developments.
Blameless
It is difficult to discuss Blameless without sprinkling it with too many spoilers. Needless to say the ending of Changeless drives the opening of Blameless, such that Alexia goes to France and encounters more people (or supernaturals) bent on killing her as well as Knights Templars, who could be saviours or captors, depending on their mood.

Whacky machinery follows Alexia around, usually for lethal purposes, such that even her souped up parasol is exhausted. Further information comes to light on what kind of man her father was and what being soulless really means. Meanwhile, there are happenings afoot in London, kidnapping, disappearances, transformations of an unwelcome kind and some humble pie from Lord Maccon.

Overall a very satisfying read over the three books.

Save yourself time and angst and buy all three books at once. You’ll regret it otherwise.

Gail Carriger: Bestselling Author

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As promised I will try to give brief update and photos on trip….

After Games Day UK, we hung in Birmingham for next day and then headed to York. We stayed at Feversham Lodge, a converted Methodist Manse, about a 10 minute walk to York central. Actually it is just up the road from the hospital. I’ve stayed at this B&B before so I knew it had a good position and great hosts.

York is a special place, full on history and picturesque to boot. It’s like the Venice of England. The Romans were there for 400 years, twice as long as white man has been in Australia.

We only put our heads in the Minster and didn’t pay the hefty fee to go inside. The major attraction is the large stained glass window which was covered over for renovations. We did go to The Treasurer’s House.

Part of the York Minster

This is a picture of the detail from the stained glass window in the Treasuer’s House.

A view of the Treasurer's House York

This place had an interesting history, including being built over part of the Roman ruins and road. We went on the ghost tour in the cellars, where a plumber many years ago saw horses and Roman legionaires walking. We didn’t see anything but I did take a shot of the base of the pillar in the cellar.

Base of Roman pillar

There was also a lovely garden.

The Treasurer's House garden

I forced the others to go on a historical walk. Here are some random shots.

One of the gates (Bar) -York

The Shambles

Section of Roman wall with medieval wall on top

I have much better shots of the Roman wall but wordpress is not being helpful. Note the Roman coffins in the foreground.

Medieval church in the process of restoration

I have some shots from the inside of this church, again on my iphone. The seating was all in boxes, which was slightly unusual. That’s all for now.

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While York was the highlight we did do a little adventuring. We met Lee for a drink one night. No evidence to show for this. We also visited Leeds to meet Tasha and took the opportunity to visit the Royal Armouries. It was very wet that day.

King Henry VIII's armour

Not a good shot sorry!

The Royal Armouries’ mascot piece. The jester helmet.

Jester Helmet

Chatsworth House was included in our tour. However, the camera battery died. I have some photos on my iphone that I haven’t downloaded yet.

We also visited Warhammer World in Nottingham. Have too many shots of that so here are some highlights.

Lurtz and James- Warhammer World

Matthew and Warhammer World

View of a diorama in Warhammer World

The room was full of different dioramas…some of them quite spectacular.

Some miniatures

I have a lot of shots from the gallery but I haven’t downloaded them yet. As well as hanging a bit with the Black Library crew, we met up with Marc, who took us to lunch and then to the city of caves. There have been people living in caves since medieval times.

Us in cave-Nottingham

The entry to the caves was rather strange. Go into the mall and turn left. The shopping centre was built over the caves. There are more caves under Nottingham Castle but we didn’t see those. Not much time.

Cavern in a cave

Lots of things happened here in th caves, tanning, which must have smelt awful, bomb shelters during the second world war, and generally homes for those too poor to afford a house.

A dud bomb?

A well in the cave

As well as a lot of green country side and quaint villages we saw these around the place.

Nuclear power station

We also saw that the British have a fondness for zombies. There was one excellent billboard for Virgin Trains, with zombies. I didn’t get a photo unfortunately. However, another smart person did. Here is a link to the photo of the billboard. And here is a zombie theme on a can of Tango.

Zombie Tango

More later.

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On Saturday 25 September we headed off from Maidstone in a people mover with Nik and Dan and headed for Birmingham NEC for Games Day UK the following day. The people mover was fine. We all fit in along with our bags. Traffic was interesting and I think it took us longer than expected but made it in good time in the end. We were checked into the Holiday Inn Express next to the NEC. That means it was a 25 minute walk or a 5 pound taxi trip. After arriving we went over to the NEC as Dan, Nik and Matthew had to do some presigning of books to make the signing the next day easier. Already there was Aaron Dembski-Bowden, James Swallow, Graham McNeil, Sandy Mitchell…I think that is all. Sorry if I left someone out. I took some photos of the presigning. James helped out with sorting books and we put little stickers on them ‘signed’ to more easily identify them. It was kind of fun and the place was huge. Everyone was setting up for the next day.

Photo of Matthew out the front of Games Day. He was very excited. His last attendance was in 2004.

Matthew at the front of Games Day UK 2010 NEC Birmingham

Photo of signings….

Dan, Nik, Matthew and Aaron signing Sabbatt Worlds anthology

Then we all went out to dinner at The Little Owl, which was next door to the hotel. Oh we had drinks first. I ate a lot and then I crashed. Matthew stayed out to 2.00am having a great catch up with the other writers. James had his own room for the night. I was very happy for Matthew as he doesn’t bat an eyelid when I go con partying and it was good to see him enjoy himself.

Next morning Matthew had to be up early to start the day. James and I got to sleep in and went over about 11.ooam. When we got there we were very overwhelmed. There were thousands of people doing stuff that we didn’t really understand. I’m a Dweebette, and a geek and a bit nerdy. Young James is a little cool boy with very little in the way of geek tendencies (very odd considering his upbringing) so he was like ‘err I didn’t know so many geeks existed in the world.” We couldn’t really tell what people were doing because there were queues and layers and layers of people around tables so we just went to where the authors were hanging out. Graham McNeil, Dan Abnett and Nik and others were signing books with huge lines waiting for their turn. There were lines to buy books– extraordinary.

Matthew and a few others were in another area. They had slightly smaller queues. James and I wandered around a bit wide eyed and amazed. I tweeted a bit and took photos and kept coming back to see Matthew.

Once some of the people cleared up we could see what was going on.

One of the many amazing diaramas at Games Day for minatures

Aaron the menial

Some costumes…

Top Grot

A new game apparently. Below is Matthew in front of a pile of banners. The banners are from different Games Workshop shops and the players have banners.

I’d like to put up more pictures but the uploader keeps falling over. It could be the wifi.

Overall Games Day was a wonderful event. I have never seen so many books sold, or seen authors sign for the whole day with just a break for lunch. It was amazing to me. Normal SF cons you don’t see that. The attention to the authors and the devotion to the books. I think I learned something.

Matthew with banners

A fan who brought everything Matthew had published with Black Library for signing

Matthew also took a shot of James and me reading our Black Library purchases. James had to have a copy of the Sabbatt Worlds anthology and I bought James Swallow’s Bloodlines, chap book. James also learned how popular Dan Abnett is. It was quite amazing to him. Dan cooked us dinner and stuff and you know he’s like the god of geeks, according to James. I am quite normal in comparison…hehe

I’ll see if the photo will load. Nope, not this time. Maybe I can come back later and add the orc and us.

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Part of the old castle, Leeds Castle

Last Friday, our last whole day in Kent, we were joined by Dan on a wet and gray trip around Leeds Castle. It has rather extensive grounds better enjoyed when it is not raining. We also lost the restaurant in the end when in search of a nice, hot cuppa. There was a serious lack of puns on this excursion though there was an umbrella that had a long sword for a handle, which Matthew liked considerably. I guess me, bellowing across the shop that 48 pounds was a bit of a joke, put him off somewhat.

Now for those lovely photos.

Down the garden path with Leeds Castle in the distance

The list of things King Henry VIII brought with him to Leeds Castle

King Henry VIII seemed to mimic our itinerary. He seems to have already been where we go.

One more…

To polish off the day we had a wonderful dinner with Dan, Nik and family. An excellent braised and then roast lamb, with baked capsicum (red pepper), tomato with anchovies and peas. I stole the recipe for the baked capsicum from Dan and I’m working on the lamb one. Nik made an excellent sticky toffee pudding (dates and walnuts) and it looked good enough to dive into face first. Of course, being a lady I withheld my impulses and ate a single serving.

What made the rather damp day perfect was spending it with such wonderful (interesting, intelligent and funny) people like Dan, Nik and family. After dinner we played with Dan’s weapons of single destruction (mind you there was a gun that shot five bullets all at once). Here is a shot with James and one of Dan’s swords.

Okay I can’t resist. A shot of Matthew in one of Dan’s antique chairs…and yes he did get out of it.

A shadowed man in a little chair

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I am currently in the UK, mostly England. I have been posting to my personal blog but WordPress is easier for photos and looking a castles, great houses and countryside is research for writing to my mind. I find myself inspired. I am three castles down, a UK Games Day down and York City down.

So for some photos.

We went to Bodiam and to Dover Castle in the same day. We were kinda knackered afterwards. I didn’t eat dinner and slept for 12 hours, which might be due to the fact that I was the driver on this little trek. Bodiam is not too far from Hastings (famous for the battle of) and then Dover Castle is in Dover (featuring white cliffs and a very domineering fascade).

Bodium, medieval castle with moat

Bodium across the moat

Interior shot of Bodium Castle

Now for a few shots of Dover Castle and then we have to head out to explore York. More castle shots later.

View from Great Tower, Dover Castle across the channel

Ancient Roman Lighthouse-only one left

It really was too big to get into the photo. Actually I realise this photo is the outer wall heading to the Great Tower. Apparently these walls had been lowered by about 15 feet to accommodate cannons.

Better go now. More later. I have Leeds Castle and Games Day to go, then maybe York photos.

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Finally after a lot of hard work on the part of Michael C Pennington at Aurora Wolf (and Alaskan based small press), Novus Creatura is available on Amazon.com

There isn’t a cover image yet though, but I am very confident of the production quality. Michael advised the contributors that he had done 3 proofs and he also consulted the authors to get them to go over the proofs of their own story. I really appreciate the care he and co-editor Linda have put in to get the anthology into production. I am also grateful to John JAM Miller for organising it. Novus Creatura was an anthology that was caught up in the Lame Goat Press fumble. Lame Goat, which had taken on a very ambitious schedule, went into a spasm and dropped a quite a few projects. I have been lucky that the two I had stories in were championed by the editors. Static Movement published Deep Space Terror and now Aurora Wolf , Creatura. Michael has also been very generous with us, sending contributor copies. When I get back from England in October I will be putting my order in as I want to see the other stories as well as my own in print.

On the writing front, I’ve been sending stories out. I’ve had two rejections in a paranormal romance anthology but now that I sort of know what they are looking for I am working on story number three and hoping that it is the lucky one. I have four other stories out, two with the same collection. I have one of those stories lined up to go elsewhere.

I also have a story in a competition and need to send in a new one before I leave next week. Egads! I didn’t realise.

I have another story half-drafted for another anthology that I am aiming to get into. Make that two short stories half-written for two anthologies I want to get into. I really do want to get them done before I go because when I get back I will need to pull up the socks and go back to novel writing. I have had fun with the shorts while they lasted.

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The cover of Novus Creatura is up on http://www.aurorawolf.com here

My story Liquid Night is in there. Yeah! Looking forward to this one.

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After a week in Perth and a very delayed flight I am home brimming with ideas. However, I have a few things backed up. I had to review my contract for Novus Creatura and the proof of my story Liquid Night. I found one small typo and seeing it all laid out was very exciting. Many thanks to Michael Pennington from Aurore Wolf for bringing all together and being so generous and open about the process for contracts and contributor copies. Feels kind of zany working with someone who lives in Alaska. What a wonderful place the Internet is.

I have a few stories on the go that I need to attack but they may have to wait to later in the week. Very mentally tired at the moment from work. On the last day of interviewing people I couldn’t keep going, couldn’t think. Lucky it was the last interview. So I think I should rest before the trip to Melbourne.

Also I have to crit a story and then start beta reading a novel. I am looking forward to doing it because if I can’t write at least I can read. I also hope to finish the most amazing book Power and Majesty by Tansy Rayner Roberts. The world building and the setting is just so good and out there. As a seasoned fantasy reader am always looking for things that a new and interesting.

Better go. Duty calls.

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