Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘audio books’

Reading, listening and writing update

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, authors, Creative passion, Science fiction conventions, World Science Fiction Conventions, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 31, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I meant to write this up yesterday but I started down the dark path of changing over my email addresses, as my provider iinet decided it didn’t want to be in the business of emails. After more than 20 years, there’s a lot to do and I ran out of oomph! It will take me months to do so…you know…kills the creativity.

A few weeks ago I found out that T. Kingfisher AKA Ursula Vernon was coming to Canberra and was being interviews by Freya Marske at the Paperchain bookstore. Ignoramus that I am I hadn’t heard of her but she was getting a good wrap from friends. What an interesting author! OMG I was so inspired by her. She writes what she writes. T. Kingfisher is her audit pen name but I read she’s a children’s author, illustrator and more. Multitalented. I bought a couple of the books that were on sale and headed over to Audible to buy a few of her romantic fantasy books. They are gorgeous and sweet and funny. I finished Paladin’s Grace and I’m nearly done with the sequel Paladin’s Strength and I’ve bough Palidin’s Faith so to be listened to pile. Her other books are horror apparently. They are next on my list. I can’t find a link for her but if you google you’ll find her.

So my take away, it’s okay to write lots of things, just write them well. Explore your talent.Don’t give up!

Kaaron Warren, an amazing author and so distinctive and fascinating to read. I’ve always considered her writing style art, due to her process and her work. Art house horror! Her new novel The Underhistory is out in print and Audible so I also listened to that. It held me spellbound. I didn’t know what was going to happen and the main character Pera (short of Temperance) is eccentric, an unreliable narrator and so full of stories that the house where the action takes place seems to be held together by her tales of ghosts, her sheer will. Thoroughly recommend. I believe we are heading the launch next week in Canberra.

Here is a link to Kaaron’s homepage. Link.

On Mother’s Day I picked up The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill. This book is a bit different to her Rowland Sinclair history crime novels, which I love so much. Who knew Australian history between the wars in Sydney was so interesting. I’m half way through this book and loving it. Sulari is doing a talk at the National Library this week so I need to finish it. Set in the USA, with likable characters and some sinister happenings, including a murder of course. Loving it. Her homepage is here. Link.

Recently I finished a kids books called Grandma Neebs Through the Pantry Door. Just like adult books if you are trying to sell you need comps. Spirit Hunters by Ellen Oh was recommended by dear Angie as a comparative title so I ordered it and read it and yes this is so. I enjoyed this book and will probably read more.

More recommendations. I first heard about Steffanie Holmes at the Romance Writers of Australia conference last year. She was a guest speaker. Her speech blew me out of the water. A NZ author, she’s legally blind and, yes, reading and writing are hard but she does it anyway. Her tag line: Don’t give up before the miracle happens. After reading a few books in her Nevermore series, I know she’s bloody clever to boot. As soon as she mentioned, enchanted bookshop, staffed by fictional characters such as Heathcliff, Moriarty and Poe’s Raven, cosy murder mystery and ,yes, reverse harem or why choose, I was intrigued and not disappointed. I also bought her how to book and it had some cool stuff about booktok too. I devoured three books over two days. I also ordered a special edition hardcover of a Dead and Stormy Night and it’s beautiful. I would have bought the full set but you know $. Anyway, besides reading the books, I signed up to her newsletter and even that is so well done, professional and interesting. She also has a new kickstarter and rereleased a romantasy series. Anywhere if you were interested I suggest start with a Dead and Stormy Night.

As a reader I thoroughly recommend. As an author, I think I can learn a lot from her approach and professionalism. Here is the link to her homepage.

Next thing I stumbled upon this week was a podcast by Patty Jansen called The Happy Writer. How did I not know about this before. I mean I know Patty and interact with her on socials and I’m even a Patreon supporter. The pandemic really did hit me and I disengaged a lot. Now I’m back baby! Patty says the podcast was a pandemic project and now that the provider she used was sold, she’s releasing new episodes on her Patreon. With about 70 episodes, there is quite a lot of content there. All of it clear and useful, particularly if you self-publish or want to know more about it. Her most recent episode on her Patreon was on writing blurbs. So good. She is also an artist and musician. Patty has also done the covers of my collections, Beneath the Floating City, Through These Eyes and and my latest SF novel Awakening. Her homepage is here. Link.

And that takes me to my accountability post.

Destiny’s Blood-cover ordered, currently just over 30,000 words. Edit booked in. Eep!

Amber Rose-cover I had years ago, currently hovering around 11,000 words.

Robot Heart-cover achieved, editor achieved, stories compiled into one document with about four being tidied so far. Due to editor by June 15. Proofreader sorted.

A shout out to Keri Arthur who assisted with my sticky, problematic preorder form for Fiction and Friction in Adelaide (12 October at the Adelaide Convention Centre). I’ll be there selling and signing books.

Hardcover version of Vorn and the First Comers achieved.

Hardcover version of Ruby Heart achieved.

Large Print Hardcover version of Ruby Heart achieved.

Just one problem. Amazon have huge prices on these. Which means I really, really need to sort my shop. But then again, the large print was meant for libraries.

The reread of Emerald Fire is half way through. I read aloud to find typos so it takes me time. I’ve found a few things so far but the book is pretty clean, which is good. I’ll be picking up continuity stuff for Amber Rose but so far I have found that I put the characters on the page and shit happens and it sort of writes itself.

As usual it is hard to balance the day job, writing, keeping fit and house maintenance. Lol. Lucky for me, Matthew learned how to cook Chicken Saag this week and it was yummy. We are trying not to snack and are now ordering Youfoodz meals to see if portion control works.

Did I mention I’m heading to the World SF convention in Glasgow in August? Last minute stuff.

Read Full Post »

Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Posted in Audible, Orson Scott Card, retro SF, reviews, science fiction, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 23, 2015| 2 Comments »

Time just flits by so quickly. I’ve had a nasty bout of RSI this week and lots to do. I’m still in Audible mode as well as reading print and e-books. This not quite review is of Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. Older SF but still good. When I started on Audible I wanted to use it as a vehicle to read those books that I don’t already own and that I’ve wanted to read but for some reason haven’t. These books were recommended to me by a work colleague.

The Audible files for these two books were good. I haven’t seen the movie btw so I’m basing this on my listening experience.

Ender’s Game for me was an interesting book. I can’t say that I found it easy to identify with Ender’s situation or character. He is a six year old genius sent to military school to be carved into a tool. This doesn’ t mean I didn’t enjoy the book. I enjoyed the idea of the story, of the boy and his experiences. I enjoyed the craftmanship of the story. I enjoyed Card’s depiction of working in micro gravity and how it changes perceptions. We work in a space that has sideways and up but rarely do we conceive of down or no up. I believe the book had a profoundness to it, particularly the ending. If you haven’t read it I recommend you do.

In comparison though, the next book, Speaker for the Dead moved me greatly. Card says in his interview on Audible for Ender’s Game that he wrote Ender’s Game to set up the book he wanted to write, Speaker for the Dead. You wouldn’t necessarily have to read Ender’s Game to understand the next book or get the message, but after being on Ender’s journey it adds to the poignancy of Speaker for the Dead if you do.

What stood out for me with Speaker for the Dead was those elements of realness in there. Card did his Mormon  mission in Brazil and he used that experience to layer Lusitania, with a Portuguese, catholic culture. Despite him not being catholic himself, he used it quite sensitively and knowingly. The economic workings of the colony were very well thought out and solid.

The depiction of the Piggies, the alien race and their alienness was intriguing and fully- fledged. He’d really thought about this. No wonder that both books won Hugos and Nebulas.

The strength of the book for me was the characters. I felt them. They were very three dimensional. Something I admit I wasn’t expecting from an 1980s SF story. I’m not sure why but it was streets ahead of Ender’s Game on this point. I cried in parts of the book. I had to sit in my car and compose myself before going into my office.

The Piggie called Human touched me. I’m getting teary just writing this blog post.

Anyway, if you were thinking of some retro SF then try these books. I’m going to read/listen to the next one, Xenocide soon (after Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy gets its claws out of me).

Read Full Post »