New Story and Southeast Asian Science Fiction
A few years back when I’d first arrived in Vietnam, and was still very new to writing, I produced The Four Deaths of Taylor Ngo. Set in a jazz bar in Ha Noi (and, yes, based on a real …
Category: Fiction
Aussie SF Snapshot
I was recently interviewed by David McDonald for the 2016 Aussie Speculative Fiction Snapshot.
Undertaken every two to three years, the Snapshot is an informal census of the local genre scene. A tonne of cool authors and editors are …
The Samurai, the Gunslinger, the Private Eye: Modernity’s Antagonists
Red Harvest, Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars: Remaking the Remake
The American Western was revitalised by an Italian director inspired by a Japanese filmmaker with a love of hardboiled fiction.
This is the strange international pedigree of the ground-breaking A …
Americans Destroy Science Fiction
Equity
The Americans have done it again. The conservative wing has rigged the Hugo Awards, turning it into a list of ideological screeds, petty revenge stories, and comedic gay erotica. The progressive wing will no doubt punch back, like …
Fast Start to a Slow Year
Hectic beginning to the year after moving back home from Vietnam. Started a PhD, second child on the way, so much cricket to watch.
My writing output has suffered: it’s the worst start to a year, in terms of words, …
Paying for Our Passion
Australian editor, writer, and reviewer David McDonald is running a series on his blog called ‘Paying for Our Passion’. The issue is a salient one: the sacrifices authors make in the current economic in order to be able to write. …
William Gibson Interview: The Paris Review
I assumed The Paris Review, a literary publication I’ve only ever been dimly aware of, was too high-brow for genre. Man, was I wrong. They’ve published wide-ranging interviews with the likes of Sam Delany, Ursula Le Guin, David Mitchell, and …
Free Books in a Capitalist Society
We live in a world as hyper-capitalist as any point in history, with inequality approaching the extremes of Dickensian England circa 1850. Yet, consumers increasingly expect music, films and books to come free.
This is the problem faced by writers: …
Milestones and Millstones (and a hypothetical Stephen King)
With a sale in recent days to the excellent, criminally under-read Interzone magazine, I’ve hit the small milestone of ten short story sales.
Given I started my writing career with barely a thought for short fiction, ten sales in under …
Fiction and the Hidden Trauma of Vietnam
For those of you unfamiliar with the rather esoteric world of short story markets, Asimov’s is one of the oldest and most prestigious science fiction magazines in the world. Some, such as this site, rate it as the best. …