3rd Birthday Communal ‘Jazz’ Tuesday Poem: Scratch

Posted on April 23, 2013

The third anniversary Tuesday Poem “Scratch” is now online; I had the honour (and challenge) of supplying the final stanza! Tap your feet to the Tuesday Poets’ polyrhythms here: http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/3rd-birthday-communal-jazz-poem.html

I Belong To The Regeneration

Posted on April 18, 2013

I’m happy to report that my short story “Rescuing the Airmen” has been accepted for inclusion in Regeneration: New Zealand Speculative Fiction II, which is being published by Random Static and launched at Au Contraire 2013, this year’s NZ National Science Fiction Convention

The Table of Contents is below. There are a lot of fine writers in there – quite apart from being pleased that I have a story in the book, I’m looking forwards to reading it!

You can check out Random Static’s other books and products as well, including two other anthologies that I have stories in, A Foreign Country and Tales for Canterbury.

Table of Contents for Regeneration

Random Static Ltd is pleased to announce the table of contents for Regeneration: New Zealand Speculative Fiction II. Once again, we have a fantastic range of stories by talented authors, and we look forward to sharing them with you.

Last Harvest – Matt Cowens
Rescuing the Airmen – Tim Jones
Hunting Ythan – Mary Brock Jones
The Mistress of Fishes – O.J. Cade
Max’s Black Box – Grace Bridges
In a World Full of Birds – I.K. Paterson-Harkness
Insomnia – Kylie Thorne
The Spectre Spectrum – Debbie Cowens
Carving Out a Life – J.C. Hart
Kiwi or Queenie – Jennifer Compton
Emptying Roesler – Simon Petrie
Tapping the Skin of the World – Anna Smith
Doorway – Rebecca Harris
Monocarpic Colony Blues – Elizabeth Gatens
Harvesting the Gyre – Jonathan James Todd
The Origami Tree – A.J. Fitzwater
Evacuation – Fran Atkinson
Splintering – Anna Caro
Mother’s Milk – Dan Rabarts
Cave Fever – Lee Murray
Coat – Grant Stone
Ren – Toni Wi

Regeneration is due to be launched on the 12th of July at Au Contraire 2013 – watch this space for more details and pre-order information.

Tuesday Poem: Revenant

Posted on April 8, 2013

When they pulled me from the water

I had scarcely finished breathing

My fingernails dripped blood and sand

My slack-jawed face had turned the blue of ocean

They pushed and pulled my heart to action

I stumbled from the cooling sand

and ate the proferred wafer

All along my neck and arms

the hair stood up in terror

I knew you would see nothing

My eyes still blink

my lips still speak my

feet still strike the pavement

We laugh and smile

and in your speech I

hear the kelp pods cracking

But in the moonless dark of night

avoid the outer windows

I walk beneath the summer rain

and see the green mouth closing

In my wake the crusted salt

dissolves upon the grass blades

Credit note: “Revenant” was published in my first poetry collection, Boat People (2002).

Tim says: I tried this idea – a fantasy/horror transfiguration of the time I nearly drowned in 1989 – as both a short story and a poem. I never got anywhere much with the story, but this poem made it into my first collection. If I was writing it now, there are some things I would do differently, but I like the lurching rhythm that gets going for a while in the third stanza.

The Tuesday Poem: Is particularly worth checking out at the moment, as the jazz poem the Tuesday Poets are collectively writing for the third anniversary of the Tuesday poem is growing vaster than empires, and a good deal quicker.

My First “Book Watch” Column For The New Zealand Herald

Posted on April 1, 2013

A couple of months ago, Nicky Pellegrino, who edits the New Zealand Herald’s books page, contacted me after seeing my two-part summary of my 2012 reading (Part 1 | Part 2) to ask whether I would be interested in writing an occasional “Book Watch” column for the Herald on Sunday: short comments on 3 or 4 books I’ve read recently, with no restrictions as to the genres covered.

That seemed to fit pretty well with the fact that I keep track of my reading on LibraryThing, so I said “yes” – and here is my first column. Only the first three of these pocket reviews were published in the Herald, but as I really enjoyed Wolves Eat Dogs I have posted that mini-review here too.

Book Watch Column 24 March 2013

The Glass Harmonica, by Dorothee Kocks, published by Rosa Mira Books (2011) – see http://rosamirabooks.com/books/index.html#tgh (US $7.00 ebook)

This novel by US author Dorothee Kocks was the first book published by Dunedin-based ebook publisher Rosa Mira Books. It is a beautifully-written story of Revolutionary France, post-revolutionary America, and the invention of pornography as a commercial genre. The central character Chjara, a Corsican virtuoso of the glass harmonica, is vivid and engaging. I wasn’t always convinced by the actions and motivations of her American lover Henry, but that’s a minor flaw in this fine novel which was a pleasure to read on my newly-acquired Kindle.

Flaubert’s Drum, by Sugu Pillay, published by IP (2012) – see http://ipoz.biz/Titles/FD.htm (NZ $15 ebook, $28 paperback)

Already an accomplished playwright and short story writer, Sugu Pillay is now showing her strength as a poet. Born in Malaysia, she now lives in the South Island. Flaubert’s Drum, which is her first poetry collection, is a very interesting and wide-ranging set of poems that moves between Asia and New Zealand, between epic and earthquake, between the turtles of Chendor Beach and the schist of Lindis Pass. I especially enjoyed the final section of the book, which does a lovely job of tying the book’s strands together. Technically accomplished and often moving poetry.

The Aviator, by Gareth Renowden, published by Limestone Hills Publishing (2012), book 1 of The Burning World series – see http://burningworldbooks.wordpress.com/ (NZ $6.99 ebook, US $15 paperback)

Gareth Renowden is best known as a journalist and science blogger – in particular, for the Hot Topic blog on climate change. With The Aviator, Book 1 of a planned series, he turns to science fiction. In a world in which runaway climate change proceeds unchecked, airship pilot Lemmy (no relation to Motörhead) and his AI and human companions tour the world from their base in the Marlborough Sounds, visiting the communities springing up in parts of the world made newly livable and experiencing the terrible consequences of runaway climate change throughout most of the world. If you like the great near-future science fiction novels of Kim Stanley Robinson, I think you will enjoy The Aviator.

Wolves Eat Dogs, by Martin Cruz Smith, published by Pan (2005), available from Amazon.com – see http://www.amazon.com/Wolves-Dogs-Arkady-Renko-Novels/dp/0671775952 (from US $10.88 paperback)

Martin Cruz Smith made his name with his first novel featuring melancholy but determined Russian detective Arkady Renko, Gorky Park. This is the fifth Renko book, and it’s outstandingly good. Renko is the classic good cop in a bad place: dogged, incorruptible and determined on uncovering the truth whatever the cost to himself. In this book, the bad place is the Zone of Exclusion surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Smith does a great job of putting Renko in the path of the teeming wildlife and the secretive humans that live in the Zone. Highly recommended even if thrillers aren’t normally your thing.