Tag: novel

A Great Review for Emergency Weather + Two Books I Really Enjoyed Reading

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A good review is always nice to get, and especially when it’s unexpected. That’s why I was so pleased to see this review of Emergency Weather by Alyson Baker, and especially to see the praise she had for the plotting:

The plotting of Emergency Weather is brilliant. Allie’s harrowing attempt to reach Dunedin Airport, and Stephanie and Miranda’s nightmare tramping trip prepare the reader for what lies ahead. The three main characters weave around each other in passing before eventually ending up in the same place – a memorial service held after a climate catastrophe. The death toll is 43: “a good number for action: large enough to be shocking, small enough that the people killed could be distinguished in the public mind, could be seen as individuals rather than statistics.”

That is what Emergency Weather is about: how can people be motivated to act?

Want to buy a copy of Emergency Weather? Try your local independent bookstore or order direct from The Cuba Press!

PS: If your local library doesn’t stock it, please recommend it to them!



Two Books I Really Enjoyed

Light Keeping by Adrienne Jansen

Light Keeping is an understated novel of quiet power. Set against the ruthless cost-cutting that led to the replacement of lighthouse keepers with automation, it follows a family of lighthouse keepers as they navigate both personal tragedy and institutional indifference, with the latest generation trying to escape the long shadow of the past.

Adrienne Jansen does a great job of intertwining the personal upheavals of her protagonists’ lives with the vagaries of coastline, sea and weather. The boundary between land and sea on which the lonely lighthouse stands is blurred by both disaster and hope, as Jess and Robert struggle to keep the light in view.

Remains To Be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, edited by Lee Murray

Remains To be Told is a very strong anthology of dark fantasy stories and poems from Aotearoa – and I’m not just saying that because one of my poems is including in this anthology! Editor Lee Murray has pulled together a group of authors known for their horror and dark fantasy work, including Neil Gaiman, and others better known for work outside the field, most notably Owen Marshall.

Many of the stories focus to be found in rural Aotearoa – this anthology shows that “New Zealand Gothic” is alive and well, yet it also has a strong and welcome focus on indigenous stories and indigenous mythology. If you want to experience what lies under the surface of the tourist promotional photos and Instagram influencers’ images of unspoiled nature and carefully curated tourism images, this is the anthology for you.

Emergency Weather: A Storm Warning

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Tuesday 12 December 2023 dawned a fine summer’s day in Wellington. But in mid-afternoon, the weather changed. A southerly front raced up the country, bringing very strong winds, heavy rain and hail to Wellington and the Hutt. 

I was sitting at my desk, and I felt and saw the change: the temperature dropped abruptly, and sunshine was abruptly replaced by cascading rain. It was all over within 90 minutes, and despite over 20 mm of rain falling at our place within a few minutes, we got off fairly lightly.

But friends I’ve talked to since weren’t so lucky. One was inside a mall that rapidly flooded; another had part of their roof torn off their house – one of a number of buildings in the Hutt that suffered serious damage.

Author Andy Southall captures it well in his Goodreads review of my novel Emergency Weather:

“A day after finishing this book, a sudden and savage storm struck Wellington. At 2.50pm the sun was shining on what seemed to be a pleasant summer day. Ten minutes later the sky turned black, violent winds blew out windows, hail was smashing into the deck and sheets of water poured from the gutters. And that was in a less extreme part of the storm’s path. Elsewhere it was much, much worse.”

and this Radio New Zealand report gives the bigger picture.

My novel Emergency Weather begins and ends with storms – the first causes death and damage from north to south, while the second and stronger storm zeroes in on Wellington. Wellington has always been prone to storms, but climate change is loading the dice, making it more likely that when storms come, they will be damaging and destructive.

Emergency Weather cover at Petone beach

My novel is set against the context of a government in which (some) Ministers are at least trying to do the right thing. But the recent election, which Labour lost by a combination of its own timidity and many voters’ desire for something different, has brought to power a government including climate deniers, environmental vandals, and worshippers at the altar of the car. If climate change is on their agenda at all, it’s well below culture wars.

But physical reality doesn’t care about ideology. So long as we keep loading the climate dice by burning fossil fuels and forcing cows to produce milk, piss nitrates and burp methane, the storms and the fires and the flooding will get worse. If we stop, the climate will have a chance to recover. No amount of denialism changes that.

(Excuse me, Tim! It’s just before Christmas and you’re supposed to be encouraging people to buy your book!)

Err … buy my book if you’re looking for a good summer read – it’s not all, or even mostly, doom and gloom! – and have a great holiday! Here’s to lots of good reading, and good organising for change, in 2024.

Emergency Weather: Successfully Launched, Well Reviewed, and More to Come!

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Successfully Launched

Mandy Hager launches Emergency Weather
Mandy Hager launches Emergency Weather. Photo: Stephen Olsen

I was nervous heading into the launch of Emergency Weather. Unity is a great place for a launch, but it looks very empty if no-one comes – and there were other launches, as well as election meetings, on in downtown Wellington at the same time.

I needn’t have worried! Around 100 lovely people came to the launch, we sold plenty of books and I had a great time. It was good to see old friends, new friends, and people I’d never seen before!

Kate from Unity Books introduced the launch, then we heard from Paul from The Cuba Press and Cadence from the Whitireia Publishing programme before the book was launched by author Mandy Hager, whose speech really moved me. Then it was time for me to speak, read the very beginning of the novel, and sign lots of copies! If you missed the launch, the YouTube video is available or you can read Stephen Olsen’s report: https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=155655 (he also took the photo above).

If you didn’t make the launch but would like to get on trend and buy a copy of Emergency Weather, it’s available:

* At Unity Books and Good Books in Wellington, and other independent bookshops nationwide, including UBS in Dunedin – if it’s not available from your nearest independent bookshop or Paper Plus, please ask them to order it in.

* Directly from The Cuba Press: https://thecubapress.nz/shop/emergency-weather/

* From Wheelers: https://www.wheelers.co.nz/books/9781988595726-emergency-weather/

* Through the new NZ BookHub site, launched three days after my book!

Tim Jones signs a copy of Emergency Weather
Tim Jones signs a copy of Emergency Weather (photo: Kate, Unity Books)

Well Reviewed

It’s also been good – and again, a testament to the hard work of The Cuba Press and Whitireia Publishing – to see reviews of Emergency Weather appearing. Online reviews:

Radio New Zealand: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018910488/book-critic-catherine-roberston

Kete: https://www.ketebooks.co.nz/all-book-reviews/emergency-weather-jones

Aotearoa Review of Books: https://www.nzreviewofbooks.com/emergency-weather-by-tim-jones/

You can help a lot by adding the book to your Goodreads library and rating or reviewing it: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198972056-emergency-weather

More to Come

It’s not quite the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, but here are some upcoming Wellington events I’m involved in that you’re warmly invited to attend:

Unity Books Panel, Wednesday 18 October, 12.30-1.30pm: “Talking Up a Storm: The Making of Emergency Weather”: https://www.facebook.com/events/288705720676072/ (Facebook event link). Find out how a novel is written, edited, published and marketed.

Verb Wellington event, 11 November, 3-5pm – this one is for Remains to be Told, but I might weave in a mention or two of Emergency Weather as well.

Invitation to the launch of my new novel Emergency Weather

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You are officially invited to the launch of my new climate fiction novel Emergency Weather – and here’s a look at the cover!

Emergency Weather launch invitation and cover image

The launch will take place on Wednesday 4 October at Unity Books Wellington, 57 Willis St, from 6pm – please encourage your friends to come along too!

Here is the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/667791528368999

Please sign up for this if you use Facebook, as it helps us know numbers attending.

Emergency Weather will be available from all good bookshops from 2 October – and also through https://thecubapress.nz/shop/

The NZSA Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship

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A few weeks ago, I heard my application for the 2022 New Zealand Society of Authors Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship had been successful – which was a wonderful surprise!

As I told the New Zealand Society of Authors when they announced the news:

“I’m honoured and delighted to receive the NZSA Peter and Dianne Beatson Fellowship for 2022. It’s great that this fellowship recognises the importance of supporting mid-career and senior authors, and I’m honoured to follow in the footsteps of the wonderful authors who have previously received it. I’d also like to thank the judges for selecting my project, and to thank Peter Beatson and The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa (PEN NZ Inc).”

“I’ll be using the funding, and the writing time it allows, to help me work on revisions to my novel in progress, which has the working title ‘Emergency Weather‘. It’s a near-future climate fiction novel that looks at what it’s like for ordinary people to be addressing – or trying to avoid addressing – the climate emergency as the weather gets more extreme, the seas rise, and politicians continue to run round in tight little circles of inaction.”

I’m very grateful to the judging panel for choosing my project. I’ve started on the revisions to my novel – it’s hard work, but I’m enjoying it. I hope to have more good news to report about “Emergency Weather” in 2023.

A Day In The Life Of An Easily Distracted Writer

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9.00am: Yay, writing day*, my favourite day of the week.

9.15am: Put load of washing on. Almost out of shirts.

9.30am: Check emails, Twitter – in other words, do those things I keep telling myself I won’t do until I have written my first 1000 words of the day. Still, pleased to see reply from Sydney Padua responding to my previous humorous sally to her re Charles Babbage. Unwisely, devote time to thinking of a yet more humorous riposte. Check Facebook page for Fantastic Voyages: Writing Speculative Fiction. Only two weeks to go!

10.00am: So. Last week, I outlined the final eight chapters of my novel. Now to commence the actual writing, starting with Chapter 17. It’s a new beginning of sorts, with my protagonist and his comrades admitting defeat and moving on, leaving shattered hopes and shattered lives behind. (Never let me write a blurb.)

10.15am: Oh, so that’s what “bounding main” means. Wikipedia rocks!

10.20am: Close down, abjure, put behind me all distracting technologies.

10.30am: Check mail (the physical, in-a-letterbox kind). Nothing.

11.00am: Pleased with how this is going. Stretching out in long passage of descriptive prose.

11.30am: Check mail. Big moment! My contributor’s copy of The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Short Stories has arrived. Cool! It’s a large book. Skim introduction by Paula Morris – looks good. Check contributor’s note. The Walt Whitman-like epic I provided has been trimmed down a bit, producing interesting floaty effect. Still, cool! Set aside to be read later (two books for review to read first).

12.25am: 850 words written. Check Twitter. Yes, I know that’s not 1000 words, but I have reached the end of a scene. Surely that counts for something.

12.30am: It starts hailing. Bad weather from the south, as foreshadowed by Art And My Life, has arrived. Should have hung washing out earlier. Make tentative start on next scene.

1.00pm: Hail has cleared. Time to hang out washing, then have lunch.

1.10pm: Outside conditions surprisingly pleasant. Discuss plot of novel with cat.

1.30pm: Arrive back inside singing theme from Teletubbies: “Tinky Winky, Dipsy, La La, Po”. Have had idea for the blog post I should have written last night.

1.50pm: Must remember to eat lunch when actually ready. Now cold.

2.15pm: 90 minutes till son returns from school. Time to get on with it.

2.35pm: Megan Fox.

2.40pm: Coffee.

2.45pm: Making good progress. Hard to write a dialogue-heavy scene, this far into the novel, in a way that keeps it fresh. Though both the medium and the tone are different, Buffy the Vampire Slayer does this very, very well. Two key principles I have learned from looking at how dialogue is handled in Buffy: serious dialogue can still have a humorous edge, and let the least trustworthy character in the scene be the most truthful. Only problem is, neither of these apply to what I am writing. Cursed mimesis!

3.25pm: 1500 word mark passed. Had been hoping to write 2000 today. Do have some inkling of why I fell short.

3.40pm: Reached end of the second scene. Total of 1777 words today. Will gnaw on thoughts of next scene over next few days. I know what the fourth and final scene of the chapter is, but right now, have no detailed idea of what will happen in the third scene. I know what emotional tone I want it to have, however. Time for backups.

3.50pm: Front door opens: son arriving home from school. Time to find out how his day was, get him fed, check if he has homework, check the washing (and, OK, fair point, put out the rest of the socks), publish this blog post, reply to emails, and cook dinner.

*There are other days on which I write, but Thursdays are the one day of the week I dedicate to writing. Yes, you heard me. Dedicate!

You can buy books by Tim Jones online!

How It Came to Pass: Anarya’s Secret

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Anarya’s Secret began with an email message in late 2005. It was from Richard Vowles of RedBrick Limited. He explained that RedBrick had recently taken over the rights to the “classic” version of fantasy roleplaying game Earthdawn from its American parent company, and were looking for someone to write a novel set in that universe. They had found my website, and thought I might be their man. Would I be interested?

At first I wasn’t sure. It had been many years since I had done any gaming. (I was very fond of Runequest – the first edition, set in Glorantha – and had played a little D&D as well.) I had never played Earthdawn, and was worried that this would lead to me inadvertently breaking the rules of the world. What’s more, novels set in gaming universes didn’t have a universally high reputation.

On the other hand, I’d greatly enjoyed many of the Shadowrun novels produced by FASA, especially those written by Nigel D. Findley, and my interest was piqued when I found out that Earthdawn is set in the same universe as Shadowrun, except that Shadowrun takes place in the future and Earthdawn in the remote past.

And just as I wasn’t yet sure that this was a project I wanted to take on, so RedBrick had to be sure that I could do a good job of an Earthdawn novel. So we agreed that I’d write and send in the first few chapters, and we’d see how both parties felt after that.

By the time I’d written the Prologue and Chapters 1 and 2, I was hooked. I had a protagonist, a naive but well-meaning young man called Kendik Dezelek. I had got him in over his head with some dubious new associates, the Turgut brothers. I had taken them to the mouth of an ancient, long-abandoned stronghold. And someone had emerged from the stronghold to meet them – someone with a secret.

Earthdawn is set in a world in which, though magic, the human race has split into many branches – some familiar from mythology (orks, trolls, dwarves), others not. Perhaps the most alien are the lizard-like t’skrang, and I decided that they would play a crucial role in the story. With that decision, the general outline of the rest of the novel fell into place.

So I sent in my few chapters and waited to see what RedBrick would say. They said yes, and I was away. Kendik Dezelek, Anarya Chezarin – the woman with a secret – and the Turgut brothers left the mouth of the ancient stronghold, Kaer Volost, and went on their way. Adventure, as they say, lay in wait. So did guards, wizards, petty tyrants, and t’skrang with a whole slew of hidden agendas. And if you play Earthdawn, you’ll have some idea what I mean when I say that the Scourge has never quite ended.

I broke the odd rule in my early drafts, but Carsten Damm, my excellent editor, was there to point out my transgressions and suggest creative solutions. With his help, I had a lot of fun writing Anarya’s Secret. I hope you’ll find it a lot of fun (and a lot of shock, surprise and excitement) to read.

Anarya’s Secret is available in hardback, paperback, and e-book formats.

You can buy books by Tim Jones online!

Anarya’s Secret Published

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My fantasy novel Anarya’s Secret: An Earthdawn Novel was published yesterday. I’ll put up more information about it soon, but in the meantime, you can see more details about the book on the Earthdawn site. It’s available in e-book, paperback, and hardback formats.

You can now read the novel’s Prologue online.

In late 2005, shortly after New Zealand company RedBrick took over the Earthdawn licence from its American originators, they approached me to write a novel set in the Earthdawn universe. And that’s what I set out to do. My hope is that Anarya’s Secret will work equally well as a novel for those who play the game, and for those who’ve never heard of it before. You don’t need to have played Earthdawn to enjoy this book.

You can buy books by Tim Jones online!

In Praise of Editors

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Someone once said that a novel is a continuous prose narrative with mistakes. Or at least, I think they did; I can’t find an attribution of the quote anywhere. It’s the editor’s job to find and fix as many of those mistakes as is humanly possible, for it’s never possible to find them all.

In the case of my Earthdawn novel, Anarya’s Secret (see the cover), the novel was written by me in New Zealand for a New Zealand company, edited by a team lead by a German, Carsten Damm (a.k.a. Dammi), and will be physically produced in the USA. After I’d submitted it, a team of six or so readers went through it initially, then Dammi drew all the comments together into one big editing list.

A confession: Dammi’s English is better than mine. Which is a bit of a worry, but hey, he’s the editor, not me!

I worked my way through the 95,000 word manuscript, dealing with all the changes the team had suggested, and then embarked on the even more challenging task of converting the whole thing from NZ English to US English, as that’s the standard for Earthdawn books. It was a chore, but the professionalism and eye for detail of Dammi and his team made the whole process a lot smoother than it would otherwise have been.

The final edits on Anarya’s Secrets have been made, and it’s disappeared off into the production process. That’s good timing, because I’ve recently received the edits to my short story collection Transported – a discontinuous prose narrative with mistakes.

Again, I’ve been most fortunate in my editor, Claire Gummer, who has done a great job of finding errors and making suggestions for improvement. I was a bit trepidatious – is that a word, editors? – about what I’d get back from Transported’s editor, but now I’m looking forward to the next stage of the editing process, when I respond to the changes Claire has proposed. Long live editors, I say!

You can buy books by Tim Jones online!