News: Dymocks Southland Bestselling Horror Titles for August ‘09

Dymocks Southland is a general bookshop in Cheltenham, Victoria, boasting an extensive range of genre stock. Below are listed the top 10 bestselling horror titles for August 2009.

1. Twilight (Complete Series) - Stephanie Meyer
2. Pride & Prejudice & Zombies – Austen / Grahame-Smith
3. House of Night (Complete Series) – PC & Kristen Cast
4. Sookie Stackhouse (Complete Series) – Charlaine Harris
5. Stargazer (Evernight #2) – Claudia Gray
6. Relentless – Dean Koontz
7. The Dead Path – Stephen M. Irwin
8. Shards – Shane Jiraiya Cummings
9. The Pilo Family Circus – Will Elliot
10. Patient Zero – Jonathan Maberry

You’ll note that no fewer than three of the Top 10 titles were written by Australian authors! Go Oz Horror!

Dymocks Southland also publishes Dymensions, a monthly SF, fantasy and horror newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

News: Shards and Shards: Damned and Burning

Shane Jiraiya Cummings' debut collection, Shards, has been published and is now available from Brimstone Press and selected bookstores in Australia. Shards showcases Cummings' flash fiction and shorter works, including stories that have appeared in Shadowed Realms, Apex Digest, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Borderlands, Antipodean SF, and Horror Literature Quarterly. The collection also features seven original stories. Every story in Shards is illustrated by Australian dark fantasy artist Andrew J. McKiernan.

Praise for Shards:

"With Shards, author Shane Jiraiya Cummings and artist Andrew J. McKiernan take us on a guided tour of the darkest backroads of the imagination. It is wonderfully moody and creepy."
– Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Patient Zero.

"Shane Jiraiya Cummings with Shards shows he is not only a master of the flash fiction style of writing but has pretty much written the definitive statement on how it should work. The collection is a strong statement on the validity of an internet-driven writing style and is a must have for any collector of Australian Dark Fiction."
– Jeff Ritchie, ScaryMinds

"Cummings' work possesses a Stephen King-like quality, creating rich and colourful characters in a handful of words... Well worth the read." [Read the full HorrorScope review here]
– Mark Smith-Briggs, HorrorScope

---

Coinciding with the release of Shards is the bonus e-chapbook, Shards: Damned and Burning. This e-chapbook contains six of Cummings' stories, including three stories that have never before been published. Damned and Burning also features the artwork of Andrew J. McKiernan.

Shards: Damned and Burning can be downloaded (PDF) for free from the Brimstone Press website (click on the Shards page).

News: Thrill the World 2009 Perth

Perth zombie lovers and Michael Jackson fans are organising a zombie-themed dance off as part of the Thrill The World 2009 event. Organisers are inviting people to dress as zombies and dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” as part of a simultaneous, worldwide Guinness World Record attempt.

• Date: Sunday, October 25 (rehearsals from 6am, dance begins at 8.30am sharp—the dance lasts 6 minutes).


• Location: South Perth Foreshore (just look for the zombies!).


• Cost: Free, although donations to charity are encouraged (food and drinks are provided).


• Register your interest via email: ttw09perth@gmail.com
  

Zombie costumes are encouraged but not required. However, participants must know the Thriller dance. Dance lessons and further information can be found at http://www.thrilltheworld.com/.


Source: Thrill the World

News: Lovecraft Annual No 3

Lovecraft Annual No 3: New Scholarship on H. P. Lovecraft has just been published by Hippocampus Press. Edited by S. T. Joshi, this volume includes essays from Australian writers Leigh Blackmore and Phillip A. Ellis.


Table Of Contents

• Lovecraft and the Ray-Gun T. R. Livesey
• What Is "the Unnamable"? H. P. Lovecraft and the Problem of Evil James Goho
• Some Notes on the Topographical Poetry of H. P. Lovecraft Phillip A. Ellis
• The Theme of Distance in the Tales of H. P. Lovecraft Lorenzo Mastropierro
• Lovecraft's Avatars: Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Dagon, and Lovecraftian Utopias Brandon Reynolds
• Self, Other, and the Evolution of Lovecraft's Treatment of Outsideness Massimo Berruti
• Some Notes on Lovecraft's "The Transition of Juan Romero" Leigh Blackmore
• "The Shadow out of Time" and Time-Defiance Will Murray
• Poems Not in The Ancient Track H. P. Lovecraft
• Lovecraft and the Polar Myth John M. Navroth
• Plus Reviews!

Lovecraft Annual No 3: New Scholarship on H. P. Lovecraft
Edited by S. T. Joshi
ISSN 1935-6102
ISBN13: 978-0-9824296-2-4
August 2009
198 pp
$15.00

Available from the publisher.

Source: Leigh Blackmore

News: Family Demons, continued unrest...

Family Demons is screening at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival this coming weekend:

DATE: Saturday, 29 August
TIME: 11:00pm
LOCATION: The Embassy, 1 Queensbridge Street, South Melbourne (near Crown Casino)

OTHER NEWS:

2009 Fright Night Fest

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE: Family Demons is screening in Louiseville, KY in August.
Check website for details.

2009 ShockerFest International Film Festival

Family Demons is screening in Modesto, California in September.
Check website for details.

2009 Bram Stoker International Film Festival

UK PREMIERE: Family Demons is screening in Whitby, UK in October.
Check website for details.
2009 A Night of Horror International Festival, Perth, WA

Family Demons is screening in Perth, Western Australia on Friday, 9 October at 9pm
at the LUNA CINEMA, Oxford Street, Leederville. Ursula Dabrowsky is flying over for the event
and also to participate in the panel discussion on horror filmmaking on Sat, 10 Oct 1pm
at Leederville TAFE Music Campus.

Interview DVD Holocaust

Check out the INTERVIEW with writer/director Ursula Dabrowsky and actor Cassandra Kane.

Source: Sue Brown

News: Digital Fringe 2009 Open for Entries

Digital Fringe is an open access public arts festival that places contemporary screen based media in public locations. It provides artists with access to an extensive network of hundreds of public screens and non-traditional audiences throughout Australia and the world. Screening venues receive a playlist curated from the diverse visual works of animation, abstract, video art, short film, machinima, motion graphics, photography and stills submitted to the Digital Fringe festival via our website - digitalfringe.com.au

In keeping with the Fringe Festival charter, Digital Fringe is open access and accessible to emerging and established artists, particularly those working in screen based and new media. Submissions are received from all around the world: from professional artists to bedroom doodlers and everybody in between.

Screening venues range from busy bars and cafes, bustling shopping centres, walls of TV’s in electrical stores, State and regional libraries, art galleries, and cultural institutions, suburban shop fronts and on massive urban screens in public plazas like Melbourne's Federation Square. Digital Fringe screens are also appearing in outback Australia, and across the Americas's, the UK and Europe. All submissions also play on the Digital Fringe website

Produced by Horse Bazaar with assistance from Film Victoria and Melbourne Fringe, Digital Fringe 09 will create a web of screen art in public space across Melbourne, Regional Australia and the world!

Source: Horse Bazaar

News: Aussiecon 4 Membership Rates from September 1, 2009

Aussiecon 4 have announced that the following membership rates will hold from 1 September 2009. All membership applications received by mail on or before 31 August, and all electronic transactions time-stamped prior to 00:00 1 September 2009 will be honoured at the previous rate levels.

Attending Membership

A$ 275 USD 225
GBP 140 Euro 165
Can$ 255
Yen 22,500

As previously, cash, Paypal, cheques in A$ and US$, Visa, and Mastercard will be accepted.

All credit card charges will be processed in Australian dollars.

These rates will hold until further notice.

Source: Perry Middlemiss, Co-Chair Aussiecon 4

News: Festive Fear

Tasmaniac Publications presents FESTIVE FEAR! An anthology of original stories from some of the leading horror writers working in Australia today.

14 disturbing tales that will make you wonder if Christmas really is something to look forward to.

Limited to 150 numbered softcover copies with a release date of December 5th.

Be sure to pick up your copy for the holidays or even buy for the horror lover in your life – will make for a bloody good Christmas gift.

Only $15.95 US (free shipping within the US & Aus). Place your order via tasmaniacpublications@gmail.com


Gift Bearers:

• Brett McBean
• Marty Young
• Martin Livings
• Leigh Haig
• Josephine Pennicott
• Amanda J Spedding
• B. Michael Radburn
• Crisetta MacLeod
• Stephen Studach
• Felicity Dowker
• Loretta Leslie
• Mark Farrugia
• Danielle Ferries
• Steve Gerlach

Source: Tasmaniac Publications

Book Review: The Ignorance of Blood

Robert Wilson, 2009, HarperCollins

This is the fourth and final installment in the Javier Falcon series of crime thrillers set in Seville. It begins with a freak car accident which kills a Russian gangster and sets in motion a violent tussle over the drug and prostitute trade. Inspector Jefe Javier Falcon's investigations seem to implicate the Russian mafia in his ongoing search for the perpetrators of an horrific terrorist attack. As he gets closer to the truth, ruthless crims target those closest to him.

As if that weren't enough to be getting on with, his closest friend, who has infiltrated an Islamic extremist terrorist cell, starts to act suspiciously. The CIA, MI6 and Spanish intelligence authorities are all putting pressure on the beleaguered homicide detective for information which could endanger both his friend and his friend's son.

If you hadn't guessed already, this is a complex book which builds on characters and situations already established in earlier books. Fortunately for the late arrival, Wilson manages to weave in the necessary detail to follow the investigation. Falcon himself is an intriguing, likeable and flawed character. The plot is labyrinthine and not exactly a light read but its riffs on fatherhood, friendship and the personal price that must be paid by some so that the rest of us can be safe make it rewarding and thought-provoking. At times the level of detail and sheer number of characters flitting in and out of the action can be a little exhausting but stick with it and you'll be entranced. Occasionally the dialogue is a little stilted but this is a minor flaw in an otherwise entertaining fiction. The final twist is satisfying and not gratuitous as is often the case in novels of this kind. Seville itself makes a fascinating setting, giving the proceedings a little novelty value.

Those with a taste for intelligent slow-burning thrillers could do far worse than this book. You might want to start with the earlier books in the series - The Blind Man of Seville, The Silent and the Damned, and The Hidden Assassins - though to avoid information overload. Highly recommended.

Book Review: The Mall of Cthulhu

Seamus Cooper, 2009, Night Shade Books

Ten years ago, Ted rescued Laura from a college sorority house overrun by vampires. Now, Laura works for the FBI, while Ted...well, Ted makes coffee at the local corporate coffee-house, and still wakes up screaming at 3am every night. Then one day a customer accidentally drops a CD Rom at the coffee house, and the next thing Ted knows, his co-workers have all been murdered, he's on the run from the police and a bunch of cultists who believe in the creations of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, and - worst of all - Laura is finally beginning to unleash a decade's worth of pent-up frustration at having to always 'wipe Ted's nose' for him.

Oh, plus, it looks as though those nutbag cultists have actually worked out a way to open a dimensional rift that will allow the Great Old Ones to wreck havoc upon our Earth. So. Life sucks, huh?

I must say right from the outset that I absolutely loved The Mall of Cthulhu (another fine publication in an ever-growing line of fine publications from Night Shade Books); with a title like this, it should come as no surprise that the novel is primarily a comedy, but it's comedy reminiscent of Shaun of the Dead or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where genuinely nasty things happen (usually to the undeserving), with the comedy derived from the reactions of the characters rather than from the situation. This gives the characters (and the novel in general) and emotional depth that few genre comedies achieve.

Another triumph of the novel is the unusual way in which the Lovecraftian elements are mined for comedy: while all the familiar, oft-lampooned elements are here, the tale does not degenerate into mere Lovecraftian pastiche at any time (not that there's anything wrong with a good Lovecrftian pastiche). Rather, the Mythos is played absolutely straight (disturbingly so, at times), while Lovecraft himself is ridiculed (much is made of his views regarding 'mongrel races'), as are the cultists of the piece, who are no less deadly or frightening for all their nuttiness.

The Mall of Cthulhu is everything a horror/comedy should be, and boasts some extremely fine writing to boot (Cooper's description of a stroll through dread R'lyeh in particular is beautifully inventive and disturbingly surreal). Fans of Lovecraft, and of horror in general, must read this book, which is available to Australians via Amazon.

Review: The Grave Thief by Tom Lloyd

Publisher: Gollancz

Published in Australia: February 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0575077317

The Grave Thief is the third book in the much vaulted Twilight Reign series by Tom Lloyd. The series is for epic fantasy fans but book 3 takes a darker turn which would be very much appreciated by followers of the darker side of fiction.

Lloyd does the epic fantasy thing right. He includes a map so we can familiarise ourselves with the world he lovingly depicts and he includes a “What’s Gone Before’ chapter up front to add to the books ability to stand alone, which is an excellent touch and should be adopted by more authors of the vast and complex epic fantasy genre.

However the book is a little heavy going in places with some slow, low points but it continually picks up the pace to create an overall complex and complicated read which draws the reader further into a wonderfully detailed world with excellently flawed and believable characters.

The constant weaving of new threads into an already complex tale makes for a slightly disjointed journey and the lighter impact of the main character, Isak (compared with the previous two books), doesn’t help. Isak has always been the central point of reference for readers but this book concentrates more on his enemies, which gives a bigger picture to the overall series in the end, but the pathway to get to that conclusion is made a little more difficult because of it.

Still, Lloyd continues to impress with his ability to weave a detailed world with amazingly descriptive narratives of character, setting and situation. The way one man has managed to hold so many threads and weave them into a uniquely complex pattern, with obviously more to come, is a feat aptly showing off the mastery of the genre Lloyd has become known for – The Grave Thief does not disappoint here.

For followers of the series and for lovers of vast epic fantasies, this is a must read. For readers of straight, and yet disturbing, dark fiction or for those looking for a book they can enjoy and knock off within a couple of days – maybe look elsewhere.

News: Writers Workshop of Horror

Writers Workshop of Horror includes an unparalleled list of teachers, all experts in their fields of endeavor. Woodland Press assembled a dream team of writers, editors and professionals for this special project. We then brought in local author Michael Knost as editor. The result is nothing short of spectacular.

The book focuses solely on honing the craft of writing. You won't find anything in the pages of this volume on marketing, promotions, or submission tips. That's another book for another time. What you will find is solid advice from professionals of every publishing level on how to improve your writing.

Although this project is centered on writing horror and/or dark fiction, the principles and advice inside this book will transcend all genres and all forms of writing. It doesn't matter if you write romance, science fiction, western, mysteries, fantasy, or memoirs; you will richly benefit from the information, ultimately improving your craft by bringing polished elements of horror, fear, anxiety, or dread to your work when needed.

Contributors include:

• Clive Barker
• Joe R. Lansdale
• F. Paul Wilson
• Ramsey Campbell
• Thomas F. Monteleone
• Deborah LeBlanc
• Gary A. Braunbeck
• Brian Keene
• Elizabeth Massie
• Tom Piccirilli
• Jonathan Maberry
• Tim Waggoner
• Mort Castle
• G. Cameron Fuller
• Rick Hautala
• Scott Nicholson
• Michael A. Arnzen
• J.F. Gonzalez
• Michael Laimo
• Lucy A. Snyder
• Jeff Strand
• Lisa Morton
• Jack Haringa
• Gary Frank
• Jason Sizemore
• Robert N. Lee
• Tim Deal
• Brian Yount
• Michael Knost

"I have to admit: in spite of my involvement, this is one of the best writing books I have ever read. It is 100% focused on the craft itself." - Michael Knost, editor

Available from Woodland Press; please visit Horror Mall for international shipping options.

Source: Woodland Press, via Borderlands Press

News: Shades of Sentience short story competition

The Shades of Sentience short story competition is open to "horror, fantasy, science fiction, and anything in between."

Maximum 3000 words, minimum 1000 words.

Prizes
1st Prize - $150
2nd Prize - $50
3rd Prize - $25

All winners will also have their work published on the Shades of Sentience website.

Competition closes November 30th 2009.
Winners will be announced December 30th 2009.

Conditions of Entry

The entry fee is $5.00. No entry form is required. Only one story may be submitted per person. Entries should be typed, double spaced and saved in .doc or .rtf format, or printed onto A4 paper. Each page should include the story title in a header, but to ensure anonymity the authors name should not appear anywhere on the document. A separate cover page should state your name, the title and word count of the story, as well as valid contact details.

Entries must be the author’s original work, must not have won a cash prize in any other competition, must not have been published in any paid publication and must not have been concurrently submitted to any other competition.

Copyright will remain with the author. Shades of Sentience will publish winning entries on the website, but will retain no other rights beyond this once off publication.

If you would like to be notified of the results, provide a valid email address or include a stamped self-addressed envelope with your entry.

The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Money orders to be made payable to Shades of Sentience (do not abbreviate). Paypal payments can be made to competitions@sentientonline.net

Send entries by email to comptetitions@sentientonline.net or by post to:

Shades of Sentience Short Story Competition,
198 Blaker Road,
Keperra QLD 4054.

Source: Alanna, Shades of Sentience

News: Ned Kelly Awards Presentation 2009

Australia's premier crime writing awards, The Ned Kelly Awards, are highly sought after by authors and publishers alike. If you love crime grab your mates and a table and make a night of it.

Jane Clifton is MC, John Silvester, Liz Porter, Peter Corris and others will take part in the annual debate, Women Do It Better and crime writers of every stripe will be there.

Melbourne icon, Shane Maloney will be awarded the Lifetime achievement award.

Nominations: Ned Kelly Awards 2009

Best first fiction

• Ghostlines, Nick Gadd
• Crooked, Camilla Nelson
• The Build Up, Phillip Gwynne

Best Fiction

• Bright Air Barry Maitland
• Deep Water Peter Corris
• Smoke & Mirrors Kel Robertson

Best True crime

• The Killing of Caroline Byrne, Robert Wainwrights
• The Tall Man, Chloe Hooper
• A Question of Power, Michelle Schwarz

The SD Harvey Short Story

• Fidget's Farewell, Scott McDermott
• Farewell My Lovelies, Chris Womersley
• Fern's Farewell, Bronwyn Mehan
• Farewell to the shade, Cheryl Rogers

Date: Friday 28 August
Time: 7PM - 10PM
Venue: Melbourne Writers Festival Club, ACMI
Cost: FREE

The Crime Writers Association of Australia was set up in the mid 1990s to promote and encourage Australian crimewriting through the establishment of the Ned Kelly Awards. The 'annual Neddies' have subsequently become an eagerly anticipated fixture on the Australian literary scene.


Source: MWF & www.nedkellyawards.com

News: Melbourne Writers' Festival

In 2009 the Melbourne Writers' Festival continues in venues at Federation Square - the BMW Edge and at ACMI (the Australian Centre for the Moving Image), as well as other venues in Melbourne's CBD.

A selection of program highlights of possible interest to AHWA members includes:

• Crimes within crimes: War and civil strife often provide the perfect cover for brutality and crime: with UK author Tom Rob Smith and Marshall Browne
• Killing: Inspired by a mummified head of a Turkish soldier - a bullet-ridden souvenir brought home from Gallipoli - Jeff Sparrow attempts to understand the nature of deadly violence.
• Visions of the city: How do we imagine the city in fiction? Catastrophic metropolises, decaying ghost towns, cities hidden beneath cities? Overland magazine ponder.
• X-rated?: How far can a crime writer go? PD Martin, Garry Disher and Philip McLaren discuss.
• Crossing over: Authors cross over all the time, though not to commune with the dead.
• Spotlight on Andrea Goldsmith: One of Melbourne's most respected authors, Andrea Goldsmith discusses her latest novel, Reunion.
• After the Fires: Trauma psychologists Paul Valent and Rob Gordon come together with author Maria Tumarkin and chair Hilary Harper to talk about the Holocaust, Ash Wednesday and the recent Victorian bushfires.
• Taking Over the Grown-ups Table: Justine Larbalastier, Isobelle Carmody and Scott Westerfeld discuss just who they think are reading their books.
• Laughter is the best medicine: How do you balance humour and drama to create well-rounded stories?
• The Little Fur Universe: A chance to hear Isobelle Carmody discussing her creations from the Little Fur series
• The New World: Test the boundaries of science and fiction
• Thrills & Spills: What are the secrets to keeping the pages turning?
• Finding Yourself: Navigate your way through a world that is not as simple as it seems
• Magical characters: Magical ideas, characters and novels
• The Magic in History: The magical and the ghostly
• Rules of Invention: What are the rules of invention? Isobelle Carmody and Justine Labalastier will discuss how they paint new worlds without the brushstrokes.
• Creating New Worlds: Join young-adult and sci-fi novelist Scott Westerfeld as he talks about creating new worlds.
• Place, in Space: Scott Westerfeld and Anthony Eaton take you through their favourite writing techniques.
• How I Became a Writer: This popular session will explore the ways in which you can become a published author.
• Harnessing History: Using history to nourish today’s fiction – Julia Lawrinson and Tony Thompson – discuss the ‘story’ in history and how it can inform our experiences today.
• Thrillers for Beginners: Join Chris Morphew as he discusses the influences behind his work, and why all stories benefit from the addition of mystery and spaceships.
• Innocence & Experience: What do you need to write a child's view of horror?
• Isobelle Carmody: in conversation: The themes behind the magical world of Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn Chronicles
• On the Edge of Your Seat: What sets thriller writing apart apart as a craft?
• The Science in Fiction: Using science to make fiction take off
• A Thousand Words: Join Shaun Tan and Mandy Ord as they look at the magic of graphic novels; how they create their work; and why graphic novels are booming.
• Suburban nightmare: Join Simmone Howell and Julia Lawrinson as they discuss the suburban worlds they’ve created.
• The Quentaris Chronicles: Hear from Paul Collins as he describes the journey his novels in the series The Quentaris Chronicles has taken.
• On the Edge: To what extent can you challenge the psychology of your characters?
• Writing the unmentionable: Writing about the Holocaust.
• Raiding the attic; where do creative ideas come from: Theft, invention, inspiration or blessings from the Muse?
• Workshop:Thrillers and Mysteries: Seminar: Tom Rob Smith (USA) and Jewell Rhodes (USA) will discuss how to bend the rules of genre writing while observing the conventions.
• Workshop: Danger and Wonder: Workshop with Kate De Goldi (NZ)
• Seminar: From Oliver Twist to Twilight: A workshop with Margo Lanagan and Anthony Eaton
• Workshop: Commerce & Creativity: What are the differences between writing as a hobby and as a profession? A workshop with Tom Rob Smith
• Workshop: Give Voice to Unique Characters: Can your readers tell who’s speaking from a single line of conversation?

There are many more excellent program items on offer, covering a range of writing genres, styles and forms.

If you haven't bought your tickets yet first check out the fabulous ticket packages on offer - there are packages to several events or group purchases for the one event (for bookclubs etc) - substantial discounts! Then check out the list of sold out events and our Breaking News page for changes to the printed program.

It's easy to book online.

If you already know what you want click here to book.

Or, you can browse our program and add tickets to your shopping cart, session
by session.

Melbourne Writers' Festival
21-30 August, 2009

Source: www.mwf.com.au

News: Theatrical performance of Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca

Strathmore Theatrical Arts Group commemorates the 70th Anniversary of Daphne DuMaurier’s gothic romance Rebecca with a sparkling new production directed by Drew Mason.

Rebecca will be presented at the Strathmore Community Hall from August 20-29, 2009.

Max de Winter brings his shy young bride to Manderley, his great house in Cornwall. Everywhere, she senses the overpowering presence of Rebecca – Max's drowned wife. Mrs. Danvers, the grim housekeeper, will not allow her to forget her shortcomings.

She doubts Max's love until Rebecca’s body is found. Max then makes a startling confession that will forever change their lives. The husband and wife now face the exciting fight to save Max’s reputation and their marriage.

Daphne DuMaurier was one of the most popular female novelists of her day. With more than 30 books and plays to her name, Rebecca stands as her most famous achievement. The novel has never been out of print since its first publication, and DuMaurier wrote the stage adaptation of her work one year after publication of the novel. Perhaps the most famous treatment of her story is the famous Oscar winning Hitchcock film of 1941 starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Rebecca has long been a part of popular culture, and STAG is excited to bring this familiar and eerie story to its stage with a stellar cast.

Director Drew Mason has assembled a highly talented team of designers to recreate the famous Manderley estate and events of the novel as originally depicted. “I am very excited that Tony Leatch has agreed to recreate the great hall at Manderley. His sets are some of the best in the Western suburbs of Melbourne. In addition, I am very pleased to have the costumes created by STAG member Jonne Finnemore, who created such beautiful costumes in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Windemere’s Fan for STAG over the last couple of years.” The lighting design for Rebecca is being created by up and coming designers Callum Robertson and Campbell Black.

Drew says of directing Rebecca, “I have loved this story ever since seeing the Hitchcock film over twenty years ago. Upon reading the novel, I knew this was a project I had to be involved with. It is such a passionate examination of one woman’s insecurities and fears and the overpowering presence of the ‘other woman’. I am honoured that STAG has entrusted me to bring this story to their audiences and to share my enthusiasm for one of the greatest stories to come out of the twentieth century. I could not be happier with the cast I have assembled who are working very diligently at creating the story from a fresh perspective and who love DuMaurier’s words and characters as much as I do.”

Season: 20-Aug-09 to 29-Aug-09

Performances:
August 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29 at 8:00pm;
August 23 (Sunday matinee) at 2:00pm.

Prices: Adult $20.00 ($15.00 concession/child)
Bookings: 9379 5348 or through website.

Strathmore Theatre

Corner Loeman St and Napier St Strathmore Victoria Australia. View Map
Telephone: 9379 5348

Source: www.stagtheatre.org

Review: Jasmyn by Alex Bell

Jasmyn is the second novel from UK author Alex Bell.

Jasmyn, an albino violinist, has recently been widowed, her husband Liam dying of an aneurysm in her arms. At his funeral, she is forced to confront the reality of a life spent without him, as well as the fact that his mother and brother Ben hold inexplicable anger towards her. Even stranger, six black swans fall dead from the sky once Liam has been placed in the earth, this in England, where the only swans she knows are white. This event heralds a series of even stranger events and mysteries, each one leading her on a path through a changed world where nothing may ever be as it seems again.

In many respects, this is a sweet and compelling book. Jasmyn as protagonist is believable in her grief at first, and the mysteries that she begins to unveil make for page-turning reading. Fans of fairy tales will definitely find a lot of enjoyment in this book, especially in terms of some of the settings and strange people Jasmyn encounters.

The major issue with this book is that it skims the surface too much. Some of this is as a result of Bell’s writing, which at times comes across as being distinctly unpracticed. Many of the settings, for example, lend themselves to an intricate use of language; as it is, they feel half formed and not as strange and wonderful as they could have been.

Jasmyn herself as a protagonist is also problematic. She’s set up well to be a sympathetic character, but devolves too often into repetitive self-pity and has a complete lack of agency at times, merely allowing events to unfold around her.

The plot twist near the end of the book should also have been heartbreaking. As it was, it was heralded far too early in the book (and foreshadowed far too much), which detracted a lot from its impact. There are also several plot threads that are only half-explored and ultimately, frustratingly left hanging.

Despite these flaws, there is a charm to this book, and fans of fairytales will doubtless find it enjoyable.

Jasmyn is published by Gollancz.

News: Worldshaker up for teen reader award

Richard Harland's Young Adult steam punk novel Worldshaker has been shortlisted for a Golden Inky Award.

Harland's book is one of 20 youth literature books listed on the awards shortlist - announced on the State Library of Victoria's youth reading website on August 21.

The books will be narrowed down to a shortlist of 10 by a judging panel of four teenagers, with winners determined by votes from young adult readers.

Voting begins on October 9 and runs until November 20.

Winners will be announced at the State Library in Swanson St on November 26.

Harland's book is up for vote in the Golden Inky division - which recognises outstanding Australian fiction.

A Silver Inky division is also awarded for international fiction.

The winner of the Golden Inky will receive a trophy and $2000 in prize money.

The full list of nominated titles:

GOLDEN INKY

My Candlelight Novel - Joanne Horniman, Allen & Unwin
Screw Loose - Chris Wheat, Allen & Unwin
Worldshaker - Richard Harland, Allen & Unwin
Two Pearls of Wisdom- Alison Goodman, HarperCollins
Everything Beautiful by Simmone Howell, Pan Australia
Where the Streets Had a Name - Randa Abdel-Fattah, Pan Australia
Broken Glass - Adrian Stirling, Penguin
Jarvis 24 - David Metzenthen, Penguin
Into White Silence - Anthony Eaton, Woolshed Press/Random House
The Beginner’s Guide to Living - Lia Hills, Text

SILVER INKY

The 10pm Question - Kate de Goldi, Allen & Unwin
Girl at Sea - Maureen Johnson, Harper Collins
Paper Towns - John Green, Harper Collins
Love, Aubrey - Suzanne La Fleur, Puffin
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian - Sherman Alexie, Andersen Press
If I Stay - Gayle Forman, Doubleday
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins, Scholastic
Ten Mile River - Paul Griffin, Text
Skim - Mariko & Jillian Tamaki, Walker Books
Exposure - Mal Peet, Walker Books

Review: Dead Snow (Norway, 2009)

A group of Norwegian medical students head into the mountains to an isolated cabin for a holiday packed with drinking, loud music, casual sex and sundry winter sports. You could be forgiven for thinking this is Animal House with subtitles and alpine scenery. But wait, as the man said, there's more. The area they choose was the site of atrocities committed during the Second World War. A group of Nazi soldiers terrorised the region and in return the locals rebelled and butchered most of them, the survivors fleeing into the wilderness and presumably perishing in the cold. Our unwitting students stumble across a cache of stolen gold and valuables in their accommodation. Soon, the Nazis have risen from the dead and are after their loot.

It's certainly high concept - I'm sure a lot of the people at the screening I saw at the Brisbane International Film Festival were there because of two words - Nazi zombies. On the plus side, the gore is dished out with gusto. There's something about the sight of blood and entrails on pristine white snow that stirs up the aesthete in me. One cliffhanger scene would have taken a lot of guts - quite literally. The collection of young zombie fodder, while not particularly memorable, are at least less objectionable than their equivalents in American films. And director Tommy Wirkolas's heart is in the right place. There are none too subtle homages to the Evil Dead films and Peter Jackson's Brain Dead. That might be the problem. It's hard not to compare this with those earlier and superior films.

Dead Snow is played chiefly for laughs and some of this is successful. Martin is continually ribbed by his friends for his fear of blood - surely a handicap for someone wanting to be a doctor. How he deals with being bitten by a zombie provides a scene that is both touching and hilarious. In the end though, it's hard to get too attached to the characters. The film takes a while to get out of first gear. Though when it does, the carnage is certainly impressive. The back story is inserted a little clumsily too, with a convenient spooky local dropping by the cabin to warn our protagonists of the evil lurking in the woods.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. For all these objections, I really enjoyed Dead Snow. It's the sort of film that begs to be seen with a group of like-minded friends on a Saturday night with a few drinks. But in the back of my mind, I suspect it could have been so much more.

The film was distributed by Madman Entertainment so here's hoping there's a general cinema or DVD release later in the year.


Editors' Note: Dead Snow will be released to DVD by Madman Entertainment in December

News: World Premiere of Australian Film: Eraser Children at Fantastic Planet Film Festival

Fantastic Planet, Sydney’s Sci-Fi and Fantasy Film Festival and Crumpler are proud to announce the festival’s opening night film: the world premiere of the Australian science fiction feature Eraser Children.

Festival director Dr. Dean Bertram praises the film as “a compelling and visually arresting exploration of a macabre future. It is reminiscent of the very best in cinematic Dystopian satire from Metropolis through Fahrenheit 451 to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.”

Bertram’s co-director Lisa Mitchell adds. “Director Nathan Christoffel and his cast and crew, deserve to be warmly congratulated. To have independently produced such a visually and conceptually sophisticated film as their feature debut is a major accomplishment and a testament to the creativity of Australian genre cinema.”

Fantastic Planet will be showcasing an international program of bold, speculative genre films that explore other imagined worlds, universes, and realities: offering Sydney audiences celluloid visions of alternative futures, pasts, and presents. The festival runs for eight days at Dendy, Newtown Cinema: from October 30 to Nov 6, 2009.

Full program details will be available at the festival’s official site in September: www.fantasticplanetfilmfestival.com

Source: Dr. Dean Bertram

News: 2009 AHWA AGM notice

The Australian Horror Writers Association's Annual General Meeting (AGM) will take place in September, and all AHWA members are invited to attend and be involved in the organisation's future developments.

Date: 9 September 2009.
Time: 7:30 pm (EST)
Place: To be confirmed (Melbourne metro area).

Please contact AHWA Secretary Ian Mond for further info on the location of this year's AGM.

Some Committee positions will be vacated at the AGM, so the AHWA is calling for enthusiastic members to join the 2009/2010 Committee. This is a chance to make a difference as part of the leadership team of a dynamic, expanding authors' peak body!

The meeting's agenda will be made available on the AHWA website soon.


Source: AHWA

Review: District 9

District 9 sets itself apart from other sci-fi action movies as it is set in a world that raises interesting political questions.

Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, District 9 sets itself apart from the beginning when an alien mothership is stranded above the city. I’ve always found it strange when alien spaceships always manage to land in Washington or New York. The aliens are taken from the ship and placed in ‘temporary’ camps that develop into slums, which sets up a powerful political current through the film, which was what initially attracted me to this film.

The beginning of the film is half told through a kind of documentary-type lens and half told through standard narrative. But the movie shifts to focus mainly on Wikus, employed by a private company MNU and the man in charge of moving the aliens, cruelly labelled as “prawns”, from their slum to District 10, much further out of the city.

I expected the story to encompass a broader plot, involving the private company and the government, but the movie is much narrower and focusses on just a few characters including Wikus and an alien.

So the movie is much more an action sci-fi movie than a political analogy and is a pretty good film in what it sets out to do.

The action is engaging and the visuals are excellent. The political backdrop in which the film is set still manages to shape the story and set District 9 apart from other films in the genre, and the story ends with a large opening for a sequel. It will be interesting to see where the writers go with this original and thought-provoking world.

Guest review by Benjamin Solah

News: The Lifted Brow's Valcapella and Dwinn

The Lifted Brow is an Australian magazine of writing, art, and music. The magazine's recent midyear issue includes an ambitious eighty-minute audio drama by Brisbane writer Thomas Benjamin Guerney entitled "Valcapella and Dwinn".

"Valcapella and Dwinn" is an epic post-apocalyptic sci-fi love story that features voice actors and music. In written form, it is over 12,000 words of strict rhyming couplets.

Bestselling author Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) has called the audio poem "an epic of heartbreak and awesomeness".

"Valcapella and Dwinn" has been published as a CD inside The Lifted Brow's midyear issue front cover.

Source: The Lifted Brow

News: LegumeMan's underground fiction forum

Independent Australian publisher LegumeMan Books, known for titles that explore the dark and absurd, has recently launched a forum to discuss underground fiction and culture.

LegumeMan's underground fiction forum can be found here.


Source: LegumeMan Books

News: Re-Living off the Land screening

For lovers of offbeat comedy and dodgy Australian horror, the independent mockumentary Re-Living off the Land is screening at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival on August 24.

Re-Living off the Land is comedy/documentary about a group of friends who attempted to make a horror film entitled Living off the Land but failed. Years later, nostalgia drives them to attempt to finish the movie, with awkward and sometimes hilarous results.


Session details are:
Melbourne Underground Film Festival
Embassy Theatre
1 Queensbridge Street, Southbank
Monday August 24, 9pm
Info: http://www.muff.com.au/



Source: Paul Murphy

News: Stephen M. Irwin national book tour

Stephen M Irwin is touring the country with The Big Book Club in August to talk about his debut paranormal thriller, The Dead Path.

You can meet and hear Stephen, Australian filmmaker and author, at the following events:

Queensland – The Courier Mail Big Book Club

When: Sunday 16 August, 11am
Where: Garden City Library, Garden City Shopping Centre,
Cnr Kessels & Logan Rds, Mt Gravatt
Cost: FREE, morning tea
Bookings: (07) 3403 7745
Bookseller: Angus & Robertson Garden City

When: Monday 17 August, 6.30pm
Where: Strathpine Library, Cnr Gympie & South Pine Rds, Strathpine
Cost: FREE, Wine & Cheese
Bookings: (07) 3480 6698
Bookseller: Borders Chermside

When: Tuesday 18 August, 6.30pm
Where: Maroochydore Library, Sixth Avenue, Maroochydore
Cost: $5, Wine & Cheese
Bookings: (07) 5475 8900
Bookseller: Books of Buderim

South Australia – The Advertiser Big Book Club

When: Thursday 20 August, 12 noon
Where: Noel Stockdale Room, Central Library, Flinders University
Cost: FREE
Bookings: 8201 3400 or Jeri.Kroll@flinders.edu.au
Bookseller: Unibooks

When: Thursday 20 August, 6pm
Where: Whipped Bake Bar Cafe, 35 Semaphore Rd, Semaphore
Cost: FREE (refreshments available for purchase)
Bookings: 8405 6570
Bookseller: Dymocks North Park

When: Friday 21 August, 11am
Where: City of Tea Tree Gully Library, 571 Montague Road, Modbury
Cost: FREE
Bookings: 8397 7333
Bookseller: Angus & Robertson Tea Tree Plaza

When: Friday 21 August, 7pm
Where: Keith Community Library, Tolmer Terrace, Keith
Cost: $20 per person, includes dinner
Bookings: 8755 3236
Bookseller: Book City Mt Gambier

Western Australia – The Sunday Times Big Book Club

When: Sunday 23 August 2009, 2pm
Where: Borders, Hay St Mall, Perth
Cost: FREE
Bookings: 9325 6600
Bookseller: Borders Hay St

When: Monday 24 August 2009, 2.30pm
Where: Willetton Library, 37 Burrendah Blve, Willetton
Cost: FREE, includes afternoon tea
Bookings: 9229 9540
Bookseller: Collins Booksellers Southlands

When: Monday 24 August, 6pm
Where: Mandurah Library, 331 Pinjarra Road, Mandurah
Cost: FREE, includes wine & cheese
Bookings: 9550 3650
Bookseller: Angus & Robertson Mandurah

New South Wales – The Daily Telegraph Big Book Club

When: Wednesday 26 August, 3.30pm
Where: Balmain Library, 370 Darling St, Balmain
Cost: FREE, afternoon tea
Bookings: (02) 9367 9211
Booksellers: Shearer’s Bookshop

When: Wednesday 26 August, 6.30pm
Where: Leichhardt Library, The Italian Forum, 23 Norton St, Leichhardt
Cost: FREE, wine & cheese
Bookings: (02) 9367 9266
Bookseller: Shearer’s Bookshop

When: Thursday 27 August, 11am
Where: Tamworth Library, 466 Peel St, Tamworth
Cost: FREE, morning tea
Bookings:(02) 6767 5457
Bookseller: Angus & Robertson Tamworth

When: Thursday 27 August, 6.30pm
Where: Glen Innes Public Library, 71 Grey St, Glen Innes
Cost: Free, cheese & wine
Bookings:(02) 6730 2600
Bookseller: Kanga Langa Bookshop


Source: The Big Book Club

News: The Man Who Collected Psychos

The Man Who Collected Psychos
Critical Essays on Robert Bloch
Edited by Benjamin Szumskyj
Foreword by Robert Hood

ISBN 978-0-7864-4208-9
bibliography, index
262pp. softcover 2009

Description
The author best known for his fictional cross-dressing serial killer Norman Bates in Psycho has seen little critical review of his work. These 12 essays examine Robert Bloch’s novels, short stories and life, as well as the themes and issues explored in his influential canon. Bloch’s fascination with killers, man’s inhumanity to man, the dichotomy of tragedy and comedy, and his contributions to screen adaptations of his work are here covered by leading scholars of fantastic literature. The volume charts the growth of Robert Bloch from a writer of amateur pastiches to an acclaimed author bridging the gap between H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King.

About the Author
Benjamin Szumskyj, a private high school teacher and qualified library technician, has edited anthologies and essay collections on such authors as Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Thomas Harris and William Peter Blatty. He is also the editor of Studies in Fantasy Literature and Studies in Australian Weird Fiction. He lives in Melville, Western Australia.

The Man Who Collected Psychos includes an essay by AHWA member Leigh Blackmore.

Available for purchase from McFarland Publications.

Source: Leigh Blackmore and www.mcfarlandpub.com

News: A Blood Soaked Weekend

The Australian Cinematographers' Society (Tasmania) will host the Brisbane-based ‘les enfants terribles’ twins, Peter Spierig and Michael Spierig, for an exclusive weekend of zombies, vampires, screenings, master classes, and Q&A sessions.

The Sperig Brothers have recently completed writing and directing Daybreakers – a block buster Hollywood vampire film, shot at Warner Brothers Studios in Queensland. The Director of Photography for Daybreakers is Australian Cinematographer of the year – Ben Nott ACS, another Queensland lad. The movie stars Sam Neil, Ethan Hawke, William Dafoe, Claudia Karvan and Isabel Lucas, and will be released in cinemas soon. It’s just been announced that the Spierig brothers have just signed on to direct the remake of the Error Flynn classic Captain Blood, with Warner Brothers in America.

SESSION 1.
Saturday 22nd August: 9.30am to 12.30pm
Meet the Spierigs and Q&A
A three hour information and action packed film forum, hosted by Dick Marks OAM, with the Sperig brothers and Ben Nott. This event will track the careers of these three outstanding young film makers, from the mercury vapour lit outer burbs of Bris Vegas, to the big, blinding, flash-lit world of Hollywood. For the first time ever, they will screen their graduation films, their short films, their TV commercial reels (the Spierig boys reel is a hoot..... ever seen a flock of baby ducklings lip syncing to 'What a Wonderful World'?), excerpts from their cult classic Undead and the Making of Undead, plus the sexy, new promo for Daybreakers. Ben Nott will also show his reel of commercials and excerpts from his feature films, and blockbuster TV dramas. This bush boy sure can light. Following this there will be an open forum, and the boys and Ben will take questions from the floor.
Cost: $15.00. Concession/ACS members: $10.00


SESSION 2.
Saturday 22nd August: 1.30pm to 4.30 pm (includes a short coffee break)
A screenwriting/directing Master Class with twins, Peter and Michael Spierig, hosted by film guru, Jonathan Dawson. A fantastic opportunity to learn how these two talented young writer/directors have moved from making student films, to low budget movies and on to Hollywood blockbusters, in just a handful of years. Hear them talk of their 'plotted path' to Hollywood. How to deal with rejection from the funding bodies. How did they lure Hollywood into their web? Who inspires them? What drives them? Don't miss out - space is very limited. We strongly recommend you book.
Cost: $100.00. Concession/ACS members: $75.00

SESSION 3
Sunday 23rd August: 11.30am to 3.00pm (includes 30 mins lunch break)
Cinematography Master Class with Ben Nott ACS, Australian Cinematographer of the Year. Hear of his amazing journey from a cattle property in Central Queensland, to shooting for Ridley Scott and associates. This will be a practical, hands-on event. Learn how to get the Daybreakers ‘look’, the protocols of the set, working with the big stars, with huge budgets and no budget, switching from commercials to movies… filter packs, special tricks… the works.
Cost: $100.00. Concession/ACS members: $75.00

ALL 3 SESSIONS - buy a 'BLOODLUST' ticket and save!
Cost: $175.00. Concession/ACS members $125.00

TO BOOK - CALL THE ACS MOBILE HOTLINE 0458 942700,
OR PICK UP AND PAY FOR YOUR TICKETS AT THE STATE THEATRE.

Numbers are limited – especially for the master classes, so we recommend you get in early to avoid disappointment.

VENUE
The Philip Smith Centre
2 Edward Street
The Glebe
Car park is on the lower side of the building, off the Brooker Hwy.

This is an exclusive ACS Tasmania event, and Tasmanian filmmakers are the winners!

Source: David Hudspeth, Australian Cinematographers' Society (Tasmania)

Review: Funny Games

Funny Games (2008) – Dir Michael Haneke. Stars Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbet.

It is almost a cruel experience to sit through a screening of Funny Games. The film is a brutally honest and intense portrayal of violence. Funny Games has a sophisticated edge to a disturbing narrative and boldly goes where many films don’t dare.

Director Michael Haneke has decided to do this English remake of his original 1997 Austrian film of the same name. For viewers of the original, nothing new is added here. It is practically a shot for shot remake so you won’t see anything added here. For others, it’s a great introduction to a painfully real movie experience.

The film begins pleasantly enough with our family, Ann and George, along with their son Georgie, heading to their house by the lake for a holiday. They chat with the neighbours and organise dinner in a set up intended to help audiences assimilate to the scenarios and characters. The villains, Peter and Paul, soon appear on the scene when Peter drops by to borrow some eggs. An all too familiar situation for the average person, which director Michael Haneke turns into a most uncomfortable exchange between Ann and Peter. Here, dialogue is translated to wonderful effect showing us there is something underlining and disturbing in this scene where we sense not all is so innocent. From here, things escalate and our family end up being the villains’ captives, enduring a night of horror after Paul makes a bet with them that they will be dead by 8am.

Paul is a self-aware villain; he knows this is a movie and knows what the audience expects. He uses this expectation to go against every assumed plot twist. This is the filmmaker’s criticism of violence in cinema compared to real life violence where anything can happen, and it is never fun. In this film, all bets are off.

The whole cast provide great performances in this harsh interpretation of a home invasion. Naomi Watts is particularly outstanding; her characterisation is exhausting to watch, at times. The suspense is built on slow, lingering shots, and in an unconventional turn from most horror films, Funny Games becomes an extremely violent film without ever showing the majority of the pain on screen. Instead, we are left to digest horrible noises that suggest what may be happening. Nothing is implied. The other interesting trait that the filmmakers use is the steer away from the explanation of the characters motive. In another clever technique used to mess with the audiences mind, the villains present an array of possibilities as to their motivations and leave it to the viewer to decide whatever they like.

Terrifying without the cheap tactics of loud noises and jumping out from behind the curtain, Funny Games creates more tension and suspense than any bogeyman ever has. The fact that you may hate this movie and find it totally disgusting and evil is exactly what the filmmaker’s want — and have achieved.


Reviewed by Troy King.

Book Review: The Living Dead

Ed. John Joseph Adams. Night Shade Books, 2008

According to the cover blurb, The Living Dead gathers together some of the very best zombie-themed short fiction from the past three decades, and covers a broad spectrum of types of zombie, from Romero-style flesh-eaters to traditional Haitian revenants to psychological zombies, and everything in-between.

All I can say to this is: believe the hype.

The Living Dead is absolutely the best zombie anthology I've ever read (and I've read many), which should not come as a shock, given that the editor has included some of the very best stories from some of the very best zombie anthologies (as well as various collections and magazines) previously published, including such revered tomes as Skipp's The Book of the Dead and Lowder's The Book of All Flesh. The contributor list alone reads like a 'who's who' of award-winning horror writers, which in my opinion makes it a worthy addition to the collection of any genre afficianado.

If you have even a vague interest in zombie fiction, you MUST buy this book (which, by the way, is also very reasonably priced for a publication running to almost 500 pages). Grab a copy now, before They rise and walk.

Book Review: The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

Peter Ackroyd, Random House, 2008

When young Victor Frankenstein arrives at Oxford to begin university, he little dreams that an introduction to new friends and new ideas - political and scientific - will set him upon a path he can never turn back from; a path that will ignite blasphemous obsessions, and drag him into the company of London's bohemian socialites and dread resurrectionists alike. For Victor is destined, ultimately, to achieve the greatest of all scientific miracles - and, in doing so, destroy everything he has ever held dear.

If you enjoy Gothic literature, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is a must-read novel. Told from Frankenstein's perspective, the book faithfully recaptures the tone and atmosphere of Mary Shelley's original work, and is by equal measure both a retelling and a reinterpretation (about which I can say little without hinting too heavily at the conclusion) of that tale. Included in the narrative, besides many characters based upon (and named after) actual historical personae, are numerous references to other classic Gothic tales (and even movies) such as Dracula, The Bride of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, among many others, and these are handled in a fairly subtle manner that entertains without distracting from the main narrative.

Dark and genuinely engaging, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is an extremely worthy novel that will undoubtedly appeal to readers of both literary and horror fiction (assuming that anyone truly believes that one cannot be a reader of both), and may hopefully encourage new interest in the original tale from whence it is derived.

Review: The Stranger by Max Frei

The Stranger by Max Frei is the first book in the Labyrinths of Echoes series to be translated into English (the popular series is up to ten volumes in its native Russian). The titled author (and protagonist) is a pseudonym of Svetlana Martynchik.

Max Frei is a chain-smoking twenty-something who leads a strange life. He is unable to sleep at night, and when he does sleep, he dreams of strange places and people, including an inn called the Glutton Bumba and a gentleman he meets there, Sir Juffin Hully.

Max’s life is changed when he discovers that the places and people he had been dreaming of are real: part of the city of Echo, located in another world. He is transported there and immediately taken under the wing of Juffin Hully. Hully discovers within Max an extraordinary talent for magic – this, along with his night owl tendencies, makes him the perfect candidate to become the Nocturnal Representative of the Most Venerable Head of the Minor Secret Investigate Force of the city of Echo.

The reader explores Echo along with Max as he investigates a series of crimes. Telepathy (known as the silent speech) exists, as do various kinds of magic, such as the ability to shape one’s face into any visage one chooses.

There is a certain stiltedness to the writing in this book, which one supposes is due in part to it being translated from its original language. Max is a difficult protagonist – he is flamboyant and takes with surprising ease to his new life, but there is little revealed about him beyond the surface. His backstory is only revealed midway through the book, and never in much depth. One feels that if more of his previous life had been revealed, his character would have been given much more depth, and the reader would feel far more compassion for him.

This lack of detail extends in some ways to the world of Echo itself. There are many wonders revealed, along with a plethora of colourful characters (many with titles as extravagant as Max’s own), but as with Max himself, there is little revealed beyond the superficial, making it difficult to connect on a deeper level with either characters or world.

As the first volume in the series, The Stranger provides a compelling glimpse of a new and vivid world, and one hopes that further volumes will lend more insight and depth to Max and to Echo. There is more than enough here for a reader to be intrigued and to want to know more.

The Stranger is published by Gollancz.

Review: Dexter by Design

· Publisher: Orion (To be released in Australia 01 Sept 2009)
· ISBN-10: 0752884611
· ISBN-13: 978-0752884615

Without doubt the best book so far in the Dexter Morgan series. Jeff Lindsay takes his story telling, and, in particular the story of Miami blood-splatter analysis expert, Dexter, to a whole new level.

The story is fast paced, filled with a continually escalating amount of tension and distress for the anti-hero, making putting it down to do simple things like sleeping or eating a difficult thing.

I’m not one to gush over a book – check my past reviews, but book four of the Dexter Morgan series is an excellent addition to the franchise. It takes everything we have come to know and, sometimes hate, sometimes have grown tired of, and sometimes love, and mixed them all together with consummate skill of an author who knows his subject and his cast more than intimately.

Dexter is back from his honeymoon in Paris to find Miami has become home to another serial killer, but this one has a seriously twisted art fetish. While doing routine police work in an effort to find this sicko, Dexter’s sister is waylaid, so Dexter seeks to cleanse the world of this anomaly on his own. But pressure is mounting on him from lots of different sides, including his old nemesis, Sergeant Doakes, who has a new ally in the tormenting of our favourite forensic lab rat. Together the forces of good are all rushing to intrude into poor old Dexter’s private life and wreck havoc on any secret hobbies he may have.

With less room to move, Dexter makes a mistake; he steps off the well-laid path set before him by his dearly departed step-father. The serial killer is still at large and now it’s become personal.
Dexter is running out of time to finish what he started and keep his disguise (what others would refer to as their loved ones) safe.

Lindsay doesn’t stray too far from the tried and true formula of the previous books – Dexter is still very concentrated on himself and loves nothing more than labels which have his name within them, but it’s more subtle than previous books, it meshes into the plot easier, or it could be that Lindsay’s apparent total immersion into the character has been transferred onto the page to make it a much more enjoyable read. Apart from the convenient removal of an obstacle at the end of the book which smelled way too much like the same stuff which happened at the end of all the previous books (and out of sight of Dexter and therefore the reader, and therefore not requiring a plausible explanation), the book had very few downsides.

The biggest one was the planting of clues which Big Brained Dexter sometimes overlooked and didn’t come back to until sometime later. It was frustrating waiting for him to catch up to where you were a number of pages (sometimes chapters) back for no good reason.

In the end, the book ties everything up nicely and advances all the characters forward at least a little – except Doakes who hasn’t moved at all, but the fact he’s still around allows me to think something major is in store for him in the not too distant future. The relationships within Dexter’s little circle of family and friend’s has become a little more convoluted with the promise of further complications as the series continues to grow.

After the first three books, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue reading about Dexter and was quite prepared to abandon the series after this book if it was more of the same. Strangely enough, book four is more of the same, only better. I’m looking forward to the fifth instalment.

A must read for all fans of Dexter and for those who are fans of good dark crime fiction. New comers to the series need to read the first three books (see my review of them here), although you could possible get away with reading only the first two in the series to be fast enough up to speed to enjoy this one. Book three can be missed without shedding too many tears.

News: ASIM August subscription specials

The following transmission is from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine:

ASIM subscriptions: now with added bonuses boni bonusses free stuff!

Due to skyrocketing interstellar maintenance charges, unsustainable ship losses (people park their asteroids in the strangest places!), and complaints from passengers’ next of kin, Andromeda Spaceways is looking to cut the formerly popular Betelgeuse-to-Rigel express route. But we’re forging ahead in other areas, which probably means more unsustainable ship losses are likely. Foutunately, the Inflight Magazine is keeping the once-mighty spaceline afloat, or aloft, or whatever it is you call it when something’s successfully staying away from any nasty gravitational wells, up there in space. You can do your bit, either by purchasing a gazillion-dollar Round-the-Galaxy ticket, or by signing up to a year’s supply (six issues) of ASIM, providing you with the Galaxy’s best fiction. And we’ll give you a little something extra, for your trouble. But you’ll need to be quick.

PDF subs, normally $AUD27.00, now only $AUD25.00 and with your choice of one of the ASIM "Best Of" Fantasy / Horror / SF pdf files, providing highlights from ASIM's first eighteen issues, thrown in free. We’ll hold this offer open until the end of August.

Australia-wide print subscriptions, still only $AUD49.00. And if you subscribe before the end of August, you can select from one of our two special bonus deals: (A) As well as the six next ASIM issues, you can receive three ASIM back issues of your choice, across the issue range 19 through 36 (subject to availability), and your choice of one of the ASIM "Best Of" Fantasy / Horror / SF pdf files, providing highlights from ASIM's first eighteen issues; or (B), Subscribe to the next six ASIM issues, and receive all three of the ASIM "Best Of" Fantasy / Horror / SF pdf files. (This offer tailored to those with more limited shelf space.)

International print subscriptions, which we'll continue to hold at $AUD69.00 until the end of August. If you subscribe within this time, we'll also provide you with all three of the ASIM "Best Of" Fantasy / Horror / SF pdf files. That's several hundred additional pages (in pdf files) of quality ASIM reading, at no extra cost. Note, however, that when the offer expires at the end of August, we anticipate a rise in our international subscription charges will be necessary (to $AUD80.00), due to increased international postal charges. So subscribe now, to avoid the added cost!

And if you're currently a subscriber, and would like to take advantage of one of these offers, we can arrange a resubscription on the same terms. Just label your purchase as a 'resubscription', we'll extend your existing sub by six issues, and get your special bonuses sent off to you post-haste.

If you’d like to take advantage of any of these offers, just make sure to include a comment within your Paypal payment indicating which bonus option you’d like to select. For a pdf subscription, tell us whether you’d prefer the Fantasy, Horror, or SF ‘Best of ASIM’ pdf. For a 6-issue print sub within Australia, you’ll need to mention either option (A), telling us your three preferred back-issues (we’ll be back in touch if any are unavailable) and your preferred ‘Best Of’ pdf (i.e., Fantasy, Horror, or SF), or just choose option (B), for all three of the ‘Best Of’ pdfs. And for a 6-issue international print sub, nothing extra need be specified; we’ll just send you details on downloading the three ‘Best Of’ pdfs.

And, of course, if you already have a complete set of ASIM back issues, and/or the ‘Best Of’ pdfs, you’re welcome to pass the spare copy onto someone else you think might be interested.

ASIM: looking to drive your dollar, or your Galactic Credit, further. Subscribe now!

Source: Simon Petrie

News: Jennifer Byrne Presents Monsters and Bloodsuckers

As part of the special Jennifer Byrne Presents series, Monsters and Bloodsuckers is slated to screen on the ABC at 10pm, Tuesday 8th of September. A special episode of First Tuesday Book Club, the half-hour programme will focus on the classic horror novels DRACULA by Bram Stoker, THE WEREWOLF OF PARIS by Guy Endore, FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley and DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Guest authors joining Jennifer Byrn, are noted horror and occult writer Leigh Blackmore, childrens' book writer Catherine Jinks, novelist Tara Moss, and novelist Will Elliott.

Source: Leigh Blackmore, & www.abc.net.au

News: 2009 World Fantasy Award Nominees

2009 World Fantasy Awards Ballot

Novel

• The House of the Stag, Kage Baker (Tor)
• The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)
• The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury)
• Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
• Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin; Knopf)

Novella

• "Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel", Peter S. Beagle (Strange Roads)
• "If Angels Fight", Richard Bowes (F&SF 2/08)
• "The Overseer", Albert Cowdrey (F&SF 3/08)
• "Odd and the Frost Giants", Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury; HarperCollins)
• "Good Boy", Nisi Shawl (Filter House)

Short Story

• "Caverns of Mystery", Kage Baker (Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy)
• "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss", Kij Johnson (Asimov's 7/08)
• "Pride and Prometheus", John Kessel (F&SF 1/08)
• "Our Man in the Sudan", Sarah Pinborough (The Second Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories)
• "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica", Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 5/08)

Anthology

• The Living Dead, John Joseph Adams, ed. (Night Shade Books)
• The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Del Rey)
• The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2008: Twenty-First Annual Collection, Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, & Gavin J. Grant, eds. (St. Martin's)
• Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, Ekaterina Sedia, ed. (Senses Five Press)
• Steampunk, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Tachyon Publications)

Collection

• Strange Roads, Peter S. Beagle (DreamHaven Books)
• The Drowned Life, Jeffrey Ford (HarperPerennial)
• Pretty Monsters, Kelly Link (Viking)
• Filter House, Nisi Shawl (Aqueduct Press)
• Tales from Outer Suburbia, Shaun Tan (Allen & Unwin; Scholastic '09)

Artist

• Kinuko Y. Craft
• Janet Chui
• Stephan Martinière
• John Picacio
• Shaun Tan

Special Award—Professional

• Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant (for Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House)
• Farah Mendlesohn (for The Rhetorics of Fantasy)
• Stephen H. Segal & Ann VanderMeer (for Weird Tales)
• Jerad Walters (for A Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft)
• Jacob Weisman (for Tachyon Publications)

Special Award—Non-professional

• Edith L. Crowe (for her work with The Mythopoeic Society)
• John Klima (for Electric Velocipede)
• Elise Matthesen (for setting out to inspire and for serving as inspiration for works of poetry, fantasy, and SF over the last decade through her jewelry-making and her "artist's challenges.")
• Sean Wallace, Neil Clarke, & Nick Mamatas (for Clarkesworld)
• Michael Walsh (for Howard Waldrop collections from Old Earth Books)

The World Fantasy Convention 2009 will be held in San Jose, California.

Judges are Jenny Blackford, Peter Heck, Ellen Klages, Chris Roberson, Delia Sherman

Source: www.worldfantasy.org

Review: Ogre

Ogre (Canada/US-2008; dir. Steven R. Monroe)

Looking like something Hammer Films might have concocted as their take on the giant monster sub-genre in the Age of CGI -- replete with overt melodrama, an effectively used mini-budget, second-tier but professional actors (though sadly no Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee), a large mythic beast and period setting -- Ogre weaves a fantasy-horror narrative that rarely strays too far from its own generic safety zone yet manages to offer an entertaining B-level film experience nevertheless -- and one that feels fresher than it actually is.

In a Hammeresque prologue set in 1859, the town of Ellensford, Pennsylvania enters into a pact brokered by their resident sorcerer to incarnate, in the form of a gigantic ogre, the mysterious disease that's killing them off. This will, he says, save them. The downside is that their survival will be dependent upon an annual human sacrifice.

But survive is exactly what they do — in a sort of diminishing-returns way. The town and its population are frozen in time -- safe from the ravages of disease and ageing, and all for the cost of one recurring moment of terror each year when, at the allotted time, a chosen victim is dished up for the lumbering ogre’s annual meal. Of course, given that procreation has been suspended, this means the population will die off eventually, just at a snail's pace.

In the present, four hikers come seeking the legendary “ghost town”, not really expecting to find it but stumbling upon it nevertheless. It is their entry into the town’s displaced reality than precipitates the first change in the cruel, decimating ritual for over 100 years.

As far as low-budget monster flicks that premiered on the SciFi Channel go, Ogre isn’t so bad. There’s plenty to criticize, but if you enter it with some sort of reasonable perspective on cinematic budget levels and horror subgenres, you might find that it’s less dully typical than the run of straight-to-TV monster flicks and rather entertainingly realized. Of course the Usual Suspects among internet critics disagree, but their rampant kneejerk negativity isn’t really warranted and perhaps reflects the fact that the film’s underlying aesthetic tone is more Canadian than American.

One thing that’s good about Ogre is the competent acting. Of the cast, Katharine Isabelle -- whose extensive CV runs from the sublime (Ginger Snaps) to the unfortunate (2004’s pathetic mangling of Earthsea) -- even managed to interest me in the stereotypical twenty-something “potential victim” she was given to portray. But the other cast members acquit themselves professionally, too, including John Schneider as the one-dimensional Bartlett Henry. The cast is helped by dialogue that is edgy enough to survive the potential disaster of the townspeople’s archaic language and it is also refreshing to have a ghost town where the inhabitants aren’t maniacs, but ordinary, generally well-meaning folk caught in an ethically dubious situation born of their own weakness.

The outcome may be fairly predictable -- some of that predictability being inherent in the concept -- but Monroe’s direction keeps things moving and again creates a sense that, while we may have seen this before, he’s willing to do what he can with the material.

Something that may be an issue is the monster itself. Someone coming to this film under the mistaken expectation that they’re in for the sort of hi-octane SFX spectacle we’re used to from even mid-range multi-million dollar epics such as, say, The Fantastic Four is likely to be less than impressed. But in fact the low-level CGI is competent, with good detail and some imaginative angles, and gives a sense of heaviness to the Shrek-on-a-very-bad-day creature, even if the lumbering monstrosity is hardly elegant and its skin has a fluid digital mushiness that isn’t totally convincing. But to tell you the truth I’m tired of the rapidly moving monster gymnasts that CGI has spawned in SFX films of late and so the Godzilla-like awkwardness of the ogre suited me fine. This monster is big and ungainly, awkwardly affected by gravity -- an unreal, magic-spawned incarnation of disease and evil intent -- and the unrealistic CGI resonates with that idea. The ogre’s relative size may be less-than-consistent, but that’s about as much as I’d want to criticize it for. Otherwise the beastie is fiercely present and bloodily vicious enough for the purposes of the plot.

Maybe I was just in a good mood, but I enjoyed this B-monster flick on its own terms and didn’t feel like I’d wasted my time. Even the redemptive, self-sacrificial ending felt so integral to Ogre’s thematic structure that it came over as affecting rather than weak-kneed and cynical.

If you like creature features in the Hammer mode, you might enjoy Ogre. If not, why would you rent something with a title like that?

The film is released on DVD this month from Icon Entertainment.

Reviewed by Robert Hood