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“The Tree of Life in Lisbon”

09/09/201509/09/2015 OJ

My latest short story is out! “The Tree of Life in Lisbon” is free to read over at Luna Station Quarterly. It’s a fantasy story about what happens after the Garden of Eden – more gardening, basically, and golems and apples and earthquakes. So much of my recent writing has been science-based that it feels almost strange to dip back into fantasy for a while.

“You are turning into a shut-in,” said the Golem. “It is unbecoming.”

“It’s not a flaw to appreciate the comforts of home,” said Eve. “And travelling is so tiresome. It’s barely been two centuries since the last move. You cannot be bored yet.”

“I could never be bored with you,” said the Golem, honey-tongued and reproachful at once. “I lack the capacity.”

“I know,” said Eve, who had carved lack of imagination into his tongue, who would not see the same mistake made twice. “You should be grateful for that.”

“I am not grateful,” said the Golem. “And I am not bored. You have not left this garden for decades. I am disturbed.”

“I’ve no reason to leave,” said Eve. “I like it here.”

“I am disturbed,” said the Golem again. Eve heaved a sigh, and with her little carving knife sliced silence into the skin of a sweet, plump little grape and fed it to him, letting herself bask in the quiet. And the Golem did not speak and he did not nag, did not try to convince her to go out to market or to the hairdressers, to the puppet shows or the street musicians. The Golem was used to silence, had been fed it with olives and rose-water and seed pods, the muddy taste of mangroves, and he held the grape carefully on his tongue, carefully between jaws of clay, and waited to be told to spit it out.

He was not capable of boredom, but Eve was.

“The Ghost of Matter”

02/09/2015 OJ

My new novella’s out! It came out just yesterday, from Paper Road Press, as part of their Shortcuts series of New Zealand based speculative fiction. The other five stories in the series are fantastic, I’m so pleased to be part of it with all those fantastic authors!

1886. Two young boys disappear in the Sounds. Their mother grieves, all the music cut out of her heart; their father wanders the coast for a year, wanting and not wanting to find any part of them left behind. And their brother Ern, faced with a problem to which no solution can be found, returns to his laboratory – and to the smell of salt, soft voices in his ear, wet footprints welling seawater in the darkness.

The Ghost of Matter weaves together time and memory, physics and mystery, in this story inspired by Ernest Rutherford’s life and research.

I seem to have a real thing about Ernest Rutherford! He turned up in The August Birds last month, and now this. I’ve also got another idea for a novella involving him, and a short story. He just really fires my imagination, especially as he grew up in the same part of New Zealand as I did.

Anyway, there’s an excerpt that’s free to read over at Paper Road, so if this sounds like something you’d like go check it out!

Pop culture, SFF

Terry Pratchett, “The Shepherd’s Crown”, and the Fate of Granny Weatherwax

09/08/201509/08/2015 OJ

So, the last Discworld book is soon to be on the shelves. It’s a Tiffany Aching book too, which pleases me – I adore the witch books, and Tiffany’s a worthy addition. She is also, I suspect, a worthy successor.

I say that deliberately. I’m not involved with the publishers, I don’t know anything. But I suspect, I very strongly suspect, that in this last Discworld book Granny Weatherwax is going to die.

And alright, so I might be wrong. That happens on a fairly frequent basis so at this point, being wrong again isn’t going to make much difference.

I’d be glad to be wrong, even.

Granny’s my favourite character. The prospect breaks my heart – but I’ve suspected it for a while. Pratchett, as everyone knows, was dying himself – tragically ill. As much as I wanted him to live forever, pumping out books that were often lightyears ahead of anything else, he died. But, you know, he had a good life. And he knew he was going to die.

I think he also knew how much that would affect his fans.

I think he chose a proxy. Someone to take his readers by the hand and say “This happens to everyone. Even me. And it’s alright, because life goes on.”

I mean, can you imagine the conversation between Granny and Death? Sharp and funny and comforting all at once. And you know he’d be as nice as he could, not because of her, but because of little furry Meep. And all along, us knowing that it’s not Granny that’s actually talking to him, not really.

We just get to eavesdrop for a little while, that’s all.

There’s more to this than my mad suspicions and grasping at strings. And alright, so that “more” is a few very tiny extra strings, but I’ll take it.

I mean, look at that cover. Look at it. Tiffany is a downs girl – her heart belongs to the Chalk, to those gentle grassy hills. That is not the Chalk behind her. That jagged mountain landscape looks to me like the Ramtops. Tiffany’s going to the Ramtops, I reckon. Who lives there? That’s right, Granny.

And then there’s the title: The Shepherd’s Crown. If that’s not a reference to a witch’s hat I don’t know what is. Tiffany, who comes from shepherd stock, becoming a shepherd of more than lambs.

Why can’t she do that anyway? I hear you ask. Well, she can. Of course she can – most witches do. But to me, Tiffany has been, for some books now, set up as the leader of the next generation of witches. Just as Granny Weatherwax is known as the leader the witches don’t have, her young protégée has the same potential. I think Granny knows it. I think she’s been preparing Tiffany in her own way, smelling out the potential, tying up loose strings.

Making sure the new shepherd’s ready.

You can see it, can’t you?

I AINT DEAD.

“Yes, you are,” said Tiffany, folding the note and putting it carefully into her pocket. “But it’s alright.”

The cottage was painfully clean, and ready for whatever new witch was prepared to take it on. Tiffany suspected it would be empty for a long time.

“But not forever,” she said. The hat was warm and heavy on her head as she stood in the door for the last time. “I’ll miss you, Granny,” she said. “Goodbye.”

And it is alright. Because Pratchett is dead, and he’ll not come again – but other writers will. And they’ll be as trenchant and witty and compassionate and human. They’ll be Tiffany.

Because there’s always a Tiffany.

And I reckon we’re about to be reminded.

SFF, Short stories

The Best of Luna Station Quarterly…

21/07/201521/07/2015 OJ

Last year, my short story “The Absence of Feathers” was published in Issue 17 of Luna Station Quarterly. And that was cool! But now, LSQ has put out an anthology: The Best of Luna Station Quarterly: The First Five Years. And happily, “The Absence of Feathers” is included, available for the first time in print.

Of course, it’s not just me. Fellow Kiwi authors A.J. Fitzwater (“The Woman With Flowers in Her Hair”) and A.C. Buchanan (“Built in a Day”) are also included. As are two of my favourite short story authors, Chikodili Emelumadu (“Tunbi”) and Penny Stirling (“Tanith’s Sky”). Stirling, by the way, is the author of one of the finest short stories I’ve ever read (“Love Over Glass, Skin Under Glass”, published in Aurealis if you’re interested, and you should be. You really should be.).

So if you’re interested in a whole lot of fantastic short speculative fiction by women, this might be the anthology for you! You can check it out here.

Novellas, Science, SFF

The Ghost of Matter

23/04/2015 OJ

I’m happy to say I’ve just signed the contract for a new novella! The Ghost of Matter will be published in September of this year by Paper Road Press.

If you recognise the title, you’ll know what it’s about: Ernest Rutherford, the NZ scientist described as the greatest experimentalist of his time. It’s from a quote of his – “I have broken the machine and touched the ghost of matter” – regarding his work in atomic physics. Because I tend to write sci-fi and fantasy, there’s also actual ghosts in it. Ghosts and atoms and eeriness…

The Ghost of Matter is the sixth and final story in the Shortcuts series by Paper Road Press. They’re doing a second track of literary works down the line, but these first six stories are themed round “Strange Fiction of Aotearoa New Zealand”. The first one’s already out: Mika by Lee Murray and Piper Mejia, and the rest will be released at the rate of one per month until mine shows up in September.