INNIT

A, of Requires Hate, has been reading JM Frey’s Triptych, which apparently tries to be really social justice-y and falls flat on its own face, but that’s not what I care about right now! No. Because the author also tries to write British people and that is COMEDY GOLD, MY FRIENDS.

A has been inflicting quotations on me. So many quotations. I don’t have enough of Bacigalupi’s terrible Thai at hand to inflict on her in return, so I’m instead passing on the TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE LOVE to you.

ENJOY.

He was practically vibrating with geeky (endearing) excitement. “Cool, innit?”

“That is totally, totally unfair, innit?”

“A man has two lovers, he should have twice as much sex,” Basil points out. “Laws of…physics or sommat, innit?”

“Your back’s hurting again, innit?” Basil asks, putting a vessel of tea down beside Kalp’s arm.

“First task of Integration,” Basil says cheerily, “is learning which lunch lady to flatter at the canteen, innit?”

“Can’t go changing the timeline,” Basil said with a cheeky grin. “That’s the Temporal Prime Directive, innit?”

Basil whispered quickly, excitedly into her ear. “Yeah? But it…it’s perfect, innit?”

Basil smiled wryly against his mug, lips still on the rim. “Innit?”

APPARENTLY Brits say innit a lot. Nevermind that people who say innit a lot generally have an entire accent going on. NEVERMIND THAT PESKY FACT. (Although to be honest, it’s probably for everyone’s benefit that the author didn’t try to render a glottal stop, let alone a full accent.)

“Blimey, do you see this phone? I can’t use this! It’s a bloody beige brick, innit? It’ll never interface!”

I remain convinced that this line is parody. There is no other explanation.

“She’s…she hasn’t grieved. Any of it. It’s not…healthy, issit?

“So that’s it, issit. All over, then?” he asked

“Your mother has seen you in a filthy uniform. I don’t think a little barn dust is going to make much of a difference, issit?”

I’ve never even heard anyone say ‘issit’. And aside from the ‘innit’, most of the people I know speak pretty much exactly like this guy.

“Bugger.”
“What?”
“I’m stuck. My — bollocks — my bloody sleeve! Grab my trousers.”

C-C-C-COMBO.

Meanwhile he says ‘fuck’ exactly once a grand total of four times.

It’s some kind of bizarre modern equivalent of TALLY-HO PIP PIP that I want to take out back and gently shoot, for its own good.

let those foxes fight

Foxes! Bones! Poetry!

What more do you want?

These are all the work of Erzebet YellowBoy, one of my favourite artists, the genius behind Papaveria Pres, who has made books and bone-art with the poetry of CSE Cooney, Amal El-Mohtar & Nicole Kornher-Stace, and Caitlyn Paxson. Are they not phenomenal? I wish I could pet them through the internet.

They have an even grander purpose, however, as part of the Magick 4 Terri auction held to support creator Terri Windling, whose works mean a great deal to many people I know. There is a wondrous large auction over on LJ – take a look!

I, meanwhile, will be making eyes at the fox-arts.

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lest we forget that war brings suffering.

Awards

It pleases me a great deal to see that Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, a book I hugely enjoyed, has just won the Arthur C Clarke Award. It’s one of those books I struggle to criticise, because the experience of reading it was just so much fun. It’s imaginative and thoughtful and well worth a read, if you like unusual fantasy.

What also makes me happy is that this is far from the only award this year to feature cool people. For instance, Lauren Beukes is on the ballot for the Campbell Award, alongside the excellent Saladin Ahmed and several other writers whose work I unfortunately haven’t read; on the recently released Hugo ballot, there’s Aliette de Bodard (who just won a BSFA Award), John Joseph Adams, Liz Gorinsky, Randall Munroe and more. On the Nebula ballot, there are people like Nnedi Okorafor, Christoper Barzak, Aliette de Bodard (again!), Shweta Narayan, Vylar Kaftan and Amal El-Mohtar, and many more.

This is one of the first years I’ve looked at award ballots and not felt hugely apathetic; instead, I’m excited. How cool is it that so many interesting and diverse people have been nominated? And that some of them are winning? I really hope the ballots keep on getting better.

Mythpunk Roundtable at Strange Horizons

I’m very busy at the moment: moving up to London this coming weekend, working hard at the dayjob on a big proposal we’re pitching to one of our clients, which is requiring me to work until 10pm quite a few nights, then I’m going with the boss to Frankfurt on Monday (there and back in a day) to pitch it, and I’m trying to fit in writing too, plus occasionally seeing my parents. Not to mention sleeping.

I also participated in a roundtable discussion about mythpunk, hosted by JoSelle Vanderhooft, with Amal El-Mohtar, Rose Lemberg and Shweta Narayan. Our discussion is now online at Strange Horizons.

I still feel hugely honoured and flattered to have been invited; it was a very fun and thought-provoking discussion, covering topics from folkloristics to the stories that resonate (or don’t) with us. We didn’t manage to define mythpunk, but I’m happy with that. It seems less a term and more an idea, to me, that can be used and invoke in many ways.

I hope you’ll find our discussion interesting.

PS:

I’ll be in China for a month. According to the internet, I’ll be able to access gmail and my website – wordpress.com is blocked, but not websites hosting wordpress on their own servers – so email and blogging should continue as normal. Should. If all goes quiet for the next month, I’m just having some fun on the other side of a Chinese firewall and will be in touch at the very end of August.

After my earlier fun I went back to my guesthouse and chatted to the woman who organises tours – and I’m off to the Gobi and some other places tomorrow, for 11 days. I doubt I’ll be online at all. Then I’ll be back in Ulaanbaatar for a day or two (there’s a giant market I need to visit) and, hopefully, I’ll get to go on a second, shorter tour to some of Chingghis Khan’s early stomping grounds before making my way to China.

Excitement!

Plans: how they’re developing

For the past month or so, I’ve been working weekends (and the occasional weekday-morning) at a nice café in East Perth – Toast, by some water – which, while a fun and sometimes challenging experience, hasn’t given me enough money to save for Asia-travels. Hours plummeted on the approach to Christmas, as the café is not in the shopping area, and I’ve literally saved about $200. (I’ve been paying rent to Penny’s household, buying most of my own lunches, using public transport, plus random expenditure…) Every dollar helps, of course, but I need more.

Starting January 3rd, I’ve got a 3-week job harvesting sandalwood seeds in the countryside about 100km from Perth, which’ll give me a bit more money.

After that, I need to work for another 6 weeks or so, at the café if I must but ideally something with more hours, either in Perth or more farm-type work elsewhere in the country. I want to zoom travel all around Australia: north to Broome and the Kimberley, into Darwin and south to Alice Springs and south to Adelaide, east to Melbourne, up to Sydney where I’ll stay with my uncle for about a week, with a trip up to Queensland to see the Barrier Reef. As much Australia as I can fit into a few weeks!

See, I have a deadline for leaving Australia. My round-the-world ticket gave me a flight from Sydney to Bangkok (and a Bangkok to London flight), and I’ve adjusted the dates: I fly from Sydney to Bangkok on April 9th. I want to celebrate Songkran in Chiang Mai with two or three friends who are intending to converge there, around April 13th to 15th.

My Bangkok to London flight is on September 23rd, so I’ll have just under six months to see as much of East Asia as I can afford. (I have money besides what I earn here, but obviously the more I earn here, the less of my other money I need to use.)

I’m getting very, very excited about the experiences and sights and adventures 2010 is bringing.

test test test

I made a super-simple website, a bit more professional than LJ, where I’ll post about writing-career things (story sales, availability, etc) and my travels: alexdallymacfarlane.com .

LJ will remain the day-to-day blog, with all wordpress posts cross-posted.

Let me know if you encounter any problems, though hopefully with it being a simple wordpress template the worst you’ll find is a typo. Also, is there anything else you’d expect from a simple author-site? (Besides, obviously, blog-content on the front page.)