In the previous post, I didn’t list the honorable mentions. They deserve to be posted.

Horror short story honourable mentions

• Jacinta Butterworth, “Love Affair”
• Dirk Flinthart, “One Night Stand”
• Margo Lanagan, “Under Hell, Over Heaven”
• A.M. Muffaz, “Mosquito Story”

Fantasy novel honorable mentions

• Kylie Chan, White Tiger
• Lian Hearn, Harsh Cry of the Heron

Fantasy short story honorable mentions

• Lily Chrywenstrom, “Ghosts of 1930″
• Carol Ryles, “The Bridal Bier”

Comments follow on the big winners, the new faces, the peculiarities, and one outrageous prediction… (more…)

For the last 5 years, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has been choking its TV science. Radio science is doing fine: there are a number of wonderful Australian programs every week, notably The Science Show, Ockham’s Razor and The Health Report, and short, snappy appearances all over the place by the irrepressible Karl Kruszelnicki. But TV is languishing.

Back in 2001, the ABC canned its flagship science program, Quantum, and after much criticism, replaced it with a shallower vehicle, Catalyst. There is nothing wrong with a light science program, but it should not have been at the expense of Quantum – which was hardly heavy-going in the first place. And even then, most of the important stories are being made overseas, such as the Horizon demolition of homeopathy that was syndicated to Catalyst, or the mini-series Walking With Dinosaurs and its spinoffs. The latter programs were made with ABC involvement, but it was always the BBC at the helm.

Matters have deteriorated. Over the summer non-ratings period, the ABC is running a program in the Catalyst timeslot called Psychic Detectives, which could just as well have been called Gullible Reporters or Brainless Producers. This week, the ABC lists a total of four science programs out of 168 hours of programming. One is a 5-minute Bruce Petty cartoon about the human brain which is unlikely to explore any cutting-edge neuroscience; another is Time Team, which is a Channel 4 archeology/history show with elements of science. The two shows which are undeniably scientific turn up in graveyard slots: 2pm Saturday and 9:10 am Sunday.

And now the ABC has sunk to a new level of stupidity. Today I was watching the Hopman Cup, an international tennis tournament. Before each match, the ABC is crossing to — wait for it — a freaking astrologer for advice about who is going to win the match. And the commentary team keeps floating his predictions during the bloody match.

It may surprise the ABC to learn that the greatest revolution in professional-era sports has been the triumph of science, especially physiology, sports psychology, and materials science. Why couldn’t they get someone to talk about the fitness routines or the skills training? Apparently that’s not as much fun as giving some tosser three minutes to warble on about “lunar profiles” and “energy drags” before deciding, astoundingly, that the stars support the higher-ranked players.

I am expecting the ABC to announce massive cost savings next year by abandoning their narrow-minded, reductionist, communications technology. Instead they will be dispatching The Amazing Deepak! to report on the tennis via quantum mindwaves. If you want to tune in, just shut your eyes and concentrate. If you don’t get anything, it’s because your skepticism is interfering with the reception. The Amazing Deepak! may not meet the materialistic demands of the shallower members of the Australian community, but he will be refreshingly holistic.

The nominations for the 11th annual Aurealis Awards have been announced.

The winners will be announced at what promises to be a lavish ceremony in Brisbane on January 27, hosted by the effervescent team of Kim Wilkins, Sean Williams, and Gardner Dozois. For details, see the Aurealis Award homepage. Note well there is a cover charge of $27.50, which I feel compelled to opine is inadvisably stiff.

And the nominees are:

Science Fiction novels

• K. A. Bedford, Hydrogen Steel
• Damien Broderick, K-Machines
• Andrew McGahan, Underground
• Sean Williams & Shane Dix, Geodesica Ascent

Science Fiction short stories

• Lee Battersby, “Dark Ages”
• David Conyers, “Aftermath”
• Stephen Dedman, “Down to the Tethys Sea”
• Sean Williams, “The Seventh Letter”

Horror novels

• Will Elliott, The Pilo Family Circus
• Edwina Grey, Prismatic
• Martin Livings, Carnies
• Brett McBean, The Mother

Horror short stories

• Stephen Dedman, “Dead of Winter”
• Margo Lanagan, “Winkie”
• Chris Lawson, “Hieronymus Boche”
• Kaaron Warren, “Dead Sea Fruit”
• Kaaron Warren, “Woman Train”

Fantasy novels

• Grace Dugan, The Silver Road
• Glenda Larke, Heart of the Mirage
• Juliet Marillier, Wildwood Dancing
• Sean McMullen, Voidfarer
• Michael Pryor, Blaze of Glory

Fantasy short stories

• Lee Battersby, “Dark Ages”
• Stephanie Campisi, “Why the Balloon Man Floats Away”
• Margo Lanagan, “A Fine Magic”
• Lucy Sussex, “The Revenant”
• Anna Tambour, “See Here, See There”

Young Adult novels

• D.M. Cornish, Monster Blood Tattoo Book One: Foundling
• Amanda Holohan, The King’s Fool
• Justine Larbalestier, Magic Lessons
• Juliet Marillier, Wildwood Dancing
• Scott Westerfeld, The Last Days

Young Adult short stories

• Deborah Biancotti, “The Dying Light”
• Simon Brown, “Leviathan”
• Margo Lanagan, “A Feather in the Breast of God”
• Margo Lanagan, “Baby Jane”
• Margo Lanagan, “Forever Upward”
• Shaun Tan, The Arrival

Children’s novels

• Isobelle Carmody, A Fox Called Sorrow
• John Flanagan, Oakleaf Bearers
• Mardie McConnochie, Melissa, Queen of Evil
• Nury Vittachi, Twilight in the Land of Nowhen
• Kim Wilkins, Fantastica: The Sunken Kingdom Series

Children’s short stories

• Jane Godwin, “The True Story of Mary Who Wanted to Stand on Her Head”
• Margaret Wild & Anne Spudvilas, “Woolvs in the Sittee”
• Victor Kelleher & Stephen Michael King, “The Magic Violin”

The Breaking Point is a wonderful book, but there’s no getting past it. The book starts badly. By the second sentence, there’s already trouble.

In 1916, a third-class ticket on the dilapidated old clunker that ran from Toledo to Madrid must have cost next to nothing, and the ride would have been jolting and slow. It probably took the train hours to crawl the fifty miles…

The author, Stephen Koch, should be commended for making his ambiguities clear. He is doing his best to stick to the facts as he could find them, hence the rush of qualifications and vague quantities. The train probably took hours. But how many hours? How probably? Instead of telling details, all Koch provides is a cloud of probabilities and likelihoods. The devil is in the details. Research it or cut it, Mr Koch. Also, the text is peppered with awkward outbursts of vernacular that could have come from the mouth of a Valley Girl! Way much. With emphases and exclamation marks!

And later, much later, Koch has written a sentence in the same way that a mangler writes sausage meat.

An admiring Martha watched Ivens do the job: Joris had had, she wrote Hem, “a dandy meeting with our pals Archie [MacLeish] and Doss, [sic] and it must have been something.”

Even reading it in context and knowing that Joris and Ivens are the same person, it took me three attempts to follow it. Notice how the sentence becomes clear once Koch begins quoting someone else. I don’t know how many subordinate clauses died for this sentence, but there ought to be a charity against it.

Despite this, The Breaking Point fascinates. Like listening to a speaker with a lisp, at first the sound is irritating but over time the lisp becomes inaudible until all you hear is the story.

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These are cool. Seriously cool. Cooler than the Fonz. Cooler even than the Fonz thought he was, which is way cool. Why aren’t these for sale in time for Xmas? Someone should track down the patent holders and get them on the shelves ASAP.

This particular example, the Official Rex Mars Planet Patrol Atomic Pistol, was a working 300-ft flashlight capable of blinding alien invaders, neighbourhood pets, and slow-moving siblings.

I’m a little late on this one, but Ticonderoga Online has released issue 10 for summer (if this confuses you, remember we’re talking Southern Hemisphere here). There’s fiction by Sean Williams, Susan Wardle, Brian Ross, and Matthew Doyle, interviews with Paul Haines and Simon Haynes, reviews and more.

(Link to Ticonderoga Online, Issue 10.)

Nature has released a free PDF poster explaining stems cells, where they come from, and why your hair is closely related to your brain.

In the footsteps of Cory Doctorow, author Peter Watts has just released his novel Blindsight (reviewed here by Cat Sparks) on the internet for free download.

(Follow the link to the Blindsight download page.)

A is for Autobiography, Fake.
Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth is billed as the autobiography “of a man who has been nowhere, done nothing, and met nobody.” This is not exactly true, as one of the standard assumptions behind an autobiography is that no matter how hopelessly biased and self-serving, it is at least supposed to be a work of non-fiction. Mr Peek doesn’t care for that.

B is for Ben Peek.
Judging by the, uh, lively correspondence that swirls around Ben Peek’s LiveJournal, it sometimes seems to me that I am one of the very few people who can talk to Mr Peek for longer than five minutes without wanting to punch him in the face. Of course, as Mr Peek points out in his novel Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, Charles Bukowski was as unpleasant as drunken bullies can get and still his best books were magical. In the event that the reader is probably not going to spend five minutes in Mr Peek’s company and is therefore not going to snot him in righteous disgust, the only important thing is the book.

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