Marianne de Pierres

This weekend I will host a panel devoted to Ursula Le Guin at the Brisbane International Film Festival. I hope some of you might make it there. The panel will consist of Isobelle Carmody, Lian Hearn (Gillian Rubenstein), and artist, Emily Floyd, and celebrates the release of a new short film about Le Guin’s life. The film is wonderful, as will be the discussion, with each panelist having a unique take on Le Guin’s work.

I said there’d be some more Melbourne Supanopva pics and here they are:

MDP, Rowena Cory Daniells and a bunch of lovely books

MDP and Aaron - undercover brother

MDP and her twin Isobelle Carmody

Of Science and Swords Giant Tentacle

More Cool:

Blog post about loving speculative fiction from Holly Harper at Readings Books, entitled The Myth of Fantasy.

The Spotlight Reports feature Yunyu and I.

Alison Goodman of Eon/Eona fame will be joining me for a kaffee klatsch in Melbourne in early May (email Braiden if you’d like to attend: basciak (at) gmail (dot) com Places strictly limited).

Haven’t blogged any reviews for a while but these two both gave me such huge pleasure, so I wanted to share them with you.

The first is Alex Pierce’s review of Transformation Space for Asif, and her reflection of the series overall. There were two things I really liked about this review.

The first is that it’s most intelligently written (and believe me it’s often NOT the way of reviews!).

The second, is that Alex highlighted a couple of things I strived so hard to achieve. I took a bunch of characters who weren’t necessarily likeable, and were all terribly flawed, because I wanted to push myself to consider the nature of being human i.e. what are we really like on the inside when we have those dark, selfish, greedy, self aggrandising thoughts? And how do we respond under pressure, given those inherent weaknesses? I wanted to give my characters room to improve but also to fail, in the way we do every day. Yet, I still wanted the reader to keep reading, which required a gripping plot line.

The Sentients of Orion series is not for readers who don’t want to think. It is not a comfort read. It is meant to prickle and prod, and at the same time rob you of your breath. If Alex is the only reader in the world who I was able to do that to, then I have achieved what I wished. Hopefully there are more like her, and if that is so, then I’d love to hear from you.

The second review is only brief but it’s my first for Burn Bright and comes from Goodreads. The reason I liked this (apart from being my first for this book) is that it compares Burn Bright to books I love.

If Isobelle Carmody’s Obernewtyn Chronicles had a baby with Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely series – then this novel would be the result! And trust me, that’s a compliment. What a funky, consuming, atmospheric, intriuging read. I eagerly await the next two installments.

I’m a huge fan of Isobelle Carmody as both a writer and a person, and was thrilled to bits when she agreed (against her normal policy) to give me a cover quote. Isobelle and I were guests at a convention a few years ago in New Zealand and I felt a strong connection with her after our very first conversation. Some things you don’t let go of in life.

Melissa Marr I have not met, but Wicked Lovely was one of the most enjoyable YA books I’ve read in a long time. So, there it is. The universe sent me some love and now I’m passing it on to you.

Hold on tight to those dreams.