You know, it’s true that if you just crap on about rubbish for long enough, people will eventually start recognising you for it. You’ll become a trusted source of crap. Well, that’s me. The very kind Tony Noland over at Landless has awarded me a Prolific Blogger Award, after getting one himself. See, that’s the other thing that works – surround yourself with like-minded people and whatever it is you’re doing doesn’t seem at all weird. Just look at train spotters or swingers.

The rules of the thing are that you then have to nominate some verbose bastards of your own and pass the award on to them. Seven of them, apparently. By Shiva’s Blue Shaft, do I really have to think of seven prolific bloggers?

Well, here goes. I’m going to pass this award on to people that blog a lot about interesting stuff that I read on a regular basis. I’ll try to get a variety of subject matter in and post them in alphabetical order by blog name:

A Nadder – “a jewish atheist blogs the bible and rants about other stuff.” Michael Fridman discusses all kinds of religious, moral and philosophical ideas. Be warned though, there’s often some pretty confronting images on this blog.

HorrorScope – The Australian Dark Fiction weblog.

Jason Fischer – Of all the writers that blog I chose Jason, partly through completely random selection and partly because he blogs some fucking funny stuff sometimes, like the Knife-Wielding Eagle Of Motivation.

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist – Fantasy news, reviews, nonsense and giveaways.

Sleep Talkin’ Man – The random mumblings of an Englishman that talks a lot in his sleep. Seriously, this is my new favourite blog.

The Creative Penn – Writing, Publishing Options, Sales and Promotion. Joanna Penn is more than prolific and very informative.

The Furnace – Geek culture from Lord Shaper.

So there you go – I hope you find something interesting and new among those.

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The latest list of recommended reading from Locus Online has been announced. You know I’ve been rattling on for months about Paul Haine’s awesome novella, “Wives”. Well, that’s on there, as is Margo Lanagan’s novella, “Sea Hearts”, from the same anthology. And, in fact, the “X6″ Novellanthology itself is listed. So yeah, you really need to read that book if you haven’t.

Other Aussies listed are Peter M Ball for his novella, “Horn”, and Deb Biancotti for her collection, “A Book Of Endings”, both released by the phenomenon that is Twelfth Planet Press. Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois get a nod as editors of “The Dragon Book” anthology. Garth Nix is mentioned for “The Heart of the City” novellette, Peter M Ball is mentioned again for “On the Destruction of Copenhagen by the War-Machines of the Merfolk” in the short story list and two more mentions in short stories for Margo Lanagan with “Ferryman” and “Living Curiosities”. What a brilliant result.

I’m sure I missed some Aussies, so apologies in advance if I did! It’s a great list. See the whole thing here.

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The Award ceremony happened in Brisbane last night. I was very sad not to be able to get up there for it, but finances are only so elastic. I was greatly heartened, however, to discover a great little Twitter party happening as the Awards were announced. I got to vicariously enjoy the ceremony by tweeting with people like Margo Lanagan, Felicity Dowker, Tansy Rayner Roberts others while the results were tweeted live by several people in attendance, including Donna Hanson, who was generally the quickest on the keypad. Enjoying a few beers and watching the results live in such great virtual company almost made up for not being there. Almost.

So, to the results. Here they are:

best science fiction novel
Andrew McGahan, Wonders of a Godless World, Allen & Unwin

best science fiction short story
Peter M. Ball, ‘Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens’, Apex Magazine May 2009

best fantasy novel
Trudi Canavan, Magician’s Apprentice, Orbit

best fantasy short story – Joint winners
Christopher Green, ‘Father’s Kill’, Beneath Ceaseless Skies #24
Ian McHugh, ‘Once a Month, On a Sunday’, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #40, Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Co-operative Ltd

best horror novel
Honey Brown, Red Queen, Penguin Australia

best horror short story – Joint winners
Paul Haines, ‘Wives’, X6, Coeur de Lion Publishing
Paul Haines, ‘Slice of Life – A Spot of Liver’, Slice of Life, The Mayne Press

best anthology
Jonathan Strahan (editor), Eclipse 3, Night Shade Books

best collection
Greg Egan, Oceanic, Gollancz

best illustated book/graphic novel
Nathan Jurevicius, Scarygirl, Allen & Unwin

best young adult novel
Scott Westerfeld, Leviathan Trilogy: Book One, Penguin

best young adult short story
Cat Sparks, ‘Seventeen’, Masques, CSFG

best children’s (8-12 years) novel
Gabrielle Wang, A Ghost in My Suitcase, Puffin Books

best children’s (8-12 years) short fiction/illustrated work/picture book
Pamela Freeman (author), Kim Gamble (illustrator), Victor’s Challenge, Walker Books Australia

Regular readers here will know that I’ve been crapping on for months about the awesomeness of Paul Haines’ ‘Wives’. A well deserved winner. Shame he had to share the prize with himself, but there you go.

Congratulations to all the winners!

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Further to the interesting discussion following this post, I was interested to read today over at Visual Thesaurus that “tweet” has been named the word of the year and “google” (in its verb form) has been named word of the decade.

Given that Google are actively campaigning against the use of “to google” as it dilutes their brand I find this particularly hilarious. “Tweet” is also a registered trademark, as it happens.

Also voted on by those crazy Americans was Most Useful, which turned out to be “fail” (used as a noun or interjection). As Ben Zimmer says in his article: “Fail for the win!”

My personal favourite by far is the winner of Most Creative: “Dracula sneeze”, defined as “covering one’s mouth with the crook of one’s elbow when sneezing, seen as similar to popular portrayals of the vampire Dracula, in which he hides the lower half of his face with a cape.”

Brilliant! (Even thought it’s actually two words and would have be the most creative phrase rather than the most creative word, but let’s not quibble about that here.)

Ain’t the evolution of language a funny old thing?

There’s more fun in the original article here.

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My second book, MageSign, is listed in the Preditors & Editors Readers Polls honouring print & electronic publications published during 2009. If you could spare a moment (and if you’ve read and enjoyed the book, naturally) I would love your vote. You have to find it on the list, click the button, add your contact details at the bottom and then click the link in the confirmation email. It’s a bit of a complicated method, I know, but it’s to stop bot voting and stuff like that.

MageSign is listed in the Horror Novel category here and the Fantasy & Science Fiction Novel category here. If you could spare the time to vote in both categories and tell anyone else about this, I’d be forever grateful.

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I got this spam comment today:

Well, the article is actually the best on this precious topic. I fit in with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your future updates. Saying thanks will not just be enough, for the great lucidity in your writing. I will at once grab your rss feed to stay privy of any updates. Genuine work and much success in your business endeavors!

Can you guess what post it was on? It was this one, where I reposted the list of Aurealis Award finalists.

Seriously, what a fuckwit.

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I love to receive interesting things in the mail. I love to get new books. I love to be in books. So imagine my joy today when I received four books in the mail – three contributor copies of Seizure Issue 4, featuring my story Deep Sea Fishing and my copy of Horn by Peter M Ball from Twelfth Planet Press.

I’m loving the stuff coming out of Twelfth Planet Press at the moment. And so are other people – in the recent Aurealis Award finalists announcement books, anthologies and stories from Twelfth Planet and its authors received as many or more nominations than all the big publishers like Hachette and HarperCollins. That’s a fantastic achievement for Twelfth Planet and a ringing endorsement of small press in general.

In fact, the delightful Angela Slatter went so far as to post the numbers on her blog:

Number of nominations for works published by indie Twelfth Planet Press: 7
Number of nominations for works published by rather large press Allen & Unwin: 7
Number of nominations for works published by also rather large press HarperCollins: 5
Number of nominations for works published by again-with-the-rather-large press Hachette: 4

So yeah, that is freaking sweet. To celebrate, Twelfth Planet is offering their titles with free shipping in Australia throughout December – see here if you’re interested in taking advantage of that.

The other reason that I was keen to get a copy of Horn is because it’s one of the books that got a Horror Novel category nomination in the Aurealis Awards while MageSign, though entered, didn’t. I figure you can’t go wrong reading stuff that gets nominated for awards and that’s the kind of stuff you can learn from as a writer. I’m always trying to improve my craft, so reading the good stuff is absolutely essential.

Anyway, more lovely Christmas reading for me!

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Further to my previous post here and a quick chat about the Aurealis Awards that it triggered on Farcebook, the ever sage Angela Slatter drew people’s attention back to a post she made on her blog in October. As a teaser for her post, I present this:

Gore Vidal famously said “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies” – Gore was, of course, a sad old git, and should be a role model for no one.

Damn straight. Go and have a read of Angela’s post (nay, grump) on people and their attitudes to awards. Click here to read it.

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Sadly, I didn’t get a nomination, even though I had a couple of bits entered this year. I wouldn’t ever expect to win against the kind of competition there, but a nomination would be nice. I would say, “Ah well, next year”, but there may not be a next year for the Aurealis Awards. I hope there is, so fingers crossed.

In the meantime, here’s the list of nominations for this year from the Aurealis Awards website. I’m pleased to see Paul Haines’s “Wives” is in there. I would have had to kick some arse if it wasn’t, as that is far and away the best thing I’ve read this year. It’s nice to see quite a few people that I consider friends nominated. Good luck everyone!

2009 FINALISTS

best science fiction novel

Andrew McGahan, Wonders of a Godless World, Allen & Unwin
Sean Williams, The Grand Conjunction, Astropolis Book Three, Orbit

best science fiction short story

Peter M. Ball, ‘Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens’, Apex Magazine May 2009
Peter M. Ball, ‘To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer’s Lament’, Apex Magazine October 2009
Christopher Green, ‘A Hundredth Name’, Abyss & Apex Magazine #31
Greg Mellor, ‘Defence of the Realm’, Cosmos #25
Mike Resnick & Lezli Robyn, ‘Soulmates’ Asimov’s September 2009

best fantasy novel

Peter M. Ball, Horn, Twelfth Planet Press
Trudi Canavan, Magician’s Apprentice, Orbit
Glenda Larke, The Last Stormlord, HarperVoyager
K.E. Mills, Witches Incorporated, HarperVoyager
K.J. Taylor, The Dark Griffin, HarperVoyager

best fantasy short story

Christopher Green, ‘Father’s Kill’, Beneath Ceaseless Skies #24
Ian McHugh, ‘Once a Month, On a Sunday’, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #40, Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Co-operative Ltd
Tansy Rayner Roberts, ‘Siren Beat’, Roadkill/Siren Beat, Twelfth Planet Press
Angela Slatter, ‘Words’ The Lifted Brow #5
Lucy Sussex, ‘Something Better than Death’, Aurealis #42, Chimaera Publications

best horror novel

Peter M. Ball, Horn, Twelfth Planet Press
Honey Brown, Red Queen, Penguin Australia
Stephen M. Irwin, The Dead Path, Hachette Australia
Tracey O’Hara, Night’s Cold Kiss, HarperCollins Publishers Australia
Kaaron Warren, Slights, Angry Robot Books

best horror short story

Felicity Dowker, ‘Jesse’s Gift’, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #40, Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Co-operative Ltd
Christopher Green, ‘Having Faith’, Nossa Morte, February 2009
Paul Haines, ‘Wives’, X6, Coeur de Lion Publishing
Paul Haines, ‘Slice of Life – A Spot of Liver’, Slice of Life, The Mayne Press
Andrew J. McKiernan, ‘The Message’, Midnight Echoes, Australian Horror Writers Association

best anthology

Alisa Krasnostein (editor), New Ceres Nights, Twelfth Planet Press
Keith Stevenson (editor), X6, Coeur de Lion Publishing
Jonathan Strahan (editor), Eclipse 2, Night Shade Books
Jonathan Strahan (editor), Eclipse 3, Night Shade Books
Jonathan Strahan (editor), The New Space Opera 2, Harper Eos

best collection

Deborah Biancotti & Alisa Krasnostein (editors), A Book of Endings, Twelfth Planet Press
Greg Egan, Oceanic, Gollancz
Paul Haines & Geoff Maloney (editors), Slice of Life, The Mayne Press
Robbie Matthews & Donna Hanson (editors), Johnny Phillips Werewolf Detective, Australian Speculative Fiction

best illustated book/graphic novel

Nathan Jurevicius, Scarygirl, Allen & Unwin
Bruce Mutard, The Silence, Allen & Unwin
Emily Rodda & Marc McBride, Secrets of Deltora, Scholastic Australia
Madeleine Rosca, Hollow Fields, Seven Seas Entertainment

best young adult novel

Kate Forsyth, The Puzzle Ring, Pan Macmillan
Cassandra Golds, The Museum of Mary Child, Puffin Books
Glenda Millard, A Small Free Kiss in the Dark, Allen & Unwin
Scott Westerfeld, Leviathan Trilogy: Book One, Penguin
Sean Williams, Scarecrow, HarperCollins Publishers Australia

best young adult short story

Joanne Anderton, ‘Dragon Bones’, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #39, Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Co-operative Ltd
Sue Isle, ‘Paper Dragons’, Shiny #5, Twelfth Planet Press
Ian McHugh, ‘Once a Month, on a Sunday’, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #40, Andromeda Spaceways Publishing Co-operative Ltd
Tansy Rayner Roberts, ‘Like Us, Shiny #5, Twelfth Planet Press
Cat Sparks, ‘Seventeen’, Masques, CSFG

best children’s novel

Deborah Abela, The Remarkable Secret of Aurelie Bonhoffen, Random House Australia
Kate Constable, Cicada Summer, Allen & Unwin
Jen Storer, Tensy Farlow and the Home for Mislaid Children, Penguin/Viking
Gabrielle Wang, A Ghost in My Suitcase, Puffin Books

best children’s illustrated work/picture book

Graeme Base, Enigma, Penguin/Viking
Anna Fienberg (author), Kim Gamble (illustrator), Tashi and the Golem, Allen & Unwin
Pamela Freeman (author), Kim Gamble (illustrator), Victor’s Challenge, Walker Books Australia
Dan McGuiness, Pilot and Huxley, Omnibus Books
Gregory Rogers, The Hero of Little Street, Allen & Unwin

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You may remember a little while ago I asked you to go and read a few flash fictions and vote for mine if you liked it? Here’s the post in question. Well, you’re all crap because I didn’t win.

However, to look at it another way, you’re all brilliant because I came second. Turns out I win an ebook. Thanks everyone. You can see the announcement here. I’m very pleased with that. I’ll post the story here at the end of the week as a Friday Flash entry.

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