As compensation, here’s what happens if you cross Giger’s Alien with My Little Pony:

Move along now. Nothing to see here.

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Don’t disappoint me now, it’s really not too much to ask, is it?

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The finalist for 2009 are (in alphabetical order):

Long Fiction

* A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti (Twelfth Planet Press)
* Red Queen by H. M. Brown (Penguin Australia)
* “Wives” by Paul Haines (X6, Coeur de Lion Publishing)
* The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin (Hachette Australia)
* Slights by Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot)

Edited Publication

* Grants Pass, edited by Jennifer Brozek & Amanda Pillar (Morrigan Books)
* Festive Fear, edited by Stephen Clark (Tasmaniac Publications)
* Aurealis #42, edited by Stuart Mayne (Chimaera Publications)

Short Fiction

* “Six Suicides” by Deborah Biancotti (A Book of Endings)
* “The Emancipated Dance” by Felicity Dowker (Midnight Echo #2)
* “Busking” by Jason Fischer (Midnight Echo #3)
* “The Message” by Andrew J. McKiernan (Midnight Echo #2)
* “The Gaze Dogs of Nine Waterfalls” by Kaaron Warren (Exotic Gothic 3)

There are some truly excellent works in there by equally excellent writers. Best of luck to you all!

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Philip José Farmer

This prolific author brings surprising depths to he-man adventure tales, and broke science fiction’s prudery barrier.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Hat tip: Laura Eno.

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Before you read this: Please don’t judge me… I’m just sharing my story because people asked…

Wow… okay, I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to tell anyone about this, but it’s late and I’m sleep deprived so i guess I’ll just write it now and regret it in the morning :/

First of all, – just for some background: My mom died right when I was born, (she was actually really, really hot- but this isn’t about her. I guess that’s fsck up to say, but whatever.) I actually grew up with my dad’s family, because my dad has all sorts of emotional issues and he bailed before I was born. So you can see, my childhood was really kind of messed up.

Anyways, growing up I feel like there was always a lot of distance between me and my sister. When I was about 17 or 18 I first noticed that my sister was a hottie.

I don’t want to go into too many details about it, but basically what happened is that I accidentally found a video that she made of herself. I knew she didn’t make it for me- but I thought she was so fsck beautiful that I watched it twice. I probably would have watched it a hell of a lot more, except that like right around the time I found the video, all this crazy poop went down and I had to leave home. (My dad’s family who I was staying with got in bad trouble with the law. I never talk about it).

Sooo… I was totally lusting after my sister at that point. She was also having bad trouble with the law. She was actually in custody when I left home.

My friend and I went to go pick her up. When I saw her that day, after seeing the video, I have to be honest, I just wanted to fsck her brains out. Looking back on it now, it’s pretty messed up- but I think she had feelings for me too. She actually kissed me right after we came to get her… and it wasn’t a sisterly kiss, you know? I mean, it wasn’t like ridiculously sexual or anything, but it definitely wasn’t sisterly.

After we left, we all went to crash with my Sister’s friends. On the trip there, my friend sort of implied that he wanted to get with my Sister, and I got a little jealous. He’s a good looking guy- and even though she was my sister- I just felt like he was competition. Not much else happened between us for a while except some maybe-sexy hugging.

Pretty much everyone in my life at that point was wanted by the government, so we all moved around a lot. I’m not saying that I’m proud of it or anything, but it was kind of an awesome time.

My friend and my sister never hooked up I don’t think- but I thought there was some serious sexual tension going on between them. It was around that time that I got really badly hurt in an accident. It was fsck up. I almost died. But when I was in recovery my sister came to see me, and out of the clear blue sky she started gives me this awesome, slow, passionate kiss on the lips.

Sadly (although, I guess for the best) nothing ever came of it. We spent some time apart… and I started to get really religious, so I tried not to think of her that way. It was actually going well for a long time- like I was totally over her. But I have to say, like a year or so after all that stuff went down, we were out sailing (not like a date or anything romantic like that), and she was wearing like the hottest bikini I’ve ever fsck seen and it brought back all the old feelings. Sigh.

A little while later she actually wound up with my friend from before (the sexual tension guy). I can’t say I was surprised.

But even after she was shacking up with my friend, there was one time we were at a party… my friend was inside, and my sister and I were outside alone. It was a really intimate moment. I think something might have happened, except that I killed the mood when I told her that Darth Vader was our father and that I had to go face him.

Ha!

I got this from my friend Tish, but if anyone knows where it originated I’d love to know.

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Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.

I went shopping today to get a few bits and pieces, including a new calendar and diary. Barely into November and things are already cropping up for next year. It’s not like they’re bad things. For example, I need to jot down a date in January when a piece of flash fiction of mine will be published in an online zine. Also, Halinka and I are planning a trip back to Europe for mid-next year. But man, you do notice the time flying by.

I suppose part of the melancholy about all this for me is that next year is fairly significant. Let’s just say I was born in 1970 and you can do the maths. I’m actually okay about it – to be honest, life is better than it’s ever been. I miss my family terribly and would give pretty much anything to have them back, but otherwise life is good.

It’s just hard to believe that it’s 2010 next year. Seriously, people, where the fuck are the flying cars? And don’t even get me started on manned missions to Mars. Clarke was talking about return missions to Jupiter by 2010.

Then again, who am I to talk, going out and buying paper calendars and diaries? I always try to use my iPhone calendar and sync it online and stuff like that, but the simple truth is that I like to jot things down in a diary. It’s a real book and I have all my old diaries that I thumb through once in a while when I’m passing the bookshelf in my study. Nostalgia can be cool. And a calendar hanging on the wall is useful – you note something down while you’re on the phone, Halinka and I can both stand in front of it and figure out dates for stuff and things like that.

However, my paper time-keeping idiosyncrasies notwithstanding, it’s a simple fact that we’re all way behind on the whole advancement of the human race thing. On the one hand I look at my iPhone and rejoice at how cool the future is. On the other, I look at the complete lack of a moon base, manned missions to Mars and the bewildering absence of flying cars and I can only think, Humanity: Your finger – Pull it out!

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Okay, obligatory New Zealand piss-take out of the way, I can get on with the point of this post. (It would be considered un-Australian if I made a post about New Zealand without poking fun at their accent).

So, 14th-20th September is NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week.

From the announcement:

This is an opportunity for anyone in (or even with links to) New Zealand to talk about Speculative Fiction, to publicise what they’ve been doing or simply share some knowledge. It’s an opportunity to learn what others have been reading, writing, watching or drawing, to start a conversation, to gather some recommendations for reading or some tips for writing.
NZ Speculative Fiction Blogging Week is organised by Core members of SpecFicNZ, who are working towards the launch of a national SpecFic Writers organisation in 2010.

Why?
Because speculative fiction still doesn’t get the recognition it deserves in New Zealand and because there are so many people out there doing so many exciting things – and so often they don’t know about each other.

Read more here at the original post about this event.

There are links from the above post to all kinds of articles about Spec Fic in NZ. There’s some really interesting bits and pieces to be found there. Go and have a look and support our Spec Fic cousins on the other side of the Tasman Sea. And for those overseas readers, notwithstanding my cruelty at the start of this post, you can learn that not everyone in New Zealand is like Bret and Jemaine from Flight Of The Conchords. Just like not all Aussies are like Steve Irwin or Mick Dundee (though many probably like to think they are).

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Feel free to stay in touch as I’ll check in now and then throughout the week. And don’t forget the blog book tour that kicks off on Monday 20th July. Tell your friends!

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To explain, Twitter is infested by scumbags that have bots set up to auto-follow anyone that might be vaguely interested. For example, I happened to post a tweet the other day that had the words “real estate” among the 140 characters. For the next two days I was getting bombed with dozens of followers that all happened to be real estate agents. In places like Dallas. Arseholes. When I was chatting about this on Twitter with @timothywcrane we thought it could become a new Twitter sport. I said perhaps it could be a sport where you try to attract certain auto-follows and he said, “You could set it up like scavenger, collect one whore, one political intellectual, a marketer, and 2 sports buffs, etc…” Could be quite a laugh, though I have no idea how you’d make that work.

Anyway, I digress. The point is this: as so many scumbag spammers always have these auto-follow things running, I don’t just automatically follow back everyone that follows me. I try to go through and selectively follow back. Sometimes this is just too much. I might get up and see twenty new follows sitting in my inbox and I can’t be arsed. Especially before my first coffee. They often get an automatic mass-delete. However, when grumpiness allows I go through these follows and check to see if I want to follow them back.

Given how many there are I make pretty quick decisions based almost entirely on the little Bio on a person’s Twitter page. And this is where it occurred to me that it’s like the back cover blurb of a book. This is what my Twitter page looks like:

That little paragraph to the right of my name is the Bio section. My decision on whether or not to follow someone back is entirely based on what’s written here. Mine says:

Alan is an author living on the south coast of NSW, Australia. He writes dark fantasy and horror, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu.

It’s short, slightly whimsical and says that I’m a writer, what sort of thing I write, that I teach Kung Fu and that I’m a motorcyclist and animal lover. Quite a lot of info in a very small space. Hopefully there’s enough there for people decide if they want to follow me or not. It’s really not that hard to have a decent bio.

When I’m checking to see if I’m going to follow someone back I’ll make the decision based on what’s in there. If the person sounds interesting, especially if they have an interest in writing, martial arts or motorcycles, I’ll most likely follow back. They have that one short paragraph to sell themselves to me, just like the back cover of a book.

Here’s a few things that’ll guarantee that I won’t follow you back:

No bio – You’re probably a robot. Or a whore. Or a robot whore. Not interested.

Listing your religion – I’m not interested in anyone that defines themselves to others by their belief system.

Implying your religion – If your bio says something like “To God Be The Glory” then that tells me all I need to know about you. Not interested.

Selling – A bio that reads something like, “The best marketing strategy book on the market today! Click Here!” Fuck off. If you turned out to be an interesting guy I might have bought your book. But as you slap me upside the ear with it on our first encounter, you deserve a virtual door slammed in your face. This applies to all aspects of selling, be it services, products or anything else. Twitter is a social network. Chat about things, share interesting info and you might get a sale later. Put something about yourself in the bio and drop a few sales pitches in among your tweets. That’s how you does it!

No picture – I don’t know why exactly, but this just bugs me. It doesn’t even have to be a picture of you. An icon or graphic will do.

Company logo picture – Here’s where I’d prefer no picture. You’re obviously on the hard sell. Not interested.

There are lots more examples but I’m sure you get the idea. Also, making a really long post about Twitter seems somehow wrong. And this post is long enough already.

I really enjoy the interaction on Twitter. Certainly, it’s one of the ways that I build up my author platform and I use it to spread information about my books and other writing. Hopefully it helps me sell a few books. But I actually enjoy sharing interesting links with people and seeing what interesting links other people post. I have a laugh from time to time joking with people I’ve never met (and almost certainly never will) about all kinds of subjects. There’s so much to be gained from this kind of social network, so don’t blow it immediately with a poor “back cover blurb”.

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