I’m here, and my family is all somewhere else…
2
Getting a new cover is always a buzz.
Sometimes it’s also a surprise.
Here is my rugged no-nonsense intelligent swordswoman heroine Blaze Halfbreed from The Aware, Book 1 of The Isles of Glory, now called CLAIRVOYANTE, as seen by the artist for Jai Lu, the French edition trade paperback. Have no idea of the artist’s name as yet, as I haven’t seen the book and I pinched this photo from the French Amazon page.
But hey, look, my name’s bigger than the title…
Yeah, I know. I’m shallow. I love things like that.
This country that I dearly love is skilled at sending mixed signals.
The government has just said it will dole out substantial amounts of money to athletes, and their coaches, who bring home medals from the Beijing Olympics.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Two government schools have punished their sports-minded kids, either disqualifying them or withholding their prizes. Why? For dressing appropriately when competing in cross-country runs. In other words they were sensible enough to wear shorts. For this good sense, they were punished.
At one school, of the 10 students coming in first on a 5 km cross country run, only two (not the winners) were give prizes. Worse, according to parents of the others, as quoted in The Star newspaper, they were initially given false excuses (e.g. “The number pinned on your shirt is torn”) – presumably because the teachers involved didn’t have enough guts to give the real reason!!
It sounds as if – and I could be wrong here – that teachers of one religious persuasion didn’t have the courage to tell the parents of students (possibly mostly of other religious persuasions) that they wanted to impose their religious values on everyone under their jurisdiction. They did tell lies though, and considered that ok?
It reminds me of my daughter when attending the local primary school down the road. She and her fellow students worked out that the teacher for art marked down every painting of a beach scene (the topic given that day) – no matter how brilliant – if it portrayed a female in a swimsuit. Marking art on the basis of your religious values? You betcha! Not having the guts to tell the kids what you were doing? Yep, that too!
My daughter was tickled pink because she got top marks. She was lousy at doing figures, so all her people were up to their necks in the ocean…
Been a while since I posted any Malaysian nature shots – so here is some we took on Sipadan Island. This is an oceanic island off the coast of Sabah, Borneo, infamous because it was raided by some rather nasty Filipino pirates and some tourists and staff were kidnapped.
As a consequence the tourist hotels were relocated to Mabul Island and the accommodation on Sipadan was left to the military and Sabah Parks staff. That was where we stayed.
The island is small enough to walk around in 20 minutes.
First photo: fig tree and pandanus
Second photo: Dive boats from Mabul dropping off divers. We snorkelled inside the floats, and the undersea photos were taken by my husband.
That’s also him taking a shot of the Green Turtle from the beach. These guys were everywhere – mating, egg laying and just swimming around.
If you look at the second last photo, you will see the deep blue of the drop – 900 metres to the sea floor. Snorkelling over that was as eerie as looking into deep space – and just wondering…
That was the title of the email my LA musician daughter sent, along with some photos taken by her dad. He’s on his way to a conference, and dropped in en route to see her.
The band is Bedtime for Toys and this was Nashii’s first public appearance as a band member. And I think her Dad’s first time in the audience.
The other photo is Dad at one of his favourite places – a bookshop.
Wish I were there with them.
The Awards for 2007 have been announced and can be seen here. Alas, I have to remain as only a shortlisted author yet again. (How many times is one a bridesmaid before they say you’ll never be a bride? I think I have already surpassed the number!!)
Joking aside, many thanks once again to the Aurealis team – and they were mighty quick this year with getting the results posted, which I appreciate. They have even put up the judges’ comments. (If there were any comments for last year’s results, I never saw them anywhere.)
Here’s what they said about Song of the Shiver Barrens:
“Both the second and third books in this series were nominated this year, and the judges rated both highly. However, this one made the shortlist as it was a much stronger book, perhaps because it finalised the trilogy, but also because of the nature of the relationship between the characters. The plot was powerful and the fantasy stylish,and the writing was highly polished and engaging.”
Nice, eh? I am delighted. And I had good company. Here’s the overall comment on the fantasy novels:
“The quality of work nominated in 2007 was generally of a very high standard. The major publishing houses are producing quality novels in the fantasy genre. However this standard was not consistently maintained by smaller publishers, self publishers and the vanity publisher books.”…………“We could easily have had ten books on the shortlist and a further six or seven honourable mentions, and of course the debate for the winner was fierce as so many books had standout qualities.”
Once again, my thanks to all those involved in the Awards, to Orbit Books for their support of the Awards, and my congratulations to all those winners in all categories.
Australia’s spec fic is alive and well!!
I love my Russian publisher. They pay up no problems, and each book I sell, they pay more than the time before. And looking forward to what they put on the cover is part of my enjoyment of being a writer.
Now I know I have put up the cover of the Russian translation of “Gilfeather” before, but that was when I pinched it off a Russian online booksellers website and it was a poor res pix.
Yesterday I received a copy of the book, and I just can’t resist putting it up again in all its glory.
First let me point out that the printing at the top is actually in glittery glossy red, and the two gentlemen are equally shiny glitz – they look as if they have been stuck on. Unfortunately the shine didn’t scan very well.
And that top text is my name. Yep, that’s right, I have my name in BIG SHINY print. The bottom little print is the name of the book which translates – I believe – as Smell Evil .
Let me tell you about Gilfeather. The hero is a simple country doctor who spends most of the book chasing assorted villains through the countryside and across seas for rather complex reasons, and generally having a harrowing time. He does briefly land up in the ruling house of a island (hardly more than a rock stack covered in nesting birds and sheep) where the ruler is a woman, and I guess there are a few uniformed guards scattered about. They certainly aren’t dressed like space opera dudes, or 19th century military regimes, and there’s no guy sitting on a throne, it’s a gal.
I guess I should be glad that I didn’t get a pole dancer, like Jenny Fallon did on one of her Russian titles…
Kelantan is one of Peninsular Malaysia’s northern states. It has a government run by a political party based on religion. In theory, one assumes this means no corruption among the politicians, honest government and fair dealing. Perhaps it works that way in practice too – I have little knowledge of the matter.
One thing for sure, in practice it also means more weird stuff.
All supermarkets in the state have to have 3 checkout counters. One for men, one for women and one for families. This was decreed some time ago, but now they are getting strict about enforcement – otherwise the supermarket will be fines for each offence, $1000RM or about US$100.
Why? Because some women have been harrassed by men at common checkout counters.
Boy, do I have news for them – we women get harrassed everywhere, and it doesn’t matter which country or how we are dressed. For a woman, it is part of life and we learn to deal with it. To stop it, though, I have a better suggestion. Why don’t we lock all men up in the house and not let them out?
Really, it makes more sense than separate supermarket queues…
The Deputy Prime Minister has my first trilogy. Dunno that he will read it, mind you, but he has it. How do I know? Well it’s like this…
Husband happened to mention at his university, when the subject of Lake Chini in Pahang state came up, that it had been the inspiration for the setting of one of my books, Gilfeather, and was the basis for the Australian cover. [For those of you who have read it, the floating islands of the Mere can be found at Chini.]
The people he was talking to were looking for a gift for the Dep. P.M, on the occasion of the opening of a university project at the lake last weekend, and so….
Unfortunately, the Malaysian education system has – through the years – done an excellent job in teaching Malaysians to accept what they are told, rather than develop their critical faculties.
The MCA* Public Services and Complaints Department often has its hands full trying to persuade Malaysians not to fall prey to con artists and scams – from whom it then has to try and extricate the victims.
Now the MCA has come out with a book containing guidelines on how to recognise a true medium, which includes 20 pointers on how to to distinguish a crook from a real medium.
A real medium. Right.
I have fairies at the bottom of my garden. I’ll show you for 500 RM. Of course, if you fail to see them, it’s not my fault. It’s because you just don’t have faith…
* Malaysian Chinese Association – a political party which is part of the ruling government.