Wednesday, February 11, 2015

A sale to Neo-Opsis!

So far I'm batting 100% for 2015 it would seem. I'm sure this isn't going to last for long (oh, optimistic one). Still and all, I've sold my humorous short story, Occupational Hazards, to Neo-Opsis magazine, my first sale to the periodical.

Karl Johanson, editor of Neo-Opsis, tells me Occupational Hazards will be coming out in the next issue.

Of course that means all of you are going to have to rush right out and acquire your own print or digital copy. That's right.

Monday, February 9, 2015

Review: All the Broken Things, by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer

All the Broken ThingsAll the Broken Things by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was very much minded of Rohinton Mistry's novels when reading Kuitenbrower's All the Broken Things, albeit we've changed from writing about the tragedies of India's people to the tragedy of Canada's.

In this case Kuitenbrower tells a deftly-crafted tale of a Vietnamese mother, son and daughter who are refugees just after the infamous civil war that ravaged their country. Not only are they victims of the war, but of that deadly and devastating chemical known as Agent Orange, large quantities of which were produced in Grimsby, Ontario, by Uniroyal.

The story centres around the boy, Bo, who attempts to find the strength and compassion to not only deal with his mother who is rapidly sinking into depression, extreme poverty and the effects of Agent Orange, but his sister who was born grotesquely deformed because of the chemical.

It is also a story about freaks and misfits who find a home in the carnivals and sideshows that toured southern Ontario, and were featured at the Canadian National Exhibition.

So it is a story about broken people, broken in body and spirit. It is a story about broken morality. Broken promises. Broken trust.

And it is utterly, completely mesmerizing in the simplicity and beauty of Kuitenbrower's phrasing and story-telling ability.

Highly recommended.

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Saturday, February 7, 2015

Review: The Eye of the Dragon, by Joel Champetier

The Dragon's EyeThe Dragon's Eye by Joël Champetier
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It is with novels like The Dragon's Eye my antipathy toward hard SF becomes evident. Or does it? Certainly authors like Kim Stanley Robinson are capable of writing hard SF, introducing fascinating concepts and situations which are completely and utterly foreign to present-world understanding. Robinson unhinges the reader with the brilliance of his vision.

Perhaps it is there the difference between Champetier's novel, translated by Trudel, and Robinson's work becomes most evident: vision.

Champetier creates a science premise which in itself is fascinating: a binary system in which Earth colonists from China attempt to create a purist vision of their homeland and culture. However, instead of focusing on the challenges of living in an environment made hostile by a star pumping out deadly levels of radiation, Champetier instead creates what essentially boils down to Bond in Space, replete with lady-killer protagonist, helpless female waif, and Mandarin-style espionage and subterfuge. Truly the entire plot ended up so sadly predictable.

And I did so want to like this novel. It came highly recommended by a colleague whose tastes I trust. Champetier himself is not unknown to me in the circles in which I orbit. Yet hard as I tried I could find little in the plot to snare my attention and fill me with a sense of wonder.

Which, in the end, is what good SF should engender: wonder, whether that wonder is horrific or beatific doesn't matter. That sense of Wow needs to be there.

So, with apologies to Champetier, and my trusted colleague, I will simply have to put this negative review down to differing tastes and expectations.

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