Author Archives: Alan Baxter

About Alan Baxter

Alan Baxter is a British-Australian author living on the south coast of NSW, Australia. He writes dark fantasy, sci fi and horror, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. His contemporary dark fantasy novels, RealmShift and MageSign, are out through Gryphonwood Press, and his short fiction has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies in Australia, the US and the UK, including the Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror. Alan is also a freelance writer, penning reviews, feature articles and opinion. Read extracts from his novels, a novella and short stories at his website – www.alanbaxteronline.com – and feel free to tell him what you think. About anything.

Aurealis Awards 2012 – Winners

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The 2012 Aurealis Award Winners were announced last night in the gala awards night presentation at The Independent Theatre in North Sydney. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees. A full list all short lists is below, with the winners in bold.

FANTASY NOVEL

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth (Random House Australia)

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff (Tor UK)

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)

Flame of Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier (PanMacmillan Australia)

Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier (HarperVoyager)

FANTASY SHORT STORY

“Sanaa’s Army” by Joanne Anderton (Bloodstones, Ticonderoga Publications)

“The Stone Witch” by Isobelle Carmody (Under My Hat, RandomHouse)

“First They Came” by Deborah Kalin (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 55)

“Bajazzle” by Margo Lanagan (Cracklescape, Twelfth Planet Press)

“The Isles of the Sun” by Margo Lanagan (Cracklescape, Twelfth Planet Press)

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

Suited by Jo Anderton (Angry Robot)

The Last City by Nina D’Aleo (Momentum)

And All The Stars by Andrea K Host (self-published)

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina (Walker Books)

Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix (Allen & Unwin)

The Rook by Daniel O’Malle y(HarperCollins)

SCIENCE FICTION SHORT STORY

“Visitors” by James Bradley (Review of Australian Fiction)

“Significant Dust” by Margo Lanagan (Cracklescape, Twelfth Planet Press)

“Beyond Winter’s Shadow” by Greg Mellor (Wild Chrome, Ticonderoga Publications)

“The Trouble with Memes” by Greg Mellor (WildChrome, Ticonderoga Publications)

“The Lighthouse Keepers’ Club” by Kaaron Warren (Exotic Gothic 4, PS Publishing)

HORROR NOVEL

Bloody Waters by Jason Franks (Possible Press)

Perfections by Kirstyn McDermott (Xoum)

Blood and Dust by Jason Nahrung (Xoum)

Salvage by Jason Nahrung (Twelfth Planet Press)

HORROR SHORT STORY

“Sanaa’s Army” by Joanne Anderton (Bloodstones, Ticonderoga Publications)

“Elyora” by Jodi Cleghorn (Rabbit Hole Special Issue, Review of Australian Fiction)

“To Wish Upon a Clockwork Heart” by Felicity Dowker (Bread and Circuses, Ticonderoga Publications)

“Escenade un Asesinato” by Robert Hood (Exotic Gothic 4, PS Publishing)

“Sky” by Kaaron Warren (Through Splintered Walls, Twelfth Planet Press)

YOUNG ADULT NOVEL – JOINT WINNERS!

Dead, Actually by Kaz Delaney (Allen & Unwin)

And All The Stars by Andrea K. Host (self-published)

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Amberlin Kwaymullina (Walker Books)

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)

Into That Forest by Louis Nowra (Allen & Unwin)

YOUNG ADULT SHORT STORY

“Stilled Lifes x11” by Justin D’Ath (Trust Me Too, Ford Street Publishing)

“The Wisdom of the Ants” by Thoraiya Dyer (Clarkesworld)

“Rats” by Jack Heath (Trust Me Too, Ford Street Publishing)

“The Statues of Melbourne” by Jack Nicholls (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 56)

“The Worry Man” by Adrienne Tam (self-published)

CHILDREN’S FICTION (told primarily through words)

Brotherband: The Hunters by John Flanagan (Random House Australia)

Princess Betony and the Unicorn by Pamela Freeman (Walker Books)

The Silver Door by Emily Rodda (Scholastic)

Irina the Wolf Queen by Leah Swann (Xoum Publishing)

CHILDREN’S FICTION (told primarily through pictures)

Little Elephants by Graeme Base (author and illustrator) (Viking Penguin)

The Boy Who Grew Into a Tree by Gary Crew (author) and Ross Watkins (illustrator) (Penguin Group Australia)

In the Beech Forest by Gary Crew (author) and Den Scheer (illustrator) (Ford Street Publishing)

Inside the World of Tom Roberts by Mark Wilson (author and illustrator) (Lothian Children’s Books)

ILLUSTRATED BOOK / GRAPHIC NOVEL

Blue by Pat Grant (author and illustrator) (Top Shelf Comix)

It Shines and Shakes and Laughs by Tim Molloy (author and illustrator) (Milk Shadow Books)

Changing Ways #2 by Justin Randall (author and illustrator) (Gestalt Publishing)

ANTHOLOGY

The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011 edited by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene (Ticonderoga Publications)

Bloodstones edited by Amanda Pillar (Ticonderoga Publications)

The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume 6 edited by Jonathan Strahan (NightShade Books)

Under My Hat edited by Jonathan Strahan (Random House)

Edge of Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan (Solaris Books)

COLLECTION

That Book Your Mad Ancestor Wrote by K.J. Bishop (self‐published)

Metro Winds by Isobelle Carmody (Allen & Unwin)

Midnight and Moonshine by Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter (Ticonderoga Publications)

Living With the Dead by Martin Livings (Dark Prints Press)

Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren (Twelfth Planet Press)

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Hunger by Melvin Burgess – review

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00002227-266x411Hunger

By Melvin Burgess

Published by Hammer

ISBN: 978-0099576648

You may remember that recently Halinka Orszulok reviewed the first of the new Hammer novellas, The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson. Hunger by Melvin Burgess is another in the same series. It’s a fine artefact of a book, hardcovered and dust-jacketed. From the blurb it sounds intriguing. A shame then, that it’s actually rubbish.

I don’t know Melvin Burgess’s work but he has a good reputation of writing YA fiction where the characters do controversial things like have sex and take drugs. Which is great, because that’s exactly what young people do and I’m glad Burgess tackles those things and it sounds like he does a great job of it. But he does a terrible job of horror.

The book annoyed me from the outset. It starts with a Prologue of about a page and half. Then Chapter 1 follows exactly after the events of the prologue – there’s not even a scene break. Why the hell is that a prologue? It’s the first page and a half of Chapter 1.

So a pointless prologue had me off-side, but it was a cool idea of young Beth waking up covered in dirt with no recollection of where she had been or why she was so grubby. It’s a really cool opening premise in which Burgess really ramps up the tension. The trouble is, it seems like all he really had was that great opening idea and he just phones in the rest of the story from there on.

There is some great writing, but so much of the book is like a first draft. It feels rushed, like Burgess was working to a terrible deadline and all the editors were on holiday. There are several jarring switches of point of view in mid-page, where we jump from one character’s head to another, sometimes mid-paragraph. Then there are dodgy omniscient narrator moments, where the flow is broken by the author jumping in and out with things the characters couldn’t know. This is just simple bad writing. It could all have been tidied up with good editing.

Without giving away too much of the story (though I don’t recommend you read this anyway) Beth’s troubles stem from her connection to a particularly nasty demon and his ghoulish assistants, who come and go through the book. There are some great ideas at work here, but they’re ruined by some ridiculous, almost comical, action scenes. And if they’re not comical, they’re non-sensical. Like the bit where the kids are thoroughly beaten by the demon and his monster – the beast is literally sitting on top of Beth – then they run away for no reason, leaving Beth and her friends to fight on another day.

Then there are moments when mad, slavering beasts are running around and jumping on cars in broad daylight, but luckily no one seems to be around to notice. Seriously, you could be forgiven for thinking that Beth and her friends live in a world where there are no people whatsoever except for themselves and a handful of secondary characters vaguely relevant to the story.

There’s no talk of missed uni classes or explanations of strange absences. For that matter, there’s no real continuation of fear. These kids are literally being hunted by a demon and his various beasts, and they act scared for a moment here and there, then they sit around and have a laugh and a joke with pizza and a movie. At one point they all go out and get pissed just for a laugh. And that in itself leads to another absurd encounter in one of the few scenes where other people are plainly evident, right up until there’s something weird they might spot. Then no one is around. Anywhere. At all.

So, sadly, after a great opening and a really good build of initial tension, utter nonsense ensues for nearly 300 pages.

There’s even a bit towards the end where one big beastie (who has been in the fray since nearly the beginning) is all rabid and deadly in the final scene, then suddenly in the ground and immobilised and we’ve had no mention at all of how he was beaten. None at all.

I really wanted to like this book and it could have been far more interesting if it had been better written and better edited, but by the two thirds mark I was only ploughing through to the end for a sense of closure, and because it’s quite short anyway.

Rubbish.

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2013 Ditmar Award winners announced

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The winners of the 2013 Ditmar Awards, for Australian SF, have been announced at Conflux 9, the 52nd Australian NatCon. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees. All the nominees are listed below, with the winner in each category separated as the first item on the list. Great to see Aussie horror taking the wins in open genre categories!

Best Novel

  • Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)
  • Suited, Jo Anderton (Angry Robot)
  • The Corpse-Rat King, Lee Battersby (Angry Robot)
  • Bitter Greens, Kate Forsyth (Random House Australia)
  • Perfections, Kirstyn McDermott (Xoum)
  • Salvage, Jason Nahrung (Twelfth Planet)

Best Novella or Novelette

  • “Sky”, Kaaron Warren (Through Splintered Walls)
  • “Significant Dust”, Margo Lanagan (Cracklescape)
  • “Flight 404”, Simon Petrie (Flight 404/The Hunt for Red Leicester)

Best Short Story

  • “The Wisdom of Ants”, Thoraiya Dyer (Clarkesworld 12/12)
  • “The Bone Chime Song”, Joanne Anderton (Light Touch Paper Stand Clear)
  • “Sanaa’s Army”, Joanne Anderton (Bloodstones)
  • “Oracle’s Tower”, Faith Mudge (To Spin a Darker Stair)

Best Collected Work

  • Through Splintered Walls, Kaaron Warren (Twelfth Planet)
  • The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011, Liz Grzyb & Talie Helene, eds. (Ticonderoga)
  • Midnight and Moonshine, Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter (Ticonderoga)
  • Light Touch Paper Stand Clear, Edwina Harvey & Simon Petrie, eds. (Peggy Bright Books)
  • Cracklescape, Margo Lanagan (Twelfth Planet)
  • Epilogue, Tehani Wessely, ed. (FableCroft)

Best Artwork

  • Cover art, Kathleen Jennings, for Midnight and Moonshine (Ticonderoga)
  • Illustrations, Adam Browne, for Pyrotechnicon (Coeur de Lion)
  • Cover art and illustrations, Kathleen Jennings, for To Spin a Darker Stair (FableCroft)
  • Cover art, Les Petersen, for Light Touch Paper Stand Clear (Peggy Bright Books)
  • Cover art, Nick Stathopoulos, for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 56 (ASIM Collective)

Best Fan Writer

  • Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work including reviews in Not If You Were The Last Short Story On Earth
  • Alex Pierce, for body of work including reviews in Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus
  • Grant Watson, for body of work including the “Who50” series in The Angriest
  • Sean Wright, for body of work including reviews in Adventures of a Bookonaut

Best Fan Artist

  • Kathleen Jennings, for body of work including “The Dalek Game” and “The Tamsyn Webb Sketchbook”

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium

  • The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond
  • Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, Alisa Krasnostein, Tehani Wessely, et. al.
  • Galactic Chat, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Sean Wright
  • Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex Pierce
  • Snapshot 2012, Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, Helen Merrick, Ian Mond, Jason Nahrung et. al.
  • Antipodean SF, Ion Newcombe
  • The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe

Best New Talent

  • David McDonald
  • Steve Cameron
  • Stacey Larner
  • Faith Mudge

William Atheling Jr. Award for Criticism or Review

  • Tansy Rayner Roberts, for “Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy. Let’s Unpack That.” (Tor.com)
  • Rjurik Davidson, for “An Illusion in the Game for Survival”, a review of Reamde by Neal Stephenson (The Age)
  • Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene, for “The Year in Review” (The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011)
  • Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, and Tehani Wessely, for review of Mira Grant’s Newsflesh (Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus)
  • David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Tehani Wessely, for the “New Who in Conversation” series

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Australian Shadows Awards Winners 2012

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The Australian Horror Writers Association is pleased to announce the Winners of the 2012 Australian Shadows Awards. The Shadows are awarded to the stories and collections that best typify the horror genre, delivering a sense of ‘creeping dread’, leaving the reader with chills and a reluctance to turn out the light.

Congratulations to the Winners, selected by a panel of judges, each an authority on the horror genre.

NOVEL

Perfections – Kirstyn McDermott

LONG FICTION

Sky – Kaaron Warren

SHORT FICTION

Birthday Suit – Martin Livings

EDITED PUBLICATION

Surviving the End – Craig Bezant

COLLECTION

Through Splintered Walls – Kaaron Warren

Congratulations to all the winners and the other very worthy finalists. Horror writing in Australia remains a force to be reckoned with.

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The Bone Chime Song and other stories by Joanne Anderton – Review

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17557764The Bone Chime Song and other stories by Joanne Anderton

FableCroft Publishing

ISBN – 0980777097 (ISBN13: 9780980777093)

The Bone Chime Song and other stories is the debut collection from Australian short story writer and novelist, Joanne Anderton. Anderton’s science fantasy novels from Angry Robot Books (published as Jo Anderton), Debris and Suited, have been brilliantly received and garnered a slew of award nominations. Her short fiction has been equally well received and has also gathered a lot of award attention. In fact, one of the stories in this collection, Sanaa’s Army, is currently a finalist for both fantasy short story and horror short story in the Aurealis Awards and Best Short Story in the Ditmar Awards. The title story from this collection, The Bone Chime Song, is also a finalist for Best Short Story in the Ditmar Awards this year. So there’s no doubt that Anderton’s short fiction is the kind of work that demands attention.

This collection concentrates on Anderton’s horror stories, with most being science-fiction and post-apocalyptic horror. There’s a smattering of contemporary horror, in stories like Always A Price and Shadow of Drought. But for me, Anderton is at her absolute best when she plays with future tech and the breakdown of society, as she always manages to approach it from a completely human perspective, no matter how far out her settings and situations.

And they are often far out. Anderton’s work delves into the truly surreal and her exploration of that surreality is utterly convincing. She expertly sets up an environment with such confidence, and so little backstory and development required, that we simply accept it without question and are immediately invested in the trials of her characters.

Those characters are usually focused on the maintenance of family and individuality in the face of apocalypse, the saving of loved ones against the tide of technology gone feral. Her stories are all about family, all against authority, constantly finding the humanity in the face of the apocalypse. Always in her work, despite the horror, there is hope. But that hope isn’t always rewarded.

Anderton is a writer with a deft touch, creating something we can see, feel and even smell, and then she gently twists it into something weird and disturbing. Every story is like this to one extent or another. There isn’t a bad story in this collection – it’s one of the strongest single-author collections to come out for a long time – but it’s impossible not to have favourites. The beauty of the variety here is that everyone is likely to have different favourites. For me, the stand-out stories are Out Hunting for Teeth, Sanaa’s Army and Mah Song (one of two originals in the collection – the other original being Fence Lines.) But those three are almost arbitrarily picked, because every story is great. Tomorrow, in a slightly different mood, I might pick three different ones.

The Bone Chime Song and other stories is a powerful and compelling debut collection from an author who is barely started on her journey and already producing work of incredible quality. I can’t wait to see where she goes from here.

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Horror! Under the Tombstone, selected by David A Sutton – review by Mario Guslandi

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under-the-tombstoneHorror! Under the Tombstone

Selected by David A Sutton

Trade Paperback , 333 pages

Publisher: Shadow Publishing , UK 2013

The ‘70s  were mythical years for the British horror scene, as regards both books and movies, but , with a few exceptions, the names of the authors of supernatural fiction of that long gone era  are now mostly forgotten.

Reprinting a bunch of stories that previously appeared in the anthologies New Writings in Horror and the Supernatural vol 1 & 2 (1971 and 1972) is an interesting venture not only as a mere tribute to nostalgia, but also as a way to document the canons and the style of a dark fiction born and developed in a different age.

Predictably, a good amount of the stories  sound a bit outdated, even naïve, when read some forty years later. Only great literature survives the passing of times and fashions, and this is certainly not the case for the majority of the tales included in the present volume, even when the authors are the likes of Ramsey Campbell, Rosemary Timperley, David A Sutton, Robert P Holdstock and so on.

Some of the tales, however, do maintain their strength and are still able to entertain and disquiet the reader just as if written today.

Among those tales I’ll mention, first of all, “Goat” by David Campton, a solid piece of supernatural fiction portraying the uncanny, lethal powers of an old man using witchcraft to terrify and kill, and “The Hollow Where” by Michael G Coney, an odd tale where two couples of farmers keep shifting roles, due to  the paranormal influence of a haunted area on the hill nearby.

Bryn Fortney’s “Shrewhampton North-East” is a very fine example of Kafkaesque nightmare, served with a touch of black humour, about a group of passengers indefinitely stuck in an unknown train station.

“The Inglorious Rise of the Catsmeat Man” by Robyn Smyth is a very enjoyable, although not quite original story revolving around a delicious catsmeat of disreputable origin while “Infra-Man” by Roger Parkes  is a bizarre yet powerful story where a husband who shouldn’t be there appears in infrared pictures, much to the dismay of his displeased wife.

In the claustrophobic “Under the Tombstone” by Kenneth Bulmer, inhuman creatures lurk under a tombstone in an ancient, now deconsecrated church, while in the pleasurable “A Bottle of Spirits” by David A Riley a young man manages to get hired as the assistant to a stage magician and to discover the secret of his supernatural powers.

In short a pleasant and interesting  journey into the horror and supernatural fiction of a  not too distant time when the world was less sophisticated and our fears were perhaps more simple.

- Mario Guslandi

2012 Ditmar Award finalists announced

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We’re definitely deep in award season now. This year’s NatCon, Conflux 9, has released the shortlists of finalists for the 2012 Ditmar Awards. Congratulations to all the nominees!

The Ditmar subcommittee are pleased to announce the ballot for the
Australian SF (“Ditmar”) Award for 2013. Voting has now opened, and will
remain open until one minute before midnight AEST (ie. 11.59pm, GMT+11), Thursday, 25th of April, 2013.

Note – every category also contains the option to vote no award should be granted, as per the Ditmar rules.

—

The 2013 ballot is as follows:

Best Novel
————————————————————————
* Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)
* Bitter Greens, Kate Forsyth (Random House Australia)
* Suited (The Veiled Worlds 2), Jo Anderton (Angry Robot)
* Salvage, Jason Nahrung (Twelfth Planet Press)
* Perfections, Kirstyn McDermott (Xoum)
* The Corpse-Rat King, Lee Battersby (Angry Robot)

Best Novella or Novelette
————————————————————————
* “Flight 404”, Simon Petrie, in Flight 404/The Hunt for Red Leicester
(Peggy Bright Books)
* “Significant Dust”, Margo Lanagan, in Cracklescape (Twelfth Planet
Press)
* “Sky”, Kaaron Warren, in Through Splintered Walls (Twelfth Planet Press)

Best Short Story
————————————————————————
* “Sanaa’s Army”, Joanne Anderton, in Bloodstones (Ticonderoga
Publications)
* “The Wisdom of Ants”, Thoraiya Dyer, in Clarkesworld 75
* “The Bone Chime Song”, Joanne Anderton, in Light Touch Paper Stand
Clear (Peggy Bright Books)
* “Oracle’s Tower”, Faith Mudge, in To Spin a Darker Stair (FableCroft
Publishing)

Best Collected Work
————————————————————————
* Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan, edited by Alisa Krasnostein (Twelfth
Planet Press)
* Epilogue, edited by Tehani Wessely (FableCroft Publishing)
* Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren, edited by Alisa Krasnostein
(Twelfth Planet Press)
* Light Touch Paper Stand Clear, edited by Edwina Harvey and Simon
Petrie (Peggy Bright Books)
* Midnight and Moonshine by Lisa L. Hannett and Angela Slatter, edited
by Russell B. Farr (Ticonderoga Publications)
* The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011, edited by Liz
Grzyb and Talie Helene (Ticonderoga Publications)

Best Artwork
————————————————————————
* Cover art, Nick Stathopoulos, for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight
Magazine 56 (ASIM Collective)
* Cover art, Kathleen Jennings, for Midnight and Moonshine (Ticonderoga
Publications)
* Illustrations, Adam Browne, for Pyrotechnicon (Coeur de Lion
Publishing)
* Cover art and illustrations, Kathleen Jennings, for To Spin a Darker
Stair (FableCroft Publishing)
* Cover art, Les Petersen, for Light Touch Paper Stand Clear (Peggy
Bright Books)

Best Fan Writer
————————————————————————
* Alex Pierce, for body of work including reviews in Australian
Speculative Fiction in Focus
* Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work including reviews in Not If You
Were The Last Short Story On Earth
* Grant Watson, for body of work including the “Who50” series in The
Angriest
* Sean Wright, for body of work including reviews in Adventures of a
Bookonaut

Best Fan Artist
————————————————————————
* Kathleen Jennings, for body of work including “The Dalek Game” and
“The Tamsyn Webb Sketchbook”

Best Fan Publication in Any Medium
————————————————————————
* The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond
* Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Alex
Pierce
* Antipodean SF, Ion Newcombe
* The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
* Snapshot 2012, Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, Helen Merrick, Ian Mond, Jason Nahrung et. al.
* Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus, Alisa Krasnostein, Tehani
Wessely, et. al.
* Galactic Chat, Alisa Krasnostein, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Sean Wright

Best New Talent
————————————————————————
* David McDonald
* Faith Mudge
* Steve Cameron
* Stacey Larner

William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review
————————————————————————
* Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, and Tehani Wessely, for review of Mira Grant’s Newsflesh, in ASIF
* Tansy Rayner Roberts, for “Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy.
Let’s Unpack That.”, in tor.com
* David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts, and Tehani Wessely, for the “New Who in Conversation” series
* Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene, for “The Year in Review”, in The Year’s
Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011
* Rjurik Davidson, for “An Illusion in the Game for Survival”, a review
of Reamde by Neal Stephenson, in The Age

—

The official ballot paper, including postal address information, may be
downloaded as a PDF format file from:

http://ditmars.sf.org.au/2013/2013_Ditmar_ballot.pdf

Once voting opens, votes will be accepted via email to:

ditmars@sf.org.au

However, if possible, please vote online at:

http://ditmars.sf.org.au/2013

Postal ballots will be distributed in the near future.

Voting for the Ditmar Award is conducted in accordance with the rules
specified at http://wiki.sf.org.au/Ditmar_rules, and is open to members
of Conflux 9 (including supporting members) and to members of
Continuum 8 who were eligible to vote in the 2011 Award. Voting in all
award categories is by the optional preferential system, and each
eligible individual may vote only once. All ballots (including emailed
ballots) should include the name and address of the voter. If you have
questions regarding the ballot or voting procedure, please email
ditmars@sf.org.au.

Prizes

This year, everyone who votes in the Ditmar Awards will go in the running for some cool prizes – so make sure you have your say on what you think was the best science fiction/fantasy/horror related work by an Australian to grace the world in 2012!

If you’re not yet eligible to vote, join Conflux 9 now! Membership form available on the tab above.