New book! The Aware by Glenda Larke

August 7, 2013 ~ Tehani

The first of Glenda Larke’s Isles of Glory trilogy, The Aware, is now available in ebook from FableCroft. From the blurb:

Imagine what it’s like to be born citizenless in a world where citizenship is everything.

Imagine what it’s like to be abandoned by the parents you can’t remember before you are two years old, in a city that despises you for being a halfbreed.

Imagine what it is like to be able to see magic when others can’t.

Imagine what it’s like to live in the Glory Isles at a time when your archipelago is about to be discovered by another civilization from half a world away.

Changes are in the wind.

This is the world of The Aware.

***

One of my favourite things about this book is that the narrator, Blaze, is not the typical character we so often see in fantasy. You know that idea of a “strong female character” we often hear about but rarely actually see in action? To me, Blaze is the type of creation that phrase actually describes! Put her alongside a supporting cast who you will get to know and still want more, and some of the best world-building in modern fantasy, and The Aware is the start of an excellent reading journey.

***

“Rich world building will capture the reader’s interest. With a forceful heroine who is mature and experienced, Larke crafts a fantastic tale that moves beyond a typical coming-of-age fantasy. Fans of Lois McMaster Bujold and Mercedes Lackey’s strong heroines will relish Blaze’s adventures.” –Romantic Times, USA.

***

See where you can grab your copy of The Aware here, and look out for the rest of the trilogy soon!

Announcements

June 29, 2013 ~ Tehani

While things may have seemed rather quiet around these parts, we’re like the proverbial duck paddling – lots going on under the water!

Liquid Gold, the second of Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Mocklore Chronicles, is on its way into the ether via Amazon, Kobo, Wizard’s Tower and Weightless Books – check it out at your preferred etailer!
We’re delighted to announce we will be working with Glenda Larke to bring her Isles of Glory trilogy out in ebook – timeline isn’t firm yet, but The Aware will be out in the coming months.
We’ve been working on this one for a while now, but we can now formally announce FableCroft’s first original novel, Path of Night by Dirk Flinthart, will be released in October in print and ebook editions. Think science fictional crime noir with a supernatural flavour and the usual Flinthart flair, and you’ll have an idea of what’s in store!

Another couple of projects underway that are not quite ready for sharing yet, but we’ll let you know as soon as we can!

New ebooks!

June 3, 2013 ~ Tehani

As promised, One Small Step and The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories are now available as ebooks. To make it easy to find your preferred format, I’ve created a new page on the site that links to the various places that all our ebooks books are available. Enjoy!

Cool stuff round up

May 13, 2013 ~ Tehani

While the publisher has been relocating (again – second move this year, but hopefully the last for a goodly long while!), there have been some cool things said about our books around the place. I’ve been putting links to reviews on our new FableCroft Books in Review page, and it’s been really exciting to see the books getting talked about in places like Locus Online, Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, as well as by fantastic book bloggers and reviews website!

It was with great pleasure we published “Flower and Weed” by Margo Lanagan on Kindle a little while ago. This short story was first available in audio from Coeur de Lion, but this is the first time it’s seen “print”. It is set in Margo’s Sea Hearts (Brides of Rollrock Island) world, and gives you a taste of what was left out so the book could be classifed as YA! Just 99 cents from your Kindle store.

Another groovy thing that I saw last week was Rabia Gale and Joanne Anderton (writers of “Sand and Seawater” in One Small Step) blogging about collaboration – separately! If you’re interested in how they did it, their posts are worth a read (Rabia / Joanne). I wonder if Lisa Hannett and Angela Slatter would also like to blog about their OSS collaboration…

And while things have been delayed slightly by the intervention of the move, I promise the ebooks for One Small Step and The Bone Chime Song will both be available soon!

Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror reprints

April 22, 2013 ~ Tehani

We would like to congratulate all our authors whose works will appear in the 2012 Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror (from Ticonderoga Publications, July 2013). In particular, three stories first published by FableCroft will be reprinted! Well done to Thoraiya Dyer (“Sleeping Beauty” from Epilogue), Faith Mudge (“Oracle’s Tower” from To Spin a Darker Stair) and Tansy Rayner Roberts (“What Books Survive” from Epilogue). Lovely news!

Speaking of news, we’ve started a new page on this website called “FableCroft Books in Review“, where we link to online reviews of our books – check it out to see what reviewers have been saying about us!

More awards niceness

April 15, 2013 ~ Tehani ~ 1 Comment

We already posted about our appearance on the Ditmar Awards ballot (don’t forget to vote for your favourite works, if you’re eligible to). Today the Chronos Awards ballot has been announced and we’re delighted to have more works on there too! The Chronos Awards are for Victorian creators, and there are some fantastic works on the ballot. If you are a full or supporting member of Continuum, you are eligible to vote, or voting memberships may also be purchased (details here). Congratulations to everyone on the ballot!

Best Long Fiction

Bread and Circuses by Felicity Dowker (Ticonderoga Publications)

Salvage by Jason Nahrung (Twelfth Planet Press)

Walking Shadows by Narrelle M. Harris (Clan Destine Press)

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

Dyson’s Drop by Paul Collins (Ford Street Publishing)

No Award

Best Short Fiction

“Five Ways to Start a War” by Sue Bursztynski in Light Touch Paper Stand Clear, edited by Edwina Harvey and Simon Petrie (Peggy Bright Books)

“The Mornington Ride” by Jason Nahrung in Epilogue, edited by Tehani Wessely (FableCroft Publishing)

“Nematalien” by LynC in The Narratorium, edited by David Grigg

“Fireflies” by Steve Cameron in Epilogue (FableCroft Publishing)

“The D_d” by Adam Browne in Light Touch Paper Stand Clear, edited by Edwina Harvey and Simon Petrie (Peggy Bright Books)

No Award

Best Fan Writer

Alexandra Pierce

Jason Nahrung

Nalini Haynes

Bruce Gillespie

Grant Watson

Steve Cameron

No Award

Best Fan Written Work

Reviewing New Who series by David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely

No Award

Best Fan Artist

Dick Jenssen

No Award

Best Fan Artwork

“The Entellechy” by Dick Jenssen, cover art for Interstellar Ramjet Scoop for ANZAPA 267 edited by Bill Wright

No Award

Best Fan Publication

Dark Matter Fanzine (www.darkmatterfanzine.com), by Nalini Hayes

SF Commentary, (http://efanzines.com/SFC/) edited by Bruce Gillespie

Viewing Clutter, DVD and Blu-ray reviews blog (http://georgeivanoff.com.au/other-writing/reviews/viewing-clutter/), by George Ivanoff

No Award

Best Achievement

Continuum 8: Craftonomicon (51st Australian National SF Convention) Program by Julia Svaganovic, Emma Hespa Mann, and Caitlin Noble

“Snapshot 2012″ by Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, Helen Merrick, Ian Mond, Jason Nahrung, Alex Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Tehani Wessely and Sean Wright

No Award

Best Artwork

The award for Best Artwork is not being presented due to insufficient nominations being received.

So you’ve written a book… What now?

April 13, 2013 ~ Tehani

Today I presented for CBCA Tasmania on the topic of publishing. It was a well attended session and I thoroughly enjoyed both the preparation of the presentation and the talk itself. I spoke for nearly an hour and a half (thankfully there were questions too!) and was followed by Nella talking about the nuts and bolts (things like ISBNs, CiP application, legal deposit and so on) and Richard, who gave a brief overview on copyright for authors. My part focussed on the various options authors have for getting published, focussing on traditional, boutique and self-publishing routes. My presentation is made available to download here, for the purposes of the participants, but I don’t mind who else reads it (and it is licensed under Creative Commons, so you are welcome to use it under the licence conditions).

Obviously I spoke a lot more than what is contained on the presentation but you get the gist.

I didn’t really talk a lot about the specifics of marketing your book (whether you self-publish or not, you still need to market!) but did mention that it’s always useful to have ephemera such as bookmarks or postcards to pass out to potential readers and that Vistaprint has been having some excellent deals (you have to be patient and wait for free upload combined with discounts/freebies for the best bargains, but these do happen!). It also occurred to me that I might have spoken in more detail about social networking, but I think that’s a whole other session!

Thanks to all the participants who seemed to find the information useful, and particularly to Nella, both for inviting me and for practising her grandma skills so successfully with the baby I had in tow!

ETA: A couple more useful links that are relevant!

10 ways self publishing has changed the world

A contractual obligation (looking at contracts and what you are signing)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License.

New book! Canterbury 2100 edited by Dirk Flinthart

April 4, 2013 ~ Tehani

As part of the year of doing all the things here at FableCroft, we’ve just republished the very excellent collaborative anthology* Canterbury 2100: pilgrimages in a new world edited by Dirk Flinthart.

Originally published by Agog! in 2008, Canterbury 2100 sold out its print edition some time ago, and we decided (in consultation with the editor, previous publisher, and the authors) that it was too good a book to disappear. It’s with great pleasure we bring Canterbury 2100 back to the world with an ebook edition (currently only on Kindle, but more options to follow).

FableCroft would like to thank the editor, Dirk Flinthart, the orignal publisher, Cat Sparks at Agog!, the authors, and the cover artist Nick Stathopoulos, for agreeing to be part of the project again.

You want to know more?

Six hundred years ago, a group of pilgrims made their way to Canterbury, and Geoffrey Chaucer created one of the great works of English literature. A hundred years from now, a nuclear-powered steam train is stopped by a massive storm on its journey to Canterbury, the new capital of an England struggling to rise from the ashes of the twenty-first century. As the waters rise with the storm’s fury, the weird and wonderful passengers tell the stories of a new age…

18 original short stories interwoven with a narrative thread that twines together the pieces to depict a fictional future exploring the stories that the people of that future tell each other.

Contents

Introduction (Dirk Flinthart)
The Tingler’s Tale (Geoffrey Maloney)
The Nun’s Tale (Angela Slatter)
The Dead Priest’s Tale (Martin Livings)
The Veteran’s Tale (Stephen Dedman)
The Miner’s Tale (Laura E Goodin)
The Sky-Chief’s Tale (Sue Isle)
The Census-Taker’s Tale (Kaaron Warren)
The Mathematician’s Tale (Durand Welsh)
The Doctor’s Tale (Ben Bastian)
The Hunter’s Tale (Grant Watson)
The Peat-Digger’s Tale (Thoraiya Dyer)
The Metawhore’s Tale (Lee Battersby)
The Janus’s Tale (Penelope Love)
The Lighterman’s Tale (Trent Jamieson)
The Carbon-Knitter’s Tale (Rita de Heer)
The Evangelist’s Tale (L L Hannett)
The Gnomologist’s Tale (Matthew Chrulew)
The Conductor’s Tale (Lyn Battersby)
Afterword (Dirk Flinthart)

* I just made that phrase up – read the book and you’ll know why!

Awards and Reviews!

March 27, 2013 ~ Tehani

As we look ahead to the launch of The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories and One Small Step with Publishers Weekly reviews of both, we also get to look back at the year that was, with a Awards ballots!

The Ditmars have been kind to FableCroft and our authors, and I’m also chuffed to be on the ballot for fan works too! If you were a member of last year’s Natcon in Melbourne, or this year’s in Canberra, you can (and SHOULD!) vote! Congratulations to everyone who is on the ballot – look forward to the announcements at Conflux!

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. (et. al. would include me! And Alex Pierce and Sean Wright and Tansy Rayner Roberts)
* 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