It’s been more than a while since I’ve updated this site — sorry! Lecturing full-time and trying to finish my new book means that some things — namely this here website and my addiction to social media — have been on hiatus. If it’s a choice between writing words here and writing words in the manuscript, I’m afraid that lately I’ve had to go with the latter. Many apologies, and here’s hoping the book’s done soon!
Anyway, a quick update (not a full update — I never did get around to talking about Conflux, did I? Well, long story short: I had fun! Aurealis Awards in Sydney? Fun! Everything between then and now? Probably also fun.)
This morning, my latest column for This Is Horror went up: it’s Part One of my dissection of several of Chuck Palahniuk’s books after Fight Club:
The most repeated lines from Palahniuk’s debut novel are undoubtedly, “The first rule about fight club is you don’t talk about fight club. The second rule about fight club … is you don’t talk about fight club.” But in terms of memorable, now-classic Fight Club lines, a close second would have to be those spoken by ‘Joe’s’ body parts. After reading an old magazine article in which pieces of the human body speak – “I am Jane’s Uterus. I am Joe’s Prostate.” – the narrator frequently uses ‘Joe’s’ guts as voice-boxes for his emotions:
Hearing this, I am totally Joe’s Gallbladder… I am Joe’s Raging Bile Duct… I am Joe’s Grinding Teeth… I am Joe’s Inflamed Flaring Nostrils… I am Joe’s White Knuckles… I am Joe’s Enraged, Inflamed Sense of Rejection.
This was such a cool technique in Fight Club – so new, so inventive, so fresh. But just as jokes become less and less funny the more frequently they’re told, this sort of repetition – what Palahniuk refers to as a ‘chorus’ – becomes less impressive in subsequent novels.
Head on over here to read the rest. Part Two will be published in July.
Also this morning, the ToC was announced for Imaginarium 2013: The Best Canadian Speculative Fiction, edited by Sandra Kasturi and Samantha Beiko, and I’m totally thrilled to be part of it (with Angela, who is now an honourary Canadian)! There are so many incredible authors in this anthology, that it’s an absolute delight to be in their company.
Table of Contents:
- “Introduction: In Which I Speculate” by Tanya Huff
- “Blink” by Michael Kelly
- “Nightfall in the Scent Garden” by Claire Humphrey
- “The Ghosts of Birds” by Helen Marshall
- “The Last Love of the Infinity Age” by Peter Darbyshire
- “Too Much is Never Enough” by Don Bassingthwaite
- “Bigfoot Cured My Arthritis” by Robert Colman
- “Wing” by Amal El-Mohtar
- “Arrow” by Barry King
- “Penny” by Dominik Parisien
- “Thought and Memory” by Catherine Knutsson
- “Gaudifingers” by Tony Burgess
- “A sea monster tells his story” by David Livingstone Clink
- “Son of Abish” by Dave Duncan
- “Opt-In” by J.W. Schnarr
- “Last Amphibian Flees” by M.A.C. Farrant
- “White Teeth” by David Livingstone Clink
- “The Sweet Spot” by A.M. Dellamonica
- “Verse Found Scratched Inside the Lid of a Sarcophagus (Dynasty Unknown)” by Gemma Files
- “Collect Call” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- “Bella Beaufort Goes to War” by Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter
- “A Spell for Scrying Mirror Gremlins” by Peter Chiykowski
- “The Book of Judgement” by Helen Marshall
- “The Audit” by Susie Moloney
- “Sixteen Colours” by David Livingstone Clink
- “The Old Boys Club” by Geoff Gander
- “Fin de Siècle” by Gemma Files
- “Since Breaking Through the Ice” by Dominik Parisien
- “The Pack” by Matt Moore
- “Invocabulary” by Gemma Files
- “I Was a Teenage Minotaur” by A.G. Pasquella
- “Weep For Day” by Indrapramit Das
- “What I Learned at Genie School” by Jocko Benoit
- “Aces” by Ian Rogers
- “No Poisoned Comb” by Amal El-Mohtar
- “What a Picture Doesn’t Say” by Christopher Willard
- “The Last Islander” by Matthew Johnson
AND, Angela and I have a handful of Honourable Mentions for the anthology, too! So cool!
Speaking of Angela: head on over to her site for a chance to win a limited edition, signed hardcover copy of Midnight and Moonshine! The competition is open to readers worldwide — so go here to enter!
Lisa L. Hannett 