This week I’m over at Sue Bursztynski’s site The Great Raven reviewing Fly by Night and Twilight Robbery by the wonderful Frances Hardinge.
And here is the link.
https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com/2020/11/two-books-by-frances-hardinge-guest.html
There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. “Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.”
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming. “There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail.
“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?
…
Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, “So you think you’re changed, do you?”
“I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice; “I can’t remember things as I used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together!”
“Can’t remember what things?” said the Caterpillar.
“Well, I’ve tried to say “How doth the little busy bee,” but it all came different!” Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
Earlier this year but still during lockdown, work sent me over to the gritty industrial west of Melbourne to a station where I’d never been before. I’m from the middleclass eastern suburbs and grew up regarding this place as very much the wrong side of the tracks.
On this cold misty morning it’s all grit and grime.
Against a cold grey sky huge trucks roar as they belt over the bridge above. Derelict wheat silos loom across the tracks, rotting industrial machinery strewn at its feet. The only other person in sight is a man in a black hoody crossing the weed pocked car park. Of course. Maybe a drug dealer?
Here be dragons.
Except that someone has decorated the platform with planters of flowers.
And I’m somewhere new! During the Covid lockdown I’m somewhere new. Woo Hoo!
As I watch the man in the black hoodie begins to skip.
Today I’m guest posting over at The Great Raven blog of my friend Sue Bursztynski
Sue’s one of the hardest working bloggers I know. She says:
“I’m a writer, librarian, book reviewer, educator. I live in a beachside suburb of Melbourne with a lot of pot plants, but no cats. I slush fiction for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and hope that each one that arrives is going to be a potential Hugo winner.”
If your interested in how I did the world building for Shadow in the Empire of Light Check out my guest post here.
https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com/2020/08/jane-routley-guest-post.html
And then stay to see what other things Sue is writing about.
Today I’m doing a guest interview on the blogsite of World Fantasy award winning writer Angela Slatter.
Check out the link at
Slatter’s new book of microfictions – Red New Day has just come out from Brain Jar Press.
Hugo Award winning Mary Robinette Kowal, author of the Lady Astronaut series has been kind enough to host me on her blog My favorite bit
Here’s the link if you’d like to find out about my debt to Georgette.
Try Amazon if you’d like to know more about Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars
Shadow in the Empire of Light audio book.
Narrated by Natalie Buscombe https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4099902/
She also played Jane Austen in the The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles audio story False Coronets.
On Audible now.
Also available at