Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan

I am a big fan of the Twelve Planets series that is currently being published by Australian small press Twelve Planets Press. I look forward to each instalment but I must confess that this particularly instalment was one that I was anticipating more than most! And, of course, given that it is Margo Lanagan telling us short stories, I wasn't disappointed!

The collection opens with The Duchess Dresser. A young man picks up a duchess dresser from the side of the road and decides it will be the perfect piece of furniture for his room in the share house he lives in. The only thing wrong with it is that the drawer doesn't open.... oh and that same drawer rattles and shakes all night, and then there is the spectre of a young woman that seems to call it home. What I thought was interesting about this story is that while the story goes in a certain direction the reader is kind of lulled into thinking they know what is going on until suddenly it ends up somewhere differently but it still makes sense! Then again, that is pretty much trademark Lanagan and I should know that by now!

The next story is called Isles of the Sun and very much evokes the feeling of summer life by the beach. The kids are out playing, the beach is nearby and life is pretty relaxed. When a young boy sees some light beings, he feels called to follow them, and he just knows that they will teach him to fly! As he takes various steps to feel lighter, his convinces his friends and their friends to do likewise and suddenly there is a whole town of kids who are determined to follow and learn. The emotional punch of this stories comes from his mother's view of these events, knowing what she has seen but not being able to believe, and knowing that no one else could possibly believe her version of events either.

Lanagan has the reader questioning how they would react to the unusual when Don and his wife are catching the train to a friend's social event in Bajazzle. When a group of Sheelas sit near Don and his wife in a crowded train carriage he is clearly uncomfortable with the overt sexualisation of these young women and even more so when they start to 'sing' their story. When he comments that he doesn't find their performance entertaining, Don's wife suggests that "Maybe that’s ’cause it’s not put on for your entertainment."

Don is a man who is stuck in the past. He misses the woman his wife was now that she has taken to a much more feminist inspired lifestyle. The reader might hope that when he is tempted into a dilapidated house by a beautiful young woman that his good moral strength will shine through, but that is certainly not the only thing that he leaves behind.

With imagery in the story including inspiration from sheel na gig (according to Wikipedia "figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva") and succubi this story is not only fascinating and challenging but also quite disturbing. There was also a degree of sensuality in this story that I found quite surprising, until it was changed into something completely different in the course of a couple of pages.

The final story.is Significant Dust and takes as it's inspiration the Mundrabilla UFO encounter which happened in the middle of the Nullabor Plain in 1988. Rather than focus directly on this event, we instead meet Vanessa, a young woman, who has come to work in the isolated roadhouse in order to get away from a terrible accident that has basically changed her whole family. With the only interactions being with her misfit co-workers and travellers who pass through, Vanessa looks for ways to assuage her guild about the accident but also the truth about the strange people who sometimes stop in the roadhouse and the odd lights that illuminate her small room late at night.

What makes this collection different from previous short story collections by Lanagan is that there are only four stories, each approximately the same size, and that the setting for these stories is much more clearly Australian in setting than most of her other short stories. For these differences though, there are many similarities. Lanagan's writing is, as usual, pitch perfect and her ability to tell a complete story within such a small landscape is amazing.

I still have a few of Lanagan's stories to read which I must get to. Then again, I could quite easily reread this collection time and again and I am sure I would find something new each time. I think this is particularly true of the final two stories.

Rating 4/5

A presence haunts an old dresser in an inner-city share house. Shining sun-people lure children from their carefree beachside lives. Sheela-na-gigs colonise a middle-aged man’s outer and inner worlds. And a girl with a heavy conscience seeks relief in exile on the Treeless Plain.

These stories from four-time World Fantasy Award winner Margo Lanagan are all set in Australia, a myth-soaked landscape both stubbornly inscrutable and crisscrossed by interlopers’ dreamings. Explore four littoral and liminal worlds, a-crackle with fears and possibilities.

I read this short story collection for the following challenges

PS If you want to find out more about the Twelve Planets series check out my previous reviews which includes details of the collection as a whole.

Showtime by Narrelle M Harris

Showtime is the fifth of the Twelve Planets books to be released, and the third that I have read...so far.

Don't know about the Twelve Planets series? Here's a very brief summary from the publisher's website

The Twelve Planets are twelve boutique collections by some of Australia’s finest short story writers. Varied across genre and style, each collection will offer four short stories and a unique glimpse into worlds fashioned by some of our favourite storytellers. Each author has taken the brief of 4 stories and up to 40 000 words in their own direction. Some are quartet suites of linked stories. Others are tasters of the range and style of the writer. Each release will bring something unexpected to our subscriber’s mailboxes.

Last year I read and reviewed Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts and Nightsiders by Sue Isle, and other authors are involved in the project include Margo Lanagan, Cat Sparks and more! The best news that has happened since last year is that the books that have previously been published are now available on ebook so people outside of Australia can get hold of them. If nothing else, I would suggest getting hold of Love and Romanpunk at the very least (mainly because that is where I started) if you are interested in trying some different Australian spec-fic authors.

Whereas the two previous Twelve Planet books I have read had a similar structure in that the four individual short stories were linked through either narrative or characters, Showtime featured four stories that were not connected at all with each other. It also doesn't feature the same types of paranormal creatures in each story. We do have a couple of vampires, but there are also ghosts and zombies found in the pages.

The first of the stories in the collection is Stalemate and I must confess that, at first, I was a little perplexed because it doesn't actually seem all that speculative in nature, but the reader does gradually get to see how this  particular story very definitely sits within the remit of a speculative fiction collection. The story is quite mundane  to begin with - a woman who has been unwell has had her mother staying with her to help look after her. The stay is getting to the point where it has been too long and the house guest is not quite as welcome as she initially was or could be and every little thing is becoming intolerable. (I totally related to this particular aspect of the story!). There was a very satisfying twist in the tale in this story.

If I had to pick an absolute favourite of the collection (you know, picking just one!) then it would be the second story, Thrall. Dragomir has been a vampire for several hundred years. He is struggling a bit now. In this modern age, the blood he ingests just isn't as pure as it once was, he keeps on getting filmed and ending up on the news and Youtube, and truth be told he is kind of short and his physical presence is not as dominating of the general population as he once was. Even ordering a cup of tea is nowhere near as simple as he would like it.

He returns to his ancestral home with a view to taking refuge away from the modern world. In order to do this, there are certain requirements that must be fulfilled and so he sends a summons to the family who have been sworn to do his bidding for centuries. They always send the strongest man so he is not best pleased when the person who answers his call is a middle aged woman called Erszebet, but beggars can't be choosers.

Zombies are the focus of the third story, The Truth About Brains, and from a pure, smiling-while-reading it perspective, this was nearly my favourite mainly because I really liked the voice of the teenage protaganist, Amy. She is supposed to keep her eye out on her younger brother Dylan, but that gets a bit wearing after a while so she sneaks off with her friends, leaving him to his fate. As a result of some misadventure, he becomes a zombie. Amy knows that her mum is going to be VERY annoyed when she finds out and so she has to try and work out how it happened, and how to fix it fast! There is also a hint of an older story in the pages, one that it would also be interesting to read.

Here are a couple of quotes from early on which give a good idea of the tone of the story. Firstly, the opening paragraph:

My little brother Dylan is dead, but that doesn't stop him from being a pest. He still follows me everywhere, and Mum still makes me take him with me when I go to the shops.

and then a couple of paragraphs later:

He's only been like this for a few days. I thought it would be cool, having a zombie for a brother, but it's not. The fact is that it stinks. Literally. And it's getting worse every day. Maybe it's okay in Europe or whereever, but Australian summers are bad news. Nothing's fallen off him yet, but it's only a matter of time. I hate to think what's going to happen when school starts again in February. I don't think Mr Browning is going to let Dylan on the school footy team this year.

The final story, and the one that gives the collection its title Showtime, is connected to Narrelle's previous novel called The Opposite of Life which features a less-than-enthusiastic vampire, Gary and his human friend, Lissa, who is a librarian in her day job. I haven't read The Opposite of Life and, given the choice, I would not normally read a series out of order, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. I do now have the book waiting for me to pick up from the library after having to get it sent over by interlibrary loan.

Gary is somewhat different to the other vampires that you read about. He doesn't enjoy being vampire. He likes Lissa because she reminds him what it means to be human, really human. What could be more human than spending the day at the show (kind of like a big country fair in the city in case you don't know about the show). There's so much to do - you can see the cake decorating, the wood chopping, look at the animals (although they do tend to react badly to a vampire being in their midst) and not forgetting the sideshows with the rides, including the haunted house.

I can't remember the last time I went to the show, and I wouldn't normally spend a lot of time down Sideshow Alley even if I did go. Let's just say I would be even less likely to visit Sideshow Alley after having read this story because there could be all sorts of nefarious dealings going on down there!

This was another fun collection of stories from the Twelve Planets series. I definitely can't wait to see the next books when they arrive in my mailbox!

Rating 4/5

Family drama can be found anywhere: in kitchens, in cafes. Derelict hotels, showground rides. Even dungeons far below ruined Hungarian castles. (Okay, especially in Hungarian dungeons.)

Old family fights can go on forever, especially if you’re undead. If an opportunity came to save someone else’s family, the way you couldn’t save your own, would you take it?

Your family might include ghosts, or zombies, or vampires. Maybe they just have allergies. Nobody’s perfect.

Family history can weigh on the present like a stone. But the thing about families is, you can’t escape them. Not ever. And mostly, you don’t want to.

"It’s a beautiful collection of pieces, each one utterly classic and completely new at the same time… In Narrelle’s hands, everything old is new again, and everything new has the weight of age. There’s magic in that, and in this book." — Seanan McGuire

I read this book for the Aussie Author Challenge and The Australian Women Writers Challenge.

If my review has piqued your interest, there are currently a couple of giveaways happening of this collection at Goodreads. If you are an Australian interested in reading the book click here, and for US, Canada or Britain this is the link. Good luck!

Nightsiders by Sue Isle

In a future world of extreme climate change, Perth, Western Australia’s capital city, has been abandoned. Most people were evacuated to the East by the late ’30s and organised infrastructure and services have gone.

A few thousand obstinate and independent souls cling to the city and to the southern towns. Living mostly by night to endure the fierce temperatures, they are creating a new culture in defiance of official expectations. A teenage girl stolen from her family as a child; a troupe of street actors who affect their new culture with memories of the old; a boy born into the wrong body; and a teacher who is pushed into the role of guide tell the story of The Nightside.

Last week I posted about Love and Romanpunk, which was the second book that was released as part of the Twelve Planets series published by Twelfth Planet Press. This book, Nightsiders by Sue Isle, was the first published.

I hadn't read anything by Sue Isle before but knew as soon as I heard what the setting was that I wanted to read this collection of four short stories, one of which (Paper Dragons) had previously been published. The collection is predominantly set in the city where I was born, the city where most of my relatives still live, the city I visit quite regularly - Perth in Western Australia. This Perth however is only barely recognisable as the city I love to visit.

The book is set in the near future in a world where there has been dramatic climatic change in addition to bombings that have destroyed much of the infrastructure and housing. The temperatures soar during the day, forcing the few hardy souls who remain to take shelter where ever they can find it, and water is scarce. Most of the activity happens at night, hence the community being known as the Nightside. Most people have been evacuated to the East, and for the most part those who have been left behind have been forgotten.

The first story in the collection is The Painted Girl. The main character is Kyra, a young girl who travels with Nerina. They have travelled from place to place always being careful to behave appropriately as they travel through other groups areas and never to outstay their welcome. For the first time they that Kyra can remember, they are headed into the city proper. This story has familiar elements - the isolation you feel coming into an established community and not knowing how to act, a coming of age tale where getting to know yourself is made harder by the fact that you are not who you thought you were at all, but the harshness of the environment sandblasts these providing a rawness that is quite affecting.

The second story is Nation of the Night, and this is the story that is for me the lynch pin of the collection. The main character of the story is Ash, a young man born into a female body, and desperate for the gender reassignment surgery that will help him be the young man he feels himself to be. He has no choice but to head East to Melbourne for his operation. Whilst there are people that Ash meets in Melbourne that are welcoming to him as an outsider, the authorities or not. The city that I live in now is portrayed as overcrowded with refugees and suffering from it's own climactic issues, different from those faced in Perth, but with its own devastating implications for those who live in this city. As well as looking at the identity issues for Ash, there is also discussion of the fate of refugees in the city and the difficulties that they face like being able to provide and educate their families, as well as dangers facing those who don't belong. To me, this felt like a political statement given the emotional reactions that people have to the refugee issue, not only in Australia, but also in other places around the world.

The third story in the collection, Paper Dragons, is the one that worked least well for me, not so much because of the story itself but because of what we had already learned about the world. This story focused again on the younger members of the group with Ash appearing again within the narrative. I did think about using the word tribe rather than group but hesitated to do so, but there is almost a tribal feel to the group with all the members having prescribed duties. I think that the tribal element really comes to the fore in the fourth story, but more on that later. When on a mission to search through some of the dwellings for anything that might be of use to the group, Itch and Shani find some papers, which turn out to be a manuscript. When the troup of Players talk of performing the play, there is opposition from within the group as they fear that some of the memories of the past may be awakened and cause new ideas to be born that may cause changes that some within the group. The power of entertainment to provoke discussion and change is an interesting concept to explore in this setting.

Continuing with the idea of change and growth, the fourth story is also one I found very touching. In The Schoolteacher's Tale, Ellen Wakeling (the teacher of the title and oldest member of the group) is asked to perform the function of elder at an assembly to be held outside of the time and in conjunction with a tribe of native Australians. Whilst the vast majority of the people who live in this Perth stay close to the city centre, a few hardy souls have been spreading out into the surrounding areas, and now, there is a chance to move out to the Edge. For Ellen the trip to the Edge is a journey that forces her to think about the way that the people left behind in the colony have learned the skills that they need to survive and whether it is time for new ways to be examined and put into place. In some ways the expansion into the surrounding areas, and the meeting up with the Aboriginal communities felt a bit like a chance for recolonisation this time in partnership rather than through conflict.

Part of the reason I think that this story affected me as much as it did was that I recognised the journey that Ellen took, out through Mt Lawley, along the railway line (no longer in use in this book), out past the Peninsula hotel, as this is the route that I take most times I go to Perth and visit my family.

This book and Love and Romanpunk are completely different books, connected only in that they have been published as part of the Twelve Planets series, but they were both really good reads, and I can't wait for the next one to arrive in my mailbox in the next few weeks. I will definitely be ordering the future releases in the series and can't wait to see where I am taken next.

 Rating 4/5

This book  counted for the Aussie Author Challenge and I also counted it for the  Once Upon a Time V challenge which officially ends today (although it possibly fits under others of Carl's challenges just as easily). This is a therefore a good chance for me to list most of the books that I read during the challenge! Extra pleasing to me is to see that half of these authors are Aussie authors, and that I got to review all of those books! I actually didn't do that deliberately but I am glad it worked out that way.


The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Glitter Rose by Marianne de Pierre
The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan
The Midnight Palace by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen
Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Thousands of years ago, Julia Agrippina wrote the true history of her family, the Caesars. The document was lost, or destroyed, almost immediately.


(It included more monsters than you might think.)


Hundreds of years ago, Fanny and Mary ran away from London with a debauched poet and his sister.


(If it was the poet you are thinking of, the story would have ended far more happily, and with fewer people having their throats bitten out.)


Sometime in the near future, a community will live in a replica Roman city built in the Australian bush. It’s a sight to behold.


(Shame about the manticores.)


Further in the future, the last man who guards the secret history of the world will discover that the past has a way of coming around to bite you.


(He didn’t even know she had a thing for pointy teeth.)


The world is in greater danger than you ever suspected. Women named Julia are stronger than they appear. Don’t let your little brother make out with silver-eyed blondes. Immortal heroes really don’t fancy teenage girls. When love dies, there’s still opera. Family is everything. Monsters are everywhere. Yes, you do have to wear the damned toga.


History is not what you think it is.

Some times when you read a new author, you just know that you are going to enjoy their books because you enjoy their voice! Tansy Rayner Roberts is one of those authors. She is a new author to me this year. I first read her story Relentless Adaptations in the Sprawl anthology, and then she guest posted for me, and finally, on the strength of loving this short story collection I have also now purchased the first book in her Creature Court trilogy, Power and the Glory.

Before I talk any more about this particular collection, I wanted to talk about the series that this is part of.

Love and Romanpunk is the second book in the Twelve Planets series that is being published by a small Australian publisher called Twelfth Planet Press. Here is their description of what this series is all about:

The Twelve Planets are twelve boutique collections by some of Australia’s finest short story writers. Varied across genre and style, each collection will offer four short stories and a unique glimpse into worlds fashioned by some of our favourite storytellers. Each author has taken the brief of 4 stories and up to 40 000 words in their own direction. Some are quartet suites of linked stories. Others are tasters of the range and style of the writer. Each release will bring something unexpected to our subscriber’s mailboxes.

I was going to wait for this book to come out in ebook before ordering but then I saw that the cover was purple and had to have a physical book! And seeing as I was getting this one, I also ordered Nightsiders by Sue Isle (which I have read and enjoyed) and then upcoming release by Lucy Sussex which is titled Thief of Time. Other authors who are going to be included in the series include Margo Lanagan, Rosaleen Love,  Deborah Biancotti, Kaaron Warren, Cat Sparks, Kirstyn McDermott, Narrelle M Harris, Thoraiya Dyer and Stephanie Campisi. The vast majority are new to me authors so not only will I get some good spec fic short stories, but I will also be fulfilling my personal challenge to read more Australian authors.

Anyway, that's enough about the series. What about this book?

I mentioned above that Tansy Rayner Roberts voice really works for me, and that is really embodied in my reaction to this book. Roberts has taken her love of spec fic and of Roman history and combined them with the paranormal to come up with something that is totally unique (or at least I haven't read anything like it) and so much fun! And I must give a huge congrats to whoever wrote the cover blurb because I do think that the humour and fun that is present in the book is very much reflected in the blurb!

Within Love and Romanpunk, there are four connected stories that take us in time from ancient Rome to the future. The first story is Julia Agrippina's Secret Family Bestiary where the title character tells us all about the strange goings on within the Roman imperial family. Julia was the daughter of Agrippina Major, widow of Tiberius Claudius Nero, wife and niece of Emperor Claudius and mother of Emperor Nero, and she gives us a glimpse into a family filled with paranormal strength (which can be a good and a bad thing) and the special powers that have been bestowed on the Julias. And the creatures - they are legion. Well actually they aren't, but there are a lot of them - from werewolves to lamia, to harpies and dragons, and so much more.

The second story is Lamia Victoriana, and is set in the Victorian era. It features two young girls who run off with a debauched poet and his sister. There are elements of forbidden love and passion, and a willingness on the part of the participants as to the type of people the poet and his sister really are. Somewhat fittingly seeing as it is inferred that there is a connection to Mary Wollstonecroft this story is somewhat darker, more gothic in tone than the others that make up the collection.

The third story, The Patrician, was my favourite. I loved this story from the relationship between the two main characters to the concept of having a theme town that is built in country Australia called Nova Ostia, built with some of the original bricks from ancient Rome. If you think about historical villages but instead of showing what life would be like in the old west or frontier life the enactment is of Roman life and you would be close to the concept. It is all very well for the tourists who come and visit but for the people who have to live there and appear as authentic as possible it can be a drag.

When we meet Clea Majora when she is a teenager who is growing up in Nova Ostia. Her life is changed when she meets Julius. I can't tell you too much more about Julius without spoiling too much but I can probably say that over the years he disappears and reappears in Clea's life, their relationship changing and redesigning itself as Clea gets older, but Julius doesn't!

The fourth and final story in the collection is called Last of the Romanpunks and is set further into the future and features as it's main character Clea's grandson Sebastian and a very feisty young waitress. When Sebastian is deceived into attending the launch of a new airship that has been converted into a floating Roman themed taverna, he doesn't realise that for him and for some monsters, it will be a matter of life and death.

Whilst these stories could be read as standalone stories, I think it is a collection that begs to be read in order. Not only does the author manage to take us on a journey through time, we also wend our way through subgenres including historical and urban fantasy, with a touch of the gothic, and a little romanpunk as well (if romanpunk isn't already a subgenre it totally should be).

I thoroughly enjoyed my foray into Love and Romanpunk and can't wait to read more of the Twelve Planets books, and more from Tansy Rayner Roberts.

This post is posted as part of the Short Story Quest for the Once Upon a Time V channel, and because I just had to tell you all about this book!

Rating: 4.5/5