LETHE : Book #1, The Squirrels

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Shout out to Zach, the bearded guy with a baby strapped to him who bought a copy of Crossroads of Canopy yesterday in Dymocks, after I was so overly excited to see it there that I couldn't help but point it out to him. Since the book's release, the kindness of my friends, colleagues and bona-fide actual fans has kept me buoyant as the waves of fortune have washed over me. Everybody who came to my launches in Newcastle, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne, you are wonderful. The rainforest, of course, is the gift that just keeps on giving, and it's time to go to the next level Go to Amazon where you can use the gadget to enlarge it.

Even preorder the book while you're there! Or from Book Depository!

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Or any your local bookshop of choice. Oh, and if you use it, don't forget to add to your to-read pile at Goodreads! After that, I'll hope to see as many people as possible at Worldcon 75 , Helsinki, Finland, 9th - 13th August If my dodgy kneecap hold out. End, Begin, all the same. I guess that's my way of saying I'm now a real, live novelist. Thank you friends, readers, agent, editors, publisher-folk! And thank you, Aughra. It was you, and other weird, fantastical ideas, that dragged me into this genre, so deep that I'll never escape.

Here are many places for the purchasing of Crossroads of Canopy: There are many reviews, both good and bad, at Goodreads and Amazon if you need help deciding whether or not to give it a go. But you should have an idea yourself if you've read the prologue or first chapter at Tor. Congrats to all the other folk on the shortlist and thank you kindly to the judges. The next few months will be busy with appearances: Hoping for a fine turnout to each and all!

What was sundered and undone shall be whole, the two made one! Your author-in-residence finds herself still mildly injured, yet determined to meet her deadlines and also, during various festivities, determined to eat wattle seed scones with lemon myrtle cream and macadamia Haagen-Dazs Just like my imminent shiny new novel! The time for your Goodreads Giveaway is now!

Tor is sending out 10 advance copies, huzzah! In my head it's "that slightly harrowing Europa story" but actually the title is The Shallowest Waves and you know where to go to subscribe to Analog if you want, you don't need me to tell you ;. It's looking like I'll have some Australian book launches for Crossroads of Canopy next year, plus or minus the talented Cat Sparks with her hotly anticipated SF biopunk Lotus Blue , due in March More information as it comes to hand.

Goodreads Giveaway for Aussies ends Nov 20th! Widget deleted, alas, because too wide for this fixed-width page. My friend Melissa thinks to herself: I told you so. I've been a bit quiet online lately, due to an injury, but keep your eyes peeled for a Twitter giveaway in the not-too-distant future. Jemisin and Sofia Samatar with a simultaneous audio release by the amazing Podcastle. I joined Newcastle City Archers in Peter taught me from my first day through to the end of when I stopped shooting competitively though the visits to Neath didn't stop.

Much more than a coach, he was a father-figure who modelled humility, patience and quiet expertise; who was able to guide without attempting to control, advise without passing judgement, and who, as a gifted woodworker and archer, embodied the qualities I later fell in love with and married in younger form when my Action Man came onto the scene. Peter, you dressed as an executioner for my medieval party, you made my bowstrings, you laughed at my bad jokes and ate my weird ethnic food without complaining.

You're leaving a hole behind like a pass-through in a paper target. Thank you for everything. But not on the train.

Because 12 hours on the not-actually-very-fast-train is a cash saving but not a sanity saving. Just so we're clear on that little experiment. Prior to that was the Brisbane convention, Contact, and oh boy, did those folks have their shit together! It was fantastic and I'd totally go for another one of those, too! I haven't forgotten you, Conflux. See you in Canberra in October.

And yay for my friends who not only make conventions awesome but help me to get to them. If you can't wait til January to read one of my long works of course you can't! I'll be appearing on three different panels. Giant , my "Defying Doomsday" story, is set for a mid release. And it is set in space. So you can see I have been travelling widely inside my own brain. Oh, and I have started collecting email addresses in case you would like any of these brief and infrequent updates arriving in your inbox, instead of having to remember to check this site.

Sign up on my contact page!

Mistletoe is OK, though. I did a National Parks cultural tour in the Snowy Mountains once where this Wiradjuri guy showed us which mistletoe fruits were safe to eat and how not to get poisoned, it was so cool. Get thee to a newsagency, Aussie readers!

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To the online shop, othersies! I don't have too much other news on the writing front. I've delivered a couple of short stories to the lovely editors who have asked for them and am waiting to hear about whether they've made the grade. How gorgeous is that website? Yes, so the ballot has been out since July and I haven't mentioned here that Long Hidden is shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award which is really freakin' cool! I have to remember that wonderful strangers may now be landing here hello, wonderful strangers!

What Keats said about melancholy and bursting joy's grape against your palate fine, etc. Although in the Titans Forest series I have ditched such temperate climate fruits as grapes for the delights of blue quandongs and magenta cherries. I was a bit weepy down in Canberra when I got up to accept it. It meant so much to me, since I had won before for fantasy but never science fiction. They are both so dear to my heart. It's going to be ludicrous Australian Capital Territorian fun!

Hard choices this year, my family put through the wringer; job losses, relocations, mental illnesses, death, dementia and suicide; in a way I won't be sad to see go, to turn that new leaf, to see what jewel bugs or funnelweb spiders wait on the other side. Then again, the release of this book is a real milestone for me: Vintana is set in Madagascar and stars the fabulously ruthless Queen Ranavalona.

The lineup looks so good! About as good as appearing with Ursula LeGuin in Clarkesworld 90 , eh? Easy for me to forget about these amazing sales because my brag shelf is now in boxes in storage with all my other books, somewhere between the camping equipment and Action Man's collection of antique hand-planes, but they really did happen! Who knows what will happen next. Tuckeroo seed carpets under the wheels of European convertibles and urban bush turkeys in the front yards of five-million-dollar homes are beginning to push the bare boards of the old primary school and the sight of utes piled high with lucerne out of my brain.

The release date for The Beast Within 4: But I've mostly been saying goodbye to the Hunter Valley. Jacarandas wept purple in the warm wind. Silky oaks held the Singleton library in a cup of bronze. At dusk, the fruit bats erupted out of Burdekin park and into the wide sky. I'll miss those wide skies, the amazing birds and the warm-hearted people. But if the wedge-tailed eagle of Wonnaruah Country isn't watching over me any more, hopefully the white-bellied sea-eagle of Kuringgai country will. And I do love the beach, and the pulsing heart of Sydney. It's weird but also exciting to think I'll be able to go to Symphony in the Domain for the first time in a decade.

Hello galahs eating dandelion seeds in the cold morning fog, crazy birthday season drawing to a close and me screeching whenever the hot water system malfunctions.

Plenty has happened since March, short story-wise, but I've been toiling in the novel-mines with my latest irresistibly enmeshing projects, magical rainforest fantasy Canopy and alternate-history SF Age of Contagion. So, all this news is no longer news, really. Except for the Genius Loci thing. That is real, fresh news from this very morning, haha. Enter the giveaway on Goodreads! Everyone else is going to London soon for Worldcon, while I am here counting my beans, but that is OK, I have much to learn about Pagayurung and the Padri War before I venture into my next short story: I've got a few irons in the fire.

Next month, hopefully I'll have some news I can share about short story acceptances. I'm excited about the Aurealis Awards next week eek! It's a mashup of people so damaged by life that they can't recognise a paradise when they're in one, aliens and wildlife rehabilitation. Enjoy as text or audio!

I'm back from my trip to Victoria and Tasmania. Enjoyed catching up with both sides of the family tree. Oh, yes, and I've totally caved on the Twitter front. You can give me the best rod and lure, stand me calf-deep in shimmering saltwater on the finest golden sands, provide evidence of ample stocks via glimpses of successful hunting dolphins, cormorants and the actual fish themselves, silver bodies gleaming as they leap up from under glittering bait balls, and I will still fail to land anything edible.

I am not the world's biggest fan of shellfish, but it's time to face facts. When the apocalypse comes, I will be eating this:. Preferably cooked in something tasty like coconut and chilli, but I don't think coconuts actually grow this far south. The point is that they can't get away. Action Man suggested the apocalypse might be a good time for me to work out how to build a fish trap.

In publishing news, Fablecroft has announced forthcoming e-book Focus , which is to contain The Wisdom of Ants along with many of my favourite brilliant stories from last year. My radioactive red centre story, Tintookie , has gone live at Kaleidotrope. The Ustream footage made me cry - first tears of laughter at Paul Cornell 's semiprozine cracks, then because of Neil Clarke 's beautiful speech, and then tears of rage at the lost feed.

So hopefully she won't tell her school teacher that I gave her fishbait for dinner. Oh, and Locus listed Asymmetry in its 'New and Notable' section; I've been getting some great reviews of my little collection on Goodreads. What a brilliant con. The highlights of our 5 days in Canberra might have included getting to be a steampunk samurai while the Small One flitted about in pink butterfly wings, or maybe accepting the Ditmar Award for Best Short Story for The Wisdom of Ants , the overwhelming feel was of an avalanche of intelligent and interesting people.

While the media was preoccupied with bogans on buses, we were talking about the ethics of immortality, phototaxis in acidophilus bacteria, kudzu vines and ghost jails. I loved all the launches; books being born. I loved meeting pro writers and new writers, bloggers, artists, crafters and fans. Odd things like oak leaves or the scratch of a pen would catch my heart and make me feel that still others were present, from the distant to the dead. I felt connected, even when I had my samurai helmet on and could barely see. Everyone involved with the organisation of the con deserves a medal, but especially Donna, Nicole and Deb Biancotti.

I ate so well, from persimmons and pink, pomegranate-topped cupcakes who made those?? I smelled the sad, sweet decomposition of autumn. I was numbed by the cold fingers of Snowy Mountain air feeling their way into the city. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Asymmetry has been released, both as an ebook and in paperback, from Twelfth Planet. It also appears on the Ditmar ballot for Best Short Story. I'm really excited to be going to both Conflux and the always-excellent Aurealis Awards night.

Finally, my science fiction short story, Wine, Women and Stars has been accepted by Trevor Quachri for publication in Analog. I am so pleased. I've signed with the Ellenberg Literary Agency. Cosmos has accepted my story about virtual reality racing, Mandatory Speed , for print issue 51, and will reprint Sleeping Beauty , along with an interview, next Friday at Cosmos Online.

To top it all off, the Small One has been given an award at her first ever school assembly, and I have two bush camping weekends as well as two fannish events NSW Writer's Centre Spec Fic Festival and Conflux to get excited about. May you conquer all your mountains in I say "you," but I'm not exactly sure who comes here. Hopefully mostly people who have enjoyed my work, so I don't feel guilty mentioning that the Hugo Award nominations have been thrown wide open, and that was my second and final year of eligibility for the John W.

Campbell Award for Best New Writer. The Campbell is not actually a Hugo, but it's voted on by this year and last year's worldcon members. Here is my official eligibility profile page, and if you can't remember what else I've published in the last two years that you might have read and enjoyed, you'll find it all listed on my writing page under and If you're not able to get to LoneStarCon 3, you can always pick up a supporting membership here! The Wisdom of Ants is up at Clarkesworld and has garnered me some very kind comments.

David McDonald kindly allowed me to blog about my Bahamas trip on his blog. Finally, the last Wheel of Time book comes out in a few days, which leads me to reflect nostalgically on a certain magic-hungry twelve year old who was drawn by the full moon on the cover of The Eye of the World to pull it out from under a stack of science fiction pulps in the dusty, overflowing library of a creaky-floorboarded Federation house. Action Man is way too good to me. The most supportive partner in the world.

I salute him as I listen to the Baha Men's Junkanoo! It may be too early to announce this, but as I'm stepping on a plane shortly, I am heart-palpitatingly excited to tell you that my short SF story about genetically modified ants in a future Australia, The Wisdom of Ants , will, barring misfortune, appear in the December issue of Clarkesworld.

And if my story isn't enough, fellow Australian woman Aurealis-winning writer, the World-Fantasy-Shortlisted Lisa Hannett will also be contributing. Clarkesworld is a top-quality magazine, and although it's free to read online, please subscribe or purchase the issue if you're able to. I promise you won't be disappointed. I mention The Wisdom of Ants in a brief appearance on Kaaron Warren 's blog in regards to refreshing creative wells , and my TPP collection, Asymmetry has been pushed back to early , just in case anybody is hanging out for it.

Come on Aussie, come on! Small One during the Olympics: I can't stop turning them over in my mind. Which might be good if I wasn't supposed to be writing my own stuff right about now. Is it that long since I was pregnant and writing the short stories that would be my first published work?

I solved plot problems in the pool while I swam slow, walrus-like laps, all the while being pummelled internally by little feet that had not yet learned to pedal a tricycle, grip the bark of a tree, or, wonder of wonders, tread water four years of swimming lessons and she still hates putting her eyes in. Nociception is out in issue 2 of Nine , and the blurb reads: High to Low Avg. Book 1, The Squirrels Oct 29, Available for download now.

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Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. Alexa Actionable Analytics for the Web. The Council of Magi by the end had three open spots and that meant utter chaos for them but it was just impossible to connect with the event. I think that the story lacked focus. It was too disperse and the secondary characters too many with very little page time, which in turn also affected Thomas' characterization as he never got to be close with anyone except O'Meara I was getting catnapped!

The fucking bastards were catnapping me! I also appreciated Thomas refusal to simply bow down and accept things thrown at him. Unfortunately after that it tried to do too many things at once and none got the depth it deserved, specially considering the short length of the book. I received this from NetGalley, so thanks to them for the read. Nov 12, Joel Minty rated it really liked it. With a sizable amount of highly-toted fantasy novels on my to be read list, I have no idea why I decided to try Daniel Potter's Off Leash. I heard about it through Fantasy Faction's review during the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off 2 and it did not sound like my sort of thing.

I think part of it was that I was reading Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana at the time and wanted something a little lighter, softer and sillier. Off Leash was lots of fun. I felt Potter had lots of carefully-considered prose at hi With a sizable amount of highly-toted fantasy novels on my to be read list, I have no idea why I decided to try Daniel Potter's Off Leash.

I felt Potter had lots of carefully-considered prose at his disposal and at least ten moments that drew a respectful chuckle for a display of cleverness. He was especially good at imagining everything as a cat, never once forgetting about the whiskers and claws and tail accompanying the human mind telling the tale. An example of this would be Thomas's impromptu naps. I also thought there was a lot of work put into the world and the magic system. I would say it's clever but not directly funny. I find there's a tendency for comedic books to fall into that category more often than not: Funny events or dialogue.

A hard balance to find. Jul 31, Kevin rated it really liked it. I loved this book! It had shifters, intelligent talking animals, mages, and sly humor. The toaster threatened to sing, but I gave it a stern look. Someone wakes up one morning to discover himself in a complex magical world, and there's no going back to his old life. I could have done with less description, which I often skimmed. A second reading in preparation for the sequels was just as enjoyable. Several typos, including lightening for lightning and break for brake.

Sep 10, Phil Geusz rated it it was amazing. One of the most enjoyable books I've read in ages. Superb characterization, a complex twist-filled plot, a unique setting, and lots and lots of action. What's not to like? Oct 26, Mary Lowd rated it really liked it. This is an extremely fun book. I plan to read the next one soon. Aug 31, Elise Edmonds rated it really liked it Shelves: I thought this was a fun, fresh urban fantasy read.

The concept of the main character being a familiar up for hire is great. The magic system was unique if somewhat complicated. Oct 04, Margaret Fisk rated it really liked it Shelves: This novel introduces a world in which magic and mundane exist on top of each other, the magic concealed with a veil created in early history by the Fey. The veil has the interesting property of extrapolating a mundane answer to display to those blind to magic based on cues from the magical people.

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This is not the only aspect of the world Potter builds I found intriguing either. I even enjoyed how Thomas the first person main character narrated events with a grumpy, often sarcastic, tone. Watching him come to terms with his new reality, and his reactions to the setup everyone magical accepted no matter how reluctantly as the way things should be were well worth the stumbles. The description is creative and fun.

For example, Thomas has to reinterpret everything about the town he lives in once he is transformed into a familiar. A puma might be coveted by the magi, but becoming one leaves much to be desired. He has to navigate a mundane world full of police officers and humans who find a large predatory cat disturbing all the while trying to figure out who is on his side, or at least not actively against him.

Despite my comment about rough writing, the plot seeding is well done. Speaking of Thomas, he starts out as a whiny, sarcastic puma…who tries to eat other people when hungry and the puma instincts overcome the person. I could have stopped there, but at the same time, his base principles of loyalty and how to treat people are solid.

From the first chapter, we see him holding a door for his elderly neighbor, for example, a simple act, but one not every person would bother with. The novel is both silly and campy. Jul 12, Aelvana rated it really liked it. Thomas Khatt is unemployed and growing more desperate for a job when the unthinkable happens. His elderly neighbor is murdered, he's somehow been turned into a cougar, and now he's expected to enter the magical society that's always existed in his town on the other side of the Veil. But Thomas rebels against being auctioned off to become someone's familiar, and he's determined to take charge of his own life one way or another.

This book managed to tie in a number of my favorite subjects: I liked the view of magic as something that breeches dimensions, probably taught by aliens or other-planar beings, and complex enough that few humans would conceivably be practitioners. Thomas is quite disappointed it's not just chanting from some old book. In fact that's one of the main reasons for familiars: And the dragon was awesome. I hope we meet more multi-dimensional beings in the future.

The magical society as a whole, though, isn't quite as nice. The mages are corrupt, the familiars have unionized TAU , and anyone like Thomas who decides he'd rather stay outside the system is going to have an extremely hard time. In fact neither side is interested in leaving him alonenot complying results in him repeatedly being accosted so that someone else can profit off his existence. It was nice to see a few of the worst offenders neutralized by the end, but it's unclear Thomas can do much of anything to change the way things are.

He might be able to keep himself more to the fringes, but if there is a major upheaval it will be a long time coming. I'm not terribly fond of these super dysfunctional societies, so I hope this one gets dismantled in flaming pieces. Because worlds where everyone is moderately to majorly sociopathic are harder for me to read because I get angry at so many of the cast and am just waiting for them to die in the most horrible way possible.

So overall I liked a lot of the elements in this world, and plan to continue the series sooner or later. I do hope Thomas can find a mage who is more willing to help him with his ideas to reform the magical world. I rate this book Recommended. See my reviews and more at https: Aug 31, Debra rated it liked it Shelves: Author Daniel Potter has wisely taken a light, humorous approach to his plot, and especially the protagonist Thomas, which works well. The story is imaginative and filled with interesting rules and events on the other side of a veil that separates the fantastical from the mundane.

Off Leash is the first installment of the Freelance Familiars series, but there appears to be at least one other. Jul 15, Lori S. What's worse, he finds his life is no longer his own as strangers try to take over his life, tell him he's a familiar to be exploited at least that's the way he sees it, others do not , and his old life no longer matters.

Thomas, however, is stubborn and not willing to put up with anyone telling him what to do - within reas 3. Thomas, however, is stubborn and not willing to put up with anyone telling him what to do - within reason. A gift left by the archmage who helped him cross the Veil into this new, unwanted, life, will give him a chance to make his own decisions. I like Thomas and look forward to reading the next book in the series.

My only complaint is that Thomas's reaction seems to be a little too mild to having his life uprooted. Jul 23, Susan Otto rated it it was amazing. Unusual and unique story about a familiar.

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