T.R. Napper's Blog

Ditmar Awards Voting is open. For the uninitiated, the Ditmars are the annual Australian peer-voted awards for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.

What does peer-voted mean? Well, that you are either attending the National Convention (or have in recent years) or that you are ‘active in fandom’. What does the latter mean?[image error]

As I understand it: if you’ve been to a convention in Australia, or are in a discussion group (online or live), or interact regularly on social media, or are simply a fan of A...

I recently did an interview with Jonathan, an Australian BookTuber who runs a channel called Words in Time. He’s got some great content, so I recommend you go and check it out. I’ve embedded the interview in this article, and below it have added the notes I made before we talked (re-written into article form). The notes expand somewhat on the discussion in some cases, and in others make observations we didn’t have time for. Though they obviously don’t capture the back-and-forth and digressions (...

Australia’s premier award for speculative fiction is the Aurealis. It is a juried award, and genuinely features the best of Australian SF. I get anxious every year in the lead up to the short list announcement, elated if I make the cut, and more anxious still in the days before the ceremony.

So it was a huge honour for me to win the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novella this year, for Ghost of the Neon God. The book was a fix up of sorts, taking several years on and off (I discuss the ...

Introduction

Discussion of Artificial Intelligence by the tech industry is equal parts dishonest and stupid. It is a discussion founded on the invidious lies of the snake oil salesman conjoined with the religious-like fervour of the fundamentalist.

Indeed, the cult of the techbro sees the singularity as god, the uploaded consciousness as the gift of eternal life, and the arrival of Artificial General Intelligence as ushering in heaven on earth: a post-scarcity era where every being gets everythi...

Hit my target of 52 books read for the year. As I keep saying (because it’s true) reading is part of the job of a writer. I put aside a couple of hours every evening to do so. When I do this, and especially when the book is good, I can feel the changes in my brain. It becomes calmer, more thoughtful and focussed, and seeks immersion in imagined worlds.

This is a phenomenon dealt with by Maryanne Wolf in ‘Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World.’ In essence, the digital brain – di...

“I think a writer’s notebook is the best way in the world to immortalise bad ideas. My idea about a good idea is one that sticks around and sticks around.”

Terrible advice, for one simple reason: none of the rest of us are Stephen King. He’s written around 70 books. He writes and writes and writes. Squashed by a fucken van, six weeks in hospital,[image error] dusts himself off, keeps writing. Apparently sits down and churns out 6 pages (1500 words) a day, every day, no ...

The Escher Man took me ten years to write. Aliens: Bishop took five months. Ghost of the Neon God was a short short story, then two short stories, then a final expansion into a novella. Three books, three radically different paths.

(click on the sun icon in the top right hand corner if you prefer to read black script on white).

I’m writing this because The Escher Man has just been published, and there’s an obvious measure of relief, and pride, in seeing that arduous and tortuous journey complete...

Preorders are, apparently, a big thing. Publishers place huge importance on them.

As far as I can tell, there are three main reasons for this: 1) They are a way to gauge future interest in the book, and therefore inform how much support publishers are willing to give it. Marketing, publicity, all that. 2) They impact the algorithm on Amazon, making the book more visible on the site, and 3) Indicate consumer interest to retailers, who in turn are liable to stock[image error] more of the title.

So preorders ar...

Ditmar Awards Voting is open. For the uninitiated, the Ditmars are the annual Australian peer-voted awards for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.

What does peer-voted mean? Well, that you are either attending the National Convention, or that you are ‘active in fandom’. What does the latter mean?

As I understand it: if you’ve been to a convention in Australia, or are in an Oz spec-fic discussion group (online or live), or if you’re simply a fan of Australian speculative fiction,[image error] you’re eligibl...

For the past six years I’ve worked a professional DM, running Dungeons and Dragons campaigns for autistic teenagers and young adults, funded under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). I love the work. A dream job, really. I’ve got my writing, and I’ve got this, and I was content.

[image error]However, the disability sector is not known for being particularly well-managed. Some wonderful people work in the sector, some of whom are close friends, but the poor administration can g...