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I was prompted to write this week’s post after I made a comment that a lot of the books published by one of the major science fiction publishers in the US seemed to be awful pulp fiction: full of mad scientists and buff alpha males saving damsels in distress. I was further prompted by an article where John Marsden, Australia’s biggest selling young adult novelist, said that publishers were sick of dystopian novels. So I decided to analyse the 16 science fiction books listed in a Tor blog post that were to be published in January.   Of the 16 books listed, one is definitely fantasy, and two others are non-fiction books about science fiction, so I have removed them from my analysis.    Fugitive X, Gregg Rosenblum (Harper Teen) Concept: A war against robots who control the world. Sub-genre: Dystopian Series: Yes, it is the second book in a series. Market: Young adult. Debut Novel: No, the author had been published before. Nationality of Autho...

I was curious how last year’s bestselling books compared between Australia, the US and the UK, so I had a look. Australia The top ten bestselling print books in Australia were: 1. Hard Luck: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney (228,400) 2. Jamie’s 15-Minute Meals, Jamie Oliver (173,800) 3. Inferno, Dan Brown (173,400) 4. Save with Jamie, Jamie Oliver (157,300) 5. The 39-Storey Treehouse, Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton (136,200) 6. The Tournament, Mathew Reilly (114,400) 7. Guinness World Records 2014 (97,300) 8. I Quit Sugar, Sarah Wilson (92,400) 9. Ponting: At the Close of Play, Ricky Ponting (89,100) 10. The Storyteller, Jodi Picoult (88,600) Source: Nielson BookScan So the top ten in Australia was made up of two cookbooks, two young adult novels, two mystery/thrillers, an issues novel, a sports biography, a health book, and a records book. Four books authored by Australians made it into the top ten, with the best-selling Aussie autho...

  IT’S FINISHED!!!! Well at least the first draft of my epic science-fiction novel is finished. Last Thursday I wrote the final words of a first draft I started writing for in November 2011 for National Novel Writing Month. So it took me – rummages for calculator – 771 days to write 214,935 words, an average of 278 words a day.   My initial reaction to finishing was not jubilation, but sadness, as the story my imagination had been developing for so long had ended. I really enjoyed the characters I created and their adventures. I am going to miss them. It feels a bit like finishing Uni. Considering how the novel ended, a sequel is not probable. Or then again… The Year of the Edit.   Thus begins the year of the edit. I have decided not to write anything new until I have edited all the writing I have stacked up to edit and redraft. There’s another novel, Stalking Tigers, which I was halfway through redrafting when a new idea for a story struck that I just...