THUMBNAIL THURSDAY SAYS EAT YOUR MESSIAH

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I suppose any large organisation has its own ridiculous traditions and superstitions, but let’s be honest, religion starts with ridiculousness and superstition, and builds from there. Transubstantiation– the idea that the wine and wafer is transformed, purely by belief, into the body and blood of the person they purport to worship– is not openly ludicrous, it’s downright creepy.

Still, nobody ever said lunacy was a bad subject for comedy…… (Also, I have no idea why the priest should be 15 feet tall. Thanks, perspective!)

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“These home brand wafers always taste slightly like Simon-who-was-called-Peter to me.”

THUMBNAIL THURSDAY IS DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS

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Aliens are funny. I’ve a whole collection of books devoted solely to science fiction, space, and alien cartoons. The truth that we all avoid, as SF fans, is that the entire genre is, essentially, ludicrous. Sometimes it’s nice to stop being so damned serious about the whole thing, and scribble something silly.

Clearly, I was also very sick of being remotely talented that day……

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“I’m full, but it’s so delicious I just can’t stop picking!”

BETWEEN THE ORDER AND THE LUNCH

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It’s the school holidays, and even though we are, by and large, skint this time out, there’s still time for the odd lunch out. Yesterday we hauled out to Port Samson, a seaside enclave roughly 50 kilometres up the coast, for the best fish and chips in the region, served on a balcony overlooking a wide sand flats and beach. We packed a couple of notebooks and some pens, and while waiting for our lunch, Ms 16 introduced us to a version of the Narrative Corpse writing game. You know the one: you write a paragraph, fold the page over so that only the last sentence can be seen, pass it to the left. At the end, you unfold your sheet of paper and read the odd little story that you’ve all created to much ribaldry and general hilarity.
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WATER SONG

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The song follows Charles O’Connor along the beach, as it has followed him for nearly ten years. His horse is nervous, tugging against his lead as if ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. Charles tightens his grip, nudges it ahead. He knows their destination.

The Mothers wait at the water’s edge.

 

Water Song is a 3800-word supernatural story centred around CY O’Connor’s suicide. It’s part of the Claws of Native Ghosts project, a collection of historical horror stories set throughout Western Australia’s history that I’m slowly putting together, and which is a key project I hope to complete while we’re here in Karratha. I wrote the first draft way back in July of 2017, as part of my Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre residency (remember that?). Now it’s finally finished, and sent out into the marketplace.

Next stop, Broome, and the Japanese bombing of 1942…

 

 

 

HARLAN ELLISON: A STORY ABOUT BEING FREE

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ellison

Photo via tributes.com

 

Harlan Ellison died yesterday, at the age of 84. If you’re a fan of SF, or film criticism, or have a passing knowledge of American TV, then you know what that means: we’re down one giant, and about to enter an intense period of arguing over the legacy of one of the most complex and problematic human beings ever to work in the SF field. Certainly, my Facebook feed is awash with memorials, reminiscences, and as is the way with Facebook, denunciations, already. But then, that’s the crowd I run with. At the heart of it, no matter our differences, just about everyone on my feed loves speculative fiction. We’re all true believers, and if anything, Ellison was a true believer.

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