A-Z Blogging Challenge - Daylight Saving

Ah yes, one of my pet hates comes to an end for this year in Eastern Australia. Why does it irritate me so much when we here in the more stubborn West have not given into it? Well, it does still inconvenience us. Any business we have with companies on the east coast - except for Queensland where they have also resisted instituting it - and that includes Canberra, our federal capital, and two of our major cities, has to be conducted in a time window of five hours instead of the six hours we have the rest of the year. Not being constrained by business hours, private individuals aren't quite so badly off but let's face it even six hours is much more limited than those on the east coast have to work with.

Daylight saving is an artificial construct that as far as I can see really doesn't work anywhere but particularly where we are located in the world. We've tried it here after much lobbying by business - three times in fact - and each time at the end of the trial it has been comprehensively voted against. You have to wonder whether that would be the same result if those on the east coast were also given a choice.

On a personal level I've loathed it every time we had a trial of it. I find it messes with my body clock and that it doesn't ever really adjust.

But it's not just my personal inconvenience. There's been research that shows our circadian clocks don't adjust to Daylight Saving Time. Other research here and here shows a slight increase in heart attacks and there's evidence that many people suffer extended sleep interference with its attendant and well documented effects.

Then there's this research which confirms what I have always suspected that Daylight Saving Time increases energy use and this one that suggests an increase in fatal road accidents.

So my loathing of Daylight Saving Time seems justified. Do you agree?

A-Z Blogging Challenge - Conventioning

Or should that be conventioneering? Probably neither. What prompted this flight of fancy is it's Easter and that means Swancon. Never heard of it? Then let me inform you.

Swancon runs for the four days of the Easter long weekend and is the annual convention of WASFF - the Western Australian Science Fiction Foundation - a busy time for those of us in Western Australia interested in speculative matters especially those who write and/or read speculative fiction. Conventions are run all over the world and range from small local affairs - one I was involved in running was only one day - to worldcons which run for five days or longer and bring in people from all over the world. They all, though, aim at promoting speculative fiction and give an opportunity for authors, readers and gamers to get together and share ideas and interests. Some are more focussed on costumes or gaming while Swancon has writing panels, a gaming stream and a well thought out children's program - but they all celebrate speculative fiction whether written, in games or from television and movies.

This year Swancon is forty which is quite an achievement for a con in a relatively isolated part of the world - have a look at a map and you'll see Perth probably deserves its reputation as the most isolated capital city in the world. Its Guests of Honour include multi award winning American author, John Scalzi and best selling Australian author, Kylie Chan.

Another convention I really like is Conflux in Canberra. Its focus is very much on writing and I get there as often as I can. Relatively small, it's friendly and gives me an opportunity to catch up with other writers on the east coast.

These are only two of a number of conventions in Australia. Much as I'd love to go to them all distance (and the inevitable cost of travelling) stops me.

But Swancon is on here now. Want to guess where I'm going to be tomorrow?

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Black Light by K. A. Bedford - Reviewed

It's twelve years since Ruth Black was notified that her husband had been killed, one of many casualties during the Great War but even now how he died remains a mystery. An eccentric woman of means, she has moved to the sleepy coastal fishing town of Pelican River in Western Australia where, cossetted by her servants, she writes 'scientific romances' and is making a new life. Her comfortable existence is shattered by the arrival of her Aunt Julia warning that she has visions showing Ruth's life is in danger. Initially sceptical, Ruth and her friend Gordon Duncombe, soon realise Julia is not exaggerating. But who would hate her so much?  The three find themselves in a desperate race to stop the unknown enemy from carrying out his plan.

K. A. Bedford is better known for his science fiction - his Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait is one of my all time favourites - so Black Light, a paranormal thriller, is something of a departure but he's definitely nailed it. The meticulously researched 1920s setting is detailed but not laboured and it anchors the story in reality. That said there's a lot going on in this world that is unexpected and outside our familiar existence. There are the elves, accidentally brought by the early colonists and slowly fading away so far from their native soil, and magic - both black and white but equally dangerous. Against this background there are unanswered questions from Ruth's past and the malevolence of her pursuer which together combine to make a gripping story. The author taps into many of the ideas occupying intellectuals in the early part of the twentieth century like spiritualism ( a favourite interest of Arthur Conan Doyle), time travel (with a nod to H. G. Wells) and science which prompted the beginnings of science fiction (Ruth writes 'scientific romances', an early name for science fiction).

I liked much about this novel. In particular, I like Ruth who is not afraid to ignore societal norms - she wears 'mannish' clothes and has unfashionably short hair - although she hides the insecurities that living her life the way she wants has caused. At the same time she is intelligent, brave and thoughtful and we can see why she is beloved by those who are prepared to accept her as she is. I'd very much like to hear more from Ruth.

Black Light was published in January 2015 by Fremantle Press and is available from the publisher, and other booksellers as a paperback and an ebook and will be available from Amazon.com from June 1. Highly recommended.

A-Z Blogging Challenge: April 1

I had all sorts of plans for today's post - don't worry, I'm sure they'll be used later - but first I opened my Facebook news feed. Then I realised it's April 1 and that this was probably not a wise thing to do. April 1 is April Fools' Day, after all, and once I had read about a dozen posts, some of which are simply surreal, I realised I have no idea which of the more outlandish ones are genuine and which are having me on. The trouble is as a speculative fiction writer - and consequently with many friends who are also speculative fiction writers - I get a lot of posts which feed into our mutual interests. They can be serious science, historical research, speculative fantasies, political commentary or even works of art. By and large, anything that can feed our imaginations fascinates us and gets posted along with the more mundane minutiae of life. Most days it's easy enough to work out which is which but today, with so many creative people playing mind games, it wasn't quite that simple.

As a result normal posting will resume tomorrow. In the meantime, though, I'm sure this little fennec fox and friend is real. Oh the cuteness. Who says animals don't have friendships.

A-Z Blog Challenge

See the badge over on the right. Yes. I've signed up for the A-Z Blogging Challenge again. This involves a blog post inspired by a letter of the alphabet every day - except Sundays - during April, twenty six posts in all. I don't have a theme. I'll just be writing about anything that takes my fancy as I usually do although there may be a bit of a focus on writing and similar activities. It was great fun last year so I'm looking forward to doing it again and finding some new blogs to follow. I was number 1422 to sign up so obviously there's a lot of choice and it's always good to widen your reading.

Call for Submissions

Twelfth Planet Press has released details about Defying Doomsday, a anthology of short stories edited by Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench to be released in mid 2016. Following a Pozible campaign, open submissions will begin on May 1.

Why am I blogging about this? Well, the stories will be about apocalypse survival - nothing new there, you're no doubt thinking - but the twist is the stories will focus on characters with physical impairments, mental illnesses, chronic illnesses, neurodiversity or other similar issues affecting them instead of relegating them to secondary or supporting roles. They will also be expected to entertain with the editors aiming at a range of stories from fun and/or exciting to sad or even horror.

This is exciting stuff. As a person with multiple health issues, most of them invisible, I'm used to being seen as an inconvenience to many around me. No-one likes the person who has to pull out of planned social events on a regular basis, who walks so slowly that everyone else has to slow down or  who can't eat certain things for medical reasons - and I definitely don't like being that person. If, while providing entertaining reading, an anthology like this makes the wider population aware that those of us with disabilities are more than just a collection of inconvenient symptoms and stops them judging or thinking we are exaggerating our problems - something I've experienced from a wide range of people including doctors and nurses who  really should know better - it will do us all a favour.

Twelfth Planet Press is an innovative small publisher, not afraid to tackle the controversial, and I always look forward to their books. I have been buying them as they come out for years and I'll be waiting eagerly for Defying Doomsday.

Interstellar Award for Speculative Poetry

This new competition looks interesting. It covers both speculative poetry and speculative short fiction and there's decent prize money. The poetry competition is now open and the short fiction one will be open later in the year. Go here to find out more.