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Dark Matter #9 Dark Matter IssueDark Nine, Matter March 2012 SF, Fantasy & Art 1 [email protected] Dark Matter Contents: Issue 9 Donations 4 Donate Via Paypal 4 About Dark Matter 5 Editorial 6 Competitions 7 Alloy of Law 7 The Chimera Vector 9 Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade trilogy winner 10 Iron Sky winners 11 News and Articles 12 Chicon7: WorldCon2012 12 Hugo Nominees announced 13 Helen Lowe, Kim Falconer & Mary Victoria 18 London in 2014 20 Aurealis Awards 2011 22 Chronos Awards nominations 2012 27 Tin Ducks 2012 29 Mass Effect and Dragon Age movies coming soon 30 Concatenation wins ‘Best Website’ 2012 Eurocon Award 32 Damnation and Dames 33 Guest Blog: Nathan Farrugia 35 Gestalt Comics press release 36 Supanova 2012 37 What? Me? Compulsive?! - Jack Dann 46 Interviews 49 Brandon Sanderson talks to Dark Matter 49 Helen Lowe talks to Dark Matter 71 Edward James Olmos talks to Dark Matter 100 Iron Sky 107 Christopher Kirby talks to Dark Matter 108 The Jane Austen Argument talks to Dark Matter 122 Gender in Publishing: #AWW2012 challenge 151 Sean Williams on the AWW challenge 153 Michael Pryor 155 Alexandra Pierce 156 Jen Mills: On Books and Gender 158 Nicole Murphy: Why we need women writers 164 Meg Mundell: Gender issues in publishing 167 Nalini Haynes on Gender Parity 171 Sean McMullen: From Science Fantasy To Galileo 174 2 Dark Matter White Noise 184 ‘Pure’ & a PhD 184 Fanzine vs Prozine: a discussion of potential and Patronage 186 Letters 192 Book Reviews 199 Lily and the fairy house 199 Lego City: Police on Alert! 201 Sea Hearts 203 Pure 204 Oracle’s Fire 207 Where There’s a Wolf, There’s a Way 208 Pilgrims 211 Gathering of the Lost 213 The Dark Divide 215 Alloy of Law 218 Warbreaker 219 Timeless 221 The Boy who Fell to Earth 223 A Kingdom Besieged 226 A Crown Imperilled 226 Insurgent 229 The Silence of Medair 231 Screen Stuff 235 Spice and Wolf 235 Melancholia 237 The Greatest Movie Ever Sold 239 The Hunter 241 Dark Matter Volunteers 243 3 Dark Matter Credits for dark matter Editor: Donations Nalini Haynes To date Dark Matter Fanzine Proof reading: Edward Haynes (DMF) needs your support. A website, post box, mailing Website: Edward Haynes books to reviewers, mailing out prizes to winners, attending Contributors: Alexandra Pierce conventions to report, purchase Cathy Palmer-Lister of software and a dictaphone for Chris Garcia interviews and so on... All these Evie Kendal things cost money. DMF would Jade Hounsell appreciate any donations, no Jack Dann matter how big or small, to Jennifer Mills Lloyd Penney enable DMF to continue running Meg Mundell and to continue supporting the Michael Pryor SFF and art community. Nalini Haynes Nicole R Murphy Rebecca Muir Sean McMullen Donate Via Paypal Cover Art & Design: DMF’s website http://www. Angels are the new zombies; Tom darkmatterfanzine.com has a Dickins, half of The Jane Austen ‘donate’ button in the left hand Arguement, photo by Nalini Haynes column, just underneath the Art: Ian Gunn’s Silly Illoes used with Dark Kitteh. permission of Krin Pender-Gunn DMF wishes to thank donors. Images attributed where known DMF is looking at a reward Marta Tesoro: system for donations. Now Photography: Various, attributed individually where the website is running, I’ll known, usually Nalini Haynes if not look into possible rewards. attributed. Realistic suggestions would be Volunteers’ photos are courtesy of the welcome. volunteers. 4 Dark Matter About Dark Matter Dark Matter is an independent fanzine exploring science fiction, fantasy, art, life, the universe and everything. For your free subscription to Dark Matter, e-mail [email protected] with the word ‘subscribe’ in the subject field. E-mail addresses will be considered confidential and will not be used for any purpose other than distribution. Dark Matter is available online at http://www.darkmatterfanzine.com/ publications.html and several other locations on the web The State Library of Victoria also makes Dark Matter available in paper format. Follow Dark Matter on our website at http://www.darkmatterfanzine.com Facebook www.facebook. com/darkmatterfanzine and Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/DarkMatterzine. Snail Mail to Dark Matter, PO Box 144, Lynbrook, Victoria, Australia 3975. Copyright belongs to contributors and reverts to contributors on publication. Photos, images and text from other sources are used on what I understand to be fair usage within the laws of copyright. This is my intent; any issues or concerns should be directed to the editor at [email protected]. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the editor. This is a fanzine, and as such is a forum for personal opinions and debate. However, the editor reserves the right to refuse to publish material that may be offensive. Dark Matter likes to give credit for contributions and sources for each issue. If errors or omissions have been made, please e-mail the editor. Uncredited text is probably the editor. While I hope to respond to correspondence, this is not guaranteed. Flamers and senders of dubious or explicit content will be put on a blocked senders list and removed from the distribution list. Thanks to all the readers who are contacting Dark Matter with news, letters and invites to events that I hope will enrich the content of DM. And the photos! Facebook is an awesome source of photos and links to sites. Thanks guys! If at any time I don’t give credit or tag the photos properly, email me and I’ll issue a correction. I appreciate your contributions, and I want to get it right (Heinz Meanz Beanz Goodies quote). Review Gradings Not all reviews are graded, but when reviews are graded Dark Matter tries to be consistent. Therefore, where gradings are given, they will hopefully be consistent with the below rating system: 1 star - Very bad book/movie/game, many flaws, definitely not recommended. 2 stars - Mediocre or average with a serious flaw, not recommended, but can still be readable or watchable 3 stars - Good but not great. Can be recommended for fans of the genre. 4 stars - Great, highly recommended. 5 stars - Masterpiece. 5 Dark Matter Editorial Dear Reader, Issue 9 is finally ready for your perusal, and what a line-up of awesome interviews and interesting news and reviews! Thanks as always to all the reviewers and those who make DMF available online. Thanks to Brandon Sanderson, Helen Lowe, Edward James Olmos, Christopher Kirby, Jen Kingwell and Tom Dickins for taking the time to talk to Dark Matter. Finally, thanks to those who have contributed to the Australian Women Writers Challenge discussion: Sean Williams, Alexandra Pierce, Jennifer Mills, Meg Mundell, Michael Pryor, Nicole Murphy and Sean McMullen. This is an important discussion, particularly in light of larger discussions in the SFF community about gender parity. I hope these articles will trigger discussion in the community and in further correspondence to be published. More great interviews have taken place that will be online and in the next issue: Eoin Colfer, Dr Pants, Ben Chandler and Deborah Abela. Other interviews already scheduled around the national convention are with Joanne Anderton, Margo Lanagan and Deborah Biancotti. I’m not sure when I’ll get them all written up: audio interviews may go online with printed versions lagging behind for a while I suspect, which leads me on to the next important note. Dark Matter’s website is now up and running http://www. darkmatterfanzine.com with all published issues available here http://www.darkmatterfanzine.com/publications.html to read online or to download for your convenience. Competitions, news, photographs, links of interest and general bloggishness will also be posted to the website on a regular basis. Thanks to the minion who built the website and proof read the zine. The website will grow and be tweaked in the coming months. Now I’m going to stagger off, have a glass of wine and celebrate the publication of this, the latest issue of Dark Matter. cheers Nalini 6 Dark Matter Competitions Alloy of Law Dark Matter fanzine is giving away my review copy of Alloy of Law, autographed by Brandon Sanderson. To enter, email [email protected] with ‘Alloy of Law’ in the subject heading. The competition closes on 31 May 2012. Terms and conditions of competition: See above entry requirements plus the following: Entry closes on 31 May 2012, no late entries accepted. Winner will be selected via a random number generator. Winner will need to provide a snail mail address for delivery of the books within 7 days of being informed of winning; failure to do so will result in forfeiture of prize and a new winner will be drawn. Email address and snail mail address will only be used for the purpose of this competition. Entrants must reside in Australia with an Australian delivery address. The name of the winner will be published without addresses and emails; these details will be held confidential. DMF is running this competition in good faith; no responsibility is taken for mishap or misadventure, but due care is taken. All decisions are final, no correspondence will be entered into. DMF would appreciate a photo of the winner with loot for publication but this is not compulsory. People who wish to subscribe to DMF need to send in a separate email to subscribe. 7 Dark Matter Tangle of Need Dark Matter fanzine in conjunction with Hachette are giving away five copies of Tangle of Need by Nalini Singh. To enter, email [email protected] with ‘Tangle of Need’ in the subject heading. The competition closes on 27 May 2012 at 5 pm, before the launch on 29 May 2012.
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