Dark Matter Contents: Issue 7 Donations 4 Via Paypal 4 About Dark Matter 5 Editorial 6 Competition Winners 8 Passion - autographed copy 8 Ambassador’s Mission - autographed copy 8 Blood Song - autographed copy 8 News and Articles 9 Iron Sky Premieres in Berlin Film Festival 9 All Star Comics’ first birthday 11 Chicon and Hugo Awards 12 Keeping up the pace in Night School 13 Aurealis Awards media release 14 Concatenation Update 15 Don’t Mess with Firefly 16 Terry Pratchett in Melbourne 16 Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer in Melbourne 17 Oz Comic-Con 21 J. Michael Straczynski as spruiker 22 Squishface Studio Opening 25 Angry Robot Press Release 27 Home Cooked Comics Festival 29 conSENSUAL: Australia’s first Yaoi and Yuri convention 33 Feature Review 38 Fallen angels in paranormal romance 38 White Noise 47 A reviewer on reviewing 47 Judging a book by a random page 49 Gender imbalance 51 Rise of the new groupthink 53 Surrounded by Sherlock 53 Us and Them 55 ePublishing: a bubble bound to burst? 56 Interviews 58 Rhiannon Hart talks to Dark Matter 58 Rob Lloyd talks to Dark Matter 75 Tansy Rayner Roberts talks to Dark Matter 100 John Richards talks to Dark Matter 125 Yunyu talks to Dark Matter 142 2 Dark Matter Letters 156 Book Reviews 160 Department 19 160 Tymon’s Flight 162 Song of the Quarkbeast 164 The Business of Death 166 Tiger’s Voyage 170 The Extraordinaires 172 11.22.63 175 Blue Remembered Earth 178 Anywhere but Earth 180 The Seventh Wave 183 The Sending 184 The Emerald Tablets 186 The House of Silk 187 Samiha’s Song 193 The Islanders 194 Vengeance 196 The Art of the Adventures of Tintin 197 Comic Books & Graphic Novels 199 Astonishing X-Men #45 199 Screen Stuff 201 Troll Hunter 201 Priest 204 Space Battleship Yamato 207 Robot Chicken 210 The Adventures of Tintin 211 Fan-made Star Wars remake 212 Gantz 213 Outland 215 Underworld Awakening 218 Dark Matter Volunteers 220 3 Dark Matter volunteers; Credits for dark matter Images attributed where known Editor: otherwise usually Nalini Haynes. Nalini Haynes Proof reading: Edward Haynes Contributors: Avi Bernshaw aka Egofreaky Donations Chris Garcia To date Dark Matter Fanzine Chris Hayes-Kossman (DMF) has been running off Evie Kendall our household expenses, Jade Hounsell James Wallis while DMF expenses continue Lloyd Penney to grow. A post box, mailing Marianne de Pierres books to reviewers, mailing out Nalini Haynes prizes to winners, attending Paul Bedford conventions to report, purchase Peter Turner of a dictaphone for interviews Rebecca Muir Steve Cameron and so on... All these things cost Thoraiya money. DMF would appreciate Cover Art & Design: any donations, no matter how Neil Gaiman looking longingly up at the big or small, to enable DMF to gutter at his Melbourne appearance, continue running. December 16, 2011, photo by Nalini Haynes Art: Via Paypal Ian Gunn’s Silly Illoes used with DMF has a paypal account, so permission of Krin Pender-Gunn donors with a paypal account Marta Tesoro: Cyber Bunny can use the send money Ben Grimshaw: Con Character option in paypal addressing the Trev Wood, All Star Comics birthday money to DMF’s email address Photography: Tansy Rayner Roberts and Rhiannon darkmatterfanzine@gmail. Hart provided images for inclusion com, marked as a ‘gift’ under with their interviews; personal. Outland, ABC and Princess Pictures provided images of Outland and John Richards; DMF wishes to thank its donor. Marta Tesoro provided photos of No, that is not a typo. :-) Squishface opening Volunteers’ photos are courtesy of the 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 the Australian National Library Archives http:// nla.gov.au/nla.arc-123161 and at www.efanzines.com/DarkMatter/index.htm. The State Library of Victoria also makes Dark Matter available in paper format. Follow Dark Matter on Facebook at www.facebook.com/darkmatterfanzine and on Twitter @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, Well, I’ve finally managed to get DMF issue 7 out the door. It’s been delayed because of tradie dramas before Christmas, followed by Christmas and then two weeks of the flu for me. C’est la vie. I hope you enjoy the issue. Don’t just read DMF’s contents page, flick through this enormous tome for items of interest. While you may not have heard of Rob Lloyd, if you are a Doctor Who fan you will enjoy Rob’s interview where he talks about his stage play Who, Me and gets his geek on. Tansy Rayner Roberts talks about writing, feminism, sex scenes and more. John Richards talks about making Outland, the gay Australian Big Bang Theory. These are only three examples of the gems waiting to be unearthed in this tome. So, dear Reader, I encourage you to explore these pages carefully. I’d like to thank all contributors to this issue: C. J. Daugherty, whose ‘guest blog’ is a DMF exclusive, the reviewers, those who have written letters of comment, the artists who share their work, those who have graciously consented to be interviewed and who have edited the transcripts. (There’s nothing quite like getting approval, especially when I can’t quite make out that phrase!) Trent Jamieson and I chatted recently; that interview will be in issue 8. A few other authors have already consented to interviews, so Trent will be first in what is shaping up to be another incredible line-up of interviews. Thanks to all! Next I have to thank my extremely forebearing husband who has come home from work to cook dinner while I’ve been frantically putting DMF together. He is also DMF’s proofreader: if there are any errors, it is only because I haven’t given him enough time to proof read everything. I’d like to thank Bill Burns of Efanzines, the National Library Archives and the State Library of Victoria for making DMF available to the public for those who choose not to subscribe. Finally I’d like to thank the nine people who wrote letters of support for Dark Matter. I applied for the Masters of Creative Writing, 6 Dark Matter Editing and Publishing but I was rejected on the basis that I did not have a documented history in writing, editing or publishing. Nine people came forward to support my efforts in Dark Matter: Isobelle Carmody, Rowena Cory Daniells, David Freer, Jack Dann, Meg Mundell, Bruce Mutard, Avi Bernshaw, Neville Howard and Jonathan Cowie. Sometimes it feels like Dark Matter serves no purpose because there are so many other people out there podcasting, creating zines, blogging, interviewing... After reading these letters of support I feel so honoured and humbled and appreciated. On 1 February I received another email from the University of Melbourne: apparently they are in the process of reviewing my application a third time and I will hear back shortly. If my application is rejected a third time, I will continue with DMF and look elsewhere for means to increase my skills for creating DMF. No matter what the outcome, the process - asking for and receiving the letters of support - has been incredibly encouraging and inspiring. I cannot thank those people enough. This is the first year that Dark Matter fanzine is eligible for nomination for a Hugo Award and I’d appreciate it if you’d consider nominating DMF for a Hugo - you have the option of nominating five publications.