Vale Colin Cantwell science fiction concept artist

27 May 2022

The late American concept artist, who died last week at the age of 90, was behind the concept and design of many of the vessels seen in the early Star Wars films.

His staggering number of designs and prototype models essentially formed the visual Star Wars starship lexicon, and include the X-wing, Y-wing (the first approved design, according to The Making of Star Wars), TIE fighter, Star Destroyer, Death Star, landspeeder, sandcrawler, and blockade runner (a design originally intended for the Millennium Falcon).

2022 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize

27 May 2022

Entries are open for the 2022 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize until Sunday 5 June 2022, from Indigenous writers across Australia, of all ages, for unpublished poetry.

This prize is named in honour of Oodgeroo Noonuccal, the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse (with permission from the Walker family, and in close consultation with Quandamooka Festival). The Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize is open to all Indigenous poets, emerging and established, throughout Australia.

What’s behind the return of monkeypox?

27 May 2022

C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity at UNSW, writes about the recent monkeypox outbreak, which may be linked to the discontinuation of vaccine programs for the now eradicated smallpox virus, an immunisation that also offered protection from monkeypox.

Scientists have puzzled over why a previously rare infection is now becoming more common. The vaccine against smallpox also protects against monkeypox, so in the past, mass vaccination against smallpox protected people from monkeypox too. It is 40 years since smallpox was declared eradicated, and most mass vaccination programs ceased in the 1970s, so few people aged under 50 have been vaccinated. There are even fewer in Australia, where mass smallpox vaccination was never used, and an estimated 10% of Australians have been vaccinated. The vaccine gives immunity for anything from five to 20 years or more, but may wane at a rate of about 1-2% a year.

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Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi: an introvert on steroids?

27 May 2022

Detail, Imaginary Prisons, by Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Detail from Imaginary Prisons, by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Warning, spoilers follow. Return to this article once you’ve finished reading the book.

Imagine you live in a sprawling multi-storied house. The lower levels are flooded by an ocean, while the upper floors are shrouded in mist and clouds. The seemingly endless labyrinth like hallways are adorned with classical style marble statues, and for whatever reason, sea birds have taken to nesting among some of these figures. But it’s not really a house you’re in, it’s more like a complex with the dimensions of a city, and one none too small at that.

This is the world, Piranesi, the titular character in the second novel of British author Susanna Clarke (published by Bloomsbury Publishing, August 2021), finds himself in. Piranesi knows little about how the house came to be, or when he arrived there, although he has vague recollections of living elsewhere before. Come to that, Piranesi knows hardly anything about himself. He’s perhaps aged in his mid-thirties, and if pressed, couldn’t even be sure his name was Piranesi.

Despite these peculiar circumstances, Piranesi otherwise seems content, and goes about his day to day life as if nothing were amiss. But how would you feel were it you in Piranesi’s place? Wouldn’t you wonder how you ended up in this predicament, and whether there was a way leave, and return to the real world? Wouldn’t you miss family and friends, and wonder if they felt the same way? Wouldn’t you crave the company of others at least some of the time?

But Piranesi doesn’t appear to be the least bit perturbed. Why though? Does he have some sort of problem? Does he loathe all people, and is thankful for the sanctuary the house offers, a place devoid of humans? Or is he perhaps an introvert, who’s found his happy place? Yet Piranesi isn’t completely alone in the house. Once or twice a week, he goes to a certain area of the complex, where he briefly meets a middle-aged man, whom Piranesi refers to as The Other.

If Piranesi knows little about himself, he knows even less about The Other. He has no idea who this gentleman really is — although he believes him to be some sort of academic — nor does he know where The Other resides in the house. The Other meanwhile frequently questions Piranesi, and even sets him tasks, some relatively arduous. One such request required Piranesi to walk to a distant point in the house, on a journey lasting two days return.

To make a comparison, and better understand the scale of the house, I looked up the walking time and distance from Sydney’s CBD to the western suburb of Penrith on Google, and was advised the trek is approximately fifty-six kilometres in length, and the non-stop walk would take almost twelve hours.

Of course the question of exactly what sort of place Piranesi finds himself in came up repeatedly as I read the novel, particularly as he never encountered anyone else — at least not at first — in the sprawling complex. While plenty of Clarke’s readers (myself included) have ideas as to the nature of the house, and what it really is, I found myself wondering how Piranesi could remain oblivious to his acute isolation, and not miss the company of other people.

After all, surely not even the most extreme of introverts would continuously crave the deep solitude of the apparently empty house. But there were indications Piranesi was lonely. He regarded the sea birds nesting in the statues in some of the hallways as friends, and would often have conversations — albeit one-sided — with them. But when it becomes obvious another person is lurking, out of sight, in the house, Piranesi is keen to find out who they are.

In trying to understand Piranesi’s apparently people averse personality, I would describe him as an introvert. But no ordinary — if there is such a thing — introvert. To live alone for years in a vast complex, spending perhaps an hour at most, once a week, with one other person could not be anyone’s ideal. While it can argued something else is going on, that he is unaware of, Piranesi’s outright acceptance of his plight remains compelling. Piranesi is certainly an introvert, but he’s more, he’s an introvert on steroids.

The 2022 Virtual Indigenous Film Festival

24 May 2022

Now in its fourth year, the 2022 Virtual Indigenous Film Festival is an event held exclusively online, showcasing Indigenous Australian film. This year’s event takes place from Thursday 26 May 2022, until Monday 30 May.

My Name is Gulpilil by Molly Reynolds, Off Country by John Harvey and Rhian Skirving, and Wash My Soul in the River’s Flow by Philippa Bateman (trailer featured above), are among titles being livestreamed during this year’s festival.

The 2022 Miles Franklin longlist

24 May 2022

The 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award longlist was announced this morning. An annual award, the Miles Franklin recognises outstanding works of Australian fiction.

Grimmish, by Michael Winkler
Seven and a Half, by Christos Tsiolkas
The Performance, by Claire Thomas
One Hundred Days, by Alice Pung
The Airways, by Jennifer Mills
The Dogs, by John Hughes
The Magpie Wing, by Max Easton
Echolalia, by Briohny Doyle
Bodies of Light, by Jennifer Down
Scary Monsters, by Michelle de Kretser
After Story, by Larissa Behrendt
The Other Half of You, by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

Some familiar titles there, some new ones, either way time to update those to-be-read lists. The shortlist will be announced on Thursday 23 June 2022.

2022 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) shortlist

23 May 2022

The 2022 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) shortlist has been announced. Sixty-five titles are vying for recognition in thirteen award categories, including audiobook, biography, fiction, non-fiction, children, and literary fiction.

Across these categories, together with The Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year, shortlisted titles — in no particular order — include:

Still Life by Amber Creswell Bell
The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
Love & Virtue by Diana Reid
Dropbear by Evelyn Araluen
Wild Abandon by Emily Bitto
and the aforementioned Love Stories by Trent Dalton

The winners will be named at a ceremony on the evening of Thursday 9 June 2022, at the ICC Sydney.

Red, a novel by Felicity McLean, the Ned Kelly story retold

23 May 2022

A novel that is a contemporary re-telling of the story of nineteenth century Australian bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly? Ok, you have my attention. Such is the premise of Red (published by HarperCollins, 18 May 2022), the second novel by Sydney based Australian writer and journalist, Felicity McLean.

But McLean isn’t flippantly bandying about references to Ned Kelly merely to, you know, attract attention, she has partly based her protagonist Ruby “Red” McCoy, on the contents of Kelly’s 1879 Jerilderie letter.

It’s the early 1990s and Ruby ‘Red’ McCoy dreams about one day leaving her weatherboard house on the Central Coast of New South Wales, where her best friend, Stevie, is loose with the truth, and her dad, Sid, is always on the wrong side of the law. But wild, whip-smart Red can’t stay out of trouble to save her life, and Sid’s latest hustle is more harebrained than usual. Meanwhile, Sergeant Trevor Healy seems to have a vendetta against every generation of the McCoys.

So far only a few reviews of Red have been published, but Australian author John Purcell holds McLean’s writing in high regard:

But the novel’s greatest strength is the voice of narrator Red. I know it is loosely based on Ned Kelly’s voice from the famous [Jerilderie] letter, but it goes well beyond that. Red speaks to us as a fully formed living entity with her own ticks and wisdom. So much so that I started to believe McLean must have suffered from some kind of unholy possession throughout the writing of the book. Red’s narration overflows with colourful anecdotes, cheek and bravado. McLean’s use of language is ceaselessly inventive, coming up with the goods time and time again.

Photos from inside the besieged Mariupol steel plant

23 May 2022

The photos were taken by Dmytro Kozatsky, one of several thousand Ukrainian soldiers who managed to defend the Azovstal steel plant for almost three months, from Russian invaders. Kozatsky is now being held by the Russians as a prisoner of war.

Here’s hoping he wins an award for these images.

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Whina, a film by James Napier Robertson and Paula Whetu Jones

23 May 2022

Whina, trailer, directed by James Napier Robertson, and Paula Whetu Jones, is the story of Dame Whina Cooper, a twentieth century Māori activist and leader, who fought for Māori rights in New Zealand. Whina will screen at the 2022 Sydney Film Festival.

The daughter of a Māori chief, Josephine (‘Whina’ for short), was born in Hokianga in 1895. For nearly a century, Whina (Miriama McDowell, as younger Whina, and Rena Owen, Once Were Warriors) never stopped asserting the rights of her people and striving for unity between Māori and Pākehā. In 1975, Whina, frail but still determined, led a sacred hīkoi over 600kms, from the top of New Zealand to Parliament House in Wellington.

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