Not So Regular

Journal: 121

‘Regular work’ proved not to be the boon I thought it might be. Yes, there was a big cheque at the end of the month – the end of the month after I did the work, but reconciliation against my invoices showed a deduction here, a short payment there. (Unavailing) arguments ensued. I stayed home. Other work came up as I awaited payment for the second month (I got it, shortpaid again).

The work up which came, was dongas – transportable huts each containing 4 bedrooms and ensuites – from a mining camp north of Kalgoorlie back to Perth. As you can see, they are wider and longer than my trailer, from which the ramps have been removed (temporarily), but light as … well anything really, I was using hardly any fuel. We tried one load as a road train. Luckily they had a shorter hut for the second trailer, but otherwise it wasn’t possible without specialised equipment and a lot of mucking around.

That contract is now done, I’ll refit my ramps when the mechanic makes time, and wait to see what else comes up. Interestingly, Milly is looking at a ‘tiny house’ for her block in Denmark. It would be the same length as the hut above and one and a half times as wide, equivalent apparently to a smallish US ‘single-wide’.

Meanwhile, my single mother seemingly eternal PhD student daughter has suddenly found herself with a very short deadline to submit her thesis on plate movement under the Timor Sea. My job is a little proof reading – no three words together make any sense to me at all – and a lot of construction of reference lists. I had better stay home until it’s done.

What has slipped through the cracks during all this work, apart from responding to other people’s posts, is this year’s Ursula K Le Guin Prize. The shortlist, announced a couple of weeks ago, is:
The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera (M, Sri Lanka) – which I have
The Skin and Its Girl, Sarah Cypher (F, Lebanon/USA)
It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, Anne de Marcken (F, USA)
Orbital, Samantha Harvey (F, Eng.)
Sift, Alissa Hattman (F, USA)
The Library of Broken Worlds, Alaya Dawn Johnson (F, USA)
Those Beyond the Wall, Micaiah Johnson (F, USA)
Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh (F, ? )
Mammoths at the Gates, Nghi Vo (F, USA)

“The recipient of this year’s prize will be chosen by authors Margaret Atwood, Omar El Akkad, Megan Giddings, Ken Liu, and Carmen Maria Machado, and will be announced on October 21, 2024.”

There seems to be a greater bias towards US writers this year, perhaps reflecting that the judges asked their (presumably) mainly US audience for nominations. So, if over the coming 10 or so months Australian publishers offer you quirky SF/Fantasy/Dystopian new releases feel free to onforward them to me and we’ll see if the nomination process can be tilted back to the wider world.

This month’s novel for my Africa Project is How Beautiful We Were, Imbolo Mbue (Cameroon).

There are a number of literary works below that I should review. Sadly, the audiobooks especially disappear from my head almost as soon as I have finished them, but I will try and knock out a couple of reviews over the next two or three weeks.

Recent audiobooks 

Lucinda Berry (F, USA), The Secrets of Us (2021) Crime
Mary Burton (F, USA), Don’t Look Now (2021) Crime
Peace Adzo Medie (F, Ghana), His Only Wife (2021) (review)
Colson Whitehead (M, USA), The Intuitionist (1999) SF – a young (Black, male, NY) writer with his first novel reprises Philip K Dick SF with a 1950s vibe, and does it brilliantly. Lila Mae, an Intuitionist, is the first Black woman to be made an elevator inspector, a guild controlled by Empiricists, in the tall city, where elevators are the most important form of transport.
Katie Sise (F, USA), Open House (2020)
Alice Walker (F, USA), The Colour Purple (1982). Melanie wanted me to read this for my North America Project a couple of years ago, but other books intervened and I’ve only just got to it. It’s a powerfully told story of Black women asserting their independence, spoiled by the info-dumping in Nettie’s letters from Africa.
Mike Chen (M, USA), Light Years from Home (2022) SF (he really was abducted by Aliens!)

Currently Reading 

Jessica White (F, Aust/NSW), Entitlement (2012) Whispering Gums’ review. Jess, herself the member of a prominent NSW rural family, tackles the problem of how to deal with Indigenous dispossession, and does it well.
Nalo Hopkinson (F, Can), Brown Girl in the Ring (1998) SFF. Hopkinson’s debut novel. Toronto has been hollowed out by riots and a Black gangster rules the inner city from the observation deck of the CN Tower, using Jamaican spirit creatures. Our heroine, who, it turns out is his granddaughter, must fight back at the risk of becoming enslaved as one of his creatures.
Ethel Wilson (F, Can), Swamp Angel (1954). Wilson writes beautifully of an unhappily married woman’s quest to find herself in the remote lakes and forests of British Columbia. (Marcie/BIP plans to move me slowly eastwards across the continent from our starting point of Arboreality on Vancouver Is.).
Willa Cather (F, USA), One of Ours (1922) (review)

AWWC July 2024