Edinburgh Book Festival

I'm thrilled to be going to the Edinburgh Book Festival, where I'll be panelising with Melvin Burgess next Monday evening, and doing a solo talk about fantasy writing next Tuesday morning as part of the schools program.

As well, I'll be taking part in the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference, where we'll drag out five Big Questions that were debated with some fire at the first EWWC in 1962, and work out what we think about them nowadays.

Then, thoroughly inspired, I'll strike out into the Irish countryside to do some research for my next novel.

See you in September!

'A Diminutive Delight'!

Here's a good solid review of Cracklescape from Brit Mandelo at Tor:

The ability to weave a satisfying story with narrative movement and emotional resonance out of the simple details of familiar people living familiar lives, encountering only briefly something inexplicable to them and to us, is rare. It’s the sort of accomplishment that appears flawless and simple, nearly rustic, but is made up of a dazzling series of interlocking, microscopic parts. Lanagan’s other-world fantastic stories are great, but the understated and graceful force of these four pieces, put into concert, demonstrates her equal gift for bringing to life real people in the real world—only, a touch sideways, a touch out of kilter, encountering things that they cannot explain. We, the reader, are left to wonder, and to turn over and over in our minds what Lanagan has shown us, searching for impossible answers.

Cracklescape's first review

And it's a lovely one, from Gary K. Wolfe at Locus:

Cracklescape, he says,

may come as something of a revelation even to devoted Lanagan readers. It includes only four stories (together with an appreciative, brief introduction by Jane Yolen), but the settings are recognizably contemporary or near-contemporary Australia, and the tales themselves allude to familiar forms such as the ghost story, the childhood-escape tale, the succubus tale, even the contemporary middle-aged marriage drama, all filtered through the characteristic Lanagan lens, which illuminates and distorts at the same time.

He likes all four stories, but the UFO story set on the Nullarbor Plain surprises him the most:

By far the most masterful tale here, ..."Significant Dust" conveys a kind of immanence and mystery that’s powerful even by Lanagan standards, and that introduces us to one of her most unforgettable characters.