Treason Keep was released in France at some point over the last few days. I'm not sure when it came out exactly and the only cover I've seen is the thumbnail below. I am dying to see the full thing because I have a funny feeling the French artist has decided the Harshini demons resemble Rhesus monkeys. Oh dear.

Anyway, here is the cover and the blurb in French. I don't know what it says because I flunked French in high school, but I'm guessing the references to  "Robin Hobb et de Georges R. R. Martin" aren't actually a bad thing... LOL

 À l’issue de Medalon, Tarja et sa demi-sœur R’shiel ont vaincu leur mère, la supérieure des sœurs du Glaive qui gouvernait Medalon.Le coût de la victoire est élevé : R’shiel est mortellement blessée. Son seul espoir de survie repose sur  les Harshini, demi-dieux dont la race s’éteint.
Pendant ce temps, Medalon doit faire face à l’invasion des armées de Karien, le royaume du Nord sous la coupe de Xaphista le dieu conquérant et de son clergé fanatique. Une alliance avec Hytria s’impose, mais des générations d’hostilité séparent les deux nations. Et le roi de Fardohnya, l’autre grand royaume du Sud, manière de califat des Mille et Une Nuits, marie sa fille aînée à l’héritier de Karien ; sa fille qui nourrit d’autres projets.

Trahisons, infiltrations et machinations, tout est en place pour une lutte sans merci dans un but que les protagonistes ne connaissent pas tous, le contrôle de l’enfant démon, qui n’est autre que R’shiel. Car, derrière les querelles des hommes il y a celles des dieux.

Plus qu’une fantasy avec des dieux et des pouvoirs, c’est à une fantasy religieuse et politique qu’a donné naissance Jennifer Fallon dans cette trilogie de l’enfant démon. Avec des personnages matures, cohérents, des événements historiques qui les dépassent parfois, Jennifer Fallon marche dans les pas de Robin Hobb et de Georges R. R. Martin, avec une prose limpide, un récit nerveux et surprenant, humoristique parfois, étonnamment accessible pourtant .

Buy Le Fort de la Felonie from Amazon in France

Release dates for 2008

Today was Day 1 of my attempt to take part in the judicial system...

8:30 am - Arrive at court via Gloria Jeans. Cannot do this without coffee. Courthouse foyer is packed. There are 100 other potential jurors. Everyone seems to be in a good mood.

8:50 am - Get called into the jury room. Have to be searched, checked with the metal detector and ticked off the list. I am not allowed to take my Gloria Jeans coffee with me. I joke that I'll drink it to prove it's not explosive. Get told if I keep making jokes like that I will be held in contempt of court, however they relent and let me take the coffee past the checkpoint into the Sherriff's office. Not allowed into the jury room until the coffee is finished.

9:15 am - Coffee finished. Now have 100 people squished into the jury room which has 12 chairs, a conference table, instant coffee and 2 packets of biscuits. Either they're expecting a "loaves and fishes" type miracle or someone's not really up on the concept of catering for a large crowd. It is sweltering and standing room only.

9:30 am - Taken into the courtroom. There is seating for about 50 people. Everyone else has to stand. I manage to score a seat using the old Indian trick of "pushing and shoving". Get shown a video explaining the judicial process. Can't see much of the video but I am now intimately acquainted with the belt loops on the trousers of the man standing in front of me.

9:45 am - All the old, infirm, blind, deaf and Secondborn - who also got called up and who can't sit still long enough to hear a case because of her back - are sent home.

10:00 am - All shuffled out of the courtroom and back into the jury room so they can hear an unrelated matter in the court. We get told to shut up for being too noisy. I manage another coffee, a seat and two biscuits. Pushing and shoving is proving a very effective tactic:)

10:20 am - And it's back to the courtroom. Charges and witness list are read out. All the people who want out have to line up, take an oath and convince the judge they shouldn't be there. Knowing someone in the accused's family is not sufficient excuse. Accused apparently comes from the largest family in Central Australia. Everybody knows someone in the family. Among the better excuses for a trial expected to last 2 days...  "I have a TV station to run", "I'm too busy" and "I have to go to Sydney next month".

11:00 - Have run out of excuses and they start drawing out the jury. I have found a seat but can't see a thing because there is a wall of people between me and the business end of the courtroom. Now it feels like we're playing bingo. They call out numbers and I keep expecting them to say "sixty six, lickety splits" or something equally absurd.

11:30 - My number didn't come up. Oh well. I'm off the hook until next Monday when they empanel the jury for the next trial.

It looks so much more exciting on television:)

As few times a year as possible, Dace gets his hair cut. Now, because school goes back tomorrow the inevitble could no longer be delayed, and as I am the only one allowed to cut his hair, it was haircut day today.

Now, here's the thing.... apparently Dace has nerve endings in his hair. or he thinks you're going to cut his ear off. Or stab him. Or commit a fashion crime. He flinches with every snip, panics at the mere thought of loose hair falling on his face and jigs around so much, it's highly likely that one day he will get jabbed, stabbed,cut or made to look like Perez Hilton.

What's really annoying about this performance is that his uncle was exactly the same. We gave up taking Thirdborn to the hairdresser at 2 and he didn't go near one again until he was 15 (when I totally botched the cut and he didn't trust me after that...hehehe). He would actually scream and cry when he was having his hair cut as a toddler, and because he was a white-blond baby, it was like sitting in a snow storm.

So, Dace, miraculaously, has a hair cut that is amazingly even under the circumstances, and I'm left wondering how it is that the Human DNA Project hasn't yet identified the "I'm A Complete Wuss About Haircuts" gene or done a study on why it seems to be only passed on through the male line.

I love the people at Supanova, even when I'm being secretly recorded:)

And, bless their little cotton socks, those very clever boys from Joffre Street Productions have just put up a podcast of the world-building panel I did with the delightful (and very, very tall) Marianne de Pierres in Sydney last year as part of their Podcast Series.

This is a recording of the whole panel which goes for about 45 minutes and is very interesting, if you're in to that sort of thing. If you search through the podcasts, you'll find some fascinating stuff. Not as much fun as being there, but perhaps the next best thing.

I have some other exciting news about Supanova coming too, but I can't say anything yet. You'll have to stay tuned:)

Anyway... here is the download...

Download mp3 15.20 megs)

Or you can go to the Supanova page and listen to Podcast streaming here.

The winners of the 2007 Aurealis Awards have been announced.

The Gods of Amyrantha was shortlisted in the Fantasy section which was an honour, but up against such a strong field, I can't say I was even remotely expecting it to win. In fact, I was quite sure GOA wouldn't win and made a few choice wagers with friends to that effect, so in a way, I did win... quite a bit actually... LOL There will be many collections of chocolate, a bottle of wine and a few cash exchanges in the coming days, as the debts are settled... hahahaha

Anyway, congrats to all the winners, and particularly to the delightful Terry Dowling, winner of the Peter McNamara Convenors' Award for Excellence. There's an award I am sure nobody could disagree with.

And the Aurealis Award goes to...

best science fiction novel
David Kowalski, The Company of the Dead, Pan Macmillan
best science fiction short story
Cat Sparks, ‘Hollywood Roadkill’, On Spec, #69
best fantasy novel
Lian Hearn, Heaven’s Net is Wide, Tales of the Otori The First Book, Hachette Livre
best fantasy short story
Garth Nix, ‘Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz go to War Again’, Jim Baen’s Universe, April 2007
best horror novel
Susan Parisi, Blood of Dreams, Penguin Group (Australia)
best horror short story
Anna Tambour, ‘The Jeweller of Second-Hand Roe’, Subterranean, #7
best young adult novel
Anthony Eaton, Skyfall, UQP
best young adult short story
Deborah Biancotti, ‘A Scar for Leida’, Fantastic Wonder Stories, Ticonderoga Publications
best children’s (8-12 years) long fiction
Kate Forsyth, The Silver Horse, The Chain of Charms 2, Pan Macmillan Kate Forsyth, The Herb of Grace, The Chain of Charms 3, Pan Macmillan Kate Forsyth, The Cat’s Eye Shell, The Chain of Charms 4, Pan Macmillan Kate Forsyth, The Lightning Bolt, The Chain of Charms 5, Pan Macmillan Kate Forsyth, The Butterfly in Amber, The Chain of Charms 6, Pan Macmillan
best children’s (8-12 years) short fiction (tied)
Marc McBride, World of Monsters, Scholastic Australia and Briony Stewart, Kumiko and the Dragon, UQP
Peter McNamara Convenors' Award for Excellence
Terry Dowling, Rynemonn, Coeur de Lion Publications Terry Dowling has long been a respected writer of science fiction and supporter of the speculative fiction community. In 2007 his book Rynemonn was released. This work is theculmination of the exceptional Tom Rynosseros stories that Dowling haspublished over more than a decade. His work fits comfortably next to genre fiction writers such as Ray Bradbury or Ursula K. LeGuin. His literary skill and richness of storytelling equally bring to mind comparisons with writers such as Isak Dinesen and Thornton Wilder. Therefore, the convening judges of the Aurealis Awards 2007 have awarded the Peter McNamara Convenors' Award for Excellence to Terry Dowling for Rynemonn, his magnum opus of the Tom Rynosseros/Tom Tyson saga.
GOLDEN AUREALIS
Novel:	David Kowalski, The Company of the Dead, Pan Macmillan
Short Story:	Cat Sparks, ‘Hollywood Roadkill’, On Spec, #69