Six Cities I Still Desperately Want to Visit

Only those who risk going too far find out how far they can go. 

-Walter Bishop, Fringe 

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A moderately well-travelled individual, I have been lucky enough to visit some beautiful cities around our wonderful world, gathering memories, ideas, inspiration and keyrings along the way. While I have some definite favourites I have crossed off my list – and which I frequently daydream about revisiting – there are six cities I am yet to see which remain desperately high on my travel agenda. 

Need another adventure! My travel journal and keychain are seeking new additions :) where to next? #julyreadsplaining #travel #julybookphotochallenge #photochallenge #julyphotochallenge #book #bookish #keyring #souvenirs #postcards #holiday #holidaywriting #journal #bookstagram

A post shared by Shayla Morgansen (@shayla.morgansen) on Jul 13, 2017 at 1:25am PDT

Athens 

The Parthenon. The Acropolis. The Erechtheion. Thousands of years of western history on everyday display for the general public in the form of temples, monuments, ruins, not to mention everything in all the museums. My lifelong fascination with Greek mythology and the history of culture and language is all satisfied, in my pipedream, in one good long holiday in Athens. 

Belfast 

There are a number of factors calling me to Northern Ireland’s capital city. Probably the most obvious is The Elm Stone Saga, which is set not too far from there. I had planned to go (planned, booked, paid for, all but packed for) many years ago but the tour I organised was cancelled at the last possible minute and I ended up in London instead, and somehow, I have not managed to find the time or the right prompt to try and visit again. So, to this day, I have never been to Northern Ireland. But Belfast attracts me especially, more so than Coleraine, where Aristea is first found in Chosen. Have you watched The Fall? Belfast is the setting of this police drama/thriller, and it’s depicted so beautifully, highlighting the stunning architecture and night-time lights of this unsung city. It’s on my list! 

Berlin 

In none of my three visits to Germany have I been to the capital, one of the most liveable (and presumably visitable) cities in the world. This must be amended! Friends of mine who have been rave about its beauty and the safe, easy feeling of being there. I want to see the remains of the Wall, visit the Holocaust memorials and look at the Brandenburg Gate. More than all that, I just really want to see more of Germany – my very favourite country so far. 

Canberra 

I’ve seen Sydney and Melbourne, lived most my life in Brisbane, and have played with the idea of flying to Adelaide to see pandas, but the Australian city I most want to see after watching Secret City is the capital. It’s not one you hear about often – exciting holiday stories are usually about trendy windswept adventures through Melbourne or upbeat fun in Sydney – and in primary school SOSE it always felt like that dot you draw on the map last, like, oh yeah, we’ve got that capital somewhere around here… I had never been intrigued by it until Secret City was shot there. TV shows do such a great job of selling locations to me, have you noticed? They use wonderful sweeping camera shots of all the beautiful government buildings and the geometric patterns made by their careful urban planning. It looks pretty. 

Christchurch 

I’ve stopped over here for an hour or so on a flight back from Wellington, but it doesn’t count because I never left the airport. I’d like to see this great southern city while it still (kind of) stands. The destruction wrought on it has done heartbreaking damage to what looks like a gorgeous, charming old place. The cathedral comes to mind as something I truly want to see, but I’m sure in a city of this age, second-hand bookshops, antique stores and quirky side street finds would still be aplenty, and these are my favourite things to do in a new place. 

Vancouver 

I have always wanted to visit the Canadian capital. Maybe it’s the name; I like the name. Vancouver. I like saying it, the way it feels to produce the sounds in my mouth, and I like writing it. I like the ou. The things that catch your fancy when you’re a wordsmith. In pictures it looks delightfully pretty and clean, and friends of mine who have lived or visited Vancouver sell a story of a cultured, pleasant place. This is where they film Supernatural and The X-Files, which helps keep it at the forefront of my mind throughout the television season. People always have the nicest things to say about trips to Canada, and I like the idea of a northern-hemisphere, semi-frozen version of Australia with bears that don’t drop.

 

Book Review: The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was exactly what I needed. If you're a writer, artist or student not achieving your dream, this book is for you. Short and sweet and to-the-point, this book sums up all the ways we sabotage ourselves creatively with procrastination, excuses, fears and time mismanagement, and gives us the prompt to take ourselves, and our creative work, seriously, and just START. No magic answer, nothing I didn't already *know*; just the reminder that I'm the only one who can get it done, and I'm the only one stopping myself, broken up into highly digestible small pieces of engaging, entertaining writing.

Thank you, Mr Pressfield. I needed this book.

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A birthday sneak peek at Book 4

It's Aristea's birthday, which is where we left her at the end of Unbidden. Book 4 is still a long way from shore but as a birthday gift to you all, here's the rough draft of Aristea's first moments in her fourth novel. Remember this can still change! Editing and improvement comes later, where appropriate. In any case, I hope you enjoy. Happy birthday :)

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The world came back to me, or rather, I came back to it, in blurry stages. First there was the noise, a steady dripping of liquid somewhere nearby. A tap, a leak? I didn’t know. The next stage was emotion – around me, in the air, lying across me like a wet blanket, the weight of yucky feelings. It took me a groggy while to identify them, they were so mixed. Some blend of grief, confusion, anger… guilt. Disbelief. The dripping I could have ignored, but the feelings were more persistent, and started to bring me around.

Awareness began to return to me, but wakefulness did not. I struggled against the overwhelming power of my own unconsciousness. I couldn’t have said how long. Indeterminate time. I tried to move. My body totally ignored my request. I tried to open my eyes. Couldn’t. I started to feel the pale, sluggish beginnings of panic. Was I paralysed? What had happened to me? Where was I? My breathing sped up.

Good – I was breathing. I was aware of my chest rising and falling, and of air moving in and out of my nostrils. I concentrated on calming down and getting control of my body back so I could get some answers.

Complex movement patterns like sitting up seemed out of the question so I moved my attention to my fingers. They were harder to isolate than they should have been, and I didn’t know for sure whether they did what I wanted when I willed them to wiggle. Something was wrong with my nerves, or with my brain, or with… I didn’t know. Was I tied up? Drugged?

I couldn’t command my own body. I was helpless. I tried again to sit up, or to roll over, anything, focusing every ounce of energy I had on throwing myself to the side.

There was a loud clatter of things falling onto a hard floor, and the sudden pitch of voices, the words tumbling over one another in my ears, making little sense.

“… waking up…”

“… is typical… mess. She’s got no control…”

“… more sedative?”

“No, she’s had…”

I didn’t recognise the muddle of accented tones but heard them getting closer, felt the accompanying concern that came with them, and my dim panic skyrocketed. I jerked to the other side, hoping to roll away and onto my feet.

My body didn’t move. Something on my other side smashed like glass. The noise terrified me, and above me, I heard something pop. A splash of liquid burst on the floor. A door slammed. Someone made a noise of fright. Maybe it was me?

“… trying to move… out as magic…”

“… in pain? Is…”

“… not…”

“Can’t you do something?”

I stopped my attempts at struggle. I knew that voice. My awareness of my body was so vague but I felt a firm hand close over mine and hold it tightly, warmly. My escalating fear plateaued, at least enough that when the voice spoke again, I heard it and understood it.

“Aristea,” it said, “it’s alright. It’s over. You’re safe. You’re safe…”

And my awareness dipped away once again into unconsciousness.

Book Review: Fairytales for Wilde Girls, by Allyse Near

Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like all good book purchases, I bought this for its cover. Just. Gorgeous. And then I left it on a shelf for about four years before finally reading it.

The essential story is of a misfit teen called Isola, who sees and feels protected by a cast of fantastical beings around her - ghosts, mermaids, fairies, furies. She calls these fierce protectors her brother-princes, named for the characters out of her beloved French fairytales. Isola has very few real-world friends, an uncomfortably uncommunicative relationship with her dad and a mentally ill mother, but soon strikes up a friendship with Edgar, whose family moves in across the street. One day walking through the neighbouring woodlands, Isola happens across a dead girl in a cage.

I should start by mentioning that the writing is absolutely the star of this show - poetic descriptions using outrageous and wholesome arrangements of language that are oh so perfect and intriguing, mismatched verbs that actually fit better than the conventional options and delightful structural choices. The book is separated into both parts and then chapters, with whole-page illustrations of the brother-princes. Mostly told in third-person prose, occasionally the main story will be interrupted by segments of play script detailing the scene, or a page of Isola's fairytale book. This feels more common in the first half of the book, but may be better spaced out than I recall. It's actually a delightful read in that sense, all these special little inserts, similar to Markus Zusak's works. I really can't say any better than the other reviewers how lovely Near's writing style is, but that's what it is. It's lovely.

The second big star from me is for the imagination. The sense of wonder elicited by Near's world, into which her characters and plot settle so comfortably, is a real achievement. Every ridiculous or nonsensical thing that happens within the scope of the book feels totally and casually real to that world, and, once I had a handle on what was going on (there is admittedly an adjustment period at the beginning, a few dozen pages of getting your bearings as things jump a little) there was nothing about the world-building that I questioned or felt jarred by. Ghosts accompanying Isola through the woods? Uh, yeah. Obviously. Unicorns? But of course. The author's vision for this world she created is, I think, beautifully and wholly communicated to the reader, on the wings of that gorgeous writing.

Another big positive of this story is the depiction of mental illness. Isola's mother struggles with depression, and in interactions between the pair we see how this impacts the daughter, which is one of the most insightful elements of the book. These interactions flicker from dark to light, truly one of the more mature aspects - Isola is aware that her mother's behaviour is not normal, but it's become normal for her, and she deals with it, and this is both dark and sad at the same time as uplifting and light, a childlike, innocent determination to see one's parent the way you WISH they were rather than what you have. Mother Wilde's madness also juxtaposes against Isola's, so that we quickly dismiss the concept of Isola as crazy because, look, there's ACTUAL mental illness right there, so Isola must be perfectly sane by comparison. It's a clever device, helping the reader to place faith in Isola's sanity early on despite her chats with fairies, and discouraging us from questioning the validity of Isola's perspective. Because of some of this cleverness, the story's twist came quite out of field for me, and I appreciated Near's manipulation.

A couple of small things stopped me from totally loving this book, and they may have been less of an issue if I had read the book in one bout, rather than sporadically through assessment period. The story's complication wasn't entirely clear to me, and the cohesion suffered as a result. The ghostly girl in the cage occasionally dropped by to be rude and angry at the window, and then seemed to sing on the lawn and keep Isola awake. This didn't strike me as cause for the brother-princes' aggression toward the girl, and when the woods started to die, I must have missed something because I found it hard to draw the same connections Isola and her brothers did, that it was the girl's fault somehow and that Isola needed protection. Despite excellent characterisation from most of the princes, I felt a bit disappointed by the lack of development of Grape and James - in the case of James, with whom Isola has almost no positive interactions with throughout the entire book, I started to wonder why he was in the story, let alone mentioned in the blurb. I wished there could have been more page time for both of Isola's real friends. They seemed like great characters, and we only saw the very edge of them.

Overall, this is a beautiful book that I am glad I read. For the writing and imagination alone, this book is absolutely worth the read for the very literary YA reader.

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Comic Book Review: X-Files X Mas Special 2016, by Joe Harris and Wayne Nichols

X-files X mas special 2016 by Joe Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't normally read comics but I had the pleasure of meeting the artist at Supanova and I adore The X-Files so I made an exception. The story draws on the Ebenezer Scrooge tale of a man without Christmas spirit (Mulder) who is so determinedly miserable and focused that he is forgetting to appreciate what he has, has had and will have (a few things, but mostly Scully). Harris works his story well within the constraints of the medium and Nichols' artwork contributes perfectly to conveying this narrative with utmost impact and detail. Always with comics, I feel there's room for elaboration or more development, but I respect that it's not fair to apply novel expectations to a different form. Wayne Nichols' art style is very clear and attractive - different from my albeit limited prior exposure to comic art - and both Nichols and Harris, in their own way, do the characters and the fandom justice. I thoroughly enjoyed this read.

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Book Review: Ground Zero, by Kevin J. Anderson

The X-Files: Ground Zero by Kevin J. Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Anderson is a veteran author in this fandom and always does justice to The X-Files, so I knew I would enjoy this addition to the expansive universe. The case is intriguing and well-researched: a series of deaths that can only be explained by impossible means (localised atomic bursts with no source and no debris scorching single rooms or backyards) draw Mulder and Scully onto a cross-country and then overseas adventure, eventually into a typhoon, along with a medley cast of atomic weapons designers, atomic weapons protesters and atomic weapon survivors. The author has the lead characters nailed, especially in dialogue, and their dynamic is characteristically easy and compelling. The case, despite its necessary paranormal elements that are too insane for Scully (and sometimes the reader?) to swallow, lends a lot more opportunity than usual for Scully to demonstrate her aptitudes, not only in medicine but in this case as a physicist. There was a taste of some Scully backstory here, but her unwillingness to discuss activism with Mulder kind of shut down any chance of this subplot developing and being particularly meaningful, which was a shame. This, and the tendency of both characters to jump to a few conclusions that didn't feel entirely stable, prevented me from feeling like I *loved* the book, though I did really enjoy it, and the trade paperback size of the book was also hugely convenient for handbag travel. Bonus!

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