Winner of the 2000 Aurealis Award for best fantasy novel, Juliet Mariller’s Son of the Shadows, the second book of the Sevenwaters trilogy is a fantastic read, combining the Celtic mysticism and historical-fantasy world she established in Daughter of the Forest with believable characters and emotionally powerful situations.

Taking place many years after the first book, Son of the Shadows follows Liadan, daughter of Sorcha and Red, who possesses powerful healing and psychic abilities. When her sister, Niamh, is married to an Ui Neill chieftain as part of the family’s strategic alliance, Liadan is captured by the Painted Man, a notorious criminal plaguing Ireland. She heals an injured man in his party, despite being at odds with the Painted Man, eventually conceiving his son during an unexpected night of passion. When she returns home, she tries to conceal his identity from her family. She holds out hope that her unlikely partner will return to her, enlisting his help to save Niamh from a loveless, violent marriage. Throughout it all, Liadan remains strong willed, ignoring the influence of others while coming to terms with her budding healing and psychic abilities.   

Son of the Shadows is a touching story about the development of an unlikely love, demonstrating how far one woman will pursue what she feels is right despite her kin not approving it. Through Liadan, Marillier depicts the strength of women and the fallacy of men, while further enchanting readers in her authentic historical-fantasy world. Moreover, her portrayal of the mystic, such as how Liadan interprets her visions and the how she explores another character’s mind, is perfectly realised without seeming otherworldly. Importantly, Mariller’s prose is well nuanced, her tale is told in a very engaging style, and the world of Sevenwaters is so inviting that readers won’t want to put it down.

Son of the Shadows comes highly recommend for fantasy readers.

4 stars

The Artist’s Way:
Creativity as Spiritual Practice
Author: Julia Cameron           
Publisher: Penguin     
Publication Date: 1992

Applying the 12-step approach of AA to creativity, Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way helps writers and artists of all kinds overcome the obstacles they encounter during their artistic path by suggesting art is a spiritual practice. Eschewing religious indoctrination , Cameron proposes that the act of creating art itself fulfils an important spiritual need within and that not doing so creates problems for an artist. Over twelve chapters, Cameron offers advice on how to overcome and recover from creative barriers, self-doubt, and criticism, while suggesting ways to establish an environment in which artists feel safe, connected, and strong enough to create their work. Written in a down-to-earth style and utilising a series of myriad exercises, such as the Morning Pages and Artist Dates, Cameron offers many insights that will resonate with struggling artists, encouraging them to continue their work. Cameron offers a series of similar books and while there are also worth reading, The Artist Way is the most succinct and inspiring.

The War of Art:
Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Author: Steven Pressfield
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing              
Publication Date: 2002

When I first decided to take my creative writing seriously, this book instilled in me many of the principles I still adhere to today. With a good sense of humour and a no-bullshit attitude, Steven Pressfield puts the responsibility of your creative work and artistic success in your hands. Because, as I have discovered through my own experience, it won’t happen otherwise. Pressfield defines the enemy of creativity as resistance and then outlines the numerous forms it appears in during an artist’s life. Through a series of very short chapters, Pressfield addresses many issues that come up for beginner, and indeed advanced, writers, from the inner struggle to start or continue the work, to self-doubt, and, importantly, how to overcome this resistance. Throughout, he offers examples and mantras to help artists overcome these issues. It’s short and inspiring.

On Writing:
A Memoir of the Craft
Author: Stephen King            
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton        
Publication Date: 2000

Part memoir, part writer’s toolbox, Stephen King, probably the highest-selling author of our age, not only discusses what made him want to write and how he got to where he is, but offers plenty of insight and expertise on the craft of storytelling. Drawing on his experience, King outlines the dos and don’ts of writing, emphasising the importance of the craft of storytelling over technical prowess. He also suggests potential writers seriously consider whether they really want to become an author because it is a hard slog and requires a lot of perseverance. King’s most important advice for want-to-be and emerging writers is to create a daily target and routine and stick to it until you finish your story. Written in King’s familiar casual style, this tome channels King’s decades of successful experience into a relatable and understandable book.

The Anatomy of Story:
22 Steps to Becoming Master Storyteller
Author: John Truby                
Publisher: Faber and Faber                
Publication Date: 2007

Recommended by my friend Donelle, this book has become my bible for structuring my stories. Although John Truby focuses on screenwriting, the techniques he discusses are equally applicable to writing prose. Truby starts from the beginning, helping writers germinate story ideas and establish which are the most potent. Then he takes writers through the process of germinating characters that best fit the idea, discovering the story’s central theme, developing the plot, creating a symbol web to add deeper meaning to your story, how to write good dialogue, and more. Throughout, he shows how his techniques work in well-known stories, allowing writers to properly understand and then integrate his concepts in their own work, many of which, such as four-corner opposition, add a lot of power. Whenever I become stuck, going back through this book consistently helps resolve many of my story’s issues.

The Writer’s Journey:
Mythic Structure for Writers
Author: Christopher Vogler               
Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions           
Publication Date: 2007 (3rd edition)

In this excellent tome, veteran story consultant, Christopher Vogler applies Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, or hero’s journey, to creating a story. Campbell theorised that all stories are the same: each follows a hero or protagonist who encounters a disturbance to normal life, acts to overcome it, and then returns from the experience with wisdom to share with their community. Vogler breaks this concept down into easy-to-understand terminology, introducing writers to common character archetypes and suggests how to identify them in their story and help flesh out them and their roles. Moreover, he outlines twelve succinct stages of the hero’s journey and, through examples from popular stories, demonstrates how they can be used to structure a narrative. Although perhaps a little oversimplified, Vogler acknowledges the variable nature of the hero’s journey and the unique way it appears in all stories.

With a heavy reliance on nostalgia from the series’ earlier entries, 2015’s Terminator: Genisys risks plummeting this once great series into even direr depths than 2009’s Terminator Salvation did. Fortunately, drawing on the previous films strengthens this average action-film.

Kyle Reece is sent back to 1984 to protect Sarah Conner from a T-800. Only, instead of finding a helpless Sarah, as in The Terminator (1984), he encounters a war-savvy Sarah reminiscent of 1991’s Terminator 2 along with a protective and reprogrammed T-800. Although the original Judgement Day was stopped, they learn of Skynet’s new activation date, and so travel to 2017 to stop it, only to encounter an unexpected surprise.

What follows is a standard action film punctuated with some great Terminator lore and mythology, some great comedic lines and action-sequences from Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays an ageing T-800, some great character interaction between Kyle (Jason Clarke) and Sarah (the wonderfully convincing Emilia Clarke), and some surprising twists.

Early sequences tastefully reimagine classic scenes from The Terminator, while adding their own twists that respect the original material. The film offers little new in terms of story. Fortunately, like Terminator 2, the character interaction makes the film because the attachments between Kyle, Sarah, John, and the T-800 are emotionally driven, well played, and engaging. Action sequences, too, are well constructed and while a few moments defy credibility, they are never overdone.

Overall, Terminator: Genisys is a good action film that respects the Terminator licence. While it’s not as good as the first two films, it’s miles better than Salvation and on par with 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

3 stars

Tim Winton’s Island Home: A Landscape Memoir is an engaging part biography, part personal essay that will speak to Western Australians.

In the book’s more powerful sections, Winton divulges select moments from his life using the evocative descriptions of the WA landscape and terse prose that have become his signature. Avid Winton readers will recognise the landscape in some of these fragments as obvious inspirations for several of his novels, such as The Riders and An Open Swimmer.

Spaced around these biographical sections are several personal essays about Winton’s life experiences and his environmental stance. Most are relatable, pertinent, and even touching at times. Unfortunately, a few in the middle of the book come across as impersonal and even preachy as he delves into Australian politics and the policies that have and are preventing action on some of Australia’s environmental issues. Yet, these sections are never overly long as to bore a reader.

Utilising Winton's stylistically terse writing, Island Home is an engaging read that could only have been improved had Winton focused more on his life rather than his political view.

3 ½ stars

The Wachowskis’ 2015 film, Jupiter Ascending, contains an original and expansive universe filled with a variety of alien races and conflicts. Yet, this vastness quickly loses audiences.

The film focuses on protagonist Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), an “ordinary girl”, who encounters several aliens who whisk her off world. Little known to Jupiter, this is all part of an alien species’ belief that she is the reincarnation of their royal mother.

Early on, Jupiter comes across as a relatable character with a quirky, but loveable, family. However, character development quickly falls to the wayside as the alien concepts are introduced and expanded action sequences become the mainstay. While the film attempts to show a regular person overcoming her inner feelings of worthlessness by putting her into a situation bigger than her, it focuses more on Jupiter’s value to the alien characters, objectifying her as little more than a plot device. Thus, audiences have little to emotionally invest in. Unbelievably, Jupiter readily accepts most of the foreign worlds, creatures, and character machinations without question.

In some of the Wachowskis’ other films (The Matrix and Cloud Atlas), foreign worlds and characters are cohesively introduced while maintaining the audience’s emotional investment. However, in Jupiter Ascending, too many alien concepts are introduced too quickly with little emotional resonance, leaving audiences feeling dejected.

That said, Jupiter Ascending contains some innovative ideas and concepts, like seeding and  harvesting planets, and clipping an alien’s wings for his past sins. Unfortunately, these are not enough to save it from being a concept driven film with little emotional substance. Nor is the excellent cast of Kunis, Sean Bean, Channing Tatum, and Eddie Redmayne, who give convincing performances.

Science-fiction fans may enjoy it as a curiosity.

2 stars

The December 2015 issue of Creatrix (issue #31) features two of my poems: Blank Page and Enthral. You can read them here.