Richard Harland's new book WORLDSHAKER is going to be launched soon and it is already getting a really good reaction. I think of it as a very English sort of story. (not meaning that in a bad way, I thoroughly enjoyed the book when we read it in draft form at ROR).
This made me wonder, if there is a quintessential English style of story and a quintessential American style of story, is there a quintessential Australian story style?
You only have to look at Red Dwarf, to see English humour and world view at work. When the Americans tried to make their own version of Red Dwarf, they made Lister good looking. The humour lies in the fact that he can never win Christine Kachanski. Recently, I've been watching the UK series 'Being Human' about a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost living in a share house in Bristol ( I think). It is downbeat and funny, as well as poignant.
I'm worried that, if parallel importation goes ahead, Australians won't get the chance to develop their own quintessential style of story because the Australian publishing industry won't have the luxury of developing new writers and taking risks. You could argue that we should have already developed this. Maybe we have in some areas, I'm thinking of the movies, The Castle and The Dish, both really good movies, both very Australian.
What have you read recently that was quintessentially Australian inthe Spec Fic genre?
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