Just The Caffeine Talking

Australia, Part 4

In honor of Independence Day in the United States of America, I'm going to continue the narrative of our visit to Australia. 

On May 5 we started our day with brunch at the Sydney Seafood Market — some big raw oysters and an assortment of sushi. No clownfish. 

Then by foot to the Australian National Maritime Museum, a.k.a. the "Mu-Sea-um." (Somebody got paid to think that up.) It's actually a very good maritime museum. The collection includes the HMAS Vampire, a Cold War era destroyer, her contemporary the diesel submarine HMAS Onslow, a replica of Captain Cook's Endeavor, the recently retired patrol boat HMAS Advance, and — sadly not open to the public on the day we visited — Australia's deadliest warship, the MV Krait.

Touring the Endeavor replica was very hard for anyone over four feet tall, as the aft spaces had very low ceilings. The naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, who sailed with Cook, was six foot four, and must have collected an impressive array of bumps and bruises on his skull during the voyage. Both Vampire and Onslow had Navy veterans as tour guides, with some cool anecdotes about life aboard when the ships were in service.

We scrambled through ships for several hours, and took a nap back at the hotel to recover. In the evening we dined at a Thai place near the hotel, and then stopped in a local movie theater to watch Thunderbolts*. (Solidly entertaining but no more than that.)

The following day we left Sydney — and both of us had the feeling that we had only scratched the surface of the place. I would dearly love to be able to spend a couple of weeks in the city, long enough to really explore. But, leaving the flag and footprints, we boarded a plane to Melbourne. At breakfast the crown on one of my molars came off — the same tooth that had been feeling weird ever since I ate some overly crunchy unagi a couple of days earlier. With no time before our flight, I just stuck it in my pocket and hoped for the best.

We got to Melbourne and rode the bus from the airport to the Southern Cross Railroad station downtown. While Adelaide reminded me of Austin, and Sydney felt like San Francisco, both of us agreed on first sight that Melbourne had a distinct Chicago vibe to it.

After checking in to our hotel the first order of business was to get a dentist to put my tooth back in place. The very nice Dr. Vaishali at MC Dental in the Melbourne Central shopping center did the job quickly and painlessly. Melbourne Central itself is an interesting place: it's built over a train station, much like the hybrid mall-stations of Japan. One cool feature is the historic Shot Tower museum, contained completely within the shopping center's giant atrium.

We did some shopping in the afternoon, and stumbled across a lovely little street called Hardware Street completely lined with restaurants for three or four blocks. For our dinner we got a delicious Mediterranean style seafood dinner. I had a whole grilled calamari, which was surprisingly tender. We put away a half liter of wine between the two of us. The restaurant was called "Claypots Barbarossa" which sounds like a pirate with a sideline in ceramics.

May 7 was a bit chilly and damp in Melbourne, but we sallied forth anyway and got tea at Melbourne's oldest tea room, in an old arcade known simply as "The Block." We had fancy tea and scones with clotted cream and jam. Two tables away an adorable little girl of about eight was having a grown-up brunch with her mother, and was obviously loving it.

After that we went over to Minotaur Books, where I signed some store copies of my books, and then spend two hours chatting with the store manager about science fiction, things to do in Melbourne, things to see elsewhere in Australia, and the state of the publishing industry. We also looked at an art exhibit at the old town hall, and visited a couple of other bookshops, then returned to the hotel to rest up.

In the evening we went out to the nearby suburb of Kensington to meet with the NOVA MOB — a group of Melbourne science fiction fans who meet monthly in person (and via Zoom) to talk about all things SFnal. They very kindly invited me to come read from The Miranda Conspiracy and talk about the Billion Worlds setting, which I did at length. We all had a good time and Mr. M. gave us a little guided tour of downtown Melbourne on the way back to our hotel.  

Australia, Part 3

Our first full day in Sydney was Saturday, May 3. That was also the date of an "author event" at Abbey's Bookshop in downtown Sydney, which was one reason we scheduled our visit then. The reading and signing were set for afternoon, so in the morning we woke early and breakfasted at a chocolate shop in an arcade nearby. 

Arcades are a feature of downtown areas in Australia's cities, particularly in Sydney and Adelaide. Basically they're what an American would call a shopping mall, built into the ground floor of a downtown building, usually a big structure that fills a whole block or at least a large part of one. The arcade thus serves as an indoor passage between streets, a popular feature during the fierce Australian summer. The size of an Australian downtown arcade isn't really big enough for the "big box" stores popular in American malls, so the ones I saw tended to have numerous small shops and restaurants. 

I'm kind of surprised there aren't more Australian-style arcades in American cities. Some big skyscrapers do have shopping space on the lower floors, but typically the businesses are intended to cater to the people who work or live in the building — convenience stores, coffeeshops, barbershops or hairdressers, and maybe a fitness club. I suspect that a mix of city block size, zoning regulations about minimum size for various businesses, and economies of scale are responsible for the difference.

But enough amateur urbanist blather. 

We spent Saturday morning at the Australian Museum, a big old history and natural history museum not far from the bookstore where I was to appear later. They had a very charming exhibit called "100 Treasures" which is the hundred items in the Museum's collection which are most iconic or significant. In short, it was an exhibit of museum exhibits, and consequently also chronicled the history and growth of the museum, the changing role of museums over the course of a century, and the history of the British Empire from the founding of New South Wales until its disintegration. Unlike so many self-examining museum exhibits, this one paid attention to context and changing goals, rather than just indulging in a lot of self-congratulation about how enlightened we are now.

We lunched at the Victoria Arcade, a gorgeous old Victorian-era (of course) market building complete with a very stern-looking statue of Victoria R herself. It's full of very posh stores and some restaurants. We positively inhaled lunch at a conveyor-belt sushi place in the basement. There's something about visiting a museum that makes one hungry and tired.

The event at Abbey's went off pretty well. I read from The Miranda Conspiracy, signed some books brought by listeners, signed all the store copies, and shook hands with the store staff and management. They managed the whole affair with consumnate professionalism. 

After that the two of us walked to the harbor area, exploring the old original settlement section on the west side of the harbor, known as "The Rocks." We found an open-air market where various local crafters were showing off their wares. It's a nice old part of town, although sadly it is bisected and overshadowed by the southern approaches to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 

Dinner that night was at a ramen restaurant near our hotel. The food was good, except that a bit of eel bone lodged in one of my molars, setting the stage for dramatic events a few days later.

On Sunday May 4th we spent the morning exploring the "Chippendale" neighborhood south of Chinatown, an odd and interesting part of town featuring, among other things, the old Mortuary Train Station, where funeral trains departed for cemeteries outside of the city. We toured the White Rabbit Gallery, an establishment halfway between a museum and an art dealer's, devoted to works by Chinese dissident artists. Ai Weiwei was probably the most famous, along with many others. In the signage I noticed a new bit of art-world jargon. Works now "interrogate" things — totalitarianism, consumerism, sex roles, you name it. I think this is a terrible term, almost a translation error. Interrogation is when you ask questions of someone (or something). If a work asks questions about a subject, that's not the same at all. How can one "interrogate" consumerism, anyway? How can it answer?

Then we got all duded up and took the train back downtown for our big fancy luncheon at a restaurant called Bennelong, located inside the famous Sydney Opera House building. The meal was definitely a ten out of ten. The first course was smoked pork belly with homemade koji noodles and black garlic; followed by a lovely little rack of lamb with pureed herbs; all accompanied by a cabernet franc from Clare Valley.

As it was Sunday afternoon there were lots of families in the place, many with adorably well-behaved kids. I was one of exactly three paying customers wearing a tie — the others being a paterfamilias hosting what looked like a wedding rehearsal brunch, and a well-scrubbed lad of about 10 in short pants.

Feeling well-fed we strolled back through the Botanical Garden to the Victoria Arcade and boarded a train back to our hotel.

In the evening we explored the neighborhood a bit more, including a Japanese-language used book store, and a park where a festival in honor of the birthday of the Buddha was wrapping up. We had no appetite for dinner and were too tired for nightlife, so back to bed under the benevolent gaze of the Monkey Lamp.

 

A Keene Event!

Three weeks from today I'll be at the brand-new Barnes & Noble store in the lovely town of Keene, New Hampshire. As part of their grand opening, the store is having a score of authors from all over New England sign books and do readings during the month of July. I'll be doing my part by reading from The Miranda Conspiracy at 5 p.m. on July 18. You can see the announcement here.

This isn't just self-promotion. Bookstores are a fragile link in the literary and publishing world, so it's always wonderful to see a new store opening up. Come on up to New Hampshire to show your support and buy some books — no sales tax! 

Australia, Part 2

Thursday, April 24: We saw the hulk of the clipper ship City of Adelaide, which sits on land supported by a steel framework near the Port of Adelaide. The ship was built 160 years ago, with an iron frame and wood hull, made multiple trips around the world during the mid-19th century, spent some time sunk in the mud of the River Clyde in Scotland, and finally was bought and moved to Australia as a museum.

She'll never sail again — the hull planks have gaps big enough to stick your fingers through and the skeleton is mostly rust — but volunteers are slowly restoring the interior to her Victorian era splendor, when she carried passengers and emigrants from Britain to Australia. See their Web site for more information.

Friday the 25th was a low-impact day. We did laundry and relaxed. Then on Saturday we cleaned up Diane's rented flat for the last time, then locked up and left the keys in the drop box. We moved our baggage over to the the Adelaide airport hotel — comfortable enough, surprisingly quiet, but I'd only recommend it if you need to stay right at the airport, as we did.

We did get a big fancy dinner that evening at a restaurant in downtown Adelaide called "Part Time Lover." You can check out their menu here. Our dinner was amazing: deep-fried broccoli, almost caramelized; little rolls of sliced veal filled with tonnato sauce; scallops; anchovy-and-bacalao toasts; a nice little blackened steak; salad of lettuce hearts; and a strawberry-rhubarb semifreddo for dessert. All accompanied by some nice South Australia wines. Highly recommended.

The next morning, Sunday the 27th, we got up very early and hiked from our hotel to the airport to check in for our flight. Don't worry! This isn't the end of the trip. Adelaide was just the preamble. But Australia, like the USA, is a big country, so if you're visiting different places it makes sense to go by plane unless you want to take it easy and look at the scenery.

We flew to Sydney and changed planes, then headed north to Hamilton Island, one of the Whitsunday Islands off the coast of Queensland. The islands are an ancient volcanic structure, covered with rainforest and sitting smack dab in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. Hamilton's a resort, with multiple hotels all run by the same owners. There are beaches, a yacht harbor, hiking trails, restaurants, nightlife — and sulfur-crested cockatoos. So many cockatoos.

I won't give a day-by-day account of our stay at Hamilton because a lot of it consisted of hanging out, hanging around, wandering around, eating seafood, and similar vacation stuff.

We did make a couple of snorkeling trips: one to Hook Island, just north of Hamilton, where we paddled around the reef and saw plenty of fish — sometimes swimming right through shoals of little striped fellows which ignored us completely.

Our other snorkel voyage was aboard a sailing catamaran to Haslewood Island. That expedition was a problem for me: my mustache made it impossible to get a good seal for my diving mask, so I kept getting seawater in my nose and eyes. Finally I threw in the towel and just lazed about on the boat until we visited the famous white silica beach on Whitsunday Island itself. Next time I go snorkeling I'll just shave the damned thing off.

We did have some great meals on Hamilton Island. One restaurant, Manta Ray, had a wonderful tasting menu with "corn ribs" (corn on the cob cut into quarters lengthwise then grilled), lamb meatballs, tuna crudo, and churros for dessert, with a very tart white cabernet from New South Wales.

The other top-notch place was Coca Chu, a "Thai-inspired" restaurant where we got crispy pork belly, fish curry, and mu-shu duck. Unlike Thai restaruants I've been to elsewhere, Coca Chu's dishes avoided hot spices. I don't know if that was a gastronomic choice by the chef, or a concession to the tastes of Australian vacationers. (An aside: while my sample size was extremely limited, it did seem to me that Australian restaurants don't go in for very hot-flavored dishes, at least not to the extent American ones do. There was a refreshing absence of  "hot sauce machismo.")

Our last couple of days on Hamilton were a bit damp and chilly, though we did get in some hiking and took the opportunity to do laundry and attend Pub Trivia Night in the hotel bar — where our utter ignorance of 21st Century Australian pop culture was a huge handicap. I did pick up a nice tan while we were on Hamilton, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to do some reef snorkeling.

On May 2 we flew back to Sydney. The flight, like all good flights, was uneventful. We arrived and checked in to our hotel: the Capitol Hotel in Sydney's Chinatown neighborhood. It was . . . okay. The room was small, but clean and comfortable. The decor was very odd.

Our first night in Sydney happened to coincide with a night market going on in Chinatown, so we strolled around the streets near our hotel, picking up random food items from stalls. It was lovely: exotic, cosmopolitan, inexpensive, and delicious.

Australia, Part 1

Being an Account of an Expedition to the Antipodes

Undertaken in the Year of Our Lord 2025

For the Purpose of Scientific Inquiry and Exploration

By Dr. Kelly and Mr. Cambias

Back in 2024, Diane got awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to go study the reproductive physiology of echidnas in Australia. She flew across the Pacific in January 2025 and spent the next four months at the University of Adelaide gathering eight terabytes of data, plus tissue samples.

On April 18 I set out to join her. For reasons I don't fully understand, I had to fly out of JFK airport in New York to get to Los Angeles, where I boarded the plane for the long haul across the ocean. I won't discuss the flights — they were uneventful, which is the best kind of trip to have. I arrived in Sydney on Easter Sunday and got the stiffness out of my legs by running around the airport in search of my flight to Adelaide, thanks to my airline helpfully re-booking me when the trans-Pacific flight arrived too late to make the original connection, and not telling me about it.

The trip from Sydney to Adelaide was interesting. From the air, Australia's landscape looks very different from what I'm used to. It doesn't look like North America, nor Europe, which are the places I've seen from above. Much of the area I saw from the air I later got to see on the ground, and there were things I was curious about.

Diane met me at the Adelaide airport and drove us back to her rented apartment in the seaside town of Largs North, north of Adelaide near the port district. I don't sleep well on airplanes, and my internal clock was 14 hours off, but I managed to stay awake until after dinner — a lovely supper of lamb chops and local red wine — then collapsed into bed.

On Monday the 21st, my first full day in Australia, we walked over to the commuter-rail station in Largs and rode to Port Adelaide, where we visited the Train Museum. It's big, housed in an old railroad freight terminal, and definitely exceeded expectations, and I learned a fair amount about railroading in Australia: the initial problem with different rail gauges in the different colonies (a baffling issue since presumably they were all buying British equipment anyway), the life of Bob the Railway Dog (a dog), and the immense cultural/social significance of railroads in Australia.

Railroads are/were a major cultural force in a lot of countries, of course: the USA, Canada, India, and Russia. Probably others. What strikes me is that all the countries where trains were a Big Deal are big countries. Having a way to get across the continent in a week instead of a year was a huge change for those places. Where the rails went determined the future growth of Russia and North America — you can see the old rail routes in satellite views of city lights. (Australia's geography seems more based on where the fantastically good natural harbors were.)

After the museum we visited a nearby brewpub and sat outside in semi-drizzle while I had my first taste of Australian beer. I suppose this is the place where I should gush about how amazing it was, but I won't, for two reasons. First, I'm not much of a beer guy — my benchmark for beer is the old K&B Drugstore house brand from New Orleans, so I'm easily impressed. Second, I didn't drink all that much beer in Australia, as I preferred to concentrate on wine. I don't know if the products of Pirate Life Brewing are the best thing they've got, the worst, or solidly average. It wasn't bad.

That evening we went out for wine and oysters with our next-door neighbors, who turn up later in this saga but whose names I am keeping private. A. and B. are a lovely couple and we killed at least two bottles of wine that evening — along with four dozen oysters and a few hapless potatoes. (My conscience is clear.)

On Tuesday the 22nd we ventured up the rather on-the-nose "Mount Lofty" in the range of the same name just west of Adelaide. Our objective was the Cleland Wildlife Park, a lovely zoo with amazing views over the Adelaide metropolitan area below and the St. Vincent Gulf to the west. At the park we saw wallabies, koalas, kangaroos, dingos, echidnas, a solitary wombat, and a huge variety of birds.

After three hours pestering local fauna we went back down to Diane's pied-a-terre in Largs North, where I took a turn making dinner: shrimp and ravioli. We spent the evening reading an interesting paper on the Khazar Khaganate, then once again I collapsed before 9 p.m.

Wednesday the 23rd was lovely (pretty much every day was lovely — unless otherwise noted, assume that's the default). We got up early and rode the train downtown so that Diane could spend an hour downloading her massive cache of data onto a portable device to carry home.

While she was clicking on folders in the University of Adelaide's Imaging Center, I strolled across downtown Adelaide. My course took me past the South Australia Parliament building — both the brick original and the florid neoclassical pile put up half a century later — the Governor's residence, and the ANZAC Memorial. As ANZAC Day was coming up later that week, crews were out decorating the Memorial with flags: British, Australian, and the flags of Australia's armed forces.

Australia's service flags are an interesting mix. The Army banner is simply the national flag: a blue field with the Southern Cross, a Union Jack at the canton, and a seven-pointed "union star" underneath the Union Jack.

The Navy banner is a neat variation on the Royal Navy's "White Ensign." Where the British navy flag has a white field with a St. George's cross on it and the Union Jack at the canton, the Aussies have a white field with a Southern Cross in blue stars on it and the Union Jack as usual.

The Royal Australian Air Force's flag is frankly, kind of dumb. It follows the same pattern as the Navy banner, with a Union Jack, a sky-blue field, the Southern Cross . . . and an RAAF roundel stuck in just in case you're too stupid to figure out it's their banner. Way to go, guys. Why not have "THIS IS THE RAAF FLAG" in big letters in case anyone's still confused?

My ultimate destination was the Australian Space Discovery Centre, a fun little museum focusing on space science and Australia's contributions to the field. Adelaide is the center of Australia's space program, as the state of South Australia is home to both the Parkes radio observatory (famous from the film The Dish) and the Woomera rocket test range. The museum is compact, and doesn't really have many artifacts on display, but it does have some nice interactive exhibits — all of which actually work!

Diane collected me there and the two of us had a lovely midday Japanese dinner, including some of the best fried octopus I've ever eaten. Afterward we went to the South Australian Museum to see the collection and the special traveling exhibition about the Galloway Hoard, a Viking treasure trove dug up in southern Scotland.

We made our way back to Largs North and indulged in more oysters and Australian sparkling wine, and then off to bed.

 

Off to LibertyCon 2025!

In a couple of weeks I'm off to the mountain-girt fastness of Chattanooga, Tennessee, for this year's LibertyCon. It looks like a fun time. Here's my schedule in case you want to catch up with me at the convention:

Friday, June 20, 3:00 P.M.: My Little (or Enormous) Buddy — Randee Dawn moderates a panel as we explore the use of animal companions in SF/Fantasy/Horror fiction.

6:00 P.M.: Reading — James Copley and I will read from our latest work. If time permits I may even give attendees a sneak preview of the book I'm working on right now.

Saturday, June 21, 1:00 P.M.: What is the Future of Gaming? — Join an all-star panel moderated by Steve Jackson himself as we look at trends and possibilities for the gaming hobby and industry. Few, if any, chairs will be thrown.

2:00 P.M.: Baen Traveling Road Show — Join publisher Toni Weiskopf and a host of Baen authors as we show off what we've published and what's in the pipeline.

5:00 P.M.: Ohhh, the Life of a Pirate For Me! — Irene Zielinski moderates a panel examining the perennial appeal of pirates in fiction, on sea, air, and space!

8:00 P.M.: Autographing — For an hour Saturday night I'll sign just about anything, and those who show up may get some special rewards!

Sunday, June 22, 10:00 A.M.: Kaffeeklatsch — Come enjoy coffee and conversation with me. You can ask me anything! (Doesn't mean I'll answer.)

 

 

 

Boskone is Coming! Boskone is Coming!

Mid-February brings blizzards, Valentines . . . and Boskone!

On February 14-16 I'll be at the fabulous Westin Boston Seaport District hotel for New England's oldest science fiction convention. This year they're keeping me busy, which is great because The Miranda Conspiracy should just be hitting the bookstore shelves. Here's my schedule, and when I'm not at these events I'll probably be attending other programming or hanging out in the delightful lobby bar.

Friday, February 14, 2:30 p.m.: Biology in SF/F — I'll be joining an erudite panel of experts to talk about how SF and fantasy fiction use (and misuse) biology.

Saturday, February 15, 10:00 a.m.: Reading — Come and hear an excerpt from The Miranda Conspiracy and pick up some bookmarks and special swag.

    2:30 p.m.: Technology and the Crisis of Conscience — I'll be moderating a crack team of writers as we discuss some thorny questions of ethics in science and technology and how SF has tackled those issues over the years.

    4:00 p.m.: Book Launch Party — Join me and all the other writers at Boskone with new books for a big combined book launch party!

Sunday, February 16, 11:30 a.m.: The Most Important Books I Never Read — I'll join an all-star panel discussing which famous works of SF and fantasy we've never gotten around to reading.

    1:00 p.m.: Autographing — I'll be signing copies of Miranda Conspiracy or anything else you want me to scribble on.

 

 

Arisia!

Boston's big January SF convention, ARISIA, is coming up in two weeks, over the weekend of January 17-20 at the fabulous Hyatt Regency Cambridge (a.k.a. "The Ziggurat"), just next door to M.I.T. As always, I'll be there. If you want to drop by, here's my schedule.

Saturday, January 18, 12:30 p.m. — Reading: Stop by and hear a sneak preview of my new novel The Miranda Conspiracy! 

5:30 p.m. — Creating Relatable Non-Humans: How do you make aliens properly non-human, while still keeping them sympathetic to an audience of humans? Join me and a team of SF and fantasy powerhouses to find out.

6:45 p.m. — Improv on a Page: A discussion of how methods and concepts from roleplaying games can be used in fiction. Useful new technique? Erosion of literature? Let's find out.

You can also find me in and around the hotel Friday through Sunday, and don't hesitate to say hi.

The illustration is what I got when I asked Midjourney AI for a picture of "Arisia." It might be a slightly de-aged Clarissa MacDougal from the Lensman books.

Ho Ho Ho

It's Christmas Eve afternoon as I write, which means it's time to click on the NORAD Santa Tracker to keep tabs on St. Nick's whereabouts. If you're in the Western Hemisphere there's still time to be good. Barely.

Christmas Day is also the first night of Hanukkah, so light 'em if you've got 'em — candles, that is. 

Happy Holidays, everybody!

 

My PhilCon 2024 Schedule

In two weeks I'll be driving down to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, home of PhilCon 2024, the Philadelphia area's longest-running science fiction convention. This year it runs from November 22 through 24, and I've got events all three days.

Friday, November 22, 8:00 p.m.: Let's Design a New SF Television Show! — A panel of fans and writers brainstorm a TV series which will be good, good science fiction, and (one hopes) popular.

Saturday, November 23, 11:00 a.m.: How Real Does the Science in Science Fiction Have to Be? — Science fiction sometimes leans heavily into "rubber science" but presumably there's a line between science fiction and fantasy. Where do we draw that line? I'll be discussing that with some other creators.

Saturday, 1:00 p.m.: Writing For Aliens: Realistic Yet Relatable Perspectives — Writing alien characters, especially alien viewpoints, has a built-in conflict. We want the characters to be human enough for our (presumably) human readers to identify with, but we want them alien enough to make good science fiction.

Sunday, November 24, 10:00 a.m.: Autographing — I'll be signing any of my works anyone cares to put in front of me. There will be special swag for anyone who comes by!

Sunday, 1:00 p.m.: What's Happened to the Traditional Ghost Story? — The ghost story is one of the oldest forms of fiction, but modern horror fiction has become something very different. Where did the ghosts go? Come hear me discuss that with some other writers working in different genres.

So come see the fun at PhilCon!