Some of you might remember that I was told that an extract from Black Sheep appeared in a German exam. It was pretty cool, I thought, but the number one question was if I should've been paid for it.

Well, turns out they're reprinting it again--

Dear Sir or Madam, we are a German publishing house specialized in the publication of material for educational purposes. At the moment we are preparing our publication called Abitur Prüfungsaufgaben Englisch Grundkurs Gymnasium NRW which will be published in summer 2009 with a print run of 2000 copies, about 220 pp., € 8,95, publishing territory: Germany only. In this booklet edition we would like to reprint the enclosed text extract from “Black Sheep" by Ben Peek. London: Prime Books 2007, p. 9-11.

--and turns out I'll get paid this time.

Neat, huh?

(crossposted)

An English teacher marking the exam that Black Sheep appeared in came by and left the official questions:

Dear Mr Peek,
I'm an English teacher correcting the exams on your book at the moment.

The exact questions were:

1. Outline the protagonist's situation, his crime and the consequences as presented in the extract from the novel.

2. Analyse the way the totalitarian state is portrayed in this excerpt from the novel Black Sheep. Consider narrative perpsective, atmosphere, interaction and language.

3.1 In this future state "Multiculturalism [is seen as] a most heinous crime" (l. 13). Against the background of this view discuss the problems and chances of multiculturalism. Refer to your knowledge of multicultural societies today and to the film "East is East".

or

3.2 A publishing house is planning an anthology of dystopian literature. Write a letter to the person in charge in which you recommend this extract as an excellent example of a dystopian text. Support your views with your knowledge of dystopian literature and current events.

Text: Ben Peek, Black Sheep, London: Prime Books, 2007, p. 9-11

All the best
C

I told a couple of people about this on the weekend, and the first thing I was asked by everyone was, 'Did you get paid for that?'

In other news, it seems that I'm going to be the guest of honour at a dinner in a couple of weeks. It's happening out at UNSW, which is where I picked up my PhD, and I'm fairly sure I'm a last minute replacement, but I've never actually been a guest of honour before, and it ought to be good for a laugh. Apparently I have to give a speech, and I was thinking that maybe I'd just talk for a while about the fact that I paid seventeen fifty for a film last week and that I'm thinking of starting a campaign wherein I write to movie stars and demand my cash back. Or, maybe I'll come up with something different. Either way I have a bit of time to come up with something to say to a room full of people who won't know who I am. Perhaps I'll pretend to be an astronaut.

Or perhaps I'll write an apology to German students who got stuck with questions about Black Sheep.

(crossposted)

Apparently, it is true: an extract from Black Sheep has appeared in a literacy test in Germany.

Hey Ben,

it’s right, what Lisa said. In the final exams for the subject “English basic course” you can choose two topics:
One was a globalization text and the other one was your dystopian novel. I chose it ;-). It was the extract, where Isao is send to prison.
Tasks:
1.) You should write the situation of Isao and what his crime was.
2.) Analyse the extract (atmosphere, language etc.)
3.1) Write a comment with the today’s problem with Multiculturalism.

That's cool, innit? I always thought it'd be really lame to have a book involved in any kind of English department around the world, but I guess I got to admit that it's pretty cool to have folk forced to read my work. Though I guess I'm a bit sorry that it inspires such questions.

I wonder how it even made it to an exam, though? I mean, the book hasn't been published in Germany and it doesn't have any distribution in the country it was published. I don't think I would ever have put money on the copies that got sold making it to Germany and someone who designs exams, but it's a strange and cool world, and however it got there is alright by me.

(crossposted)

Yesterday, I was left a comment on my blog by Lisa, who I assume is German. She said, "Hey Ben!!!

Do you know that your book Black Sheep was chosen for the German final examinations. Sounds kind of interesting. I think I am going to buy it to read the whole book. Hope I did well in analysing the scene.

Good luck for your career, Lisa."

So.

I had no idea. Anyone else heard this?

I'd be curious to see what scene they used, and if it was translated into German, and how that happened, and if anyone was contacted about it. Hell, I just got no idea what's going on. Perhaps another Ben Peek wrote another Black Sheepand it is him.

(crossposted)

Change, change.

Firstly, things have been a little quiet on the blog of late, I know, and that's mostly because I've just been going through a quiet phase. Run a blog for seven years and it gets a little like that.

Actually, that's a bit of a shock, that. Seven fucking years. Christ. Seven years on livejournal, too, though that's one of the changes that is coming. Thanks to the lovely Stephanie Campisi (stephcampisi) and Jono Chang, I have a new place to go and blog, over here. I'm still fixing up the links and such, so give me a bit of time on that, but as of now, I'll be blogging from there, and cross posting here, for all you lazy bastards who can't be bothered altering your friends lists. In truth, it'll likely mean very little to you, except that it begins my slow withdrawal from livejournal, and the strange and often idiotic things they do. I'll be free to post as many images of my nipples on the new blog as I was now.

In other news, everything concerning Across the Seven Continents of the Underworld is complete, and the agent is off to sell it. There weren't many changes to be made, a few chops, a few names changes, and the title of the book is, much to my regret, different. I really liked that original title, but Kris reckons it's not novel enough, and a lot of people think it's too long, including editors, so it's been retitled to Beneath the Red Sun, which is the alternative title that I had while writing the thing. I can't complain too much: truth is, the new title suits the book a little bit better than the first, and it has a bit of a weird western feel to it.

Books, hey?

Anyhow, now that's done, it's time to get my shit together and start working on other things. I've got to pay attention to the way the end of the year is shaping up, monetary wise, and it's time to start writing some different things, and readjust my schedule. No playing World of Warcraft until two in the morning, y'know?


(Cross posted from benpeek.com. Feel free to comment there, or here.)

Now, here's something I find interesting.

Over the last few weeks, Michael Cisco's comments about Prime have earned him, I'm sure, a share of hassle and a share of praise, but what I haven't seen is the full spin of his statements yet. It was bound to come, of course: a business that receives a public bashing will have to install damage control. To an extend, Sean Wallace's public apology begins that. It's difficult to do anything with that apology, because it admits, first off, an error, and then continues, explaining how changes are under way, and that things will change. If it does or it doesn't, time will tell, but what the apology does is make is an prolonged debate impossible. It shuts it down. It was a smart move by Wallace, especially given that we have seen, throughout blog wars, what happens when one individual or company does no admit fault, and tries to justify its neglectful behaviour.

However, this post on mediabistro caught my attention, because it is the start of damage control:

Dark fantasy writer Michael Cisco broke radio silence on his blog last month to complain about his experiences with Prime Books, an independent publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction, starting with the fact that he hasn't gotten any royalties from his last novel, The Traitor. "Eagle-eyed vigilance in following the [Amazon.com sales rank," he writes, "especially following selection by [Jeff] VanderMeer for the top 10 fantasy books [of 2007], and a glowing review from Nick Mamatas, gives me reason to believe at least 500 books have been sold just at that venue."

"I am very sorry that we have, in Michael Cisco's eyes, failed him," Prime executive editor Sean Wallace emailed when I contacted him about Cisco's allegations. "And he makes one point that I will concede: We want to improve our ongoing communications with our authors. I hope Michael will allow us to do so in his case. What I must dispute is that Michael has been cheated. He has not. Our royalty statements are accurate and truthful and easily verified. He has now seen his statement and knows that his royalty payment is accurate. It would be unprofessional for us to share these figures in public and I am sure Michael would agree." (Rudimentary numbers are, of course, readily available through Nielsen Bookscan; I will merely note that Cisco's estimation of his sales was grossly inflated.)

But what about Cisco's other allegations about a lack of transparency, a failure to follow through on marketing commitments, and a haphazard-at-best approach to promotion? Well, as the ensuing commentary to his post revealed, those complaints aren't unique in publishing. After Cisco said he was convinced Prime was trying to sign up "authors they believe are already being talked about precisely to as to avoid having to do publicity," Poppy Z. Brite said she had an "almost identical" experience doing business on a much larger scale when she published three novels with Crown.

So did Prime deserve to be raked over the coals publicly by one of its authors—not to mention his final advice to other writers: "Try elsewhere! Don't the same mistakes I did!" Wallace admitted that the press had made mistakes along the way, including falling behind schedule on some titles, but "we are always striving to be a better company," he said. (As another author told me, "Prime has screwed up on occasion, but no more than any other small press does.") "I'd like to invite all of our authors to contact us directly," Wallace continued, "with feedback and suggestions about what, in their view, we might be doing better for them. We are listening." It's a diplomatic response that leaves an opportunity to move forward, unlike Cisco's remarks, which are likely to come across as bitter rather than older-but-wiser.

What is interesting is to note the emphasis on Cisco's incorrect guess at his sales at the start of the piece, and which are followed by Wallace's PR spun statements that carefully place him in the almost wronged seat, in the impression of a long suffering publisher dealing with cranky talent. To the goal, he tells you that he is trying to do better, that his open to suggestions and feedback, while Cisco--seemingly uncontacted by the author of the piece--is frothing at the mouth, telling writers to BEWARE! to HIDE! to LISTEN! and which is even, at the end, called bitter. Even Poppy Z Brite's short comment on Cisco's blog is spun within the article to give Cisco the appearance of someone who doesn't know what he is talking about. After all, she's had the same experience with larger publishers. Publishers suck, obviously, and there's nothing special about what has happened here. Brite's full comment, however, begins by quoting Cisco, "Prime's idea of publicity is sticking your book under a rock and informing the wind. You will have to do absolutely everything yourself. Blurbs, getting your text to reviewers, everything. Prime takes authors they believe are already being talked about precisely to as to avoid having to do publicity. I firmly believe Prime's neglect helped to scuttle my last TWO novels," and then says, "That sucks ... and, unfortunately, my experience with Random House was almost identical (except that they stuck three novels under the rock instead of just two), so authors shouldn't assume they can avoid these problems by working with a "major" publisher." The emphasis, as you can see, is a little different than what the article has commented--Brite is hardly pleased, or shrugging it off, or even saying that this is how it is and there's nothing you can do about, suck it up, Cisco.

In addition, the mediabistro piece has done a nice job of ignoring all the comments from authors the came out of Cisco's original post, while allowing for anonymous authors (such a fine species) to speak out in defence, a defence, I might add, that does not argue again that things were not done wrong, but rather that they are no worse than others. But who, anonymous author? Who are these other small presses? Are you someone we know, with a connection to Prime, or are you merely a figment of the poster's imagination, conjured up to make a point that you feel requires no support whatsoever?

Questions, questions.

Now, to be clear, it's not that I believe the same hasn't been done, or that there are worse small presses. There are. Publish America, if I remember the name properly, was a publisher that deserved to get slapped around for its misrepresentation of the publishing scene, and sucking in naive and desperate authors and their money. And, in fact, if you are on the right side of the fence with Prime, you'll do well enough, as Kathy Sedia will attest to, no doubt. However, at the same time, the representation of Cisco as a bitter, and just plain wrong author, angrily bashing his publisher who has admitted to making mistakes, and is sorry they failed him, is not one I believe to be truthful, either. It's spin, either purposeful, or by not having acknowledged all the opinions presented through lack of research.


(Disclaimer: My interest in this arises from the fact that I had a book published by Prime, also. It was not that positive, so take this post, I imagine, with whatever grain of salt you need to take it with.)

On the Amazon page for Black Sheep there is this offer:

This title is eligible for Amazon Fall Textbook promotions. Get unlimited free Two-Day Shipping for three months with a free trial of Amazon Prime. Add $100 worth of eligible textbooks to your cart to qualify. Sign up at checkout. Here's how (restrictions apply)

Yeah, you got me. Is it being taught somewhere, or is this just some random offer?

It appears that blogs have been running the Prime saga over the last week.

It's been interesting, I think, but perhaps this is because of my personal stake in it. For starters, Sean Wallace (oldcharliebrown) offered an apology on his blog, wherein he said, "I am very sorry that we have, in Michael Cisco’s eyes, failed him. And he makes one point that I will concede: we want to improve our ongoing communications with our authors. I hope Michael will allow us to do so in his case. What I must dispute is that Michael has been cheated. He has not. Our royalty statements are accurate and truthful and easily verified. He has now seen his statement and knows that his royalty payment is accurate. It would be unprofessional for us to share these figures in public and I am sure Michael would agree. Yes, we have occasionally fallen behind schedule — and then we have always caught up again. (This is hardly a unique condition in small press publishing. Our goal, of course, is to remain on schedule.) We believed in his book enough to publish it and distributed promotional copies to various places. As Michael points out, it received some very positive reviews, including from Publishers Weekly and Realms of Fantasy. And we continue to believe in his book and look forward to selling many more copies in the future. We are always striving to be a better company, and I’d like to invite all of our authors to contact us directly with feedback and suggestions about what, in their view, we might be doing better for them. We are listening."

There wasn't, however, much commentary on the statement. Truthfully, what is there to say? It's a company statement: an apology, an admittance that things have been done badly, that things are trying to be changed, though it would probably only be a wide eyed optimist who would think such a thing would happen.

Why say that? Well, Prime--and Sean Wallace--have been known for a long time for the behaviour that is being aired publicly now. When I first signed up to have my book published, I was told by a couple of people that I had to be careful with Wallace, and that I had to be constantly on him about the book's publication and that I had to get my own editor. It was an odd thing to say at the time, I thought, and I must admit I didn't pay much attention to it; but as Catherynne Valente (yuki_onna) said on her post on the topic, "The fact is that most people in the community knew all of this about Prime a long time ago, and have been unwilling to burn bridges by speaking out." I like to think people weren't laughing at me when I said, "Nah, look, it'll be cool," because I based it off the quite reasonable behaviour he exhibited to me--but they probably were laughing at me, or at least shaking their head and waiting for the inevitable to happen, which it did. It's important to take note of that, I think, because with all this conversation about Prime and Wallace, you might be expecting to see a crazy, frothing at the mouth bastard who is well known for threats, youtube videos, and dodgy quick rich schemes. But that's not the truth. The truth is, Wallace isn't a bad guy to have a conversation with: he's a guy who likes to gossip, has a bunch of publishing plans, some of them thought out, some of them not, and his taste in literature isn't bad. I understand that women might have a different experience of his behaviour, and that's worth noting as well, and unfortunate, though I have never seen it myself. At any rate, what I'm mostly concerned with here is that all this stuff that has been spoken about on blogs is not new, and the line of people in Cisco's blog, in the comments of mine, comments of others, and more, will give testimony to the fact that it's not a few isolated events.

Yet, the subject is not so one sided.

In his post on the subject, Paul Tremblay (pgtremblay) wrote that, "if you just signed a contract with any publisher for a POD book, you must know the following going in:

--The vast majority of POD genre books do not and will not get reviewed by Publishers Weekly or Library Journal or Booklist, even if they are sent copies. These are the review venues that booksellers and librarians read. These are the only review venues that will consistently move books (along with NY Times and other papers who won't review your POD book either). So, where else will your POD book be reviewed? It's an utter crapshoot, really.
--Even if bookstores knew about your book, they won't stock it because your book is nonreturnable. You will be lucky to sell 200 copies.
--There is no real investment in your book by the publisher (assuming no advance). Publisher didn't outlay any money upfront which means they are going to be much less inclined to spend money promoting a novel that won't be in bookstores and won't perform well."

He further goes on to say, "I'm not here to defend Prime, nor any publisher for that matter, answer accusations etc. That's not my job. I'm not a publisher, I'm a writer and sometimes a clumsy editor. Writers, *please*, you need to gather as much information as you can before signing any contract; ask around, talk, email, read, lurk on message boards. What you'll find, is that the above complaints--and worse complaints, much worse--are all too common to most publishers: communication, delays in publication, etc. I'm talking small and big publishers. Give me a publisher's name, and I've heard multiple complaints about them. Small genre publishers, big genre publishers, the NYC publishers--I've got your pile of anecdotes right here, most of them terrible, terrible stuff that has happened to authors who didn't deserve such treatment. I'll only share one (because it's not up to me to out another writer's tale of I-got-screwed-woe). When I signed with Holt, Stewart O'Nan told me that he was essentially fired from Holt back in '99 and his A PRAYER FOR THE DYING tanked sales-wise because a new editor came in and killed it. If the book didn't do so well critically, it might've tanked his entire career." Poppy Z Brite (docbrite), likewise, says that "unfortunately, [her] experience with Random House was almost identical (except that they stuck three novels under the rock instead of just two), so authors shouldn't assume they can avoid these problems by working with a "major" publisher."

It's important to take not of these posts for a couple of reasons. Firstly, even from my outsider's point of view, Cisco's original post about his expected sales seemed high to me, and that the problems that exist in work being buried, lost, or poorly treated, is not unique to Prime. Indeed, when I originally signed with Prime, Black Sheep was slated for POD, and I thought, 'Shit, sell a few hundred and I'll be cruising.' Of course, later, I got the verbal assurance that I would be moved to a print run of three thousand, which was a nice carrot dangled in front of me, until all of a sudden it disappeared. That it could disappear so suddenly was my own fault, incidentally: what I should have done was got a rewrite of the contract, and got it in black and white, so such a last minute turn on the book couldn't take place; but, despite what most people may or may not think about me, I'm a fairly face value kind of guy. If someone tells me something is going to happen, I accept that. If someone is nice to my face, I'm cool with them. Worrying about all that behind the scenes shit just seems unnecessary, except, of course, that when you're an author, you are yourself a small business, and you have an obligation to look after your own interests and give some concern to that. What this means is that if things change, it is up to you to ensure that it's done so in print. It's up to you, I learnt, to ensure that a publisher and editor and agent does their job because they will ensure that you do yours.

I view my time with Prime to be rather like the first car I owned. It was a piece of shit, that car: I bought it for fifteen hundred dollars of an uncle who worked as a panel beater at the time. Strangely, a lot of people liked it: I'd get messages left on the front windshield asking if I wanted to sell it, strangers stopping me in car parks at one in the morning to ask the same thing, and that mirrored my time with Prime, too, where people did express envy. Why not? Australia is a tiny crack of a market and it doesn't have places for difficult to market authors like myself (or so I get told I am; I reckon I'm pretty easy to market, go figure). The thing about that car, however, is that it broke down a lot. A fuck of a lot. I must've spent three to four times the car's initial cost in repairs over the three years I owned it, before rust claimed the thing to such an extent that I sold it for three hundred bucks to some mechanics who wanted a project. Prime was like that: I learnt that I needed to pay attention to contracts, that I couldn't be as laid back as I as in life, that folk can turn on you if you're attacking their interests, and that, when push came to shove, I had to be willing to get up and walk away from the situation, taking my shit with me. It shouldn't come as no surprise to anyone that I won't work with Prime again, but just in case it is, there's the statement. Just as there are a lot of authors in this game--to which I am sure will head to Prime for the exposure they could get--there are a lot of publishers in this game, and I've had good experiences, and I've had bad ones, and I don't need to repeat the latter like some bad relationship you can't leave for fear of being alone (or in this case, unpublished).

But that doesn't mean that posts like Cisco's, or anyone else's on the subject, is wrong, or should be ignored, just because it is a well known experience.

No.

Nothing changes if you say nothing, be it big or small, and sometimes nothing changes even if you do: but I'm an author, and it takes me a fuck of a lot more time to write the book than it does for you to read it, and I have to respect it, and that means being all the things that have me referred to as a cunt, a whiny bastard, or whatever it is people label me with when the book doesn't get treated right.

Michael Cisco, the author of the Traitor, has just written about his experience with Prime Books:

d) What was it you published again?

Prime's idea of publicity is sticking your book under a rock and informing the wind. You will have to do absolutely everything yourself. Blurbs, getting your text to reviewers, everything. Prime takes authors they believe are already being talked about precisely to as to avoid having to do publicity. I firmly believe Prime's neglect helped to scuttle my last TWO novels.

How many novels do you have to burn?

Prime is an attractive publisher for a variety of reasons, and I would advise any new writer to consider submitting material thereto, but do so forewarned and forearmed. You will not be told what is going on, your requests for information will be met with stalling, ignorance real or feigned, or - most often - silence. All the real legwork will be left to you. Payment will involve unnecessary headaches and a whole lot of waiting - if not outright defrauding (which has yet to be seen).

Sounds familiar, huh?

In fairness, I should point out that my payments from Prime came pretty quickly and easily, be it with short fiction or the novel. I whole McDonalds Meal could I buy with the cash, but cash it was, and I had no hassle.

However, based off my experience of a print run, then no print run, of the book being tossed out suddenly, of it having errors, of the drama, of the headache, and so on and so forth, which you can check by following the tag at the bottom of this post... however, based off all that, there's not a whole lot to disagree with in Cisco's post.

No doubt someone will be along shortly to set him 'straight', of course.

(In other news, I appear to have discovered a cold in the last thirty minutes.)

From Timothy S. Miller (timothymiller):

"I was convicted of being Japanese. It was my only crime, and when found guilty, I was sentenced to Assimilation."

So begins Black Sheep, by Ben Peek, a dark dystopian journey into a world where segregation is perfected, and opposition--even in thought--results in the mind numbing horrific act of Assimiliation.

Isao Dazai, having recently immigrated to Asian-Sydney from Asian-Tokyo, finds himself in a world--once again--divided by race. Sydney is no different than Tokyo. Segregating Asians, Africans, and Caucasians into walled cities guarded by featureless Segregators, grave consequences result at even the thought of crossing cultural boundaries.

From the beginning, (not counting the fact that the first few lines of the book offer up his fate) we know that Isao is destined to buck the system.

While he is continually curious about the happenings in African or Caucasian-Sydney, his apathy and restlessness, even in his own Country (before immigrating to Asian-Sydney) speaks more of an existential angst, a discomfort in his own skin, than a true desire to search out alien culture. "...it was a well kept secret that I believed that I could live in any city, in any country, and feel the same ambivalence."

But we're not just talking about angst rising out of the uncertainty and discomfort of your own existence, we're talking angst that blooms and thrives in an environment where all of your actions are caught on surveillance cameras, your voice recorded, and dissidence rewarded with the stripping of your pigmentation--an erasure of sorts--placing you in environs eerily reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps.

While I was hoping for the dark brooding humor that plagues (in a good way) his blog, Peek's Black Sheep--while void of lightheartedness, (this is dystopian after all)--was impossible to put down.

Peek creates a sterile world where your name is your sickness, your Family is your enemy, individuality is prohibited, and nothing is ever what it seems.

It must be review week for me. I've noticed that these things tend to come in groups.

Anyhow, a while back, Miller told me that Black Sheep had ended up as the extra curricular reading in a course out in Texas, if I remember right. For a moment, I thought I should apologise to people, but then I realised that this meant people had to buy my book, and course marks were a suitable bribe. Since the book is pretty much dead, the idea of anyone buying it seems alien and obscure, I decided this was quite a good thing.

Link to Amazon, where you can buy it, review it, recommend it, do whatever with it.

This is John reading Black Sheep.

A critique?

Well, perhaps of what happened when a girl saw him reading it:

I started reading Black Sheep whilst I was sitting at Town Hall station. The lady sitting next to me took a look at the cover and laughed. I guess they should be issuing the book with "adult/mature" covers just like they do for Harry Potter so as to prevent the reader from experiencing embarrassing moments just like I had.

Life, hey?

Black Sheep has been reviewed by Martin Lewis (ninebelow) on Strange Horizons:

Through an accident of history two sub-genres of science fiction have achieved unquestioned literary respectability: post-apocalypse novels and dystopias. They are both forms that are essentially about the struggle for survival; in post-apocalypse works the struggle is primarily physical and in dystopias it is primarily mental. Isao Dazai, the narrator of Ben Peek's Black Sheep, is in a dystopia [1]. He has food, water and shelter but—to use Marx's appropriately science fictional turn of phrase—he is alienated from his species being. He is utterly alone in the world.

...

Just as most post-apocalypse novels boil down to someone wandering around looking for tinned provisions and dodging cannibals so dystopias often follow a basic pattern: a growing awareness of the protagonist's status as a square peg in a round hole, the inevitable confrontation with authority, a desire to escape from the cloying embrace of the state, contact with the rebel underground, a final taste of freedom cruelly withdrawn. (Like post-apocalpyse novels it is inevitable that a dystopia can have only the most tentative "happy ending.") This is the path Black Sheep takes but, rather interestingly, Peek short circuits it in the middle. Dazai's crime is the same as always—dissent—but his punishment is cruel and unusual in the extreme. Subjugated by the state within a hundred pages of the novel, Assimilation strips him of his skin, his face and his personality. Time passes. Fifteen years disappear before Dazai's awareness return. It is a brave move for a writer to skip forward so far in just a handful of pages and one that is successful here. Unfortunately it only throws into stark relief that this boldness is not present elsewhere.

This steers us nicely towards a topic I haven't mentioned so far: race. If you've seen a copy of the book you might be surprised it's taken me so long to get around to this topic, because one of the first things you are likely to think when you read the back cover is that this is a book inextricably linked to the subject. Actually though, it turns out to be little more than window dressing.

...

Black Sheep is told in the first person and the fact that both the quotes above reference Kumiko is not coincidental. She is the only thing that sustains him but, is barely enough to sustain the narrative. Obviously, protagonists need not be sympathetic and it is only the tyranny of the reading group that suggest characters need to be people we can relate to. However, Dazai is very unappealing and he is unappealing in a specific way: he is pathetic. Reading the novel I was put in mind of the bears at London Zoo. Fed and cared for they have nonetheless degenerated once estranged from their natural environment. Like these animals Dazai is listless, apathetic, and fatalistic. There is a thin line between pity and contempt and, like the materially destitute, Dazai initially engenders the former but, through familiarity, it gives way to the latter. Black Sheep offers a portrait that is by turns fascinating and frustrating; for all Peek's skill in delineating Dazai's character there is a weakness to him that makes him and his story unappetising.

Early on in the process of collecting my thoughts for this review one of the words I kept coming back to was "thoughtful." The more I examined it, though, the more I realised it wasn't quite the right word. It captures the tone of the novel but suggests a more active, probing intelligence than that which is apparent here. No, meditative is the right word. In its studied ambiguity Black Sheep shades from subtlety into blandness. In principle you could applaud Peek for drawing no moral and seeking no conclusions but in practice it means that, like his protagonist's skin, his words have been bleached of all colour.

It's an interesting review, I think, and one that's engaging in the content of the book, which I like. In fact, I don't ask for much more in a review.

Lewis' comment where he notes that the three 'pure race' cities is problematic is right, of course. The flaw is what he points out: "What does it mean, for example, to be Asian? Asian here seems to mean broadly South East Asian rather than Subcontinental Asian so someone from Japan is Asian but someone from Pakistan is not. Have over a billion people been simply wiped off the map? What about the Middle East? How does Peek's many-years-hence Race War relate to the current putative Religious War?" It was one of those things that I had problem with while writing, and eventually decided that, if you got caught up on that--in trying to see how it would really work in real life--then the book was never going to function, because it's impossible. Likewise, having any kind of racial purity is ridiculous, too, but that was always kind of the point. The way I dealt with that was to simply tell myself that it was either going to work for you, or it wouldn't, and maybe eight years after having written it, I'd maybe find a different way of that now, but I still think it's the best to just let it go and wait for the reaction.

Other than that, the bit I found most interesting was his comment that race was window dressing, and not terribly important to the book. I've seen the comment before, so obviously it's one that people are getting, and it's been strange to see. I suppose I just never thought people would say it--as an author you sit round and map what you think are the weak points of your work, and you wait for reviewers to identify it, or at least, that's what I do. But that wasn't one I thought of, and maybe it's a cultural thing--the Australian responses to it seem to have gelled with the racial content a lot easier, but maybe it's something else entirely. Either way, it has made for something to enjoy while reading the responses to the work, and what else can you say, huh?

Buy one, I suppose.

Two reviews, both of them by Jeff VanderMeer.

The first comes from his write up of best novels in the year on Locus Online. There, Black Sheep is checked and described as a book that "served up dystopia Pacific Rim-style, in often searing and seering prose."

In Publisher's Weekly, VanderMeer also reviewed the anthology Paper Cities, which contains my story 'The Funeral, Ruined':

Original genre anthologies have been a mixed bag in recent years, with an overreliance on established household names at the expense of nurturing new talent. At times, too restrictive themes have tended to create a sense of sameness. Not so with urban fantasy. As Jess Nevins points out in his excellent introduction, urban fantasy is “a mode of storytelling rather than a subgenre, and as such accommodates a variety of themes and approaches.” This idea of variety, along with a willingness to publish new and established writers alike, helps explain the considerable appeal of this ambitious and entertaining anthology.

Stand-out contributions include Richard Parks's folktale-influenced “Courting the Lady Scythe,” Cat Rambo's ethereal “The Bumblety's Marble,” Jay Lake's sometimes brutal “Promises; A Tale of the City Imperishable” (set in the same milieu as his novel A Trial of Flowers), Ben Peek's more contemporary “The Funeral, Ruined” and Anna Tambour's indefinable but brilliant “The Age of Fish, Post-Flowers.” In Tambour's story, man-eating “orms” threaten New York City, despite the presence of an iconic wall. The nameless narrator's account of her group's attempts to survive is both matter-of-fact and mysterious. Similar elements power many of the other stories: a keen underlying intelligence and an easy acceptance of fantasy, with little explanation of that element, wedded to strangely resonant images and situations.

Not every tale in the anthology is successful. Hal Duncan's “The Tower of Morning's Bones” continues his trend of excessive symbolism, summary and posturing in short fiction. Forrest Aguirre's “Andretto Walks the King's Way,” a forced march of a story illuminating different aspects of a feudal-era society, is an honest effort that never really comes to life. The editor also might have been better served excluding a couple of ill-advised short-shorts like Vylar Kaftan's workplace fantasy, “Godivy.” Yet for all of their flaws, even these stories display a high level of technical expertise and ambition.

Rounded out by very good contributions from Mark Teppo, David Schwartz, Barth Anderson, Catherynne M. Valente and Cat Sparks, Paper Cities is a delightful and absorbing read. In coming years—as the talents collected herein, including editor Sedia, become better known—this quirky anthology may take on even greater significance.

I just thought I'd quote the whole thing, but who is going to argue with being listed as a stand out contribution?

You can buy both Black Sheep and Paper Cities off Amazon. The latter is not yet released, however.

Carrie Laben (teratologist) wrote a review for Black Sheep which is pretty neat:

But with that out of the way, the book shines. Peek takes the standard dystopian furniture, all the ubiquitous cameras and brainwashed grunts and creepy identical houses and small bands of idealistic rebels and the like, and at first he seems to be going down the standard dystopian paths with it. But then he takes several unexpected turns - first into Dick-esque paranoia, and then into a series of confrontations with the fact that the solution to our hero's dilemma isn't as simple as raging against the machine. In fact, there may be no solution at all.

One of the real strong points of Black Sheep is in the characters who collaborate with the government. You have, of course, those who collaborate out of fear, and those who enjoy petty power for petty power's sake. But you also see people acting out of genuine conviction, both genuine conviction that the system is good and genuine conviction that the system is flawed but repairable by people working from within. And people who feel that a series of compromises that allow most people to live a tolerable life, even at the cost of breaking a few eggs, is better than throwing everyone into chaos. And people who just genuinely don't appear to think about politics at all. And, for that matter, people who bitterly oppose the current order - because they want something that is, from our protagonist's point of view, even worse.

Read the rest here. Then you can buy the book off Amazon, or wherever you manage to find it.

(Am currently running a two day workshop for gifted and talented people. My assistant is an unemployed ex principal with a phd, and two masters degrees. I remember when they used to be students.)

"Society has fractured into three supposedly pure race factions and multiculturalism is a crime in this bleak Orwellian debut, set in the far future. After the Culture War more than a century earlier, the United Nations divided the races to prevent violence and bigotry. Sydney, Australia, has become Asian-Sydney, Caucasian-Sydney and African-Sydney, and crossing the borders is strictly forbidden. Isao Dazai, a recent immigrant from Asian-Tokyo, dares to wonder what the other cities are like, despite fearful warnings from his wife, Kumiko. When she turns him in for speaking multicultural heresy, Isao is sent away for Assimilation, a dehumanizing procedure that strips him of his individuality. Thirteen years later, Isao manages to overcome his programming and becomes desperate to confront Kumiko, who has built a political career on her patriotic betrayal. Although the characters rarely rise above the roles of philosophical mouthpieces, Peek sketches chilling images of a future where individuality is deadly and only sameness provides safety."

—Publishers Weekly.

I'm not exactly sure what the deal is with Publishers Weekly, but I got no complaints with reviews like this. I did an interview with them last week, too, though I'm not sure when it'll be up (or printed, whichever way it works).

But hey, you bought the book?

No?

Amazon, Galaxy, or wherever else you want to go. Don't let some nice reviews, a few interviews, and some offers to write here and there fool you: I've still got to sell a shitload and get word of mouth out for it to mean a thing. That be the lesson for the evening.

Over at the newly relaunched for the web Fantasy Magazine, Sean Wallace (oldcharliebrown) has posted the opening of Black Sheep up in the aim of selling more copies of the book--a cause I'm more than happy to help. So I have nicked it to place it here, so you don't have to jump any links.

BLACK SHEEP, Chapter One

I was convicted of being Japanese. It was my only crime, and when found guilty, I was sentenced to Assimilation.

The trial took three hours, and when I arrived at the Assimilation Centre, Sol Demic, cold, grey clouds had knitted the sky tightly together. Beneath them, Asian-Sydney was a wet, grey creature, and its buildings scraped down to the ground alongside the rain, their outline drawn in thin lines of black ink that led to the sidewalks where nine-foot-high drooping lampposts and figures of men and women dressed in grey and shielded beneath black umbrellas waited. I couldn’t see their faces, and they did not look up as I passed. The guard tower on the wall of Sol Demic that I passed as the van entered the gates, was a faceless station, misted grey and blind to me from my position at the van’s window.

The Segregators opened the back of the van a moment later. They were faceless too: hidden beneath smooth black masks that offered only a featureless curve and black glass eyes; the remainder of their uniform was black padded armour, a pistol, nightstick, handcuffs, and leather pouches that weaved along their belts. One was male, the other female. They stared at me as the doors swung open, and then the one on the right—the male—climbed into the van. It sank and rocked beneath his weight as he approached, reaching down to grab the loose chain that held my limbs together.

Outside the van was a barren courtyard surrounded by tall concrete walls, and five towers along it. The sound of traffic seeped over the walls: a small number of automobiles, not much for an average day in Asian-Sydney, but always less in the wet. Such a minor thing, but I would never be aware of it again.

Water ran down my face and one of the Segregators dug a nightstick into my back, propelling me towards the entrance. I went, offering no resistance. There was no point, anyway.

Inside Sol Demic’s halls, neon lights swept over my face. The walls were white, new born but sterile, and there was no sound beyond the stumbling trip of my feet and my chains. The Segregators never said a word, never told me when to turn into a doorway, or when to stop. They used their nightsticks: digging into my back to get me to move faster, slapping my right side to have me turn right, my left to go left.

Eventually I reached a door that didn’t open, and I waited for one of the Segregators to open it.

It had been one hour since my trial had finished.

The Judge, a dour, sagging, sinking past his bones old man, had said: “Isao Dazai, you have broken the United Nations Laws of Nationality. In doing this, you have put the good people of Asian-Sydney in danger of Multiculturalism, a most heinous crime for which we, as People of the World, must be ever vigilant against. The court has viewed the evidence that has been presented before us, and we find that not only are you Japanese, but that you are Japanese with full awareness that you are living in Australia. Your willing embrace of this state, your flaunting of it actually, is nothing less than frightening, and we are forced to worry just what impact you have had on those around you. I am forced to ask myself just how scared your family are, and find myself with no alternative than to recommend counseling for them, while for you, Isao Dazai, I have only one choice. It is the ruling of this court that your punishment be the only kind that can be given to someone of your . . . illness. We find that you will be Assimilated.”

No one had said a word to me afterward.

I did not see my wife, Kumiko, during the trial. I did not know if she had even been present.

They had removed me from the court because I would not walk out. I mumbled questions, whispered pleas, but none of it mattered, and soon the doors to the van were closed, then locked, and in the cold dark, I knelt at the small window and watched as Asian-Sydney passed by all too quickly.

A nightstick jabbed into my spine, pushing me through the now open door and into a small, unfurnished room. The floor was tiled white, and at the other end of the room stood a door, which slid open.

Three men entered. The first two were tall, lean men wearing flowing white coats which billowed in their wake, while the third man, shorter, wore only overalls.

“Ah, here he is, here he is,” said the first of the men, older than the others, and his head completely bald. His narrow face was covered in fine, intricate lines, as if a sculptor had chiseled him. His dark eyes glittered and shone as he stared at me intently, then said, “The chains. Take them off, please.”

The male Segregator bent down, and the lock clicked open. A moment later, my hands and feet were free—though the chains might have stayed, for all the difference it made.

The bald man’s hand curled around my chin, twisting my head from left to right. “How old are you? Thirty, I would guess.” He plucked a strand of black hair out of my head, then murmured, “It is an easier procedure on teenagers and anyone over fifty. Did you know that?”

I could think of nothing to say.

“Sho,” said the man, not turning from my face but continuing to scrutinise it. “Take him to his cell, have him changed there.”

The third man stepped from behind the others. Everything about him was thick and coarse: his lips, eyebrows, overhanging forehead, neck and short, stubby body in his creased, dirty white overalls. Without a word, he clamped his hand around my arm, and dragged me out the doors that he had come through.

I turned once, a slight twist of my head to hear the bald man talking to the Segregators:

“Was his trial quick?”

“Yeah. We had lots on him—”

And then the door slipped shut.

Neon lights passed over me again, and the walls quickly turned in a running, white haze without distinction. The only sound was the rubber squelch of Sho’s soles as he plowed down the corridors, doors sliding open and shut, corners twisting until he had led me deep into Sol Demic.

Eventually we came to a narrow, dead-end, whitewashed corridor that was lined a dozen electronic locks, six on each side. The small catches over the doors were closed, but they must have been full, because Sho dragged me down to the end, where at the last cell on the right side, he punched in a code and, without a word, shoved me inside. The door slithered shut a moment later.

I was alone. I stared at the single bunk with its crisp white sheets and pillowcases, then at the back of the cell, where the toilet sat. The walls were clean—the same whitewash throughout the building, and there was a slender tube of neon light across the ceiling.

There were no windows, no natural light, no noise.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and, shortly, began to arrange my thoughts. Beneath the white ceilings and surrounded by the white walls, my mind filled with the mistakes that led me here and everything that was about to be taken away from me . . .

"With the gravitas of a Margaret Atwood or Kazuo Ishiguro, Peek, in his debut novel, Black Sheep, crafts a quietly horrifying world displaced from ours by a century of time and an implosion of globalist attitudes."




"There’s a clear critique operating here of contemporary Australian society, with its expectation that newcomers leave their cultural background at the door on entry... Black Sheep is one of the more interesting novels I’ve read in recent times."




"This is an angry young book... it blazes across the page with absolute intensity. It’s also one of the most interesting and politically challenging science fiction novels to come out of Australia in a very long time. It’s a novel that has something to say."




Buy it from Amazon and Galaxy Bookstore.

Jeff VanderMeer writes about Black Sheep over on Amazon:

Ben Peek, one of Australia's rising stars of experimental and hard-to-classify speculative fiction, has a first novel out, Black Sheep, from Prime Books. It was released in March, but now is being relaunched with a new push, along with a new cover. Black Sheep belongs to the same "genre" as novels like 1984 and Brave New World, except that it's much closer to home in its details. Peek tells the story of a Japanese immigrant to Australia in the near-future. Living in a segregated ghetto, forbidden to travel to other zones, Peek's protagonist is "charged with the crime of multiculturalism". His name is taken from him and he must struggle through a world of increasingly invasive government bureaucracy and mistreatment.

There's more, so follow the link, and buy the book, if you haven't.

Today is the final day before the English exam in the HSC. The first exam is tomorrow, the second on Monday. Everything not related to this has pretty much ground to a halt for the moment, and likely will do so for a few days after, since I'm that tired.

I didn't work this hard for my HSC.

But then, y'know, I had nowhere I wanted to be after High School, except out. Life was sure simple in those days.

This week has been pretty review heavy on the blog, I've noted, and I figure I'm going to close the week out this way, because it's Buy A Book For A Friend Week, and all of you should be rushing out to buy my poor books for your friends.

Not, you know, that you should need a week to buy books for someone, or donate money to cancer, or help suffering people.

But, if you do, here's some choices:



"With the gravitas of a Margaret Atwood or Kazuo Ishiguro, Peek, in his debut novel, Black Sheep, crafts a quietly horrifying world displaced from ours by a century of time and an implosion of globalist attitudes."



"There’s a clear critique operating here of contemporary Australian society, with its expectation that newcomers leave their cultural background at the door on entry... Black Sheep is one of the more interesting novels I’ve read in recent times."



"This is an angry young book... it blazes across the page with absolute intensity. It’s also one of the most interesting and politically challenging science fiction novels to come out of Australia in a very long time. It’s a novel that has something to say."



Buy it from Amazon and Galaxy Bookstore.



"Ben Peek is a writer I fully expect to blunder out into the scene like a run-away brontosaurus one of these days. He has titanic talent generally leashed to micro-detail projects when his true canvas is probably something much wider and deeper. Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth is a gently experimental text that uses a glossary of terms from A to Z to create vignettes, one-liners, and other supports for loosely connected narratives. Some are funny, some are most definitely not funny. All are lively and deserve your attention."



"I emerged from the book feeling somewhat dazed and exhausted (having read it from beginning to end within a 24 hour period), and I’m not entirely sure what I feel about it. Impressed, certainly. Curious, definitely. A little pissed off... well, maybe."



"What I got from it is this: that truth matters when it matters, and doesn’t when it doesn’t. And that each of us must find our own path as to where that distinction lies. 26 Lies, 1 Truth is an intelligent, playful, funny, challenging, thoughtful and deeply moving work. It is a book filled with outrageous lies. And it is a book filled with truth."



"It ought to fail miserably. But, curse his eyes, Mr Peek has written a fantastic book. And despite its structure, Twenty-Six Lies has a powerful narrative drive. Mr Peek as deftly woven a story into his encyclopedia, complete with character development, unfolding themes, and a hard shock of an ending."



"Quite extraordinary."



"Ben Peek's Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth is a memoir in the form of alphabetical entries, ten or so entries for each letter. The book is also semiotic, social commentary, a meditation on the truth-telling responsibilities of a writer, a part-time comic book, funny as hell, profane, and melancholy. Like the best memoirs it's deeply personal yet engaging and universal. Peek lays out the truths and lies and is smart enough to trust the reader to fit everything together. Powerful stuff. Highly recommended."



"This is a clever, moving, funny and insightful book. I laughed, and I would have cried, but I'm too fucking hard for that sort of shit. See, I understand, relate and empathise with a lot of the truth in this book, the truths I know are true."



"This book is an autobiography. At least some of it is true, for whatever value you like for 'true.' It tells me (or you, or whoever the reader) over and over again not to trust writers. Writers lie. Words, by their very nature, lie.

I know better than to trust this book. I know not to let it seep into my mind, not to take too much too heart what I think it tells me about Ben Peek.

The only trouble is, I don't know how."



"I find myself unable to call it a brilliant book, although there are certainly brilliant bits, and I am instead left to describe it as an interesting book, which is certainly is - through and through."



"Recently I read Ben Peek's Twenty Six Lies/ One Truth. Yes it's full of bluff and bluster, Peek coming across as a hard-ass, and yes, it's very fucking good. There are moments, in fact, of brilliance."



"A bit too clever."



And

"Ben Peek’s Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth is inebriating, an absinthe of self-deception, a smoke-filled room of conflicted emotion, a hall of mirrors, each of them distorting both perception and reality. Ben Peek dances on the stepping stones of Ben Peek’s supposed life, leaping from philosophy to pop culture, from insight to angst. As one reads this remarkable work, the question arises, “what is the line between the art and the artist”? Peek knows. I know. But you cannot know, for certain, until you pick out the lies. Do you trust your judgement that much? Do you trust Ben Peek? What makes you so certain that you can crack the code of Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth? I’d be careful if I were you. Deception awaits."



Buy it from Amazon, Wheatland Press, and Agog.

Clearly, these are your only choices for Pimp Bang!

Er, I mean, Buy A Book for a Friend Week.

Also, they're good for kindling for people in countries currently under military control or suffering from natural disasters.

Tansy Rayner Roberts (cassiphone) reviews Black Sheep on ASif:

I loathed Black Sheep. It’s a long time since a book has made me this angry and frustrated. This is not to say it is a bad book, which it patently is not. Black Sheep is a very good book, which I found utterly horrifying to read.

...

The core event of the novel is Isao’s trial, in which he is convicted of multi-culturalism (ie of being Japanese while living in Australia) and is removed from his life and family. The concept of bring arrested for multiculturalism is quite brilliant, not to mention terrifying, and it is this that makes the novel feel so relevant. It’s just not hard to see Peek’s awful, Phillip-K-Dick-meets-1984 Australia being a natural extrapolation of our current government policies.

This week, the infamous “citizenship test” was officially introduced in Australia, and it seems like Black Sheep is particularly topical right now. I was raised in an Australia that promoted and celebrated multiculturalism (I remember writing an essay on the topic for a national competition at primary school) and I’m just baffled and appalled by the current Government attitude to - well, everything, quite frankly. But particularly our migration policies, which hark back to the old, shameful White Australia policy of decades ago. This is not the 21st century I want to be living in.

So, yes. Peek is pressing all the right buttons with Black Sheep, and reading it made me want to hit things.

The novel falls into three distinct acts: the sinister build up to Isao’s trial, the post-trial years, during which Isao receives a long course of brutal and intrusive mental conditioning, and the final act in which he finds a kind of peace with the country that has treated him so abominably. While the opening act is particularly chilling and evocative, and the third act a little flat and depressing, it is the more experimental prose of the middle act that really made this book stand out for me. We leave Phillip K Dick territory here and end up squarely in Brazil (with shades of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) as Isao suffers a complete mental and identity breakdown. Peek does not shy away from the intensity of this horrific experience, and it is here that his writing really comes into its own. I found it quite emotionally torturous to read, even as I was impressed with the effect of the language. This is not a book for the faint of heart, nor the mentally squeamish.

She sounds angry, doesn't she?

Well, she should, because like Tansy, I remember when multiculturalism was a thing promoted in this country, too, and diversity was something to be celebrated. These days, I don't feel that, and everything feels as if it's retreating into corners, and erecting walls, so that everyone is cut off from the other. Fear the other--some days I think that's what the world says to you.

Anyhow, with yesterday's name checking of of Atwood and Ishiguro, and today's with Dick and Gilliam, I'm not doing to bad with reviews, huh? I keep thinking people are going to miss what the book is about, what with the time it's taken to be released, and all of that, but it looks like that's not happening, at least if the last three reviews from it are to be taken as any indication. Which means we're all good, at least for the moment.

Buy it from Amazon, buy it from Galaxy.

Paul DiFilippo (theinferior4) has written about Black Sheep very nicely:

...[A] lot of this dark-and-dismal literary forecasting is often just atmospheric, setting up dictatorial straw men for the hero to rebel against. Every Luke Skywalker needs his Darth Vader. Only a minority of science fiction dystopias attempt to plumb the real existential roots of oppression, the flaws in humanity's nature that undermine our best attempts at organizing ourselves into social units.

One such arrives now from newcomer Ben Peek. With the gravitas of a Margaret Atwood or Kazuo Ishiguro, Peek, in his debut novel, Black Sheep, crafts a quietly horrifying world displaced from ours by a century of time and an implosion of globalist attitudes. After worldwide racial wars wreak massive devastation, the UN asserts transnational supremacy and divides every major metropolitan area into separate-but-equal enclaves for Asian, African, and Caucasian peoples. No mixing allowed. Multiculturalism is a crime, with transgressors apprehended by the dreaded Segregators. Punishment is Assimilation: the literal bleaching of the offender to a ghost and the implantation of mind-control devices, creating a slave for society's scut work.

It's an ever-potent trope -- Rupert Thomson plumbed a similar schema in his

Divided Kingdom

(2005) -- and Peek puts his anomie-driven hero Isao Dazai, reluctant immigrant to Asian-Sydney, through a Kafkaesque ordeal, carrying the reader along through multiple milieus of this warped world, where the laudable attempt to gain stability has been perverted by totalitarian means.

Never heard of Divided Kingdom, though, so I'm going to go check that in a second. You, on the other hand, should buy the book from Amazon or Galaxy Bookshop or even Barnes and Noble, which is where the review comes from.

Link.