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Literary journal Sport has returned for its 46th instalment, featuring a great variety of fictional pieces by 49 New Zealand writers. It’s a little difficult to know how to properly review Sport 46 as a book when it covers so many styles and formats. Each essay, poem, story and interview really needs to be considered in its own review. There are some very distinctive voices here, and each one demands your full attention; despite this, they feel perfectly at home alongside eachother.
The anthology opens with a interview with Bill Manhire by Anna Smaill, and from there covers an impressive range of fiction. Amongst the more traditional stories and poetry, seven essays fit in seamlessly, as does Barry Linton’s brightly coloured comic, My Ten Guitars. This is a story told through a list of the guitars that have followed the author through his life; from Hamilton to Auckland, from his first guitar at 16 to his friend’s Yahama guitar before it got stolen. The list of guitars survived by the author tell an autobiographical story in such a refreshing way; it would be wonderful to see more comics in future editions of Sport, as they are such an effective yet underrated storytelling medium.
While I love a good poem – and Sport 46 certainly has no shortage of very good poems – short stories are always the pieces I tend to enjoy most in an anthology. Amongst my favourite pieces in Sport 46 is The Pests, a short story by Zoe Higgins. A teenager who builds landscape models discovers that her perfect miniature worlds are being invaded by mysterious creatures. Another short story that particularly captured my attention was Blue Horse Overdrive by Anthony Lapwood. A group of young friends experience a number of startling things in a short amount of time; their band is noticed by a record company, the bass player begins routinely fainting while perfoming, and most concerningly, the band begin to see an electric blue horse appearing in the crowds during their gigs. The supernatural elements of both of these stories make them so enthralling to read; I thoroughly enjoyed them.
I strongly recommend that you get your hands on a copy of Sport 46 and sample some of the best work to come from New Zealand writers in 2018. There is an excellent combination here of the bizarre and the familiar, the distortion of a dream and the comfort of home.
Reviewed by Tierney Reardon
Sport 46
edited by Fergus Barrowman, Kirsten McDougall & Ashleigh Young
Published by VUP
ISBN 9781776562343
Sue Copsey brings us the third installment of the ‘Spooky Adventures’ series which follows the adventures of Joe and Eddie, the ghost hunters. Although I have not read the two previous books in the series, The Ghosts Of Young Nick’s Head and The Ghosts Of Tarawera, I would love to!
Battlesaurus: Rampage at Waterloo, won the YA category of the 2016 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
I was also a Fantasy and Science Fiction lover, so had been reading extensively in the genre since childhood—and what you enjoy reading tends to influence the sorts of stories you wish to tell yourself, I suspect. In my case I always point to the “seminal” influences of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien (of course!), as well as a swathe of myths, fairytales, and legends, but also to writers from other genres. For example, historical fiction authors, Rosemary Sutcliff and Dorothy Dunnett, dystopian authors such as Aldous Huxley (Eyeless in Gaza, in particular) and Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale), as well as classic writers such as Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy – to name just a very few among many.
But I loved the expanded world of The Gathering of the Lost, and the adventurous nature of the story, with its assassins and rooftop chases, tournaments and armoured knights. Daughter of Blood worked me very hard in terms of getting the story to the page, and although it has its duels and battles, the nuances centre on treachery and political intrigue. But if I had to pick one, I would probably opt for The Heir of Night because of the delight of beginning and then further exploring something new, which in Heir’s case was both the story itself and writing my first novel.
Mainly in my head, although I do have a number of tables where I record key facts, particularly about the Derai. I have also have a folder of sketch maps of the world—all very rough and as much scribblings as sketch, but useful when I need to provide locational clarity in the text. I also include a comprehensive glossary with each book, which is a cross between a compendium, a gazetteer and a dramatis personnae. I include it because I love glossaries myself, but also to assist readers since the series is complex—and when circumstances require, I consult it myself.
ause for reflection regarding this question, because of course Malian and Kalan have already faced some steep challenges in The Heir of Night and The Gathering of the Lost. I think, though, that the circumstances in this book are a significant step up for Kalan, in particular. I shall leave it to readers to decide whether he meets the tests set before him, but believe it is not too much of a spoiler to reveal that single combats, military assaults, and large armed conflicts are in his cards. With respect to Malian, although she faces significant challenges in Daughter of Blood, it is more her realisation of the immense undertaking that still lies ahead that shadows her path through the story.
Recently, too, I’ve had three poems accepted for a new anthology, Leaving the Red Zone … poems from the Canterbury earthquakes, edited by James Norcliffe and Joanna Preston, that is intended for publication on February 22nd, the fifth anniversary of the February 22nd, 2011, Christchurch earthquake. As a Christchurch person who has lived through 2010-2011’s eighteen months of “awful”, and the subsequent five years of “recovery”, I do feel honoured to have my work included in this book.
When Lucille Bennett’s mother leaves town to have ‘a break from everything’, Lucille and her sister Wren are left to fend for themselves. This is easier said than done – there are bills to pay, suspicious neighbours to avoid and grades to keep up at school.
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