Over at Ju Transcendancing’s blog you can find me contemplating personal positives for the Down Under Feminist Carnival. I’d appreciate your thoughts on what I have to say.

And some happy news I’d like to share. My brother is having a book launch soon. His latest book is called To Learn To Serve and you can read all about it and the details for his launch over at his website. This may be of interest to militaria buffs and Perth residents who have connections with John XX111 college, St Louis School and Loreto Convent.

Nikei Love is a story I wrote for Cat Sparks a few years ago when she was still editing anthologies. Now she’s the Fiction Editor at Cosmos and on the eve of the Olympics this story seemed very relevant. It’s a glimpse into of a world where Sport is both Business and Family, and there’s no escaping your birthright unless you take a visit to the Corpus strip. You can read it online and while you’re there check out the interview I did where Ajai asks me some curly questions about writing science fiction. Just be warned it’s a straight transcript so there are plenty of um’s and half-finished sentences.

I slowly watched my way through season one of Luther (over a period of months). On reflection, I found it rather intense and disturbing at first, which is not surprising for something written by Neil Cross. That coupled with the fact that Indira Varma’s character (Luther’s wife) was a bit irritating, meant that I’d had the DVD almost a year before I finished the first season. But something happened when I hit S1 finale though, and I watched S2 in a week.

Ruth Wilson’s character (crazy Alice) was wonderful all the way through, and the inclusion in S2 of a new story line and fresh actors (mainly Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Jenny) totally hooked me. The dynamic between her and Luther seemed to be portrayed far more realistically than his obsessive passion for his ex-wife (although I concede that the build up from S1 made S2 work so well.)

Having only seen Idris Elba in The Wire, I was impressed with how he handled this persona. He had the same intense broodiness as Stringer Bell but an added dose of crazy and some personal convictions that lead him to make dubious decisions. He’s a beautifully flawed and fascinating character.

I truly hope they get around to making S3, as I think Luther really has the legs to go further.