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About Extreme Weather Events
Extreme Weather Events is my first collection of short fiction.
It brings together eleven of my previously-published stories, plus one
previously-unpublished story, in one handy 124-page package! It's part
of HeadworX Publishers' Pocket
Fiction Series, and in a nutshell, according to Headworx' Extreme
Weather Events page:
These are stories of travel and adventure. They deal with societies and individuals functioning - or failing to function - under extreme conditions. Looking back at the 20th century and forward at the 21st, Extreme Weather Events is a distinctive collection of New Zealand fiction.The book is available from most NZ independent booksellers, and if it's not available from your local chain bookstore, you should certainly be able to order it using the ordering information. The book is also available in Australia. See How to Buy a Copy for more on availability.
TITLE Extreme Weather Events
AUTHOR Tim Jones
PUBLISHER HeadworX Publishers
FORMAT Paperback, 110x176mm
EXTENT 124 pages
ISBN 0-473-07387-0
RRP NZ $19.95; AUS $19.95
DISTRIBUTOR (NZ) Addenda Limited, PO Box 78-224, Grey Lynn, Auckland
DISTRIBUTOR (AUS) Dennis Jones & Associates, Melbourne, 19a Michellan
Court, Bayswater, Victoria 3153, Australia, email: dajones@connect.net.au
Stories included
- Maria and the Tree
- Wintering Over
- The New Land
- Flensing
- The Kiwi Contingent
- My Friend the Volcano
- The Pole
- The Lizard
- Tour Party, Late Afternoon
- Black Box
- The Man Who Loved Maps
- The Temple in the Matrix
You can find the publication history of these stories on my
bibliography
page.
Reviews and Articles
On the radio
David Hill reviewed Extreme Weather Events on National Radio's Kim Hill Show on 10 September 2001. It's difficult to take extracts from a radio interview, but I think it's fair to say that David Hill was quite enthusiastic about the book, and Kim Hill more guarded without being overtly negative. David's comments included the following:
"... in all the stories there's this unsettling and, I think, very well evoked blend or comparison of the real and the surreal ... there's some excellently written pieces here ... I found it a very entertaining and sometimes rather touching book."
In print
Here's what some print reviewers have had to say:
1. Review by Susannah Cullinane which appeared in the "Recommended" page of the (Wellington) Evening Post on 12/7/2001:
"... The short stories in Extreme Weather Events have all the qualities I was hoping to find in the book when I picked it up, but with odd twists - or just an extra factor that reveals a world not quite like our own. The similarities to the life we experience, however, make it easy to be absorbed and to identify with the characters. They are extremely real ... Everyday stories put under pressure, as the title implies, by extreme events."
2. Review by Tim Wilson in Metro, August 2001, p. 102:
"... [The book] has plots, its characters face dilemmas, the writing is sure-footed, at once serious, learned and droll. Now this may be due to the fictive landscape - sort of SF, realistic/unrealistic - but genre alone doesn't explain Jones's freshness ... It's not perfect, but overall I'm reminded of Peter Carey's great short stories 'The Fat Man in History'. You must get this."
3. Review by Chris Bourke in North and South, October 2001, p. 100:
"Extreme Weather Events ... is a collection of barbed short stories about a world whose outlook is not 'otherwise fine'. Jones takes a satiric eye to the future, when the new right is old news and the environment is punch drunk .... These vignettes of black humour are the work of an original talent."
Online
I know of two reviews available online: one is Trevor Reeves' review in Issue 20 of Southern Ocean Review (second review on this page, but don't stop reading there!). Alan Robson's review (final review on that page) is less positive, although if you read carefully you'll find that he likes half the stories.
How to Buy a Copy
From a bookshop: Your best option (in New Zealand and Australia) is to go to a bookshop, check whether it stocks the book, and ask the bookshop to order it if not. In New Zealand, HeadworX books are mainly distributed by independent booksellers, but EWE is available through Whitcoulls as well, even if your local branch doesn't stock it. One word of caution: because HeadworX is mainly a poetry publisher, some bookshops have put the book in their poetry section. If you find it there, ask them to move it to fiction! If you take the ordering information above with you to your bookshop, it may help.
Online, you can order the book from Books - New Zealand. Enter "Extreme Weather Events" in the "Quick Search" box, and you'll be taken to its page.
Extreme Weather Events is now available online to retail customers from Kiwinet NZ.
You can also order the book directly from me.
Email me at timjones@actrix.co.nz