One of my fellow Clarionites, Angela Slatter (aka The Queen of Wrongtown) interviewed me on her blog.

Follow the link to learn the formula for calculating how monkeys a story really should have.

http://www.angelaslatter.com/a-flying-monkey-drive-by-aidan-doyle/

Some feedback on Stone Flowers, my short story that was published in Fantasy last month.

Lois Tilton in Locus:

A poignant short tale about the loneliness of immortality. The author speaks of the significant of the gods’ flesh becoming solid and visible again, but I must admit it evades me. Are they becoming corporeal and mortal? Or withering away like the cherry blossoms?

–RECOMMENDED

Aidan Doyle “Stone Flowers”  - 掌編。日本が舞台なんで思わず読んでしまった（作者は日本に4年住んでいたオーストラリア人）。かつて神として祀られ、今では忘れられた男の話。雰囲気はすごくいいのだが、雰囲気だけかも。

http://twilog.org/wishigame/date-100906

He liked the story’s setting.

And LiveJournal user Anachred had these really nice things to say:

Here are some stories that are just gorgeous, and made me love webzines that can publish stories of the kind I like. Fantasy Magazine, for example…

Stone Flowers by Aidan Doyle which is sad and luminescent and…well, smells right. The description put me square in a place I know, but told me a story I didn’t.

http://anachred.livejournal.com/140571.html

In Beijing I joined a tour run by Koryo Tours.  It was a week-long tour into North Korea – one of the world’s most isolated countries.

We flew into Pyongyang using Air Koryo – North Korea’s national airline.

We had a group visa and so didn’t get any stamps in our passports.  In the last couple of years the number of Chinese tourists visiting North Korea has really increased and the restrictions for tourists have decreased. Initially we had been told that we couldn’t bring in computers, but then we found out it was all right.  The main restriction still enforced is that you can’t bring any mobile phones.

Our first stop was the Rungrado May Day Stadium – one of the biggest stadiums in the world.  It has the world’s highest stadium seating capacity: 150,000.  Every year during summer, the North Koreans stage the Arirang Mass Games – an absolutely amazing 90 minute spectacle consisting of 100,000 performers.

There were thousands of people on the other side of the stadium holding books of different colored boards.  They moved these in sequence to make some amazingly detailed pictures.

The show covered the Korean struggle for independence, the wonders of North Korea’s president and friendship with China (nothing says ideological purity like a dancing panda).

In Beijing I went to the panda house at Beijing Zoo.

When I lived in Japan, I heard about Battleship Island – an abandoned island near Nagasaki – and wanted to visit.  But the island was closed to the public.

From JapanGuide:

Gunkanjima is a small island located about 20 kilometres from Nagasaki Port.

Until 1974, the island served as a coal mine, and more than 5000 residents called the 480 meter long, 150 meter wide island home, resulting in the highest population density in history recorded worldwide.

To accommodate so many people in such a small area, every piece of land was built up so that the island came to resemble a massive battleship. In fact, “Gunkanjima” is a nickname that means “battleship island” in Japanese. The island’s formal name is Hashima…

Managers, workers and their families all called the little island home. The residents of the island were able to live out a more or less typical life. Half of the island was devoted to the workings of the mine, the other to residential space, schools, restaurants, shops, a public bath and a hospital.

In April 1974, the mine was closed, and its residents had to leave Gunkanjima, abandoning the island with all its buildings. Over the years since then, direct exposure to typhoons has caused the residences and mining facilities to deteriorate, giving the island an eerie and haunting atmosphere. Due to the danger of collapsing structures, Gunkanjima was closed to the public, and for many years could only be seen from sightseeing cruises that circled the island.

In April 2009 a new landing area was built and a ferry company started running tourist visits to the island.  I stayed in Nagasaki for a couple of days and took a visit to Battleship Island.

I was the only foreigner on the cruise and none of the information was available in English.  Fortunately my Japanese hasn’t disappeared entirely and was able to get by.

Before we landed, we were repeatedly warned that there were no toilets and no vending machines on the islands.  It’s strange to find a place in Japan where there isn’t a vending machine nearby.

You’re not allowed to wander into the ruins, but we walked around the edge of the buildings and were able to take lots of photos.  It’s a strange and interesting place.