Reading Challenge: A Journey Through the Twelve Planets

Image of a series of vertical book spines showing the twelve planet books in various colours. Header text white on transparent black overlies the image with the title 'A Journey Through the Twelve Planets'.

In 2011 Twelfth Planet Press began the publication of a series of single author collections featuring short stories and novellas from twelve of Australia’s most prominent female short fiction writers in the speculative and horror genres. The authors were instructed to write four stories of any genre, and each were allowed to take the stories and collection as a whole in whichever direction they desired.  In 2015, the Twelfth Planet was published.

Through Twitter, Steph from The Forest of Books and I discovered that we had both planned to read and review all of the Twelve Planets in 2016, and a challenge was born!

What is the aim of A Journey Through the Twelve Planets?

The aim of this challenge is simple: to read all of the Twelve Planets during 2016, and post a review for one of the books at the end of each month.

(Note that the Thirteenth Planet has also been announced; for the time being, this challenge will focus on the original twelve).

What will we be reading and in which order?

We will be reading the Twelve Planets in the order of publication below: (links go to the book purchase pages at Twelfth Planet Press):

Nightsiders by Sue Isle

Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Thief of Lives by Lucy Sussex

Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti

Showtime by Narrelle M Harris

Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren

Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan

Asymmetry by Thoraiya Dyer

Caution: Contains Small Parts by Kirstyn McDermott

Secret Lives by Rosaleen Love

The Female Factory by Lisa L. Hannett and Angela Slatter

Cherry Crow Children by Deborah Kalin

The collections are also available through Smashwords and Amazon in ebook form.  Print versions of the collections are available, though several are sold out or close to being sold out at this time.

Want to join in with us?

Add a post on your blog committing to the challenge and comment on the Journey Through the Twelve  Planets blog.  Feel free to use the image I posted above (or the smaller version below).  After you’ve signed up, I’ll add your blog information to the challenge page.

Smaller image of a series of vertical book spines showing the twelve planet books in various colours. Header text white on transparent black overlies the image with the title 'A Journey Through the Twelve Planets'.

You can join in for the full challenge, or however many of the Planets you wish.

At the end of the month, I’ll post my review of the month’s Planet.  If you comment on that post with a link to your review, I will add a link to your review in my post.  I’ll also add a separate page to my website linking all of the reviews for all of the Planets.

We also hope to have some giveaways and bonus material over the year, so keep watching this space!

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