Helen Lowe's Blog, page 118

More Fun Stuff Coming Up

UK/AU/NZ

USA

Just a headsup, after last week’s roundup, that there’s more fun stuff coming up in the interview, guest post, and podcast fun department.

Right now I’m working on an interview for Fresh Fiction, which recently reviewed Daughter of Blood.

I’m also pleased to have been invited to contribute to Fantasy Cafe’s April spotlight on Women in SFF, which has been running now since 2012 — so it’s nice to become part of the tradition. However, this also means I have a guest post to pen—umm-...

Tuesday & Poetry: More Lines from “Leaving The Red Zone” — Aftershock

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been sharing some of the wonderful lines and stanzas from the “September” (ie 4th, 2010: the 7.1 earthquake) from Leaving the Red Zone —thepoetry anthology (edited by James Norcliffe and Joanna Preston, and published by Clerestory Press) that commemorates the fifth anniversary of the February 22, 2011, earthquake.

Today, I am sharing some lines and stanzas from the “Aftershock” section of Leaving the Red Zone.

—

from “Aftershock”

“3.

All unpicked
The city is a sh...

The Wall of Night ‘verse: Keeping It Real with Armour and Weapons

UK/AU/NZ

Recently, in a guest post on TOR.com — The Art Of Falling — I confessed to a childhood love of armour and weapons. We lived in Singapore for some years, too, so in addition to western traditions including medieval armour, cuirassiers and the long rifle, I was also aware of oriental armour and weaponry. I even had a Chinese sword—imitation, of course—and horse rider’s composite bow.

From endless childhood games in which wars and battles were re-enacted, it is perhaps not surprising th...

58 Eridani: Episode 14

~ by Andrew Robins

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Months of work, and it has come to this. We are thirty minutes out from our jump back to normal space.

Lepanto’s mindstate is fully transferred into what used to be Mistral’s gestalt. Turns out that Lepanto is genuinely really nice, so we still get to camp out in there when we need to.

We also got really lucky with Bringer.

Turns out that “the horn” that we picked up back on Mission Target Three is/was an actual pa...

58 Eridani Postponed, So Instead…

58 Eridani will post tomorrow due to Andrew being overwhelmed by Other Life Stuff, which happens yanno… (I’m sure you do all know.)

…but meanwhile, what else to post?

All sorts of ideas skittered around in m’head, and Paul Weimer suggested a “just arrived” book post, except none have lately, so that one wouldn’t fly.

So in the end I’ve opted for a photo, of Birdlings Flat on the road to Akaroa.

Cool, huh? The photo was taken by Malcolm—the husband of Marion, The Heir of Night’s Dutch transl...

Use of Weapons: The Armoury of Epic Fantasy

USA

When embarking on a High Epic tale like The Wall Of Night series, with its diversity of heavily armed societies, making an inventory of the epic armoury becomes a priority.

Any good armoury, after all, should comprise an array of weapons—some magical, some mythic, some even real—that may, depending on circumstances, save the day for the story’s protagonists.

The Soul-Sucking Sword

A favoured contender for any self-respecting High Epic tale has to be The Soul-Sucking Sword. After all, they...

Once Upon A Time On T’Interwebs…

… it all decided to happen at once!

Skiffy and Fanty Podcast:

So on Tuesday, the Skiffy and Fanty Fantasy Roundtable discussion between Courtney Schafer, Kate Elliott, and myself, with the indefatigable Paul Weimer as moderator, went live — and actually, it sounds pretty good. We managed to canvass worldbuilding, magic systems, characters and more, and there are some great quotes in there. For example:

“It doesn’t matter what the story is, it’s how you tell it.” ~ Courtney Schafer

“I want to...

Big Worlds On Small Screens & “Fantasy Films From the Eighties That Weren’t That Bad”—Rebecca Fisher Discusses “Labyrinth”

~ by Rebecca Fisher

In researching this collaboration between famed fantasy-peddlers Jim Henson, George Lucas and Terry Jones, I was pretty astonished to discover that when Labyrinth was first released to theatres in 1986, it was largely considered a flop, spurned by critics and ignored by audiences.

Today it’s considered a cult classic, and with the recent passing of David Bowie, I doubt I’m the only one who took the chance to rewatch him in his most famous movie role.

Sarah (Jennifer Conne...

Tuesday & Poetry: More Lines From “Leaving The Red Zone’

Last week, Ishared some of the wonderful lines and stanzas from the “September” (ie 4th, 2010: the 7.1 earthquake) from Leaving the Red Zone —thepoetry anthology (edited by James Norcliffe and Joanna Preston, and published by Clerestory Press) that commemorates the fifth anniversary of the February 22, 2011, earthquake.

The September 4 earthquake may have been bigger on the Richter scale, but it was the violent vertical accelerations of the February 22nd quake (6.3), which struck at 12.51 pm,...

Coming Up This Week

I’ve got a few extry gigs coming up this week, so thought I’d start the week with a headsup on what to look out for:

The Skiffy and Fanty Show: A Podcast Panel with Paul Weimer, Kate Elliott, and Courtney Schafer:

We recorded this three or even four weeks back now, but the podcast Panel discussion should go live round about Monday 9:30am US Eastern Standard Time, 8:30 am Central Time (Paul), 7:30 am Mountain Time (Courtney), 3:30 am Hawaii time (Kate), and Tuesday 2:30 pm in the afternoon her...