Helen Lowe's Blog, page 130
December 3, 2015
E-Book Deal: USA/Canada & For A Limited Time Only—The Heir Of Night / The Gathering Of The Lost
As part of the buildup to the release of Daughter Of Blood, HarperVoyager is offering a special The Heir Of Night / The Gathering Of The Lost ebook deal to USA/Canada readers.
Both e-books will be 0.99c through until 28 December—so if you’re enjoying the story but don’t yet have the books yourself, or you would love to introduce the series to a friend, this could be a great way of doing that. Especially with Christmas coming up.
Or as I said on Twitter when the deal was announced: “cheap as c...
December 2, 2015
About The Characters: Meet The Minor Players in “The Wall Of Night” Series — Lira
USA
UK/AU/NZ
With the Prologue to Daughter of Blood now unveiled on SF Signal, publication day feels like it’s getting close — and that has inspired me to spend some time with characters from The Wall Of Night series, in the same way I featured worldbuilding in A Geography Of Haarth.
I’ve been focusing on minor players for now, because: “I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”
Like, Kyr, a few weeks back, and...
December 1, 2015
Big Worlds On Small Screens—Rebecca Fisher Discusses Star Wars: Clone Wars!
~ by Rebecca Fisher
Introduction:With Star Wars: The Force Awakens only weeks away, I needed something to whet my appetite…
It’s important not to confuse 2003’s Clone Wars with 2008’s The Clone Wars, for though both are based on the same source material, they’re still quite different in format, style and content. Described as a “micro-series”, Clone Wars was released as a series of two to three minute episodes that ran across three seasons, filling in the gap between prequel films Attack of...
November 30, 2015
The Tuesday Poem: Congratulations To Jennifer Compton
Jennifer Compton
Last week, the new Ockham New Zealand Book Awards announced the first-ever longlist for NZ’s national book awards.
Although very exciting in and of itself, I was thrilled to see that my fellow Tuesday Poet, Jennifer Compton, appeared on the list — for her publication Mr Clean & The Junkie published by Mākaro Press.
Congratulations, Jennifer!
For a taste of Jennifer’s poetry, check out The Topography Of Wellington, featured on the Tuesday Poem Hub on September 1:
“There is a...
November 29, 2015
A Few Fantasy Bad Guys …
I often think of The Wall of Night series as “heroic” Fantasy, but in order to have heroes there also need to be bad guys.
I don’t mean lovable rogues, here, or even anti-heroes, but full-on villains, the sort you go out of your way to avoid.
Three such Fantasy bad guys who spring to mind include:
‘The Mountain Who Rides’ in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. In the “equal opportunity brutality” world of Westeros he is in a brutal league of his own.
The assassin Szeth in Brando...
November 28, 2015
“Peak” Poppies
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Summer has arrived in full force with some blazing days — and late spring / early summer flowers in full bloom in the garden.
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Here are a few pics of “peak” poppy splendour, plus a pyracantha (below.)
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Enjoy!
November 27, 2015
“Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World” #11 On SF Signal — Sisterhood Is Powerful, Part 2
My guest series Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World continues a-pace on SF Signal — and this time I focus on the second,powerful instance of “sisterhood” in Barbara Hambly’s The Ladies of Mandrigyn:
” … not a “band of sisters” this time, but the comradeship between two women, Starhawk and Fawn, who are thrown by circumstances into that great Fantasy tradition, the hero’s (or in this case, heroines’) road trip.”
To read more, click on:
Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World: “Sisterhood Is Powerf...November 26, 2015
Background Research: “Coming To The Aid Of The Enemy”
On Wednesday I discussed some of my background research and the “eye-opening” (aka “new-to-me”) facts that can crop up. I’ll be sharing more of those facts, but another interesting aspect of such research is when themes emerge.
One of those themes, in my delving into various wars, and more specifically sieges, was the surprising number of instances of what I called “coming to the aid of the enemy.” In sporting parlance, it would be similar to scoring an “own goal.”
One example is the “Siege o...
November 25, 2015
About The Characters: Meet The Minor Players in “The Wall Of Night” Series — Lannorth
UK/AU/NZ
USA
With the Prologue to Daughter of Blood unveiled on SF Signal last week, publication day feels like it’s getting close — and that has inspired me to spend some time with characters from The Wall Of Night series, in the same way I featured worldbuilding in A Geography Of Haarth.
I’ve been focusing on minor players for now, because: “I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”
Today, my minor player is L...
November 24, 2015
Background Research & Eye-Opening Facts: A Little-Known Siege
“And as threatened, fun or not, I’m probably going to share some of those other facts with you, so ‘watch this space.’”
Yep, that’s what I said way back in August, in a post called Background Research.
The Defence of Rorke’s Drift, by Alphonse de Neuville, 1882
I mentioned a number of subheadings in that post, one of which was “siege warfare generally.” And I did a lot of reading about famous sieges during the course of writing Daughter of Blood.
Examples include the Defence of Rorke’s Drift...
