Helen Lowe's Blog, page 168
November 27, 2014
A Geography Of Haarth: A Few More Final Reflections
The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick
Although I titled last week’s A Geography Of Haarth post the final roundup I realized that I had a few more final reflections to share, mostly of a number-crunching nature.
As noted the series that has explored the full range of locales and places (so far) from The Wall of Night world of Haarth. Each entry has been accompanied by a quote from the books in which the place appears, whether The Heir Of Night or The Gathering Of The Lost (or...
November 26, 2014
Reflections On Re-Reading “Restoree” by Anne McCaffrey
When I’m working hard on my own writing, I really enjoy re-reading old favourites. One benefit is that because I already know what’s going to happen, I’m not tempted to read into the wee small hours until the book is finished—I am happy to restrict myself to small bites. It’s also fun to reacquaint myself with a tale I’ve loved in the past and figure out whether it still spins my wheels as a reader.
A few weeks back I mentioned that I was re-reading Restoree by Anne McCaffrey, which I first re...
November 25, 2014
My Top SF Films
On Sunday, I posted a few thoughts on Interstellar in which I concluded that: “I don’t think it’s made it into my “top” SF films.”
But then I immediately wondered what films I would put on that list. My very first qualifier on that has to be that I am not a big film-goer, so my viewing is not exhaustive, but nonetheless, I do have favourites, as follows:
Star Wars: (the real ‘first” movie)—because it’s fun and adventurous and had space ships and a real sense of worlds and space. Plus “A long ti...
November 24, 2014
The Tuesday Poem: The Puk-Wudjies
The Puk-Wudjies
They live ‘neath the curtain
Of fir woods and heather,
And never take hurt in
The wildest of weather,
But best they love Autumn, she’s brown as themselves,
And they are the brownest of all the brown elves;
When loud sings the West Wind,
The bravest and best wind,
And puddles are shining in all the cart ruts,
They turn up the dead leaves,
The russet and red leaves,
Where squirrels have taught them to look out for nuts!
The hedge-cutters hear them
Where berries are glowing,
The scythe circles...
November 23, 2014
More Thoughts On “Interstellar”
A “farm boy”…
Note: I have tried to be broad-brush in my comments, but the following May Contain SPOILERS for some.
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Yesterday I shared my initial reaction to the movie Interstellar, reflections that still hold good.
I’d like to add, though, that it was really refreshing to see a film that while “big” in its conceptualisation was not about “big battles.” Much as I like big, heroic stories I can’t help feeling decidedly “over” films that reduce the storytelling to big battles (es-pecially if that...
November 22, 2014
Well, I Saw “Interstellar”…
…& my feelings are mixed.
On the one hand: it’s about space—and the robots were cool (I liked it, too, that they did not turn out to be “evile” robots, for a change)—the characters were pretty good, too, and I can’t complain about lack of story—some parts of which were pretty durned exciting, as well.
On the other hand: “fantasy”–physics (and chemistry/biology, too, with the explanation for the nitrogen-isation of Earth’s atmosphere) and I had several “less-is-more” moments with the storytellin...
November 21, 2014
A Quote For Saturday, From Goethe
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.” — Goethe.
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I think this is so cool, I thought I’d share it with you again today—just in case you missed it in Monday’s post!
November 20, 2014
A Geography Of Haarth: The Final Round Up
The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick
Last Friday I posted the final entry for A Geography Of Haarth, a series that has explored the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth. Each entry has been accompanied by a quote from the books in which the place appears, whether The Heir Of Night or The Gathering Of The Lost (or both.)
A Geography Of Haarth commenced on February 8, 2013 (Academy Island) and has pretty much posted every Friday through unti...
November 19, 2014
Ithaca Conversations
On Tuesday, I featured the poem One Day, from my Ithaca Conversations sequence as this week’s Tuesday Poem.
As I noted on Tuesday, the Ithaca Conversations sequence is a slant-wise (to paraphrase Emily Dickinson) look at characters and events from Homer’s The Odyssey.
Over recent years, I’ve featured several other poems from the sequence, so I thought I’d do a wee feature today, with links to the full poems. 
So, in order posted since 2010:
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“The Wayfarer: Odysseus at Dodona
Acorns lie strewn wit...
November 18, 2014
Big Worlds On Small Screens: Rebecca Fisher Discusses A “Game Of Thrones”
~ by Rebecca Fisher
Introduction:
Though the first book in George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series was published in 1996 and became a best-selling success all on its own, it was not until the television adaptation first aired in 2011 that Game of Thrones entered the mainstream cultural landscape. These days even those who have never watched a single episode are capable of recognising the phrases “winter is coming” or “you know nothing, Jon Snow”, and words such as “khaleesi” have entered the c...
