Helen Lowe's Blog, page 205
October 24, 2013
A Geography Of Haarth: Jaransor
The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick
The A Geography of Haarth post series is traversing the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth.
After a brief but excellent sojourn in “I”, we now enter “J.” 
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Jaransor: a range of uninhabited hills that lies to the west of the Gray Lands
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‘Kyr looked at her curiously. “What do you know of Jaransor?” he asked
Nhairin shrugged. “Only what anyone does. Those hills have long been forbidden, off limits, because...
October 23, 2013
Here’s SpecFicNZ Wellington — Introducing More Comrades in Speculative Fiction
Earlier in the year I ran a series titled “Here’s SpecFicNZ-Christchurch”, in which I featured fellow Christchurch members of SpecFicNZ.
SpecFicNZ, you may recall, is the “national association for creators, writers and editors of speculative fiction in or from New Zealand” — in other words, there are a lot more fun and interesting folk to meet from around the country. Accordingly, I thought it was time to pop over to the North Island and meet a few of the SpecFicNZ-ers from the capital. 
(Well...
October 22, 2013
Stop-Motion October: Rebecca Fisher Discusses “Corpse Bride”
by Rebecca Fisher
Introduction:
An old and macabre Jewish folktale does not seem like the most appropriate source material for a children’s film, and perhaps if the weight and eccentricity that Tim Burton’s name carries hadn’t been behind it, Corpse Bride would have never been made.
The original tale is recorded in a 17th century volume called Shivhei ha-Ari, and involves a young man on his way to his wedding. Halfway there he jokingly puts his bride’s ring on a gnarled twig poking out of the gr...
October 21, 2013
Tuesday Poem: “Today, your house is cold”
Today, your house is cold,
the coffee bitter.
Old leaves scatter,
skeletons beneath a ragged sky.
A call –
late night voicemail
blinking from an unlit room –
told me
that you were dying
………….asked me to come soon,
or not at all.
There is no map
………….to chart this ocean,
no pilot star.
I walk outside,
tip dregs
………….onto drifted leaves
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© Helen Lowe
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About The Poem:
I always feel that poems, in the end, have to speak for themselves. I shall let this one do just that.
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To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem...
October 20, 2013
Is Epic Fantasy Currently Enjoying A Resurgence?
Over the past weeks I’ve been enjoying a few epic conversations here on the blog. Mainly this spun out of some of the observations around epic fantasy that I saw arising during the Gemmell Awards voting period, and I am interested to know what you think.
So far, the topics we’ve discussed have been:
What Makes for “The New” in Epic Fantasy?
Once again, this week’s question arises out of last week’s discussion. We had got onto cycles in Fantasy and Paul Weimer alluded...
October 19, 2013
Comment Of The Week: From Orare
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Orare’s comment appeared on ‘What I’m Doing… “Daughter of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three.” ‘ Needless to say, finding out I had made a bookworm’s heart happy made me happy, too.
October 18, 2013
SciFi Giveaway Saturday
I have a few SciFi books to give away right now, so I thought I might institute SciFi Giveaway Saturday — on a strictly ad hoc basis — until they’re gone.
But to be in to win you have to participate: each time I run this you’ll have to answer a question to enter.
Today the book for giveaway is Philip Mann’s The Disestablishment Of Paradise (Gollancz) and the question is:
“What book first got you into reading science fiction?”
For me, it was Robert Heinlein’s The Door Into Summer, first read at...
October 17, 2013
A Geography Of Haarth: Ishnapur
The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick
The A Geography of Haarth post series is traversing the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth.
Now the letter “I” may not encompass all the cool places, but with Ij, the Ijir and now Ishnapur, it certainly features quite a few!
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Ishnapur: a fabled city and empire on the southern edge of the known world, which borders the great deserts of Haarth.
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“A line of pewter marked the thousand leagues of road that...
October 16, 2013
Congratulations To Eleanor Catton, New Zealand’s Second Booker Prize Winner
Congratulations to Eleanor Catton, whose second novel The Luminaries won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction yesterday — a tremendous achievement.
She is the second New Zealand novelist to do so, the first being Keri Hulme for The Bone People in 1985.
You can read the official announcement here.
A full NZ report on Stuff is here.
And Graham Beattie, who attended the Guildhall dinner, offers some “random thoughts” on his Bookblog, here.
I also loved Eleanor’s speech, as heard on Radio NZ, around “wort...
October 15, 2013
Around the Traps
Busy busy with the writing of Daughter Of Blood, The Wall of Night Three right now so no big blog post today, just a few interesting snippets from around the traps:
“Love, Crystal and Stone”
First up, my fellow BookSworn author, Teresa Frohock, has an exclusive excerpt of her story, Love, Crystal and Stone, on the Fantasy Book Critic website. Love, Crystal and Stone is Teresa’s contribution to the Neverlands anthology edited by Rebecca Lovatt and Roger Bellini – there’s also a blurb about the a...
