Helen Lowe's Blog, page 295

Award Watch: The Gemmell Awards

With the excitement of the Sir Julius Vogel Awards 2011 and the fun of attending the ceremony now behind me, and final voting for the Hugo Awards not until 31 July (still got time to finish Gathering, read all the Hugo fiction contenders and blog about them—phew!) I thought it could be time to take a look at a few of the other awards currently "in train" out there.

I am particularly interested in the Gemmell Awards for two reasons. Firstly, I am  a long time fan of David Gemmell, particularly his early novels such as Legend, Waylander and The King Beyond the Gate, and later works influenced by legendary history such as the Lion of Macedon and Dark Prince duology. I think it would be fair to say that David Gemmell was a huge influence on my own love of epic fantasy—although I believe, officially, his work is often referred to as "heroic fantasy."  Epic, heroic … I must admit, for me the categories have a very strong overlap.

At any rate, as a longtime fan of his works (I think The King Beyond the Gate might just be my favourite, although I very much liked his take on the strategos, Parmenion, in Lion of Macedon) I think it is very cool that part of his legacy is an award series that is specifically focused on Fantasy.

There are three categories of award by the way, each one named after one of David Gemmell's books:

The Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel of the Year
The Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer/Debut
The Ravenheart Award for Best Fantasy Book Jacket/Artist

The Gemmells are also a reader's choice award so although works must be nominated by publishers, both selection of the finalists and also the winners in each category is by audience vote. So yes, this is a popularity contest—but that may be fitting given Gemmell was such an extremely popular author!

But I did say there was a second reason that I am particularly interested in the Gemmell Awards. My friend Mary Victoria's debut novel, Tymon's Flight, has been shortlisted for not one but two Gemmell Awards: both the Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Debut and the Ravenheart Award for Best Fantasy Book Jacket!

The David Gemmell Legend Award ceremony will be held this Friday 17th June in London—so as you can imagine, I am holding my breath on Mary's behalf for the result!

The full list of finalists are:

Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel of the Year

Brett, Peter V – The Desert Spear (Voyager)
Heitz, Markus – The War Of The Dwarves (Orbit UK/US)
Jordan, Robert And Sanderson, Brandon – Wheel Of Time: Towers Of Midnight (Orbit UK/Tor US)
Pevel, Pierre – The Alchemist In The Shadows (Gollancz)
Sanderson, Brandon – The Way Of Kings (Gollancz/Tor US)
Weeks, Brent – The Black Prism (Orbit UK/US)

Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer/Debut

Charlton, Blake – Spellwright (Tor US)
Hinks, Darius – Warrior Priest (The Black Library)
Jemisin, N.K. – The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Orbit UK/US)
Pehov, Alexey – Shadow Prowler (Tor US)
Victoria, Mary – Tymon's Flight (Harpercollins Australia)

Ravenheart Award for Best Fantasy Book Jacket/Artist

Einarsdottir, Olof Erla – Power & Majesty (Harpercollins Australia)
Lockwood, Todd – The Ragged Man (Pyr)
Nielsen, Cliff – The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Orbit UK/US)
Sullivan, Jon – Shadow King (The Black Library)
Victoria, Frank – Tymon's Flight (Harpercollins Australia)

Actually, there's something very interesting about those lists, which I didn't spot quite so clearly until I set them all out together on the one page (possibly because I've mainly been looking at just the Morningstar page until now.) I wonder if you've spotted it as well? If you need a clue, until now I've mainly been thinking how well Mary and Tymon's Flight have done, getting on the shortlist for an international award. But this has made me think that she and Tymon's Flight have done doubly well … Post a comment if you think you know why I might say that.

What I'm Doing: The Great Revision Rolls On

There's been a little lull on updating you on 'the great revision' (aka the GR) of The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two recently, mainly because I've been busy going to the ConText Natcon (you can read about it here and here), attending the Sir Julius Vogel Award ceremony (here), celebrating the first birthday of this blog (here) and a year as part of the Tueday Poem community (here.)

In addition there's some more Heir news lurking in the background, but it's officially under wraps so "shu-u-ush" for now—but as soon as possible I will be letting you all know here first!

So, plenty going on, but amidst all the shouting and the tumult the GR has also been quietly proceeding. I have set myself a firm deadline for completion, "no matter what" (with a palm firmly touching the wood—ok, high quality melamine —of my desk given, you know, earthquakes and all that jazz) and so am pretty much all systems go for doing whatever needs to be done to achieve that. And am doing it every day, in fact, no matter what else may be going down and /or going up right here on the " … Anything, Really" blog.

Today I passed the 3/4 mark for the original manuscript (so far the revised ms is the shorter of the two), reviewing 17 revised pages from yesterday and revising a further 19 once that was done. As part of the daily process I also did the morning pages that I talked about here and here, which today were mainly about working out plotline angles from yesterday's review. I also fitted in a short walk, only about half an hour, but enough to clear a  few cobwebs and shake out a few more plot and character wrinkles by the time I got back.

I haven't talked about exercise, especially walking, as part of my process yet, but I will do so because I find it's very important for keeping the flow going and the lines of creativity clear.  And now I am rarin' to go for tomorrow, probably just heading straight into the next chapter since they are very closely aligned, rather than reading over today's work first. So the re-read will probably happen Monday and cover everything I've gotten done, revision-wise, over the weekend.

Busy, busy—but it's all good too, because to paraphrase the immortal words of Sir Ed Hillary: "I'm knocking the b*st#rd off!"

Christchurch Friends of the Library: Tuesday 14 June

Christchurch South Library; photo credit Geoff Trotter

'Tis the bleak midwinter (well, almost) but just to counter the general cold and gloom, I shall be venturing forth to the wonderful South Library (yes, still intact despite being on the banks of the Heathcote, and going strong as well) as guest speaker for the Christchurch Friends of the Library.

Here's the essential info:

Date: Tuesday 14 June

Time: 12.30 pm

Venue: Sydenham Room, Christchurch South Library, 66 Colombo St: cnr Colombo and Hunter Terrace

Entry: gold coin fee

Theme: I shall be reading from some of my recent works and speaking about my personal path to international publication & being a NZ fiction author published overseas—as well as why writing SFF is just the best!

I would love to see some of you there if you can make it, but otherwise I'll let you know how it all went.

Just Arrived & What I'm (Already!) Reading: "Tales for Canterbury"

I know I have already talked about Tales for Canterbury (ed. Cassie Hart & Anna Caro, Random Static)  before,  but this is a project that is dear to my Christchurch and Canterbury heart and so I am thrilled to be able to tell you that it has finally arrived on my 'To Be Read' table—and I am reading it already!

Tales for Canterbury is an anthology of mainly speculative short fiction that was put together by Cassie Hart and Anna Caro to raise funds for the Red Cross's Canterbury Earthquake appeal. The theme of Tales for Canterbury is "Survival * Hope * Future" and the stories included within it are grouped around these categories. And although I have only just begun reading I can already tell you that there are some wonderful stories contained within its covers.

All the stories within the anthology were donated by their authors, who comprise an impressive line-up of both internatonal and NZ writers. The full list of donating authors is as follows:

RJ Astruc, Philippa Ballantine, Jesse Bullington, Anna Caro, Cat Connor, Brenda Cooper, Debbie Cowens, Matt Cowens, Merrilee Faber, AJ Fitzwater, Janis Freegard, Neil Gaiman, Cassie Hart, A.M. Harte, Karen Healey, Leigh K. Hunt, Lynne Jamneck, Patty Jansen, Gwyneth Jones, Tim Jones, Kim Koning, Jay Lake, Helen Lowe, Kate Mahony, Tina Makereti, Juliet Marillier, Angel Leigh McCoy, Linda Niccol, Ripley Patton, Simon Petrie, Grant Stone, Jeff Vandermeer, Mary Victoria and Sean Williams.

The fundraising target for the project is $5000 and I would really like to see Tales for Canterbury meet that target—currently the total raised stands at just over half way. So if you would like a great anthology of (mostly) speculative short fiction, either for yourself or to give as a gift, then please consider supporting a very worthy cause and buying Tales for Canterbury today.

All you have to do is click here to order. (I note that both print and electronic copies are now available.)

And please spread the word to everyone you know who may be interested.

Orbit & Harper Voyager Celebrate "The Heir of Night's" Vogel Success; Plus, the "Grand Giveaway" Reminder!

I was very happy when I saw that Bella, my UK/AU/NZ publisher, posted about Heir's Sir Julius Vogel Award success on the Orbit blog yesterday!

And now I've just seen that my US publisher, Harper Voyager, have featured it on their blog today as well, here—Kate is my US editor and she was absolutely delighted to hear about Heir's success yesterday.

Writing is such a solitary business much of the time, with long periods of creative beavering away between largely work-related discussions with editors and agents, that I love the moments when we can all come together and share something exciting and fun. Awards very much fit that bill, which is why I was so thrilled to see both Bella and Kate's posts. 

—

To read more about the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, click here; and here for the 2011 Sir Julius Vogel Award ceremony report. For more on ConText, the 32nd National Science Fiction Fantasy Convention where I was a guest of honour, click here.

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And the Reminder: "…on Anything Really's" Grand Birthday Giveaway Still Running!

Just a reminder to you all that the Grand Giveaway to celebrate the first birthday of my "…On Anything, Really" blog is still running and will do so until 12 midnight NZ time on 30 June (that's 2011—just to be absolutely clear! )

Just in case you weren't already aware, here's what's happening:

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1. The period of the competition will be from 31 May to 30 June 2010 (NZ Time) inclusive;

2. Entries in the competition will be drawn from comments on distinct blog posts during that period: so each time you comment on a new post your name will be entered in the draw again—but only once for each distinct post. (For example: if you post one comment each on 10 distinct blog posts, your name will be entered in the draw 10 times; if you post 10 comments on 1 distinct blog post, your name will only be entered in the draw once.)

3. Three separate book sets are available to be won, each one to be drawn separately:

The Grand Epic Fantasy Giveaway Set, comprising:

a signed UK, trade format first edition of The Heir of Night
a hardback, anniversary edition of Sara Douglas's Battle Axe
Trudi Canavan's The Ambassador's Mission
Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia
Neil Gaiman's American Gods

The Grand YA Fantasy Giveaway Set comprising:

a signed hardback copy of Thornspell
Cassandra Clare's complete Mortal Instruments trilogy: City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass
Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief
Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan

The Grand NZ Poetry Giveaway comprising:

AUP New Poets: Harry Jones, Erin Scudder & Chris Tse
Ingrid Horrocks' Mapping the Distance
Anna Livesey's the moonmen
Kerry Popplewell's Leaving the Tableland

If you only wish to be entered in one of the draws, please enter the category you are interested in (e.g. Poetry; or YA Fantasy, or Epic Fantasy) by your name the first time you leave a comment.

The draw will be made on Saturday 2 July 2011 (NZ Time) using Random Number Integer.

More on ConText

On Saturday I posted on the first evening of ConText, but then events took over and I was so busy that I couldn't find time to post—at least not in a lucid and coherent way — about all the fun of Saturday and Sunday.

In terms of today's post, well first of all I apologise for the poor quality of the photos, but the weekend was beset with technical difficulties in the camera department …

So what did happen? Of my own panels on the Saturday, the highlight was probably the noon session with Catherine Asaro and Russell Kirkpatrick where we talked about "Keeping It Real in SFF", particularly in terms of believable characters and societies in the midst of fantastic settings and events. The thing that made it most fun was when Catherine and I had a quite different point of view from Russell on the relationship between individuals and societies, particularly when it came to influencing events—so we got to have lively discussion rather than simply sitting there politely agreeing with each other.  I suspect this made the session more fun for the audience and I know we three panelists had a pretty good time.

L. to R. Frank Victoria, me, Donald Wolcott: Word & Inage Panel

My favourite Saturday panel in terms of attending was Donald Wolcott's workshop on musical improvisation. Donald is Catherine Asaro's musical collaborator and in this session he took us through the process of how he improvises around both musical themes generally and also in relation to Catherine's speculative works. I found the session fascinating and was pleased to be able to pick up on some of the aspects it raised when Donald and I joined Frank Victoria for the "Word & Image" panel on Sunday 5.

The focus of the session was to discuss the creative relationship between writer and artist in speculative fiction and how the different art forms spark off each other to generate new creations. Once again, I found this a fascinating session, not least because of the insights into both Frank and Donald's creative process and the way in which the discussion illuminated both strong similarities but also differences between the art forms. And although it can be difficult to be 100% sure when one is on the panel, I received the impression that the audience enjoyed the session as well.

Frank Victoria & me with "Tymon's Flight" & the cover poster behind

Immediately following on from the Word & Image panel was a Reading, where I read from both my own works and Mary Victoria's Chronicles of the Tree novels: Tymon's Flight and Samiha's Song. I also had Frank, Mary's husband, on hand to help me out as required during the Q&A that followed the reading. I should say straight off that we recorded the reading and hope to bring you this to you here in the next day or so. But just to give you an idea of how it went, I interspersed the readings so the audience got a better flavour of the distinction between my and Mary's "voices" as authors. Both Frank and I felt this approach "worked" in terms of how the reading went, with the order being: Tymon's Flight, Thornspell, Samiha's Song, The Heir of Night—and yes, ta-da-da-dah-dum, in a world first exclusive for ConText (;-)) an excerpt from the prologue to The Gathering of the Lost, Book Two of The Wall of Night series.

Meeting Bu: 1

The final highlights of my Saturday and Sunday  at ConText—other than the Sir Julius Vogel Award ceremony which I have already reported on here—included that  I got to do The Grand Symbiosis: History & Fantasy panel with my partner, Andrew (our fellow panelist was Steve Litton.) Doing a panel with Andrew was a lot of fun, especially as we were talking history & SFF, two of our favourite subjects. Another highlight was that I got to meet Bu, the Caber, for the very first time, in company with his friend Kirstin Wright … I thought

Meeting Bu: 2

Bu was quite, quite charming, if a little shy …:)

And Bu's friend Kirstin was one of the many fellow SpecFicNZ members that I got to meet over the course of the weekend, both at panels and 'around the traps', as well as at the formal get-together on the Saturday night. I think all of us enjoy the buzz of feeling that we are a community of speculative writers and artists—and I would like to thank Ripley Patton in particular for

with Ripley Patton at ConText

doing so much to make that happen.

A Year of The Tuesday Poem: "from the hill"

from the hill

boats turn

at their moorings,

facing into the wind:

I can see every

shift in the weather

from up here,

she says, standing

at my shoulder —

the boats better

than any

weathervane…

we take our tea

out, onto a deck

made of timber

from old hulks

dredged out

of harbour mud,

she speaks

of the home to

which she does

not return, of the

much younger man

who will not let

her go — nor she him —

turns again to watch

the boats, talks

of a change

in the wind.

.

(c) Helen Lowe

first published in Takahe 62, 2007

—

Today is the "Tuesday" anniversary of my first official post as a Tuesday poet, which took place on 8 June 2010, so it seemed fitting to post one of my own poems, which I hope you enjoy.

To enjoy more Tuesday poems and in particular the poetry of my friend Richard von Sturmer, featured on the Tuesday Poem Hub today—as well as to link to other Tuesday Poets posting around the world—either click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.

More on the Sir Julius Vogel Awards

The Sir Julus Vogel Award

I think the full ConText and Sir Julius Vogel Award ceremony reports may have to be several posts because I have so many convention highlights to report. But I will start with a little more on the Sir Julius Vogel Award ceremony because The Heir of Night jointly winning the award for Best Novel was definitely a defining moment of my weekend.

The evening began with the convention banquet, followed by the award ceremony, and I was very pleased to have my partner there with me, as well as my publicist, Karen (from Little Brown), my friend Emily who had driven three hours just to get there, and a number of other writing, artist and SFFANZ friends. So even before the awards ceremony, the evening was a convivial and friendly end to the main part of the convention.

The Award ceremony was hosted by Norman Cates and Lynelle Howell of the Sir Julius Vogel Awards committee, with the professional awards primarily being presented by international guests of honor, Catherine Asaro, and Donald Walcott. I was also honored to be asked to present the award for "Best New Talent."

The Award for "Best Novel" was first off the award presentation blocks, so I was not kept in suspense long—and was absolutely thrilled when The Heir of Night was announced as joint winner with Lyn McConchie's  The Questing Road. I felt—and feel—tremendously honoured to receive such an accolade for Heir from readers of SFF, but also to share the podium with Lyn McConchie who has been pioneering New Zealand-based SFF in the international arena (almost?) as long as I have been reading it.

Of course, then I could relax—and fully enjoy the bottle of bubbly that Karen bought for our table—as the remaining awards were announced. Although I was back on tenterhooks again when the Best Artwork award came up, because The Wall of Night map from Heir, drawn by Peter Fitzpatrick, was a finalist. Although disappointed that the map did not win the award, I was still thrilled when the award went to Frank Victoria, the husband of my friend Mary Victoria, for the cover of Tymon's Flight, Mary's first novel in the Chronicles of the Tree series.

Other moments of tension—despite the insulating effect of those bubbles —came during the short story award, where my friends Ripley Patton and Lee Murray were both finalists, but the award went to Paul Haines for  High Tide at Hot Water Beach. My other major moment was announcing the award for "Best New Talent" where both contenders,  Mary Victoria and Karen Healey, are writers whose work I very much admire—and whom I like very much as well.  I was correspondingly glad that I only had to announce the result and not actually make it—and in the end the award went to Karen Healey, author of Guardian of the Dead.

So like all such ceremonies, there were both disappointments for friends and their work, as well as the joy of being able to congratulate others on their success. The latter included both Simon Litten, who won the award for "Services to Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror", and Paul Tobin who received the award for "Best Production/Publication" as editor of the anthology White Cloud World.

The full list of professional awards given was as follows:

Best Novel:

The Heir of Night (Orbit) by Helen Lowe
The Questing Road (Tor) by Lyn McConchie

Best Novel: Young Adult:

Summer of Dreaming by Lyn McConchie

Best Novella/Novelette:

A Tale Of The Interferers – Hunger For Forbidden Flesh (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight magazie) by Paul Haines

Best Short Story:

High Tide At Hot Water Beach (A Foreign Country anthology) by Paul Haines

Best Collected Work:

A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction (Random Static) eds. Anna Caro & K Buchanan

Best Production/Publication:

White Clouds World Anthology, ed. Paul Tobin

For the full list of categories and finalists, both professional and fan, please see here.

"The Heir of Night" Wins the Sir Julius Vogel Award 2011 for Best Novel

The Sir Julus Vogel Award

Last night The Heir of Night (Orbit) won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Novel jointly with Lyn McConchie's The Questing Road (Tor.)  I'm still celebrating right now but I  will bring you a fuller report on the awards ceremony and the convention later in the day.

"Kind van der Nacht": Netherlands Cover for "The Heir of Night"

The Netherlands cover for Dutch translation of The Heir of Night, to be rendered as Kind van der Nacht in Dutch, arrived today—and it is very cool! So much so that I have to share it with you straight away.  My Netherlands publisher, Luitingh, have used the blue USA cover (the artwork done by Greg Bridges)  but introduced very strong, gold lettering for the title, with what I term a 'beaten metal' effect to the font. I think it is really funky and hope that Dutch readers will like it, too.

The first Netherlands' edition, which is to be published in hardcover, is scheduled for release in July.

And here, without further ado, is the cover: