Helen Lowe's Blog, page 311

Guest Post on HarperVoyager USA: It's Hugo Awards Time Again!

Today I have a guest post "live" on the HarperVoyager blog in the US, celebrating the act that it's Hugo Awards nomination time again and also talking about the top SFF novel of the decade (2000-2010) poll currently being conducted on Tor.com

I've talked a litlte about both earlier this week here on …Anything, Really, but in my HarperVoyager post I'm going a step further and asking readers to " … let me know both your favorite SFF book of the past decade and/or your top SFF picks for 2011 Hugo Award nominations (from books published in 2010.)"

I am really interested to hear your thoughts and would love a bit of support over there, so if you feel you could, head on over and leave a comment. See you there!

Sir Julius Vogel Awards Now Open for Nomination—& "How To" Nominate

The Sir Julius Vogel Award

The Sir Julius Vogel Awards opened for nomination on 1 January and will close on 31 March, 2011.

The Awards are made annually by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ) and recognize achievement in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by New Zealanders.  Initial nominations are  open to everyone—and anyone —but the final vote for shortlisted works is restricted to members of SFFANZ and those attending the national convention, Context, which is to be this year over Queen's Birthday weekend, 3-6 June.

Categories of award, for works created by a New Zealander and first published or released in the 2010 calendar year, include:

Professional Categories:

Best Novel: A Novel is any single work of SF/F/H over 40,000 words in length.


Best Novella or Novelette: A Novella or Novelette is any single work of SF/F/H between 7,500 and 40,000 words (incl.) in length.
Best Short Story: A Short Story is any single work of SF/F/H under 7,500 words in length.
Best Collected Work: A collected work is a SF/F/H collection or anthology, magazine or journal, e-zine or webzine which must pay contributors in other than contributor copies and incidentals, or is sponsored by an institution other than a fan club, or whose editors declare themselves to be professional. At least one edition of a collected work must have been issued in the eligible calendar year. To be eligible, the work must contain not less than two genre-related contributions. An omnibus is eligible where 50 percent or more of the works it contains have not previously been on the ballot.
Best Artwork: An artwork is a single work or series of related works of art in any medium other than text. Text may be included, but should not be the primary medium.
Dramatic Presentation: A dramatic presentation in a visual and/or audio form.

- Long Form: The Long Form is a presentation that is 30 minutes or longer. This would typically be a film or an episode of a TV series.

- Short Form: The Short Form is a presentation that is shorter than 30 minutes. This would typically be a short film.

Best Production/Publication: Professional production/publication is for work in any medium other than those eligible for other categories. The work must be first released or made available for public viewing in the eligible calendar year. The producer of the work must have received payment or have intended to have received payment for the work produced. Eligible works include but are not limited to: comic strips, advertising copy (moving or still), art, video, film, periodical, theatrical, journal, e-zine, webzine, computer application, or website.


Best New Talent: recognises excellence in new talent in any professional field within science fiction, fantasy, or horror; the nomination is for the nominee's total body of professional work to the end of the eligible year. [Note: further criteria apply so please check official site.]

Fan Categories: [See detailed criteria here]

Best Fan Writing
Best Fan Artwork
Best Fan Editing
Best Fan Publication
Best Fan Production

Special Awards:

Services to Fandom
Services to Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror

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To make a nomination, here's what you do:

If you wish to make a nomination—and remember that anyone may nominate—here's what you do:

Go the Sir Julius Vogel Award site and check out "the rules'" here.
But my take on "what to do" is basically this:


If you like a work of fiction or SFF tv series or film (that has been created by a NZ-er and released in 2010) then make a nomination—it costs you nothing and helps support and recognise SFF in NZ;
You can nominate as many works as you like but only once in each category—in other words, you can nominate all the NZ-created works that you loved this year; no need to pick and choose at this stage!
Remember to include your name and contact details when you make a nomination;
Also include the contact details for the creator of the nominated work, where you know them, as the nomination must be accepted by them;
Email your nominations to: sjv_awards@sffanz.sf.org.nz
I understand that a separate email for each nominated work—with a copy to the creator of the work—is very much appreciated but not absolutely required.
And do nominate—as the works that make the final ballot are based entirely on the number of nominations received, so if you loved a work this year and want to see it recognised, then your nomination counts!

Professional Works I Know Of That Are Eligible for Nomination This Year:

Just off the top of my head, novels I know about (i.e. I make no pretense that this is an exhaustive list!) that are eligible for nomination include (in alphabetical order by book title):

Novel (Adult):

A Different Hunger by Lila Richards
Archangel's Kiss by Nalini  Singh
Geist by Philippa Ballantine
The Heir of Night by Helen Lowe
The Seer of Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier
Tymon's Flight by Mary Victoria

Novel (Young Adult):

Ebony Hill by Anna McKenzie
Fierce September by Fleur Beale
Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey

And I'm sure there's many more … So do get nominating!

Tis still the season—for lists!

The end of one year and beginning of the next is always a great time for lists, both of "big hits' from the previous year and "looking forward to's" for the next, and maybe even a few resolutions …

Not to be left out, I posted about my top reads for 2010 on January 2nd, as part of reflecting on 2010 generally, with a preview on November 27. I also talked about looking forward to reading for the Hugo Awards again this year on January 9. Not quite  a resolution, more a resolve! And then yesterday I discovered that over on Tor.com they're really going one better and compiling a  list of the Best SciFi-Fantasy Novels for the (past) Decade—eleven years really, since the dates are 2000-2010. Anyway, here's my list (with a 'best book' for each year):

2000: Steven Erikson Deadhouse Gates

2001: Neil Gaiman American Gods

2002: China Mieville Perdido Street Station

2003: Robin McKinley Sunshine

2004: Scott Westerfeld The Risen Empire

2005: George RR Martin A Feast for Crows

2006: Max Brooks World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

2007: Naomi Novik His Majesty's Dragon / Temeraire (UK)

2008: Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games; Helen Lowe Thornspell

2009: Paolo Bacigalupi The Windup Girl

2010: Helen Lowe The Heir of Night

You may notice that 2008 has not one but two titles. That is because Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games came out in that year and I loved it, but of course 2008 was also the year that my first novel, Thornspell, was published by Knopf—and how could publication of one's first novel not be the very best book in that year for you?

As for 2010—again, although I have so far very much enjoyed Cate Tiernan's Immortal Beloved, Mary Victoria's Tymon's Flight and Paolo Bacigalupi's Shipbreaker, as my first adult novel published, and the first in the epic-scale The Wall of Night series,  The Heir of Night will always be the top book of 2010 for me!

And as the work that I commenced just a few months before the rollover into 2000 and finally saw published in 2010, to be honest, The Heir of Night is probably the "Book of the Decade" for me, as well …

Tuesday Poem: Harvey McQueen & "After the Disaster"

After The Disaster

After the disaster cats mutated

& became the largest mammal left alive –

dominant.

Cirques have cut deeper

into the Matterhorn

(decimals weren't reinvented)

when their archaeologists stumbled

upon human skeletons

ochre-brown with age.

On display in an art cavern

strung together

with common titanium wire

they create a commotion.

The elevated chief wizard deliberates her theosophers –

issues a viewpoint

Carbane dating establishes grate antiquity

Credence to archeforms of gyants

These things – an evolutionary cul-de-sack

additional proof of Nurture's

Distinguished Wisdom

Greatly too gygantic

Irrelevant clavicles

Tayl (obviously grystle) long stretch from brayn

Competition most likely cause of destruction.

She announces

Dividend –

For exceptional tripled production –

Day off for druid & artisan multitude

To contemplate the exhibition

& participate

in being humble.

© Harvey McQueen

Published in Voyagers Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand, Ed. Tim Jones & Mark Pirie, Interactive Press, 2009

I publish this poem today in memory of Harvey, who was a fellow Tuesday Poet. As a writer of science fiction-fantasy, it seemed fitting to choose a science fiction poem—and I also feel that After The Disaster reflects the spirit of gentle irony that characterises Harvey's writing.

I thank Anne, Harvey's wife, for permission to reproduce the poem here.

—

About Harvey McQueen 1934 – 2010:

Harvey MCQueen published six volumes of poetry. The latest, published by Headworx are Pingandy (1999) and Recessional (2004). His most recent publication was a memoir:  This Piece of Earth, Awa Press, 2010.  Born in little River, he grew up on Bank's Peninsular and worked in education until his retirement in 2002. He was well known as an anthologist and was co-editor of the Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse.

Harvey died on Christmas Day 2010 and a public memorial service will be held on Friday 28 January 2011 at Old St Paul's, Mulgrave Street, Wellington at 11.00 am. In lieu of flowers, you are invited to make a donation to the Harvey McQueen Memorial Fund, to foster children's appreciation of New Zealand's birds through Zealandia. Donations may be posted to Zealandia, PO Box 9267, Marion Square, Wellington 6141.

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To read Tuesday Poem Blog curator, Mary McCallum's tribute to Harvey McQueen on the Tuesday Poem Hub, click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar. You will also see links to the selections of fellow Tuesday Poets in the sidebar of the Tuesday Poem Blog.

Reader Feedback

As an author, it's always a special moment when a reader writes and tells you that they have enjoyed your work—and I would really like to thank those of you who have commented to this effect on the blog lately. You have no idea how much that encourages an author to "keep going", a theme I discussed here recently.

I have also shared some of the reader feedback emails that I have received through my website—with the permission of the senders—over recent months. (You can find some of those earlier posts under the "Reader Feedback" category in the side bar.) Today I have another excerpt from a reader's email, that John in Australia has agreed to let me share with you here:

"I just wanted to thank you for writing "The Heir of Night". I have just finished reading it and I want to start all over again. It is the best fantasy novel I have read since "The Curse of Chalion, which I can read and re-read because of the wonderful characters, the extraordinarily imaginative world-building, and the skill in unfolding and resolving the plot. You have created a wonderful array of heroic characters, so many and so different, and they feel so close they are almost friends. Your world-building and plot-handling are right up there too, and your "forces of evil" are strongly painted as well, including the shading of relationships among the Derai. (I hope they will learn…)

I am 68 and have been reading fantasy and scifi since I was at primary school. I gave my wife a hardcover copy of Lord of the Rings as my first present before we were engaged and she has become a fantasy lover too.

These days I start many fantasy novels and do not finish them if they do not sufficiently engage my interest, or sometimes I finish them and find the ending disappointing because the author does not resolve the plot issues or leaves the reader depressed by the loss of characters he or she has learned to love.

After these disappointments "The Heir of Night" is a shining star."

I am sure there is no need to tell you all, as I have already told John, that I suspect I enjoyed receiving his email as much as he enjoyed Heir —but it really did 'make my day!'

—

And for those of you who follow the Tuesday Poem blog, fellow Tuesday Poet, Harvey Molloy, had a few nice words to say about Thornspell over the weekend, here.

It's Hugo Awards Time Again!

Hugo 2010; Photo J Horlor

You may recall that in early September I attended Worldcon—AussieCon 4—in Melbourne? This year's Worldcon—Renovation—is in Reno, Nevada and yesterday I took out a "non-attending membership." This means that I receive all the information and get to vote on the Hugo Awards, but don't actually get to go—a great solution for someone like me who is interested and would love to go, but suspect that the combination of travel miles, travel costs and writing commitments for the year would make it just too much of a stretch.

Besides general interest—and with authors like Tim Powers on the official guest list, I would so love to go—getting to vote on the Hugo Awards is a major reason for becoming a non-attending member.

The Hugo Award is the leading award for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. The Hugos are awarded each year by the World Science Fiction Society, at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). I had a lot of fun this year both reading all the fiction finalists, which I blogged about on HarperVoyager USA, in the following series of posts:

The Hugo Awards: the Reading Has Begun

The Hugo Awards: Going Down to the Wire

The Hugo Awards: Making Tough Choices

The Hugo Awards 2010: Being There

And I am looking forward to doing it all over again this year—except for the last bit, actually being at the Hugo Awards Ceremony, which was, I have to tell you, a blast—especially when my two top picks for "Best Novel", Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl and China Mieville's The City & The City tied for the Hugo, which is only the 4th time that has happened in the 68 year history of the awards.

Anyway, where was I? That's right—looking forward to doing it all over again this year with the Hugo Awards, because right now it's Hugo Award nomination time again. Nominations are open until 26 March, and as a member of AussieCon4 I am eligible to nominate (but I want to vote as well, definitely an incentive for becoming a non-attending member for this year.)

And I think The Heir of Night may be eleigible for nomination this year as well. Naturally it would be nice to think that it might get a few nominations but as a new author, with a newly released book, I am not exactly holding my breath. I am also aware that Heir is the first in a series and many readers may want to wait until the series is complete before considering nomination.

So, no breath-holding—but I am really looking forward to "reading for the Hugos" again this year and blogging all about it again, too!

True Love: The Chicago Manual of Style

Early in the new year is often a time for renewing subscriptions and that is certainly the case for me—post office, subscriptions to journals, and in my case, renewing my online subscription to the Chicago Manual of Style.

I had heard of the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS) previously, but it only came fully into focus at the beginning of last year when I was doing the copyedit for The Heir of Night and my US publisher, Voyager (née Eos), advised that they used CMoS as their "house" style guide. (And of course, wise readers that you are, you know I do not mean haute couture.)

What to do? I thought. I don't know anywhere locally that stocks the CMoS for sale and even if the library has it, I can't spend the next  couple of weeks living day and night under their roof … so of course I went to 'te search engine' and found out that—surprise!—you can purchase access to the Chicago Manual of Style Online.

Up until that point I had relied on Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, supplemented by Eats, Shoots & Leaves and a basic facility with English at high school and university—but I recognized that it was time to strike out into deeper waters. And from the moment that I first "opened up" CMoS online, it was a case of true and instant love. Because the CMoS is a source of "great knowledge" and holds the answer to all those gnarly little grammatical questions that plague you when you are at the copyedit and proof edit stage of a manuscript. As the Compleat Angler once was for trout fishermen, so the CMoS is for those who like to cast for and then land good grammar—the perfect life companion for those like me who love to delve down into detail, as well as focus on the grand sweep!

So when I worked my way through the subscription renewal reminders yesterday and came to the CMoS, there was no question or hesitation over renewing for another year—I know that I will not only use the manual extensively as I revise The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two, but I will enjoy using it as well. In fact—true confession time—I have, um,  been known to delve into it 'just for fun' …

(I should perhaps also add that the good people at the Chicago Manual of Style offices had no knowledge of the intended writing of this blog post, and certainly no hand in it by means of either coercion or inducement! )

It's Friday …

It's Friday and I'll confess to having taken things a little easy this week, giving myself a breather having finished the manuscript (ms) for WALL2—working title, The Gathering of the Lost—on 1 January. I'll be starting serious revision next week, but the main task I've been doing this week is the glossary—or "grossary" as I started calling it with Heir, both because it was … um … quite large, and also because of the large number of monsters contained therein … But I love glossaries, especially with "big" stories, as I find they help keep track of the characters, and also artefacts and places within the ms—to me, glossaries are part of the essential "texture" of the epic Fantasy!

I've also gone back to the 'to be read' pile on the book table this week, which still includes Justin Cronin's The Crossing and the 3-book set of Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series. Since December 19, I've also added in Dark Moon, the second in Meredith Ann Pierce's "Firebringer" trilogy and my friend Beth-Anne Miller's debut romance novel, Into the Scottish Mist, which is being published on February 4 in the USA . I'll be doing an interview with Beth-Anne on the Supernatural Underground on 1 February and she will also be doing a guest post here on "…Anything, Really" on February 4 itself.

Also coming up on the interview front is Mary Victoria with Samiha's Song, the second in her "Chronicles of the Tree" series, which began with Tymon's Flight. I'll be interviewing Mary here on 15 February, and am really looking forward to reading the book.

Right now I'm in the middle of William Gibson's Zero History and enjoying it, almost as much as Spook Country, which I thought was 'absolutely fabulous.'

So how about you? What are you all reading right now?

A Food Anecdote

Of My Mother, High Noon in the Tropics, & Lemon Self-Saucing, Chocolate Steamed Pudding

by Helen Lowe

When I was a child, we lived in Singapore for three years and clung, in expatriate exile, to New Zealand culinary traditions. It is not that we completely shunned the exotic cuisine that surrounded us, but by and large we continued to "eat New Zealand". Now I regret the opportunities lost, but as a young child I simply accepted it, as children do. Perhaps it was my mother's way of asserting identity and normalcy in a strange land, but—whatever the reason—she was determined in her pursuit of New Zealand butter, lamb, milk powder, and cheese for our consumption. When New Zealand products could not be sourced, Australian produce would graciously be countenanced as a "next best" alternative.

So even in Singapore, just eighty miles north of the equator, our family continued to enjoy the Kiwi Sunday roast, usually of lamb but with chicken permitted as an acceptable substitute. In addition to the roasted meat and vegetables we always had dessert as well, usually either a cake or a cooked pudding. It seems probable that consumption of these Kiwi delights in the heat and steam of a Singapore noon—we always ate our Sunday dinner in the middle of the day—was only possible because we lived in an old colonial mansion, with high plastered walls and electric fans clicking ceaselessly overhead. It was very pleasant to sit in the cool dim interior with the heat and brassy glare of the day held at a distance.

My mother was adamant about other things than diet. We children were not, she determined, to be spoiled by the expatriate lifestyle that she clearly thought hedonistic, or grow up expecting "to be waited on hand and foot". (Servants were an integral part of the expatriate Singapore life.) We were to clean up after ourselves, keep our rooms tidy and make our beds—and yes, learn to cook.

Looking back, I can see that my mother, in her own unique way, was a staunch egalitarian. Another quality that I admired then, and still do now, was her refusal to pay our household employees what she considered sub-standard wages, even if that was "the market". Nor would she insist on an "amah"  living in.

"She has a family of her own," my mother would say. "She should be able to go home to them at the end of the—no more than eight hour—working day."

My cooking lessons started with puddings and cakes, which may explain why I am still far more adept and intuitive with baking than with main courses, even though I love cooking in all its forms—yes, even the preparation. One of my early favourites was a chocolate steamed pudding with a self-saucing lemon sauce, particularly delicious when served with vanilla ice cream and runny cream.

I remember standing at the bench, which at eight I was barely tall enough to reach and so stood on a footstool, beating the mix in a blue and white Cornish-ware bowl that had travelled with us from New Zealand. The lemon went at the bottom of the metal steaming bowl, which did not have a lid as the modern ones do—we tied greaseproof baking paper around the top with string. And then, in the high heat of a Singapore Sunday, it would boil merrily away until it was ready to be carried in triumph, hot and steaming with the lemon sauce spilling down the chocolate sides, to the table.

They tell me that the grand old house is gone, long since demolished to make way for the Mt Faber cable car. But I still have the blue and white Cornish-ware bowl and I still make the lemon self-saucing chocolate steam pudding—but only in winter.

Esther Campbell Lowe's Lemon Self-Saucing Chocolate Steamed Pudding

Ingredients:

1 egg

½ cup sugar (white)

juice of 1 lemon

1 cup plain white flour

1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder

½ teaspoon of mixed spice

pinch of salt

1 tablespoon of cocoa

½ cup of brown sugar

1 ½ ounces butter (approximately 1 ½ tablespoons or 45 grams)

milk—as required

Method:

1. Break egg into a bowl, add the ½ cup of white sugar and the lemon juice;

2. Sift together flour, baking powder, spice, salt and cocoa;

3. Mix brown sugar through the rest of the dry ingredients then rub in the butter with your fingertips;

4. Mix together with sufficient of the milk to form a moist dough;

5. Place the lemon mix at the bottom of a steam pudding bowl, then spoon in the chocolate mix on top;

6. Cover the top of the bowl then steam rapidly for 1 hour;

7. When ready, turn out and serve with ice cream and/or cream as preferred.

Enjoy!

—

I wrote the first draft of this anecdote in a food-writing course with Lois Daish, several years ago now, and re-wrote it for Narratives with Nosh, Stories Poems & Recipes, Ed. Margaret Beverland with Jenny Argente, Tauranga Writers, 2009, where it was published as "Of My Mother and High Noon in the Tropics." I felt it would be a fun way to end the selection of poetry and prose, both mine and others, that I have featured over the Christmas-New Year holiday season.

Omissions!

On Sunday 2, I posted Reflecting on 2010, and cannot believe that I omitted to mention what really was one of the highlights of my year—when Robin Hobb very generously provided a cover quote for The Heir of Night!

And the quote—which I pretty much know by heart now — is:

.

"THE HEIR OF NIGHT by Helen Lowe is a richly told tale of strange magic, dark treachery and conflicting loyalties, set in a well realized world."


– Robin Hobb

As I said way back on 16 June—thank you, Robin Hobb. I (still!) feel very honoured

—

Omission No. 2 arises from my Monday Summary of Reviews, when I posted on the reviews received for The Heir of Night since its publication in October—but of course, Thornspell also got another fabulous, 5-star review this year, from Rising Shadow. Here's a snippet:

"Thornspell is a charming, rich and well imagined retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story … I think that everybody who likes beautiful prose, romantic adventures and good stories, will love this book. There are several similar books, but Thornspell is clearly in a league of its own, because the quality of the writing is superb and the story is fascinating … This book is so good that once you start reading it, it's almost impossible to put it down. Highly recommended!"

You can read the full review here—but I did think it was very cool to get another review two years on from original publication!

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I think those are the only omissions so far, though who knows what will happen as the new year grows older and busier!