Helen Lowe's Blog, page 312

In Memory of My Fellow Tuesday Poet: Harvey McQueen

meditation

in darkness

the first bird calls

by Helen Lowe

—

Although the Tuesday Poem blog  is officially in recess until January 18, I would like to post this haiku in memory of my fellow Tuesday Poet, Harvey McQueen, who died on Christmas Day. Although Harvey had been ill for some time, and very recently posted:

"… my cruel malady

spurs me to confess

increasingly, I

long for oblivion"

I was nonetheless taken by surprise yesterday, when I read here of his death.

I had only known Harvey a short time through the Tuesday Poem blog but was impressed by his intelligence and generosity of spirit. It is a cliche to say someone will be sorely missed, but I know that in Harvey's case this is the simple truth.

Harvey, I have appreciated your contribution every Tuesday—I know that I am going to miss it and you a great deal.

Summary of Reviews

Finishing the manuscript for The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two, right on New Year, which like Janus, the Roman God of Doors, is a time for looking both back and forwards, made me both look back to the launch of The Heir of Night on 28 September (USA/Canada) and 7 October (Aus/NZ) respectively and think that it could be time to compile links to some of the great online reviews that have come in, here in one place.

And here they are ('roughly' in date order):

Fantasy Book Review (UK)
One Librarian's Book Reviews ,
Fresh Fiction , 
Specusphere
Angus & Robertson .
FantasyLit.com
Rising Shadow
Bookloons
SFFANZ
Fiction Kingdom and
SFRevu .

Heir also received two 'print only' pro reviews from Library Journal and Publisher's Weekly respectively.

Library Journal was enthusiastic, stating that:

"Lowe's first novel, a series opener, calls to mind the inchoate evil of Barbara Hambly's classic  "Darwath Trilogy" (The Time of the Dark; The Walls of Air; The Armies of Daylight) and reinvigorates the epic fantasy with appealing characters and a richly detailed world."

Publisher's Weekly was more temperate, describing The Heir of Night as:

" … a mostly standard fantasy tale … [although] Lowe clearly portrays Malian's difficulties in leaving home and facing up to a vital if unwanted birthright, adding depth with descriptions of the stoic and proud Derai warrior culture."

Needless to say, I prefer "reinvigorates the epic fantasy"— way to go, Library Journal!

Reflecting on 2010

2010 was the year of writing The Wall of Night Book Two—& I finished the manuscript yesterday: woot! And posted 'all about it' on the Supernatural Underground.

US Cover

AU/NZ Cover

It was also the year of seeing The Heir of Night published in the USA/Canada, Australia and New Zealand in October, with publication for the UK scheduled for this year, March 2011. Since publication, it's been great to get some really nice pro and semi-pro reviews as well as positive reader feedback, some of which I've shared with you here on "…Anything, Really." And it was a huge thrill to make the Christchurch City Librraies' Simply the Best of 2010 list, here.

And the year of seeing Thornspell released in paperback, with a very nice related feature in the NZ Book Council's quarterly journal, Booknotes, Spring 2010.

2010 was also the year of beginning to sell foreign rights to the Wall of Night series, of going to Worldcon in Melbourne and continuing to do books and writer interviews for Women on Air, on Plains 96.9 FM—the highlight being compering the public event for Andrea Levy, award winning author of Small Island and The Long Song.  I also got to continue interviewing wonderful poets and to start interviewing speculative fiction authors, including Jennifer Fallon, Nalini Singh, Mary Victoria and Ripley Patton, which was all great fun.

As celebrated on 30 December, I also commenced blogging myself, both here on "…Anything Really and on the first of the month on the Supernatural Underground—as well as doing guest posts with Eos (USA) and Orbit (UK/AU/NZ), with other writers such as Marianne de Pierres and a Big Idea post on John Scalzi's Whatever.

Quaked!

And 2010 was the year of the Christchurch earthquake, with an initial 7.1 quake on September 4 and over 4000 "after shocks" since them, some of which, at 5.1 and 4.9 etcetera, have been earthquakes in their own right. The latest "swarm" (32 over a 24 hour period) occurred on Boxing Day and comprised a series of sharp and also shallow quakes that did a lot of building damage again. Having said all that, with no deaths and realtively few major injuries, I still think it would be fair to say that we're all thanking our earthquake building codes as well as our 'lucky stars'—as well as hoping for a much less shaky 2011!

As always, I read a lot of books during the course of the year and mentioned a few of them a while back, here. But because it is New Year here are those, which among so many wonderful books, stood out the most for me:

Novel:

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

—

Non Fiction:

Feeling for Daylight, The Photographs of Jack Adamson by Rhian Gallagher

—

.

Poetry:

Tigers at Awhitu by Sarah Broom

—

.

Young Adult:

Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan

(I don't feel I read enough Junior fiction to make a selection in this category—& I read James Norcliffe's The Loblolly Boy in 2009 so I can't pick that!)

As for what's coming up in the New Year—life I find is generally what happens when you're busy making other plans (nods to John Lennon), but I am fairly certain that I will be writing The Wall of Night, Book Three. Other than that—well, we'll all just have to wait and see.

Again—Happy New Year to you all!

1-1-'11: And I've Finished The Wall of Night, Book Two!

New Year's Day 2011–and I have finished the manuscript for the second novel in The Wall of Night series—working title The Gathering of the Lost.

Needless to say, I am 'over the moon'—and have just posted all about it on the Supernatural Underground (because the first of every month is 'my day' for an author post!) So rock on over there and check it out!

Tomorrow I'll be posting a 2010 reflective, but tonight—well, I'm just celebratin' that feeling of "the end!"

Happy New Year 2011!

Best wishes for the New Year — may 2011 bring all of you all good things!

Book covers postcard

I'm looking forward to having more fun together here on "…Anything, Really" and creating works of fantastic fiction!

I'll be posting for New Year's Day—1 January, US EST—on the Supernatural Underground so I'd love to see you over there this evening, NZ time.

250 Posts Giveaway Result

The Sorting Hat

The "Sorting Hat" has sorted the results of the giveaway draw from the "Milestone: 250 Posts Reached—& Now Passed!" post and the result is:

The gift set of a:

signed Heir of Night chapter sampler from Worldcon, together with
a signed 'blue' USA cover flat,
a signed book plate, and
a "Helen Lowe" book covers postcard, and (last but not least)
a signed Thornspell cap

go to Catherine.

The 'random' giveaway of a second signed cover flat of the blue US cover goes to DonnaS.

If you email me through my webmail, contact[at]helenlowe.info, with your postal address, I'll get the loot in the mail!

I Wish You Angels

I wish you Angels –

riding up and down

and up in elevators

crowding around your

computer screen

emailing God

in the lunch break.

Angels scalding

their tongues tasting

coffee, constrained

to "drat" and "darn"

and "oooohhhh!"

I wish you Angels staring

into department-store

windows, striking up

conversations with dress

shop dummies. I wish

you Angels with fishnet

stockings and misplaced

body piercings, two years

behind the trend. Angels

trying to follow cricket

or rugby, buffeting spectators

with jubilant wings.

I wish you Angels

drag-racing owls

at midnight, Angels

perched on traffic lights

drumming aimless feet

against the green,

I wish you Angels,

whistling.

© Joanna Preston

from The Summer King, Otago University Press, 2009

—

Sometimes a poem comes along that sneaks up on you and takes you by surprise. For me, this has been one of those poems. I thought I had read Joanna Preston's collection The Summer King from cover to cover when it came out last year, but for some reason, dipping into the book again in the run up to Christmas, I discovered "I Wish You Angels" as if for the first time. And I loved it—just something about the quirkiness and insouciance of it, and the delight of all those different angels, drag racing owls at midnight, jubilant spectators at sports events, emailing God on their lunch breaks … Today is the last day of 2010, and coming out of the Christmas round and into the New Year I thought that I would like to wish you all angels—quirky, insouciant, jubilant angels for all of your new year celebrations and throughout 2011.

About Joanna:

An Australian by birth and married to a New Zealander, Joanna Preston is a Tasmanaut poet, editor, and freelance poetry teacher. Joanna graduated from the University of Glamorgan with a MPhil in Creative Writing and her first collection, The Summer King, won both the 2008 Kathleen Grattan Award (New Zealand) and the 2010 Mary Gilmore Poetry Prize (Australia.) She co-edits Kokako magazine with Patricia Prime, and will be the judge of the NZPS 2011 International Haiku competition.

I wish you Angels –

riding up and down

and up in elevators

crowding around your

computer screen

emailing God

in the lunch break.

Angels scalding

their tongues tasting

coffee, constrained

to "drat" and "darn"

and "oooohhhh!"

I wish you Angels staring

into department-store

windows, striking up

conversations with dress

shop dummies. I wish

you Angels with fishnet

stockings and misplaced

body piercings, two years

behind the trend. Angels

trying to follow cricket

or rugby, buffeting spectators

with jubilant wings.

I wish you Angels

drag-racing owls

at midnight, Angels

perched on traffic lights

drumming aimless feet

against the green,

I wish you Angels,

whistling.

Milestone: 250 Posts Reached—& Now Passed!

I don't remember to check my post statistics very often, but I have just realized that yesterday's post Black Magic, was my 250th post since beginning " … Anything, Really" on 31 May. So by posting this now I have just surpassed the 250 milestone—so closing on 500 and well on my way to 1000! (I think reaching that might have to be another party!)

Highlights for me, during those 250 posts have been:

Starting! (Go figure.)
Keeping it going. (For sure …)
The blog parties for the USA/Canada and Australia/New Zealand launches of The Heir of Night
The Fantasy SciFi Guest Author Series to celebrate the Australia/New Zealand launch of Heir. You can check out the full series by clicking on F-SF Guest Author Series in the sidebar.
Joining the Tuesday Poem Blog .
Interviewing Cheryl Morgan, long time fan, F-SF non fiction writer and Hugo Award winner, ahead of Worldcon in Australia.
Being able to link through to my Big Idea guest post on John Scalzi's Whatever

And I'm sure there's more, but those are the ones that immediately spring to mind …

Another very big part of the fun for me though has been seeing my visitor numbers increase and reading and responding to your comments. So thank you for being part of the blog journey! And I would love to hear what have been highlights for you as blog readers! Have there been any aspects of the blog that you have particularly enjoyed? Topics you would like to see more of? Topics that you haven't seen yet that you would like to see? Let me know and I'll see what can be done.

Book covers postcard

Just to stay with that mood of celebration, anyone who comments on this post will go in the draw to win a gift set of:

a signed Heir of Night chapter sampler from Worldcon, together with
a signed 'blue' USA cover flat,
a signed book plate, and
a "Helen Lowe" book covers postcard, and (last but not least)
a signed Thornspell cap

And there 'may be' a random giveaway as well …

Short Fiction: Black Magic

Time for a little fun, I thought, so today I give you Black Magic. I think it's fiction …

—

Black Magic

I am one of the elect, those chosen from amongst the legion, the devotees of our cult, to fulfil the highest calling.  I am the handmaiden, the initiate who intercedes between the faithful and the deity.  Every morning I perform the cleansing rites, the devotions that fit me for sacred service.  I prepare myself with care, braiding back my hair and dressing solemnly, ritually, in black.  Even the ribbon tying back my hair reflects the colour of night, as it should, for darkness is the purest heart of our worship.

Mine is the place of highest honour, the first to step inside the sanctuary every morning.  The moment I cross the hallowed threshold, I feel the frisson of power, a filament of electricity uncurling along every nerve end and entering my soul.  I close my eyes and for that first moment it is enough, simply, to breathe.  I open myself fully to the mystery, the intoxication of the incense and the allure that encompasses every elixir and secret potion, the far-flung sources of my magic.  It is a sorcery of the senses: of sight, smell, touch and taste.  I know the sacred incantations and ritual order of the spells that perfect my witching brew, all timed with precision.

The acolytes know my power, they walk softly around me and speak reverently, in whispers of hushed respect, for I am the lightning rod, the conductor.  I alone bring down the divine fire, the manna from heaven.  The supplicants wait humbly at the entrance to the temple, knowing that the proper orisons must be spoken and ceremonies completed before they can be granted access to the holy of holies.  I see their eyes fix on me with expectation, anticipation, even exultation as I bare my arms to begin the invocation.  Their bodies sway with mine as I hear the long, spine thrilling hiss from my familiar and divine for that first, black splash of the hallowed oil, wafting the incense heavenwards.

All breathe in, deep, eyes closing, lips uttering the ecstasy of "Ah…."

Then all eyes open again, avid, as I complete the final step, the communion of taste, the initial sip of my magic potion on the tongue, the perfect completion of the spell.  And it is always perfect, each and every time, as it must be, for I am the adept, the doyenne of this magic, the high priestess who intercedes between the masses and the machine.

Satisfied, I set down the holy grail.  The waiting line shifts and sighs for this is the signal, the sign to the faithful that the power of the deity has at last been channelled.  Only now is the barrier between the priesthood and the laity set aside, only now may they enter and begin their devotions, the new day's communion with another perfect cup of coffee.

(c) Helen Lowe

Christmas-New Year Tuesday Poem: "Uncle Joe's New Year Tree" by Mike Bartholomew-Biggs

новогодняя ёлка дяди Джо

(Uncle Joe's New Year Tree)

Things are getting better, he said grimly

as he dragged the rust-brown sawn-off spruce

indoors. Its torn-off needles flecked the snow

along a track up from the rubbish heap.

Sentimental celebrations – outlawed

while the house was gutted and patched up –

were now in order. Order of the day,

in fact, to match the neighbours' noisy parties.

He liked it even better when he'd hauled it

upright, all the empty dry-spiked branches

draped with coloured fabric strips – like scraps

from rag-rugs on his mother's earthen floors.

Now there should be candles. People brought them.

Someone always brought him what he wanted.

Sometimes he didn't want it any longer.

As thanks he hung up dolls as ornaments.

He said things had gotten merrier. They hadn't.

Overweight of decoration snapped

the brittle, sapless limbs. He couldn't turn

dead needles green. But then again – Who could?

(c) Michael Bartholomew-Biggs

Note: After the 1917 revolution Christmas trees were banned

in Russia. Stalin re-introduced them as New Year trees

in December 1935 – strange prelude to the political purges

that intensified from 1936 as the "great terror" began.

—

About Mike:

Michael Bartholomew-Biggs lives in London and is a retired mathematician who spent an all-too-brief time as a visiting fellow at the University of Canterbury in 2008.  His most recent poetry collection is (appropriately) entitled Tradesman's Exit (Shoestring Press, 2009)

—

Although the Tuesday Poem Blog is officially in abeyance until January 18, I am posting a range of other poetry and short fiction on " … Anything, Really" over Christmas-New Year and thought Mike's "Uncle Joe's New Year Tree" a perfect Tuesday Poem to "fill in" during the holiday recess!