Helen Lowe's Blog, page 317

Guest Post on Out of this Eos

"The Heir Of Night" map: artist, Peter Fitzpatrick

Right now I have a guest post on the Out of this Eos blog, titled Out of Middle Earth and talking about the influence of landscape in The Heir of Night:

"For any fan of epic fantasy, Tolkien's Middle Earth has to be one of the definitive fantastic worlds. As a fan of epic fantasy growing up in New Zealand though, I always conceived Middle Earth, especially the Shire, but also regions such as Rohan, as very much rural England. A far cry from New Zealand's alpine South Island and a North Island that ranges from the arid central desert to the semi-tropical north—or so I thought until Sir Peter Jackson made the three The Lord of the Rings (LoTR) films here …"

To read the full post, click here.

Clockwork Angel Giveaway

The Sorting Hat

The sorting hat has sorted and the winner of the Clockwork Angel giveaway is:

Toni

Toni, if you email me through my website (see under Contact above) with your postal address I will mail the book to you.

But stay posted everyone, there'll be more giveaways coming up between now and Christmas.

Family Feedback

Family feedback on your writing is always interesting, from the obligatory "very nice, dear" through to "I don't really read you know" (the hospital pass.)

Anyway, I thought I'd share a little family feedback with you that I have received recently. My brother, who reads—but generally more horror, thrillers and crime—told me that he had not only read The Heir of Night but really enjoyed it "because of the action and intrigue." He had had, he said, to "keep turning the pages."

What can I say, except: "go the bro!"

On the other hand, my partner's Dad emailed that he had: "read, understood, & almost enjoyed it", which kind of made me grin—but then, coming from a man who "doesn't usually do swords and sorcery" that's probably close to praise.

What's Hot?

I was asked this question while in Auckland last week—the perception is that vampires and paranormal urban fantasy may be close to saturation and so the question was: what's coming up next?

My response was that I think the next wave is already on us and the answer is "steampunk"—but I also entered the caveat that I don't necessarily think that we're done with paranormal because there is quite a lot of steampunk out there already that has a strong paranormal dimension: the zombies in Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, vampires and werewolves in Gail Corriger's Parasol Protectorate series (Soulless, Bloodless etc) and angels in Cassandra Clare's new-out Clockwork Angel.

So what do you think? Do you agree that steampunk is the hot new trend? Am I right to detect that paranormal fantasy is morphing into this genre? Do you think paranormal urban fantasy will continue unabated in parallel—or are you "over it" already? Or maybe there's always a place for a good story well-told in any genre?

To help the discussion along I have a copy of Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel to give away to one lucky commenter who posts here today.

More "Helen Lowe" Reads

Those of you who have been reading this blog will know that the pressure is definitely on for the "next book" in the The Wall of Night series—and believe me, I am keen to get it to you as my publishers and booksellers are to get it to the world and you are to read it!

But in the meantime, if you want to read "more Helen Lowe" don't forget that my first novel, Thornspell, is is now out there in paperback and available to read. Although it was marketed as "Junior Fiction" it's very much a crossover read (think Patricia McKillip, Robin McKinley)—a fairytale retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the prince, so there's sword fights and hunts as well as magic and mystery. Thornspell also has its own website, here, where you can read the first chapter and check out some reviews.

And in addition to novels, I've also got some short fiction and poetry online here, for blog and website visitors to read. I'll be updating these, too, from time to time just so there's something new for you to check out.

So enjoy—but meanwhile, I have The Wall of Night Book Two to finish!

Tuesday Poem: "Glass Cases (i)" by Christina Stachurski

Glass Cases

i

China was at the bottom of the hole,

a place beyond the water

that came when you dug quite deep.

Sometimes broken off pieces came through,

blue and white and special ones with gold

edges when you washed them under the tap.

"The charm of archaeology

is something that we may happen

to run across but cannot expect to find,"

says a label in the Beijing Capital Museum.

When the scholar Liu E examined his sick

friend's medicine in 1899, he noticed markings

on the bones – to be ground into powder –

similar to ancient bronze inscriptions.

Lui's further discovery – that such oracle

bones were anointed with blood, inscribed

with a question, heated until cracked

and read by royal diviners – proved the existence

of the Shang dynasty some 1,500 years BC.

As we leave, I am surprised with a present

from the Museum's store, a smooth white

porcelain bone painted with blue leaves and lotus

before firing;  one end smashed off to reveal

the hollow interior, the roughness of unglazed clay.

Yang Jiechang calls this piece Underground Flowers.

(c) Christina Stachurski

Published in Flap: The Chook Book 2, 2010

—

About the Poem:

This is another Tuesday Poem selection from the recently released Flap: The Chook Book 2 by Christchurch poets Victoria Broome, Catherine Fitchett, Barbara McCartney and Christina Stachurski. (I hope to being you a Tuesday poem from each of them over the next few weeks.) Glass Cases 1 is from Christina's section of the anthology: the charm of archaeology. I chose to feature it because it picks up the theme of Victoria's poem last week, around travel in China, and because of it's different but complementary slant on the sense of continuity and story through poetry.

About Christina:

My ancestors arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand from England (1841–1911), Scotland (1842), Ireland via the Australian goldfields (1864 and 1871), and Poland (then Prussia) in the 1870s, and included Catholics, Anglicans, and Methodists. They settled variously on the West Coast and in Nelson, Taranaki, and Auckland, working as farmers, millers, mothers, storekeepers, domestic servants, masons, flax-cutters, publicans or miners.  In the last few years, I've got into family history and travelling. Luckily, I get paid for thinking about identity and literature while teaching Modern Drama and Creative Writing at the University of Canterbury.

What I'm Reading

I haven't done one of these posts for a while because, well, I've been so busy writing  Gathering (The Wall of Night Book Two) that I haven't been reading much. But one good thing about airports and flying is that it does provide a great opportunity to play reading catch up. This recent trip, I've read Cate Tiernan's Immortal Beloved and I have to say—I loved it. I really enjoyed the characters and the weaving of the historical backstory into the present day action. And by the way, it's not about vampires, although it does follow the broad arc of those kind of stories.

My one disappointment—it's the beginning of a series so I'll have to wait until next year for the follow up. But you know, when I've enjoyed a book I don't mind waiting. (Although maybe not a GRRM length wait …) I'd rather the author got their story right rather than just rushing something out.

So how about you?  What are you reading and what have you loved recently?

The Quakes Go On …

Well, I'm back home in Christchurch—where the quakes go on!

One would never like to miss out on any of the excitement, so it was good to get back in time for the little series last night:  3.2, 3.8 and 4.7, all quite shallow and in fairly quick succession. I even cracked one eye open for the last one, which was at 1.30 in the morning and had the bed going up and down like a ship at sea.

As aforesaid, I wouldn't have wanted to miss any of the earthshaking fun—and yup, so far the grand total stands at 2903 quakes since the big one on September 4.

Anyway, here's a few more photos from around the neighbourhood,  just to "illustrate" the stats a little …

Local cottage---munted.

And then there's the footbridge ...

And from the other side ...

Spiral

No, not the Collective that published Keri Hulme's Booker prize-winning novel, The Bone People—this is a shot of a spiral galaxy captured by the Hubble telescope. In fact, apparently it's a composite put together by three generations of Hubble telescopes, from 1993 through to 2009. Awesome, huh? Not to mention, "dont we live in an a-maz-ing universe?!"

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"Fresh Fiction" Review for "The Heir of Night"

A new review for The Heir of Night has just come in from  Katherine Petersen on Fresh Fiction—and she seems to like! You can check it out, here.