Helen Lowe's Blog, page 56
July 5, 2020
A Decade of International Award Success for NZ Speculative Fiction
Last week, I celebrated NZ author Tamsyn Muir’s Locus Award 2020 for First Novel, received for her debut book, Gideon The Ninth.
In the comments, Liz was kind enough to cite my own Morningstar Award with approval and asked if many other NZ writers had won similar international awards for speculative fiction.
I promised to put on my thinking cap and do a bit of google-fu, then answer this week.
While I can’t speak for “all time” on this topic, these are the other NZ speculative authors that I’m a...
July 1, 2020
On Supernatural Underground Now: Worldbuilding in Fantasy #6 — “Gideon the Ninth” by Tamsyn Muir
This year on Supernatural Underground I’m celebrating the wide, wild, and wondrous worlds—and worldbuilding skill—of Fantasy literature. Why? Because worldbuilding, imho, is the vital glue that binds the different strands of the genre together: that’s why!
And also because, quite simply, fantasy worldbuilding is So Much FUN. 
June 28, 2020
Congratulations, Tamsyn Muir: Locus Award 2020 for First Book
Last weekend delivered very exciting news for NZ author Tamsyn Muir, as well as for NZ writing and speculative fiction generally. The 2020 Locus Awards were announced during one of the many virtual events that have become de rigeur in 2020—and Tamsyn Muir received the award for First Book for Gideon The Ninth, published in 2019 by Tor Books (Macmillan.)
This is a tremendous achievement on the international literary stage and I would like to offer Tamsyn my warmest congratulations.
Gideon the Nin...
June 24, 2020
About The Characters: Meet The Minor Players In “The Wall Of Night” Series — Meet Kelyr
UK/AU/NZ
The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:
“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”
~ from my Legend Award Finalist's Interview, 2013
Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood — in alp...
June 21, 2020
What I’m Watching: “The Luminaries”
Recently, the world premiere of the TV adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries, screened here in NZ.
I was very keen to see the six-part series for a number of reasons: the novel is written by a New Zealander and is also set in New Zealand; it won the Booker Prize for fiction in 2013; and the novel’s author, Eleanor Catton, wrote the screenplay, so I felt the dramatization should be true to to the essence of the novel, which—gulp, true confessions!—I haven’t yet read.
By way of a broad syn...
June 17, 2020
Inside The Writing Life: Writing Novels, Posting Blogs
A question I occasionally get asked is whether blogging interferes with my writing.
The answer, in the best Tolkien’s elf style, is both “no” and “potentially yes.”
It’s “no” because for me they’re very different styles of writing and so I can be exhausted after working on the novel, but “switch brains” to doing a blog post, which seems to tap a different creative well.
As I believe I may have indicated previously, novels and the writing thereof are not unlike marathons, or “Ironman” events (b...
June 14, 2020
What I’m Reading: “The Voyages of Cinrak The Dapper” by AJ Fitzwater
A few weeks back I interviewed fellow Christchurch author and friend-in-specfic, AJ Fitzwater, about their new-out collection of linked short fiction, The Voyages of Cinrak The Dapper (Queen of Swords Press, 2020.)
In more normal times, I would only do an interview after having read the book, but in this case, owing to the exigencies of lockdown and Covid-19 restrictions, I decided to charge ahead anyway. In this respect, I also felt I knew AJ and their work well enough to manage an interview wi...
June 10, 2020
About The Characters: Meet the Minor Players in “The Wall Of Night” Series — Meet Kair
USA
The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:
“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”
~ from my Legend Award Finalist's Interview, 2013
Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood — in alphabet...
June 7, 2020
Having Fun With Epic Fantasy Tropes #12: Tried, Trusty, & True — The Sidekick
‘Twas aways away back in 2018 when I promised a Having Fun With Epic Fantasy Tropes post on that stalwart of the genre, the Sidekick—and once I realized this, I decided I had best make up for the long delay immediately. So here it is — ta-da-dum! — the Sidekick!
Heroes and sidekicks
If the farm boy or gal who goes on a quest journey and the prince or princess that finds a destiny are the foundation stones of epic fantasy, then it is a truth universally acknowledged that shortly after setting out...
June 3, 2020
On Supernatural Underground Now: Worldbuilding in Fantasy #5 — The Liveship Traders Series by Robin Hobb
This year on Supernatural Underground I’m celebrating the awe-inspiring and downright inspirational worldbuilding of Fantasy literature, because worldbuilding is the vital glue that binds the different strands of the genre together. And also because, quite simply, fantasy worldbuilding is So Much FUN!
This month I’m featuring my favourite Robin Hobb series, the Liveship Traders trilogy, which hoves between Bingtown and the mysterious Rain Wilds, the Pirate Isles and the Cursed Shore. To find ou...
