“The Heir of Night” F-SF Guest Author Series: Nicole Murphy
Today The Heir of Night F-SF Guest Author Series continues with Nicole Murphy, a Paranormal Urban Fantasy writer from Australia, who is also a fellow blogger on the USA-based Supernatural Underground. I met Nicole in person at the World Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention in Melbourne and am delighted to welcome her to Helen Lowe on Anything, Really today, blogging on the series theme of “why F-SF rocks my world.”
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F-SF Guest Series Post: Nicole Murphy on “Loving Humanity – Why Speculative Fiction Rocks!”
The very first story I wrote wasn’t actually a fantasy, although it was fantastical.
It was called Thunder King and it was about a boy and his horse, Thunder King, who won five Melbourne Cups, three Caulfield Cups and in between times had adventures in the Aussie bush, such as killing rampaging lionesses and then adopting the orphaned cubs.
I was eleven.
The next story was a fantasy, although not in the genre sense of the word. It was about me and my friends and we’d grown up and become air hostesses and flew around the world having super fabulous adventures.
Even at the age of eleven, it was quite clear that I’d never be tall enough to be an air hostess.
However, at the same time that I was writing these very first stories, I was also reading the book that was going to change my life – The Lord of the Rings.
Suddenly, my head was full of elves and dwarves and orcs and uruk-hai and every walk was a journey to find my hobbit friends and every car journey a trek towards the fiery pit of Mount Doom.
From that moment, I’ve written fantasy or science fiction in some way. There’s been the occasional foray into the real world (my fanfic with Duran Duran was the saucy hit of my fellow year ten students) but always my mind has been drawn to the unreal, the fantastical, the imaginary.
I can’t imagine why a writer wouldn’t want to write science fiction or fantasy. What’s so special about our world? Humans are humans, the laws of physics are immutable and once you’ve seen the countryside, there it is.
Why not let your imagination completely fly? Why not have magic and dragons and monsters and aliens and spaceships?
Of course, I know it’s not that easy. No matter the world you set your story in, there are certain things that can’t be done, certain boundaries that must be respected. You might be writing about fantastical creatures, but you’re writing for humans.
This for me is where speculative fiction becomes really interesting. How do you make something different, yet give it the resonance that readers can connect to? That gets you (the writer) into thinking about people – who are we, what do we want, what do we need? What are the similarities of the human experience which mean you can take your reader to Tatooine, or Middle Earth, or in my case the town of Sclossin, or in Helen’s case into a keep in the shadow of a mountain wall, and they will believe it and believe in the characters and read the story?
That’s the real beauty of speculative fiction and why I’ll never tire of writing it – because in order to do it well, you’ve got to be fully connected to our world. You’ve got to find people and their traumas and triumphs endlessly fascinating. You’ve got to be able to feel part of the human race, and yet be able to step away from it and see it objectively.
People might THINK that capital L literature is where you will find books that deal with the human condition and offer insight into this madness that we call living. But we who read, write and love speculative fiction know that it’s our often mis-represented and resented genre that truly gives us the opportunity to consider the good, and the bad, of the world around us.
And that’s why I think fantasy, science fiction and horror rock!
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About Nicole Murphy:
Nicole Murphy has been a primary school teacher, bookstore owner, journalist and checkout chick. She grew up reading Tolkien, Lewis and Le Guin; spent her twenties discovering Quick, Lindsay and Deveraux, and lives her love of science fiction and fantasy through her involvement with the Conflux science fiction conventions. Her urban fantasy trilogy Dream of Asarlai is published in Australia/NZ by HarperVoyager. Book one Secret Ones is out now. She lives with her husband in Queanbeyan, NSW. Visit her website http://nicolermurphy.com
Duran Duran! I remember an awesome fan fic a friend wrote abot NKOTB!
Looking forward to reading Secret Ones. It’s in Mt TBR at the moment.
Gotta love a bit of boy-band fan fic 🙂 Hope you enjoy Secret Ones.
I so agree! (Dutch) literature doesn’t reach me emotionally (the odd exception set aside), but there are so many fantasy and SF stories that grab me and make me laugh, cry, curse, etc….
That’s really interesting – perhaps it’s a cultural thing. Are you reading Dutch fantasy and SF as well?
There’s almost no Dutch fantasy and SF as the dutch literary world is very small. There are some good thriller authors though, but most Dutch authors are too busy trying to write ‘Literature’, which in most cases is actually quite boring or too much blah.
I don’t enjoy reading about the oppressed childhood of an author especially if almost all of his books have the same theme, nor do I enjoy reading about a man getting obsessed by a statue and making love to it (some examples of dutch literature)
I’d rather read about people who are emotionally more like me even (or maybe because) if they fight orcs or dragons while I work at a callcenter
Makes complete sense 🙂
Great post, Nicole. I wonder how many of us will have hat-tipped Tolkein by the end of this guest post series? 🙂
How about we kick anyone who doesn’t reference Tolkien out of the club? 🙂
I adore this post, especially the last two paragraphs, and have been jawing about it over on Facebook – yay Nicole! Yay Helen for providing me with an opportunity to discover the awesomeness of my fellow specfic writers!
Thanks Mary. I love posts like that, that make me think about the reasons why. I’m very much into understanding things, but often don’t think about it enough.
So true – “yet give it the resonance that readers can connect to”. Thanks.
Pleasure, Jean. Hope I’ve done it myself.
Terrific post thanks Nicole. I felt like cheering when I got to the “I can’t imagine why a writer wouldn’t want to write science fiction or fantasy” paragraph!
I was cheering as I wrote it 🙂
Nicole – great post. I hundred % agree with what you said. Especially creating a world that resonates and had rules and boundries. and Canberra Spec Fic writers ROCK!!!
🙂
Go Canberra Go!
Great post, Nicole!
How do you make something different, yet give it the resonance that readers can connect to? <– I love that. This is what I'm always on about too. The writing is about connection, and Spec Fic takes us places we've never been! We all go there together 🙂
Thanks Kim – I had a bit of an a-ha moment when I wrote that. Nice to know that it resonates with other writers too 🙂
I LOVE your post and agree with everything you have written. Thank you for posting! 😀
I still haven’t read Secret Ones, but it is now in my wishlist! >_<
Thanks Giada – hope you enjoy the book.
What a great post! I love that you put it so clearly – You’ve got to be able to feel part of the human race, and yet be able to step away from it and see it objectively. As writers of speculative fiction we have to be thoroughly connected to this world first.
Thanks Cassie – I’m glad it worked for you 🙂
Great post! I love the way SF/F can allow a familiar situation or emotion to be explored in a new way 🙂
You get fabulous insights from looking at things differently, don’t you? SF/F for the win!
I love the point you made about how spec-fic is more about the human experience than capital L literature. So true! It’s like shining a fairy light on the human condition.