Just one of those quick posts today with a few ‘all sorts’ in the mix from which you may pick and choose.

Gathering Status Report:

Firstly, as those who have been following my What I’ve Been Doing Posts know, I am working toward a completion date for the GR (Great Revision) of The Gathering of the Lost (The Wall of Night Book Two) for 1 July. On Monday, with post-earthquake clean up starting all over again, I thought this goal had been blown completely out of the water. But two wonderful people yesterday and four today basically said: “We’ll do the digging Helen, you stick with the book.”

I don’t know if you can imagine how wonderful that was! I still felt horribly guilty, of course, and just having digging out happening, as well as  the guys who turned up to water blast the sewer, was disruptive to the writing process—but the really important thing was that both today and yesterday the book progressed. Not as far or as much as I’d planned prior to Monday’s earthquakes, but the fact is, the book is closer to completion today than it would otherwise have been.

Meeting 1 July is still going to be incredibly tight because it was tight anyway and I’ve effectively lost around 2 days, but there’s still hope—and that’s entirely due to Andrew, Joff, Dave, Caroline, Susie and Peter. Thank you, guys: you rock. And yes, you will all be in the acknowledgments for the book. No question.

Earthquake Mini Report:

In addition to the above, the earthquake report from the ‘burbs for today comprises a brief note that aftershocks continue, with around 34 recorded yesterday, the largest being a 5.0 magnitude aftershock, at a depth of 6 kilometres, around 6.30 in the morning.

Otherwise status is  much the same as yesterday other than the “happy news ” from the experts that there is a 30% chance we will get another 6.0-7.0 magnitude earthquake within the next month. Not the best news. The experts also confirmed my suspicion that the 12 to 18 month ‘clock’ for earthquake acitivty to wind down restarts after each major earthquake event—so that’s definitely 12-18 months from now, not September 4 last year.

Anyway, you can read all about it here.

Follow Up From Monday’s Post on the Gemmell Awards:

The most exciting thing about the follow up to the Gemmell Awards post I did on Monday is that the awards will be announced tomorrow, Friday 17 UK time in London. So only 1 more sleep to find out how my friend Mary Victoria’s novel Tymon’s Flight has fared in the Morningstar category for Best Fantasy Newcomer/Debut, and her husband Frank Victoria in the Ravenheart category for Best Fantasy Book Jacket/Artist.

But I also mentioned that I had observed something about the total line-up of finalists once I set them all out in 1 place on the blog here, something that made me think that Mary Victoria had done not just very well, but extra well to make it onto the list. I invited you all to guess what my observation was, but no one took me up on that. So here’s a further clue: the observation lead me to believe that both Mary Victoria and NK Jemisin had done extra well to get on the list.

Go back and take a look at the total list across all categories, here, if you need to refresh your memory. So you do you see it yet?

Okay, here’s what I realized when I looked down that list: 100% of the authors in the Legend category; 60% of the authors in the Morningstar category; and 80% of the artists are men. Only 19% of those shortlisted across all categories are women. In terms of the authors, I am curious to know whether this reflects the actual numbers of women writing epic/high/heroic fantasy; or is simply a one-off for this year from which no particular inferences should be drawn; or whether it is a reflection of an alleged phenomenon I first reported under my Why Write Epic Fantasy post, here, i.e. that:

” epic fantasy as a genre is misogynist … [in terms of] … the attention paid to female authors of the genre, i.e. your chances of being a successful epic fantasy author are considerably reduced if you’re a gal”

So given that the Gemmells are reader’s choice awards, does the final lineup reflect prejudice amongst readers against epic/high/heroic fantasy openly penned by women?  Or simply mean that the guys are better at mobilising their voting fanbase? Or that they write better books? Or maybe they just wrote better books this year?

All interesting reflections—so do any of you have any thoughts to offer?

—

Addendum:

Following on from our discussion through today, I’ve done a little more hunting around for the two previous years in which the Gemmell have been awarded and here’s the gender breakdown:

In 2009 only one award, the Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel of the Year, was made and the shortlist of five comprised four male and one female author (Juliet Marillier.)  Percentage-wise, that’s an 80:20 split in favour of male authors.

The Morningstar and Ravenheart Awards, for Best Fantasy Newcomer/Debut and Best Fantasy Book Jacket/Artist respectively, were added in 2010.

As in 2011, no female authors were shortlisted for the Legend Award (a 100:0 ratio); one author was nominated for the Morningstar (80:20); and four(!) women out of 10 were included in the Ravenheart lineup—a massive 40%, although all were part of artistic collaborations rather than sole artists. The overall ratio for authors only was 10% (it’s 20% this year) and for authors and artists was 25%, slightly more than this year.

And in the 3 years of the award only one female author has ever made the final shortlist for the Legend Award: that’s a 93:7 percentage ratio in favour of male authors—and I am reasonably sure that in excess of 7% of authors being published in epic fantasy are women.

So thems the stats, but here’s another really interesting new observation (for me anyway!) This one relates solely to the Legend Award,  simply because the Morningstar is for debut authors so the lineup has to change every year.

In the 3 years that the Legend has been awarded:

• Brandon Sanderson has been shortlisted every year; in two of those years he has been shortlisted again in conjunction with Robert Jordan (deceased) for completion of the Wheel of Time series;
• Pierre Pevel, Joe Abercrombie, and Brent Weeks have all been finalists in 2 out of the 3 years—again, together with Brandon Sanderson/Robert Jordan.

So out of a potential 16 finalist slots over 3 years, Brandon Sanderson has occupied 5 of those slots, and another six have been taken up by Pevel, Abercrombie and Weeks. That’s 69% of the finalist slots occupied by just five writers.

Fascinating, huh?