This is one of my favourite places — I was going to say, “in the whole world”, but since I haven’t actually seen the whole world, I will say “in New Zealand” and/or “that I have visited.”

It’s in the Lewis Pass national reserve, which in its entirety is the “favourite place”, and this particular shot was taken near the Maruia River.

Enjoy. 🙂

Yesterday I shared that the first two novels in Julie Czerneda’s Night’s Edge (Marrowdell) series had just arrived, but I forgot to tell you what they’re all about, which I usually do!

So here’s the backcover text for A Turn Of Light, (Night’s Edge #1):

“The village of Marrowdell is an isolated pioneer community, but it is also the place where two worlds overlap, and at the turn of light–sunset–the world of magic known as the Verge can briefly be seen.

Jenn Nalynn belongs to both Verge and Marrowdell, but even she doesn’t know how special she is–or that her invisible friend Wisp is actually a dragon sent to guard her… and keep her from leaving the valley. But Jenn longs to see the world, and thinking that a husband will help her reach this goal, she decides to create one using spells. Of course, everything goes awry, and suddenly her “invisible friend” has been transformed into a man. But he is not the only newcomer to Marrowdell, and far from the most dangerous of those who are suddenly finding their way to the valley…”

Here’s what fellow authors have to say:

“An enchanting and gentle fable, rich with detail and characters you will love.” — Charles de Lint

“A warm and intricate fantasy opus with large themes woven into a charming story.” — Charlaine Harris

While here are a few reviewer’s summing up on the matter:

“If you’re looking for romance and characters you can love, while still immersing yourself in a foreign world, then this book is for you.” — Ranting Dragon

“Have you ever read a book that you fell head over heels in love with purely because the writing was so breathtakingly beautiful? Yeah, well A Turn of Light is one of those … Truly incredible.” — Bookworm Blues

Julie Czerneda

I first met Julie Czerneda in 2009, at my very first everz Natcon in Auckland, where Julie was the Guest of Honour.

Julie & me, Sir Julius Vogel Awards’ 2009

While there, she also presented my first ever book award: the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Novel–Young Adult, for Thornspell.

Julie is a well known and very well respect SCi Fi writer, but more recently she has branched out into Fantasy.

So I am absolutely delighted to have the first two novels in her Night’s Edge (Marrowdell) series arrive at my front door. yep, via courier, all the way from canada.

Awesome — or as Julie herself would say: #lovemylife! 😉

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I’ve been talking dragons lately, so here is a dragon quote from Thornspell:

“Rue … was nowhere to be seen as he turned and stepped toward the fire. He snatched another glance back, in case he had missed her, and stopped short as a huge red and golden dragon soared out of the twisting streams of energy and reality. Sigismund stared, sure he must be delirious—or really dreaming now—and then the dragon and everything else disappeared as fire roared around him.”

~ Chapter 9, Substance and Shadow

In 2010 I first met Kim Falconer at the World Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention in Melbourne and we’ve been Supernatural Underground friends-in-writing for quite some years now.

So I want to tell you all about Kim’s latest post on the Supernatural Undergound, where she’s previewing the cover and synopsis for her forthcoming new book, The Blood In The Beginning (Harlequin) — and introducing a new heroine, Ava Sykes who sounds quite wonderful.

“Knock down, kickass nightclub bouncer Ava Sykes takes us deep into a dystopian world and out the other side in this dark and gritty, high-action urban fantasy.”

There’s a great cover quote from Traci Harding too:

“Rich with atmosphere, intrigue an action and a heroine who just will not quit. Long live Ava Sykes!”

Hear, hear, I say! To see a full size cover and read the synopsis, click on over to:

The Blood In The Beginning

And if you like what you see and read, why not comment and tell Kim so? I’m sure she’d love the feedback.

May Day –
the last hydrangea bends
under snow

(c) Helen Lowe

Published in the taste of nashi, the Third NZ Haiku Anthology, Windrift, 2008
Submitted by E Berry, NZ selector, for the Red Moon (US) international haiku anthology 2008

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Dragonslaying featured here last week, starting on Wednesday when Rebecca featured the ’80s film Dragonslayer in her Big Worlds On Small Screens column — and apparently, the film wasn’t that bad. 😉

Her look at the film inspired me to look at some of the great dragonslayers of legend and fantasy fiction — and then on Friday I added another worthy contender, the hero Yorindesarinen, from my own The Wall of Night series.

At which point Rebecca kicked the can along a bit further by wondering when the shift occurred, from fantasy concerning itself with dragon slaying to the far more likely scenario now, when the hero is a dragonrider and the dragons can be friends and mentors rather than ravening terrors.

I was inclined to think Anne McCaffrey was the turning point, with her Hugo Award-winning novella Weyr Search, the forerunner of Dragonflight (1968), published in 1967 — a lot earlier than my initial pick of the early to mid-1970s for Dragonflight.

However the change may have been in the air in the late 1960s because when Ursula Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore came out in 1973, the dragon Kalessin was more a mysterious mentor than the dragons of Pendor that the mage Ged had defeated in A Wizard of Earthsea (1968.)

By the 1980s there were several contenders in adult literature, from RA MacAvoy’s scholarly and zen philosophizing black dragon (Tea With the Black Dragon, 1983) and Melanie Rawn’s Dragon Prince series (1985-1994) — and very many more.

Not least Robin Hobb’s dragon influenced Liveship series and George RR Martin’s A Game of Thrones, both of which had their beginnings in the mid-90s. Not to mention the more recent Eragon — and Balisan the Red in my own Thornspell.

However, I can point to a much earlier story that heralds the contemporary theme: Kenneth Grahame’s 1898 children’s story, The Reluctant Dragon, which was made into the 1941 Disney film of the same name. The story concerns an erudite, poetry-loving dragon that would really rather not fight. Fortunately St George is of the same mind so they fake a joust instead. Anyway, I’m sure you know the story, but my point is that it was published around 70 years before Anne McCaffrey’s novella.

So the new, you see, is not as new as we may have thought, after all. 🙂

“Through books you will meet poets and novelists whose creations will fire your imagination. You will meet the great thinkers who will share with you their philosophies, their concepts of the world, of humanity and of creation. You will learn about events that have shaped our history, of deeds both noble and ignoble. All of this knowledge is yours for the taking… Your library is a storehouse for mind and spirit. Use it well.”

~ Neil Armstrong, ca. 1971

This note from Neil Armstrong was in response to the children’s librarian of Troy, Michigan’s new public library, who wrote to notable figures across the globe, asking them to address the children of Troy and speak about the importance of libraries, books, and reading.

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Every April since 2012, Fantasy Cafe has featured Women in SF&F: science fiction and fantasy, that is.

Within that broad umbrella, the topic is completely open: contributors can discuss their own writing, others’ writing, the state of the genre, being a woman SF&F writer — or any other permutation on the topic.

I have chosen to discuss women characters in SF&F who are leaders, both drawing on the work of other writers but also looking at the evolution of Malian as a leader in The Wall of Night series. Here is how the post begins:

USA

“During the course of writing Daughter of Blood, the recently published third novel in my epic fantasy quartet, The Wall of Night, I thought a great deal about leadership. This consideration took several turns, from what makes a leader in the first place, to how the form of leadership may vary depending on circumstances…”

To read more, click on:

Fantasy Cafe: Women in SF & F Month — Women As Leaders in Fantasy Fiction

Enjoy!

This is all Rebecca’s fault, you realise — she reviewed the ’80s movie offering “Dragonslayer” for Big Worlds On Small Screens on Wednesday. Which got me thinking about dragonslayers from both legend and a raft of well-loved fantastic stories.

So yesterday I decided to inaugurate a League of Fantastic — & Extraordinary! — Dragonslayers. I have realised, though, that I left out one dragonslayer, or at least Worm-slayer who most definitely should be in my league.

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That’s Yorindesarinen*, of course, from the legendary backstory to The Wall of Night series. She is the greatest hero of the Derai, the people that garrison the Wall, and she fell fighting the Worm of Chaos. Her legend comes into the very beginning of the Wall story, in the first chapter of The Heir of Night (Book One):

‘The background was darkness, rimed with fire, but the foreground was occupied by a figure in hacked and riven armour, confronting a creature that was as vast as the tapestry itself. Its flat, serpentine head looked out of the surrounding darkness, exuding menace, and its bulk was doom. The figure of the hero, dwarfed beneath its shadow, looked overmatched and very much alone.’

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The confrontation between Yorindesarinen and the Worm is still very much woven into the main story in the recently released Book Three, Daughter of Blood:

‘…the vision persisted, wrapping her in the darkness of another plain that was scored by a multitude of smoldering brushfires. Their glow outlined a small hill, but it was not until Malian drew closer that she realized the mound was the ruined bulk of some giant beast, dead upon the plain. She stepped back, stumbling over metal shards, and when she looked down saw the shattered remains of a shield. A warrior’s body lay beyond it, sprawled not far from the dead beast, with one gauntleted hand still resting on the hilt of an unsheathed sword. …

We did for each other, that Worm and I. … “I know who you are,” Malian whispered, “where this is.” ‘

Whether a Worm is precisely the same as a dragon remains to be seen, but I think these passages make it clear that it’s close enough — and that Yorindesarinen belongs in any self-respecting League of Extraordinary Dragonslayers.

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* To find out more about the tradition of long names in epic fantasy, click through to:

My Love Affair with the Long Names of Fantasy Fiction: How It All Began