The Art of War is a classic read, of course, which is one of the reasons I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to get around to it.

I am reading the edition edited and translated by John Minford (Penguin, 2003), which comprises two parts: the original Sun-tzu text; followed by the same text with commentaries from throughout the several thousand year history of the text—fascinating in and of itself.

I think the original text is really insightful and many of its observations are still relevant today, as is much of the commentary.

For example:

“In war,
victory should be
swift.
If victory is slow,
men tire,
morale sags.
Sieges
exhaust strength;
Protracted campaigns
strain the public treasury…

…No nation has ever benefited
from a protracted war.”

Upon which the commentator Li Quan observes: “…’War is like fire. Those who cannot bring hostilities to a close burn themselves out.'”

I am beginning to understand why this book is still being read around 2500 years after it is believed to have been written.

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UK

Revealing the US cover for Daughter Of Blood this week, and the UK cover just a few weeks ago made it all seem that little bit more real that the publication date in late January 2016 is now less than six months away.

In a glass half empty but also half full kind of way, that both feels like a wait still, but will also fleet by remarkably quickly.

So I thought it might be time to think about a character refresher for The Wall Of Night series, starting next Thursday and reintroducing the characters, first from The Heir of Night and then The Gathering Of The Lost — very much as I did for A Geography Of Haarth with worldbuilding, over the course of 2013 and much of 2015.

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USA

(And I’m looking forward to building on the Geography once Daughter Of Blood is ‘oot that’ in the world—or the wild, as the case may be. 😉 )

But as discussed with Paul Weimer on Twitter, I don’t think I shall start with the main point-of-view characters.

I shall focus instead on some of the less centre-stage players to begin with, because:

“Sometimes I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a #story, creating texture around the main points of view.”

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UK/AU/NZ

So I hope you will drop by next week, either to reacquaint yourself with some old friends or to meet some new ones for the very first time. 🙂

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It’s all about the cover love awesome here. 😉

UK cover reveal — caught your July interest!

Despite winter and school holidays here in the southern hemisphere, and the long summer break in more northern regions, July saw a renewed flurry of activity on the blog—which made me think it could be fun to look at the top 10 posts from July.

So without further ado, here’s what you were most interested in last month:

1. Writing Epic Heroines on July 23rd, just pipped

2. Daughter Of Blood, The Wall Of Night Book Three: UK Cover Revealed! on July 13, which was immediately preceded by

3. A Teaspoonful of Anticipation, both earlier in the day and in terms of level of reader interest.

So nice that you awaited the cover reveal with as much anticipation as me. 🙂

4. Reprising Place As Person — What Does It Mean When Telling Story was also of considerable interest on July 9, as was

5. Well, It’s Done: The (Great) Daughter Of Blood Copyedit’s A Wrap, which featured on July 16

While the 6th most popular post in July came from guest Janis Freegard:

6. Guest Post: Janis Freegard Interviews Three Characters From Her Debut Novel, “The Year of Falling” only last Monday, July 27, before

7. The Kind Of Books I Write: I Expand Friday’s Answer made its bow on 20 July

8. When Characters We Love Die found favour at the very beginning of the month on 2 July, while

9. So What Kind Of Books Do You Write appeared on July 17 , with the final place going to

10. And So It Begins Again on July 24 — a nice start for the very first post everz on The Chaos Gate (The Wall of Night Book Four)

So there you have it, a month told in posts! More “…on Anything, Really” goodness. 😉

Fey

your door
stands open still
at dusk, your light
a moth’s antenna
across
shadowed lawn

bare feet rustle
in last year’s
leaf drift, a wind
sways
through naked trees

you say
you will hang
a cricket cage
above your lintel,
burn apple wood
in the grate –
dance, the circle
of your skirt
reflecting
the moon’s dark face

I ride
a rocking horse
with patchwork eyes,
steal
through your door
to the cold-stone hearth –
dream
of dervish footsteps
hurdy-gurdy trees

(c) Helen Lowe

Highly Commended, Takahe National Poetry Competition 2008
Published in Takahe 68, December 2009

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I think of this as an autumn poem, but somehow, with our Southern Hemisphere winter turning toward spring again, it suits both my mood and the season.

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Don’t forget to read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world—just click here.

On Saturday I gave the US cover for Daughter Of Blood, The Wall Of Night Book Three it’s first outing.

Yesterday, I shared a bit more of the new cover excitement by featuring the front and back cover quotes.

Today I thought I’d share the back cover “blurb” — which is similar to the UK back-cover text, shared here, but “not quite” the same:

Malian of Night and Kalan, her trusted ally,
are returning to the Wall of Night—but already it may
be too late. The Wall is dangerously weakened,
the Nine Houses of the Derai fractured by rivalry
and hate. And now, the Darkswarm is rising . . .
.
Among Grayharbor backstreets, an orphan boy
falls foul of dark forces. On the Wall,
a Daughter of Blood must be married off to the
Earl of Night, a pawn in the web of her family’s
ambition. On the Field of Blood, Kalan fights for
a place in the bride’s honor guard, while Malian
dodges deadly pursuers in a hunt against time
for the fabled Shield of Heaven. But the Darkswarm
is gaining strength, and time is running out—for
Malian, for Kalan, and for all of Haarth . . .

Goodness, it really sounds rather exciting, I must say…

Both synopses, of course, are drawn from the one I shared way back in January 2014:

Sneak Preview: A Synopsis For “Daughter Of Blood, The Wall Of Night Book Three”

All good fun!

And as well as the overall ‘effect’, including the drama of that line of fire through the shield, it’s also good to see that very nice quote from SF Site getting the front cover limelight.

It’s very difficult, after all, to be anything but enthusiastic about:

“Helen Lowe’s  Wall of Night series has the potential to become a classic right up there with the likes of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.”  ~ SF Site

w00t, in fact! 😉

The other quotes used for the US cover include:

On the back:

A Gemmell Award-Winning Series

“A richly told tale of strange magic,
dark treachery, and conflicting loyalties,
set in a well-realized world.”
Robin Hobb, on The Heir of Night

And on the inside front:

“This is an author with
a gift for fantasy.”
Nebula Award-winning author
Catherine Asaro

plus:

“[Lowe] reinvigorates
the epic fantasy
with appealing
characters and a
richly detailed world.”
Library Journal

All very nice — & of course, thank you very much for the vote of confidence!

It was meant to be revealed here in mid-July — but after all, what better way to see in August than with the very first “…on Anything, Really” outing for the US cover for Daughter Of Blood.

So here it is, in all it’s glory: enjoy!

This cover heralds the re-release of The Wall of Night series in the US, so there’ll be matching covers for The Heir of Night & The Gathering of the Lost as well — also coming very soon, I believe.

Clarification Re Availability of the US E-Book:

When the UK cover for Daughter Of Blood The Wall Of Night Book Three was released recently, a commenter, Simon, asked the following question:

“…I tried to pre-order a Kindle edition of the book from Amazon USA, and none was available; only a mass market paperback was available for pre-order. So my question is, is it still the case that a Kindle version will be released in the USA in January?”

I have double checked and the good news, straight from Harper Voyager in the US, is that:

“Yes, we’ll release the e-book of Daughter Of Blood simultaneously with the mass market paperback.”

The publisher is also checking to find out why the e-book edition is not showing up currently—but it will be available in January.

UK cover

As my regular readers will know, on the first of the month (US Eastern Standard Time) I post on the Supernatural Underground—and that will be later today, NZ time.

As you may also know, earlier in the month I heralded the reveal of both the US and UK covers for Daughter Of Blood, The Wall Of Night Book Three — but then only ended posting the UK cover both here and on the Supernatural Underground. (For “reasonsz” — which would never, of course, include copyedit-induced authorial confusion…)

However, better late than never as the adage goes, so later today (NZ time; on the stoke of 1 minute past midnight, US [EST] time) I shall be featuring the US cover for Daughter Of Blood both here and on the Supernatural Underground simultaneously—and talking about the new (US) covers proposed for The Heir Of Night and The Gathering Of The Lost as well.

And I shall also be answering the question asked by Simon Ellberger about Daughter Of Blood ebook availability in the USA.

So you see, it is all happening later today!

After a brief copyedit-induced hiatus, my guest series Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World has resumed on SF Signal.

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The sixth heroine on my personal podium is Bitterblue, from Kristin Cashore’s novel of the same name. To find out why, click on:

Helen Lowe On Fantasy Heroines that Rock Her World: Bitterblue (Graceling)

If you’re interested in reading more, I interviewed Kristin Cashore about Bitterblue when the novel first came out, here:

An Interview With Kristin Cashore—Author of “Bitterblue”