I’ve just completed the third (and a bit) weeks of my ‘mission’ to celebrate a NZ Speculative Fiction book every day on Twitter for #NZBookMonthMay — and so far am going strong on not repeating an author.

Here’s the roundup for this week:

Monday 18:

Juliet Marillier, Prickle Moon (Short Fiction Anthology; Fantasy)
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Tuesday 19:

James Norcliffe, The Loblolly Boy (Junior Fiction; Fantasy)
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Wednesday 20:

Freya Robertson, Heartwood (Epic Fantasy)
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Thursday 21:

Kelly Ana Moray, Bloom (Magical Realism)
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Friday 22:

Nalini Singh, Angel’s Blood (Paranormal Urban Romance)
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Saturday 23:

David Hair, The Bone Tiki (YA; Fantasy)
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Sunday 24:

Philippa Ballantine, Geist (Fantasy)

I’m on a mission to celebrate a NZ Speculative Fiction book every day on Twitter for #NZBookMonthMay — without repeating an author — but realised that because May started on Friday 1, I had missed out rounding up the first three days here on the blog.

So I am remedying that oversight today.

May 1:

Elizabeth Knox, The Vintner’s Luck (Fantasy)
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May 2:

Margaret Mahy, The Changeover (YA; Fantasy)
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May 3:

Editors Mark Pirie & Tim Jones, Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry From New Zealand (Poetry Anthology; Science Fiction)

The fourth in my series, “Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World”, has posted on SF Signal and features the (imho) wonderful Dianora (Di Certando) from Guy Gavriel Kay’s equally wonderful Tigana.

As I say in the post:

“…I believe she is possibly the most compelling heroine I have yet encountered in Fantasy literature…she is a tragic heroine, caught between loyalty to her country and her love for their greatest enemy.”

To find out more, rock on over to SF Signal:

Helen Lowe On Fantasy Heroines That Rock Her World: Dianora Di Certando

Enjoy!

We’re fifteen years out of the twentieth century now, which is not a huge distance but enough to give some sense of perspective.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about books that in some way encapsulate or define an aspect of the last century—and which by implication have also endured, i.e. we are still reading and/or reflecting on them now.

Here are eight books that are “defining” twentieth century works for me (in alphabetical order by author’s surname):

The Second Sex, by Simone De Beauvoir (1949)

French philosopher Simone De Beauvoir’s analysis of the treatment of women throughout history is regarded as one of the defining works of modern feminism, although the widespread political movement did not gain momentum until the 1960’s.
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Anne Frank: The Diary Of A Young Girl, by Anne Frank (1947 in The Netherlands; 1952 USA & UK)

The diary of Anne Frank—a Dutch Jewish girl who hid, with her family, from the Nazis for two years before being discovered and dying of typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp—provides one of the great “human” voices that illuminates the horror of the Holocaust.

The Wind In The Willows, by Kenneth Grahame (1908)

The emergence of a  distinct children’s literature characterizes the twentieth century and The Wind of the Willows is one of the first great books in that tradition, as well as a classic in its own right. It also one of the first books to evoke nature and the environment as a distinct element/theme.

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (1960)

Harper Lee’s classic tale of racial discrimination and injustice in the American South during the 1930s illustrates the conditions that gave rise to one of the great social movements of the twentieth century, the American Civil Rights movement.

Cry, The Beloved Country, by Alan Paton (1948)

Alan Paton’s novel of racial division and social injustice in South Africa came out the same year that apartheid was enshrined in legislation; it would not be removed until 1994, almost 50 years later. This book may not quite fit my criteria, in that I’m not sure whether Cry, The Beloved Country is still widely known, but it is so powerfully and beautifully written I’m going to include it anyway.

One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1962, Russia; 1963, USA)

If Anne Frank’s diary gives a human voice to the Holocaust, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch does the same for the forced labour camps of the Soviet Union in the Stalinist era. The focus in this case is on survival, including of the prisoners’ humanity, in the face of systemic and systematic brutality.

The Grapes Of Wrath, by John Steinbeck (1939)

A different setting, but nonetheless John Steinbeck’s novel of an Oklahoma Dust Bowl family seeking to survive and find a better life is one of the great accounts of the misery suffered by large numbers of people during the 1930s Depression.
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The Lord Of The Rings, by JRR Tolkien (1954)

Tolkien’s sweeping epic is arguably the work of fiction that most defines the second half of the twentieth century. It marks the shift of fantasy and science fiction into mainstream literature and also picks up on the theme of environmental displacement found in earlier works such as The Wind In The Willows, as well as a sense of loss of community in the post-war era.
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I’ve stopped at eight although I know there are doubtless other contenders, such as Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 (1961) and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) — and I should almost certainly have featured Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front (1929)!

I’d love to hear the books that you feel encapsulate a defining aspect of the twentieth century. In particular, I’d love to know if there are any books (preferably fiction, but not necessarily since I haven’t restricted myself to that either) from the last quarter of the twentieth century that ‘leap out’ (for you) as encapsulating the times, i.e. were there any equivalents of these early and mid-century books published in the latter part of the century?

~ by Rebecca Fisher

Everyone has a movie that they know is objectively bad (or at least not very good), but they love it anyway thanks to the nostalgic quality it provides. Such is The Polar Bear King for me.

Filmed in Scandinavia in 1993, it’s a take on the Norwegian folktale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, though those who know their myths and legends will also recognise elements of the French Beauty and the Beast and the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche: a mysterious husband, a broken promise, a scorned rival, and a brave heroine at its centre.

The King of the Winterland has three beautiful daughters, but though the two eldest are arrogant and flighty respectively, the youngest is haunted by dreams of a handsome prince in an orchard filled with flowers.

In the neighbouring kingdom of the Summerland, Prince Valemon (the only character in this entire movie who gets a name) inherits his father’s throne, only for an evil witch to turn him into a huge white bear as punishment for spurning her advances.

The Princess meets her future husband

His only hope of breaking the spell is to find a bride who will agree to remain married to him for seven years without ever seeing his face. (He turns back into a human for one hour each night). His journey takes him to the Winterland and the youngest princess, but after winning her heart and bringing her back to his castle, it’s only a matter of time before she succumbs to temptation and tries to catch a glimpse of him while he sleeps. With their marital pact broken, he’s now forced to marry the witch…

Fairy tales don’t always make for good movie adaptations due to the way they’re structured, and The Polar Bear King is roughly divided into three distinct parts: the first involving Valemon finding the princess, the second detailing their married life, and the third depicting the princess’s quest to rescue her lost husband from the clutches of the witch. In other words, the story doesn’t end with marriage and children – instead these events mark the halfway point of the film.

But despite the odd pacing, unnecessary narrator and rather stilted acting, there’s something very simple and charming about The Polar Bear King. The bear itself is made courtesy of the Jim Henson Company, and the film is filled with plenty of pre-CGI special effects – such as a pair of magical scissors’ ability to create clothing depicted by reversing the footage of a shirt being cut into pieces, or portraying the princess scaling a vertical cliff in magical shoes by simply tilting the camera onto its side.

There’s even a subtle feminist slant considering the three most powerful players in this story are the witch, the Queen Mother, and the princess herself. Poor Prince Valemon may get a name, but he’s relegated to the role of Dude in Distress for most of the film’s run-time, caught in the middle of a custody battle between a witchy suitor, a sorceress mother, and his heroic wife.

The witch is not pleased to see Valemon return with a bride…

Just to cap things off, there’s even a cameo appearance from the devil himself, even if he is characterized more as a trickster than the Prince of Darkness.

By today’s standards The Polar Bear King is a strange, slow, dreamy kind of movie. But because I watched it when I was young it has a hold on me, and because it’s a relatively obscure fairy tale movie that you’ve probably never heard of, it has a place in this column.
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Next Time: Primer

What would happen if you were to build a time machine in your garage? What would you do with it? How would it work? I’ll admit, as of this review I have not yet watched Primer, which in many ways makes it the perfect film to bring this “Fantasy and Sci-Fi Films You’ve Probably Never Heard Of” column to a close, as it was only in the organizing of this project that I discovered its existence.
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About The Reviewer:

Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com and her They’re All Fictional blog.

To read Rebecca’s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding reviews, click on:

Big Worlds On Small Screens

Rebecca has recently won the Sir Julius Vogel Award 2015 for Best Fan Writer, for writing including Big Worlds On Small Screens.

Compasses: A Triptych

1.

Blake drew Newton naked, every muscle
tense, seated on a rock, hunched over
the paper world unscrolling at his feet,
inscribing limits with his compasses
like God in Milton’s paradise.

2.

Rodchenko photographs his wife,
Stepanova, working at her table,
a pair of compasses in one hand,
thumb and forefinger twirling the pivot,
eyes intent on the interlocking spheres
of her textile design. The universe
is new from skin to sky. Hand-rolled,
a cigarette rests on her bottom lip.
The ash drops, she smiles and blows it away.
Seed fluff, time flake, off to the past.

This is no lady painter of aquarelles,
she’s a maid’s daughter, Varvara Stepanova,
calls herself ‘Varst’ and she can do anything:
boil pitch or potatoes, build sets for plays,
shoot billiards, dance tangos, make zaum
poems in syllables, grunts and blobs of paint.

Varst is sewing canvas overalls,
her fingertips tough as thimbles. Bites the needle,
spits a smoke ring through its eye, pulls
a thread into a V, cuts and knots it.

Varst sneers at fine art,
slaps the heads off chrysanthemums,
uses her brain like a weapon, wages war
on the object, publishes manifestos, critiques
all ‘isms’ and the artists who deliver them,
writes in her journal with a steel nib,
nails their quirks and egos.

Rodchenko snaps the circle in groups, pairs
and singles, but his wife is his favourite
subject. Never object. She gazes away
from the lens as she points a blade,
arm-length, at six of her collages.

Her self-portrait mocks the easel: forehead
a cross-hatch in blue paint, mouth a scowl
of black X’s. She caricatures herself,
her husband too, as clowns
with elbows and pantaloons.

3.

Never since John Donne has it been so true
as it is with this pair who stride
with equal steps into the Revolution:
If they be two, they are two so
as stiff twin compasses are two.

© Nancy Mattson

I am still engaged in the process of re-posting poets who have had multiple poems featured on “…Anything, Really” , or by me on the Tuesday Poem Hub, since I joined the Tuesday Poem community in June 2010.

Today I am delighted to feature Nancy Mattson’s Compasses: A Triptych, that I featured on the Hub on October 12, 2010. At the time, Nancy provided the following note:

About The Poet:

Nancy Mattson

Nancy Mattson is an ex-patriate Canadian poet, now resident in London. Her third collection of poetry, Finns and Amazons, of which Compasses: A Triptych forms part, was published by Arrowhead Press, in 2012.Nancy began writing poetry in 1977 after completing her MA in English Literature at the University of Alberta. Her poetry, non-fiction and reviews have been published in Canada, the US, the UK, Ireland and Finland in magazines, anthologies, the odd scholarly journal, a printed encyclopaedia and a couple of parish newsletters.

In 1982 she edited and co-authored a history book which provided the inspiration for her first collection, Maria Breaks Her Silence (Regina: Coteau, 1989), based on the life of a 19th century Finnish woman who emigrated to Canada. This was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. Adapted for the stage as Lye Soap and Dancing Cows, it was also broadcast on CBC Radio.

Nancy’s second full collection was Writing with Mercury (Hexham: Flambard, 2006), with cover art by Elaine Kowalsky. Nancy is also one of five poets featured in the anthology, Take Five 06, edited by John Lucas (Nottingham: Shoestring, 2006). The poems in these two volumes are set in contemporary England, Canada, Finland and Italy and use memory, myth, history and family stories to create a rich linguistic and cultural texture.

Nancy was also pleased to be one of 20 writers selected by Dr. Beth L. Virtanen to appear in Finnish North American Literature in English: A Concise Anthology (Edwin Mellen Press, 2009) and her work has appeared in many other anthologies.
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To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here.

Looking ahead, I have a few fun things coming up both here and otherwhere (not to be confused with Neverwhere, the excellent urban fantasy by Neil Gaiman. 😉 )

Firstly, this week I should have my fourth Fantasy Heroines That Rock My World post feature on SF Signal — so stay posted for this week’s heroine-of-awesome.

As for next week… You may recall that a few weeks back I was reading Anna Smaill’s The Chimes and finding it ve-ry interesting? In fact, I think the premise—of a world ordered by music, to the extent that musical terms shape everyday language, and where memory retention never lasts beyond a single 24-hour period—is quite fascinating. So much so that I hope to bring you an interview with Anna Smaill next week. Again, watch this space.

RIP?

I’m also carrying on with my project to tweet one NZ-created work of speculative fiction every day this month under the hashtag #NZBookMonthMay, rounding up each week’s titles of a Sunday.

To check out further, click on Week 1 and Week 2.

P.S. And if you want to read a fun post on book openings, check out Kim Falconer’s Opening Spells post on the Supernatural Underground.

I’m now in the second (and a bit) weeks of my ‘mission’ to celebrate a NZ Speculative Fiction book every day on Twitter for #NZBookMonthMay — without repeating an author.

Here’s the roundup for this week:

Monday 11:

Rachael King, Red Rocks (Junior fiction; Urban Fantasy)
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Tuesday 12:

Patricia Grace, Mutuwhenua: The Moon Sleeps (Magic Realism)
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Wednesday 13:

Bernard Beckett, Genesis (YA; Science Fiction)
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Thursday 14:

Fleur Beale, Juno Of Taris (YA; Science Fiction)
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Friday 15:

Philip Mann, The Disestablishment Of Paradise (Science Fiction)
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Saturday 16:

editors Cassie Hart & Anna Caro, Tales for Canterbury (Speculative Fiction; short story collection)
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Sunday 17:

Brian Falkner, Assault (Junior; Military Science Fiction)
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Now, onwards into Week Three (and a bit. 😉 )

Many and varied matters called me forth to Wellington last weekend — according to Lonely Planet, the “coolest little capital in the world.” Wellington is also, as you may well know, the home of both Sir Peter Jackson’s Park Road Studios and WETA Workshop.

So it may come as now surprise to know that I encountered this on arriving at the airport: fun, huh? 😉

My novel, Thornspell, is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the prince — one of the fairy tale’s less commonly explored aspects. Nonetheless, it probably comes as no surprise to you that I love fairytale retellings.

A few of my favourites include Robin McKinley’s Beauty (Beauty and The Beast), which has the distinction of being one of the first fairytale retellings I encountered and remains a firm favourite – although her Deerskin (adapting the traditional Donkeyskin) is also a powerful and compelling read.

Another longstanding favourite is Elizabeth Ann Scarborough’s The Godmother draws on an array of fairytales, including Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Hansel and Gretel, to name just a few — a wonderful read.

Other more recently enjoyed reads include Juliet Marillier’s Wildwood Dancing, (The Twelve Dancing Princesses), Malinda Lo’s Ash (Cinderella) and Grace Lin’s Where The Mountains Meets The Moon, which draws on Chinese folklore in a Junior fiction retelling.

Alan Garner’s The Owl Service is an eerie retelling of the Celtic fairytale / myth of Blodeuwedd from the Mabinogion – but I suspect Maggie Stiefvater may be drawing on the same tale for part of her new The Raven Boys series, which I’m also very much enjoying. (Although it’s yet to be completed so I may be proven completely wrong regarding Blodeuwedd!)

I have also always loved Diana Wynne Jones’s retelling of the story of Brunnhilde and Siegfried in Eight Days of Luke. Perhaps I am interpreting “fairytale” too broadly here since both the Mabinogion and the tale of Brunnhilde and Siegfired may be counted as myth – but if so it is the same blending that infuses Thornspell, where I have worked the Arthurian cycle into the fairytale retelling.

Stepping away from novels briefly, I very much enjoyed Juliet Marillier’s short story By Bonelight (published in the collection Prickle Moon), a retelling of the Russian Baba Yaga fairytale that won both the Aurealis and Sir Julius Vogel Awards. And when it comes to film, I can’t go past Ever After – my “best ever” retelling of Cinderella.