One of the great things about being on holiday is having the time to catch up on your reading so lately I’ve been visiting all my favourite bricks’n’mortar bookstores, for the sheer delight of browsing amongst shelves of books that I can purchase and take home with me forever when I finally make a selection—which can be difficult. I’ve also been rediscovering the joy of second hand bookshops, where you can often pick up out of print titles.

So I thought I’d give you a sample of what’s made it home with me so far.

You already know I’m reading and enjoying Jo Walton’s “Among Others”, which I shall complete and post on shortly.

Also on the stack are:

Isabel Allende: Of Love and Shadows (Black Swan)

Because it’s been on my “want to read” list for years. So now I shall.

Kate Atkinson: Life After Life (Doubleday)

After When Will There Be Good News and Started Early, Took The Dog, I am a Kate Atkinson fan. Also, the Costa Book Award 2013 , Good Reads Choice Award for Historical Fiction 2013, and The South Bank Show award for Literature 2014…Just sayin’…

Paolo Bacigalupi: The Doubt Factory (Little, Brown)

I am also a huge fan of Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl and Shipbreaker and with a title like The Doubt Factory how could I pass this one by? I didn’t.

*Supplied by the publisher, also my UK/Aus/NZ publisher, at my request.

Patricia Briggs: Cry Wolf (Orbit)

Because everyone I know who is a fan of the Mercy Thompson novels, like me, has assured me that I will like this series (Alpha and Omega) just as much if not more. So I’ve started with the first-in-series.

Jim Butcher: Storm Front (RoC)

I have heard so much about these books I’ve decided it’s time to give them a go.

Guy Gavriel Kay: River Of Stars (HarperCollins)

“Because” Guy Gavriel Kay. That is all. 😉

.

Ann Leckie: Ancillary Justice (Orbit)

As with Atkinson’s Life after Life, when a book has caused such a stir among reviewers and on the awards’ circuit, especially in one’s own wider genre, it behooves one to find out for oneself what the buzz is all about…

David Mitchell: Ghostwritten (Sceptre)

I’ve seen Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas widely praised and recommended, but the author avers that he is writing an uber-novel—so I thought I’d better start at the beginning, with the debut novel.

Hannu Rajaniemi: The Causal Angel (Gollancz)

This is the third and final novel (I believe) in the trilogy and I loved the first two books, The Quantum Thief and The Fractal Prince, so I am very keen to see how it all works out.

*Supplied by the publisher, part of the same group as my UK/Aus/NZ 
publisher, at my request.

Donna Tartt: The Little Friend (Bloomsbury)

Again, an author I have heard a great deal of, but never gotten around to reading, until now. Tartt is a Pulitzer Prize winner so I have high hopes—but then again, we all like different kinds of stories and storytelling, right, so there can be no guarantees.

—

Pretty much equal time for gender balance between authors as well. 😉

Tis the season for awards & nominations in the SFFH ‘verse and also in the wider world as the The Oscars (until 2013 the Academy Awards) and Golden Globes etc stand testament.

The award-related reflection prompted by the juxtaposition of the two was this:

From time to time, I’ve heard the merit of SFFH awards such as the Sir Julius Vogels, Hugos and Nebulas questioned because effectively they’re community/reader and/or peer voted rather than being “curated.” Curated in this context means being chosen by a panel, as with the Bookers and—in the case of SFFH—the World Fantasy and Mythopoeic Awards, with the implication of the query being that this process is somehow more worthy.

“Oscar” statuette

Yet here we have the Academy Awards, probably one of the most anticipated, watched and yes, prestigious, creative awards in the world, which is overseen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — an organisation comprising “almost 6,000 motion picture professionals”, the Board of which “includes representatives from each of the craft branches.” (Source: Wikipedia)

In other words, this is effectively a community/peer voted award, even if Academy membership is by invitation—and although, like curated awards such as the Booker, it undoubtedly has its selection controversies, it nonetheless remains prestigious and of huge public interest.

Interesting, huh?

Heat

Birds wheel, raucous

on the cool air

that will shortly burn away

as sun muscles

through the tracery of leaves

outside my window,

heat hurled like arrows

shot by some elder god,

harsher than the cacophony

of birds darting

through the green,

limned against a blue

that is already transmuting

from crystal to crucible

as dawn evaporates

into the vanishing point

of summer…
.

© Helen Lowe, 2015

—

The original of this poem is an old work, but in the context of recent “blazing” days in our southern summer, I have given it a quick once over and sprucing up to share with you as we dive back into the Tuesday Poem for another year. I am looking forward to it; in fact, let’s turn up the heat on poetry together. 🙂

In using the phrase “into the vanishing point” I acknowledge Helen Bascand’s 2007 collection of that name.

—

To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here.

Sir Julius Vogel Award

Last week I reminded y’all that it was Sir Julius Vogel nomination time—among many other awards, I believe—and encouraged those who’d enjoyed a work of New Zealand SFFH this year to get nominating.

On Thursday, I was also upfront about the fact that I have nominated Rebecca Fisher for her fan writing, not least the Big Worlds On Small Screens column for this blog.

In passing, another SFFH afficionado mentioned that: “I suppose you make lots of nominations.”

In some years, I certainly have, but I do have a philosophy around nominations that means the number I make will vary from year to year.

First and foremost, I won’t nominate any work I haven’t read in full, so the number of nominations I make depends on how much reading I’ve managed to get done during the period of eligibility (usually the past year.)

But although I do prefer to have read a work in order to nominate it, once I’ve done that my subsequent approach is fairly straightforward: if I’ve enjoyed the work and believe it fits the criteria of the awards, then I’ll happy nominate away. The reason for this is that I like to see a good range of nominations and support both the genre and other content creators.

The only difficulty comes if there is a limit set on the number of works any one individual can nominate (this is not the case with the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, though) and I’ve enjoyed a large number of qualifying works. Then, alas, I have to choose, even at nomination stage.

Otherwise, the only time I must decide which is my favourite, is when the time comes to cast my final vote. Sometimes that can be very tough, but once again, I’ll only vote if I’ve read/viewed all the shortlist. Usually that’s not difficult, but last year I don’t recall voting for any shortlist, despite being eligible to vote on several, because I was so locked into completing Daughter of Blood that I didna have time to do the reading.

A friend asked me if I couldn’t just vote on “track record”, if I know I usually really “heart” a particular writer or artist’s work—but I feel that if the category is for a book, short story, or film  etc, one can only vote on the basis of the particular, nominated work.

Anyway, that’s me—and why, alas, I won’t be doing much nominating this year. I do hope, though, to have the bandwidth to read enough shortlisted works to get all vote-y in the final rounds—at least in some, if not all, categories of interest, such as novels and short fiction.

Living heroically… 😉

Well, I got through Week 1 of Living Heroically without too many incidents and accidents (nods to Paul Simon)—and last week also saw the return of Rebecca Fisher and Big Worlds On Small Screens on Wednesday, resuming the “Films You’ve Probably Never Heard Of” subseries that commenced at the end of last year.

This week sees a further resumption of ‘normal service’ (to use broadcasting parlance) with the Tuesday Poem swinging into the new year on—yup, you’ve guessed it!—Tuesday, while Ruffians and Roughnecks will follow next week.

Ruffians & Roughnecks

So by February 1—which of course will be my next gig on the Supernatural Underground, when the second and final instalment of Bird of Passage will post—“…on Anything, Really” should be fully transitioned into 2015.

In terms of what’s new, it looks like I may have the US and UK publication dates for Daughter Of Blood by the end of the month as well, which will be really cool.

And once we roll around into February, I’ll also be starting the Year of Living Fictionally, here, although I really commenced that on January 1, with Bird of Passage.

And I’ll keep on with posting on anything and everything, really, that’s SFF and book stuff—because, hey, that’s what spins my wheels. 😉

Yesterday I shared that the next book off the To Be Read ranks would be Jo Walton’s Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Among Others.

In order to take full advantage of my reading holiday—which, dear readers, means a holiday with lots of reading goodness added, as opposed to a holiday from reading*—I began reading at once and am already pretty sure Among Others will prove to be my kind of book. Here’s why:

On page 59, the main character, Mori, states that, “Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilization.”

Hear, hear! In fact, libraries are a glory of civilization, in my humble option—so you may see why the story is already “speaking” to me. 😉

The alchemy of food…

Then on page 91, Mori reflects on the alchemy of food:

“It was lovely to be cooking with actual food. There’s something so grounding about it. It’s not that I was doing any magic, beyond the magic it is to take big flat mushrooms and raw potatoes and turn them into something delicious. I was just making dinner. But I wonder how much of cooking for someone else is magic anyway, more than I know about. I think it all might be.”

… & “how much of cooking for someone else is magic anyway…”

As both a foodie and a keen home cook, I think it all might be, too…

And am keen to read on.

—

*In the Helen Lowe 'verse a "holiday 
from reading" is an oxymoron: 
individually each of those words 
may exist in the lexicon, but 
collectively they are meaningless.

I’ve been meaning to read a Jo Walton novel for ages, pretty much ever since she caught my attention by winning the Mythopoeic Award (Adult) for her novel Lifelode in 2010.

“But that’s almost five years ago now,” you may be thinking, in which case you are quite right. It has been a while—but  a while filled up by writing books, and blogging, and earthquakes et al, which means that getting around to all the books I’ve wanted to read hasn’t quite happened.

But with the edit of Daughter of Blood completed, I promised myself a summer break of reading and so went hunting for some of those long-awaited authors.

I couldn’t readily find Lifelode, although I’m still keen to read it at some stage, but Among Others won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012 so I imagine it will be a pretty good starting place.

What I’ve gleaned about the book from all that 2012 discussion is that effectively Among Others is a praise-song to SFF fiction, and by extension fandom, and the main character of Mori may be semi-autobiographical, in the same way that the boy in Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean At The End Of The Lane is semi-autobiographical. Nonetheless, this is what the official synopsis says:

“Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled–and her twin sister dead.

Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England–a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off…”

It does sound intriguing—so now onwards, into the reading!

Rebecca Fisher

…Rebecca Fisher for Best Fan Writing, don’t ya reckon?

On Sunday, I remembered to post a reminder that it’s Sir Julius Vogel Award nomination time—the Sir Julius Vogel Awards being given annually by SFFANZ for achievement in New Zealand Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.

I listed the categories on Sunday as well and one of them is for Best Fan Writing—and this year I’ve nominated Rebecca.

June Young (left) with Simon Litton & Trudi Canavan, Natcon’12

I would like to thank June Young, a fellow SFFANZ member and follower of Rebecca’s regular Big Worlds On Small Screens (BWOSS) column, for prompting me to do this. Since BWOSS appears on my blog, I should have been ‘all over it already’ and can only claim post-edit-completion fuzzy brain by way of an excuse. Needless to say, once June had given the fuzzy brain a nudge, I could only wonder at my own lack of focus.

Here’s why:

• Rebecca has been posting the Big Worlds On Small Screens column, discussing an array of SFFH (Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror) television shows and films, every fortnight for eighteen months. I believe her discussion of the shows demonstrate insight and a clear love of the genre—and blog followers must agree, since two of the BWOSS columns were amongst this blog’s Top 10 Posts for 2014.

But wait, there is more:

• Rebecca not only provides consistent discussion of SFFH TV and film here, through BWOSS, but she also posts regularly on TV shows, films, and books on her own They’re All Fictional blog, the successor to her Ravenya03 Livejournal; and

• Since 2008, Rebecca has been a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, an international website that specializes in reviewing fantasy and science-fiction novels. Rebecca’s review profile is here and her list of reviews extensive; and

• As if all this were not enough, Rebecca is also an Amazon Top 1000 reviewer, where a significant proportion of her reviews comprise SFFH titles.

Sir JVA’s past…

More than sufficient grounds, in my humble opinion, to warrant a nomination for Best Fan Writer. Accordingly, I have forwarded my nomination to the Sir Julius Vogel Awards Subcommittee.

As noted on Sunday, “anyone may make a nomination (although only members of SFFANZ and those attending the National Science Fiction-Fantasy Convention can vote for the shortlisted works.)” Also, “the shortlists are determined by the number of nominations received.” So the more nominations Rebecca receives the better her chances of making the final shortlist.

So if you enjoy Big Worlds On Small Screens you may wish to make a nomination as well. To do so, you must:

1. Email the Sir Julius Vogel Award Subcommitte: sjv_awards@sffanz.org.nz;

2. Put the nomination category & name of the nominee in the title line: e.g. Nomination For Best Fan Writing — Rebecca Fisher;

3. In the body of the email, state your reasons for making the nomination with particular reference to the nominee’s contributing achievements.

The full details on how to nominate are set out here.

Also, if you know of others you wish to nominate, whether for fan writing or in any of the other professional or fan categories, then may I encourage you to do so, since the whole point of the awards is to celebrate achievement—but that can only happen if we all actively nominate those we believe have achieved.

~ by Rebecca Fisher

In its purest form, Attack the Block is an alien B-movie, but instead of the action taking place on a global scale, it concentrates on a run-down council block in south London. Its protagonists are a bunch of teenagers who are refreshingly played by (gasp!) actual teenage actors. The aliens aren’t super-soldiers intent on mass destruction or in taking over the world, but instead act upon far more primal, biological urges. Writer/director Joe Cornish uses a shoestring budget to put together a sci-fi thriller that subtly touches on class issues and race relations in the midst of an alien attack, and it all makes for a unique and innovative take on the alien invasion theme.

Picture this: a young nurse is walking home from work when she’s set upon by a gang of masked delinquents who demand she give up her phone and wallet. The youth in charge demands her ring, and things looks as though they’re about to turn ugly when the mugging is interrupted by a large unidentified object hurtling out of the sky and crashing into a car right next to them.

You know what happens next, right? The woman will rush back to her apartment to rally the neighbours for the imminent alien attack, while the teenage hoodlums are quickly disposed of; the unsympathetic victims who are killed off to demonstrate the ferocity of the outerspace invaders.

Well, you’d be completely wrong.

Sam (the nurse) makes a run for it, while Moses (the gang leader) investigates the car, gets a nasty scratch across his face from the alien lurking inside, and leads his fellow cohorts across the park to bash it to death with planks of wood. The boys head back home with their trophy, carrying it all the way up to the top floor of their council block to stash it in the local marijuana grower’s weed room.

The Gang

It’s up there that they witness more of the aliens crashing down to earth, and proceed to do exactly what you’d expect any teenage hoodlum to do in this situation – head back down to kill more of them.

But this new wave of aliens don’t go down as easily as the first one. With the speed and strength of simians and sharp rows of bioluminescent teeth, these terrifying creatures quickly accrue a significant body count. Taking refuge back in the council block, the teenagers run into a terrified Sam, and convince her that whatever threat they pose to her, the aliens outside are ten times worse. Together they make their way back up to the weed room, believed to be the safest part of the building.

At this point you might be asking yourself why you would want to watch a film where the “heroes” are a bunch of delinquent muggers – well, that’s what character development is for. It’s important to note that the mugging is never condoned or swept under the rug, and that if there’s any overt message to the film it’s that actions have consequences. Moses and the boys learn this lesson the hard way after their first encounter with the alien, eventually realizing that there’s a specific reason why these aliens seem to have a vested interest in their whereabouts.

Moses and the aliens

Winding in and out of the narrative are other characters to help or hinder the teens: a pot-smoking college student, a drug-dealing criminal, a couple of nine year olds who insist on being called Props and Mayhem, a group of teenage girls who are easily the most intelligent characters in the film, and Nick Frost in a small role (with the best lines) as Ron the weed-grower.

It alternates between suspense and horror, but is perhaps most noteworthy for its humour. Most of it is what I’m going to coin “panic humour”, in which the laughs are derived from the frantic and hysterical deliveries of the actors as their characters struggle to stay alive. And if all that’s not enough to pique your interest, consider that the actor playing Moses – John Boyega – will soon be starring in the latest Star Wars film.

Next Time: The Secret of Kells

An animated film that’s not from Disney/Pixar, Ghibli or Dreamworks studios is a rare thing, but The Secret of Kells is a beautifully crafted gem that’s inspired by the illuminated manuscript known as the Book of Kells.

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

The hero goes on a journey…

As mentioned recently, fellow Supernatural Underground-er, Amanda Arista’s post-series on Living Heroically was one of my favourites of 2014. In it, Amanda followed the steps of the classic Hero’s Journey, starting with the opening gambit of: “But I Don’t Wanna,” said Every Hero Ever.

Yesterday, when looking ahead to 2015, I mentioned that 2015 will be “be the year when the insurance repairs to the earthquake damage on our house should at least start, if not be finished.” And that it’s going to be a big job, but that it might also be fun to blog about it, using the steps of the hero’s journey in my own personal “year of living heroically.” Maybe…

So why, heroically? Well, here’s the thing, exactly as Amanda set out in Step 1 for the classic epic hero’s journey: I really “don’t wanna.” 😉

A disaster of magnitude…

Obviously, I “do” want to get our house repaired: that, after all, is why I’ve been paying insurance premiums all thse years. But given the size of the disaster in Christchurch and the number of repairs and rebuilds needing to be undertaken, fixing houses like ours are taking a long time—up to a year seems to be “not unusual” at present.

The repairs required for our house are of such magnitude that we will have to move out and find somewhere else to live, in a city where accommodation is in short supply and consequently rents and house prices have both soared. So there’s that.

Where much got twisted…

But the “I don’t wanna” also ties into the level of disruption, when I have WALL4 to write and the book writing happens best when I have uninterrupted time to concentrate on the story… Not to mention having to come to try and educate myself about geotechnical and structural reports, and post-earthquake building requirements, and scopes-of-works and all sorts of other things associated with a major building project.

Which, dear readers, I would Never Voluntarily Have Signed Up For. I know some folk love building and renovating houses and spend a lot of time doing it, but I am Not One Of Those People. I would much rather Just Write My Books than do house renovations.

But the earthquake of February 22, 2011 took all that out of my hands, leaving both significant foundation damage and a twisted house, so repaired it must be. Nonetheless, from where I’m standing right now the terrain is definitely terra incognita—and there could be dragons. Or taniwha. Or both.

So I am in exactly the same case as the hero on Amanda Arista’s epic journey when she wrote:

“…[When]…refusing the call…the hero…[is]…not just saying, “No I don’t want to,” but more along the lines of “I’m afraid because of …” That dot-dot-dot is the real part of themselves that they will have to overcome in the adventure ahead.”

Like the disruption and distraction from the Writing Mission mentioned above, and having to educate myself about the process and take personal responsibility for ensuring the job is done right. Now it maybe that I love the process so much I turn into a Serial Renovator and I certainly think it behoves me to be open to enjoying the adventure and maybe even Having Fun with it. But still, I could have related to being a Farm Gal Without An Epic Destiny, to be perfectly honest…

The epic journey begins…

But like all epic heroes and heroines, I must shoulder my Duty and Embrace Destiny and step out onto the Road of Adventure that Runs Ever On…Which happens today, in fact, because today is the day for the ever-important Scope of Works, which will determine the full parameters of the repair project.

Unlike Bilbo, however, when he ran out of Bag End to join the company of Thorin Oakenshield, I shall be sure to have a pocket handkerchief on me as the Epic Journey of Earthquake Repairs begins. 😉