As explained on Friday, thanks to my nefarious bookish connections I have three YA novels to give away. 🙂

The three novels are (in alphabetical order by author):

Rae Carson’s Fire and Thorns (Gollancz)

Just in case you haven’t heard of it, here’s a the intro snippet from the back cover:

“Princess Elisa is a disappointment to her people. Although she bears the Godstone in her navel, a sign that she has been chosen for an act of heroism, they view her as lazy, useless and fat…”

It was also longlisted for the Gemmell Morningstar Award this year.

—

Kristin Cashore’s Bitterblue (Gollancz)

*Note: this is a proof copy

And the intro snippet is: “Eight years have passed since the young princess Bitterblue and her country were saved from the vicious King Leck. Now Bitterblue is the Queen of Monsea and her land is at peace…”

Do you reckon it will stay peaceful though? (I reckon you could be right…)

You’ll also recall that I did a very enjoyable interview with Kristin Cashore earlier this year, which you can read here.

—

Tamora Pierce’s Beka Cooper: Mastiff (Scholastic)

Yes, another of Tamora Pierce’s novels in the wonderful Tortall world!

And the snippet is: “Beka Cooper’s life takes an unexpected turn when her fiance is killed on a raid … and in the span of hours she is plunged ito a case that threatens the future of the Tortallan royal family and the Tortallan government itself…”

High stakes stuff indeed, but I am sure that Beka, like all of Tamora Pierce’s heroines, will be more than up for it.

—

To enter the giveaway:

Just comment on this post and/or any other post on the blog before this coming Friday, 2 November, when I will post the outcome. Basically, your name will be entered in the draw every time you comment on each “distinct” post—plus I’ll add in a bonus entry if I see retweets.

(If you really want to comment on a particular post but don’t want to be in the draw, just put “n.i.d.”—”not in draw”—at the end of your comment.)

That’s it, easy peasy—& I hope will help keep the reading wheel turning!

—

1 November Note: I will post the result of the draw at the top of the blog masthead on Friday evening, NZ time, so look for it there, not here. Looking forward to the draw on Friday and thanks for all your comments.

An exchange took place on Twitter recently, between myself and a few other “tweeps” (Twitter ‘peeps’, for those who don’t know ;-))

It went like this:

Opening quote: “There isn’t any secret. You sit down and you start and that’s it.” ~ Elmore Leonard

My reply: “Also, you then keep going, i.e. “The way is easy: keep going. The way is hard: keep going. Keep going.‘” ~ first heard from zen teacher Sensei Amala Wrightson (but it may have been a quote.)

Answering quote: “There’s a word for a writer who never quit: PUBLISHED.” ~ JA Konrath

Mind you, in response to the latter, Nick Mamatas has the following to say earlier this year, in a post titled “Ten Bits of Advice Writers Should Stop Giving Aspiring Writers”:

And yes, right there at No. 1 we have — Don’t Give Up:

“… Most people should give up. Find out whether someone has any potential first before arbitrarily telling someone to waste years of their lives, and worse, moments of the lives of editors who have to look at their nonsense.”

So there you are, dear Sunday readers, make of it what you will! 😀

.

Personally though, I still *heart* last Sunday’s quote:

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit at the typewriter and bleed.”

– Ernest Hemingway

I really love history, both historical non fiction as well as the fiction, but there is nothing more satisfying than reading primary sources, i.e. the material that was written by the people of the actual time. (I mean, how cool is that?)

Of course, for that to happen, first you have to have a literary society—both to write the words then, and read them again now. I’m fairly sure that most of 5th Century BC Greek society (yes, even the male part) was non literate, but fortunately the elite were very literate indeed and hence we can still delve into first hand—if subjective—accounts such as Xenophon’s Anabasis-–and as of today (in my case), the Hellenika.

Xenophon’s Hellenika is one of the—if not “the”—primary sources for the events of the final seven years and aftermath of the Peloponnesian War (between the two 5th century BC Greek states, Athens and Sparta.)

Hellenika was written by Xenophon, an Athenian nobleman who served first with Athens, then later (after Athens was finally defeated by Sparta) participated in the expedition of Cyrus the Younger against Cyrus’ brother, the Persian King Artaxerces II. (The account of the withdrawal of the Greek troops from Persia, after the death of Cyrus the Younger, is told in the Anabasis.)  Later Xenophon joined the Spartan army and so was exiled from Athens.

In addition to the Hellenika, a number of Xenophon’s  essays have survived, including one on his memories of his teacher, Socrates.

According to the cover blurb: “Hellenika covers the years of the Peloponnesian wars between 411 and 362 B.C.E., a particularly dramatic period during which the alliances among the Greek city states Athens, Sparta and Thebes, and the Persian empire, were in constant flux. Together with the volumes of Herodotus and Thucydides, it completes an ancient narrative of the military and political history of classical Greece.”

The book itself is beautiful and I’m delighted to finally have a copy to peruse—although given it’s detail, which includes both the actual words of Xenophon, but also scholarly introductions, notes and appendices, perusal in full may take some time.

In the meantime. here’s what The New Yorker had to say about it when published in 2011:

“The mostly densely annotated, richly illustrated, and user-friendly edition of his [Xenophon’s] Histories ever to appear.”

From a first look through, check to both “densely annotated” and “richly illustrated“—user-friendly remains to be seen on reading. But what a privilege, to be able to read the accounts first penned by a man who lived 2,500 years ago.

Just sayin’…

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Thanks to my nefarious bookish connections I have three YA novels to give away—so since I haven’t done a giveaway for a while, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

The three novels are (in alphabetical order by author):

Rae Carson’s Fire and Thorns (Gollancz)

Just in case you haven’t heard of it, here’s a the intro snippet from the back cover:

“Princess Elisa is a disappointment to her people. Although she bears the Godstone in her navel, a sign that she has been chosen for an act of heroism, they view her as lazy, useless and fat…”

—

Kristin Cashore’s Bitterblue (Gollancz)

*Note: this is a proof copy

And the intro snippet is: “Eight years have passed since the young princess Bitterblue and her country were saved from the vicious King Leck. Now Bitterblue is the Queen of Monsea and her land is at peace…”

Do you reckon it will stay peaceful though? (I reckon you could be right…)

You’ll also recall that I did a very enjoyable interview with Kristin Cashore earlier this year, which you can read here.

—

Tamora Pierce’s Beka Cooper: Mastiff (Scholastic)

Yes, another of Tamora Pierce’s novels in the wonderful Tortall world!

And the snippet is: “Beka Cooper’s life takes an unexpected turn when her fiance is killed on a raid … and in the span of hours she is plunged ito a case that threatens the future of the Tortallan royal family and the Tortallan government itself…”

High stakes stuff inded, but I am sure that Beka, like all of Tamora Pierce’s heroines, will be more than up for it. 😉

—

To enter the giveaway:

Just comment on this post and/or any other post on the blog before next Friday, 2 November, when I will post the outcome. Basically, your name will be entered in the draw every time you comment on each “distinct” post—plus I’ll add in a bonus entry if I see retweets. 😉

(If you really want to comment on a particular post but don’t want to be in the draw, just put “n.i.d.”—“not in draw”—at the end of your comment.)

That’s it—easy peasy! Now let’s have some fun.:)

—

1 November Note: I will post the result of the draw at the top of the blog masthead on Friday evening, NZ time, so look for it there, not here. Looking forward to the draw on Friday and thanks for all your comments. 🙂

In part sparked by Abhinav Jain’s guest author series on “Names A New Perspective”—which was titled “The Power of Names”—as well as the recent SF Signal Mind Meld  on Heroes, here, I’ve been reflecting on characters and character development lately.

The initial posts on my reflections are here and here.

Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about minor characters, in particular how I take as much care with naming them as I do with the central protagonists. In part that’s because of the phenomenon I talked about in “The Power of Names”—and also in my post last Thursday—in which changing a name can change a character’s personality and role in the story.  Even if that’s an entirely positive process, it’s still a dynamic to be aware—if not wary—of.

Another thing I said in Thursday’s post was: “Because characters, it seems, just like real people, have minds of their own—but perhaps that’s because, if I’m doing my job right, within the pages of the book they are real people: they have to be, in fact, in order to live for you on the page.”

The codicil I want to add today is that the statement is just as true for minor characters as it is for major ones. One of the telling measures of writing quality for me is whether the minor characters, for whatever brief time they are on the stage of the story, live and breathe and are real. When a writer does this successfully it adds depth and texture, as well as conviction, to the story—in my opinion. I know it adds greatly to my personal enjoyment of the read.

One way I like to think about this in my own writing is that even if a character is not important to the story being told, he or she (or it, in the case of certain speculative entities) will be important to him or herself. Even the most minor of characters will have a history and a life that matters to them, and as the writer I have to convey a sense of that, even if the reader will only ever catch the most fleeting glimpse of the character on the page.

To convince though, the glimpse the reader catches must feel real and three-dimensional—as real and believable as the main characters, albeit for a much shorter period of time.

I greatly admire authors who can do this with a key word or phrase that cements the character convincingly—but without overdoing the page time allowed, given the character”s place in this story (if not their own) is still minor.

Like most authors I get asked a lot of questions, not just about my stories and characters but also more generally about the writing life.

And some folk out there have noticed that I don’t just talk about my own books and writing on the blog, but also about other writers, as well as doing interviews with fellow authors, book reports on books I’m reading and enjoying, and being a member of communities such as the Tuesday Poets and SpecFicNZ.

So the question I get asked is: “why do you do that, because aren’t authors in competition to sell their writing?”

My answer is always:

Sure, if all readers only liked one kind of story and only ever bought one book, then certainly—authors would be in competition for that one slot. But thankfully, the world is fill of people who love all kinds of different stories and consequently read and also buy many different kinds of books—and no one writer could ever possibly satisfy all the reading needs, of all the readers, all of the time. So it needs a lot of authors writing lots of different kinds of stories, and experimenting and trying the new, as well as bringing fresh voices to the old and loved, to meet that demand.

So in that sense authors are as much in co-operation to generate that diversity as we are in competition, in my humble opinion.

But just to expand on the answer a little, another reason for preferring to work in a spirit of community and mutual support is because one of the reasons I’m a writer is that I love reading and I love story. And of course I do write the kind of stories I love reading—but like all those other readers in the world I don’t like only one kind of book and/or story. I love a wide range of tales, and ways of telling those tales to boot—so I really want and need other authors out there writing more stories for me to enjoy. 😉

And not to share and celebrate what I take delight in reading—well quite aside from feeling rather mean spirited, would also be to stint the Muses of their rightful due, and that would never do!

(The logos belong to writing communities I am proud to be part of.)

Tom O’ Bedlam’s Song

.

From the hagg and hungrie goblin

That into raggs would rend ye,

And the spirit that stands by the naked man

In the Book of Moones – defend ye!

That of your five sound senses

You never be forsaken,

Nor wander from your selves with Tom

Abroad to beg your bacon.

(Chorus; sung after every verse)

While I doe sing “any foode, any feedinge,

Money, drinke or clothing,”

Come dame or maid, be not afraid,

Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Of thirty bare years have I

Twice twenty been enraged,

And of forty been three times fifteen

In durance soundly caged.

On the lordly lofts of Bedlam,

With stubble soft and dainty,

Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips ding-dong,

With wholesome hunger plenty.

With a thought I took for Maudlin

And a cruse of cockle pottage,

With a thing thus tall, skie blesse you all,

I befell into this dotage.

I slept not since the Conquest,

Till then I never waked,

Till the roguish boy of love where I lay

Me found and stript me naked.

When I short have shorne my sowre face

And swigged my horny barrel,

In an oaken inn I pound my skin

As a suit of gilt apparel.

The moon’s my constant Mistrisse,

And the lowly owl my morrowe,

The flaming Drake and the Nightcrow make

Me music to my sorrow.

The palsie plagues my pulses

When I prigg your pigs or pullen,

Your culvers take, or matchless make

Your Chanticleers, or sullen.

When I want provant, with Humfrie

I sup, and when benighted,

I repose in Powles with waking souls

Yet never am affrighted.

I know more than Apollo,

For oft, when he lies sleeping

I see the stars at bloody wars

In the wounded welkin weeping,

The moone embrace her shepherd

And the queen of Love her warrior,

While the first doth horne the star of morne,

And the next the heavenly Farrier.

The Gipsie Snap and Pedro

Are none of Tom’s companions.

The punk I skorne and the cut purse sworne

And the roaring boyes bravadoe.

The meek, the white, the gentle,

Me handle touch and spare not

But those that crosse Tom Rynosseros

Do what the panther dare not.

With a host of furious fancies

Whereof I am commander,

With a burning spear and a horse of air,

To the wilderness I wander.

By a knight of ghostes and shadowes

I summon’d am to tourney

Ten leagues beyond the wild world’s end.

Methinks it is no journey.

.

— Anonymous (possibly Traditional)

About the Poem:

I have been meaning to feature Tom O’ Bedlam’s song or ballad for some time since it is a long time favourite, although initially I only knew the concluding two stanzas:

With a host of furious fancies

Whereof I am commander,

With a burning spear and a horse of air,

To the wilderness I wander.

By a knight of ghostes and shadowes

I summon’d am to tourney

Ten leagues beyond the wild world’s end.

Methinks it is no journey.

As a lover of fantasy, it’s perhaps not surprising that I was much taken with the many fantastical elements of the poem as well as the sense of adventure. Later, I understood that “Bedlam” referred to the Bethelehem Hospital for those with mental illness, and so “poor Tom” would have been either meant to be an ex-patient or one who displayed similar characteristics. A Tom O’ Bedlam could also refer to vagrants that lived on the roads and begged for  a living, regardless of whether they were mentally ill or not.

Harold Bloom, in “How To Read and Why” (Scribner, 2000) has the following to say about the poem, and although I am not prepared to say it is “the greatest” (not having read all the traditional ballads) I do think it is a great example of the form, both for the richness of the language and imagery, as well as its powerful rhythm and rhyme:

“Part of the fascination of the Popular Ballads is their anonymity. Not even the best among them is quite of the eminence of the greatest anonymous lyric in the language, “Tom O’Bedlam”, first discovered in a commonplace book of about 1620, four years after the death of Shakespeare.” 

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To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub—and link to other Tuesday Poets posting around NZ and the world—either click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.

One of these sidebar sites is the blog of Helen McKinlay—& today Helen has my poem, Tomo, featured on her site.  I feel the poem needs to speak for itself (or not as the case may be:)) but for non New Zealand readers, “Tomo” is the Maori word for cave.

To go straight to Helen’s blog and Tomo, click here.

UK/AUS/NZ

Since I work hard on my books, I thought what better way to enjoy NZ’s Labour Day holiday than with the latest UK review for The Gathering of the Lost! 🙂

The review site is Fantasy Reviews and I’m pleased to say that they like the book, giving it not only 5 stars but a “highly, highly, highly recommended.”

(And as all of us who dabble in Fantasy fiction know, what you tell me three times is always true… ;-))

USA

But to check out the review for yourself, click here.

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit at the typewriter and bleed.”

— Ernest Hemingway

Karen McMillan is a friend and fellow New Zealand author—and she also does reviews, generally across a range of literature genres (although not usually SFF/speculative fiction.)

If you’re interested in reviews, particularly in the contemporary realism, crime-thriller, chicklit and non fiction areas, you should definitely check out Karen’s review page, here.

One of the books recently reviewed by Karen is Kate Mosse’s novel Citadel, the third in her timeslip (which is, after all, a form of speculative fiction) series that began with the international bestseller Labyrinth, and continued with Sepulchre. Today, with Karen’s permission, I am publishing her full review for Citadel here.

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Review: “Citadel” (Orion Publishing, 2012, 704 pp) by Kate Mosse

Release date: 30 October

Review by Karen McMillan

This is an impressive ‘time-slip’ novel that encompasses two story lines that come to an explosive intersection near the end of the book. Both stories are set in the far south of France in Carcassonne, evoking the eerie beauty of the region. One story concerns a monk and an ancient script, a Codex, that has the ability to summon up a ghost army back in AD 340. The main story is set in the World War II. Sandrine is a young naive woman, living with her older sister Marianne, until a demonstration in their local village goes wrong and innocent people are injured. At the demonstration, she meets Raoul, a young man who mysteriously saved her life by the river but then disappeared. The connection between them is instant and it doesn’t take long for them to begin a torrid love affair, even though he is a wanted man by the Gestapo. Sandrine learns the truth of what is happening under her nose and joins her sister and her friends in a female-only Resistance group, taking increasingly dangerous jobs in their fight for freedom. But then she meets the elusive Monsieur Baillard, who is looking for the Codex that is centuries old that he believes will help them in their time of need, and Sandrine becomes the crucial person in summoning this ancient power.

This is a remarkable novel.  It has intrigue, danger and true emotional clout. The ending will leave you winded, but you will want to read on to the very last page. A bittersweet, beautifully written novel, original, thought-provoking and completely engaging.

For more information on Kate Mosse’s writing, see her site here

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About the Reviewer:

Karen McMillan lives in New Zealand and is the author of both fiction and non-fiction. She has a Diploma in Professional Writing and an Advanced Diploma of Applied Arts (Writing). Her non fiction title,  Love in Aotearoa, was short-listed for the Ashton Wylie Book Award in 2005.

Previously an award-winning fashion designer, Karen has worked full-time for a leading book publisher based in New Zealand for the past twelve years. Karen has written articles for a variety of different publications and from time to time she takes on ghost-writing projects. She also volunteers for her local hospice and writes articles that promote the life-affirming work that they do.