I haven’t had a lot of time for reading lately because ‘there’s been  a lot happening’ with both trying to get some traction on writing the next book in The Wall of Night series and doing all the necessary and very important publicity around release of The Gathering of the Lost. Running-just-to-stand-still time, that’s for sure.

But in amongst all of that, I have still managed to read and thoroughly enjoy Jane Higgins’ The Bridge, which is future dystopian SFF for YA readers—although I feel it will appeal to discerning readers of all ages.

And I’m not the only person who thinks it’s  a great read: The Bridge won the Text Prize in 2011 and is currently shortlisted for the NZ Post Children’s Book Awards.

Both very well deserved successes imho.

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I also recently finished reading Kristin Cashore’s latest YA Fantasy, Bitterblue (featured under “Just Arrived” here), which I also enjoyed. In fact  it may just be my favourite Kristin Cashore yet—yes, even though one of those previously read titles was Graceling.

And there is the possibility of an interview with  Kristin Cashore sometime in June—so watch this space for that.

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So how about you? What are you reading and enjoying right now?

Vanda Symon

Recently I was privileged to have the opportunity to talk with Dunedin crime author and interviewer, Vanda Symon, on the NZ Society of Authors’ “Write On” show on Otago Access Radio.

It’s wonderful to have the opportunity to do an indepth interview, so I hope you will enjoy the scope of Vanda’s questions—and my replies, of course!

(Plus, for those of you who are not New Zealanders, our famous ability to reduce what for most of the English-speaking world is 5 vowel sounds down to around 2.5… 😉 )

To listen to the interview, please click Here.

(There’s a short intro but the interview begins about 1.5o minutes in.)

Children’s illustrator and author, Maurice Sendak, perhaps best known for the children’s picture book, Where The Wild Things Are died on May 8, aged 83.

The New York Times has run a full obituary, Here.

Not surprisingly, there are other tributes across the world, including in the Washington Post and the Guardian.

Farewell, Maurice Sendak: however much Where The Wild Things Are and your other work may carry on, you will be greatly missed.

I clicked through on to SF Signal last night—a regular blog stop for me these days and perhaps worth checking out if you haven’t already—and saw that they had a new ‘Mind Meld’ up—on the oh so fascinating topic of Book Trailers!

And there are some equally fascinating commentators, including my good friend and fellow author, Mary Victoria—carrying the banner for the Antipodes and the ladies!—as well as E.D. deBirmingham,  Cooper Moo and Mark Teppo, all from The Mongoliad project, Scott Sigler, and Simon Spanton of Orion Publishing.

I think there are some very interesting points-of-view included and the only sector I feel is clearly missing is that of Paranormal Romance—because I know my writing colleagues, the very savvy ladies of the Supernatural Underground, have considerable experience of book trailers!

But still, this latest Mind Meld is well worth a read—if only to see the amusing trailer from Neal Stephenson and the team at The Mongoliad project!

You can check it out Right Here.

(And if you’re so minded, do leave a comment!)

USA

Two new reviews have come in for The Gathering of the Lost.

Rebecca Fisher has reviewed Gathering for Fantasy Literature under the heading: “Immensely Satisfying Sequel.”

You can read the review in full Here.

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UK/AUS/NZ

And The Otago Daily Times (NZ’s oldest independent newspaper, I believe) has also weighed in with a review, in this case under the headline “NZ Author Does The Trick With Fantasy.”

The review was by Dr McKinney.

You can read the review online Here.

Today I am the guest editor for the Tuesday Poem Hub where I have featured VA Hospital Confessional by US poet, Brian Turner, from his second collection Phantom Noise, which was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize in 2010.

And I have even written a commentary!

So I would love it if you clicked through to The Tuesday Poem and read the poem—and maybe the commentary. And perhaps, if you really felt moved by the spirit, even left a comment. 😉

Click to Read VA Hospital Confessional by Brian Turner, Here

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Also, by clicking through to the Hub you get to read all the really great poems by other poets in our international Tuesday community, all featured in the blog’s side bar.

During the recent Blog Tour, the question of ‘influences on story’, particularly in relation to world building, came up a few times. And there is at least one interview still ‘out there’ (ie not published yet) where I specifically get asked about living in the country that has, as  result of the Sir Peter Jackson films of The Lord of the Rings (and now The Hobbit) become synonymous with Middle Earth.

For any fan of epic fantasy, Tolkien’s Middle Earth has to be one of the definitive fantastic worlds. As a fan of epic fantasy growing up in New Zealand though, I always conceived Middle Earth, especially the Shire, but also regions such as Rohan, as very much rural England. A far cry from New Zealand’s alpine South Island and a North Island that ranges from the arid central desert to the semi-tropical north—or so I thought until The Lord of the Rings (LoTR) films were made here.

Given that New Zealand is a fairly small country, there are now very few parts of the country that cannot lay a claim to being part “Middle Earth,” from Hobbiton to the Black Gates of Mordor.

And recently, a friend passing through town said (something like):  “You know that part in Heir, where Malian and Kalan cross the river into Jaransor and there’s rose briars and thorn scrub on the hillside, and thyme growing wild beneath their horses hooves? I couldn’t help thinking, ‘that does seem a lot like Central Otago.’”

And, of course, it is—although not the part that filmgoers will immediately recognize as Rohan from the early sequences in The Two Towers (LoTR2). But fairly close by, all the same. “So”—my friend then demanded—“does this mean that all of the Jaransor landscape is pretty much Central Otago?”

To which I had, reluctantly, to say “no.” There were several other real-world landscapes that influenced my concept of Jaransor. For example:

“She walked on alone to the edge of the trees, staring out over wild terrain to the west and the steep, bush-clad heights bathed in evening amber, and was struck again by the immensity of the land, and a sky that held nothing except the falcon’s hovering speck.”

In this scene, what Malian sees is very close to the view from the heights of Australia’s Great Dividing Range—a very long way from both both Central Otago and Rohan, in Middle Earth. But all world building in my fantasy is an amalgam: of real places that I have seen; of places I have not seen but imagine from written descriptions, still photos, and film; as well as places from history that I can only visualize as they may once have been.

Sometimes vision may be inspired by an account, but more often it is simply by the idea of what a place was or might have been.

Jaransor by PJ Fitzpatrick

Ultimately there is the purely fantastic—the leap of imagination that can springboard from the wild thyme underfoot of Central Otago, to vistas seen from the Great Dividing Range, to ruined towers which have shadows that exist out of time, in a chain of hills that may themselves be sentient and drive the unwary mad…

I suspect that Tolkien’s Middle Earth evolved from a similar amalgam of the real through to the purely imaginary. But it is undoubtedly very special, as a writer of fantasy fiction—and epic fantasy, what’s more, in the case of The Wall of Night series—to live and write within the landscapes in which the film versions of The Lord of the Rings were so vividly imagined.

I have very much enjoyed having friend and fellow author, Nicole Murphy, as my guest this weekend, discussing “When the Heroine Swoops In To Save The Day.”

If you haven’t read her guest post already then check it out immediately below this post, or just click Here.

It certainly got me thinking how much I loved Tarzan as a kid, particularly all the Johnny Weissmuller re-runs that seemed to replay endlessly early on Sunday afternoons. There seemed to be a neverending run of them but now I learn that there were only 12 that starred him—yet a aforesaid, they seeemd endless.

Or perhaps he was the Tarzan who stood out, so that he is the one I remember amongst what may have been many others—who knows?

As a young teen I read most of the Tarzan books as well, finding them very different to the films, particularly in terms of the characters of both Tarzan and Jane. Reading the books also introduced me to the adjective “dusky” in conjuction with the word “maiden.”  I do remember puzzling over what exactly the author might be meaning to convey… but worked it out through context!  😉

Speaking of heroines swooping in to save the day though, found a nice quote re The Heir of Night lurking out there in the Gemmell Award discussion in interweb land:

“Ms. Lowe … gracefully parts from tradition with the way she addresses gender – positively and effortlessly.”

How about that then–a bit of alright, I thought!

Introduction:

As many of you may know, I am a member of a wonderful collective of international paranormal authors known as the Supernatural Underground.

Although most of my Supernatural Underground colleagues live far away in North America and Canada, several are located just across the Tasman in the Lucky Country, aka Australia. One of these Tasmanauts—given she has crossed that 2000 km stretch of water several times now for conventions and writing retreats—is Nicole Murphy, author of the Dreams of Asarlai (Harper Voyager) trilogy.

Today I am delighted to welcome Nicole back to “…on Anything, Really” as part of her Blog Tour to celebrate publication of her new Fantasy-Romance novella, The Right Connection.

So without further ado, here is Nicole with her guest post on:

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When The Heroine Swoops In To Save The Day

If you’re like me, the moment you hear of anyone swooping in to save the day, you think of Tarzan. Maybe you will then go on to think of George of the Jungle, although there was less saving of the day there.

Tarzan is pretty cool. The whole concept of swinging through the jungle is aces in my book and I’m really pleased Edgar Rice Burroughs came up with it.

Tarzan was far from the last man to swoop in to save the day (and most often that involved saving the heroine from some stupid problem she’d got herself into) and after a while, all those men saving those hapless women gets a girl down.

I grew up reading Lewis, Tolkien, Brooks, Moorcock, where it was pretty consistently the hero swooping in. Even when I discovered romance in my late teens, I was still often finding that at the end of the day the hero would swoop in, save the heroine, declare his undying love and then swoop her away to a perfect life.

And I got over it.

Now, it must be said, there are times when it can’t be avoided. In my contemporary romance ‘Arranged to Love’ (which I hope you’ll all be able to read later this year), the hero Jack is the only person who can save the heroine Maddie from the mess she’s in. But a) it wasn’t her mess to begin with, she was trying to save her father and b) he has to sacrifice in order to save her. It’s not an easy choice for either of them, but it is the final act that allows them to admit their love for each other and their determination to overcome obstacles to be together.

But there are times when you can make the choice, such as I did in ‘Secret Ones’. Initially, the dramatic final act of the book featured Maggie getting in trouble, and Lucas saving her (sorry for the vagueness, don’t want to spoil it). I liked it, because Lucas had to use his human skills and it was a nice juxtaposition against the fact gadda power (magic) couldn’t save her. But about the time that I was getting ready to submit it was when I lost all patience with the ‘hero swooping in to save the heroine and the day’ trope. I changed it and in the published version, Maggie saves Lucas. I lost that lovely touch of the human saving the magical being, but I gained a fabulously strong ending for a wonderful heroine.

In my latest publication, ‘The Right Connection’, the fact that Taylor (the heroine) is the one who swoops in to save Roden (the hero) came about quite organically. In that society, war is fought using telepathy. Fighters (the muscle) are on the front line, doing the hard yards, while the soldiers (the brains) are locked away safely, directing the fighters via their telepathic communication. So when Roden gets in trouble, Taylor is the one who’s free to do something about it. And she does, even if he doesn’t welcome her involvement.

I had a ball writing this story. When I got to the point of realising how much trouble Roden was in, and how Taylor was the only one who could save him, I gave a pretty big cheer. I love it when a woman gets to show what she’s truly capable of.

But I must end this with a plea – if I end up in the middle of a jungle in some sort of ridiculous danger, TARZAN COME SAVE ME!

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About Nicole Murphy:

Nicole Murphy has been a primary school teacher, bookstore owner, journalist and checkout chick. She grew up reading Tolkien, Lewis and Le Guin; spent her twenties discovering Quick, Lindsey and Deveraux, and lives her love of science fiction and fantasy through her involvement with the Conflux science fiction conventions. Her urban fantasy trilogy Dream of Asarlai is published in Australia/NZ by HarperVoyager. She’s just commenced a new venture, In fabula-divinos (http://thetaletellers.wordpress.com) which is aimed at mentoring up-and-coming writers. She lives with her husband in Queanbeyan, NSW. Visit her website http://nicolermurphy.com and you can also follow her on Twitter: @nicole_r_murphy

My publisher, Hachette NZ, is giving away an advanced reading copy of Kim Stanley Robinson’s forthcoming novel, 2312.

But to enter, you have to comment on Hachette NZ’s FaceBook site, The Realm, before 5 pm today, 4 May.

So hie thee to The Realm and enter, Here.

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Just to whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt from the back cover text:

 “The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity’s only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future.

The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. It is an unexpected death, but one that might have been foreseen. For Swan Er Hong, it is an event that will change her life. Swan was once a woman who designed worlds. Now she will be led into a plot to destroy them.”

And here’s what Iain M Banks has to say:

‘Exuberantly speculative in a way only the best SF can be.’

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So there you are—what are you waiting for: go enter that giveaway!