On December 1, here,  I was shaking my head over the Nebula Awards nomination process for 2012 already being open—but I’m expecting the Sir Julius Vogel Awards to be open again very soon as well. The dates haven’t been posted yet, but the nomination period last year was 1 January to 31 March—and I’d like to make some nominations if I can, so I’m starting to get together some NZ authored fiction to read over the next few months.

So I’m really pleased that Joanna Orwin’s Sacrifice (a YA book) has just arrived, which means I’ll be able to get started. You may recall that Joanna and I were both guests at the Hurunui Friends of the Library’ Writers’ Tea Party in September.

Sacrifice is definitely speculative fiction, being a story in the post-apocalyptic tradition.  Here’s what the back cover says:

“Several generations after volcanic eruptions and tsunamis caused the onset of the Dark, the descendants of the few survivors are struggling to maintain their tenuous communities in swamplands at the far north of New Zealand. Now food and resources are dwindling, and the real hope for the future rests with the youths selected every five years as Travellers, their goal being to venture into the devastated mainland in search of other people and any remaining food sources. This time, however, as the Choosing approaches, the heavens themselves change, revealing dramatic portents that no one can ignore.”

Given the events of 2011, it sounds like a topical premise. I am looking forward to reading the book.

Only a few more days now until the end-of-year holiday is upon us all. (And am I ready? No! It’s coming though, all the same … Like winter—you know, A Game of Thrones, the Starks of Winterfell and the dreaded ‘winter is coming’ … ;-))

This means that it’s the time of year when it’s traditional (as I alluded to on Monday) to begin reflecting a little and looking back over the year that’s been. I’m sure I’ll get around to another “E” word (as in E is for Earthquakes, over 9000 so far since 4 September 2010) but today I’m thinking about the E as in epic fantasy. I’ve done a few ” … on Anything, Really” posts on epic over the past year, most of which you find collected here, and a few more around the traps, mostly on SF Signal and Orbit. (If you want to check out collected guest posts, you’ll find them here.)

And sometimes my own posts on epic are sparked by what other folk are saying “out there” … So recently SF Signal featured a fun post from Daniel Abraham, titled A Private Letter from Genre to Literature. It’s very clever and definitely well worth reading, here, but I’ve been thinking about if off and on over the past week or so—mainly about the subtext, which I couldn’t help feeling was that somehow, genre fiction such as SFF somehow needs the approval of the more “literary” cabal, in the same way that a spurned lover (vis-avis Daniel’s “letter”) needs the beloved to again be kind.

So the thought that’s been revolving in my head is: is that true? Is it really true?

But I might not have posted about it, except that my buddy Mary Victoria has also been talking about her current transition from writing epic fantasy, in her Chronicles of the Tree series, to something more contemporary-historical with the current work-in-progress. In the progression from her post on How Fiction Wriggles to the to-and-fro of the comments, I felt there was a suggestion that epic must necessarily follow “a forward-motion storytelling” pattern as opposed to fiction (read the contemporary-historical) that “turns round a central issue instead of trying to ‘get somewhere.’” You will see there that I queried there whether this necessarily was the case, or indeed had to be the case—and indeed I do not feel that it is.

Looking purely at these questions from my own small corner, I cannot help feeling that it should be possible to address those world changing questions of epic that Mary refers to without necessarily having to deal with an “onward adventure and getting from A to Z”, even if the subject matter is world changing. Not do I believe that “change within” should be excluded from the provenance of epic …

I consider, in fact, that some of the grandest stories in the epic pantheon, beginning with Achilles in his tent, address the question of change within as much as the change of society without—the transition that occurs within Frodo, for example, that results in his inability to really return to the Shire. When I look at Daniel Abraham’s A Shadow in Summer I feel that the story is far more focused on the change within the characters, in many cases driven by the relationsip of poet and the andat, than it is by the external change and pressures within the society. Similarly, in Mary’s own books, particularly Samiha’s Song and Oracle’s Fire, it is the internal changes within two of the major characters, Samiha and Jedda, that drive the narrative, although the externally conceived quest journey is still present in the story.

I believe—as I have said in other fora—that this duality is entirely consistent with the epic tradition arising out of myth. And I feel that change within, turning around the conflicts that arise out of “… honor, ambition, and duty, but … also … responsibilities: to each other, to the world in which we live, to our families, whether of blood or friendship” while considering “questions of prejudice and fear, and what it means to be “other” – how we determine who is “other”, and what happens if the “other’ turns out to be us” (K. Nintzel on The Gathering of the Lost) is the heart of the story I am trying to tell in my Wall of Night series. They would be entirely different books if the story were only about making the grand tour through several fantastic locales while simultaneously playing out an externally conceived, black-and-white, fate-of-the-‘verse conflict (although it’s about that too, of course.)

The reason I am talking about this is because I don’t think any fiction, genre or otherwise, should be constrained to formula—and as I know for sure that I want to continuing writing fantasy, but I definitely don’t want to write the same story over and over again, then I know I shall be doing my durndest to not restrict myself to one writing style either.

Which brings me back to that private letter from genre to literature. I write poetry, plus short fiction in a range of genres, including contemporary realism (aka “literary”), as well as fantasy novels. And you know what—I approach the process of writing all these forms of literature in exactly the same way. Exactly. I also believe both epic and fantasy are a strong and consistent thread throughout literature, from works such as The Iliad and The Odyssey, through Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Shakespeare’s The Tempest or A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. So if contemporary literature chooses to be unkind and keep her distance—well, that is mostly a failure of discernment on her part, in my opinion. And I don’t feel that genre needs to put energy into seeking a reconciliation, at all. We must each step to the beat of our drum, and do so as well as we possibly can—the rest readers and the Muses will decide between them.

—

By the way, just in case my deliberations might lead you to think otherwise, I am a huge admirer of both Mary Victoria and Daniel Abraham and you can read my interviews with them here:

An Interview with Daniel Abraham, author of “The Dragon’s Path”

An Interview with Mary Victoria, author of “Samiha’s Song”

An Interview with Mary Victoria, author of “Oracle’s Fire”

I have a guest post up on SF-Signal again today—the third and final (for the moment!)  in my “Having Fun with Epic Fantasy” mini-series. Here’s how it begins:

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“Having Fun with Epic Fantasy: The Soul-Sucking Sword

So over the past couple of weeks, to help get through that run-up to Christmas-New Year craziness, I’ve been having some fun with epic fantasy, first “Making the Grand Tour” (aka the quest-journey) and secondly looking at the importance of the “Band of Brothers” when embarking on that quest. And this week, with the festive holiday nearly upon us, I felt I just had to look at “elves” with soul-sucking swords.

…”

You can find out all about the soul-sucking sword here—and I hope you will. Don’t be shy either; I dinna bite so you”ll be quite safe posting a comment. 😉

Winter Light

Horizontal strobes
across the russeting slope

disclose the contours of the land

the fierce geography of rock
the patterning of sheep through bracken
lipped water-marks on sand

The mountain’s shadow
bruises the lake.

The season is wintering in

and the cold is like loss:
a cramping hold on bone
muscle, thought, spilling in

from the east.

The air tastes metallic
like snow dissolving on the tongue.

This is the death month;
December’s Druid alphabet
that signified

the rebirth of the spirit.

Ash trees clumsy with unshed seeds,
a deer’s tooth grooving the bark.
I glimpse a snowdrop spiking up

through a dead leaf

before the  falling sun herds
us into the longest night.

.

© Kathleen Jones

.~ published in Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21, Templar Poetry, 2011

Reproduced here with permission.

—

About the Poem:

Or firstly, about the collection, Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21. It is only Saturday since I featured Kathleen Jones’ new collection as a “Just Arrived” here. I said then that I was very keen to read it, not just because Kathleen is a fellow Tuesday Poet but also because the manuscript had won the Straid Collection Award in 2010. I also wrote that I had liked what I saw in my initial quick peek at the poems. Since then I have been reading avidly, and although I have not yet finished the collection I  can tell you that I love what I have read so far—so much so that I would like to feature a considerable number of the poems here of a Tuesday!

Fortunately for me, today is the solstice: summer solstice here in New Zealand and the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere.  Again fortunately, one of those poems that I have really enjoyed in Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21 is Winter Light, a poem that addresses the longest night—or in our case down here, the longest day. But Kathleen is a northern hemisphere poet, so for her this is winter solstice—and so fitting, I thought, to ask to feature Winter Light today. I am delighted that she has agreed.

About the Poet:

Born and brought up on a hill farm in the north of England, Kathleen Jones read law and then English Literature at university before specialising in early women writers — work that culminated in A Glorious Fame (Bloomsbury, 1988) the life of  the 17th century Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.

Kathleen spent several years in Africa and the Middle East — where she worked in English broadcasting — before returning to England.  Her published work includes radio journalism, articles for magazines and newspapers, short fiction and eleven books — a mixture of biography, general non-fiction and two poetry collections. Her biographies include:-  A Passionate Sisterhood (Virago, 2000) — an account of the lives of the women who lived with the ‘lake poets’, which  was reviewed in the TLS as ‘a fascinating, marvellous, utterly absorbing book . . .  the stuff your English teacher never told you’;  Learning not to be First: The Life of Christina Rossetti (OUP, 1992) which was Doris Lessing’s ‘book of the year’;  and Catherine Cookson: the Biography (Time Warner, 1999), which the Literary Review described as ‘a compelling account’ of Cookson’s life and work.’

Kathleen Jones’ most recent  biography, Katherine Mansfield: The Story-teller, was published by Penguin in 2010 and Edinburgh University Press in December 2011. Her latest collection of poetry,  Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21, winner of the Straid Collection Award, was published by Templar Poetry in November 2011.

Kathleen’s home is in Cumbria, but as her partner is a sculptor working in Italy she spends a lot of time flying between the two on budget airlines!  She has taught creative writing in a number of universities and is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. Further information may be found at: www.kathleenjones.co.uk

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

It was a great pleasure for me to post Nameless, a short story set in the Thornspell universe, on the blog last Friday, here. Not just because it took somewhat longer to write than anticipated—life, as is it’s wont, kept intervening in my short story ambitions—and so finally getting it posted gave me a real sense of accomplishment.

But I also enjoyed writing something for the simple reason that I had said I would and because it pleased me, rather than because I had a contract to do so, or was contributing to a professional project. Don’t get me wrong, having contracts and projects to contribute to is what it means to be a professional writer—and I pretty much always enjoy writing, fullstop. But writing a  story like Nameless just for fun and to revisit the Thornspell world and the characters—well, that was a genuine pleasure.

What else have I been doing: not nearly enough Christmas organising is one answer—although I did get cards done this year, which also felt like a great accomplishment—but I have been doing my “Having Fun With Epic Fantasy” mini series of guest posts on SF Signal, with two posts up so far: “Making the Grand Tour”, here, and “The Band of Brothers” here. The third post in the series should be up this week—& of course I’ll let you know here once it’s “live.”

Another post series that’s happening right now is on the Supernatural Underground—Supe authors are counting down the 12 days until Christmas with a sequence on “Christmas memories.” (I’ll be posting on the 24th.) There’ll be a giveaway every day and a ‘grand giveaway’ at the end, with books and swag from all the authors to be drawn from amongst those who’ve commented on the series.  Definitely worth checking out, here.

In terms of what’s happening over the Christmas break, I thought I’d re-run some of the interviews and poems that you liked this year—partly just to give myself a small blog holiday, but also because it’s traditional to count down the year’s highlights to New Year. And on New Year’s Day … well, you’ll just have to wait and see!

You may have noticed that I read a lot of speculative fiction—which is partly because I like it and partly because it’s something of an occupational hazard when you’re a speculative fiction author oneself: there’s the need to keep up with what’s new and with all the award lists. And then there are the interviews with other SFF writers: for me it’s kind of a point of honour to actually read the books before I start asking questions.  A little old fashioned perhaps, but there you have it … 😉

But although I may primarily write SFF, it’s not all that I enjoy reading. I read widely, but I particularly like historical novels, as well as historical non fiction, and I also read a fair bit of contemporary realism as well. Last year I read Kate Grenville’s The Idea of Perfection, which I would put in the “contemporary realism” camp. I enjoyed it very much—and was also very interested by a radio discussion of The Lieutenant that I heard a while back, so was pleased to acquire a copy of that book, too.

The Lieutenant is historical fiction and based on the true story of William Dawes, a soldier, astronomer, mathematician and linguist who was part of the First Fleet expedition to settle Australia, and founded the first astronomical observatory as part of the Sydney settlement. And according to the Author’s Note at the rear of the book: “The record he left of the language of the indigenous people of the Sydney area is the most extensive we have.”

Getting round to reading The Lieutenant has taken some time, and so far I am only in the early chapters. But I am enjoying them immensely, partly because the character of Daniel Rooke, based on Dawes, is so interesting, and partly because Grenville’s writing is such a joy to read—clear compelling prose, beautifully expressed, with wonderful characterization. I am a little wary of how the story will develop, not because of any doubts about Kate Grenville’s writing or storytelling, but because I know that the history of interaction between the British settlers and the indigenous Aboriginals was generally tragic (mainly for the Aboriginals.)  But based on my experience with The Idea of Perfection and what I have read so far, I am pretty certain that I’m going to continue enjoying the book.

I’ve had a bit of a binge on buying poetry books lately and hope to get through reading a few of them over the Christmas-New Year break.

And I dearly wanted to buy this one by my fellow Tuesday Poet, Kathleen Jones, as I knew it was the award-winning manuscript from the Templar Poetry Prize last year.

It is a beautiful little book, too, with the lovely cover art and the French-style folded in flaps (I like them!) I can also tell you that I’ve had a sneak preview and love what I’ve seen—just peeking quickly!—of the poems. I am very much looking forward to sitting down with it, away from the hurly burly, and just enjoying.

So what does the inside cover say:

“In these poems Kathleen Jones shows us departure and attachments, journeys and encounters; some come from an attachment to place, the mountains and lakes of Cumbria, others from the longing to be rooted in one place, and feelings that tussle with a passion for travel, new experiences and a fascination with the lives of people met. And there are also different kinds of departure, more personal; the breakdown of relationships, the death of close relatives.

In Not Saying Goodbyet at Gate 21 the departure gate has a magical threshold, the past on one side and the future on the other.”

And on the back:

“All the poems in this hard-hitting, but also beautiful book are good. Her language is spare, the words being quiet servants of the images” — Anna Adams

“Darker poems … penetrating in their exploration of domestic tensions and responsibilities” — PQR

Introduction:

Yesterday I provided the main introduction to today’s feature short story, here, recapping the “Fun With Thornspell” event and my commitment to write a short story for the character named in the winning comment.

But to remind readers, Thornspell is a retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the prince destined to break the spell—but as with all such stories, there are others who come into it, such as Rue, the mute, mysterious young woman who manifests, often to aid Sigismund, the prince, at different points in the adventure. (The winning comment alludes to this.)

The short story I have written deals with part of the Rue character’s backstory. And because the fairytale is about the hundred-year long, enchanted sleep that affects not just the princess but the entire surrounding palace, and because dreams and reality are very much part of the Thornspell story, I have written the story in the mode of being within a dream/dreamscape. If I have it done it well, then you should very much get that feeling from the story.

As well as Rue, I have also tried to include references to some of the other characters and story elements you, as readers, indicated that you liked, including Sigismund and Auld Hazel, Syrica and the faerie hunt. I hope that it may weave a little bit of magic for you …

—

Dedication: This story is written for Andrew, who posted the winning comment on the “Fun With Thornspell” series.

—

Nameless

by Helen Lowe

.

She had seen the sea once, when she was very small, the waters stretching farther than she could have imagined before that moment. And there had been a ship, its masts tall as a forest tree, with white sails breaking the sky—until finally it vanished into that darker line where sky and ocean met. The people who lived by the sea had told her that sometimes the ships were lost: run aground or overwhelmed by storms, the white sails and the tall masts and the human crew all sinking below the waves, drifting deeper than the seaweed until they reached the ocean floor.

Perhaps that was what had happened to her—except that she could not have sunk to the furthest depths yet, because she felt more like the seaweed: a single cable cut adrift in shifting darkness. Or perhaps she had become water, her fingertips and hair disintegrating into the restless tide. Occasionally, in the fleeting moments when she came back into herself, she would detect a pinprick of light far above: a star, perhaps, caught as she was in deep waters. But whenever she tried to rise toward it the current would roll around her again, pulling her back into the dark and cold.

Finally—although whether it was a day or a season later she could not have said—she drifted out of the ebb and flow again. This time it was not one star overhead but a panoply of them, caught in a tangle of bare branches. And when she tried to move it was no longer the tide or seaweed holding her down, but tree roots. Vines scrambled over them, with long thorns that pierced her skin. She opened her mouth to cry for help and a vine snaked over her lips, pricking blood. If she struggled, the thorns only bit deeper—but the dark unceasing tide was gone, its voice replaced by a wind, howling through the bare branches of winter before dropping to a murmur amongst spring leaves. Sunlight slanted through the green canopy and a flock of sparrows darted across her field of vision. She could not turn her head, but for the first time the roots that bound her retracted, just a little.

The trees around her grew taller, stretching skyward; clouds blew across the sun and rain fell on her face. Winter frosts cracked her lips and more blood fed the piercing thorns, but this time she did not slip away into the song of wind and leaves. Instead, she clung to the darting sparrows, listening to their gossip overhead—and realized that although she knew their name, she could not name herself.

The awareness of that loss fretted, sharper than the thorns, but whenever she pushed at it, testing the edges of her world of sky—forest—sparrows, the roots would tighten again, the thorns pressing in. But the sparrows circled, chattering, and flew down to perch in her hair, tapping at her with tiny insistent beaks. “Remember!” The wind blew harder and they flew up in a cloud, only to settle again: “Remember!”

She had been named once, that much she was sure of—and now the light overhead became the recollection of sun through lancet windows, the ripple across a blue mere. Her feet ran in a rush with other children, their laughter tossed back like flowing hair. “Remember!” the sparrows chorused, and she felt the slow track of tears. When they slid into her mouth she tasted salt, an echo of the dark sea.

Another sparrow swung down from her hair to peck at an earlobe: a further exhortation to remember, as opposed to the puncturing cruelty of the thorns—which had been meant to poison her, she realized, finally perceiving the darkness at their heart. She focused her awareness further and discerned a second power that flowed green as sap through root and vine to oppose the poison.

Does the healing come from me, she wondered, or from some other source—but felt increasingly sure that the sparrows, at least, were her own, an outward manifestation of her resistance to the ensorcelled thorns.

Yet still she could not recall her name. Her mind’s eye kept returning to a vision of a tower with a narrow twisting stair and mirrors on every landing, their glass reflecting cloud and sky and the tossing crowns of forest trees. “Lost,” she whispered to herself. “And nameless. So let that be my name, until I find a better one.”

#

The trees grew taller again, their roots delving deep as the vines thickened into cables. They would never, Nameless decided, draw back of their own volition: she needed to either accept lying trapped until the forest fell, or endure the pain that struggle brought. Although how could she even struggle when only her eyes were free to move?

“Your eyes—but also your mind.”

Had she really heard a whisper, or was it just a subtle shift in the wind’s voice? Yet whether real or not, the whisper was correct: her mind was free to move. She tried imagining hands that could lift the briars clear, but they had twisted round and through each other in a way impossible to unravel. And not even the sharpest axe would be able to sever the knotted roots that bound her close. Easier, perhaps, just to drift after all, waiting out the aeons for the forest giants to fall … so much easier …

“Except you do not have aeons. No more than one hundred years, at best.”

The whisper again, and this time Nameless strained to look around. But no one stepped into the limited range of her vision, either to help or harm. She sighed, a long slow exhalation of breath—and realized that the thorns piercing her lips had retracted.

Is it the act of resistance itself, she wondered, that counteracts the dark will working through the thorns? In which case … She pushed with her tongue at the crusted blood on her cracked lips, frowning. In which case, she repeated to herself, I should pursue the green sap, see if that opens up a path for escape.

She let herself sink down, aware of leaf mould and loam below her, intermingled sunlight and shadow above. Sinking deeper again, she realized that she lay at the heart of a vast root system. Not just a coppice or a grove, she concluded, stretching her mind to encompass it all: this is a forest. The leaves overhead whispered their secrets as she pursued the green through countless branching root mazes. But always, just when she was sure she had found a clear pathway, the green flow would divert down a new channel, elusive as an eel.

The shadows deepened and the moon rose, edging every leaf with silver. The vision of the tower filled Nameless’s mind again—but this time the mirrors on the landings shattered, fragmenting into a pattern of herringbone bricks with the mosaic of a dancer at their center. Lilacs fell from the dancer’s fingertips and her face was obscured by the curve of dark hair that fell below her shoulders. “Resist,” a voice whispered out of the mosaic, silver moonlight and green sap woven together: “You must free yourself.”

Nameless jumped back, startled out of the vision—and found herself floating among the topmost branches of the forest trees, surrounded by a faerie hunt. Both horses and riders flickered in and out of shape around starfire eyes, the hunters’ slender spears of glass and bone leveled at her heart.

“You can see me,” she tried to whisper. “So am I spirit or flesh?” But no words came. Instead she felt the bite of invisible thorns again, a jagged stitchery across her lips as she held out moonglow hands, imploring aid.

The hunters just stared at her, their expressions impossible to read although the starlight eyes turned wholly black. One figure took form, more solid than the rest. “It is because of you we are trapped here.” His voice rustled like the forest leaves as his spear arm drew back. “But perhaps your death will free us.”

The sun leapt up, turning the eyes of hunters and faerie steeds alike to red blood—and a crone hobbled into the glade below, leaning heavily on a gnarled walking stick as she squinted skyward. The hunt leader hissed like a cat, reversing his spear, and the whole band whirled away, a ribbon of dawn mist and fire across the face of the sun.

Nameless plummeted as though the air holding her up had collapsed—but just when she thought she must slam into the ground, her course steadied until she hovered eye-to-eye with the crone. The look that met hers was sharp and bright as a bird’s.

“Yer name is it?” the old woman said, as though she heard the unasked question. “That’s no’ something I can help ’ee with, lass. ’Ee must find it for yerself.”

And free myself, too, Nameless thought, as the morning ribboned around her like the faerie hunt, dazzling her with the new sun’s blaze. When her eyes cleared she found herself in an enclosed courtyard, with her companion sparrows fluttering above a nearby herb parterre. A young man was standing just a few paces away—or perhaps, she decided, studying his open face, he was still as much a boy as a young man, at the precise age when youth stands poised between the two. She felt the sun’s warmth, and caught the pungency of the herb sprig he was rubbing between his fingers—but knew that he could not see her.

“Fear not, lass, ’e will one day, when time’s right.”

The crone’s voice sounded as close as though the old woman stood at her shoulder, although Nameless could not see her, any more than the boy was aware of her own presence. The scent of the herb pricked at her nostrils and her memory at the same time, so that she lingered there, struggling to recall … Something, she thought desperately: anything. But like the source of the green sap that worked against the poison in the thorns, this too eluded her. She drifted closer all the same, drawn to the boy and the aromatic tang of the herb; her hand was half sunlight, half a bending in the air as she reached to pluck a sprig of the herb for herself.

The boy looked up, the sun turning his eyes to gold as he gazed through her. She paused, transfixed, because the eyes did not quite go with the open face—they spoke of power, sleeping maybe, but soon to wake.

“The young dragon.” The crone’s cackle was humorous. “Oh, ye’ve eyes to see with, lass, plain enough.”

The boy looked kind, Nameless decided, despite that flash of power. She watched him drop the herb leaves and step away as a voice called from beyond the courtyard wall. Stooping, she picked the sprig up—and almost dropped it again as her vision swam with images of the plant: stitched as a motif onto a fluttering pennon and embroidered into gloves and guerdons. When she steadied, the spray still clutched in her hand, she could see the detail of her clothes for the first time—woven of sunlight and air perhaps, but the same herb-leaf pattern was worked into a border along her sleeves and spearhead deep around her dress’s hem.

She swallowed, still dizzy, and the sparrows spiraled close, settling onto her shoulders and hair, and clinging to her embroidered sleeves. The boy and the courtyard and the herb parterre had vanished, but she still clutched the sprig in her hand as she floated above the trees once more—only now, she could see her body. It was lying in a wooden summerhouse on the crest of a small hill, with green trees rising all around. Rose briars grew up and over the summerhouse and canes crawled across its wooden floor—but none actually touched the pallet were her body lay.

She wondered whether they ever had, or whether the sense of being trapped by roots and thorns was an illusion created by the spell that kept her body locked in sleep. My body, she added to herself, but not my spirit: not anymore. Somehow, her spirit self had stepped clear, free to slip between sunlight and shadow, and traverse moonlight and night.

Tentatively, she visualized standing beside the bier where her body slept—and found herself in the exact spot. The herb was still in her hand and she lifted it, inhaling the scent of the bruised leaves. “Rue,” she whispered inwardly, and knew that somehow, the word applied not only to the plant, but to herself as well. “Rue,” she repeated silently, and heard the sparrows’ swift, joyful chitter. And then finally, because anything said thrice has a magic to it: “I am Rue.”

It was not all that she was. But for now, it would do.

—

(c) Helen Lowe

You haven’t read Thornspell yet? You can check out the first chapter here—and there’s a swag of reviews here.

Have read Thornspell and want to read more of my work? You can check out the The Heir of Night here or here. Tales for Canterbury contains my short story, The Fountain, (preview here), plus there’s more short fiction here; and poetry, here.

.

You may recall that way back in August/September—yes, I know, I can barely remember either!—I ran a “Fun With Thornspell” feature here on the blog.

Here’s how it worked: over the course of several weeks I asked readers to tell me the Thornspell character they would most like to have a standalone short story written for, or about—as well as why, based on that character’s exploits in the Thornspell novel.

And because I did not want to be the one to have to choose, I also asked three judges to decide which character, from among the suggestions you put forward, I would get to write a short story about—to be published here on the blog with a dedication to the selected commenter.

Just to remind you, the three judges were:

Beth

Beth Miller: Beth Miller works at Writers House Literary Agency in New York, where she is the assistant to my agent, Robin Rue—and as such was amongst the first people ‘out there’ to read and love Thornspell. She is also a writer in her own right; her first novel, Into the Scottish Mist, was published by Wild Rose Press in 2010 and you can read my interview with her here.

Fitz

Peter Fitzpatrick (Fitz): Fitz was another early reader of Thornspell and has been an integral part of my writing journey since he has designed both my Helen Lowe and Thornspell websites, as well as designing the map for The Wall of Night series—for which he was nominated for a Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Professional Artwork earlier in the year.

Sharon

Sharon Stogner: Sharon is an avid reader, follower of a number of blogs such as the Supernatural Underground, and a book blogger herself on the ismellsheep book and movie site.  She was also an early enthusiast for both The Heir of Night and Thornspell.

I would like to once more extend my very warm thanks to all three “Fun With Thornspell” judges for their care in selecting a winning comment, which was:

“Well I would like to see a short story about Rue.

There is a lot that could be said about her struggle against the Magravaine’s spell, and her efforts to help Sigismund while her own power (or most of it) remained bound and fettered by the 100 year sleep.

That and her own relationship to Fae and Faierie could make for a really interesting story.”

~ from Andrew on the first day of “Fun with Thornspell”

And now—finally, at last!—a “Rue” short story is ‘done and dusted’ and will post in full on the blog tomorrow.  By way of some introductory remarks, I note that I asked the commenters to give reasons why they selected their chosen character, but did not necessarily undertake to write a story based around those reasons. (The Muses may not be trammelled!) Nonetheless, I think Andrew’s comment has given direction and shape to the course of the story, which I am pleased about. (The Muses come to the party all the same!)

So: tomorrow. Right here. On the blog. And I hope you’ll enjoy!

It’s a day for featuring on other blogs—as well as the Orbit blog here, I have a guest post up on SF-Signal.

It’s the next in my “Having Fun with Epic Fantasy” mini-series (the first was “Making the Grand Tour”) and this one takes a look at “The Band of Brothers.” Do check it out here—and feel free to leave a comment. We like comments! 😀