The Hugo Awards 2011 were announced at an award ceremony in Reno last night. Here’s the winner of the fiction categories, for which—you may recall—I read all the shortlisted finalists.:)

Best Novel:

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra)

Best Novella:

The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang (Subterranean)

Best Novelette:

The Emperor of Mars by Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, June 2010)

Best Short Story:

For Want of a Nail by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010)

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For the full results in all categories, both professional and fan, click here.

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To read my reports on each of the 5 finalists for the award of Best Novel, click on the titles below (novels listed in alphabetical order by title):

• Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

• Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold

• Feed by Mira Grant

• The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

• The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin

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So that’s it—all over for another year! But it’s been fun being part of the process, even at long distance.

On Sunday September 11 at 2.00 pm, I will be in Amberley, just north of Christchurch, as a guest of the Amberley Friends of the Library, enjoying being part of their annual Writers’ Tea Party — a reading and social occasion featuring myself and my fellow writers, James Norcliffe, and Joanna Orwin.

The tea party will take place at the Hurunui Memorial Library in Amberley, an easy half hour’s drive north of Christchurch. So if you’re going to be in the area anyway, or fancy a spring drive to one of North Canterbury’s many pretty spots—with a writer’s tea party at the end of it—then this could be the event for you.

So do put it in your diary now—I would love to meet some blog readers there! 🙂

Just a few weeks ago I was in countdown mode to get The Great Revision (TGR) of The Gathering of the Lost (The Wall of Night Book Two) done and dusted—and now it is already copyedit time!  Can you believe it?

There is definitely no rest for the wicked and all I can say is that I must have been ve–ry wicked indeed in a past life! (Sadly, I haven’t been at all wicked in this one …)

So here I am, in countdown mode again—and kinda hoping you will help me out like you did last time! 🙂

Because you see, my publisher would like Gathering back by 31 August. Which I reckon is pretty durned tight for a 200,000 word, 700 page manuscript, es-special-ly since because of all that snow, the courier hasn’t actually arrived with the manuscript yet!

But hey, I’m a Kiwi gal—DIY and No. 8 wire and all that jazz!—and so of course I have managed to rustle up a hardcopy ms to work off, snow or no snow. (These days, the copyeditors get to work on electronic manuscripts, but the author still has to to do her/his notations by pencil-–can you believe it?—onto a hard copy. And have you tried to find a decent pencil sharpener these days? I tell, you, gentle readers, the beast does not exist—or if it does, please send my way now, at once, today! Believe me, your name will be LEGEND. 😉 )

So back to that deadline. Personally, given the size of the manuscript, I think 12 September is more realistic—but bearing in mind that whether 31st August or 12 September, this is the date the marked up hardcopy manuscript has to be back in the production department in New York. So I have to allow for courier time as well—and as I am around 10,000 miles / 14,000 kilometres and several time zones from the Big Apple, we’re not talking overnight delivery: no, sirree!

So, dear readers, as aforesaid, I am now back into page and day countdown mode—and the jackpot questions. Will she do it? Or won’t she? And when will she actually get it done by? Will she blow a gasket and expire in steam and smoke en route? Or will she come sailing through, all smiles and serenity?  (Serenity: now there was  a movie …)

Ladies and gentlemen, if there are bookies amongst you, I now invite you to take all bets—the 31st or the 12th, which will it be?  For those not of a gambling disposition, well, I’m pretty sure I’ll be asking you to toot again for support!

So let the games begin—or alternatively, cry havoc and loose the dogs of war! 😮

On Wednesday, I posted the first instalment of “Six Great Non-Human Heroes of SFF”, namely Creideiki from David Brin’s Startide Rising, The House from Scott Westerfeld’s The Risen Empire, and Iorek Byrnison from Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights/The Golden Compass.

So without further ado, here’s the second three of my six.

I is also for Imraith-Nimphais from Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Trilogy (The Summer Tree; The Wandering Future; The Longest Road)

I don’t think any consideration of non-human heroes of SFF would be complete without inclusion of a mythological creature, such as dragons (and how many of them there are—Kalessin (Earthsea), Morkeleb the Black (Dragonsbane), Ramoth (Pern), MacAvoy’s Black Dragon (Tea with …), and may I say it, Balisan, in my own Thornspell); fauns (Mr Tumnus, Narnia); and unicorns, such as Jewel (again, Narnia)—and Imraith-Nimphais.

Although in fact, Imraith-Nimphais is  a unicorn who can fly, so there’s a nod there to the mythic pegasus as well. The totem animal of Tabor dan Ivor, one of the Dalrei of the Plains, Imraith-Nimphais is also of divine birth—a gift from the goddess Dana to answer the rise of evil in the world. Imraith-Nimphais is a creature of wild magic and in many ways a ‘shining weapon’, her primary purpose being to combat the creatures of evil—something she excels at doing. But she is more than that—a vivid personality in her own right and a ‘weapon’ who also knows how to love. At the last, Imraith-Nimphais honours that love by saving Tabor and sacrificing herself. Knowing they are vastly overmatched by an opponent (a dragon) she throws Tabor clear and flies against the dragon alone. She takes her enemy down with her though—and that, too, is in keeping with the personality of Imraith-Nimphais. In my book, her place as one of my final six is well deserved.

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L is for The Luggage, from Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic (among other Discworld novels.)

A large wooden chest (of sapient pearwood) that has little wooden legs and follows its owner around? And that can, when required, both defend itself and act as bodyguard—a very fearsome bodyguard—to its owner? No question, we have to be talking about Terry Pratchett’s Luggage. Is it anthropomorphic? I would argue that it is intrinsically luggage—after all, it frequently becomes lost and must then track its owner down. Only in this case, it’s also luggage combined with monster—homicidal monster, as established in Sourcery (1988)—since its response to threats is to either devour or knock a hole through them.  (In the latter respect, I’ve always thought The Luggage was not unlike a Culture knife missile, only a lot less subtle …) Also, The Luggage can follow its master literally, well, anywhere … So, um, useful!

So when it comes to non-human heroes—using the term so loosely that perhaps I should simply stick with “protagonist” instead—there has to be a place for The Luggage.

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P is for Pyanfur Chanur, from CJ Cherryh’s The Pride of Chanur and subsequent Chanur trilogy: Chanur’s Venture, The Kif Strike Back, and Chanur’s Homecoming

Pyanfur Chanur is a Hani, a lion-like species from the world Anuurn, where the female of the species—much like lions—take care of all the day-to day-business, including venturing into space. In many ways, the space captain Pyanfur Chanur is a renaissance figure: part merchant, part privateer, bold, swashbuckling, and tenacious. As such, she could be one of many similar Hani captains in ports throughout Compact space and along the merchanter routes—except that Pyanfur Chanur sees the big picture and knows how to play the long game. Product of a rigidly sex-role stereotyped and also xenophobic species, Pyanfur has learned to look past difference in order to survive in space; without necessarily intending to, she has become broad minded.

In many ways, Pyanfur is the classic hero figure who is forced into prominence by necessity—circumstances drive her, but in the end she turns the tables and drives them. She is also humorous, stubborn, devious, and flamboyant—but at rock bottom, honourable, and true to her allies and those she loves. In a universe of non-human heroes, you just can’t go past Pyanfur Chanur.

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So there it is, six great non-human heroes of SFF: Creideikei (Startide Rising); The House (The Risen Empire); Iorek Byrnison (Northern Lights/The Golden Compass); Imraith-Nimphais (The Fionavar Trilogy); The Luggage (The Discworld novels); and Pyanfur Chanur (The Chanur novels.)

Just a very few of a great diversity that exist in both fantasy and science fiction—so what non-human have I missed out that would be top of your list?

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This month’s “…on Anything, Really” feature is “Fun With Thornspell”, running every Thursday—check out yesterday’s feature here. 🙂

Amazing to think that it is already the third week in this month’s “Fun With Thornspell” feature on the blog. And there have been some great comments and character suggestions so far—I am really enjoying reading them as they come in!

For those of you who are new to this, the full info is set out here, but the basic “gen” is that if you suggest a character from Thornspell and why you like them, then at the end of the month the judges will go through the list and I will write a short story about the character they select! So keep those suggestions coming, most particularly if there’s a character you haven’t seen mentioned yet.

The other part of the deal though, is that each week I will talk a bit about the Thornspell story from my point of view as the author. (And by the way, feel free to make requests for topics you’d like me to cover in your comments—I will see what can be done!)

About Thornspell: The Legend of Parsifal

Last week I talked about the belvedere and this week I am going to talk about my use of the Parsifal myth in Thornspell. I have always loved the Parsifal story and wanted to work it into the backstory—in part, because I made the Thornspell world very middle-European, almost-but-not-quite Holy Roman Empire, and Parsifal is a story cycle that belongs to that part of the world. To an extent I was making the traditional Sleeping Beauty story ‘new’ in Thornspell—not too new though, because I like the traditional story—but I also felt that weaving my new story of the prince into the broader, European myth cycles, as well as just the fairytale, would give it greater richness and authenticity.

So that is why I decided that Sigismund’s sword, Quickthorn, would be one that the dragons “made for Parsifal.” (Chapter 18, pg 300)

I had already decided that Quickthorn would be “red and white”—but the amazing thing was that once I made the decision to draw on the Parsifal story, and started researching the myth cycle, there were just so many overlaps with elements in my ‘new’ story. For example, in one of the Parsifal variants, he has a “red sword” (which he pulls from a stone, as it happens, in much the same way as King Arthur with Excalibur.)  Another overlapping aspect from the myth cycle was Parsifal’s relationships with women—sometimes as a romantic interest, sometimes as mentor/guide—who could appear as either “loathly” ( I borrow the word from the Sir Gawain tale in the King Arthur cycle here) or “fair.”

How apt, I thought, given I had already decided that it would be shapeshifting dragons who had mentored Parsifal—and that might well explain how a lady might appear sometimes “loathly” and sometimes “fair!” In fact some of the overlaps were so neat that I decided that the Muses, taking counsel on Parnassus, must have meant for the stories of Parsifal and Sigismund to overlap! Or—an alternative explanation—my avid reading of myths and legends as a kid had embedded the stories so deeply in my subconscious that they were just waiting for the opportunity to re-emerge in another form. (A little like those shapeshifting dragons … )

In terms of explanation, you may take your pick 😉 —but either way, I do feel that having authentic mythological elements as backstory add to the richness of a fairytale retelling like Thornspell.

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Now back to the fun part—don’t forget to comment and say which Thornspell character you would like a short story written about, and also why. I’m looking forward to getting some more great character suggestions to add to those from weeks one and two, which you can read here and here.

Can’t find your copy or don’t have time to reread and refresh your memory of the characters? You can also check out the Thornspell website and read the first chapter, here — or just click on any of the images around the web page; each one should take you to a quote about that particular character.

Have fun!

Well, here it is at last—the final instalment of my “heroes” series (using “heroes” in the strictly non gender specific sense at this point. 😉 ) The series began on May 27 with “Six Great Heroines of SFF: Part One” and continued with the first instalment of  “Six Great Heroes” on July 8. But I always promised that I’d consider “Six Great Non-Human Heroes”, as well, and now the time has come …

But you know what—there are so many of them! I had a really hard job narrowing my list to just six. So in the end, I had to have a few additional criteria to help winnow the contenders out. One of the most important ones was that the non-human heroes couldn’t be “humanoid”—which ruled out characters like Athaclena from David Brin’s The Uplift War. But fear not, David Brin fans, there was already another Brin character in the mix …

Once again, as with the previous two instalments in this series, I have restricted the list to characters drawn from books, not film or tv (which I suspect would have blown my longlist completely out of the water!) So onward—here are the first three of my “Six Great Non-Human Heroes of SFF”

C is for Creideiki from David Brin’s Startide Rising.

Creideiki is the dolphin captain of the Terran spaceship Streaker, in a future where humans are constantly skirmishing to maintain their independence in a far-from-friendly alien universe—and where dolphins and chimpanzees have been “uplifted” to sentience.

The crew of the Streaker is predominantly dolphin, with one chimpanzee and a handful of humans amongst its complement. Creideiki is an experienced spacer, but Streaker is the first expedition captained and predominantly crewed by dolphins. When the story opens they are fleeing for their lives, having made a discovery of galactic significance.

I liked Creideiki from the beginning because he is what the jager-monsters in Girl Genius would describe as a “schmott guy.”  At the point the story opens, he has managed, despite almost overwhelming odds, to outsmart the pursuing alien fleets and keep his ship and crew free. So Creideiki is a leader who performs under pressure, but he is also a thinker and a philosopher, pursuing keneenk, a hybrid style of reasoning that combines human logic and cetacean philosophy.

Yet as the story starts, Creideiki faces not only danger from without, but mutiny from within his crew as some of the uplifted dolphins revert to animalism under the psychological stress of their plight. The mutiny results in an attack on Creideiki and brain injury that seems irrecoverable.

One of the risks of having lead animal and alien characters is that they are essentially anthropomorphic, human in all but outward form. Yet the aspect of Creideiki I liked most is that the way in which he forces himself to recover from his injury draws exclusively on his dolphin heritage—in contrast to the reversion to animalism of some of his crew.  So he is a brave, smart, and resilient character, but also interesting and credible as a non-human protagonist.

Besides, as several people pointed out when I talked about writing this post: Creideiki is cool, end of story.

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H is for The House in Scott Westerfeld’s The Risen Empire duology

Scott Westerfeld is probably better known for his YA writing, but I very much enjoyed his recent Risen Empire space opera (published as two books under the one title here, but as the Succession series in the US, I believe.) And The House was probably my favourite character in both books (which are really one story told in two parts.)  In a space empire of nanotechnology and AIs, this particularly house, built as a holiday retreat for a senator, is accidentally seeded with more artifical intelligence than such constructs are supposed to have. Throughout the book it quietly builds–and then enhances–itself and in the final part of the story has a vital, and for many people within the empire, startling part to play …

To say any more would be a spoiler, but I loved the House’s quiet self-sufficiency and also its humour—not to mention its willingness to ‘come to the party’ when the chips are down.  Definitely a favourite non-human character in my SFF pantheon.

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I is for Iorek Byrnison in Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights (UK)/The Golden Compass (US)

Sometimes a book comes along that just seizes your imagination and for me, Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights/The Golden Compass was one of those books. I just loved it—and there was no character in it that I loved more than Iorek Byrnison, the panzer-bjorn, i.e. an armour-wearing polar bear. Sentient, armour-wearing polar bear, I hasten to add. Although at first I wasn’t entirely sure of the sentience: surly but perhaps limited, was what I initially thought when Iorek entered the story—but the character definitely grew.

And that’s the point. When the reader first meets Iorek he is on the skids and in a very bearish way.  But through his interaction with Lyra Belacqua and other key characters in the story, such as the aeronaut, Lee Scoresby, Iorek recovers both his armour—vital to the psyche of a panzer-bjorn–and his sense of self.  He remains savage—the panzer-bjorn are mercenaries, after all—but loyal in his friednship to Lyra, despite considerable personal risk to himself.

Iorek Byrnison is a great character, but he would have had to be on the list anyway. I mean, an intelligent, armour wearing bear—how cool is that?!

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I’ll be back on Friday with the second half of my “Six Great Non-Human Heroes of SFF.” But in the meantime, who are your favourite non-human characters? And why?

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And don’t forget, tomorrow is Fun With Thornspell day! There have already been some great character comments suggested here and here, but do keep them coming! The judges are keen to have a really great selection to work through. 😉

Under snow ...

Being
in snow country,
grey sky pressing in
as the flakes swirl – touch
chill fingers
against the face, drift
onto grey-green sea
and vanish …

… a shag arrows
across the harbour, straight
into the southerly blast:
living, dying,
being here …

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The backyard, too ...

(c) Helen Lowe

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This is an old poem, first written when I lived at Portobello, on Otago Peninsular—but reworked yesterday because we, like much of the country, were in snow country. And here’s some photos, too …

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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.

... and blown into the verandah

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And this month’s ” … on Anything, Really” feature is “Fun With Thornspell.” You can find out more here and here.

A few years back, I picked up a novel called Wicked Lovely by then new author, Melissa Marr—and was quickly drawn into the world the author created at the interface between our urban, everyday reality and the fairy realm. I’m not talking pretty little creatures with wings here (although some fairies in the story did present that way), but something far more primeval and dangerous …

Since then, Melissa Marr has returned to that same world with four further, highly successful YA novels—but Graveminder is her first adult novel.

Set in the small, rural American town of Claysville, this new setting feels just as real as the world created in  Wicked Lovely—and the story was as quick to create tension as the world was to lure me in. The reader is introduced to the character of Maylene Barrow in the prologue, only to learn in the first chapter that she has died under violent and mysterious circumstances. The exact nature of those circumstances is something that Rebekkah Barrow, Maylene’s granddaughter, and Byron Montgomery, the town undertaker, must then unravel.

The back cover promises that Graveminder is “a captivating story of the living, the dead, and the curse that binds them,” a promise that the story proceeds to keep. But Graveminder is also a mystery, and a tale of the overlap between worlds, as well as a story about the relationships within family, and the relationship between Rebekkah and Byron—one that must find both a personal equilibrium and a balance that will sustain the wider community.

I think I’ve now given away that there is a lot to this story in terms of plot and that Melissa Marr has once again created two convincing, and compelling, overlapping worlds. I really enjoyed the alternate world that Rebekkah and Byron must discover and deal with, more even than I enjoyed the faerie realm of Wicked Lovely. This new realm is really interesting, with layers that gave me the sense of more to come, but without any sense that this book is incomplete. The alternate realm also contains Charlie and Alicia, who I found the two most intriguing characters in the book, both because of the part they play in the Graveminder story, but also because of the backstory that is revealed as the book progresses—and again with that sense, in a good way, that there is more yet to play out.

I also enjoyed the exploration of the relationship between Rebekkah and Byron, although I did feel it was their interactions with Charlie and Alicia, and the secondary plotline that evolved around the character of the “hungry ghost”, Daisha, that gave the story much of its “oomph.”

So what didn’t I enjoy so much? One quibble—trying to avoid spoilers here—is that Maylene and Byron’s father held information that it was vital for Rebekkah and Byron to know, both for their own safety and wellbeing, and that of the town. Yet it is an essential plot premise that Maylene has withheld this information. Consequently, Rebekkah and Byron are forced to find it out, in difficult and dangerous circumstances, after her death. Maylene does have a rationale for her decision, but given how absolutely vital the withheld knowledge is to both Rebekkah and the community’s safety—well, I just wasn’t sure that I fully “bought” the premise, as a reader.

My second concern is very subjective, but there was a retributive, ‘eye for an eye’ element to the resolution of the story that I did not feel comfortable with–the implication being, I suppose, that if people are bad and do bad things, it’s by implication ok for bad things to be done to them in their turn. But I am not at all sure that it is, especially if the bad things are not inadvertent but allowed to happen by the central protagonists. So this particular aspect of the story did not work so well for me, for this reason.

Overall though, this is a strong story that not only seized my attention at the beginning, but kept me turning the pages throughout. I think it may even be the Melissa Marr novel that I have enjoyed most to date—and with its blend of everyday realism with the supernatural, murder and mystery and romance, I think it will appeal to a great many readers.

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And don’t forget—this month’s ” … on Anything, Really” feature is “Fun With Thornspell.” You can find out more here and here.

Yes, It’s time for another “peek inside” Tales for Canterbury, this time with a look at Jay Lake’s Eggs for Dinner—and again, this story is from the “Hope” segment of the anthology, which is themed around “Survival”, “Hope” and “Future.”

Jay Lake is one of the international writers who generously contributed to Tales for Canterbury following the February 22nd Christchurch earthquake. Eggs for Dinner is one of the longer stories in the anthology and in many ways presents as convincing contemporary realism—but once you get into the tale the Fantasy element is definitely there. I liked it a lot, particularly the development of the central characters.

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Eggs for Dinner

by Jay Lake

Courtney’s life had changed over the years, though never for the better.

Her father left for overseas when she was eight. “Oil,” Mom always said in the years since, but oil came from the earth everywhere – Alaska, the Middle East, Texas – sucked up by pumps like giant mantises praying to the sun-burned grass. Dad left, and only his postcards came back from foreign parts.

After a while even the postcards stopped.

Much later, as Courtney was starting high school, her Grandmother McCandless came to stay. Mom needed to go spend a long time in a cuckoo hospital, talking to doctors about oil and Courtney’s father. Grams didn’t hold with doctors, or much else, but Courtney had nowhere to go. So she ate the same burnt-edged eggs every morning, rode the same bus to school every day, and came home to the same homework and prayers every night, wondering if life would ever get better.

Or when she could run away, too. She would escape, but like her father – free – not like her mother, wandering into crazy. Like him, Courtney would go over the seas, live her life on the water she’d never yet seen.

When Mom finally did return, she was different. Like a postcard of herself, sent in reminder from a distant country.

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You can find out how things work out for Courtney by reading the rest of Jay Lake’s Eggs for Dinner in Tales for Canterbury. The Tales for Canterbury anthology of short fiction was put together by Cassie Hart and Anna Caro as a fundraiser for the Red Cross Christchurch Earthquake Appeal. The anthology includes a range of short stories donated by both national and international authors and may be purchased from Random Static here.

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And this month’s ” … on Anything, Really” feature is “Fun With Thornspell”—you can find out more here and here.

No, nothing at all to do with riots, although it is hard to focus on ‘other stuff’ at present.

But like any good author, I can always focus on ‘me books.’ 😉

I have known for some time that the US launch date for The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two, was set down for March 2012–but it’s now official, March is the UK/Australia/New Zealand launch date as well!

In addition, the mass market edition of The Heir of Night (The Wall of Night Book One 😉 ) will be released in the UK/AU/NZ a month earlier, in February 2012—and there is talk of a new cover for the mass market edition as well, which is ve-ry exciting news. (Although I still love the red cover a LOT—but new covers are one of the most exciting parts of seeing a book come out and this one will tie in with the launch of Gathering, as well, so I can’t help but look forward to it all!) I am not sure when I will be able to do the big reveal on the mass market cover, but watch this space—because as soon as I can share it with you, I will!

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This month’s ” … on Anything, Really” feature is “Fun With Thornspell”—you can find out more here and here.