I currently have a guest post, Historically-Influenced Fantasy Settings featured on the Orbit blog—Orbit is my UK/AU/NZ publisher  & The Heir of Night was released in the UK on March 3.  If you have the time, rock on over and check it out, here.

With the recent publication of The Heir of Night in the UK (the USA and AUS/NZ releases were in late September and early October of last year), UK-based reviews are now starting to come through. The most recent I have seen are from:

• SFFWorld
• Civilian Reader and 
• BookChickCity.

(To read the reviews just click on the listed names.)

Sometimes, in all the excitement of the new book coming out, it’s easy to forget the work that is already out there in the world. Not that I do ever forget Thornspell—but it is always a thrill when you get a new review. A new review that appears in English and Italian is extra special, which is why I was so pleased when Giada M drew her recent review of Thornspell to my attention.

I now invite you to visit her blog and read the review, here.

Every now and then you receive an email that really makes your day.  At the time of the February 22nd earthquake I was fortunate enough to receive two—and believe me, in a world turned to a constant background of sirens and helicopters overhead; people dead, wounded and missing; collapsed buildings and riven earth; plus the shocking phenomenon of liquefaction everywhere, these were two very bright spots in my world.

I have waited until now, when life here has calmed down a little and most of the liquefaction has been laboriously removed, to share them with you (with the permission of the senders, of course.) Needless to say, these email remain bright spots and probably always will, simply because I will always remember how they were there waiting for me to read when the power came back on here, two days after the quake.

The first was from Marion in Australia:

I just finished reading the first in the series and now busily finding out if the other is available in Australia.  I really love the story and look forward to following Malian’s journey over the next three books.  … I get desperate for great new books, and … having such a strong female as the central character is a joy as well.

Thank you, Marion. 🙂

—

The second email came from Daniel in the USA, who wrote:

“hey ma’am, just saw a news squib and some tv pictures of christchurch, looks
pretty dreadful.  i hope you and yours are safe and well, and remain so.  [have
finished heir of night, and am eagerly awaiting the next installment.]

Daniel also shared part of why he had enjoyed The Heir of Night:

“Heir was a great read, dense, well packed, well paced, with a good blend of past
and past influenced present woven together and shown, bit by bit, through
various characters and their interactions.  the divergence of the various
cultures, both from a common history and from a common set of contradictions,
was alluded to both as aspects of the individual characters and as
background/preparation for later story arcs.  i found myself thinking this is
so going to show up later, as in the dream sequence of rooftop running, and in
the push pull of mine vs ours vs theirs abilities.  an aspect of good writing
that i don’t think always gets proper acknowledgement, is the realization of
secondary, or even tiertiary, characters.  Kyr and Lira, and the acolytes in the
old keep are fully there, not only as characters, but as part and parcel of that
world.  Kry and Lira, with their steadfastness in the Jaransor, both prove and
give the lie to dulce et decorum est.  one could go on, but twere better to
encourage the book’s reading.”

What can I say, except again—thank you.

—

And to both Daniel and Marion and everyone who emailed or posted with inquiries about how I was doing after the earthquake, thank you again: I keep trying to say it with these imperfect words, but it really did—and does still—mean a very great deal.

Café

The woman
sips coffee
– makes it last

avoids eye contact
– writes an occasional note
in a dog-eared book

takes in
every detail
– wrought iron palings
the spring sky

.

© helen lowe

Published in foam:e 1 March 2008

—

About the Poem: On March 18, in a further comment on my post Silent Witness, I wrote ” … I went past Under the Red Verandah cafe today, where SpecFicNZ were having the long lunches and it was just another pile of rubble. I feel really sad because I loved that place …”

Under the Red Verandah (UtRV) was one of those places that seemed made for writers to hang out in, with a friendly, casual atmosphere and great coffee and kai (food.) Not surprisingly, I often caught up with fellow writers and other friends there or just dropped in for a coffee. Equally unsurprisingly, a few poems and other scribblings first sprang into life over those UtRV cups of coffee. This poem, Café, was first drafted at, and is about, Under the Red Verandah so I felt it was fitting to post it as my Tuesday Poem today.

Due to the exigencies of WordPress, I can’t get the original formatting to reproduce here on the blog, so have gone for a work-around. To see the original, you can still read it online here at foam:e.

Note: The good news is that Mandy and the team are working to resurrect the UtRV business based out of the old forge at the back of the property. I really hope they can make it happen.

—

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

March is NZ Book Month, but up until now the excitement and enjoyment that I had anticipated has largely escaped me due to—you know, the February 22nd earthquake and its aftermath. But quite some time ago I accepted an invitation from the Dan Davin Literary Foundation to travel to Queenstown and Southland, as part of NZ Book Month, to run a series of writing workshops for Year 12 and 13 high school students and also to give a public presentation while in Invercargill.

The workshops will focus on the essential elements of good writing—what my fellow author and poet, James Norcliffe, described as the “laws of fiction” in his guest post here earlier in the year, “stern injunctions” that the aspiring writer disregards at their peril—as well as some tips on professional practice. The workshop will also include a specific SFF section, with a module on world building, because I am primarily a speculative fiction author—and proud of it, too.

In the public presentation, I will talk about my personal path to international publication as well as what it means to be published overseas, and also about writing speculative fiction in NZ.

Putting together the workshop, including exercises and handouts, as well as the presentation, has been a harder than usual task given events of the past few weeks. But yesterday, as I collated everything together and packed it for the plane today, I really felt that first buzz of excitement, that moment when I really “got”, not just that it’s NZ Book Month (hurrah!) but that I’m part of it, after all.

It feels doubly nice to be leaving town for such a positive reason: I am definitely not “fleeing” my poor battered Christchurch, or even having a spot of respite yet, but doing something constructive—I hope— for NZ literature by helping grow our next generation of writers. I have done my prep, and despite the earthquake et al still feel I have a little left in the tank, so I hope my contribution will be judged a positive one. I welcome the opportunity to make it.

Another Silent Witness:

On Friday 18, as part of the Christchurch Memorial Service the following video of the cordoned-off central area of Christchurch was played. The footage is eerie, haunting … the only sound that of sirens and the wind blowing through deserted streets and buildings brought to rubble. In the words of the Bruce Springsteen song, Christchurch is “My Hometown”—and this video clip is a more potent silent witness than any I could manage with my little camera in the ‘burbs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbXJJN9ZSFc&w=500&h=390

True Heroes

In Christchurch we have had to deal with the destruction caused by a major earthquake. In Japan, a level 9 earthquake was followed by a massive tsunami—which in its turn did serious damage to the Fukushima nuclear power station. The still unresolved struggle to get the situation there under control has absorbed our attention over the past week, but  a tv news clip on the evening of March 18 particularly caught mine. It showed a ceremony for the firemen who had volunteered to go to Fukushima and help with the containment effort.

Only that morning, I had listened to a radio interview where a nuclear power expert had said that the 50 or so personnel still remaining at Fukushima were basically already “dead men.”  I have often thought that we bandy the word “hero” around too lightly these days—any citizen who simply does their duty is termed a “hero.” But looking at the men who had volunteered to go to Fukushima, I thought: “This is true heroism. They must know the great risk they now run of dying as a direct result of volunteering, regardless of whether the situation at Fukushima is brought under control or not. And know, too, that the benefit of their individual sacrifice is exclusively for the wider society—yet still they volunteer. In this moment, these men—whoever they are now or whatever they have been in the past—are true heroes.”

Yesterday, as indicated in my Silent Witness post, I didn’t go the National Christchurch Memorial ceremony in Hagley Park. But in the end I did give myself the day off. March 18 was declared a special public holiday so everyone here in Christchurch had the day off, including most/all of the people doing infrastructure and service restoration work around the city.  Very well-deserved, too, in their case; no question about that.

In the end I decided that calling time out for one day at least was a really good idea: no tidy up work, no books, no workshop prep. Just time out to sit in the sun and recharge the batteries—and of course as soon as I did I felt absolutely knackered, as you always do when you’ve been running simply to stand still—and then do, finally, stop. So in terms of calling a  city-wide “time-out”, maybe yesterday was absolutely the right thing to do.

Another question people have been asking me is whether I’ll be staying in town for Sunday 20th, given so-called “moon man” Ken Ring’s prediction that with the moon at perigee Christchurch is in line for another/even more massive quake. So I’m nailing my colours to the mast and saying that absolutely I will be here.  I wouldn’t dream of leaving, in fact. Firstly, because I don’t believe the moon being at perigee has an equatorial snowball’s chance of causing a major earthquake. A major earthquake may happen, but that certainly won’t be why. (Massive tectonic forces at play is my pick on that one.) Secondly, because I regard predictions of this kind as being in the realm of scaremongering, given we’ve only just suffered a second major earthquake, and scaremongering makes me very cross. It’s really not what we need right now. Thirdly, because every single millenial-style prophecy of doom that I have ever heard has come to absolutely nothing.  So there you go. I may yet have to eat humble pie on this one, but I’ll certainly be right here in Christchurch on March 20. After all, you should never pass up an opportunity to put yourself in a position where you may have to eat humble pie! 😉

So what did I do while I was sitting in the sun, doing that serious relaxing? (Or ‘re-raxing’ as one of my Japanese aikido instrcutors used to say. And yes, I did feel sad just writing the word ‘Japan’.)  I read Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Dragonfly Falling, the second in his Shadows of the Apt series.  I liked the first book, The Empire of Black and Gold well enough, but my sister—a keen reader—has assured me that they go from strength to strength and I’ll admit that I did enjoy Dragonfly Falling a lot, so am looking forward to getting hold of the third-in-series soon.

Not quite my area, but still ... a friend's car in the central city, Feb 22

Today, March 18 is National Christchurch Memorial Day, with a service planned for mid-day in Hagley Park, close to the city centre. A great many dignatories will be there, but I won’t be. A memorial service—less than a month on and with all the missing not yet found and the dead not yet named—seems an odd thing. Odder, that we might all just down tools and head off to the park for a picnic and a spot of music. I’ve no objection to others going if it means something to them and they think it will help, but my main emotion is that this is something happening ‘over there’ that bears no relationship to me at all.

This used to be my gym

I did go for a bit of a walk though yesterday, expanding the boundaries of my post-earthquake perimeter a little further, and thought I would share a few of the shots I took with you, by way of a “silent witness.”

This was a friend's neighbour's home

Nothing too dramatic or grand, but this is my memorial.

—

Fitzgerald Ave, a main road on the boundary of the central city

And again ...

The footpath

The bridge

NZ writer Yvonne de Fresne died on Sunday, March 13 at the age of 81. Beatties Bookblog carried a notice yesterday, taken from the University of Victoria International Institute of Modern Letters’ newsletter. The NZ Book Council website contains a full account of Yvonne de Fresne’s contribution to NZ literature.

I never met Yvonne de Fresne in person or heard her speak. I have read two of her books: The Book of Ester and the linked short story collection The Bear from the North.

The latter in particular seized my imagination through the vivid persona of Astrid Westergaard, a New Zealand girl of Danish cultural heritage growing up in the Manawatu. I was caught by the powerful way in which de Fresne wove the cultural and family myths of Astrid’s Danish background into the Manawatu landscape, weaving a magical spell of immigration and belonging. I enjoyed The Book of Ester as well, but The Bear from the North is one of the works of contemporary New Zealand  fiction that has most profoundly captured my imagination.