Recently, I reported that Thornspell had been reviewed in Italian. And now “The Heir of Night” has been reviewed on a German blog. Of course, the review is in German, so I can’t actually read it [grins], but the reviewer did comment here to say that:

” … I’ve just finished reading The Heir of Night … it was fun to read … Looking forward for book 2.″

So I figure the review is probably on the plus side. But if you can read German then you can find out—and possibly report back 😉 — here.

A few more UK links for “The Heir of Night” have come through recently as well, with Andy Venn on Walker of Worlds blog finding it: “a cracking story … It gallops along a rate of knots that almost leaves you gasping for breath, but I still found it very hard to put down.”

You can read the full review here.

And Cheryl Morgan of Salon Futura, in her “The Class of 2010″ snapshot of new writing from last year also includes a closer look at Heir as “not your typical fantasy world”, with a particular eye for the cultural nuances of the story. The other writers reviewed are Trent Jamieson, Amelia Beamer and Dexter Palmer.

Click on “The Class of 2010″ link above to read all four reviews.

Yesterday I shared some thoughts on “epic fantasy” and whether—or not—the reason JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or George RR Martin’s A Game of Thrones have been so successful is because “we’re tired of war.” These thoughts were sparked by a guest post by Daniel Abrahams on the Orbit blog—but also arose from my earlier Big Idea post on John Scalzi’s Whatever in 2010.

(By the way, is there a significant trend with  “RR” monikers and hugely successful epic fantasy authors: i.e. should I consider changing my name by deed pole to HRR Lowe or Helen RR Lowe? 😉 )

OK, back on topic. The thrust of  my premise, in summary, is that stories such as The Lord of the Rings and  A Game of Thrones speak to us as readers because of the way in which the internal conflicts of the protagonists, juxtaposed with the external struggles in which they are engaged, speak to our human condition. One obvious way of exploring those struggles and illuminating the associated human issues is through the large-scale wars that characterize the epic fantasy genre.

Another comment that caught my attention though was one by Paul Jessup that asked: ” … what about the pre-80′s epic fantasies that didn’t involve OMG LARGE SCALE WARS? Like Forgotten Beasts of Eld, Riddlemaster, Earthsea books, etc, etc.”

I have just been re-reading Patricia McKillip’s The Changeling Sea and thinking all over again how much I love both that book and others that I consider to be “classic McKillip”—which for me include exactly the titles cited by Jessup, i.e. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy. I also still rate Ursula Le Guin’s initial Earthsea trilogy (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore) as amongst the finest Fantasy I’ve read. But are they epic fantasy? With the exception of Patricia McKillip’s The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy, I am not persuaded that they are.

Personally, I am not a great one for definition—the main questions for me are always: “was this book a good read?” and “did I love it?” But, but I can’t help feeling that in order to be considered epic fantasy the story has to in some way address the epic sweep of events, encompassing nations, cultures and the “winds of change sweeping through the corridors of power”—in whatever way seems appropriate to the context of the story.

I believe that Patricia McKillip’s Riddlemaster trilogy (i.e The Riddlemaster of Hed; Heir of Sea and Fire; and Harpist in the Wind) achieves this epic sweep, but to me The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, like The Changeling Sea operates at a more personal level, i.e. the focus of the story is the personal change and growth of the central protagonist and although in Eld—but not Changeling—there are certainly larger events in the background, these are peripheral to that personal tale. And particularly when I look at McKillip’s work (even the Riddlemaster trilogy, although it is muted there) both the scope and structure of the storytelling, as well as the language and imagery of the writing, speak far more to the fairytale tradition than they do to epic fantasy.

Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy is also primarily focused at the personal level—the central protagonists in all three books are involved in events where both self-realization and overcoming the (more fallible)  self are the core of the tale. Admittedly, an element of “saving the world” creeps into the The Farthest Shore and both that book and A Wizard of Earthsea are strongly focused around the quest/hero’s journey—but these tropes are as common to folklore and fairytale as they are to epic sagas.

I really love all these stories, but I don’t think of them as epic fantasy. Then again, they don’t have to be: “epic”, after, all is only one very small corner of the fantasy ‘verse.  I do agree with Paul Jessup though, that McKillip and Le  Guin provide excellent examples of outstanding fantasy that is not focused on large-scale wars.  In fact, war-based conflict does not feature in either  The Changeling Sea or the Earthsea books at all.

So does a book have to be about large-scale war to qualify as epic fantasy? I don’t believe so, but I do feel its has to encompass, in some way, the grand sweep of events—and large-scale war can serve as convenient shorthand for that.

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For more you can also read:

Epic Fantasy
More Thoughts on Epic Fantasy

Sometimes the synchronicty of events seems almost uncanny … Only this Monday past, I posted on Winter is coming, talking not only about winter literally being just around the corner here in the southern hemisphere, but also about George RR Martin’s novel A Game of Thrones and the about-to-be-released HBO TV series of the same name, based on the book. (If you don’t already know then I’ll have to insist you read the post to see how the novel and series relate to the tag “winter is coming.” 😉 )

And on Sunday, when I posted on “What I’m Reading”, I mentioned Daniel Abrahams novel, Betrayal in Winter, having discussed his first-in-series Shadow in Summer a little earlier on February 6.

So I was intrigued, when I popped onto the Orbit blog this morning—just to see what was happening, you know how you do—that Daniel Abrahams had a guest post up talking, amongst other things, about A Game of Thrones and the HBO series. The post discusses—again, amongst other things—those fantasy stories that: “… celebrate violence, or more often treat it as something unreal and without cost … “ So those of you who read my Big Idea post on John Scalzi’s Whatever blog, back in October, will probably understand at once why it caught my interest.

Titled “The Two Tolkiens” (the second being not Christopher, JRR’s son, but George RR Martin, author of A Game of Thrones), the premise of Daniel Abraham’s post is that books such as  The Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones are currently “reaching outside the usual genre readers to talk to … [a] … wider audience” because ” our two Tolkiens are telling us that we’re tired of war.”

Abrahams then advances his case with reference to both books, but concludes that their success doesn’t really mean that epic fantasy is back because quite a few fantasies (I would say a lot)  are (as above) “… adventure stories that celebrate violence, or more often treat it as something unreal and without cost … “ But these, unlike The Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones, are not  ” … the projects that are reaching outside the usual genre readers to talk to the wider audience.”

I hope I have now intrigued you enough to go and read the full post here. I definitely do think it’s worth it.

You will also, if you read the comments section, see that I question Abrahams’ premise. While the facts speak for themselves in terms of the appeal of both Tolkien and Martin (I do have a resistance to the tag of the “Two Tolkiens”, but that’s another topic …) I am not convinced that it is because “we’re tired of war.” (As I say in my comment, I’m not convinced that we are tired of war—the evidence of the world around us and the stories that dominate our media seem to suggest otherwise.)

One of the reasons both books have been so popular is, quite simply, because they’re damned fine stories. But the case I advanced in my comment, which is fundamentally the same as that contained in my Big Idea post of 21 October 2010, was this:

“In my view, what you have described with LoTR and AGoT is exactly what epic fantasy is–drawing on its roots in both the Greek and Norse (in western tradition) mythic epics (the same ones that initially hooked me into reading fantasy.) In those stories, it is the internal conflict within the protagonists—-their struggle between the pressures of self-interest, the socio-political forces in their societies and the codes they hold to be true and right—-that drive the power, drama and tragedy of the narrative.

The same forces, I believe, are at play in both LoTR and AGoT and that, I can’t help feeling, is what is really speaking to us out of both books, rather than a–perhaps–more simplistic weariness of war …  We live in a world where any values of “right” and “true” that we are hold as individuals are constantly under pressure, being eroded even, by self-interest and self-preservation and by societal forces driving to achieve particular outcomes in terms of (for example) resource use / allocation and to enforce belief systems. I imagine that most of us try to have “bottom lines” and boundaries that we don’t cross—-but we live in a world where boundaries are often blurred and the pressure to push the margins further out, and then just a little further again, is a constant.

This is exactly the pressure that we see played out, time and again, in “A Game of Thrones”, and which the characters, through the metaphor of the ring, struggle to resist in “The Lord of the Rings.”

Anyway, I do hope you will go to the Orbit blog and read Daniel Abrahams post. As I said above, I really do think it’s worth the effort.

I’d also like to hear what you think, especially if you’re readers of epic fantasy—but even if you’re not you probably have an opinion on whether or not we really are tired of war. And if we are, whether that’s why books such as The Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones have been so successful.

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For more you can also read:

More on Epic Fantasy
More Thoughts on Epic Fantasy

T Clear's Tuesday Poem Birthday Cake

Today, Friday 8, I’m on the roster to contribute to the Tuesday Poem Blog’s first birthday poem–my lines should be up by mid-day, so here’s hoping I don’t drop the collective ball! (Gulps!) You can check out how it’s all going, here. And I do love the chocolate birthday cake by US poet T. Clear—trouble is, I want a real taste of that, not just a virtual one!

I also love the way the progressive poem has evolved out of the legend of the Norse god Tyr, who lost his hand to the wolf Fenris in order to save the rest of the gods … that was always one of my favourite of the Norse myths when I first started reading them as a kid. (Tyr also gave his name to “Tuesday”, of course.)

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Another project that I’m very enthusiastic about at present is Tales for Canterbury, the short fiction anthology being put together by Cassie Hart and Anna Caro as a fund raiser for Christchurch after the February 22nd story. I’m just putting the finishing touches to The Fountain, which I’ve donated to the project. Other writers who are contributing work include Neil Gaiman, Karen Healey, Juliet Marillier, Ripley Patton, Mary Victoria and Sean Williams amongst many more. You can read the full list of contributors here.

You may also like this promotional video put together by Matt Cowens, a fellow contributor.

I will be writing to everyone I know—who does not live in Christchurch 😉 —about Tales for Canterbury and encouraging them to pre-order, but if you are reading this blog and want to both acquire a great anthology and help Chriscthurch and its people post-earthquake, then hie thee to Random Static and preorder here.

I reiterate: do not wait, do not pass go—preorder now! (Just to be absolutely clear, not one penny goes to the contributors, editors or publishers—this is all for the earthquake cause.)

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And for those of you who wonder whether, as a writer, it is absolutely necessary also to have a cat, check out Writers and Kitties. You may recall that I established my credentials in this department on January 19. 🙂

Today is a post of oddments …

… The Tuesday Poem Blog’s first birthday poem (on a theme, directly and/or indirectly, of Tuesday) is growing—and will continue to do so throughout this week. You can check on progress here

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… Gillian Polack, whom I was on a panel with (can I say “panelled with”?) at Worldcon way back in September ’10, has been nominated for a Ditmar Award for the short story anthology Baggage. Way to go, Gillian, I’m cheering from your corner. 🙂

(Another friend, Mary Victoria, talks more about Baggage (& publisher Eneit Press) here.)

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… I read Neil Gaiman’s personal/blog tribute for Diana Wynne Jones and I cried, because although (obviously) not for Diana, I’ve been there all the same for other people:

“She was on morphine, breathing heavy and hard, as if she was fighting for every breath … there was a sense that felt like a certainty that she wasn’t going to open her eyes and talk again. This sleep was final, and soon the breathing would stop … But there was only one Diana Wynne Jones, and the world was a finer one for having her in it.” — N Gaiman

And of course Neil Gaiman knew DWJ in person, whereas I could only do my small tribute as a reader—but maybe when you’re a writer it’s good to have both …

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I wanted to write another Earthquake Report for today and found I couldn’t … Because sometimes the ‘quaky aftermath just gets to you and it’s all too real and present and altogether “just too much” so that you don’t want to talk about it at all … so no piccies of my chimney and what’s replaced it (the  ‘weathertight-for-winter’ interim solution which of course is fine, but …) just yet. 🙁

But on a slightly more upbeat note, here’s the clip “A Fraction Liquefaction” (an adaptation of the Split Enz hit “There’s a Fraction Too Much Friction” ) which is a relatively light-hearted look at the whole February 22nd liquefaction experience and its consequences. So here it is:

A Fraction Liquefaction 😉

Now that NZ Book Month is over it’s time to look forward to the next event on the horizon, which in my case is ConText, the  32^nd New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention, which is to be held in Auckland over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend of 3-5 June.

Although the full programme is yet to be confirmed, the international Guest of Honour is US author Catherine Asaro who will also be running a pre-Convention writing workshop on 1-2 June.

I am very much looking forward to attending ConText, meeting up with Catherine and the other guests, who I understand may include Lyn McConchie and Russell Kirkpatrick, with fan Guest of Honour, Lynette Howell.

Closer to the event, I’ll bring you details of the programme events I’ll be particiapting in—I do look forward to seeing some of my NZ readers there. 🙂

Today is the Tuesday Poem Blog’s first brthday—and we’re having a party: a week-long party in fact, with each of the Tuesday poets contributing a line—or two!—to a “progressive” poem.

To watch the birthday poem evolve, go to the Tuesday Poem hub, here. (Or click on the Quill icon in the sidebar.)

But it’s Tuesday so we still have to have a poem, right? Right!

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But just for a little advance on more poetry goodness first, it’s currently National Poetry Month in the States and over on Tor.com they’re celebrating poetry written by notable SFF writers. Yesterday’s featured poem was John M Ford’s Sonnet Against Entropy. So if you are already a fan of Voyagers Science Fiction Poetry of New Zealand, or either SFF or poetry generally, you might like to check this series out.

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OK, back to my Tuesday Poem …

Yesterday I posted that “Winter is coming …” but right now it’s still autumn and so it feels right to have an autumn poem. So here you are:

.

This is My Heart

Feet pound on pavement,
autumn blows and scatters
leaves across shoes moving
in a welter of russet, scarlet,
bronze: wind gusts, restless
with residual melancholy –
feel the earth’s heart turning
beneath the pale sun, catch
the rhythm through the sole
of every footstep, pulsing
to the brave, wind-blown
brightness of the day:
this is my heart, beating;
this is my heart

.

(c) Helen Lowe

Runner-Up: A2O Poetry Competition (Australia) 2007

Yesterday—well, Saturday night really—we put our clocks back: we are now no longer on daylight saving (summer) time. So although we can kid ourselves that we’ve got autumn in reserve, we know in our bones that “winter is coming …”

The signs have been there anyway: that decided coolness in the air at morning and evening and the first trees starting to turn colour (more noticeable when I was in Wakatipu and Southland the week before last), but the end of daylight saving sounds that final knell. The evenings are going to draw in dark and close, and although the mornings will be lighter for a few weeks, that too will quickly pass.

Great for writing, of course, and also for watching a good TV series during those lengthening evenings. On which note …

Sean Bean as Ned Stark

“Winter is coming” has a whole new meaning this year because the HBO series of “A Game of Thrones”, based on the book of the same name by George RR Martin, is also coming our way. A Game of Thrones is the first in Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, which currently stands at 4 books with a 5th promised to coincide with release of the HBO series. The central characters in the book are the Stark family of Winterfell and their motto is–you’ve guessed it—“Winter is coming.”

When I first read A Game of Thrones way back in the late 1990s I thought it was one of the best Fantasy novels I had read in a long, long time. Martin has set up a rich, complex and dangerous world where the onset of winter means not just many years (seasons run in years in this world, not months) of physical privation but also the awakening of old, dark forces. The characters are human, flawed—and fascinating, and I am both excited and apprehensive as to what HBO will have made of so complex a story. The initial stills are encouraging in that the casting seems to be very good—and the trailers have caught the “winter is coming” atmosphere.

Here’s a couple of trailer links for you to check out for yourself:

“The Raven”

and

“Winter is Coming”

The series is scheduled for release in the States on 17 April and in the UK on April 18. I hope it will not be too much longer before it shows here in NZ, but in any case, not many sleeps now until I find out whether HBO have captured the power of the book.

Since I last posted on March 26, I am still reading Ian McDonald’s River of Gods. As I said then, normally this is the kind of book I would love and race through—it’s cyberpunk scifi with an array of characters and layers of complexity to the plot. Intellectually, I know it’s a good read but emotionally I just can’t connect with the story.  I suspect this is because the February 22nd earthquake and its aftermath have been such an emotionally draining time that stories that demand concentration and emotional energy are not the right reading “fit.” So if I don’t get it finished this week I may put it aside and come back to it a little later in the year.

A book I have completed recently was Daniel Abrahams’ A Betrayal in Winter, the second in his “The Long Price” quartet. You may recall that I had just enjoyed the first book, A Shadow in Summer, when I posted on February 6. I was intrigued by the world, which has a decidedly Sino-Japanese “feel” to it and also by the characters and depth of the story.  A Betrayal in Winter built on those strengths and I enjoyed the story even more—possibly because I’m also getting more “into” the world and the characters. Betrayal is what I would call “political-cultural SFF”, where the story revolves around intrigue and personalities rather than sword-swinging action, but it definitely doesn’t feel “slow.”

And just by the way, for those of you who followed Mary Victoria’s Writing Strong Women guest blog series—Daniel Abrahams writes great female characters. I think the accountant (yes, I know, a bean-counter, but …) Amat Kyaan in A Shadow in Summer, and the princess Idaan Machi in A Betrayal in Winter are two of the most interesting women I’ve encountered in SFF for some time.

So how about you, what are you reading right now?

On the first of every month I post on the Supernatural Underground, a blog for writers of speculative fiction published by HarperCollinsUSA.

1 April (it’s still 1 April in the USA) being my mother’s birthday, I have focused today’s post on three characters that I consider to be among the great “moms” of SciFi-Fantasy.  (And yup, writing the post made me realise just how few there are who feature as major characters. And yes again, even in books written by women.)

So do go on over, have a read and leave a comment. I’d love to see you there.