KimFalconer

The latest post on Supernatural Underground by my friend and fellow SU author, Kim Falconer, is titled:

What Readers’ Want — Series or Standalone?

In order to share your perspective on What Readers’ Want, you can either leave a comment for Kim, or click on the poll.

A few readers have reported problems opening the poll link, but I accessed it via Firefox and was able to do so, by opening it in a new tab.

As mentioned, though, comments will work, and I’m sure Kim would love it if you left one. 😀

Single titles

… vs series

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And I’ll back on SU myself on April 1, with another post on my Heroes theme.

Well, it’s taken a while, but my very own copy of Maus, subtitled A Survivor’s Tale, has finally arrived. I understand the work was originally published in two parts, I believe subtitled My Father Bleeds History (1986) and  And Here My Troubles Began (1992), respectively.

As you’re probably all aware, in early January, a country school board in Tennessee removed the book from its curriculum, allegedly for reasons of content and age appropriateness.

Given this is the only graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize, I decided this was clearly a book I needed to read for myself and make up my own mind about the merits, or otherwise, of the school board’s position. Unlike one member of the board who “…stated that he had not “seen the book [or] read the whole book,” instead admitting that he’d only “read the reviews.” “ (Source: “Banned by Tennessee School Board, ‘Maus’ Soars to the Top of Bestseller Charts”, McGreevy, N., Smithsonian Magazine, February 2, 2022.)

The Smithsonian Magazine article summarises the content of Maus, as well as the recent controversy, but here’s the GoodReads summary as well:

“…the complete story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler’s Europe. By addressing the horror of the Holocaust through cartoons, the author captures the everyday reality of fear and is able to explore the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival – and how the children of survivors are in their own way affected by the trials of their parents. A contemporary classic of immeasurable significance.“

I shall share my own Maus experience here soon.

On Monday, I posted a list of previous worldbuilding posts that specifically focused on my own books, only to realize afterward that when it comes to these two topics, the bullseye category is probably A Geography of Haarth.

The Wall of Night Series map; artist Peter Fitzpatrick

I posted the series in two instalments, the first over 2013 – 2014, and focused on locales in  The Heir of Night and The Gathering of the Lost.

The second instalment ran from February 2017 through until December 2019, and basically updated the series to accommodate Daughter of Blood.

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Since it has its own  title under Categories in the far-right-hand sidebar, those who’re interested can peruse it at their leisure, from Academy Island to Wymark, Aeris to the Winter Country:

A Geography of Haarth

The Wall of Night Series map; artist Peter Fitzpatrick

I’ve realized I’ve let the worldbuilding focus slip a little bit over the past month, with the last post featuring on February 14:

Open for some serious worldbuilding business…

Beware The Expository Lump

No valentines included tho’ — unless a few worldbuilding tips fit the bill. 😀

When starting, I quickly realized I had done a considerable number of worldbuilding posts before and promised a few lists. The idea being that this would pull the links into one (or several) place(s) and give readers the opportunity to delve in or out of material “as they wish.”

Today, I thought I’d start with the previous posts that focused on my own writing. Starting with more recent posts and working back to those first penned in “…on Anything Really, the Early Years.” 😉
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Listicle 1: Worldbuilding Posts Focused On My Books
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1. In August 2016, I wrote three linked posts on how names can support fantasy worldbuilding:

• August 10: Use of Names–Worldbuilding, Part 1 — with particular reference to The Gathering of the Lost 
• August 15: Use of Names–Worldbuilding, Part 2 — with specific reference to Thornspell
• August 22: Use of Names–Character & Identity — When Names Have Deeper Meanings This post references to all my books to date and is also more of a spinoff into general storytelling rather than worldbuilding per se, but having been penned a a trio, the trio is what you get!

2. Earlier in 2016, I honed in on another very important element in epic worldbuilding: armour and weapons — again, focused on the WALL series and Thornspell.

• March 21, 2016: Keeping It Real With Armour and Weapons

3. Back in August 2015 I had another worldbuilding binge, including:

• August 31: “Here Be Dragons” — The Magic and Power of Maps
• August 14: Worldbuilding in The Wall Of Night Series — the Medieval European Setting, 1
• August 15: Worldbuilding in The Wall Of Night Series — the Medieval European Setting, 2
• August 16: Worldbuilding in The Wall Of Night Series — the Medieval European Setting, 3 — this final post also contains links to related posts. not necessarily on worldbuilding.

4. To conclude (for today), I’ll take a larger, if not precisely giant, leap back to October 2011 and posts focusing on worldbuilding in The Heir of Night and Thornspell respectively:

• October 28: Worldbuilding in Thornspell
• October 29: Worldbuilding in The Heir of Night

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The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:

“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”

~ from: Legend Award Finalist’s Interview, 2013

Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood — in alphabetical order, by name, of course!

And although we are coming to the end of entries under “L”, today is “not this day!”

“Not this day.”

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Luin:  a page at the ducal court in Caer Argent (the capital of Emer.)

“Malian blinked at the brightness, taking in the few, brightly clad courtiers strolling on a lawn outside, and the halberdiers in ducal uniform at the far end of the gallery. … [She] … fished in her wallet for a coin and handed it to the page. “What’s your name?” she asked, pausing on the threshold while the halberdiers looked on, expressionless.

“Hirluin,” he said, slipping the coin inside his tunic rather than the wallet at his belt. “Because I was born on Lord Hirluin’s birthday—but everyone calls me Luin.”

“Or trouble,” a halberdier muttered, but Luin had already started back down the red-and-yellow hall, waving a cheerful farewell.

~ from © The Gathering of The Lost, The Wall Of Night Book Two – Chapter 35, Caer Argent

I have always loved Katharine Kerr’s Daggerspell, which kicks off her first Fantasy quartet, the Deverry series.

The second, Westland series (also set in Deverry incidentally) also comprises four titles:

• A Time of Exile
• A Time of Omens
• A Time of War
• A Time of Justice

Recently, I was juxtaposing these titles with a phrase from a much-loved television series, Babylon 5. The phrase is “The Hour of Scampering” and is used by the (alien) Vorlon ambassador to describe the early evening, between work, home, and socializing, when human beings are particularly busy in the space station’s public forum, i.e. “scampering.”

(The phrase is used in Deathwalker, one of the finest episodes, imho, in the somewhat patchy Season 1.)

My juxtaposition involved cribbing the phrase, “a time of scurrying” to encapsulate the current process of moving from one section of the book to the next—the scurrying involved being the back and forth between the two as I realize that, “Oh yes, if the new section’s going to work this way, then that has to happen a little earlier.”

Ambassador Kosh, Babylon-5

All to ensure the setup has the right entry vector, which is, of course, a noble endeavour. The further I get from the initial crossover, though, the less scurrying is required, as accomplishing the “this” drives its own forward momentum.

By way of good news, there’s still a little scurrying currently, but I can feel the forward momentum building.

Yep, my 1 March blog on Supernatural Underground has not only posted but I’ve finally gotten onto my Heroes in Fantasy series, after heralding it on January 1.

What makes a hero?

As mentioned in the post, my normal m.o. is to jump right in and tell SU followers all about heroes in fantasy literature that have rocked my reading world.

And I do  reference quite a few heroes—but I also wanted to look at what makes a person a hero, whether in storytelling or real life (although my focus will very much be storytelling.)

Including heroines….

As you can probably guess if you’ve read any of my books, it’s something I reflect upon reasonably often. 😉

So-o the title of this month’s post is:

What Makes A Hero

But you’ll have to rock on over to Supernatural Underground to get to grips with my reckons on this absorbing topic. 😀

And non-human heroes!

Enjoy!

The Shipping News was first published in 1993 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994. It was made into a film in 2001, starring Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, and Judi Dench as “the aunt.”

The story centres on Quoyle, who is called only by his surname throughout the book and is the despised younger son of an expatriate Newfoundland family living in the United States. Friendless except for the chance-met Partridge, Quoyle lurches from debacle to disaster in a life distinguished only by intermittent employment as a hack journalist, a loveless marriage with an exploitative and emotionally abusive partner, and becoming the father of two neglected small daughters.

The turning point comes when his parents die and his wife is killed in a car crash, and he meets his aunt, Agnis Hamm, for the first time. Agnis is returning to her childhood home in Newfoundland and persuades Quoyle to bring his daughters and return with her. Through the good offices of Partridge, now living in California, Quoyle obtains a job on another newspaper, The Gammy Bird*, where one of his responsibilities is to cover the shipping news.

When I first tried to read The Shipping News, close to first publication and its Pulitzer Prize win, I couldn’t get past Quoyle’s complete hopelessness and rock-bottom life. Recently, though, a friend discussed it in such positive terms, particularly the lens into Newfoundland history and more contemporary (i.e. 1990s now!) society, that I was encouraged to give it another go. I was going to get it from the library, but almost immediately saw a very nice copy in a local hospice shop for the princely sum of $4—and the rest, as the saying goes, is history. 😀

This time, armed with foreknowledge of the book’s dreary beginnings, along with the encouragement of my friend’s positive recommendation, I kept reading—and did end getting into the swing of the book. It still took a while, because there is a rhythm to the writing and the character interactions that I needed to adjust to, but in the end I did enjoy the read.

I agree with my friend that the story provides insight into the history and culture of Newfoundland, but it’s still a book that’s very much about the characters–and there is an array of them, from Quoyle and his aunt, to the assorted, Gammy Bird journalists, and locals such as Wavey Prowse with her Downs-Syndrome son, and Dennis Buggit, a local builder, and his wife, Beety.

And yes, I do believe almost every character has a name that is unusual in some way, such as Tert Card, Diddy Shovel, and Petal Bear. So you see, it isn’t just fantasy fiction that is distinguished in this way. 😉 As the names suggest, the cast are all “characters”, and shaped by the Newfoundland environment, which is dominated by the sea: boats, shipping, fishing, wrecks and drownings lie at the heart of the book as they do the society it portrays.

However idiosyncratic the characters, the core of the story is the is always Quoyle and his slow adjustment to the Newfoundland way of life, an adjustment that keeps pace with his development, not only of a sense of personal identity, but also of self worth.

I believe The Shipping News story will appeal to those who like historical context and social history in their fiction, as well as “coming of age” elements and personal redemption elements, and a focus on the foibles and oddities of human nature. If you’re a reader who enjoys writing by Barbara Kingsolver and Ann Patchett, John Banville and Ian McEwan, I think you may also enjoy The Shipping News.

I read the 1994 paperback edition, 337 pages, published by Fourth Estate. As mentioned, I acquired it secondhand.

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* “Gammy bird” apparently, is a Newfoundland term for the eider duck.

Well, there I was, all set to put together another “3 C’s” post on the reference to “contrary, if not downright cantankerous muses” in my WALL #4 update post of January 6 — when I realized that effectively it was already written and posted on October 25 last year, as:

Inside the Writing Life: Wrangling The Road Blocks

It’s not just about contrary muses, but it’s certainly a major part of the post. As you can see from the following, there’s a smidgeon of “Characters Behaving Badly” in the mix as well:

Apollo and the Muses pentyptych, by Charles Meynier, Cleveland Museum of Art

“…The writing process gets even trickier when the characters, the narrative, or the Muses are not playing ball. As mentioned in the Puzzles post, sometimes the roadblocks are simply a case of the author not seeing the writing forest for the individual trees…

The muses, Euterpe & Melpomene: (c) National Trust, Attingham Park; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

The post goes on to discuss some of the circumstances under which the muses may appear to throw a spanner into the writing process, including:

• Avoiding “by-the-numbers” storytelling or “cardboard cutout” characters
• Not crossing the same storytelling stream twice
• Maintaining authenticity

Surface appearances may deceive, though, and what may first appear to be a spanner-in-the-works most often turns out to be beneficial. So if you’re interested to find out more, please do read the full post. 🙂

Last year was the tenth anniversary of the February 22nd earthquake which took 185 lives and did so much damage to my home city of Christchurch and its wider environs.

Accordingly, I did a retrospective post looking back over the decade:

Faultline: My Decade From February 22nd, 2011

My chief emotion, when writing the post, was sadness and a profound awareness of the decade’s physical and emotional geography of loss.

Yet despite my sorrow I also felt greatly honoured, because the Prime Minister chose to conclude her speech for the National Remembrance Service with lines from The Sparrows, which is one of my earthquake poems:

The Prime Minister’s February 22nd Remembrance Speech and “The Sparrows”

“I meant it to be a poem about sparrows”; artist Claire Beynon

In many ways, the retrospective, together with the recognition inherent in use of The Sparrows, marked a turning point. I am still aware of the gaps and the damaged areas that are still with us, but increasingly I find myself noticing and celebrating the new Christchurch taking shape all around us.

This includes both restorations, such as the Edmonds Band Rotunda and the Dandelion fountains outside the 1970s Town Hall (also restored), as well as structures that are completely new, such as the Te Pae convention centre.

So to mark today, the eleventh anniversary of the February 22nd earthquake, I have taken some photos to share here. I note that they’re fairly random, being things I’ve spotted when out and about on other business. When it comes to carefully curated photo essays I shall have to refer you to the experts. 😀
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Edmonds’ Band Rotunda — Restored to its former glory

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Dandelion fountains & restored Town Hall

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New footbridge over the River Avon, central city

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Te Pae convention centre (from Victoria Square)

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Poetry along the new riverside walk

This quote is from work by my friend Frankie McMillan, who is one of New Zealand’s leading short fiction writers and poets, from the book, There Are No Horses In Heaven. It’s located close by the new footbridge and reads:

“Outside I touched earth, called upon it as witness
I too am learning to heal myself.”
~ Frankie McMillan
from: 1925 Henry Souttar Does the Unthinkable, 2012

I really like the quote and the way it captures a sense of restoration, healing, and renewal. And somehow means more because the words are written by a friend. 🙂

Last but not least, and speaking of footbridges, the photo immediately below is the famous “twisted” bridge, also on the Avon River but several miles east of the city centre. It was located in what is called the “Residential Red Zone”: suburbs so irreparably damaged they were cleared of housing and the residents relocated.

The final photo is the new, replacement footbridge, currently being constructed, which will rejoin the two sides of the river for pedestrians and cyclists using what is now (effectively) a “green zone.” Perhaps fittingly, I took the photo on New Year’s Day.