…and that means #DucklingAlert time on the nearby Avon River

There’s a certain ‘skitterbug’ action going down

It’s also that time of spring for an iris alert in the garden. These irises came from my Mum’s garden. I dug them out before she passed away (after a long illness) and transported them across islands and a stretch of ocean (I’m indulging in poetic license here, it was Cook Strait) before replanting in Christchurch. It’s taken a few years but they’re finally starting to ‘take hold.’

They’re always small, btw, rather than having long stems.:) You can also see one of the last of the nearby magnolia stellata flowers fallen to the ground as spring — not unlike the irises — takes hold. I believe the poet, William Carlos Williams, the magic of this process in his poem Spring and All:

...It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
…the profound change
has come upon them: rooted they
grip down and begin to awaken

The green shoots coming through all around the irises are Michaelmas daisies, which will flower around the autumn equinox.

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that I like reading history, both fiction and non-fiction works.

The Bastard Brigade by Sam Kean is non-fiction and covers: “The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged The Nazi Atomic Bomb.”

It chiefly focuses on US personnel and endeavours in this area, juxtaposing the Manhattan Project with efforts to prevent the Nazis getting a nuclear weapon first. However, The Bastard Brigade does cover the spectrum of the scientific world, including what was happening in Germany and Britain, France (the Joliot-Curies), Denmark (Niels Bohr), and Norway regarding the manufacture of heavy water.

The Bastard Brigade is a very readable and accessible book, generally historically accurate but with the focus on storytelling and personalities, rather than heavy duty science—although there’s enough science there to ensure the reader understands the scientific achievements (and failures) and also the stakes. Some of the interesting side information (to the main nuclear focus) included the importance of geological survey to determining where the D-Day landings would occur, and also that John F Kennedy was a genuine war hero. (US-ians probably know this, but I certainly didn’t.)

Overall, I would describe The Bastard Brigade as popular history, with a deliberately colloquial, or even folksy style, e.g.:

“The agency (the OSS) was going through a tough period at the time. Given its freewheelin’ ways…”

Kean also likes his adjectives. For example, the reader never encounters the German scientist Kurt Diebner without at least two precursor adjectives: e.g. “pathetic, striving Diebner” or words to very similar effect. I understand that such tags are potentially useful for differentiating the large cast of scientists and operatives for readers, helping remind us “who’s who”, but I did find the practice off-putting as the book progressed.

To stick with the Diebner example (although it was not a lone case) I would also have liked more in-text justification of the pejorative adjective use, as I identified at least two instances where Diebner’s actions, however “striving”, were far from “pathetic.” In the first example, Diebner’s nucleur reactor progress surpassed that of Nobel Laureate Werner Heisenberg, allegedly with far fewer resources to call upon. In the second, a team working under Diebner’s auspices got the Vemork heavy water plant operational in six weeks, following sabotage that was supposed to put it out of action for at least two years.

The book also contains a few errors of terminology, such as referring to V1s as “rockets” when they were, I believe,  pulse jets. Similarly, the author refers to “fighter jets” when in the WW2 context they were likely just fighters.

Despite these quibbles, I think The Bastard Brigade is entertaining and interesting, informative and accessible, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical non fiction and history of science, and likes to hone in on the real people behind the headlines.

I read the hardcover edition (447 pp), published by Little, Brown, and published July 2019, which I read via the Christchurch Public Library.

Roll up, roll up, it’s post #8 in my #YOR #RIFF Year of Romance in Fantasy Fiction series on Supernatural Underground.

The book featured this month is Teresa Frohock’s Where Oblivion Lives, the first novel in her Los Nefilim series.

The romance featured is the love of nefilim Diago and Miquel, whose relationship has endured down the centuries and across incarnations, caught up in the eternal war between angels and demons.

To find out more, head on over to Supernatural Undergound and check out post #8:

“The core of the story, though, is who Diago and Miquel are, as individuals and as a couple. Also their part in the larger Los Nefilim picture (which can be murky — this is heaven vs hell and immediately pre-Civil War Spain, after all) …”

Where Oblivion Lives by Teresa Frohock — An Endless Love

#YOR #RIFF

Just the other day, I was very pleased to receive a book-shaped parcel from the far side of the world. And even more pleased, on opening it, to find a copy of Where Oblivion Lives by my friend and fellow author, Teresa Frohock.

Where Oblivion Lives is a Los Nefilim novel, the first in a new trilogy. The story follows on from an earlier series of three linked novellas, subsequently published in one volume as Los Nefilim.

Set in 1930s Spain, in the precursor to the devastating and brutal Civil War (that was itself a curtain raiser for World War Two) the series follows the Nefilim, foot soldiers in the cosmic war between heaven and hell, angels and demons.

To get a more indepth sense of the world, check out my post on the earlier Los Nefilim novellas, here:

What I’m Reading: The Los Nefilim Novellas

As for what this new series is about in more specific terms, here’s what the backcover synopsis has to say:

“Born of daimon and angel, Diago Alvarez is a being unlike all others. The embodiment of dark and light, he has witnessed the good and the horror of this world and those beyond. In the supernatural war between angels and daimons that will determine humankind’s future, Diago has chosen Los Nefilim, the sons and daughters of angels who possess the power to harness music and light.

As the forces of evil gather, Diago must locate the Key, the special chord that will unite the nefilim’s voices, giving them the power to avert the coming civil war between the Republicans and Franco’s Nationalists. Finding the Key will save Spain from plunging into darkness.

And for Diago, it will resurrect the anguish caused by a tragedy he experienced in a past life.

But someone—or something—is determined to stop Diago in his quest and will use his history to destroy him and the nefilim. Hearing his stolen Stradivarius played through the night, Diago is tormented by nightmares about his past life. Each incarnation strengthens the ties shared by the nefilim, whether those bonds are of love or hate . . . or even betrayal.

To retrieve the violin, Diago must journey into enemy territory . . . and face an old nemesis and a fallen angel bent on revenge.”

I’m looking forward to reading Where Oblivion Lives because I enjoy Teresa’s writing and liked the earlier Los Nefilim stories, but I note that it received a starred review from Publishers Weekly:

“Frohock has intricately woven a unique reinterpretation of history. Eloquent prose accompanies a lyrical theme amid prewar tensions, enriching this imaginative historical fantasy.”

In terms of other reader responses, you’ll find some more here.

I’m going to reading this book very soon—for reasons that will become clear later in the week. So watch this space. 😉

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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 my 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 simultaneously — in alphabetical order, of course!

(The quotes, together with the covers, indicate the books in which the character appears.)

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Ilaise:  also Ilaise Sondlyon, a damosel of Normarch, in the southern realm of Emer

Audin was there, too, and Raher and the damosel with the cut-down ladyspike. If anything, she looked even more haggard and dirty than Malisande. A trickle of blood smeared across her face when she tried to wipe it away, but it was not until she took off her metal cap and a yellow braid tumbled down that Carick finally recognized Ilaise.

~  from © The Gathering Of The Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two: Chapter 20 — The Leas

It feels a very long blog ago to August 2014, but awa’ back then I penned a short essay on Finding Adventure in Fantasy, that appeared as part of a feature on Awkward Paper Cut.

I stumbled over the draft on the weekend and thought, given the “long blog ago” element, it might be fun to share it again here today.

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Finding Adventure In Fantasy

~ by Helen Lowe

My writing style is primarily intuitive, with stories springing from an initial ‘flash’ of an idea, before evolving. So in terms of ‘finding’ adventure (or any other element) in Fantasy, I agree with Ursula Le Guin that: “The world’s full of stories, you just reach out” (Steering The Craft). But I believe we also reach out for the kind of stories that ‘speak’ to us most profoundly. In my case this will probably always include adventurous stories, because I love them.

As a craftsperson, however, I know that an adventurous story will work best if there are peaks and subsequent levelings-off in the telling. The number of these ‘peaks’ and ‘plains’ will depend on the book’s length. In Thornspell, which is a relatively short (ca. 70,000-word) retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the prince who breaks the spell, the structure comprises: an opening set up (aka a ‘small hill’); the transition (a ‘plain’) of the prince from childhood to early manhood; a hunt sequence where he first crosses swords with the tale’s antagonists (the central ‘peak’ of the book.) This is followed by a regrouping and gaining of necessary knowledge (another ‘plain’), with a subsequent build-up of adventurous incidents resulting in the final resolution (peak) of the story.

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A longer story, like The Heir Of Night (ca. 145,000 words) or The Gathering Of The Lost (ca. 207,000 words), will require more ‘peaks’ and ‘plains’ to sustain story tension and reader interest. This is particularly important where a story, as frequently occurs in fantasy, is based around adventure, whether quest, contest or combat. The ‘plains’ are as important as the ‘peaks’, because, as in real life, adventurers in stories cannot be constantly journeying through the wilderness or fighting off enemies without becoming exhausted – while reader interest may be correspondingly blunted. From time to time, both must come to the wayside inn or castle where the weary can eat and rest, regrouping for the next round of adventure, which will consequently press more sharply on both characters and reader.

The importance of balancing ‘peaks’ with ‘plains’ does not mean that both must be given equal treatment within the narrative. Transitions, such as Sigismund’s passage from childhood to manhood, geographic periphery to centre, in Thornspell, may (and almost certainly should) be dealt with swiftly, before the rising ground that heralds the next peak – however blue with distance still – begins its climb… This reflects the principle that the story should always dwell longest on its most crucial elements. In an adventurous story, these will always be the high points of the adventure.

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If you want to read the original series, which includes four other short essays, you can find them here:

Creating Other Worlds: Fantasy and Adventure on Page and Screen

Happy Monday, Team! 😀

The Wall of Night Series map; artist Peter Fitzpatrick

The A Geography of Haarth post series is traversing the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth. Each locale is accompanied by a quote from the relevant books where the place occurs.

From January 25, 2013 to November 25, 2014, the series explored locations encountered in The Heir Of Night and The Gathering Of The Lost. Now the series has resumed to ensure the geography of Daughter Of Blood (The Wall Of Night Book Three) is included in our “grand tour”, epic fantasy style. 🙂

The new series comprises updates of previous entries as well as the new listings. We’re now in the realm of “W”…

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Ward Hold: a satellite fortress of the House of Blood, on the Wall of Night

Myr looked more closely and saw there was a page standing behind the Storm Spear’s chair. The boy was small, which made it hard to see … but he was definitely watching her, apparently as fascinated by her remote, elaborate appearance as she had been by the colorfulness of the Sea Keepers. Myr thought he looked a little like a Sea Keeper himself, with his hair fastened into numerous tiny braids that were shorn off level with his chin. Yet that style was also favored by Ward Hold warriors and the boy’s copper-and-bronze coloring was all Blood. And if he’s with the Storm Spear, Myr decided, he must be in service to their order. But the Bride must not be seen staring, so she let her gaze drift away. By the time it drifted back, the page was staring through the hall’s open doorway, his expression bored.

~ from © Daughter Of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three: Chapter 22 — Honor Contest

“The heavens grant us only one life, but through books, we live a thousand.” – Jay Kristoff

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This quote is from Jay Kristoff’s novel, Godsgrave, if you want to go to the source. But it’s a great quote. 🙂

The poem that is like a city

This poem is like a city. It is full of words.
Doing words. And Being words. And words
that compare one thing to another thing
and words that hold everything together.
This poem has a high rise at its centre with
a view across the plains to the hills.
It has a CBD and CEOs and a thousand
acronyms whirring like wheels. This
poem is going places.  It also has small
prepositions where people pause, drink
coffee and read the paper. They go to
and from and sit before and behind.
They walk across the park, crunching
like gerunds on white gravel while
watching dogs splashing. Ducks quack
and rise. Like inflections? At the end of
phrases? The way we do here? This
poem is a crowded street where words
clatter in several languages and every
thing you see or touch has many names.
This poem is written in the gold leaf of
faith and in the red capitals of SALE
and BUY NOW and all the people walk
among the words as if they were trees
and ornament and would never fall off
the edges of their white page.

The poem jolts at the caesura and all
the words slide sideways, slip from
the beam in dusty slabs. The children
who were learning how to say hullo
tap good bye good bye in all their
voices, reaching in the dark for the
mother tongue. There is no word in
English for this.  No word in any
city.

The poem is palimpsest, scraped
clean each morning and dumped
in the harbour. But at night it rises.
The moon buttons back the dark on
tower block, mall and steeple. Cars
boom hollow on a phantom avenue,
cups fill with froth and nothing and
an empty bus wheezes up Colombo
Street. Stops for the children who
perch, waiting like similes for
chatter and flight, tapping their
abbreviations.

Ths pm is lk
a brkn cty
all its wds r
smshd to
syllbls.

Each syllbl
a brck.

© Fiona Farrell
.
Previously published in Leaving The Red Zone: Poems From The Canterbury Earthquakes, Ed. Norcliffe J & Preston J, Clerestory Press, 2016

Reproduced here with permission.

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Fiona Farrell

About the Poet:

Fiona Farrell has published poetry, fiction, non-fiction and plays. In 2012 she received the ONZM* for Services to Literature. She is still trying to figure out how to write.

*Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit

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About The Poem:

The Earthquakes
Last week was September 4, the ninth anniversary of the 7.1 Canterbury earthquake that began a sustained eighteen months of earthquakes, with aftershocks well beyond that period. Many of the aftershocks were more than big enough to jolt hearts, wear spirits, and stretch nerves. Other events were earthquakes in their own right: February 22nd, June 13, and December 23, all in 2011.

During the main quake period, over 14,000 earthquakes were recorded and the major quakes caused widespread destruction. The February 22nd earthquake killed 185 people and injured many others. Large swathes of Christchurch remain affected and the region is still recovering physically. The mental health of the region’s population has also been badly affected, with significant increases in diagnoses recorded.

Under such circumstances, dates like September 4 are still significant. For many years, the imperative was to batten down and carry on, dealing with the destruction and negotiating everyday life in a compromised environment. Residents and businesses (the people working in them also residents) had to deal with the prolonged demands of insurance claims and the politics of the rebuild as well. Not much bandwidth for reflection, in other words.

Last week, though, thinking about September 4, 2010, but also February 22nd, 2011 in particular, I experienced a huge sadness and grief for all that has been lost: lives, livelihoods, sense of place — a totality that I described, a few years back, as a geography of loss.

The Poem:
All of which led me to turn to Leaving The Red Zone, an anthology of poems from the Canterbury earthquakes. Fiona Farrell’s poem, The Poem That is Like A City, was already in my mind as I did so. The poem forms the epilogue of the anthology, a place of honour in and of itself, because such a poem (imho) must necessarily capture a sense of the anthology—and by implication its subject matter—as a whole.

The Poem That is Like A City does exactly that. As I tweeted at the time, it’s “…clever & tragic & apt. Some of the lines broke my heart all over again.”

And the poem is clever—oh-so-wonderfully clever, in my humble opinion—in the way it uses the structure and forms of language to create the form and structure of the city. So we have “…a CBD and CEOs and a thousand//acronyms whirring like wheels. This//poem is going places.” A little later: “It also has small//prepositions where people pause, drink//coffee and read the paper. They go to//and from and sit before and behind.”

I love the poem’s extended simile of city and poem, and the wit and cleverness with which Fiona Farrell has woven the two together, and the way the love of language informs the whole. I think it’s awesome.

The poem does not stop, though, with the awesome set up in the first stanza. “The poem jolts at the caesura and all//the words slide sideways”, tipping the reader into the subsequent stanzas, where the city as words and the words as city, do indeed “fall off the edges of their white page.” It is tragic, and tore at my heart, remembering: “The children//who were learning how to say hullo/tap good bye good bye in all their//voices, reaching in the dark for the//mother tongue.”

Because this is not just about poetry and the use of language: this is real. The English-language students were real, caught in the collapse of the CTV building and still alive, waiting for a rescue that did not come soon enough to save them. “There is no word in//English for this. No word in any//city.”

I cried last week, reading Fiona’s words and remembering the students and all the 185 who died. As I weep again, typing this. It’s painful; it hurts to remember. Far worse, though, to feel nothing, and to forget. The poem captures something of that, because it “is palimpsest.” As we, the people of Christchurch, are palimpsest: written over with the new while the ghostly past is everpresent—a sense Fiona also captures in the third stanza with the ghostly city that rises by night, where “Cars//boom hollow on a phantom avenue,//cups fill with froth and nothing…”

The Poem That is Like A City is the epilogue to Leaving The Red Zone. It also has its own epilogue, which expresses exactly how I feel, having lived these nine years and their geography of loss:

Ths pm is lk
a brkn cty
all its wds r
smshd to
syllbls.

Each syllbl
a brck.

A brck that was hurled through the window of our collective heart.

I have called The Poem That is Like A City clever, and so it is. Yet if the poem were clever alone, I doubt it would speak to me so strongly. The reason I also call it apt, is not just because it captures the grief of the earthquakes, but because it does so with tremendous insight and pathos and heart.

So thank you, Fiona Farrell: first for writing the poem and secondly for allowing me share it here.

Often, when I’m head down, tail up, and beavering away on the writing, it’s easy to miss out on happenings in the literary and speculative fiction worlds — in this case, that the David Gemmell Awards for Fantasy, usually known as the Gemmell Awards, ended in March this year.

According to the website (which is still largely extant) the reason for the closure was a shortfall in the large number of volunteers needed to run the awards. While understanding that literary endeavours are too often reliant on volunteer goodwill and sponsor generosity, both of which may eventually come to an end, I nonetheless felt sad to farewell the Gemmell Awards.

I am a Fantasy author and the Gemmell Awards focused on works in the field, particularly my current quadrant of Epic/Heroic Fantasy. So I looked to them as am indicator in that respect.  I also felt the benefit of the awards directly in terms of my own writing.

The Gemmell Morningstar Award 2012

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The Heir of Night (The Wall Of Night #1) was first shortlisted and then won the Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer in 2012. I responded in the following posts:

• The Heir of Night Wins — Yes Wins! — the 2012 Gemmell Morningstar Award
• Gemmell Morningstar Award Acceptance Speech
• Some Photos From the Award Ceremony
• Here It Is: The Award Arrives!

The first post, btw, was one of my “most read” posts of 2012. #JustSayin’ 😉

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In 2013, The Gathering of the Lost  (The Wall Of Night #2) was shortlisted for the Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Although Gathering lost out to Brent Weeks’ The Blinding Knife, it was still a tremendous thrill and also an honour to be a finalist in the “open” award:

• The Gathering Of The Lost Makes the Gemmell Legend Award Shortlist
• Not Yet Legend 😉

As a shortlistee, I also got a mini battleaxe (aka ‘Snaga’ from the novel, Legend), which was very cool and still graces the writing study. I have to be a little more careful with the Morningstar Award, since it’s made of crystal. 😀

More seriously, though, although winning the Morningstar and being shortlisted for the Gemmell Legend Award did not make my authorial fame and fortune outright, they did shine public light on my work, and on a great many other works of Fantasy literature. So I am deeply appreciative of the decade of volunteer effort and sponsorship, on my own and the literature’s behalf.

It’s often alleged that epic/heroic fantasy is still a man’s domain. As I indicted in my acceptance speech for the Morningstar Award, I don’t accept for a moment that this is, or should be, so. By way of interesting stats, however, I note that Heir and I are one of only three female authors/female-authored books to win a Legend or Morningstar Award in the ten years between 2009 – 2018:

2012: Morninsgtar Award — Helen Lowe; The Heir Of Night

2017: Morningstar Award — Megan E  O’Keefe; Steal The Sky

2018: Legend Award — Robin Hobb; Assassin’s Fate