{"id":13777,"date":"2012-05-23T12:43:45","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T00:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=13777"},"modified":"2012-05-23T12:43:46","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T00:43:46","slug":"breaking-news-robin-hobb-helen-lowe-in-conversation-plus-an-easter-egg-for-on-anything-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/05\/23\/breaking-news-robin-hobb-helen-lowe-in-conversation-plus-an-easter-egg-for-on-anything-really\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking News: Robin Hobb & Helen Lowe in Conversation—Plus an “Easter Egg” for “…on Anything, Really”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Robin Hobb; photo by Alex Ogdan<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Helen Lowe<\/p><\/div>\n

I woke up this morning to very exciting news.<\/p>\n

Last week, I participated in a Reddit Fantasy AMA<\/a> with Robin Hobb<\/a> , which I enjoyed immensely—and today a conversation ‘in brief’ between Robin & myself features on B&N.com<\/strong> in the States.<\/p>\n

To check it out, click Here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

But there is more. The full, indepth conversation—where Robin and I\u00a0 talk world building, characters, magic, the writing life, and more—appears on both the Harper Voyager website and on Robin’s own blog.<\/p>\n

To read on the Harper Voyager website<\/strong>, click Here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To read on Robin Hobb’s blog<\/strong>, click Here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Plus:<\/em> An “Easter Egg”—of Robin Hobb & Helen Lowe in Conversation<\/h3>\n

But as promised in the title, here is more again just for ‘…on Anything, Really<\/em><\/strong>‘—an extra “easter egg” (Faberge style) of conversation between Robin and myself:<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Robin:\u00a0<\/strong> So in terms of your obvious love of books and storytelling, most of us come to fantasy writing after years of fantasy reading.\u00a0 So, if you were selecting a set of fantasy books for a child of 11, boy or girl, to put them on the path to enjoying fantasy the rest of their lives, what books would you select?\u00a0 Are they ones you read at that age? And how would that compare to the recent SF Signal Mind Meld list <\/span><\/a>you put together on books for teenage girls who read at an advanced level?<\/span><\/p>\n

Helen:<\/strong> Because the Mind Meld brief was \u201cyoung teen girls\u201d I did tend to select more on the basis of books with female protagonist, although I noted that I didn\u2019t think it was strictly necessary. I do feel \u201cgood genre\u201d and \u201cgood storytelling\u201d are most important and some of my choices reflected that, especially in the \u201calmost\u201d list that didn\u2019t make the Top 10 (and even then there were probably at least another twenty or so really good books I could have put in!) I also think a list for \u201cadvanced\u201d readers would differ quite a lot than one for a kid, whether boy or girl, who was having reading difficulties.<\/p>\n

But given a list for both boys and girls at around age eleven\u2014which to me still essentially means a child, much more so than even a 13 or 14 year old\u2014I would look for books that are primarily \u201cgood genre\u201d and should have universal appeal. Possibly partly influenced by my belief that good Fantasy doesn\u2019t comes with a \u201cblue\u201d or \u201cpink\u201d identity card.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

Books that were both my and my brothers\u2019 favorites at a similar age include CS Lewis\u2014particularly The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe<\/em> or The Horse and His Boy<\/em> (the story I loved best in that series,) Tolkien\u2019s The Hobbit<\/em>, and Madeleine L\u2019Engle\u2019s A Wrinkle In Time<\/em>\u2014and just about anything from Andre Norton or Diana Wynne Jones. I\u2019ve always particularly loved Eight Days of Luke<\/em>. which like many of both Norton and Wynne Jones\u2019 books has a boy protagonist. Ursula Le Guin\u2019s A Wizard of Earthsea<\/em> has to be there, as well, as does Robin McKinley\u2019s The Blue Sword<\/em> and Tamora Pierce\u2019s LIONESS series. I might have hesitated over the LIONESS series as appealing to both boys and girls, except that I recently had to loan the whole set to a boy in exactly that age group who began reading the first one and then had to read them all!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I would also add more recent works, written for younger readers but which I have still enjoyed as an adult reader—and which I know both boys and girls in the age group have also liked. Philip Pullman\u2019s The Golden Compass<\/em> stands out, as does Neil Gaiman\u2019s The Graveyard Book<\/em>.\u00a0 And I can\u2019t leave out the great Harry Potter<\/em>: at least the first three books are just right for the age group. If allowed to step outside Fantasy I would also add in Paolo Bacigalupi\u2019s Ship Breaker<\/em> and a novel by a new New Zealand author, Jane Higgins, called The Bridge<\/em>. Both are fine examples of dystopian SF, in my view.<\/p>\n

How does this compare with your own list? And would you have a different take on more gender oriented lists?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

UK\/AUS\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

Robin:\u00a0<\/strong> Well, you\u2019ve named a lot of my favorites, but my experience via kids and grandkids has been that boys do read a different set of books from girls at that age.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say there is no overlap, but I do feel that in many cases boys are not offered as good a selection at that reading level as girls are.\u00a0 I think the wild success of Harry Potter<\/em> was a pretty clear indication that given SF\/ fantasy\u00a0 that appeals to them, boys can be as voracious readers as girls are.\u00a0 At one time, there were a lot of book series slanted to boys, such as The Hardy Boy Mysteries<\/em> and the adventures of Tom Swift<\/em>.\u00a0 And of course, Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter<\/em> series, not to mention Tarzan<\/em>. But I\u2019m not seeing many books that target boys as much as the publishers used to.<\/span><\/p>\n

Helen:<\/strong> I loved Tarzan<\/em> when I was a young teen, although it did take me some time to figure out exactly what was meant by a \u201cdusky\u201d maiden… But other, recent books I might specifically suggest for boys include the Percy Jackson<\/em> series, starting with The Lightning Thief<\/em>, Philip Reeves’, Immortal Engines<\/em> and Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I woke up this morning to very exciting news. Last week, I participated in a Reddit Fantasy AMA with Robin Hobb , which I enjoyed immensely—and today a conversation ‘in brief’ between Robin & myself features on B&N.com in the States. To check it out, click Here. But there is more. The full, indepth conversation—where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-blog-posts","category-my-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13777"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13805,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13777\/revisions\/13805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}