{"id":33951,"date":"2017-01-05T06:30:34","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T17:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=33951"},"modified":"2017-01-04T21:50:29","modified_gmt":"2017-01-04T08:50:29","slug":"homegrown-5-fun-ways-nz-features-in-the-wall-of-night-series-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2017\/01\/05\/homegrown-5-fun-ways-nz-features-in-the-wall-of-night-series-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Homegrown: 5 Fun Ways NZ Features In \u201cThe Wall of Night\u201d Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

People here (in Nu Zild) not infrequently comment on the fact that The Wall of Night<\/a> books are epic fantasy and set in an alternative world, as well as being published overseas to boot, so in that sense are not really New Zealand<\/em> stories. To which I reply (in classic Kiwi style): \u201cNow hold on a minute, mate. These are books written in New Zealand, by a New Zealand born and bred author \u2013 you can\u2019t get much more \u201chomegrown\u201d than that!\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

\"nz-post-buzzybee-stamp-1\"<\/a>I would also argue that there is plenty of New Zealand in my writing, only in a subtle way, rather than stamping every page \u2013 metaphorically speaking \u2013 with buzzy bees and No. 8 wire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As proof of my point, here are five fun examples of Aotearoa influences woven into The Wall of Night<\/strong> series.<\/p>\n

\"block-tor-mountains\"<\/a>

Block and tor mountains<\/p><\/div>\n

Landscape<\/strong> \u2013 what could be more New Zealand, after all, than a braided river and a block and tor mountain range, with wild thyme growing underfoot and slopes covered in \u201cscrambling green\u201d<\/em> (sweetbriar) and \u201cdark twisting thorn scrub\u201d<\/em> (matagouri). Anyone who has crossed a Canterbury river or spent time in Central Otago will recognise their influences when the main characters in The Heir of Night<\/em> (the first book in The Wall of Night series) cross into the region known as \u201cJaransor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"blue-privilege-the\"<\/a>Moko<\/strong> \u2013 in the second book in the series, The Gathering of the Lost<\/em>, one of the secondary characters, Solaan, is \u201ca short, dark woman with a spiral of blue tattoos across chin and cheeks.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Admittedly, many countries and cultures have tattooing traditions, but I think this particular depiction owes at least a little to Aotearoa and t\u0101 moko<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Note: Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud) is the Maori name for \r\nNew Zealand\r\n<\/pre>\n
\"from<\/a>Tokotoko<\/strong> \u2013 Mistress Ise, a secondary character in the newly released Daughter of Blood,<\/em> uses a walking stick that has \u201cmother-of-pearl eyes set into the knotted head.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
Now that particular walking stick might not have been influenced by the Maori orator\u2019s tokotoko, now also associated with NZ’s Poets Laureate <\/a>\u2013 but of course it was.<\/p>\n
The tokotoko featured is from the collection of Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand<\/p>\n
Taiaha<\/strong> \u2013 I myself missed this particular influence, which first manifested in The Heir of Night<\/em>, until my Daughter of Blood<\/em> copyeditor questioned my description of a spear having a \u201cleaf-shaped blade with its collar of black, shining feathers.\u201d<\/em> (The feathers were the problem, not the spearhead.) So I sent him an image of a taiaha<\/a> \u2013 and an assegai, as it happens. However, since I am a Kiwi gal and have never been to Africa or assegai country, I think it fair to cite the taiaha as the influence.<\/p>\n
\"taiaha_te-ara\"<\/a>
from Te Ara The Encyclopedia of New Zealand<\/p><\/div>\n
Admittedly, it is only a very slight influence as the spear in the Wall series is not a taiaha. Nonetheless, I was very sure of my ground when it came to the possibility of a spear being decorated with feathers. And although the black feathers might have come from a raven or a crow, the influence on my imagination could equally well have been the blue-black sheen of tui plumage, or the decorative significance of huia feathers in Maori tradition.<\/p>\n
\"anno-domini3\"<\/a>\u201cA Woman\u2019s Destiny\u201d<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 the first Science Fiction novel written in New Zealand is held to be Sir Julius Vogel\u2019s Anno Domini 2000: A Woman\u2019s Destiny<\/em> (1889). The premise of the book is that women have achieved suffrage and gone on to hold major positions of authority in politics, law and industry. So it is perhaps fitting that one of the observations frequently made about The Wall of Night series is the number, prominence, and variety of women characters and the matter-of-fact gender equality of the main Derai society. From Sir Julius Vogel in the nineteenth century to Helen Lowe in the twenty first, it\u2019s nice to know that I\u2019m writing speculative fiction in the Kiwi tradition \u2013 and exporting it to the world.<\/p>\n
So the next time someone says to me \u201cnot really New Zealand<\/em> stories\u201d I shall reply: \u201cYeah, right. Get off the grass!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
This post first appeared on the blog of Karen McMillan<\/a> on 7 March<\/a> 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People here (in Nu Zild) not infrequently comment on the fact that The Wall of Night books are epic fantasy and set in an alternative world, as well as being published overseas to boot, so in that sense are not really New Zealand stories. To which I reply (in classic Kiwi style): \u201cNow hold on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,30,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-epicfantasy","category-funstuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33951","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=33951"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33969,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33951\/revisions\/33969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}