Festive Lights

Blood Gift Chronicles Book 3 is well underway. I look forward to giving a writing update in the new year, but for now I thought I would take a pause in my working day to share some local festive cheer. It was just a quick trip this year, tagged on to a shopping day, but it’s always a treat to soak up the ambience of Exeter Xmas market, complete with the cathedral looming in the background providing a wonderfully gothic feel.

Then on to spot the decorated trees on-route, since no trip would be complete without a visit to the annual charity tree display – a wonderful reminder of the great work of our local charities.

For the Xmas light display we went further afield with a trip to Powderham castle, armed with mugs of peppermint tea and chocolate brownies to snack on. With the whole castle and gardens lit up like a Xmas tree, it was an impressive display.

But perhaps the star of the show were three orphaned lambs wearing Xmas jumpers, tucked away in the grounds of the secret garden, unfazed by ogling visitors looking to catch that perfect Xmas card shot.

For now it’s back to work, but in the meantime…

Wishing everyone a very Merry Xmas

Happy Holidays, and a

Happy, Healthy, Peaceful New Year 

xxx

 

For the Love of Books #12

On these dark winter evenings, with Storm Barra bringing blustering gales, it’s the perfect time to cosy up with a good read. I bring you two recommendations, currently among my favourite fantasy reads:

The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo

The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a delightfully exquisite read. Set against a backdrop reminiscent of Imperial China, it tells the story of the empress In-Yo who is sent south for a political marriage. With her brothers dead, and her armies and their war mammoths defeated, she is alone in a mage-made summer exile. But this northern daughter is powerful enough to bring her enemies down. Told using layers of stories bound in culture and mythology, tenderly drawn on and richly described, I wanted to linger, and so when I finished the book I went straight back to the beginning and started again.

“Angry mothers raise daughters fierce enough to fight wolves.”

The storyteller is Rabbit, an elderly woman and former handmaiden to In-Yo, the Empress of the North. A cleric named Chih (non-binary) and their hoopoe, Almost Brilliant, are listening to the tale of The Empress of Salt and Fortune. ‘Do you understand?’ Rabbit says infrequently, as if she is speaking to the reader as much as to Chih. The tale is told in magical layers, with a unique structure and flow that challenges convention and tired tropes, and offers the reader the feel of complete immersion into the world of these heart-warming characters. Packed into 118 pages this is an epic, incandescent tale of resilience, rebellion, devastating truths and forgotten secrets. Richly-woven characters often side-lined take centre stage to deliver the tale through memory and meditation, with exquisite prose creatively told, unravelling worlds within worlds that leave you literally spellbound.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, by Patricia McKillip

Sixteen-year-old Sybel has grown up on Eld Mountain among a fantastic menagerie called there by wizardry. She cares nothing for humans, until a baby is brought to her to raise.

I adored this magical read with its wild mountainous setting, home to Sybel, a complex, flawed, self-critical, compassionate and brave woman. The presence of the child, Tamlorn, awakens unfamiliar emotions in her, and their relationship develops from simple care and compassion set against a complex world. Her home is the wild, and it is through her relationships with the creatures in her life, including a swan, a dragon, a lion and a boar, that we see her true nature reflected. But caring for the boy brings her into the world of men, where revenge becomes her motive no matter the cost.

A fairy tale with great emotional depth, the story tackles issues from love to abuse to blind revenge, providing a fascinating look at how our desires and fears can make or undo us. A range of human relationships are explored from the perspective of a woman who would choose no relationship at all, except for with her menagerie of beasts. Sybil’s character has realness that feels like a refreshing portrayal, one I could get behind from the start. Her personal journey is the emotional depth, revealing what it is to love, to betray, to be misunderstood, to let go, and ultimately to face yourself.

A compelling and weirdly comforting read that now ranks among my favourites.

 

What are you reading?

 

One World

Just over two months in the new house and it’s feeling like home. Mia continues to be outwitted by the resident squirrel on its hunt for buried nuts, and I’ve discovered a wonderfully bizarre monkey puzzle tree on my regular walk.

In other news, the street is being put on trial for food waste recycling. In the spirit of every little helps the environment, we’re all hoping it stays. Of course, we need many more big helps, and like people all over the world, I watched the events of COP26 unfold on the news. And so, to continue with last week’s theme of climate change, I thought I would share a recent poem inspired by global talks and the dedicated activists demanding we all do better in fighting the looming calamity.

Fight the Calamity; By Susie Williamson

Are humans really the superior species,

Skilled in reasoning, language, solving difficulties?

Introspection is seen as one of our strengths,

So what came of the Paris Agreement?

Did we tighten our belts, get smart, or continue in decadence,

Turning a blind eye to owed recompense?

 

Cop26 comes round and the truth will be told,

To climate activists around the globe.

The suited and booted leading with false ideations,

Reckless in the knife-edge survival of Africa, and those island nations.

It’s not 1.5 or even 2, but a roadmap to 2.7 degrees,

Yet again, the same nations will be on their knees.

 

Or under water; some are already there,

Vanishing islands and coastlines, but with new gas fields, who cares?

Until Mia Mottley steps up and takes to the mic,

Calm and considered, but with words set to strike.

This PM of Barbados speaks for those without choices,

For the powerless, angry, despairing voices.

 

Her message is clear, her intent at the heart,

National solutions just don’t work.

Are we really so blinded and hardened, deaf to the cries,

So willing to turn our backs on countless lives?

So adept at othering, we seem to be,

Price tags on people, scrap humanity.

 

We talk peace and prosperity here in the west,

A blanket omittance of nations oppressed,

Prosperity, illusion if only one third prospers,

While the rest of the globe cowers and suffers.

In the face of calamitous threats, life under siege,

When will global leaders fess up and lead?

 

Will they mourn us on the front line? Eddy Grant once said.

Not when pound signs are favoured over existential dread.

Voice, ambition, action is lacklustre so it seems,

In solving global crises of climate refugees.

Will the path of greed harvest our common destruction?

Or will we choose survival via temperature reduction?

 

There’s no time, we’re at that fork in the road,

The train’s ready, horn blasts, all aboard!

Code red G7, G20, wake up at the COP,

1.5 to survive, 2 degrees and no backstop.

Just death to Barbuda, Kenya, Mozambique,

Antigua, Fiji, The Maldives,

Try harder the people of Samoa holler,

Don’t we treasure Barbados and the people of Dominica?

Tuvalu is sinking, it’s happening now,

Don’t sigh, don’t shrug, don’t sit back and ask, how?

Central banks work in trillions, too huge to fit in our heads,

We have answers, resources, so make a watertight pledge.

Sign up to the global peace army,

Say no to death, and yes to humanity.

***

For the Love of Books #11

I often think dystopian fiction is a great tool for looking at those uncomfortable truths and predicting what might be if we continue down certain paths. With the recent COP26, it feels timely to mention two reads that serve as a cautionary tale to climate change and the socio-political fallout that brings.

This Is Our Undoing by Lorraine Wilson

This is our Undoing is speculative fiction interspersed with mystery, cli-fi, alternate futures, and a sprinkling of the supernatural. In a near future Europe fracturing under climate change and far-right politics, Biologist Lina Stephenson works in the remote Rila Mountains safely away from London State. A fugitive from her former life, her father persuaded her to get out. Now she is protected by the local militia after signing over citizenship. But following the assassination of a London minister, Lina’s name comes into question, threatening the safety of herself and her family. And to make matters worse, she is trapped with the dead man’s family.

So begins this complex, intricately woven tale, written in the third person although told primarily from Lina’s perspective. The cast is diverse, each battling events greater than themselves. As entwined personal histories are revealed, the characters are left wondering who they can trust and the readers are left wondering who is a reliable witness, making for a compelling plot. A character I particularly enjoyed was a mysterious young boy, Kai, who Lina is inexplicably drawn to. I was left wanting to know more about the boy who fights monsters, but parts of the mystery remain just beyond our reach, leaving space in the narrative for the reader to draw their own conclusions. I also loved the remote mountainous setting and Lina’s role as a biologist studying the conservation of biodiversity. The rich descriptions of place and wildlife were beautifully told, offering an immersive and atmospheric experience that I didn’t want to end. Yet despite the vast landscape the sense of claustrophobia and tensions grow, as the ultimate question is posed: who might you condemn to save another?

O Man of Clay by Eliza Mood

“They said sea level would rise one day when the polar caps melted and fell into the sea but this was not the future, it was now.”

O Man of Clay offers a dystopian future with a cautionary tale of climate change. After the tsunami hits Eastern England, Scotland, Denmark and the Netherlands, it brings it close to home with Hartlepool as the setting. For those of us in the UK, having a local feel adds power to the message, and the story pulls no punches with the bleakness of that message.

As the walls goes up, three teenagers face being trapped in the flooded zone: Zoe, from Hartlepool, haunted by all she has lost, collecting fragments of humanity in her treasure tin; Volk, a refugee from a Soviet prison colony; and Alma. The present day is woven into each of the character’s pasts, and for me, Alma’s backstory was one I particularly enjoyed. Her ancestors are Buryats, consisting of Evenki hunters and Mongol herders who lived on the shores of Bailgal Nuur. The mythologies and beliefs of an indigenous people are beautifully told, highlighting voices often marginalised but with the most to say and the deepest connections to the natural world and all that is at stake.

I found the story to be a slow burn with literary merit, rather than a fast-paced thriller/adventure. There is huge depth to the prose that meanders with the interlinking past and present, that feel like well-investigated snap shots in time. Time is running out, and while some survivors search for a way to live, others look for ways to die, in a story that reveals the depth, harshness and beauty of humanity and the life we all stand to lose.

What are you reading?

 

New Frontiers

Last weekend involved a trip to Montreal, Quebec, (from the comfort of my writing room via zoom) for World Fantasy Convention 2021. What a great weekend, not to mention a great opportunity to show off my new bookshelves – such a relief to finally be able to unpack my books! With a half-hour reading slot, I was able to share a taste of The Warder, giving a glimpse into the extraordinary lives of all three protagonists. It’s always wonderful to see captivated listeners, and hear how your words hit home. Thanks to all those who came along to listen.

It was also wonderful to have the opportunity to join in with a couple of panels. The Classics panel reflected on older works, discussing how they hold up to the contemporary lens. It’s astonishing to think of the origin of stories like Dracula, inspired by a sadist, torturer of women, yet still prevalent in popular culture today. My favourite take on vampires is Octavia Butler’s Fledgling, (reviewed in an earlier blog), not least because she takes the opportunity to explore power dynamics.

H.G. Well’s The Invisible Man is a theme that stands the test of time. Invisibility used to add power to men, god-like power giving the ability to act with impunity, lends itself to the theme of the recent remake which tells a haunting tale of domestic abuse. As long as onlookers stay silent, look the other way, aid and abet, perpetrators of domestic abuse are able to act in an absence of scrutiny, akin to the powers of invisibility. A really powerful message, as well as a glimpse into a world of constant surveillance, and warnings of technology made without foresight of damaging consequences.

And no conversation of the classics would be complete without Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, although for me I was thinking more about the experience of the writer. Eighteen years old when she started writing it, probably inspired by grief, published it around 1818 anonymously out of concern she might lose custody of her children. With scepticism over how a woman could have come up with something so hideous, she endured undermining critique and condescension. And through it all she gifted the world with a remarkable story, delivering messages that monsters are not born they’re created, and that famous cautionary tale that science can go too far.

Then onto the Gendering Genre panel.

From the dubious representations of women in western fairytales (evil witches, evil stepmothers, damsels in distress to name a few), to the prevalence of ‘strong’ kickass women and girls, scantily clad and attractive to the male gaze, to discussing ways conventional expectations can be subverted, and stereotypes challenged. Diverse representations, non-typical heroes, challenging stereotypes, are all huge considerations for me in all aspects of work, so needless to say I loved the panel and was glad to be able to share a sample of my well-loved reads that tick all the boxes. Click here for a few of my favourite complex heroines in SFF, who definitely challenge stereotypes.

Huge gratitude to the organisers for pulling off such a dynamic and complex event, bringing together the in-person and virtual world.

And lastly, the previous week was a quick trip up the motorway for a day of sci-fi/fantasy at BristolCon. More readings, more panels, this time looking at our favourite, and not-so-loved empires in the genre. With each discussion I join in with, I’m reminded what I love about speculative fiction: with its ability to critique, challenge, push back against convention and harmful narratives, it literally paves the way into new frontiers.

What are you reading?

The Warder – Firebird Book Award

I’m delighted to share the news that The Warder (Blood Gift Chronicles Book Two) has won a Firebird Book Award in the young adult fiction category. Click here. Which means that both books are now sporting shiny new stickers!

I love writing stories that can be accessible to younger and older readers alike. I feel like The Warder pushes boundaries in terms of characterisation and representation, challenging familiar tropes and taking us to surprise places, both outwardly and inwardly. There’s so much scope in fantasy to be creative, and so much scope in young adult fiction to speak to a diverse audience. It’s always wonderful to hear your work is appreciated and enjoyed.

Speaking of representation, I recently wrote an article discussing some of my favourite reads with complex heroines. Click here to take a peek at my top five favourites. Return of the Mantra fits the bill, as does The Warder.

And so it’s been a busy time all round, and now I’m preparing for convention panels. I’m looking forward to BristolCon on Saturday, discussing all things worldbuilding and empires. And the week after it’s back on zoom for World Fantasy Con, travelling to Montreal from the comfort of my writing room, discussing the representation of gender, followed by a close up look at some of the classics. But more on that another time…

In the meantime, wishing everyone a great weekend!