From the Backlist: The Impotance of Buddies

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cast for Reboot Grows!  Maria Lattila | July 25, 2025

The end-of-the-month pick for From the Backlist has gone to the awesome Helen Lowe's The Importance of Buddies. Written early November, 2011, I don't think she even had thanksgiving in mind that early in the month, but among the wonderful things to be thankful for, one is our circle of friends. Thank you, Helen, for this timeless reminder!

And, is everyone syked for the reboot of this supernatural amazing show? 

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The Importance of Buddies

by Helen Lowe

...the Supernatural Underground is about books. Statement of the obvious, huh? Which means that it’s also about storytelling, which is cool—well, I think so anyways! :)

But the Supernatural Underground is also about buddies. We’re a whole bunch of writers who hang out here because we all love what we do, and also love the opportunity to spend time with you—other folk who love paranormal/fantasy/SF as much as we do.

So because it’s Halloween, and because her hot new title Feast is about Halloween, I’ve been delighted to have my Supe buddy, Merrie Destefano, guesting on my “ … on Anything, Really” blog about how she personally gets in the mood for the 31 October festivities. It’s a fun post, so I hope you’ll head on over and check it out, here.

Here’s the thing though, reading Merrie’s post and generally being in October 31st mode made me think about what my favourite Halloween show might be. And because I’m predictable (I know, sad, isn’t it?) I decided that it really had to be the “Halloween” ep of Buffy, Season 2. Which got me thinking about Buffy and why I like the show—what is the magic, really? I wondered. Because, if I’m honest, a lot of the shows are kinda silly. A lot of fun, too, of course, but still …

The fun and vampyre slayage are both definitely important, but I don’t think they’d have kept me viewing for seven seasons. When I reflected some more on what did, I decided it was mainly about the buddies—the friends around the central Buffy character and the ups and downs of all their stories. That was the bit that was like real life—and maybe what kept my disbelief suspended and me watching the show. 

Read the rest of the post here...

 More about Helen - 

More on the Buff reboot HERE! 

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About Helen Lowe 

Helen Lowe is an award-winning novelist, poet, and lover of story. With four books published to date, she is currently completing the final instalment in The Wall Of Night series.
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Helen posts regularly on her “…on Anything, Really” blog, monthly on the Supernatural Underground, and tweets @helenl0we.

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Thanks for dropping by! We hope you have a warm and festive holiday season. 

 

 

 

 

The Art of Adaptation - On Time

French chef Yeon Ji Yeong wins a top competition but mysteriously lands in Joseon Dynasty, where she must cook fusion royal cuisine for a tyrannical king with an extremely sensitive palate.
Bon Appétit Your Majesty 

Welcome to the Sup!

Today's instalment of my 2025 series, The Art of Adaptation, is focused on TIME and the direction it flows. 

I've written about this before when discussing Arrows of Time from my 2008 Quantum Enchantment series. It basically challenges every concept of time so far imagined. But today, I want to look at how easily we adapt to time, from an author's belief that they are under time constraints to the readers' suspension of disbelief of time's reality.

Let's start with constraints. For most of us, our understanding of time follows a linear path: we assume a "First, Then, Finally" mindset, evaluating tasks and scheduling our commitments as neatly into order as possible. However, what if we took a moment to explore alternative perspectives by adopting a mindset that embraces the opposite, a "Finally, Then, First," perspective? As my first publisher at Voyager pointed out, the English language doesn't have the language to easily describe this.

Enter the world of literature and time-travel novels. 

These stories invite us to rethink our assumptions about temporality. Works like “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells or “11/22/63” by Stephen King, and even my own series like Quantum Enchantment and Amassia, can provoke thoughts, at least while in the story, that time could move differently, or maybe not exist at all. They can spin our traditional notions of causality right off the board by suggesting that time is malleable, allowing for sequences that defy our everyday understanding. When a character leaps forward or backward in time, it ignites a possibility within us—what if we could navigate like that, too? 

Wouldn't that be amazing? We might even start saying things like, "I have all the time in the world."

It sounds more supportive than our usual "time-poor" thinking: I don't have enough time. And, as Einstein suggested, time is an illusion, and the constricting nature of our schedules may be more a product of our mindset than an absolute reality. Adopting a perspective that allows for fluidity in how we engage with time might just create space for new possibilities.

Repeat after me: I have all the time in the world!

Consider how this idea, and that of backward causation in quantum physics—where effects can precede their causes or even change the past—challenges us to think outside the conventional timeline box. Could we consider allowing our future goals and desires to inform our present actions rather than simply reacting to our past?

Engaging with film and literature that plays with concepts of time can create a bridge to this new way of thinking. As we lose ourselves in these narratives, we might adapt to a less rigid belief and align with non-judgmental experiences flowing from a well of infinite possibilities. 

Maybe it's less about whether time is "real" and more about how we relate to it. 

So, in the spirit of exploration, let’s challenge our perceptions and embrace the myriad ways we could redefine our relationship with time. After all, the narratives we engage with not only touch our imagination but also offer novel insights that can inspire realities.

Start Simple by changing thoughts from I'm out of time to I have all the time in the world, and see where it leads.

xxKim

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Other Posts in the Art of Adaptation 2025

January - The Art of Adaptation - Films in 2025

February - The Art of Adaptation - Authors' Response to External Pressures

March - The Art of Adaptation - The Healing Magic of KDrama

April - The Art of Adaptation -  Reader Persuasion

May - The Art of Adaptation - Fantasy Monsters Part 1

June - The Art of Adaptation - Fantasy Monsters Part 2 

July - The Art of Adaptation - Alternate History

August - The Art of Adaptation - AI: A New Chapter for Writers

September - The Art of Adaptation - Crafting Mood with Language

October - The Art of Adaptation - Take Five

November - The Art of Adaptation - On Time

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About Kim Falconer

Kim Falconer, also writing as AK Wilder, has released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy with Curse of Shadows as book 2 in the series. 

Currently, she is ready with the third book, planned to be out in 2025. TBA

Kim can be found on AKWilder.com, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and KimFalconer.com. 

Throw the bones on the AKWilder.com site.. See you there!

Read Blood and Water, a PNR alt history that will leave you questioning every natural disaster ever endured.

“There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.”

From The Backlist: Eat, Drink, Magic!

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We're definitely into the season now where food is a large part of the festive magic — so we just had to refeature Helen Lowe's Eat, Pray, Magic for our backlist post. 

In it, Helen shares and celebrates the importance of food & foodie celebration to the genre. We think it's a humdinger, so read and enjoy!

Eat, Drink, Magic -- Fun With Food in Fantasy Fiction

by Helen Lowe

From Persephone's consumption the fatal pomegranate, which meant she had to spend six months of every year in the Underworld, to Snow White and the poisoned apple, or Hansel and Gretel and the Gingerbread House, food plays a vital part in myth, folklore, and fairytales – just as it does in real life.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, food also has its part of play in the Fantasy novel, covering the whole gamut from temptation, celebration, and simple sustenance.

The White Witch tempts Edmund with Turkish Delight in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. And the Elvish waybread (lembas) in The Lord of the Rings is essential for sustenance on the great quest-journey to destroy the ring. The return of students to Hogwarts in Harry Potter is always marked by a feast, while the Honeydukes sweet shop in Hogsmeade is an essential destination for the aspiring students of wizardry...

Food can also play an important part in Fantasy worldbuilding. For example, the unwholesomeness of the Turkish Delight, which makes Edmund feel sick even as he longs for more, is contrasted with the hearty fare of the beavers' house – fresh-caught trout with potatoes and butter, followed by a "great and gloriously sticky marmalade roll." Hungry yet?

In my own The Gathering of The Lost (The Wall of Night #2), seasonality is an important part of the worldbuilding and food one of the contributing elements, from the "spice bread and sweet pastries" made for Summer's Eve, through to the fresh cherries associated with the Midsummer Festival.

Food can ground the action, too, like the pie a ravenous character (Carick) eats after having been on the run for days on end:

"The pastry was stale, but he devoured it in ravenous mouthfuls and wondered if he would ever again, in the life that had been returned to him, eat anything that tasted even half as good."

Sometimes, though, food is not just a supporting element for worldbuilding or to ground the story: sometimes it takes center stage, as in Robin McKinley's Sunshine.

The main character, Rae (aka Sunshine), is a baker and her baker's routine, including the early hours, and the food she cooks are essential to the story. Muffins definitely star! Similarly, in Joanne Harris's magic-realism novel, Chocolat, the chocolate and its magic are the heart of the tale.

And everyone who deals with the fairies and the fay knows one must not eat or drink anything offered in a fairy hill, lest one suffers the fate of Persephone or Tam Lin.

his prohibition comes up in Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson novels when Mercy is required to enter Fairyland; similarly in Gillian Bradshaw's Hawk of May when Gwalchmai (Gawain) enters the realm of the Fey.  And it's definitely a theme of Raymond E Feist's classic Faerie Tale.

These are just a few examples that spring to my mind – but how about you? Got any favorite foodie reads in your Fantasy lineup?

If you do have a favorite, let us know in the comments!

To check in on Helen and more on what she's up to, outside of her regular monthly post here, visit her ...on Anything, Really. J

Great Leaders In Speculative Fiction #10: Coltaine in "Deadhouse Gates" by Steven Erikson

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Draw near, gentle readers, and let me tell you of Coltaine and the Chain of Dogs! Know, too, that my tale is praise — for no series on great leadership in the pages of speculative fiction could be complete without Coltaine.

Coltaine: © Jason Dement

For those who know the Malazan Book of the Fallen (Malazan) series by Steven Erikson, I suspect no more need be said. For others, to whom the name Coltaine is new, I shall commence my tale by sharing that he is a central characters in Deadhouse Gates, which is #2 in the Malazan series.

Coltaine is a leader among the nomadic Wickan tribes, who formerly opposed the Malazan empire but were convinced to join their ranks. When the story opens, he is now a Fist (think, general), in the Malazan armies, but is still regarded as a barbarian outsider by many. He is newly posted to the territory known as the Seven Cities, with command over both his own Wickan cavalry and the Malazan Seventh Army. Yet at the time of his arrival, the entire region is on the verge of an apocalyptic revolt, which erupts almost immediately afterward.

Foreseeing the revolt and that he cannot hold where he is, Coltaine leads a fighting retreat to join the main Malazan army in the stronghold city of Aren. What follows is a march that comes to be dubbed the Chain of Dogs, in which Coltaine must hold together his vastly outnumbered troops and defend thirty-thousand civilian refugees, in the face of privation and constant battle.

One of Coltaine's most significant leadership qualities is his ability to read events and his enemies. So when the revolt comes, he's prepared his troops and secured the supplies that make a fighting retreat possible. Throughout the Chain of Dogs, he out-thinks and outfights his opponents—although not without luck, given the degree to which he's both encumbered and outnumbered.

Mostly, though, Coltaine makes his own luck, through a combination of preparation, tactical and strategic thinking, and daring. And although his leadership style is more distant than charismatic, he wins his army's unswerving loyalty through his genius and successes—which they understand, quite rightly, is what's keeping them in the fight.

Any distance, though, is only of personality, because otherwise Coltaine is strikingly present, leading a fight in which the one thing he can always be relied upon to do, militarily, is the unexpected. Yet his most surprising act, in the eyes of several of the tale's observers, is burdening himself with the civilian refugees, when militarily, jettisoning them would make more sense.

Coltaine's greatness, though, lies in his ability to see a much bigger picture. He chose to join the empire, rather than continuing to fight it, because he perceived its strengths, particularly those of unity and organization. Strengths that will not be served by abandoning thirty-thousand civilians to be massacred, fueling the flames of rebellion, and replacing his outnumbered force's resolve with shame.

I believe there are few story arcs in speculative fiction more compelling than that of Coltaine and the Chain of Dogs. He is neither invulnerable nor infallible, but his courage, resolve, and sacrifice, see the thirty thousand to Aren, and put those who dismissed him as a barbarian outsider to shame. From the beginning of the Chain of Dogs to its end, he sees what needs to be done, and does it, by means of a combination of qualities that make him one of the outstanding leaders in speculative fiction.

~*~

© Jason Dement

Coltaine Image: Thanks to Jason Dement

I would like to thank Jason Dement for allowing me to feature his wonderful depiction of Coltaine in this post. As I said when making my request, it's always special to see a depiction that resonates with the visuals in one's head.

If you would like to see more of Jason's art, which features other characters from the Malazan series, as well as Star Wars and Marvel characters, click on Jason Dement. I believe you'll find that his site repays a visit. J

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Prior Posts: Great Leaders in Speculative Fiction ~ 
Where To Find 'Em & Why They Rock

February: Mara of the Acoma in the "Empire" series by Raymond E Feist & Janny Wurts

March:  Kaladin and Dalinar in "The Stormlight Archive" by Brandon Sanderson

April: Pyanfar Chanur in "The Pride of Chanur" series by CH Cherryh

May: John Aversin in Dragonsbane, by Barbara Hambly

June: Katniss Everdeen in "The Hunger Games" Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

July: Ulric of the Nadir in Legend by David Gemmell

August: Signe de Barbentain in A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay 

September: Dr Mensah in the "Murderbot" Series by Martha Wells

October: Katsa & Bitterblue in "The Graceling Realms" by Kristin Cashore
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About Helen Lowe 

Helen Lowe is an award-winning novelist, poet, and lover of story. With four books published to date, she is currently completing the final instalment in The Wall Of Night series.
.
Helen posts regularly on her “…on Anything, Really” blog, monthly on the Supernatural Underground, and tweets @helenl0we.