Guest Post

Guest Post: “How to Build a Dragon” by Marc Turner

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TurnerM-AuthorPicIf I asked you to picture a dragon in your mind, what would it look like? It would probably have wings and breathe fire. It might also have scales and a long barbed tail. As for the rest of its body, though, it would just look… well, dragon-y, right?

If a winged and armoured reptile is the basic template for a dragon, its other physical characteristics can vary hugely. When I was younger I did some roleplaying, and my game-world of choice was that of the Dragonlance novels. In those books, you find a real menagerie of dragons. Different breeds come in different colours, and breathe out different things. So, you get the quintessential red fire-breathing dragon, but you also get white frost-breathing dragons and blue lightning-breathing dragons. Those different breeds vary in size and power, and live in different habitats. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Saving the World — With a Little Help From Friends” by Gail Z. Martin

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0061-eWomenNetworkWhen the chips are down and you’ve got monsters on every side and the fate of the world hangs in the balance, you need to know you’ve got good friends watching your back.

And if those friends include two people learning to wield powerful magic and a nearly 600 year-old vampire, your odds of winning — and surviving — just went up.

Welcome to the world of my Deadly Curiosities urban fantasy series including Vendetta, my new novel that just launched December 29. The series is set in historic, haunted Charleston, South Carolina. The main character, Cassidy Kincaide, is a psychometric who can read the history and magic of objects by touching them. She owns Trifles and Folly, an antique and curio shop with a few dangerous secrets. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Tips for Setting a Reading Goal” by Lesley Conner

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ConnerL-AuthorPicLife is busy. Between work and family and friends, we all have countless commitments that are scrambling to suck up all of our free time. If we aren’t careful, reading time gets broken up and given away to other tasks. Before you know it, one day you stop and think Wow! When was the last time I sat down and read a book? If you’re a big reader like I am, this is a sad thought and one that I’ve had in the past when life has gotten too hectic. Setting a reading goal each year helps keep me from finding myself in this place. Since it is January, I thought this would be the perfect time to share some tips for setting such a goal. Continue reading →

Guest Review: THE TYRANT’S LAW by Daniel Abraham (Orbit)

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Abraham-D&C3-TyrantsLawThe Dagger and the Coin, book three

The great war cannot be stopped.

The tyrant Geder Palliako begins a conquest aimed at bringing peace to the world, though his resources are stretched too thin. When things go poorly, he finds a convenient target among the thirteen races and sparks a genocide.

Clara Kalliam, freed by having fallen from grace, remakes herself as a ‘loyal traitor’ and starts building an underground resistance movement that seeks to undermine Geder through those closest to him.

Cithrin bel Sarcour is apprenticing in a city that’s taken over by Antea, and uses her status as Geder’s one-time lover to cover up an underground railroad smuggling refugees to safety.

And Marcus Wester and Master Kit race against time and Geder Palliako’s men in an attempt to awaken a force that could change the fate of the world.

Reviewed by Ryan Frye

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become a much more discerning reader. I have to work a lot harder to carve out reading time these days, so I’m much more picky about what I read. My pickiness reaches even greater heights when it comes to book series. Let’s face it, if it is hard to commit time to one book, it is even harder to commit to three, four, five, or – if it is a Sanderson or Erikson series – ten or more books. But, here’s the catch: I love epic fantasy. So, I’ve adopted a stance where the author has to keep me interested in the series book after book after book. It’s no longer a case of, “Well I liked the first book in the series, so I gotta read ‘em all.” If a series isn’t up to snuff, I’m done. I’ll move on. Harsh, maybe, but there’s so many books out there that sound amazing! Anyway, Daniel Abraham has been doing his part of keeping me interested in his Dagger and Coin series, so I gotta do my part and keep reading.

I guess, since people don’t like spoilers, I should note here that there will be spoilers for books one and two in this review… Obviously. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Writing Novels vs. RPGs” by F. Wesley Schneider

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SchneiderFW-AuthorPicWriting a novel, you’re telling your story. Writing an RPG adventure, you’re telling a thousand stories, none of which are yours. They’re both fantastic mediums, but they’re nothing alike.

I’ve been writing stories for roleplaying games like the Pathfinder RPG and Dungeons & Dragons for more than fifteen years, and as the editor-in-chief at Paizo Inc., my team and I create the former. While RPG players always love new options for their games, published adventures stand at a pinnacle of tabletop RPG design. These adventures look something like a giant outline, detailing monsters, settings, and the behavior of a story’s minor players. But main characters, those run by the game’s players, are complete mysteries. As the writer of an RPG adventure, you’re telling a story without knowing the main characters and have to predict various outcomes for every scenario. It sounds crazy — and it sort of is — but these stories are designed to allow players to create any characters they want and send them in to experience the adventure. Adding to the challenge, the adventure’s author isn’t the one telling players the story, that’s the Game Master’s responsibility. So, on top of these stories’ complexity, the author ultimately hands the story off to someone else to tell. It’s a challenging way to tell a story — and that’s before you even factor in that you have to include game rules. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Conflict Drives a Story” by Michelle Hauck

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HauckM-AuthorPicConflict drives a story. It’s what makes the excitement. It provides the obstacles for character motivation. It’s what makes a reader care. Without conflict, a book has nothing but dull words on a page. Who would want to read a story where everything was happy and good? Where everything went the main character’s way? It might be nice to live, but not so entertaining to read about.

Ever read a story that should have been great, but it felt kind of flat? Possibly some of the types of conflict are missing.

Without all sorts of conflict and tension, readers will yawn. It needs to be ongoing and in every scene. There are many types of conflict and the smart writer includes all of them into the page. If they build in only one type, the story will still be dull. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Influences & Inspirations” by James A. Moore

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MooreJA-AuthorPicI have been asked to write an article on the works that have inspired and influenced me the most and I’m delighted to, because if there’s one thing I dearly love above all else, it’s talking about my favorite books and movies.

I dedicated the first of the Seven Forges novels to Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber. When it comes to naming the greats in Sword & Sorcery, you don’t have to look much further. Conan the Barbarian, King Kull, Solomon Kane, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I dedicated the book to them because they were inspirations from the very first. They were my first discoveries in the world of Sword & Sorcery and they were a very hard act to follow.

Honestly, I can’t begin to imagine a better foundation. You can factor in later authors, like Michael Moorcock, who gave us the Eternal Champion in all of his myriad incarnations, and far more recently Joe Abercrombie, whose prose stuns me every time I read it. They have definitely left their mark in the field, but they are hardly the only ones. If you want to get picky you can go all the way back to Greek and Norse mythology for tales of heroes who fought against often overwhelming odds and took chances no sane person would consider. The thing about it is, there have been as many influences on what I’ve written as there have been books I’ve read and movies I’ve watched. Oh, and lest I forget, there are the comic books to consider, too. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Process Story” by Colin Sinclair

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SinclairC-AuthorPicMy creative method is simple. I lock myself in a darkened room and scream at a blank sheet of paper for an hour until something comes to mind.

I jest, of course. It’s typically a half-hour, tops.

It can’t always be so tough of course. Some days are better than others, right enough. There’s even times when the ghost of an idea can roll right up beside you, start to whisper in your ear.

Like this, for example:

I have a 20-month old son who loves cars, and the Disney-Pixar movie Cars, and planes, which he calls cars. He also likes Planes. When Christopher’s not looking stylish in hats — or, you know, fighting orcs — we’re watching Cars.

Around about the two-hundredth viewing I noticed an angry Doc Hudson, setting out his plans for the car that’s just wrecked the main road into town.

“I’m gonna put him in jail ’til he rots. No, check that… I’m gonna put him in jail ’til the jail rots on top of him, then I’m gonna move him to a new jail and let that jail rot.”

Continue reading →

Guest Post: “How a Fourth Book is Really the Beginning of a New Series” by Clay & Susan Griffith

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GriffithC&S-AuthorsPicTHE GEOMANCER: The Return of the New Vampire Empire

Hi. We’re Clay and Susan Griffith, authors of the Vampire Empire books and the Crown & Key trilogy. Our newest book, The Geomancer (November 3, Pyr Books), is the latest in the Vampire Empire novels. It’s the fourth book we’ve written set in that world, but it’s the first book in a new ongoing “Gareth and Adele” series. The original Vampire Empire was a trilogy. It was conceived and executed as a trilogy. By the end of the third book, we brought the major storylines to a close and tied up most of the questions. The characters had developed over the course of three books. We proudly considered the story done and moved on to other projects.

Only it didn’t quite work out that way. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Inspiration” by Howard Andrew Jones

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JonesHA-PF-BeyondThePoolOfStarsUS-Banner

By now you’ve probably seen that old questions people ask writers so regularly – where do you get your ideas?

In this instance I can actually answer. I was inspired to write my new book for Pathfinder Tales by an interesting spot on the map of their game world. I’ve long admired the way Paizo seamlessly blended story hooks into their settings, and when I sat down to think about the location of my third novel set in Golarion I was drawn to a strange little coastland far to the south.

I don’t like writing where a lot of people have already gone. Not only is there even more background material to read – and a greater potential to miss something — it feels like I have less room to simply make stuff up, which is one of the big appeals of writing for a living. Continue reading →