Fantasy

Excerpt: THE BLOOD MIRROR by Brent Weeks (Orbit)

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weeksb-l4-bloodmirrorukThe Blood Mirror, the fourth novel in Brent Weeks‘s epic Lightbringer series, was published yesterday. To celebrate its arrival, Orbit has given me this excerpt to share. First, the novel’s synopsis:

Stripped of both magical and political power, the people he once ruled told he’s dead, and now imprisoned in his own magical dungeon, former Emperor Gavin Guile has no prospect of escape. 

But the world faces a calamity greater than the Seven Satrapies has ever seen… and only he can save it.

As the armies of the White King defeat the Chromeria and old gods are born anew, the fate of worlds will come down to one question: who is the Lightbringer?

The Blood Mirror is published in the UK and US by Orbit Books.

And now, the excerpt…

Continue reading →

Guest Post: “How I Do Research” by Miles Cameron

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cameronc-authorpicBook four of the Traitor Son series, A Plague of Swords is out this week. Instead of talking to you about the book, I thought I’d discuss how I write, or more particularly, how I do research. To me, research is the very sinew of writing; learning things, and learning skills, is what fires my passion to write and also what allows me to fill pages not just with character, motivation, and plot, but with detail and incident that feel ‘real.’ (Or, gosh, I really hope you think it feels real…) Continue reading →

Guest Post: “On Worldbuilding” by Rhonda Mason

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masonr-authorpicIn the beginning, there was the protagonist, and the author saw that it was good.

My worldbuilding process starts after the creation of the protagonist, never before. I write novels to tell the story of a person, not the story of a world, and all of my novels have sprung from a first impression of the main character. For The Empress Game trilogy it was an image of Kayla holding a kris dagger in each hand, fighting another woman in a pit while criminals cheered her on.

Once I have that first impression of a character, the worldbuilding begins. Who is she? (The exiled princess from a rival planet) Where is she? (Hidden on the slum side of her hated enemy’s border planet) Why is she there? (Trying to raise credits to buy passage back to her homeworld) And, most importantly, why is she special? Why are we telling her story, and not someone else’s? Continue reading →

Interview with JAMES D. OSWALD

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oswaldj-authorpicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is J.D. Oswald?

Most of the time I am James Oswald, livestock farmer by day and author by night. The D stands for Douglas, in case anyone was interested. I decided to use a slightly different name for The Ballad of Sir Benfro to distance the series from my Inspector McLean series of Edinburgh-based detective novels. I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember, and had a Tharg’s Future Shock published by 2000AD back in 1993. Success as an author has been a long time coming though. My first Inspector McLean novel, Natural Causes, was only published in 2013, and the first of the Ballad of Sir Benfro series, Dreamwalker, came out in late 2014. It really does take twenty years to become an overnight success. Continue reading →

Interview with BARBARA BARNETT

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barnettb-authorpicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Barbara Barnett?

Chicago-based author-blogger-editor Barbara Barnett is Publisher/Executive Editor of Blogcritics Magazine.

Always a pop-culture and sci-fi geek, Barbara was raised on a steady diet of TV (and TV dinners), but she always found her way to the tragic antiheroes and misunderstood champions, whether on TV, in the movies or in literature. (In other words, Spock, not Kirk; Han Solo, not Luke Skywalker!) It was inevitable that she would have to someday create one of her own (like Gaelan Erceldoune!). She’s always been a bit quirky and is happy to admit she’s managed (with her soul mate of a husband Phillip) to raise two geeky children of her own (sorry, Shosh and Adam, you never had a chance!).

She is an accomplished speaker, an annual favorite at MENSA’s HalloWEEM convention, where she has spoken to standing room crowds on subjects as diverse as “The Byronic Hero in Pop Culture,” “The Many Faces of Sherlock Holmes,” “The Hidden History of Science Fiction,” and “Our Passion for Disaster (Movies).” This autumn, she will reprise her MENSA appearance with “The Conan Doyle Conundrum.” Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Some Thoughts on Fantasy Series & Stand Alones” by Blake Charlton

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charltonb-authorpic“Is this book a standalone or the third in your trilogy?” A question that I’ve had to address since the publication of my latest book, Spellbreaker. The answer, perhaps confusingly, is yes. When justifying this answer, I’ve done a lot of thinking about the way stories are told in series, particularly in epic fantasy.

I don’t think too many will disagree that in the traditional conception of epic fantasy, the use of a series of books is a logistical necessity, not an aesthetic choice. The Lord of the Rings, of course, was written as one book (to rule them all?) and broken into three only because the printing, binding, and shipping costs would have been prohibitive. This precedent created the current expectation that every book in an epic fantasy series will be the immediate continuation of the last. Since the 1980s, the majority of successful fantasy series have done exactly that. There are many, well-known advantages to this approach; it allows for intricate exploration of subplots; it proves continuous and detailed character development; it creates an experience in which the reader traverses an epic number of pages that mirrors the characters’ journey across and among an epic number of landscapes and cultures. The grandmasters do so effortlessly and with style. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Writing Strong Women” by M.R. Carey

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My latest novel, Fellside, had its UK release in April and it’s just come out in paperback. To commemorate this fact I’m spending the week running around on other people’s blogs (thanks, Civilian Reader!) shouting “look at me.”

It’s a time-honoured tradition, and to keep you from saying the same thing ten times over your publisher will usually come up with a list of possible themes or titles. On the list in front of me right now, about two-thirds of the way down, the following phrase appears:-

“Writing Strong Women”

It immediately made me wonder whether or not that’s something that I do. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “The Ties That Bind” by Brad Beaulieu

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BeaulieuB-AuthorPicCropWhen I first started writing Of Sand and Malice Made, I didn’t have a small novel in mind, or even a set of interconnected novellas. It began only with a single story, “Irindai”, which eventually sold to Ragnarok Publications for their Blackguards anthology. But as I developed that first story I knew it wouldn’t be the last in the series. I started having more and more thoughts about where I could take the story’s primary mover, a djinni-like creature name Rümayesh. I thought more about the sons of the trickster god that were working against her. I thought more about the new character, Brama, a two-bit thief who got pulled into something much larger and more dangerous than he ever expected. And I thought about what it could all mean for the heroine of the series, Çeda. Continue reading →

Interview with GAIE SEBOLD

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SeboldG-AuthorPicWelcome back to CR! Let’s start with an introduction, for new readers: Who is Gaie Sebold?

I’m a fantasy writer and (very) occasional poet, with a partner (writer David Gullen) a small cat, and a large garden. I run writing workshops – I’m currently running a series of them for my local women’s centre. I occasionally disconcert the neighbours by plotting aloud to myself while weeding.

Your next novel, Sparrow Falling, will be published by Solaris. It’s the second novel in your latest series: How would you introduce the series to a potential reader?

It follows the adventures of a street child and professional con-artist Eveline Sparrow, in a fantasy Victorian era where the Fey and many other mythical beings exist. Eveline gets caught up in events where the politics of our world overlap dangerously with those of the Fey while discovering the truth about her past and trying to protect herself and those she cares about in the present. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE WHITE CITY by Simon Morden (Gollancz)

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MordenS-TheWhiteCityUKHot damn, that’s a nice cover. The sequel to Simon Morden‘s Down Station, The White City is due to be published in the UK by Gollancz October 27th, 2016. Here’s the synopsis:

LET’S FACE IT, NONE OF US DESERVE TO BE SAVED.

Since escaping London’s inferno, Mary and Dalip have fought monsters and won – though in the magical world of Down, the most frightening monsters come from within. 

Now they hold the greatest of treasures: maps that reveal the way to the White City, where they can find the answers they’re looking for, and learn the secrets of Down. 

But to get there they must rely on Crows, who has already betrayed them at every turn. As they battle their way towards the one place in all of Down without magic, they must ask themselves how far they will go to find their way home. 

After all, if there’s one thing the White City offers those brave enough to enter, it’s more than they bargained for.

It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t get into Down Station — the design and artwork for both of these books is superb. C’est la vie.