Stephen Aryan's Blog, page 8

Andrea Stewart Interview

I'm interviewing Andrea Stewart on Wed 3rd March.

If you have any questions for her about her books and writing, post them here.

Video will be on YouTube later.

First review of The Coward

Publishers Weekly is the first mainstream industry website to review The Coward. They have normal reviews and then starred reviews.

The Coward received a starred review.

The review in full said:

Aryan (Battlemage) takes an unlikely band of heroes on a nail-biting trek into a frozen world in this impressive fantasy, the first in the Quest for Heroes series. The legend of Kell Kressia is celebrated throughout the Five Kingdoms. Kell, initially an unwanted tagalong with the land’s greatest heroes as they set out to kill the Ice Lich that brought a killing winter down upon their world, is the one who beheaded the Lich and returned as the expedition’s only survivor. But Kell harbors deep guilt over the secret that his success was pure luck—and that his martyred fellows were all horrifically flawed.

Now 10 years later, a new threat rises in the Frozen North, and Kell is the natural choice to put it down. He reluctantly takes up the mission, joined by a small band of warriors and misfits, each with secrets of their own. Hunted by humans and horrors, they face reckonings with Kell’s guilt and their world’s past.

Packing in an epic’s worth of action and feeling, this thought-provoking fantasy argues that even the most vicious monster battles are less harrowing than the struggles within men’s souls. This is a knockout.

TBRcon21 – SFF convention Jan 25th-30th

Next week, starting on Monday 25th January and running through to will be TBR (to be read) convention 21, a totally FREE online science fiction and fantasy convention with over dozens of authors taking part. There is a live D and D session and also book giveaways.

There will a lot of panels, and all information is shown below with dates and times. It will be streamed live on a number of different platforms (Twitch, Facebook Live and YouTube). However, if you can’t watch any panels live, you can watch them again later.

You can sign up now to the following links so you don’t miss out and can watch any panels later that you miss.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCObUCiZk90lu5sqDSZ3lJlg
https://www.twitch.tv/fanfiaddict_
https://www.facebook.com/FanFiAddict

As this virtual convention is free to everyone, and all of the authors are giving their time for free, the organiser are accepting donations to charities, if you enjoy the event and can afford to do so. There will be links for each charity on every panel, however, they are also available now if you want to immediately donate, on the website of the convention organiser, David Walters, which you can see here. The three charities are Shelter, No Kid Hungry and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

As mentioned there are a lot of authors involved so I can’t list all of them here, but some of the people involved are Steven Erikson, Peter V. Brett, John Gwynne, Sebastian de Castell, Mike Shackle, Andrea Stewart, Adrian Tchaikovsky, RJ Barker, Anna Stephens, Mike Carey, Evan Winter, R.F Kuang, Nicholas Eames and Peter McLean.

I’ll be appearing on a panel on Friday 28th January. I hope to see some of you there.

December post

Just a quick post to say I’m still busy writing, right down to the wire, and then I will be stopping for a bit over the Christmas holidays.

The Coward has been edited and has now gone back to my publisher. First thing in January will be the copy edit, the next stage of intense edits.

Also happening in January, is TBRcon, a FREE completely online SFF convention with over 85 authors taking part in a series of panels. More info about that can be found on my events page here. I’ll post the full schedule too when it’s made available.

Happy holidays.

Interview with Nick Eames

My next Late Night Talk is with Nicholas Eames next week.

The videos will be on YouTube a few days later on my channel

If you have any questions for him about his books or writing in general post them here

https://youtube.com/channel/UCZlaVQ9r...

Author Interviews

Tomorrow, part 2 of 2, of my interview with RJ Barker goes up on my YouTube channel. I will be doing regular interviews with other fantasy and science fiction authors so if you subscribe you will receive updates on new content.

RJ is the author of the Wounded Kingdom trilogy and the Tide Child trilogy, book 2, Call of the Bone Ships is published this month, book 3 next year. Both series are published by Orbit books and when I was published by Orbit, RJ and I shared an editor. We discuss his current series, influences, and stray off into other topics including good TV.

RJ Barker
The first half of my Interview with RJ Barker is available to watch here
Part 1 https://youtu.be/wSqPFCuY0Xo

Anna Stephens
Below are links to my interview with Anna Stephens, author of the Godblind trilogy and her new series, Songs of the Drowned. We talk about writing and her new novel out this month, The Stone Knife. During this chat we also discuss my new book, The Coward, will comes out 8th June 2021 from Angry Robot Books.

Part 1 – https://youtu.be/mNCPnOBoGQc
Part 2- https://youtu.be/0IQioNgPdII

Steve McHugh
Both parts of my interview with Steve McHugh, author of the Hellequin Chronicles, which wraps up with book 13 this December – Horsemen’s War

Part 1 – https://youtu.be/swGenAsxh9Y
Part 2 – https://youtu.be/X6sQh5GbXek

Angus Watson
Both parts of my interview with Angus Watson, author of The Iron Age trilogy and West of West trilogy from Orbit books

Part 1 – https://youtu.be/XaJiWp2QCIs
Part 2 – https://youtu.be/IjePIfb3fe8

More interviews coming soon.

New Author Interviews on YouTube

Interview with Anna Stephens about writing and her new novel out this month, The Stone Knife
https://youtu.be/mNCPnOBoGQc
https://youtu.be/0IQioNgPdII

Part 1 of my interview with RJ Barker, author of The Bone Ships, book 2 out this month
https://youtu.be/wSqPFCuY0Xo

Both parts of my interview with Steve McHugh, author of the Hellequin Chronicles, which wraps up with book 13 this December
https://youtu.be/swGenAsxh9Y
https://youtu.be/X6sQh5GbXek

Both parts of my interview with Angus Watson, author of The Iron Age trilogy and West of West trilogy from Orbit books
https://youtu.be/XaJiWp2QCIs
https://youtu.be/IjePIfb3fe8

Late Night Talks with...

The third of my Late Night Talks with authors about writing is now live on YouTube. Part 1 of 2 is up with Steve McHugh, both parts of my talk with Angus Watson and Anna Stephens are already live on the channel

https://youtu.be/swGenAsxh9Y

The Coward – cover reveal

I’m delighted to be able to announce that the cover, and more information about my new novel, The Coward, is now available on Tor.com. The book will be published 8th June 2021, so less than a year to go. Click on the link below for more info!

Playing the Hero: Unveiling The Coward by Stephen Aryan

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Writing and Late Night Talk

[image error]As mentioned in my last post I’m doing some late night talks with authors. I’m speaking with Angus Watson this week and I’ve got another two arranged for the coming weeks. We’ll be talking frankly about writing, publishing, being an author and anything else that takes our fancy.

Once I have edited the videos they will then be available on YouTube.

On the same YouTube channel, I am also going to be regularly posting writing advice videos. So if you are an aspiring author, or you know of anyone who is, then please direct them to my new channel and ask them to subscribe.

There are 2 videos up there at the moment. An introduction one, explaining who I am, my background, a bit about the books and what I’m going to be doing on the channel.

There is also my first advice video about The Trap, which is something that many aspiring writers fall into when they start work on a novel.

If there are any topics you would like to see me cover on the channel, get in touch and let me know.