Lee C. Conley's Blog, page 2

So let’s talk about The Dead Sagas

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Greetings, so let’s talk about The Dead Sagas Volume I : Part I.

I wanted to write a dark fantasy in which the protagonists fought to survive in a zombie infested world. A sort of Fantasy Grimdark, Zombie story. Well as I started writing, the story became a novel, and then too long for just one novel. I guess that’s how its starts for many.

I'm a big fan of the Horror and Zombie genre but perhaps a bigger fan of Fantasy. I love historic fiction also, stories set in early Saxon England and the Iron Age. But more so, I love Sword and Sorcery, Grimdark, things like Robert E Howard and Tolkien, but also the modern dark gritty style that is emerging. The more I read the more I wanted to write my own stories.

So I had to write a fantasy story, but to have Zombies my fantasy story would certainly have to have a horror element. Which then opened the door for me to blend other fantasy and horror elements together while planning, such as supernatural horror, cannibals, possession, disease and plague, all sorts of terrible nasty things, many of which I have seen well used in many other Horror and Fantasy stories. But I wanted to give it all a fresh take and also a fresh take on the undead themselves.

I am planning to talk about my "Dead" in my next blog post but suffice to say, I am quite happy with how they turned out. I got to have lots of fun writing this.

All the nasty stuff and zombies aside there has to be the characters at the centre of the story. I have never been a big fan of the common zombie trope to have cool and gruesome things happening but the characters are empty and uninteresting. It’s cool to see, or read, about someone you don’t care about getting ripped apart in fun and interesting ways but the problem is you don’t care about the character. I wanted the characters to feel real, real lives. So I wrote the story to be closely character driven. And also to be told from several points of view to tell the full story of the wider events unfolding in the book. I wanted to create a people, a culture, families and friendships, love and loss, humour (although sometimes grim) and sadness.

Anyway, so my story took form, it takes place mostly in a realm known as Arnar - Now, I live on the British Isles, and I spend a lot of time wandering around in the more ancient, wilder places we have here. I wanted Arnar to be very much like how I imagine my ancient homelands to be when I'm adventuring about. I wanted Arnar to be a dark age or early medieval place, similar to that of Gondor or Rohan in LoTR, wild like Conan's world but with a very Norse feel to the culture. And so as it took shape, it became all dark mountainous forests and overgrown moorlands with lots of ancient places like old hillforts and stone circles.

So I had my characters, I had my setting, I had a good plan and once I had a world I loved... then, I set my zombies upon it and on the characters I care about. I let terrible things happen and wrote about it.

As I said I had a lot of fun writing this and I am already well into writing the next novels in what looks to be a series.
I hope this blog post has given you a little glimpse into the pages of The Dead Sagas Volume I : Part I and if you happen to pick up a copy, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Regards
Lee Conley

All set up and new here

Hello,
So thats my good reads account set up and sorted finally. Took me a while to figure out what was what on here but think Ive got a handle on it - really enjoying Goodreads so far! How did I not find it sooner?
Suppose I got on here beacuse everyone told me it was a great site for writers and readers alike, to make connections and get my book promoted. So here I am finally. But a great Idea! I love tracking all my reading on here, the recomendations - well impressed!
Finally got my read books rated and up to date too - felt i was a little harsh on the David Eddings books, those books (along with Tolkien) got me into fantasy in the first place. Them two authors have alot to answer for!
Been adding folks from Fantasy-Faction - great group!
Found some nice groups and figured out the forum ( I think)
Posted up my new book The Dead Sagas Volume I : Part Iand put it in some discussion folders, look forward to hearing some feedback eventually.
So thats me on goodreads. Greetings to everybody and happy to be here.

Lee Conley

The Dead Sagas

Hello there,
I am currently releasing my debut Dark Fantasy novel
The Dead Sagas Volume I

https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Sagas-Par...

It is available on Kindle and in paperback

"Only valour and steel can stand against the rising dead!"
The Dead Sagas, Volume I, Part I
Lee Conley