Joshua Banker's Blog, page 7

The Music of A Prison of Flesh (Part 2)

Unlike Book 1, where I tried to give each chapter its own playlist, I trimmed down the number of playlists to six. As stated in Part 1, this was because A Prison of Flesh did far less jet-setting. In fact, except for the first two chapters, large portions of the story are spread across multiple chapters. The first two lists here cover major portions of the story.

Comments for On the Sea:

This list is pulled together from tracks that, for one reason or another, embody sea travel to me, even if o...

Free to Read: A Prison of Flesh Chapter 04

In celebration of the one-month anniversary of the release of A Prison of Flesh, I've made available FREE Chapter 04 in its entirety. Feel free to read it in-browser or download a copy of your own from the links below.

Yes, this is a thing I will be doing on a regular basis.

Links

PDF

ePub

Kindle (.mobi)

The Art of APOF: Cover Painting

For those familiar with the painting for the first book, you'll quickly notice that the cover for Book 2 is a slight departure on multiple fronts. This is for a number of reasons. First and foremost is that it's smaller (16x20 versus 22x30) and painted on board rather than printmaking paper. I did this largely for my convenience. Also, since most of my earlier works are done the same way, it provided a bit of familiarity. 

Also, I focused this time around on displaying two important elements i...

The Music of A Prison of Flesh (Part 1)

Much like with my first book, I assembled playlists to set a mood as I wrote A Prison of Flesh. This time around, though, instead of breaking them up by chapter, I chose to separate them by locale. Except for the first two chapters, this proved easier as the story this time around did far less "jet-setting" as there are multiple stretches anchored to the same location.

Comments on Chancel (Opening):

This list covers the first chapter, where the reader is reintroduced to Jehn, who now resides at...

Available Now: A Prison of Flesh

What happens when an expedition into the unknown is forced on a perilous course to satiate the dire ambitions of its leader?

Author Joshua Banker releases second novel

Author Joshua Banker announces the release of his second full-length work, A Prison of Flesh. Banker's follow-up is a speculative fiction novel that blends elements of science-fiction, fantasy and horror to tell a story about coping with loss and personal growth in the face of unknown danger. Underlying themes include the impac...

Maps of Tah'afajien

As a part of the world-building process that went into laying down the proper groundwork for a multiple-volume book series set in a believable world, I created a maps of the major cities/villages and topographical features for Not Gods But Monsters and its future sequels. This allows for believable references to locales that the story might not take the reader until later books.

While the events of Book 1 take place in the nations of Verenigen and Tir, there are clear references to other locat...

Coming Soon - A Prison of Flesh to release on September 19th, 2017

The sequel to Not Gods But Monsters will be available in trade paperback and eBook on September 19, 2017.

About A Prison of Flesh

The world will never be the same for Jehn Brumal. She has lost friends, family and even her home village. To make matters worse, she is one of a handful who knows the truth about the destruction of Trone Stenan; that a Byrael, one of a pantheon of gods credited with creating the world, banished for being "corrupted," was buried beneath the city. Even though the gol...

Second Printing of Not Gods But Monsters available

In preparation for the upcoming release of Book 2 (more info on this to come soon), I've re-released Not Gods But Monsters with some very minor tweaks.

As you can tell by the new cover image (no, really it is), the book is now listed as part of the ongoing Realm of Tah'afajien series.

Other updates include two minor capitalization/punctuation changes for season names (one in Chapter 1, the other in Chapter 18).

In Chapter 24, I made a revision based on the realization that the original sentence...

The Art of NGBM: Jehn and Kyote

To finish out the series of stylized character depictions for Not Gods But Monsters, here are the character illustrations for Jehn and Kyote.

Also check out part one (Flynn) and part two (Zoe and Callie).

"Standing before a mirror hung opposite her bed, she brushed her shoulder-length reddish brown hair before dressing in a green blouse and canvas jeans. After breakfast, she would need to be on her way. She would have entertained the idea of skipping breakfast if she thought her aunt would allo...

The Art of NGBM: Zoe and Callie

As with the earlier illustration posted of Flynn, the following pieces for Zoe Agilis and Callie Evans are part of a stylized series of drawings done as visual representations of the major players for Not Gods But Monsters.

Of the protagonists, Zoe and Callie are the only ones who possessed well-established gear as detailed in the story. This was taken into consideration when drawing both.

"Standing with one shoulder leaning against the doorframe was a well-toned, olive-skinned woman, appraisin...