Michael R. Baker's Blog, page 12

SPFBO Author Interview: Luke Tarzian

Back with a new interview! Luke Tarzian is next up in the interviewer’s chair.

 

SPFBO5 Interviews:

SPFBO Author Interview: Angela Boord

SPFBO Author Interview: Huw Steer

SPFBO Author Interview: E.L. Drayton

SPFBO Author Interview: Steve Turnbull

SPFBO Author Interview: Nicholas Hoy

SPFBO Author Interview: Phil Williams

 

 

First of all, tell me about yourself! What do you write? 

 

I’m a bookstore manager by day and a semi-functioning adult by night (I think I’m doing this properly, right?). My happiness is entirely dependent on whether or not I get to pet a dog on a semi-regular basis.

 

Oh, and I write adult dark fantasy.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters? 

 

Haphazardly? With regards to plot, I try to at least have an ending mapped out, if not already written before I start a draft. Obviously, things change during the drafting process, but I’ve found that having a general idea of where I’m going helps immensely. This leads into character development as well. It gives me an endpoint to their emotional arc. I love digging into the psychology of my characters regardless of how big a role they play in the story. I’ve found it absolutely leads to a better emotional investment for me, which is great because if I can’t get invested in my characters then my readers probably won’t be able to either.

 

Tell us about your current project.

 

My current project is the Shadow Twins trilogy, more specifically its first installment, Vultures. Vultures is about a man trying to end a war against demons, both physical, emotional, and cognitive while maintaining a level head. I would even go so far as to call it psychological fantasy as the vast majority of the major players are dealing with loss and mental illness, both of which I have become intimately familiar with in the last year.

 

Is this your first entry into SPFBO? If not, how many times have you entered?

It is my first!

 

Who would you say is the main character of your novels? And tell me a little bit about them! 

 

For Vultures there are really three: Theailys, Serece, and Behtréal, the latter being the antagonist of the story. They are all, in some way, shape, or form, representations of myself.

 

Theailys is a man dealing with depression, a bit of schizophrenia, guilt, and a murderous presence keen to take possession of his body every now and then, all while having tasked himself with trying to end a war. He is scholarly, easily agitated, but extremely loyal.

 

Serece is a centuries old mountain woman with a temper. Like Theailys she too harbors an immense amount of guilt. She is the royal bastard, loathed by her mother and step sisters, but loved by her adoptive father. Her people, the phantaxians, are bound to their mountain world by a plague. As such, Serece longs for freedom.

 

Behtréal is meticulous, intelligent, and ambitious. He desires only two things: vengeance against the Ariathan Empire for their centuries of needless slaughter in the name of conquest, and the means to resurrect his wife, son, and entire race.

 

What advice would you give new writers on how to delve into creative fiction?

 

Fuck writing to market. Write what you want. Write what makes you happiest.

 

What real-life inspirations did you draw from for the worldbuilding within your book?

 

You know, I’m not really even too sure. There are bits and pieces inspired by Norse mythology, my general love of dogs. Some of the story is social commentary about mental illness and fascism. I’m also someone who really likes rainy days and clouds, so I suppose that lent itself to general aesthetic and color palette of the story.

 

What inspires you to write?

My friends and family. Dealing with anxiety; writing works perfectly as an outlet for me and lets me work through a lot of stress and insecurity. It’s very introspective in that way.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Realizing it was going to be a trilogy. It originally started out as a standalone novel called Shadow Twins, but then my brother-in-law gave me some notes. I rewrote the entire first part of the story based on one comment and basically ended up with 71,000 words worth of new content.

 

What is your routine when writing, if any? If you don’t follow a routine, why not?

I used to aim for like x-amount of words per day, five days a week, but it burnt me out eventually, to the point where I almost shelved this project. Now, I write in bursts and I’ve found it’s made what I write a lot more satisfying.

 

What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why? 

Chapter 13—Atrocities. It’s the longest in the book, one of the darkest emotionally (are you starting to get a feel for my writing yet?), and one of the most revealing. It was a pretty big undertaking considering how many threads I had to weave together, but it was extremely satisfying to complete.

 

Did you learn anything from writing this book and what was it?

I learned to a) really dig into my own psychology as far as writing characters goes and b) stop obsessing over magic systems, which I was something that really sidetracked initial iterations of this story when I started writing it four years ago.

 

Are you a plotter or a pantser? A gardener or an architect?

Probably a bit of both. I give myself enough of a roadmap and then kind of let the writing go where it needs to. I’ve found in the past that if I’m working off an extremely detailed outline it a) makes the story feel a bit too predictable b) makes the drafting process a bit boring and c) pigeonholes me.

 

It’s sometimes difficult to get into understanding the characters we write. How do you go about it? 

Gently aggressive. Like I mentioned above, a lot of my characters are manifestations of my own emotions and mannerisms. For me, personally, it’s important to really look at myself as a person and what I’m dealing with emotionally in order to have my characters be as sympathetic as I want them to be. It’s also important to be gentle during this process, especially when you come to realize some pretty dark things about yourself while writing.

 

What are your future project(s)?

I’m busy working on Tomb of Memory, which is the follow-up to Vultures, and a pre-Vultures novelette called The Laughing Heart.

 

What is your favorite book ever written? Who are your favorite authors?

I don’t know that I can pick a book. That’s like asking who my favorite pet was. As far as authors go: Edgar Allan Poe, Neil Gaiman, Ursula Le Guin, and Brandon Sanderson.

 

What makes a good villain?

Sympathetic qualities. If I can relate to the villain in some way on an emotional level, then I’m going to be a lot more invested in the story. I’m not a huge fan of villains or antagonists who are evil just for the sake of being evil. It gets boring after a while.

 

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Read, go for walks at the Rose Bowl, listen to music, and draw (I did the cover art and book design for Vultures!)

 

If you couldn’t be an author, what ideal job would you like to do?

Probably a vet. I love animals immensely.

 

You can travel to any planet or moon in the Solar System. Where would you go, why and what would you do there?

Mars, because why not? I need to see of J’onn J’onzz really exists.

 

Pick any three characters from a fiction novel. These are now your roadtrip crew. Where do you go and what do you do?

Cord, from River of Thieves; Vin from Mistborn; and Aziraphale from Good Omens. I don’t know where the hell we’d go or what we’d do, but there are a lot of contradicting personalities between these three and I feel like something nuts would happen.

 

Finally, what is your preferred method to have readers get in touch with or follow you (i.e., website, personal blog, Facebook page, here on Goodreads, etc.) and link(s)?

 

I’ve got a website (luketarzian.com), I’m on Goodreads and Facebook (rarely), and I’m a pretty frequent user of Twitter (@luke_tarzian)

 

Website: Luke Tarzian.com

 

Facebook: Facebook.com/luketarzianofficial

 

Twitter: @luke_tarzian

 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/luke_tarzian

 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Vultures-Shadow-Twins-Book-1-ebook/dp/B07PNRYH5Q

 

SPFBO Author Interview: Angela Boord

New SPFBO interview up, with Angela Boord!

 

 

SPFBO5 Interview:

SPFBO Author Interview: Huw Steer

SPFBO Author Interview: E.L. Drayton

SPFBO Author Interview: Steve Turnbull

SPFBO Author Interview: Nicholas Hoy

SPFBO Author Interview: Phil Williams

 

First of all, tell me about yourself! What do you write? 

 

Well, I’m the mother of nine kids, which is usually what people notice about me first. I write epic fantasy for the most part, although I tend to mix up sub-genres a little. Fortune’s Fool is set in a Renaissance-inspired world where guns and swords are both in use, so it’s epic, historical, and blackpowder fantasy, with some romance thrown in for good measure.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters? 

 

I think they mostly develop me. Characters usually just show up in my head, carrying their stories with them, and my work is asking the questions that will allow me to uncover what’s going on. Over a period of time scenes and images involving the character will come to me, and I’ll write them down in as much detail as I’ve got. At some point I’ll have enough of a handle on the arc of the story to start writing. The story always changes in the writing, of course, but if I sit down before any seeds have germinated, I won’t get anywhere.

 

Then again, some characters just walk into the middle of a story like they own the place. Diana Gabaldon calls those characters “mushrooms” and that’s certainly what they feel like to me. They’re the side characters who pop up out of nowhere and try to take over.

 

Tell us about your current project.

 

Fortune’s Fool is a twisty, Renaissance-inspired epic fantasy about a woman who’s lost almost everything important to her – her family, the man she loves, even her right arm. When we meet her, she has a magical metal arm made for her by her old lover, who sent her into exile to keep her from dying in a war that people blame her for starting. But now she’s back, looking for him – though he’s almost surely dead – and ready to get revenge on the rival family that wreaked this havoc in the first place.

 

Is this your first entry into SPFBO? If not, how many times have you entered?

 

It’s my first entry – and also my first book. Fortune’s Fool is my debut novel.

 

Who would you say is the main character of your novels? And tell me a little bit about them! 

 

Kyrra d’Aliente is the protagonist of Fortune’s Fool. It’s written in first person, so you get the whole story filtered through her point of view. She’s been hurt and she’s angry about it, but she also has a dry sense of humor that the other characters don’t always appreciate. She’s also very persistent, a little awkward, and she’s not the sort of protagonist who does everything right. Probably the opposite, in fact.

 

What advice would you give new writers on how to delve into creative fiction?

 

Write the story you want to read. Writing’s hard enough without making it a slog by writing what you think other people want. Readers can tell when you’re having fun and when you’re going through the motions. So you might as well enjoy yourself.

 

What real-life inspirations did you draw from for the worldbuilding within your book?

 

Fortune’s Fool is historical fantasy, so I drew on a lot of real-life inspiration. But I think there are two ways that authors often seem to go about worldbuilding for historical fantasy. One way is to take actual history and events and make fantasy analogues for them. And another way is to take an historical period and make up all your own world that just feels like that historical period.

 

I’m in the second camp. Fortune’s Fool was inspired by Renaissance Italy and in particular some historical fiction I read a long time ago involving silk production, but I was most concerned about getting the feel of the culture right. Actually, I should say cultures , because I really wanted the world to be very Mediterranean in feel. So I tried hard to make the world diverse and big — not oriented primarily toward Western Europe. 

 

In order to get that feeling, I would often stop to research as I was doing my big revisions. I like to set a scene using as many senses as I can. So if I’m going along and somebody picks up a bar of soap, for instance, and I want to describe its smell, and then I think, “I wonder how people made soap in the Renaissance? What did it smell like?” – I’ll stop and google Renaissance soaps. (And probably hair ointments, lotions, etc. for good measure). I did that for a lot of things in the book. So the soap and clothes and silk looms and the bathhouse were all inspired by googling. Actually, I must have watched every Youtube video I could find about traditional silk making. (Of course since it’s fantasy I always feel free to add my own embellishments.)

 

What inspires you to write?

 

I generally sit down every day to write whether I’m inspired or not, but if you’re asking what inspires my ideas… then pretty much everything. Travel, books, music… stuff my kids do and say… weird articles on the Internet…

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

 

Deciding that I was going to revise and publish it. I spent a lot of years unable to work up the momentum I needed to actually finish a project. Craftwise… The book is told in 1 st person using two narratives – one in the past and one in the present. It was really hard to get the pacing right. I had to tear the book apart a couple of times.

 

What is your routine when writing, if any? If you don’t follow a routine, why not?

 

I do most of my writing during my three year old’s naptime and then again, after the little kids go to bed at night. I usually start out by getting something to drink. In the afternoon, that’s usually a cup of tea. At night, it might be a glass of wine or a cup of herbal tea. Then I put my ear buds in and set up my music and read back through the last thing I wrote so I can remember where I was.

 

What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why? 

 

I liked writing Chapter 6, and I’m not really sure I can tell you why. Sometimes I really like the small, quiet moments best. They may not be the ones that resonate most with readers or the most important for the plot, but I like watching the characters just be with each other. There are other pieces of that chapter that I liked writing a lot, too – there’s some action and a character popped up out of nowhere for me – but it’s the little, quiet pieces that always make me smile when I re-read them.

 

Did you learn anything from writing this book and what was it?

 

I learned how to finish and revise a book and then publish it. It’s my debut novel, so in many ways it’s like a giant experiment. I’m just figuring things out as I go along.

 

Are you a plotter or a pantser? A gardener or an architect?

 

Neither and both. I fall somewhere in the middle. I make a lot of notes heading toward whatever point in the story I can see coming, but the story always changes as I write it. And I never, ever know the end until I get there. I always think I know – vaguely – what’s going to happen, but then when I get close, I usually have some revelation that what I thought was going to happen isn’t. Usually the story ends up better than I had envisioned it that way. 

 

And I guess I’m a gardener. I certainly do my share of weeding, thinning, and pruning.

 

It’s sometimes difficult to get into understanding the characters we write. How do you go about it? 

 

Well, my characters always feel like real people to me. I guess I try to put myself in their places, and I try to imagine how I would think or feel if I was that person with that background in whatever situation they’re in. I do write a certain amount of throwaway scenes longhand in my notebook when I’m trying to figure out voice. Writing in my notebook frees me up to play around, so I can experiment more.

 

. What are your future project(s)?

 

I just finished the rough draft of a long standalone novella (or a short novel) set in the Eterean Empire series that I plan to revise and offer to my mailing list in the fall before I release it. I’m 2/3 of the way through a rough draft of Book 1.5 in the Eterean Empire series, and am hoping to get that out in early 2020. 

 

And I have a giant manuscript that was supposed to be the first book in a portal fantasy series that I need to revise. I really want to get that series out, too, but it will probably have to wait until after I have more books in the Eterean Empire series done.

 

What is your favorite book ever written? Who are your favorite authors?

 

I don’t think I have one favorite book. I’m a big fan of Robin Hobb’s Farseer books, and I really love the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Also Josiah Bancroft’s Books of Babel series, and anything written by K.S. Villoso… I’m reading my way through her backlist. 

 

What makes a good villain?

 

I like villains who are convinced they’re the heroes. I don’t mind if they’re a little insane, because that can be fun to write, but I need a villain to have a reason for their villainy… and usually to be convinced that it’s justified. 

 

What do you like to do in your spare time?

 

What is this thing called “spare time”? I do try to make myself sit down and read for a while every day, and I like to do things outside with my kids. I used to be more into gardening, photography, and drawing, but writing has a tendency to fill up all my off-the-clock time. 

 

If you couldn’t be an author, what ideal job would you like to do?

 

Well, I’ve been doing my ideal job for the past twenty years or so – I’m staying home with my kids. I enjoy being a mom, and I enjoy homeschooling. My husband and I have basically turned our home into a library and mostly our version of homeschooling is reading and talking about books. And honestly, even though I stopped writing fiction with publication in mind for a lot of years, I never actually stopped writing . I was going to say you’d have to cut off my hands to stop me from being a writer, but I just wrote a really long book about a woman who had her arm cut off and is a badass anyway, so I guess if you cut off my hands, I’d probably just figure out how to use speech recognition software.

 

You can travel to any planet or moon in the Solar System. Where would you go, why and what would you do there?

 

Europa. I’d crack through the ice, discover the first alien ecosystem, and… my transmission system would probably fail so nobody would believe me. But I would know, I guess.

 

Pick any three characters from a fiction novel. These are now your roadtrip crew. Where do you go and what do you do?

 

From the same novel? Hmm… I guess I’d pick Fitz, the Fool, and Night-Eyes, and we’d take a road trip to a cabin in the woods and I’d make them tea and a nice dinner, and then we’d all hide so nothing bad would happen to them for a couple of days. 

 

That probably wasn’t the answer you were expecting.

 

Finally, what is your preferred method to have readers get in touch with or follow you (i.e., website, personal blog, Facebook page, here on Goodreads, etc.) and link(s)?

 

You can find me at:

  http://angelaboord.com , 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angelaboordauthor  

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Angelaboord  

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2942569.Angela_Boord

 

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-Fool-Eterean-Empire-Book-ebook/dp/B07ST8KQ87

 

SPFBO Author Interview: Phil Williams

Good to be back. I write this interview with a stonking headache after a long week of edits. This is usually the expression I give after a lot of them:

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Today I bring you an interview with Phil Williams, who brought his book The City Screams to this year’s SPFBO5. Down below is a link to the book!

 

SPFBO5 Interviews:

SPFBO Author Interview: Huw Steer

SPFBO Author Interview: E.L. Drayton

SPFBO Author Interview: Steve Turnbull

SPFBO Author Interview: Nicholas Hoy

And now we come to the torture. I mean interview. Yes.

*Coughs*

 

First of all, tell me about yourself! What do you write? 

 

I’m a full time author based in Sussex, UK, and I split my time between writing novels and writing English guides for foreign learners. My main focus is contemporary fantasy right now, but I’ve also written post-apocalyptic and dystopian novels and have some more traditional fantasy (and even straight thrillers) planned.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters? 

 

I never stop thinking about them, it’s basically like a disease. My head’s full of these ideas yearning to be put to paper. But the real development work happens when I’m rewriting, and rewriting, and rewriting some more – like a slowly chiseled diamond. Or at least a smooth rock.

 

Tell us about your current project.

 

The City Screams, out there doing a few rounds, is a standalone entry point to Ordshaw that started out as a short story. It features a deaf woman regaining the ability to hear, in a weird fashion, and regretting it.

 

I’m also polishing off Book 3 of the Ordshaw series, The Violent Fae, to round off the opening trilogy, and writing the next book, which goes off on another tangent.

 

Is this your first entry into SPFBO? If not, how many times have you entered?

 

This is my second time, after last year’s initial entry (Under Ordshaw) reached the semis.

 

Who would you say is the main character of your novels? And tell me a little bit about them! 

 

In The City Screams we’ve got Tova, an ordinary young deaf woman out of Ordshaw, who only wants to make her life a bit more interesting. She’s a bit shy, but has a good sense of humor and is a little bit eclectic in her fashion choices.

 

What advice would you give new writers on how to delve into creative fiction?

 

Read as much as you physically can. You’ll learn more from other people than you can from yourself.

 

What real-life inspirations did you draw from for the worldbuilding within your book?

 

The City Screams is set in Tokyo, which to some degree is based on my own experiences visiting Japan. I went there 15 years ago or so and was mostly drunk, so my unreliable recollection helps with the disorientating nature of the book.

 

What inspires you to write?

 

The thought that I might one day get all these voices out of my head and be able to rest.

 

Those voices get inspired by moments of music, things I’ve seen out and about, dreams, random nonsense; honestly, I don’t know how not to get story ideas, I have too many.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

 

I wrote from the perspective of a deaf woman, which I am not. It’s an area I’ve done a lot of research into in a former life, but I don’t have a great deal of first-hand experience with deaf people, and it took quite a while before I managed to get feedback on the project. I was helped with details that I could have blundered through – like precisely which senses are more important to deaf people, and how lip reading works.

 

What is your routine when writing, if any? If you don’t follow a routine, why not?

 

Typically, I write in the mornings until lunch, most days. The rest of the day is for distractions. It’s rather regimented now that I do it for a living, but there was a time when I wrote all my books between 11pm and 3am. That was a different Phil entirely.

 

What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why? 

 

The fantasy and horror is a little lighter in The City Screams than my other books, but when those moments emerge they’re always a blast to write. But what stood out more was enjoying Tova’s conversations with friends – there’s something heartwarming about the way she interacts with people, I don’t know where that came from but I like it.

 

Did you learn anything from writing this book and what was it?

 

With the deafness, I learnt a lot about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, for sure.

 

Are you a plotter or a pantser? A gardener or an architect?

 

I plot and then I forget the plot and pants and then I write at a ferocious pace and end up with millions of words that need cutting. And that’s where the real work begins.

 

It’s sometimes difficult to get into understanding the characters we write. How do you go about it? 

 

I let them do their own thing and see what happens. Then keep rewriting until it rings true. Some conversations I’ve rewritten like a dozen times from scratch, often coming out the same as they started, it’s a weird process.

 

What are your future project(s)?

 

After Book 3 in Ordshaw, there’s a seemingly unrelated Book 5 to be followed by Book 6 which connects The City Screams to Book 3. Then there’s a standalone Book 7 and after that about another 6 books drawing this stuff together in various ways. It’s kind of like doing a decade long Sudoku where each number requires 6 months of work.

 

There’s also a standalone portal fantasy, a 5-book dystopian thriller series, and some crime novels I’m working on. And an English exercise book.

 

What is your favorite book ever written? Who are your favorite authors?

 

I couldn’t possibly pick one, but I might go somewhere between Catch-22, Middlemarch and something horrible like Blood Meridian. With authors, in SFF Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Alfred Bester, and Joe Abercrombie; in the classics George Eliot and Mark Twain; in crime I can’t get enough Elmore Leonard or Sue Grafton.

 

What makes a good villain?

 

Extremes. Not necessarily to the point of caricature; it could be extreme evil, stopping at nothing to enact a horrendous plan, or it could be the extreme of taking an utterly mundane belief to the point of disaster. Even when it comes to ambiguous villains, extremes make them: an extreme ability to flip from one view to another, or an extremely unpredictable personality, for example.

 

What do you like to do in your spare time?

 

Exercise, read, spend time with my wife, walk the dog, watch TV, travel and write other things.

 

If you couldn’t be an author, what ideal job would you like to do?

 

Something adventurous, I imagine. I feel like I said scuba diver last time I was asked. I’ve always had a thing for boats but never had much to do with them. I got turned down by the Merchant Navy because I didn’t have the right Maths qualifications. In conclusion: I’d be a bum dreaming of boats.

 

You can travel to any planet or moon in the Solar System. Where would you go, why and what would you do there?

 

I’d go to Jupiter and see if that massive storm is really is big as they say it is.

 

Pick any three characters from a fiction novel. These are now your roadtrip crew. Where do you go and what do you do?

 

I would take Pax, Letty and Tova from my Ordshaw series and plot a long meandering journey that goes nowhere, whilst secretly taking notes on them to get an idea of future stories with the most bang for my buck.

 

Not sure if I’d get away with it though; I’m not sure I could keep up.

 

Finally, what is your preferred method to have readers get in touch with or follow you (i.e., website, personal blog, Facebook page, here on Goodreads, etc.) and link(s)?

 

My website and mailing list is the best place for news from me: http://www.phil-williams.co.uk

If you want interaction (god help you), I’m most active on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/fantasticphil

For the completists out there, my Facebook page has rare updates: https://www.facebook.com/philwilliamsauthor

And hey, Goodreads, I accept all friends and never touch the place: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6579274.Phil_Williams

 

Or you could just ignore me and enjoy my books – The City Screams is a fast and fun read: https://www.amazon.com/City-Screams-Ordshaw-Book-ebook/dp/B07P14DRKR

 

SPFBO Author Interview: Nicholas Hoy

Good to return with another SPFBO interview. These might slow down to once a week for a few weeks: work is getting heavy again and I’m editing two novels of my own, but I will try and get at least one done a week, if not two!

Today I bring you an interview with Nicholas Hoy, who brought his novel Guardian Blood to this year’s SPFBO5. Down below is a link to the book!

 

SPFBO5 Interviews:

SPFBO Author Interview: Huw Steer

SPFBO Author Interview: E.L. Drayton

SPFBO Author Interview: Steve Turnbull

 

First of all, tell me about yourself! What do you write?

 

My name is Nicholas Hoy, I live and thrive in the extremes of the Alaskan wilderness and I’m crazy about most all things fantasy and science fiction. I believe science fiction is at its best when it has at least some element of fantasy built in. I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie and thrill seeker, which may account for many of the action scenes in my novel. My four years in the Air Force added to my love of aviation and adventure. Fantasy adventures are my favorite stories to come up with. Whether in a futuristic cityscape or a magical land of once upon a whenever, my books will always have magical threads.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters? 

 

It depends. Sometimes an idea for a story will come to me and I’ll create characters to fit the situation. Other times I’ll come up with a really interesting character and then I’ll get to create a world or dilemma for them to interact with. Every plot I come up with has to be something I would enjoy watching on the big screen or read in a novel. I really enjoy adding elements of ancient history, conspiracies, and false identities.

 

Tell us about your current project.

 

I’m currently working on Primal Shadows, which is a contemporary fantasy adventure series. I created the series by asking myself a couple questions. First, what if everyone had magic? And second, what would that civilization look like in the modern world of skyscrapers and corporations? That’s how I came up with the idea for Crescent City. A tiered city, magically grown miles high where the most powerful mages rule and live on high in luxury while the weakest of mages live street-level in perpetual darkness. Three POV characters, one from each class of society. The vice magus of the largest of the apex corporations, bent on revenge, recruits an especially talented and unique young data mage to hack into the most secure vault in the world. The unsuspecting recruit wants what everyone wants, to ascend. Dragons, manticores, flying cars, floating islands, shapeshifting, illegal magic, corporate espionage, ancient conspiracies, and an entire global civilization built on a lie. Guardian Blood is book 1 of the Primal Shadows series, as well as my SPFBO5 entry. I’m also working on the first book of an epic, high fantasy/adventure trilogy that I’m very excited about.

 

Is this your first entry into SPFBO? If not, how many times have you entered?

 

Guardian Blood is the first book I’ve ever entered into any competition and I’m grateful for the opportunity and experience.

 

Who would you say is the main character of your novels? And tell me a little bit about them! 

 

Em 19 is the clear protagonist. She grew up in the dregs of society, a world without sunlight, and was forced into a life of crime far too young. The underworld gangs make a living off stealing Tech (magical technologies) from the corporations, and Em makes a living as a smuggler, best in the business, who doesn’t take shit from anyone. She finds herself swept up into something far larger than she ever could have imagined.

What advice would you give new writers on how to delve into creative fiction?

 

Read genres other than what you are working with. What the hell is this guy talking about, right?! What I’m saying is that if you’re writing fantasy, then try and read westerns, horrors, mystery, satire, crime and detective, etc. Expanding what we read expands our creativity.

 

What real-life inspirations did you draw from for the worldbuilding within your book?

 

My worldbuilding was heavily inspired by societies that don’t care for their impoverished or sick. Where the impossibly wealthy live in excess while the rest of society suffers the more for it. The magically infused technology (Tech) in Guardian Blood was inspired by real-world inconveniences. That is to say, anything in our world that could be easier or better, Tech makes possible.

 

What inspires you to write?

 

Reading. Reading inspires me to write. So many authors pumping out gem after gem, each filled with so much wonder that I decided to get off my ass and get some of my own ideas down on paper. Authors like Mark Lawrence, Brandon Sanderson, and Michael J. Sullivan build so many wonderful worlds of fantasy for all of us to enjoy, from the beautiful new frontiers to the utterly grimdark, and they are all my inspirations.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

 

The hardest part of writing this book was simply finding the time. I, like most people, am one busy son of a gun. But like they say, “A page a day gets you a novel in a year.”

 

What is your routine when writing, if any? If you don’t follow a routine, why not?

 

The only way I found the time to write was by waking up at four a.m. every day to write at least one page. Whenever I slipped, I’d make up for it over the weekend. I need complete isolation from all things fun, interesting, or familiar. It’s kind of a pain. I really wish I could just sit on the sofa while my kids run around and write page after page, but for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, that just never seems to work out for me.

 

What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why? 

 

I really enjoyed writing the final showdown. I knew roughly how it would turn out, but I had no clue how exactly it was all going to go down. Writing that scene was like reading in slow motion.

 

Did you learn anything from writing this book and what was it?

 

I learned that writing a book is possible. To just plow through it, get it done, and fix what needs fixing later. Taking the time to edit is critical. Oh yeah, and no matter what anyone says, your cover matters.

 

Are you a plotter or a pantser? A gardener or an architect?

 

I like to plot a rough outline of the story, to include the finale, but I keep it very general. The majority of the characters, a lot of the locations and problems, and all of the dialogue is made up as I go.

 

It’s sometimes difficult to get into understanding the characters we write. How do you go about it? 

 

I try to answer a series of question for each character I create. What’re their likes, dislikes, ticks, habits, vices, etc. That’s a lot of fun, and as I introduce the characters into the story, I already know how they’re going to react to any given situation.

 

What are your future project(s)?

 

Guardian Blood is book 1 in the Primal Shadows series. I’ve knocked out the first few chapters of book 2 and mapped out the story through book 4. I’ve also outlined an epic, high fantasy/adventure trilogy in a vast world of new races and old gods. I have a few other stories I’ve begun outlining that I’m looking forward to finding the time to dig into.

 

What is your favorite book ever written? Who are your favorite authors?

 

The Riyria Revelations is a great story. I love the Hadrian/Royce duo. And the way it all comes together at the end was masterful. A handful of my favorite authors are Michael J. Sullivan, Stephen King, Mark Lawrence, Jim Butcher, and Brandon Sanderson.

 

What makes a good villain?

 

Good villains gain your trust. Great villains make you their best friend. It’s not just about what happens when the villain pulls the rug out from under you that’s important, it’s also about how they do it and with what expression.

 

What do you like to do in your spare time?

 

Read, make up stories, skateboard, snowboard, and play with my sons. There’s a small possibility that I ‘rearrange’ my SG-1, Firefly, Voltron, Back to the Future, and Supernatural figurines while making super sweet sound effects.

 

If you couldn’t be an author, what ideal job would you like to do?

 

An archaeologist or anthropologist. Both rock!

 

You can travel to any planet or moon in the Solar System. Where would you go, why and what would you do there?

 

I’d snowmobile all over the face of Enceladus while looking up at the super-sized rings of Saturn. I’d build a sweet igloo mansion or ice cave community up on a massive mound or mountain suitable for some killer, low-gravity snowboarding.

 

Pick any three characters from a fiction novel. These are now your roadtrip crew. Where do you go and what do you do?

 

My crew consists of Meriadoc Brandybuck (Merry), Peregrin Took (Pippin), and Tom Bombadil. We’re going to camp our way through all of the national parks and protected sites while stopping off at the liveliest pubs and inns along the way.

 

Finally, what is your preferred method to have readers get in touch with or follow you (i.e., website, personal blog, Facebook page, here on Goodreads, etc.) and link(s)?

 

https://www.goodreads.com/Primal_Shadows

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NVVRGRW

 

https://twitter.com/ThisIsNickHoy

 

https://www.facebook.com/PrimalShadows/

 

SPFBO Author Interview: Steve Turnbull

I’m back with another interview! I’ve received about twenty so far. Today I bring you Steve Turnbull, author of “The Dragons Esternes” series. This year to SPFBO he has brought DRAGONS OF ESTERNES to the table. Click on the link below to go to the buy link on Amazon!

 

https://www.amazon.com/REBEL-DRAGON-Dragons-Esternes-Turnbull/dp/1910342858

 

Past SPFBO5 Interviews (Click on the book cover)

 

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And now I bring you the interview with Mr. Turnbull! First, a little author bio which he was gracious enough to give me:

When he's not sitting at his computer building websites for national institutions and international companies, USA Today bestselling author Steve Turnbull can be found sitting at his computer building new worlds of steampunk, science fiction and fantasy.

Technically Steve was born a cockney but after five years he was moved out from London to the suburbs where he grew up and he talks posh now. He's been a voracious reader of science fiction and fantasy since his early years, and spent twenty years editing and writing for computer magazines.

Nowadays he writes screenplays, prose and computer programs.

And an author photo!

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First of all, tell me about yourself! What do you write? 

 

I’m an old white British dude, who writes books with diverse characters – and who has very strong opinions on the difference between “settings” and “genres”.

 

I write stories in SF, Fantasy and Steampunk settings, the genre of those stories may be thriller, action-adventure, crime, slice-of-life, whatever.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters? 

 

What is this “develop” you speak of? Mostly I’m a pantser, I have an idea for the sort of story I want to write, with or without pre-existing characters. I usually have an idea of how I want it to end (because you need a destination). Then I just start.

 

That’s how I wrote DRAGONS OF ESTERNES, my SPFBO5 entry, which is 280K long and no padding.

 

On the other hand my multiple protagonist, multiple throughline, SF epic MONSTERS was planned in detail because everything had to end up at the same time in the same place for the climax.

 

Tell us about your current project.

 

It’s a story set in my steampunk universe and is the second in the Veronica’s Life series which is slice-of-life disabled erotica. I write these books under a pseudonym to avoid accidental cross-reading but, as with all my steampunk, the stories overlap and characters from one story may appear in others. As they do here.

 

Without going into lurid details, Veronica is a hunchback (severe kyphosis) and has been kept out of sight by her parents (who have yet to appear – they stay away from her).

 

The story is how she slowly achieves empowerment in a world where the odds are stacked against her. Because it’s “slice of life”, there’s no specific bad guy and nothing world shattering happens. It’s just Veronica’s life and how she succeeds – and, being erotica, there’s lots of explicit sex along the way but it’s all done in the best possible taste.

 

After I’ve finished this (nearly done) I’ll be writing a couple more shorter give-away stories to use in free book promos. One for DRAGONS, one for MONSTERS, and maybe one for my FROZEN BEAUTY steampunk stories.

 

Is this your first entry into SPFBO? If not, how many times have you entered?

 

It’s not my first, I entered the fantasy story ELONA  a couple of years ago. ELONA is set in the same world as DRAGONS and, yes, characters from that book appear in the other. In fact ELONA was the first publishable book I wrote and was intended as a trilogy, but I haven’t written the second two. My plan is to get those done next.

 

Who would you say is the main character of your novels? And tell me a little bit about them! 

 

I have so many books that’s not an easy answer. From DRAGONS, there is Kantees who’s a slave at the start of the book. She lacks any self-confidence and the last thing she wants to be is a leader, all she wants is to find her people.

 

In my MALIHA ANDERSON steampunk books, Maliha is an Anglo-Indian who has no place in any society but she’s of Holmesian intellect with an eidetic memory – she solves crimes. But she has a personal story line witihin the books as she gathers a “family” around her.

 

For MONSTERS, Chloe Dark is just an ordinary schoolgirl in a dystopian post-apocalyptic world – in fact the apocalypse hasn’t finished yet, but the people are pretending it has. MONSTERS was my response to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, except there’s no supernatural and no magic, it’s pure SF. And Chloe isn’t ordinary at all.

 

What advice would you give new writers on how to delve into creative fiction?

 

Read more, write more. You learn how to write by writing, not by talking to other writers on Twitter (guilty as charged).

 

What real-life inspirations did you draw from for the worldbuilding within your book?

 

I like my fiction to be as real as it can be.

 

My fantasy world has entire an geological history, and evolution. Except it also has magic which is part of the natural world too—so some animals are also magic.

 

My steampunk world has only one change to physics: In 1843 Sir Michael Faraday demonstrated his “Principle for the Partial Nullification of the Effects of Gravity”. The rest is alternate history. Social history diverges only very slowly form that point, though it gathers momentum, so my Steampunk world is historically accurate – except where it isn’t.

 

What inspires you to write?

 

Nothing

SPFBO Author Interview: Huw Steer

I’m back again with a new SPFBO interview. This one is with Huw Steer, author of The Blackbird and the Ghost. It’s a really cool looking book, and the cover is amazing. Go check it out down below by clicking the link!

 

Previous SPFBO5 Interviews

You can check out previous interviews by clicking on the cover down below. I’ll be giving a rotation of five or six to have a look at as this list inevitably grows!

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First of all, tell me about yourself! What do you write? 

 

I’m a historian, author and comedian (sometimes) from London. I write sci-fi and fantasy – with the occasional foray into alternative genres – mostly long-form, but I’ve got a few short stories knocking around the place, some published. I don’t really stick to one theme; I’ve written dark, introspective stuff and swords-and-sorcery, weird cyberpunk and a reimagining of ancient Greek SF – if it sticks in my mind and I can figure out half a plot, I’ll write about it.

 

I also write and perform sketch and improv comedy; I’ve done 3 shows at the Edinburgh Fringe and one day hope to do some more!

 

How do you develop your plots and characters? 

 

I usually start with characters before anything else. They’re the heart of any story; you’re following their experiences through whatever mad world they’re in; and the best characters can find a home in many different settings, shaping the plot around them. I usually write only 1 POV at a time, sometimes 2 – if I’ve multiple then I try and give them different opinions, different attitudes, make their plot strands as distinct as possible. That gives a story much more life in my opinion. 

 

Often, though, I’ll just have some kernel of an idea, or write down a scrap of verse that comes to mind and leave it forgotten in a notebook for half a year – then find it much later and stare at it for an afternoon until some wisp of a story starts to come together…

 

For The Blackbird and the Ghost I actually started with the setting, for once. Once I’d drawn up the map (while onstage during a production of The Comedy of Errors, of all places), and had the idea for this inverted ocean and all its accompanying dangers, the characters and plot fell into place within it nicely.

 

Tell us about your current project.

 

Right now I’m working on an SF piece, inspired of all things  by First World War salvage operations. I learned recently about the massive cleanup effort in northern France after the Armistice, and the Iron Harvest – fascinating stuff – and wanted to write a military SF piece that takes place during nominal peacetime. I’ve got a classic crew of misfits who all hate each other, going around battlefields and defusing fusion bombs and getting wrapped up in a nice grand conspiracy – it’s fun to write so far!

 

Is this your first entry into SPFBO? If not, how many times have you entered?

 

This is entry number one – hopefully the first of many!

 

Who would you say is the main character of your novels? And tell me a little bit about them! 

 

The main character of The Blackbird and the Ghost is Tal Wenlock. He’s a young adventurer, archaeologist and occasional thief – nothing major, but he’s certainly not above taking advantage of an unguarded pocket if he’s in need. He’s quick and clever, as professional a tomb raider as it’s possible to be, and though he needs to make a profit he’s very much in the business for the history too. He’s a thief who does his research!

 

What advice would you give new writers on how to delve into creative fiction? 

 

Get into a writing habit. Even if it’s just 50 words a day, if you can get into the routine of writing every day then you’ve fought half the battle already, whether you’re writing short stories or huge novels.

 

What real-life inspirations did you draw from for the worldbuilding within your book?

 

I’m an ancient historian, specifically of ancient Rome – so guess what I default to when I’m creating an ancient civilisation? The Arcadian Empire of the Boiling Seas is heavily inspired by Rome, especially in architecture and naming, and so when Tal ventures into Arcadian ruins there’s a clear real-world analogue if you know where to look. Rome was a culture full of life and distinctive in appearance, and I love creating mirrors to it in most of my worlds, even if it’s just in a small way.

 

What inspires you to write?

 

A lot of things! Sometimes another book will spark my interest with a concept, or I’ll find something fascinating from history that I want to explore – like the salvage stuff I mentioned earlier. I write down stray thoughts whenever I can, and I’ll usually look at them long afterwards… and sometimes a stray line becomes something much more.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

 

Definitely the editing – I struggle with forcing myself to go back over stuff I’ve already written to improve it. I want to write something else, not rewrite what I’ve already done! I’m fine at actually doing the editing once I’ve started, but getting started is the battle… hence the two-year wait between writing The Blackbird and the Ghost and publishing it…

 

What is your routine when writing, if any? If you don’t follow a routine, why not?

 

I write 500 words a day, minimum, and if I can I do it first thing in the morning (before work…). It’s a bit strict, and sometimes I hate myself for it, but I’ve managed to keep the streak up for more than 4 years now – and written six books in the progress, alongside other stuff, so it definitely works!

 

What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why? 

 

Probably the sequences in the Lantern, especially its library. It was great fun building this university/hospital/magician’s guild hybrid, full of scholars and doctors and learning of all kinds – with the kind of library I’ve always wanted to have in my house some day, just endless books in a great tower! It was definitely my favourite location to write, and it was where one of my favourite characters was introduced too – so definitely that section.

 

Did you learn anything from writing this book and what was it?

 

That the superficial aspects of a character – appearance, gender, etc. – really aren’t that important – it’s the kind of person they are that shapes them and the world around them.

 

Are you a plotter or a pantser? A gardener or an architect?

 

A bit of both, really – I’ll set out with some kind of outline and beats to hit, but my characters invariably lead me down entirely unexpected paths along the way. I’m happy to wander. Usually they’re better at telling their stories than me.

 

It’s sometimes difficult to get into understanding the characters we write. How do you go about it? 

 

I don’t always do this, but I’ve always been a proponent of the bar fight method of character introduction. A bar fight is an ideal scenario to quickly explore how characters react to stress and conflict. Why are they at the bar – are they drinking alone or are they with people? What are they drinking – if they even are? Do they try to stay out of the fight, or are they the ones who started it – and if they do get involved, do they win? It’s an opportunity to explore lots of character traits in a short time.

 

What are your future project(s)?

 

Finishing the salvage SF book, editing a dystopian SF book to send to agents, and actually plotting the sequel to The Blackbird and the Ghost!

 

What is your favorite book ever written? Who are your favorite authors?

 

Don’t ask me to just pick one! For SF, William Gibson; Neuromancer is an absolute work of art and all his books are thrilling stories in beautifully realised worlds, whether futuristic or all too close to home. For fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien shaped my perceptions massively, as he did so many other writers, but one of my other favourite authors is Adrian Tchaikovsky. Shadows of the Apt is a glorious series, with some of the finest character work I’ve ever read in Stenwold, Tisamon and Thalric especially.

 

What makes a good villain?

 

Motivations. If a villain’s got a good reason for doing what they’re doing then sometimes I’ll root for them over the hero. The best villains don’t want to watch the world burn for no reason.

 

…though if they want to do it in style, then that’s sometimes another matter…

 

What do you like to do in your spare time?

 

I play video games, I watch an embarrassing amount of YouTube, and I work for a charity toyshop assembling and sorting through donated Lego!

 

If you couldn’t be an author, what ideal job would you like to do?

 

A museum curator. I love the past, I love learning about what’s gone before – hence my degree! Working with artefacts and objects from all periods is fascinating, especially the weird, niche ones – if I could run any bit of a museum I’d take the clock room at the British Museum, it’s a beautiful place (and I’ve always wanted to set all the clocks to chime at exactly the same time…).

 

You can travel to any planet or moon in the Solar System. Where would you go, why and what would you do there?

 

Stick me in orbit around Jupiter, maybe on one of its moons. Seeing that wall of storms filling half the sky would be breathtaking.

 

Pick any three characters from a fiction novel. These are now your roadtrip crew. Where do you go and what do you do?

 

Zaphod Beeblebrox knows how to party, Stenwold Maker would keep us on the road… and Captain Carrot would stop us getting into proper trouble.

 

Finally, what is your preferred method to have readers get in touch with or follow you (i.e., website, personal blog, Facebook page, here on Goodreads, etc.) and link(s)?

 

My personal website is here – https://huwsteer.wordpress.com/ – please feel free to drop me an email via the address on the contact page! 

 

If you’d rather use Goodreads, that’s here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18268244.Huw_Steer (though I’m still getting used to the platform, so might be a little longer before replies…) – or indeed my Twitter here: https://twitter.com/huwage?lang=en-gb (same disclaimer as above)!

 

SPFBO Author Interview: E.L. Drayton

It has been a very long time.

SPFBO5 is officially A-Go! Once again, I have returned to interview all challengers. Today I bring you the first interview for SPFBO5, with Erica Drayton. She is the author of Daxton, and I’m delighted to have her with me on my blog!

 

To all comers

This is a revamped and improved interview I’ve come up with for SPFBO this year (and all interviews going forward) I’d love to interview as many as I can. Last year I got 70+. Let’s see if I can improve on that number. If any author would like an interview, just contact me!



So have fun! Here’s to a hopefully great SPFBO5!

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all, tell me about yourself! What do you write?

While I’d love to make writing my career, unfortunately, writing is what I do when I am home from work and on the weekends. I started writing novel length stories about four years ago. In that time, I’ve been writing nothing but fantasy, all taking place inside a universe I created called Stonehaven.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters?

I’m more character-driven when I write my stories. I feel like I can’t truly figure out the story until I know who the main character is, what his/her motivations are, and what their goal is. Once I can clearly picture the character it’s like fitting all the edge pieces of a puzzle together, making filling in the rest of it that much easier.

 

Tell us about your current project.

My current project takes place in Stonehaven but is vastly different from my debut novel. I wanted to explore a different region and an entirely different group of characters as well. Lately, I’ve been interested in folklore. Specifically, tribal people like Native Indians. I’m writing a story about a boy named River and his struggled to grow up just like a father he never knew, all while avenging the murders of his entire family. It’s a story of self-discovery, revenge, and mystery all in one.

 

Is this your first entry into SPFBO? If not, how many times have you entered?

This is indeed my first time entering SPFBO. I have been following it for a few years now and had always wanted to enter but never had a completed and published story, till now.

 

Who would you say is the main character of your novels? And tell me a little bit about them!

The main character of the debut novel I submitted to SPFBO is also the title of the book; Daxton. He is a rather stubborn character, but I wanted him to be that way. You see, on his eighteenth birthday he is told by his parent’s that he was left on their doorstep when he was just a baby. This news devastates Daxton. He immediately can think of only one thing, finding his birth mother so he can get some answers. The main one being, why did she abandon him in the first place? Along the way he must learn that some secrets are not meant to be uncovered and that family is however you define it. Of course, it takes him a LONG time to figure this important lesson out.

 

What advice would you give new writers on how to delve into creative fiction?

My advice is the same for everyone; READ! There is no stronger tool to learn how to be creative than to read from those who came before. And in a time of digital libraries, the Gutenberg Library and KU, there are truly no excuses for not reading. It was reading that made me want to tell a story. And reading that taught me the fundamentals of storytelling. I also use reading for more technical things, such as formatting the front and back matter of a book, the inside pages, the spine and back cover. There is so much that can be learned from books. So, go read something already!

 

What real-life inspirations did you draw from for the worldbuilding within your book?

I honestly looked at a lot of fantasy maps. I mean a lot. Google search was my friend for several months. After looking over as many maps as I could get my hands on, I got to work cultivating my own. Starting with random scraggly scrawlings on a piece of paper which soon graduated to the same scribbles, only this time using my iPad Pro and Pencil. I found the act of illustrating a map, its varying bodies of water, naming the regions, was how I started to worldbuild Stonehaven. I know I looked at the wizard of oz, LotR, and maps like that. I hope to one day have maps in my own books.

 

What inspires you to write?

Great stories written by others, inspires me to write. I read (and finish) a book and no sooner do I close that book does the same question come to mind, “can I write a story that captivating?” If I finish a book asking myself that question, I know two things for sure: 1. The book I just read was REALLY good and 2. Writing is my true passion and if not for my desire to read I would spend all of my time writing.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

I honestly don’t recall having a hard time with this book. I wrote 85K+ words of it in 13 days exactly. That is still the shortest time I managed to crank out a vomit draft. During the first 2 rounds of self-edits I managed to beef that 85K to 90K+. The editing sucked, as editing is supposed to do, but as I know that is the only means to get to the end result of a published book, I powered through. Truth be told, the hardest part for me with this book came once I completed it. I forced myself to wait an additional 2 years so that I could write a lot more novels and stories in that time. My idea was to make a debut of my work, but not with just one book, I wanted to release multiple within a year. I’m proud to say I am well on my way. I’m glad I waited, but it was definitely the hardest part.

 

What is your routine when writing, if any? If you don’t follow a routine, why not?

Following a set schedule has always been the best for me. I find my lack of writing as many words as I am accustomed to comes when I am no longer able to stick to a schedule. Normally, I work from 9 – 5, get home from work and eat dinner, then I spend about 2 – 3 hrs writing. I am lucky enough to have a wife who is also a writer, so she understands my schedule and what I need in order to do what I love. On the weekends, if I’m not busy doing family things, this is when I am able to spend the most time writing and crank out the most words. On a good writing day, I can accomplish 1.5k to 2k words per hour while sitting up at my desk. Writing on my laptop is a comfort but I find that comfort yields less words.

 

What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why?

By far my favorite part when writing Daxton is a scene near the middle of the book. Daxton and his friends are in a marketplace in Ebonthorn, looking for a compass. While there, they catch the attention of two people. One is a really bad dude. He’s like the leader of a gang. The other is a crush Daxton develops on one of the merchants. Anyway, they do something to the bad dude to make him want to attack them when the marketplace is nearly empty. This was a moment where I backed myself and my characters into a corner. They were surrounded by goons with weapons and they were unarmed. I had to think fast. How can I save them? Then it hit me like a ton of bricks! The girl in the marketplace approaches them, wearing a veil that is covering her face. The goons say cruel and sexual things to her as she’s walking past them, but she doesn’t flinch. Instead, she lowers it and a barrage of arrows come out of nowhere attacking the bad guys. To this day that is still my favorite scene! It taught me that no sticky situation is ever as sticky as you might thing. There is always a way out.

 

Did you learn anything from writing this book and what was it?

I learned a lot about pacing. A great storyteller knows when to take their time with a story and when to get to the point. This story, and the larger series it is a part of, has taught me to take my time, enjoy the scenery and the people.

 

Are you a plotter or a pantser? A gardener or an architect?

I am a “plantser” by nature. I plot for sure. The outline for my current project is 6K+ words long! However, and this is the case for all my stories, I usually only end up following about 15% of my outlines once I actually start writing. You never know what can end up happening when the writing process begins. I don’t like to limit myself to the outline I’ve set out. I use it merely as a guide, just in case I find myself unable to write or losing my speed.

 

It’s sometimes difficult to get into understanding the characters we write. How do you go about it?

After examining all the stories I’ve written thus far and all the ones I plan on writing in the future, I realized something; all of my main characters are male. Seeing as I’m not male, I had to ask myself the obvious question, why don’t I write more female leading characters? I must confess I still don’t know. Maybe because women are much more complex and what drives men to do the things that they do is much easier? All I know is, I find I’m able to close my eyes and see not just my character but the people around him easier. That’s not to say I don’t plan on writing a story in the distant future where a woman is the main character, because I do. In fact, I have a story idea that will revolve around 5 women, all of them main characters, and all of them badass. But don’t look for this story for another 5 years at least!

 

What are your future project(s)?

My future projects are vast! I have 60+ novel-length ideas all within Stonehaven alone. I also have a mystery series that would be like a cross between Kinsey Millhone, Hercule Poirot, and Sherlock Holmes! But I think what I really want to mention are my Stonehaven Fables. I started them earlier this year and they are my pride and joy. When I sit down to write a novel, especially one that will end up being an epic fantasy, I will create countless characters. Some will have a name, and some won’t, but all of them will have a story. I can’t create, even a nameless character, without giving them some purpose for existence. And some of them, I love so much I just don’t want to leave them on the page and never hear from them again. That is where my Stonehaven Fables come in. They will be an endless supply of short stories based on the characters in my novels that I want to tell my readers more about! These short stories can go anywhere from 2K words to as long as 7K. These stories will release once or twice a month and are exclusive to patrons.

 

What is your favorite book ever written? Who are your favorite authors?

I’d have to say The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. The movie is great, too. But I’ve read this book multiple times and each time I love it more and more. I have a few authors whom I truly admire: Agatha Christie, Sue Grafton, Brian Jacques, & Terry Pratchett.

 

If you’re looking for authors who are currently living: Ransom Riggs, Jonathan Kellerman, Christopher Moore, Dean Koontz, and Gregory Maguire (to name a few).

 

What makes a good villain?

I think, historically speaking, what used to make a great villain was when a person would do something evil for evils sake. That seems to have changed a lot since then. Nowadays, people want to analyze the motivations of a villain. For me what makes a villain great is what makes him/her similar to the main character (protagonist). At the end of the day, a great story has these two opposing forces, each after the same thing, but often for different reasons. Once you know the what and why about your main character then defining the villain becomes that much easier. And sometimes, once the villain is deciphered, they may teach you something you hadn’t considered about the character of your protagonist.

 

What do you like to do in your spare time?

In my spare time I love to watch movies. I love old black & white movies from the 50s and 60s. But I also love a great silent film. I find movies that were made pre “code” are more dynamic and fascinating and the acting is infinitely more engaging. I’m always looking for something new to watch on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) or re-watching some of my favorite movies/actors.

 

If you couldn’t be an author, what ideal job would you like to do?

I think I’d love to own a bookstore. Or be a consultant in a bookstore? Though, I don’t think they exist. I want to be like a bartender you tell your troubles to and then I’ll reply with the book you should read that will either solve your problems, give you a different perspective, or take your mind off of whatever is bothering you. Can I do that for a living? Or maybe a job that involves reading books all day long? You know, for research for the job I mentioned…

 

You can travel to any planet or moon in the Solar System. Where would you go, why and what would you do there?

I’d go to Jupiter. At first, I was going to say, Mars, because as it’s not much further out from the sun than Earth I suppose it would be safe. But it seems like everyone is going to Mars these days. So, Jupiter it is. Then again, Saturn does have all those lovely rings… As for what I would do there? Settle, most likely. I’m sure Saturn would be fabulously quiet and empty this time of year. Just the ideal place where a writer can get some work done without interruption. Except, can I get Wi-Fi on Saturn? Hmm…

 

Pick any three characters from a fiction novel. These are now your roadtrip crew. Where do you go and what do you do?

I’m a mystery buff! If I could pick any fictional characters in literature, I would have to pick Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes and J.B. Fletcher, of course! Part of me wants to take them all on the Orient Express. But that might not be fun enough. Honestly, I think we should all go over to some rich person’s villa where they invite about 12 or so guests that all hate and despise either each other or the host. Let the murder, the mayhem, the mystery, and the sleuthing begin! That would lovely! Ah, and make this villa on a deserted island. Wouldn’t want any of the suspects getting away, now would we…

 

Finally, what is your preferred method to have readers get in touch with or follow you (i.e., website, personal blog, Facebook page, here on Goodreads, etc.) and link(s)?

I’m on Twitter 99.9% of the time https://twitter.com/ericadrayton. Now, if you are a writer, I have started a VIP Writer blog that posts every Monday morning. I recommend it to you as you might find my thoughts and journey through self-publishing interesting. I also set-up a newsletter so you can get an email with my post once a week, for your convenience. That link is here: https://eldrayton.com/newsletter/ or you can just check out my blog posts here to see if they might interest you: https://eldrayton.com/vip-blog/

 

Lastly, I mentioned I have a Patreon, where my Stonehaven Fables are exclusive to my patrons. They start at just $1 per creation and I invite anyone, especially writers who are thinking about creating their own Patreon account but are on the fence, to take a look at it: https://patreon.com/pdbooks/

Kenshi Review: The Game from Childhood Dreams

So I know my blogging hasn’t been great this year. It’s been odd, the last few months. Between editing three books and my new job, blogging hasn’t really been on my agenda lately. However, I am pleased to say that with SPFBO5 about to begin, I am returning to the author reviews you know and love! But I’m still going to review video games. It’s the one thing that keeps me from going senile.

Even though my job is video games.

Introduction

This has been a game that’s been a long time coming. I bought this game in 2014, and I decided to hold off on it until things became more…developed. With the game hitting 1.0 officially in December 2018, I felt it was finally time to review it.

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As you can tell, I’ve put some serious hours into this game, and I’ve probably seen 10% of the content.

Kenshi feels like a twisted, weird mix of games a child would dream up as the ideal video game. Is it the ideal video game? Lord no, but it does one hell of a good job in many areas.

I am a huge fan of open-ended sandboxes were you can just do what you want, but very few seem to do this right. This was made by a very small development team and I could tell as soon as I bought it that it was a game worth supporting. Even if it didn’t go much further, I could afford to spend 10-15$ on it. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can make a game, particularly in this day and age when there is just so much competition. The indie market is booming and with it a lot of the stigma attached to indie developers is fading, as AAA titles continue to frustrate consumers with their practices. It’s the right time to get into it.

Kenshi’s development was slow at first, and originally I did wonder if it was ever going to reach a stage where I would go into it and play it. Then more and more progress was made…and now it’s just impressive just how much is packed in this game.

The Game

This game reminds me a lot like Mount and Blade Warband, another game which I bloody adore. The graphics look like shit, if you want my honest opinion. It looks and feels bloaty, the engine is buggy and badly optimised,  there is no voice acting and no true narrative exists. What’s shocking is virtually none of this matters when it comes to Kenshi. It should be a bad game with how much it crams in, all these different parts somehow working. Parts of the game make me think it’s still an alpha version, and there’s some serious flaws with it but man. . .I love it. It’s an amazing role-playing sandbox.

You are given a massive open-ended map (And I mean it’s huge. 870 square km), full of varied biomes, different factions, and just given a smack on the bum. Go and enjoy. Make your own story. It gives you almost nothing to work with and the beginning is frustrating. It’s also tough. You will die a lot.

To give you an idea just how large the Kenshi map is, here is a slideshow. The first slide shows the Waystation, with The Hub in the distance. Most playthroughs will begin near the Hub, for it is a good starting area in the game.

Click to view slideshow.

This gives a good indication just how massive the map is in Kenshi.

 

Onto the story element, there is none, or at least no direct narrative. There is a ton of well crafted lore in the game world of course, but nothing for you to follow. You really need to have some level of creative thinking to get the most out of this game. It’s a role playing game at its purest level. You do need to spend a lot of time with this game, it’s certainly not for the faint hearted. You need to have patience in dealing with some semi-broken mechanics, long loading times as the engine chugs on its single-core, and handle a lot of rough elements. What lies under the rough surface is a game of surprising complexity and depth.

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I lost my entire party 10 minutes later to a horde of starving bandits.

However the game’s sheer openness in this case is its biggest strength, with a literal torrent of things to do. It might not be pretty to look at but its mechanics are incredible. I don’t understand how this game manages to fit in so many different genres and play-styles at once like some fucked experiment. Some of them don’t work at times, others are buggy, but for a game to do all this at once, and do a decent job overall, is seriously impressive and deserves recognition. Do they work all the time? No.

You can build your own settlements, hire mercenaries, enslave NPCs to do your bidding, form your own company. The learning mechanics are brilliant, with so many ways to train your characters. You have guilds to join, shit to steal, crops to grow. It’s not so much a game but as a world to craft your own experience, with a story development on par with Rimworld. It has an awesome body system as well. You get fucked in a fight? You will limp around until you can fix it. I get my leg cut off…just read the description here:

A character with a wounded leg will limp or crawl and slow the party down, wounded arms means you must use your sword one-handed or not at all. Severe injuries will result in amputees needing robotic limb replacements. Blood loss means you can pass out, and the blood will attract predators. A character’s stats are affected by equipment, encumbrance, blood loss, injuries and starvation.

This game gives zero shits about you, but it is also surprisingly accessible. While the game is perma death, getting into fights is a great way to get stronger. If you get put in jail, you get healed up and fed while you struggle to break out. Everything you do improves your stats in some way, so don’t shy away from tough situations. The games systems are easy to exploit and easy to break, but doing so will make parts of the game lose its aura.

Building a settlement is hard. You get to research all sorts of things with a research bench and the right materials, but the game punishes you when you start setting out on your own. You’ll get attacked by enemies on a bullshit degree, factions will come demanding tax money, bandits will demand food or money to leave you alone, and don’t get me started on the Holy Nation. Fuck those assholes. My current 30 hour play-through is dedicated to a group of plucky souls building an army to destroy them.

There are plenty of factions to play with, all with different styles. The Skeletons don’t need to eat, but can’t heal themselves without expensive Repair Kits and are hated by nearly everyone. The United Cities are a corrupt, slavers paradise. The Sheks are a warrior kingdom who look down on smuggling drugs (But you can make lots of money if you don’t get caught by their smuggling checks), while the Holy Nation are racist fanatics with a powerful belief in religion and purity. Seriously, fuck the Holy Nation.

Oh, and cannibals. There are lots of those.

This is one of the most impressive open worlds I’ve ever seen in a video game. You can play it as an RPG, a city builder, a fighting game and a stealth game, and do a pretty damn good job in all of them. I’ve rarely seen that in gaming.

If it sounds like I’m gushing, I’m not. Kenshi has some pretty glaring flaws, and if you’re one of those guys who want good optimisation and things to look pretty then you’re going to have a brain injury if you play this game. It’s buggy, chugs harder than a train on National Rail, ugly, and lacks a general direction, certainly. Do I wish it wasn’t as unstable at times? Yes. Do I regret my time with Kenshi? Lord no.

Nonetheless, I mean it when I say this is one of those endless experiences that deserves a chance. I can see myself writing a new novel just from my roleplaying experiences in this game. With an extensive modding scene, we might see some really impressive things in the future.

I will caution this: while there is a healthy modding scene, the tools themselves are limited. While this is a shame, you can fix a lot of base problems in Kenshi already through mods, and the game has been successful enough for the devs to make a sequel, with any engine fixes and improvements to be made to the original Kenshi.

 

Pros

Huge world crammed full of deep lore and lots of things to do.
A.I is crude, but it does the job fairly well.
Unforgiving learning curve is satisfying to overcome, even if it takes dozens of hours.
Some of the games visuals can look good.
An excellent combat system that syncs well with the training mechanics.
Almost endless gameplay.
Despite the limitations of the modding engine, it has a healthy scene
A varied mix of factions with their own deep lore.
A great choice of weapons.
So many genres!
A large quantity of mods that add even more mechanics, game starts and factions.
The ultimate sandbox game.

Cons

Brutal early game and lack of hand holding will turn many players off.
Frequent long loading times, even with an SSD.
Ugly environments for the most part.
Limited in some ways by the creativity of the player.
No true story or endgame.
Obtuse squad micromanagement at times.
Despite an extensive number of mods, the modding tools are fairly limited.
Unfortunately you cannot conquer towns and claim them for your own. However, there is a mod in progress that adds this feature!
Much of the open world is feature-sparse desert.
Buggy pathfinding at times.

 

To close things off, here are some screenshots I took in-game, and a little story to go with it. This is my current play-through, 50 days in (with no fast forward) and 35 hours.

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Khronin and Viro, unlikely rivals turned friends, have a new goal. After Viro was attacked by Holy Sentinels and left for dead, Khronin has sworn vengeance against the Holy Nation.

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Khronin’s skill in battle and charisma begins to grow the army. This growing force of disgruntled Sheks and bought slaves prepare themselves for their ultimate goal – the destruction of the Holy Nation.

 

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With a growing host of skilled fighters, Khronin and Viro take their teams out on training missions against the wild.

 

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Following a brutal battle between slavers, bandits and our protagonists, Khronin finally decides the time is right to begin their campaign. It will begin in the Holy Farms. Too long have these peasants stood against you. No more.

 

FINAL SCORE AND CLOSING THOUGHTS: Kenshi is a hard game to give a score. It has flaws, and a lot of them, but there are few games like this on the market. I’d give this game a 8/10 overall, the bugginess and at times annoying loading bringing down its score. 

The game is not for everyone, but I still recommend you all give it a good go. I play Kenshi zoomed in with my characters, making it more like a close-third person RPG than a top-down strategy game. I suggest you try it out that way as well.

Game Dev Interview: Atom RPG

Hey everybody! It’s been quite a while. In truth, my blogging has taken a back seat recently. Juggling my new full time job at Grimlore Games, writing several novels and other stuff has taken away my blogging, but today I bring you something very special, something hopefully the start of a new series: game developer interviews! Today I’m with ATOMteam, the developer of the awesome ATOM RPG. It’s an excellent  post-apocalyptic indie game, inspired by classic CRPGs: Fallout, Wasteland, Deus Ex, Baldur’s Gate and many others. I’d call it the spiritual successor of Fallout 2, and it’s a seriously impressive piece of kit.

Down below is my interview with Alex, co-head designer for the team!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/552620/ATOM_RPG_Postapocalyptic_indie_game/

https://www.gog.com/game/atom_rpg_postapocalyptic_indie_game

 

 

First of all, tell me about yourself! What do you do?

I’m half of a writer, location designer and game planner duo for Atom

RPG as well as the translator for the English version of the game. My

name is Alex, but some call me Fade.

What does being a game designer actually mean?

I think most people have these imaginary ideas in their heads from time

to time. Like, what a movie I’d make if I could, what game would I make

if I could, what characters would I create, etc. I am blessed by an

amazing team who lets me bring these mental images to life. Being a dev

allows me to create and play what I love the most in games, what I

always dreamed of playing.

There has been a great deal of controversy in recent years about micro

transactions in gaming. Not so much an opinion, but why do games tend to

cut out content to sell later as DLC and lootboxes? Is it to do with

development costs? Or is it time related?

I believe that this is money related. The more you cut your product, the

more you make from selling each piece, after all. Some companies are

there just to make money, disregarding all other aspects of making a

game. Making DLCs, lootboxes and microtransactions is a way to earn big

money. Every big business does it in a way, as long as it can get away

with it. We are not businessmen, and our goal isn’t money alone, so we

won’t ever use such tactics to make money, but I can get why a huge

profit-driven corporation does it. I don’t support it at all, but I

understand the principle.

Tell us about your current project.

We’re almost done patching the final version of our dream game Atom RPG.

It’s a turn-based post-apocalyptic role-playing game set in the

post-nuclear-war USSR. You play as an agent of ATOM, a former government

organization dedicated to restoring civilization. This game, we made in

the likeness of awesome oldies like Fallout 1-2 and the original

Wasteland, was in our minds ever since 2008. It took a lot of risks and

a lot of time to finally make it just like we imagined it and we

couldn’t be happier. After that, we will start work on a stand-alone

add-on for Atom RPG that will take the player into a giant post

apocalyptic city of Trudograd, a towering metal labyrinth built around

army tech factories.

As anyone who creates anything, we must all deal with criticism from

consumers. How do you go about it particularly in the prolific and viral

standard of gaming today?

We respect every criticism and try to learn from it when it is

constructive. A lot of bad reviews made our game better by pointing out

the bugs that got away from our small QA team. Some critics then

returned and loved the game we improved. And when criticism isn’t

constructive? I understand it as well. We are a niche game, not meant

for the mass player. It’s 2019, and you’re offered a game that is made

in the likeness of 1990’s games. I can understand the rage it might

cause if oldies are not your thing.

What advice would you give budding developers into taking the plunge

into game design?

Love your audience. If there’s a Youtube video about your game with 0

views and 0 comments, go there and say thank you, just like you would if

the video was viral and had 100000 views. If there’s a question or a

critique, reply, respectfully. Talk to people. Listen to their opinions.

If you still have time to play video games, what are some of your

favourite ones to play?

Well, most of the time I just play Atom RPG over and over again, for

bugfixing and just because I can’t get enough of it, but I spare like

40-50 hours a month on other games.

When on PC, I enjoy playing roguelikes: rogue, liberal crime squad,

Dwarf Fortress, Slay the Spire which is a masterpiece and I hope

everyone in the world buys it at one time. I play Fallout 1 from time to

time, and dive for a run in Wasteland 1, I play Dark Sun a few nights a

month, and I just fallen in love with D.W. Bradley’s Wizards and

Warriors. Sometimes I play Dark Heart of Uukrul Wizardry 6-7 and Ultima

4. They don’t make them like they used to! I’m also looking to replay

Deadly Premonition, Killer is Dead and Killer7 sometime soon. SWERY and

Goichi Suda are my idols since I was a teen. Way back when I bought a

Wii just to play No More Heroes, a true masterwork.

I also have consoles, where I play From Software’s and ATLUS games

almost exclusively. Must’ve beaten Dark Souls 1 2 and 3 and Bloodborne

20 times each, and I still love everything about them, especially the

Greatswords. Sekiro I had no time to play yet. I wanna finish everything

before it one more time before starting. Shin Megami Tensei also has a

weird charm for me, ever since the SNES release. They are weird and

magical. Persona is awesome too, especially 2 and 4 for me.

What inspires you to do what you do?

Every time someone says that Atom RPG is what he waited for since

Fallout 2, I feel amazing bliss. I’m doing it for myself, because I love

playing Atom and I’m doing it for all those who wanted a game like this.

Giving back to the community, especially after all it gave us by buying

the game and giving us advice and love, is my number one priority for

two years now and it will never change.

What is the hardest part of your job?

Honestly, I don’t think there is one. Finding that we didn’t kill all

the bugs in the game was pretty annoying, but the guys fixed like 99% of

them. So I really don’t know. Keeping up with deadlines was hard like 2

times out of 10. There’s that.

What was your favourite thing about game development? Is there anything

you find difficult or challenging in dealing with the struggles?

There are three best things. First one, is brainstorming a location or

quest and living through that moment where every idea clicks in place

and we’ve got a new location or quest ready. Second one is finding out

that the players actually liked that new thing. Third one is actually

playing this new moment for myself. I sometimes giggle like crazy when I

re-read my own writing. The most difficult thing was to just ditch

normal jobs and start game making, without any hopes or money, just

because it was time to finally make our dream come true. It took balls

and 3000 packs of ramen noodles and cigarettes. Everything else is more

pleasure than chore, even when it’s crunch time!

Many thanks for the chance Alex! ATOM RPG is a pretty cool game, and anyone who liked stuff like Wasteland, Baldurs Gate and Fallout should give it a go.

Enderal: Forgotten Stories Review

57 hours later, I saw the credits once again.

As soon as I booted up the revamped Steam version of Enderal, and saw the opening, I realised I was back home.

 

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So peaceful.

Then this happened.

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This guy can fuck off.

I will say that my first run of Forgotten Stories was not complete. I missed out on at least 20 quests including the latter half of one of the new quest-lines, but it was a finished experience for me. I did finish everything during the 2016 run.

Enderal, the total conversion mod of Skyrim is better than ever. Even better, you can download and play it right off Steam for free, without the need for its own launcher or anything silly like that. All you need to own is a copy of the original Skyrim. This is a huge improvement on the old launcher and Steam makes it nice and easy to plug and play.

Introduction

SureAI has been making this mod for a long time, ever since Skyrim released back in November 2011. They have been responsible for making other total conversions such as Nehrim for Oblivion, and the lesser known Arktwend for Morrowind, which I am currently playing at the moment! Nehrim was another excellent experience, although it currently lacks English voice acting. It’s appeared on Steam though, so I expect it to get similar treatment to Enderal, hopefully. I really want to give Nehrim another go.

You do not need to worry about that with Enderal. Everything is fully voice acted in English from the get go, which is nice. I’ll get into the characters and voice acting later.

Big mods for Skyrim are rare. They usually come out through heavy-release delays or are just cut-back. I do appreciate anybody who tries to make one, but it is disappointing to be met with constant big, ambitious projects being pushed back for years or discontinued, like Beyond Skyrim, Skywind, Luthraathan and countless others.

So it was a great surprise to see Enderal not only get released, but it’s getting regularly patched. Initially launching in 2016 to great success, the revamped version launched Valentines Day of this year. And it’s bigger and better than ever.

The World

This was the first thing which caught my eye. The game is beautiful.

Skyrim has the beauty of ENBs, so if you’re experienced at those then Enderal won’t look much different. However, to people like me, this was a nice change. It really pushes the engine to its limit, and it does look exceptional at times. I found a few problems with moving while looking at the water with some odd flickering, with some odd flickering and glare when I moved around, but overall it looks great. Here are a couple of examples of the world.

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There is quite the mix of biomes at work here. We have the desolate desert of Duneville, rich grasslands, the massive city of Ark, the Frostcliff Mountains where everything is ice and snow and rich jungle, its quite impressive what the devs have done with the game. They really know their stuff, and the quality is shown time and time again.

Now, lets move onto the world size. It’s still a pretty big landmass, though it’s not quite as large as Skyrim was. I’d say roughly it’s half the size? There’s some pretty massive dungeons and spaces to explore as well. I went on a rather dangerous jaunt exploring the centre and east of Enderal, probably discovered barely half of all the known locations and still got a long way to go. For a mod, this is incredible work. There is a hell of a lot to do, throughout. You will not be skimped on the size of the game.

Ark, the hub city of Enderal, is huge like a capital city should be. Take lessons, Skyrim. Two streets and a castle does not make a city. *points and glares to Solitude.* True, there aren’t many big cities and towns in Enderal, but what they have picks up the slack. To quote Todd Howard, it just works. Only in Enderal’s case, it really does. I’ve often had to remind myself this is a Skyrim mod.

Game Mechanics

While the game is certainly similar to Skyrim we’re used to with very recognisable mechanics, a lot of stuff is different. There is a completely new levelling system regarding talents and perks and an experience system which grants you points when you do pretty much anything. I prefer this to Skyrim’s perk system to be honest, and it makes things a bit more specialised. You need to think about what character you want to be.

You can no longer Fast Travel. You can however go to place by place using large, rather cool looking animals called Myrads which can take you to other Myrads for 25 pieces of gold each. There are also teleport scrolls and a spell which allows you to mark a point on the map, then return to it from anywhere on the map. I like this mechanic because it encourages you to explore the map. Sometimes with fast travel you’re too tempted to abuse it and never go exploring in the game world, but this one feels fair. There’s plenty of options for you to get back in a hurry if you want to. It restricts you for lore reasons, not as a game reason. I like this.

Natural health regeneration has also been removed. You need to either use food, potions of healing spells. Using magic or potions increase your magical fever, a new addition which raises whenever you use such magic and kills you when it hits 100%, so use it sparingly!

To get stronger, you also get a really cool Meditation system in order to grab new perks and abilities. How SureAI managed to install this into the Skyrim engine is astonishing, and it looks incredible. There’s quite a lot of variance too with some nice trees. You can create potions to turn yourself into a werewolf, suck the soul from corpses to regain health, turn ash and bones into thralls to fight for you and so much more. You can’t upgrade everything, so you have to pick. I went for Entropy and Phantasm first off. Next time I’ll try something else.

It still has the overall clumsiness of Skyrim however, so you may be a bit turned off early on. The game plays off older budget RPGs like Gothic where you’re left a bit to discover things on your own. This game is also considerably harder than Skyrim.

Speaking of the game’s scope, it is linear to a degree. You can still go off to explore, but you’ll find yourself constrained in what you can do.

The game is pretty heavily scripted at least early on. There isn’t much you can do off the beaten path for at a few hours in the beginning, but you are able to explore different points as you go. This isn’t too much of a problem for me, because sometimes games can be rather too open. Travelling to the main and vast capital city of Ark is where the game really begins, and it can take a while to get there.

I will make this point in a previous review: I overplayed the games linearity. On replaying it, I found things to be a lot more open. It is more limited than classic Elder Scrolls games however, which was my main point.

The game is also linear in terms of difficulty. There are many areas and quests which just aren’t accessible to you early on, so you may have to potter around and find some easier things to do in order to survive. The game isn’t levelled like Skyrim and Oblivion was, so there will be parts which you have to avoid or run away from. Even normal bandits are hard to kill sometimes. Expect to die a lot, even on easy mode. The game is tough early on, and while the game makes several improvements to Skyrim’s shitty combat system, its still Skyrim combat.

A lot of the places and landmarks on the map are just bandit camps, but there is a lot of shit to kill and loot. Don’t let the linearity of this game fool you though. Even in it, there is a lot of open-world elements. It is just a bit harder to get into then the Elder Scrolls, that’s all. Don’t expect to go in expecting to kill everything and everyone with just a knife, or breaking everyone with broken stealth archery. You can still do that, but it will take time.

There are quite a few side quests, but the meat in the sandwich so to speak comes from the large and branching main quest. I would, again, do everything possible in the game before the final few quests however. You’ll be warned of the tipping point.

Enderal: Forgotten Stories has added a fair few new quests including a new secret third ending (which is really cool) and two pretty chunky side questlines: The Golden Sickle and the Ralatha. Both are pretty cool with some open-ended ways to complete them, but I seriously recommend the Ralatha. It’s one of the best questlines I’ve seen in a video game, let alone a mod, with a ruthless story.

Some of the best visual, storytelling and character moments take place in this questline and I highly recommend you make a beeline for it when you get the chance. There’s a serious case of “Holy-hellism” with this part of the game and the main character Tharaêl is beautifully well written from start to finish. It’s fairly short, being just six quests, but the quality is right there.

[image error]This is not a creepy place to live at all.

Game length wise, Enderal: Forgotten Stories can last from 30-100 hours at least. Its a serious chunk of game. I’ve probably explored only half of what the game has to offer in my first playthrough.

Voice-Acting, Characters and Music

Holy shit. This nails it out of the park.

Voice acting is so important for a game. If it’s poor, people will judge it negatively no matter how good everything else is. There are excellent Skyrim mods let down by poor voice acting. Remember, Enderal is a mod. Of course, that does not excuse quality. Enderal shines on the voice acting across the board.

Overall has some damn good voice acting, easily on par with the original game and outstrips it on many levels. Of course, they don’t have too many different ones, so you’ll find the lines repetitive after a while.

This isn’t too big of a problem because it’s the same in any game, but there is rather a lot of depth even in the voice-acting. Pretty much everything is now translated into perfect English, which must have been hard to do. Good job overall, I’ve found very few voices I hate. In the original Enderal we had some really whiny kid voices but I was surprised to find this fixed in Forgotten Stories, removing my only real complaint.

The NPCs I have rarely felt connection to these like ever before in a video game. You get two major companions in the game, Calia and Jespar, and their depth and love of a character outshines almost any other in any game I’ve seen. I actually felt sad for their struggles, and that is hard to do. You can romance and befriend them, and they felt alive. There is even a novel being written on Jespar by the lead designer Nicolas, which you can grab right now. I can’t wait for its full paperback release and it explores Jespars past before the events of Enderal. I’ll leave Nicola’s Patreon down below so you guys can support him and the SureAI team.

https://www.patreon.com/niseam?fbclid=IwAR1wTSkJp9d4IF34vNW-OvMdgENYa6Ikijk6hi4k_P5K5o_kJ7zgLL8wPrE 

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Everything is just beautifully done, from the sinister “Daddy” from your nightmares, to the destructive force of Taelor, all the way down to Finn, the first guy who helps you out in the game. There was a moment in the main quest where you come across a poor, sick little boy, and the decision making during that quest-line was near heartbreaking. I actually had to sit down and think about what happened. That doesn’t happen often to me. Forgotten Stories gives you a bit more chance to explore the bonds with other characters as well, and even some side quests become quite chunky adventures with well-written companions.

There will be characters you love, characters you hate, and some you just want to stab with a knife that has been in the river Ganges for a year. I’m talking about you, Natara.

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Music. Again, I give them so much credit. It’s to the point where I’ve got the entire OST on my computer and phone to listen to. Its just that good. The music is just so well done but you don’t have to take my word for it. Forgotten Stories comes with the full OST to download free of charge. There isn’t a single music track in the game I don’t hate. There’s also bard songs in there too, sung and played by wonderful people that tugs at your heartstrings. It’s a solid 10/10 for me on the music alone.

Story

I’ll talk a little bit about the story. I won’t give any heavy spoilers or anything, but it is a deep and immersive quest exploring the darker aspects of life. Religion, your psychology, reality and destruction are all in here. As a Prophet, you must try and battle your mind and soul to free the world of a torn reality, as the deadly High Ones prepare to continue their cycle that is the Cleansing – the end of all mankind.

It is one hell of a journey, and while it is depressing and deeply disturbing at times with its psychological analysis, I was gripped the entire way through. It has quite a lot of psychology exploring religion and atheism, challenging both belief systems to the extreme at times, so if you are one of those people who get offended by challenges like that, this game is not for you. Fair warning. I’d still go out and experience it. It never felt like it was overreaching itself to me.

Just something to think about.

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This guy can fuck off as well.

Overview

I’ll be brief in this one, just a summary of the games best and worst parts. Like all games, Enderal does have some flaws.

Pros:

A well written story from beginning to end.
Large, well crafted world to explore.
Excellent worldbuilding.
Characters!
Jespar and Calia’s quests
The Main Quest
Music is amazing.
Great visuals
Relatively stable, far more so than the original release.
Everything to do with the Ralatha questline.
Bard Songs!
Good voice acting across the board.
It’s free if you own original Skyrim!
Well balanced difficulty.

Cons:

A few bugs and glitches here and there, but this is based off Skyrim after-all.
The combat while improved is still based off Skyrim’s.
Can get a little bit preachy at times, but this isn’t much of an issue. I thought I’d mention it for those who get offended by that sort of thing.
The leveling up skills system leaves a lot to be desired. Spending money to increase your skills sounds like a good idea, but I wasn’t very keen on it. It’s not the worst system in the world though and I managed to get used to it.
The Order are a bunch of assholes. Looking at you, Taelor.

 

Final score: 9.1/10

Overall, I recommend this to anyone. It’s not just a mod, but a complete new game in its own right, an experience that tops many similar challengers out there. For something lovingly crafted by modders for free to the public, that is one hell of an achievement. It is a story you will seldom forget.

Now if you don’t mind, it’s time to have a nice, crisp piece of meat.