Michael R. Baker's Blog, page 14

SPFBO Author Interview: Ann Woodley: Witch Spelling

This was an interview I had back in June but it got lost in my email until I did some spring cleaning last night. Sorry Ann! Today’s interview is with you!

 

 

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

 

I’ve written across various genres, including a ghost novel, a stalker novel, a fantasy novella (witches), tarot books, poetry, short stories  (murder, crime, reincarnation, general fiction) & a children’s book.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters?

 

They develop as I go along, generally going where they want to, as a pantser, I don’t plan out the fiction at all.

 

Tell us about your current project.

 

Non-fiction, I hope to have it ready in time to publish before Christmas.

Pretty hush-hush right now, although there are some out there already, I don’t want to give people the idea to flood the market with similar books before mine is ready

 

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

 

Each work is a standalone so there are different characters in each one.

 

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

 

Not sure I’m qualified to give advice, I only started to publish a little over a year ago.

I guess, start it & continue until it’s done, then go onto the next one

 

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

 

This is a difficult question as I don’t have epic world building but a moon landing influenced one part of Witch Spelling.

 

What inspires you to write?

 

Usually an idea pops into my head & I build on that. The first chapter of Serial Stalker came from a dream & I just built on that.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

 

Having a poor memory & having to rely on notes to (hopefully) get everything to tie in correctly.

 

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

 

Chapter, Wiz.

Part, his travels to the moon etc.  

Not sure why, I just tried to choose a part that sprang to mind after reading the question.

 

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

 

This was my first longer work of fiction, so it prepared me a little for writing my next 2 novels.

 

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

You ask some difficult questions.

I think my characters introduce themselves to me as the story unfolds & they just do what they want to do & be who they want to be. I really do have no idea what will happen in any chapter until I read what I’ve just written & see where it wants to go next.

 

What are your future project(s)?

 

I haven’t planned anything yet, my WIP will take a while, and then I hope inspiration will strike again for something new.

 

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

 

At my age as little as possible with a huge wage.

 

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)?

 

Facebook    https://www.facebook.com/Books-by-A-Woodley-1842697729323365/

 

Twitter   https://twitter.com/A_Woodley_

 

Blog    https://randomstuffandbooks.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Goodreads   https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16676598.A_Woodley

 

SPFBO Author Interview – C. D. Gallant-King “Hell Comes to Hogtown”

A new day, a new interview. Today’s is with C. D. Gallant-King, the author behind semi-finalist Hell Comes to Hogtown in Fantasy Book Critic.

 

 

 

 

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

I’m a Canadian husband, father of two, and a writer of fantasy/horror/speculative fiction/etc, all with a comic bent. In fact, I’ll write just about anything as long as I can make it funny. I honestly believe that all forms of genre fiction – SFF/romance/mystery/western/self-help – are all inherently ridiculous and have a limitless breadth of comic fodder to be abused. I also believe that “serious literary fiction” is too pretentious and doesn’t have a sense of humour, so why bother?

 

How do you develop your plots and characters?

I generally pick a few important plot points I need to hit, and then develop the characters and let them find their way there. I find it more natural, and a lot more fun, to let the characters grow on their own and dictate the story. When I outline and structure the story too much, I find it always comes off stilted and forced. To develop the characters I give them one or two interesting features/quirks and then let them grow by interacting with their world and the other characters around them. I don’t generally like a ton of backstory when I start; again, I find that too limiting. I like to throw odd elements together and just see what happens. For instance: What happens when a sad-sack comic book store manager and a womanizing pro-wrestler face off against a bloodthirsty demon hobo? Read Hell Comes to Hogtown to find out!

 

Tell us about your current project.

I’ve got a few things I’m working on. The big one is a sequel to said story about the comic book store manager and the wrestler, tentatively entitled Hell Comes Back 2 Hogtown. It’s a bit of a trick because I’ve always imagined a sequel for Hogtown and I had a rough outline in my head, but the original was so absurd and irreverent that it’s tricky to maintain that feeling while adhering to specific plot goals. Will I be able to pull it off? Stay tuned.

I’m also always working on my series of comic fantasy stories, Werebear vs. Landopus. I avoid the traps of balancing absurdity vs. plot by just making each subsequent entry more ridiculous than the last. They’re full of crude language, over-the-top violence and black humour, as well as just weird nonsense. The cast rotates, but you can look forward to vengeful heroes, disgusting dwarves who make weapons out of garbage, berserk angry hobbits, monster trainers who fight with vampiric chickens, and a gun-toting nun out to spread the Good Word of the Gunpowder God. Trust me, it gets harder and harder to top the insanity of each story.

 

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

The main character of Hell Comes to Hogtown is Fitz – a thirty-something university drop-out working as the night manager in a comic book store. He has no girlfriend, no money, no prospects, and his best friend is a drugged-out, womanizing small-time pro-wrestler who keeps getting into trouble. His life gets completely turned upside down when an other-worldly monster shows up in his shop, and then he and his buddy are framed for kidnapping the prime minister’s wife.

Fitz is a fun character because he is a total loser and nothing he does turns out right. I don’t like characters who are awesome heroes who always do the right thing and have a ton of skills, gear or magic to get them through any situation. I like someone who finds themselves in a tough spot, and trying to solve it only puts themselves and others into worse situations. Everyone loves an underdog. It makes it so much more rewarding if they eventually succeed, and even more crushing if they fail.

 

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

Number 1: Just write. Don’t worry about the details. Too many new writers get bogged down with word counts, plot summaries, marketing and branding strategies (for a book that doesn’t exist yet), and worst of all, extensive world-building that doesn’t matter a shit if there’s no story. Just write the story. Finish it. If at all possible, have fun with it. All the other stuff comes later, and again, none of it matters if you don’t finish the story.

Number 2: Don’t listen to advice from anyone, least of all a self-admitted hack who is in no way qualified to be giving advice.

 

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

Hell Comes to Hogtown is set in modern day Toronto, Ontario, Canada, so obviously all the inspirations comes from real locations in the area. A few people and places are fictionalized, but there are also plenty of real history and locales mentioned. As for the supernatural parts, I try to base my monsters and baddies on lesser-known legends and myths, avoiding the overly-used stereotypes of vampires, werewolves, fairies and the like. Minor spoiler alert: the villain in Hogtown is (hopefully) not what you or the characters think that it is.  The monster(s) in my new book will be equally obscure and hopefully modified in new and unexpected ways.

 

What inspires you to write?

I have to write, I don’t need to wait for inspiration. You might as well ask what inspires me to keep breathing, or going to the bathroom.

As for where my ideas come from, that could be anywhere. From other books, from situations or conversations I have in real life, from movies, from weird things that my kids say. It doesn’t take much to spark an idea. Over time, as that idea rolls around in my head, it will bump into other ideas and either get replaced or grow into a bigger, more involved story. For instance, maybe someone will jokingly mention on a podcast that there should be more stories about werebears fighting land octopuses. And my niece playing Pokemon will get me thinking about monster trainers. And me thinking about the worst choices you could possibly have to make and imaging having to choose between sacrificing your wife and unborn child to save yourself otherwise all of you will die, only for her to announce at the last second that it’s not your child, and then cut off your arm in order to kill herself and save you.

And then, because it’s me, I mash all those ideas together and make it a comedy.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

The hardest part of Hell Comes to Hogtown was because I wrote it without an outline, when I got to the end it didn’t have much of a narrative structure. The pacing was all messed up and certain scenes didn’t make sense and elements like character motivations and causation were all over the place. I actually wrote an outline AFTER I finished the first draft, and then had to move scenes around, add and cut significantly in order to smooth everything else and make it make sense. In the end I think it turned out as a better book, because I got the phase of writing whatever fun scenes I could think without being constrained by set goals and plot, but it took me way longer, and was a lot more work, than it would have if I had been working from a proper outline to begin with.

Funny story: Learning from that lesson, before writing Hogtown 2 I wrote out a long and detailed outline. Then I couldn’t touch it for 2 years because I was so stymied by the rigid structure that I didn’t want to write it. Plus, I knew how it ended and where was the fun in that? So I’ve basically had to throw it all out and start over.

 

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

The early scenes between Fitz and Dee (the wrestler) were probably my favourite. I love back-and-forth quick dialogue, and because they have such a weird and contentious relationship it was a lot of fun. Dee is a crude and horrible person (at least on the surface), and he says some terrible, offensive things. He’s also the only person the otherwise awkward and introverted Fitz will talk back to, so their conversations often quickly and hilariously devolve into shouting matches. They kinda sound like a grumpy old couple. An obscene, mutually-abusive old couple. They love each other in their own way and at the same time they can’t stand each other, but because no one else will have them they’re kinda stuck with one another.

 

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

I learned lots from Hell Comes to Hogtown. Not only did I learned I should probably have at least a modicum of an outline before I start, I also learned that I have more fun if I don’t. It’s just something I have to decide before I start a project. I also learned how to work with an editor (Amy Allen-Macleod is great, if anyone is looking for a freelance editor you should check her out – https://amyallenmacleod.com/). This was also the first book I wrote with the express knowledge that I was going to self-publish it before I started. Other things I’ve written just for fun, or for friends and family members, or maybe I thought I might send this to some agents/publishers. But with this one, I knew eyes were going to see it (hopefully a lot of them) so I wanted to make it as good as I could, and I wanted to do it right. I knew it wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but I wrote a book that I would enjoy if I picked it up, and that I would be proud of me to read if I did (if that makes any sense).

 

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

For some of my characters, I guess there’s a little bit of me in them. Fitz, for instance, has a lot of my insecurities, but turned up 1000%. So I start by thinking about how I might react in a situation, but then pushing it to the extreme.

In cases where I don’t relate directly to the character, you can understand and develop them by creating a couple of very clear motivations or aspects that define them. By having that, and always keeping that in mind, it’s easier to understand how they will react in any situation. For instance with Dee, I usually ask “what’s the most obscene or derogatory thing I could say in this situation?” and go from there. It works best when you have a motivation as well as another behaviour/disposition/trait that dictates how the character goes after that goal. For instance, if you know a character really wants to eat pineapple and only pineapple, and is generally a conniving and selfish person, you can come up with lots of ways that this person will try to take pineapples from other people, probably without much thought of how taking those pineapples hurts others, as well as ways they will try to avoid eating anything other than pineapples. From there, you start to explore WHY they love pineapples so much (if they’re a major character), or maybe why they hate all other types of food.

I’ve suddenly got a craving for a Pina colada.

 

What are your future project(s)?

I have ideas for more stories than years left in my life to write them.

This year, I will have short stories featured in two anthologies, STRANGELY FUNNY VI from Mystery & Horror (http://www.mysteryandhorrorllc.com/) and MASQUERADE: ODDLY SUITED from Dancing Lemur Press (http://www.dancinglemurpressllc.com/). Strangely Funny is a series of collections featuring comic supernatural and horror tales, so my writing fits perfectly there. This is my third year in a row one of my stories was selected. MASQUERADE, on the other hand, is a collection of Young Adult Romance. I don’t have a fucking clue how I got into that one.

Truth be told, I like dabbling in other genres. I’ve been itching to write some sci-fi/space opera, and I think I might have a western in me. As long as I can make them funny, of course. I would write children’s books but I would get too many angry letters from parents.

 

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

A game designer. Preferably of table-top role-playing games, but I like making board games and video games, too. Game design is similar to writing in many ways. In some ways I even prefer it to writing, because games also feature a lot of input from the players, and the stories can change and evolve based on their interactions with the world you’ve created, instead of being forever frozen in set space and time.

Yeah, being a game designer would be fun. Either that or a forensic actuary.

 

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 am over the moon whenever a reader contacts me by any method, so please feel free to reach out at any of the locations below:

 

Website/Blog: http://www.cdgallantking.ca/  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cdgallantking

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

My mother-in-law’s house

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13932038.C_D_Gallant_King

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/C.D.-Gallant-King/e/B00XAZHYGA

My phone number is on the wall of the middle stall in the men’s room at the downtown Toronto bus terminal

 

Jurassic World Evolution – A Troublesome Dilemma

They do move in herds. . .after over six months of doing fuck all about it.

First gaming review of 2019, I wanted to have a little chat about Jurassic World Evolution.

Unfortunately, this game was officially my most disappointing game of 2018. This really makes me sad, because there are some nice things about JWE and some parts of it really make me giddy with joy. Do you know how many good Jurassic Park theme games there are out there? Not many. When I saw the trailer I was hyped. A dinosaur sim made by the same guys who make Planet Coaster, one of the most happy-looking and fun sandboxes I’ve played in recent years? Where the fuck do I sign? The price tag was hefty, but sure. . .I’ll give it a good go.

Then the game released, and all that hype and joy got sucked out of me. It’s…it looks like a bloody mobile game. It plays like one too. There’s just not much interaction and customization in making your park, and this is a fatal flaw that really drags the game down. No matter how nice the game can look on the face of it. You can pretty up a turd all you want, but it will still be one.

Think I’m being too harsh? Perhaps. I know I’m being brutal, this is emotions talking, but hear me out. I know the game is popular and has sold really well, perhaps for a good reason. Still…let me try to explain my thoughts behind this.

What is the point of a builder/simulation game? Options and ways to create your sandcastles the way you want it, isn’t it? That’s kind of the way Tycoon games function. Management is important as well but for a lot of people, the ability to create to your hearts content is huge for me. If a game restricts you, it’s going to piss a lot of fans off.

Jurassic World Evolution for me just falls flat on so many levels. Sure you can customize the dinosaurs in how they look with minor changes to stats, but it just feels fruitless when you can’t do much else. Building customization is near zero, and there are nearly no options to terraform the park.

The map sizes are also tiny, making it feel very like the universally panned Simcity 2013. You just can’t do much with what you make. Sure there are five islands to do with some different challenges, but to what extent can you make different parks? There isn’t much you can do. The variety just isn’t there and the main problem is how the game limits you to what you can do to make your park look good. This isn’t helped by a terrible Peep AI. Drive a jeep at them and they just jump aside in this stupid glitch movement that’s worse then Rollercoaster Tycoon World. You want to see shitty people AI? Look at that abomination of a video game, then cry as you realize Jurassic World Evolution has things worse. At least the peeps in RCTW do something, even when they move like sausage rolls tap-dancing across ice. There is no interaction with the guest. Zip. Nothing. I get the game is geared for the dinosaurs more then the park, but when games from 10-15 years ago do things better then this one, you can tell you’re doing something wrong. Sure there’s dinosaurs and lots of them, but not much point when you’re constrained to such a small map.

I get it was rushed out by Universial Studios pressuring Frontier in time for the new movie, I get that. But come on, the game was barebones on launch, missing features that were advertised in pre-launch trailers! It felt like a slap to the face, particularly when the game was 50-60$ in the first place. Sure it’s been improved significantly since launch, but I’m quite surprised the game has sold so well when it has had so many problems. The extra dinosaur skin DLC doesn’t really help its fundamental flaws, and the complete lack of modding (not really Frontiers fault on this one) does not help it’s case. When my favourite part of the game is driving the little jeep or Gyroball around the tiny park, you’ve done something wrong. The game just lacks substance for me to keep playing, no matter how many times I come back. There’s so much waiting for the little digging missions to come back. . .just like a mobile game. Thank the heavens they didn’t try charging micropayments to speed that shit up. It just saddens me that the game can be so much more.

The reaction to this game has been divisive, with the fanbase split between extremists on both sides: sheep who lap up the urine of everything the game adds (while ignoring the games biggest fundamental problems) and those who hate on the game for every little thing. I feel sorry for Frontier, I really do. I’m somewhat in the middle. Please keep improving the game, but I’m not going to jump up and down and worship you for fixing and adding mechanics that should have been in the game six months ago. (coughs and looks to the herding AI.) That kind of behaviour is part of the reason all the anti-consumer bullshit in gaming still exists, and how people like Todd Howard can come out with “You don’t like our stuff? Stop buying Skyrim on every platform and we’ll stop making them.”

Despite everything, and all the anger and sadness I have in this game, I still see some good in Jurassic World Evolution. It’s polished, it looks good, and I like looking at the dinosaurs. The core gameplay isn’t too bad either. We just have so few good dinosaur games out there. Is Jurassic World Evolution a good game?. . .it is average, at best. But it might be our best hope for the future, and Frontier supports games for some time. Please try and fix the biggest issues the game has. For 60$ I think it’s a bit much, but a lot of people out there love it. For those, I say good for you! I’m happy its pleasing a lot of people. To me, I’d say it’s worth a lot less. Black Friday and the Winter Sales saw it drop to 20$. It’s worth it at that price. I still think the game is fun in short bursts but the disappointment is real and cuts deep with this one.

Final Score: 5/10. Has potential, but a deep problem remains that will likely never be solved. Pretty to look at but shallow within. Buy on deep sale, but you can have a lot of fun with this one if you’re willing to look past its serious flaws.

SPFBO Author Interview: Joyce Reynolds-Ward “Pledges of Honor”

So I’m back! The reason for no new posts was due to me being away on vacation in Edinburgh for the weekend. It was a great trip but editing and blogs beckon to me. Today I bring you yet another SPFBO interview with Joyce Reynolds-Ward, author of the Goddess’s Honor series.

 

 

 

 

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

 

I write speculative fiction from the wide open spaces. I have a completed science fiction series, The Netwalk Sequence, and will be completing a fantasy series, Goddess’s Honor, this year. My SPFBO entry, Pledges of Honor, is the first full book in that series. Additionally, I have a contemporary fantasy series I’m starting, the Stronghold, and at least two Weird West series on deck.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters?

 

It really depends on the idea. My most recent book, Klone’s Stronghold, originally came from spotting a small road called Klone Lane in an isolated stretch of Northeastern Oregon’s Blue Mountains. Wheels started turning…and I ended up with the story of a special education teacher working with cryptid construct children who discovers that her background is not as mundane as she thought it was. Sometimes an odd little idea just pops in my head. Other times, my stories arise from things I see and extrapolate from my original observation. I get a lot of inspiration from the outdoors—particularly mountains.

Pledges of Honor, a 2018 SPFBO semifinalist, is based in a world I’ve been fiddling with for over forty years. I had problems working with the story until I focused on who I thought was a minor character, Katerin Healer—and she kind of took things over. Turns out she had a deeper backstory that I realized. Again, Pledges is very heavily influenced by outdoor settings, primarily Northeastern Oregon and the Columbia River Plateau.

 

Tell us about your current project.

 

I am currently rewriting a previously published apocalyptic climate fiction novella—expanding it to be at least twice its original size for standard novel length, adding two more viewpoint characters, and changing the original fates of a couple of characters. It’s complicated because of continuity issues.

 

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

 

For the Goddess’s Honor series, I have several main characters. Katerin Healer was a wandering healer with a mother who allowed herself to be used by two Gods to defeat a third God and was destroyed in the process. Her father is unknown to her until midway through Pledges, when she discovers she is not who she thought she is. She sought out a routine life hoping to be ignored by the Gods—and ran right into a problem in the village of Wickmasa—which has a long and storied history of her own. In that process she learns that the Gods have a role for her that she didn’t anticipate. Her cousin Rekaré struggles with the fate the Gods want to force her into, and eventually creates her own path independent of what the Gods would have her do.

And then there are the horses of Goddess’s Honor. We meet Katerin’s daranval Mira (a magic breed of horse) early on, and right away we find out that she has opinions and a mind of her own. Mira’s replacement, Rainin, is not as magically powerful but she still supports Katerin—just in a different way from Mira. Katerin’s daughter Witmara bonds early to Rainin’s son, Daro—we’ll see more from this pair in the last book of Goddess’s Honor. And there are other daranvelii, all of whom are influenced by my many years around horses.

 

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

 

Focus on writing the stories that you want to read. What stories entice you? What tales do you want to tell? Remember that you can write all the pretty language you want, but, basically—you are telling a story, and it needs to be a story that you want to share.

 

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

 

For Pledges of Honor I did a lot of Native America, pioneer, and settlement research. It is not a Western book or even a Weird Western, it is a high fantasy with a Pacific Northwest setting as opposed to a European setting. I’m much more familiar with that background than I am medieval, and it resonates much better with me than any quasi-European worlds. My world has high sagebrush deserts, desert mountains, a mountain range that divides the wet side of the land of Varen from the dry, and big rivers that carve deep canyons.

Additionally, I have some magic-driven technology. You see more of this in the second volume of the series, Challenges of Honor, where steamboats/paddlewheelers run regular routes on the Chellana River. I researched early settlement technology in the Pacific Northwest for that. Magic also is reliant on cooperation with the power within the land—this particularly comes into play during Challenges and will be a greater factor in the third and final book of the series, Choices of Honor. But much of the style, the housing, the villages—all are influenced by early settlement period Pacific Northwest.

All of the horses of Goddess’s Honor are based on horses I’ve known.

 

What inspires you to write?

 

I love telling stories.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

 

Flailing around until I got Katerin into focus.

 

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

 

The passages where Katerin and her beloved Metkyi get to know each other during daily life in Wickmasa. It is a very short period for them, but thinking through the daily setup, daily life, and watching how the Gods set Katerin up to shake her out of her very quiet, circumscribed life really worked well for me.

My other favorites were the scenes with the horses, especially Mira.

 

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

 

I always learn something from a book! Whether it’s a technique I’m playing with, or worldbuilding skills, or even research details, I learn something every time I write a book. Pledges was more challenging in some ways than writing my science fiction stories, because I had to think about the mechanics of things like travel time on horseback. What land-based magic might look like.

 

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

 

If a character or situation is difficult in a book, often I spend time working on an outtake short story. I’ll throw the character into a situation and see how they respond. The story doesn’t have to be relevant to the book I’m working on. If anything, it’s either backstory or else a future event that doesn’t fit into the book, but helps me understand the character better.

 

What are your future project(s)?

 

I have a lot of future projects, but three primary ones for 2019. First, finishing the climate fiction apocalypse rewrite I’m currently working on, Beating the Apocalypse. In this world, highly sensitive enhanced people known as Canaries measure environmental contamination by toxic Clouds so that they can warn non-Canaries when a Cloud is forming. However, a superevent that will impact the entire North American continent is impending—and my characters Rianna, Bobby, and LeBrand must fight against powerful malign forces to save a small, independent group from the Clouds.

The next project is finishing the Goddess’s Honor series, where I try to tie up all the ends involving Katerin, Rekaré, and their children while minimizing the meddling of the Gods.

 

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

 

Editor.

 

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)?

 

Joyce’s main website (which goes directly to her blog): http://www.joycereynoldsward.com

Joyce’s secondary blog site: https://jreynoldsward.dreamwidth.org/

Joyce’s Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/Joyce-Reynolds-Ward/e/B00HIP821Y

Joyce’s author Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/authorjoycerw/posts

Joyce’s Newsletter signup: http://tinyletter.com/JoyceReynolds-Ward

Joyce’s Ko-Fi link: https://ko-fi.com/I2I69R9Z

Recent podcast: Fantasy Fiends https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCVs9dYrYnQ

 

SPFBO Author Interview: Elizabeth Hamill “Nectar and Ambrosia”

Welcome back to another interview. I recently put out the hit for more of them and I have a few more up my sleeve.

. . .I sound like some kind of terrible mafia boss.

Today’s interview is with Elizabeth Hammill, author of the Amaranthine Inheritance series. Down below is a bio, her links and she even sent me an excerpt of the book! Go check it out.

 

 

E.M. (Elisabeth) Hamill writes adult science fiction and fantasy somewhere in the wilds of eastern suburban Kansas. A nurse by day, wordsmith by night, she is happy to give her geeky imagination free reign and has sworn never to grow up and get boring. 



Frequently under the influence of caffeinated beverages, she also writes as Elisabeth Hamill for young adult readers in fantasy with the award-winning Songmaker series. 



She lives in eastern Kansas with her family, where they fend off flying monkey attacks and prep for the zombie apocalypse.

 

www.elisabethhamill.com

 

https://www.facebook.com/EMHamill  

 

https://twitter.com/SongMagick

 

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16592440.E_M_Hamill

 

Excerpt:

 

Electric jolts burned down her spine. The muscles between her shoulder blades contracted with excruciating tension as images seared themselves into her brain.

Blurry views of the glass-fronted arena a couple of blocks over. Skyward facets of mirrored surface. The reflected outline of a dark-winged creature coming for her.

Callie blinked out of the petit mal seizure triggered by the vision’s aftermath as pedestrians with wary eyes edged around her. She had no idea how much time had passed while she stood frozen in place on the crowded sidewalk. “Damn it!”

Sweaty strands of russet hair escaped her ponytail and stuck to her face as she shifted the duffel bag back on her shoulder. She wiped them away and scanned the hot, blue-white sky glimpsed between concrete and glass buildings, searching for the airborne threat and listening to her internal early warning system.

It tracked her down again.

Two states’ worth of miles between her and that monster still wasn’t enough.

The compulsion urging her westward had driven her out of the relative coolness and shelter the Kansas City bus station offered, into busy rush hour streets where she hugged inner edges of sidewalks and hoped the downtown bustle would provide its own sort of cover.  She merged in with a stream of liberated workers pouring from an office building.

When that irresistible force abruptly forfeited its tug-of-war with her insides, she was unprepared. Momentum arrested, she stumbled over her own feet. The overloaded duffel bag on her shoulder remained in forward motion and dragged her off balance, wobbling from the curb into the street.

“Shit!” With a backward muppet-flail to the sidewalk, Callie narrowly avoided being splattered across the front of an electric streetcar as it sailed past, a stealthy millipede with a black and white carapace. The frantic beat of her heart slowed as she forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths, the tug inside her replaced by a sense of anticipation. She took in the trendy-looking zone with glass-fronted bistros and drinking establishments.

So, this was the right place. She still didn’t know where she was going.

Looking around in bafflement at this hipster-magnet entertainment district, she wondered if this might be the first—and last—time the visions failed her. In a valley banked by high-rise buildings, busy side streets in five o’clock turmoil shimmered with waves of heat. Buses and traffic roared by on main thoroughfares. Although the street corners were crowded with commuters on their way home, she was too exposed. Time to find shelter. She stepped into the intersection with the rest of the herd, but her intuition firmly told her, No. Turn around, genius.

That never happened before. When did her inside voice get so snarky?

Callie ignored the dirty looks from other pedestrians and waded back upstream through the press of bodies. She examined the structure behind her with a dubious eye and waited for another clue from her newly sarcastic extrasensory radar.

A three-storied building loomed in pale, faded brick and mortar. With large windows on the ground and two upper floors, the architecture held a turn of the century feel rather than the contemporary establishments all around. It might have been photoshopped into the block, a tintype superimposed against modern business fronts. The plate glass window at street-level gleamed with gold-leaf letters in old-fashioned script:

NECTAR AND AMBROSIA

Bar and Hotel

Florian Pereira, Proprietor

Despite the spotless glass, the place appeared to be abandoned. The street reflected in the window made it difficult to see inside. Cupping her hands around her eyes, she stepped up to the panes.

A wave of dizziness washed over her and she swayed. Odd quiet enveloped her, the noise of the street behind muffled and far away. Callie steadied herself on the window. Cool glass promised air conditioning on the other side, but a weird buzz skittered across her fingertips. She snatched her hand away and backpedaled, the returning blare of horns and exhaust-fume smells of rush hour overwhelming her senses. Bodies shoved and spun her as she stepped back into the path of foot traffic.

“What the…” she muttered.

A small hand lettered sign, faded by sunlight, stood in the corner of the window: HELP WANTED. Smaller writing barely visible underneath drew Callie closer to peer at the notice.

If you can read this, find the door. Immediate employment available. Great wages and unbelievable tips. See Florian, behind the bar.

Where was the door? Right or left, the gold-lettered windows stretched unbroken for the length of the building. Her reflection stared back from the plate glass with uncertain eyes, the ghosts of cars and buses passing behind her.

A banshee scream echoed above the din of traffic and bounced between buildings in a ricochet of nerve-shredding terror. Breath turned to icicles in Callie’s lungs. The horrifying cry galvanized a flood of fight-or-flight instinct that scrambled her ability to think.

No one else on the sidewalk even looked up at the skin-crawling sound, oblivious in their after-work trek to cars and bus stops. They wouldn’t even see it, she knew.

It wasn’t there for them.

She needed to hide, now.

Her head whipped side to side to find an escape route from the street. In desperation, she lifted her hand to knock on the window—and the door was there, right in front of her. Brass, wood, and glass gleamed at her in the brutal afternoon sun and she reached for the knob with urgent need, not even thinking to question how it appeared as a shadow grew above her in the glass, like a hawk about to strike.

And we now come to the interview itself!

 

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

I’m Elisabeth Hamill for my YA fantasy books, The Songmaker Series, and E.M. Hamill for my adult-aimed novels. I write all flavors of science fiction and fantasy. I can’t pick just one.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters?

I am an unapologetic, seat of the pants writer. My characters will often appear in vivid dreams, and I have to write about them to figure out who they are. Sometimes they have a story to tell, sometimes not, but it’s a great exercise either way.

 

Tell us about your current project.

Nectar and Ambrosia will be published on June 30, 2018. It’s a snarky, irreverent urban fantasy that’s kind of American Gods meets It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. This is the first book in a planned, ongoing saga.

Who would you say is the main character of your novels? And tell me a little bit about them! Each book will have dual POV, with one of them being Florian, the Doorkeeper of the threshhold between this dimension and the one where the former gods live.

In Nectar, the other main character is Callie, a college dropout who discovers she is the new Oracle Priestess. Callie is a classics major and uniquely suited to this role, but discovering that the mythology she loved all her life is a lie, and that the ex-gods are actually interdimensional travelers with attention-seeking issues, is a bit of a blow.  

 

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

Learn your craft. Worldbuilding is not necessarily something that comes the first time you put the draft on paper. Cultivate relationships with other writers in your genre, because honest, brutal critique partners who have your back are absolutely essential. We’re an isolated bunch for the most part, we writers, but other eyes on your manuscript are irreplaceable. And write what you love, not to a market.

 

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

I set the book in my hometown of Kansas City, although we don’t get to see much of it in this book. Most of it takes place inside the weirdest pub on Earth. I drew from our world religions, of course, and there’s quite a few represented in the crush even if the most familiar to me take the forefront in this story.

 

What inspires you to write?

Dreams. Other stories from writers who make me say, “Yes, that’s fantastic! But what if…” and I go off on my own tangent. Real-time scientific discoveries that pique my creative interest.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Good grief, I wrote this book for almost ten years. I submitted it to agents with some great feedback, but ultimately no takers. I kept putting it on the backburner because I write best when I’m obsessed, and I kept getting other ideas that sucked me down the rabbithole. I started back to college this year and haven’t had the mental energy to create entire new worlds, so I edited and revised this one, finally. It’s going out into the world as my first self published book.

 

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

I enjoyed the repartee between different characters, especially Hermes, who’s a bit of a smartass, and Puck, who is just obscene and funny. I am not witty in real-time. I come up with ripostes long after the conversations are over. When I’m writing, I can go back and insert the sarcasm.

 

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

I learned that what is important is that I write what I love. It’s a bonus that other people liked it well enough to keep nudging me to get it done and out there. I attempted writing to a paranormal romance market, but it’s not me. I scrapped all of that aspect and went back to the way I wanted it.

 

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

I try to figure out what motivates them, how their past experiences have shaped them, and research, research, research if it’s something with which I’m not familiar.

 

What are your future project(s)?

Currently, I am working on the second science fiction novel in my Dalí series, centered on my character Dalí Tamareia, a third-gender spy/diplomat. It’s tentatively called Third Front.

 

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

I am an oncology nurse in my real life. I would love to be an author full time, but I can pay my bills in a field that I love right now. It makes my writing time extremely narrow, but I hoard it like a dragon.

 

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 can be reached on Twitter @songmagick, on Facebook @EMHamill, and my website/blog is http://www.elisabethhamill.com

 

SPFBO Author Interview: T.L Branson “Soul Render”

Welcome back to a new year where we in the UK get fucked by rail fares.

On a happier note, I have another SPFBO interview to post up. I thought I had ran out until I was kindly reminded I still have this one!

 

 

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

I write a mix between YA and epic fantasy. It might be easier to classify it as clean epic with young characters and younger themes.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters?

I wave a magic wand and all the stars align. In all seriousness, this is like asking Coca-Cola what formula they use. I think it’s going to be unqiue to every person, and I really don’t know how to answer it. Things just kind of develop. When I think of something cool, I write it down. Then I modify as cooler ideas come along.

 

Tell us about your current project.

I’ve got two projects running concurrently, though one is temporarily on hold while I power through Book 2 in my Soul Stones series, Soul Shade. It’s a continuation of my SPFBO entry, Soul Render. The book titles are from the featured “stone” in the book which ultimately control all the magic in my world.

 

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

The main character changes from book to book. The main character of my prequel, Soul Siphon, is actually the antagonist of Book 1, Alexander Drygo. Soul Render’s main character is young teen who lost his father at the hands of Drygo. And the main character of Book 2 is a supporting character from Soul Render that is best left not mentioned for any who haven’t read the first few books.

 

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

Just start. No matter how bad you think it is, just start. The biggest deterrent is your own mind. I wrote four chapters of a book 12 years before actually finishing one. To this day, that book still sits there with only 4 chapters. I don’t know if I’ve ever pick it up again, but what stopped me is I felt within myself that it would never be good enough, so I quit. Secondly, I would say join a writer’s critique group. Not only did this motivate me to keep the chapters flowing, it allowed me to critique others, hone my skills, and be encouraged by the comments of others.

 

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

Wow, I don’t know. My main character is from a cold climate, which I equate with my upbringing in Pennsylvania. Then my secondary character is from a really warm climate, like San Diego, where I’m currently from. The physical geography for Shadowhold, the capital city, is based off on Wollongong, Australia where the escarpment literally blocks the sun a couple of hours before sunset casting the city in “shadow.”

As I’m writing Book 2, the geography of an island is based off of Coronado, CA with the southern half of the island being occupied by civilians and the northern half being completely militarized.

 

What inspires you to write?

The voices in my head that won’t go away unless I do. And I’ve come to love crafting my own tale more than reading others sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I love diving into a good book where I don’t need to think about plot structure, but there’s something to be said about having control over what does or does not happen.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Getting past the third chapter. The first two chapters are adrenaline filled and exciting, I wrote them in a day or two. But then I reached this slow part where my characters were going to travel a great distance over the course of ten days or so. I really struggled with how to do this as nothing really happens during the travel time. So it sat there for several months untouched. I don’t know what possessed me to pick it up again or push past that third chapter. Maybe I just didn’t want another book that only got started and never finished. But I learned you need to push through the uninspired chapters and write them anyway, even if they are crap. You can always go back and fix it, but get the story down so you can move on with the exciting parts.

 

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

Every single one of my twists and all the foreshadowing I built in for it. There are so many nuggets throughout the book that are clues to later twists that I guarantee no one will ever catch unless I point them out or they read the book numerous times until they’re as familiar with the story as I am.

 

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

It takes time and effort and writing books is more than just writing books, there’s marketing and networking and engaging with readers. It’s all very time consuming, but a very rewarding experience overall.

 

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

I wrote a prequel series specifically so that I could write the tale of each minor and supporting character in my story. This gave them life, backgrounds, motivations, that sort of thing. It was super beneficial and helped me connect with my characters on a deeper level.

 

What are your future project(s)?

Continuing the Soul Stones series. I have multiple off shoots planned. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get 3-4 series out of this with 3-4 books per series. I also have a secret project I’m working on that I’d like to enter in next year’s SPFBO

 

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

Other jobs exist? No really, they tell you to do what you love and if you don’t love it, you shouldn’t be doing it. I love writing. Plus, everyone can be author. Not everyone should I suppose, but everyone CAN be. Unless the world goes on lockdown, books are outlawed, and the creation of new and thoughtful ideas prohibited, I don’t think we have to worry about this job not being available in the future.

 

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)?

Facebook, definitely. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100023775935351

 

2018 – A Retrospective

The end of another year. I’m still going to be the same twisted, slightly manic asshole you guys all know and adore throughout 2019, with a habit of putting his characters through hell.

The blog in 2018 has come through strength to strength. It’s had a massive surge this year with more then twice the views it’s had in the last few years combined. I intend on keeping that going!

Healthwise, I’d love to say it got better…but it hasn’t. However, it has not gotten worse either. It is the same story, but for the first time since my diagnosis, it has not regressed further at least. Hopefully I can keep that up.

Ever since my diagnosis in 2014, Chronic fatigue hasn’t gone away no matter what I’ve attempted to try and improve it, and it’s affected every part of my life in ways I didn’t expect. I’m learning a lot about myself as well.

This is going to be a long post too. I’m not going to apologise for that either. You may sense a theme with all this. It’s been a bit difficult this year. Several important people to me passed away including my Nan, although the funeral service was beautiful. In many ways the year has been good as well.

This year has been odd because it’s also been the first year I’ve been a published author. You guys might know a bit about that, not sure if I brought it up 

SPFBO Author Interview: JA Andrews “A Keeper’s Tale”

As 2018 draws to an end, I bring you an interview with JA Andrews! Her work is amazing, especially A Keeper’s Tale!

 

 

 

 

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

I write epic fantasy with a more classic feel. My work is often called noblebright, which I like because I would say there’s always a thread of hope in my writing. But the term also sounds like the name of a Care Bear, so that always makes me want to qualify that noblebright doesn’t mean all rainbows and unicorns. There’s plenty of pain and struggle and failure, it’s just not all grim.

 

How do you develop your plots and characters?

I tend to be pretty structured with my plot, following a three act pattern. I don’t get too legalistic about it, but every time something is nagging me about my plot because it isn’t quite working, when I go back and look at my structure, I can usually pinpoint what’s broken. Fixing it is usually a little harder.

My characters are usually based on whatever wound it is they’re trying to heal. Maybe recovering from bad choices. Maybe not living up to what they think they should have been. Maybe not fitting in to any sort of family.

 

Tell us about your current project.

I’m currently writing the third and final book of my series, The Keeper Chronicles. Each book has a different protagonist, but they’re all Keepers, who are a group of people who are mostly scholars and historians, but also are capable of magic, which is limited to only a few people in my world.

 

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

I’ll tell you about the MC in my book 1, A Threat of Shadows, since they’re all different. Alaric is a Keeper who’s always been sort of a model Keeper. He’s brainy and likes studying and reading ancient runes. He’s proficient with magic (although even small amounts of magic can cause the wielder pain, so neither he nor anyone else uses magic as their main tool). But, his wife Evangeline was poisoned while traveling with him, and when the poison turned out to have no antidote, he crossed all sorts of lines he never would have imagined crossing to save her. And so far he’s failed.

Book one opens with him finding one last chance to save her, and exploring whether the decisions he’s made are cancelling out all the good things he’s done in life, or if he’s more than just the sum of his worst deeds.

 

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

Find other authors and work closely with them. I think everything good that’s happened in my writing and my career is because I found other authors to work with and learn from.

Find writers who are better than you and have them critique your work. Read books on craft. There’s so much to learn, but there’s such a great community of authors that you can meet and get encouragement from. Also, be ready to take the criticism and really look at your own work to make changes. It’s really important to separate yourself from your writing and look at it objectively so you can see the weaknesses in it.

 

 

What inspires you to write?

I just enjoy it. A lot. Creating a new story is so much fun. I love getting up early before the kids are up and writing while the house is quiet.

 

What was the hardest part of writing this book?

Having patience. Writing a book takes a looooong time. At least it takes me a long time, and I don’t have too many hours each day to work on it. It can be hard to be patient with how slowly the book is created.

 

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

There’s a scene where the elf, Ayda, shares a memory with Alaric which is a flashback of a pivotal moment in her life. It was really fun to get into another characters head since the rest of the book is from Alaric’s point of view.

 

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

I spend time thinking about the things they’ve been through and imagining how that would affect them in a general sense, and in the particularly scene their finding themselves in. When I am really stuck I write a journal entry for them where they’re writing about the scene and how they felt. That usually gets me honed in on what is important to them, and more importantly, how they’re feeling about things.

 

What are your future project(s)?

I’m planning to finish the Keeper Chronicles this spring, then I have a new trilogy in the same world that I’ll be starting. It’s the story of a girl who began as an orphan and ends up married to the king, and it will be based loosely on the life of Empress Theodora of the Byzantine Empire.

 

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

Ummmmm, I have no idea. None. No other job sounds that fun. So I guess I better make this writing thing work, hmm?

 

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 on Facebook on my page (www.facebook.com/JAAndrewsAuthor) or in the Epic Fantasy Fanatics Facebook group I help moderate (www.facebook.com/groups/EpicFantasy) which is an amazing group of people who love epic fantasy books. Or you can find me on my website at www.jaandrews.com)

 

Gaming of 2018: Honorable Mentions!

Merry Christmas everyone! So I have my Top 10 of the year ready for you and out to the world. Check them out down below!

Gaming of 2018 – My Top 10 Part 1

Gaming of 2018 – The Top 5!

But what about the games that didn’t quite meet the cut? What about the games that I haven’t played much of? Well, you will get that and more. You’ll get those games I really wasn’t impressed by another time.

 

Agony Unrated

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This was very nearly the worst game of the year, at least until the developers finally broke free of their censorship and was able to release the intended version, and just in time as well. It could have been my worst game of 2018, or at least the most disappointing.

I was hyped for the game at launch. It looked fun and hellish pre-release…only for the launch version to be terrible. It looked more like a land made of fucking strawberry jam then Hell. It’s clear though it was the heavily cut version they did not want to release, and Steam’s censorship relaxing rules managed to save this game just in time…I do not know I can applaud them, as the practice of “release shit game and fix it later and expect praise” is overdone and over lauded in present-day gaming trends, but I give them some credit for pushing through those constraints. They gave the Unrated version to all previous Agony owners as well which was nice, although probably expected of them.

The true version is better. It’s much better than I expected to be honest. It’s a bit of a walking simulator but it has horrible imagery and some really fucked up moments. It really feels like I’m wading through Hell…with some sprinkled vaginas and baby death in. It’s an experience. I couldn’t give this game too high a rating, but it’s an interesting game and for a horror thing, it wasn’t too bad. It deserves a mention at least. At least it survived its appalling launch, but at least it was better then Fallout 76’s launch. And no, you won’t hear anything about that game from me. I haven’t played it. Nor do I plan to anytime soon.

Overall, it’s alright. It’s not particularly amazing, but it caught my eye and it’s memorable. It would never make my Top 10, but it was interesting enough for me.

 

Divinity Original Sin 2: Definitive Edition

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I couldn’t put this game in my Top 10 because it was in it last year. Hell, it won last year without any real competition, but it still deserves a mention. Larian Studios continues to impress in my eyes by releasing this massive enhanced version of the game (and free to all previous owners). You can still play Classic mode or play this version, which fixes a ton of stuff, adds more fights and helps prop up the only weak point of the game: the messy final two Acts.

It’s still a wonderful experience.

It offers a massive campaign with memorable characters, interesting role-playing options, and excellent systemic combat. There are countless options to tweak your combat style to. Want an undead lizard that can summon and turn people into chickens? Fucking sold! Want a warrior tank that can conjure fire? Yes. Loads of options and the game is huge. Act 1, which is the tutorial island, took me 25 hours to finish. And there were still several quests I did not do. And because you can do the quests in different ways, there is lots of replay ability in this game I feel. I’m now 110 hours into my first play-through, and finally in the last Act of the game. It’s still giving me thrills in the combat, and it’s just so fresh to play.

People talk a lot about gameplay loops when discussing good games. Divinity Original Sin has such satisfying combat that it is a loop that keeps me going for hours. I cannot get bored of the combat system, and the many ways you can exploit it with its dozens of mechanics. Cheesing difficult fights is not just doable, but urged. The combat involves a magic/physical armor system that was seen with some controversy from the original DOS, forcing you to make decisions in your team building, but I quite like it as it builds more strategy. It can lead to some very unfair fights, but even the ones where I got pasted felt fun. I just returned another time when I had a better idea of how to deal with it. There is little hand holding, they just give you this sandbox of tools, and you’re left to scrabble in the dirt.

The environments are beautiful and the soundtrack is solid. That alone would put it at the top of the heap, but then Larian added offline and online co-op, a PVP arena mode, and Game Master mode, the greatest throwback to the Dungeons & Dragons pen-and-paper games that underpin the entire genre. I haven’t played online much yet, but once I’ve finished the game again, I plan on doing so. Because of the vast modding community, there is quite a lot to do. I will be making a good go into a new play-through with higher difficulties. The story while good, isn’t really the point of the game. For me it is that stunning game-play loop. The freedom in this game is almost unparalleled, but at the same time, it can be overwhelming. Doing this game blind is quite difficult and frustrating, as a word of warning.

True the story isn’t anything to truly write home about. The worldbuilding is beaten by other games. The game is punishingly difficult at times, it has its bugs and glitches, but I cannot recommend it more. A worthy coat of paint to an already brilliant game, it deserves a mention as well. If I never played it before and got it on console, it would have easily made my Top 10 again. It might have even won it again. It’s that good a game for me.

 

Star Traders: Frontiers

 

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Another game that is increasingly catching my attention. I like games like this, an easy to get into, casual space romp. I like space RPGs though I would like to see more first or third person ones. Star Traders is 2D but don’t take that away. It’s a pretty cool game so far and I am enjoying it a lot.

There’s a ton of customisation and depth mixed in this. Want to be a trader? You can. Pirate? Hell yes. You can customize your ships in loads of different ways, and it’s a very flexible game. It’s a sandbox but it has an extensive story too. You can do anything you want in it.

The combat is simple, just turn based stuff and it can be tricky at times, but I’m having a blast, to be honest. It’s a seriously cool title and one of 2018’s most promising indie games. I really recommend giving it a shot and I’m excited to give the game another go. It is tricky at times.

 

Frostpunk

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I am seriously fond of this company. Behind the incredible experience that is This War of Mine (My 2014 game of the year I might add!), 11 bit studios has made some fascinating games. This year they launched the brutal survival management game Frostpunk.

When it first launched, I was a little surprised by the lack of content. There was nothing wrong with it but I felt lacking replay-ability was a major drawback of the game. This is a feature any management game needs in order to survive, and it’s something certain other management games lacked in 2018. You need options and ways to show off your creativity. In fairness Frostpunk is more of a survival sim than anything else, making you make shitty decisions for the greater good. Like This War of Mine it made me think about the morality of my actions, which takes a lot to do for a video game.

I did not need to worry, because 11 bit studios is one of the best devs I’ve seen for any game. They always listen to their players and Frostpunk has been well supported with excellent new content addons (free as well) including an Endless Mode which handles all of the initial problems I had with the game.

This is truly an excellent game, and one of my favourites of the year. I feel almost guilty it did not make my Top 10 this year.

 

Parkitect

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Another Early Access game that launched this year! I know. I really wish I could put this on my Top 10, but I already have four games of the same mould that made the list. I feel it almost unfair on the others to put it on there.

This is a true theme park game, and in some cases it’s better than Planet Coaster. It has some excellent management quirks in a shoutout to Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, and focuses heavily on the management side over its main rival. Planet Coaster still rules the pack in customisation and “build your own sandpark”, but it still lags behind on management and optimization.

This might be the pivotal theme park game in the future, even above the olden goldies. Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 still leads in that regard, especially with the amazing OpenRCT2 mod that enables it to run on modern software and adds a ton more options. Parkitect oozes charm and runs quite well. It has great sandbox options and a new extensive campaign. I’ve been quite enjoying it so far and it gives you different challenges throughout. Once you complete each campaign mission, you can play the map again in sandbox mode.

I’m really impressed by Parkitect. It feels like a lovechild to the old era and holds up well in 2018. With Steam Workshop support and continued TLC, it is only going to get stronger.

This article went up late because of Christmas shenanigans. Next time, I’ll bring up my Dishonorable Mentions. . .there are a few of them!

Gaming of 2018 – The Top 5!

The final five! It’s been such a tough challenge this year to pick games I really liked. Having a surge of games hitting full release that are amazing was another reason why this was so difficult. It’s in stark contrast to last year. . .but 2017 might be stronger then I thought. Stay tuned for that!

Go check out the 10-6 spots!

Gaming of 2018 – My Top 10 Part 1

 

 

Kenshi

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Now we’re in the Top 5, and yes I bring to you another old game to the table. And it’s another indie title that spent long years in Early Access. I bought this game in 2014, and I decided to hold off on it until things became more…developed. With its launch finally hitting 1.0 earlier this month, I feel it’s time.

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.

This game reminds me a lot like Mount and Blade Warband. The graphics look like shit, if you want my honest opinion. It looks and feels bloaty, the engine is a bit buggy, there is no voice acting and the character development is almost non-existent. What’s shocking is virtually none of this matters when it comes to Kenshi. It should be trash, but it’s not. . .surprisingly. 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.

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I lost my entire party 10 minutes later.

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 playstyles 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 it’s quite impressive.

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, cities to wipe out. 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.

Just how cool is that? 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. It 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. 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.

 

Pathfinder Kingmaker

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RPGs have done well again this year for me, and it’s almost a shame this is so low on my list. I know, Number 4 is low! I just think this game launched a bit too early for its own good, and was hurt by a brutal launch.

That’s happened to a lot of games this year.

This is a game that unfortunately became a victim of its own size, the developers adding more to the game then expected and resulting with an almost broken launch, on par with Kingdom Come Deliverance and Bethesda-gubbins. As a result it did get hammered a bit in reviews online, and while they are making good progress in fixing the game, its performance is still a little bit flat, which is unfortunate.

Isometric RPGs have really come back recently, with behemoths like Divinity Original Sin 2, Pillars of Eternity 2 and this one coming into prominence along with some other smaller indie titles. Pathfinder Kingmaker was a game I stumbled into, and it is a lot more hardcore then the others which may put people off. However it’s sheer size and depth have drawn me in, and it’s been a while since I’ve liked a game like this since Divinity Original Sin 2.

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It does have its glaring issues, mainly ongoing bugs, some balance issues and some problems with the kingdom management, but it’s going to be a game for the long haul, and it’s something I cannot rush. A bit like some others on this list, it’s not as high as I’d like it to be due to me picking up the game only recently, with little chance to play it. I’m really waiting on more patches before I continue. However with what I’ve played already, I’m loving the combat and the roleplaying elements. It’s not as good as DOS2 in my eyes, at least not yet, but it might get there in time. A game for me to watch in the future, and already it’s high on my Top 10. I can see myself playing this game for a long time. 20 hours in and I’m already hooked.

 

 

HITMAN 2

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I really enjoyed the first Hitman. The 2016 release. . .numbering games are weird. I think it’s great, but I feel the episodic release let it down a bit. Instead of enjoying the entire pizza, we got a slice a month…which I think let the game down. However I did like really getting into each of the massive mission maps in turn, really taking their time with them. Giant stealth sandboxes that don’t penalise you for acting like a psychopath? Priceless.

Then Hitman 2 launched early in November, and it’s really more of the same…just better. Good old open ended sandbox gameplay. It’s as fun as ever exploring the expansive maps and picking out your targets. There are boatloads of options how to complete your assassinations, and it’s just in general really good fun.

Fun. That is in essence what a video game should be, should it not? We have different reasons for playing games I’d imagine, but fun should be right up at the top. Hitman 2 is one of those games which just keeps giving you the fun in the end, from start to finish. You could literally spend dozens of hours per map working out ways to kill your target, with countless custom missions available as well. Or even better, just do things your own way. It is Sandbox in as pure and clean a way as possible without really penalising you. Sure, you lose points if you do it loud and messy, but you’ll never fail a mission for doing that.

Does it have issues? I have a couple. You get a bit too many pointers in the game, I’d prefer more options to just ignore the constant advice, and the cutscenes are a bit drab. This is probably a consequence of IO Interactive’s cutoff and buyout with Square Enix, but they did a good job with Hitman 2. Even better, if you have the first one, you get to play all the new maps in Hitman 2 for free with the new mechanics. You don’t even need to buy Hitman 2 for that joy either!

Hitman 2 is going to be a gift that keeps on giving, and it deserves a Top 3 spot on my list. I haven’t played a huge amount of it yet, but I imagine myself doing so. All these endless games…so little time. It’s a shame it hasn’t seemed to have sold particularly well, but it’s a great game. Give it a go.

 

Kingdom Come Deliverance

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I really wanted this to take the Number 1 spot, and to be honest it is. However…I just cannot ignore the true winner on this list, a game that snared me hook line and sinker. Even so, this is one hell of a game, and one of the biggest risks of 2018. I think overall, it did very well, rising from the ashes of a broken launch.

I gave this game a full review, which you will see by clicking the link here: https://thousandscarsblog.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/kingdom-come-deliverance-review/ However, here is a brief overview of how I find it.

It’s hard to find games these days that take risks. Gaming, particularly in the AAA market seem to come of the same mould, with similar styles and always open world, shopping list of activities and not a huge amount of sustenance. As much as I appreciate games getting a much longer shelf-life then in the past, it has been soured by games getting nasty microtransactions, DLC that should have been in the base game at launch, features cut only to be added, broken launches and so on. I look to smaller developers and the indie scene to really get into the gaming experiences these days.

Warhorse Studios took these risks, but unfortunately the launch of KCD was a bit of a horror show. Now I’m going to go on a bit of a rant here and this isn’t directed at Warhorse Studios, but gaming as a whole. It’s had quite the flak from people for its semi-broken launch and some more serious bugs, and that should be so. Frankly I’m sick of games being released in such a buggy state, and for a game that was Kickstarted, asking people to pay 50-60$ then to have it launch with such a disaster? Not good.

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This is fucking hilarious though.

I’m being as nice as possible here, because I have big respect for both the game and Warhorse Studios for having the balls to make something like this in an over-saturated market of open world exhaustion-fests. Only indie studios take risks these days which is a crying shame, but I will not treat them differently. Do not release your beloved game in such a terrible state and expect people to jump up and down and love you when you fix it. This isn’t just for KCD, but for every fucking game that comes out lately. How about making sure it’s stable at launch? That would be great. And even better, can we have people who won’t crucify developers for broken launches yet lick the boots of Bethesda every time they release a broken, buggy mess of a video game? That would be wonderful as well. Thankfully people aren’t giving them any slack for Fallout 76.

Fortunately, a lot of the issues have been fixed, and at the seat of it we have a deeply immersive, well-crafted RPG which I’ve had such a passionate love for. I haven’t played such an immersive, enjoyable 1st person game in a long time. The world-building is good but not overly saturated, it’s well researched, the systems in the game are excellent, and I adore Henry as a player character. He’s a burly, blacksmith’s son who likes drinking and fighting, is terrible at first with a sword, and the voice acting I really dug. There is some amazing voice acting in the game, sprinkled with some. . .lesser voice acting, but nothing too bad. This isn’t Two Worlds, trust me. *shudders and rocks in the room corner*

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This does not look creepy at all. No “Miller”, I will not go behind the fucking mill with you.

I love most of the systems, like the pickpocketing, rich combat system and the alchemy, but I do feel there’s…something missing. I want more, but although there are a lot of random events said, I’ve come across so few that the world, beautiful as it may be, can seem a bit barren at times. I love travelling in the world regardless, and although the game feels like it still suffers from Open World RPG syndrome, at this point in the game this isn’t a problem. It’s not a chore, and I enjoy that.

The game doesn’t hold your hand and combat can be rough but I haven’t played an RPG like this in quite some time. It’s quite taken my breath away at times, the story and characters on the whole are pretty good and it’s just an overall fun experience. Even better, Warhorse is continuing to support it with future content and I can’t wait for all the Workshop mods in the future. I believe if a game isn’t multiplayer where modded content can be abused, every game should be able to be modded in some form. The DLCs…have been mixed, but I recommend them nonetheless, advising you play them as you play the game rather then romping through it as an overpowered Scrooge McDuck, a problem which plagued From the Ashes. Please play through them at a natural rate. You’ll enjoy it a lot more that way.

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The menus are freaking gorgeous.

I will err on the side of caution and say this isn’t for everyone. Do not come into this expecting something like Skyrim or Witcher 3. It has its jank and has its quirks, but it’s one of the best experiences you can ask for – if you’re forgiving of some bugs. A stunning game through and through, and it’s had an impression on me. I underestimated how good this game was, in spite of its flaws.

 

Rimworld

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Yep.

It has been a much tougher challenge this year, although if I played more of a few 2017 titles back then, Divinity Original Sin 2 might have had some challenge. (Hollow Knight, Streets of Rogue and ELEX would have been big contenders) This time, any of the Top 5 could have been the best game. Six, if you include Subnauctica, an experience like no other for me. It was very difficult.

Kingdom Come Deliverance was the best game released fully in 2018 for me, but it really was because of Rimworld that I changed some of my rules. With excellent performances in the Early Access titles pushing out of the stigma into the wild and proving it can still work, from games like Kenshi, Subnauctica, CrossCode and Parkitect (which only missed this list because I have barely played it), it’s been a good year. I’ll have people whining “BUT MUH TRIPLE A GAMES!”, well, fuck it. I make the rules on my list. In fairness, I’ve only picked up and played the Early Access titles this year so I think my system is reasonable, and it would be unfair for me to ignore them completely.

Rimworld is simple by looks and deeply complex by nature, a storyteller like no other and one of the best games I have ever played. I cannot really say anything else but that, but for the sake of reviewing, I’m going to give it a fucking good try. It’s fucking bonkers, but it just works.

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This game makes no sense, and at the same time so much sense.

It’s a colony simulator, where you must control the lives of tribes who need to scour resources, build a home and try to survive. It’s difficult, brutal and has a learning curve, but with almost limitless options and replay ability. Everything is different, every play does something else, and the number of interactions is just insane. Sure its graphics are simple, almost identical to Prison Architect, and it’s not quite Dwarf Fortress. But it’s incredibly accessible, moddable to your lifes dreams and it has sheer enjoyment from start to finish. Even dying is fun in this game, as every death tells a new story and provides you more knowledge for the future.

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This is probably why I wouldn’t make a good world ruler.

It is a delicious, addictive piece of art that has almost endless gameplay, and possibly a Game of the Decade. It’s as important to me as the likes of The Witcher 3, God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2 have been to gaming, the indie genre’s warrior in the gaming world. Don’t take my word for it though, give it a try.

 

Going forward

So that’s my Top 10 this year. There are more articles coming on gaming however! Stay tuned for more.