Beth Tabler's Blog, page 161
September 24, 2022
The Books That Made Me – The Thief of Always by Clive Barker
These opening sentences hooked me. I’d never thought of a month as a monster, of a season as a consuming force. I was in high school, somewhere in my sophomore year, I think. But I should start a bit farther back…
My mother loved horror. LOVED IT She shared her love of reading with me. By the time I was in high school, I’d read a ton of horror including John Saul, Dean Koontz, and Stephen King. Then I read Clive Barker. And with Clive Barker came a bunch of firsts: the first time I’d been truly disturbed by a scene (not scared, really, but thrown off kilter entirely); the first time I’d read a book with no clear good guy (a protagonist, sure, but no one I’d considered “good”); the first time I knew that I probably shouldn’t be reading a particular book (I was a bit young). I’d read Cabal, The Damnation Game, the Great and Secret Show, and then I read The Thief of Always.
The final “first” that I got from reading Barker was one that stayed with me. The Thief of Always made me want to write. I wanted to craft sentences like that. In that moment, I wanted to be an author.
So, the fairy tale story goes, I ran right over to my desk, grabbed some college-ruled paper, and I wrote. Oh, sure, it took me a while to get organized, to finish things, and even longer to give them to anyone else to read. I wrote stories for both my high school and college literary magazines. I took creative writing classes in college, and pondered getting an MFA…
No. That isn’t what happened at all.
What really happened was this: I gave it a brief go, and decided it wasn’t for me. For some reason I couldn’t quite name, I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think I, a young woman, could be an artist. I kept creating stories—but never wrote them down. I worked on my high school and college literary magazines as an editor. I studied literature in college but took no creative writing classes. I decided to become an English professor, and I got my PhD.
The Thief of Always is a fantasy of retrieving lost time. When Harvey is whisked away to a world where it’s Christmas every morning, summer every afternoon, and Halloween every night, he doesn’t realize that each day that passes is a year until he escapes and finds out exactly how many years he’s lost. Harvey goes back and defeats the evil Mr. Hood, and he gets his years back.
In Barker’s book, the thief of always is a monster who steals time. I let sexism-laced self-doubt steal away more than a decade from me. I couldn’t get that time back, but with the help of friends, I refused to let any more be stolen. By the end of the book, Harvey asserts that
“Time would be precious from now on. It would tick by, of course, as it always had, but [he …] wouldn’t waste it with sighs and complaints.”
Time still ticks by for me, too, and I regret what I lose, but I refuse to be eaten by my gray beast of self-doubt. The Thief of Always is the book that made me want to be a writer, and as I read it over and over again through the years, it helped me refuse to waste any more time.
Buy from Amazon
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS•THE THIEF OF ALWAYS•THE THIEF OF ALWAYS•THE THIEF OF ALWAYS•THE THIEF OF ALWAYS•THE THIEF OF ALWAYS•THE THIEF OF ALWAYS•THE THIEF OF ALWAYS•
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September 23, 2022
SIX ELEMENTALS AUTHOR INTERVIEWS – Michael R. Fletcher
Six Elementals Author Interviews will introduce prospective readers to some of the best writers in their genre you may, or may not, have heard of, via a series of six questions. I encourage you to check out the work of these phenomenal creatives! Links to their websites and purchase links will always appear, accompanying the interview. Check them out!
It’s a huge honour to interview one of the most well-known dark fantasy authors ANYWHERE, award-winning writer Michael R. Fletcher!
Michael’s currently published works are numerous, and thus need to be noted in terms of series, as opposed to individual books. These works include: The Manifest Delusions Books, The City of Sacrifice Series, The Obsidian Path, Ghosts of Tomorrow, Swarm and Steel, Fire and Flesh, The Millennial Manifesto, A Tithe of Bone, and a plethora of short stories, including those as part of anthologies with other authors, and also co-authored books such as Norylska Groans (with Clayton Snyder).
P.L.: Such a privilege to be able to interview you, Michael! Welcome to Six Elementals Interviews!
Michael: Thanks for having me! I do love being had.
P.L. So, I don’t know if any conversation with a writer of your acclaim who writes in what is considered by many to be the sub-genre of grimdark, can begin without asking you about the subject OF grimdark. My partner on the author interview feature PAGE CHEWING, the wonderful Steve Talks Books, recently composed an interesting video on the subject, that quickly has become one of his most viewed posts
You are widely acknowledged as one of the top grimdark authors and one of the most “grimdark”, as noted in the now infamous post by another famous grimdark author, Mark Lawrence, according to a poll that Mark conducted.
Grimdark. We’re nailing it down! Blog Post
What do you think about the whole grimdark topic? Do you consider yourself a grimdark author? Does attempting to define the sub-genre matter? Why do so many people seem so intrigued about the subject?
Michael: Grimdark is something I stumbled into. I started writing Beyond Redemption back in 2009 and thought of it as dark fantasy. The first time I heard the term was in 2013 when my agent at the time said, “The grimdark crowd are going to love this.” I had to google it because I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.
When writing, I don’t give much thought to genre. For me, it’s all about the characters and the story. In the end, the genre (or sub-genre) really isn’t up to the writer. I can think Oh, I’m writing a dark fantasy all I want, but if the readers call it grimdark that’s what it is. Labels can be useful in helping you finding the things you enjoy, but they can also stop folks from trying new things. All too often I see comments like, “I’m not going to pick up book X because I don’t like grimdark.”
The thing is, if you look at the books getting labelled as grimdark, there’s a huge spread in tone. Joe Abercrombie is not Anna Smith Spark is not Mark Lawrence is not M. L. Spencer is not Richard Nell is not Anna Stephens. Seems a shame to miss all these amazing authors because of a vague and largely misunderstood label.
Call it what you want, I still think of my stuff as dark fantasy. I don’t write for children. There are mature themes and situations, and sometimes life gets grim. And dark.
Crap. Fine, I write grimdark.
P.L.: Hahaha! I love it! I read your novel Beyond Redemption. It was absolutely brilliant, one of my favourite reads so far this year, and will surely stay with me forever. The topic of mental illness (which you handle very respectfully and sensitively) is prevalent in that book: as a matter of fact it forms the basis for the “magic” and worldbuilding of the novel. What made you choose to construct a world where psychotic delusions become real?
Michael: Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed it. The path to Manifest Delusions is a convoluted one. I used to work as an audio-engineer doing live shows for bands and recording albums/CDs/whatever the hell kids call these things now. I was recording an album for a Toronto band called Dirty Penny in some dingy basement studio. One of the songs, Atahualpa (https://dirtypenny.bandcamp.com/track/atahualpa) was about the interaction between the Incan Emperor Atahualpa and the Spanish Conquistador, Francisco Pizarro.
The song framed the meeting in terms of clashing ideologies and belief systems. It sparked this idea of these Spaniards, deranged from months at sea, landing in the new world and doing war with the (relatively) sane locals. That birthed the concept of a reality shaped by faith and belief and became the first short story exploring the idea, Fire and Flesh, which is in A Collection of Obsessions.
After that, things kinda got out of control.
The idea took on a life of its own and steamrollered all other plans. In a world where belief shaped reality, the insane became powerful “magic-users.” Faith became a weapon, wielded by the sociopaths in control. Looking at the real world, seeing the filth and corruption rampant in politics, religion, law-enforcement, and pretty much any position of power, there was no way the story wouldn’t get dark.
And grim. Gawdamnit!
P.L.: It was fabulous, and I can’t wait to read the second book! Of all your many works, which is your personal favourite, and why?
Michael: Yikes! If I gotta pick one of my babies as a favourite, it has to be Black Stone Heart. It was the first story I ever tried to tell, way back in the 90s. I still have that early attempt, though none of it made it into the final release. I wrote about 30,000 words and then realized that writing was hard work.
Promptly giving up, I focussed instead on my career as a rock star. You can probably guess how well that went.
The book is loosely based on a Stormbringer TTRPG campaign I ran off and on for about a decade. I love that the very first scene of the book is lifted directly from that campaign. Sufficed to say, we didn’t do your typical dungeon crawls.
P.L.: Another book by you that’s high on my TBR! Who are some of the authors who have influenced your writing?
Michael: I’m less aware of influences on my prose than influences on the kinds of stories I want to tell, and the way I want to tell them. Michael Moorcock’s Stormbringer books were massively influential on a young Fletch. Elric was my first real anti-hero and I fell in love. Simplistic stories of good guys versus bad guys, heroic quests by people with washboard abs and great hair, began to look childish. Life is more complex than that. Everyone has reasons for their choices, whether or not you agree with them.
Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash showed me it was okay to write something that was both gratuitously cool and filled with interesting ideas. Previously, I’d thought more in terms of “this is a pulp book” and “this is an idea book.” I loved both, but there was something freeing about realizing you could have it all in one.
And Joseph Heller because Catch-22 forever changed me. An entertaining and insane story that also said something important. I guess this has always been my goal. I want folks to be entertained, but it’d be nice if my books stuck with them beyond the last page.
P.L.: I can tell you that Beyond Redemption has definitely stuck with me! You are an author who has been both traditionally-published and self-published, and many would refer to you as a self-published star. You have enjoyed self-published acclaim for some time and have seen many changes in the self-publishing fantasy sphere. Where do you think the self-publishing fantasy realm is going? How do you compare the industry to where it was when you first started publishing books to where it is now?
Michael: A quickie history: I started writing seriously—well, as seriously as I do anything—in 2008. I wrote some short stories I submitted to magazines and an SF novel called 88. Back then, many agents, publishers, and magazines wouldn’t accept emailed submissions. I spent a fortune on stamps, envelopes, SASEs, and paper submitting stories. I received hundreds of rejections and after three years managed to sell a couple of short stories. A much rewritten 88 sold to a Canadian micro-press in 2013, and Beyond Redemption sold to Harper Voyager maybe a year later.
Though self-publishing existed back then, I was unaware of it as an option. It wasn’t until Harper Voyager passed on the sequel to BR in 2015 that I began to pay attention. As I’d already written The Mirror’s Truth, I figured I might as well self-publish it. My expectations were nonexistent, but I also had nothing to lose.
TMT sold better than expected, though to be fair my expectations were incredibly low. It won a STABBY over at r/Fantasy and a few other awards and garnered for me some early (and much needed) attention.
It’s hard to comment on the changes in the self-publishing industry because I wasn’t there at the beginning. It was already flourishing and had its share of stars long before I knew what was going on. I can say that in recent years much of the stigma attached to self-pub books seems to have fallen away.
I think it’s an interesting time on both sides of the publishing world. In the coming years we’re going to see folks leap the proverbial fence in both directions. Writers who have built a solid fanbase being traditionally published are going to look at per book profits self-published authors are making and want to try that. Self-pubbed authors will rise to the notice of publishers and be lured over with advances (oh, to dream!), editing, cover art, and the promise of seeing your books in real stores.
P.L.: To what do you attribute your popularity as a writer? Why do you think so many readers love to read Michael R. Fletcher? What is it about your work that you think captivates your audience?
Michael: Hmn. It’s a combination of several factors and an absolute ass-ton of luck.
Stubbornness: I received over 100 rejections before I sold my first short story to Interzone in the UK. Since then, publishers have passed on everything I’ve written (including Black Stone Heart). And yet here I am, still chugging away. Oh, cool, just made the mistake of reading a review from someone who was disappointed with my book. Awesome. Slightly depressed now. But that’s just it: the pain will fade and I will return to the trenches.
SPFBO: The impact of Mark Lawrence’s Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off can not be overstated. The community that’s grown up around the competition is amazing.
Those two are easy. Now, we’re into the hand-wavy I have no fucking idea stuff.
Originality: My goal is always to write something you haven’t seen a million times. Maybe it’s an old idea twisted into some new shape. Maybe it’s a funky magic system or strange world or telling a story from an unusual point of view.
In the end, I’m trying to write stories like the ones that first grabbed my attention as a child…but for adults. If I can capture even a little of that sense of awe and discovery, I’ve done my job.
P.L.: Michael, it has been an honour to speak to you for Six Elementals Interviews! Thank you so much!
Michael: My pleasure!
Buy An End to Sorrow here
Buy She Dreams in Blood here
Buy Black Stone Heart here
Buy Beyond Redemption here
Buy Mirror’s Truth here
Buy Norlyska Groans here
Buy Smoke and Stone here
Buy Ghosts of Tomorrow here
Buy Ash of Bones here
Buy A Tithe of Bone here
Buy A Collection of Obsessions here
Buy Swarm and Steel here
Twitter: @FletcherMR
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelRFletcher
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/michaelrfletcher
Site: http://michaelrfletcher.com/
MICHAEL R. FLETCHER•MICHAEL R. FLETCHER•MICHAEL R. FLETCHER•MICHAEL R. FLETCHER•MICHAEL R. FLETCHER•MICHAEL R. FLETCHER•MICHAEL R. FLETCHER•MICHAEL R. FLETCHER•
The post SIX ELEMENTALS AUTHOR INTERVIEWS – Michael R. Fletcher appeared first on BEFOREWEGOBLOG.
Ten Recommended Indie Cyberpunk Books
Cyberpunk as a genre arguably hit its heyday during the Eighties as a cultural force with Neuromancer and reached its zentih in social acceptance in the Nineties with The Matrix movies. After that, it slowly tapered off and ceased to be something fans got hyped over barring a few high profile video games. This is due to my suspicion that cyberpunk slowly became reality, or at least so similar to our current era of big corporations and hacker criminals that it stopped becoming genre fiction.
There have been a few major successes since then, literature-speaking, though as well as some genuine artistic achievements. Altered Carbon is one fo the strongest entries into this series due to Richard K. Morgan reinventing the darkness and anger of the original works for the Twenty FIrst Century. However, there’s not nearly as many peers to it as there should be and the big corporate produced cyberpunk novels are not what I’m here to discuss.
No, I’m here to discuss indie produced cyberpunk novels that have caught my eye over the past decade and ones that I think are worth reccommending. As a cyberpunk author myself with the Agent G and Cyber Dragons trilogies, I thought I’d share ten novels that I really enjoyed set in the cyberpunk genre.
What is cyberpunk? For the purposes of this list, I’m going to define it as gritty near-future science fiction with an anti-authoritarian bent. For me, you can’t claim the title of “punk” unless you have the latter, which is why The Matrix qualifies even if it’s in the far future. You’re welcome to disagree with the definition but that should let you know what I’m recommending down here.
10.You Can Be a Cyborg When You're Olderby Richard Roberts
I’m already shooting myself in the foot by making this my first entry but this is a Young Adult novel cyberpunk parody by the author of the Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m a Supervillain series. Vanity Rose is a fourteen year old with dreams of being a street criminal in an orphanage of children being raised by a malfunctioning robot. It’s a wild and bizarre world where a good chunk of the population has joined a transhumanist cult where you spend all your money transforming yourself into World of Warcraft characters.
About You Can Be a Cyborg When You're Older
In the bleak future of West Angel City, Vanity Rose is having a great time. She has a loving robot caretaker, a fake elf for a sister, and she roams the walls of West Angel’s endless skyscrapers every night, thanks to her precious gravity shoes.
What Vanity doesn’t have are money and adventure, but she has a plan to get both. She’s going to walk the dark side, joining the thieves and mercenaries who get paid to do all the little jobs that make a corrupt city go around. She’ll only have to deal with killer robots, vengeance-crazed and not very bright computer programs, cyborg vampires, telepathic capybaras, mean girl mech pilots, and have every homemade weapon in the city pointed at her.
Fourteen is old enough for that, right?
Buy from Amazon
9.Ten Sigmaby A.W. Wang
Ten Sigma is an interesting story with the premise of a dying woman signing her consciousness over to the US government to be horrifically brutalized and reprogrammed into becoming a killing machine they will unleash after the imminent collapse of society. This is a fascinating story because it almost entirely takes place in a virtual battlefield and is all about the dehumanizing effect of the training as well as the goal to eliminate every bit of humanity from the woman inside. You know, fun stuff like that. I liked it but it’s a harsh read and the opposite of 10.
Review – Ten Sigma by A.W. Wang
About Ten Sigma
In future America, the downloaded people in the Ten Sigma Program fight endless battles. The struggles span all possibilities: face-offs with knives and clubs, skirmishes as Roman legionaries, pitched WW1 trench warfare, duels with ultra-modern hypersonic weapons, and everything in between. The combatants who live are rewarded with another battle until they reach the unreachable score of ten sigmas. Those who die are expunged from the system, gone forever. The methods, so harsh they go beyond anything possible in the real world, are necessary for the end goal: violent evolution to produce the greatest warriors in all of human history.
Who would choose such a fate?
Those with no hope.
On a wintry night, a government representative presents Mary, who is dying of incurable cancer, with the offer: a second chance at life and for those completing the requirements, a return to the real world in a fresh, healthy body. To save her family from bankrupting medical bills, she accepts.
After her consciousness is transferred into the virtual universe of the program, her essence is ripped apart and her memories shattered. She’s reassembled as the perfect killer.
As the life-and-death contests begin, she discovers the true nature of what lies ahead. But, she won’t surrender to the impossible and grimly embarks on the journey to return to her family while trying to save her soul.
Mature readers only: intense combat, graphic violence, horror elements, some sex, some language.
Buy from Amazon
8.The Blind Spotby Michael Robertson
In the future, the majority of humanity has relocated to city-states in the middle of large wastelands and farms. One city is divided into the corporate-run have’s while the have-nots actually have done pretty well for themselves by keeping a monopoly on vice as well as transhumanist technologies. However, the careful truce between the two sides is disrupted when someone starts framing the latter for terrorist activities against the former. Unless it’s not a frame job at all. Our badass cyber-heroine and a very bland corporate douche must find out.
About The Blind Spot
Would you betray everyone you cared about to prevent a war?
Marcie Hugo isn’t a typical sixteen-year-old. She’s been cybernetically enhanced to have superhuman strength, speed, and judgement. For what it’s worth.
She’s lived her entire life in the Blind Spot; a garish neon rat run of debauchery. Since her mum’s murder several years ago, her dad’s method for keeping her safe has been to imprison her in her own home. But with her sixteenth birthday looming, she’s going to start making her own life choices. She’ll finally move away to the neighbouring Scala City with the boy she loves.
But when a terrorist attack raises the temperate of the cold war between the Blind Spot and the city, her vision of her planned future begins to fade. If she’s to put her bad memories and the home she hates behind her, she has to act.
With time running out and tensions rising, Marcie finds herself as the only person who can prevent the conflict. But it comes at a cost. Does she betray everyone she cares about and sacrifice her chances with her one true love, or does she let thousands die in a preventable war?
Join Marcie as she tears through dystopian cityscapes and neon flooded alleyways in an attempt to put all the pieces into place to prevent a war that could kill everyone.
The Blind Spot is a cyberpunk novel and the first book in the Neon Horizon series.
Buy from Amazon
7.The Machine Killerby D.L. Young
A former hacker turned corporate shill works with a professional bodyguard for one last job to clear their debts with a famous computer corporation. No points for guessing that it goes completely sideways. The Machine Killer is a fun and entertaining book with a lighter side of cyberpunk criminal activity as well as likable protagonists. AIs, cybernetic cults, and more. It feels like a very well-written video game.
About The Machine Killer
For fans of Altered Carbon, Neuromancer, and Snow Crash.
Former data thief Maddox thinks his life of cybercrime is behind him. He couldn’t be more wrong.
Forced by a powerful executive to steal a priceless dataset, Maddox uncovers the shocking truth of a secret war between AIs, raging inside the digital universe known as virtual space. Plunged headlong into the deadly conflict, he’ll have to use every trick he’s ever learned—and a few he’s never tried before—if he wants to survive.
Sprawling megacities, rogue AIs, black market tech, modded mercenaries, and a pulse-pounding story filled with unexpected twists. If you love gritty, hardcore cyberpunk, you won’t want to miss this series!
Buy from Amazon
6.Mercury's Sonby Luke Hindmarsh
The world’s environment has been destroyed by a combination of war as well as mismanagement. Unfortunately, this has led to the rise of a brutal eco-friendly anti-technology theocracy that uses slave labor to clean up the environment while living in the cities under their control. Because they’re enormous hypocrites, they also employ a cyborg investigator and scientists to keep themselves in power. I very much enjoyed this very interesting one-shot novel about a well-developed dystopian world.
About Mercury's Son
Valko can see the last moments of a victim’s life.
It comes at a price – a scrap of flesh cut from his brain and replaced with an implant. Bound to a drug that lets him use his insight but brings with it the pain of synthetic emotion, he’s at war with himself.
Now a killer has found a way to hide from him and two people are dead. Someone wants to keep their secrets buried. The trail leads out into the wasteland where death flies on the wind as nanotech dust.
Manipulated and betrayed, Valko must get to the truth before his time runs out.
If he only knew who to trust maybe he’d have a chance, but a man with an artificial soul can’t even trust himself…
Buy from Amazon
5.To Beat the Devilby MK Gibson
Cyberpunk and fantasy have been two things combined since Shadow Run. It’s something that can work very well if done right and very poorly if done wrong. MK Gibson does it the right way with his oddball premise of the Biblical Armageddon happening and God not showing up. Demons now rule the Earth with humans having only one advantage: technology. Salem is a nanotech cyborg courier who gets caught up in the setting’s bizarre politics.
Indie Cyberpunk Recommendations IV
About To Beat the Devil
An alternate cover for this ASIN can be found here.
175 years have passed since God quit on mankind. Without his blessing, Hell itself, along with the ancient power of The Deep, were unleashed upon the world. Two world wars and oceans of blood later, a balance was reached. Demonkind took its place as the ruling aristocracy. Mankind, thanks to its ability to create, fell to the position of working proletariat. Alive, but not living.
Lucky Us.
Welcome to New Golgotha, the East Coast supercity. In it you will find sins and cyborgs, magic and mystery, vices without virtue and hell without the hope of heaven. In the middle of it all is Salem, smuggler extraordinaire and recluse immortal, who has lived and fought through the last two centuries, but his biggest battle is just beginning.
To Beat The Devil: A technomancer Novel is an incredible adventure full of cyborgs and demons, gods, magic, guns, puns and whiskey, humor and heart. Follow Salem as he embarks to discover the meaning of the very nature of what mankind is: our souls. And, who is trying to steal them.
Buy from Amazon
4.Ghosts of Tomorrowby Michael R. Fletcher
Ghost of Tomorrow is one of my all time favorite cyberpunk novels and is my favorite Michael R. Fletcher novel. In the future, scans are the most important commodity in the world but the only way to make them destroys the brain they’re taken from. This has led to a horrific trade in children and other people that our heroes are trying to shut down. There’s also a cyborg ninja-cowboy that is hunting them. It is fun, dark, comedic, and weird. I can’t wait for the sequel.
About Ghosts of Tomorrow
The children are the future.
And someone is turning them into highly trained killing machines.
Straight out of school, Griffin, a junior Investigations agent for the North American Trade Union, is put on the case: Find and close the illegal crèches. No one expects him to succeed, Griffin least of all. Installed in a combat chassis Abdul, a depressed seventeen year old killed during the Secession Wars in Old Montreal, is assigned as Griffin’s Heavy Weapons support. Nadia, a state-sanctioned investigative reporter working the stolen children story, pushes Griffin ever deeper into the nightmare of the black market brain trade.
Deep in the La Carpio slums of Costa Rica, the scanned mind of an autistic girl runs the South American Mafia’s business interests. But she wants more. She wants freedom. And she has come to see humanity as a threat. She has an answer: Archaeidae. At fourteen, he is the deadliest assassin alive. Two children against the world.
The world is going to need some help
Buy from Amazon
3.The Immorality Clauseby Brian Parker
The Immorality Clause is a genre throwback that works exceptionally well. There’s plenty of private detective cyberpunk novels out there but few that are actually done well. Here, Zach Forrest is a cop in New Orleans circa 2066. Easytown is what they call the cybernetic Red Light District with its perfectly like-like sex dolls and virtual reality fantasies. A murder gets Zach drawn in but he soon finds himself involved with a machine that is too human to be real. I really enjoyed it and read the entire series in one go.
About The Immorality Clause
Easytown’s robotic pleasure clubs are a serial killer’s playground.
The futuristic slum in eastern New Orleans is a violent place where any vice can be satisfied–for a price. As long as the taxes are paid and tourists continue to flock to the city, businesses are allowed to operate as they see fit. Easytown has given rise to the robotic sex trade; where the robots are nearly human and always better than the real thing.
Homicide detective, Zach Forrest, has never trusted the machines. When a string of grisly murders rocks the city, he must hunt down the killer responsible. With no witnesses, and no evidence, Forrest embarks on an investigation that will challenge the very scope of reality. Will Forrest find the killer before he becomes the next victim?
Buy from Amazon
2.Bubbles in Space: Tropical Punchby S.C. Jensen
As mentioned, there’s a lot of cyberpunk detective novels. However, are there many cyberpunk detective novels where the protagonist is objectively terrible at her job and has an AI sobriety pig named Hammett? Bubbles in Paradise is a ridiculous affectionate parody of cyberpunk tropes that, nevertheless, works as a serious story. Tropical Punch is a great introduction to Bubbles Marlowe and she’s an amazing character with a great combination of the ridiculous with the surprisingly poignant (as she’s a recovering alcoholic trying to get her life back together).
About Bubbles in Space: Tropical Punch
Strippers, Drugs, and Headless Corpses…
All in a day’s work for Bubbles Marlowe, HoloCity’s only cyborg detective.
What do an anti-tech cult, a deadly new street drug, and the corrupt Chief of Police have in common?
It’s a question Bubbles can’t afford to ask. Last time she got curious it cost her job, a limb, and almost her life.
She vows to stay out of police business. But with a newly minted cybernetic enhancement, a semi-legal P.I. license, and a knack for asking the wrong kind of questions… Vows are made to be broken, right?
When a seemingly straightforward contract takes a dark turn, heads literally roll. Unless she wants to take the fall for the murders Bubbles needs to cut town on the double. Too bad she’s flat broke.
And now, she’s being hunted.
In a world where dreams can be made real for the right kind of dough, nothing is as it seems. One thing is clear, though. The dream is becoming a nightmare.
As the body count stacks up, Bubbles realizes she’s made a terrible mistake.
Can she figure out who is behind the murders before she loses her head?
Warning: Don’t read this book if you hate fun, glitter, sassy robotic pigs, or hard-boiled badassery. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett are rolling in their graves, but this is all their fault.
Get Punched! Buy it now!
Buy from Amazon
1.Behind Blue Eyesby Anna Mocikat
Behind Blue Eyes is one of the best cyberpunk action thrillers I’ve ever read. Nephilim is a cybernetically enhanced assassin who has a job to execute any person who leaves the Olympias Corporations arcologies. She and her fellow Guardian Angels are all brainwashed but an EMP results in her getting back her free will–but how long can she keep it? And does she really want it when all the choices lead to nothing but death? Really well-written and I’m continuing to follow the story.
Honorable Mentions: The Finder at the Lucky Devil by Megan Mackie (urban fantasy cyberpunk), Neon Leviathan by T.R. Napper (cyberpunk anthology), Prime Suspects: A Clone Detective Story by Jim Bernehimer, and Psychodrome by Simon Hawke (reprinted formerly traditionally published cyberpunk)
About Behind Blue Eyes
They are the perfect hybrid between human and machine. They are the next step in the evolution of mankind. And when they come after you, nothing in the world will save you…
Welcome to the year 2095.
Society has overcome everything that made human life miserable. It has become perfect — so perfect that it needs killer cyborgs to hunt down anyone who disagrees with it.
Nephilim isn’t just any elite death squad member, she is the best. Genetically and cybernetically enhanced, she and others like her strike terror wherever they go. Knowing nothing besides this lifestyle, Nephilim believes that she’s part of a righteous cause.
But everything changes for her after a hostile EMP attack.
She suffers a severe system glitch. Disconnected from the grid, for the first time in her life, she begins doubting the system.
Shortly after the attack, she meets Jake, a 100% biological human, and she falls in love with him. Jake helps her discover that everything she had believed in was a lie.
But there is no walking away from the system. And soon, Nephilim finds herself hunted by members of her own death squad.
In an era of deception, who can she trust? And in this brave new world, is there a place for love between a human and a cyborg?
Behind Blue Eyes is a fast-paced, cinematic action story in a dystopian setting. It’s a modern-day version of 1984 – on steroids.
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September 22, 2022
REVIEW – THE COWARD BY STEPHEN ARYAN
Such is the premise of Stephen Aryan’s action-packed and thought-provoking heroic fantasy, “The Coward”, Book One of “The Quest for Heroes” series. I’d been eyeing this book for quite some time, based on great reviews and the outstanding social media presence of the author, who puts together some phenomenal videos, providing advice for authors.
https://www.youtube.com/c/StephenAryan44
Aryan takes a comfortable and beloved fantasy trope – the sage veteran, reluctant hero of many sagas who is signed up for one last impossible quest – and does something very interesting and unique with it. Our protagonist Kell is heralded as a great saviour, because, at seventeen, he accompanied a group of legends to the remote northernmost parts of the continent, on a desperate quest to save mankind.
All the legends perished, however Kell not only managed to survive but also slay the dreaded Ice Lich, a horrible monster responsible for trying to turn the continent into permafrost. But in actuality Kell just was plain fortunate to live, not because of otherworldly fighting skills and unshakeable courage.
Following the quest, Kell has PTSD, haunted by the quest, and is somewhat of a recluse. He tries to subsist, in quiet and somewhat ineffectual fashion, as a farmer, in the ten years that have elapsed since his famous journey. Kell certainly did not get riches from his supposed heroism but he certainly got fame, which greatly displeases him. He generally just wants to be left alone.
Moreover he feels he’s cursed since his adventure. His relationships and prospects seem to always fail, and the real truth of what happened on the quest is a weight on his shoulders. But all anybody in the kingdom of Algany wants to know is about the heroes Kell travelled with north, and revel in tales of the great deeds.
Kell resents his celebrity status, but it’s that status that gets him summoned back to the King of Algany’s court, when the weather pattern takes a turn for the worse, and it seems like Kell’s old nemesis, the Ice Lich has returned.
Kell is requested once more to put his life on the line in the service of the Five Kingdoms, but he’s learned his lesson. Older and wiser now he’s all about self-preservation. Since this time he’s getting paid handsomely to be a hero, he plans instead to take the money and run, bail on the quest completely, and start a new life elsewhere. Hence, of course, the book title, “The Coward”.
This book checks all the boxes for a sword and sorcery narrative, with terrifying fantastic beasts, unique races and cultures, plotting and scheming, and life-and-death conflicts. But let’s chat about the characters. Kell is a gruff, damaged, bitter lead, with lots of heart underneath the grim exterior. I loved his humour and pragmatism,
“Diarrhea can kill the same as a sword.”
His surrounding cast are really fun, from the obstinate and naive Gerren who thinks he’s the new version of old (young) Kell, the redoubtable warrior Bronwyn, mysterious bard Vahli, madman king Malomir, and the ambiguous creature Willow. Aryan’s characters were for me the strongest part of the novel – well fleshed-out, and very interesting.
My favourite character in the book by far though was Britak, the Reverend Mother, leader of the Shepherd faith, who is the other main POV to contrast with Kell. This papal-like figure is no benevolent ruler of her religion. She oversees with an iron fist, a hand ready to cut out any and all opposition to her church decisively, like a gangrenous wound. She will not rest until the Shepherd faith dominates the Five Kingdoms, though she knows she’s running out of time to see her vision to fruition, as she battles age and senility. She hides her decline by enforcing even more extreme measures against those who stand in the way of her dream.
The Reverend Mother has the right amount of sanctimonious piety, fanaticism (including self-flagellation), self-righteousness, bigotry, religious intolerance for non-worshipers and other faiths, cruelty, Machiavellian brilliance and utter ruthlessness, to be just the type of character that fascinates me. An antagonist who thinks they are a protagonist, and is justified to do complete evil in order to do good.
She is a puppet-mistress who is pulling the strings on a lot of plots, and is part of the real influence behind some of the Five Kingdom thrones. She wants Kell dead, for her own reasons, and she’s been trying periodically to have him offed for a while. Now that he’s returning to the north, she’s determined to finish the job.
Aryan did an amazing job with this villain and I am looking forward to reading more of her dastardliness done in the name of the Shepherd. This kind of memorable character will always seal the deal for me in terms of how much I like the book, and the Reverend Mother was standout, taking this read easily into five-star territory.
Aryan’s prose is succinct, clear, witty, and sharp. He doesn’t waste words, yet conveys a great sense of the scene in his economy of dialogue and exposition. I believe Aryan has a military background. Accordingly, his combat scenes are excellent: blistering, quick, and bloody. He’s wonderful at creeping the reader out during the build up to these fights, as more dire circumstances and scarier monsters emerge from the gloom of the bitingly frozen wastes, with each mile deeper into the North towards the Lich’s ice castle.
The world building is equally business-like, but definitely descriptive enough for the reader to maintain a keen sense of setting and pace along with the characters as they move north and into increasingly greater danger.
I did enjoy the excerpts at the beginning of each chapter from the saga of the bard who told the tale of the original heroes, that sort of thing is a nice worldbuilding touch that for me always lends authenticity to made-up places.
Verdict: this was an engaging, fast-paced and very well done first installment that nicely sets up the rest of the series! Gimme another, bring on “The Warrior”!
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The coward•The coward•The coward•The coward•The coward•The coward•The coward•The coward•
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Interview with SPSFC Winner S.A. Tholin
BWG: What do you think makes a good story?Different perspectives, unexpected turns and characters who have something they care strongly about, whether it’s good or bad. I always enjoy a story that makes me think, whether it’s about concepts and ideas, or the actions and opinions of the characters.
BWG: How did you get into writing? Were there any catalysts in your life that set you on your path to loving the written word?My parents named me after a character in Lord of the Rings. That sparked an early interest in reading fantasy, but long before I could read, I was making up stories and scribbling them down in notebooks. Even as a toddler I was playing at being a writer!
BWG: What comes first for you, the plot or the characters, and why?Definitely the characters, but they don’t exist in a vacuum – it’s from their life situation and personality that I extrapolate the plot, allowing their choices and motivations to lead the story.
BWG: How was your first SPSFC? If you have other books, Do you think you will submit them to future contests?It was amazing. I was very nervous entering, but it was such a welcoming experience. From the organizers to the judges to the other contestants, it’s a lovely community. I’ve always wanted to submit to the SPFBO, so that’s absolutely something I’d like to do – I just have to finish a fantasy novel first!
BWG: What was the best part of the SPSFC experience?It’s easy to publish, but very difficult to reach readers. I’ve been following the SPFBO for years, and I love how it puts a spotlight on self-published fantasy. It’s not just the winners and finalists – every year hundreds of books get their moment to shine. That’s why I was thrilled when the SPSFC was announced, giving self-published science fiction the same opportunity!
BWG: For readers unfamiliar with your work, can you tell us about your SPSFC entry?IRON TRUTH is the story of a desolate planet, a dying botanist, a tormented commander and the darkness that connects them all. As the mystery of a missing ship unfolds, the characters are plunged into personal horrors, their love and loyalties tested to the limit.
BWG: Where did you get the idea for your book?I wanted to write about a character having a pivotal moment where everything they are and everything they stand for is challenged, their entire world crumbling around them – and their refusal to give into this devastation, their strength as they forge on, their focus on the single light in the dark.
BWG: What was your most brutal scene to write, and why?The most brutal scene I ever wrote is in LONELY CASTLES, the sequel to Iron Truth. It’s only a couple of sentences, nothing graphic, just a bluntly bleak statement that to this day I feel terrible about writing. I feel so sorry for doing that to the character it happens to!
In contrast, possibly the most brutal scene in Iron Truth is a very graphic war story from Commander Cassimer’s past.
BWG: What is a significant way your book has changed since the first draft?Before I started writing, I had an outline, but the first draft departed from that pretty quickly. After that, the core of the successive drafts didn’t change much at all. The story knew what it wanted to be!
BWG: There is usually research of some form when writing a Sci-fi novel. Were there any exciting bits of research or rabbit holes you went down writing the book?Oh, there were so many. To pull just a few examples from my browser research tab, I dived deep into planetary geology, Hopfield networks, biological immortality and environmental philosophy! And botany, of course – one of the main characters, Joy Somerset, is a botanist, and that plays a big part throughout the series.
BWG: What do you have coming up in the future?I recently released QUEEN OF THE CORPSEPICKERS, the first book in Primaterre Tales, a spin-off series of stand-alone novels set in the same universe as Iron Truth. It’s the twisted coming-of-age story of Vanessa ‘Mist’ Northrup, a ruthless space pirate.
My next book will be BRIGHTWORK, the second in that series, the story of a submarine search-and-rescue crew who make a shocking discovery in the hadal abyss of an alien sea.
Buy Iron Truth from Amazon Buy Lonely Truth from Amazon Buy Chaos Terrain from Amazon Buy Summer Empress from Amazon
S.A. Tholin•S.A. Tholin•S.A. Tholin•S.A. Tholin•S.A. Tholin•S.A. Tholin•S.A. Tholin•S.A. Tholin•
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September 21, 2022
When Music and Fantasy Novels Collide
I am often reminded of one of my favorite books by a song that I am listening to that is particularly evocative, or vice versa. It happens quite often and I thought I would share a few of them and why.
The song “The Fruits” is particularly powerful. It starts out as a folksy ballad about love, and devolves into something darker. It mentions original sin and going down and taking them with you. It you haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale or seen the TV show, it reminds me of June’s power.
“The Women Song” is an ode to woman, mothers, daughters, sisters, wives and The Wolf of Orren Yarro is all about a mother’s strength to endure what needs to be endured to save her son and the empire. Both the song and the novel are pure strength.
Ring Shout is a young woman battling racist supernatural forces. Leonard Cohen’s “You Want it Darker” has the lines, “You want it darker. We Kill the flame.” Maryse is violent, she will face these supernatural forces that are a canker open the soul of America.
The Gray Bastards is a grimdark wild story of half orcs, riding giant boars into the fray. They are wild, violent and unrelenting. Much like the tone of this song.
“Immigrant Song” is a no brainer when paired with The Shadows of the Gods. The Shadow of the Gods is a norse inspired fantasy with a dark grimdark heart. ‘Immigrant Song” is a group of viking shouting into the wild sky.
This is five of the many songs that remind me of novels I have the joy of reading and are completely open to interpretation.
What is a song that reminds you of a book?
1.The Handmaid's Taleby Margaret Atwood
The Book
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now . . .
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.
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The SongThe Fruitsby Paris Paloma
The Lyric
“Angel, ” he calls me
Does he know that I’m falling
From a precipice that I tripped off long ago?
“You’re so pure, ” he says
Does he know, I’m forsaken?
The original sinner
But soon you’ll know
For if I’m going downI guess I’ll take you with me
Naked in that garden
Back at the beginning
And now in your arms
You’re faithless, for you pitched me
Against your holy father
And it seems that I am winning
2.The Wolf of Oren-Yaroby K.S. Villoso
The Book
A queen of a divided land must unite her people, even if they hate her, even if it means stopping a ruin that she helped create. A debut epic fantasy from an exciting new voice.
“I murdered a man and made my husband leave the night before they crowned me.”
Born under the crumbling towers of Oren-yaro, Queen Talyien was the shining jewel and legacy of the bloody War of the Wolves that nearly tore her nation apart. Her upcoming marriage to the son of her father’s rival heralds peaceful days to come.
But his sudden departure before their reign begins fractures the kingdom beyond repair.
Years later, Talyien receives a message, urging her to attend a meeting across the sea. It’s meant to be an effort at reconciliation, but an assassination attempt leaves the queen stranded and desperate to survive in a dangerous land. With no idea who she can trust, she’s on her own as she struggles to fight her way home
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The SongSong of Womenby The HU feat. Lzzy Hale of Halestorm
The Lyric
I am bones and I am skinI am home, where life beginsI’ve started wars, I’ve given peaceAcross the oceans, I carry the seedI’m your loverI’m your motherI’m your sisterI’m your daughterWhen Kings fall to their kneesThey sing a woman’s songWhen birds chirp on the treesThey sing a woman’s songThe sunrise in the eastSings a woman’s songEvery heart that beatsSings a woman’s songI am fireI am waterI am empressI am thunderI am flowerI am wonderI’m the object29Of your desireI am beautyI am graceI am faith
3.Ring Shoutby P. Djèlí Clark
The Book
In America, demons wear white hoods.
In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan’s ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.
Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan’s demons straight to Hell. But something awful’s brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up.
Can Maryse stop the Klan before it ends the world?
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The SongYou Want it Darkerby Leonard Cohen
The Lyric
Magnified, sanctified
Be the holy name
Vilified, crucified
In the human frame
A million candles burning
For the help that never came
You want it darkerHineni, hineni
I’m ready, my LordThere’s a lover in the story
But the story’s still the same
There’s a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it’s written in the scriptures
And it’s not some idol claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame
4.The Gray Bastardsby Jonathan French
The Book
Jackal and his fellow half-orcs patrol the barren wastes of the Lot Lands, spilling their own damned blood to keep civilized folk safe. A rabble of hard-talking, hog-riding, whore-mongering brawlers they may be, but the Grey Bastards are Jackal’s sworn brothers, fighting at his side in a land where there’s no room for softness.
And once Jackal’s in charge–as soon as he can unseat the Bastards’ tyrannical, seemingly unkillable founder–there’s a few things they’ll do different. Better.
Or at least, that’s the plan. Until the fallout from a deadly showdown makes Jackal start investigating the Lot Lands for himself. Soon, he’s wondering if his feelings have blinded him to ugly truths about this world, and the Bastards’ place in it.
In a quest for answers that takes him from decaying dungeons to the frontlines of an ancient feud, Jackal finds himself battling invading orcs, rampaging centaurs, and grubby human conspiracies alike–along with a host of dark magics so terrifying they’d give even the heartiest Bastard pause.
Finally, Jackal must ride to confront a threat that’s lain in wait for generations, even as he wonders whether the Bastards can–or should–survive
Read Our Review Here
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The SongVenomby Eminem
The Lyric
Venom, (I got that) adrenaline momentum
And I’m not knowin’ when I’m
Ever gonna slow up and I’m
Ready to snap any moment I’m
Thinkin’ it’s time to go get ’em
They ain’t gonna know what hit ’em
(W-W-When they get bit with the—)
Venom, (I got that) adrenaline momentum
And I’m not knowin’ when I’m
Ever gonna slow up and I’m
Ready to snap any moment I’m
Thinkin’ it’s time to go get ’em
They ain’t gonna know what hit ’em
(W-W-When they get bit with the—)
5.The Shadow of the Godsby John Gwynne
The Book
Set in a brand-new, Norse-inspired world, and packed with myth, magic and bloody vengeance, The Shadow of the Gods begins an epic new fantasy saga from bestselling author John Gwynne.
After the gods warred and drove themselves to extinction, the cataclysm of their fall shattered the land of Vigrið.
Now a new world is rising, where power-hungry jarls feud and monsters stalk the woods and mountains. A world where the bones of the dead gods still hold great power for those brave – or desperate – enough to seek them out.
Now, as whispers of war echo across the mountains and fjords, fate follows in the footsteps of three people: a huntress on a dangerous quest, a noblewoman who has rejected privilege in pursuit of battle fame, and a thrall who seeks vengeance among the famed mercenaries known as the Bloodsworn.
All three will shape the fate of the world as it once more falls under the shadow of the gods . . .
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The SongImmigrant Songby Led Zeppelin
The Lyric
A-ah-ahh-ah, ah-ah-ahh-ah
We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blowThe hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde and sing and cry, Valhalla, I am comingOn we sweep with, with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shoreAh-ah-ahh-ah, ah-ah-ahh-ah
We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs FLOW
How soft your fields, so green
Can whisper tales of gore, of how we calmed the tides of war
We are your overlordsOn we sweep with, with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shoreS-so now you better stop and rebuild all your ruins
For peace and trust can winthe day despite of all you’re losin’
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ahh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
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Tour – The Last Atalanteans by PL Stuart
I Bet My Life on You • Whatever it Takes • Would I Lie to You?
A painted mage. An unfaithful queen. A stolen throne. Three lords in disguise. Escaping Atalantyx’s destruction, Prince Othrun has forged alliances with Eltnish kings: former enemy Hert and King Wely, who has promised Othrun a kingdom of his own.
When Wely’s realm was stolen by Wely’s wife, a powerful mage, and Wely’s brother, a feared warlord, Othrun hatched a daring plan to restore the rightful king. The bold scheme involved Othrun entering Lynchun in disguise, risking his life and the life of those with him, to topple the usurpers. But for Othrun’s plot to succeed, he must entrust his Atalanteans into the uncertain hands of Hert—on the cusp of confronting his own political challenges to kingship, while tasked with protecting Othrun’s followers—even as Wely, a captive where he should be king, gambles both crown and the head upon which it sat on Othrun’s survival.
Othrun’s abilities, faith, and trust in his mysterious guardian spirit are soon to be tested. The mage Lysi continues to entangle herself in Othrun’s affairs, tempting him, challenging his beliefs, and threatening to bring his plans to ruin. But Othrun, Lord of the Last of the Atalanteans, does not intend to fail. He will be a king. Or die trying. Othrun will go to battle, and he will triumph against the odds. If not, all will be burned to ashes, consumed in the fires of his ambition. And so, the ancient war banner of Atalantean kings will fly. One last time. A kingdom has fallen. A legend will rise.
Book Links:
Author Bio & Information:P.L. Stuart was born in Toronto, Canada. He holds a university degree in English, specializing in Medieval Literature. P.L. is an assistant editor with Before We Go Blog blogging Team, headed by the awesome Beth Tabler.
The best-selling “A Drowned Kingdom”, chronicles flawed and bigoted Prince Othrun’s journey towards change, and his rise to power in a new world after the downfall of his homeland, which is based on Plato’s lost realm of Atlantis. “A Drowned Kingdom” is mentioned in the esteemed Kirkus Magazine’s 2021 Indie Issue among “Four Great Examples of the Genre” of fantasy, and won the 2022 Picky Bookworm Award for Best Indie Book Based on Mythology.
P.L.’s next novel, “The Last of the Atalanteans”, Book Two in the “The Drowned Kingdom Saga”, was published in March 2022.
P.L. is an avid supporter of fellow creatives and proud member of the greater writing community, which includes readers, writers, bloggers, editors, literary agents, and more. P.L. currently lives in Chatham, Ontario, Canada. P.L. is married, and he and his lovely wife Debbie have seven children, and one precocious grandchild between them. When not writing, or engaging in author-associated activities, P.L. is a voracious reader, and loves to read and review books, spends time with family, tries to get some exercise time, and watches Netflix.
Linktree: linktr.ee/p.l.stuart
Blog: https://beforewegoblog.com/
Giveaway Information:
Prize: A Signed Paperback Copy of The Last of the Atalanteans!
Starts: September 19, 2022 at 12:00am EST
Ends: September 25, 2022 at 11:59pm EST
Direct link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/79e197ac55/
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September 20, 2022
SIX ELEMENTALS AUTHOR INTERVIEW – Branwen OShea
Six Elementals Author Interviews will introduce prospective readers to some of the best writers in their genre you may, or may not, have heard of, via a series of six questions. I encourage you to check out the work of these phenomenal creatives! Links to their websites and purchase links will always appear, accompanying the interview. Check them out!
For this interview, I have the honour of speaking to a very exciting new sci-fi author, and a wonderful person, Branwen OShea!
Branwen’s currently published works include: The Calling, The Chords That Bind, The Chasm, and Silence of the Song Trees.
P.L.: So happy to be able to interview you, Branwen! Welcome to Six Elementals Interviews!
Your first book, The Calling, was excellent! I loved it! For those readers who have never read your work, can you tell us a bit about The Calling, and your Finding Humanity Series?
Branwen: It’s always tricky to summarize such a long novel, but the best condensed version I’ve come up with is the following: In a future ice age, Bleu’s expedition team emerges from their subterranean haven to discover humans are no longer the dominant life form on Earth.
The story involves interwoven points of view from both teens and adults, humans and star beings, and shows how differently the same dangerous events can look when viewed from different perspectives and states of consciousness. The humans live in a science-based society where nature, having created an apocalyptic ice age and destroyed civilization as we now know it, is viewed as almost a malicious force.
Now faced with the strange Sickness that has been killing teens, and a population becoming too small to maintain genetic viability, the humans must face their fears and return to the Surface to find the other havens. The mystical star beings practice nonviolence, live in harmony with all creatures and the planet, and strive to Crown, a metamorphosis akin to achieving enlightenment that grants them incredible psychic powers. While a peaceful people, the star beings won’t tolerate human destruction.
The Calling is the first book in a series and has multiple meanings in the narrative. Calling is a specific ceremony the star beings perform to contact the humans, but there are other meanings as well. For instance, 18-year-old Bleu feels the pull of Nature and yearns to leave his subterranean haven and explore the icy Surface above.
The series was inspired by many conversations with teens where they expressed doubt that humans as a species could ever overcome its history of war, violence, and exploitation of the planet. It got me wondering what it would take for us all to shift our society, or if such a thing is even possible. As crazy as it may sound, after a lot of meditation on this, I had a series of powerful dreams where the star being character Rana introduced herself and shared this story. The next morning when I started to write up notes from the dream, Rana introduced the other characters who insisted their perspectives be included as well.
P.L.: What do you believe is the purpose of science-fiction in literature?
Branwen: I once heard someone define science fiction as stories where science is used to solve the story’s main issue. To me, the genre does much more. It has often predicted scientific discoveries and new technology and exposed possible risks to society of such discoveries. Science fiction often challenges social and political beliefs through the use of aliens, humans colonizing other planets, or other worlds with unique social, political, and economic systems. I also think science fiction can expand what we consider to be possible, both in science and societies. It’s the mind-expanding nature of sci-fi that has always drawn me in as both a reader and an author.
P.L.: That’s what draws me to sci-fi as well! What compelled you to start writing? Why do you enjoy being an author?
Branwen: I’ve always written poetry and musings for myself, but never felt qualified to write a novel. After having the dreams where Rana gave me the details of the story for The Calling, I couldn’t ignore the gift she’d given me. The story and characters were so strong and compelling in my mind that I had to write it out. It took me over ten years to finish The Calling because I had to learn the craft of novel writing as I went. I do not recommend writing a complex multiple POV novel as your first foray into novel writing, lol. Every time I learned something new, I’d go back and rewrite the book. The story is still as I originally heard it from Rana, but my ability to convey it on paper changed dramatically.
I enjoy writing because its like entering another world and taking notes. I see the stories happen in my mind as I write them, so its just as exciting for me to draft a novel as it is for readers to read it. I have no idea how the characters will get out of sticky situations until the words are typed. Its loads of fun.
P.L.: I can certainly attest your book The Calling was a lot of fun. Who are some of your favourite contemporary writers, who you have read recently?
Branwen: Can I count Octavia E. Butler as a contemporary writer? She always deserves a mention, and I love her work. Other sci-fi writers I’ve been reading lately include Dawn Ross (The Dragon Spawn Chronicles), Erica Cameron (Pax Novis), Michael Mammay (Planetside series), Alyse Steves (rereading Child of Humanity), and S.Z. Atwell (Aestus series).
P.L.: Those are som amazing writers you mention. You depict a fairly bleak world, still there is an element of hope in The Calling. Do you feel that humanity is headed for the sort of future you portray in your book? Can we as a species escape that kind of fate?
Branwen: It’s always interesting to me when people refer to the world in The Calling as bleak. I personally love arctic landscapes and find them beautiful and vibrant. Perhaps you mean the underground human refuge of Northern Haven? Northern Haven is quite bleak, despite all the bright colors, murals, and holographs used to cheer up the inhabitants. If I were there, I’d be with Bleu dreaming of returning to nature and the Surface.
As far as whether or not I think we’re headed in that direction, I do think a lot of people today have completely removed themselves from interactions with nature. The vast majority of people have lost basic survival skills such as fire-making, shelter-building, foraging, hunting, farming, etc. Instead, they do these things on video games. That disconnect inspired the conversations Bleu has with his friend, Stamf, over the theoretical accuracy of the holographic hunting games they both excel at. No one any longer knows how to hunt or has even seen the animals they hunt in the games.
I’m curious to see if people blame the Earth and Nature for the upcoming climate change, as the Northern Haveners do. It seems to be such a human trait to blame rather than take responsibility for our own actions and then act accordingly to correct the situation.
I didn’t know it when I started writing The Calling, but there are several large underground complexes already built to withstand such catastrophes. In my series, the world comes together to form the SHAST (Subterranean Human Advancement of Science and Technology) Project, which is careful to include all races and ethnicities in its four havens. SHAST has definite issues, but it did try to equalize some things, which I doubt the current underground complexes concern themselves with. The current ones are run by billionaires or single country governments and are designed to look out for their own interests.
I believe there is always hope that we can become better as a species. That is, after all, where the series gets its name, Finding Humanity. While the expedition team is trying to find the other human havens, along the way they must also find their humanity or be destroyed.
P.L.: I love the fact that hope and optimism is part of your work and your viewpoint! Can you please disclose any future projects, anything you currently are working on?
Branwen: I just recently released The Chasm, the sequel to The Calling and am currently editing book three, The Ruined. There’s a new threat revealed in The Chasm in the form of another species. Sort of, lol. I’m being vague on purpose to avoid spoilers. In The Ruined, I get to delve into that threat much more and am really loving the expansion of worldbuilding and meeting the newest characters.
There are many side stories in the Finding Humanity series that I also want to make available to readers. Only one of them, The Cords That Bind, is currently published. I have several others that I’m also working on that fall between the main books in the series and aren’t required to understand the main series but give more adventures of certain characters. All these Liminal Tales, as I call them, will have decimal points in their titles. Therefore, The Cords That Bind is Book 1.1 because it falls between The Calling (Book 1) and The Chasm (Book 2).
I’ve also started drafting a sequel to my novella, Silence of the Song Trees. SOTST was always meant to be a stand alone story, but that magical planet has other ideas and keeps whispering new tales of its dimension-crossing inhabitants to me.
Basically, I’ve got a lot of books in the works. 
P.L.: Sounds exciting! Can’t wait to delve into your future works! Branwen, it has been an honour to speak to you for Six Elementals Interviews! Thank you so much!
Branwen: It’s been great to chat with you as well!
Website: www.branwenoshea.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/branwenoshea
Instagram: www.instagram.com/branwenoshea
Facebook: www.facebook.com/branwenoshea
*NOTE* All the books in the Finding Humanity series are available wherever books are sold. Silence of the Song Trees is available only on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
Find The Calling, Book 1.0 of the Finding Humanity Series here
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735998
Find The Cords That Bind, Book 1.1 of the Finding Humanity Series (A Liminal Tale) here
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09CSK4813
Find The Chasm, Book 2.0 of the Finding Humanity Series here
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QFPHQVN
Find Silence of the Song Trees here
https://amazon.com/dp/B08HY9VHYX
The post SIX ELEMENTALS AUTHOR INTERVIEW – Branwen OShea appeared first on BEFOREWEGOBLOG.
The Books That Made Me – Flight To The Lonesome Place by Alexander Key
What happens when a boy mathematical genius with a computer-like memory find himself the target of unknown murderers? Like anyone else, he runs! But Ronnie Cleveland can count the people he trusts on one finger. And that one, a strange girl named Ana Maria Rosalita, has more than enough troubles of her own.
In my younger days, I believed authors were fabulous, otherworldly creatures. How else could I explain the way they 
brought entire worlds to life on the pages of the books I read? In my nine long years of life, I’d never met one in the flesh, so it made sense to me that such exceptional people lived in glittering towers far away from the rest of us, typing their lovely words and sending their pages out on the wings of doves, all without the distraction of making their beds or finishing math homework.
I was already familiar with Alexander Key through his wonderful book Escape To Witch Mountain, so when I found Flight To The Lonesome Place in the library, I was beside myself. Little did I know I was taking my first steps into the world of speculative fiction that would later define so much of what I do. I rushed home to start reading, and was quickly engrossed in the exploits of Ronnie, a boy more brilliant than his age would suggest and the target of a mysterious organization who wanted to use him for their own nefarious purposes. He found allies in a band of odd misfits like himself, led by a headstrong girl named Ana Maria Rosalita and together, they worked to reach safety in the Lonesome Place. I read and reread that book, because I seemed to find something new every time. But no matter how often I dove into Ronnie’s story, one answer eluded me – the nature of Marlowe.
Marlowe was one of Ana Maria Rosalita’s friends, and he appeared as a disembodied voice. His corporeal form was never described. Ana Maria Rosalita claimed to know what he looked like, but she refused to say. I needed to know what he looked like. At first I thought there had to be a clue in the book. Reading the story over and over wasn’t helping, and I began to torment my parents with my musings about it. In desperation, my mother suggested I write to the author and ask.
I was stunned. I’d never even considered that solution. Remember, authors, to me, were tucked away on some magic mountain, impossible for ordinary humans to speak to. Surely a letter from a mere child would never be important enough for their eyes, yes? My ever-wise mother (who was ready to scream if I asked about Marlowe even once more) suggested I send it to the publisher, and maybe someone there might help.
Some weeks later, an envelope addressed to me arrived in the mailbox. Not only had the author seen my letter, he’d actually responded. At last, I was going to know the truth about Marlowe! It was a pleasant letter, but at the end, he said, “I’m not going to tell you about Marlowe. I’m sure in time you can work it out for yourself.”
Decades have passed since that day. For a while I was angry with Key. How could he leave me in such confusion? Why not just tell me the answer? It was only when I began writing my own books that I finally understood why he answered as he did. Key wasn’t being selfish at all. Authors are not magical beings who hide in glittering towers and weave tales out of sunbeams. They’re people with stories in their heads that they have to write them down and share. We know what we need to make our stories work, but there’s always something new to learn, if the character will reveal it.
I’m now near the age Key was when I sent my letter to him, and a member of that industry I believed was magic once upon a time. Every so often I run into a problem with one of my characters, something about them that I just don’t know. And when that happens, I think about Marlowe, and my letter, and I keep typing. Because like Mr Key told me, I have to work it out for myself.
Buy from Amazon
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September 19, 2022
#SPFBO8 semifinalist review: Thrice by Andrew Meredith
A collaborative #SPFBO8 semifinalist review of Thrice by Andrew Meredith. Review by Dan Fitzgerald and Whitney Reinhart.
Dan: Honestly, I didn’t really know what I was getting into with Thrice, but I started reading and just never stopped. This small-scale adventure featuring a needlemaker and his four-year-old charge charmed me from the first pages and never let me go. I think fantasy needs more books with personal rather than world-level conflicts, and this book absolutely delivered on that front.
Whitney: I completely agree with your last statement. Small, personal conflicts are underrepresented in fantasy which is a shame because that’s where true humanity resides in even the grandest of epic adventures.
Dan: The story begins with the main character, Jovan, beating the tar out of someone and being shackled and taken away for judgment. Jovan has been in trouble before, we soon learn, and people are already looking for him. He makes his escape with a boy named Leaf, who is like a son to him, though Jovan is not his biological father. They spend the rest of the book fleeing from one trouble or another while Leaf’s innate magical ability is revealed one encounter at a time.
Whitney: Yes! The joys of found family love and Meredith’s subtle, organic way of introducing Leaf’s magic were beautifully wrought. I appreciate not being clobbered over the head with vast and unwieldy talents. Leaf’s magic is as pure and innocent as you’d expect a four-year-old to be.
Dan: The plot itself is rather unremarkable, even repetitive at times, as they encounter one shady character after another, always second-guessing each one’s intentions, for good reason. No one is quite what they seem to be, and many have checkered pasts, but with Jovan’s grit and Leaf’s magic, as well as the help of not a few mysterious and morally gray characters, they muddle their way through from one place to another, always fleeing, always on the verge of being caught. And when they were caught, they managed to escape, again with the help of mysterious strangers.
But even as I found myself wishing for more from the plot, I couldn’t help being invested in the characters. I am a sucker for a gritty fighter who knows how to use his environment as a weapon, and Jovan’s creative, gutsy fighting style was a joy to read. He’s no saint, as the flashes we see of his past show, but whenever he errs, it’s through trying to do good, defending the innocent and the downtrodden and such. And he’s not a proper fighter, trained with swords and what-not. He’s a needlemaker, and a good one at that. And he has so much heart and so little fear. Even as he flees his pursuers, he heads straight toward the Big Bad, and his plan is—get this—to talk to him and convince him not to kill him and take the boy. This is the hero we need in our fantasy books.
Whitney: Ahh…if only more people would opt to discuss differences instead of attacking…but I digress. Jovan’s decision to confront Big Bad head on instead of counterattacking was a brilliant move and allowed for an interesting look at what makes bad guys bad.
Dan: Leaf is a charming kid, and I don’t say this lightly, as I often hate the portrayals of children in media. They too often serve a saccharin role, doling out cuteness and innocence in sickening doses. Leaf is a smart, thoughtful kid, doing his best, but he’s just a kid, and he screws up sometimes. He spends pages playing with sticks as if they’re swords, he makes little jokes, and he clings to—and protects—Jovan like a father. He’s described as wise beyond his years, and there may be spoilery reasons for that, but the author never lets us lose sight of him as a real, living, breathing child in difficult circumstances. Kudos to the author for making me like a child character, which is no easy feat. Everyone in the book is after Leaf, and the reveal as to why is a satisfying one.
Whitney: Oof. Yesss…without being spoilery, the REAL Big Bad reveal is immensely satisfying and to be honest, quite sad. You’re absolutely right in your assessment of children in fiction. Too often they are simple shells of wasted potential. Leaf is different. As the parent of a one-upon-a-time little boy, the pages of stick swords and imagined heroism rang true to childhood fantasy, and I appreciate Meredith for that.
Dan: Though I loved the characters, it’s the writing that sealed the deal for me and made this book stand out from the crowd. The descriptions are vivid and creative without being overly florid. It helped turn this otherwise typical medievalesque fantasy world into a place I could believe in. Some of my favorite moments were the descriptions of these little towns and fortresses they traveled through, like this one:
“The motte rose and the road to the main gate with it, circling to the right, though they turned in the opposite direction, following the outer wall around to where the stone bailey sat sagging on the hill like a large man stuck in his chair.”
Or this one:
“The small village of Stoneweks huddled against the quarry. The main street straddled the slag stream that none dared gather water from. Where the quarry had been bitten back becoming flat ground, new buildings had been started.”
Whitney: It was the small interactions which got me. Like this:
“Leaf yawned as he pulled on his small boots. Jovan had to correct him to put them on the right feet, and then turned the shirt Leaf had pulled on backward.”
And this one…
“Just as he closed his eyes, Leaf leapt out into the water with a splash that drenched Jovan’s head. Jovan spluttered, and then laughed as Leaf looked up, standing chest deep in the pool.”
The genuineness is just spot on.
Dan: The writing is strong and beguiling without drawing unnecessary attention to itself, which is a rare feat. If this had been an epic fantasy story, we might have become lost in endless descriptions, but Meredith gives us just enough, which is a refreshing change in a genre that sometimes gives us way too much.
My main takeaway is that I loved the characters and the writing, even when the plot felt a bit thin or repetitive at times. There’s something magical about the relationship between Jovan and Leaf, the way they are described, the way they come to life on the page, that makes Thrice an #SPFBO8 semifinalist, and the author one to watch.
Whitney: I happily second this nomination. Or should I say I “THRICE” it?
Read the #SPFBO semifinalist review of The Long Nights by Tom Mock
Buy from Amazon Add it on Goodreads
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