Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 252
June 9, 2016
June 6, 2016
best month and two anecdotes
The Lord has been good to me, and I’d like to thank you all, because May 2016 was my best month so far for book sales.
This was because FROSTBORN, my self-published “traditional fantasy” series about knights and orcs and elves and battle, is still going strong.
In commemoration of that, I’d like to share two anecdotes from the days when I still dealt with traditional publishers.
Anecdote one:
A really long time ago, when DEMONSOULED was originally published, a reviewer let me know that in no uncertain terms that traditional fantasy was dead. No one, he said, wanted to read books about knights and elves and orcs and battles any longer. No, the publishers wanted subtle fantasy about surly, morally compromised antiheroes. Ambiguous fantasy, with no clear lines between good and evil, that was what the publishers wanted, and traditional fantasy was hopelessly unfashionable and out-of-date.
Anecdote two:
A long, long time ago, I submitted the book that would become THE BLACK PALADIN and THE TOMB OF BALIGANT to a publisher. Sixteen months later, I heard back with a standard form rejection letter, with a single personalized note:
“Sometimes I wish Dungeons & Dragons had never been invented.”
I don’t think they liked it. 
June 4, 2016
A short excerpt from MASK OF SPELLS
I’m on Chapter 14 of 24 of FROSTBORN: THE FALSE KING, but I’ve also been doing a little work on MASK OF SPELLS, and I got to the end of Chapter 1 yesterday.
As requested, a short excerpt from the first chapter of MASK OF SPELLS:
“Did you take a blow to the head in the cavern?” said Earnachar, puzzled. “This optimism is…surprising.”
“We’re still alive, aren’t we?” said Sigaldra again.
Earnachar started to answer, and then Mazael glanced back at them.
“For gods’ sake, all of you, shut up,” said Mazael. “You can quarrel when we’re not surrounded by murderous valgasts.”
Earnachar scowled, and Sigaldra gave him a sunny smile. “That is sound counsel, lord hrould.”
“Mmm,” said Mazael. He gave an irritated shake of his bearded head, gray eyes glinting like sword blades.
-JM
June 3, 2016
another FROSTBORN: THE FALSE KING update
12 chapters down, 12 to go. Halfway there!
-JM
June 2, 2016
NETHEREAL, by Brian Niemeier
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Mr. Niemeier was kind enough to give some of my book announcements a retweet, so I checked out his first book, NETHEREAL. I bought it in February and just finished it, which is a regrettable demonstration of my reading speed these days. Fortunately, the book was worth the wait.
Basically: Pirates Of The Caribbean meets Firefly meets Event Horizon. Also, Space Elves.
The plot revolves around Jaren Peregrine, an unscrupulous pirate captain. Jaren is half-Gen (think Space Elves), and the Gen were exterminated by the Guild, the ruthless brotherhood that maintains and violently enforces a monopoly on all interstellar travel. Jaren keeps trying to rouse a resistance against the Guild, but it never goes well.
Then, one day, Jaren and his crew receive an intriguing offer – a secret organization opposed to the Guild has constructed an experimental vessel that will provide passage to a new universe, one free of the Guild’s influence.
Unfortunately, the new universe turns out to be Hell.
Like, the actual place, Nine Circles and all. Fortunately, Hell is organized a bit like late Carolingian France, with various warlords waging endless battles against each other. If Jaren and crew want to get home, they need to play those warlords against each other…but increasingly they find themselves sucked into a plot to raise new gods to replace the old ones.
It’s a really imaginative book. It’s extremely hard to explain a constructed universe to the reader, but NETHEREAL pulls it off (it helps that there is a glossary of terms at the end of the book for quick reference). At times, I would almost say it’s too imaginative – it’s got FTL starships and lasers and swords and demons and necromancers and liches (Space Liches!) and gods and elves and starfighters and zombies (Space Zombies!) and a bunch of other things all within a 590 page book. Anyone not already familiar with SF/F tropes will have a hard time following the book, but they’re probably not the target audience anyway.
I definitely enjoyed it, and will be checking out the sequel SOULDANCER before 2016 is over.
And that scene with the walrus! You’ll know it when you get to it.
-JM
FROSTBORN: THE FALSE KING excerpt
Let’s have a short excerpt from FROSTBORN: THE FALSE KING!
Caius gazed at her for a moment.
“I…may have overreacted,” said Calliande.
“I was going to say,” said Caius, “that you and Ridmark have more in common than you think. Or he’s worn off on you. He spent all those years blaming himself for his wife’s death. It seems that you have acquired his taste for blaming yourself for things beyond your control…”
Calliande sighed. “I now understand how he felt when I lectured him about it.”
Caius laughed. “The shoe is ever uncomfortable on the other foot, is it not?”
-JM
June 1, 2016
what book was that again?
Earlier, when I posted that I was working on FROSTBORN: THE HIGH LORDS, I meant to say I was working on FROSTBORN: THE FALSE KING.
This actually happens a lot, but I have no one but myself to blame, because I’m the man who wrote (on purpose!) books entitled GHOST IN THE STORM, GHOST IN THE STONE, GHOST IN THE SURGE, and GHOST IN THE SEAL, and I get them mixed up all the time.
Like, I’ll have a question like “what book did Caina meet Kylon and Sicarion for the first time?”, and then I’ll think that it was one of the books with an S in the title. GHOST IN THE STONE? No, that doesn’t sound quite right.
Thanks heaven File Explorer in Windows searches inside Word documents!
-JM
FROSTBORN: THE FALSE KING (Frostborn #11) update
I had wanted to get to 50,000 words of FROSTBORN: THE FALSE KING by the end of May, and it looks like I actually got to 54,000. Better than expected!
11 chapters down, 13 to go.
-JM
May 31, 2016
May 28, 2016
new cover art for BLADE OF THE GHOSTS
BLADE OF THE GHOSTS is getting new cover art, courtesy of Clarissa Yeo of Yocla Designs. Images and links below:
Available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, Google Play, and Smashwords.
Eighteen years old, Caina Amalas is a novice nightfighter of the Ghosts, the spies and assassins of the Emperor of Nighmar. Skilled with stealth and disguise, Caina is the unseen agent of the Emperor, working to maintain the peace and order of the Empire.
When a scholar uncovers an ancient relic from the Empire’s distant past, he unwittingly unearths dangerous secrets.
Secrets that might destroy the Empire and kill Caina…
