Seth Skorkowsky's Blog, page 6

Cover Reveal and Audible Release

This week Audible released the audio version for Hounacier. I’m very happy to say that R.C. Bray has done a spectacularjob bringing it to life.

It’s a very strange feeling getting to listen to your book for the first time. Scary. Bit exhilarating. You wonder how certain characters are going to sound or the pacing of specific scenes is going to play out. Then the worry starts to go away and you just listen. It might sound crazy, but the audiobook is the only time that I actually get to enjoy m...

The Riddle of a Good Conan Movie

Recently in an interview, Chris Morgan and Fredrik Malmberg, producers of the upcoming Legend of Conan, gave us all hintsand promises of what to expect with the long-awaited sequel. Like with many fantasy fans, the original 1982 film Conan the Barbarian is a treasured classic. And with the exception of the recent Fury Road movie, Hollywood has been more than a little disappointing with sequels and remakes.

I grew up with cheap sword and sandal movies always playing on TV, and I never really...

Interview at the RoundTable Podcast

The fine folks over at the RoundTable Podcast interviewed me for their “20 Minutes With…” series. We discuss pulp fantasy, conflict characters, Dungeons & Dragons, travel, Star Trek, and much more. I had a lot of fun talking the craft and shooting the breeze with co-hosts Dave Robison and Alasdair Stuart.

You can check the podcast HERE. Don’t be fooled by the 20 minutes name. We run for 44 minutes and I could have enjoyed chatting with them for hours longer.

Next week I’ll be back for a writi...

The 2015 Audie Awards and Other News

Last week I attended the APA’s annual Audie Award Gala. While Dämoren lost Best Paranormal to M.R. Carey’s The Girl With All the Gifts, I had a fabulous time.

I met Dämoren’s narrator R.C. Bray, who was also nominated for several other awards and did win the Audie for Andy Weir’s The Martain. R.C. will also be reading for Hounacier as well as Mountain of Daggers.

Speaking of Hounacier, Audible’s editors have selected it for their Summer Preview of their most anticipated upcoming releases. It’...

The Influence of 80s Cartoons

Recently on theReddit r/Fantasy page, a member posed a simple question,“What got you into Fantasy?”. My first thought was, “The Hobbit.” I read it when I was 12 and it opened the door for my reading of fantasy novels. Then Irealized that by the age of12 I was already a huge fantasy fan. The Hobbit was only the first true fantasy novel I’d read. So I started thinking further back, searching for what exactly was the origin point for my love of the genre.

The answer I decidedwas cartoons. While...

Review: The Devil Rides Out

While fantasy forums and websites frequentlygravitate to the newest and hottest titles, I have a serious soft spot for the classics, especially Pulp-Era fiction. Readers today havebeen able to categorizeeverything into neat micro subgenres, but there was once a period which was more like the wild west of fantasy, where anything goes, and stories were constantly forging new ground. And though authors like Lovecraft and Howard were certainly the most rememberedtrail blazers, they were hardly al...

Highlander: My Favorite Urban Fantasy

When people discuss the most influential or most genre-defining Urban Fantasies the two most common names I see are the Dresden Files and the Anita Blake series. And while both of those did forge serious ground in the Detective Noir Urban Fantasy genre, they’re by no means the first Urban Fantasies and aren’t even close to being myfavorite in the genre. That title belongs to the 1986 film Highlander.

For anyone not familiar with Highlander (which is a serious offense that I’m sure you will r...

18 Facts About Dämoren

Dämorenwas released one year ago today. In honor of the occasion, I wanted to share a few facts about it. And sinceDämoren has 18 shells, I decided on 18 facts.

**Spoilers Below**

1: Dämoren was originally planned to have been built by the Italian gun-makerBeretta. But when researching, I learnedthat Beretta didn’t do much work with revolversin the late 19th Century. It was changed to a Holland & Holland pistol, a British gun-maker. It wasn’t until after finding pictures of Joseph-Célestin Du...

Review and Interview Over at The BiblioSanctum

When I was writing Hounacier and seeing all the wonderful feedback and praise for Dämoren, I started getting a little worried that my drastic change of style for the second book was going to disappoint some readers and reviewers who might have been looking forward to something much more like Book 1.

So far, it looks likeeveryone hasbeen very happy with the change of themes for Hounacier. Mogsy at the BiblioSanctum gaveit 4-Stars. Same rating she gave Dämoren, and trust me, four stars from Mog...

The Love For Unlikely Names

A few weeks back I was lurking around on a fantasy forum and reading a post about Hounacier’s release. One commenter stated that while he liked the concept of the story, he hated the name Matt Hollis. They went on to state that Matt Hollis would be the name of a garbage man or some office worker, and that they just couldn’t believe that a badass demon hunter would have such ablasé name.

My response was a simple eye-roll without comment. Can’t please everyone, right? However, the idea that ou...