Brondt Kamffer's Blog, page 19

Christopher Bunn: The Hawk and His Boy

I can't say enough good things about this novel. The story is complex without becoming overwhelming, though there was the occasional chapter that seemed to come out of nowhere. However, all of this is building towards a truly epic conflict. This first volume gets the series off the ground by introducing the reader to an interesting world filled with thieves, wizards, scholars, shadow creatures, and more.

I particularly enjoyed the chapters about Jute, the "boy" of the title. While he is the...

Review: The Hawk and His Boy

I can't say enough good things about this novel. The story is complex without becoming overwhelming, though there was the occasional chapter that seemed to come out of nowhere. However, all of this is building towards a truly epic conflict. This first volume gets the series off the ground by introducing the reader to an interesting world filled with thieves, wizards, scholars, shadow creatures, and more.

I particularly enjoyed the chapters about Jute, the "boy" of the title. While he is the...

Review: The Hawk and his Boy

I can't say enough good things about this novel. The story is complex without becoming overwhelming, though there was the occasional chapter that seemed to come out of nowhere. However, all of this is building towards a truly epic conflict. This first volume gets the series off the ground by introducing the reader to an interesting world filled with thieves, wizards, scholars, shadow creatures, and more.

I particularly enjoyed the chapters about Jute, the "boy" of the title. While he is the...

Beginning of Book Three

In the midst of all the activity surrounding the release of my first novel and the editing of my second for publication, I have also begun writing the third Ossian Chronicles book this week.

The books of this series are all to be based loosely on Shakespearean plays, and the third novel (tentatively titled The Pride of Blood and Empire) is no different. It will follow many of the events in Henry V, though as with the first novel, it will also carry some parallels to English history.

As an undergraduate history major, I fell in love with the Anglo-Saxon period. "Fell in love" may be too strong a phrase for a people who were little better than the barbarian Vikings who invaded in the ninth through eleventh century, but I have for a long time made a close study of the period prior to the Norman invasion. The first novel of The Ossian Chronicles was inspired by Macbeth, but I went to the events surrounding the reign of Alfred the Great to flesh out a rather sparse plot. In much the same way, I will be relying on the events of the year 1066 to flesh out the plot for The Pride of Blood and Empire.

At this point, as the second novel in the series has not yet been published, I will withhold any detailed information about the story. Suffice it to say, whereas The Wrath of Kings and Princes takes place twenty years after Wars, Pride will take place only five years after Wrath and will once again involve King Ayern's son Cern.

Things have progressed in the kingdoms of Osland, Vistgard, Tirros, and the Nezzian Empire in the twenty-five years since Kjar Kolrig's invasion in Wars. The "blood" in the title refers to the blood of lineage and to the blood of ethnicity, as this will be a book studying the interactions of people from different nations who have been forced together by the empire of the title. Once you have read Wrath, you will understand just what empire I'm talking about (but no spoilers now!).

Suffice to say, I am excited to be kicking into third gear, as it were. I compose quickly (about 1,500 words an hour), so I currently plan to release The Pride of Blood and Empire in July. My plans thereafter are to take a break from The Ossian Chronicles to write another trilogy that has been keeping me awake at nights for eight months now. After that, some time next year I hope, I plan to return to Osland for another book or two. Watch this space…

First Weekend Sales Rank

I'm super excited and the adrenaline is coursing through my veins right now. I just checked my sales rank after biting my nails for a lack of sales in the first week, and I find my novel INSIDE the top 60 for historical fantasy! The book has been out for four days, and I can only thank my friends for re-posting like crazy on Facebook!

Thanks to anyone who bought the book during it's release weekend.

Introduction

Welcome to the website for indie fantasy writer W. Brondt Kamffer. I am glad you have taken a few moments out of your busy day to read the ramblings of a complete stranger (or your older brother, as it were).

Hopefully this blog (snobbishly titled a Journal) will be more consistent than some out there in the world, and certainly more consistent than my own pathetic attempts in the past at keeping one going. In the hopes of not disappointing, I shall begin by aiming low, and therefore I can rejoice whenever I exceed expectations! For starters, I am going to pledge to a weekly update. More would be great for all interested, but I think that anything less is just asking for people to ignore me.

Now, what is this all about? Obviously, this Journal will be a news feed for up and coming projects, publications, and…and…other things that are up and coming. Additionally, as I am an avid reader, I suppose I am perfectly within my rights to run my mouth here about books I am reading, what I like and don't like, and so on. Finally, should anyone out there take the time to review the books I write, I will be sure to post those here as well.

And that's that. Perhaps a brief introduction as to why I am publishing independently rather than going through one of the big New York houses is in order here:

I have been shopping The Wars of Gods and Men around for an agent for a few months now, and I have been getting nowhere. Agents are pretty unanimous in not quite being able to qualify its genre (apparently, people stopped combining "tragedy" with "comedy" shortly after Shakespeare died). Whether this is just a rouse on the part of agents (everyone e-pulishing these days seems to have been labeled "unclassifiable" at some time or another) or testimony to my poor summation skills in a query letter, I am not sure.

I have read a lot on various websites, Joe Konrath's blog most notably (but others too with more modest success), about the burgeoning e-book market, and I decided that at the end of the day, it makes sense to go with the way of the future rather than continue to cling to the hopes of being published traditionally. My stepdad has a wonderful saying, which I will share here: "Never plan your life by someone else's efficiency." In short, if an agent called me today and said, "Let's see the manuscript," and assuming everything was smooth sailing from that point on, it would still take about two years before the book hit store shelves. While that is the way the old system works, it's not particularly appealing for a prolific chap such as myself.

In short, the decision is not motivated out of any grudge against the "establishment," but rather by a desire to be read now, to sink or float by my own efforts and not by another's decisions, and to stop using the process as an excuse for not putting my novels out into the world.