Samantha Sabian's Blog, page 2

Dragon’s Night pre-order

“The Dragon’s Night” (kindle version) is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Order your copy now and it will be available at midnight on its release date, November 1, 2020!

The wait is almost over…

Release date November 1, 2020–available for pre-order next week

Samantha returns

To my lovely and loyal fan base:

My apologies for being MIA, from all social media, the website, the blog, etc. Like most people, 2020 has been a dumpster fire of a year for me. Between personal struggles, health issues, and professional setbacks, I’ll be frank in saying not a lot has gotten done in the past few months.

That said, I think I have leveled out from my nose-dive and am starting the slow climb back to normal, whatever that may be in this strange new world. I promise I will try harder. Hopefully, all of the technical issues regarding the website and blog have been resolved. I will slowly begin updating everything over the next few weeks.

Now onto a bit of positive and super exciting news. The cover to “The Dragon’s Night” has been finished by the fabulous Julie Bell. If you’re not familiar with Julie’s paintings, she is a world-renowned, award-winning fantasy and wildlife artist who does spectacular work. Not only is Julie an incredible artist, she is an incredible person, and she has graciously agreed to work with me on multiple projects. I have been a longtime fan of Julie, so the opportunity to work with her is like a dream come true. I will be giving you a sneak peek of the new cover before too long. I am proud of the books that are coming your way!

The Dragon’s Night

Sooo…I just wrote the final word of the next book, “The Dragon’s Night: 2nd Chronicles of Arianthem I.” (The word was “Scinterian,” in case anyone’s interested.) And I am super happy with this book.

Now begins the editing process, which hopefully won’t take too long because I put a lot of time into writing this one. One of the things I always do before setting a tome out into the wild is I go back and read everything else in the series. Consistency is really important, and I’ve learned that fan-girls and boys will find every error I make–so I try not to make any.

I will let everyone know the hard release date when I have it. That said, a little glimpse of the future. First off, beginning in December, I get to go back to writing full time, and I anticipate putting out 2-3 books a year. While I was busy with other things, my mind was still busy with this story. There are at least 6-7 books in the 2nd Chronicles, and there will definitely be a 3rd. So a lot of stories about Arianthem. Additionally, there are two other series I’ve been mentally mapping out, and would love to start writing as well.

So thank you all for your patience–I promise you this, you are going to love the 2nd Chronicles. Welcome back to Arianthem!

New Year’s Message

So, a little New Year’s message for the fans. I have spent an enormous amount of time over the holidays writing, and am very pleased with how things are going. After taking a little break (okay, a long one as far as some of you are concerned), I have a renewed love and passion for the characters which is definitely expressing itself in the story. And as I always do, I have re-read the entire series to refresh my memory and maintain the canon. While doing so, I came to an interesting conclusion: I wrote some pretty damn good books. I say “interesting,” because it felt almost “third person,” like I was appreciating someone else’s work. The time and distance made it really enjoyable for me.

So a couple of things. Before too long, I intend to release a compilation of the first eight books, probably just in digital form since that it would make for a very large, physical book. This would be in anticipation of the launch of “2nd Chronicles.” I realize many people are still just discovering the series, so this might get them all caught up at once, a kind of “binge read” if you will. So if you have friends who you think might be interested, this will be out before too long.

Finally, it was with a degree of shock that I logged on to Goodreads and discovered the enormous number of positive ratings. I am terrible at marketing (hence my biannual login to Goodreads), so to find that so many people took the time to rate my books is truly humbling. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You cannot know how much it inspired me.

Have a safe and Happy New Year, and let’s get back to Arianthem in 2018! All my best, Sam.

Yes, there will be more books

In response to the many frantic inquiries I’ve had this weekend, especially in regards to how “The Goddess of the Underworld” ended, yes, there will be more Arianthem books in the future.

The Countdown Begins

So, this time next week, many of you will be holding “The Goddess of the Underworld” in your hands, and many of you will already have read it in its entirety. I’ve been getting a lot of email from people saying they’re re-reading the series, which I highly encourage. There are so many hints along the way as to where this is going, it makes the conclusion very satisfying.

Again, I ask if you’re going to buy the book, PLEASE pre-order it on Amazon because all of those sales are attributed to a single day, which really helps the book’s rankings. Also, if you are so inclined, please review the book (in fact, all the books) on Amazon as well. It can be really simple, the star rating and something to the effect of “Loved it!” or “Very Entertaining!” (although if you did not love it or find it entertaining, then obviously don’t put that. Weirdly, however, even bad reviews sometimes help on Amazon as they count towards the total). So give the series a boost.

Finally, if you ever want to get a hold of me, I try to answer all my email, so drop me a note at samanatha@arianthem.com. I love hearing from fans!

The Goddess of the Underworld

Book 8 in The Chronicles of Arianthem is now available for pre-order on Amazon with a release date of June 24th. As I have asked of fans before, PLEASE pre-order the book because it makes a huge difference in the book’s rankings. (Also, you will get it at 12:01 AM on the day that it’s released.)

If you are one of those people who constantly re-read the series, now is the time to begin. And if you are one of those people who bought the series from Amazon Kindle (which accounts for about 95% of my sales), I would encourage you to download the books again. It’s free and will overwrite the copy you have with the latest version. I, too, re-read the books every time I get ready to put out a new one, and I keep a constant errata list of typos, grammatical errors, etc. that I find (and which drive me nuts). Which means that I just corrected everything that I found throughout the whole series. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it’s much cleaner than it was before.

Also, regarding past covers–I HAVE HEARD YOU. Trust me, I don’t like some of the earlier covers any more than you do, and I think the cover art has steadily improved as the series has progressed (and ahem, become more lucrative). It’s my goal to have some of the more egregious covers replaced by the end of the year (and please, I don’t need your input, I know which ones they are). When that’s done, you can just download them again, and the covers will be replaced. If you are one of those so unfortunate to have purchased the print edition (a sliver of my actual sales), who knows, as time goes on you may be in possession of a delightful, cheesy, campy collector’s item.

That said, I love the cover to The Goddess of the Underworld…and you guys are going to love this book.

On the question of rape

As a writer, I despise the use of rape as a “plot device.” I dislike it as a trope and I dislike it as metaphor. As a simile, I abhor it, because there’s nothing “like” rape other than rape. Which is why when someone uses the word “rape” in reference to my books, my response is…

What?

Now, as I have said before, everyone brings into a book their own values, ideas, thoughts, and experiences, so everyone will have their own interpretation of certain events. This is one of the things that makes reading so wonderful. But when others, even if it’s only a handful people, have such a radically different take on what I intended, I feel like I need to comment. This subject sent me down an interesting road of discovery and made me ask a lot of questions, which I hope I am capable of articulating and answering.

Yes, in my books, there are situations where powerful women coerce other women into having sex with them, and then they both enjoy it. One of the questions that I asked myself was, would these situations be acceptable or interesting to me if I wrote them about a man and woman? And surprisingly, the answer was no. To me, these situations would be markedly different if they happened between a man and a woman. They would become banal, stereotypical, and in some ways, even repulsive.

So this led me to a great deal more of self-reflection. Was I being hypocritical? Was I creating situations in my writing between two women that I would never create between a man and a woman?

And reflecting on these questions led me to understand something that perhaps I have not fully understood or (consciously) explored my whole life. The power and sexual dynamics between a man and a woman, and a woman and a woman, are completely different. They are just not the same.

We live in a culture (pretty much worldwide) in which sex is something men take and women give. This is perpetuated by religion, custom, mores, media, and law. A man who has multiple sexual partners is admired. A woman who has multiple sexual partners is vilified. Sex is expected of men, but discouraged of women. I once sat in a gender studies class in which a young man stated, “I don’t respect a girl who will have sex with me on the first date.” His sense of sexual entitlement was so complete that he was oblivious to the fact that he was also having sex on the first date. It never even crossed his mind.

One of the great freedoms about sexual relationships between women is that all of those unwritten rules and assumptions go away. If a woman has sex with ten men this weekend, she is a slut, (but the guys are studs). If a man has sex with ten women this weekend, he is a stud, (but all ten women are sluts). But if a woman has sex with ten women this weekend, what does that make her? A stud? A slut? Both? Neither?

And really, this ambiguity is what gives me a tremendous amount of freedom in writing my books. And it’s why it works for women, and women only. I could not simply transport men and women to Arianthem and say, “oh, these situations are okay, it’s a fantasy world,” because that would be to discount the entire bulk of history and culture that says otherwise, the ultimate literary conceit. But when the rules are not so clearly defined? That creates openings and endless possibilities.

Shame is another huge issue. Shame and sex are wretchedly intertwined, both in US culture and worldwide. And let’s face it, about 90% of that shame is dumped right on the heads of women. One of the things that I enjoyed about creating Arianthem was creating a world largely devoid of shame. These women like sex, they enjoy it, and they have as much as they can without experiencing the slightest bit of shame. Again, I don’t think I could get away with that when writing about a man and a woman because it would require too large a suspension of belief.

This thought experiment did give me one insight, because I did drag one cultural value into this fantasy world without realizing it. In Arianthem, women are still “givers” of sex, even when they’re takers. Not one of the very powerful women (e.g. Maeva, Ingrid, Hel) is satisfied with merely satisfying themselves. They are not truly empowered until they have brought their partners along for the ride.

So let me head off a few criticisms before I finish. I am not saying that women can’t be rapists. They most certainly can. They can rape men, they can rape other women, and they can be child molesters. Women are not paragons of virtue above such acts (although statistically, they are far less likely to commit them). That is not my point.

My point is, I have created a utopian world which is not constrained by traditional roles and stereotypes, one in which women have a tremendous amount of sexual freedom, are not hindered by shame, and sometimes see sex as a romantic act and other times as simply a physical release. I like to explore all the power dynamics between women, as well as seduction in all its many intriguing forms. I won’t engage in the non-apology of “I’m sorry you were offended…” But if anything in the books has triggered any type of negative reaction in you thus far–

FOR GOD’S SAKE, DON’T READ THE EIGHTH BOOK!

Update on Book VIII

I have had a couple of days of fantastic writing, and thought I would give everyone a little update. Book eight in the Chronicles of Arianthem, “The Goddess of the Underworld,” is coming along at a fabulous clip. When you write for such passionate fans, there is always the concern that they will be disappointed in the climax, but quite frankly, I think “climax” is a perfect description of this book, especially if you think of the first seven as mere foreplay.

And I will leave you with that thought for the day!

Cheers! Sam