Rob J. Hayes's Blog, page 16

Review Blog – Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

Holy hell this book was good!

I’ve been a fan of Mark Lawrence ever since a blogger friend of mine poked me again and again and again to pick up Prince of Thorns. And I’m glad they were so insistent. There’s something of a philosopher poet in the way Mark writes, turning a simple turn of phrase into a beautiful work of art. And in Red Sister he certainly doesn’t relent. The book is littered with gorgeous lines and thoughtful observations, all wrapped up in a relatable hero, and blood spattered ultraviolence.

Our hero of the piece is Nona Grey, a young girl about to be hanged for defending her friend. Only she is whisked away moments before death by a nun, and then inducted into the nunnery. But these aren’t normal nuns, they’re murder nuns… at least some of them are. The nuns are trained in various schools including combat, magic, mysticism, and deception. Because the best way to make nuns cool is to make them ninjas!

There is a subtle depth to the world building that is offered only in edible morsels. The people of the world have four distinct blood lines which dictate the powers they can develop. The world is fed by a dying sun, and most of the people live in a small band of habitable land around the world, surrounded by glaciers. Stuff like this makes the world feel both alive, and brutal, and gives an underlying threat to everything that is happening. The world is dying, and you KNOW that’s going to factor in somewhere along the story.

I rocketed through the book at something approaching record speed for me. It’s paced so well that there’s never a point that feels good to stop, so it’s entirely possible (and at other times necessary) to plough on and read “just one more chapter”. Some of the cliffhangers are evil! EVIL!

I tend to reserve my 5 stars for something that is truly special, and I’ll happily give Red Sister all 5 of those stars. It mixes action and drama perfectly, and gives us characters we can root for, twists that wrench the heart, and a world that I can’t wait to hear more from. And it’s all wrapped up in Mark Lawrence’s beautiful prose.

Review Blog – Prayers in Steel by Michael McClung

I read this book both in its Alpha stage, and the finished article, and I loved it both times.

We follow along behind 2 main characters. The first is pissed off princess, Anya, who is not very taken with the idea of being married off for political gain. Luckily for her she spent most of her childhood in a convent of nuns who held a number of ancient dark magic books in the library. Whether Anya was meant to read them or not… she did, and now she’s angry and armed to the teeth with magics the world hasn’t seen in a very long time. So, instead of heading off to marry Prince Charming, Anya decides to BREAK THE WORLD (caps make things important!). It’s a fairly extreme measure, but then Anya isn’t your standard Disney princess.

Our second character is Caida, a sword monk with a tragic backstory. The sword monks believe that the sword they wield is a representation (both literally and figuratively) of both their soul and their faith. Caida wields a great sword that most men would struggle to lift. There’s a metaphor somewhere around here. Caida is young and inexperienced, but the best warrior the monastery has seen in generations, and the monks in charge have a mission for him. There’s a princess needs rescuing… You can probably see where things are going from here.

The concept of Caida’s sword being his soul is a brilliant one with a lot of scope for interesting development, especially as his faith begins to waver some. McClung does an excellent job of getting across Caida’s reverence both for his sword and his faith, and regularly hints at something deeper within Caida’s heart, something he doesn’t quite know is there himself… yet.

The story is set against the backdrop of a battle that is a prelude to war, a war which Anya is trying to instigate. She’s a strong character, hiding naivety and a subtle fragility behind anger and bouts of magical ultraviolence. But McClung hints that she may be as much a pawn as a player in the very game she is trying to break.

The story is fast paced and there is always action around the corner. There’s some really imaginative ideas scattered around the place as well, including a magical book that has its own immortal bodyguard, regardless of who is in possession of the book.

It’s a fascinating read and I loved it both times I read it. But it has a couple of issues. It feels a bit rushed in some ways. The story doesn’t feel like it kicks off at a natural point and just kind of starts out of nowhere. In some ways this is good as there’s little scene setting or character development before we get to the plot, but it feels a bit off because of it. The character development also feels a bit rushed with backstories thrown in in info dumps that feel a little out of place.

Regardless of its issues, Prayers in Steel is a fantastic book full of devilish magic, high octane battles, and hints at a much grander story waiting to unfold. A well earned 4 out of 5 from me.

Confessions of a Fantasy Author – C.T. Phipps

Confession times again, children, so gather round and listen to C.T. Phipps, author of Agent G: Infiltrator, as he unloads the burdens of his authory soul. How do we judge this heretic? Is he forgiven? Or damned?

 

My first book was delayed two years in being published due to the fact I made a bad deal with Permuted Press that got purchased after it accepted my books. That left me the entire time to write sequels that people attributed to me being “prolific.”

 

I actually was delayed another year in the release of Esoterrorism and Wraith Knight with another indie press. I had intended both to being ongoing series but they were released at a criminally slow rate.

 

I spent six months trying to get my rights back from the aforementioned press for those books.

 

I wrote Esoterrorism to be my magnum opus and a series I intended to write nothing but sequels to. I ended up, due to the delays, writing a book for fun called The Rules of Supervillainy that I didn’t think would be popular. It has outsold all of my other books put together by a massive amount.

 

Permuted Press accepted every single book submitted to it during the time it was being bought out except one. That was The Rules of Supervillainy that sold 40K copies in its first year.

 

I rewrote the novel, Cthulhu Armageddon, six times before sending it for submission. The original manuscript was 120K while the final one was 80K. I pulled out 40K of crap writing from my early attempts and rewrote it repeatedly with the lessons I’d learned from other books.

 

I write in WordPad then transfer it to Word because of the superstition it makes me write faster.

 

My co-author, Michael Suttkus (II), has been my friend for almost twenty years and we started together on the old White Wolf tabletop game forums.

 

Some of the characters in my books are former tabletop game characters of mine.

 

I wrote the entirety of Straight Outta Fangton in a week while my wife was on vacation to visit Minneapolis.

 

Jim Bernheimer, who published The Rules of Supervillainy, was actually in the same writing group as me. Both of us were writing stories about snarky supervillain protagonists. His book, Confessions of a D-List Supervillain, is every bit as successful as mine but came out first.

 

In preparation for writing Agent G, I watched all of the James Bond movies back to back. I also listened to the soundtrack while writing.

 

When I thought my books would be published by Permuted Press, I was told to build a social media presence so I made a blog, twitter account, and Facebook page. I discussed reviews, games, and networked as best I could — later I would find out no one else did.

 

I only learned of the word grimdark as a non-pejorative and the list due to someone calling my book, Esoterrorism, it — and it’s not.

 

C.T Phipps is a lifelong student of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. An avid tabletop gamer, he discovered this passion led him to write and turned him into a lifelong geek. He is a regular blogger on “The United Federation of Charles” . He’s the author of The Supervillainy Saga, Cthulhu Armageddon, Straight Outta Fangton, and Esoterrorism.

“Black Technology has made murder a billion dollar industry.”

The International Refugee Society has twenty-six cybernetically enhanced “Letters,” and for the right price, they’ll eliminate anyone. They’ve given up their families and their memories for ten years of service with the promise of a life of luxury awaiting them.

Agent G is one of these “Letters,” but clues to his past are starting to emerge while he’s on a dangerous mission to infiltrate the Society’s most dangerous competitor. In the midst of all the violence, subterfuge, and deceit, he’ll need to keep his wits about him and trust sparingly. 

After all if an organization will kill for money, what would they do to keep the truth hidden?

Confessions of a Fantasy Author – J P Ashman

A new year and a fresh batch of authors willing to share their sins with you. Today, braving my confession booth is J P Ashman, author of Black Cross. Judge him harshly readers, for he brought pictures and included them in a word document rather than as separate jpegs!

I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t read novels much – if at all – between my mid-teens and my mid-twenties. I read plenty of history and mystery books full of knowledge and theories, but no novels. It was a real fictional slump for me. My only experience of fantasy in those years was on the screen – I’d even given up my love of Warhammer Fantasy to chase girls, drink alcohol, ride motorbikes and play rugby. When I started scooting around the world on holidays, I needed something to pass the time in the sky, so I picked up a novel about the Falklands war. I then picked up other modern military novels, by actual soldiers who were telling us their experiences, good and bad. My love of fantasy clearly remained, however, because it wasn’t long until I discovered R.A. Salvatore and his fabulous character Drizzt. Fantasy was back in my life in a big way, and with it came Warhammer 40K, strangely enough.

The first stories I wrote since school consisted of Warhammer 40K battle reports for my brother and friends. We’d play a game and I’d write up a report of the tabletop happenings in story form. I loved it. They loved it (so they said). I’d likely cringe now if I read them – not that I know where they are, thankfully. It wasn’t long after that I spoke to Wifey of my urge to write down the fantasy world that was stuck in my head. She told me to do it. She’s like that. Matter of fact, with a real can-do attitude. So, I did. I wrote Black Cross (very different in comparison to the current book) down on paper. It sat there for a couple of years and did nothing before I typed it up, with huge changes (still very different to today’s book). But that’s it. That’s where my writing came from. A love of fantasy and Warhammer 40K battle reports for my gaming pals.

I threw Black Cross out into the world too soon! I entered Black Cross into Mark Lawrence’s first SPFBO competition unedited, and yet it did fairly well. Four stars off Sarah at Bookwormblues.net despite the complete lack of a professional edit. In fact, she still put it through to her own group’s finals before knocking it out for that very edity reason. I’d jumped the gun. I’d been naïve. Overly excited about the world reading my imaginary world. I was gutted… and yet not gutted: Marc Aplin of Fantasy Faction congratulated me on losing through a technicality. ‘It wasn’t your characters or worldbuilding, your plot or magic. It was your lack of an editor. That can be fixed!’ he said, or something along those lines. He was right. I sought an editor immediately and never looked back.

My years without reading meant I’d missed a lot of big name authors and their popular works. Sanderson and Hobb, to name but two. I was chatting to Mark Lawrence when he mentioned there were certain big names he’d not read either. I laughed, agreed and named a few of the authors I’d never read. He said I was worse than him, because he’d read most of those I hadn’t – it was all in jest, but it was true. It’s hard. There’s so many authors and books out there and I’m lucky enough to know a lot of authors now. I want to read their old ones, their current ones and their news ones. I also want to read the works of debut authors. And I still want and need to read the big names (I’ve ticked some off, like Rothfuss). Anyway, the battle with my To Be Read list goes on and I’m trying to mix the ‘huge’ names with the ‘big’ names with the ‘more people should read this guy/gal’ names and, last but not least, the ‘new’ names. I’ll never get there, none of us will, but I’m doing my best. Check out some of 2017s debutants like R.J. Barker, Anna Stephens and Anna Smith Spark, as well as the SPFBO finalists – awesome way of finding fantastic fiction, and plenty of reviews from the excellent bloggers involved to highlight authors you’ll want to read, like Ben Galley (Rob: – Ben Galley is a previous confessor and you can check out his confession by clicking here), Dyrk Ashton etc.











I’m terrible for getting distracted. I can be ploughing through the Black Powder Wars series when an idea for a short story or some new project pops into my head. I wrote Dragonship and I’m happy that folk loved the little short. The main criticism is that it’s too short and folk want more. More! So I snatched the opportunity to start a novel following on from Dragonship (still early days with that one). I’ve also started a strange fantasy based along the pleasant banks of a river. Little furry creatures, folk riding atop various fish and the like. Pleasant. And dark, of course. Brutal combat and grotesque magic, coupled with twisted plots and betrayals. Loving writing that. My excuse is that it keeps me writing, keeps the muse flowing and will ease me back into writing Black Prince, the fourth Black Powder Wars book (Black Guild, second in the series is available for pre-order on Amazon now, whilst Black Arrow, the third book, will be released later in 2018). Make sure you mark them ‘to read’ on your Goodreads lists and sign-up for my email-based newsletters, that way you won’t miss out and you’ll get Dragonship for free too!

The Best Books of 2017

We’re coming to the end of another year. 2017 is pretty much over at this point, and I beat my reading target. I said I’d read 14 books, and I’ve hit about 20, though 6 of those I can’t talk about yet.

Confessions of a Fantasy Author – Jo Zebedee

This will be the last confession of 2017. I’ll wait while you all breathe a collective sigh of relief disappointment. But don’t worry! The authory confessions will be back in the new year, with plenty more sinners begging forgiveness. Today we have Jo Zebedee, author of Waters and the Wild, here to bare her rotten soul.

 

I write science fiction and am really bad at some aspects of science. One of my worst is getting muddled about the effects of gravity. If it’s low gravity does that mean more bone density or less? If it’s a gas planet is that more or less gravity than a smaller planet. I do get there (I have a science for dummies book, and long suffering science friends who take questions) but it can lead to interesting first drafts….

 

I once wrote a smutty flash fiction story about a nun and some waves that might have been a little more… corporeal… than water normally is. And slightly equine…. Anyhow, I didn’t mean to write a smutty story. If I had meant to, it would have been just fantastic. But I’d had a few drinks and I came up with what I considered to be masterful, posted, went to bed. I got up in the morning to comments and sniggers and … I was relatively new to the forum, so that made it worse. On the plus side – at least I made a splash!

(Rob – I think everyone should join me in a petition to get Jo to share this smutty nun story)

My other writing sin is possessive apostrophes. I really struggle with them, although I’m getting better. Also, giving some of my characters slightly Northern Irish dialect when they’re not supposed to be. Mostly my copy editor, Sam, catches them and lets me know!

 

I’m incredibly face-blind which means, essentially, I’m lucky to recognise my own mother. I used to work in a medieval castle that is a big tourist draw and we used to get quite a few celebrities through, pretty much none of whom they recognised. Which is how I came to threaten Paul McCann with his kids being asked to leave if they climbed on the cannons again….

Confessions of a Fantasy Author – Michael R. Baker

Confession time, my children. Gather round and judge the sinner. Today we have a new author willing to confess. Michael R. Baker has just released his debut novel, The Thousand Scars – book 1 of Counterbalance. Such a fresh new author can’t have that many sins, can he?

My confessions are great and probably a good example of what a mess I am on the good days! Here we go! When life gives you lemons, just say bugger off lemons and leave!

My first real stint into writing was when I was ten, and wrote a story called “Attack of the Silver Serpent” on my dad’s IBM computer. This was back in 1999…I think? Apparently it was so good it got read out in front of the entire year. All…five pages of it. I have a photo of it as well! With a green serpent on it…not silver. I have no excuse for the terrible dialogue either. (Insert Photo of the thing)

The thing!

I started creating the Counterbalance universe in secondary school, after a lot of study of ancient Rome, its wars with Carthage, the Punic Wars, and the Gallic tribes and watching a ton of the old show Time Commanders on the BBC. I ended up pissing off my English Teacher in 2004 a lot when I kept “borrowing” project books to write my battles in. From there, the world slowly began to take shape. They never got the project books back. Irony bit me on the arse though. I’ve lost those books!

 

I wrote a novel-length fan fiction of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Fandom from 2009 to 2013, based on friends I had during my days playing the card game competitively. I wasn’t very good playing it competitively but still managed regional tops to a point. The fan fiction gathered a huge fanbase online, winning awards on the forum it was published for the best fan fiction on there 3 years in a row I think. It even inspired a spinoff (A really bad spinoff). I eventually stopped writing it to work on my fantasy novel, but some elements taken from it ended up in my Counterbalance series.

 

I have been writing for six years. I still use the bloody semi-colon far too much.

 

My first attempt of Counterbalance was utterly appalling. Even by mid-2015 my naïve self-thought it was ready for publishing. It was utter balls, and I eventually scrapped the entire single behemoth it was, and split it into a series, completely remaking it from scratch. The Thousand Scars is my debut, and it is almost unrecognisable from 2015’s variant. To think a lot has changed in 2 years…

 

I have written 70,000 words of lore about the world surrounding Counterbalance. I will happily admit I know very little about the world I’m building.

 

A lot of the lore and places in Counterbalance is stuff I thought of last minute. Ask me about their lore and it will likely be me saying things as I go along. But that is the beauty of world-building!

 

It takes me too long to write a book.

 

I keep coming up with new ideas. I probably have two dozen projects in my Counterbalance universe.

 

The Counterbalance universe is an alternate version of Earth. After thousands of years of time, the world eventually forms into the world we know and “love.” That includes dinosaurs.

 

Michael R. Baker studied history at University of Sunderland, and at last he found a use for his degree. The idea for Counterbalance came off the back of an exhausting bus journey, ironically starting an even longer voyage into writing and publishing fantasy. Alongside his passion for storytelling and worldbuilding, Michael is an avid video gamer and cartographer, bringing his fantasy world and others from the mind onto paper reality. The Thousand Scars is Michael’s debut novel, and the first of the epic fantasy series.

 

Counterbalance tells the brutal story of a land in turmoil, as two desperate superpowers battle for survival in a war of terror and clashes of morality. A complex series, it involves bloody battles and sieges, vengeful necromancers, rampant mercenary companies, a young man desperately searching for a new home, and powerful conspiracies.

For good or evil, The Thousand Scars shall bleed the world… and they will save it. Or will they? The first book of the series is out now, the opening book of this epic fantasy series.

Review Blog – Thor: Ragnarok

Well I finally got around to seeing Thor: Ragnarok so I figure I’ll post a slightly late review because 1) I feel quite strongly about the film, and 2) It’s been a while since I’ve done a film review here.

This one is the latest release in the Marvel powerhouse, and the final(?) film in the current Thor franchise. And it’s fairly clear to me even from the outset they took 3 films to get it right with the IP… and then they got it a little TOO right. What we got was a lot of fun, but lacking any real depth. I loved it. And I hated it.

Thor is back, along with Loki, and Luther, and Hulk, and new comer Galadriel. And they’re all colourful as a packet of skittles… even Galadriel who is dressed almost entirely in black. The general gist is that Ragnarok (the Asguardian apocalypse) is coming… but it’s OK because Thor stops it. But then Hella, the God of Death, turns up and kicks the crap out of everyone. Thor must go on a neon coloured adventure to find new friends (because all of his old ones were brutally murdered and Thor gives no shits about anyone else), and achieve his Super Sayain form.

So to start with what I loved. Dear GODS this film was fun. There was never a dull moment, and anytime it looked like slowing down while things got heavy, the film smacks you in the face with a dose of comedy (comedy, not humour!) to get over the blues. It’s so painfully obvious that the boys and girls behind the film have learned a few lessons from Guardians of the Galaxy, because this film is pretty much GotG 3… only with Thor instead of the Guardians. At this point I think Marvel could easily separate it’s main superhero franchises from its space superhero franchises, and just give us a whole new high octane space opera. The films set in space now have SUCH a different feel from those set on earth that it’s almost impossible to marry the two… but they’re going to try with Infinity Wars. It feels bright. It feels fun. At times it feels stupid.

It had some truly awesome shots, and a soundtrack to back them up and make them sound even more epic. Thor’s Super Sayain fight scene against the faceless generic baddies towards the end was glorious to watch. Some other really cool ones such as the camera following his hammer while Thor has a fist fight. Hella dancing around and proving you can never have too many knives. I thought the actions scenes, for the most part, were great and they never really felt repetitive. The space ship battle was a bit of a different matter, but then they often are these days because we’ve seen one spaceship battle, we’ve seen them all.

Aaaaand I really quite liked the twist at the end. The more I think about it, the more I like it.

BUT, the film was definitely not without its flaws. Ragnarok is a film that never passes up the opportunity to make a joke. Even when it really should. There’s a lot of comedy in the film and often times it works. Hey, the rest of the cinema was certainly laughing a lot. But there was too much of it for my liking. Here’s the thing, Guardians of the Galaxy has a very similar type of humour, but it also knows when to be serious, when to be emotional, when to curb the jokes for a moment and be just EPIC. Ragnarok doesn’t know when to stop. It ventures in the land of spoof time and time again just to get in one last stupidly obvious joke. And it comes across as a bit vapid because of it. I think it’s saying something when the most emotional nuance we see is from Karl Urban’s bit part character as he struggles with his conscience because he’s doing what he has to to survive, even though he clearly knows it to be wrong.

Which leads me to my next big gripe. Thor is a dick. He is a manipulative, self centered arsehole. At least that’s how he comes across in this film. His best friends, people he has known for centuries, the warriors three, are murdered and he never so much as pauses to address it. He shows NO emotional empathy to Banner as he struggles over his inner war with the Hulk, and even tries to play Banner and the Hulk off against each other. He complains about Loki betraying him over and over again, and yet never shows any concern over his brother’s well being and even straight up leaves Loki to die. In fact, Loki has a greater redemption arc than Thor in the film, who just kinda wanders through it telling jokes and getting more powerful.

Lastly (I know I’m bringing up quite a few issues here) is the dialogue. At times it worked. It was fantastic to see the characters riffing off each other and the banter was strong. But at times I really wanted at least one of the characters to take things seriously. They all just traded lighthearted quips with each other all film, even when punching each other to death. It actually became a little bit boring by the end just how little shits any of the characters seemed to give about anything.

So there it is. Thor: Ragnarok is without a doubt the best of the trilogy, and one of the most fun Marvel films so far. But it needed to let a few of the jokes go. I’m giving it 7 out of 10.

Why am I using a 10 scale rating for films when I use a 5 scale for books? Blame Goodreads and Amazon.

Confessions of a Fantasy Author – Jesse Teller

Confession time once again. Another author is stepping into the booth to confess their greatest authory sins. Today we have Jesse Teller, author of Song, here to beg for forgiveness.

 

I wrote a seven hundred and seventy page monstrosity as my first book. It was terrible, and so grimdark that I once had a reader tell me: “It is good, but can we get fewer evil orgasms?”

 

I have written so many books that I can’t publish them all in a timely fashion. At my current rate of publication, the novels I have written will not all be published until 2033. At my current writing rate, I will likely not see them all published before I die.

 

I was once diagnosed as being addicted to writing. I would get the shakes and twitch when I wasn’t writing. I couldn’t sleep, eat or go out in public unless I was writing a book. I had to have my good friend come visit from five hours away to sit with me during the worst of the withdrawals.

 

When I am not writing I see my characters stalking me. I once had to ask my wife if my ranger was really standing on the side of the road trying to wave me down to get a ride back to my office. When she told me he wasn’t, I still asked if I could pick him up.

 

When I talk, my fingers move as if I am typing. When I try to make them stop, I can’t think or keep talking.

 

I once stayed up for 28 hours writing. I wrote 24,000 words. That is roughly 88 pages.

 

A reviewer once called me evil for even writing my book Chaste. She said she never wanted me to send any other books to her.

 

My first story was about a boy that rode a purple hippo to school. I was in fifth grade.

 

I have never taken notes on my work. I have it all trapped in my head, taking up space, so I can’t remember a 3-item grocery list.

 

Writing has basically driven me insane.

 

Jesse Teller fell in love with fantasy when he was five years old and played his first game of Dungeons & Dragons. The game gave him the ability to create stories and characters from a young age. He started consuming fantasy in every form and, by nine, was obsessed with the genre. As a young adult, he knew he wanted to make his life about fantasy. From exploring the relationship between man and woman, to studying the qualities of a leader or a tyrant, Jesse Teller uses his stories and settings to study real-world themes and issues.

He lives with his supportive wife, Rebekah, and his two inspiring children, Rayph and Tobin.

Some of the darkest minds in Perilisc attacked Mending Keep, releasing all its prisoners. Despite his strained relationship with the crown, Rayph Ivoryfist calls old friends to his aid in a subversive attempt to protect King Nardoc and thwart terrorist plots to ruin the Festival of Blossoms. But someone else is targeting Rayph, and even his fellow Manhunters might not be enough to save him.

December Giveaway – Draw a Pirate!

Artwork by me. It’s my masterpiece.

Yo-ho, me hearties. It’s December and Christmas is everywhere, but I’m making it a piratical holiday! So all December I’m running a competition and all you have to do to enter is send me a picture of a piratical drawing. It can be a pirate ship, a pirate flag, a treasure chest, a kraken, a stick figure in a pirate hat, pretty much anything as long as it has a vaguely piratical theme to it.

And of course the bit that everyone is bothered about… The booty! Everyone who enters will get an ebook of their choice from my published works. A random entrant will get a signed and doodled paperback copy of my fantasy caper, It Takes a Thief to Catch a Sunrise. And the grand prize, chosen by me, will receive a signed and doodled paperback copy of Where Loyalties Lie.

And entering is easy. Just doodle something piratical on a piece of paper, a napkin, the back of your hand, whatever you have nearby, and send a picture of it to robjhayes1@gmail.com I’ll post all the entrants below so everyone can view the Swashbuckling Gallery.

So get doodling and show me your pirates!

 

First entry is by Al Burke… or more accurately by Al Burke’s kid (I wasn’t provided with a name).

Next up is this masterpiece by Richard Skelton. He tells me he is very proud of the brown in particular. I like the water effects.