Q] Welcome to Fantasy Book Critic Lamia. To
start with, could you tell us what inspired you to be a writer in the first
place?
LNB: Thank
you for the warm welcome!
Writing was inevitable. My early childhood in Aleppo, Syria, were coloured by a
rich oral storytelling tradition. There were many power outages and almost no
television, and the grown ups entertained us with folk tales and poems. Those
stories at my grandmother's knee were where the trouble began - and even now
shape the way I write; I do love a bit of telling in a story, and not
just perpetual showing.
When I moved to England, Narnia and
the Shire and the like became the gateway to learning English. After that,
there was no going back. Later, writing became a means of mourning what I had left
behind.
Q]
Why did you choose to go the self-published route?
LNB: I
briefly queried this book and was met with one insurmountable obstacle: a
mammoth word count (for a debut). I wasn't prepared to compromise the story,
and there was no natural splitting point. I also quickly realised my day job won’t
currently allow me to meet last minute traditional publishing deadlines. And
once I got a a taste of controlling my own work and the creative process, there
was no letting go of the reins...!
Q] The artwork for The Wingspan Of Treason is beyond dazzling (to say the least). What were your main pointers for your cover artist as you both went through the process of finalizing it? What were the main things that you wished to focus on in it?
LNB: Thank
you kindly! It was actually difficult to distil a long epic down to one unified
image. I didn't want to focus on weapons or warriors for this book - which I
feared would minimise its metaphysical themes, though they're more conventional
for the genre and do inspire beautiful, dramatic art. The story follows the
metamorphosis of a repressed mapmaker and features a lot of avian mythology,
and I'm slightly obsessed with astronomical instruments ... so in the end, the
cover put itself together!
I illustrate by hand and agonised for weeks over which medium to use, in order
to achieve a result that might aspire to the ranks of the stunning digitally
produced covers that have been wowing us in recent years. I'll just say it was
the most wearying coloured pencil drawing I've done to date and I never want to
draw a circle ever again...
Q]
Let’s talk about how The Wingspan Of Treason came to fruition?
What was your inspiration for this fantasy story?
LNB: The
story began fairly organically in 2016. I had very little reading time and
craved something I wasn't finding (beyond the books I’d already read and loved
to death), so I wrote the book I wanted to read. They say write what you know,
so I did - cultures of many colours, tribalism and sectarianism, drought, war,
migration, displacement, social injustice, spirituality. Then COVID19 hit
during the early edits and writing became a much-needed escape from work.
Q]
Can you tell us more about the world that The Wingspan Of Treason is
set in? What are the curiosities (geographical, mystical, etc.) of this world?
LNB: This book is set in a world of Seven Parts, namely the Silfren Part, which is half lush, half desert (both icy and arid). The story's foundation was conceived around a strategic river dam and its many enduring, destructive impacts on land, resources, society and commerce... on everything. In Syria I learned to respect the availability of clean water and to fear regular shortages of it; this appreciation was a core building block of the story.
The book also features
clever minibeasts that humans use both as companions and for their special
(non-magical) senses, who I'm probably too fond of and who have taken over my
illustrations...! Sentience animates various physical substances of this world
in the form of “slight matter” that people have almost forgotten how to sense,
understand and harness – a forgotten science waiting to awaken.
Q]
Is The Wingspan Of Treason going to the first book of a series?
What can you reveal about your plans for the series (number of books)? Is there
a series title?
LNB: This
is the first book of a planned five. Guilty confession: I'm still grappling
with a series title. Watch this space.
Q]
Can you share something about the book that is not mentioned in the blurb and
why should fans should be excited for this new story?
LNB: The
blurb follows the central plot, but the story is a multi-POV third person web
of several narratives. The book is also full of my illustrations, which I hope
will bring some of its scenes and themes to life. A book about a mapmaker is
incomplete without maps, and maps are not merely accessories to this story -
they will grow to become as important as the characters who rely upon them.
There will many maps and much artwork to come!
Q]
For someone who has not read any of your novels, how would you describe the
type of stories that you write?
LNB: I've
tried to write character-driven narratives in fully-fledged worlds that are
still relatable despite the fantastical elements, and which really employ only
a modicum of magic - because reality is more fantastic than we often
appreciate.
Arabic is my first language and I
wrote poetry before prose, and I’ve been told these facts show in both my
fantasy and literary stories.
Q]
In closing, do you have any parting thoughts or comments you’d like to share
with our readers?
LNB: Thank
you for reading this far! THE WINGSPAN OF TREASON will hopefully be
listed for pre-orders by the end of the summer, and I would be honoured to
share it with you.
*---------------------*---------------------*-------------------*
Release date: Tuesday 3rd September 2024!
OFFICIAL
BOOK BLURB: Invelmar. A great kingdom boasting unrivalled peace and a
brutal grip over the known world. A kingdom built with blood.
Former Invelmari prince Klaus surrendered
everything to it. Now he’s fleeing a shattering betrayal and wondering why his
parents want to kill him.
Neighbouring Derinda – a once-magnificent realm
devastated by Invelmar’s damming of its mighty river – may offer Klaus a new
life mapping distant roads. But feuding Derinda makes poor refuge for a
fugitive mapmaker, and there’s no peace from his questions here. Questions
about who his real family are. Questions about the sentient particles awakening
in Derinda’s desert, intent on unearthing the devastating secret buried in its
sands…
Because this desert wind is thick with poets and
pirates, shamans and spaewives, and the answers are far worse than Klaus could
have imagined. His loyalties to his beloved home are fast unravelling, and the
desert clamours for a trial of Invelmar’s crimes. But can he separate vengeance
from justice?
Does he even want to?
TRUTH IS A KNIFE. LOYALTY’S A CAGE. NO ONE IS
INNOCENT.
6:00 AM | 
Posted by
The Reader |
Official Author Website
Buy How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying
OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Django Wexler graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with degrees in creative writing and computer science, and worked for the university in artificial intelligence research. Eventually he migrated to Microsoft in Seattle, where he now lives with two cats and a teetering mountain of books. When not writing, he wrangles computers, paints tiny soldiers, and plays games of all sorts.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: For a thousand years, Davi has been stuck in a time loop. After waking up in a fantasy world with no recollection of how she got there, she was told she was the one prophesied to defeat the Dark Lord and save the world. And Davi's tried! Over 200 times she's tried to find a way to beat him, only to inevitably end up killed and sent back to the pond where she first woke up. Tired of defeat, Davi decides to try something new: What if, instead of defeating the Dark Lord, she just becomes the Dark Lord? She knows from experience there's a gathering in two months to choose the next Dark Lord. All she needs is to show up a hoard and claim the title. How hard could that be?
Whether or not you'll like How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying can be summed up with a single question: How much do you like the movie Deadpool? There's a lot of similarities in tone between the two, including my reaction to it. Davi is vulgar, crass, and horny, reeling off quips and pop culture references at a mile a minute. It's especially egregious in the opening of the book, and was overwhelming enough I almost DNF'd the book in the prologue. After a few pages I was convinced this book wasn't going to be for me, but given how much I'd like Wexler's previous (more straightforward) works, I decided to hang on for one chapter.
And then one chapter became two and and two became four and then next thing I knew I'd finished the book in 48 hours. Because despite being riddled with humor that isn't my thing, this book was compulsively readable. To start with, it's a great premise that starts at the right moment to maximize the absurdity of the situation. When we meet Davi, she's gone through the time loop over two hundred times. She knows her way around the Kingdom and the time loop, and has long since given up on trying to break free and return to the "real world". We don't live through the early days of her realizing she's in a loop or figuring out the rules. The Davi we meet has accepted her lot in life and moves through the Kingdom completely blasé about the whole thing, deciding what she wants to do on this particular outing in the loop, and generally messing with people as her mood strikes her.
I was impressed with the ways the time loop convention was used for both comedy and tension. Early on in the story, Davi doesn't care if she dies or who she kills in the process. After all, she's just going to wake up again, everything will have reset, and she can try a new tactic. But the further Davi gets in her journey, the less comfortable she is with resetting the time loop. Will she be able to recreate the circumstances that got her this far?
And underneath all the coarse humor, there is a heart at the center of Davi. Sure, she may ruthlessly kill a bunch of people on the way to her goal but despite talking a big game about how her hoard is just her minions, she can't seem to bring herself to actually TREAT them like minions. Between that and the pacing, I ended up finding more than I expected to like in this adventure.
CONCLUSION: How to Become the Dark Lord is definitely not going to be for everyone. Between the pop culture references (everything from World of Warcraft to Is it Cake?) and the off-color humor, there are many who are going to find this grating. But there are just as many who are absolutely going to love it. I'm glad I trusted Wexler enough to ride out my rough entry into the story, because now I absolutely need to know what happens next.
Labels:
The Atrocity Engine by Tim Waggoner book review
FORMAT/INFO: A Fate Inked In Blood was published on February 27th, 2024 by Del Rey. It is 432 pages long and told in first person from Freya's point of view. It is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
FORMAT/INFO: The Element of Fire was republished in a revised form on February 27th, 2024 by Tordotcom Publishing in the omnibus The Book of Ile-Rien; the original novel was published on July 1st, 1993. It is 320 pages long and is told in third person from multiple POVs, including Thomas and Kade. It is available in paperback and ebook formats.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS:
Pre-order Dig Two Graves over HERE
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Long Way Down
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The White Gold Score
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Redemption Song
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Living End
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of A Plain-Dealing Villain
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Killing Floor Blues
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Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Double Or Nothing
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Neon Boneyard
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Locust Job
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Read Fantasy Book Critic' review of A Time For Witches
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Read Fantasy Book Critic's Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Harmony Black Series Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read Double Or Nothing Cover Reveal Mini-Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read Part I of Fantasy Book Critic's In-depth Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read Part II of Fantasy Book Critic's In-depth Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read the Wisdom's Grave Trilogy Completion Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read the 2019 And Beyond Interview with Craig Schaefer
Read the Right To The Kill Cover Reveal Q&A with Craig Schaefer
Read the Black Tie Required Cover Reveal Q&A with Craig Schaefer
Read the Charlie McCabe series interview with Craig Schaefer
Read My Sworn To The Night Cover Reveal Q&A with Craig Schaefer
Read 2020 State Of Schaefer Interview with Craig Schaefer
Buy The Hemlock Queen
FORMAT/INFO: The Hemlock Queen was published on April 9th, 2024 by Orbit Books. It is 464 pages long and told in first person from Lore's point of view. It is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Deborah Makarios was raised in the space between worlds and maintains an eccentric orbit.
She found her niche at the age of six when in short succession she read The B.F.G., her first Agatha Christie (Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?) and encountered her first P.G. Wodehouse (Something Fresh – saying “Heh! Mer!” is enough to make her laugh, decades later). Her personal motto is Tolle Et Lege – pick it up and read it – regardless of whether “it” is a Bible, a book or a jar of home-made marmalade.
She keeps her Luddite tendencies under sufficient control to allow for regular blog posts, but nothing can quash her fondness for old technologies. Her favourite phrases are “piston-filling fountain pen” and “annotated typescript.”
Her mission is to write books, plays and blog posts like cups of tea: warm, heartening and restorative. She believes in happy endings, the ultimate triumph of good over evil, and always having a clean handkerchief. It is, however, against her religious principles to believe in “normal.”
She lives among the largely unsuspecting populace of New Zealand with only two cats, and her brilliant, albeit marginally less eccentric, husband.
She can be found online at deborah.makarios.nz or Mastodon.
Publisher: Oi Makarioi (March 21, 2024) Length: 358 pages Formats: ebook
The Storm Beneath The World by Michael R. Fletcher review
When she’s not writing (or avoiding writing), Rebecca can be found traveling the country as a flight attendant, hiking with her dogs, or basking in the sun like a lizard.
But when she’s not running from fate, she can be found writing diverse fantasy romance. Or just shoveling chocolate in her maw until she passes out on the couch.
Book Review: The Weavers of the Alameda by Hadeer Elsbai
OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Hadeer Elsbai is an Egyptian-American writer and librarian. Born in New York City, she grew up being shuffled between Queens and Cairo. Hadeer studied history at Hunter College and later earned her Master’s degree in library science from Queens College, making her a CUNY alum twice over. Aside from writing, Hadeer enjoys cats, iced drinks, live theater, and studying the 19th century.
FORMAT/INFO: The Weavers of Alamaxa is the finale book of the Alamaxa Duology. It was published on March 19th, 2024 by Harper Voyager in harcover, ebook and audio formats in the U.S, and in paperback, ebook and audio by Orbit Books in the U.K.
Book review: Mushroom Blues by Adrian Gibson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ADRIAN M. GIBSON is a Canadian author, podcaster and illustrator (as well as occasional tattoo artist). He was born in Ontario, Canada, but grew up in British Columbia. He studied English Literature and has worked in music journalism, restaurants, tattoo studios, clothing stores and a bevy of odd jobs. In 2021, he created the SFF Addicts podcast, which he co-hosts with fellow author M. J. Kuhn. The two host in-depth interviews with an array of science fiction and fantasy authors, as well as writing masterclasses.
Adrian has a not-so-casual obsession with mushrooms, relishes in the vastness of nature and is a self-proclaimed “child of the mountains.” He enjoys cooking, music, video games, politics and science, as well as reading fiction and comic books. He lives in Quito, Ecuador with his wife and sons.
Publisher: The Kinoko Book Co. (March 19, 2023) Length: 398 pages Formats: ebook, audiobook, paperback
