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AUTHOR INFORMATION: Rajdeep Paul was born and brought up in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in the eastern part of India. As a child, he was fascinated by Indian mythology especially the Mahabharata and Ramayana. He later on discovered fantasy via J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, J.M. Barrie, Lewis Carrol, Bram Stoker among others. He then studied computer science and worked as an engineer.

In 2007, he quit his job to follow his dream of film-making and then went on to make several short films, documentaries and also published a collection of novellas titled “3 on a Bed” with co-writer Sarmistha Maiti. Rajdeep currently lives in Kolkata and works as an Independent Filmmaker and writer. This is his fantasy debut.

OFFICIAL BLURB: Legends speak of a Heaven on Earth beyond the River Indus in the land of Sindhu, where gold grows on the earth and nectar flows in the waters. The search for this earthly paradise has led the clan of Aryas out of their homes in the north to take a formidable journey across the mountainous wild led by their King Varuna, the three Chiefs – Agni, Vayu and Surya – and the visionary twin priests Bhrigavangirasa, with the burning desire to possess this heaven for their own.

But in the land of Sindhu, the Dasyus rule supreme and powerful. Under the just and able reign of their high King Pasupati Sambhu and Queen Danu, the Dasyu people live in peace and prosperity, living in magnificent cities and enjoying amenities far beyond the imagination of any other contemporary civilization, thanks to the continuous scientific progress made by the Dasyu inventors called Ribhus and the brewing of the powerful Kalakuta liquid used to fuel their miraculous weapons.

The Aryas’ arrival in the Indus Valley put them in direct confrontation with seemingly invincible Dasyu race, and their only ally in this conflict are the tree-faring hedonistic race of Gandharvas who only care to make music, dance and have wanton orgies of love in drunken stupors of the intoxicating aphrodisiac known as Sura.

Riding fleet-footed horses, and armed with cunning and aggression the Aryas clash with the formidable might of the Dasyu nation to gain sovereignty over the prosperous Indus Valley and in this titanic clash between the force of a tide and the might of a mountain only one shall be the winner. But whatever be the outcome of this contest, one shall witness history in its making…

FORMAT/INFO: Davyaprithvi is 372 pages long divided over twelve numbered and titled chapters with a prologue. Narration is in the third-person via several characters. There is also a map as well as explanation chapters provided about the world and Soma. Davyaprithvi is the first volume of the Indus Valley series.

Davyaprithvi was published by Aether books in the earlier half of 2013. The cover illustration is provided by Pramod Kumar Pezheril.

ANALYSIS: Davyaprithvi is the debut book from an Indian author who also happens to share my enthusiasm for mythology and the Mahabharata. Rajdeep Paul is a friend of mine and I was very excited when he asked me to review his debut. I had warned him that I wouldn’t pull any punches and so here are my thoughts. Davyaprithvi is the first book in the Indus Valley series and promises to look at the evolution of myths. Here’s what the author writes in a preface to the story:

“Events become stories, stories become legends, and legends become myths and that’s how men are transformed into Gods and Demons through the process of telling and retelling. With every narrator enriching the same story with his or her unique experience each time the story is told and thus mythologies are formed. The Indus Valley series of novels try to trace the stories of these men and women whose feats inspired poets to weave the myths of Gods around them.”

The main story is set in the pre-historic Indian sub-continent era, before the Vedas were written (roughly five thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ). The Aryas are nomads, who are on the lookout for greener pastures after being driven out from their homes in central Asia. Their High King Varuna, who is supported by his chiefs Vayu, Agni and Surya, leads them. They however will have to contend with the Dasyus and the Gandharvas who are the current residents of the Indus Valley. The Dasyus are the native rulers of Indus Valley and a technologically advanced civilization. The Gandharvas are the third race, who are a peace-loving tribe that will be forced to choose sides in between these two warring sides.

What I loved about this story that even though it was supposedly taking place in an ancient time, there are a lot of modern ethos and geo-political concerns that are brought to the fore via this storyline. The author makes this story a multivariate one and there is a big character cast to go with it as well. The characters come in all shades; there are no classical heroes or villains but simply humans who face hardships and do extraordinary things to survive and for the benefit of their clans. In this regards, the author throws an nod to one of his heroes Joseph Campbell via his various characters. The character cast is also a diverse one and I enjoyed how the author showcased various lifestyles and philosophies through his characters.

Going on to the main plotline, the story is similar in scope to the Shiva/Neelkanth trilogy by Amish Tripathi however with many solid differences. While the former series focused on an individual and was more akin to Terry Brooks’ stories, this one focuses on many characters and nation/clans and is in the Robert Jordan-mode (this is the best analogy I can come up with for western readers). The story is spread across various characters both male and female that undergo profound changes in their social and personal lives due to the plot twists. Lastly a word about it’s pace, the book has a slightly uneven feel to it and often the tempo switches from a rapid pace to slightly sedate one and then back again.

I’m being a bit ambiguous with the plotline as I can’t reveal much without spoiling the story, however be prepared to be engulfed in a world that will feel alien (at least to those not familiar with Indian mythology) and to help the author has also given a detailed appendix that expounds lucidly about the races, the world and the societies within. This is very helpful and often I used to refer to it for help with certain points. One thing that the book doesn’t have is a character listing and this is a major drawback as many of the names sound similar and with a vast character cast, it would have been helpful to provide a character listing. Something which could be done differently in the sequel perhaps. I didn’t have any other issues with this book and I think that while this is a rough-edged debut, there’s a lot to it that makes it a good one.

CONCLUSION: Davyaprithvi by Rajdeep Paul is an interesting debut; it manages to highlight several important points about the human condition, our minds and about geo-political warfare. It’s a smart book that encapsulates mythology with philosophy while being packaged as an epic fantasy one. All in all it’s a solid gem that will have different meaning to different readers, come discover what it might mean to you.

NOTE: This review is part of A More Diverse Universe 2013 blog tour, for more information about it, read the original post over HERE. To read the other reviews of A More Diverse Universe 2013 blog tour, go HERE.

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Order Nightfall Gardens HERE

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Allen Houston grew up in Bixby, Oklahoma. He attended the University of Oklahoma, where he earned a degree in English Literature. After graduation, he lived in Indonesia and Japan for a while. Upon returning to the states, he worked as a reporter/editor at the Dallas Morning News and The New York Post. He currently works as the City Editor of Metro New York. Allen resides in Brooklyn with his family and a menagerie of animals. This is his debut.

OFFICIAL BLURB: Vain Lily Blackwood and her shy brother Silas wonder if their family will ever settle in one place long enough to lead a normal life. When a mysterious stranger in a wolf-hide cloak arrives claiming to be their uncle, they discover their parents have been hiding a secret that turns their world upside down.

The two are kidnapped and transported to Nightfall Gardens, the family’s ancestral home, a place shrouded in fog and ancient mystery, where they meet their dying grandmother and learn of an age-old curse placed on Blackwood females.

Lily must take over as protector of the house and three haunted gardens that hold mythical beasts, fairy-tale nightmares and far worse. If she doesn't, the evil trapped there will be unleashed and bring on a new dark age. While she deals with malevolent ghosts, murderous dolls and killer insects inside the house, Silas is put to work in the gardens, a hothouse of terror, where one wrong step means death.

Along the way, they search to unlock the riddle of the curse and to stop the creatures in the gardens before time runs out and the world is destroyed.

FORMAT/INFO: Nightfall Gardens is 241 pages long divided over fourteen numbered and titled chapters. Narration is in the third-person via Lily Blackwood, and Silas Blackwood. There is also an acknowledgements page. Nightfall Gardens is the first volume of the Nightfall Gardens trilogy and its sequel The Shadow Gardens was recently released.

May 10, 2013 marked the paperback and e-book publication of Nightfall Gardens and it was self-published by the author. The cover illustration is provided by Tony Roberts. 

ANALYSIS: Often it is said that never judge a book by its cover but over here that along with the blurb, was exactly what drew me to Nightfall Gardens. When the author approached us for a review, I read an excerpt and ended up asking for a review copy simply because of the intriguing narrative. Now usually I don’t review much in the YA/MG fantasy genre but with this book, I was glad to that I got to read it.

The story begins in the late seventeenth or early eighteen century (it’s never clarified) in New Amsterdam and opens up with Lily and Silas Blackwood who along with their mother and father are part of an acting troupe that travels from place to place, never setting any roots. The children are perplexed and sorely vexed at this aspect of their childhood. Soon a stranger who says he’s her uncle accosts Lily after their most recent play. Lily however is taken aback at his coarse manner and dressing however once Silas and her parents get involved, the family truth come leaking out.

Lily and Silas are the last pair of siblings for the Blackwood family and must return to their ancestral Blackwood mansion as time is running out for Lily. Thoroughly bemused at their predicament, the children soon are forced to go back and then learn more about their odd family history, odder relatives and other occupants of the mansion and lastly the deadly gardens (White, Shadow & the Labyrinth) that share the grounds around the mansion. Lily will have to take up the mantle that is bestowed upon her by birth and Silas will have to endure his station in the gardens for if they don’t learn everything then all is doomed.

This story is a nice middle grade fantasy, which deals with a family curse, Greek mythology and two siblings who get sucked into all of it. The story primarily focuses on Lily and Silas Blackwood who will have to survive Nightfall Gardens and all that it entails. I liked how the author set up the story and immediately set things into motion with the appearance of their uncle Jonquil. With a nice terrific addition of certain Greek mythology stories (and a tiny nod to Indian mythology as well), the author then paints a world that is crumbling and all rests on Blackwoods. Of course with this being a middle grade fantasy book, there are certain levels to be maintained in regards to characters, plot and the amount of creepiness laced into the story. The author does very well in making this story a scary one and his fertile imagination makes the Blackwood mansion as well as the gardens around it a very terrifying place for its inhabitants.

I loved the minutiae about the gardens (all three of them) and especially of the Blackwood family mansion, which is like a scary & twisted version of the Addams Family mansion. The storyline progresses smoothly as various characters and mysteries are unveiled and the reader is sucked deeper into the world of the Nightfall gardens. Both Lily and Silas take different routes as per their position in the family household and possibly are best suited to solve the mysteries that are prevalent in this world.

A thoroughly creepy and well-nuanced plot that ends on a solid note, Nightfall Gardens is a great MG/YA fantasy debut. For those readers who loved R.L. Stine when they were kids, might find this book very much to their liking. This was a different read for me simply because I’m not usually a reader of this genre but Allen Houston’s storytelling style and imagination have won me over and now I can’t wait to read the sequel The Shadow Gardens.

CONCLUSION: A creepy debut that manages to mix Addams family with Lemony Snicketts and provides a terrific read at the same time, Allen Houston marks himself out with Nightfall Gardens and will be sure to gain new fans as word spreads about this trilogy.

Congratulations to Sarah-Alexis Barrett, who was randomly selected to win the 10th Anniversary edition of Eragon by Christopher Paolini!!! This extremely limited Collector’s Edition was published in North America on October 22, 2013 (Knopf Books for Young Readers) and will be reviewed next week on Fantasy Book Critic.

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Order “Year Of The Demon” HERE 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Review of Daughter Of The Sword and Only A Shadow 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Review of Year Of The Demon
Read Fantasy Book Critic's interview with Steve Bein
Read Steve Bein's Guest Post on Cool Samurai Trivia

Steve Bein is an author who impressed me completely with his debut last year. He managed to combine several genres within Daughter Of The Sword and yet managed to make it unique as far as debuts go. The sequel Year Of The Demon showed further growth with characterization and past history and so Steve is back to enlighten us a bit more about his characters, the Fated Blades series and also exclusively reveals the title for the third Fated Blades volume.

Q] Welcome back to Fantasy Book Critic. Now that you are no longer a debut author, how does it feel with the release of the second volume of the Fated Blades series? 

SB: Actually, this book is another first for me—and a big one at that: it’s the first book I wrote on spec. When I signed the contract for Daughter Of The Sword, I signed a two-book deal. That meant Roc signed me for a second book that didn’t even exist. I know that happens all the time in the publishing world, but it had never happened to me. I took it as a vote of confidence in my writing, and that was enormously encouraging, coming from one of the biggest publishing houses in the industry.

Q] In Year of the Demon, the focus was primarily on only one Inazuma blade (and also a highly unusual mask) rather than all of them as was the case previously. Why this direction? And with the next book, will we get to read more of the remaining one? 

SB: I can only write what the story demands, and in this case it was the story of Glorious Victory Unsought—or rather, the continuation of that story, the beginning of which we saw in Daughter Of The Sword. In future books I’ll probably go back and see what Tiger on the Mountain has been up to, or what havoc Beautiful Singer has wrought, but those weren’t the stories that clamored for my attention in this book. We won’t see them in book three either, but that’s because we’ll follow rumors of a fourth Inazuma blade.

As for the long term, at some point I’ll have to write about some of Japan’s most tumultuous periods—the Mongols, the Onin War, the Meiji Restoration, the invasion of Korea. If Master Inazuma’s blades alter the course of destiny, then they’re certain to resurface in some of those stories. I don’t know what that future portends; I’m as curious as you are.

Q] With Year of the Demon, you introduced a new POV character, who will be coming back in the next book (hopefully). What led to her creation and is it possible to say that her story was perhaps a fabulous inversion of the Cinderella story with a cruel twist? 

SB: I hadn’t intended to write a Cinderella story, but having written it, in hindsight I couldn’t deny the similarities. Now I really like the fact that this is a dark and twisted retelling of an old story.

My Cinderella is Kaida, a young pearl diver in a village that clings to the outskirts of 15th century Japan like a barnacle. She has lost her mother, her father has remarried, and one of her new stepsisters is a sociopath. Of course no such word exists in her vocabulary—it would be centuries before the science of psychology is even invented—so all Kaida knows is that her stepsister plays wicked games and doesn’t seem to mind if someone might die before the game is over. Kaida is her newest plaything.

Her only hope is to leave her village, which is next to impossible. She lives in the back of beyond. Her people have little to trade and few outsiders to trade with. In effect, Kaida lives in a prison without walls. Cinderella would have a fairy godmother to rescue her at this point, but Kaida isn’t so lucky. I give her a bunch of ninja mercenaries to contend with instead.

Q] In our previous interview, I asked about Year Of The Demon. Continuing with that trend, can you tell us something about the third book that you recently announced? Perhaps a title or some plot hints?  

SB: The title is Disciple Of The Wind. Readers of Year Of The Demon will have some good guesses about what that foretells. In some ways it’s darker than Year Of The Demon (which, as you observed in your review for FBC, is darker than Daughter Of The Sword). But it’s always darkest before the dawn, and the dawn will come. I don’t want to say too much more than that, because it would involve spoilers for people who haven’t yet finished Year of the Demon.

Q] In this book, Daigoro goes through a whole lot of events that change a lot in his life. The way things end in Year of the Demon, I felt as if there’s more to come in his life. Any thoughts on this? 

SB: Oh, yes. Daigoro’s life will get much darker before it brightens again. I must admit he’s my favorite character to write. He’s the most fun to pick on. Maybe this sounds sadistic, but I enjoy making him suffer and watching how he reacts to that. Any time I give him something good in his life, it’s only so I can take it away.

In Disciple Of The Wind, he’ll face an enemy far more powerful than he can defeat on his own. His family is under a new and unexpected threat, and Daigoro still bears the enormous weight of bushido, the code of the samurai. He still has his father’s legacy to live up to—oh, and incidentally, we’ll get to meet his father in Disciple Of The Wind.

Q] Are there a certain number of books that you want to write in the Fated Blades series or will this be an open-ended one? 

SB: Disciple Of The Wind will be the third installment in what I’m thinking of as the Mariko trilogy. I plan to write more Fated Blades books, but not necessarily with the same cast of characters. I have other stories to tell, in other eras of Japanese history. We haven’t met Master Inazuma yet, so we don’t know how or why his swords have the power they possess.

We don’t yet know who killed Daigoro’s father; maybe that’s a story for Daigoro to tell, or maybe we’ll see it unfold through the eyes of other characters. I have something in mind for Professor Yamada, and one more loose end for Mariko to tie up, but for now my focus is on Disciple Of The Wind.

Q] Any updates in regards to your other works, that are “in the works,” namely The Hundredman’s War & The Raven Traitor: Book One of the Latterworld Wars? 

SB: I’m not actively shopping them around at this time. I want to see where the Fated Blades will take me before I start following other paths in earnest.

Q] Thank you for your time, and lastly any other advice for our readers & your fans? 

SB: First and foremost, my sincerest thanks to all of my fans. The thing I’ve enjoyed most from this journey has been contact with readers, be it by email, Facebook, or face to face at a convention or a signing. They’re picking up on elements in the books that I didn’t even see myself. That’s a wonderful thing, and something I think every author wants: for readers to take away something valuable from the book that’s uniquely theirs.

If I have any advice for readers—yours and mine—it’s to keep reading and to keep talking about what you’re reading. Word of mouth sells more books than anything else. That’s what we get instead of an advertising budget. So post links to FBC when you read something you like, and give your favorite books as birthday presents. I’m not saying my stuff; I’m saying whoever your favorites are, whoever those authors are that do something magical for you, be their advocate. Spread the good word about them. That’s what’s going to enable you to buy more books from that author in the future.

NOTE: Author picture courtesy of the author himself.

I’m always looking out for new, cool projects on Kickstarter and this one titled “Winter In The City” caught my eye. Here’s what it says on their main page: 

 "The City. Noisy, crowded, ever in motion, the City is an unrecognized character in Urban Fantasy. Much more than just a setting, the City is the ever-present constant companion to the characters in the genre. Sometimes antagonist, sometime protagonist, the city surrounds and engulfs a good Urban Fantasy yarn." 

"Winter in the City: A Collection of Urban Fantasy Tales will be a celebration of stories that take place in different cities around the world during the bleak—sometimes harsh—season of winter." 

With such an intriguing setup and my interest in urban fantasy, I asked author R.B. Wood if he could tell us about the inception of this anthology & all that it entailed. So here’s RB on Winter In The City: 

Official Author Website
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "The Spirit Thief" 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of “The Spirit Rebellion” 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of “The Spirit Eater” & “Spirit’s Oath” 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of “The Spirit War” 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of “Spirit’s End” 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of "Fortune's Pawn"
Read first Fantasy Book Critic's Interview with Rachel Aaron
Read Eli Monpress series completion interview with Rachel Aaron

I'm a big fan of Rachel Aaron and now Rachel Bach as well. She is the first author to complete a hattrick of interviews on our site & that should be a good indicator of our love for her books and for her great personality. With the Paradox trilogy, she begins a new chapter in her writer life in a new genre as well. So read ahead to know about the Paradox trilogy books, the universe featured within & some cool info about the protagonist Devi Morris...

Q] Welcome back to Fantasy Book Critic, you have completed your debut series and now have another series starting in November. Could you tell us about its inception? 

RB: Thank you for having me back again! Always such a pleasure to talk with you!

To answer your question, Fortune's Pawn was a book born out of necessity. About two years ago now, I had the itch to read some Science Fiction. I'd been reading a lot of Urban and Epic Fantasy and I really wanted something different. I also wanted to read a love story, so I set out to find myself something to scratch both the SciFi and romance itches...and promptly fell flat on my face.

You'd have thought I was asking for a freaking unicorn. I couldn't find anything that matched what I wanted, and the few titles that were close I'd either already read years ago or wasn't particularly interested in. I suppose I could have compromised and cut out the love story requirement, but I didn't want to compromise. I wanted epic Space Marine action and meaningful character development! (Preferably with a kick ass leading lady!) And if no one was going to write it for me, then I'd write it myself! *shakes fist at Amazon.com in defiance*

The result of all this righteous fury was the Paradox Trilogy, a delicious stew of everything I love in SF—Firefly style crew dynamics and humor, powered armor, Space Marines, conspiracies, aliens, gritty firefights, crazy systems of government, conflicted moral choices, one liners, the works—with a romance sprinkled on top. (And for those of you who just wrote this book off on account of the word “romance,” I don't mean that in a windswept-Fabio-on-the-cover kind of way. I mean there are people who fall in love while shooting aliens, which is a really bad time to do it, and bad times make for good stories. Just give it a shot!)

Q] Please tell us about the Paradox series and the universe within. How many volumes are planned for it? 

RB: There are three Paradox novels in total—Fortune's Pawn (Nov 5, 2013), Honor's Knight (Feb 25, 2014), and Heaven's Queen (April 22, 2014)—which together form a complete trilogy. It's really a story in three parts following Devi Morris, our intrepid, gun toting, powered armor mercenary heroine, as she tries to stay alive and make the right choices amid an ever tightening net of conspiracies.

The books take place in a universe I call “Paradox” after Devi's home planet, which is ruled by a Divine King who may or may not be actually divine. But Paradox is only a tiny portion of an enormous web of cultures, races, and planets, and (like any good space opera) a big part of the series is exploring the wide, dangerous, and occasionally wacky setting (and fighting dangerous things along the way).

But while I tried to make the books pure SF fun, there's also a deeper moral issue running through the series. The secrets of the setting are secret for a reason, and it's not always clear who's in the right and who's the real enemy. Like my Eli books, the Paradox series gets darker and more serious as the stakes get higher. It's not a spoiler to say things get very complicated as the story heats up. Devi, however, is always true to her hair trigger self, and if you like the first Paradox novel, you'll probably like the next two.

Q] Can you give us your elevator pitch for the Paradox series? 

RB: One of my early reviewers actually nailed this for me when he called Devi “Samus done right.” She's also been called “the female child of Han Solo and Bobba Fett.”

References aside, though, the Paradox books are classic Space Opera with a fast, modern feel and a totally badass female main character in powered armor. There's giant space battles, intense shootouts on alien ghost ships, and a desperate, doomed romance. Really, what more could you want?

Q] I recall in our last interview you mentioned that the POV characters often speak to you in your head like Eli. Was this the case with Devi as well? 

RB: Absolutely. Devi was the easiest part of this whole undertaking. From the moment I thought, “my main character should be a female mercenary who wears powered armor,” she was there, giving me her opinion. Sometimes characters take years to develop. Other times, the best times, they just appear. Devi was one of those, and I'm so grateful, because f there's any character in this series who needed a strong, confident, completely on character voice, it's the first person narrator.

Q] In the acknowledgments to Fortune’s Pawn, you have credited your editor Devi Pillai for this book. Can you give a peek into how she helped you mold this book into what it is currently? 

RB: The Paradox books are the most heavily edited books I've ever had. Not only were they my first try at SF, they were also my first try at romance and my first time writing first person. Suffice it to say, I made a lot of wrong turns on the journey, and the fact that these books are here at all instead of abandoned in disgust on my laptop is largely due to the efforts of Devi Pillai and Susan Barnes at Orbit as well my agent, Lindsay Ribar. The second book, Honor's Knight, was especially difficult.

The second half of the book just wasn't working, so Devi suggested I rewrite it, which I absolutely did not want to do. It wasn't that I thought the book was perfect, but I'd been working on Honor's Knight for months at this point, and I was sick to death of it. But like a good editor, Devi didn't let me slack, and the rewrite I thought I'd hate turned out being the key change that made the rest of the series fall into place.

This is what a good editor does: make you get over yourself and do what needs to be done for the good of the story. If she'd let me have my way, Fortune's Pawn would not have been half as good as it is, and Honor's Knight would have been a straight up mess. So to all those writers out there who grump at the idea of editors cramping their style, remember: these people see what you can't. Respect their job and don't reject any of their suggestions out of hand. The changes I balked at the hardest initially often ended up being the ones I liked the most once I did them. Keep an open mind and try everything at least once. You never know what will be the magic key that makes everything else fall into place.

Q] This is an incredibly funny coincidence, but besides your main character sharing her name with your editor. Devi also means goddess in almost all Indian languages. What do you think about this factoid considering who Devi is and how she acts? 

RB: True story, the very earliest version of Devi was named Devi before I got my deal at Orbit! I actually did a double take when I got my first email from editor Devi. It was like “Okay, I've officially gone insane. My character is emailing me with a book deal.”

I've actually loved the name Devi since I was a teenager, largely because of the goddess meaning. It's just such a good name for a strong, independent woman, and that was exactly what I wanted my Devi to be. It's also just a good name, short and pretty, yet also instantly recognizable on a page and easy to type, which is vital in a main character. So yeah, Devi, best name ever for both SF mercenaries and editors!

Q] You had mentioned that you wanted to write a kick-ass SF series with romance that lead to the Paradox series. I very much enjoyed the romance aspect of the story. What do you want to say to any readers that usually shy away from romance in any form? 

RB: I fully respect readers who don't enjoy Romance capital R. While I personally have a very large collection of Regency and Paranormal Romance and enjoy the genre enormously, I'll be the first to admit these sort of books are not for everyone. That said, I think rejecting a book just because it contains a love story is silly. Love isn't a genre. It's a part of the human condition, and not just for women. Men fall in love, too.

Falling in love with someone you shouldn't is one of those universal human dramas that stabs deep no matter what genre you're in. So long as your characters are people, they'll be drawn to other people, and that attraction is a very potent (and exciting!) form of conflict for an author to play with. But if you're the sort of person who rejects all that thrilling potential out of hand just because “eww, kissing,” then I don't really know what to tell you other than I hope you didn't watch Avatar or read Dune either, because those are some beautiful romances right there.

Q] I enjoyed how you made Devi’s character such an unapologetic one in regards to her choices (life, profession & sexuality). It rang very true as a mercenary that she wouldn't be a maid. Was this something that you chose specifically for Devi? 

RB: Absolutely. One of my favorite parts about Devi is that goes for what she wants 100%. She's not someone who hesitates or over thinks, and while she pays for that rashness over and over throughout the books, it's also the reason she's still alive, and why she celebrates life so thoroughly. Devi's a stone cold badass on the clock, but when she's relaxing, she's a hedonist who likes to eat, drink, and have as much fun as possible, which includes picking up and enjoying hot dudes. After all, when you might die tomorrow, you've got to enjoy today to the fullest.

It's worth noting that this sort of sexually confident aggressive behavior wouldn't even be of note in a male character. In Devi, though, it's kind of a middle finger to the way women are expected to act, and I love it. She lives hard, plays hard, and fights hard, and she makes absolutely no excuses or apologies for any of it: not for her sex life, not for her ambition, not for being talented, nothing. She just is what she is, and she enjoys the hell out of it. This was what made her so fun to write. It was very freeing to live in the head of a character so confident and comfortable with what she wants out of life and so willing to kick anyone's ass who dared to try and take that power away from her.

Q] With Fortune’s Pawn, you are changing genres from fantasy to SF. How confident are you that the fans will follow you? 

RB: I hope they will! While Fortune's Pawn is definitely different from Eli, both in terms of genre, language, and themes, the writing is still me. I think people who enjoyed my voice and characterization in Eli are going to find a lot to love in Paradox.

Q] Lastly what can you tell us about Honor’s Knight and Heaven’s Queen? What will Devi be facing in these sequels vis-à-vis her ambition and her heart? 

RB: I can't say too much without spoiling things, but Honor's Knight is a very hard book for poor Devi. She gets kicked around a lot before she finds her feet, but once she does, watch out! The final book in the trilogy, Heaven's Queen, is pretty much all climax, so I hope you're ready for a wild ride.

Q] I also loved the snazzy cover art for your books , what are your thoughts on it and the Orbit editorial team that often deliver fantastically? 

RB: They look like movie posters, don't they? The goal was to make sure the books looked modern, exciting, and character driven while still clearly saying “this is Science Fiction.” We also wanted to showcase Devi as a badass heroine without oversexualizing her or making her look like a stereotypical “chick in armor.” I think Orbit nailed it on both counts, and I love Devi's death glare on the Fortune's Pawn cover. Definitely not a lady you want to mess with! 

Q] A curious thing I noticed is that in both your series, the main characters are after a goal, Eli with his bounty number and Devi with her path to being a Devastator. Considering what happened in Eli’s story (world-wise), should we be concerned with the scale of the story here (Universe)? 

RB: The universe definitely gets larger in the later books as new information is revealed, but I think I handled the transition from character problems to world problems much more smoothly in this series than I did in Eli. Unlike The Legend of Eli Monpress, which switches between several character view points, Devi is always the center of her story, and while her goals do change somewhat based on the new information she learns, Devi herself never compromises her values or her dreams. She is true to herself, for better or worse, and she uses that resolve to turn the Universe on its head by the end of the trilogy, like a good main character should!

Q] Thank you very much for your time and for answering these myriad questions. What would like to pass on to your fans both old and new? And once this series is over, what should they look forward to? 

RB: Thank you so much for having me, and thank you to all my fans for reading my books and making my career as a writer possible! I love you all!

As for what I'm doing next, I'll actually be doing a big announcement about that after the Devi books come out! Eee! Exciting stuff! Until then, thank you everyone for reading and I really hope you'll give Fortune's Pawn a shot.

Official WAR STORIES Website
Read All about WAR STORIES and Pledge your support
Read "The Extreme Ways Of War Stories" by Andrew Liptak (guest post)
Read Jaym Gates' on what inspired her for WAR STORIES (guest post)

Nearly three weeks ago I came across the War Stories Kickstarter which was run by Andrew Liptak and Jaym Gates. The tagline was "An anthology of Military SF, exploring how warfare might affect the soldiers and civilians of tomorrow". Not only was the set up intriguing, but given the pedigree of the authors involved, this project seemed to be a very intelligent one. I was über-thrilled when Andrew and Jaym agreed to answer a few questions about this project, its inception and what it means to them. So read ahead and enjoy and please consider supporting this wonderful anthology...

Q] Thank you for this opportunity and welcome to Fantasy Book Critic. Could you tell us about the inception of this anthology and how did the both of you come together for this project? 

Andrew Liptak: Thanks for having us! Jaym and I attended ReaderCon in 2012, and had met up at the bar in an impromptu SF Signal meetup. While we were talking about anthologies, Jaym said something about wanting to do another book, and I mentioned something about wanting to do something with military science fiction. We both starting talking very quickly at each other after that, and after the convention, laid out a plan, some dream authors (most of whom were highly interested!), and started getting to work.

Jaym Gates: Pretty much what Andrew said. I'd already been pondering a military SF anthology when Andrew and I started talking, based on a conversation I'd had with my boyfriend the year before. When he expressed interest, it was just like the stars aligned, letting us work on a project we were both passionate about.

Q] Can you tell us about the lineup of stories assembled in this anthology? How did you go about parsing through the stories for the collection? 

AL: The stories that we've accepted so far are really fantastic. We knew early on that we didn't want to go with the usual sort of bug-hunt or typical military SF stories that have come after Starship Troopers, but we wanted something that was more relevant to the experiences of the last couple of decades.

JG: We're actually still accepting slush, so there are a lot of stories we're pondering, a few we still have to read, and a whole bunch more promised to us. But what we're looking for is stories that tap into the psyche of those affected by war, the things soldiers would talk about around a campfire at night, or mothers would hand down to their children. Other than that, it's a diverse, eclectic, widely-ranged set of stories already, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what we end up with.

Q] This question is for you both, what were your inspirations for this anthology? 

AL: Well, since 1989, the world has changed quite a bit: the Soviet Union collapsed, and with it, a major source of conflict in the world. Since that collapse, there’s been some radical changes in how we approach warfare and how it’s structured. It’s no longer only largely in the hands of rational national players, but unaffiliated groups not bound by boundaries. We’ve seen conflict flare up in smaller battles (think Somalia), and much larger ones (Afghanistan), which has put soldiers in very new situations.

It’s this experience that has largely defined Iraq and Afghanistan, and it’s led to an entirely new generation of veterans who are working to live with the experiences that they've gone through, as well as entire populations of civilians and the public at large. It raises questions like: how do we now cope with war? How do we fight war? How do we live when we return home? These are all important questions that I think we’re all looking for answers on, and I think that some of the stories here provide some inspiration for them.

JG: I was working on a story with a lot of military influence, and I felt out of my depth. I'm lucky enough to have a lot of military people in my life, so I cornered a Ranger and asked if he'd talk to me about it. He agreed to do so, in exchange for a bottle of Scotch (it ended up being chai, but since we're now dating, and I keep a good supply of Scotch, one might say he ended up getting an even better deal than he bargained for :)

One of the things he mentioned was that he was trying to get into fantasy and SF, but was having trouble finding fiction that he could identify with, particularly from the mental and emotional standpoint. About 0.0000002 milliseconds later, an anthology idea was born. I blame him.

Q] On your blog you mentioned these lines “Military SF is an important conduit for readers: there’s a real lack of understanding between the military and civilian worlds”. Can you elucidate on it? 

AL: There’s a growing gap between the military and civilian worlds. Fantasy author Myke Cole is a currently serving reservist, and he’s got a unique perspective on this. Since 1973, the United States has utilized an all-volunteer military, which limits the exposure that the general public has to the military lifestyle. I’m not advocating for a return to a draft, but I think that there are points where it forced a certain understanding of what military service entailed on the general public. Military families tend to cluster together, and civilians don’t tend to interact with them as much.

From my experience, I see a lot of people have opinions on how the military operates or should operate, but it’s typically an opinion without a lot of depth of knowledge behind it, with a lot of assumptions built in. The reality tends to be quite a bit different, and often, far more complicated.

JG: What Andrew said, in part. But to expand on that...we have been at war in the Middle East for twelve years now. Soldiers who went into that war young are now approaching middle age. But there's this gap between this conflict and the general first-world citizen. Unless a family member or friend is actually in the military or living in a war zone, most of us don't understand what a significant portion of the world population is going through. The closest most people get is a video game, or a news bite.

The result is that thousands of soldiers are returning to a world that has essentially moved on without them. They are expected to throw off the last few years, move back into civilian life, and forget everything they've experienced, without much support from military or civilian sectors.

And we have the highest veteran suicide rate in recorded history.

We also have immigrants with the scars of war-torn homelands still haunting them, Americans with family and homes in warzones, and, always, those who have lost a loved one to war. I know an anthology can't do much, but goddammit, if I can do a little bit to open people's eyes to the very real struggles going on in the people around us, then it's worth it.

Q] Please tell us about the stellar line-up of authors that are a part of this anthology & what was it about them that attracted you? 

AL: Right now, we’ve announced Joe Haldeman, Keith Brooke, Maurice Broaddus, Jake Kerr, Rich Larson, Yoon Ha Lee, Ken Liu, Karin Lowachee, T.C. McCarthy, Linda Nagata, Mike Sizemore, Janine Spendlove and James L. Sutter. Haldeman and Brooke's stories are both reprints, stories that tell very different viewpoints on war, and I think that they'll bookend the anthology nicely. Kerr and Sutter's stories came to me through slush on another anthology project, and fortunately, they hadn't sold them elsewhere yet. I've been a fan of Lee, Liu, and Lowachee's stories for quite some time, and I knew that they'd be able to provide an interesting and different take on warfare, which is exactly what we were hoping for. McCarthy and Nagata are both known for their military SF, Spendlove is a serving Marine and Larson, Sizemore came to us in slush, and knocked our socks off.

We've got some other authors in the pipeline that we're eager to announce another round of authors at some point in the near future. We've also opened up to slush (we're taking submissions now, through November 30th), because as many authors as we've invited to submit, there's always that one story that'll come in from nowhere and impress us.

JG: Yeah, Andrew emailed me when Larson's story came in, and was like “You've got to read this now.” That's the best part of an anthology, in my opinion: that moment when you find a voice that's new to you. Even better if it's a voice that's new to the industry. My favorite career moments are when I see my debut authors from my first anthology, Rigor Amortis, announcing these amazing sales and accomplishments. That sense of discovery is just amazing.

Q] What would you both consider essential reading in military SF? 

AL: Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Haldeman’s Forever War and Card’s Ender’s Game are the trifecta for me. They’re compelling, controversial, and interesting reads. There’s others, though. Karin Traviss’s Wess’har Wars series is astonishingly good, as well as Nancy Kress’ Probability trilogy. Adam Robert’s New Model Army, David J. Williams’ Autumn Rain trilogy and Myke Cole’s Shadow Ops series are also quite compelling.

JG: So, half of my library is in storage, and I'm awful at remembering titles on demand, but I think the most impressive MSF recently has been short stories. Lightspeed, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the Warriors anthologies have some great examples, as well as all of John Joseph Adams' Armored.

Q] So what can readers expect from this amazing collection and what should they be looking forward to according to you? 

AL: I think that we’re going to have a collection of stories that show a more modern face to warfare. I often feel as though Military SF is caught up in the 1950s and 1960s, and that this will help tell some stories that readers will find relevant today. There’s also a lot of variety to what we've accepted thus far, which I think is good in any anthology.

I’m also hoping that this will challenge some of the perceptions there are about military fiction. The sub-genre is one that’s easy to characterize, but I think that it’s also the one that can really surprise and challenge readers.

Q] Will this anthology be a one-time thing or is there a possibility for it becoming a series perhaps exploring further exploring different aspects of this sub-genre? 

AL: There’s no plan for a series at this point, as we need to get this one funded, assembled and published first! That being said, I’d be interested in seeing how this one is received by audiences. We've received over 300,000 words in submissions to date, so there’s no shortage of stories out there in this genre. We do have ideas of where to go next.

JG: Yeah, this has already been a great project. I'd love to do more.

Q] In closing, are there any last thoughts or comments you’d like to share with our readers? 

AL: I’m excited about sharing the stories that we do have. I've gotten chills from every single one that we've accepted, and I hope that our readers will as well. Support the kickstarter! We've got some cool options for backers including a limited hardcover run and some tuckerizations still available.

JG: Military SF is just like any other difficult subject: it requires sensitivity, knowledge, compassion, and an open mind. I was on a panel at Dragon Con, all about military SF. Some of the biggest authors in the industry were there. One of the questions was, “If you haven't been in the military, how do you make sure you're authentic?”

Not a single person said, “Talk to a soldier or veteran.”

But, really? Talk to a soldier or veteran if you want to write military anything. They're all around us, and the stories they have to tell are incredible. Buy them a drink, and ask them if they want to talk. Don't ask if they've ever killed someone. Ask if they have any stories to tell about the people, the training, their life after war. Don't force the issue, don't judge, just listen. You might learn something...

NOTE: Starship Troopers cover art via iO9. Andrew Liptak & Jaym Gates pictures courtesy themselves.