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AUTHOR INFORMATION: Khalid Muhammad was born in the Swat valley in the Northwestern part of Pakistan but was brought up in the United States of America. Inspired by stories about Jack Ryan, Jason Bourne, James Bond, etc. Khalid choose to write about the stories in his head and that lead to the inception of his debut book Agency Rules. He currently lives in Pakistan. 

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: Celebrated as a ragtag force that defeated and broke the Soviet Union, no one predicted the Mujahideen would bring with them a plague that would spread like wildfire through Pakistan in the years to follow. When the battle-worn fighters returned with no enemy or war to fight, they turned their sights on the country that had been their creator and benefactor.

From the same battlegrounds that birthed the Mujahideen, a young Kamal Khan emerges as a different breed of warrior. Discarding his wealthy family comforts, Kamal becomes a precision sniper, an invincible commando and a clandestine operative bringing intimidation, dominance and death with him to the battlefield. Ending the plague is his prime directive.

Shrouded in political expediency, hampered by internal power struggles, international espionage and doublespeak that makes Washington’s spin doctors proud, Kamal’s mission is a nightmare of rampant militant fundamentalism that threatens to choke and take Pakistan hostage. For him, the fight is not just for freedom, but the survival of a nation. 

FORMAT/INFO: Agency Rules is 332 pages long divided over eighteen numbered chapters. Narration is in the third-person via Kamal Khan and a bunch of other characters. Agency Rules is the first book of the untitled series.

January 13, 2014 marks the paperback and e-book publication of Agency Rules and it was self-published by the author.

ANALYSIS: Agency Rules by Khalid Muhammad is a very different thriller, because primarily it focuses on Pakistan. A country, whose internal turbulence is like none other and one whose problems matter because it has a nuclear arsenal. Secondary point of differentiation is that the main protagonist is an ISI agent who is as true as they come.

The story focuses on Kamal Khan, an ISI operative who is suddenly catapulted into a strange situation within the lawless tribal areas formerly known as the Northwest frontier province and now known as Federally administered tribal areas. We meet Kamal just as he’s graduating from his military academy and is selected by his peers to join the ISI. Faced with a different post, he soon discovers that there is a terrorist group operating within their circles and infiltrates them to meet their true leaders. Soon he will be faced with answers that will terrify him but the job needs to be done.

This book intrigued me as it focused on a country that is neighbors with my birth country and shares a very complicated history. The ISI is an organization that basically rivals the CIA and is probably the only other organization that shares such a sordid reputation. The author though takes his time to establish a lot of factoids about the organization’s creation and the people who were involved with it. This aspect of the story was intriguing and will help a lot of readers who basically don't know much about the organization to get familiar with their workings.

I enjoyed how the author built the organization as well as showcased brilliantly the fragile state of Pakistan’s democracy. The author also reveals how terrible twisted the political and military machinery works hand in hand and shines a dark light on the agents that make up the ISI. The author reminded me a lot of John Le Carre in this effort, as he doesn’t make spycraft sexy. Like Mr. Cornwell’s famous pseudonym, he basically shows the unglamorous and truthful side to things that make nations work. The author however does manage to make this story not too gloomy unlike most of Le Carre’s work.

The book though does suffer from some negatives, namely that the main character isn’t very likable as are the other characters we meet. Thrillers need memorable characters, excellent plot twists and snappy pace. This story delivers on the last part but isn’t quite memorable in the first two factors. The characters are grey or black (depending on your view) and with certain authors could still be very magnificent bastards. But in this book, the author fails to make us truly care for most of the lot besides invoking sympathy for their plight being stuck in rather unfortunate conditions.

CONCLUSION: Agency Rules is a dark thriller that focuses on a country that is much maligned and manages to invoke the reader’s interest. It however doesn’t go the complete route of great thrillers and manages to be a decent read instead of being a fabulous one.

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Read the first chapter HERE
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Legend

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Marie Lu was born in China but grew up in Texas, she was born in the year which is also the title of George Orwell’s most famous book. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.A. in Political science. She has previously worked as a flash & concept art developer at Disney Interactive studios as well as the lead artist designing MMO games for Hollywood Interactive Group, Inc. She also created Fuzz academy, a children's brand featuring a host of school-attending fuzzy animals that emphasize education and environmentalism. Marie Lu has also held the art director position at Online Alchemy, a video game company.

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: Adelina Amouteru is a survivor of the blood fever. A decade ago, the deadly illness swept through her nation. Most of the infected perished, while many of the children who survived were left with strange markings. Adelina’s black hair turned silver, her lashes went pale, and now she has only a jagged scar where her left eye once was. Her cruel father believes she is a malfetto, an abomination, ruining their family’s good name and standing in the way of their fortune. But some of the fever’s survivors are rumored to possess more than just scars—they are believed to have mysterious and powerful gifts, and though their identities remain secret, they have come to be called the Young Elites.

Teren Santoro works for the king. As Leader of the Inquisition Axis, it is his job to seek out the Young Elites, to destroy them before they destroy the nation. He believes the Young Elites to be dangerous and vengeful, but it’s Teren who may possess the darkest secret of all. 

Enzo Valenciano is a member of the Dagger Society. This secret sect of Young Elites seeks out others like them before the Inquisition Axis can. But when the Daggers find Adelina, they discover someone with powers like they’ve never seen.

Adelina wants to believe Enzo is on her side, and that Teren is the true enemy. But the lives of these three will collide in unexpected ways, as each fights a very different and personal battle. But of one thing they are all certain: Adelina has abilities that shouldn’t belong in this world. A vengeful blackness in her heart. And a desire to destroy all who dare to cross her. 

FORMAT/INFO: The Young Elites is 368 pages long divided over thirty-two non-numbered, POV-titled chapters and an epilogue. Narration is in the first-person for Adelina Amouteru and in the third-person via Teren Santoro, Enzo Valenciano, and Raffaele Laurent Bessette. The Young Elites is the first book in the Young Elites series.

October 7, 2014 marks the North American Hardcover and e-book publication of The Young Elites via G.P. Putnam & sons.

ANALYSIS: This is Marie Lu’s sophomore effort after completing her debut dystopian trilogy. However with this series, she’s venturing into secondary world fantasy for the first time. The blurb for this book made me very intrigued and even though my experience with Legend wasn’t an entirely ecstatic one. I still liked her writing style and so with that I dove into this dark story.

In the lands of Kennetra, a little more than twelve years ago, a sickness akin to the plague swept through the lands and claimed many lives. However some of the afflicted survived the sickness but were physically and magically altered. They were thought to be cursed and called “Malfetto”. The main protagonist Adelina Amouteru is a sixteen year old who bears some physical scars due to the blood fever. She lost her left eye and has other scars, which mixed with her natural beauty leave her family in a very precarious position. People are ready to marry her sister Violetta but with Adelina, they only want her as a mistress. Complicating her life is her cruel father who might take up someone if they give him enough money for his failing business? After finding out that her father is seriously considering an offer, she decides to save herself by running away.

The tale however begins with Adelina in prison awaiting execution for being a Malfetto and other stuff. She recounts all that has happened which lead to her being in a damp, dank cell. Things however don’t quite go with the executioner’s plan as Adelina is introduced to the other POV characters Teren, Enzo and Raffaele. Enzo and Raffaele are part of the Dagger group who are young elites who are using their skills against the Inquisitors & the royalty who have decreed all malfettos as abominations. Teren is the head inquisitor tasked by the queen to seek out and destroy the daggers. That’s where the plot really kicks in as there are plot twists and betrayals that will tease the reader all the way till the stunning epilogue. 

Firstly for all new readers, I must warn that this is a dark story aimed at the young adult crowd and so it must be judged as a YA book. The story opens with quite a twist and then continues on with its express pace on to its twisted end. The best parts of this story are the characters, beginning with Adelina, Enzo, Rafaella and the rest. Even though Adelina is a person who has been getting the short end of the stick from almost everyone she has met or meets. She is slowly and surely melded in to a person who learns only to hate but kudos to the author she still manages to make her very sympathetic. I enjoyed this aspect of the story as this is the author’s attempt at writing a Darth Vader origin story and she manages to pull it off well.

Going to the rest of the cast, while the focus isn’t quite as strong on them. The author manages to give Enzo, Teren and Rafaelle enough distinct personalities so that don’t seem caricaturish (atleast not entirely). There are some moments of caricaturish behavior but they don’t detract a whole lot. The plot twists also help in making the story an enjoyable one but considering that this a YA story, some of them are predictable. The world-building details a world similar to Italy of the middle ages, however it isn’t quite deep enough. The author passes on details and factoids about the world within but from a world-building junkie POV, this isn’t a grade A effort.

Ultimately as far as YA stories go, this is a fun take on the “dark lord in the making” storyline. Kudos to the author for taking a chance on a different genre and not continuing in the dystopian vein which she started with. This sophomore series effort is a dark, twisted story that showcases the author’s skills and is definitely an upswing from her debut effort. 

CONCLUSION: The Young Elites is a dark tale of a female Darth Vader in the making. Marie Lu weaves a tight plot with some twists that will have the readers turning pages while sympathizing for Adelina inspite of the role she will grow into. An entertaining read that will wow the YA crowd and gain the author newer fans. 

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Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Whitefire Crossing
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Tainted City
Read Fantasy Book Critic's multi-author interview with Courtney Schafer

At Fantasy Book Critic, Robert and myself are big fans of Courtney Schafer and her Shattered Sigil series. The first two books: The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City were sumptuous reads and were both strong candidates in the best of 2011 & best of 2012 lists. We are mightily indebted to Courtney for giving us the golden opportunity to host this cover & blurb reveal of the final book in the Shattered Sigil trilogy. The cover art (above) is by series regular David Palumbo & the cover design is provided by Martha Wade.

Here’s what The Labyrinth Of Flame is going to be about:

Dev's never been a man afraid of a challenge. Not only has he kept his vow to his dead mentor, rescuing a child in the face of impossible odds, but he's freed his mage friend Kiran from both the sadistic master who seeks to enslave him and the foreign Council that wants to kill him. 

But Kiran's master Ruslan is planning a brutal revenge, one that will raze an entire country to blood and ashes. Kiran is the key to stopping Ruslan; yet Kiran is dying by inches, victim of the Alathian Council's attempt to chain him. Worse yet, Dev and Kiran have drawn the attention of demons from the darkest of ancient legends. Demons whose power Dev knows is all too real, and that he has every reason to fear. 

A fear that grows, as he and Kiran struggle to outmaneuver Ruslan and uncover the secrets locked in Kiran's forgotten childhood. For the demons are playing their own deadly game - and the price of survival may be too terrible to bear.

Authors often discuss writing with the same weariness that we’d discuss any job. Let’s be realistic and admit that writing really is work. Authors need to set deadlines. Achieve goals. We have to glue ourselves to the chair even if it’s sunny outside/there’s a good rerun of something on TV/we don’t wanna. And sometimes we really don’t wanna.

True authors persevere. If we only write when the muse strikes, then perhaps we’d only be writing a few weeks of the year. The rest of the time we show up, work, create, and try to love every difficult, bloody second of it. And quite honestly, most of us do. There’s a masochistic side to writers. We’re a hardy bunch. We isolate ourselves and create worlds that don’t exist. We turn down movies and other things we want to do in order to slave over a manuscript and then send it to people who pick it apart and tell us everything wrong with it. We’re tough. We like challenges. We’re scrappy.

And then something magical happens, and we write pieces with pure joy.

Pretty Little Dead Girls: A Novel of Murder and Whimsy was this waterfall of happiness for me. I sat down to write a sequel to a novel, which would have been the responsible thing to do. But I had this one line in my head. “Bryony Adams was the type of girl who got murdered.”

What was this? This had nothing to do with my sequel! This was something different entirely! Why, that simply won’t do! I need to be professional. I need to stick with the plan, Stan. But this Bryony. Who is she? Why was she the type of girl who was murdered?

I needed to find out. I set my other project aside and dove into this new, exciting story with nothing more than that opening line. Bryony, her friends, the vengeful desert…they were all new. Intriguing to me. They took my breath away.

I loved them! Loved the characters and their simple goodness. Loved the way they spoke. They loved with their whole hearts. They were, for the most part, guileless. They exemplified the best of humanity. I cherished Bryony’s drive. Chad’s almost baffled devotion. I love the flowers that begged her to run, the celestial bodies that chattered to our mysterious star girl. I couldn’t get enough of the story, quite literally.

I wrote every spare moment. I dreamed of Bryony’s desert at night. After Thanksgiving dinner while everybody else conversed, I crept away and wrote more. This entire novel was written in three weeks.

Three weeks.

My soul was on fire. I had stardust in my eyes. I wrote with an urgency powered not by self-imposed deadlines or contracts, but with a joy that was completely unmatched. I finished this book feeling transformed. Cleansed in a way. I’ve never had that experience before or since. Every second was special. When I think of this book, I think of the pleasure that went into it. It was like an open conduit to the stars. A channel of pure joy. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written, and this is why.

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Read The Nocturnal Library's review of Pretty Little Dead Girls

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Mercedes M. Yardley has two broken laptops, three kids, a husband and no time to write, although she tries her very best. She likes to write stories. She likes to write poems. She likes to write essays and sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they aren’t. She is the author of Beautiful Sorrows, Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love, and Nameless: The Darkness Comes, which is the first book of what she is calling The Bone Angel Trilogy.

Want to a win a gorgeous hardcover edition of this lovely book, and a voodoo doll made by Mercedes herself as well as other goodies then enter the giveaway Rafflecopter giveaway.

NOTE: Bryony Star Girl art courtesy of Orion Zangara.

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Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Mr. Shivers
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of City Of Stairs

Robert Jackson Bennett is a writer who has made it extremely hard for reviewers and readers to pin his books down in any single genre. Readers though have lots to rejoice with the release of his books in the past few years as they all have been terrific to say the least. With his newest release City Of Stairs, he has gone on to write a book that is easily the one of the three best titles we have seen this year. Robert was kind enough to talk about the world and characters in City Of Stairs as well as his wacky twitter account. Read ahead and enjoy...

Q) Welcome to Fantasy Book Critic, thank you for joining us. How would you describe your writing style and which book of yours would you recommend readers start with? 

RJB: I would say that I write novels set in worlds where reality is somewhat soft, where there’s a great deal happening beyond the boundaries of conventional existence. Sometimes these function more like fantasies (The Troupe), and sometimes they function more like science fiction (American Elsewhere), but that’s what they are at their heart.

Q) You have in your previous works focused on various aspects of American life but then you also added some strange twists to them. What was your fascination with such aspects (Military-Industrial complex, Vaudeville, small town suburbia) of America? 

RJB: I suppose it’s because America is so vociferously rigorous about re-imagining itself in various forms and fantasies, with each era and facet about its own origins overloaded with stories, nuance, and symbols. Untangling and uprooting these elements is something of a hobby of mine.

Q) Talking about American Elsewhere, I loved the amalgamation of SF and the post-cold war era science race. What was the inception for its plot? 

RJB: It was actually an idea that eventually became City of Stairs. I was thinking of a city visited by a woman where all the residents were secretly gods. It was originally going to be this gothic, 1920’s affair, but I found I was bored with the “secret gods” idea in this regard, so it slowly morphed into Lovecraftian horrors. Lovecraft is really tied up with early 20th Century science, but it hadn't been paired up with mid-Century, golden-era sci-fi all that much, or so it seemed.

Q) Moving onto City Of Stairs, this is your first post-secondary fantasy world. Why did you wait to write about secondary fantasy so long? 

RJB: I didn't quite have a good enough idea to write about. I have to like the world enough for me to hang around in it for two to five years of my life or however long, and none of the ideas I had before this seemed worth it.

Q) In City Of Stairs, the naming convention seems to have a strong Indian & Russian bent to them. Was this a purposeful move on your part? 

RJB: A bit. The idea was inspired by a novel by Alan Furst, Dark Star, which is a WWII spy novel but the spy is a Soviet, operating in Eastern Europe. It was an interesting perspective that I rarely saw. I was thinking about setting a story in this region, this densely balkanized, patriarchal old world, and I thought it’d be very hard to be a diplomat in this region. I wondered which sort of person would clash the most in this place, and my immediately went to a Southeast Asian woman.

Q) Talking about the characters within your newest work, the protagonist Shara Komayd is a very fascinating character. Her past is shrouded with youthful mistakes but she now has gained experience & no longer sees the world with stark good-bad clarity. How did you approach writing about her? 

RJB: Shara was initially quite hard to write, because she is, like most spies, very withdrawn. She’s been burned before, she’s made mistakes, so she’s very careful not to let anything unintentional peek through. So this was difficult to write, in that on the surface she’s extraordinarily taciturn and doesn't let people in.

Except with her passion – history. History, I found, was the easiest way to get inside of Shara and see what made her tick.

Q) With regards to Saypur and its citizens, we are not given much of a glimpse into the island. Can you talk to us and describe what it is like? 

RJB: It’s extremely large, with northern coastline with many islands, very wet, very fertile, and very resource abundant. It’s also extremely modern, as all of its cities have been developed only in the past 50 years or so. In other words, it’s the opposite of the Continent in every way.

Q) Your book deals with some pretty heavy effects of history (or its denial), & colonialism. You also did a reverse with the brown folks subjugating the white people. Can you tell why you chose to go this way? 

RJB: There’s an ongoing issue with schoolbooks in Texas right now, in that our history textbooks have been heavily edited to make sure they’re presenting history in the “right way.” Often people don’t even bother to pretend that this isn't a nakedly political act. But people will always worry about history. They will worry that reality may claim that they are not important, that they are wrong, that the future might not go their way, so they wish to override it. It’s an impulse that is vain in both meanings of the word.

Q) This book is basically about science versus magic. Bulikov’s magical past versus Saypur’s technological advances. What truly is at stake as per your thinking? 

RJB: It’s not quite about that, though – it’s about the past versus the present. Almost no one controls the Continent’s magic – those who claim to often do so at their peril. And neither the Saypuri forces nor the Continental ones are particularly in the right – both are trying to force reality to bend to their wishes, either through laws or through miracles. What’s at stake is Shara’s heart – will she continue to enforce Saypur’s policies, or will she strike out on her own?

Q) Previously your book The Company Man came close to this style of noir wherein the protagonist ventured into a new environment, which is partly fascinating and partly hostile. Besides the magic component, which do you feel was the tougher environment for the protagonists? 

RJB: Probably the one in The Company Man. That city was wholly built and controlled by people with their own agenda, and it’s gamed in such a way that denying that agenda is almost impossible.

Bulikov, after the Blink, has no agenda. It’s structurally insane, and hazardous to everyone.

Q) What can you tell us about City Of Blades? What will be its plot focusing on? Will there be newer POV characters introduced? 

RJB: As I’m writing it, it’s Mulaghesh and Sigrud in the polis that once belonged to the Divinity of war and death, searching for a missing Ministry agent and trying not to interfere in one of the great construction projects intended to bring aid to the Continent. They’re two soldiers and killers in their own right, and both they and Saypur itself are wondering if they can change and move beyond their pasts.

Q) How many books do you plan to write in this series? Is there a title for it, I refereed to it as the Divinities series in my review as I haven’t found any official one so far. 

RJB: I’m not sure yet, to be honest. It could go in a lot of directions. I believe we’re considering calling it “The Continental Saga.” I’ll have to let you know!

Q) What are your thoughts on the current state of fantasy fiction, and what is fantasy to you? 

RJB: I don’t have much, I’m afraid. Sam Sykes made a very good point, though, in that we tend to ask what influenced a book or what other, highly regarded books it’s like, rather than what the book itself is actually about. That suggests how extraordinarily rigid our expectations are, in that the only way we can approach new fiction is by asking if it’s like what came before. If this is true, then it offers far less flexibility than I think a healthy genre needs.

Q) In many articles, you have mentioned how Alan Furst’s Dark Star and The Third Man were so instrumental in shaping the narrative focus of your story? What are your thoughts about recent TV series like Americans, Homeland that focus on such similar subjects but in America? 

RJB: I haven’t seen Homeland, but I do love The Americans. Spy stories, despite the Bond pyrotechnics, are intensely introspective stories, maybe the only action-packed introspective stories out there. The main driving force behind spy stories is doubt, so it’s immensely fruitful to point that doubt in new directions: be it a marriage, or a government or a faith.

Q) Your twitter account often seems to run in a very wacky manner. Can you say what’s your reasoning behind your goofy & sometimes NSFW tweets? 

RJB: There’s an idea in people’s heads that if they get to know me, personally, then that will somehow make your experience of my novels better. As if a personal relationship with me, perceived or real, will give people some desperately needed context.

I don’t believe this is true, and I often delight in denying people that connection online, providing an online persona that is wholly ridiculous.

NOTE: Author picture courtesy of the author himself.

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Read the Qwillery interview with Lauren Oliver

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Lauren Oliver, is the pen name adopted by Laura Schechter, a young author who has already seen considerable success with her youth-oriented novels, most notably the YA Delirium trilogy. Her latest YA novel, Panic, was released in March, 2014. Rooms is her first novel for adults. Oliver’s parents are both literature professors. Her father is Harold Schechter, who has written many books on true-crime and American popular culture. She currently lives in Brooklyn.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: "We’ve nested in the walls like bacteria. We’ve taken over the house, its insulation and its plumbing–we’ve made it our own. Or maybe it’s life that is the infection: a feverish dream, a hallucination of feelings. Death is purification, a cleansing, a cure."

If death ever takes a holiday I expect he might vacation in Coral River, the upstate New York locale where Richard Walker lives…well…lived. Richard’s recent passing is what has brought the Walker family back together for a spell. A funeral, a burial, a will-reading, and a chance to go over some of the events, the challenges, the hopes and disappointments, the failings of their lives.

Ex-wife Caroline tries to lubricate the process with a steady ingestion of alcohol. Their children are not faring much better. Twenty-something single-mother Minna has a taste for spirits as well. Failure and desperation to fill the emptiness inside will do that. Even the introduction of cosmetic surgery and various prescription meds seem unable to fill that void. Trenton is Richard and Caroline’s teenage son, and he has issues. He barely survived a car crash that left him feeling even more of an outsider than he already was. Trenton sees things that the rest of us cannot, actual holes in the fabric of reality. He wonders if he might be better off dead. Of course some of the household residents already are.

Sandra, whose gray matter once decorated a wall, and Alice, an abused wife who has also contributed to the body count of the house, have made the place their own, or is it the other way round? These golden girls are not necessarily precious. In addition to remembering their lives and observing the Walkers, they squabble and tell lies. And while they may not be able to exactly tote luggage or dig ditches, it is possible for them to effect small acts in the living world, pushing this, bursting that. Having some unresolved issues keeps them from being able to open a doorway to a less geographically restricted existence. Reports of missing children also figure in, from decades past and right now. There are plenty of secrets to be delved into here. Such as just how did Sandra and Alice die? What happened to the missing girls? Who is that new girl ghost who just showed up? And who is Minna banging now?

This is not a scary ghost story sort of tale. No spectres coming to take over anyone’s body. More Topper than The Evil Dead, although not a comedy. A bit of spookery goes on, but there are two elements here that seem dominant, mystery and sadness. In a way, I was reminded of Agatha Christie, as the author presents readers with a sequence of mysteries to be solved, offering clues here and there, hints, red herrings, the usual tools of that trade. While the ghosts may not be scary, their stories and the stories of the living as well are intensely haunting. Choices, mistakes, regrets, the impact of the past echoes in the present, for both the dead and the living.

Oliver organizes her story into eleven parts, representing diverse rooms in the house. The tales told connect with each room in turn. Rooms features an ensemble cast. Oliver’s characters are well-drawn and very human. It is hard not to sympathize with Alice or relate to Trenton. And it is possible to understand why some of the others behave the way they do, given what we learn of their histories.

There is a lot here about identity, being oneself or wanting to be someone, or something else, to have some other life, and coping with other people’s masks:

"It was unfair that people could pretend to be one thing when they were really something else. That they would get you on their side and then do nothing but fail, and fail, and fail again. People should come with warnings, like cigarette packs: involvement would kill you over time."

There is also a lot about being trapped whether as a child in a abusive household, a woman in an abusive marriage, a teen in what seems a dead-end existence, or a ghost in an empty house. There are some moments of humor, although none of the LOL variety, but dollops of charm do seep through the walls from time to time.

CONCLUSION: In short, Rooms is a fun, engaging and fast read. There is real content in the very believable characters’ attempts to make sense of their lives. While this spirited entry into the adult novel category is not the sort of ghost tale that will cause anyone to leave on the lights at night, there is considerable material here that is indeed quite haunting.

NOTE: This review was previously posted on Will's blog. Topper movie still courtesy of Vanessa Campos. Author picture courtesy of the author.

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California Bones Website
Order California Bones HERE 
Read You Are The Magic You Eat by Greg Van Eekhout (Guest Post)
Watch John Scalzi interview Greg Van Eekhout about the book & its locations

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: “Psst! We’re planning a heist on the Ossuary, a vault of priceless dinosaur and dragon bones pulsing with magic. You in or you out?”

“You had me at ‘Ossuary.’”

Nibble on kraken cartilage and possess the power of the typhoon. Gnaw on mastodon knuckles and gain gargantuan strength. Crunch on the porous wing bones of a griffin and leap into the air. Regenerate your dying friend with powdered hydra. Open secret ways with sphinx-tooth lock picks. A fossilized banquet of magic has bubbled up in the La Brea Tar Pits of California.

In the LA noir fantasy California Bones by Greg Van Eekhout, the Golden State has seceded from the nation thanks to the earthshaking powers of the Hierarch. He now rules the kingdom of Southern California. His nobles include Baron Chandler, Disney the Glamour Mage, and Mulholland the Water Mage.

In part because I live in the bellybutton of California, I loved the local references, such as the Battle of Santa Barbara. More than that, the setting is a delight, with Beverley Hills as the kingdom’s Golden City. Jade teeth veneers are coming into fashion, in part to cover the dental discoloring from magic absorbing into the skeletons of the osteomancers.

Daniel inherited his osteomancy from his father. That and his enemies. His father crafted Daniel the Vorpal Sword using his baby teeth. The Hierarch stole the sword after eating the bones of Daniel’s murdered father. Daniel now must recover his blade from the most secure vault in the kingdom, the Ossuary.

Every respectable heist needs a team of mavericks incapable of working together. I regret to say that Daniel’s associates are a little too trustworthy for my tastes. One regenerating hulk, one sharpshooting ex-lover, one shapeshifter, all are devoted to Daniel. Even the inside woman, the traitor who helps them plan the scheme, integrates with the rest of the friends with minimal fuss, though Daniel can’t be certain of her motivations. And, oh boy, are they interesting. The heist itself was everything I hoped for. The infiltrators must solve a sphinx’s riddle then brave the waterways under Hollywood guarded by lurking monstrosities. Daniel must face an enemy osteomancer who’s nearing magic feels like “a mass of roiling dragon and thundering mammoth herds.”

In the city’s more upright channels, Investigator Gabriel is searching for unauthorized osteomancers, such as Daniel. Gabriel hates the insipid schmoozing required to get ahead in Los Angeles. If only people could be silent together at parties. Gabriel believes in hard work and good bureaucracy. He also has a soft spot for hounds. That’s the name given to people with a gift for sniffing out magic. These “hounds” are enslaved and kept in kennels. Gabriel picks one about to be put down. The hound’s name is Max, and Gabriel lets the man walk around without a collar. The two form a friendship and begin tracking Daniel even as he pursues vengeance against the Hierarch.

California Bones is a short novel with a light plot, more of an ulna bone than a femur. The ending did not thrill me in terms of pacing, and the protagonist’s victory struck me as too easy. His character change seemed unsupported. That said, the heroes of pulp fiction rarely change at all, and this fun story tips its fedora to that genre. I smiled at many of the book’s lines, such as the description of a man who had “a confidence that must’ve required dance lessons.”

CONCLUSION: The last thing I should mention is that mages are often on the menu. The feast description doesn't reach G.R.R.M. levels, but a little cannibalism goes a long way. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to blend a blueberry smoothie with the fossilized tooth of a megalodon shark. Then I’ll swim out of San Francisco Bay and into the sunset.

GUEST AUTHOR INFORMATION: A.E. Marling is a fantasy writer, dancer, law-abiding citizen, human being (in that order). Discover his fantasy-appreciation blog and follow him on Twitter, @AEMarling, or the kitty gets it.

A certain kind of vindication, a validation, comes with signing a book deal. Someone like Gollancz doesn’t buy your novel unless they believe it is good enough to publish. Knowing this will patch up the shaky confidence of any writer, at least for a time. However, writing a novel good enough for Gollancz is only the beginning, because when you’ve signed up for a trilogy, you sort of have to do it again.

There’s a big difference between knowing a thing and experiencing it. I’ve often learned this the hard way, and it’s one of the themes of The Relic Guild, a book that took me two and half years to write. Actually, no – it took me two and a half years to finish. Other stories were written during that time, I took breaks from writing altogether, and when I did work it was at a leisurely, relaxed pace. In fact, writing The Relic Guild was no more stressful than deciding which sort of cake I would eat with my cup of tea, primarily because there was no deadline.

Dead. Line. Sounds sinister, doesn’t it?

I always knew that getting a book deal would mean that any sequels had to be written to a deadline, but I’m not sure anything can prepare an author for how it will affect them when it happens. Signing that contract carries a responsibility, which I understood straight away, and was ready to shoulder. There was a whole year and a quarter to go before deadline, and that was plenty of time to get book two written. No worries! You should have seen how carefree and confident I was at the beginning. I only wish that I had a before and after picture to show you.

For the record, I should say that book two of The Relic Guild was mostly a joy to write. It continued the story as I wanted it to; all the seeds I’d sown grew into sturdy plot threads; there were twists and surprises along the way, and much more meat on the bones of my material than I realised there would be. But what I hadn’t factored in to my process was how much benefit I gained from all that time I’d spent not writing book one. As a lot of writers will tell you, it’s important to occasionally step away from a work in progress, as it freshens the eyes and clears the mind. Not so for me. Not this time. And so a doubt blossomed at the back of my mind: I was about to learn the hard way again.

The mistake I made was believing that I’d used a quantifiable process with writing The Relic Guild, which could be used again with the sequel. Two and a half years it took me to finish the first book, but I reasoned that if you removed all the time I had spent not writing it, that would mean the novel had been completed in only one year. Therefore, with a whole year and a quarter to finish book two, the maths was looking very much in my favour. This is fine in theory, but in practice? I discovered that writers can be masters of creating their own stress.

Book two of The Relic Guild was also a nightmare to write. I mean that literally. I had bad dreams about it. Especially during the last two months when I had to cut 20,000 words, realised it was 15,000 words longer than book one, and had to give the final quarter such an extensive rewrite that I worked days and nights and weekends, only breaking to eat and sleep, for eight weeks solid.

Imagine the wild-haired writer, tearing up sheets of paper as he ignores his family, bemoaning his blocked genius, destined to be misunderstood, and blah, blah, and so on and so forth, and all the other ridiculous dramas of the creative dreamer that should gain not one jot of sympathy from anyone on this planet. I pretty much played them all out during those last two months, and I worked on that manuscript until the very last second ticked down to deadline.

Dead. Line.

There really is a big difference between thinking you know a thing and experiencing it for real. I’m trying very hard to remember this as I head in to write the third and final part of The Relic Guild trilogy. I’m hoping I’m a little wiser now, but that small doubt remains at the back of my mind. I imagine that it sounds like Han Solo telling Luke Skywalker not to be cocky, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’ll keep me on my toes this time, and learning the hard way won’t always be my forte.

Official Author Website
Order the book HERE

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Edward Cox began writing stories at school as a way to pass time in boring lessons. With his first short story published in 2000, Edward spent much of the next decade earning a BA 1st class with honours in creative writing, and a Master degree in the same subject. He then went on to teach creative writing at the University of Bedfordshire.

Currently living in Essex with his wife and daughter, Edward is mostly surrounded by fine greenery and spiders the size of his hand. The Relic Guild is his first completed novel, and it is the result of more than ten years of obsessive writing.

 This is part of Ed's Blog tour and my thanks to Sophie Calder for giving us the chance to participate. The readers can check out the rest of his stops:

15th September: (1) Interview over at Geek Planet Online
                                    (2) Guest post over at Falcata Times

16th September: (1) Interview over at Book Plank
                                    (2) Guest post over at Sci-Fi London

17th September: (1) Audio book clip over at Cult Den
                                    (2) Guest post over at Reader Dad

18th September: (1) Guest post over at Wonderous Reads
                                    (2) Interview with Alasdair Stuart

19th September: (1) Audio book clip over at Geek Native
                                    (2) FBC guest post

20th September: (1) Interview over at Fantasy Book Review
                                     (2) Guest post over at Civilian Reader

NOTE: All pictures courtesy of the author.