Fantasy Book Critic has one copy of Beyond the Pool of Stars to give away. One lucky winner will be randomly selected to receive this book!
Visit Howard Andrew Jones' Guest Blog Spot at Fantasy Book Critic Here
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About Beyond the Pool of Stars:
Mirian Raas comes from a long line of salvagers, adventurers who use magic to dive for sunken ships off the coast of tropical Sargava. When her father dies, Mirian has to take over his last job: a dangerous expedition into deep jungle pools, helping a tribe of lizardfolk reclaim the lost treasures of their people. Yet this isn't any ordinary job, as the same colonial government that looks down on Mirian for her half-native heritage has an interest in the treasure, and the survival of the entire nation may depend on the outcome...
From critically acclaimed author Howard Andrew Jones comes a fantastical adventure of deep-water danger and unlikely alliances, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
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Giveaway Rules and Information
1. We have one book that will be given to one lucky individual.
2. Giveaway is open to US and Canadian addresses only.
3. Contest starts October 15, 2015 at 12:01 a.m. EST and runs
until October 23, 2015 at 12:01 a.m EST. Entries after this time frame will not
be eligible for the giveaway.
4. Only one entry per person, please. Multiple entries will be
deleted.
5. To enter send an email with the subject line 'BEYOND THE POOL OF STARS' to FBCgiveaway@gmail.com
Please include your name and address, as this speeds up the time it will take
to send out the package.
6. All information is used for the sole purpose of the giveaway
and will be deleted immediately upon completion of the giveaway.
Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor.
1:54 AM | 
Posted by
Cindy |
GUEST BLOGGER: Fantasy Book Critic Welcomes Howard Andrew Jones - Author of Beyond the Pool of Stars
Fantasy Book Critic is excited to welcome Howard Andrew Jones to our blog as guest blogger for today. Howard Andrew Jones is the author of several sci-fi/fantasy novels, including his most recent novel from the Pathfinder series - Beyond the Pool of Stars. Beyond the Pool of Stars was released October 6, 2015 by Tor Books.
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I’m probably not the only one who wishes Leigh Brackett had written more stories about Eric John Stark. Back in the 1950s and even into the early 1960s, Brackett was writing space opera and sword and planet tales that featured characters you could easily imagine bumping shoulders with Malcolm Reynolds and Han Solo. They’re rogues and drifters scrounging for existence out there in the space lanes or on planetary backwaters. It’s telling that Brackett was picked by Lucas to write the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, the first draft of which she turned over just a short while before her death. Once, not so long ago, she was widely known as the queen of space opera.
She remains one of my very favorite writers, and it saddens me that a lot of readers today have never heard of her. Partly that’s because she based a lot of her stories in a version of the solar system that’s pure fantasy, with Mars and Venus with breathable atmospheres. I’m not sure why it’s easy to pretend that there’s a parallel world where magic works somewhere but we have trouble pretending that there really are Martian canals and Venusian swamps.
I think the real reason that Brackett’s been forgotten, though, is that she didn’t write too many continuing characters. Stark is the only one I’m aware of, and he pops up in three novellas and a trilogy of short novels, that, combined, are shorter than a single modern epic fantasy novel. As you might expect from older fiction, there are some dated concepts and purple prose, but there’s also grand adventure and soaring prose. As her husband, the late, great writer Edmund Hamilton once wrote: “This gal can write!” For sheer invention and action chops, and complex characters – at least for an adventure story – she has few equals.
I particularly loved the way she brought her vision of Mars to life, a dying world, a dusty, faded ruby alive with ancient secrets and horrors. She spent less time on her imaginary Venus, but her astonishing imagination was in full swing there as well, and in “Enchantress of Venus” she took Stark to the remote Sea of Morning Opals, a strange gaseous waste on the planet buoyant enough to sail upon, where humans might breathe freely when they dove through the glowing mists.
That story, and its sea, haunted me for years after, and one of my early novels was inspired by her wondrous descriptions. When I sat down to draft Beyond the Pool of Stars I turned again to her in inspiration, at least in part, for the characters I used were based on those old characters I’d created for my world spanning sea of mist in that unsold novel. In Beyond the Pool of Stars my heroes dive in regular waters, but they’re still searching for antiquities and contending with ancient horrors.
Brackett was ahead of her time in a lot of ways, one of which was that she always described Stark as a black man, even though illustrators usually depicted him as white. It’s no longer quite as shocking to have a person of color on a cover, but I’m still pleased that there’s no effort to conceal or disguise my main character’s appearance on the cover of Beyond the Pool of Stars.
With it’s strange vistas, lost city, and dread secrets, Beyond the Pool of Stars has a lot in common with my favorite Brackett works, and it’s no small wonder, because I wanted to evoke some of the same joy in readers I encounter whenever I revisit one of her stories.
I like to imagine she would have enjoyed reading it.
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Howard Andrew
Jones
is the critically acclaimed author of The
Desert of Souls, The Bones of the Old
Ones, and Pathfinder novels Plague of
Shadows, Stalking the Beast and
the hot off the presses Beyond the Pool
of Stars. A former Black Gate
Editor, he also assembled and edited 8 collections of historical fiction writer
Harold Lamb’s work for the University of Nebraska Press. He can be found
lurking at www.howardandrewjones.com. Follow him on Twitter @howardandrewjon
It started with a detective.
No, scratch that: it started with the holy city of Oridos, the oldest and last remaining center of civilization on the continent of Westalen. It started as my first attempt at creating an epic fantasy setting, that of an ancient city that sat at the center of a centuries’ long struggle for racial and religious dominance. It started with a desire to examine the world of the First Crusade, a world where different groups of people fight to retain or regain physical possession of a place equally holy to all of them, and the resultant mixing of cultures that came with it.
But then, it didn’t really start there at all, did it? It started with my desire to write epic fantasy. In the pursuit of that goal, I spent years filling notebooks and Word documents with characters, histories, and descriptions of various cultures, beliefs, and gods. You know, like fantasy authors do. I even started writing this magnum opus: a multi-part, multi-perspective epic fantasy series set in the aftermath of the sack of Oridos by my world’s equivalent of Western Crusaders. It had a good-hearted rogue, a troubled antihero, a young woman who meets a god, and a gay politician trying to inspire a workers’ uprising against the established aristocracy. It had swords, knights, guns, and courtroom drama, and it even had a quest, of sorts.
No, scratch that: it started with the holy city of Oridos, the oldest and last remaining center of civilization on the continent of Westalen. It started as my first attempt at creating an epic fantasy setting, that of an ancient city that sat at the center of a centuries’ long struggle for racial and religious dominance. It started with a desire to examine the world of the First Crusade, a world where different groups of people fight to retain or regain physical possession of a place equally holy to all of them, and the resultant mixing of cultures that came with it.
But then, it didn’t really start there at all, did it? It started with my desire to write epic fantasy. In the pursuit of that goal, I spent years filling notebooks and Word documents with characters, histories, and descriptions of various cultures, beliefs, and gods. You know, like fantasy authors do. I even started writing this magnum opus: a multi-part, multi-perspective epic fantasy series set in the aftermath of the sack of Oridos by my world’s equivalent of Western Crusaders. It had a good-hearted rogue, a troubled antihero, a young woman who meets a god, and a gay politician trying to inspire a workers’ uprising against the established aristocracy. It had swords, knights, guns, and courtroom drama, and it even had a quest, of sorts.
I got almost 70,000 words into it and then stuck it in a drawer, so to speak. I wasn’t ready to write it, both because I didn’t have a clear enough vision of where the story was going and because I didn’t want the story that felt closest to my heart to be the first book I wrote. Instead, I decided to try and turn myself into a writer worthy of it.
I wrote and self-published my first novel, Exile: The Book of Ever (Vol. 1), which made it to the semi-finals in Mark Lawrence’s Great Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (#SPFBO) at Fantasy Faction. Exile was as big of a departure from epic fantasy as I could think of: it’s a young adult, post-apocalyptic story about a small community of Christian extremists struggling for survival in the ruins of the northeastern United States.
At the moment, I’m working on the first novel in a new series called The Trials of Karthanas. I’m calling it swordpunk, which is basically sword and sorcery except more meta. Or maybe “New Game Plus” mode for sword and sorcery, if you get my meaning.
I’ve worked on a lot of short stories in and among my longer fiction (some complete, many incomplete), and around a year ago I sat down and started writing one set in the same world as that first epic fantasy series, but far in the future from when those books would take place.
Which brings us to that detective. The first glimpse of the story I had was a consulting detective, a la Sherlock Holmes, standing over the prostrate body of a man with a strange device strapped to his head. The detective was smoking a pipe full of tiny crabs, which he would snap and stick in the pipe bowl and cook until they started smoking. I wasn’t sure yet whether it was steampunk, New Weird, or something else, but it was fun as hell to write.
I wanted to write a sort of intensely immersive vignette, a brief episode in a larger story in a larger world that would leave the reader wanting more. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that none of the story ideas I had would fit—they were too big. I was writing a novel, not a short story.
As the story began to unfold in my head, the book became a noir thriller set in an urban fantasy realm. Imagine King’s Landing or Caemlyn as they might look and feel in their world’s version of the late 19th Century, and you’re on the right track to seeing my vision of the city of Oridos. The main character is a professional who values deduction and forensic procedure over the brute force typical of police work in this era. The fact that Irik Thijis is a bit of a louche and more than a little unreliable doesn’t change the fact that he has a fine analytical mind, not to mention a problem with authority and a nose for trouble.
In short, I had created a book that could be best described as Sherlock Holmes meets Locke Lamora, an analogy that I hope will only prove to be more and more accurate as the story goes on. The plot follows Thijis as he unravels a web of conspiracies all somehow centering on Doktor Keynish Helg—the eponymous mad scientist. Cabals are unveiled, old secrets revealed, and the future of a city determined. The only question is whether Thijis survives to see it.
The decision to release it as a serial was based on a couple of factors, both related to convenience. For one, I was and still am in the middle of writing another book, the aforementioned “swordpunk” novel, and the ability to focus on small, discrete sections of writing designed to be released immediately appealed to me as a side project. For some reason it seems easier to switch gears from a long, more traditional manuscript to an episodic adventure—sometimes it seems like writing for film versus writing for television.
At the moment, I’m working on the first novel in a new series called The Trials of Karthanas. I’m calling it swordpunk, which is basically sword and sorcery except more meta. Or maybe “New Game Plus” mode for sword and sorcery, if you get my meaning.
I’ve worked on a lot of short stories in and among my longer fiction (some complete, many incomplete), and around a year ago I sat down and started writing one set in the same world as that first epic fantasy series, but far in the future from when those books would take place.
Which brings us to that detective. The first glimpse of the story I had was a consulting detective, a la Sherlock Holmes, standing over the prostrate body of a man with a strange device strapped to his head. The detective was smoking a pipe full of tiny crabs, which he would snap and stick in the pipe bowl and cook until they started smoking. I wasn’t sure yet whether it was steampunk, New Weird, or something else, but it was fun as hell to write.
I wanted to write a sort of intensely immersive vignette, a brief episode in a larger story in a larger world that would leave the reader wanting more. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that none of the story ideas I had would fit—they were too big. I was writing a novel, not a short story.
As the story began to unfold in my head, the book became a noir thriller set in an urban fantasy realm. Imagine King’s Landing or Caemlyn as they might look and feel in their world’s version of the late 19th Century, and you’re on the right track to seeing my vision of the city of Oridos. The main character is a professional who values deduction and forensic procedure over the brute force typical of police work in this era. The fact that Irik Thijis is a bit of a louche and more than a little unreliable doesn’t change the fact that he has a fine analytical mind, not to mention a problem with authority and a nose for trouble.
In short, I had created a book that could be best described as Sherlock Holmes meets Locke Lamora, an analogy that I hope will only prove to be more and more accurate as the story goes on. The plot follows Thijis as he unravels a web of conspiracies all somehow centering on Doktor Keynish Helg—the eponymous mad scientist. Cabals are unveiled, old secrets revealed, and the future of a city determined. The only question is whether Thijis survives to see it.
The decision to release it as a serial was based on a couple of factors, both related to convenience. For one, I was and still am in the middle of writing another book, the aforementioned “swordpunk” novel, and the ability to focus on small, discrete sections of writing designed to be released immediately appealed to me as a side project. For some reason it seems easier to switch gears from a long, more traditional manuscript to an episodic adventure—sometimes it seems like writing for film versus writing for television.
I also wanted The Doktor’s Spyglass to have a very organic, frenetic feel to it, like the hardboiled detective novels of Chandler and Hammett. Serialization lends itself to a more turbulent plot; the reader feels pulled along with the main character, unsure of precisely what’s going to happen next, forced to unravel a mystery as it comes at them. Another reason to serialize a novel is to maximize the potential for timely, topical feedback. Wattpad is particularly well focused on this, allowing readers to vote for each section of the story if they like it and comment on each as well. Ideally, it’s like expanding your pool of beta readers to include the entire Internet.
I like to think of it as diversifying my writing portfolio. Hopefully it will lead some readers to my other fiction, but more importantly, it increases my exposure and provides yet another forum to engage with readers and potential fans. It’s something that I see more and more authors—both traditional and self-published—getting into. Mark Lawrence is working on a great one right now, a weird western called Gunlaw, and I was surprised to discover recently that Dan Brown has a Wattpad profile. Who knew?
It makes sense, from a technological perspective: the vast majority of Wattpad readers, for instance, read on their phones or mobile devices, and are therefore naturally more attracted to stories told in short, easily digestible snippets. They’re also, by and large, quite young: YA is a huge part of Wattpad’s market. Savvy penmonkeys (as Chuck Wendig would call us), have seen the light, I say! Introduce a new generation to your work! Thrall the impressionable youth with your incendiary prose! Plastics! The future is in plastics, I tell you!
Perhaps we’re entering a new golden age of serial fiction, where the iPhone is to the modern writer what print magazines were to Charles Dickens. How’s that for postmodern? It’s something Irik Thijis would understand quite well, as frantic and unconventional a thinker as he is.
You want to talk about meta? If you’re following The Doktor’s Spyglass, you might have noticed that serial pulp fiction is a burgeoning phenomenon in Oridos. Oridosi kids are reading stories and comics about a man called Black Hunter, a vigilante who once stalked the alleys and dark corners of the Warrens, the most dangerous neighborhood in the city. It remains to be seen whether there’s anything to these stories—whether they’re worth the paper they’re printed on.
I suppose we’ll all just have to read and find out.
I like to think of it as diversifying my writing portfolio. Hopefully it will lead some readers to my other fiction, but more importantly, it increases my exposure and provides yet another forum to engage with readers and potential fans. It’s something that I see more and more authors—both traditional and self-published—getting into. Mark Lawrence is working on a great one right now, a weird western called Gunlaw, and I was surprised to discover recently that Dan Brown has a Wattpad profile. Who knew?
It makes sense, from a technological perspective: the vast majority of Wattpad readers, for instance, read on their phones or mobile devices, and are therefore naturally more attracted to stories told in short, easily digestible snippets. They’re also, by and large, quite young: YA is a huge part of Wattpad’s market. Savvy penmonkeys (as Chuck Wendig would call us), have seen the light, I say! Introduce a new generation to your work! Thrall the impressionable youth with your incendiary prose! Plastics! The future is in plastics, I tell you!
Perhaps we’re entering a new golden age of serial fiction, where the iPhone is to the modern writer what print magazines were to Charles Dickens. How’s that for postmodern? It’s something Irik Thijis would understand quite well, as frantic and unconventional a thinker as he is.
You want to talk about meta? If you’re following The Doktor’s Spyglass, you might have noticed that serial pulp fiction is a burgeoning phenomenon in Oridos. Oridosi kids are reading stories and comics about a man called Black Hunter, a vigilante who once stalked the alleys and dark corners of the Warrens, the most dangerous neighborhood in the city. It remains to be seen whether there’s anything to these stories—whether they’re worth the paper they’re printed on.
I suppose we’ll all just have to read and find out.
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Official Author Website
Order Exile: The Book Of Ever #1 HERE
AUTHOR INFORMATION: James Cormier went to law school and spent years as a practicing attorney before realizing that what he really wanted to do with his life was sit around and write stories about imaginary places. Which is why you're reading this now. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, his son, and the requisite two cats that every writer of fantasy and science fiction is presented with upon the publication of their first novel.
NOTE: Medieval city artwork courtesy of Kyle G. Anderson (Geistig)
Order Exile: The Book Of Ever #1 HERE
AUTHOR INFORMATION: James Cormier went to law school and spent years as a practicing attorney before realizing that what he really wanted to do with his life was sit around and write stories about imaginary places. Which is why you're reading this now. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, his son, and the requisite two cats that every writer of fantasy and science fiction is presented with upon the publication of their first novel.
NOTE: Medieval city artwork courtesy of Kyle G. Anderson (Geistig)
Friday, October 9, 2015
"The Borribles: The Borrible Trilogy Book 1" by Michael de Larrabeiti (Reviewed by Cindy Hannikman)
OVERVIEW: What
is a Borrible? Borribles are runaways
who dwell in the shadows of London. Apart from their pointed ears, they look
just like ordinary children. They live by their wits and a few Borrible
laws-the chief one being, Don't Get Caught! The Borribles are outcasts-but they
wouldn't have it any other way....
One night, the Borribles of Battersea discover a Rumble-one of the giant, rat-shaped creatures who are their ancient enemy-in their territory. Fearing an invasion, an elite group of Borrible fighters set out on what will become known in legend as The Great Rumble Hunt. So begins the first of the three epic adventures in Michael de Larrabeiti's classic trilogy, where excitement, violence, low cunning, greed, generosity, treachery, and bravery exist side by side.
One night, the Borribles of Battersea discover a Rumble-one of the giant, rat-shaped creatures who are their ancient enemy-in their territory. Fearing an invasion, an elite group of Borrible fighters set out on what will become known in legend as The Great Rumble Hunt. So begins the first of the three epic adventures in Michael de Larrabeiti's classic trilogy, where excitement, violence, low cunning, greed, generosity, treachery, and bravery exist side by side.
FORMAT: The Borribles is the first book in
the children's/YA urban fantasy series. It is a gritty urban fantasy filled
with adventure. It was first published in 1976, but was republished July 10,
2005 by Tor Teen. It stands at 224 pages.
ANALYSIS: It is
time to jump in the way back machine and take a look at another 'oldie but
goodie' book. This time I am featuring The Borribles, which is the first
book in The Borrible Trilogy. The Borrible Trilogy is a gritty children's/YA
urban fantasy series.
I am surprised at the amount of people who have not heard
about The Borribles. When I first read the book in 2012, I was over
the moon about it. It was unlike anything I had read at the time and that was
almost 36 years after it was first published. Immediately upon finishing it, I
started talking about it to others and it was surprising the amount of people
who answered with "What are Borribles?" or "I have never even
heard of this book".
To answer the question - a Borrible is a runaway child. They
look just like regular children, but they have tiny pointed ears (which are
easily covered by knitted hats). Once their ears are pointed, they stay a child
forever unless their ears are clipped. Borribles are smart, witty, and capable
of surviving in the world without the assistance of adults. Their biggest fear
is being captured by adults and having their ears clipped, which will turn them
into boring, dull individuals.
Borribles form their own groups, which are like tiny little
clans. These groups protect each other at all costs and even have their own
claimed territory.
The first novel, Borribles, starts off with the Borribles of
Battersea encountering a giant rat-like creature. These rat-like creatures is
typically only found in enemy territory, so the fact that it ventured into the
Borribles of Battersea land is frightening and could be an indication that an
invasion is near. In an effort to prevent an invasion, several brave Borribles
volunteer to go on an epic journey. The Borribles tells the tale of this
epic adventure.
One of the first things that stands out about The
Borribles is it is an extremely violent, gritty novel. I was surprised
when I learned that many people classified it as a children's book. It definitely
has a lot of violent, bloody scenes and the life the Borribles live is not all
rainbows and butterflies. This book would probably be classified as a YA book
by today's standards.
What is there to like about The Borribles? It has a
detailed, solid plot that moves at warp speed. It was amazing just how fast I
was getting through the novel and before I knew it, it was over. The adventure
scenes are detailed, but not to the point that they are over-fluffed up.
Readers are given a sense of adventuring alongside The Borribles, but they
aren't experiencing every, single mind-numbing part of the adventure.
When the novel ends, there is a desire to pick up the second
book right away. And I highly recommend doing that, as one novel completes and
blends right into the second novel. It also helps to relieve some of the
nagging questions some readers may have about the Borribles and their world.
In addition to the detailed plot and fast paced action, the
characters are surprisingly fleshed out. Considering the length of the book and
the sheer number of characters (there are a lot more than 6 or 7), one would
assume that the characters would be just one-dimensional individuals, but they
really weren't. I honestly formed true bonds with the characters and by the end
of the book, I have to admit there was a small part of me that wished I could
become a Borrible.
There is another aspect of The Borribles that I
really enjoyed. It was the social commentary within the book. I read the novel
as an adult, so I was able to appreciate the subtle hints and examples of
social inequalities, pure greed, and other social problems. Many times authors
try to beat the reader over the head with their point-of-view and opinions, but
I didn't really get that with The Borribles. It was enough to make
you think about things, but it didn't interfere with the plot or go overboard.
Now, there is probably a concern that a book written in 1976
might not be relevant in today's world, especially an urban fantasy. The
Borribles really fits in with today's world. Sure, some of the social
commentary might be a bit dated, but for the most part, The Borribles is just as
good when read today as it was back in 1976. This is probably because the world
in the novel is unique. People will be able to relate it to London, but there
are aspects that make it unique and fun to read.
Overall, I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed The
Borribles. It wouldn't have been a book I would have thought I'd have
enjoyed as much as I did. I wish more people knew about it and gave it a try,
but I really think in terms of urban fantasy it is a classic. So hope in your
time machine and give it a try, you won't regret it!
I was seven or eight years old when I discovered Treasure Island and fell in love with pirates and sailing adventures. Not real pirates, mind you. Real pirates were the most terrible kind of people who led miserable lives. However, the romanticized depiction in Treasure Island captured a magical excitement that’s simply irresistible. While Treasure Island is not fantasy, it contains the essence of what I also love in Sword & Sorcery fiction.
Unlike Epic Fantasy, where our heroes quest to accomplish some greater good, such as killing an evil overlord, Sword & Sorcery heroes quest to fulfill more self-serving goals. Sailing to an uncharted island in search of buried treasure is a perfect example of what a Sword & Sorcery hero would do.
Sword & Sorcery has regularly incorporated ships and the sea. The more notable sailing heroes include Sinbad and Jack Sparrow. If we turn back to what is possibly the very first Sword & Sorcery adventure, we find The Odyssey, a story about sailors trying to get home and their adventures along the way. Of course each of those examples have the title "Captain" before the hero's name. One could argue that they're heroes because they're sailors. However, there are other sailors within the genre that were heroes long before they boarded ship. Conan spent many adventures pirating and exploring. The infamous thieves Fafhrd and Gray Mouser sailed across Newhon, eventually settling far away from smoky Lankhmar to live on Rime Isle.
Unlike Epic Fantasy, where our heroes quest to accomplish some greater good, such as killing an evil overlord, Sword & Sorcery heroes quest to fulfill more self-serving goals. Sailing to an uncharted island in search of buried treasure is a perfect example of what a Sword & Sorcery hero would do.
Sword & Sorcery has regularly incorporated ships and the sea. The more notable sailing heroes include Sinbad and Jack Sparrow. If we turn back to what is possibly the very first Sword & Sorcery adventure, we find The Odyssey, a story about sailors trying to get home and their adventures along the way. Of course each of those examples have the title "Captain" before the hero's name. One could argue that they're heroes because they're sailors. However, there are other sailors within the genre that were heroes long before they boarded ship. Conan spent many adventures pirating and exploring. The infamous thieves Fafhrd and Gray Mouser sailed across Newhon, eventually settling far away from smoky Lankhmar to live on Rime Isle.
The high seas provides a huge variety of storytelling potential. In addition to lost riches, we might encounter monsters inhabiting these exotic islands or lurking beneath the waves, eager to gobble up our heroes. It provides us human threats, and allows us swashbuckling fights as combatants swing on ropes from ship to ship. Finally, there’s the sea itself, the ultimate threat, ready to drown our hero or cast them adrift to die of thirst and heat. It’s a spectacular backdrop for fantasy adventure.
Each ship gives us a closed world, leaving all the politics and issues of the cities and nations behind it. This act of fleeing the established world allows the reader to also escape alongside our heroes. Each port, island, or ship that they encounter provides a new and exciting obstacle and adventure unto itself. The lure of escape is what draws us and causes even our most landlubbing Sword & Sorcery heroes to occasionally throw off the shackles of the familiar world, board a ship, and sail to unknown adventures.
Each ship gives us a closed world, leaving all the politics and issues of the cities and nations behind it. This act of fleeing the established world allows the reader to also escape alongside our heroes. Each port, island, or ship that they encounter provides a new and exciting obstacle and adventure unto itself. The lure of escape is what draws us and causes even our most landlubbing Sword & Sorcery heroes to occasionally throw off the shackles of the familiar world, board a ship, and sail to unknown adventures.
*---------------*---------------*---------------*
Official Author Website
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Dämoren
Read Fantasy Book Critic Interview with Seth Skorkowsky
Read "Building The Perfect Revolver" by Seth Skorkowsky (guest post)
OFFICIAL AUTHOR INFORMATION: Seth Skorkowsky was born in Texas in 1978. He currently lives in Denton, Texas, with his wife, and works for the University of North Texas. His short story "The Mist of Lichthafen" was nominated for a British Fantasy Award (long list) in 2009. Dämoren is Seth's debut novel and was recently nominated and shortlisted for the Reddit Fantasy Stabby Award for "Best Debut Novel."
He recently signed a two-book deal with Ragnarok for his "Black Raven" sword-and-sorcery collection. When not writing, Seth enjoys travel, shooting, and tabletop gaming.
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of Dämoren
Read Fantasy Book Critic Interview with Seth Skorkowsky
Read "Building The Perfect Revolver" by Seth Skorkowsky (guest post)
OFFICIAL AUTHOR INFORMATION: Seth Skorkowsky was born in Texas in 1978. He currently lives in Denton, Texas, with his wife, and works for the University of North Texas. His short story "The Mist of Lichthafen" was nominated for a British Fantasy Award (long list) in 2009. Dämoren is Seth's debut novel and was recently nominated and shortlisted for the Reddit Fantasy Stabby Award for "Best Debut Novel."
He recently signed a two-book deal with Ragnarok for his "Black Raven" sword-and-sorcery collection. When not writing, Seth enjoys travel, shooting, and tabletop gaming.
Visit Ursula Vernon's Website Here
OVERVIEW: When Molly shows up on Castle Hangnail's
doorstep to fill the vacancy for a wicked witch, the castle's minions are
understandably dubious. After all, she is twelve years old, barely five feet
tall, and quite polite. (The minions are used to tall, demanding evil
sorceresses with razor-sharp cheekbones.) But the castle desperately needs a
master or else the Board of Magic will decommission it, leaving all the minions
without the home they love. So when Molly assures them she is quite wicked
indeed (So wicked! REALLY wicked!) and begins completing the tasks required by
the Board of Magic for approval, everyone feels hopeful. Unfortunately, it
turns out that Molly has quite a few secrets, including the biggest one of all:
that she isn't who she says she is.
This quirky, richly illustrated novel is filled with humor, magic, and an unforgettable all-star cast of castle characters.
This quirky, richly illustrated novel is filled with humor, magic, and an unforgettable all-star cast of castle characters.
FORMAT: Castle
Hangnail is a standalone children's fantasy novel. It stands at 384
pages and was published April 21, 2015 by Dial Books.
ANALYSIS: Ursula
Vernon is one of my favorite modern children's authors. Her series, Dragonbreath,
is absolutely brilliant from the well-thought out characters to the fun
drawings, and not to mention the funny dialogue between the characters. When I
saw Castle
Hangnail was coming out, I knew I had to give it a try.
Castle Hangnail is a bit different from Vernon's Dragonbreath
series. It has interesting characters and beautiful drawings, but it strays
from the all-to-familiar format of the loveable Dragonbreath series.
One of the first noticeable differences is the format of the
book. Dragonbreath isn't really an early reader/chapter book, but it
is definitely designed for the younger audience. Dragonbreath comes in a
half graphic novel, half novel format. The font is large and bold, and the
entire book wraps up in 200 pages give or take. Castle Hangnail is a bit
different.
Castle Hangnail has illustrations, but they supplement the
story instead of help tell the story. There are numerous chapters that have no
illustrations at all. The font is still easy to read and the story flows
nicely, making it ideal for younger readers, but not to the point where it
feels as if it is a childish book.
Unfortunately, this difference is where one of my
"issues" – if you could call it that – comes in. I'm not 100% certain
who the ultimate audience is for this novel. It is written for a younger
audience, but the nearly 400 page novel might seem a bit overwhelming to those
that would be its target audience.
Is the storyline okay for older readers? Yes, but I could
easily see a few of the older readers finding the story childish or silly. When
I refer to 'older' readers, I'm talking about older middle grade readers. The
difficulty in identifying a target audience may result in this loveable novel
being overlooked or passed up by readers who would otherwise love it.
What I do love about Castle Hangnail is that it does
provide a bit of fresh air to the children's fantasy genre. There seems to be
an all-to-common need to make children's books darker, scarier, or more
violent. Castle Hangnail has its conflicts as it isn't all rainbows and
butterflies, but it does so in a way that isn't violent or ultra-extreme.
This stray from violence or darkness makes it a great book
for those readers both young and old who are just looking for a fun read. After
all, it has a solid plot that works for even those that are young at heart, the
characters are detailed and loveable, and the pace is just right.
I will say I loved the characters in this book. They weren't
funny, but they pulled at my heart strings and I just formed instant
connections with them. I truly wanted to be Molly's friend by the end of the
book. I even wanted to have my own set of minions – even a goldfish! Vernon really
fleshed out all the characters without overcomplicating them, which made them
even more loveable (or unlovable in the case of the bad guys).
If I had to pick a favorite part of the book, it would definitely
be the mish-mash collection of characters. They just worked for me and really
made this book a fun, fun read.
Overall, I loved Castle Hangnail. I felt it was a
solid novel with a solid ending. Of course, there could be other novels, which
I would love to see, but for the most part it is a solid standalone novel. It
isn't the same as Dragonbreath, but it certainly will leave you with a feel good
feeling at the end of reading it.
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