Interviews A-Plenty at SFFWorld: McClellan, Posey, and Robertson

This past week at SFFWorld, we managed to post a fairly high number of author interviews. Well, relatively speaking of course with three interviews (as well as a guest post from one of those authors).

On Wednesday, my interview with Brian McClellan was posted.  Brian's second Powder Mage Trilogy novel, The Crimson Campaign publishes on May 6. 

On Monday, Dag's interview with Freya Robertson was posted, Heartstone the second installment in her Elemental Wars series published just over a month ago. 

The author with the double-whammy is Jay Posey.  Not only did Dag post an interview Jay Posey on Tuesday (4/29), Jay also provided a guest post. (I am reminded I still want to catch up with his debut novel Three). 

Hester, Kent, Esslemont and Wendig at the SFFWorld Blog!

Mark and I have posted Lots of new content on the SFFWorld blog over the past week, a few new reviews and what turned out to be the first interview for the SFFWorld blog since the soft launch/reboot.

Today, I posted my review of a novella from blogger and author Patrick Hester. He launched the Cord Cahill serials with the entertaining novella Cahill’s Homecoming:

When Cord attempts to ask people he knew, friends and former acquaintances, about his sister’s death, few are willing to answer. Cord searches out his sister’s estranged husband Charlie, who has become the town drunk as a result of first, their failed marriage and then, Kate’s death. The two men come to an uncomfortable understanding in their quest for justice.

The immediate thing that came to mind, that resonated with me while reading Cahill’s Homecoming was the television show Firefly, mainly because of the mix of far future and frontier settings. I wouldn’t say Cahill might resemble Malcolm Reynolds, but both men have a gruff exterior which belie a more sympathetic heart. This is best evidenced in Cord’s his words to Charlie, despite their differences and Cord’s displeasure with how Charlie treated Kate, “Today we’re family and family takes care of its own.”

On Sunday, Mark posted his review of the second installment of Steven L. Kent’s Clone Rebellion series, Rogue Clone. The series, initially published by Ace in the US is being issued in the UK by Titan Books. Mark likes how the series is shaping up.

Rogue Clone manages something very difficult from the off: to summarize the events of Book One without too much information dump and move the story on, all within the first thirty pages or so. Whilst war is brewing between the Unified Authority of the Orion Arm (that’s Earth to you and me) and the rebellious Outer Worlds, led by Crowley and the Morgan-Atkins (Mogat) separatists, Wayson Harris of the Unified Authority, now presumed dead, and his mercenary colleague Ray Freeman, are on the hunt for the leaders of the Mogat rebellion. Whilst reporting under cover back to his old mentor, Admiral Klyber, Wayson soon discovers where his nemesis, Amos Crowley of the Galactic Central Fleet, is hiding. We spend much of the beginning of this novel in space, with Harris undercover, guarding Admiral Klyber at a conference on board the Doctrinaire. Harris meets Admiral Huang again, a political enemy of Klyber’s and no friend of the Liberator clones, of which Harris is one of those remaining. Despite this, the conference appears to pass fairly successfully. However an incident after the conference leads to a plot which involves betrayal, political manoeuvring and a coup attempt, whilst in the background the influence of other partners in some rather fragile coalitions become increasingly important.

Yesterday, an interview Mark and I conducted with Ian C. Esslemont, co-creator of the Malazan world was posted on the SFFWorld blog to help celebrate the publication of his latest Malzan Tale Blood and Bone. Here's the direct link to the interview: http://sffworld.blogspot.com/2013/05/ian-c-esslemont-interview-for-blood-and.html.

A week ago, I posted my review to Chuck Wending’s The Blue Blazes, which publishes today. Although this was the first novel I read by the great bearded one of Pennsylvania, I’ve been following him on twitter pretty much since I joined and it will NOT be the last novel I read from him.

What could be a simple novel takes on an air of gravitas because of Wendig’s subtle yet powerful writing. Giving these totems, places, and people titles like The Underworld, The Boss, and The Organization, Wendig lends them a resonance that gives the story great, almost mythic power. This is further enhanced by the “journal clippings” prefacing each chapter, the journal of a lost, possibly insane and possibly fictitious, cartographer of The Great Below, John Atticus Oakes. Such chapter prefaces often work very well for my reading sensibilities and the fact that I found a resonance of sorts with what Chuck Wendig did here to what Mathew Stover (a favorite writer of mine) did in Blade of Tyshalle only heightened my enjoyment because Wendig did just as an effective job with these lost journal fragments.

…

It may be reductive to do the whole combine-and-compare thing, but think one part Hellboy, one part Mathew Stover, one part Big Trouble in Little China, and throw in a dash of The Sopranos, the film The Wrestler and pulp sensibilities, and you might have an idea of what a great stew of fun this novel really is. Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Mookie is a killer on the same level of Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski, there’s a similar dichotomy and divide between the family life and the “work life” of the two men. What’s even better is that Wendig seems to only given readers a peek into the world Mookie and his daughter Nora inhabit.

Interview: Brian McClellan Talks Powder Mages, Cleveland, and Influences

Brian McClellan's debut novel is making waves as the publication date of April 16 looms.  Orbit is pushing the book in a big way, rightfully so, it is an impressive novel. Brian's been all over the place the last few weeks promoting the book, as evidenced by the recent guest post here on my blog, among other places.  He answered some questions I shot over to him.

Q: What about muskets fascinated you to the point of mixing them with magic?

A: The musket is alluring for a writer of epic fantasy. It shares the word "gun" with what we think of as modern day weapons, but the musket wasn't a point and kill method of warfare. Its noise and smoke made it a terrible thing to behold on the battlefield, for certain, but you could get off only a few shots per minute and the accuracy wasn't fantastic.

Basically, muskets allow me to keep the "epic" in "epic fantasy" while still dealing with gunpowder and a more modern world. The warfare is still very personal as compared to say, the World War I era with gas attacks and long range artillery. There are still bayonet charges and hand to hand combat. A hero can still make a discernable difference in the melee.

Q: Are you of the clan McClellan, and if so, have you seen the Kurgan or any of his cousins?

A: We can trace ourselves back to Clan MacLellan, but our little branch so diluted that we don't think of ourselves as a particularly Scottish family. We do share the clan motto of "Think On."

We try to avoid the Kurgan as much as possible. Let the immortals fight amongst themselves.

Q: According to the theme song to The Drew Carey Show, Cleveland Rocks. As a person who lives in Ohio, can you tell me if this is true?

A: People talk a lot of crap about Ohio, and Cleveland in particular. I love it here. I love the snow. I love how green it gets in the spring and summer and the myriad colors of fall. I like how people are generally nice to each other. As a very moderate person, I enjoy how average it is politically. It's a quiet and fantastic place to live.

Q: Fan Fiction…some within the genre (readers, writers, publishers, fans) think it a dirty term. Others encourage it. Your bio states you started writing Wheel of Time RPGs. How did this early form of fan fiction help you to develop as a writer?

A: I only wrote fan fiction for a few months and quickly grew past it with my desire to write original content. But I can't say too many bad things about fan fiction. It was my first real outlet as a writer. It gave me a framework within which I could write adventure and characters.

I used to read tons of Star Wars fan fiction. Some of it was absolutely incredible. I mean, far more engaging than even official Extended Universe books. I loved it. But for every good story there were fifty terrible ones.

I think that as long as fan fiction writers are respectful to the source material and don't try to make money off of property that doesn't belong to them, they can have at it. Of course, I might change my opinion the first time I read something that has made an abomination out of my work.

I'll try to keep an open mind about it.

Q: Your connection to The Wheel of Time is two-fold, the above-mentioned foray into the RPG and you were taught by Brandon Sanderson. How much of that connection to WOT affected your course with Brandon as your instructor?

A: Not a ton. I was certainly delighted to hear he had been chosen, but by that time I had moved on to reading George RR Martin and other authors and I never really got my excitement back for Wheel of Time. That shouldn't reflect on Brandon's work, but on my own changing tastes as a reader.

Q: I’ve seen comments about your work as a bit of a mirror to the French Revolution. For me I felt more of a parallel to Colonial America (and that could be because I’m in the midst of playing Assassin’s Creed 3). Regardless, the story takes place during a time of change. What are you trying to say in A Promise of Blood about the cost of change?

A: I don't think I was trying to say much of anything. I was just trying to tell a fun story. Consciously, anyways.

Subconsciously? Change has a cost. It takes steely determination. There will always be people who benefit, and people who suffer. Only the history books will tell us whether it was worth it (and they may very well be lying).

Q: As a follow-up to the above question, gunpowder, the use of it especially in the military, is a great game changer. How much of the world in this books is shaped around the use (and sometimes abuse) of gunpowder?

A: The entire world is shaped around industrialization. Gunpowder is only a part of that, but it is very important in the warfare and in the magic system.

Q: Some writers publish the first books they write, others wind up publishing the fourth book they submitted, which was actually an idea they had when they were 12. Where does Promise of Blood and The Powder Mage Trilogy fit into that model?

A: Promise of Blood is my second epic fantasy, and my third book written overall. I developed the idea over the course of the spring of 2010 and then wrote it that summer.

Q: Your bio indicates you live with two dogs and a cat, which is a better writing companion, cat or dog?

A: I tell people that the dogs are my wife's and the cat is mine.

Leto, my cat, if a big snowshoe Siamese. He doesn't bother me unless he's hungry, but he never runs away if I want some companionship. He'll curl up in my beanbag chair and sleep while I'm writing, which is perfect.

Q: Reading Promise of Blood, I saw some DNA of your genre predecessors. Clearly, questions I ask above call out some influences. Who in the genre aside from those mentioned above, inspired you to put the words down for these stories? Who or what books outside the genre?

A: Joe Abercrombie is a personal hero of mine. I read his First Law trilogy during that spring that I was formulating Promise of Blood and it quickly shot to the top of my "favorites" list. It became a goal of mine to write something that would appeal to both readers of Abercrombie and Sanderson—to create something right in the middle.

My two favorite books are Les Miserables and The Count of Monte Cristo. Looking back, it can't be coincidence that I wound up writing a world with the same geo-political basis as both of them.

Q: When you finish writing a book, do you have any “completion rituals?” In the film and book Misery by Stephen King, Paul Sheldon likes to have a cigarette. Is there anything you like to do to celebrate, other than breathing a sigh of relief?

A: Not yet. Like I said, I've only finished three books. The sigh of relief is definitely there.

When I finished Promise of Blood, my wife brought me home a giant Lego castle. I spent the weekend putting it together. I've always loved Legos, even as an adult, so it was a very enjoyable way to decompress. I might be doing that again when I turn in the final copy of The Crimson Campaign.

Libriomancer and BookStore-BookBlogger Interview

Only one review this week (mine), but Mark posted an interview which I’ll mention after I call out my review.

I’ve been following Jim C. Hines since about the time I joined twitter last year and reading his blog fairly regularly. Though I have a few of his novels, I haven’t read any yet. Well, after reading Libriomancer that will definitely change. Here’s a bit of my review:

Told in the first person (like the majority of Urban Fantasies), Jim wastes little time in getting the ball rolling. While Isaac is cataloguing books at the Copper River Library, a group of Sanguinarius Meyerii, “informally known as sparklers” (vampires conjured through Stephenie Meyers’s Twilight novels) comes blasting through, attacking Isaac. The library is damaged and in the fight, Isaac is assisted by his pet fire-spider Smudge and last minute aid from Lena Greenwood, a nymph. (Readers of Jim’s fiction might also recognize Smudge from a certain set of novels about a goblin.) Isaac soon realizes the Porters are being targeted; especially when he discovers his mentor Ray is killed. Lena’s lover, Dr. Nidhi Shah, the psychiatrist who helps libriomancers keep their sanity after they expend energy to draw out objects from books, is also missing and a hostage of the vampires. She’s an easy target since she likely knows many of the Porter’s secrets.

…Libriomancer is an engaging, quickly paced novel that doesn’t shy away from examining the deeper elements that make up the whole of the novel (Gutenberg’s true intentions and nature, the problems of a large secretive organization overseeing something extremely powerful, the moral ambiguity of whether one should take advantage of a creature created specifically to serve). What a lot of this proves is that Jim C. Hines is a very smart, careful writer and one whose fiction I’ve overlooked far too long.

Mark interviewed Andrea Johnson and Elizabeth Campbell, the fine ladies behind BookstoreBookblogger Connection, of which SFFWorld is a participating site:

You both have a blogger’s background. Was this an important factor in your creation of BookstoreBookblogger Connection? Is it just for bloggers?


E: The blogging background is important I think because of the connections you end up making as a blogger, specifically an SF/F book blogger. These bloggers put so much work and love into doing these reviews, it’s important that they get more recognition for the hours of labor that goes into the reviews.


A: One of our goals for Bookstore Bookblogger Connection is to further promote bloggers and the book review blogging community. How cool would it be to walk into your favorite bookstore and see them promoting a book you like with a quote from a review blog you frequent, or even your own?

Blurbs submitted do need to be part of an existing review on your blog, or a group site that hosts reviews by many reviewers, such as SFFWorld.

Jack Campbell Interview, Part the Second

I posted the second half of my interview with Military SF author Jack Campbell yesterday.  I also finished Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier Invincible on Tuesday and liked it very much, near the top of my favorite SF reads so far this year.  Without further ado, here's the link and a bit from the interview:

With the mythic feel you’ve injected into The Lost Fleet do you see yourself ever turning your pen to fantasy or is Military SF where you’ll be spending the forseeable future?

I have done a few fantasy stories. "Highland Reel" was recently accepted for the upcoming anthology Rip Off! edited by Gardner Dozois. "Mightier Than the Sword" was in the anthology Turn the Other Chick, and I've done a variety of short fiction in other magazines, especially Analog. Many of those stories have involved time travel of one sort of another, like my last story in Analog ("Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in the Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms").

I also have a series ready to go that I call "steampunk with dragons." The Dragons of Dorcastle is SF, but with a fantasy feel in many ways. That series let me play with horse cavalry, steam locomotives, sailing ships and (yes) dragons. I just need a publisher to snap it up. One of the odd things in that respect is that I believe that readers are interested in seeing different things from a writer they enjoy, but publishers tend to want an author to keep doing the same thing that worked last time. I just need to convince a publisher that I really do know what I'm doing when it comes to writing stories.

Jack Campbell Interview, Part 1

Jack Campbell is the subject of my latest interview to be posted at SFFWorld.  Jack provided some of the best and most detailed responses to any set of interview questions I've generated. His responses were so through I had to cut the interview in half, posting the first half today, and the second half next week.  I have to thank Ace's publicist extraordinaire Brady McReynolds for helping to facilitate this interview.  Here's a snippet:

When I initially reviewed Lost Fleet: Dauntless, I pondered the name switch. What made you adopt Jack Campbell as your pen name, aside from the AI software overlords who control book selling and distribution? (I thought perhaps homage to Joseph Campbell since your stories focus on a Heroic Ideal, while commenters suggested legendary editor John Campbell).

I do admire both Joseph Campbell and John Campbell, but the source of Jack Campbell was a bit closer to home. Part of my ancestry is Scottish, specifically Campbell, so that's where the last name came from. I knew it would resonate in the field as well having a family connection. Jack is the name of my father and the name of my eldest son, so that's a dual tribute. I don't mind at all the implied tributes to Joseph Campbell and John W. Campbell which are a bonus of sorts. But the name Jack Campbell comes mostly from my own ancestry and family, which I guess is sort of appropriate given the importance of ancestors to the people in The Lost Fleet.

Sixty One Nails, Interview, and After the Golden Age

We’ve got some more reviews up at SFFWorld, this time from some of the irregulars.

Nila White is one of the new contributor/moderators at SFFWorld, but she’s been doing a bang up job of everything. This time ‘round she did double duty with Mike Shevdon (also a member of the SFFWorld forums) reviewing his first novel, Sixty One Nails from Angry Robot books and conducting an e-mail interview with him.

Sixty-One Nails is Mike Shevdon’s first book. But it doesn’t feel like it. The characters are well defined, the plot engaging, and the story arc brings a satisfactory conclusion to the first book in a series that I predict will become one of my favorites.
…

This is a fast paced book that, if it grabs you, will leave you sleepless till you finish. It is hard to put the book down when so much is happening to the character. Because Niall is being chased for pretty much the entire book, the reader is imbued with that same sense and is impelled to finish the story. Another aspect of the book I enjoyed was the descriptions of the use of magic and the magical beings. Though these creatures are familiar to many who know English folk-lore, i.e. wraiths, fairies, leprechauns, etc, they are painted in darker hues and given a history and problems just as real as our own. This made their story just as interesting to read about as the main character’s. I was also impressed with the descriptions of Niall’s power over the ‘void’, the spaces between things, and how, when the character draws upon that power, it changes his physical appearance. Don’t ask me why, but I was reminded of Dr. Manhattan from the Watchmen.…

Again, here’s that interview with Mike, go have a look, won’t you?

Dan has written a handful of reviews for SFFWorld in the past, his latest review is of Carrie Vaughn’s After the Golden Age:

Celia West is the daughter of the leaders of a superhero crime fighting team, a fact that did not bring her much pleasure growing up. She loves her parents but can't stand being around them for great lengths of time.
…
This is a comic book without pictures – that is basic to the encounter - and it works very well. Knowing too much about the heroes and villains will detract from the enjoyment of the tale but know that the interrelationship between the characters is played flawlessly. Celia's character makes sense; her love life makes sense, and the progress toward conclusion makes sense.

Myke Cole Interview at SFFWorld FIXED

Thanks to one of my SFFWorld pals (tmso/Nila) I've now fixed the Myke Cole interview. I hadn't realized the interface for uploading the interview kept cutting off the interview part of the way through it. So, I've added an additional page so the full interview I conducted with Myke is complete and uploaded to SFFWorld.

So, here's the first page



Here's the second page



Logos knacked from Myke's site. The first is the emblem of the Supernatural Operations Corp and the second is the division for which the protagonist is assigned.

Myke Cole Interview at SFFWorld

Myke Cole's debut novel, Shadow OPS: Control Point is released into the wild next week (January 31, 2012) to be specific and has been garnering a heap of praise, including my review I posted last week. He's been very active on teh intarwebs of late, doing numerous interviews, DM'ing a Dungeons and Dragons session with a bunch of other writers, and penning some articles for Tor.com. Recently, he took some time out of his schedule to do an e-mail interview with yours truly.

Below this awesome image which serves as the background for his Web site, is a snippet of our interview, for which the full version can be found here.

The tag line the publisher is using is a great one – “Black Hawk Down meets the X-Men.” Is this the high concept you were aiming to achieve or did you just want to get these ideas swirling in your head into the form of a novel?

The latter. I was far more interested in seeing how the rigid, giant military bureaucracy would deal with magic than I was in writing a fast-paced, action-packed novel. But the story started out pre 9-11, when I was doing peacetime work at the Pentagon. Once I started going to Iraq, I changed dramatically, and the story changed with me, taking on a lot of the tactical camera I picked up in theater. My craft developed all along, and what emerged at the other end was (I hope) a great blending of all those lines into the book we’ve got today.

With your military background, the military elements come across with great verisimilitude. You’ve mentioned Jack Campbell in previous interviews, what other Military SF writers can you point to and can say “They served, they got it right, too.”

Absolutely: Robert Buettner’s Jason Wander series. Buettner was Army, and it shows in his frank and complex depiction of the military and the people in it. He shows the organization as gigantic, hidebound and soul-crushing, but also glorious, triumphant and transcendent. And that’s really how the military is. It’s impossible to be “pro” or “anti” any organization so vast and complex. It’s very tempting to do that when you’re writing fiction (because polarity makes for an easy story), but the best works of art embrace the complexity and the reader enjoys it because they see reality reflected there. Campbell does this. Buettner does this. I have tried really hard to do it too.

Full Interview Here

David Weber Reviewed, Edgerton and Berg Interviewed

Two more reviews were posted to SFFWorld this past week, one from me and one from Mark.

David Weber’s Safehold saga continues to impress and entertain me. I realize it isn’t perfect (those damned phonetically spelled names and infodumps), but the conceit/premise of the story is intriguing and the way Weber handles some of the characters keeps me wanting to find out what happens next, so for me the good to great really overwhelms the niggles. So, without further adieu, here’s my review of the fifth (and most recent as of November 2011) installment in the saga, How Firm a Foundation:

One of the undercurrents throughout the series has been the cautious development of technology due in large part because the Gbaba, the enemies who nearly exterminated humanity, are able to detect when any civilization reaches a certain technological level. While this point has informed the background and the “why” of humanity’s current situation, it has just been that – a background item. Well, here in How Firm a Foundation, Merlin discovers something in a distant part of the world that could be seen as a dampener to the evolving technology of the Charisan empire and the future fate of the ‘archangels’ who set the current society on its rather stagnant state of development. What this did, in my mind, was put something of an endgame to the situation. A warning was made that something would happen in approximately 1,000 years which gives Weber a bottom line to meet, a head at where the conflict will arrive. This is a welcome development to a long-running series.

…

In the end, I’d sum up How Firm a Foundation, and Safehold in general a few ways. There are stories where you realize they aren’t perfect and you can enjoy the story/novel despite those flaws because the brilliant outshines the dull in a large percentage. Maybe it’s a dense narrative that takes some wading through to get to the golden parts. This book and this series might be described in that way. Weber’s detailed narrative is sometimes overly descriptive and perhaps a bit repetitive. However, the good parts – and they occur enough in the narrative – are superb. The character interactions, the revelation of a previously conceived belief as a complete falsehood, seeing Clynthan rage and start to lose his composure, the emotions that are evident between Merlin and Caleyb and so forth, really help to overshadow some of the denser plot elements.

We’ve also been interviewing quite a few authors lately at SFFWorld, some which slipped through the cracks of my radar in recent weeks.

Carol Berg, who has been relatively popular in our forums as of late, was interviewed recently. Carol's the author of The Rai-Kirah trilogy (Transformation, Revelation, and Restoration), The Bridge of D'Arnath (Son of Avonar, Guardians of the Keep, The Soul Weaver, and Daughter of Ancients), as well as the current Novels of the Collegia Magica (The Spirit Lens, The Soul Mirror, and The Daemon Prism).


Here’s an excerpt of the interview:

4. Most of your protagonists, save for Anne in The Soul Mirror, are male. Are you more comfortable writing male characters than female ones? Did you have to tackle The Soul Mirror differently since the novel dealt with a heroine instead of a hero?

I do enjoy writing male protagonists. Maybe because I have spent a lot of years observing males. Maybe because I love a challenge! I never set out consciously to choose my protagonists. They sort of come to me in the initial inspiration for the story. Certainly I have to approach a female narrator/protagonist differently, in the same way I have to approach the warriors Seyonne and Aleksander differently from the librarian Portier. I like writing strong women who participate in and drive the action of the story, yet I'm not a advocate of chicks in chainmail. And indeed, Anne wasn't my first; there is also Seri, the heart and soul of the four Bridge of D'Arnath books. Another strong, extraordinary woman, though among all the principals of those books, she alone has no power for sorcery.

We also posted an interview with Teresa Edgerton (who also writes under the name Madeline Howard). Some of her books include: The Green Lion Trilogy, The second Celydonn trilogy, The Goblin Moon Duology, and under the Madeline Howard pen name The Rune of Unmaking (The Hidden Stars, and A Dark Sacrifice).





Here’s an excerpt of the interview:

SFFWorld: Yes, you use symbolism a lot in both books, and now that I think of the style of writing you are trying to re-create, I can see all the pieces of the puzzle clicking - nice! How much research did you do for these books? Do you invest the same amount of research for all your books?

Edgerton: Well, it depends. With some books I already know the setting pretty well. When I was writing the Green Lion books and the later trilogy, I had already researched alchemy pretty extensively. I was familiar with the medieval period, and only had to read up on a few subjects. With Goblin Moon and it’s sequel, I wanted to do more research, but it was more difficult finding books on that particular period ... or at least, I didn’t know how to find them.

By the time I was writing The Queen’s Necklace (TQN) I did know how to find them, and where my research notes for Goblin Moon filled up three or four steno-pads, I filled up binder after binder with research for TQN, and was going to libraries thirty miles away to find the books that I wanted. Only a small fraction of that research made it into the book, of course. But it will be there when I want it.

For the Rune of Unmaking books, where my characters spend a lot of their time traveling, then I had to read about weather and geography, and what plants could be expected in the high mountains, and what life might be found in the deep places of the ocean, and things like that. Again, a lot of it never makes it into the books. For the latest book in the series, I’ve had to research mines and deserts.

VanerderMeers Interviewed and Emily Gee Reviewed at SFFWorld,

I’ll lead all my faithful readers into the weekend with excerpts/links to a couple of goodies recently posted to SFFWorld.

Mark interviewed Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, editors what could be considered a landmark tome: The Weird currently available in the UK via Corvus and available next year via Tor (YAY!), as well as the companion Web site: Weird Fiction Review.




They are sort of the power couple of Fantastic/Weird Literature as of late, Ann having edited Weird Tales, Jeff writing some terrifically imaginative novels (City of Saints and Madmen, Veniss Underground, and Shriek), and the two of them collaborating the Thackery T. Lambshead books.

Here's an excerpt of the interview:

Of the many tales you include, which are your personal favourites and why?

Ann: It’s difficult to pick favourites; in some ways I wish this book could have been twice the size! One story that I keep coming back to is Jerome Bixby’s “It’s A Good Life.” This story was made into one of my all-time favourite Twilight Zone episodes, which was a major influence on my early leanings towards weird fiction. I read this story for the first time in preparation for this anthology and was totally blown away. Keep in mind I know this story backwards and forwards – no surprises here, however, reading the story still gave me the major creeps. And just talking about it now is bringing that creepy feeling straight back to me.

Jeff: That’s so tough...Just being able to include work by Julio Cortazar, Angela Carter, Ben Okri, Shirley Jackson, and Jorge Luis Borges, for example—those were all my heroes growing up and huge influences on me as a writer. So being able to reprint their stories is almost overwhelming. In terms of individual stories, I love some of the more out there stuff like Eric Basso’s “The Beak Doctor”. But I am also a huge fan of Aickman, and I still find his “The Hospice” one of the strangest and at times absurdly funny tales of the supernatural ever written. The Michel Bernanos is one of the greatest weird tales ever written. I also loved that George R.R. Martin’s “Sandkings” held up to a re-reading. Then there are the stories you don’t appreciate until you revisit them. Like Kelly Link’s “The Specialist’s Hat,” which I love now. Murakami’s “The Ice Man” is a great story. Steve Duffy’s “The Lion’s Den.” I could go on and on. It’s so difficult to choose.

Kathryn (aka Loewryn) reviewed the first book in new series (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy) by Emily Gee: The Sentinal Mage.

The story is told to us through a moderate number of characters. The larger chapters revolve around Innis, Prince Harkeld and Justen, the prince's armsman, who is one of the shapeshifting mages in disguise. Harkeld's sister, Princess Brigitta or Britta as she is known by those close to her, is used to tell us a little about the politics of the land whilst Jaumé, a small boy, is our link to those directly affected by the spreading curse. These four main points of view compliment each other well and give us some insight into the world and its people. Jaumé and Brigitta elicit a lot of sympathy from the reader, the former for losing his family in a bloodbath at the age of eight, and the latter for being forced into a marriage with an overweight, sweaty man who rapes her multiple times a day. Together, these characters give us the means to view this world and the desperation of its people, but also the sheer amount of devastation that will fall upon the Seven Kingdoms if the curse is not broken.

…

Gee deals with a lot of themes in this book, and she does it well. Most prominent of all is the shapeshifting magic used by Innis, and how it affects her. Mages are forbidden from taking the form of other humans, but they also run the risk of madness if they hold forms for too long. I also thought that the way mages are seen was well done, as they were discriminated against in ways that are eerily reminiscent of techniques used in our past to demonise those perceived as different. There's use of derogatory terms such as witches, but also of stories and rumours that serve to represent the mages as subhuman, an example being the rumour that they engage in physical relations with animals. The third theme Gee explores is that of forced or arranged marriages, and how they affect those directly involved, but also those around the marriage.

Hell Ship and Conan, Plus Three Interviews

Two more reviews this week, plus a few new interviews at SFFWorld.

Philip Palmer is an author I’ve been wanting to try for some time, and with Hell Ship, which was a real page-turner, I did just that:

In a lot of ways, this novel can be seen as a chase/quest adventure. Sharrock is placed at the center of much of the story as he continually attempts to bring down the, Ka’un, the monstrous aliens who have been ravaging the galaxies and subjugating the lone survivors of each speacies. He battles other alien inhabitants of the Hell Ship, his ideologies continually clash with that of Sai-ias, and through it all, his uncompromising drive for revenge is a powerful thing that cannot be ignored. The ideologies of Sai-ias (acceptance of bad situation and trying to make the best of it) vs Sharrock (fighting against your oppressors) fuels much of the novel and proves a pleasingly introspective element compared against the intimate violence in which Sharrock participates and the external violence between the Hell Ship and the former pirate now half-AI Jak.


In sum, these elements add up to a solid gestalt story premise. Palmer supports that mish-mash premise with the characters possessing their eminently engaging and convincing voices. From their own points of view, Sharrock, Sai-ias, and Jak are completely believable and sympathetic in their plights. When Sharrock is telling the readers of his frustrations regarding Sai-ias, and vice versa, their urgings and convictions made me share those same frustrations. Palmer did a great job of putting me in the characters heads. I found myself questioning what I would do in their respective situations.

A while back, Mark took a look at a collection of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories published to coincide with the recent film. Now, he takes a look at, Conan the Destoryer a more authoritative edition from Gollancz, which is the first in series of Conan volumes::

Do we need another collection? Again, the production of small bites of the canon may entice those intimidated by the two-volume Fantasy Masterworks series or the (lovely) del Rey or Gollancz Black Library editions. However, as five of the stories in this new collection are also in Conan the Barbarian, some readers may be annoyed at the overlap. Whereas Conan the Barbarian is a taster, the three-volume set is perhaps more for those who have tried some and want the fuller picture.
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But what stories! We have tales of the young mercenary Conan (“Elephant”), of Conan fighting alongside women (“Moonlight” and “Vale of Lost Women”) against pirates and giant apes (“Moonlight”), Conan fighting sorcerers and evil wizards (“Colossus”) and corrupt priests and aristocrats (“Rogues”). At their best, they are dark, breathless, baroque and imaginative tales and have an energy that is still quite hard to beat, even if the issues of racism and the old-fashioned roles of women herein can sit a little uncomfortably with contemporary tastes..

Mark interviewed David Wingrove, author of the Chung Kuo saga currently being re-released/re-masterd.

Kat interviewed horror author Lincoln Crisler, who is also participating (with Jasper Kent and Tim Marquitz) in our current Author Roundtable

Nila (aka tmso in the SFFWorld forums) interviewed Tristis Ward, author of Bones of the Magus

Prince of Thorn by Mark Lawrence Plus Interview

Mark Lawrence's debut novel, Prince of Thorns, published two weeks ago. When I read it last week, I tore through it in less than one 24 hour period. That's how addictive and engaging his first person narrative, as told through Prince Jorg, was for me. The book has been one of the more buzzworthy debuts of the year, with one of the more active discussion topics at SFFWorld dedicated to the book.


Today, I posted my review of the book, as well as an interview I conducted with Mark via e-mail over the past week or so. Regular readers of my blog know the drill -- I post the cover shot, an excerpt of the review and link. Below the excerpt/cover is another link to the interview.

Told in a first person narrative, Prince Jorg comes across as an unapologetic, contentious, cruel, spiteful, and angry young man. Think Thomas Covenant with a healthy dose of teen angst and a sword and you might be halfway to getting a feel for the protagonist. First person narrative can be a tricky method for telling a novel-length story for the entirety of the thing rests on the shoulders of the protagonist, and the writer’s ability to generate a charismatic and compelling voice. The maturity of Jorg’s voice, along with the smooth almost matter-of-fact delivery makes it very easy to forget the protagonist is only 13/14 years old for a majority of the novel. Jorg does not mince words and at just over 300 pages, Lawrence’s novel is powerful and packs a great deal in a concise and powerful package. In other words, Lawrence has created a compelling storyteller in Prince Jorg.

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this book is not for the squeamish or the light of heart. What is most refreshing about Jorg is that he makes no excuses for the things he’s done. He only hints at these things, and along the path of the narrative, the horrible things are implied more often than not.

… On the road I did things that men might call evil. There were crimes…I’ve grown, but whatever monster might be in me, it was always mine, my choice, my responsibility, my evil if you will. …

Here's a bit from the interview:

You come across as honest and savvy with the people of the Intarwebs. Speaking as a moderator at SFFWorld, this is most welcome. How important is keeping your virtual presence active, in terms of cultivating readers?

I don’t know. Many sources tell me that the influence of the blog-sphere and groups like SFF World is not as significant as you might think. Certainly no publisher has ever suggested that joining forums etc was a good investment of time. And the darlings of many forums (Bakker for example) are not noticeably more successful than many who are widely reviled in such places. So I spend time on SFF World primarily because it’s damn good fun. Of course, I can’t believe that it’s not good for spreading the word as well – it has to be doesn’t it? And because being a carer for my little girl means I’m never free for more than a few hours at a time, I can’t travels for signings and events, so it seems an ideal way for me to do my bit.

Age of Zeus Plus Two Interviews @ SFFWorld

Just one review this week, but a couple of interviews to keep things nice and active at SFFWorld. We’ll start with my review of a book that provides a crackling mix of mythology and military science fiction, The Age of Zeus by James Lovegrove:

Imagine the Greek Gods are real and have returned to Earth. Imagine they’ve set up shop as the new rulers of the world, but aren’t exactly benevolent. Imagine humanity fighting back after about ten years of being subjugated by those gods. Well, James Lovegrove has imagined such a scenario and told the story in The Age of Zeus, the second novel in his thematically linked Pantheon Trilogy* of books. If I were the type to throw a high-concept tag line onto a book, and I am, I would say this is book is one part John Scalzi novel, one part God of War video game, and all-together fun and entertaining.
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In such a fun and entertaining novel, Lovegrove still has room for touching on some deeper issues. For example, with Sam as our protagonist, we get to view a man of power, Landesman, from the outside as she deconstructs his motivations and just who he is. With many members of the Titan army, Lovegrove explores the sense of loss and motivation for joining Landesman's Titans, as well as the power of religion and interpersonal relationships.

Recent interviews include

Liane Mercel – author of Heaven’s Needle which is the sequel to River Kings Road




J.A. Pitts – author of Black Blade Blues and the forthcoming sequel Honeyed Words

Terminal World by Reynolds Reviewed & Sprunk Interviewed

Some new content up at SFFWorld over the past week, one review and one interview. Let's begin with my review, shall we? The book's been sitting on my to-read pile for over a year, but I finally read it. The book? Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds, which will also be SFFWorld's Science Fiction Book Club selection in July (2011). After the cover shot, the usual review excerpt

Spearpoint is a city-world separated by zones, wherein each zone is the equivalent of its own country and even its own atmosphere, technology, and power sources. The divide between zones is so marked that denizens of one zone have difficulty surviving unaided in other zones for long periods of time. Spearpoint itself is a powerful blending of storytelling and world-building, a characteristic Reynolds has demonstrated in previous novels and perhaps most strongly here in Terminal World. Throughout Quillion and Meroka’s journey, they encounter the denizens of each zone from Skullboys to Vorgs to all sorts of post-human creatures. In some respects, Reynolds could probably pen a short-novel centered on each zone of Spearpont.

The relationship between Quillion and Meroka reminded me a great deal of the relationship between Yorick Brown and Agent 355 (at least the early portion of their relationship) in Brian K. Vaughan/Pia Guerra’s landmark comic/graphic novel saga Y: The Last Man. There’s antagonism on one side, frustration on the other and as the story progresses in both Terminal World and Y: The Last Man a level of respect does grow between the characters.

The interview, conducted by SFFWorld's KatG is with, Jon Sprunk, author of Shadow's Son and Shadow's Lure.

Interview with Peter Orullian at SFFWorld

While I was reading Peter Orullian's debut novel The Unremembered he and I were corresponding over e-mail about a number of things, including his writing and music.

This all led to the interview with Peter I just posted at SFFWorld.

I enjoyed the book, enjoyed corresponding with Peter and look forward to where Peter takes his characters in the next volume.

Hurley & Campbell reviewed, Batson Interviewed

Two reviews and an interview. First, we’ll start with the interview – Wayne Thomas Batson who was interviewed by KatG. I finished Wayne’s most recent book (Sword in the Stars which is also a subject of the interview) last week and will have the review posted next week.

I reviewed a debut (which is also the start of a trilogy) from Night Shade Books God’s War by Kameron Hurley:

With the ‘bugpunk’ aspect of the novel, two authors immediately came to mind. Adrian Tchaikovsky with his Shadows of the Apt series which features Insect Kinden and Steph Swainston’s much overlooked The Year of Our War. Hurley’s novel is a thicker mix of fantasy and science fiction, with ‘magicians’ on a war-torn distant planet and alien pirates.

The magic that fuels everything on the planet is bugs, and those who can manipulate the bugs to power the technology are the aforementioned magicians. The old Clarke-ism of “sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic” could really apply here. The Far Future setting peppered with fantasy tropes also reminded me a bit of Rosemary Kirstein’s Steerswoman novels. Another strong aspect of Hurley’s world-building/storytelling is the world of Umayama itself. Hurley’s playing with standard religions provides a different flavor, as Umayma the planet on which the action takes places was settled by Muslims. I also thought the Nyx’s ‘sisters’ and the whole power sects Hurley set up to be fleshed out nicely.

Readers in the UK are just now getting their first taste of The Lost Fleet Jack Campbell’s popular Military SF series, and the Hobbit Mark dove right into the first book Dauntless

So what we have here is good old traditional mil-space SF, with ships and fleets sailing and battling between worlds, like the old sea vessels of Earth. We have a military power structure based on Navy protocols and no doubt a universe that runs like the Star Trek Federation, albeit split between the two opposing ideologies of Capitalism and Communism through The Alliance and the Syndic.

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The strengths of the book are that there is a military feel to them. It is also a book that tries to show how battle would be when dealing with near-FTL speeds – often it is predicting where things will be, the ‘real’ version not being seen for seconds or minutes later. On the scale we look at here battles are lost and won before people actually see the results with their own eyes. This is all done cleverly and logically, giving a realistic feel to otherwise difficult to visualise events.

Moorcock Interviewed and Tad Williams Reviewed

As my blog posts have indicated, I’m on something of a Tad Williams kick, what with the recent interview, which brings me to the latest review Shadowplay the second installment of his Shadowmarch saga:

Williams often flings out a wide canvas of characters, so while the twins are the major protagonists, Shadowplay also focuses on many supporting characters. The troupe in which Briony finds herself after journeying over the land with Shaso is a close knit, if eccentric bunch. Shaso was one of the characters in Shadowmarch who stood out the most to me, so I was hoping to see a bit more of him in the second volume. Conversely, Vansen walks into the spotlight next to Barrick. His development, both emotional and mental, was one of the strongest aspects of the novel. The interaction between Vansen, Gyir and Barrick especially stood out for me as a great thread of enemies coming together to combat a greater foe.

Though seen more through other character’s eyes, the Autarch Sulepis is an imposing force throughout the novel. The ruler fashions himself a god and his will is difficult to defy. The character of Qinnitan, once part of the Autarch’s hive (i.e. brothel), who escaped in the first volume is still in hiding. She has a chance encounter with Olin, which though small in and of itself, holds great portentous weight and may prove a keystone scene in the series or perhaps a hint of deeper character relations.

Also up at SFFWorld is an interview Art conducted with the legendary Michael Moorcock, so head over there and read it.

Tad Williams Interview at SFFWorld

I recently had the opportunity, in collaboration with the great Mark/Hobbit of SFFW, to conduct an interview with one of my favorite authors: Tad Williams. As I mentioned in previous posts here at the o’ Stuff, I’ve long been a fan of Tad Williams. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn stands as one of my favorite fantasy trilogies and one of my favorite epic fantasy worlds as well.


In the interview, we touch on Shadowmarch, Tad's experience writing for DC Comics, and the craft of Writing in general.

So, go on and click over to the interview and check out what Tad had to say for himself!

I could probably give a nice overview of Tad's work, but it is easier pointing Adam’s terrific Author Profile of Tad Williams. Adam gives a nice assessment of Tad Williams place in the genre, though I’m much more positive in my reaction to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. Adam also gives Otherland a great overview and some well-deserved praise.

I’ll just add a bit about War of the Flowers, which shows that Mr. Williams can contain his epic storytelling to one volume. The novel is a “crossover,” wherein a young, somewhat successful musician is pulled into a world where magic runs the world. This world in which the protagonist Theo Vilmos has a great feel – part steampunk, part elfpunk, part epic, part urban fantasy. All told, a very engaging novel and despite its nature as a stand-alone novel, one whose fictional world is rich enough for repeat visits.





His young adult novel, The Dragons of Ordinary Farm, the launch of a new series written with his wife, was a lot of fun, too. It is exactly the type of book I would find myself reading and re-reading in my youth.

Chadbourn Reviewed and Moon Interviewed

I posted my latest review to SFFWorld yesterday, The Silver Skull by Mark Chadbourn

The story here concerns finding a missing weapon that can possibly turn the tide of the war in which England is embroiled. Although the novel takes place in the 1500s the enemy in question is not quite Spain, it is the Unseelie Court and the world of faerie. This has mostly been a hidden war for many years, but Swyfte is at the forefront of the battle lines. Swyfte has a bit of James Bond, and maybe with his sidekick Nat, something of a Holmes/Watson feel. In other words, Chadbourn hits some familiar notes with his protagonist, but he adds enough to make Swyfte more than a rehash of his fiction spy/sleuth peers.

Though not explicitly stated, this novel and the series which it launches, Swords of Albion, seems to be set in the same world as Chadbourn’s earlier novels – Age of Misrule. In that series set in modern day, the protagonists attempted to thwart the emerging threat of magical beings like dragons and fae creatures.

Mark and I tag teamed, or rather Mark did a lot of the leg-work and I provided a couple of questions, in an interview with Elizabeth Moon, which was posted to SFFWorld late last week.