Why do we write? I mean, we can say it’s about fame, fortune, but as someone that has been talking to authors, publishers, and editors for quite some time on my podcast Just Joshing (https://jpantalleresco.podomatic.com for those that want to check it out) most of us write for the simple reason that we seek…
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This is a chance to learn a bit more about Robert Eggleton, author of Rarity from the Hollow. Website Twitter Facebook About the Author I started writing . . . short stories in the third grade. I grew up in an impoverished family that had no money for children’s toys or entertainment. We didn’t…
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Author: M. John Harrison Release: December 18, 2007 Genre: Steampunk | Cyberpunk | Fantasy | Dark Fantasy | Sci-Fi Edition: Kindle Publisher: Random House LLC Blurb A magnificent city existing on the ringes of the past, and on the brink of destruction, Viriconium • With a foreword by Neil Gaiman Available to American readers for…
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Starter Zone, the first book in my new series, The Revelation Chronicles, launches on September 25th in ebook format. It will also be available in print and, a few weeks later, in audio book format through Audible. Right now the book is in production with my awesome narrator, Natalie Heng. With her permission I am…
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NEW RELEASE for DOMINIQUE EASTWICK And a fabulous new book it is. This Zodiac Shifters Paranormal Romance is definitely another best seller for Dominique Eastwick. Here, see for yourself. When Kalista’s father suffers a stroke just hours before making an important payment on a loan, she rushes to Greece to make amends before the billionaire…
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In the second book of The Last Timekeepers young adult time travel series, The Last Timekeepers and the Dark Secret, Treena Mui attempts to soothe the time traveling troops’ appetites by baking them a batch of sugar cookies using her family’s secret recipe. The problem is she mistakenly used salt as the main ingredient instead of sugar. It really wasn’t her fault—all the jars were marked in Dutch. Poor Jordan is still trying to wash the taste out of his mouth!
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Hunters are a lonely breed, and Conor is no exception, until the day he meets Brenna. Even though she slinks in unannounced and kills the wight he was hunting down, the girl’s a mystery and he can’t get that blinding smile or those gorgeous curves off his mind. Since they’re both after the same caster who’s unleashing these monsters, he suggests teaming up, and despite her initial reluctance, the hungry way she scans him down promises something powerful.
However, her secrets have repercussions, and faster than Conor can lift his Glock, he’s drawn into the web of kidnappings and Unseelie mischief, all concealing the machinations of a darker foe—one that plans to bring Philly to ruin.
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Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, by John Scalzi*, focuses on new crew members aboard the Universal Union flagship Intrepid who begin to notice alarming patterns that determine how long they will survive. The story follows Ensign Andrew Dahl, newly assigned junior scientist, and his friends. They slowly come to realize that there is a…
Read MoreIn elementary school children learn that the basic needs are air, water, food, and shelter in that order of importance. The need for other things, like love, security, and meaning, are lower on the level of significance. Anthropologists study the eating habits of a society in both basic forms and elaborate ritual purposes in order to gain cultural insights. The acts of obtaining, preparing, distribution, and eating of food are a fundamental part of a culture’s infrastructure. Is it any wonder, then, that food plays a principal role in the world-building of fiction realms and that some of the most famous and successful speculative fiction authors like Douglas Adams, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Suzanne Collins devote a extraordinary amount of narrative time to the central questions of how, why, and where their characters eat?
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I like reading advice on writing from other authors. Many times I find really great ideas that help improve my own writing abilities. For example, in On Writing, Stephen King (2001) recommends listening to music to help a writer block out the world and focus on the work at hand. Readers of this blog will…
Read MoreThe House on the Rock is a real place about an hour west of Madison Wi, that I write about in American Gods, and I had to tone down my description of it and leave things out in the book in order to make it believable. – Neil Gaiman
If the author of the Sandman comics, Coraline, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett), Neverwhere, and several other dark fantasy/horror works believes that a place needs to be “toned down” to be believable, the creator of that place must be doing something right.
Read MoreThere is no moving forward without first going back–Legend of the Timekeepers by Sharon Ledwith
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Science Fiction – An Evolving Genre by Tom Olbert Speaking as a writer who primarily works in science fiction, I am painfully aware that the genre holds extremely limited appeal for the public. The genre has dropped out of popularity. Most of the general public doesn’t take SF seriously. Kid stuff, they assume. Maybe it…
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Beasts of Tabat focuses on the intertwining tales of Teo, a young boy who has been sold to the Temple by his parents in order to save his younger sister’s life, and Bella Kanto, a gladiator who represents the force of winter in Tabat’s arenas. Teo’s objections to his slavery are understandable. He is a…
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The Winter Garden, by Kara Jorgensen, is book Two of the Ingenious Mechanical Devices series. It is not necessary to read the first book in the series before enjoying this novel. **Possible Spoilers Ahead** The Winter Garden is a neo-Victorian style novel. Immanuel Winter, a student at Oxford, rescues a young woman, Emmeline Jardine, after…
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There is an interesting line in Jeb Kinnison’s new novel, Nemo’s World: The Substrate Wars 2: “The reward for succeeding is more work.” Kinnison wrote a terrific sci-fi dystopian novel, The Red Queen. His reward for this success was writing the next novel in the series, Nemo’s World. Kinninson’s hard work paid off in the form of a…
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