Those of you waiting for a sequel to SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD have had to wait a while, I’m afraid. Of course it’s no secret as to why after the last 18 months! But at last NECTAR FOR THE GOD is available to be pre-ordered, and I can’t wait to share it with you
Here’s the blurb:
In the city of Agatos, nothing stays buried forever.
Only an idiot would ignore his debt to a high mage, and Mennik Thorn is not an idiot, no matter what anyone might say. He’s just been … distracted. But now he’s left it too late, and if he doesn’t obey the high mage’s commands within the day, his best friends’ lives will be forfeit. So it’s hardly the time to take on an impossible case: proving a woman who murdered a stranger in full view is innocent.
Unfortunately, Mennik can’t resist doing the right thing – and now he’s caught in a deadly rivalry between warring high mages, his witnesses are dying, and something ancient has turned its eyes upon him.
The fate of the city is once again in the hands of a second-rate mage. Mennik Thorn should have stayed in hiding.
NECTAR FOR THE GOD will be published on December 2, 2021, and you can pre-order it now.
Right now, the book is at a special preorder price, but it won’t stay that way forever!
Every now and then, you will see someone object to the presence of potatoes in a fantasy story. The argument goes that, because potatoes originate from South America, having them appear in a pseudo-Medieval, pseudo-European fantasy is an anachronism.
And I don’t care.
If you’re writing a secondary world fantasy based loosely on Medieval Europe, let’s be honest, you’re working with a lot of assumptions already. You’re assuming that somehow, on a world with a different geography, geology, climate, history, and pre-history, humans have not only managed to evolve but that they have evolved weapons, ways of living, customs, and diets that are similar to those that evolved here on Earth, in Europe.
That’s stretching credibility to an extreme. But it doesn’t end there. You’re assuming that, for the most part, the same plants and animals (plus some random fantasy ones) evolved also, again despite the differences in the world, even including perhaps the addition of magic.
How about birds? Birds are fucking crazy. How likely are birds?
As most people know, birds are dinosaurs. They are descendants of the very few, small species of dinosaur that survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, when the giant asteroid smashed into Earth and wiped out most life, just like we’re descendants of the small mammals that survived. If the asteroid hadn’t hit, or if it had hit a different spot, no birds. No birds. Your fantasy novel requires an identical extinction event with identical effects if you want birds. That’s not happening.
That’s hardly the only example.
Your secondary world fantasy (and mine) makes no sense at all. It is based on a series of such unlikely coincidences and assumptions that it wouldn’t happen.
And, bearing all that in mind, you’re hung up about this fantasy world having potatoes in a European-modelled region rather than a South American-modelled region? Or the idea that, in that world, there might have been trade in potatoes between those equivalent regions a few hundred years earlier than happened on Earth?
So, no, I don’t care about potatoes in your fantasy. Put them in. Turn them into chips. Add ketchup. Why not?
SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD has made it through to the final round of the 2020 Booknest Fantasy Awards in the self-published category. It’s up against some of the biggest names of self-published fantasy, so if you enjoyed it, please give it a vote and let’s see if we can keep up with them!
It’s publication day for my fantasy short story collection, AT THE GATES AND OTHER STORIES.
I didn’t set out to be a short story writer. I always thought I would write novels (and I do, of course), but there is something irresistible in the perfection of a whole story contained in a short, well-crafted package. It’s the glint of sunlight that hints at an ocean, a single flower instead of a whole garden.
Most of my short stories were written in a ten year period between 2001 and 2011, although I’ve continued to write the occasional short story since, and this collection includes one story, Slipper of Glass, that was written in 2020 and has never been published anywhere else.
I’ve been really lucky with my stories. They’ve been published in a whole range of professional magazines and anthologies, from Interzone and Strange Horizons to Realms of Fantasy and The Year’s Best Fantasy, but this is the first time that I’ve gathered what I think are the sixteen best in a single volume.
I love these stories, and I hope you will, too. You can buy the collection as an ebook pretty much anywhere that sells ebooks, and you can buy a paperback version via Amazon.
This collection contains sixteen stories, with about 70,000 words of fiction. I hope there will be some stories in there that you love as much as I do.
I never wanted to have to delay my books. As a reader, I hate it when a book I’ve been looking forwards to gets delayed.
But then this is this year. I’ve now been hit by Covid for the second time. The first time, in April, was pretty bad and I ended up losing a couple of month’s work from it, and everything since then has been much slowed down. Now I’ve got it again, and it’s hitting me hard again. I know recovery is going to be slow.
Last time, I pushed through and got SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD out on time, despite the Covid, but it wasn’t a good idea. This time, I need to take it more easily.
So. My short story collection, AT THE GATES AND OTHER STORIES, which was scheduled to come out on December 3rd, 2020, will now be coming out on January 2nd, 2021. I’m really sorry to those who’ve pre-ordered it and will now have to wait longer. But I want it to be right, not a rushed job.
The sequel to SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD, NECTAR FOR THE GOD, was pencilled in for May 2021, and if I suddenly hit full health again tomorrow, that would still be happening, despite the illnesses, but I know from experience that that won’t happen. It is going to take me months to get back to health. So, NECTAR FOR THE GOD will now be coming out in the second half of 2021. I can’t say exactly when, because I don’t know exactly how long it’ll take me to recover.
I really hate having to do this, but I hope everyone will understand, and the books will appear eventually.
As I’ve mentioned before (and, hell, will probably mention again, because cool things are cool), SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD is a finalist for the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) this year. There are ten books in the finals, and they are a pretty diverse bunch. There’s probably something there for everyone. Here’s a nice flowchart graphic to help you pick which one to read!
I have been negligent in failing to mention here in this blog that my fantasy novel, SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD, reached the finals of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) competition. The competition started with 300 self-published fantasy novels and is now down to the best 10 for the finals.
The winner won’t be announced until next year, but I am really excited and happy to have reached the finals.
Here’s what the judges from Fantasy Faction said about SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD:
“Our judges were completely hooked by this page-turner of a mystery, set in a well-drawn world with fully fleshed characters. The characters especially won rave reviews. Supporting characters captured our affection; Mennik’s snarky humor and good heart won us over completely. It’s also a polished, well-balanced read, with plenty of humor to leaven the grisly murders, and all the tension and surprises one could wish for in a mystery. All in all, we loved rooting for Mennik through each twist and turn.”
Some absolutely amazing books have come out of the finals of this competition over the last five years, and whatever place SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD ends up taking, I am ecstatic to have got this far. Thanks are due to Mark Lawrence (the organiser and founder of the competition) and all the blogs and reviewers that judge it.
I’m going to post a longer discussion of this on my newsletter, but in the meantime:
A Wind from the Wilderness, at the time of writing this review, is a semi-finalist in the current SPFBO (Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off), a competition to find the best self-published fantasy book, and it deserves its place.
This is a historical fantasy, mostly set during the first crusade as a Frankish and Greek army makes its way towards Jerusalem. It focuses mainly on three characters, A Syrian boy, Lukas, a Turkish girl, Ayla, and a Frankish count, Saint-Gilles. Lukas is a refugee in time, cast forward by dark magic four hundred and some years from his own time and caught up in the crusade. Ayla is looking for revenge against the Watchers, a group who killed her father.
The book follows their journey.
The book that this most reminded me of was A Game of Thrones (not surprising, perhaps, with A Game of Thrones being strongly influenced by history and historical fiction itself), not in the specific events but in the style of story. We have that same mixture of the young people (Lukas and Ayla) trying to get home and get revenge, joined with the battles and political scheming, mostly shown through Saint-Gilles’ point of view. The writing is vivid and lush. I don’t know much about the period, but the author convinced me that she did, and the details are immersive.
Oddly, as a fantasy fan, the part of the story that interested me least was the magic. It lacked the believability and the richness of the historical parts of the book, and sometimes I wished this was a straight historical novel. I had a few minor nitpicks. Although the writing was very good, there were a couple of places where Lukas spent a lot of time swallowing and gulping, and there were a few repeated words and phrases. All of this would be easy to fix in another copyedit, but it didn’t distract from my enjoyment. There were also a couple of chapters from other points of view that didn’t really add anything for me.
This is an extremely strong book. If you like historical fantasy or just historical fiction, I highly recommend this. Beware, though, if you can’t cope with harm to children, because there is one incident that may distress you, but I don’t want to give spoilers.
I’m looking forward to the sequels, which I understand will follow other members of Lukas’s family who have also been lost in other time periods.
I haven’t done a Music Monday post for a long time, so most of you don’t realise (or have deliberately forgotten, and who can blame you…) that I used to do them. In fact, I even blogged about cover versions before. You can find all the music posts here. But let’s get on with this one.
I’ve realised that I have a particular affection for cover versions of non-metal songs done by heavy metal bands. There’s something about the addition of that heavy element to a song that has a different structure to your standard heavy metal song that makes it particularly interesting.
For example, listen to heavy metal gods Judas Priest cover Joan Baez’s Diamonds and Rust:
Different to the original, but in my opinion equally brilliant.
But I think my favourite cover version comes from the singer of 80s legends Saxon, Biff Byford, with his cover of the traditional folk song Scarborough Fair (made famous by Simon and Garfunkle). There is something about the song that works really well with his voice, and it’s very different to the more straightforward heavy metal he normally sings.
If you’ve got a particular favourite cover version, share it with me below or on Twitter or Facebook. I’m always looking out for new music!
Looking for a “unique fantasy read that blends epic fantasy and a touch of detective noir, with excellent results” (Nick Borelli, Out of This World SFF Reviews), “a fun filled read with humour and heart” (Emma Davis, Fantasy Book Review)?
It was only supposed to be one little job – a simple curse-breaking for Mennik Thorn to pay back a favour to his oldest friend. But then it all blew up in his face. Now he’s been framed for a murder he didn’t commit.
So how is a second-rate mage, broke, traumatized, and with a habit of annoying the wrong people, supposed to prove his innocence when everyone believes he’s guilty?
Those of you who take an interest in self-published fantasy novels might well be aware of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, a competition to find the best self-published fantasy novels. It’s now in its sixth year, and every year it highlights the cream of self-published fantasy. It’s run by author Mark Lawrence in association with ten book review blogs, and it winnows down 300 entries to 10 finalists and, eventually, one winner.
If you don’t follow self-published novels, you’re probably in the same place as I was a few years ago, knowing that there must be some great self-published novels out there, maybe even having come across a few through recommendations, but not knowing how to find the best ones from among the, honestly, crap.
Self-publishing has come on a lot in the last five or so years. It has become more professional and higher quality, and the best self-published books are every bit as good as best traditionally-published books. But the problem of finding those books has remained the same. Until I came across this competition, I had concluded that I just wasn’t going to reliably find good self-published books.
Here are some of the great books that I’ve discovered from finalists in the SPFBO competition:
Check some of them out. They really are worth your time. And there are many others. Here’s the full list of finalists and winners (scroll down that page). I’ve got plenty on my TBR, just waiting for me to get them, books like Alicia Wanstall-Burke’s Blood of Heirs, Virginia McClain’s Blade’s Edge, and Barbara Kloss’s Gods of Men.
When I decided to self-publish Shadow of a Dead God, the sixth edition of this competition was just about to start, so I entered. I think the competition does a great job at finding fantastic books. I have no idea if I’ll make it to the finals — undoubtedly ever year some great books don’t even get that far. Arguably the most egregious example is the magnificent Senlin Ascends, by Josiah Bancroft which fell at the first round and which I think many people since have agreed is an exceptionally good book. But there are always more than 10 deserving books each year, and not every one of them can be a finalist. Even if my book falls by the wayside early on, I am really enjoying being part of the community of writers and judges taking part in this. Even this early on in this year’s competition, I’ve come across some really good books.
You can follow along in the competition in the Facebook group, or if you don’t like Facebook, you can keep an eye on the progress of entries on the official competition webpage.
