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.
“Fast-paced, quick-witted, deftly plotted and as well-thought-out as it is well-written. Highly recommended.”
– Juliet E. McKenna, Author of The Tales of Einarinn and The Green Man’s Heir
“Recommended for readers of The Lies of Locke Lamora and anyone who loves fantasy mystery starring a delightfully reluctant, unlikely, foul-mouthed and golden-hearted hero.”
– Katrina Middelburg, Read. Ruminate. Write.
Well, it’s been a while, but I have a new full-length book coming out. This is my first novel-length fantasy book for adults and it’s out on May 28th, 2020. In other words, less than a month!
What’s it about? Read on and find out…
Shadow of a Dead God
Agatos, the White City. Wealthy, diverse, rich in history, and lousy with the power of dead gods.
It was only supposed to be one little job – a simple curse-breaking for Mennik Thorn to pay back a favor 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?
Mennik only has one choice: to throw himself back into the corrupt world of the city’s high mages, a world he fled years ago. Faced by supernatural beasts, the mage-killing Ash Guard, and a ruthless, unknown adversary, it’s going to take every trick Mennik can summon just to keep him and his friend alive.
But a new, dark power in rising in Agatos, and all that stands in its way is one damaged mage…
How would I describe this book? Suppose you took Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files or Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London and put them in an epic fantasy world full of gods, mages, and monsters. Then you might have Shadow of a Dead God.
I have been lax, and slack, and inefficient. I finished this wonderful book a week ago and I haven’t reviewed it yet. Let’s fix that.
First up, let’s get the basics out the way. The Bone Ships, by RJ Barker, is a magnificent book. It really is. Barker’s previous Wounded Kingdom trilogy (Age of Assassins, Blood of Assassins, King of Assassins) was very good, but this is a massive step up, and it wouldn’t be unfair to say that this is Barker’s masterwork.
The basic story is simple enough. The Hundred Isles have been fighting a war against the Gaunt Isles for generations. In this world of scattered islands, the battles are fought on the seas between ships built from the bones of gigantic, extinct sea dragons. Over time, with no new supply of bones, ships have become only more valuable. Then a new sea dragon is spotted making its way through the islands. If either side hunts and kills the dragon, the vast haul of bones will prolong the war for many more generations.
Joron Twiner is the Shipwife (captain) of the black ship the Tide Child. Black ships are old, decaying bone ships crewed by women and men condemned to death. Rather than take his ship into battle, Twiner has laid up in an isolated bay, found a tumbledown shack and is slowly drinking himself into oblivion, leaving his crew to their own devices on board ship. And there he remains until the day that Lucky Meas turns up to challenge him for the position of shipwife. Lucky Meas has been condemned to the black ships after losing her position in the fleet, but she’s not taking it lying down. After defeating Twiner and sparing his life, she sets about getting the Tide Child into shape. Because Lucky Meas has a plan: she will not let either the Hundred Isles or the Gaunt Isles capture the sea dragon. She will protect it in its passage through the archipelago, fighting off both sides if necessary, until it is beyond reach and then she will kill it, denying the bones to everyone and hopefully hastening the end of the war.
The Bone Ships is simply the story of the Tide Child as it carries out its mission.
Like I said, a pretty simple story, right?
Well, at that level it is. But where The Bone Ships really shines is in its world building and its characters. Barker dives deep into a very alien world. Much fantasy – most fantasy, and I include my own in this – is based approximately on locations, cultures, and history from our world. The Bone Ships really isn’t. In the ocean-based, ship-focused story, there are obvious echoes of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series and CS Forester’s Hornblower, but Barker has created a complex, unique world to set the stories in and then he has followed through rigorously to the consequences of this world. It’s worldbuilding that informs every aspect of the books. Any examples don’t really do justice to the immersive nature, but let’s take a few anyway. The Hundred Isles is a strongly matriarchal culture, and this manifests itself not just in the political set-up or people’s positions, but in the language. Ships are always ‘he’, the captain is the shipwife, people are referred to as ‘women and men’, not ‘men and women’, and so on. The ships, being built of bone, have different names for their components. The masts are ‘spines’, the front is the ‘beak’.
But that’s just scratching the surface. From the birdlike wind wizards, the gullaime, to the brutal sacrificing of first-born children (luckily not explicitly described on the page, for those of us who don’t have the stomach for that), and a complex set of shipboard customs, this is an intricate and very different society. It is also not one that is admirable. Anyone born disabled in any way or born to a mother who dies in childbirth is consigned to an explicit underclass.
The complexity of the worldbuilding could cause some problems as the reader flails for familiarity – and a few reviews reference that – but it didn’t for me, and the reason for that was the characters. There are a quite a lot of them, but all of them are well-realised and convincing, and they are what lead you into the story. Joron Twiner and Lucky Meas, being the leads, are the most interesting, but there are plenty of other great characters. They are our guides into a world that at first is difficult to understand but which becomes increasingly convincing.
There isn’t a great deal of fantasy set aboard ships for some reason. Robin Hobbs’s Liveship Traders series is the most obvious example, and The Bone Ships deserves comparison with Hobbs’s books, in tone as well as in it’s shipboard setting.
The Bone Ships is exhilarating, engrossing, and thrilling in equal measures. I loved the time I spent in the company of the crew of the Tide Child. A few readers may find themselves cast adrift by the alienness of the fantasy setting, but I don’t think most will. I understand there was a glossary in the book, but I didn’t have consult it once and didn’t even realise it was there until I saw other people mention it.
I should note here that RJ Barker sent me a paperback copy of this book for review. This did not in any way affect my opinion of the book or my review. In fact, I ended up reading an ebook copy that I bought myself, partly because the paperback was so pretty I didn’t want to crease it, but mainly because I wanted to keep reading at night without a light.
One note, though, and I feel I should include this, because I’ve noted it for some self-published books recently and I want to be fair: there were quite a few typos in the ebook edition. Not so many that it interfered with my enjoyment of the book, but they were noticeable. I don’t know if the print edition shares those.
The Bone Ships is the first in the Tide Child trilogy, and I for one can’t wait for the next.
I mean, not a wrap with a nice gift card and a ribbon, but more of a kind of a wrap with a bit of old newspaper and some hastily stuck-on tape (yes, I’m aware I’m mixing metaphors). But it’s still a wrap, okay?
In other words, I have finally – finally! – finished the first draft of my new novel. And, yeah, I’m pretty excited about that!
This is my first novel for adults that I’ve done since I knew what I was doing with this writing thing. Not only have I now finished the first draft, but I like it! It’s very me. We’ve got cool magic and dead gods and murders and people getting the shit kicked out of them and all the swearing I couldn’t put in my middle grade novels.
The first draft has come in at almost exactly 100k words. I already know there are some bits I’m going to cut and some bits I’m going to insert and a whole bunch of bits that I’m going to fiddle around with, but I reckon it’ll come out not too far from that total.
Okay, that’s the good stuff. Here’s the stress: I don’t have a title for my book! I always have a title for my books when I start, even if they eventually change. But this one? Nope. I kept thinking I would come up with one eventually, but I didn’t and I still can’t think of one and, and, and. Please give me a title. Any title. Your title will do. Do you have a good title for your book? Can I steal it? Pretty please? Okay, I’m stealing it.
I’m planning to take a month off this book then plunge into the rewrite during our summer trip to America.
And now I have to think of something else to write.
I know this because, once again, I have started trying to write a high / epic fantasy (I really don’t know the difference between those two subgenres) having forgotten exactly why I don’t normally write this kind of stuff, despite loving to read it.
The reason is simple: names.
I literally (literally literally) cannot figure out how to come up with good names for characters in a secondary world fantasy. Other writers seem to do it with no trouble. George Martin has literally (not literally) a million characters, but he mostly uses ordinary names, occasionally changing the spelling a little.
Those with a linguistic bent figure out how languages are put together and create names sensibly (although most don’t go full Tolkien and create entire languages first, the nerd).
Others just throw a bunch of syllables together and come up with what look like unlikely anagrams, but let’s face it, those tend to be pretty crappy.
Then there’s me. Who just stares at the page and can’t come up with *anything* that sounds even vaguely non-stupid.
Now I remember why I don’t write high fantasy…
* Gonna write it anyway. Just bitter about having to come up with names
** Despite the picture accompanying this blog post, there will be no elves in my book. Elves are arseholes.
In between blowing bubbles with the boys (who are off school for the Easter break) and cutting the hedge at last (gardening is not my strong suit), I’ve been thinking about the sense of place in fantasy writing.
The reason I’ve been thinking about it is that I recently read the third book in an epic fantasy trilogy. I’d read the first two about six months before, but when I opened the third one, I didn’t recognise any of the locations. I had to go back and start searching through the first two books to figure out where all these places were and what their significance was.
Now, part of this is my fault. I tend to read late at night when I’m tired and I’m sure my brain doesn’t remember everything that goes into it. Hell, even when I’m at my most awake and alert, my brain is a colander with giant holes. But it’s also true that the real sense of place for a reader is kind of lacking in many fantasy novels. Part of it is because the names are often generically fantasy and so aren’t that easy to remember or distinguish. Part of it is because there’s nothing particularly memorable about the places.
I’m not going to say what the trilogy I was reading was, because there are many other wonderful things about the series and I don’t want to pick on one author in particular, but I’m sure you can think of books that are much the same.
It made me realise that one of the things George RR Martin does superbly well is give a sense of place. The last time I read any of the A Song of Ice and Fire books was when A Dance With Dragons came out in 2011. Yet I have no problem remembering the locations in the books. Ask any fan, and they’ll easily distinguish Winterfell from Kings Landing, Slavers Bay from Riverrun, Harrenhall from The Eyrie, The Wall from Sunspear. And so on.
There are literally hundreds of named locations in Martin’s series, and dozens which are major locations. But every one is readily distinguishable from the others. This is because all the locations are iconic in some way and their names tend to give hints as to what the location is. You’re not going to mix up Dragonstone and the Summer Isles, even if the books never visit the Summer Isles.
Another author who gives a wonderful sense of place in a much smaller setting is Ben Aaronovitch in his Rivers of London series. All of these books are set in and around London, but even for those of us who only occasionally visit the touristy bits of the city, he gives an amazing feeling for even the most out-of-the-way location. He does this through series of anecdotes about each location and its history, accompanied by ironic commentary on them which gives a sharp fix on each. The locations may be more mundane, suburban, even, at times, but they are every bit as vivid as the wilder, more spectacular locations of Martin’s world.
If you been hanging around my social media over the last couple of days (which, I assume, everyone does), then you will have probably noticed the announcement for the upcoming anthology The Underwater Ballroom Society, which will be coming out at the end of April. I’m really pleased to have a novella in the anthology, which is full of so many of my favourite writers. I thought about telling you about the novella, but I think I’ll save that for another post. What I want to tell you about today is the cover, which was revealed yesterday on the Book Smugglers blog.
Because, as well as contributing a story, I also designed the cover, which you can see here:
This is actually the first time that I’ve designed a cover for an anthology rather than for a novel or short story. The anthology consists of fantasy and science fiction stories all of which include at least one scene set in an underwater ballroom. You can read more about the concept in the cover reveal blog post. These stories include a wide range of genres, settings, and time periods. My first ideas for the cover were all scenes of or in an underwater ballroom. But, inevitably, when I sketched these out they tended to give the impression of a particular story or location. That can work for an anthology, but in my opinion, particularly with such a diverse anthology, it’s better to have a cover that represents the concept overall rather than any particular expression of the concept. I wanted a cover that would give the feel of the stories as a whole without actually showing a scene from a particular one of the stories.
So, I decided to do away with the ballroom altogether and go with “underwater” and “dancing” as my concepts, in a scene that at least hinted at a speculative element (as all stories are science fiction or fantasy to some degree).
I’m not an artist, so my covers use a combination of stock photos, but I really enjoyed the process of painting the water and combining the images to create this underwater scene. I hope you like it too.
Like I said, I will tell you more about my particular story and some of the other stories in the anthology as we get closer toward the publication date. For now, you can add this on Goodreads and subscribe to the anthology newsletter, which will give you the chance to win one of fifty free copies of the e-ARC when it is available. I will also offer a few free copies of the e-ARC on my own newsletter, which you can subscribe to here or on the front page of my website.
I can’t wait to share this anthology with you. There are a wonderful variety of stories for you to read by some amazingly talented writers, and I feel really privileged to have been invited to be part of it.
It’s publication day for THE EMPEROR OF MARS. It’s also the day that SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB comes out in paperback, in case you’ve been waiting for a cheaper version.
Publication day is always super busy, and I haven’t done nearly everything I meant to, but I did go out with the boys, eight-year-old MrD and four-year-old MrX, to a cafe and then a bookstore, so who can say fairer than that? To be honest, I’d happily do that every day…
If you haven’t read SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB already, THE EMPEROR OF MARS will work on its own, but I do think you’d have more fun if you read SECRETS first.
While you’re here, here’s a (spoiler-free) extract from Chapter Three of THE EMPEROR OF MARS. Enjoy!
THE EMPEROR OF MARS extract
In two days, the museum was opening a new gallery stuffed full of the amazing artifacts we’d found in our dragon tomb.
We pushed our way through the heavy, iron-studded door, and deafening noise immediately washed over us.
“Look out!” Putty shouted.
I ducked just in time as something swooped by, almost taking my head off.
The entrance hall was in chaos. For a moment, I thought the museum had been attacked. But it was almost worse: Dozens of junior curators were rushing around the lobby in panic, shouting and waving, while a cluster of automatic servants strained to carry a large, elaborate artifact toward a nearby gallery. One of the curators had even put on a pair of pneumatic wings and was flapping around, out of control, almost crashing into the other curators, the artifact, the walls, and us. The automatic servants wobbled, the curators shouted contradictory instructions, and any moment the whole thing was going to end in disaster.
“Hey!” Putty shouted. “That’s our artifact! You’d better not drop it!”
I’d never quite figured out what the artifact was supposed to be. It was made of hundreds of brass balls, each the size of Putty’s fist, all connected together with thin brass rods. We’d found it in the dragon tomb when we’d been taking shelter from Sir Titus. Before I’d had a chance to look at it, he’d smashed it to bits with his excavator. The museum had spent the last few months restoring it, but I still didn’t know what it was, and no one else seemed to, either. It looked a bit like a man crouching, ready to jump up. Or maybe like a bowl of noodles tipped over a sculpture made of marbles.
“Look,” Putty said. “There’s Dr. Guzman. Why don’t you ask him about Rothan Gal?”
I eyed the small, dust-smeared junior-under- curator standing on the far side of the lobby. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“He’s awfully boring. You deal with boring better than I do.”
