Guest Post - Peter McLean

Fact Within Fiction: The Goetia
by Peter McLean

I’m often asked whether the magic in my books is real or not. The answer to that is no, of course not – except for the bits that are. I write fiction, but not all of it is fictional. The Goetia, that grimoire so beloved of my demon-summoning protagonist Don Drake, is very much a real thing.

When the famous magician Aleister Crowley was first introduced, in 1899, to Allan Bennett who was to become his mentor in the Golden Dawn, Bennett’s first words to Crowley were reputedly “Little Brother, you have been meddling with the Goetia.” Upon hearing Crowley’s denial, Bennett replied, “In that case, the Goetia has been meddling with you!”

The reverence with which this work is held, even in such august circles, is hardly surprising. The Ars Goetia, being the first volume of The Lesser Key of Solomon the King, also known as the Lemegeton, dates from sometime in the mid-17th century when it was compiled anonymously from much older material, most notably Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1563 and the writings of Cornelius Agrippa.

The book contains not only descriptions of the 72 demons supposedly summoned and bound by King Solomon but also gives details of their ranking in the demonic hierarchy, their spheres of influence and expertise and, most importantly, the seals required to evoke and bind them.

King Solomon himself is believed to have reigned in the 10th century BC. His actual existence is still debated by archaeologists, and even if he truly lived and isn’t simply some King Arthur-like figure of legend, we will never know whether or not he was actually a magician. The Rabbinical Literature suggests so, and contain references to his battles with Ashmedai/Asmodeus (ref: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2019-asmodeus). The initiates of the Golden Dawn certainly believed that to be the case, and that the Ars Goetia held his secrets.

This book, then, is purported to contain the knowledge and methods of the greatest Magus who ever (maybe) lived. Fast forward the nearly seventy years since Crowley’s death to the present day, and many still hold that belief. Samuel MacGregor Mathers' translation of 1904, with annotations, additions and contradictions by Crowley himself, is still in print and widely circulated amongst practising occultists today. There are whole online communities dedicated to the study and practice of Goetic Evocation.

It shouldn’t have greatly surprised me, I suppose, to have recently received a message on Twitter from one of my followers telling me he had just purchased my latest book, Dominion, and a copy of the Goetia together. I’ll confess to finding this initially rather amusing, given how little real similarity there is between actual Goetic magic and what my characters do in the books, until someone pointed out to me that reading occult fiction can be a legitimate doorway to becoming a practitioner.

Fictional magic, this acquaintance told me, does not have to be accurate in order to be inspiring, and on reflection I think that’s very true. It was reading Dennis Wheatley and the like back in the early 1980s that first at least made me aware that occultism existed, if nothing else, and set me on the path of a lifelong interest in the subject.

Part of me would like to think I have inspired that follower and possibly others to look into the history and documents behind the fiction and possibly find their own path. Another part of me wonders what the hell I’ve done here.

I’ll close on one observation. The Goetia is not a book for beginners. Evocation isn’t magic for beginners, not by a long way. Even the Bornless Ritual, which opens the Mathers/Crowley version of the text, isn’t the place to start.

At least learn the basic banishings first, folks. Don’t even pick this book up until you can do the LBRP and the Middle Pillar without a second thought. If you don’t know what those things are, don’t go out and buy a copy of the Goetia.

Please?

About Peter:


Peter McLean was born near London in 1972, the son of a bank manager and an English teacher. He went to school in the shadow of Norwich Cathedral where he spent most of his time making up stories. By the time he left school this was probably the thing he was best at, alongside the Taoist kung fu he had begun studying since the age of 13.

He grew up in the Norwich alternative scene, alternating dingy nightclubs with studying martial arts and practical magic.

He has since grown up a bit, if not a lot. He is married to Diane and is still making up stories.


He can be reached online on his website: www.talonwraith.com and on Twitter @PeteMC666.

About Drake (The Burned Man #1):


Hitman Don Drake owes a gambling debt to a demon. Forced to carry out one more assassination to clear his debt, Don unwittingly kills an innocent child and brings the Furies of Greek myth down upon himself.

Rescued by an almost-fallen angel called Trixie, Don and his magical accomplice The Burned Man, an imprisoned archdemon, are forced to deal with Lucifer himself whilst battling a powerful evil magician.

Now Don must foil Lucifer’s plan to complete Trixie’s fall and save her soul whilst preventing the Burned Man from breaking free from captivity and wreaking havoc on the entire world.

Published: January 5th 2016 by Angry Robot

About Dominion ( The Burned Man #2):


In the tunnels deep under London, the Earth elementals are dying. Hunted by something they know only as the Rotman, the elementals have no one trustworthy they can turn to.

Enter Don Drake, diabolist and semi-reformed hitman, and an almost-fallen angel called Trixie. When the Matriarch tells Don that Rotman is actually the archdemon Bianakith, he knows this is going to be a tough job.

Bianakith is the foretold spirit of disease and decay whose aura corrupts everything it comes near, and even the ancient foundations of London will crumble eventually. Now Don, Trixie and the Burned Man have to hatch a plan to keep Bianakith from wiping out the elementals and bringing down the city.

But the Burned Man has other plans, and those may have dire consequences for everyone.

The past never stays buried, and old sins must be atoned for. Judgement is coming, and its name is Dominion.

Published: November 1st 2016 by Angry Robot  

Guest Post - Jen Williams

Sing a Song of Skyrim
by Jen Williams

I’ve written before about how the video game Dragon Age inspired a love of old-school fantasy in me, which in turn led me to write the Copper Cat trilogy. What I haven’t spoken about really was how much influence Skyrim had – possibly because I didn’t fully realize the extent of its impact until after I’d written the books.

The truth is, I was playing Skyrim all through the writing process for The Copper Promise, and I’m certain now that my decision to open the book with one very dangerous dungeon crawl was directly inspired by all those draugr-haunted caverns and icy tunnels of death. The fact that my main character, Wydrin of Crosshaven, wears an awful lot of boiled leather could be traced back to my efforts to craft some decent hide armour, and as for her affection for mead… well to be fair, I suspect that does come directly from me.

Dragon Age might have planted the idea of complex sword and sorcery characters, but Skyrim taught me a lesson in atmosphere. I’ve never played another game like it in that sense; whether you’re hiking up the side of a mountain in a blizzard, unexpectedly rounding a fort to catch a spectacular view of the riverlands below, or just sitting in a tavern listening to a bard sing, Skyrim has an enormous, and almost magical, sense of freedom.

Part of this, I think, is that you are never really nailed down to the central narrative. You go where you want, do the quests you fancy, or just set out to see what’s at the bottom of that cave (usually something dreadful yet profitable). You meet other characters along the way, but mostly you move in and out of their lives – you take them or leave them, or leave them in pieces on the road. Skyrim, for my money, gives you the clearest sense of what it would really be like to be a lone adventurer in a dangerous fantasy world.

A lot of this is down to the many ways you can spend your time. You can set yourself up as an alchemist, collecting ingredients and selling your potions on; you can become a skilled blacksmith and armourer, making your own weaponry and trying it out on hapless cave bears; or you can make jewellery, and learn to enchant your pieces. You can even spend vast amounts of time hunting the best cuts of meat, or harvesting clams, and then learn how to make fortifying dinners. Why is this so satisfying? There is an odd feeling of self-sufficiency to Skyrim, – a sense that you are making it on your own, with hard won skills. My elf-mage has recently enrolled in the mage college, and spent some time investigating the ruins of Saarthal at the instruction of her tutors. We’ve learnt a lot that may advance the cause of magic, but in reality my elf was checking inside every burial urn for coins, because that kitchen extension won’t pay for itself, damn it.

It might sound a little odd, but I think this training in ‘living’ in a fantasy world was invaluable to The Copper Promise and The Iron Ghost – Skyrim gave these stories of wild magic and dragons a light sprinkling of blood and mud. That, and I got to play one of the best games ever made.

About Jen:

Jen Williams lives in London with her partner and their cat. She started writing about pirates and dragons as a young girl and has never stopped. Her short stories have featured in numerous anthologies and she was nominated for Best Newcomer in the 2015 British Fantasy Awards.



You can find Jen online at her website: sennydreadful.co.uk, on Twitter @sennydreadful and on Facebook.







 

About The Iron Ghost (most recently released, second-in-series 'The Copper Cat')

Beware the dawning of a new mage…

Wydrin of Crosshaven, Sir Sebastian and Lord Aaron Frith are experienced in the perils of stirring up the old gods. They are also familiar with defeating them, and the heroes of Baneswatch are now enjoying the perks of suddenly being very much in demand for their services.

When a job comes up in the distant city of Skaldshollow, it looks like easy coin – retrieve a stolen item, admire the views, get paid. But in a place twisted and haunted by ancient magic, with the most infamous mage of them all, Joah Demonsworn, making a reappearance, our heroes soon find themselves threatened by enemies on all sides, old and new. And in the frozen mountains, the stones are walking…

Release date: Jan 3 2017 (US/Can) / Jan 5 2017 (UK/Commonwealth)

 

About The Copper Promise (first-in-series 'The Copper Cat')

There are some tall stories about the caverns beneath the Citadel – about magic and mages and monsters and gods.

Wydrin of Crosshaven has heard them all, but she’s spent long enough trawling caverns and taverns with her companion Sir Sebastian to learn that there’s no money to be made in chasing rumours.

But then a crippled nobleman with a dead man’s name offers them a job: exploring the Citadel’s darkest depths. It sounds like just another quest with gold and adventure … if they’re lucky, they might even have a tale of their own to tell once it’s over.

These reckless adventurers will soon learn that sometimes there is truth in rumour. Sometimes a story can save your life.
 

Guest Post - David Annandale

On Monsters and Wolves

One of the things I love about the Warhammer 40,000 universe is the question of monstrosity. There are many monsters in 40K, which is – for me – cool in and of itself. I’ve always loved monsters, so getting to write about them regularly, and get paid for doing so, is beyond delightful. But the question arises: what exactly is a monster? This is one of the issues that runs through Curse of the Wulfen. It is also one that I have wrestled with in the academic side of my life, and that recurs in a lot of my writing, whether for Black Library or elsewhere.

The most useful definition of monster, for me, comes from Noël Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror: Or, Paradoxes of the Heart. Carroll defines the monsters as an interstitial being, or a category violation. It is neither one thing nor another, but falls somewhere between the two. Consider the term “undead” for example: the very word is a category violation, suggesting something that is somehow the opposite of dead without being alive. It seems the me that the monster as category violation strikes at the heart of the Imperium’s obsession with purity, and yet, paradoxically, even Space Marines fit this definition to some degree. They derive from the human, but are also beyond it, and that’s before we get into Chapters that have the unfortunate habit of drinking blood…

Along these lines, then, the Space Wolves are already on the edge of things, but in the case of the Wulfen, here is something that forces even them to confront the question of monstrosity. The Wulfen would obviously be perceived as monstrous by others, and the Space Wolves themselves are torn. Are the Wulfen a curse or a blessing? Does their return mean Russ too will come back, or has the Wolftime come? Is the answer itself monstrous in a way, falling between these extremes or incorporating both? The question finds physical expression in the wars that engulf the Space Wolves with the return of the Wulfen.

And the answer?

Well, we’ll just have to see. And here we touch on another reason why I find writing 40K so rewarding: the ability to explore questions in the form of gigantic space opera spectacle. Currently, I’m getting the chance to do more of that as I write Warden of the Blade, the first of three novels about Castellan Crowe of the Grey Knights. A bit of a contrast with the Space Wolves, to be sure, but Crowe is someone who must wrestle with the unequivocally monstrous every moment of his existence.

Which is great fun for me, and I hope for the reader as well.

About David Annandale -
David Annandale is the author of the Yarrick series, consisting of the novella Chains of Golgotha and the novel Imperial Creed, as well as the Horus Heresy novel The Damnation of Pythos. For the Space Marine Battles series he has written The Death of Antagonis and Overfiend. He is a prolific writer of short fiction, including the novella Mephiston: Lord of Death and numerous short stories set in the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 universes. David lectures at a Canadian university, on subjects ranging from English literature to horror films and video games.

Links - Website, Twitter 

About 'Curse of The Wulfen' - 

The Space Wolves' greatest secret is revealed! The mysterious 13th Company emerge from the warp, and the future of the Chapter is imperilled. Can the sons of Fenris survive the revelation of the Wulfen?

The Wulfen of the 13th Company have not been seen since the days Leman Russ sailed the Sea of Stars at the head of his Legion. Now, amid daemon incursions of alarming size, they return to the Space Wolves to fight by their side. As Logan Grimnar’s Great Companies scour the stars to rally their returning ancestors, ever more battle-brothers begin to fall prey to mysterious changes. Is the Wulfen’s reappearance really a blessing of Russ, or will the dark omens that plague Harald Deathwolf spell doom for the warriors of Fenris?

This is the biggest, most galaxy-changing event the Warhammer 40,000 universe has seen for years. The truth about the Wulfen is out, and things for the Space Wolves will never be the same again. Will they be hunted as heretics or hailed as heroes? You're gonna have to read it to find out, and the twists and turns will leave you truly gobsmacked. 

[PS: You can also check out my 'first interview of him' and '2nd interview'; as well as reviews of his works - 'Yarrick: Chains of Golgotha', 'Yarrick: A Plague of Saints', 'Yarrick: The Gallows Saint', 'Yarrick: Imperial Creed' on this blog.]  

Guest Post - Craig Cormick

What is so fantastic about Romeo and Juliet?
By Craig Cormick

So I’ve been asked to write about the Romeo and Juliet-type characters in my new book the Shadow Master. First, a quick description of the book: it’s a kick-arse tale of alternative history, love and conflict, madness and magic. Shakespeare would have liked to describe Romeo and Juliet something like that, I’m sure.
Anyway – there are two warring houses in my book – the Medicis and the Lorraines – and a young woman from the Lorraine household, Lucia, is in love with a young man from the Medici household, Lorenzo – and much of the book describes the efforts of the two to reach each other, dodging the mad monks, assassins, kidnappers and plague.
Sounds a bit derivative of Romeo and Juliet, doesn’t it (well, sort of). But in fact I’ve ‘scaffolded’ the story on an 18th Century Italian novel the Betrothed (Il Promessi Sposi), written by Alessandro Manzoni in 1827.
Say what? Well, it’s actually described as one of the most famous novels in Italian, and the first dealing with Italian history, and was itself inspired by Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.  It is set in 1628 and tells of the plague years and the politics and church of the time – and has two young lovers (the aforementioned Lorenzo and Lucia).
But the point is that the Romeo and Juliet theme has been around a looooong time and Shakespeare even lifted it himself from other sources.
Now I just happen to be researching Romeo and Juliet proto-tales at the moment, for the sequel to the Shadow Master – the Floating City – which is set in a Venice-like city and uses the proto-tales of Othello, Romeo and Juliet and the Merchant of Venice within it. These are the original Italian stories that Shakespeare adapted into his plays.
The earliest supposed Romeo and Juliet story is the tale of ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, written about the year 0. Dante’s Inferno, written in the 14th Century, refers to the families Montecchi and Cappelletti, that were later used in other versions of the story. In the 15th Century the story was ‘Mariotto and Gianozza’. By the early 16th Century it had become Giulietta e Romeo. It was later translated into French in 1559 and then into English by Arthur Brook in 1562 as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.
Still with us?

In 1567 William Painter released a collection of Italian tales, the Palace of Pleasure, that included ’The goodly History of the true and constant love of Romeo and Juliett’.
And then comes Shakespeare’s version of the story.
So whether you’re a follower of the theory that there are only a small limited number of plots in the world or not, or a follower of Jung’s theories of the universality of folk tales, it’s pretty apparent that the Romeo and Juliet story appeals to something in us that leads to it being told and retold and retold. Modern variations on Romeo and Juliet include West Side Story, Gnomeo and Juliet and the zombie romance Warm Bodies, by Isaac Marion (2011).
And I think that’s very interesting, given our general desire for ‘they all lived happily ever after’ endings – to find a double tragedy ending so appealing (Cue rap beat as Bill the Bard comes onto the stage and says, “Never was a tale of more woe chk-chka-chk-chka – than Romeo and his foxy ho!” [ed note: early draft – later revised to “Juliet and her Romeo”])
So, how does a writer take a well-known theme, or meme, and present it in a way that achieves the balance of being familiar yet new? I mean, if you tip too much one way you’re being unoriginal and derivative, and if you tip too much the other way you’re taking the reader too far off the familiar path and they start feeling a little lost.
I believe I’ve found a nice balance in the Shadow Master, and its sequel – and I’d tell you all about it in detail except I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise for all you readers out there (ed note: not that lame-arse excuse!!).  So let’ s just say, “Never was a tale of more woe, chk-chka-chk-chka – than Lucia and her Lorenzo!”
www.craigcormick.com


About the Author -

Craig Cormick in an Australian science communicator and author. He was born in Wollongong in 1961, and is known for his creative writing and social research into public attitudes towards new technologies. He has lived mainly in Canberra, but has also in Iceland (1980–81) and Finland (1984–85). He has published 15 books of fiction and non-fiction, and numerous articles in refereed journals. He has been active in the Canberra writing community, teaching and editing, was Chair of the ACT Writers Centre from 2003 to 2008 and in 2006 was Writer in Residence at the University of Science in Penang, Malaysia.
Cormick's creative writing has appeared in most of Australia's literary journals including Southerly, Westerly, Island, Meanjin, The Phoenix Review, Overland, Scarp, 4W, Redoubt, Block, as well as in overseas publications including Silverfish New Writing (Malaysia) and Foreign Literature No 6 (China). He has previously been an editor of the radical arts magazine Blast, and his writing awards include the ACT Book of the Year Award in 1999 and the Queensland Premier's Literary Award in 2006. As a science communicator he has represented the Australian Government at many international science forums including APEC and OECD conferences, presenting on issues relating to public concerns about new technologies.
His site - http://craigcormick.com/
His twitter - https://twitter.com/CraigCormick
 
About 'The Shadow Master' - 
 

In a land riven with plague, inside the infamous Walled City, two families vie for control: the Medicis with their genius inventor Leonardo; the Lorraines with Galileo, the most brilliant alchemist of his generation.
And when two star-crossed lovers, one from either house, threaten the status quo, a third, shadowy power – one that forever seems a step ahead of all of the familial warring – plots and schemes, and bides its time, ready for the moment to attack...
Assassination; ancient, impossible machines; torture and infamy – just another typical day in paradise.

Will be released on 24th June, 2014 in North America & EBook.
And on 3rd July, 2014 in UK.

Book link on 'Angry Robots' - http://angryrobotbooks.com/books/the-shadow-master-by-craig-cormick/

Guest Post - James A. Moore

World Building and Warfare

James A. Moore 

So I recently finished writing an article on world building, and that works well for me here, because I’m still in that mind set. It’s a different sort of thing, really. I’m used to writing horror more than I am fantasy and that gives me a handy shortcut to take, because horror is usually set in the modern day and in the world we currently live in. There are exceptions, of course, but not really all that many. Even if I decide to set a story in the era of the Western Expansion in the United States, it’s still this world and only a little research is required to work out the details of how different the world is now from what it was then. To be sure, there are some very radical differences, but ultimately the work has already been done.

That’s not the case when you’re creating a completely new world. Just as basic information, I have to consider the history of that world, the cultures that have evolved in that world, the people of that world and the geo-political boundaries of that world.

Let’s break that down a bit more, if you don’t mind. I promise I’ll keep it brief.

The History of the World:

In the world of the Seven Forges, the history is significant and a great deal of it has been lost in time. SEVEN FORGES deals very heavily with the fact that the largest empire on the planet—very possibly the only empire on the planet—is vast and old. How old? Over one thousand years. Any way you look at it, that covers a lot of time. In the case of the Fellein Empire, they’ve had a peaceful run of things for most of four hundred years. They have their traditions and they have certainly kept up with running the Imperial Army and protecting their borders, but they haven’t really had anything to protect themselves from. The empire eliminated all of their biggest threats a long time ago.

Except, of course, that history is always there. Somewhere past the Blasted Lands, an area devastated during the very early formative years of the empire, there is a land filled with people who’ve spent the last thousand years honing their martial skills and working to become the absolute pinnacle of human perfection. They’ve lived hard lives, brutal and violent lives and they’ve studied every form of combat they could think of, all with the notion of serving their gods. They are fanatical in their devotion and they are physically superior to the average member of the Fellein Empire because of the lives they are forced to live.

The two groups have a shared history and you want to know the most important part of that history? They each remember it very differently. Therein lies a significant part of the story. 

Cultures:

It’s not something I really had to think about in the past. A little research, a few pages from history books and a news article or two and I had all I needed to know about most cultures. The difference, again, is that I made a new world. The only cultures here are the once I create.

The Seven Forges has seven different countries wrapped into their own religious doctrines and run as separate entities, crammed into a relatively small area. For one thousand years they have struggled between each other, occasionally formed alliances, often faced the same threats at the same times and dealt with crime and punishment in their own ways.

They have followed seven different gods that have decidedly changed the ways in which those kingdoms deal with each other. They have never been properly united as an empire. Instead they have dealt with each other as enemies and on many occasions as necessary evils. And all that time, they’ve been consciously aware of the fact that they were, as a people, studying the art of war and becoming, as individuals, the best possible warriors.

They have several different languages and they have their own unique ways of dealing with their pantheon of gods, with the hostile environment right outside of their valley and the belief that somewhere, out beyond the desolation of the Blasted Lands, there are other people who will eventually come to the and change their world completely.

The Fellein Empire is built of several different kingdoms. It’s a loose conglomeration of nations that deal with each other amiably because there are no real threats and because they have known prosperity for a long time. They share a political government and each kingdom or region has its own geography, culture and traditions in addition to the traditions of the Empire.

Beyond that Empire there are several other kingdoms that are, mostly, unseen by the people of Fellein. They are simply too far distant to have much of an impact on their lives.

That will change, of course, but the point is that I have to develop those different cultures.

I can look to the history of our world for a part of that, of course, but not for all of it. There have to be differences or I’m just cheating and copying what already exists. That would be far less interesting and, frankly, far less fun.

I have to follow a certain logic with all that I do, and to an extent human nature helps with what happens, but before I can create those new countries I have to understand the aforementioned history of each area. I have to know how they’ve reacted to each other and whether or not there is bad blood between these different nations and countries and neighbors.

I have to consider their religions, their economies, their pasts and their present situations. I have to anticipate how those situations will change as the story progresses.

The People of the World: 

The culture and history of the world are all part and parcel for the people of the world. The people are byproducts of both, really. There are places in Fellein where slavery is perfectly acceptable. There are areas, as explain in SEVEN FORGES, where it just plain isn’t wise for a member of the fairer sex to move out on her own unless she wants to risk being assaulted. Of course, there are also females in the same world who make mincemeat of the type of scum who would attempt to take unwanted advantage.

The two sides of the coin in this particular tale are the people of Fellein, a very large and diverse empire with vastly different ethnicities, and the Sa’ba Taalor a single people isolated from the rest of the world for a thousand years.

Let’s take a step back for a moment, shall we? I already said that there are seven separate nations in the Taalor Valley. That’s the truth. But they are seven nations with one people. They share a very closed environment. No one from outside of the Seven Forges has come into the area willingly in a thousand years and those that have? Well, that’s for another story as yet to be revealed. But they are one people with multiple cultures. They do not have the same diversity that has shown up in a thousand-year-old empire.

Culture shock is inevitable and, for me at least, fun.

I moved around a lot as a kid. I counted it once and I went to a total of seventeen schools in my twelve years of public schooling. I lived in five different states and multiple cities, towns and counties in the process. I loved meeting new people and going to new places when I wasn’t busy dreading the exact same things. I loved meeting new people when they weren’t actively hostile toward anyone who was an outsider. Happened more than you might expect. I kept that in mind when I started writing SEVEN FORGES, but I also tried to remember the sense of wonder when I saw new things and met new people. 

Geo-Political Borders:

They are only important for one reason: They can alter the course of armies. It might be easy to attack a neighboring nation if the land between you is wide open fields, a little farmland and a creek or two, but throw in a mountain pass, a serious collection of hills and valleys or an ocean and suddenly the war takes on a different meaning.

In this case we have the Blasted Lands. Listen; in the books the Blasted Lands are bad enough. Expeditions have tried for hundreds of years to get past them with no real luck. Those that came back did so without any success at all and a lot never came back. There are raging storms, bitter cold winds, horrid living conditions and things out in that darkness. They never go away.

Anyone attempting to travel through that madness to have a fight has to come prepared for a great deal of inconvenience. Or, they need to have been dealing with negotiating the hideous conditions for the last ten or so centuries. You know, like the Sa’ba Taalor.

The one potential advantage the Fellein Empire has is that the Sa’ba Taalor are forbidden to go anywhere near the wreckage that the people of the valley call “the Mounds.” The bad news? There are things in the Mounds and those things do not play nicely with others.

For the Empire there has been no challenge for a very long time. For the Sa’ba Taalor every day has been a challenge for even longer. It’s one thing for an army to “invite” themselves into neutral territory and storm across the terrain. It’s quite another to move quickly through frozen mountain passes and across deep ravines with an army of ten thousand soldiers.

One of the things about fantasy settings that keeps them interesting is the lack of too many cheats. By that I mean in a modern setting you can move your army via ship or plane. In a fantasy setting it’s not always that easy. Of course the rules change from world to world, but there it is. In the world of Fellein there are no airships, nor are there dragons to ride into combat (it would be cool, but no, not this time).

There are foot soldiers, navies and armies. There are horses and there are the mounts of the Sa’ba Taalor. The mounts are fewer in number, like the Sa’ba Taalor. They are also deadly predators with large teeth, heavy claws and a penchant for eating their enemies.

Those are really the only modes of transport available, and the armies have to cross some rather unforgiving terrains. 

Which brings us to war.

The line under the title on SEVEN FORGES is “War is coming.” The line under the title of THE BLASTED LANDS is “War is here.” The third books should have the line “We’re only getting started.” There are conflicts in both books. They are violent and bloody and set the tone for the rest of the series.

The Sa’ba Taalor worship seven different gods, true enough, but they are all gods of war. They have spent a thousand years preparing for a fight and the people they intend to fight have spent four hundred years getting a little lazy and out of shape as far as nations go.

The Fellein Empire has no real information on the size of the Sa’ba Taalor armies. They only know that their enemies are seriously scary in combat. They only know that on the two occasions where they’ve seen the Sa’ba Taalor engaged in fights, the people of the valley walked away victorious and left no survivors.

It really depends on how you look at it, but on the psychological warfront the Sa’ba Taalor are already well ahead of the game.

There is also a fleet of black ships in THE BLASTED LANDS, and that fleet comes sailing out of the volcanic ash and ruin of a series of islands now completely devastated. And it heads directly for the southernmost part of the Fellein Empire with every intention of making brutal contact.

On the one hand there is the Empire, which while prosperous has grown careless. When there are no threats it is easy to relax. They have numbers, yes, and they have vast resources, but those resources are spread out as far s the Fellein Empire itself.

On the other hand, the smaller, harder armies of the Sa’ba Taalor. Armies? Yes. Seven gods, seven kingdoms, seven kings and seven armies. They have fought each other for centuries and for the first time in their history, they fight together united against a common enemy.

Each god has a different philosophy of war. Each king follows a different god and the orders of that deity. Each kingdom is populated by people who believe that war and worship are the same thing and they are a very devout people.

Which side would you bet on?

 

Thanks for having me here at I Hate Critics!

About the Author -

James A. Moore is the award winning author of over twenty novels, thrillers, dark fantasy and horror alike, including the critically acclaimed Fireworks, Under The Overtree, Blood Red, the Serenity Falls trilogy (featuring his recurring anti-hero, Jonathan Crowley) and his most recent novels, Blind Shadows, Homestead and the soon to be released Seven Forges. He has also recently ventured into the realm of Young Adult novels, with his new series Subject Seven. In addition to writing multiple short stories, he has also edited, with Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, the British Invasion anthology for Cemetery Dance Publications.
His Site - http://www.jamesamoorebooks.com/ 
His Twitter - https://twitter.com/JamesAMoore 

About 'The Blasted Lands' -

The sequel to SEVEN FORGES

The Empire of Fellein is in mourning. The Emperor is dead, and the armies of the empire have grown soft. Merros Dulver, their newly-appointed – and somewhat reluctant – commander, has been tasked with preparing them to fight the most savage enemy the world has yet seen.

Meanwhile, a perpetual storm ravages the Blasted Lands, and a new threat is about to arise – the Broken are coming, and with them only Death. 

Guest Post - Lisa Ann O'Kane

The inspiration for my novel ESSENCE came to me randomly while I was watching a friend get inducted into the Vail Snowboarding Hall of Fame.

There were tons of early '90's snowboarding legends there, and I was struck by how poorly many of them had aged. Some had mobility issues—thanks to the beatings they put on their bodies—some had substance abuse withdrawal issues, and many others just seemed ‘different.’ I turned to my friends at one point and said, "It's weird. It's almost like these guys were given a certain allotment of life, and they've already used theirs up."

BAM. The rest of my story came to me like lightning.

I inserted Yosemite National Park, Theravada Buddhism and hippies-gone-wrong in San Francisco, and then off I went. The only problem was that this was the winter of 2011, and literary agents and publishers were already beginning to tire of dystopian novels.

But this ISN’T a dystopian novel! I would insist. It’s a novel about cults! And although cults inherently have dystopian qualities, I want to tell a coming-of-age story about a girl who escapes from one cult only to end up accidentally joining another cult!

It didn’t matter. My fabulous agent (Hannah Bowman of Liza Dawson Associates) understood what I was trying to say, but many of the publishers we initially submitted ESSENCE to didn’t. And the ones who rejected us typically came back and said ESSENCE was either “too dystopian” or it “wasn’t dystopian enough.” Others said they loved it, but they just didn’t know where in the market they should place it.

Hannah and I were heartbroken. We tried finessing the cult elements in one direction or the other, but every time we tried to make significant changes, we found they never sat right with us.

ESSENCE was a story about cults. And it needed to stay a story about cults, even if that meant we could never find a home for it.

Of course, we did find a home for ESSENCE. The fabulous folks at Strange Chemistry welcomed us with open arms even when ESSENCE didn’t neatly fit into any of their usual genres. It definitely wasn’t fantasy, it wasn’t very speculative… It read more like a YA contemporary than anything else, but it also possessed those dystopian-like, cult qualities. Oh, and it took place in the near-future. Science fiction, maybe?

Regardless, the Strange Chemistry team understood what we were trying to say, and they believed in the story enough to take it under their collective wing. For that, I will be forever grateful.

So where does this leave me today? Truth be told, I sometimes still worry readers will expect ESSENCE to be a huge-scale dystopian thriller and will be let down when they realize it isn’t. I also worry readers who would appreciate its intimate character portrayals and coming-of-age messages won’t even know to pick it up.

But that’s what happens when you put anything you love out into the world, I guess. You can shape and coddle and care for it up to a point, and then the time comes when you need to set it free.

That time has come now.

And I hope you enjoy my… ahem… cult book, ESSENCE. ;)


About Lisa Ann O'Kane -

Lisa Ann O’Kane is a young adult author and former vagabond who once camped out in Yosemite National Park for an entire summer, an experience that inspired her debut novel ESSENCE.

Her background is in zookeeping and environmental education, and she has been kicked, cornered, bitten and chased by nearly every animal she has ever loved. She currently resides in Florida, and she is now a huge fan of shooting stars, indoor plumbing and keeping both her feet planted firmly on the trail.
Her Site - Website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest

About 'Essence' - 

Autumn escaped a cult, but now she realizes she's fallen into another.

Growing up in San Francisco’s Centrist Movement, sixteen year-old Autumn Grace has always believed emotions—adrenaline, endorphins, even happiness—drain your Essence and lead to an early death. But her younger brother’s passing and a run-in with a group of Outsiders casts her faith into question.

Ryder Stone, the sexy, rebellious leader of the Outsiders, claims Essence drain is nothing more than a Centrist scare tactic -- and he can prove it.

Autumn follows Ryder to his Community of adrenaline junkies and free spirits in Yosemite National Park, and they introduce her to a life of adventure, romance, sex, drugs and freedom. But as she discovers dark secrets beneath the Community’s perfect exterior, she realizes the more she risks in search of the perfect rush, the further she has to fall. 

       Links - Amazon(US), Amazon(UK), Amazon(Canada), B&N, Kobo

Guest Post - Jay Posey

Mixing up the chaos of western and apocalypse

 

When I tell people my Legends of the Duskwalker series is a post-apocalyptic western (with cyberpunk!), sometimes they get a look in their eye that suggests those are things that should never go together, kind of like chocolate and bleach.  But there’s a fairly long-standing tradition of mixing the two genres, and playing with both gave me some interesting ways to explore the story I wanted to tell.

For one thing, using a post-apocalyptic setting let me include a lot of advanced technology while still maintaining the sort of frontier feeling I wanted to explore.  At the same time, having my characters navigating a dead cityscape brought a nice texture to the world that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve had I gone with a more typical Western-style setting, like a newly-settled planet.  Rather than having vast expanses of wasteland separating small outposts, I liked having a world where the characters were constantly aware of how much had been lost.

Another benefit of combining the two genres was the types of challenges it enabled me to put in front of my characters.   Whether resources are scarce because civilization has collapsed, or because we’re beyond its current borders, those limitations provide good opportunities for everything to matter.  Stories don’t have to be about Saving The Entire World when you’re not even sure your characters can survive long enough to make it to the next town on the water they’ve got left.   The decision to pull the trigger means a lot more when you’ve only got one round left, especially if you don’t know when you might find another.  

Along those same lines, the moral choices characters have to make have greater significance when the only law is the one they make for themselves.  Adding the strong survival element from the apocalyptic side to the general lawlessness of the Western frontier made for some interesting character dilemmas along the way.  When you remove even the social pressure from the concept of what’s truly right or wrong, it says a great deal about your characters when you see what they’re willing to sacrifice for or what they’ll let themselves walk away from.

And finally, mixing the two let me add greater depth to the characters themselves.  With Three, I knew I’d wanted to play with the lone gunslinger trope, but I didn’t want to stick too closely to just the usual elements.  And with the sequel Morningside Fall, having that post-apocalyptic side left me a lot of room to explore other kinds of characters that wouldn’t seem quite as at home in a purely Western tale.

Overall I found it both fun and effective to be able to draw from both traditions.  They mix well together, but each brings certain textures to the world that the other lacks.  Adding the cyberpunk elements into the mix brought another interesting angle that rounded out the experience I wanted to create with the series, but without the foundation of the chaos of the Western and the post-apocalyptic the Legends of the Duskwalker series just wouldn’t be the same. 

   

About Jay -

Jay Posey is a narrative designer, author, and screenwriter.  Currently employed as Senior Narrative Designer at Red Storm Entertainment, he’s spent about 8 years writing and designing for Tom Clancy’s award-winning Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six franchises.  He started in the video game industry in 1998, and has been writing professionally for over a decade.
A contributing author to the book Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing, Jay has lectured at conferences, colleges, and universities, on topics ranging from basic creative writing skills to advanced material specific to the video game industry.
He has been described as “fascinating”, “insightful”, “highly entertaining”, “extremely handsome”, and “one of the most dynamic speakers in the Posey household” by parties who may or may not have been biased or himself.
You can learn more about him on his site & follow him on Twitter at @HiJayPosey


About Morningside Fall -

The lone gunman Three is gone, and Wren is the new governor of the devastated settlement of Morningside, but there is turmoil in the city. When his life is put in danger, Wren is forced to flee Morningside until he and his retinue can determine who can be trusted.

They arrive at the border outpost, Ninestory, only to find it has been infested with Weir in greater numbers than anyone has ever seen. These lost, dangerous creatures are harbouring a terrible secret – one that will have consequences not just for Wren and his comrades, but for the future of what remains of the world.

The book will be released on 29th April 2014.