One last post for the Kickstarter Last Cities of Earth. I'll say, the images of these cities is worth picking up. I am loving these images! Hope you are enjoying them as well.
If you would like to pledge and join to get the anthology, head over to the Kickstarter now. There is only a few short days left.
LAST CITIES OF EARTH by Kevin J. Anderson
My friend Jeff Sturgeon is an amazing artist with an amazing imagination. I have watched him exhibit at science fiction conventions with his gorgeous and innovative paintings on burnished metal, but over the past several years Jeff has been possessed by a very energetic and demanding muse.
He’s developed a breathtaking science fiction concept, THE LAST CITIES OF EARTH, a future after the explosion of the great Yellowstone caldera makes the surface of the world uninhabitable, but with enough forewarning, the major cities have used new technology to levitate themselves above the clouds. Now, centuries have passed, and each city has developed its own culture, its own airships, and a new trading network is evolving. The ideas abound, and Jeff has created painting after painting of city after city.
New Las Vegas
With his new project, Jeff is opening it up to other authors, so that we each write a story based on a particular city. John Pitts, Jody Lynn Nye, Ian Douglas, Brenda Cooper, Mike Resnick, David Gerrold, and others. I am going to write about glitzy and seamy New Las Vegas and a group of genetically modified avian airship navigators. Each painting inspires a story, and all stories will be collected in an anthology.
Kevin J. Anderson is the author of more than 140 books, 56 of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists; he has over 23 million copies in print in 30 languages. He has won or been nominated for the Nebula Award, Hugo Award, Bram Stoker Award, Shamus Award, the SFX Reader’s Choice Award, and New York Times Notable Book. Kevin has written numerous Star Wars projects, three X-Files novels, and he also collaborated with Dean Koontz on the novel Frankenstein: Prodigal Son.
As the publishers of WordFire Press, Kevin and his wife Rebecca Moesta have released two hundred eBook and print titles from Frank Herbert, Allen Drury, Alan Dean Foster, Michael A. Stackpole, Brian Herbert, David Farland, Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Resnick, Todd McCaffrey, Christie Golden, as well as their own backlist.
Post-apocalyptic media has always held a certain draw for me, even when I was young. I suspect it ties into my anxiety, which often imagines the worst-case scenario and ponders the what-next, but some of my fascination stems from old books read during childhood such as Alas, Babylon and On the Beach. All of this led to a lifetime love of the genre, zombies, and plagues, but that’s another blog post.
When I first saw Jeff Sturgeon’s floating cities, particularly his vision of how San Francisco's would rise above the clouds to avoid the after effects of the Yellowstone eruption, my brain spun a million ideas about the how and the why of such a city and its people. I love how it hovers above the Golden Gate Bridge while down below, a mer-person watches a lone airship cross rather ominous looking clouds. There are so many different directions a writer could go with such art before us. But San Francisco wasn’t the only piece to draw me in. The more I saw of Jeff’s Last Cities of Earth art series, the more I was excited to be involved. This is a project unlike any other I’ve seen and worth backing.
In the Last Cities of Earth anthology, my story takes place in Mexico City—or it’s floating city equivalent. After YE (Yellowstone Eruption), Mexico City is a ‘retched hive of scum and villainy’…I mean, it’s a city controlled by drug cartels and gangs. Being a large trading port for pirates and those less scrupulous, I wanted to tell a story about an airship captain whose down on her luck—like most captains tend to be.
I’ve always been drawn to writing gray characters—characters who are scoundrels and anti-heroes. I love characters like Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly) and Han Solo (Star Wars) because they feel a bit closer to the everyday people who make up our world. Humans know it’s wrong to steal, but if they had no other choice, who wouldn’t take a piece of bread to feed a starving child? One of the best parts of being a science fiction author is that exploration of morality and technology, something covered in the expanded universe of this world. Cities rush to survive the coming disaster, whether it be by natural or unnatural means. This changes humanity and its cities in ways that will be explored in the anthology and art book.
My own experiences with Mexico also drew me to the city. Before moving to Seattle (and writing full-time), I was a public school teacher in Texas in inner-city schools. The majority of my students were Hispanic and as many of them were born in Mexico, I spent many years surrounded by the cultures and flavors of this country. On the flip-side of that, I found myself amidst the gang culture and drug-cartels that often impacted the lives of my students in unimaginable and heartbreaking ways. Many of my students had a love-hate relationship with the place of their ancestry. They were proud of it, yet the stain of drugs and crime overshadowed what could be.
My hope is that with my pirate character, I can show how good can come from dark places in dark times, a lesson many of us could use these days.
Author Bio:
Award-winning and bestselling speculative fiction author Raven Oak is best known for Amaskan’s Blood (2016 Ozma Fantasy Award Winner and Epic Awards Finalist), Class-M Exile, and the collection Joy to the Worlds: Mysterious Speculative Fiction for the Holidays (Foreword Reviews 2016 Book of the Year Finalist). She also has several published short stories in anthologies such as Untethered: A Magic iPhone Anthology and Magic Unveiled.
Another amazing artwork and inspiration for this new anthology, Last Cities of Earth. The Kickstarter is coming into it's final days of pledging. I hope you like what you see and join the fun! Go ahead over to the Kickstarter and pledge now.
Convention-al Inspiration by Cat Rambo
Way back at a Worldcon in Denver one year, my husband discovered the silent auction and reveled perhaps a little overly freely in its joys. Among the pieces we came home with was a lovely piece painted on brushed metal: a lonely floating planet shard, hovering among stars, mounted in a black frame that gave the piece a dignity and sense that you were peering through time and space to a moment, glimpsed out the porthole of an intergalactic cruiser or in a sky lit by apocalyptic clouds. The artist was Jeff Sturgeon.
Seattle
Since that time, I’ve been happy to find Jeff’s work at many local conventions, particularly Norwescon and Orycon, and I’ve picked up more. They have a serenity and beauty that remind me of moments in space experienced in science fiction, particularly the fabulous space adventures of Andre Norton.
At conventions, I always hit the art shows. While I’m not fond of some of the more from-frou stuff, I often find pieces that spark wonder for me, that I end up bringing home because those landscapes, those images bring me joy, and remind me how wild speculative fiction can be.
And we love those landscapes, whether they’re the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs or Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Heinlein or C.L. Moore, or further out, starscapes, wild vistas that set fire to the imagination. Those vast scopes are part of why we love the genre, whether we encounter them in print or in visual form, or (best of all) a marriage of the two. Prose and paint can work together to create a world worth lingering in, a world in which we can lose ourselves in dreams.
When Jeff approached me about being part of the project, I was aboard in a heartbeat, particularly when I found out that my home turf, Seattle, was available for writing in. My story features the technodruids of Microsoft and a sentient cloud, and unlikely friendships in the shadow of the floating city. In it I’ve tried to capture the wild wonder of his landscape.
There’s a special feeling to being part of a collaborative project of this nature, which grows as more and more collaborators join and spin their stories, bouncing bits and angles off each other. I am breathless with anticipation to see the final result.
Author Bio:
Cat Rambo is primarily a writer of fantasy and science fiction. She is currently the President of SFWA (The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) and has previously served as its Vice President. She has over 200 original fiction publications under her belt so far, with stories appearing in places such as Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and Tor.com, and another hundred or so reprints in a variety of languages. She has published three solo collections: Near + Far, Eyes Like Sky, and Coal and Moonlight, as well as a joint collection with Jeff VanderMeer: The Surgeon’s Tale and Other Stories. In 2016 her first novel, Beasts of Tabat was published by Wordfire and was shortlisted for the Compton Crook Award.
Today I have a guest post from an author that will be part of a new anthology when it gets funded through Kickstarter.
The worlds you find in this anthology seem unique and individual. This is one author sharing about his inspiration for the story and image the authors are writing from.
Creation can be painful. It is the greatest myth of modern creativity…. The idea that the creative has to sit on the mountaintop waiting for the muse to strike, to inspire. The truth is that the millions of people working in the creative industries and aspiring to work in them don't tuck away their name badge when they get home. They work nonstop, they think nonstop, they create nonstop.
The tortured creator is not tortured because they don't have ideas, they are tortured because generally they have too many.
So if there are too many ideas how do you choose the right one to work on?
I can't speak for everybody but I can tell you that the most inspired creators I've met are kept awake by their visions.
They are driven to create them because no matter what else they are doing — eating, sleeping, talking with other people — that creation is constantly in their brain evolving and growing.
Three years ago when Jeff Sturgeon sat down with me at a small convention in Washington called RadCon he started talking to me about the vision that was eating at him...
He had this beautiful, awe inspiring visual of cities floating in the sky, desperately trying to escape a toxic earth. Almost immediately my brain started putting together stories in this post-Yellowstone eruption future.
For me that is the mark of an incredible idea – it's a setting that I start seeing stories in.
Whether or not I'll ever be able to write in these settings myself all of my favorite creations are ones that reach me at the creator level. So when Jeff started talking and 120 seconds later my brain started putting together stories I was blown away. There was only one question.
"Why haven't you started painting these?" I asked.
Three years later we are now at the tail end of a kickstarter. It is been a difficult road with Jeff painting nonstop and dozens of other creators putting their time in to try to help build this joint world.
It didn't just stop at other painters. Writers, illustrators, editors, sculptures, even costume fabricators all started to have visions about this world of Jeff's.
Trying to organize that many creative talents into a single effort is like herding cats. Jeff put a lifetime of dreams into this world and each person wants to pull it in a slightly different direction. That is part of why I say creation is pain.
Each of the 60 of us that attached ourselves to this project has a vision, has a hope, has a story….
Yet for Jeff it is even harder because he has a lifetime dream is that this project is built on the back of.
I have been asked many times what inspired me about Jeff's world. I would like to say that the stunning visuals in his paintings or the raw power of the idea of Yellowstone erupting is what inspired me, but it wouldn't be the truth.
The truth is that Jeff risked his dream to share it with other people, to allow other creators a part in his vision.
To me there is nothing so inspiring as that trust and openness. And while there is still a long way to go to fund this kickstarter I cannot help but be thankful that Jeff included me.
So to everyone out there reading… Please take a moment and swing by the kickstarter page. You will be amazed by what you see there. And remember that for me and the other creators involved this is a kickstarter of passion and creativity, but for one person it is the kickstarter of a lifetime.
About the Author: Peter J Wacks was purportedly born in California sometime during 1976. He has always been amazed and fascinated by both writing and the absurdity of the world in general. Throughout the course of his life, he has hitchhiked across the States and backpacked across Europe on the Eurail. Peter writes a lot, and will continue to do so till the day he dies. Possibly beyond.
He is a bestselling cross-genre writer who has worked in various capacities across the creative fields in gaming, television, film, comics, and most recently, when not busy editing, he spends his time writing novels. He began in the creative fields as a child actor & model, Most notable as an extra on ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ and ‘Thunder Alley.’ At age 6 he began writing short stories, and was first published in high school (1992), a time in which he was also a top ten honorable mention for the NCTE award (1993).
In gaming he was the lead designer and storyline writer of Cyberpunk CCG, a consultant for Allegiance, and both a writer and editor for multiple books in the Interface Zero line. After the Cyberpunk CCG project he spent a month in L.A. as a consultant for the T.V. show Alias, helping the studio determine the viability of converting the show into a CCG. In the mid 2000’s he decided to focus on his original passion, writing stories, once more. His first novel, ‘Second Paradigm’, was published in 2008.
Peter’s first comic, ‘Behind These Eyes’, garnered a finalist spot for the Bram Stoker in 2012. Currently, he has published 5 novels, 4 novellas, and appeared in 16 anthologies.
I'm thrilled to have Skyla Dawn Cameron by today for a guest post about her hero's roots. Lili Talbot is a kick arse character and I'm excited to learn of her DNA. I hope you enjoy learning about her as well!
Please welcome Skyla!
DNA of a Hero
Like many heroines, Livi Talbot—though she’s her own person—owes some of her DNA to the heroines who came before her.
1. Lara Croft
Yes, let’s get this one out of the way straight off the bat. ;-)
The concept behind the series was “Tomb Raider meets Gilmore Girls”, about a young single mother who is also a treasure hunter. And I love Tomb Raider. I have all the last several games and play them frequently—it’s probably the only game franchise I buy new installments of on release day (and schedule time off of work to play them).
Olivia Talbot owes a lot to one of the ultimate action heroines. Initially her Match pistols in the book were to be a placeholder for a different gun until I did some research...then I did said research and realized they were exactly the kind she’d use, and remain as a fun nod to Croft.
It also gave me something to draw on when it comes to aspects of Livi’s personality that are so far from my own. I’m not a daredevil. I’m not an adrenaline junkie. I would rather pretend-climb a mountain in a video game than climb an actual mountain, and thank you very much but I’ve seen The Decent several times and I would nope right out of any cave you pointed out to me.
But Livi’s not me, and soaking in that whole other point of view of a very physical sort of character helped a lot.
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Just about every damn urban fantasy heroine owes something to Buffy, I’d say. The snarky one-liners, for starters (which, I suppose we all kind of owe to Spider-man? Buffy was highly influenced by various comic book heroes herself), not to mention the very cinematic moments of badassness.
That’s the Buffy that really influenced Solomon’s Seal and Livi Talbot: the purely visual, cinematic moments I hope came through in the text. The slow-mo leap into danger presented in widescreen, the purely heroic moments no sane person would choose but Livi is a hero and that’s just what she does.
Plus...okay, yes, she’s snarky.
3. Ellen Ripley
Livi is a mother and that protective mama bear streak owes a lot to Ripley of Alien and specifically Aliens. (We do not speak of that abomination Alien 3, thankyouverymuch.) Not just this obvious moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_domCnmpTlc
But the quieter ones as well.
As Newt becomes her surrogate daughter, Ripley adds Badass Action Heroine to her title with Final Girl Survivor and Smartest Person in the Fucking Room. She’ll risk everything, including her life, to save this child, and takes on the queen alien herself if it means Newt’s safety. Livi has that same primal maternal instinct, no matter how she tries to keep a boundary between her identities as Mom and Treasure Hunter, which causes no end of trouble but also makes her a terrifying force to be reckoned with if anyone crosses her daughter.
Solomon's Seal EX-DEBUTANTE. SINGLE MOTHER. TREASURE HUNTER.
Disowned and left penniless for getting pregnant as a teen, former celebutante Olivia Talbot was willing to do whatever it took to provide for her daughter…including become a treasure hunter. After the Pulse hit, activating relics of legend, there are plenty of artifacts to be had—not to mention wealthy clients willing to pay top dollar for them.
Just as her daughter’s private school tuition cheque bounces, Livi gets an offer that could be the break she needs to return to some semblance of her former life. A powerful man wants her to travel to Ethiopia and retrieve the Seal of Solomon—a mythical ring said to control demons and djinn—and this bounty comes with one hell of a financial pay off.
The deadline: a week. The team: unreliable. The competition: her world-renowned archaeologist older brother. Nothing Livi can’t handle… Except the danger goes beyond a few subterranean serpent-dragons she might encounter or tangling with her employer’s deadly second-in-command. This client isn’t all he seems, and handing him the ring might be worse than what he’ll do to her—and her daughter—if she doesn’t.
Author Bio:
Award-winning author Skyla Dawn Cameron has been writing approximately forever.
Her early storytelling days were spent acting out strange horror/fairy tales with the help of her many dolls, and little has changed except that she now keeps those stories on paper. She signed her first book contract at age twenty-one for River, a unique werewolf tale, which was released to critical and reader praise alike and won her the 2007 EPPIE Award for Best Fantasy. She now has multiple series on the go to keep her busy, which is great for her short attention span. She is also a proud Writer of Unlikable Female Characters™.
Skyla is a fifth generation crazy cat lady who lives in southern Ontario, where she writes full time, works as a freelance designer, stabs people with double pointed knitting needles, is an avid gamer, and watches Buffy reruns. If she ever becomes a grownup, she wants to run her own Irish pub, as well as become world dictator.
I'm excited to share a Paranormal Romance author with you today. Please welcome Asha King. She writes with a little bit of heat in her stories. Today she's sharing about her newest release, Stray Cat Strut. If you need to get caught up, the first two books - Cats in Heat and Cat Scratch Fever - are on sale for 99c!
After her post is a great excerpt of Stray Cat Strut. At the end of the post is a GIVEAWAY!
Though Lovers Be Lost
Although I have a true Beauty and the Beast retelling coming out in December, my paranormal romance series Cats & Conjure actually owes quite a bit to the B&tB TV show.
No, not that new “remake” (dear God, please stop everyone from remaking everything), but this Catherine and Vincent:
I only managed to write one standalone romance years ago before I quickly found myself leaning toward series books. It’s my favourite to read and quickly became my favourite to write. And I wrote it as I often saw: different couples in each book, all connected either as friends, or fellow townspeople, etc, the heroes and heroines of future books being glimpsed in earlier ones.
But I also love urban fantasy and paranormal romance, following the same couple from book to book, and when I started the Cats & Conjure series, it seemed a logical way to explore that. A heroine discovering her powers, the dark brooding hero determined to keep her safe, a horrific villain hunting them, and a host of side characters. There was a detailed world waiting to be uncovered, one that could span several novellas.
Also? I might be in the minority, but I love cliffhangers. I love when I’m frantically flipping the pages on my Kobo reader looking for more, I love when I gasp and scream at my screen at the end of a TV season. As long as I know there are more stories to come, cliffhangers thrill me, and the Cats & Conjure novellas ended up taking that structure. Although an arc is complete in each book, there are threads right into the next.
At the core of that had to be the couple: Adelaide and Erik, a conjurer/healer and a tiger-shifter raised to kill.
Now, I’m not a fan of a lot of the keeping-lovers-apart tropes. I’m not into love triangles. Although I’ve employed the Big Misunderstanding before, I try not to anymore.
What I do love? The slow burn romance. The all-consuming ache and yearning for someone. The world of danger threatening their lives at every turn, leaving two people willing to die for one another. The “bond greater than love” that keeps them together even when they remain apart.
Addie and Erik owe a lot to Catherine and Vincent in that regard, not just because he happens to turn into a big cat sometimes. They might not get together quickly (the first novella, despite being called Cats in Heat, is not a sex-fest), they might struggle to resist, they might be torn apart, but they always, always find their way back to one another even when lost. It presents many challenges to keep their story fresh and interesting with each book rather than give them a happily ever after and move on to another couple, but it makes it that much more rewarding to see them succeed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stray Cat Strut Excerpt
(The scene: Addie, Erik, and company are on the run, and were led to a fortune teller’s house, who they ask for help.)
Lady Octavia’s cabin was likely warm in winter—there was an empty fireplace in the center of the large living room that would easily heat the whole space. In summer, however, the place was probably an oven, so fans whirled in two of the windows and one hung from the ceiling humming dully with every revolution.
The two dogs settled on either side of Octavia’s chair as she sat, resting the shotgun loosely across her lap.
At this point, Addie would’ve preferred the crystal ball.
Octavia gestured for them to sit. Adelaide took the end of one couch, the nameless cat still sitting annoyingly on her shoulder. Naliah took a straight-back chair from next to a writing desk in the corner and promptly sat. Murphy and Erik waited near the door, standing warily and not taking their eyes from Octavia.
The room was simply adorned, more on the rustic side, and given the lack of fortune teller look, Addie figured she must conduct business elsewhere in the house.
“Your kind is supposed to be dead,” Octavia said.
Addie shifted under the woman’s steady stare. “My grandmother was one, but she’s been dead several years.”
“Her name?”
“Aveline Deveraux.”
Octavia nodded, no look of surprise passing her eyes. “I didn’t know her but knew of her. Good woman. I’m sorry she’s passed.”
“Her home—my home—burned down and right now...right now we’re in trouble and need somewhere to go. I can work with an existing Sanctuary, I just can’t build one from the ground up yet.”
Octavia said nothing for several long moments, her gaze traveling over everyone in the room before returning to Addie. “Come. Let’s make tea.” She rose without waiting for a response, walking—with shotgun in hand—around the farthest archway and disappearing from sight. Her dogs remained where they were, both staring at Murphy and Erik.
Apparently Addie was the only one invited. She exchanged a glance with Erik, who barely nodded in response, and then she rose and followed Octavia.
She found the other woman in the kitchen, running water into a kettle. The shotgun rested across the kitchen table and Addie breathed considerably easier knowing no one was pointing it at her now. The cat leapt off her shoulder at last, landing on the kitchen counter. Octavia gave the feline a look but didn’t shoo her away.
“Something very bad is happening to you,” Octavia said in a low voice.
Addie nodded. “Someone figured out what I am. He’ll keep killing to get to me—that’s why we need a Sanctuary.”
Though Octavia pulled the kettle from the tap and set it on the stove, she left the water running in the sink—maybe she knew some of her guests had heightened hearing. “There is more than one monster after you. And even if you find this new Sanctuary and make it your own, you have a lot to overcome. Enemies from all side, Adelaide, and you don’t know yet what you truly are.”
A shiver traced Addie’s spine. “What am I?”
“That’s not a question I can answer.” The woman’s eyes seemed to flicker toward the black cat grooming itself on the counter, but maybe Addie was just seeing things.
“Do you know where I’m supposed to go?”
The kettle whistled and Octavia busied herself pouring two cups of tea. She made no move to make some for the others and Addie didn’t speak up. At last she turned off the faucet, passed a mug to Addie, and then gestured over her shoulder. “Let’s ask the cards, shall we?”
Octavia led Addie to the opposite end of the kitchen, away from the large doorway that led to the living room where the others waited. Erik would hear her retreating steps and be on high alert, but Addie tried to send reassuring energy his way so he knew all was well. The other kitchen exit took her to a dark narrow hall and down a handful of steps into another room.
This was more like Addie had expected of a fortune teller. Fabrics in blue, purple, and gold, both brocade and sheer, draped from the ceiling to hide the walls, making a cozy spot in the center of the room. Plus cushions were splayed over a Persian rug around a low table, atop which sat candles and a fabric-wrapped package. The room’s light came from behind the draped fabric which made it subdued and warm. No chairs, but when Octavia took a seat on the pillows on one side of the table, Addie took the other and cradled her tea in her lap. It smelled like chamomile, nothing particularly forbidding among the scents, and so she took a sip.
Octavia settled, her silk robe falling open to reveal yoga pants and a T-shirt. If she had on the entire fortune teller getup, she’d likely look quite striking, but for now it was an odd mix with her dramatically lined eyes and casual clothes. She set her mug on the table and pulled the fabric back from the little square package to reveal tarot cards.
Addie knew a girl, once, who claimed to read tarot, so she was at least familiar with what the cards should look like. These ones, however, were nothing like the Rider-Waite deck she was familiar with. The illustrations were completely different and characters were Japanese rather than English.
Octavia immediately began shuffling while Addie sipped her tea, then she set the deck in the center of the table. “Cut the deck thrice.”
Addie reached forward with one hand and did so until there were three piles of cards.
The fortune teller picked the first and then tucked the other two to the side. She closed her eyes, hand hovering over the chosen deck for a moment, and then began turning the cards one by one face-up on the table before her.
Addie watched in silence, feeling energy in the room snapping and crackling. The cat—both in her vision and at the park pavilion—hadn’t steered her wrong, it seemed; this woman truly did have power.
Soon Octavia had a spread of ten cards but she’d laid them out in a spiral-like pattern. She tapped one long fingernail on the card in the center. “You are amidst many influences and your final path isn’t clear. You were told to go north?”
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly. “North. To the water. The Sanctuary that used to be there is hidden now—quite literally.” She tapped a different card, one at the top that was nothing but a blur of pastel colors. “The woman who created it was powerful and the magic that remains is enough to hide it from both sight and touch.”
“How will I—”
“You’ll see it.” Octavia lifted her gaze to meet Addie’s eyes. “One descended from the Protector will see through the glamour, do not worry on that.”
Addie nodded, rolling the words around her head for a moment. Why couldn’t this woman just draw a damn map or give GPS coordinates? “Okay, so north to the water? How far?”
“It’s an island. You’ll need a boat. Fifteen miles down the road from my house is a marina—start there. You’re the one who can sense the Sanctuary, you’ll have to show them.”
Naliah’s gonna love that. “Is there anything else? Can you tell me why there are so many cats around me?”
“Guardians will be drawn to you, just as they were in the times of old. It is not my place to tell you who you are, Adelaide.” Then Octavia’s hand snapped out and grasped Addie’s wrist, squeezing tight.
Addie’s heart pounded hard and she struggled to calm her breath, tried not to jerk her arm back and flee.
Darkness passed over the fortune teller’s eyes, something ancient in their depths. “You do not escape the monsters pursuing you unscathed. Greatness requires great sacrifice. Not everyone will survive this onslaught, Adelaide.” Octavia released Addie’s wrist and leaned back again. “Make your peace with their deaths now.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Books So Far...
Book #1: Cats in Heat
Description: Adelaide Deveraux lives a quiet life in the country, never quite fitting in with other people and preferring her spare time spent caring for the various stray cats in the area. But late one Friday night, a feline of a much larger persuasion shows up at her door, shifting into a very injured—and very naked—human man in need of help. Erik Wells has been on the run his whole life: from the people who killed his parents when he was a boy, from a group determined to exterminate his own kind, and now from the underground gladiator ring who abduct shifters and have them fight to the death for entertainment. And he needs to keep running, but something about Addie draws him to her home and her care. The tiger in him senses it: there’s more to Addie than apparent at first glance—more to her knack for working with roots and herbs; more to her prophetic dreams; more to the secrets buried in her family history. But if she is who he thinks she is, the danger’s just beginning, as the powerful man responsible for keeping Erik captive for so long will stop at nothing to obtain her for his own.
Book #2: Cat Scratch Fever
Description: Tiger shifter Erik Wells has reluctantly left the woman he loves in the hopes of protecting her from the people out to get him. But his retreat has come too late: Erik’s enemies have not only found her but know exactly who she is and what she’s capable of. Adelaide Deveraux is only beginning to discover the power of conjure passed down to her from her late witchdoctor grandmother. But those powers might not be enough to save her when she’s taken from the sanctuary of her house and brought to the man intent on owning her and her magic...even if he has to break her to do it.
Book #3: Stray Cat Strut
Description: Adelaide Deveraux has escaped her enemy’s compound along with her tiger-shifter lover, Erik Wells, but the home that had once been her sanctuary is now gone, burned to the ground and leaving them with no choice but to go on the run. At least Erik knows a thing or two about running; he’s been doing it for most of his life, and he’s determined to keep Addie safe. Between their handful of allies and Addie’s growing magic, he thinks they just might have enough resources to survive, and, for the first time in his life, sees a future for himself and the woman he loves. But the powerful sorcerer on their tail has more than owning Addie in his sights. Now he’s also out for revenge and not everyone will make it out alive…
All three are bundled into one print volume if that’s your thing: Cats & Conjure Volume One is now available in paperback.
About the Author:
Asha King likes good-looking men and hot books, and often strives to combine the two in contemporary, paranormal, and suspenseful romantic stories. She hails from the exotic land of Canada, where she doesn’t ride a polar bear to work but does drink vast amounts of locally brewed beer and watches hockey.
She loves connecting with readers and you can keep up to date with her online at www.AshaKing.com, where you’ll find a list of her books as well as what she’s working on.
Hello everyone, and thank you for reading my guest post. My name is Mike Phillips and my new book is Hazard of Shadows. For this guest post, I was asked to talk a little about the magical creatures in the book. One of the more unique aspects of the story is my use of goblins, so I thought it might be interesting to explore that.
In folklore and literature, goblins have always been evil creatures. To this day, goblins are hiding in our closets and under our beds. They are wicked monsters that are no happier than when they are burning fields or robbing cradles. In The World Below, Mitch Hardy unknowingly rescues a goblin from getting hurt in a storm. Living on the fringes of society as they must to avoid camera phones and governmental laboratories, goblins lead harsh lives. By a small act of kindness, Mitch makes a true friend. Later on, this kindness is returned. I don’t want to spoil the fun, so let’s just say a pan-dimensional, man-eating garbage dumpster is involved. Friends like that are hard to find! Once they have been won over, goblins are the best sort of friends. They may have terrible manners, they may say awful things, they may smell bad, but we can all be that way sometimes. In the end, my use of goblins helps us see the best in humanity.
Writing about goblins was a riot! Goblins live on the fringes of human society. They make their homes in junk yards, abandoned buildings, sewer systems, and anywhere else people try to avoid. Once they find a likely spot, the get to work. Goblins are clever with tools and machinery. They will use and repurpose anything they can get their hands on, so many of their dwellings look like they were designed by frat-boys. Not always the best of neighbors, goblins have to take security seriously. They construct elaborate pitfalls to keep themselves safe from enemies like collapsing tunnels, pongee pits, and mechanical traps.
Goblins, like their human counterparts, each have a unique personality. They live in what they call crews, a sort of family, a lot like college dorm-mates. Each goblin has a special skill. One might be a bully (a most desirable skill in the goblin world). Another might be crafty at making traps. Some use sorcery or poison. Others are good at machinery. Some just eat a lot (another desirable skill). Goblins, in general, have a loose sense of morality. If it doesn’t hurt another member of the crew, with the obvious exception of fighting, then it’s usually okay. Fighting is always acceptable behavior, though if an enemy is around, a goblin is expected to stop fighting the other crew member and start fighting the enemy. Common sense rules like that are the cornerstone of goblin society.
That brings us to the topic of goblin social structure. Goblin society is feudal. They organize in crews, bound by familial ties or friendship. These associations are loosely formed, and if a goblin wants to go it alone, no one holds a grudge. A crew may have two or three leaders at a time. It is not unusual for goblins to disagree, so sometimes they have no real leader at all. Though they fight with each other like crazy, but they are deeply loyal in times of trouble and would do anything for the other members of their crew. No female goblins appear in Hazard of Shadows or The World Below, but that is a topic for another time.
Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you enjoy Hazard of Shadows and The World Below. Please visit me at mikephillipsfantasy.com.
The World Below Chronicles of the Goblin King #1
In ancient times, magical creatures inhabited the earth. They lived on mountaintops, in fields, at the bottom of lakes and rivers. But that was long ago, before the human race declared war on the creatures they feared and hated. Now the enchanted peoples are all but gone. The only place they can hide from the ever increasing number of satellites and smart phones is in the World Below.
Mitch Hardy is going through a hard time in his life. In his early twenties, he was working his way through college when he suffered an accident that left him flat broke and physically deformed. When Mitch decides to make a fresh start in a new town, things start looking up. He finds a place to live, a decent job, good friends. He even meets a nice girl. Unknown to Mitch, his new girlfriend is one of the Elder Race, what some call the Faerie Folk. Mitch doesn’t know that Elizabeth is looking for a father she never knew. The key to finding him is somehow tied up with the mysterious Blade of Caro. Desperate, she steals the Blade from its protector, the despotic ruler of the World Below, the Dragon of Worms, Baron Finkbeiner. When Elizabeth is kidnapped by the Baron, Mitch is pulled into a world or magic and monsters he never imagined.
Hazard of Shadows Chronicles of the Goblin King #2
The enchanted creatures of legend still exist, hidden away in the secret places of the world. They take refuge from an age of camera phones and government labs, from people who won’t let them live in peace. One of these last places of safety is known as the World Below.
Ancient powers are at work. The Lords of Faerie seek to revenge the death of Baron Finkbeiner and recover the mysterious Blade of Caro. Hidden in the shadows, they await a chance to strike. The chance arises when an old enemy escapes the splinter realm in which he is imprisoned. Anxious to settle the debt, the Faerie Lords send him to finish the Lady Elizabeth and her Champion once and for all.
After leading the revolution against the despotic ruler of the World Below, Mitch Hardy has taken the throne. He never wanted to be king. The whole idea of a government by right of combat sits poorly with him. Growing evermore uneasy with his new position, he begins laying the framework for self-rule. The enchanted peoples have known nothing but kings, but are adapting quickly to this new idea of governing their own affairs. It goes well, but Mitch’s plans are interrupted by the arrival of old enemies. Soon he is fighting for his life against a hellish enemy, the likes of which he never imagined.
Author Bio:
Mike Phillips is author of Hazard of Shadows, The World Below, Dawn of Ages, and Reign of the Nightmare Prince. His short stories have appeared in ParAbnormal Digest, Cemetery Moon, Sinister Tales, Beyond Centauri, the World of Myth, Mystic Signals and many others. Online, his work has appeared in Lorelei Signal, Kzine, Bewildering Stories, Midnight Times, and Fringe. He is best known for his Crow Witch and Patrick Donegal series. Please visit Mike at mikephillipsfantasy.com.
I am honored to have a Character Spotlight from the amazing author Philippa Ballantine, celebrating the release of The Diamond Conspiracy. I've shared my thoughts on the book last week, so if you haven't read my review I do hope you stop by to check it out. The character Pip talks about to day is one I have enjoyed reading more and more of this character as the series has grown with each book. So, without further ado, please welcome Pip Ballantine to the blog to share a special (and dangerous) character with you.
Spotlight on Sophia del Morte from the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series
Sophia is a character, much like Puck in my book Chasing the Bard. Both of them were only meant to be side characters, small parts in the main story. However both of them soon developed into larger, and more vibrant characters.
Yes, they sort of took over.
Rather than be bothered by that, both Tee Morris and I have embraced Sophia. She is a character, that goes anywhere, does anything, and is totally unapologetic about it.
Sophia is our Italian assassin, who was originally a nice foil for Eliza. In fact both of them could be sisters. Sophia is a dark haired beauty, who travels the world on nefarious business. Her particular skillset of seduction and lethality has gotten her far in the world. Despite all this she does have her own set of morals, and will never kill children.
Yet, even among her family of trained killers, she is very skilled. However, as the series of books have progressed, there have been changes in Sophia. She finds herself working with people with different ethics, and she is also seeing the way the evil people around her operate.
There are big changes around the corner for our assassin, and ones we hope to explore in further books, once we are done with the story of Wellington and Eliza.
Here's just a little sampling of Sophia from the Diamond Conspiracy.
Sophia took her breath, still keeping her blade in reach as the other hand checked the time. She was two minutes early. The weapon should have given her a comfort of some kind, but instinct dismissed any as a false reassurance. That plunged her insides into a hard chill, a sensation she was not familiar with. Blackfriars Bridge loomed before her out of the fog, its gilding gleaming only slightly. She stood there and took in a long, deep breath, tasting the bitterness of the Thames in her mouth. Her fears, she ascertained as minute waves lapped against the viaduct’s foundation, were unfounded but merely tested her nerves. She was once a woman to be feared, not the one cowering as would a hound beaten to heel. Once far and away from the Maestro, Sophia would discover that woman again. This alliance would serve her in so many ways; and as she had done before, once her commitments were met, Sophia would return home. Perhaps reaching beyond the borders of her beloved Italy had been too ambitious of a notion. Some time in familiar villas would be exactly what the doctor ordered. Another shadow emerged from the pitch black underneath Blackfriars. His face was concealed by the shadow of his bowler’s brim, but there was just enough touches of silver—a lapel pin, the head of his walking stick, and the cravat just visible between the lapels of his long, black coat—that Sophia recognised straight away as her saviour’s signature fashion. Straightening to her full height, she widened her stride and devoured the distance between them. “Buonasera, Sigñora,” he spoke, his voice like velvet against such hard, terrible surroundings. Upon emerging into the dim light from lamps of the streets overhead, Sophia felt the air around her chill ever so slightly. She recalled the last time she felt this way was upon seeing the Maestro in his dishevelled, manic state, his mind warring between the real, the engineered, and the perceived. She still did not care for that memory as she had thought she knew all forms of fear, but the Maestro—as she had come to learn under his service—had far more to teach her of the darker corners of the human psyche. She received the same feeling from this man. Her instincts were all in the most heightened of states, but he appeared quite normal in every outward respect. He appeared well groomed, a fine carriage, and confident. Boundless confidence in his demeanour, a quality that usually Sophia found appealing in certain respects. Not on this one. “Sigñora, it has been too long.”
~~~~~~~~~~
If you have enjoyed reading Sophia del Morte and would like more, you could check out the Christmas Special short story (novella) that Pip and Tee have written for a Christmas with Sophia.
You can listen at Tales from the Archives
or You can pick up the novella to read at Amazon: A Christmas to Die For
The Diamond Conspiracy By: Philippa Ballantine & Tee Morris
For years, the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences has enjoyed the favor of Her Majesty the Queen. But even the oldest loyalties can turn in a moment…
Having narrowly escaped the electrifying machinations of Thomas Edison, Books and Braun are looking forward to a relaxing and possibly romantic voyage home. But when Braun’s emergency signal goes off, all thoughts of recreation vanish. Braun’s street-wise team of child informants, the Ministry Seven, is in grave peril, and Books and Braun must return to England immediately.
But when the intrepid agents finally arrive in London, the situation is even more dire than they imagined. The Ministry has been disavowed, and the Department of Imperial Inconveniences has been called in to decommission its agents in a most deadly fashion. The plan reeks of the Maestro’s dastardly scheming. Only, this time, he has a dangerous new ally—a duplicitous doctor whose pernicious poisons have infected the highest levels of society, reaching even the Queen herself...
Pick up the latest Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences novel: The Diamond Conspiracy
I've read, and absolutely loved, What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank. Now I'm looking forward to reading Hustlers, Harlots, and Heroes, by Krista D. Ball.
I hope you enjoy this post on how Krista came to writing this new book.
I was re-reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice at the time for an adaptation I was writing—First (Wrong) Impressions. I was diving into some of the internet forums, websites, and mountains of books concerning the history of Austen’s time. A lot of conversations came up and the comments were rather surprising: Non-white people can’t be in Regency novels. Slavery didn’t exist in Britain. Slavery did exist, but it was over by the time Jane Austen was born. Women weren’t allowed to work “back then.” What I would give to live in Regency times; it was such a better time.
The more comments I read, the more surprised I became.
Romanticizing the past is very easy to do. The life of Lizzy Bennet (Pride and Prejudice) sounds relaxing when I have mounting deadlines. She can walk at her leisure, have time for crafts, have dinner with friends, and not even have to cook a meal for herself. But for the few Lizzy Bennets that did exist, there were plenty more servants who did Miss Lizzy’s hair.
You won’t find many rich women of note, nor find many Earls and Dukes inside these pages. Hustlers, Harlots, and Heroes is a quick and dirty field guide to help you write the people Austen left out, and Dickens talked about. The image of the genteel balls and the glorious gowns will be pushed aside. I’ll explore the women of many backgrounds who scrubbed those ballroom floors, and the men who served and serviced those beautiful women.
Image from in H,H,&H
12 Mary Secole & Florence Nightingale
As always, a writer’s guide lies at the heart of this book. Whether you are writing about airships soaring across The Channel or a woman dressed as a man on the high seas, Harlots will have something for you. I want to give you, the inventor and creator of your own mystical world, the tools to add conflict, drama, and realism into your story.
For those of you who plot mayhem for your Steampunk heroines, there will be plenty of ideas that go beyond the typical cogs, wheels, and steam. I hope to present you with challenges and questions to push your stories. I often provide the tough questions for you to ask your heroes.
Don’t worry because the dashing Regency bucks won’t be left out! I’ll guide them past the working ladies of Covent Garden, giving them plenty of pointers along the way. Lovers of naval battles and land battles will find plenty of information on how to bring diversity to their armies for a realistic flair.
Of course, Harlots isn’t just for writers, even though it’s a writer’s guide. If you’re in love with Major Richard Sharpe (hubba hubba), laughed at Mrs. Bennet, or dress up at fan conventions as a steampunkress, you’re my kind of people. The entire reason we writers create worlds is because of readers. We write these stories for you to enjoy. I wouldn’t dream of leaving any of you out of this adventure. You are the reason we get up the morning, stay up late at night, and drink too much cheap gin.
This is an excerpt from Hustlers, Harlots, and Heroes, c 2014 by Krista D. Ball and published by Tyche Books.
About Krista D. Ball:
Krista D. Ball was born and raised in Deer Lake, Newfoundland, where she learned how to use a chainsaw, chop wood,and make raspberry jam. After obtaining a B.A. in British History from Mount Allison University, Krista moved to Edmonton, AB where she currently lives.
Somehow, she’s picked up an engineer, two kids, six cats, and two very understanding corgis off ebay. Her credit card has been since taken away.
Like any good writer, Krista has had an eclectic array of jobs throughout her life, including strawberry picker, pub bathroom cleaner, oil spill cleaner upper and soupkitchen coordinator. These days, when Krista isn’t software testing, she writes in her messy office.
I hope you caught my review yesterday of Hapax. I was stunned with the blend of magic, science, and religion that K.T. created. After listening to HAPAX, I had a great idea for K.T. as a guest post. I had to take advantage of it. And I'm THRILLED! K.T. agreed to do it. This post will help you see more of the world, and I hope drive you to try this read out as well. (Or listen to it as I did.)
Please welcome K.T. Bryski to the blog!
An Unlikely Combination: Developing Hapax
Ever have that moment where a scene flashes across your mind’s eye? Every detail shines sharp and clear, you know some things, but you’re buzzing with questions?
That’s how my novel Hapax started.
A pretty young woman in a cream-coloured evening dress sat in a theatre, watching an opera. The music thrilled her, but she was also terrified and distracted—because she was concentrating on moving her chest in and out so that the man next to her would think she was breathing.
Spoiler: this scene appears nowhere in Hapax.
But this woman fascinated me. Why wasn’t she breathing? Why was she so scared? Deep down, I knew she was an android. No question. But see, I had wanted to write about magic....
...and so I wrote about magic androids.
Personal archaeology into my own notes reveals a gradual, convoluted creation process. Over the next several months, I’d think about her sometimes. “River” was a librarian—magicians had collections of information too vast for a human brain to catalogue. She was a Magically Created Being who was starting to have emotions. That was a bad thing. But who would have the skills/power to create a Magically Created Being in the first place?
A university-like organization emerged, along with a system of magic in which magicians carried blue fire from another dimension and bound it into doing their will. I called it Ayr.
So, I had a pretty good grasp of my MCB and magic system, a general idea of the university, and no idea what their story was. I let them drop.
A year later, another woman barged into my life: a flaming redhead with a sense of humour that ranged from playful to downright sardonic. Through all my notes, the same name emerges over and over, right from the start:
Serafine.
Around the same time, I learned two interesting things:
A hapax legomena is a word that occurs only once in a text, corpus, or language.
In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God.
What if the Word of God was a hapax? slightly-older KT wrote. And what if no one knew what it was, because no one heard it the first time? That would really suck if you needed to create a new world, like if it was the Apocalypse...
And Serafine flashed me one of her now-infamous grins.
It was the Apocalypse, and she was determined to stop it. Based on two main ideas (“The Word was with Ael and the Word was Ael,” and “Ael is That Which is All,”), I sketched out a theological system and religious institution. I even had a rough plot outline. But somehow, it never quite worked. I let it drop.
None of these ideas ever really went away. My magic system and my theological system, River and Serafine, my college and my cathedral...they lurked in the background, emerging from my subconscious every so often.
Until the day they joined together.
My two half-stories collided and set off a spark. Magic made Aelism make sense. Aelism explained the “aither” (my old Ayr). The two institutions I’d created—Magistatiem and Ecclesiat—conflicted with each other, and in probing that conflict, I found history that illuminated the world and suggested the story.
It was still the story of my terrified, emotional MCB. It was still the story of Serafine stopping the world’s end. But each half of the story depended so completely on the other that it’s strange for me now to think that aither and Ael had ever been separate. When developing Hapax, there was no story without the world—but the world wasn’t whole without the story.
There’s a lesson in this. There always is. In this case, I learned that nothing you create is ever wasted, and that you never throw anything away. You never know what combination of ideas might ignite when brought together.
At least I get further along with every novel, teenaged KT wrote. So hopefully I’ll be able to see River’s story through to the very end.
Hapax Description: The Apocalypse has come, and in seven days the world will be no more. Only the Hapax, the Word which began the universe, can recreate the world and avert the Apocalypse, but that Word has been lost. Brother Gaelin finds his faith crumbling as he is forced to shelter two fugitives from the Magistatiem, the college of magi which has been divorced from the Ecclesiat monks for centuries. As time slips away, the monks and magi must do more than just heal the ancient rift that divides them—they must trust in the very Being who drove them apart.
I'm thrilled to have Seleste deLaney by today. Starting off her tour today for her release to come,
Clockwork Mafia (April 29th), with this fun post. For those new to Seleste's Badlands series, this series is set in a clockwork/steampunk focused world with badlands - full of strong women patrolling for men exiled to for terrible crimes - at the edge. Yet love still finds it's way into the hearts of those, still. I've absolutely loved these tales.
So, when Seleste was looking for blogs to visit, I jumped at the chance to have her by. The idea...spots for a smexy rendezvous on the dirigible, Dark Hawk. And Seleste rose to the idea, giving you a tour of the Dark Hawk as well.
Please warmly welcome the amazing Seleste deLaney.
So…You Wanna Make Out
on the Dark Hawk?
One of the fun things about writing the Badlands series is playing with the Dark Hawk. It’s my Millenium Falcon, so to speak, and whenever I
think of that ship, I think of Han and Leia in close quarters trying to repair
the hyperdrive and she falls and they almost kiss and… *happy sigh* So, when
Mel asked me about make-out locales on board the Dark Hawk, I was absolutely giddy.
Cabins
This is the obvious answer. All the crew members have cabins
where they can take their paramours and canoodle or fornicate or do whatever
else comes to mind. Considering this is also where they keep their personal
effects, those instances can have a variety of…implements utilized in various
ways. *cough* Zeke *cough*
Cargo Hold
While very open, there’s a lot of room here for
more…aggressive interludes. Or group sex. *shrug* I can’t really see the crew
getting up to that, but if the Badlands warriors took over for a night, who the
hell knows what could happen. Then again, for more privacy, all it would really
need is to be loaded and private alcoves could be formed all over the place.
Hide and seek sex. Damn it, now I want to write that in somewhere…
Infirmary
While this might be assumed to be Henrietta’s realm only,
she’s not there all the time and if someone happens to be injured…well, one
thing could easily lead to another in such close quarters.
Bridge
I doubt anyone would have sex there, but it’d be a pretty
sexy spot to have a make-out session. The vista before you as you sail into the
sunset over the mountains. Yeah…I take it back. Under the right circumstances,
someone might have sex there. High risk of being caught though—even higher than
the cargo hold.
Gunnery Boat
Even if it’s rocking, they won’t come a-knocking. This is pretty
much the ideal spot for privacy. Unless they’re under attack or there’s reason
to believe someone is in the gunboat, no one’s likely to go down there hunting
for anyone or anything. And the view is second only to the Bridge. Not a bad
place to be romanced…though the splinters could get annoying, so take a
blanket.
Engine Room
Dirty…smelly…but in the engine room no one can hear you
screaming “Oh God! Yes, take me now!” So, the engine room has its benefits.
Plus, if you’re going to have dirty sex, you might as well mean it both
literally and figuratively. Not to mention, it’s hot…damn hot. So nice
slippery, sweaty bodies.
Ratlines
For thrill seekers and those with no fear of death only.
Strap yourself to the bag’s ratlines for some aerial acrobatics and feel the
wind whipping through your well…everything. Quite frankly, I don’t think even
Noah is crazy enough to try this, but given the right incentive…
There is a place for most flavors of romance on the Dark Hawk. Ever and Spencer have tried
one or two. And Henri gets her own kisses in Clockwork Mafia, but of the possibilities, where would you most like to have a make-out/sex
session on the Dark Hawk? Inquiring
minds want to know ;-)
Clockwork Mafia:
Inventor
Henrietta Mason is retiring from airships and adventuring to return home to
Philadelphia. Determined to erase all trails leading to her late father's
duplicity, she dismantles his lab and removes all records of the Badlands gold.
While in the city, she can't resist the lure of a charity gala but winds up
regretting the whole experience. Well, everything except a heart-racing dance
with a certain U.S. Marshal.
His career
and vengeance on the line, Carson Alexander must prove a connection between
Senator Mason and the mafia. He lucked out happening across Mason's strikingly
beautiful daughter, only to have her slip through his fingers. On a desperate
hunt to track her down, he never expects his search to take him into the brutal
Badlands.
With a
mechanically enhanced enforcer after them, only Carson knows the extent of the
danger they face. He'll have to win over Henrietta's trust, and her heart,
before it's too late...
