NY Comic Con!

My article on NY Comic Con is up now on Fantasy-Faction. The con was soooo much fun! But rather than rewrite the whole article here, I'll just touch on a couple things that I didn't have room for in my main article.

Day one was press/VIP night. I ended up going with my one of my younger twin brothers Tony and my buddy Vinny.


First I helped Tony do some filming for his video game blog Third Rate Minion. It turns out that I am a terrible cameraman and am not allowed to help in the future. :) Sorry guys! I really thought the camera was on.

When we were done, I headed over to the publishing section of the con floor and met up with fellow Fantasy-Factioner Mike Shackle. :) After we hung out for awhile I got to meet Peter Brett and Myke Cole who are fast becoming two of my favorite authors. :) I even got signed copies of both their books! Speaking of books, there were so many books!


It's a shame books are so heavy (and I don't have a lot of money) or I would have bought a ton more than I did. In case you didn't know that books were heavy, they are. By the end of the weekend I thought my shoulders were going to fall off! I might need a wheelie cart or something for next year. ;)

Day two was Friday, which was also the cheapest day to buy tickets to the con, so that's when my whole family decided they wanted to go. Our group ended up being all three of my younger brothers, my husband, my cousin Amber, my brother-in-law Dan, and once again, my buddy Vinny. Here is some of the group doing their best to thwart my efforts to get a picture of them.


My husband is the one hiding behind people's heads and Vinny is the one flipping me off. And with this picture you have a pretty good idea of what all of my family and friends are like. XD

Anyway, we did a lot of walking Saturday and saw a ton of cool costumes. We also got to meet the team behind Rooster Teeth who does Red vs. Blue among other things. Plus Amber got her brother an awesome tshirt. :)


Friday was also the day I went to my first panel and (as I've been posting about everywhere) I got to hear a reading from Peter Brett's unfinished novel Daylight War! You can watch the video in my article or on Fantasy-Faction's YouTube page. :)

Day three everyone wussed out and I ended up going on my own. (My husband has warned me to add that he would have gone if he had a ticket.) ;) Luckily I ended up hanging out with Mike Shackle for the afternoon and we went to two panels and a signing together. It was a blast!

You can check out more pictures of the con on my Flickr page. But I'll leave you with this last one, who was easily the coolest steampunk outfit I saw all weekend!


Have a great day! :)

Happiness is a New Book

I got two books in the mail over the last week! Two books that happened to be MUCH bigger than I expected! The first is Progeny: The Children of the White Lions, whose author, R.T. Kaelin (@AuthorRTkaelin on Twitter), was nice enough to send me a review copy and a cool bookmark to go with it.


The second is a signed copy of Tome of the Undergates I won in a Twitter contest from Sam Sykes (@SamSykesSwears on Twitter).


I'm kind of hoping Tome ends up being the next Fantasy-Faction book club read so I get a chance to read it sooner. It's currently winning by one vote, so I guess there's still hope!

In receiving these books I also made two important discoveries: A) I need to step up my reading quota quite a bit and B) I need a bigger book shelf! My current bookshelf is full, and I have boxes of books in the attic and under my bed. But none of them are as big as these. I may have to add a shelf over my computer in the near future, and this is a problem I am very happy to have.

Look for the reviews for both books in the (hopefully) near future!

Happy Reading! :)

Catching Up

Well a bunch of stuff happened recently and of course I didn't post about it. But as part of my new plan to organize my life better, I'm going to start blogging once a week. I'm even writing it on my calender!

So what did you miss?

Well first of all, I finished reading and reviewing the ARC of Hard Spell that I won from Angry Robot Books. Good, fun read!

Stan Markowski is a detective in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Like many normal detectives he has a partner, drives an unmarked car, and carries a gun. A gun loaded with silver bullets blessed by a priest. Okay maybe that’s where the similarities end. You see, Detective Markowski works in the Occult Crime Unit. Not that such a thing is unusual these days. After all, the undead are people too. And werewolves and witches have the same rights as everyone else, it’s just their cases sometimes need to be handled a bit…differently.

When an ancient magical tome is stolen, different is just what the town of Scranton gets. A serial killer is on the loose! A serial killer who just happens to be offing vampires. Are the two crimes related? Could the thief possibly be trying to revive some great evil and end the world as we know it using the missing book?

The facts point to probably, but the supernatural community is scared, and the answers to Stan’s questions seem harder to find than a witch at Christmas mass. And while tracking vampire killers, demon summoners, possessed women, and radical cult members is in the job description, generally Stan isn’t called on to do all of them at once. But with the help of his new partner Karl and a shady-looking gentleman named Vollman, Stan attempts to unwind the mystery and stop the killer before he (or she) can accomplish their evil task. Hopefully without getting himself killed in the process.

* * * * * * * * * *
Hard Spell by Justin Gustainis is the first book in the Occult Crimes Unit Investigation series. Its first person narrative follows Detective Stan Markowski as he and his partner Karl Renfer try to solve a series of gruesome murders.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book as I knew nothing about it until I received it in the mail (I won it in a contest done by the publisher, Angry Robot Books). The back blurb reminded me of the old cop series my sister and I used to watch on TV growing up and the story itself did not disappoint.

The setting for the story is an alternate version of present day. In the book’s altered history, supernatural elements from Europe (i.e. werewolves, vampires, and ghouls) were brought back to the States after World War II. While initially despised, supernaturals, or supes, were eventually granted equal rights with humans during the American Civil Rights movement. Now supes are everywhere, and just like humans some are law-abiding citizens and some are, well, less law-abiding.

Stan Markowski is the typical hard-boiled detective whose job is working on cases where either the suspect or the victim is a supe. He’s good at his job and bad at dealing with his family. He has skeletons in his closet, but is trying to do the right things in life. He’s not a super-genius but he is very streetwise and always knows when he’s in over his head, even if it’s too late to do anything about it. And in this world were goblins do meth and True Blood is a documentary, Stan is just trying to keep his town safe and do his best to keep his partner and himself alive one more night.

This was a really fun story to read. It wasn’t very deep and if you ever seriously watched cop shows on TV there won’t be a lot of surprises. But the whole concept of a world where you call 911 in case of emergency and 666 in case of a supernatural emergency is just cool in my mind. My favorite thing about this story is its flavor. Unlike some of the other urban fantasy I’ve read, this is a place where otherworldly things are no longer mystical and seeing a werewolf at the grocery store is something that most people take for granted. Overall it was an interesting take on the genre and fun read if you like cop/detective serials. And for myself, I will definitely be picking up book two!

Hard Spell is due out in the US on July 26th and is available now in the UK and in ebook format. The sequel, Evil Dark, will be available in April 2012.

For disclosure purposes, I won an ARC copy of Hard Spell from the publisher in a giveaway contest, but chose to review it on my own. Winning the book did not influence my opinion in this review.

What else? Oh!

I did a guest post on Amy Saunders' (@amy_saunders on Twitter) blog Amy & The Pen, about how writing changes the way you read. It was the first time I ever guest blogged for someone, and it was a lot of fun! You can see the blog post here. :)

Also there's a lot of stuff going on at Fantasy-Faction! There's a new writing challenge for July, which I may or may not have posted about already. This month's theme is freedom.


We have a bunch of entries so far. I'm still trying to decided what I want to write. I will probably end up rushing around on the last day trying to get something together again. I'm not very good at planning ahead (see the needing to get organized bit above).

There is also a new writing group on the forums called the 500 Word Club. Basically you pledge to write 500 words a day of your novel starting on August 1st. If you can keep it up for the whole year, then next summer you will have a completed your first draft! Here's the article our esteemed Overlord wrote up about it. And here is the thread where we will be egging each other on!

And last but not least, the site owner Marc Aplin (Overlord on Fantasy-Faction and @FantasyFaction on Twitter) has finally announced the soon to be implemented site overhaul! Lots of cool things coming including a podcast, YouTube site, and a Fantasy-Faction anthology! There are also two new members of the Fantasy-Faction staff: Paul Wiseall (@PaulWiseall on Twitter) who will be helping Marc run the site and create new content (such as the podcast) and myself (Autumn2May almost everywhere) who will be the new assistant-editor! We are all very excited about the new things to come and are very happy with how the website has grown in only the last 8 months. Hopefully it will continue to grow and we will be able to bring you even more awesome fantasy content!

Hmm...I thought there was one more thing...

Oh yeah! I won another book in a Twitter contest! I will soon be receiving Sam Sykes' (@SamSykesSwears on Twitter) Tome of the Undergates in the mail, which has been getting rave reviews on Fantasy-Faction! I can't wait to read it!

That's it for now. Promise I'll have another post up next week, which hopefully will include a review of Shadow Fox by Ashley Barnard (@wckdwriter on Twitter)!

Happy Writing! :)

Fine Art Print by irenesuchocki

Ravenmarked

One of the best things I found about becoming a writer, is meeting other writers. Between Twitter and Fantasy-Faction, I have met some amazingly cool people! One of the people I've had the pleasure to get to know is Amy Rose Davis (@AmyJRoseDavis on Twitter). Amy is a self-published author currently working on the second novel in her series The Taurin Chronicles. I was lucky enough to be given a copy of her first book Ravenmarked and will be beta reading the second book Bloodbound!

Ravenmarked is a great story with some amazing characters and I can't wait to read the second installment in the series! Here is my review of Amy's book.

When Braedan, the heir regent of the kingdom of Taura, decides to declare himself king after his father’s death, he finds more than just a few upset nobles standing in the way of his plan. A true heir to the long-vacant throne has appeared; an heir whose coming has been prophesied to bring peace to the kingdom and to unite all its people once more. Luckily for her, the young woman Mairead slips through his fingers, escorted away by a hired sword named Conner.

But Conner is not what he appears to be. Under his rough exterior is man of earth and magic; a half-breed adopted by the forest tribes and born of the magical race known as the Brae Sidh. But he carries with him an even darker secret - Conner is Ravenmarked. Marked by the Morrag, the avenging spirit of earth, to kill those who she chooses should die. And as the spirit threatens to turn him into a weapon of untamed power, Conner fights to finish his mission to get Mairead away from not only the king, but also the growing powers of evil that pursue them both.

* * * * * * * * * *
Ravenmarked by Amy Rose Davis is the first book in the five-book series The Taurin Chronicles. The book follows a full cast of vivid characters each trying to make their own place in the quickly changing land of Taura. I was lucky enough to get a copy of this story from the author, who is also a staff member on Fantasy-Faction. You may know her as the author of our Writer Wednesday articles. This is the first full length novel she has published.

Going into this book I knew very little about the story, but became hooked in the very first chapter! Amy has created a unique world with an interesting magic system and great political intrigue all tied together by the prophesy of a coming queen. She has managed to create a compelling epic fantasy without using the standard tropes usually associated with one. And while there are no elves or dwarves, the supernatural creatures of her own design will make you want to find out more about this extraordinary new world.

The thing I enjoyed most about this book was the characters. Each one is deep and real. And whether you’re reading about the usurping king, the fleeing true heir or the roughish hired sword, you want each person to succeed even though some of their goals conflict with those of the other characters. I can always tell it’s a good story when I start rooting for the bad guy during his chapters and rooting for the good guy during theirs.

One of the only things I disliked about this story was the fact that it is (once again) book one of a series and when I got to the end, the story had not come to completion. There was also a good deal of romance in the book. Not that romance is a bad thing, and it did fit the story perfectly, but I’m not normally a romance reading type. However if you are anti-romance this book might not be a good fit for you. Aside from that I’d recommend this to anyone who likes epic fantasy.

The sequel, Bloodbonded, will be available in December 2011.

For disclosure purposes, I was given a copy of Ravenmarked by the author, but chose to review it on my own. Receiving the book as a gift did not influence my opinion in this review. I have also been given the opportunity to beta read Bloodbonded and will be reviewing the finished copy when it is completed later this year.

I would also suggest that you check out Amy's weekly Writer's Wednesday articles on Fantasy Faction. Here's a link to her latest in article: Story Structure: In the Beginning.

Have a great day everyone! :)

Oops!

I almost forgot! In and amongst all the bad news I had a bit of good news! I won the April Writing Challenge on Fantasy Faction! :D The theme was spring inspired. The story also had to include themes of hope and warmth. The story I entered is actually based in the world I'm writing my books in, but is set hundreds of years earlier. You can see all the entries here. And here's the piece I entered.

Mela stood on the edge of the massive plateau staring out at the dark horizon. The ground far below appeared flat and even, but the sound of breaking waves in the distance broke the illusion. The sun would rise soon over the water and send its golden light into world once again. And Mela would be there to see it. Mela had to see it.

The cold wind whipped past her into the ancient forest at her back. The first birds were already awake and gracing the trees with their sweet songs. Mela heard something scurry into a bush at her side, but she didn’t turn to investigate. The sky fey, Sunil, had told her to watch as he left and to continue watching until the first rays of sun breached the surface of the ocean. Mela had been standing rooted to her spot for hours, determined to finish the last wish of her former master.

Another gust of wind blew up from the Flatlands brushing a tear from her eye and tossing her dark hair about her shoulders. The wind didn’t seem to care that the fey were gone. Neither did the forest or the birds. Mela brushed the cold tear from her cheek and added a ragged sigh to the twisting breeze.

“No one cares,” Mela said still staring at the horizon, “that’s why they left. People think they have no use for essence magic; they’d rather rely on technology to save them. But wild, untended magic is a dangerous thing, and the only beings who knew its secrets have finally abandoned humanity. We are lost, and yet the wind continues to blow and the birds continue to sing, as if nothing has changed; as if we can carry on without them.”

Sunil hadn’t told Mela why she must watch the sunrise. He hadn’t told her where the fey were going or what she was to do now that they’d left. Part of her hoped the sun’s light would cut through her body like Sunil’s last words had done. That the first light of spring would be the last she’d ever see, and that her spirit would stay forever watching the horizon and waiting for the fey to return.

The thought sent a shiver down her spine. Mela shifted her feet and felt the frost covered grass crunch under her boots. It was cold and her mind’s wanderings weren’t helping her repel the icy air. She rubbed her arms to warm herself, but the wind bit through her shirt as if trying to thwart her efforts.

The sky was starting to lighten and Mela could just make out the waves of the sea crashing against the sandy shore. She had thought that she would be too far off to smell the salt air, but even at this great distance she could hear the rhythmic crashing of the waves and the smell of the ocean drifting up the side of the plateau, giving the forest an otherworldly feel. It seemed the lighter the sky became the more clearly she could sense the ocean. The sounds and smells of the sea mixed with the deep earthy tones of the forest were tossed together by the ever present breeze. Mela had the urge to close her eyes and take in the sensations without the distraction of the view. But Sunil had given her an order and she could not tarnish his memory by disobeying him. So she waited; for the sun, for spring, and to complete her final task.

“How can I go on without my master? Without the essence?” Mela thought, as another tear rolled down her cheek. “My whole life was learning the balance and understanding the ways of magic and the fey and how to use it to help my people. Now I have nothing. Nothing but the sunrise and the wind.”

As if in answer, the wind blew straight up from the cliff face, startling Mela from her thoughts. She almost looked down to see where the wind had come from, but stopped herself just in time.

“You won’t distract me from my task,” Mela said to the breeze. “You are a trickster, but I won’t be fooled by you. The essence of the wind has no power over me. Go bother someone else!”

One last gust of wind blew past Mela into the woods and then the breeze fell silent. The whole world suddenly seemed tense as if the forest itself was holding its breath. Then a small bit of the horizon sprung to life and the golden rays of spring’s first sun leapt up from the sea into the sky. The light was blinding and Mela had to concentrate to keep from blinking. She took a single step forward and recited the verse Sunil had taught her.

“The sun has risen from the depths and touched the sea and sky. And with this I give one last breath and bid the fey goodbye. We stand alone to keep the day and push away the night. Grant us one last boon oh sun and bless us with your light.”

With that Mela closed her eyes, letting the warmth of the sun cover her face and chase all traces of winter from the air around her. She realized quickly that the warmth she was feeling was far greater than it should have been. And that the heat seemed to be coming not from the sun before her but from inside her very being! She opened her eyes and saw the world covered in the glow of magic; essence floating out of the forest and into the sky before her carried by the playful breeze. Sunil had not abandoned her completely; he’d given her a parting gift. He’d given her the gift of magic!

Mela took one last look at the rising sun, and then collapsed to her knees with a great sigh of relief. She would continue in her master’s footsteps and would save her people from the world and themselves. She again had a purpose, a link to the essence, and more importantly she again had hope. Smiling Mela picked up a dried leaf and let the wind carry it from her hand, watching as the blue-green essence magic blew it off into the distance, over Flatlands and into the sea beyond.

There were some really great entries in April, so I was happily surprised that I won. I'm thinking of entering this month's contest as well. This month's theme is storms! You can check out the specifics here if you're interested in entering. This months contest runs till June 30th. All you need to enter is a Fantasy-Faction account, and if you don't have one, it's free to sign up!

Well that's it for now! I'll try to remember to be back soon! ;)

Have a great day! :)

Cause I Don't Have Enough To Do

The creator of Fantasy-Faction, the fantasy book lovers' website I've been writing articles for, has just made me one of the new mods for the forums! So now I can abuse my power...I mean help people with their problems. ;D

Speaking of Fantasy-Faction I just sent in my next review and will be working on a third this weekend. It would have been sooner, but my kids picked this week to be sick.

The review I just sent in was of Storm Front by Jim Butcher. I did a review of the story itself and a short comparison between it and the first book of his other series Furies of Calderon.

Chicago’s mean streets are probably the last place you’d think to look for a fully certified, practicing wizard, but that’s exactly where Harry Dresden decided to set up shop. You’d think being the only wizard listed in the windy city’s telephone directory would make him a pretty popular guy. It turns out, however, that when most people see Wizard listed they tend to think he is the kind that pulls rabbits out of hats, not the kind that solves cases using true magic.

So, with the rent on his office and his apartment both a month overdo, Harry is surprised to get two clients on the very same day! The first a woman named Monica searching for her missing husband, the second Lieutenant Murphy of the Chicago police department needing his ‘special’ expertise in the case of a double homicide. The first case seems to fizzle out soon after he starts the investigation, but the second drags him deeper into Chicago’s criminal underbelly then he’d ever wanted to go. Mafia, supernatural creatures, powerful spells, and magical cults stand between him and the answers he seeks. Can Dresden find the murderer before they kill another victim? And can he do it without getting himself killed in the process? Or will the gathering storm spell the end of Chicago’s only practicing wizard?

* * * * *
Storm Front by Jim Butcher is the first in The Dresden Files series, but even as a standalone book it’s a great read. The story is a typical noir detective novel, but the addition of magic gives it an added level of interest. I think the thing I liked about it most was that the magic made total sense in the setting, which seems weird even when I think about it now. You would imagine, for example, that if a wizard ran a detective agency he would have an unfair advantage over his competition and do very well for himself. But just like technology sometimes makes things harder than they should be (like when my computer crashed halfway through me typing up this review, requiring me to start all over again), magic can be a useful tool but it doesn’t solve all of your problems, and sometimes it can even make things worse.

Harry Dresden isn’t a successful, respected member of society, using his magic to solve the world’s problems, he’s a poor, frustrated private detective struggling to get enough money to pay his rent and buy himself (and his cat) food. And that is exactly why this book is so good. Harry Dresden is the perfect guy to root for. He is honest, chivalrous, hardworking, and he still gets dumped on throughout the entire story. You want him to succeed, you want him to find the killer and escape whatever predicament he has gotten himself into this time. His easy to relate to, snarky personality makes him one of my new favorite characters and I will definitely be reading more of this series.

You might remember I reviewed Furies of Calderon, the first book of Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera, last month. There has been a lot of talk in the forums about which series is better. Well after reading the first book of each series right after each other, I’d like to give you my thoughts on the discussion. I gave Furies of Calderon 4 out of 5 stars, which is exactly what I’m giving Storm Front, but for completely different reasons.

Storm Front was a great book with an awesome main character and a good plot. But the side characters aren’t quite as interesting as the supporting cast in Furies. And I will admit here, I’m not as big a fan of urban fantasy as I am of traditional fantasy. If you are an urban fantasy fan, or a noir mystery fan for that matter, I think Storm Front approaches five-star status rather quickly. I also think that Butcher is more comfortable writing in the modern setting and because of that the story in Storm Front seemed to flow a bit better then in Furies.

In the end the biggest difference between the two, is a flavor difference. If you like your fantasy epic with fantastic landscapes and great battles then try out The Codex Alera series. If you like an urban, gritty fantasy with intrigue and mysterious goings on, then definitely try out Storm Front and the Dresden Files. But whichever way you lean, I would suggest at least reading the first book of each series. Because both are great stories with great characters, and really that’s what awesome books are made of.

The next book I'm reviewing is The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey. I'll let you know when they all get posted. :)

Last night instead of working on my story, which was what I really wanted to be doing, I worked on my query for the Angry Robot Open Door Month. Which is this month. Which I knew about since the beginning of the month. Which is almost over.

Yes, I know I should have started it earlier, and I know I'm going to be rushing to get it done. But the prospect of having to essentially write a book report for my own book was daunting at best and down right scary at worst. I have so far gotten the easy parts done. I've written my name at the top of the paper and attached the first five chapters as they've requested, but just like with the pitch I did for the Amazon contest, summing up an almost 100K word book I just finished writing is proving to be incredibly difficult!

This time, thankfully, the publisher wants a two page summary instead of a 250 word pitch. That makes it a little less stressful, and gives me more space to breathe, but it doesn't seem to be adding to the easy of the writing. I can see why some people spend just as long on their pitches and queries as they did writing their stories in the first place!

I do have one question about this particular query. I think normally your query is your email to the publisher or agent. In this case, they want the whole thing to be an attached document. So if you were me, what would you say in the email the attachment is attached to?