IN THE SHADOWS, A VAMPIRE LURKS… by Megan Cashman

13 Thursday Mar 2014

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Today we have a guest post from Megan Cashman, author of The Dark Proposal. Here she speaks about the social isolation of vampires.

IN THE SHADOWS, A VAMPIRE LURKS…

                Vampires are often portrayed as living apart from the human world. They have to avoid sunlight, and humans are their blood source. These creatures of the night tend to rarely interact with humans on a personal level, and if they do, their motivations may not be so kind.Image

Which makes one wonder: how would a vampire see the human world? They live detached from it, sometimes for many centuries. Even a newborn vampire would have to eventually let go of their emotional connection to humans so they can adjust to their new existence.

So what does the human world mean to vampires, aside from being sources of nourishment? I would think they obviously see us as being physically weaker, and maybe that would inspire a vampire to see themselves as superior, at least physically. That doesn’t seem avoidable.

What about our intellectual level? If a vampire has been around for ages, then it has consumed enough knowledge and possibly intelligence to outdo many smart humans. Now if that vampire is a dimwit, then it is a question if that can be cured after many centuries.

How about our emotions? I’m sure vampires feel empathy for their own, but it will be hard for a vampire to have much empathy for its source of blood. How many of us think of cows or pigs when we eat beef or pork? You might if you were a vegetarian or vegan. But if a vampire drinks from humans, then it could have the same attitude that we have toward the animals we eat.

This is why vampires can be such frightening creatures. They are definitely stronger, possibly smarter, and less emotionally inclined towards us. Depending on the vampire’s age, there’s a chance that spending centuries living apart from humans has decreased any empathy levels the vampire might have. It certainly doesn’t help if humans are its source of blood, and it certainly doesn’t help that a vampire has more strength and life experience to likely look down at humans. So, I would not be so surprised if a vampire is callous and even brutal towards humans.

If it were compassionate toward humans, I would wonder its age. Is it a few years into its vampire existence? Then it’s still holding on to its humanity. A few decades old? Then its probably being nostalgic. A few centuries? I would say that compassion is an act and I would advise anyone to think twice of ever spending a few minutes with that vampire. Unless, of course, it has enough age and experience to trick anyone into thinking it is not a vampire, and one with ulterior motives.

If you are interested in learning more about Megan, feel free to explore the following links:

Blog: megancashmanbooks.wordpress.com
Twitter: @MeganCashman
Facebook: Facebook.com/megancashmanbooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6519000.Megan_Cashman
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009AL4RKE
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/276775

[Vampire Month] Megan Cashman interview

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

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Our second Vampire month contributor is Megan Cashman, a New Yorker and former journalist turned author. She is the author of The Dark Proposal.

1)      What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

As a kid, I used to write about kids at school, and their everyday experiences. I was in first grade when I started doing all this, and I think I did it because even then I had fun creating characters. Image

2)      When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

I wanted to write a book even as a young kid. It took a long time to take that step because I had other aspirations. But when I was one of many unemployed people in the world, I decided it was a good time to finally write that book.

3)      What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

My strength is that I have good insight as to what makes people tick. I also think I write scenes that provide good visuals for my readers. My weakness is when I think I may be boring my readers, so I end up cutting parts out that may be necessary for them to understand something. I also tend to be very wordy, so I have to do a lot of editing. I try to overcome my weakness by crafting a paragraph or sentence in a way that doesn’t sound very wordy or boring to a reader. I have to keep my readers in mind when I consider cutting out words.

4)      Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

I was born and raised on Staten Island, NY. It hasn’t inspired my work yet, but The Dark Proposal takes place a great deal on Staten Island. I have some future ideas that are inspired by other places I’ve lived or visited.

5)      Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

That’s hard to tell because there have been so many. I do wish to write as well as Khaled Hosseini, because his two books The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns are written so beautifully. They also draw you in from the very first sentence, so I hope to do the same with my books

TheDarkProposal_Final_small6)      What drove you to write about Vampires?

They are so appealing! Their immortality, their seduction, their longevity, their power, their arrogance and their fears. There’s something about a creature that lurks in the shadows that makes it more appealing than other paranormal creatures, even though they have their merit too.

 

7)      What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

It depends because there are so many different kinds of vampire stories out there. For some, vampires are the most seductive creatures. For others, they are the most frightening. But others see vampire stories as an opportunity to tell other stories as well. The film, Byzantium, comes to mind.

8)      In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

Oh boy, that’s tough. Dracula is what really brought the creature into the mainstream. Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire humanized it, and influenced vampire stories today. It’s so tough to decide.

9)      What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

I actually found Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula to be both sexy and well dressed. I think the accent helped. But hey, even Alexander Skarsgaard as Eric Northman is good competition for Oldman. Oh jeez, how can I forget Jonathan Rhys Myers as Dracula?jonathan-Rhys-Meyers-in-Dracula-nbc-ftr

10)   How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

I think Daniel Bertrand, the boyfriend to my main character, will be tough competition for all three. However, once his true nature is revealed, his sexiness plummets quickly.

11)   Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

The Dark Proposal is about a college graduate named Claire McCormick who thought she had the perfect boyfriend in Daniel Bertrand, until he reveals that he is a bloodthirsty vampire with the intent on making her one too. Frightened, she desperately tries to rid herself of him, only to painfully learn that he is too malicious to defeat. She struggles to come to terms with reality as she discovers how unstable the vampire world is in the modern age, and how some of them don’t realize how cruel Daniel is even to them. It is the first book in a trilogy, called The End of Eternity. I am working on the sequel right now, and plan to have it out later this year.

Megan Cashman is a former freelance journalist living in New York City. Always asking, “what if?” she turning toward fiction writing in order to explore our world, and many other worlds. Always analyzing and daydreaming, Megan looks forward to sharing her worlds with many others.

Blog: megancashmanbooks.wordpress.com
Twitter: @MeganCashman
Facebook: Facebook.com/megancashmanbooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6519000.Megan_Cashman
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009AL4RKE
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/276775

[Vampire Month] Interview with Isabella Favilli

08 Saturday Mar 2014

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Here we have an interview with Isabella Favilli, a former graphic designer turned fine artist turned photography editor turned graphic novel artist…

1) What is the first thing you remember drawing or painting?
A horse, I was four and everyone was kinda impressed, my mom still has it.Isabella
2) When did you first think you might be able to make a living as an artist?
When I was choosing my high school at fourteen, the idea was to become a graphic designer but after graduating after 5 years I realized that it was not the kind of art I loved the most; Fine Art was more what I loved and althought I was not quite sure I could make a living out of it, I still loved to paint and draw, but it stayed as a hobby for a long time, there was not much work to be found back in Italy.

3) What would you consider to be your greatest strength as an artist? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?
My greatest strength is something I have been told more than realized myself.
People often tell me that the people (fantasy or real) that I make a portrait of have eyes with a soul, they can communicate real emotions, which I think it is a good thing.
My weakness? I sometimes think I might not be anything special to stand out.
As for how I overcome my weakness, I try to listen to my heart and how it feels when I look at my art work, and I also listen to what other people feel about my work, see if they receive the message I was trying to put into it; sometimes we are our worse critic, but what’s more important to me is that my work makes someone feel something, even if it isn’t what I was trying to say, any interpretation is as valid.

Figurative Art is a bit like music, it can take people to their personal place and it does not matter if it is not the same as the one that inspired the artist, once it is out, it’s for everyone to see in it what they like. It’s not good to be stuck to your own interpretation.

Petrov

Petrov

4) Tell us about the places where you have lived. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?
I was born in Rome, Italy and lived there till i was twenty six, when I moved in Manchester, and after I had my daughter in 2009, I moved in Yorkshire.
I have visited many regions in Italy, Tuscany is one of my favourite and I spent a very long time in it, I found Prague very inspiring and Paris. I particularly enjoyed seeing The Impressionists in Jeux De Paume in Paris, because together with Caravaggio they are my favourite painters.
Being born in Rome has surely given me an input when it comes to the variety of Art I got to see live, but my favourite subjects are people more than places; I have however painted a scene which was inspired by ancient roman ruins, it is still one of my favourite paintings and my best friend has proudly hanged it in her living room, when I look at it I can almost smell the air of my home town.

5) What would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?
I find my heart’s darkest places to be the greatest influence, pouring that darkness out has often helped me overcome the toughest times of my life.

6) What appeals to you about Vampires?
The are beautiful, immortal and merciless but some humanity still lingers in them. I like that battle behind their eyes: between their hunger and their feelings.

7) What do you think is the attraction for Vampires? Why are they such a popular topic?
I think there is something very erotic in them, and that battle I was talking about is often present in us humans. The instinct of our nature often battles against our feelings or our society conventions. I see my own struggles in them sometimes, I am sure many others do to.kiSS
And just imagine, being immortal and powerful, with great power of seduction, I think there is a lot to be attracted to.

8) In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?
Lestat: no one has killed him yet. He has been burnt, switched body, taken to Hell, taken to Heaven, loved, killed… he is around, as glorious as he has ever been.

9) What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?
Dracula, from the movie Dracula 2000 by Wes Craven. I
have never seen a sexier vampire than the Dracula that walks in the Virgin
Store  in Dracula 2000. Gerard Butler totally got the sexiness of his character, even the Scottish accent suits him! Ok, I do have bias in this case tho…
Gary Oldman also did an amazing job as Dracula, the moment in the movie that he introduces himself to Mina is a total swoon, it is also my favourite Dracula movie, I have seen it more times that I can count and know it by heart.

 

10) How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?
I am afraid my characters would not stand a chance between the most powerful and the most ancient vampire, but then again they would probably be willing victims. I think my characters secretly dream to be Lestat or Dracula’s eternal companion.

11) Tell us about your latest work.
It’s a vampire kiss, only the mouths are visible, are they gonna bite? Are they gonna kiss? There is a suspension there, open to everyone’s fantasy.

I also drew the characters from a novel called The Last Of The Blood, they don’t look particularly vampirish, but they are none the less vampires. I liked the story, written by Ninfa Hayes, and felt inspired.

[Vampire Month] Doing what you love by Isabella Favilli

06 Thursday Mar 2014

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My name is Isabella Favilli and I was born in Rome in 1973, I moved in UK in 1999 and after spending nine years in Manchester I moved in Yorkshire with my boyfriend, my daughter and my pooch and lived there since. Isabella

I like to think about myself as born with a pencil in my hand, as I cannot recall a moment in my life in which I didn’t like drawing.

I can remember myself drawing as early as back to my first childhood memories; all I wished for were colours and sketch pads, I loved nothing more than to spend hours drawing the fantasy stories I created in my head.

I used to copy Manga cartoons, as they were incredibly popular in Italy back in the 80s and 90s.

At school I truly excelled in Artistic subjects so it seemed like a natural step when it came to my education to pursue my love for drawing too.

I always thought that I would have ended up attending Art Lyceum and then Art Academy, but when the time to make the choice came, I was advised to go for Graphic Design instead, because at the time it was a very sough after job and many schools in Italy were creating courses to be trained to such a career.

Nataliya_human I must admit, when I graduated I did leave with a much more refined hand and more expertise in various techniques but with hindsight, my first idea would have suited me best.

After spending a year working in a Graphic Design studio it became clear to me that Graphic Design was not my passion at all and that Fine Art was what I truly loved.

There was no room for an artist in the employment world, especially in Rome, where you are lucky if you get a cleaning job with recommendation. For many years I didn’t know what to do with myself but never stopped drawing just for the pleasure of it.

Eventually I gave up on making my talent a bread winner and left it for my pleasure only, I would just grab whatever job I could, and at some point I moved in UK.

I think I never really put the pencil/brush down for a long time, until I moved to Yorkshire and I became a stay at home mom.

I suppose I was too immersed in my new role that I felt like I really didn’t have time for myself, in fact at some point I felt like I forgot who I was.

I could feel I was unsatisfied with my life but could not really grasp why, until one random evening one year ago I found myself talking to a total stranger on Twitter.

This person had just spoken of how they totally moved from one career to another, doing what they really loved, they had described their feeling before deciding to become who they really wanted to be, and I saw myself in them: deep inside I was unsatisfied with who I was just like them had been.kiSS

So, I told them that, I told them I was feeling that way and I didn’t know anymore where I was going; they asked me what I enjoyed to do, and it came out as easy as a breath “drawing”, and I haven’t done it in ages.

Their reply to me was very simple and to the point “Then draw, do whatever makes you happy”.

It’s strange how sometimes, a random person can give you more insight to your true self that your own self, but that’s how I came back to my first love.

Together with drawing there is always been another passion/obsession, and that was vampires, so it is really no surprise my first subject after my re-awakening happened to be the character of Ninfa Hayes’ novel The Last Of The Blood.

KatrineI am currently working to turn the novel into a comic/manga, but I have noticed how  this subject seems to find me when I am planning to draw something else  too.

There is something incredibly sensual in drawing by hand, I cannot find the same feeling when I use a computer tablet or a graphic software. It is in the holding of your pencils, the brushing through the paper or the feeling of the colour, it is a physical sensation just as intense as a vampire kiss, not that I have ever been kissed by a vampire, but I guess the idea that I have of it mirrors sometimes my art: while consuming the graphite, squeezing the colour and spreading it on a piece of paper I create a new, strange immortal life, a bit like a vampire kiss.

I put my whole soul in any drawing I do, because most of all I draw for the love of it, and if it becomes my bread winner jolly good.

 

[Vampire Month] Isabella Favilli – Artwork for Bites

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

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The theme of Vampires is inevitably going to include some elements of the past so it is fitting that this third Vampire month includes links back to some of the previous ones. Not only has Isabella Favilli, today’s guest post contributor, already had some of her work featured on this blog but her most recent collaboration has been with Ninfa Hayes, one of our Vampire Month Alumni.

Isabella has been working on the artwork for a graphic novel adaptation of Last of the Blood, one of the two novellas Ninfa published under the title of ‘Bites‘.

kiSS

Last of the Blood follows the story of Damon, a soldier who becomes a Vampire and his long journey through history to the modern day. The following are some character shots Isabella has done in preparation for the graphic novel.

Damon, hero of Last of the Blood

Damon, hero of Last of the Blood

 

Lavinia

Lavinia

 

Petrov

Petrov

Nataliya

Nataliya

If you have read Last of the Blood then these characters will be familiar to you already. If you have not then I shall not spoil anything by revealing any plot secrets about the story or the characters. Suffice to say that the novella is worth a read and I am sure the graphic novel adaptation will also be of value.

Look out later in the week for more from Isabella…

 

 

 

 

[Vampire Month] A blast from the past

02 Sunday Mar 2014

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On Tuesday I will be kicking off Vampire Month properly with an interview with graphic designer Isabella Favilli but one thing you may not be aware of is that if you have been paying attention to this blog you will have already seen some of her work. In fact, there have been quite a few photographs on this blog which have been edited by her Photoshop skills.

For example, this one:

can you spot the difference between these two images?

can you spot the difference between these two images?

And this one:

Sparkles!

Sparkles!

This is because Isabella is also one half of professional photography company, Quattrofoto who we worked with on the fantasy photoshoots. In fact, you will have seen her in the background of some of my own photos of those days.

Just a little piece of trivia about one of our Vampire Month contributors and an excuse to show some awesome photos again.

 

[Vampire Month] Third time’s a charm

01 Saturday Mar 2014

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So, here we are in the third year of Vampire month. It does not seem like three years since I first had an idea to bring together three authors who all had Vampires in common, ask them some questions and get them to write me a guest post. However, that is how long it has been.[Guest Post] What is Horror? by Rebeka Harrington

For those new to this, Vampire month is dedicated to all things vampire and takes place over the month of March. I could have been predictable and had October be Vampire month, and lost it among a plethora of ghouies, ghosties and long leggity beasties. I could also have thought slightly out of the coffin* and played on the angst ridden romance side of most Vampire stories and had February as Vampire month – tying it all to Valentine’s day. However, I looked at March, all alone and bereft after Valentine’s day, with only a single mentally challenged hare to keep it company while everyone wishes it would just hurry up and finish so they can concentrate on Easter properly, and thought: There’s a month that need some love. Some dark, angsty, abusive Vampire love.

Or maybe, you know, I actually had the idea too late to get everything ready in time for February and really could not wait til October to do it and dumped it all on the first available month I could find and now I am stuck with it.

Decide for yourself which of the above stories is true…

2013-10-30 20.17.06So, on with the month. This year I have what can only be described as an eclectic mix of contributors in that we only have two of them who are actually authors and one of them is being brave enough to submit herself to the process a second time. The other two slots are taken up with an artist and the very left field addition of a museum curator. I’m very excited by both these additions.

So, here is the lineup:

Artist and Digital Imager Isabella Favilli

Author Megan Cashman

Author (and returning alumni) Zoe Adams

Curator of Firearms (and expert on Vampire killing kits) Jonathon Ferguson

Look out for post from all of them as the month progresses.

*like thinking outside of the box but with an undead bias, obviously…

Writing Romance

08 Saturday Feb 2014

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There was a time when I would have said that I would never write Romance. I certainly never read it. That stuff was for girls, after all. When I were a lad my reading was all fantasy and SF, cool stuff with lasers and swords and demons and stuff. Romance was not in the picture. After all, I would hardly consider the sort of relationships that Conan had as ‘romance’, more reinforcing an unhelpful misogynistic male stereotype, and Elric of Melnibone was too obsessed with his own self destructive angst to worry about such things. Typical teenage boy stuff.

Even at school I hardly displayed the most romantic tendencies. Given the choice between studying a play about angsty teenage romance that ends in suicide and a particular Scottish play filled with witches, blood and dark omens (not to mention Banquo’s ‘gory locks’) you would probably not be too surprised at which one won out.

Needless to say I was not known for my romantic tendencies.

So, obviously, when I grew up, I wrote a Romance novella…

Wait… what? How the hell did that happen? I ask myself the same question a lot.

I put the answer down to my desire to challenge myself.

At least Conan got the smouldering hero look about right….

You see, when I was in school my ambitions were to write a fantasy novel. Or a SF novel. Something genre based anyway. I even wrote a very bad SF short about aliens invading the school (I am still waiting for the producers of The Faculty to get back to me on my royalties for that… 🙂 ) and a clichéd fantasy novel about a bunch of characters who join up in a quest to find a magic object. It even had a werewolf in it. Thankfully, those truly awful pieces of literature never survived long enough to sully the world with their awfulness and for a while I put aside writing to focus on other things. Then I came back to it and the first thing I thought was ‘I need a challenge’. I also came to a revelation that romance was an important part of life. More than important, it is fundamental to life. Without it being there to help ensure that certain essential biological processes occur, life pretty much stops. Ok, I guess at some point in human history we did without it, though it is hard to really say when romance first began. Courtly love is cited as a medieval invention but there was romance long before then as evidenced by the love poems of Cattullus (written between 84 and 54 BC). Even older than that is a Sumerian poem or song written 4000 years ago and bear in mind that this is the oldest recorded evidence. Just because there are no surviving written love poems before that does not mean the concept did not exist. Romance has been around a long time.

Though I am not sure why this would be surprising. After all, these ancient civilisations had deities (usually goddesses, there may be a hetero-normative argument to be had there) who were dedicated to romance and love. Safe to say that romance and love have been human concepts for a long time, almost certainly longer than the written records that hold these fragments of the literature of these ancient periods.

So what did this mean for me and my big decision? Well, I argued in my inner Transitions-AuthorCopymonologue, you see romance is everywhere and involved in everything. It is a major motivator for human behaviour. It appears in all forms of story, not just those that come with covers depicting smouldering leading men with a tendency to scowl too much and beautiful heroines trying desperately to keep their bosoms inside a corset. Main characters in war stories, superhero stories, comedies, tragedies and, well, any story really, are at risk of falling in love and doing something stupid because of that. Romance is a vital tool in the storyteller’s repertoire. And I wanted to get better at using it.

So I joined up with a fun group of writers known as the BBW Romance Writer’s group. That’s BBW as in ‘Big Beautiful Women’ because another thing I believe in is realistic bodyshapes for both genders. Our goal was to produce an anthology of Romance fiction novellas with realistic heroines, a project they had already achieved with two previous publications. I set out to try to write a Paranormal love story because I realised early on that I could not do a full romance tale, I had to have some fantasy, some supernatural stuff, to shake things up. Boy/Girl/Trans meets Boy/Girl/Trans [delete as appropriate] is all very well but it is also cool if there’s a ghost or something as well. In the end I actually merged two stories that were sat unfinished on my hard drive – one a contemporary boy meets girl, the other about an ancient Roman and his doomed marriage.

About half way through merging these two I realised that the romance was not where anyone would expect it to be – in the hands of the two contemporary characters. Their tale is a more modern love story, but it is not as deep and enduring as the tragic tale of Gaius Lucius – a romance that makes a desperate man do terrible things in order to keep hold of it. In a way I suppose I was making a point about perceptions of romance – that in some cases modern ideas of love are more superficial. That epiphany is what, for me, made sense of the whole concept of romance in fiction and the final result of that realisation led to the publication of Transitions.

So, I would say to any writer who works in any genre to not ignore the importance of romance. Explore it and use it and try to understand how it might motivate your characters. It is not just hearts and flowers and hallmark cards.

[Review] The Rings of Anubis by E. Catherine Tobler

19 Sunday Jan 2014

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Published in 2013 by: Masque Books 

Released as a duology – two ebooks:

Book One: Gold and Glass

Book Two: Silver and Steam

Eleanor Folley is the daughter of an archaeologist who is working on her father’s ‘Niknackatarium’ at the Exposition Universalle in Paris in 1889 when her dark past catches up with her. She is approached by Agent Virgil Mallory, a member of a secretive organisation with suspicious motives known as Mistral who are interested in her past association with Christian Hubert, a roguish archaeologist more in the mould of Indiana Jones than her academic father, and also in a set of rings known as the Rings of Anubis that are linked to her dead Egyptian mother. Eleanor is recruited into Mistral as a consultant and there then ensues a fun romp across a Victorian Steampunk world in search of the rings. On the way there are complications galore and intrigue enough to keep the cast of variable characters busy throughout.

Of course, there is the inevitable love triangle which seems unavoidable in stories where the primary character is female. The one here is entertaining as it involves both the rogueish Hubert – the blast from the past who the main character never trusted then and certainly doesn’t now – and the stiff and proper Agent Mallory – whose overly formal demeanour disguises some interesting flaws and dark secrets, of which his opium addiction is only a minor one. The triangle is also suitably kept in the background rather than being the focus of the story as it becomes very clear that Eleanor’s true love is actually Egypt itself and, in particular,  her quest to find out what happened to her mother and how it ties in with the rings of Anubis. This drive, along with her being a slightly older heroine than normal at 30 years old and having a dubious past, serve to make her a very interesting character who manages to be strong and feminine without resorting to unrealistic clichés. This allows her to carry the book and makes all her responses realistic and believable.

There are a number of flaws in this work, the main one being that it is sometimes hard to remember that Virgil Mallory is supposed to be French. He comes across so perfectly as the typical stiff backed English gentleman throughout the book that when you meet his vineyard owning French family there is a bit of a dissonance. Not a major one, just a brief ‘Oh yes, he’s French’ moment which temporarily shakes you from the story. The other is the tendency for flashbacks which come from several different time points from several different character point of views. This means you have to pay attention to the titles of the chapters in order to work out which year is which and as there are so many switches it can some times be difficult to work out what is happening. However, the back stories are compelling enough to make this effort worthwhile.

Something that is not a flaw but can be better described as an oddity is the arrangement of the story into a duology. It is common enough to find trilogies in genre fiction (ever since Tolkien’s publishers decided Lord of the Rings should be divided into three books it has almost become compulsory for fantasy and SF authors to release trilogies) but duologies are rare indeed and I am not quite sure why it was done in this case. At the end of book one there is no real sense of an appropriate cut off point – no resolution with the promise of more to come, no major cliffhanger that might leave you wanting to find out what happens next. The book just ends then picks up straight away at the start of book two as if all you had done was turn the page to the next chapter. Had this been a physical book I might have said that the publishers had set a page number limit for optimum printing costs and perhaps this was the case – using the same format for paperback and ebook. However, in cases like this I feel it is better to write two distinct books – give the readers a resolution or a cliffhanger and therefore a strong reason to buy book two – rather than simply cut it at approximately the right number of pages.

Overall this is a very well executed Steampunk adventure story that combines enough differences in society and technology from the real world Victorian period to be unique while maintaining enough of the fashions, manners and mores of the time. The touch of supernatural elements is also well done, with two major reveals – Mallory’s big secret and the secret of the Rings – demonstrating the presence of such things in this world and therefore riffing off some elements of Urban Fantasy and transplanting them into a Steampunk setting. The few flaws are more than adequately overcome by the many merits, including the strong characters and the intrigues of the Mistral organisation which contribute to making what should be a relatively easy task – finding and recovering the lost rings of Anubis – far more complicated.

I would definitely consider reading any future works by Tobler on the basis of this strong debut.

2013 in review

01 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Musings

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Some interesting results here. Seems that as well as Vampires, Indian Writer Neleema is one of the most popular attractions on this blog. Maybe I need to get her back talking about Vampires 🙂

This year has seen a lot of changes in my life. In the last few months I found myself in full time employment which has limited my writing time considerably but made things more secure financially. However, there are still some writing plans for the year to come. I am at present working on getting the sequel to Gods of the Sea – Gods of the Deep – ready for publication so if you are into swashbuckling and magic this may be something for you to look out for. I have also made arrangements for a cover for this book which I think will be awesome. I certainly like the work of the artist involved a lot and think they will produce something special (no pressure… 🙂 ).

I also have the next BBW romance anthology to complete. The last of these led to Transitions and some other awesome stories by some very good writers. I don’t think we did much to change the opinions of the world on the role of ‘women of a non-standard size’ in romance fiction but I hope we entertained those who read it nevertheless. This one promises to be even better with a SF theme to work on.

I will also be looking for some writers for Vampire month in March this year. If you are a writer of Vampire fiction, an expert on the genre or merely have an opinion or some artwork you would like to share please get in touch and we can discuss details.

So, there you have it. There follows some stats from the wordpress elves for you to look at. I hope to see you all at a Steampunk fair (such as the Leeds Steampunk Market) sometime soon or have you commenting here or visiting on http://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles.

Happy New Year!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,900 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.