Dear reader,
Here’s your round-up for this month.
Fantasy book news:
-Forbes published a list of the greatest book series of all time.
The fantasies are: Mistborn, The Bartimaues Trilogy, The Kingkiller Chronicle, Riyria Revelations, The Witcher, The Belgariad, The Earthsea Cycle, Percy Jackson, His Dark Materials, The Dark Tower, Wheel of Time, Discworld, A Song of Ice and Fire, Narnia, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. How many have you read?
-The Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off has announced its winner for this year: Murder at Spindle Manor.
-Audible are recording new versions of the Harry Potter audiobooks with a full voice-acting cast.
-Last month I forgot to mention the *YA* fantasies that have been nominated for a Hugo Award this year:
Abeni’s Song by P. Djeli Clark
The Sinister Booksellers of Bath by Garth Nix
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose
Unraveller by Frances Hardinge
Your free and discounted indie fantasy book sales of the month:
Your free and discounted fantasy audiobooks sales of the month:
What I’ve been listening to:
I’ve taken a break from listening through the GOREK AND FELIX novels because Jo demanded that I had to finally fill the gap in my fantasy knowledge and read the famous the grimdark tale of thievery THE LIES OF LOCK LAMORA asap after she read it, so I’m listening to it to keep her happy. I’m pleased to report that it’s extremely good and masterfully narrated. Sometimes it’s a bit depressing to read/listen to something that is so well written because you realise you will probably never write something that good yourself. On the other hand, it is very much Scott Lynch’s book with Scott Lynch’s voice—a book that only he could write. And only you or I could write the books that only we could write—however good they are.
Something I’ve noticed is that Lynch clearly didn’t read the ‘How to Write Genre Fiction’ books before he wrote his debut novel, or if he did, he didn’t care about breaking the rules from them: The timeline skips all over the place. There isn’t a whole lot of internalisation or even description of the protagonist’s appearance. He frequently drops sections of telling about world-building into the narrative. But you don’t care about any of this because the characters are so fun, the plot is so twisty, the dialogue is so funny (and clever), the swearing is so creative, the telling is so finessed, and the world is so intricately designed. Recommended!
What I’ve been reading:
I finished PALADIN’S GRACE and was a bit disappointed, because somehow the title, blurb and first line (“Stephen’s god died on the longest day of the year.”) made me think it would contain some theological reflections about faith, but in the end it actually turned out to be a pretty straightforward (and at times, er, raunchy) romantasy combined with a cozy mystery which only vaguely used ‘paladins’ and ‘gods’ as part of the setting. Well written for what it was, but not what I wanted. Oops.
So next, missing William King somewhat from pausing my listening to the GOTREK AND FELIX audiobooks, I decided to try out his indie-published standalone SKY PIRATES, because I love skypirates, they feature (and will feature more) in SAGA OF THE JEWELS, and on his website he says this book was partly inspired by the FINAL FANTASY videogames, which is also true of SAGA OF THE JEWELS and is an instant win for me.
Unfortunately, in this case the book did not really turn out to be about ‘SKY PIRATES’ at all (I think there were about two skypirate captains in the book, and neither of them did any skypiracy) but ended up being a sword-and-sorcery romp about one morally dubious wizard enlisting a former skypirate to thwart another even more morally dubious wizard. Not bad, but again not what I wanted. Be clearer with your titles and blurbs, people! Sadly, it also clearly hadn’t been edited properly and was riddled with distracting typos… ☹ So the best book series about actual skypirates who are actually skypiratical remains the TALES OF THE KETTY JAY, by a long way.
Maybe this month I’ll read something that is actually about what I expect it to be about…
What Jo’s been reading:
Jo enjoyed THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA so much she plowed straight on into the follow-up, RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES. She agreed with some other opinions that it’s not quite as good as the first book, but is still extremely good. We may be late to this party, but we are enjoying it.
What we’ve been watching:
Ok, fair enough, the subsequent episodes of the new X-MEN ’97 animated TV series haven’t been as good as the first one which I wet my pants about last month. But I’ve got an evergreen recommendation for you here which is sure-fire and trustworthy. Last month we finished watching AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER with our 6yo daughter. If you haven’t seen this yet and you are a fantasy fan, you need to change that. Ranked as one of the greatest animated TV shows ever on IMDB, I would go so far as to say that this is easily the greatest animated TV series ever; certainly it’s the best that tells a continuous story across its three seasons.
Set in a far-East-inspired fantasy world where different people groups can control the classical elements using psychokinetic powers mixed with martial arts, this show tells the story of Aang, the lost child Avatar, who must learn to master all four elements to defeat the Firelord who is trying to take over the world. It has an ensemble cast, strong plotting, beautiful animation, breathtaking set-pieces, silliness and seriousness. It’s also one of the major influences on SAGA OF THE JEWELS. Jo and I discovered it back in 2010 before it was cool, and we still enjoy it and it still makes us cry! If you have kids 6 or older, you should watch this with them! Highly recommended for anyone aged 6 to 99!
What I’ve been working on:
In April I passed the 300,000 word mark in the first draft document of SAGA OF THE JEWELS, so I now have about three books’ worth of draft. The trouble is, I’ve written 80,000 words of Book 3 but only covered about a third of my rough outline. Oh well. If nothing else, at least I am verbose! But who knows if it’s any good?
Actually, to try to get some more objective handle on whether or not it is any good, I recently used the last of my CLARENT SAGA: CHRONICLES writing money to send the first three chapters and synopsis of the first book to my editor, Jonathan Oliver, an award-winning heavy-hitter who has worked with the likes Brandon Sanderson, Neil Gaiman, Lavie Tidhar and many others (but don’t all rush to book him because I want to ensure he remains free to edit more of my stuff down the line!).
His feedback was:
“[this is] certainly not sh*t”
In fairness, that was written in reply to one of my specific editorial questions: “Tell me honestly, in your professional opinion, is this sh*t?” He also wrote that the story has “much to enjoy” and is“fun and pacey”, among other things. He even thought that there could be a market for it and that I might be able to get an agent to take it on as a YA fantasy.
This surprised and encouraged me, so after taking a break from SAGA to edit, submit and maybe write some more fantasy short stories, I’m going to do another editing pass of the manuscript using Jon’s suggestions and then have a go at submitting it to some agents and houses. Then when they all reject me I can get on with writing and editing more of it to stockpile for eventual rapid-release indie-publication, knowing that at least I gave the traditional route a proper shot.
In other news:
It was Jo’s birthday last month so I took her to Claridge’s hotel in London to have some famous ‘tea at Claridge’s’. Among others we had an extremely rare tea that is only available at two other places in the world called ‘Milawi Antler’. It was delicious, tasting like very delicate hot liquid honey.
That’s enough about tea for this month. Apologies that there is again no new SAGA OF THE JEWELS written chapter or podcast episode this month because, while I have recruited a new narrator, he wasn’t able to get the recording done in time, and the other narrator for the upcoming chapter (Jo) had a chest infection!
TFFN,
Luke/Faenon
If I had had more time I would have written you a shorter newsletter.
An enjoyable round-up, Luke, thank you. I'd like to add my vote for The Last Airbender being the best animated show of all time. It pulls off that magic Buffy trick of combing life-and-death scenarios with wonderful humour. My daughters and I have watched the whole series through three times! I also agree with you about The Lies of Locke Lomora. In a world of generic fantasy, it has a style and atmosphere all of its own. As you say, rough round the edges, but forgiven for sheer originality. And that sounds like some very encouraging feedback regarding SAGA. Best of luck with the submissions. Would be great to see it on the bookshelves one day!