THE JACK OF SOULS is up for preorder on Audible!

The audiobook for The Jack of Souls is up for preorder on Audible, and it’s freaking fantastic!  I am so pleased!

Here’s an audio file of the opening pages. The actor, Alex Wyndham, went with an English accent—probably because of the lofty material, 😉 –and he rocks it! Turns out he’s a great character actor.

JOS - Audiobook

Even in the first minute I love what he did with the barman. II can’t wait to hear how he did Caris and Willard and Brolli and Bannus’s voices.

I shall have to subject my kids to it on the road trip to the mountains this weekend. Mwa-hahaha!

 

Reading at Eagle Harbor Books Tomorrow

ehbHi all!

If you find yourself making a sunny day trip tomorrow on Bainbridge Island, I’ll be reading from The Jack of Souls and talking fantasy at Eagle Harbor Book Co, in lovely Winslow. Drop in! It’s walkable from the ferry!

Punch and pie.

THE JACK OF SOULS won first place in the PNWA Competition!

A week ago last night, I learned that my fantasy novel, The Jack of Souls, won the Pacific Northwest Writers Association’s unpublished novel competition for the Science Fiction/Fantasy category. I’m just getting over the shock, so I feel I can post it. PNWA-logo

The announcement ran after they cleared plates from the awards dinner at the conference. Before announcing winners, they announced the names of all eight finalists and their novels, ala Oscars format.

It took a long time. Cruelly, they served no wine at the tables.

As they listed each finalist and the title of their novel, I imagined a door of probability slowly closing. Six years ago I submitted to the contest and didn’t even make the finalists, so now with each finalist name, it seemed the door closed a little more. When they announced the second place winner, only a crack of light remained, so it was extremely surreal when they announced my name next and I saw The Jack of Souls on the screen.

I rose and accepted the award and sat again. I know this because I found myself at the dinner table with the same people I’d eaten with, the award folder in my hands.

Here’s the link to the results of all the category winners for the competition:

http://www.pnwa.org/?page=2014contestwinners

An agent/editor party followed, where I met some fun and interesting people including the agent who judged the contest. Good things in the offing!

Review: Assassin’s Gambit, by Amy Raby

I met Amy and Assassin’s Gambit in a Seattle critique group called Seattle Writers Cramp, where I was able to be a beta reader. Though I am not a romance reader, I really 15808673appreciated this story for its strong fantasy elements, its strong female lead, and especially for the risks Amy takes in developing sympathetic yet damaged main characters.

If you are a romance fantasy reader, I very much recommend this. And if you like it you’ll be glad to know it is part of a series (Hearts and Thrones) for which she has three other books out at the time of this review: Prince’s Fire, Archer’s Sin, and Spy’s Honor.

Though I didn’t have the good fortune of beta reading the others, I imagine they’re as carefully and imaginatively drawn as Assassin’s Gambit.

Let me know if you read it. I’d love to know if you agree!

World Building Primer: THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND, by Diana Wynne Jones

One of the best primers on fantasy world building I have seen is Diana Wynne Jones’s Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Wikipedia describes it as a loving sendup of common fantasy tropes, which it is, but it can also beread as a cautionary primer for writers against unexamined fantasy clichés. 

Years ago the book was recommended to me by the leader of Seattle Writer’s Cramp, Steve Gurr, when he pointed out some arbitrary apostrophes I’d inserted into place names or secondary character names in the novel I was submitting for critique at the time.  (His point about the apostrophes wasn’t that one ought not use apostrophes in imaginary place names, but that if I am not a linguist, like Tolkien was, I might consider doing that sparingly.  (And yes, Jones does have a humorous entry on Apostrophes in the book.)

I read all of Tough Guide to Fantasyland and found numerous inspirations to reconsider elements of my worldbuilding which I had not before examined.

Some of My Favorite Examples

COLOR CODING: is very important in Fantasyland. Always pay close attention to the color of the CLOTHING, hair and eyes of anyone you meet.  It will tell you a great deal. Complexion is also important: in many cases it will be color coded too.
1. Clothing. Black garments normally mean EVIL, but in rare cases it may mean sobriety, in which cases a white ruffled collar will be added to the ensemble.  Gray and red clothing mean that the person is neutral but ending to EVIL in most cases. Any other color is GOOD, unless too many bright colors are worn at once, in which instance the person will be unreliable. Drab color means the person will take little part in the action, unless the drab is also torn or disreputable, when the person will be a loveable rogue.
2. Hair. Black hair is EVIL, particularly if combined with a corpse-white complexion. Red hair always entails magical POWERS, even if these are only latent. Brown hair has to be viewed in combination with eyes whose color are the real giveaway (see below), but generally implies niceness. Fair hair, especially if it is silver-blonde, always means goodness.
3. Eyes. Black eyes are invariably EVIL; brown eyes mean boldness and humor, but not necessarily goodness; green eyes always entail talent, usually for magic but sometimes for music; hazel eyes are rare and seen generally to imply niceness; gray eyes mean niceness and healing abilities (see HEALERS) and will be reassuring unless they look silver (silver-eyed people are likely to enchant or hypnotize you for their own ends, although they are not always EVIL); white eyes usually blind ones, are for wisdom (never ignore anything a white-eyed person says); blue eyes are always GOOD, the bluer, the more good present; and then there are violet and golden eyes. People with violet eyes are often of Royal, and, if not, always live uncomfortably interesting lives. People with golden eyes just live uncomfortably interesting lives, and are usually rather fey in the bargain. Both these types should be avoided by anyone who wishes for a quiet life. Luckily it seldom occurs to those with undesirable eye colors to disguise them with ILLUSION, and they can generally be detected very readily. Red eyes can never be disguised. They are EVIL and are surprisingly common.
4. Complexion. Corpse-white is evil, and it grades from there. Pink-faced folk are generally midway and pathetic. The best face-color is brown, preferably tanned, but it can be inborn. Other colors such as black, yellow, blue and mauve barely exist.
So, if a character is wearing green, is blue-eyes and brown-faced, you will probably be okay. CAUTION: do not apply these standards to our own world. You are likely to be disappointed.

CLOTHING:  Although this varies from place to place, there are two absolute rules:

1. Apart from ROBES, no garment thicker than a SHIRT ever has sleeves.

2. No one ever wears socks.

COATS: do not exist in Fantasyland–CLOAKS being universally preferred–but TURNCOATS do.

CLOAKS:  are the universal outer garb of everyone who is not a barbarian. It is hard to see why. They are open in the front and require you at most times to use one hand to hold them shut. … etc.

Amazon Link

Consider reading this aloud to like-minded geek friends.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tough-Guide-Fantasyland-Essential/dp/0142407224/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338079191&sr=8-1