SF/F News, Reviews, Interviews, and Giveaways
Courtesy of Imprint, I have a copy of What the Woods Keep by Katya de Becerra for one lucky winner!
Contest is open to US residents only. No PO Boxes please. To enter, just fill out the form below. Contest ends November 9. I’ll draw a name on November 10, and notify winner via email.
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Tor Teen is partnering with SciFiChick.com for a giveaway!
Courtesy of Tor Teen, I have a copy of Truthwitch, Windwitch, and Sightwitch by Susan Dennard for one lucky winner!
Contest is open to US residents only. No PO Boxes please. To enter, just fill out the form below. Contest ends November 9. I’ll draw a name on November 10, and notify winner via email.
ENTER DAILY TO INCREASE YOUR CHANCE OF WINNING!
Good luck!
Author Gail Z Martin joins SciFiChick.com again for her Days of the Dead Blog Tour!
Epic Vs. Urban—Writing Both Sides of Fantasy
By Gail Z. Martin
Swords or shotguns? Grenade launchers or catapults?
How about both? (Though not, usually, in the same story.)
I write epic fantasy and urban fantasy—along with alternate history and comedic horror—in time periods ranging from medieval to Victorian to modern. Sometimes people ask if it’s difficult, jumping around time. For me, it’s all part of the fun.
This year, we had a bumper crop of books coming out on both sides of the genre. Vengeance is the second book in my Darkhurst series about three undertaker brothers who become outlaw monster hunters and discover there is a much bigger conspiracy than they ever expected. The Dark Road is the second in the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures, tracing the story of the brigand lord through his time as a mercenary, fight slave and smuggler. Assassin’s Honor is the first in the new Assassins of Landria series, as King’s Shadows Joel Breckenridge and Garrett Kennard go rogue to save the kingdom from a shadowy itinerant holy man who has ensnared the aristocracy with treasonous whispers.
Plot and characters aside, the books are all very different. Vengeance is ‘big fat fantasy’, with multiple point of view characters, several braided story arcs, a big cast of characters, and a truly epic scale. The Dark Road is a serialized novel from Jonmarc’s point of view, told in an interconnected collection of short stories and novellas. Assassin’s Honor is buddy flick epic fantasy, under 300 pages, and rocks the ‘Butch and Sundance as medieval assassins’ vibe with humor, action and intrigue. I really like switching up how the story is put together, even though all three are technically epic fantasy due to their scope and the medieval setting.