Author Interview and Giveaway: Frank Morin

*Frank Morin was kind enough to provided half a dozen (6) ebooks and one (1) hardcover copy of Rune Warrior (The Facetakers #2) to go along with his interview! The link and details for the giveaway are located at the bottom of the post, following the interview 🙂

Today I am interviewing Frank Morin, author of the time-travel, science-fiction thriller novel Rune Warrior, second book of The Facetakers series.

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DJ: Hey Frank! Thanks for stopping by to do this interview!

For readers who aren’t familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?

Frank Morin: Thanks for having me on, DJ. I’m a storyteller and an outdoor enthusiast, living in southern Oregon with the woman of my dreams and our four kids, who are the most brutal literary critics I’ve ever known. I’ve released novels in both my Petralist YA fantasy series and Facetakers sci-fi time travel thriller series.

DJ: What is Rune Warrior about? What can readers of the series expect in the latest installment? Anything new? Any surprises?

FM: I love this book. It’s a big, beautiful, epic story. It’s a fast-paced, world-spanning adventure set in the near future that also travels back through history, primarily focusing on the history of Rome. There’s action, romance, intrigue, a unique blend of magic and technology, and enough plot twists to knit a scarf.

Author Interview and Giveaway: Clifton Hill

*Clifton Hill was kind enough to provided two (2) free Kindle copies of Kip the Quick to go along with his interview! The link and details for the giveaway are located at the bottom of the post, following the interview 🙂

Today I am interviewing Clifton Hill, author of the new fantasy heist novel, Kip the Quick.

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DJ: Hey Clifton! Thanks for stopping by to do this interview!

For readers who aren’t familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?

Clifton Hill: Absolutely. As a kid, I was always quiet and I took to comics, books and videogames early on. I read Asimov’s Robot Series in the 4^th Grade, after I was given The Robots of Dawn by my grandmother. She wasn’t into sci-fi or fantasy, so this was a startling choice. I just wish I had been thoughtful enough to ask what spurred the purchase before she passed away. My love of reading was mostly spawned from that point, so if anyone likes my books, you can probably thank Grandma Dale.

DJ: What is Kip the Quick about?

CH: Kip is a witty rascal of a thief. Orphaned at an early age in the hard streets of Tander, in the midst of the Sparelands, he does what he must to survive. But all he wants to do is leave Tander behind and make a fresh start in Farland. First, he must save enough to pay for a ride on the only safe way out of the Sparelands: the iron wain.

Book Review: Scavenger: A.I. (Sand Divers #2) by Timothy C. Ward

Scavenger: A.I. (Sand Divers #2) by Timothy C. Ward

Publisher: Spike Publishing

Publication Date: June 28, 2015

Edition: ebook, 276 pages

Genre: Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic

Rating: 3.5/5

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Sympathetic characters and imaginative sci-fi technology.

From DJ to MD: Prologue

Those of you who have been following my blog since around its beginning may remember that last June, I was invited to do an interview interview with SCy-Fy Flynn about my blogging. In this interview, one of the questions asked was about my futures plans for my blog. I said there were three features I wanted to add.

One was some type of monthly drawing round-up. I was participating in Tabitha’s Art It Up!, but as you can tell… I never kept up with drawing. The second was writing some essays for my blog. I think I posted one or two? I have about 10 drafted outlines saved in my drafts, but I never seem to have the motivation to write them. The third was something that was “super top-secret. It’s not book or SF/F related, but I think some people may really enjoy it. That should be starting up somewhere between January and April of next year.” I was close to the announcement date! Now that all paper have been signed, plane tickets bought, and loans taken out, I am ready for the reveal… I am going to medical school!

The Friday Face-Off: Armed to the Teeth

Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a new weekly meme hosted by Books by Proxy. Join us every Friday as we pit cover against cover, and publisher against publisher, to find the best artwork in our literary universe.

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The Friday Face-Off: Armed to the Teeth

Sword of the North (Grim Company #2) by Luke Scull

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Guest Post: My Favorite Tropes to Subvert by N.S. Dolkart

N S Dolkart, otherwise known as Noah, was home-schooled until high school by his Israeli father and American mother, and is a graduate of the notorious Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He studied creative writing and Jewish studies there.

By day, he leads activities in a non-profit nursing home, where he also trains fellow staff in caring for dementia patients. He writes his tales of magic and Godhood late at night, and doesn’t sleep much.

Silent Hall is his first novel.

You can find Noah online at his website: nsdolkart.wordpress.com, and on Twitter @N_S_Dolkart.

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My Favorite Tropes to Subvert

by N.S. Dolkart

When you’re writing a sword-and-sorcery or epic fantasy, you’ve always got to pick which tropes to lean on and which to subvert. If you don’t subvert any of them, the story might still be fun, but it’ll be pretty mediocre art. Conversely, if you subvert all the tropes, the story may become great satire, but it won’t be much of a story. Nobody likes box-checking. We want a compelling narrative, dammit!

So I thought I’d share the tropes that I most enjoy subverting, in the hopes that others will choose totally different ones and stay off my turf (kidding! Go ahead and play with my toys – I’m good at sharing). And so, without further ado, I present to you exhibit A:

 

The Fatherless Hero

Strider. Taran Wanderer. Jon Snow. Rey. A hero of unknown origins who rises to the challenge of the times and saves the world(s). This character is usually a Hidden Heir, as Diana Wynne Jones put it in her Tough Guide to Fantasyland. They have a past Shrouded in Mystery. I don’t need to tell you how popular this trope is. When I was a young teen, one of my friends sent me the first chapter of a novel she was writing, and I wrote back to ask, “Her father is the king, right?”

Author Spotlight: Flotilla (Pac Fish #1) by Daniel Haight

About the Book:

Flotilla is an unyielding exploration of people and technology in a perilous world. When 15-year-old Jim joins his dad on Colony D, he doesn’t see it as the new frontier in green technology and sustainability; he sees a free pass out of rehab to spend the summer on a man-made island in the Pacific. Jim thinks his troubles are marooned on the mainland, but it turns out that his dad has secrets of his own. When things stop adding up, and Jim becomes suspicious, he makes a horrible discovery.

But now, that’s the least of his problems.

The United States come under attack, and Jim’s parents go missing. Drug runners and modern-day pirates are coming to settle a score. All he and his sister have now are an old boat, limited supplies, and each other. Jim must race against time if he wants to escape the catastrophic meltdown of civilization.

Book Review: Hope and Red (Empire of Storms #1) by Jon Skovron

Hope and Red (Empire of Storms #1) by Jon Skovron

Publisher: Orbit

Publication Date: June 30, 2016

Edition: ebook, 416 pages

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 3.5/5

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A story of vengeance and love.

Author Interview: Dan Jolley

Today I am interviewing Dan Jolley, author of the new superhero-noir, urban fantasy novel, Gray Widow’s Walk, first book of the Gray Widow trilogy.

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DJ: Hey Dan! Thanks for stopping by to do this interview!

For readers who aren’t familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?

Dan Jolley: Sure thing – I’m a giant nerd who’s been lucky enough and persistent enough to be able to make a living coming up with the kinds of stories I loved reading as a kid. I started writing professionally before I got out of college, beginning with comic books, and since then I’ve branched out into YA novels, kids’ books, and video games.

I grew up in a tiny town in northwest Georgia and, as fate would have it, returned to that town after being gone for about twenty years. I don’t know that I’ll stay here for good, but it’s nice to be around family again, and you can’t beat the cost of living.

DJ: What is Gray Widow’s Walk about?

Dan Jolley: It’s the story of Janey Sinclair, a young woman who mysteriously gained the ability to teleport from one patch of darkness to another. Janey’s life has been a series of cruel, unfair tragedies, and for a while she dealt with her grief and guilt by living more or less like a hermit. But her anger gets the better of her, and rather than try to work through it by going to therapy, she steals a prototype suit of body armor and starts forcibly enacting justice on the streets of Atlanta, trying to set right the injustices she’s suffered herself. She even gives the citizenry a new law—the Gray Widow’s Law: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you…OR ELSE.”

But soon after she goes public, Janey learns that the cause of her teleportation ability may be something much more far-reaching than she’d suspected…and things get even more complicated when she meets someone who might, for the first time in years, be able to break through the fortress-like emotional walls she’s put up.

Book Collecting: Update #23

Technically there are three other book hauls I should be posting before this one, but I just picked these up from my dollar bookstore (yes, all the book you are about to see cost $1 a piece!) earlier this week, and remembered to take photos of them when I got home! So, here’s what I bought!