The Devil’s Only Friend
When it comes to author Dan Wells, people seem to point to his Dystopian YA Partials series. Those are good novels, no doubt about it. But the novels that won me over were those in his John Cleaver series. It’s no secret how much I love Horror, and Wells’ first novel, I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER (EBR Review), hit all the right notes for me. After three novels in that series, I wondered if I would ever again read a new John Cleaver story. I feared the worst…
…until Wells said he was writing a new John Cleaver trilogy.
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Next of Kin
With THE DEVIL’S ONLY FRIEND (Amazon) releasing tomorrow, I figured I’d draw your attention to a must-have novella from Horror author, Dan Wells. Set in his John Cleaver series, and during the events of THE DEVIL’S ONLY FRIEND, we have the novella NEXT OF KIN (Amazon).
From the moment I first began reading the John Cleaver novels, I was arrested by my curiosity for the series’ villains, the Withered (or Gifted, as they call themselves). These god-like beings are known and identifiable by what they lack, and that simple idea became such a compelling one that I often (all the time) wondered how THEY were seeing this story unfold.
NEXT OF KIN does exactly that. It puts readers in the head of one of the Withered.
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Blog-off Entry Commentary: Point of View
Point of view (PoV) is how a story is narrated, usually through the eyes of a main character. If writers are doing PoV right, it shouldn’t even be noticeable, it fades into the background. But when it’s done wrong, it’s a slap in the face. First-time authors don’t give PoV the attention it deserves. They treat it like the short kid when picking basketball teams during P.E. because there are better athletes of storytelling: setting, character, and plot. But we need the short kid to have a full team, and ignoring PoV is like not having a full team. Viewpoint is important because it affects how the story is told and the connections readers feel with the characters.
Let’s define a few terms:
- First-person–Uses “I” to tell the story. Not used as often as third-person because it isn’t as flexible, but when done right is fun to read (prevalent in thrillers, YA, Urban Fantasy, and the ramblings of narcissists).
- Second-person–Uses “you” to tell the story (Choose Your Own Adventure, RPG adventure primers, technical manuals, and lectures from your parents).
- Third-person–Refers to “he” and “she” to tell the story. Most commonly used viewpoint in SF&F (as well as Vulcan mind melds). Styles include “limited” (one head per scene) and “omniscient” (sees and knows everything within a story).
- Alternating viewpoint–When you just have to be in everybody’s business. Switches viewpoints between characters within a story — i.e., first-person for one character, third-person limited for others… seen most recently in RESIDUE (EBR Review)! First-person PoV alternating viewpoints appear in books narrated via letters, such as DRACULA (EBR Review).
Cibola Burn
I was really excited when I got this book in the mail (which was forever ago, granted. Sorry this was soooo long in coming). Couldn’t wait to get back to Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante. Abraham and Franck really have a good thing going for them with this series. Not only is the series really good, the SyFy channel picked it up for a TV series and they’re spending oodles of money on it (more than they’ve spent on any other series before). Looks like it’s going to be absolutely fabulous too. In addition, the series is under contract through book 9. Oh. My. Goodness. Although I was just the teensiest bit perturbed at the fact that the initial release for new books in this series have been switched to hardbacks. A good sign for the authors and publishers, agreed; just not such a great deal for those of us that like to look at the complete series on our bookshelves and see continuity. But who am I kidding, the story is really the part that matters anyhow and it was freaking awesome.
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The Border: Free Audio Clip
If you saw Steve’s awesome review for THE BORDER and you still aren’t convinced, check out a free audio clip HERE.
You’re welcome.
Giveaway: Trial of Intentions
Updated 6/8/2015: Matt B from Albany is our winner. Congrats and your book will be on its way shortly!
TRIAL OF INTENTIONS has been out a week, but it looks like we have an extra copy hanging around here at EBR to give away. If you’d like a hardback copy of Peter Orullian’s second book, enter the giveaway by:
1. Emailing us at elitistbookreviews@gmail.com
2. Include the following in the subject line: Trial of Intentions Giveaway
3. In the body of the email include your name and address.
The giveaway ends midnight (MST) on June 7th. The winner will be posted on Monday, June 8th.
Check out our recent posts on Peter’s stuff:
Peter Orullian Guest Post
Interview with Peter Orullian
Beta Reading for Peter Orullian
TRIAL OF INTENTIONS: EBR Review
THE UNREMEMBERED: AUTHOR’S DEFINITIVE EDITION: EBR Review
Guns of the Dawn
The secret of gunpowder is that anyone—a man, a woman, a child, a cripple—can kill with it.
I think the above quote perfectly sets the tone for Adrian Tchaikovsky’s stand-alone, gunpowder fantasy novel, GUNS OF THE DAWN (Amazon). I’ve been a big fan of Tchaikovsky’s for a while now, with his Shadows of the Apt series being one of my favorite Fantasy series out there.
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Pirate’s Alley
DJ’s life is full of the good and the bad. For example: bad–last month she was bitten by a loup-garou; good–she was kept from changing by elf magic; bad–that meant a blood bond with the most annoying elf in existence; good–she was able to keep her friend Jake from getting in trouble. Bad–at the opening of PIRATE’S ALLEY (Amazon) she’s still injured and homeless as a result of the events in ELYSIAN FIELDS (EBR Review). Good–she’s living at her best friend Eugenie’s place, Alex is still her boyfriend, and she’s been able to avoid Rand for the most part.
But DJ knows that any of that can change in a heartbeat. Like when she discovers that Eugenie is pregnant with Rand’s child. But it turns out that’s not all she has to worry about.
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Blog-off Entry Commentary: Internet Presence
Like all of the other reviewers here at EBR, I have a day job. It’s not one that I tout all that much as it’s a fall-back job that I kind of transitioned into after not being able to find a job in my field (rocket science). I’m a web programmer. So, I kind of feel obligated to say a thing or two about this relatively important part of the self-published author’s job.
My thoughts on the topic can be boiled down to something that is pretty simple (TL;DR):
Have an internet presence.
Ask yourself a question: what’s the first thing you do when you find a new author that you like? I don’t know about you, but I don’t pass go, I don’t collect $200, I go directly to Mr. Google. In that search, I look for a website, a blog, a Facebook page – something that will give me three distinct things:
- A listing of more stories by the author and possibly access to them
- Some kind of idea that they’re an active author
- A timeline looking forward to their writing activities/goals/publications
There are also a couple of things that turn me off rather quickly when I find them:
- No internet presence at all for the author
- An author-oriented site that is several months, or even several years, old
As a fledgling, self-published author what is the one thing that you want to do for someone that has very recently read one of your stories and absolutely LOVED it? You want to keep them coming back. Why is that? Because they are willing to exchange their hard-earned dollars for some more of your particular brand of story magic. And even though you love crafting stories, and having others join in the goodness of those things you create, let’s face it: a guy’s gotta eat, yeah?
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Gestures of Humanity
The following editorial is a guest post from Epic Fantasy author Peter Orullian. When he approached me about writing a guest post for EBR, I jumped at the opportunity. It is a rare author that can so clearly share his or her views on various aspects of their craft. I’m so pleased and honored that Peter chose to share his thoughts here with all of us.
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Gestures of Humanity
There’s every possibility that I wouldn’t be writing fiction today if it wasn’t for horror. More specifically, Stephen King. Hyperbole? Maybe. In recent years, I’ve mostly written epic fantasy. And it’s also true I’ve had the itch to be a writer ever since I was a boy. But if nothing else, Stephen King catalyzed that desire. How? One way to explain it is the contrast between light and dark. Or, said another way: gestures of humanity.
Stick with me.
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