Interview with Peter Orullian
Today we have an interview with Peter Orullian. Though the relationship between EBR and Orullian started rather poorly, we have since become very good friends. We asked Peter if he could take some time out of his schedule for an interview. The release of THE UNREMEMBERED: The Author’s Definitive Edition (Amazon) is this week.
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On the Steel Breeze
I recently had a conversation with a member of my extended family about the current tech surrounding virtual reality. He’s a game developer (his team did a lot of work for the F.E.A.R. games, if you’re familiar with them) and is neck deep in pushing the boundaries of what’s currently realizable. During our discussion, I was reminded of this series (Poseidon’s Children) and its “Augmented Reality” layer of vision. It was cool to talk about, in reality, the budding technology and current understanding that could very well lead to a fully realized human enhancement that I’d experienced in this series. Granted, Alastair Reynolds isn’t the first to use such a concept in his stories, but he did it in such an amazing way that it made an impact on my own life, and that’s just really cool stuff.
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Silverblind
More than a decade after the events of COPPERHEAD (EBR Review), Jane and Edward’s daughter Dorie has graduated from school and is ready to strike out on her own and find work. She figures her experience studying mythical beasts in the field coupled with her college degree will make her the perfect candidate to work for the Queen’s Lab.
Unfortunately, all her interviewers see is a beautiful young woman.
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The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids
THE THIEF WHO PULLED ON TROUBLE’S BRAIDS (Amazon), by Michael McClung, is what Mark Lawrence’s Great Self-published Fantasy Author Blog-off is all about. This is the third book I read of the batch I was assigned. I saved it for last because I found the cover appealing, the title enticing, and the synopsis intriguing. The overall package is professional and marketable and because of that it stands out amongst the competition.
THE THIEF WHO PULLED ON TROUBLE’S BRAIDS is a little more than 200 pages long but it’s a satisfying sword & sorcery adventure that will appeal to fans of Ari Marmell, David Dalglish, Douglas Hulick, Brent Weeks, and Kelly McCullough.
Here’s the synopsis: Amra Thetys lives by two simple rules—take care of business, and never let it get personal. Thieves don’t last long in Lucernis otherwise. But when a fellow rogue and good friend is butchered on the street in a deal gone wrong, she turns her back on burglary and goes after something more precious than treasure: Revenge. Revenge, however, might be hard to come by. A nightmare assortment of enemies, including an immortal assassin and a mad sorcerer, believe Amra is in possession of The Blade That Whispers Hate—the legendary, powerful artifact her friend was murdered for—and they’ll do anything to take it from her. Trouble is, Amra hasn’t got the least clue where the Blade might be. She needs to find the Blade, and soon, or she’ll be joining her colleague in a cold grave instead of avenging his death. Time is running out for the small, scarred thief.
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Monster Hunter Nemesis
So we apparently never reviewed this novel. Oops! With the paperback edition of MONSTER HUNTER NEMESIS recently being released, I looked back over our reviews and discovered the absence. So, yeah. Here we are.
If you’ve paid attention to this site, you already know that MONSTER HUNTER NEMESIS (Amazon) was one of EBR’s top novels for 2014. For me personally, NEMESIS is my favorite Monster Hunter novel. Why? Because Agent Franks is the main character.
When Franks was introduced in MONSTER HUNTER INTERNATIONAL (EBR Review), he became an immediate favorite of mine, and a huge portion of Larry Correia’s readership. As book by book went by, we got more pieces of info and came to realize Franks wasn’t exactly human. But we still didn’t have all the answers.
Well now we do. And the answers made for one of the most entertaining reads of 2014.
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Giveaway: The Smoke-Scented Girl
Updated 3/23/15: Ray P from Vermont is our winner. We’ll send out your winnings this week. Congratulations!
The author has provided EBR with a book to give away for those of you who found the review (and for those of you that haven’t yet… EBR Review) of interest.
To enter the giveaway:
1. Email us at elitistbookreviews@gmail.com
2. Include the following in the subject line: Melissa McShane Giveaway
3. In the body of the email include your name and address. (If the winner is outside the U.S. they will likely be sent the Kindle version, FYI.)
The giveaway ends midnight (MST) on March 22nd. The winner will be posted on Monday, March 23rd. Good luck!
Vicious
Sometimes it’s easy to get into the rhythm of reviewing and forget that there’s more going on in conjunction with the books I cycle through. Read, ponder, review, repeat — the mantra of the book reviewer. Occasionally though I like to shake things up and go looking for more, be it details about the author, story inspiration, sequels, interviews, bonus dealings — stuff like that. I happened to do a little homework on this one because for some reason or another the curiosity bug bit me once I’d read it. After very little time, I came across an article about this particular book that made me hesitate and think on my opinions. The article I found talked about a movie deal, and it had a name attached to it: Ridley Scott.
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The Great Self-published Fantasy Blog-off!
So. Mark Lawrence. You know the name. He’s a great author, and an even better person. We’re rather fond of him. Mark did a thing. Maybe you noticed it. A couple of weeks ago, over on his blog, Mark said the following:
“I realise that [self-promotion] is a lot easier once you’re ‘off the ground’ and that as a new author, particularly a self-published one, it is desperately hard to be heard. It’s a signal-to-noise problem. Who knows how many Name of the Winds or [fill in your favourite] are lost to us because they just couldn’t be seen? None? A hundred?”
This hit home to us at EBR. You can read the whole post, and the follow-ups, over at Marks blog (here’s your link). Here’s the short of of it:
Between 260 and 270 self-pubbed authors submitted their work to Mark, and he then passed those books evenly (and randomly) out to ten (10) review sites. We go through them and pick the best of the 27-ish sent to us while the other blogs do the same with their allotment. Then we all read the final 10 stories and say which is the best.
That’s a lot of books. A lot of self-pubbed books. Yeah.
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The Smoke-Scented Girl
Evon is a recent graduate of magic school, and his high marks earned him a prestigious job at a big-name magic cooperative where he creates new spells that earn the business money. Despite the prestige, he can’t help but feel like his life isn’t headed in the direction that would truly make him happy. Until one day his friend Piercy, who works for the government, brings him a riddle that begs to be solved: a mysterious pattern of burned-out houses around the country Dalanine.
They go off in search of what they believe is a new, powerful fire spell that could change the course of the war that threatens the border of their country–also knowing the consequences if they don’t find it.
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Goodbye, Terry Pratchett
“Don’t read THE COLOUR OF MAGIC. It’s Pratchett’s worst novel. Start somewhere else.” That’s what people told me. Start somewhere else in the series? Really? The suggestion didn’t sit well with me. It didn’t matter that to me the series wasn’t supposedly sequential. I had to start from the beginning.
THE COLOUR OF MAGIC wasn’t a perfect novel by any means, and to be honest, I could see why people were down on it. The humor, the satire… it was just a bit off. But the potential was easy to see. I was introduced to Rincewind, Twoflower and The Luggage. This was my first glimpse into Ankh-Morpork, and into the Discworld universe.
