Monthly Release Party - May 2023

I only have one one book on my monthly release party for the month of May. The book is called “Cherish” and it’s the 6th book in Tracy Wolff’s Crave series. I’ve already pre-ordered this book so it’ll be shipped out on the release date. I can’t wait to get my hands on this book and see what happens in the next step in the series. *squeals of delight* Synopsis: The sensational conclusion to the…

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Revenant Prince (Curse of Shavhalla Book 2) by T. A. Hernandez

They survived, but lost one of their own…With Amar now under the enemy’s control, his loyal friends will stop at nothing to rescue him. To succeed, they must fight inner battles more daunting than even the harshest external challenges. New alliances are forged as former adversaries work toward a common goal, but with Kavora on the brink of war, Kesari, Aleida, and the others face mounting…

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Fantasy/Horror Worldbuilding Workshop at Raven's End Books!

Thrilled to be doing my first book event at the excellent Raven’s End Books! Myself, Jonathan Ball, and GMB Chomichuk will be hosting a worldbuilding workshop to show others how we approach the topic for our fantasy and horror stories. We’ll be particularly leaning on how we built a world together using the example of our Shared World project. Our Shared World series will also be used to tell a…

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A Quest Style Coming-Of-Age Fantasy !! Springtide Harvest By JD Mitchell | Book Review

A Quest Style Coming-Of-Age Fantasy !! Springtide Harvest By JD Mitchell | Book Review

TITLE : Springtide Harvest AUTHOR : JD Mitchell GENRE : Fantasy, Sword And Sorcery Intended Age Group: Adult Pages: 418 DATE OF PUBLISHING : August 22, 2022 SYNOPSIS The old world is dead. Worse, it was a lie. Haskell yearns to be a warrior like his grandfather, who broke the orcish hordes, not the unwanted son of a ruthless High City merchant. With nothing but a bag of stolen coin and…

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Questions 3 and Looking Back at 'Quest of the Brokenhearted'

Cover Art by Sean Harrington The inspiration for Quest of the Brokenhearted was ‘Castlevania’.  I loved the games where you played as a Belmont or Alucard to get through a castle full of monsters.  Your goal was to defeat Count Dracula.  For a long time, I wanted to write a story like that, but I couldn’t figure it out because the games were primarily platformer explorations games.  Didn’t make…

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Season of the Runer Book 1 by Abigail Linhardt

Season of the Runer: TRIAL OF TWO – Book 1 by Abigail Linhardt – Excerpt “That is orichalcum. It kills monsters. Do you understand?” “I saved you,” she fought back, a little affronted. “You almost killed me!” he screamed back. He stopped and took a breath when his entire body quaked from weakness. “We are monsters, woman. Orichalcum kills us. The sulfates in our veins are not natural.” Her voice…

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Do New Year's Resolutions Work?

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Kindle Vella Madness Voting is Open

Summer Kindle Vella Madness is having a contest, and Lisa’s slot is today. She would appreciate it if you would click on the link and vote for her Vella, An Enchanted Quest: Carasylia Enchanted Season One. Follow the above link to the linktree and find the story title, A Sacred Quest by Lisa Vandiver. Click on the book, and it will take you to the contest. Once you get to that final page, just…

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Book Review: Weird of the White Wolf

Weird of the White Wolf is the fourth part of the first of the current set of Elric omnibus volumes, and undoubtedly, this is where things get serious. I mean – there were serious things before, but this is where Elric gets shoved headlong into his destiny (the “Weird” in the title referring the Old English use of the word – Wyrd – meaning destiny) – like it or not (tending towards “or not”). And…

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Conan Returns in ‘Blood of the Serpent’ by S. M. Stirling

Blood of the Serpent #conanthebarbarian #hyborianage #swordandsorcery

I discovered Robert E. Howard’s Conan at an early age. I was spellbound by Frank Frazetta’s covers for the Ace reprints. The evocative images promised something special inside. I’d don’t even recall which of the books I read first, but it didn’t matter, I was instantly hooked and have been an avid Robert E. Howard and sword and sorcery fan ever since. Now, some 90 years since Conan first appeared…

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'The Nine Nation Book One - The Sliding World' Book Review By Ron Fortier

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/the-nine-nation-book-one-the-sliding-world-book-review-by-ron-fortier/

'The Nine Nation Book One - The Sliding World' Book Review By Ron Fortier

THE NINE NATIONS Book One – The Sliding World By Jim Beard A Becky Books Production 192 pgs

The truth is we are not big fantasy readers. Oh sure, being involved with pulpdom, we’ve read our share of Robert E. Howard’s Conan and Charles Saunders’s African mythology books but not a whole lot more. In fact, we tend to avoid the genre these days in the place of masked avengers and noir mysteries. So why this one? Well, in all honesty, because the author is someone of unusual talent whose past efforts have always entertained us. We opted to give it a go.

At the start of the tale, we learn that things are rather bleak in the world of the Nine Nations. Apparently, the land mass upon which the varied countries are situated is actually sliding over the edge of a bottomless abyss. It’s as if Mother Nature has decided to destroy humankind and nothing can stop this slide to oblivion. Amidst this dismal predicament, something happens in the land of Complin that predicates an unusual quest. A notorious thief has stolen a pendant that is somehow mystically connected to the land and its retrieval becomes King Green’s singular goal. To that end, he assigns his General Ketch to put together a small group of warriors and take the Warrior’s Road through other nations on a quest to find the pendant.

Ketch chooses an odd assortment of male mercenaries and a group of fierce maiden Horse Wardens of Uzzlin.  As this is transpiring, the King orders his chief law enforcer, High Warrant Jon Torck to accompany a magician named Stoan and a separate mission. It is the King’s belief that the mage may be able to divine a way to end the slide and save civilization. Torck, who abhors any kind of idol worship and mumbo-jumbo, is reluctant but acquiesces due to his staunch loyalty. Their journey leads them to the mysterious uninhabited zone known as the Graylands where nothing lives; not animal, vegetation or human. There, Torck will meet his destiny head-on.

As ever, Jim Beard has woven a totally original story, unlike any other sword and sorcery adventure. It is filled with intriguing, complex characters and the pace is relentless from beginning to end. Oh sure, there are the required fantasy elements, but it is how he weaves them into his narrative that we found refreshing. Like all good sagas, Book One ends on a cliffhanger and we are looking forward to it with relish. Don’t let us down now, Mr. Beard. We’re having too much fun.

War of the Staffs by Steve Stephenson

The goddess Adois brings a powerful vampire warlock named Taza through the void to turn Muiria into a planet of evil using her powerful staff. Needing an army, he turns a race of dark elves into vampires, but Prince Tarquin is born to fulfill a prophecy to stop Taza.The prince cannot do it alone. The Wizard Celedant sends him to the Borderers, an elite group of dwarves to learn how to fight,…

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I want to recommend a story I just finished reading. Specifically I want to highlight its worldbuilding (as this blog more d&d focused), but the whole damn thing is great! Ilhen's Seventh Deathtrap (link below) is a masterpiece of modern sword and sorcery, and while it’s big strength is it’s characters, the glimpses of the wider world are tantalizing.

It has fairly classic sword and sorcery magic, which if you’re not familiar- basically magic has some cost, which can be fatal. Magic is also rare, highly valued, but the cost dissuades most people. This is a stark difference from traditional D&D wizardry, or Vancian magic (from Jack Vance’s Dying Earth series), but can help us as world designers to give additional magic to NPCs. Ilhen's Seventh Deathtrap has a lot of different disciplines, some of which we see and are familiar, like illusion magic or divination, and some that we don’t see like glaciomancy and lithomancy. Magic itself is gained from going to a spire and talking to a god (I’m summarizing a bunch but it gets discussed in depth in the novel. RAFO). This magic is strong but specialized- which is perfect for an enemy or npc.

It gives us as worldbuilders a connection from “angry ice mage, wants to kill party” to a spire where this magic is taught. We can go from a generic npc wizard to where they were taught, why they only cast x or y element spells, and why the party’s wizard (or other magic user) can or cannot learn this method of casting. It also helps us give a unique “class” that players can’t access but could have exotic spells that they can learn. To continue with the example of the angry ice mage- maybe they’re a high challenge enemy but we lack good spells that really fit “ice mage”. Well a high level glaciomancer would be able to control ice, or summon a glacier, or speak a word of power and freeze their foes. While we don’t have spells written out, we can adapt the classic spells from d&d and either reflavor them or adjust their power. Power Word Stun, an 8th level enchantment could become Power Word Freeze, a 7th level spell that does pretty much the same thing but freezes them for 1d4 rounds (or something, I’m not trying to balance a spell that will only be used by enemies, I am trying to run combat not write a book).

Additionally most spires are known, but there are some hidden ones that may be protected by death traps, or dungeons as we would call them. While I’m not going to go as in depth about dungeons as I went about magic, I will say that Ilhen's Seventh Deathtrap is about dungeons and has a good explanation of why people build dungeons, and how they go about it. It’s not the first book to feature the idea of dungeon makers, but it does talk about what kinds of death traps are made and has a bunch of examples of puzzles that you can steal.

Anyway to sum up this post- you should read Ilhen's Seventh Deathtrap. It’s FREE, about 260 pages long, has good worldbuilding, and amazing characters.

Also it’s not a litRPG which is nice cause a ton of modern fantasy (that I find at least) is plagued by numbers and stats.

Fantasy AGE 2nd Ed. Core Rulebook on DriveThruRPG* *(affiliated link to product page)

Questions 3 and Looking Back at 'Warlord of the Forgotten Age'

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen When I reached Warlord of the Forgotten Age, I felt both happy and sad.  I’d spent nearly 15 years working with these characters.  Now, it was time for me to give them their final adventure.  The temptation to find a way to continue was there, but it would have been to the detriment of the story.  Sometimes, an author needs to accept that it’s time to retire some…

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Conan the Destroyer Review | A Sequel Made For Kids

Conan the Destroyer Review | A Sequel Made For Kids #conan #arnoldschwarzenegger #moviereview

Conan the Destroyer is a 1984 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, who reprises his role of Conan, the Sword and Sorcery hero; A direct sequel to Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer is a shorter and lighter take on the Robert E. Howard’s Conan series. While traveling with his new thief companion, Malak, Conan runs into Queen Taramis, who promises him that she can bring Valeria back to life…

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