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etoilesombre · 2 years

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OK I’M DOING IT. I’m starting over the Fetch Phillips Archives with book one, The Last Smile in Sunder City, and I’m going to yell about it on here extensively because there is absolutely no reason you would be following me other than that you enjoy Black Sails, and I virtually guarantee that if you enjoy Black Sails you will enjoy Sunder City. So I’m dragging as many folks with me as possible into this new brainrot.

Key Points, without spoilers (from here you should just filter Sunder City as a tag until you’ve read it if you don’t want to see):

1) Luke Arnold can write actually! I avoided these books for so long because I didn’t want to know if he couldn’t, and these were just getting published because he’s an actor. But no. The style is very consciously tongue in cheek Noir, especially at the beginning. It’s not perfect, I do think they get better through the series but this man can turn a goddamn phrase, WOW.

2) He was working on the first one on the set of Black Sails, and showed Toby Stephens (I think both the Toby’s actually?) drafts. Which just warms my heart so fucking much. As someone who writes, just, that is the most intimate personal thing you can do and I love everything about it. Anyway, you can tell. Which leads us to:

3) The books engage with a lot of the same themes as the show. “Monsters” and who they really are as a concept, most notably, but also stories and how we tell them, how we understand ourselves, and how guilt and trauma inform self concept. And uhhhhh look I’m not SAYING he’s writing silverflint magic AU but... well if you keep following along I will probably be saying that later.

4) Luke Arnold is radical as fuck. Just. It becomes clear and I love it.

5) These books are SUPER QUEER ok. Both canonically and implicitly. Queer, monsterfucking, complicated and nuanced. There’s even a hot nonbinary demon. Fetch is sure some type of way, and I have FEELINGS about it that are likely soon going to be fic.

6) GET THE AUDIOBOOK. if you can at ALL stand audio as a format, it is a completely different experience to the paper books. Truly, his acting skills come through, these are more like an old radio drama than a normal audiobook. As @jaynovz pointed out he doesnt use a ton of dialogue tags and tone indicators because he clearly knows how he would read them and that he’s going to. and that’s fine, it works without, but its a completely different experience with his voice acting. and its basically porn jfc his voice i mean what?

6) All of that said, the level of dysfunction, self loathing, substance use, poor choices, and general disaster is VERY HIGH. I happen to love that, but if you do not, definitely skip it.

#sunder city #last smile in sunder city #fetch phillips archives #luke arnold #sunder city lb

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threadbareturnbacks · 2 years

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If I had a nickle for every time Luke Arnold had an emotional face off with his mentor while holding a black powder pistol and had to choose between letting his mentor live and thus allowing a morally righteous but destructive war to continue or killing his mentor which would allow capitalism to flow unchecked but maintain a tolerable status quo for white men that included some variation of the line “you are smarter than this/you are too smart not to know this” I would have two nickles.

which isn’t a lot, but it is weird that it happened twice.

#sunder city #last smile in sunder city #dead man in a ditch #sunder city spoilers #dead man in a ditch spoilers #fetch phillips #fetch phillips and john silver have a lot to chat about i think #black sails really did a number on that guy huh?

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genderisadrunkcat · 2 years

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I love when there’s casual inclusion in books. I’m reading fetch phillips rn(dead man in a ditch) and like so far we have a character who uses they/them pronouns, we have mermaids who use wheelchairs, like of course they do! We have vampires who get prosthetic teeth like the casual inclusion of disability and identity is wonderful. And of course the disability is presented as sad, because of the magic leaving, but that’s what disability is like sometimes! I get upset when I can’t walk as far as I used to or when I can’t sit a certain way anymore, and the books do a really great job highlighting that side of disability without doing it badly or cheesy.

#I’m a disabled person so I’m allowed to say that #also these books have no right to be this good #THE UNICORNS #I just read about the unicorns and I can’t #fetch phillips #disability #dead man in a ditch #last smile in sunder city

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claireelizabethsblog · 1 year

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~ January's Books Reviewed ~

January was a good month in regards to reading. Due to a lack of other obligations I read a lot, including completing a series that I had started the previous year.

Oathbringer pt 1 & 2 by Brandon Sanderson

(635 & 756 pages)

I am absolutely obsessed with this series. I read it under recommendation from a friend actually here on tumblr and I'm so happy I did. Sanderson's world is incredible, his characters are beautiful and the plot is intriguing and captivating. I genuinely would go as far as to say that Sanderson might be one of (if not the) best fantasy writers I have ever read. I did enjoy the first book in this series (The Way Of The Kings) the most I think, however I loved the character development of Shallan in this book. I would highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys fantasy or found family books. They are a big commitment and can be a little heavy getting into since it's a lot of world building, but I would say entirely worth it.

I gave both these books 4 stars ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

The Last Smile in Sunderland City by Luke Arnold

(316 pages)

I confess that I read this while waiting for the last Sanderson books to come so I was perhaps not in the head space to read something else, however I was a little disappointed by it. It wasn't bad by any stretch, however it was not what I was expecting. It was still a fairly light hearted mystery, however it was not as humorous as I was anticipating, and the mystery plot was strangely almost not the main focus, instead it became more of a character study, or political commentary. It was a really quick read however (I completed it in a day) and I'm glad I did read it. I'd recommend it to anyone who is maybe looking for a quick, easy first try at a fantasy book. The world building isn't as heavy as other fantasy novels and as it is a stand alone it's an easier first step into the genre than some other tombs of books!

I gave this book 3 stars ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Rhythm of War part 1 & 2 by Brandon Sanderson

(659 & 742 pages)

I am not a crier generally, so when I say that the start of this book made me actually fully sob I hope that that acts as a stronger review than any words I could say. It was emotional and so well written, especially the depiction of ptsd and depression. I really appreciated how fresh the story still felt. This is the fourth book in this series and it would have been so easy to just keep working in a formula that Sanderson knew had worked with the big battle scenes etc, instead (despite the name: Rhythm of War), this story moved away slightly for the war and fighting and instead showed a different form of tension. This kept the story exciting in my opinion, especially as I am much more inclined towards reading more subtle/undercover style fights than big battles. Some story lines were more interesting than others, but overall I felt this was an emotionally draining and addictive finale to the series.... that is until I realised that apparently their might still be more to come?! Either way, my comments from the previous book remain - I would highly highly recommend this series.

I gave both these books 4 stars ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe

(167 pages)

I know this is a classic. I know it is probably the original psychological horror. And I have so much respect for Radcliffe for that, however I did not find this book that enjoyable to read. It was simultaneously dreadfully slow and dull; and horribly complex. In theory, the idea behind it and the plot intrigued me but the characters were annoying and the style of writing was not engaging enough for me. If you like psychological horror books, I would recommend this, since it is where the genre started. It's a quick read for anyone who's wanting to tick classics off their list too.

I gave this book 2 stars ⭐ ⭐

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

(506 pages)

SOOO good! I loved the premise, and the characters are all so interesting and compelling. Some of them I despise with a burning passion, but in a good way! An incredible start to a trilogy as I finished filled with a desperate excitement to find out what happens next. I genuinely cannot reiterate how much I loved this book and how I would recommend it to everyone who in anyway feels inclined to reading anything in the realms of fantasy, mystery or general magic. I repeat: so so good!

I gave this book 5 stars ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

The Atlas Paradox by Olive Blake

(399 pages [hardback vers.])

Funnily enough, still so so good! I am obsessed with this trilogy and honestly the only bad thing about it might be the fact that I'm going to have to wait for the final book as it isn't published yet! I will say that I think I probably preferred the first one, but that is likely in part due to the fact that I read it a little quicker. In general, I find it is unusual to find a sequel that lives up to its predecessor so well like this. Again, I cannot recommend this enough.

I gave this book 5 stars ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

#book review #book reccs #claireelizabethsblog #brandon sanderson #oathbringer #rhythm of war #last smile in sunder city #luke arnold #ann radcliffe #a sicilian romance #olivie blake #the atlas six #the atlas paradox

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jenyuki02 · 2 years

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#luke arnold #cymera #fetch phillips #one foot in the fade #last smile in sunder city #dead man in a ditch

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jennaflare · 1 year

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some fetch phillips spoilers

Ok im listening to last smile for the first time since one foot in the fade came out and I just noticed -- Fetch believes (and we believe) that the pain in his chest is from the attack on the mountain, when he was attacked by the mage. But when river freezes, he says "Something inside me panicked and a sharp pain hit my chest . . . I held my hand to my heart and managed to find my breath again. I wondered what the hell was going on."

But with the reveal in book 3 that he's not fully human, I have to wonder if the above and the lingering pain in his chest have something to do with whatever non-human stuff he has going on... I'm so excited to see if we get to learn more about this in book 4!

#Fetch phillips #Fplb #Last smile in sunder city #One foot in the fade

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a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives · 3 months

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Australian & New Zealand Author Showcase No 20 – Luke Arnold

February 9, 2024 by Charlie Cavendish

An idea squeezed into my head in 2023, after seeing so many of the book community gathering at conventions across the US and UK. And once my FOMO subsided, I got to thinking about who might be gathered together if we had similar conventions closer to home. Pending the master planning required to arrange a massive convention, I thought the next best thing might be to run an Australian & New Zealand author showcase. So, I sent out the call, with the only prerequisite for participating being the author had to have been born in either country or currently live there.

Its now 2024 and the Aussie / New Zealand Author Showcase is gathering steam again. Just when I thought it was over even more talent has emerged, at this rate its threatening to become year long event! I will continue to post their individual showcases at regular intervals. So hopefully you will enjoy these interactions with some very talented people. Please be sure to check out their work, sign up to their newsletters and follow them on their social media of choice. I make no apologies for any damage inflicted to your TBR’s!

Showcase No 20 finds me chatting with very talented Luke Arnold. Luke is the award-winning actor from projects such as Black Sails, Glitch and Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story of INXS as well as the author of The Fetch Phillips Archives; a series of fantastical detective stories which has third instalments to date.

Do you feel that being an Aussie / Kiwi (or residing there) influences your writing?

Absolutely. I didn’t leave Australia until I was in my twenties so, for better or worse, I was brought up with a distinctly Australian outlook. It’s something that can be easily mischaracterised and also requires some distance to properly understand. Being both a young and old country, we’re still finding ourselves, experiencing growing pains, and struggling with our identity.

At the same time, isolation and an abundance of natural resources means a lot of us are able to benefit from a high quality of life without working as hard as we’d need to in many other places in the world. I think a lot of Aussies know this in their bones, and it makes us nervous of “rocking the boat” for fear that we might lose the advantages we have.

This aversion to change has some embarrassing repercussions on relationships between European Australians and Australia’s First Nations People, as well as our treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers.

We have a different kind of national identity to other western countries like the USA or Britain. We’re still trying to play the underdog – the little colony down under that punches above its weight – but that persona no longer fits us the way it used to. These themes seep into all my work.

Fetch Phillips may have the outward appearance of a classic American hard-boiled hero, but he has an Australian heart. He’s someone who feels separate, a bit ignorant, reticent to become a leader, and happy to defer to those he sees as being older and more experienced. He values being humble and self-effacing, but there is safety in that identity.

It allows him to shirk responsibility and hide in the shadows, even when it should be his moment to step forward. He’s a man who didn’t grow up when he was supposed to and is struggling to come of age too late. I feel like Australia is going through the same thing.

What are some of the challenges being located so far away from the rest of the world, do have any tips for overcoming these?

When I was first trying to get published, I was lucky in that I was already working overseas and had some profile from my acting career. That’s a clear advantage I don’t take lightly. Though I’d always wanted to write, the thing that pushed me to finish my first manuscript was a desire to spend more time at home. My acting career was reaching a point where every job was in a different city, and I wanted to know that I could keep working creatively without needing to get on a plane. There are numerous advantages to being creative in Australia.

One thing that is easily overlooked is that we have more safety nets that some other countries. I really notice this when I’m in the US. It’s terrifying to have no money in America. Of course, cost of living is going up everywhere, but I still think there are more ways to find a balanced life in Australia where you can keep a roof over your head and be creative at the same time. Yes, it’s a smaller market and it can be hard to break out overseas, but if the goal is to live a creative life where you do the thing you love without panicking that someone’s going to kick you out on the street, this is one of the best places in the world to establish yourself.

Personally, I know I couldn’t have survived as a young actor long enough to build my career without the support systems that Australia offers.

3. How do you go about establishing connections in the book community? (any tips / suggestions)

I’m terrible at this. My first two novels came out in 2020 when we were all locked inside, and I’ve only met a handful of other authors in person. So of course, social media is a huge asset.

I mostly rely on creatives I’ve known for a long time. Every couple of weeks, I catch up with an author friend, Steven Lochran, I’ve known since high school, and we read each other’s stuff and discuss what we’re working on. I have a number of other people, some writers some not, who I use as beta readers when they have the time.

Finding your own colleagues that you trust and feel comfortable to share your work with is more important than trying to network your way onto tables with notable people in the industry. If you do good work, then that will happen naturally.

4. Do you have a favourite character to write? And conversely are there any of your characters that are the more of a struggle?

Fetch is fun because he still surprises me. There’s a lot of me in him, and he’s dumb enough that I can stuff my own fears and ideas into his head and have him try and make sense of things. It’s always harder when I have to write someone more intelligent – someone who might have the answers he seeks – because then I need to get ahead of my own pondering and come to some conclusions. Perhaps that’s why everyone is fallible in my world, and even those who seem to have the answers will likely fall to pieces before the end of the story.

5. So aliens finally reveal themselves to us and your work is presented to them as example of what humanity has to offer, what do you hope they will take away from this intergalactic exchange?

I hope they’d see that we’re flawed, confused, vulnerable little things, and yet we keep trying to be better. Individually and collectively. My books are noir in tone, but the point isn’t to say that we’re all broken and corrupt. It’s about celebrating the way we keep trying to be good, even in the face of terrible darkness. Even when we’ve made mistakes that should he unforgivable. Even when the pressure – both without and within – feels like it’s going to crush us. Hopefully, if they’re looking at the state of things right now, it might help them see that we’re not completely lost.

6. Tell us something about yourself that not many people know?

In this relentlessly online world, it’s hard to think of something that isn’t already out there. So I’m trying to think of something obscure. Maybe I’ll share that I play a bit of Beat Saber in VR and I’m determined get to the top of the leader board for Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever (normal difficulty). I’m broken the top 100 but I’m gunning for a top ten spot.

What would you say is the best thing about being an author and the worst?

The best thing is that your work is all yours. There are very few creative endeavours out there where you can give so much of your internal world to another person. While our editors and publishers are integral, it’s not the same collaboration as making a film or playing a song with a band. This is all you.

The worst thing is that your work is all yours. You can get feedback and guidance, but it’s only your name on the cover. You must write every word, alone, without anyone encouraging you or sharing the load. Every time I write a book, I’m struck by what a monumental act of faith it is. One word after the other, day after day, for months, hoping that by the end it will be at all interesting to anyone else. Some days I can’t write a text to someone without crumbling under self-doubt, but then I have to find the motivation to pump out a few thousand words of fiction.

And at the end of it all, when someone else enjoys the finished product, they will also be alone, somewhere far away, playing out the story in their own head, and you’ll be completely oblivious to how it’s making them feel. It requires a level of self-belief that is easier to summon some days more than others.

8. Any other Aussie / Kiwi creatives you’d like to give a shout out for? (let’s spread the love)

I’m embarrassed to say that my reading really dropped off over the last year, but if you want some more noir, this time with a sci-fi twist, the 36 Streets by T.R.Napper’s is a fantastic cyberpunk story set in future Vietnam.

And I finally jumped into Maria Lewis’s The Rose Daughter and am bloody loving it.

9. What’s your favourite quote or passage from one of your books?

Shit. The ones I love one day, I cringe at the next. The chapters about Fetch’s love interest, Amari, in The Last Smile in Sunder City still hold a special place for me though. They were the first pieces I felt confident sharing with other people.

There’s a part where Fetch just lists the days they spent together. As the series continues, I have to keep returning to it to make sure that if I allude to an encounter between Fetch and Amari, it’s related to one of the occasions included in that list. It’s simple, and Fetch doesn’t include much emotion or embellishment, but every time I go back to it, that tragic romantic melancholy gets back under my skin.

9. What’s your favourite quote or passage from one of your books?

10. What can you say about your current project or what you are planning next?

The fourth instalment of The Fetch Phillips Archives is in the editing phase, and I’m really excited to get it in people’s hands. I’ve enjoyed the fact that Fetch has not yet lived up to being either a hard-boiled detective or a fantasy hero. His guilt, self-doubt, and insecurity have taken his investigations (and in some cases the plot of the books) off the rails. That was always intentional, and I found that journey interesting to write, but Book 4 is a different beast. Fetch is still a problematic guy, but he’s put himself together enough to tackle his next case with more determination. So, for the first time, we have a more focused narrative revolving around a single string of murders. There are a lot of rewarding moments in this one for readers who were hoping Fetch might eventually catch a break.

But it’s still noir, so don’t except all sunshine and roses. Just a mystery where the main character isn’t getting in his own way quite so much.

Bonus Question: Lastly Vegemite* yes or no?

Absolutely. Thin layer with plenty of butter. It’s not something I crave when I’m away from home but get me back in the Aussie bush and I’ll be searching for a jar in no time.

* An iconic dark salty spread that (most) Australians slap on toast for breakfast (NB explanation for the rest of the world)

Author Bio:

Luke Arnold was born in Australia and has spent the last decade acting his way around the world, playing iconic roles such as Long John Silver in the Emmy-winning Black Sails, Martin Scarsden in the screen adaptation of Chris Hammer’s Scrublands, and his award-winning turn as Michael Hutchence in the INXS mini-series Never Tear Us Apart. When he isn’t performing, Luke is a screenwriter, director and novelist.

He has published three books in The Fetch Phillips Archives, with the fourth instalment on the way. He performs the audiobooks for all his works, and The Last Smile in Sunder City was nominated for Best Fantasy at the 2021 Audie Awards.

Book/ Series Links

Social Media Links

@longlukearnold on Insta, X, and TikTok

Source: FanFi Addict

#black sails #luke arnold #fanfi addict #the last smile in sunder city #the fetch phillips archives #fetch phillips #interview

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