Release Day! The Imposters of Aventil by Marshall Ryan Maresca

It's Release Day for our own Marshall Ryan Maresca's latest in his world of Maradaine,  The Imposters of Aventil. Veranix is back in this blend of fantasy, mystery, and adventure.

"Veranix is Batman, if Batman were a teenager and magically talented.” —Library Journal

THE IMPOSTERS OF AVENTIL

Summer and the Grand Tournament of High Colleges have come to the University of Maradaine. If the heat and the crowds weren't enough to bring the campus and the neighborhood of Aventil to a boiling point, rumors that The Thorn is on the warpath—killing the last of the Red Rabbits—is enough to tip all of Maradaine into the fire.

Except Veranix Calbert, magic student at the University, is The Thorn, and he's not the one viciously hunting the Red Rabbits. Veranix has his hands full with his share of responsibilities for the Tournament, and as The Thorn he’s been trying to find the source of the mind-destroying effitte being sold on campus. He’s as confused as anyone about the rumors.

When The Thorn imposter publicly attacks the local Aventil constables, the Constabulary bring in their own special investigators: Inspectors Minox Welling and Satrine Rainey from the Maradaine Grand Inspectors Unit. Can Veranix find out who the imposter is and stop him before Welling and Rainey arrest him for the imposter’s crimes?

Buy It Now:   Amazon   |   B&N   |  BAM   |   IndieBound

Dreams....

So if I were going to be in an anthology with any other authors, living or dead, who would they be and why?

Hell, that's ridiculously easy.

First, Stephen King. Why? Because he's one of the largest influences I've ever had and even his bad books re better than average.

Second, Mark Twain. Why? Because, damn, to this day that man's works remain potent, observant and humorous.

Third, Ray Bradbury. Why? Because he's Ray Bradbury. Enough said.

I can think of others, of course, and plenty of them, but in several cases I have already BEEN in anthologies with them. In all three of these cases I have never been that fortunate.

As with Jeffe before me I can show you one of my dram anthologies that has come to pass.

And I can show you the cover for the next anthology I'm in, too.

If you should find yourselves in Haverhill Massachusetts on October twenty-first, between the hours of 10 Am and 4:30 PM, you might want to visit me and around forty-nine other artists for the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival. 

We'll have stuff to sell and there will be free panels, too. 

Joe Hill 
Hank Phillippi Ryan
Sarah Smith
Gregory Bastianelli
Matt Bechtel
Stephen Bissette
Daniel Braum
Dana Cameron
Glenn Chadbourne
Jason Ciaramella
Joseph Citro
Tom Deady
Kristin Dearborn
Rachel Autumn Deering
Barry Lee Dejasu
Amber Fallon
Dan Foley
Craig Shaw Gardner
Christopher Golden
Scott Goudsward
Catherine Grant
Kat Howard
Christopher Irvin
Nicholas Kaufmann
Brian Keene
Toni L.P. Kelner (Leigh Perry)
John Langan
Fred Van Lente
Livia Llewellyn
Bracken MacLeod
John M. McIlveen
Hillary Monahan
James A. Moore
Holly Newstein Hautala
Errick Danger Nunnally
Jason Parent
Philip Perron
David Price
Charles R Rutledge
Mary SanGiovanni
Rob Smales
Thomas Sniegoski
Paul Tremblay
Tony Tremblay
Kenneth Vaughan
Trisha Wooldridge
Douglas Wynne
Rio Youers

Jeffe's Dream Anthology

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is: If you were going to be in an anthology with any three authors, living or dead, who would you pick and why?

Amusingly enough (and this was totally NOT my topic suggestion, even) I get to be in an anthology in December with three AMAZING authors. So, I feel I'd be remiss not to mention that. It's particularly shiny for me because Thea Harrison put the concept together, and I've been loving her Elder Races series for years. So much so that I stalked her, arranged to meet her for breakfast at the RWA conference in NYC a few years ago, and made her be my friend.

Score!

Then Thea also invited Grace Draven and Elizabeth Hunter to play, both of whom are wonderful writers who'd I'm thrilled to be alongside. It's a great concept on Thea's part, because we all have similar voices and fantasy styles, which should make for a fabulous collection.

The book is called AMID THE WINTER SNOW, and will be four novellas, each set in one of our worlds, taking place over the midwinter holiday. My story is THE SNOWS OF WINDROVEN, which (for those who are familiar with the Twelve Kingdoms/Uncharted Realms series) is a continuation of Ash and Ami's story, told from his point of view, during the Feast of Moranu at Castle Windroven. I have some hints of what Thea, Grace, and Elizabeth are doing and I'm so psyched to read those stories. If I weren't IN the anthology, I'd totally be jonesing to buy it.

So, really, this is my dream anthology, right there. Lucky Jeffe!!

Then, if I were to get all super dreamy about it... wow.

Anne McCaffrey
Tanith Lee
Patricia McKillip
Jeffe Kennedy

Kind of gives me the chills to put my name in there. Also makes me feel pretty uppity. I'm safe in this dream, because Anne and Tanith have died now, so it will never happen. Not that it would have happened anyway, but these are the writers whose fantasy stories shaped me and who I still emulate.

Or WISH I could emulate.

That said, I feel pretty effing fancee being in AMID THE WINTER SNOW with those writers, so my dreams don't exceed my reality by much. Counting my blessings.

Responding to the Fandom

I don’t take input from anyone on which of my stories to tell next…

Or what events should happen to which secondary character, who should fall in love with whom, or any other aspect of my various series.

I’ve been writing for myself since I was age seven. I write the stories I want to read more of and can’t find, whether set in ancient Egypt or the far future of my Sectors.  I LOVE that I have readers who enjoy the stories too! I like hearing from readers and I don’t mind at all if someone tells me they’d love the sequel to Mitch’s adventures in Escape from Zulaire someday, or asks why am I “wasting my time writing fantasy when I should be spending my time writing more scifi romance”, as I was told by someone after my book The Captive Shifter came out. Well, as it happens, I wrote that story originally in late 2010, I like that story, I like the characters and I let it sit and stew until I felt I could revise it to the point where it was ready to be published and then there it was. Two sequels will be forthcoming, and maybe more, because I have other tales I want to tell in that world. I’m personally excited by that world! 

But I get that I have passionate readers who really prefer only my scifi romances and equally terrific readers who prefer only my Egyptian paranormals. (And some wonderful readers who love it ALL.)  It’s good feedback to have.

I’ve even been told that at least one reader wants me to get on with the end game war between my deadly aliens, the Mawreg, and the human-ruled Sectors. Don’t hold your breath, anyone. I have a LOT of stories to tell in the Sectors and none of them is a giant space opera full of space battles to resolve that conflict. I’m drawn to the more individual stories, set on one ship or one planet. Filling in the edges of the puzzle, not doing the whole 1000 piece finished-architecture at once.

 I do have a sequel in mind for Mitch of Zulaire now, by pure coincidence, but I don’t know when my Muse and I are going to get around to writing it. As everyone here knows (because I say it so often), I’m quite superstitious about how my Muse works and I only write what I’m really in the mood to tackle at any given time. If the words are flowing – yay! If a new and shinier idea pops up, I’ll go where the creative energy is. I don’t usually hop to a new plot about some other set of characters in the middle of writing a specific book, obviously, but as the next new project down the road.

It’s probably just as well I’m not traditionally published, with a contract that says I need to write the next book in series XYZ. Apparently my Muse and I rebel at such direction! We like to meander among the myriad of creative possibilities and pick whichever thing appeals to us.

I don’t want to sound truculent (always wanted to say that word!) but I don’t take direction either. Life is too short, I have too many stories to tell and the Muse knows which one needs telling next.

Not the Author but I liked the way the photo representing me with a myriad of creative possibilities!
Photo purchased from DepositPhoto

Story Tetris

This is my last post as a Pacific Northwesterner. By this time next week, I will have relocated to Florida. As you can see, Hatshepsut is very keen on 'helping' with the packing. We're almost done and the moving truck is filling up. I am so tired.

Packing a moving truck is an art. Think Truck Tetris. Or huge, fragile jigsaw puzzle. It's very much like putting a book together. Every book has scenes and characters and arcs. Motivations and conflicts. Those come in varying sizes and weights. The ones I can't lift have to act as the anchors to all the other bits and pieces. As the biggest, heaviest segments settle into place in a story, I have to juggle the smaller ones, slotting them into the perfect place for them. In a moving truck, I do that so the load doesn't shift and break everything. I guess stories work the same way. The pieces interlock. They prop one another up and keep the structure from collapsing under its own weight.


I wish I could talk about whether or not I'm tempted to cave to fan pressure about how a story goes down. But I'm honestly not in that position. I've had a grand total of one, count 'em one, protest about how one of my books ended. And at that point, the book was in print. So it wasn't as if I had an option to change that one to suit the reader. Would I if I had readers beating down my doors over a story?

Probably not. I cannot rearrange a story - shift boxes around - without risking the whole thing collapsing and breaking. That plot twist readers hate is, for me, the ONLY thing that will fit in just that spot in the story. It supports and props up the rest of the stuff that gets piled atop it. But hey. Never say never, right? Who knows what I'll do when faced with a mob of annoyed readers brandishing torches?

Where I DO bow to reader demand right now, though, is in what book to write when. Well. Kinda. I've had a number of readers after me for the conclusion of one of the series I write. Not that I didn't WANT to write it - but eh the rights are mine again and here we go.

So. Sunnier climes ho. When someone yells at me in protest over a plot point, I'll let you know whether I cave or fight back. In the meantime, break out the sunscreen and shades. We're palm tree bound.

Perils of the Writer: Letting Fandom Set Your Sails

So, yesterday I had a nice long chat with one of my beta-readers about A Parliament of Bodies.  Yes, she gets to read it a year before the rest of you, but what she reads is an imperfect draft.  And we talked a bit about what happens in the book versus what her expectations as a fan were, and how either fulfilling or subverting those expectations result in reader satisfaction.

Because sometimes there is an urge to ignore what the story needs to give the fans "what they want".  And, I'm against doing that for two reasons.  One, I'm kind of a believer in that old Joss Whedon quote about not giving them what they want, but what they need.  This quote is sometimes treated with derision, in that people complain, "Oh, [Bad Plot Point] is what we 'needed'?"  I can understand that to a degree, especially when plots make characters suffer, characters the readers care about.  They don't want to see them suffer, because they want Good Things for the characters.

But my job is, as J. Michael Straczynski so eloquently put it once, to chase them up a tree and throw rocks at them.

The second reason I'm against changing with the winds of fandom desires is simple.  When it comes to Maradaine (or any other world of mine) and the characters within that world, no one is going to be more of a fan than me.  I love this setting, these people, and their story so much, and I hope that love comes through in what I'm writing.  It hurts me when bad things happen to them, but I also know... that's the path they're all on.

So what does that mean?

It means that I'm that #1 Fan, so I'm the one who gets to tie myself to a bed and break my own legs if I don't do right by the story.

So now I need to get back to work.  There's a certain fanboy who insists that I clean up this manuscript.  See you in the word mines.

It's Your Book, But You Need To Write It My Way

When fans tell you how to write your book, do you listen?

~shifty eyes~  

~leans forward~

~whispers~

What fans?

Just kidding. Sort of. Mebbe. There is no greater compliment than fans who really connect with your work. Some of those fans will shout their passion from every review page, book party table, and fan-Con hallway (gods bless 'em; most authors really need that visibility boost). Similarly, everybody has an opinion. So when those opinions about your work collide with a passion for the characters, world, and plot there might be a few "suggestions" made.

Don't kill that character. 

Ship these two characters. 

Get that character some religion. 

Not that religion.

Speaking practically, in a series where books are still being written, the author is most likely writing two or three books ahead of what's just hitting the shelves. A lot of those "suggestions" are too late.  Similarly, the series may only have been contracted for X number of books or the series was sold as a trilogy so there are certain plot points, milestones, character developments that have to occur at a specific in the timeline in order to satisfactorily end the series. Again, the suggestions are too late.

Now, what if, what if it's not too late? What if--because the author is a super-slow writer publishing on their own damn schedule like moi--there's time for fans to voice an opinion and have it be heard? Well, the kind of feedback that might sway me is if a minor character turns out to be a fan-favorite; that character might end up with more page time. Not so much as to take away from the story, but sure, why not give a nod to the fan base? Plot suggestions? No, sorry. My world, my crazy. Who lives and who dies? Sometimes those developments surprise even me. Who's going to get laid, when, and how explicitly will it be depicted?

Dudes. 

Duuuudes. 

Come on. 

Nookie will happen if and when it's meant to during the characters' developments. Whether it happens on page or off depends on a lot of things. It's not a radio show; the characters aren't taking requests.

Yep. Nope.

I've had this discussion in public plenty of times I see no reason not to have it here.

When people ask if I consider my fan base when I'm writing, the answer is no.

Please don't take that the wrong way if you are part of that fan base. It doesn't mean I don't like you and appreciate you. It means that I can't consider the desires of the readers when I am writing a story.

If I do, I might pull punches, and that weakens the tale.

Listen, I kill a LOT of characters off. I'm in  the final book of a series that involves a war with the gods. Trust me, a lot of people are about to die. I don't want to stop what I'm doing, what has been planned, and try to second-guess anyone. And, yes, that has blown up on me a time or two, when a novel hasn't the way a few people liked. That affected some Amazon reviews, but I'll stick to my plans.

It's not about the reviews. it's about telling my tale.

I can't do it any other way. If I'm nit having a good time, I firmly believe the readers will not have a good time.

The closest I've come to an exception was when I asked readers which character they wanted to see next on the cover for CITY OF WONDERS. I was rather pleasantly surprised when the vast majority asked to see Swech, one of the female leads who just happens to have the highest body count of anyone in the SEVEN FORGES series.

I'm all about commercial success, please don't get me wrong, but before I worry abut that part of the equation, I worry about telling a good tale. That means two things to me: 1) I'm not going t take your idea and write it for you so we can split the profits 50/50 (No really, that offer happens. A LOT) and 2) I'm writing the book I want to read. Hopefully I find others who feel the same way.