Guest Blog: Details!

Another guest post has gone up over at otterdance's (aka Lynn Flewelling's) blog! In this one, I talk a little bit about how I take a fantasy trope--in this case the dwarves--and twist them into something different and unique. It's all in the details you use. I chose to focus on the dwarren race in this post because in Leaves of Flame you get to see much more of the dwarren than you did in Well of Sorrows. Stop on by Lynn's blog and check it out. And leave a comment or question!

New DAW Books Discussion

The next DAW Books blog (dawbooks) discussion is up, featuring Stephen Blackmoore's debut novel City of the Lost. This is a detective zombie noir novel and I totally intend to read it after finishing the book I'm almost done with now. Check it out!

Guest Blog: Martha Wells Visits!

I've been pointing you guys to guest blogs I'VE been doing at OTHER PEOPLE'S sites, so it's about time I started getting some guests over here appearing on mine. *grin* First up is Martha Wells marthawells, who also has a new book out this month, just like me. She's here to talk about the new book, The Serpent Sea, and the first in the series, The Cloud Roads. You guys should take a moment to check them out.

The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells





Though The Cloud Roads is a fantasy adventure novel about dragon-like shapeshifters who can fly, in many ways it's about not fitting in, no matter how hard you try. The main character Moon has always had to pretend to be something else in order to survive and was afraid to show who and what he really was. He has few memories of his people, and no knowledge at all of their customs or culture. His years on his own have scarred him in a number of different ways, and made it hard to let down his guard. When he does find his own people, his difficulties don't end.

It doesn't help that his place in Raksuran society isn't an easy one. One of his survival strategies in the past has been to lay low and observe, and try to figure out the best way to get along. With his own people, he was hoping to be just another warrior, who would have time to adapt and figure out how to behave. But he discovers that in the court of Indigo Cloud, he'll have a very high position. But by the end of the book he does find a measure of acceptance, and if you stop reading there, it is a happily-ever-after ending.





The sequel, The Serpent Sea, is about finally finding the place where you belong, but realizing that you may have been alone too long to really be at home there.

Moon has to face the possibility that he's now too different to fit in, even among his own people. He survived on his own by instinctive paranoia and a talent for deception, but now he has to learn how to give all that up. And to learn how to trust his new family, when up to this point his survival has depended on not trusting anyone.

Another important element in both books is the landscapes that the characters are inhabiting. As a kid, I loved reading about adventures in strange fantasy worlds, the stranger the better, and I wanted to try to create that old sense of wonder with these books. The fact that the characters can fly opens up a lot of possibilities for exploring strange places. I enjoyed writing them, and I hope you enjoy reading them.

There are information pages for each book on my web site, with the first two chapters as a reading sample, cover art, descriptions, reviews, etc.

The Cloud Roads
The Serpent Sea