While writer R.B. Lemberg is not alone in creating their own fictional fantasy universe, the one they’ve created – the Birdverse — is quite unique. In the following email interview, Lemberg not only discusses the creation of this universe, but also the first novel they’ve set in it, The Unbalancing (paperback, Kindle).
In her now classic novel Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice cleverly treated vampirism not as a mystical or demonic issue, but instead as a medical condition, paving the way for more realistic stories about bloodsuckers. Which is where we find David Carrico’s new urban fantasy vampire tale, The Blood Is The Life (hardcover Kindle). Well, mostly. As Carrico explains in the following email interview, his story puts a rather interesting spin even Rice wouldn’t have seen coming.
In the following email interview about her new fantasy novel Into The Broken Lands (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), writer Tanya Huff says, “…there’s a quest for a mystical object … [and] … a devastating mage war…” But as she also explains, despite its obvious, scope, Lands isn’t an epic fantasy story.
They say that “evil begets evil.” But not always. Take Dan Koboldt’s new fantasy heist novel Silver Queendom (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) which — as he says in the following email interview — was inspired in part by a TV show about a heist crew with a very different moral compass than the crew in this novel.
The fantasy genre is full of ordinary people who step up and become heroes. But in his sword & sorcery fantasy novel The Coward, writer Stephen Aryan gave us an ordinary person who not only didn’t do anything heroic, but he feels bad when he’s rewarded for what he didn’t do.
Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for us), that isn’t where his story ends, as Aryan has now released a companion novel called The Warrior (paperback, Kindle), in which the non-hero’s undeserved rewards drive him to do something, well, heroic.
Usually when fantasy writers discuss their influences, they mention J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, R.A. Salvatore — y’know, the usual.
But in the following email interview with writer W.A. Simpsons about her post-modern / second world high fantasy novel Tinderbox (hardcover, paperback, Kindle), the person she cites — rather ironically — is someone who didn’t use his initials.
When the show Lucifer premiered on Fox, some complained that the titular demon was too suave and good looking. As if Satan would try to seduce people to the dark side by looking like a fat slob on laundry day. But while J.P. Jackson’s dark LGBTQ+ urban fantasy novella Devil’s Due (paperback, Kindle) is also about a good looking demon, and is influenced by Lucifer, in the following email interview, Jackson say his story owes more to a different supernatural show.
In their new fantasy novella The Bruising Of Qilwa (paperback, Kindle), writer Naseem Jamnia introduces us to the queernormative, Persian-inspired secondary world of Firuz-e Jafari, a nonbinary refugee healer. But as they explain in the following email interview about it, while Qilwa may be your introduction to this fictional space, it’s not the first story they’ve told from there.