With Firesky (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), writer Mark de Jager is concluding the epic fantasy duology The Chronicles Of Stratus that he kicked off in 2020 with Infernal. In the following email interview, de Jager discusses this second half of the story, and why it’s not the end of the saga.
Just as J.R.R. Tolkien had Middle-earth, George R.R. Martin has Westeros, and R.A. Salvatore has Corona, so too does fantasy writer Tad Williams have a realm to call his own: Osten Ard, the fictional land where he’s set such fantasy novels as The Heart Of What Was Lost, the Memory, Sorrow, And Thorn saga, and now Brothers Of The Wind (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), a prequel set a thousand years before the first Osten Ard novel, 1988’s The Dragonbone Chair.
With The Undertakers (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), writer Nicole Glover is continuing the magical adventures of Hetty and Benjy, paranormal investigators during the Reconstruction era who got their start in Glover’s previous historical fantasy novel, The Conductors. In the following email interview, Glover discusses what inspired and influenced this second story.
The idea of mixing fantasy and history is not new. Mike Mignola’s Hellboy and B.P.R.D. comics have been doing it for years, as have the Wolfenstein games, and David Mack’s Dark Arts novels did it as well. But unless I’m mistaken, writer and artist Clayton McCormack is the first to send Vikings into the first World War. As for what the Vikings think of this idea, well, for that you’ll just have to read McCormack’s new graphic novel Bloody Hel (hardcover, digital). In the following email interview about it, McCormack discusses what inspired and influenced this horror / fantasy / history mélange.
Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” It’s an idea that fellow science fiction (and fantasy) writer Adrian Tchaikovsky is putting to the test in his new sci-fi / fantasy novella Elder Race (paperback, Kindle). In the following email interview, Tchaikovsky explains what inspired and influenced this genre-mashing story.
When a writer puts together a collection of their work, they often collect their best work, their most recent work, or work that all falls within the same genre. And they usually keep their own council. But with A Few Last Words For The Late Immortals (paperback, Kindle), sci-fi and fantasy author Michael Bishop not only worked with editor Michael H. Hutchins, but he started with the idea of collecting pieces based on length; Immortals includes short stories, poems, prose poems, and a play, none of which top 3,000 words. In the following email interview, Bishop discusses what inspired him to assemble this collection.
Usually when people sing along to the “Ghostbusters” song by Ray Parker, Jr., and they get to the “Who you gonna call?” part, they don’t yell out, “MY! AGENT!” But as writer Dan Hanks explains in the following email interview about his British folklore- and nostalgia-infused supernatural fantasy adventure novel Swashbucklers (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), that’s exactly what he did…when he got home.
You know someone writes a lot of short stories when their work covers multiple genres but they can still put together a story collection that covers just one. It’s what Tobias S. Buckell is doing with Shoggoths In Traffic And Other Stories (paperback, Kindle), a new collection of his fantasy stories. Though as he admits in the following email interview, he is using the term “fantasy” somewhat loosely.
With The Son Of Abraham (hardcover, paperback, Kindle, audiobook), writer Kathleen Kaufman has decided to conclude the Diabhal saga she started in 2019 with Diabhal and continued in 2020 with Sinder. In the following email interview, Kaufman discusses what inspired and influenced this third and final chapter.