Some people say you should look for the magic in the world. But what if some people who did this were just looking to weaponize it? This where we find things in Weston Ochse’s new military fantasy novel A Hole In The World: Preacher’s Daughter Saves The World: Book One (paperback, Kindle, audiobook). In the following email interview, Ochse discusses what inspired and influenced this story, as well as how it’s not only the start of its own series, but also connected to other novels he’s written.
The cardinal rule of real estate is “location, location, location.” And apparently the same rule applies to calling a story an “urban fantasy.” Which is just one of the things I learned doing the following email interview with writer dave ring about his urban fantasy novella The Hidden Ones (paperback, Kindle).
With The Last Days Of Hong Kong (paperback, Kindle), writer G.D. Penman is concluding the Witch Of Empire trilogy they started in 2017 with The Year Of The Knife, and continued in 2020 with The Wounded Ones. In the following email interview, Penman discusses what influenced this noir hardboiled detective urban fantasy mystery, how it connects to the second installment, as well as why you should never leave your cats alone. Ever. Not even for a minute.
With The Free Bastards (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), writer Jonathan French is bringing to a close The Lot Lands trilogy he launched in 2018 with The Grey Bastards and continued in 2019 with The True Bastards. In the following email interview, French discusses what did, and didn’t, influence this final installment, and hints and says it may not be as “final” as the end of a trilogy implies.
While surrealism works well in such visual mediums as painting and film, it’s a bit trickier to pull off in print, especially prose. But if anyone can pull it off, it’s writer Lavie Tidhar, who — in the following email interview — describes his new sci-fi / fantasy / what-have-you mash-up novel The Escapement (paperback, Kindle) in terms art critics might appreciate.
Usually when you ask the writer of an epic fantasy novel who influenced their tale, they’ll mention J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, and other people with a bunch of initials in their name. But in the following email interview with writer Mike Brooks, author of the epic fantasy novel The Splinter King (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) — which is the second book in The God-King Chronicles trilogy after The Black Coast — he doesn’t cite a person but a place…and not one from another fantasy novel, either.
The phrase “witch hunt” is used a lot these days, often by people who don’t understand that it only applies if the people being hunted aren’t actually witches (or, in the case of the current mis-users, actually criminals, bigots, or just generally bad people). But what if the Salem Witch Trials actually did involve real witches? Such is the idea behind Brom’s new illustrated horror-infused fantasy novel Slewfoot (hardcover, Kindle), which he both wrote and drew. In the following email interview, Brom explains what inspired and influenced this story, as well as why it comes fully visualized.
While there have been a lot of interesting versions of the Arthurian Legends — including ones where genders are swapped or the setting is changed from medieval England to a futuristic Britain — not many have dealt with the core issues of the story. But in the first volume of their ongoing comic The Orphan King (paperback), writer Tyler Chin-Tanner and artist James Boyle deal more with the idea of why Arty got to be the king, not how or what he did once he took the job. In the following email interview, Tyler and James discusses what inspired and influenced this story, as well as their plans for Vol. 2.
In his new horror-infused historical fantasy novel The Peculiarities (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), writer David Liss presents a version of Victorian London if magic was real, and a real problem…for some. In the following email interview, Liss discusses what inspired and influenced this fantastic tale.