While writer D.J. Butler concluded his epic fantasy / alt history Witchy War trilogy with last year’s Witchy Kingdom, it was not the end of the story. In the following email interview, Butler discusses Serpent Daughter (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), the first book in a sequel trilogy that will ultimately bring this saga to a close.
We never know when inspiration may strike. It may come when we’re sleeping. It may be when we’re driving. Or — if you’re writer Andrea Stewart — it may be when a friend chokes on something they bought in a food court in Texas.
In the following email interview, Stewart explains how a friend’s momentary inability to breath inspired her to write The Bone Shard Daughter (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), the first book of her epic fantasy trilogy, The Drowning Empire.
Regrets, I’ve had a few. But none of them involve not going on a magical adventure when I was eleven. Maybe when I was six, seven tops, not eleven. But not taking the road not taken is exactly what Zach regrets in Erin Morgenstern’s magical fantasy novel The Starless Sea (paperback Kindle, audiobook). With the book newly released in paperback, I spoke with Erin via email about what inspired and influenced this story, and some of it, I must warn you, got a little cute.
With The Memory Of Souls (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), writer Jenn Lyons has reached the halfway point of her epic fantasy pentalogy, A Chorus Of Dragons. In the following email interview, she discusses what inspired and influenced this third part of five, and what she’s thinking of calling the last two parts.
With The Shadow Commission (paperback, Kindle), writer David Mack is (probably) concluding the Dark Arts series of secret history fantasy novels he began in 2018 with The Midnight Front and continued a year later with The Iron Codex. In the following email interview, he discusses what inspired and influenced this third installment, while also discussing his new-ish Star Trek novel, More Beautiful Than Death (paperback, Kindle, audiobook).
Usually when a writer cites Star Wars as a major influence, it’s because their novel is of the space opera or space fantasy genre. Or has chatty robots. But in the following email interview about Ashes of The Sun (paperback, Kindle), the first book of his Burningblade & Silvereye trilogy, writer Django Wexler is instead talking about what he calls a post-fantasy-apocalypse tale.
Often when writers blend science fiction and fantasy, it’s by adding elements of the latter into the former, like how Star Wars infused its space opera story with swords and magic. But in his debut novel, Scarlet Odyssey (hardcover, paperback, Kindle), writer C.T. Rwizi is taking the opposite approach by setting AN epic fantasy tale on an alien world. Though as he explains in the following email interview, it’s not the change in genres, but rather a change in heroes, that really got this story going.