In Loki’s Ring, the inciting incident that kicks off a series of characters’ journeys and adventures is an artificial intelligence named Ri on board. Ri and her ship have crashed on a ringworld, the titular Loki’s Ring. …
https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/sand-f-740-stina-leicht/SandF_740_StinaLeicht.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSBizarre aliens, complicated families, and AI therapy, oh my! Shaun Duke is joined by longtime collaborator and repeat interviewee, Stina Leicht. Why? Because Stina has a new book called Loki’s Ring from Saga Press featuring artificial general intelligences, weird alien stuff, delightful familial relationships, and spaceships! Together, Shaun and Stina discuss the book’s hopeful perspective, the politics of future civilizations, and so much more! Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy the episode!
I love my friends deeply. I’m closer to my friends than I am to certain members of my family. As I see it, friends are the family you get to select for yourself. One of my favorite things to do with friends is to discover stuff. A friend of mine dropped in from Canada recently, and we went to a restaurant I’d never gone to before. Then we went to a nightclub I didn’t know about and watched a band play that I’d never heard before. I even learned how to swing dance for the first time. We capped it off with a visit to a vintage candy store filled with the sorts of candy you remember from childhood. That was a wonderful, memorable evening. I love music. It’s a big part of my creative side and is important to my writing process. I’m always looking for new music. As it happens, one of my best friends used to be a professional DJ, and one of our favorite things to do is to invite a close-knit group of friends over to drink, chat, and listen to music.
Eledore has fallen! In the wake of the near-genocidal attack on the already plague-ridden kingdom, the remnants and survivors of the attack by the Acrasian Empire have several pressing problems. First, the Acrasians, now that they have smashed the Kingdom, consider the flinders to be easy pickings. Kainen hunted for sport, territory conquered, a proud kingdom ruined. Worse, the remaining Kainen polities, like the Waterborne Nations, and Ytlain, have to deal with this new political reality, and Eledore’s fallen status means that its people must often go cap in hand to their brethren, and suffer and bargain for what they once could ask for freely. Even more of a problem is the problem that Eledore has stood athwart for centuries and no longer can: The otherdimensional, eldritch problem of the malorum. Now that the gates are opening and malorum are coming through, the survivors of Eledore are under literal siege from this threat. Not that the Acrasians are as well off as they might be. Yes, the great victory against the Eledorean menace has occurred. But in the wake of that victory, the local and resident nonhuman population, overt and covert, have been restive. Some have even been seeking escape from the Regnum, to get beyond the borders of a state slowly and inexorably tightening into Caesarism. Besides the high level political problems, seen only at a distance and remove, the street-level problems of life in the Regnum are multiplying. The malorum are now a looming threat on the streets of Novus Salernum itself.
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode328InterviewWStinaLeicht/Sandf–Episode328–InterviewWStinaLeicht.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSSerial killers, writing in reverse order, and blind spymasters, oh my! Our very own Stina Leicht joins Jen and Paul to discuss Blackthorne, the second book of her flintlock fantasy series, The Malorum Gates. We get heavy into the world building of a nation based on the free market gone wild, cultural concerns of a post-war refugee kingdom, and the reasons for an intimate focus in an epic fantasy. Listen and then go buy the book! We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below):
High, epic fantasy is perhaps my favorite genre. Yet, its books can easily turn tired and formulaic. Epic fantasy also tends to reach high page counts, both in a given novel and within a giant series, filled with a rich tapestry of characters and world building. But in so doing they can also become bogged-down with superfluous detours and asides. They can balloon into the unmanageable. What I adore about Stina Leicht’s Cold Iron, the first entry in a series entitled The Malorum Gates, is that that she effectively tinkers with many of the genre conventions, merging them with elements more typically stressed in other fiction, while keeping the joy of epic fantasy intact in a hefty read. Nels and his twin sister Suvi are Kainen royalty in the nation of Eledore, and heirs to the throne. The Kainen are an ancient line of magical humanoids capable of compelling other people and animals. But while Suvi is capably ready to lead, Nels remains unassured, hiding his secret weakness in the Kainen magic expected from his genes. At a moment of crisis, Nels’ inability in traditional strengths leads him to breaking taboo, and thereafter following a path developing other talents in the Eledorean military, shunned from royal court.
