Interview with Jaime Lee Moyer
Jaime Lee Moyer is the author of the Delia trilogy (Delia’s Shadow, A Barricade in Hell, and Against a Brightening Sky). Jaime answered some questions about her work and her new novel. PW: For those readers unfamiliar with you, who is Jaime Lee Moyer? JLM: I’m a writer, a poet, and a dreamer. A huge part of my childhood, from 7 to 14, was spent living in a housing project in South Central Los Angeles, which by definition was an interesting place for a shy Irish girl to grow up. Books and reading saved me as a kid, and allowed me to escape the unpleasant — okay, rotten — reality that was day to day life. Living there is what taught me to dream and made me a writer. Chasing dreams got me to the place I am today, with a third book coming out. Getting here wasn’t easy, nor painless, but I wouldn’t have missed any of it. I have far too many interests and creative hobbies. I love to travel. Most of the time I’d rather listen to others than talk myself.
Book Review: Dragon Heart by Cecelia Holland
A fantasy kingdom under threat, avaricious and grasping scions of an Empire seeking their ambitions and desires, and an implacable dragon come together in Dragon Heart, the first fantasy novel from Cecelia Holland. Holland is best known for a long string of historical fiction novels set across history and time such as The Secret Eleanor, looking at the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Angel and the Sword is set in 9th Century France, a telling of the female knight legend of Roderick the Beardless. Pillar of the Sky details the construction of Stonehenge, and Until the Sun Falls goes deeply into the life of Psin, a General in the Mongol horde in the time after Genghis’ death. In Dragon Heart, King Reymarro, the King of Castle Ocean, at the edge of the sea, is dead. The grasping, avaricious Empire to the East has seized the opportunity to exert dominion over this last outpost of land in the west. Queen Marioza and her children face the scions of the Empire come to take control of the land and the Castle. These scions themselves have ambitions, plans and desires of their own, and struggle and conflict amongst themselves as well as the royal family. Control of a kingdom like Castle Ocean could be a stepping stone to challenging the Emperor for supremacy, after all, or at least to keep in his good graces.
Skiffy and Fanty Interview with author Jamie Wyman
Paul: So, for those readers unfamiliar with you, who is Jamie Wyman? Jamie: Jamie is the geeky, chai-swilling writer of urban fantasy, Sherlock spec fic and a variety of flash fiction. Paul: Your urban fantasy revolves around a couple of characters and series. Tell us about Catherine Sharp, your protagonist in the Etudes in C# series.
Mining the Genre Asteroid: Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle
In our world, the duchy of Burgundy, the Middle Kingdom, has had a fascinating, and often strange history. Wedged in the middle of Europe, from the Mediterranean and up toward the North Sea, parts of which are now France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, the Dukes of Burgundy have often been as powerful or more powerful than some of the full blown kingdoms they have dealt with. Burgundy is a hell of a lot of fun to play in the computer game Crusader Kingdoms 2. By accidents and turns of fortune, Burgundy disappeared from our history in a rather sudden fashion. That sudden disappearance of Burgundy from history is the historical seed for Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle. Gentle uses secret history, alternate history, and the moldability of history to explore a 15th century that wasn’t … but perhaps once was.
Book Review: Queen of the Deep by Kay Kenyon
Janet Zabrinski, now Jane Gray for the stage, is an actress with dreams of being in a Broadway production. It’s not an easy life, however, in the big city of New York. Her best friend and roommate Rickie is battling cancer. Things seem to be just falling apart, with strange dust storms, the world crumbling, and an odor of decay about the city, and the entire world. Even as the role of her life falls into her lap, an encounter with a childhood friend, a childhood friend that Jane had thought to be imaginary, sends her into a space between worlds, and to another universe. A strange universe indeed, one shaped and in the appearance of a great ocean liner, a world whose fate has unexpected connections to Earth. And to Jane herself.
Book Review: The Clockwork Dagger by Beth Cato
Octavia Leander is a healer, and a talented and blessed one at that. A graduate of Miss Percival’s school for the training of Medicians, those who can not only use herbs and other remedies to heal the sick, but draw upon the power of the Lady to do wondrous feats of healing, even wounds and conditions that threaten the victim with death. Octavia’s desire to use her talents, and an offer to help a village on the far end of the nation of Caskentia from her, leads her to board an airship for the long journey. On that ship, Leander faces intrigue, adventure, romance and danger, the latter especially in the person of the eponymous agent of the Queen, The Clockwork Dagger. The Clockwork Dagger is the debut novel from Beth Cato.
