A novella.
Still new to her duties as Lady Vorkosigan, Ekaterin is working together with expatriate scientist Enrique Borgos on a radical scheme to recover the lands of the Vashnoi exclusion zone, lingering radioactive legacy of the Cetagandan invasion of the planet Barrayar. When Enrique’s experimental bioengineered creatures go missing, the pair discover that the zone still conceals deadly old secrets.
This novella falls after Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance in the Vorkosigan series timeline, but may be read entirely independently. The Vorkosigan saga was the recipient of the first Hugo Award for best science fiction series in 2017.
Read more: The Flowers of Vashnoi - Lois McMaster Bujold
A review of Jon B. Dalvy's The Ballad of Titha Mae
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Jon B. Dalvy's The Ballad of Titha Mae was published in January 2018.
Information about Jon B. Dalvy:
Jon is a Nashville, TN-based author and illustrator, his work spanning from creative writing as a profession to fantasy literature. He’s told tales as a published playwright with The Nashville Repertory Theatre, a pop-culture writer for Skreeonk.com, and led several creative ventures during his four-year career as head writer of Playbuzz.com: crafting content for Disney, TIME, People, MTV, and many others. His heart, however, has never held a tale so dear as it does The Ballad of Titha Mae, a children’s fantasy novel crafted from his own life and love of the genre. It is his sincerest hope that your heart, too, will carve out a Luna-shaped spot for Titha and her companions in the near future!
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about The Ballad of Titha Mae:
Titha loves her father, Theole, with all her excitable heart. The two are indigo-skinned Lunas: a spritely people forbidden to leave the treehalls of Yythengrey. So when their once friendly Dawnfather, the twisted dragon Vulduun, desecrates their homeland and kidnaps Theole, no one is willing to risk saving him - except his daughter, Titha Mae. Such a brash gesture leads the little Luna and her Bear-brother, Paw, on a fantastical journey far beyond the only foliage-filled mountains she’s ever known.
Raised beneath the Great Smoky Mountains in Knoxville, Tennessee, Jon B. Dalvy crafted The Ballad of Titha Mae from his adventurous Appalachian youth, historical mythology, and his Celtic heritage. Titha Mae was born from these passions, as well as bedtime stories created for his three little sisters and two younger brothers. The brothers having plenty of classical male heroes to choose from growing up, 'The Ballad' is dedicated to (and based upon) Jon's three little sisters "and the light they hold", in hopes of bringing more lionhearted young heroines to the forefront of fantasy literature.
The result is an epic adventure featuring a brand new world ripe with its own rich mythology and eclectic characters, all born of fantastical races both new and old! Join Titha and her companions on a journey you'll never want to end, and will surely never forget!
A REVIEW OF JON B. DALVY'S THE BALLAD OF TITHA MAE
Read more: A review of Jon B. Dalvy's The Ballad of Titha Mae
An interview with Jon Ray
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Interviews
Risingshadow has had the honour of interviewing the fantasy author Jon Ray.
About the author:
Jon Ray is a writer, director, and actor in film along with a large assortment of other titles when it comes to entertainment. Since the age of 13, he has played and enjoyed Dungeons & Dragons normally running his own games as the Dungeon Master for others. Originally from Tyler, Texas in the U.S., Jon currently resides in Sydney, Australia where he prospects for gold in the outback when not writing.
Jon is the author of the fantasy book Gorp: Goblin Janitor.
Click here to visit his official website.
About Gorp: Goblin Janitor:
Gorp the goblin is fleeing his lands in search of better employment. With only a cloth map to guide him, he sets out across the sea to secure work at Ye Olde Dungeon working for the sinister Dungeon Overlord Jamalin Spellslinger. Once there, along with a group of misfit monsters, Gorp is hired on as a janitor to clean up the messes left behind by the horde of fortune, glory, and treasure seeking adventurers. But all is not well within the dungeon as the Red Dragon has ideas and an agenda of his own.
AN INTERVIEW WITH JON RAY
Read more: An interview with Jon Ray
A review of Brendan Connell's The Heel
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Brendan Connell's The Heel was published by Snuggly Books in October 2017.
Information Brendan Connell:
Brendan Connell was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1970. He has had fiction published in numerous places, including McSweeney's, Adbusters, and the World Fantasy Award winning anthologies Leviathan 3 (The Ministry of Whimsy 2002), and Strange Tales (Tartarus Press 2003). His published books are: The Translation of Father Torturo (Prime Books, 2005), Dr. Black and the Guerrillia (Grafitisk Press, 2005), Metrophilias (Better Non Sequitur, 2010), Unpleasant Tales (Eibonvale Press, 2010), The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children (Chômu Press, 2011), The Architect (PS Publishing, 2012), Lives of Notorious Cooks (Chômu Press, 2012), Miss Homicide Plays the Flute (Eibonvale Press, 2013), The Cutest Girl in Class (co-written with Quentin S. Crisp and Justin Isis, Snuggly Books, 2013), The Galaxy Club (Chômu Press, 2014), The Metanatural Adventures of Dr. Black (PS Publishing, 2014), Cannibals of West Papua (Zagava, 2015), Jottings from a Far Away Place (Snuggly Books, 2015), Clark (Snuggly Books, 2016), The Heel (Snuggly Books, 2017) and Pleasant Tales (Eibonvale Press, 2017).
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about The Heel:
New Mexico, 1974. Mitch Mazzola is just trying to make a living. Dealing in Native American artifacts seems like an easy way to do this - but so have lots of other things before: selling typewriter ribbons, Bibles, shoes, and Sweet Dart Cosmetics. It just goes to show - just because a fellow’s lucky with the ladies, it doesn’t mean he’s lucky in lucre. But maybe that’s all about to change. Fifty thousand dollars in a brown paper bag says it might - as long as things don’t go wrong.
A REVIEW OF BRENDAN CONNELL'S THE HEEL
Read more: A review of Brendan Connell's The Heel
2018 Hugo Award finalists
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Fandom
Finalists for the 2018 Hugo Awards were announced on Saturday, March 31, 2018.
Best Novel
- The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi (Tor)
- New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
- Provenance, by Ann Leckie (Orbit)
- Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
- Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty (Orbit)
- The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
Best Novella
- All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
- “And Then There Were (N-One),” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny, March/April 2017)
- Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)
- The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)
- Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.Com Publishing)
- River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing)
Read more: 2018 Hugo Award finalists
GUEST POST: Music or Silence... by Tim Lebbon
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Guest Post
Risingshadow has the honour of publishing a guest post by Tim Lebbon.
This guest post is part of The Folded Land Blog Tour.
About the author:
Tim Lebbon is the New York Times bestselling author of the movie novelizations of 30 Days of Night and The Cabin in the Woods. He has also written many critically acclaimed horror and dark fantasy novels. Tim has won three British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, a Shocker, a Tombstone and been a finalist for the International Horror Guild and World Fantasy Awards.
Click here to visit his official website.
About The Folded Land:
In the dark underbelly of our world, there’s a black market in arcane things - living and dead. Angela Gough has been pulled into this world, making her a criminal on the run.
In London she encountered the Kin - satyrs and centaurs, Nephilim and wraiths, they are hunted and slaughtered for their body parts. Fleeing back to the United States, Angela discovers that the Kin are everywhere, and they are tired of being prey.
When her niece Sammi is struck by lightning, she is drawn toward the mysterious Folded Land, and its powerful and deadly ruler. Helped by her lover Vince, caught in the midst of a Kin uprising, Angela must locate Sammi before the girl is lost forever.
GUEST POST: Music or Silence... by Tim Lebbon
Read more: GUEST POST: Music or Silence... by Tim Lebbon