Articles
Guest post by Michael Johnston
- Details
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
Risingshadow has an opportunity to feature a guest post by Michael Johnston, who is the author of The Amber Throne series: Soleri (2017) and Silence of the Soleri (Feb 16, 2020). In this guest post, the author tells about the history of the Soleri empire.
About Michael Johnston:
Michael Johnston was born in 1973 in Cleveland, Ohio. As a child and a teen he was an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy. He studied architecture and ancient history at Lehigh University and during a lecture on the history of ancient Egypt, the seed of an idea was born. He earned a master’s degree in architecture from Columbia University, graduating at the top of his class. Michael worked as an architect in New York City before moving to Los Angeles. Sparked by the change of locale, a visit to the desert, and his growing dissatisfaction with the architectural industry, he sought a way to merge his interests in architecture and history with his love of fantasy. By day he worked as an architect, but by night he wrote and researched an epic fantasy novel inspired by the history of ancient Egypt and the tragic story of King Lear. After working this way for several years, he shut down his successful architecture practice and resolved to write full time. He now lives and writes in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.
Click here to visit his official website.
About Soleri:
The first in a new epic fantasy series inspired by ancient Egyptian history and King Lear
The ruling family of the Soleri Empire has been in power longer than even the calendars that stretch back 2,826 years. Those records tell a history of conquest and domination by a people descended from gods, older than anything in the known world. No living person has seen them for centuries, yet their grip on their four subjugate kingdoms remains tighter than ever.
On the day of the annual eclipse, the Harkan king, Arko-Hark Wadi, sets off on a hunt and shirks his duty rather than bow to the emperor. Ren, his son and heir, is a prisoner in the capital, while his daughters struggle against their own chains. Merit, the eldest, has found a way to stand against imperial law and marry the man she desires, but needs her sister’s help, and Kepi has her own ideas.
Meanwhile, Sarra Amunet, Mother Priestess of the sun god’s cult, holds the keys to the end of an empire and a past betrayal that could shatter her family.
Detailed and historical, vast in scope and intricate in conception, Soleri bristles with primal magic and unexpected violence. It is a world of ancient and elaborate rites, of unseen power and kingdoms ravaged by war, where victory comes with a price, and every truth conceals a deeper secret.
About Silence of the Soleri:
Silence of the Soleri is the action-packed sequel to the epic fantasy novel Lev Grossman calls "bloody and utterly epic."
Solus celebrates the Opening of the Mundus, a two-day holiday for the dead, but the city of the Soleri is hardly in need of diversion. A legion of traitors, led by a former captain of the Soleri military, rallies at the capital’s ancient walls. And inside those fortifications, trapped by circumstance, a second army fights for its very existence.
In a world inspired by ancient Egyptian history and King Lear, this follow-up to Michael Johnston's Soleri, finds Solus besieged from within as well as without and the Hark-Wadi family is stuck at the heart of the conflict.
GUEST POST BY MICHAEL JOHNSTON
Read more: Guest post by Michael Johnston
Discuss this article in the forums (0 replies).Review: Arms Against a Sea (and Other Troubles) by Rhys Hughes
- Details
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
Rhys Hughes' Arms Against a Sea (and Other Troubles) was published in October 2019.
About Rhys Hughes:
In his own words (from his official website):
"I am a writer of Fantasy and Magic Realism who often uses comedy and absurdism to examine philosophical issues. I am known for my original ideas, intricate plots and entertaining wordplay! I write short stories, novellas and novels. To a lesser extent I write poetry and non-fiction. I sometimes say that writing is the only thing I'm good at. I try to make that sound like a joke, but I don't think it is... I really am mediocre at most things, but my passion for writing keeps growing stronger!
I have been a writer from an early age. I completed my first proper short story when I was 14. It was called 'The Journey of Mountain Hawk' and I still remember what it was about, even though it no longer exists. None of my early work exists. My earliest surviving short story dates from 1989, and since that time I have embarked on an ambitious project of writing a story cycle consisting of exactly 1000 linked tales. Recently I decided to give this cycle an overall name - PANDORA'S BLUFF.
In the weeks that follow I will discuss this story cycle in greater detail. I will also talk about three key elements that are essential to an understanding of what I am attempting to do in the world of literature. These key elements are:
TAKING ABSURDISM SERIOUSLY
THE MOLECULAR THEORY OF FICTION
THE ROMANTI-CYNICAL MANIFESTO
Thank you for listening!"
Click here to visit his official website.
About Arms Against a Sea (and Other Troubles):
A collection of twenty dreamlike fables that range the distant tropical shores of the overheated imagination. Stories about falling stars, mythological giants, reincarnated cats, lost cities, jungles, sieges, ghosts, mountains. detached faces that set off on sea voyages, cavemen that are living retail outlets, the misunderstandings and misadventures of absurdist life.
REVIEW: ARMS AGAINST A SEA (AND OTHER TROUBLES) BY RHYS HUGHES
Read more: Review: Arms Against a Sea (and Other Troubles) by Rhys Hughes
Discuss this article in the forums (0 replies).Review: The Once and Future Moon (edited by Allen Ashley)
- Details
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
The Once and Future Moon (edited by Allen Ashley) was publishe
d by Eibonvale Press in October 2019.
About Allen Ashley:
Allen Ashley is a British Fantasy Award winner. His short stories, poems, flash fiction and articles have been widely published in anthologies, magazines and online venues in the UK, USA, Canada and Spain. His books include the novel “The Planet Suite” (TTA Press 1997; reprinted Eibonvale Press 2016) and the anthology “Humanagerie” (Eibonvale Press, 2018, co-edited with Sarah Doyle). He works as a critical reader and creative writing tutor and is the founder of the advanced science fiction and fantasy group Clockhouse London Writers.
Click here to visit his official website.
About The Once and Future Moon:
The Moon.
It has been there throughout human history: accompanying, guiding, inspiring and influencing us. Without it there might be no philosophy, literature, mathematics, religion, astronomy or exploration.
We might think we can conquer the Moon but perhaps the truth is that the Moon controls us.
This anthology will take you from the Stone Age to the near-future via alternate history.
Eighteen brand new science fiction and science fantasy tales by some of today’s top writers.
Edited by British Fantasy Award winner Allen Ashley.
Your lunar cycle starts here.
REVIEW: THE ONCE AND FUTURE MOON (EDITED BY ALLEN ASHLEY)
Read more: Review: The Once and Future Moon (edited by Allen Ashley)
Discuss this article in the forums (0 replies).An interview with H. M. Long
- Details
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
Risingshadow has had an opportunity to interview H. M. Long about her epic debut fantasy novel, Hall of Smoke.
About the author:
Hannah M. Long is a Canadian writer who loves history, hiking, and exploring the world. She lives in Ontario, but can often be spotted snooping about European museums or wandering the Alps with her German husband.
About Hall of Smoke:
Epic fantasy featuring warrior priestesses, and fickle gods at war, for readers of Brian Staveley's Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne.
In a world of hostile clans loyal to meddling gods, Hessa is an Eangi: priestesses of the Goddess of War with the power to boil a man's brain and turn his bones to dust with a scream. Banished for disobeying her Goddess's command to murder a traveller, Hessa prays for forgiveness alone on a mountainside.
Until raiders burn her village to the ground, leaving nothing of her future but ash. Without her Goddess's favor, Hessa has no place beside her family in the High Halls of the afterlife. She is the last of the Eangi.
Warriors from the cities to the south plow through her homelands, slaughtering everyone in their path. With legionaries, deceitful gods, and newly-awakened demons at every turn, Hessa burns through her enemies with the Eangi Fire in her soul. But her journey reveals a harrowing truth: the gods are dying. The High Halls of the afterlife are fading. And Hessa's trust in her Goddess weakens with every unheeded prayer.
Thrust into a battle between her Goddess and the old gods she imprisoned, Hessa realizes there is far more on the line than earning her place in the afterlife. Bigger, older powers slumber beneath the surface of her world. And they're about to wake up.
AN INTERVIEW WITH HANNAH LONG
Read more: An interview with H. M. Long
Discuss this article in the forums (0 replies).Review: King of the Asphodels by David Jordan
- Details
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
David Jordan's King of the Asphodels was published in August/September 2020.
About David Jordan:
David Jordan writes out of Cork, Ireland, where he was born and bred. He has been writing all his life, but it wasn’t until 2016, with the Chronicles of Dan Lee O’Brien, that his talent for stories really kicked in.
As a writer, he believes in work and discipline – these are the means by which we attract the muse.
He also believes in the power of story, a power that is harnessed through ingenuity and imagination.
He is a big fan of mythology as it is a rich source of symbolism and association that allows him to play. Indeed, work and play are the two ethics that mean anything to him as a writer. He likes to stir up mythology, which gives his writing an energy that will delight the reader.
He also draws inspiration from the early work of WB Yeats, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey as well as contemporary writers such as Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker and Stephen King.
He writes poetry and has had a book of verse published entitled, The End.
Click here to visit his official website.
About King of the Asphodels:
John Thomond has made a deal with the mage, Jack Foster. In return for directions to the Underworld, and the means to bring back his dead wife, he must become the magician’s apprentice. In the Underworld, Thomond is guided by the spirit of the great Bluesman, Robert Johnson, who sold his soul to the Devil to become the ‘King of the Delta Blues Singers’. As they travel through Hades, Johnson shows Thomond some of the sights the Underworld has to offer and Thomond also learns the principles of magic. Eventually, newly empowered, he makes it his business to free the soul of the Bluesman, but there are hazardous consequences, in both the Underworld and the world above...
King of the Asphodels is a novel concerned with many things: power, music, magic, myth. But at its heart it is a book about friendship and freedom.
REVIEW: KING OF THE ASPHODELS BY DAVID JORDAN
Read more: Review: King of the Asphodels by David Jordan
Discuss this article in the forums (0 replies).