DragonCon 2017: Keeping the Peace: Liaison Characters in UF

Whether striving to improve communication & relations between supernatural & human communities, or between different groups within the supernatural world, our panelists’ characters often find themselves in the position of peacemaker.

Panelists: Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Delilah S. Dawson, Kim Harrison, Nancy Holzner, Faith Hunter.

This is another one I couldn't get into. Because, again, the hall was WWWAAAYYYY too small for Jim Butcher ALONE, nevermind all of the other authors.

And the audio is a little finicky at times. The farther away you get from the camera, the less you can hear people. Even with headphones, you might want to edge the volume higher and higher. That's all.

Speaking of fantasy

Try mine.

Review: Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dream Land

Poor Rachel Griffin. She's spent the last six weeks going through a lot of trauma. She's been sent to the infirmary so much, she's bucking for a record. She holds secret that could destroy the universe. Friends have died. She's been shot at more than most veteran police officers. We won't even touch on the dragons, the death cults, the demons, the angels, the elves, gods or monsters. The weight of whole worlds is on her tiny, 13-year-old shoulders....

This isn't even counting school work.

Welcome to round three of the Rachel Griffin novels, Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland.

To be fair, the plot is described as follows.

It’s Halloween at the Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts, and Rachel Griffin is stirring up the dead!

All her life, Rachel has wanted to visit Beaumont Castle in the kingdom of Transylvania, the last known location of her hero, librarian-adventurer “Daring” Northwest. Only falling out of the land of dreams onto her face was not how she had expected to arrive. 

Now, the castle is right there, looming over her. Only her best friend, the Princess of Magical Australia does not want to go in, so as to avoid an international incident. But what if the castle holds some clue as to her hero’s final fate?

And who was that mysterious figure hanging by the neck she glimpsed in the dreamlands, just before she fell. Could the Dead Men’s Ball, where the spooks and ghosts of the Hudson Highland gather once a year on Halloween to dance to the music of some very unexpected musicians, be the key to discovering the hanged man’s identity?

Where do we start?

Let's start with some SPOILERS FOR BOOKS ONE AND TWO....Yes, you'd think after my The Raven the Elf and Rachel review, that would have been spoilery. It seriously, seriously isn't.

So, Rachel has defeated the demon Azrael, fought off a death cult -- twice -- including a dragon. Surely the cult out to destroy the world is no longer a problem, right?

Oh. Wrong. So very, very wrong.

Due to a magical experiment gone wrong, Rachel goes from New York and ends up in Transylvania, and the children of the night are restless. Due to circumstances beyond their control, a demon is unleashed, Morax .... servant of Moloch.  If you don't know what Moloch is, then read through the book, and expect it to go dark. And by dark, I mean "When did early Peter Jackson start directing this film?"  Let's just say that, during the climax of the novel, there is a scene that Ray Harryhausen and Sam Raimi would have loved, because there's going to be an army of darkness, with no Bruce Campbell. And no, I was looking for a chainsaw.

And dang, the references. I wish I could tell you all of the references. From comic books to Norse and Greek mythology, to Biblical in-jokes about the Temple of the Unnamed god (for you biblical type folks who read it, think Saint Paul in Athens). We won't even go into the lion the size of a plushy doll. I'm trying to figure out if Jagi is amazingly subtle, or hitting readers over the head with a brick. I guess it depends on if you're an information sponge, like me.

Now, I'm not going to say there's a shootout every 25 pages .... but there's at least a shootout every 50 or so. Though this one also places an emphasis on emotional conflict, internally and externally. The Magical Princess of Magical Australia is magically annoying at times, and is getting into problems with Sigfried, who is one part Dickens Character, and one part Parker from Leverage. ANd, of course, Rachel has do deal with all of the various and sundry crap she never dealt with from the first two novels -- ie: she's dealt with none of the trauma she's already gone through. That'll make for a mentally healthy 13 year old.

I do so enjoy these books. There is no question of Rachel just happening along as she trips over the solutions to problems. Rachel is a highly active character. She knows there is an enemy, and is doing everything in her power to stop it. It's highly refreshing after certain other YA novels spend most of their time overhearing just the right conversation to get some detail, and have some Hermione look up the data for them.

It's also nice to see that, in all three of these novels, the adults aren't completely useless. In fact, they're doing something odd -- like THEIR JOBS. The adults have a learning curve. Like "Gee, maybe we should listen to the children here." Or even better: "Hey! Maybe we should give our kid a fast-acting wand to shoot spells against the bad guys who seem to be actively out to kill them." The adults here are at least smart enough to conclude that, yes, the kids really are in danger, they really do know that something is going on, and the next time something like this happens -- because it's obvious even to the characters in universe that something is going on -- that the kids should be allowed to defend themselves...

... I didn't realize this while reading it, but looking over that paragraph makes me think this novel has a Second Amendment commercial in there somewhere.

Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland also expands the world. We know more of the culture of Australia and Transylvania, and even hints at Bavaria.  More importantly, we get more and more glimpses at what the "World of the Unwary" looks like, from cops to how historical events are handled.

Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland wraps up many of the plot points in a neat little bow. The main plots of the book are neatly cleaned up. But that never stopped Rachel from getting into trouble, usually on the same exact day the last book ended. And there are still enough dangling threads that show some of where book 4 is going to go: more interpersonal complications to wrap up, psychological damage to at least two of our main characters to fix, as well as the hole in the world that needs to be dealt with. Heck, we've barely touched on a violent episode that happened back in book 1, but was revealed in book 2, and only barely mentioned later on....Right now, I don't know if I approve, or disapprove of how it's being handled, or not handled, as the case may be. I'll bring it up in a later review, should they focus on it some more.

All in all, I am enjoying the heck out of this series. Keep in mind, I typically hate YA novels. You have to be Timothy Zahn or David Weber to make me read it. But, like Narnia, this series really is too good for children.

Anyway, go, buy Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland, and please consider it for the Dragon Awards. Enjoy.

The Dragon Awards are open and ready for nominations, and I have a list of suggestions you might want to take a look at. If you already  have a good idea of what you want, just click here to go and vote for them. The instructions are right there.

Or: sign up for my mailing list in order to get free stuff.

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

Guest blog: Cedar Sanderson's "I Got Politics in my Fiction"

What's this, Declan? Exploiting the image of a hot redhead to garner hits? Not today.

This blog post is brought to you by the awesome Cedar Sanderson, author of nineteen novels in science fiction / fantasy.

Yes. I feel I now need to step up my game. The best I can do is a guest blog over on her site.

Like me, Cedar is also not someone who likes .... gah ...politics. But, again, like I did, she tried to get away, but they reel her back in. Even when she's designing kittens with butterfly wings from scratch. 

No, I'm not kidding.  Though I may be getting ahead of myself. She's obviously a metric ton smarter than I am, as she is currently going after a dual degree in forensic science and microbiology.

I better let her explain.

Book tour special: "Greater Treasures" Interview with Karina Fabian

Before we begin today's blog properly, there's a little announcement.  A Pius Man can be found on Kindle for Free every Friday this month. Why every Friday? Because I'd like to encourage people to get hooked, and then buy the novel, rather than wait a week for another freebie. The first taste is free, then you have to pay. It works in other marketing environments.

Now, on with the rest of the blog.

Longtime readers will remember Karina Fabian, author of Live and Let Fly, and co-editor of Infinite Space, Infinite God II.

Greater Treasures is a novella set in the Live and Let Fly universe.

The story? Well, it's as follows:

Being a private detective in the border town of the Faerie and Mundane worlds isn’t easy, even for a dragon like Vern. Still, finding the wayward brother of a teary damsel in distress shouldn’t have gotten so dangerous. When his partner, Sister Grace, gets poisoned by a dart meant for him, Vern offers to find an artifact in exchange for a cure. However, this is no ordinary trinket—with a little magic power, it could control all of mankind. Can Vern find the artifact, and will he sacrifice the fate of two worlds for the life of his best friend?

And with that established, let's begin.

Your previous DragonEye books were full novels with small press publishers, and now you're going a different route with a short story. Why the change? 
KF: I have two DragonEye novels—Magic, Mensa, and Mayhem, published by Swimming Kangaroo; and Live and Let Fly by MuseItUp books. I also have numerous DragonEye stories in various anthologies and magazines. I have a few larger stories, however, that are too small for novels but too big for anthologies or magazines. So I’m self-publishing those. It’s not a change, so much as an expansion—another arrow in my publishing quiver.

I love the publishers I’ve worked with and have great respect for them, and I am still submitting to small and big traditional presses.



You've got a lot of different and disparate elements scattered throughout the book. Heavy on religious elements, scattered with scifi tv references, in an atmosphere that's very much The Maltese Falcon. With all that in mind, one must ask: who is your target audience? 

Geeks? How about well-rounded readers of fantasy who enjoy a different approach. I don’t expect everyone to get or appreciate every reference in a story. I know when I read, I don’t, and one of the joys of reading is to discover something new.

I have to ask – how many times did you see The Maltese Falcon before you wrote the story? 
Once while taking notes.

Your world is an alternate world where two worlds – Mundane and Faerie – are connected. Yet you still have real-world events like 9-11 mentioned. What does the history of your universe look like? 
The Mundane world’s history and culture is very similar to our own, and where the Faerie world has changed it, I’ve mostly explored the local level. There’s a nice little nastiness about the Faerie in that they cannot be too far from the Gap for too long or they lose their connection to the magic. It’s fine for the humans, but any magical creatures get ill. (I explored this some in Live and Let Fly.)

The Faerie world has a lot of parallels to ours, but with some major exceptions. Satan and his minions prowl about the world in a very visible way, and the Catholic Church has remained united against them. It’s the only human religion, with the pagan gods (who are actual creatures) having been put in their proper place by the True God. Many of the problems leading to the Protestant Revolution either not happening or solved in-house in light of the fact that there’s an obvious bigger threat we need to stand against. Politically and technologically, they are behind us historically. The Gap connects to an area in England that is a duchy complete with a Duke who, as Vern will tell you, likes to have fun with his authority.


You made a point in the short story to say that dragon's don't have souls “like humans,” and therefore couldn't be converted. How does that work, considering that Vern is quite religious?

Christ died for humans, but that doesn't mean the other Faerie races don’t have souls or religion. They worship differently. In dragon’s case, it’s more of a great appreciation for their creation. They believe that while Man was made in God’s image, Dragon was made from God’s great imaginings. (It also accounts for their superiority complex.) They also have a different morality; for example, eating a lesser being does not count as murder—and all non-dragons are lesser.

Vern is a special case, however. St. George, convinced that the Church needed a dragon on its side, “recruited” Vern, but he did not go willingly. In the end, God through George had taken away just about everything from him—from size to magic—and told him to earn back his former glory, he would have to serve God’s creatures through the direction of the Church. Everything he does toward that end gives him something back; every backslide morally means a backslide physically. After 850 or so years working in the human religious institution, he’s picked up some human habits.

Why use the Lance of Longinus for the plot device? 

The Lance of Longinus is the spear used by the centurion to pierce Christ’s side, and has been sought after as a source of supernatural power in our world for millennia. I needed something with more punch than a bird statue. I don’t remember now why the Lance came to mind, but as I read all the conspiracy theories around it, I loved how it fit into the story.


In the Gap, God seems to take a direct hand in things more often than He does indirect– including an angelic security system. How do you manage the theology of Vern's world?

Carefully. They are more open to miracles and visions there than in the Mundane, but even so, God seldom comes from On High to hurl a lightning bolt. That’s more Zeus’ style.

What's your next project? 

I’m finishing the last book in the Mind Over Trilogy—Mind Over All. The second book, Mind Over Psyche, comes out in September. It’s a fantasy about a young man who claws his way back to sanity after suddenly acquiring psychic abilities. In the second novel, he escapes the mental asylum to another world, where he meets the woman who had been contacting him through visions. He (and his friend and intern who got caught up in the teleport) discover that she, too, is facing visions she cannot handle, and if they want to live, they need to help her understand the visions before they drive her insane.

What are you reading right now? 

I just finished Rapunzel Let Down by Regina Doman. One of the best books I’ve ever read in my life—edgy, griping, and very believable. As you can tell from the title, it’s a modern-day play off the Rapunzel story, but as told by the Brothers Grim. I highly recommend it.

Next, I need to read a biography on a saint for a writing assignment. Haven’t decided who is next; I just finished St. Ignatius of Antioch.


What question would you like me to have asked? 

None come to mind. Actually, it’s refreshing to have some unique questions. Thanks!

Come back tomorrow for the review.

Karina Fabian

Winner of the 2010 INDIE for best Fantasy (Magic, Mensa and Mayhem), Karina Fabian has imagination that takes quirky twists that keep her--and her fans--amused. Nuns working in space, a down-and-out Faerie dragon working off a geas from St. George, zombie exterminators—there’s always a surprise in Fabian’s worlds. Mrs. Fabian teaches writing and book marketing seminars, but mostly is concerned with supporting her husband, Rob Fabian as he makes the exciting leap from military officer to civilian executive, getting her kids through high school and college, and surviving daily circuit torture…er, circuit training. Read about her adventures at http://fabianspace.com.