The Book Plank

Knight's Shadow by Sebastien de Castell, Greatcoats #2 Tristia is a nation overcome by intrigue and corruption. The idealistic young King Paelis is dead and the Greatcoats – legendary travelling magistrates who brought justice to the Kingdom – have been branded as traitors. But just before his head was impaled on a spike, the King swore each of his hundred and forty-four Greatcoats to a different mission. Falcio Val Mond, First Cantor, with the help of fellow Greatcoats Kest and Brasti, has completed his King’s final task: he has found his Charoites – well, one at least, and she was not quite what they expected. Now they must protect the girl from the many who would see her dead, and place her on the throne of a lawless kingdom. That would be simple enough, if it weren’t for the Daishini, an equally legendary band of assassins, getting in their way, not to forget the Dukes who are determined to hold on to their fractured Kingdoms, or the fact that the heir to the th...

Best Debuts of 2014 Debuts are important. For publisher to bring new material to the readers and for new authors to break through in the densely populated writing world. Every year there are loads of new books coming out and too be honest some do fall into repetition but other are really genre bending and breaking. When I look for a new author I always truly to find authors that dare to go the limit, as a first book can make you (and unfortunately also break you). This year I read a lot of solid debuts. The books below are all books that featured something different from the gross of the genre books out there. The Emperor's Blade was my first debut of 2014 and as promised Brian! The Emperor's Blade is in essence Epic fantasy but with a definite twist. The Incorruptibles by John Hornor Jacobs featured a most interesting world building and some very cool protagonists. Edward Cox' The Relic Guild brought something completely new to the saturated fantasy genre, just aweso...

When t he Whole World i s Against You - Building Fantasy Settings Ever have one of those days when it feels as if the whole world is against you? Excellent. Well, perhaps not excellent for you but I suspect it made for a great story. Dramatic storytelling comes from conflict. As a writer and as a reader, I don’t just want the conflicts the heroes face to be against other characters. I want the world to be an opponent - the deadlier the better. I want it to a source of danger on all levels of human experience: physical, social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual My first step in building a fantasy world is to look for what you might call the contrasting dynamic: contrasting because it works against the needs of the main characters and dynamic because it drives all the other elements of the world. In Traitor’s Blade , I wanted to explore what happens to fundamentally heroic characters when they discover that heroism has utterly failed - that the things they ...

It's that time of the month again, no not that one, the other! Time for another Review Round-up. I said many times that January was off to a good start but I read some very fine book in February as well. I am already at the 29/175 books that I plan to read, no time to waste typing too much. These are my favourite books of the past month! 1. Red Country by Joe Abercrombie, Gollancz  Yes yes, where to begin? Joe Abercrombie is well renowned writer in his genre and has been noted as perhaps a revolutionist in terms of breathing new life into the existing fantasy genre. From the first book that I read of Joe Abercrombie I was hooked. He introduces a dark and gritty texture to his stories that is just cool. His writing style is in many part straight to the point, immersing the reader in a action packed story. The fighting scenes are described in full color and he gives the reader a front row seat. Red Country is the sixth book the First Law series which first featured as a trilogy ...

Author interview Sebastien de Castell Author bio: Sebastien de Castell had just finished a degree in Archaeology when he started work on his first dig. Four hours later he realized how much he actually hated archaeology and left to pursue a very focused career as a musician, ombudsman, interaction designer, fight choreographer, teacher, project manager, actor, and product strategist. His only defence against the charge of unbridled dilettantism is that he genuinely likes doing these things and that, in one way or another, each of these fields plays a role in his writing. He sternly resists the accusation of being a Renaissance Man in the hopes that more people will label him that way. Sebastien lives in Vancouver, Canada with his lovely wife and two belligerent cats ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Sebastien, welcome over at The Book Plank and for taking your time to answer these few questions. SdC: I'm del...