What Will be the Next Breakout SF/F Novel?

Sure, we've all heard of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Game series, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, and more recently Nnedi Okorafor's Binti series, but what are some new under-the-radar SF/F pieces that deserve their time in the spotlight? Sometimes the best pieces are the ones found in the nooks and crannies of the literary universe; you just have to dig hard enough to find them. We took the Minotaur by the horns and have compiled a few book recommendations from esteemed SF/F reviewers to give you some suggestions on what book to pick up next!

Reading Recs from the Pros

Marion Deeds from FantasyLiterature.com

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I thought I had hit my vampire threshold until I read Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things. (My review at fantasyliterature.com is here.) Morena-Garcia shows us a new take on supernatural bloodsucking creatures, and she provides a gritty, Gibsonian Mexico City as a backdrop. The book gives us novelty by creating various “races” of vampires; our main character, Atl, is from a line indigenous to the Americas. She is described as avian and her family crest is the hummingbird. Other vamps are more in the Bram Stoker tradition, and there is infighting among the bloodlines. Atl, a rebellious party girl, is the sole survivor of an attack on her clan by an encroaching vampire crime family, and she’s fled to the supposedly vampire-free Mexico City. As you might imagine, it’s not vampire-free at all. Once there, she enlists the aid of a scrappy human street kid named Domingo. The descriptions of Mexico City are sharp, by turns gritty, beautiful and romantic.

Dreamrush: Free Download and Author Q&A

Good news! The Kindle version of my short story collection, Dreamrush, is available to download for free on Amazon.com for the rest of the week (8/8/17 – 8/12/17). Get your free download here.

To celebrate, my intern-extraordinaire, Jayna Bosse, and I are hosting an author Q&A over on Facebook. So please do head on over there to hit me up with whatever burning questions you have, either about the stories in the book, the writing process, my favorite color, etc., etc. (after downloading the free book first, of course).

Lastly, to get some intel on the stories in the book (in case you're still not convinced), here's a great story-by-story review of Dreamrush from steampunk author Robyn Bennis.

Enjoy!

-Garrett Calcaterra

Fantasy Author Interview: Craig Comer

Craig Comer

Readers of this blog have heard the name Craig Comer often enough in the past. He and I go way back, and along with Ahimsa Kerp, we co-authored the mosaic novel The Roads to Baldairn Motte. In addition to both of us being writers, we both love to travel and backpack, although he’s much more well-traveled than I. He also knows a hell of a lot more when it comes to history.

That being the case, it’s not surprising that Comer’s new novel, The Laird of Duncairn, is as much about travel and historical settings in Scotland as it is about magic and steampunk. In this interview, we discuss what the new book is all about, what inspired it, and what Comer has in store next.

The List of Cli-Fi from SF/F Authors

(Click here to get right to the list!)

At FOGcon 2017, I'm moderating a panel on climate change and the geography of daily life. To facilitate our conversation, I put together this list of notable climate fiction (cli-fi) written specifically by science fiction and fantasy authors. I should point out that there is a much larger body of cli-fi work from writers in mainstream fiction, but I'm not including them here. Additionally, I'm inclined to include SF novels based on other planets, as well as secondary world fantasy, if climate change is one of the over-arching conflicts or themes.

Just a couple of other quick notes on the list. This will be a working document that I'll update periodically. As such, please share any books you think should be added in the comment section.

Unless the annotations are in quotes, they come from me. Having said that, I haven't read all these books (yet), so some of the annotations are simply me paraphrasing plot summaries from the publisher or author's website. (To that end, if you're making a book recommendation in the comments, feel free to write your own original annotation, and include a link to your homepage or social media handle and I'll quote you in the main article itself if/when I add the book.)

FOGcon 2017

Once again I'll be attending FOGcon this year, and I'm excited to be participating in three scheduled events. FOGcon takes place in Walnut Creek from March 10 – 12, and is an all around awesome convention that takes great care to be inclusive and diverse with its programming topics. Tickets are available at the door. You can learn more info here.

Here's my personal schedule, but I will also be hanging around most of the weekend attending other panels (or at the bar), so if you're attending and see me loitering around, please say hi!

WonderCon 2015 Wrap-up

It was good to get back to a convention finally. I didn't get to spend as much time at WonderCon as I would have liked, but still got check out a few panels on Friday and Saturday. Here's a quick recap.

Friday wasn't too crowded. I walked the main exhibit hall with my wife and we met up with spec-fic author Craig Comer to check out a panel on trans-marketing creative projects. The highlight of the day for my wife was catching close-up glimpses of Lou Ferrigno and Margot Kidder. For me, it was just fun to see everyone dressed up and the spectacle of it all.

Drill Sergeant Preacher
doesn't approve of Cthulhu

Saturday I went solo. It was much more crowded and security was amped up, partly, I assume, because of the militant Christian evangelists there. One guy, whom I dubbed Drill Sergeant Preacher, took exception to my Cthulhu fish t-shirt and screamed at me, "I SEE THAT YOU LOVE YOUR FALSE PROPHETS MORE THAN YOU LOVE JESUS!!!" I just smiled and snapped a photo. I'm not sure what exactly he was hoping to accomplish. Do fire and brimstone sermons still work in the 21st Century?

Inside the convention center, I caught the panel on Fantasy Fiction, moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart from Mysterious Galaxy and featuring Arwen Elys Dayton, Todd McCaffrey, Naomi Novik, and Greg Van Eekhout. The conversation got started with the panelists responding to

The Story Behind Page Fault

I am very excited to announce the release of my novella, Page Fault, a high-concept mash-up of cyberpunk, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, and noir fiction. I can't take sole credit for the high-concept idea, though.

Two years ago, I taught a George R.R. Martin author study course at the Orange County School of Arts. As you might expect, the class was great fun. We read Martin's early horror and sci-fi, read one of his Dunk and Egg novellas, watched a few episodes of Beauty and the Beast from his television writing days, and even got a visit from the man himself for a private lecture.

Seeing as how the class was for the Creative Writing conservatory, though, I also wanted to include a writing component to the course. So one day the students and I round-tabled to come up with a shared world in which we could all write stories, a shared world inspired by Martin's writing across the genre spectrum. The result of our collective imaginations was Soteria—a computer generated world that harbored the majority of Earth's population in a post-pandemic future. The students were great, and by the end of the day we had an entire codex written for our shared world.

Page Fault was my contribution to the subsequent short story collection the class wrote; it started off as an introductory vignette for the collection, but there was something about the vignette that called for more, so I revisited it and expanded it once the course was over. The resultant story is the three part novella you have before you now. It's a story I'm very proud of, and one I couldn't have written without the rich imaginations of all my students. So here's a big shout-out and thank you to all the students from that author study course. Cheers!

-Garrett Calcaterra

I'm Back!

Yes, I am still alive, although you wouldn’t know it judging by my inactivity in the online world the last several months. What can I say? It’s been a momentous time in the real world for me. I got married, moved, somehow kept up with the five writing classes I’m teaching, and still managed to finish writing The Faceless Enemy, the sequel to Dreamwielder. Something had to give (in addition to sleep), and that something was blogging and curating my social media sites. Things are quieting down now, though, so I’m back! Here’s what’s going on in my writing world.

Not the real cover!

-The Faceless Enemy is done! The sequel to Dreamwielder is even more high-action and fast-paced than the first book, and it’s a good deal darker, too—sort of my Empire Strikes Back part of the saga for Makarria, Caile, Natarios Rhodas, and a batch of new characters. Beta readers are going through the manuscript now, and it looks like I’m on track for a Spring 2015 release from Diversion Books. In the meantime, you can take a sneak peek of the pre-published version of Chapter 1, “Enter Darkness,” on Wattpad.

-I’m preparing a self-released ebook title called Page Fault. It’s a novella length story that’s part cyber-punk, part fantasy, and part post-apocalyptic fiction. The novella came about as part of a shared world project in the George R.R. Martin author study course I taught a few years ago at the Orange County School of Arts. Once I have the cover art procured, I’ll announce the official release date.

-My literary story “Choose Your Own Romance” is included in the newest issue (#116) of Confrontation, a prestigious journal that’s published the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, John Steinbeck, T.C. Boyle, and Arthur Miller over the years.

-My good friend and frequent collaborator Ahimsa Kerp recently released his debut novel, Empire of the Undead (Permuted Press). It’s a great novel, mashing up zombies and the Roman Empire—think The Walking Dead meets 300. I interviewed Ahimsa over at the Prose & Cons earlier this week, and he had some great things to say about geek culture, tattoos, and more.

That’s all for now. Happy holidays to everyone!

-Garrett Calcaterra

Feast or Famine

June was a productive month for me. I wrote three successful blog posts over at Prose & Cons, which is where you’ll find my more Internet-friendly writing from this point forward (whereas The Machine Stops will be geared more towards writing updates and reflective meanderings like this one). My Prose & Cons posts include "Fantasy Rocks: 8 Songs Inspired by Fantasy Novels"; "On the Origins of Zombies: 7 Must-See Zombie Films"; and to prove I’m not just a list-making one-trick-pony, "Amazing Author, Horrible Person." All three posts have topped Prose & Cons in site visits, thanks largely to some lively discussions over at Reddit.

In addition to my blogging, I made great headway on the Dreamwielder sequel, The Faceless Enemy, cranking out almost 40k words this last month (a good number for me). I’m down to the last two climatic chapters and am chomping at the bit finish, but unfortunately I’ve been stymied by a glut of summer teaching work the last two weeks. That’s the one downside to being a writer—I’m beholden to work when the work is there. For the majority of June I was productive as hell writing, but equally poor, and those bills started to stack up. When the opportunity for summer teaching work presented itself, I simply couldn’t turn it down. So now, and for at least the next couple of weeks, I’m working at three different schools/tutoring-centers, seven days a week. In the mornings, I tell myself I’ll write at least thousand words on The Faceless Enemy when I get home, but come 8:30pm when I finally stroll in, all I want to do is crack open a beer and relax. But I’m not complaining. I’m happy for the work, just frustrated I’m not finished with the book. It will happen soon, though, and I’ll be looking for a couple of beta readers if anyone is interested.

Until then, I best quit blogging and use what little spare time I have working on The Faceless Enemy. Cheers!

-Garrett Calcaterra

The History of Modern Fantasy Fiction (Sort of) – Part I

So, I’m teaching a fantasy writing course at the Orange County School of Arts, and it’s…well, pretty freaking fantastic! The students are highly enthusiastic, all are well-read for their age, and we’re having a grand time talking about things like world building, magic, exposition, and whatnot. Because the students are all high schoolers, though, their reading has been focused primarily on contemporary fantasy authors, so I’ve made an effort to expose them to some of the key authors in the evolution of modern fantasy writing. It’s no easy chore to pick only one author a week who represents a transformative moment in the genre, but here’s what we’ve gotten through so far, complete with reading recs and my thoughts.

Origins of Fantasy: Mythology, Legends and pre-20th Century Literature

I have no qualms arguing that fantasy is the oldest genre of storytelling in the history of human civilization. Our earliest ancestors created fantastic tales to explain everything from the creation of Earth to why humans must experience suffering and pain. Fantasy authors have drawn from this well from the start, tapping into archetypes that are culturally, and perhaps even evolutionarily and spiritually, ingrained into us.

The most common inspirations for fantasy authors include Greek and Roman mythology, Norse mythology, Judeo-Christian mythology, Celtic mythology, Arthurian legend, and, to a lesser extent, Eastern mythology and philosophy (Taoism, for example, seems to be a big inspiration for Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea series.)

Now, for the sake of defining limits for my class, I somewhat arbitrarily drew the starting cut-off line for “modern fantasy” as

The Knight's Dog

I'm very happy to announce the release of The Knight's Dog, an epic fantasy novelette, as an e-book single for both the Kindle and the Nook, for only 99 cents.

Official Blurbage: When Dern encounters a dying knight, he forsakes his life as a thief to do the honorable thing and deliver the knight's weapons and orphaned dog to the king. Civilized life is nothing like he imagined it, though. At every turn, someone is trying to swindle him or cut his throat. Everyone but the surly dog that now looks to him as his master....

This story was originally published in Tales of the Sword by Red Skies Press. Inasmuch as I'm objectively able to evaluate my own writing, I would have to say this is one of the short pieces I'm most proud of having written. I was very much influenced by George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series when I wrote it, and I think that comes across most clearly in the moral ambiguity of the characters.

-Garrett Calcaterra

The Man Behind the Podcasts: Patrick Hester

If you hang out in the online SFF community much, you’ve likely run across Patrick Hester before. The guy is nutty busy. He blogs, tweets, writes a column on graphic novels for Kirkus Reviews, and runs three podcasts, the most notable being the SF Signal podcast, which has been nominated for a Parsec award and twice nominated for a Hugo Award. In addition to all that, Patrick is an emerging SFF author himself, and—oh yeah—he works a full-time day job! I had the great pleasure of interviewing Patrick for a new article I wrote at Blackgate, but since I could only use a small portion of our conversation and Patrick had so many great things to say, I decided to run with the full interview transcript here. Enjoy!

GC: Welcome, Patrick! Could you please describe your writing career up to this point in a nutshell.

In a nutshell, I got serious about writing in 2000 and spent the rest of the decade trying to write something I felt was worthy of publishing. I'm pretty obsessive about that part and didn't begin shopping a novel series and selling short stories until 2009. I now have a couple short stories out in anthologies, and have pushed some other stuff out myself as part of a hybrid/indie model I've been developing for myself. Still trying to sell the novels, though.

GC: How do you make ends meet?

I stand on street corners with a sign that reads: "Will write for money."

Kidding… I only do that at conventions. The rest of the time,

Covers and Contests and Beers, Oh My!

Dreamwielder

Things are moving full-speed ahead over at Diversion Books. The cover artwork for Dreamwielder has been finalized, I’ve approved all the line edits, the e-book files are formatted, and boom!—the book is already available for pre-ordering on iTunes. It should be available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble soon, and it’ll be available through Kobo and other retailers once we get closer to the March 5 release date. If you write reviews for a magazine or blog and want an ARC, hit me up.

Read Free of Die (Part 2)

(Update: My website has undergone several reincarnations since this post and these ebooks are no longer available there. Instead, you can find new versions of these ebook singles on Amazon, here.)

The Knight’s Dog
Download for free!
Promo Code: KNIGHT (Nook, iPad, Android) or KNIGHT2 (Kindle)

The first complete novel I ever wrote was a high fantasy novel called Praxis of the Gods. It was the thesis project for my MFA degree and it took me a little over two years to write. After getting gobs of critiques and feedback from my thesis committee, I spent the next year or so after graduating completely rewriting the novel. By that point, I was sick of looking at the book and I was a bit burned out on writing fantasy. So, while I started sending off query letters to agents and publishers about the novel, I turned to writing other genres, primarily horror and literary fiction. I wrote my novella, The Shadow, which ended up comprising half of Umbral Visions, and then a dozen or so literary short stories. A few years later I got on a sci-fi kick, going back and reading a bunch of Asimov, Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Phil Dick, and writing my own sci-fi pieces, including “The Tracer Pilot” and “The Lunar Resort.”