My first venture into YA fantasy! This is my first book where I felt I “settled into my authorhood,” since I wasn’t relying on violence and profanity to drive the pace and hit the high notes. It’s got Elerican Witches and Wolven royalty, magic revolvers and the last Wayfarer! All that and more in A Door into Evermoor!
Check it out here: A Door into Evermoor.
Get The Unbound Realm here: The Unbound Realm, Volume 1 Get Kor’Thank here: Kor’Thank: Barbarian Valley Girl. Get Echo Vol. 1 on Kindle here: Vol. 1 on Kindle. Vol. 2 on Kindle here: Vol.2 on Kindle Vol. 3 on Kindle here: Vol. 3 on Kindle Vol.4 on Kindle here: Vol. 4 on Kindle Echo Omnibus here: Echo Omnibus Echo Vol. 1 & 2 Combined Edition here: Combined Edition Musings, Volume 1 is available here: Musings, Volume 1 Here’s the miscellaneous gear that I use to try and become an uber-human: Optimization!🙂 🙂 😀
YA is a tightrope I could begin to begin to get the balance on. There are some amazing works out there in this genre. Best wishes for your endeavour
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Thank you! Yes, YA is interesting. Apparently some YA has sex, explicit language, and/or drugs, but obviously this isn’t the norm. I wanted the challenge of toning down the profanity and violence, and I was also attracted to the freshness and enthusiasm (which is sometimes naivete) I could inject into my protagonist. Really enjoyed expressing that vibe!
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Yes, YA is a wide spectrum. Michael Grant’s Soldier Girls Trilogy set in an alternative WWII were women are drafted (quite clever how he does that) leaves no holds barred …apart from the word ‘Fuggin’ (no prizes for guessing). Racheal Ritchley’s ‘Beauty Thief’ is very mild in prose but had a seriously creepy villain. And there are others which portray a brutal adult world but from a teenager’s POV (and I can’t remember the titles of the two books I borrowed!)….
I’m going to have to get this book you’ve written, it’s been a while since I read YA.
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Awesome! Thank you muchly. My template for this one was the first few years of the Ultimate Spider Man Comic, where Peter had yet to turn into a harried adult and still reveled in his budding romance with Mary Jane and the fun of gaining superpowers.
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Those were good times. There was a lot of innovation with the Ultimate range. I loved his first meeting with the X-Men popping up in a jet; Jean Grey ( ‘We’re the X-men’); Storm (‘The Cute Ones’) Kitty Pride (‘As seen on tv).
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The X-men were great with Mark Millar! Afterwards, though…
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A lot of the Ultimate range started off with so much promise but……
It’s end in Secret Wars (2015) was probably the kindness thing to be done to it.
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Agree. Bendis pulled off some magic with it…I remember having to close some of those Ultimate Spider Mans while I was at Borders and walk around the store so I didn’t cry, LOL!
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I threw a couple of the later ones across the room in frustration.
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Haha! He did like to kill Peter and then bring him back.
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Marvel & DC, the only universes where death is a minor incapacity….. ‘Just lie down and take 20 issues off’.
At least PainKiller Jane and Wolverine had genuine excuses.
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Haha! I’m old enough to remember when Punisher came back as some kind of weird angel with supernatural powers before Garth Ennis stepped in and fixed everything up.
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It takes a very astute and careful writer to make a title like ‘Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe’ work in a deep & credible way.
Thank you Garth Ennis.
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Haha! I agree. Not sure how his new stuff is holding up, but back in the day, I used to love his subversive humor. Kind of in your face for today’s culture, tho. Even the Boys was heavily modified for TV. Hughie’s original hangup with Annie probably wouldn’t play too well nowadays.
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Times change and comics are adapted for TV (Yea Wynonna Earp!).
‘Marjorie Finnegan , Temporal Criminal’ suggests he’s still got it (I have great respect for his WWII stories too)
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Nice to know! To be fair, I think he writes the same characters and same stories a lot of the time, but I find them pretty entertaining, and yeah the war stuff is great. I couldn’t believe he never served. Aside from the discrepancy where he seemed to believe that nutshots were the end-all be-all of hand-to-hand combat, he really captured the mentality and a lot of the smaller details as well. Everybody loves Punisher Max, but I have a fondness for Dan Dare. Really liked that portrayal of the old-school stiff upper lip.
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I guess The Frank Miller influence runs strong in his work.
I know what you mean about ‘nutshots’, but reading Michael Herr’s ‘Despatches’ makes you wonder ‘hmm..maybe that’s the way it goes’…’Sara’ was exceptional but very dark
Wayne Vansant has a slightly different approach but equally stark; his ‘Kutusha’ trilogy is worth a visit, some parts seem light then other parts pull you up very sharp!
Ah Dan Dare, Darth Vader and The Force up against Old School Stiff-Upper Lip. What a battle!
Mind you, one of my favourite memories set in the 1950s was of the WWII British Air Ace Paddy Payne confronting a Japanese Air Ace, and how did they settle the combat? Why by landing in a jungle clearing and having a fisticuffs match of course!
They just don’t write ’em like that anymore.
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Interesting! That’s something I enjoyed about the Dark Tower stuff—even though it was pretty grim, the way Roland and his peers spoke had this old-school feel where nobility and etiquette were still a thing. For me there’s a balance, though, because too much of it makes me gag, specifically where they burst into song in LOTR. Maybe people really liked spontaneous singing back in the day, but it kind of kills the mood for me.
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Yes, I agree. When I tried to read the LOTR trilogy first time around, turning a page and find the next one if filled with lyrical italics was a bit of a downer…of course that was the 1960s..’Far out man, I mean like dig the meaning there man’ etc, etc…
You have to wonder what the ‘Songs of Fire and Ice’ equivalents would be….
Or….
Joe Ambercrombie’s even grittier folk???
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Haha! “Tried to read” That’s a phrase I’ve heard from many readers about the LOTR books. Crazy how people in forums swear up and down that the books will eventually suck you in…it just never happened to me, and I’ve slogged through them multiple times. I can’t help but think they’re using the internet to try and come off as fantasy purists. Tolkien was definitely a genius and a groundbreaker, but to me it’s like watching modern day comedy vs Lenny Bruce or Charlie Chaplin.
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I agree with you.
On the pro-Tolkien side there are folk who like Tolkien and folk who ‘think’ they should like Tolkien.
(And folk who claim they like ‘The Silmarillion’)
His genius was in world-building and making the legends and folk tales of ‘yore’ come alive again. But character building, not so much- only Sam Gamgee. Best way is to listen to a radio or audiobook dramatization; with a big cast.
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I’ll have to try that. I did like the movies, but I can only go so far as to respect the books. The Hobbit is readable to me, even though the Dwarves are pretty interchangeable imo. Except for Thorin, I can’t say off the top of my head what distinguishes who from who.
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IMO to be ruthlessly honest Snow White’s guys have more individual identity.
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haha! Well put!
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The films were so visually like its descriptive! I love it when they capture the authors world mimicking the landscape you envisage while reading, captivating and cathartic on so many levels!
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Congratulations!
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Thanks!
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