Winners of the Legend Of Eli Monpress Giveaway and Other SFF Tidbits!!! (by Mihir Wanchoo)

Posted in Fantasy Literature on March 19th, 2012 by Admin

Congratulations to Megan S, Andrew C and Jan-Egil W. who were all randomly selected to win a copy of Rachel Aaron’s “Legend of Eli Monpress”—the omnibus edition—courtesy of the author!!! For more information on Rachel Aaron and The Legend of Eli Monpress series, please visit the following links:
Read FBC Review of “The Spirit Thief“
Read FBC review of “The Spirit Rebellion”
Read FBC Review of “The Spirit Eater” and “Spirit’s Oath”
Read FBC’s Interview with Rachel Aaron

Also here are a few things which I believe deserve attention, firstly over at SF Signal beginning in the end of February, they have held three big podcasts in which Patrick Hester and Jaym Gates have conversed with Editors, Cover Artists and Authors. The topic of conversation was “Sword and Sorcery for the modern reader”.

The first podcast which is available over HERE and has the following fabulous crowd featured in it:

The second podcast which is to be found over HERE, featured another awesome group:

The third podcast is the one (click HERE) which stands out due to the sheer talent of the writers focused upon in it and they are:

All the three podcasts make for some fascinating thoughts and so be sure to catch all three of them.

On to the next fascinating thing, Bradley P. Beaulieu in cahoots with Night Shade Books, is hosting an awesome giveaway that includes the following prizes:
- A first prize of a Kindle Fire or a Nook Color tablet (Winner’s preference)
- A second prize of a Nook Simple Touch or a Kindle Touch (Winner’s preference)
- A third prize of a signed ARC of the “The Straits of Galagesh”
- Five fourth prizes of a SET of SIGNED TRADE PAPERBACK editions of The Winds of Khalakovo and The Straits of Galahesh!
- Five fifth prizes of a SET of the ELECTRONIC editions of The Winds of Khalakovo and The Straits of Galahesh! (Electronic editions can be delivered in epub, mobi, or pdf formats.)

This is an absolutely awesome giveaway and more information about how to enter for it can be found on Bradley’s blog. So head over there as the contest is open from March 13th all the way until April 3rd 2012. Best of luck to all those entering it.

(Picture Credit: Soul Smithy Blog)

And lastly a bit on two interviews, primarily I came across a terrific interview of R. Scott Bakker conducted by Adam “Werthead” Whitehead of the always interesting WERTZONE and featured on the Orbit Blog by James Long, who previously ran the blog Speculative Horizons. The discussion covers Scott’s entire career, from his original influences to the development of epic fantasy in recent years and much more, hop over to the Orbit blog to read more. The second one focuses on Myke Cole, the debutante who’s carving a niche in the urban fantasy sub-genre, so head over to Bastard Books and read the in-depth piece done by B. mainly and with a few questions from yours truly and Tim Marquitz.

Fantasy Book Critic

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GUEST POST: The Changing World of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron

Posted in Fantasy Literature on February 25th, 2012 by Admin

The Changing World of Eli Monpress

Hello, my name is Rachel Aaron, and I’m the author of the Legend of Eli Monpress, a light adventure fantasy series from Orbit Books about a charming, over-the-top thief and the trouble he gets himself into.

Or, at least, that’s how it started.

Let me back up. When I first wrote The Spirit Thief (the first book in Eli‘s series and the novel that got me published), I had a very firm view of what I thought the series was about. In my mind, I saw a long running, episodic spectacle with each volume containing its own adventure and a large cast of characters that grew and deepened with each installment. Think any popular TV show ever and that’s what I was shooting for.

But as I actually started writing the books, something changed. The story has a large ensemble cast of colorful and seedy people, all with their own objectives, but the soul of the books is Eli, my titular main character and the ‘spirit’ of this whole operation (har har har). On the surface, Eli seems very clear cut – he’s charming and ridiculous and self assured, the very soul of a gentleman thief. But glib as he might play, Eli‘s past hides a lot of unpleasantness, so do the other characters’, and as more of this history is dug up and dealt with, the books begin to get darker. Not bloodier or more sexual or more ruthless any of that other stuff “dark” has come to mean in fantasy, but more serious. More serious and, I like to think, much better.

I’d love to brag and say I planned it this way, but the truth is that the books getting more serious was a totally unintended and natural consequence of forcing my characters to deal with all the problems they’d been running from. They’re still the same funny people who starred in the first caper, but even charming thieves have to suck it up and be a little serious when their backs are against the wall. Add to this a growing magical crisis in the world and an insane, all powerful being with an unhealthy fixation on our hero, and yeah, we’re not just stealing kings anymore.

The Spirit Thief is a light adventure fantasy about a charming thief getting in a tight spot. The Spirit Rebellion, the second Eli book, is a light adventure about a charming thief who’s now in much deeper and more dangerous waters. By book 3, The Spirit Eater, the sharks are definitely circling, and in The Spirit War, the fourth Eli book coming out in June, life is flat out going terribly for our hero. Of course, it’s still Eli’s story, so things can never get too dark. It’s hard to get that serious when your main character is such an unrepentant optimist. Even so, when I finished Spirit’s End, the fifth and final book due out in November, I didn’t know if Eli was ever going to talk to me again.

These days, when people ask me what my series is about, I say it’s an adventure fantasy starring a charming wizard thief that starts out light and fun and then gets more serious but no less fun. If the questioner hasn’t walked away from me by that point, I direct them to the sample chapters on my website. It’s kind of a cop-out, but trying to describe a series in a sentence is always a cop-out in one way or another.

Really, though, if you read the first chapter of Spirit Thief and like it, there’s a very good chance you’ll like the rest of the book too. And even though the series changes, I’ve found that people who like The Spirit Thief tend to like The Spirit Rebellion as well, and those who like Rebellion tend to love Spirit Eater. Looking at it that way, the trend toward seriousness seems to be a positive one, which is good, because the last two books only dig the hole deeper. Fortunately, Eli is always there to keep everyone from taking themselves too seriously. I hope you’ll give the book a try and see for yourself.

(Photo Credit: Marshal Zeringue)

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Rachel Aaron lives in Athens, Georgia with her family. She has graduated from University of Georgia with a B.A. in English Literature. She has been an avid reader since her childhood and now has an ever-growing collection to show for it. She loves gaming, Manga comics & reality TV police shows. She also blogs on a semi-regular basis on the Magic Districts website along with a host of other authors.


Read FBC Review of “The Spirit Thief“
Read FBC review of “The Spirit Rebellion”
Read FBC Review of “The Spirit Eater” and “Spirit’s Oath”
Read FBC’s Interview with Rachel Aaron

Click here to enter a worldwide giveaway of the Legend of Eli Monpress Omnibus edition by Rachel Aaron

Fantasy Book Critic

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