Browsed by
Author: Derek Kunsken

Old Favorites: Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni

Old Favorites: Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni

Comments 5 comments

Deryni rising I don’t usually fan or geek out about stuff – my credentials in geekdom are rarely questioned, but I was thinking the other day about my influences and in what direction I might want them to go.

I’ve been reading a lot of space opera and really hard sci-fi lately, mostly Alastair Reynolds with a side of Stephen Baxter, as I get ready to start a new novel. But hard sci-fi and fantasy are just setting. Any plot structure can fit inside them. Baxter is a lot of adventure. Reynolds is very noir.

dragon 78That got me to thinking about what stories I enjoyed and why. One of the appeals of Game of Thrones is how it’s a giant soap opera. Claremont’s run on Uncanny X-Men was similarly soapy, as was the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.

And that reminded me of how much I loved Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni series as a teen. The Kingdom of Gwynedd, a human world of the Middle Ages with a scattering of persecuted psionic families, has always seemed to me to be one of those surprisingly under-appreciated corners of fantasy.

The only reason I’d ever heard of it was because of issue #78 of Dragon magazine, which was an issue devoted to psionics in AD&D, and one of the articles featured the characters of Kurtz’s Gwynedd in role-playing terms. I looked for her books at my local second-hand store as soon as I could.

Right away, I found two of Kurtz’s core trilogies, the Deryni series (Deryni Rising, Deryni, and High Deryni) and the Camber series (Camber of Culdi, Saint Camber, and Camber the Heretic), and even after only the first one, I was hooked.

…

Read More Read More

A New Literary Fantasy Magazine: A Review of Lackington’s #1

A New Literary Fantasy Magazine: A Review of Lackington’s #1

Comments 3 comments

Issue 1 CoverI live in Ottawa, Canada and despite being up to my eyeballs in the sci-fi and fantasy and geek scenes, I’m still caught flat-footed by the talent this city seems to pack in the woodwork.

I’ve blogged previously about our science fiction publisher Bundoran Press, our indie comic publisher Mirror Comics, and a couple of our writers like Geoff Gander, module-writer extraordinaire, and novelist Robin Riopelle.

This week, I was surprised by editor Ranylt Richildis, who, apparently not content with co-editing an amazing dark fantasy and horror anthology series called Post-Scripts to Darkness, decided to launch a new online magazine.

Richildis details Lackington’s very clear editorial vision in the foreword to the debut issue, where she quickly establishes how important storytelling rules are before eviscerating that concept and planting her flag on the goal that Lackington’s provides something different to the world. The territory she’s staking out is overtly literary, poetry in prose.

…

Read More Read More

The Economics of Short Fiction Writing

The Economics of Short Fiction Writing

Comments 4 comments
Jim-WFC-Full
Jim Hines

I am a writer, and have been for some time, although I live on a busy full-time job and I only started getting paid for writing in 2006. I feel like I had a long training wheel stage, although maybe because I’m only comparing myself to my expectations. My dreams of writing as a living, like those of many, started when I was a teenager.

There’s a lot of talk out in the world about making it as a writer, whether through traditional publishing, self-publishing, large press, or small press: how much marketing is needed, how much it costs, and whether it has any effect. It becomes a bit dizzying and pretty much bereft of data.

One bright light of hard data is Jim Hines’s yearly “Writing Income” on his blog. Hines is a fantasy writer and he’s blogged very frankly about his income since 2008, partly inspired by a John Scalzi post at that time. Scalzi admits he’s an outlier, but many of the financial points he makes are very good for anyone, including me.

The yearly Hines blog posts are also very instructive for anyone hoping to make a living as a writer. If you’re thinking (or dreaming) of making a living as a writer through the traditional publishing route, these kinds of posts are super-important for you to read. Here they are by year:

2007
2008
2010
2011
2012
2013

…

Read More Read More

On the Deck of a Sinking Ship: An Interview with Robin Riopelle

On the Deck of a Sinking Ship: An Interview with Robin Riopelle

Comments 0 Comment

Deadroads 9781597805131Robin Riopelle is the debut fantasy author of the novel Deadroads, released by Skyhorse Publishing’s newest imprint, Night Shade, in April of 2014.

The publication of her first novel was a bit more stressful than it normally would be, because her original publisher, Night Shade Books (NSB), teetered on the edge of bankruptcy a year ago, just as the novel was about to be released.

So, just to start with the basics of the story, when did you write Deadroads, what is it about, and what was the process to sell it to Night Shade?

Deadroads was written fairly quickly about 3 years ago. I was inspired, I guess you could say, really intrigued by the connection between Acadian and Cajun cultures.

I’ve always liked darker fiction and I have always written stories with an element of magic, but not capital M magic. Supernatural elements in my stories need to feel organic and slight. Deadroads is about a fractured family with roots in both Louisiana and New Brunswick, and about how they come together while trying to find out what killed their father. Of course, a larger and more ominous mystery about their parents’ past is revealed.

And there’s ghosts. A lot of ghosts.

…

Read More Read More

The Technology of Medieval China

The Technology of Medieval China

Comments 1 comment
The Bell Tower
The Bell Tower

I just spent a few weeks in Beijing as a tourist with my son. We hit a lot of temples and museums to see the classical medieval Chinese architecture and technology. I was struck by the beauty and strangeness of some medieval technology, especially astronomy and the measurement of time.

Concept of Time

Medieval Beijing tracked time for lots of reasons and they divided their night into five blocks of two hours:

First Geng       Xu (dog) Shi:   19:00-21:00
Second Geng  Hai (pig) shi:   21:00-23:00
Third Geng     Zi (rat) shi:       23:00-1:00
Fourth Geng  Chou (ox) shi:  1:00-3:00
Fifth Geng      Yin (tiger) shi: 3:00-5:00

Two towers, the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower, signaled time for the city. The 1.4m in diameter drums were beaten and 7m-tall bell rung with a log as a clapper at the first and fifth gengs. The other gengs were marked by bell alone, and at the first geng, the city gates were closed and streets cleared.

But how did they know what time it was in medieval Beijing?

…

Read More Read More

The Hugo Ballot: Another View

The Hugo Ballot: Another View

Comments 1 comment

Neptune's Brood-smallPeople will have heard that the Hugo nominations are out. I think the reactions to each ballot always break in two ways: the process and the content.

Lots of people have views on the process of constructing the ballot and the views are so diverse that I couldn’t do justice with a bunch of links here. If you’re interested in that crowd reaction, John O’Neill covered the tip of the iceberg in his post last week.

I suppose my only two cents is to point out that nobody likes 100% of any ballot and that, because they are based on a nomination process of voters who have different tastes and criteria, this is hardly surprising. On the content, I think there’s plenty on this ballot to make a strong showing at the Hugo Awards Ceremony over Labor Day Weekend.

The novels ballot looks interesting. I’ve been told wonderful things about Leckie’s debut novel Ancillary Justice and now I want to read it even more. I love Charles Stross (an honor I share with Nobel in Economics Laureate Klugman), but I have to admit that Neptune’s Brood is neither exciting nor captivating literature so far (although I’m only a third of the way through).

I was discussing Stross with a friend yesterday. He’s got a dizzyingly varied corpus (the Laundry Files novels, “Rogue Farm,” Saturn’s Children and “Lobsters” stake out just a few examples of some of his creative way stations), but my friend and I noted that we sometimes have a harder time with his character work and plotting, much as we might with Perdido Street Station by Mieville. I’ll finish Neptune’s Brood and see what I think.

There are some intriguing entries on the novella ballot, including some Stross, but also Cat Valente and a Brad Torgerson story from Analog. Analog doesn’t seem to get a lot of Hugo attention, and at first, I thought this might be the sign of editorial changes at the magazine.

…

Read More Read More

Ed Greenwood and Tattoos and Geek Inked at Ad Astra in Toronto

Ed Greenwood and Tattoos and Geek Inked at Ad Astra in Toronto

Comments 1 comment

250px-Elminster_Enraged546987-LI last blogged from the Saturday morning of As Astra, one of Toronto’s premiere fan conventions. While I was there, I had the good fun of running into Ed Greenwood, Ad Astra Special Guest, and one of the early D&D legends.

Ed and I breakfasted and chatted, which seems to be turning into an annual thing because we both get up early. Ed is still super-busy, turning out lots of new game tie-in novels.

Later on, he was interviewed by Geek Inked magazine and spoke on not only his experiences with early D&D, some of his current projects and hints at some of his others, but also tattoos! Geek Inked is an online magazine that obviously specializes in Geeks and Tattoos, so the conversation, as it says in the mandate of Geek Inked, goes interestingly sideways.

I wanted to share these two segments of the interview because the conversation relates back to some of the themes I touched on in my interview with module-writer Geoff Gander, especially about some of the opportunities opening up with crowd-funding.

That interview with Geoof, incidentally, also encouraged me to pull out my old Basic and Expert rules and look at the free common source Basic modules available online and start introducing my son to D&D. It turns out his interest is 100% on the dungeon crawl and 0% on the role playing. 🙂 Check it out here.

Major props to Rob at Geek Inked Magazine for an excellent interview.

Derek Künsken is a writer of science fiction and fantasy in Ottawa, Canada. You can find out more about him at www.derekkunsken.com or @derekkunsken.

Convention Report: Ad Astra Science Fiction Convention in Toronto

Convention Report: Ad Astra Science Fiction Convention in Toronto

Comments 2 comments

I hit a few science fiction and fantasy conventions a year, for professional reasons, but more importantly for the fun of meeting new people and catching up with friends I haven’t seen in months. This weekend, I’m in Toronto, Canada, at Ad Astra, one of the two major literary fan-run conventions held every year (the other being SFContario).

100_0259Ad Astra is a nice-sized convention with a number of programming tracks book, TV, and movie fans, writers, costumers, and shoppers. They have a great line-up of guests. David Mark Weber, creator of the Honor Harrington series and other military scifi works, is here, as is Steven Erikson, epic fantasy author of The Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Anne Lesley Groell is representing Random House (she’s an Executive Editor) and Ad Astra also has Patricia Briggs, author of the Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series. Some returning guests of previous years are science fiction authors Julie Czerneda and Robert J. Sawyer, as well as Ed Greenwood, famed D&D creator of the Forgotten Realms fantasy world.

Some of the things I’m hoping to see include “Podcasting After Dark,” a pod-cast interview to be run by noted critic and reviewer Adam Shaftoe, “Carbine-tipped Pens,” a panel about an upcoming all-original scifi anthology edited by Ben Bova and Eric Choi. I might miss the “Steampunk Costuming for Newcomers” to catch back-to-back readings by Ottawa-area writers Matt Moore and Marie Bilodeau.

…

Read More Read More

Politics and Fantasy Make Strange Bedfellows

Politics and Fantasy Make Strange Bedfellows

Comments 7 comments

strange bedfellowsIn January, both M. Harold Page and I wrote posts about politics in fantasy literature. While we came at the topic from different points, I think we narrowed in on the same conclusion. I quote from Page’s post:

Of all the genres, Fantasy must be the worst possible channel for the politically minded author. They simply can’t be heard over that clash of steel and the roar of dragons…

Really enjoyed and appreciated his post. And I do take his point – escapism is great fun and entertaining. But ultimately escape and make believe can only go so far, and at other times and places we will have other needs, other reasons to want to read. Something that touches us inside.

The reason I’m coming back to this topic, perhaps more convinced than I was before of this serious liability in fantasy, is that I’ve just read Strange Bedfellows: An Anthology of Political Science Fiction. I’d mentioned the anthology in my post as something I was looking forward to reading.

Now that I have, maybe I’m having one of those stumbling-upon-a-watch-in-the-heath moments, because, for the life of me, I can’t see how fantasy could have done even a fraction of what this anthology seems to have accomplished effortlessly. A few examples will make this clear.

…

Read More Read More

Rising Star Indie Publisher Mirror Comics on their Weird Western Mission Arizona

Rising Star Indie Publisher Mirror Comics on their Weird Western Mission Arizona

Comments 4 comments

a MISSION_GN_00_cover_02bMission Arizona, the graphic novel from indie publisher Mirror Comics, recently came out on ComiXology. I already had a paper copy and loved this take on the weird western (like the dark weird westerns Buried Eyes by Lavie Tidhar or A Feast for Dust by Gemma Files), but I knew less about making comics or the changes in the comic book industry with e-comics sites like ComiXology, so I decided to chat with Mirror. Dominic Bercier is the president and publisher (and artist of Mission Arizona), while Kristopher Waddell is the editor-in-chief and co-publisher (and the writer of Mission Arizona). Both live in Ottawa, Canada.

Mission Arizona is a dark weird western about an old west town that has an unpleasant crossing with the supernatural world. Its outlaw hero is destined, by fate and birth, to face this supernatural evil.

Derek: Where does Mission Arizona come from? It’s got a bit of a spaghetti western feel, overlaid with the destiny of facing off against a terrible evil, but begins with a travelling showman sequence. How did these different flavors make it into the mix?

Kris: My interest in writing in this genre came from my childhood experiences watching old Roy Rogers and Gene Autry westerns with my Dad. Horror has always interested me because I’m fascinated by the abject, and our culture’s obsession with fearing the other. It probably doesn’t help that I watched Nightmare on Elm Street, Jaws and Alien at a very young age.

In Mission, I really wanted to explore loss and redemption. Padre Martin Risk loses his wife and child, Samuel Risk loses his home and his family, while the town of Mission loses its soul. I wanted to write about the struggle and the consequences of dealing with loss, and the protagonist’s fight for redemption.

…

Read More Read More