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Archive for Fiction

Beautiful Creatures

Nov06

Title: Beautiful Creatures

Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Genre: YA supernatural

Length: 592 pages, 147,000 words

Read: Nov 6-20, 2011

Summary: Fun read

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This is a pleasant YA supernatural romance. At a certain structural level it’s a blend of reverse Twilight (boy is normal, girl is supernatural), Carrie, and modern Southern Gothic. The opening third or so gets off to a strong start. The male first person past POV is engaging, and the character likable, although nicer and far less lusty than any sixteen year-old boy I remember (my own interior monologue was decidedly raunchy). The prose is workmanlike. It isn’t pretty, but it doesn’t get in your face. There’s a touch of overwriting, the occasional sentence that rephrases what the previous did. I never do that myself. I don’t. Nope. Positively not.

As the first act breaks into the second, the supernatural lore structure is revealed to us. There are a lot of name changes here which seems fresh but slightly forced. Wizards or witches are called “casters,” which shades of World of Warcraft, makes me wonder if they’re ranged dps or healers? Both actually. The different schools or talents of magic have names like thaumaturge which are probably novel to many younger readers. Me, having read  7,000 fantasy books, can’t help but think of Master of Five Magics, which is a great book, uses that word, and has no resemblance to Beautiful Creatures :-). In any case, the magical world building in Beautiful Creatures is about 3/5. There’s some interesting stuff going on, but the depth is only hinted at, and it is not heavily based on either some other existing fictional school of magic or traditional occult.

The book is quite long, particularly for a YA. How this got past the editorial zeal and lust for brevity of today’s publishing world is a slight mystery. And I don’t mean this as a bad thing. The trend toward cutting every unnecessary word, sentence, paragraph, and scene has made for a lot of choppy books. The space allows Beautiful Creatures to feel a little less rushed, and develop a bit of relationship and a broader cast of family members. The second act is certainly slower than the first and third, and there are scenes that could’ve been cut, but their presence does help bolster the authentic relationship between the two leads. It’s not a super deep relationship, but since when is teenage love the Mariana Trench? I definitely enjoyed the back and forth between Eathan and Lena. Less so with the high school social conflicts in the middle. There are perhaps a few too many elements mixed into the pot: The romance, the school drama, a best friend, family dynamics (for two families), the magic system, telepathy, preternatural dreams, and a vague Civil War ghost story. It’s this last that feels the least integrated as even by the end the parallelism isn’t made totally clear. I can certainly forgive this debut-author-style zeal. It’s just a desire to put in too much cool stuff. I did it myself in The Darkening Dream. Then my editor made me chop half of it out. There’s still at least as much as in this book.

The final quarter of Beautiful Creatures, which is basically one evening, races to a conclusion at breakneck pace. A midnight deadline adds a sense of urgency. The obligatory party scene had me cringing (although no more than the weekly Vampire Dairies party or Buffy‘s obligatory visit to the Bronze) but then we get on to the actual supernatural resolution. I had slightly mixed feelings , as some of the conversation with the older casters reminded me of Scooby Doo, but the action part was fine. The brief POV reversal though… hmmm. This, I think, was trying to get around the first person narrator limitation, but there might’ve been a more elegant solution. After 570 pages with “I” being Ethan I just couldn’t switch my brain over to Lena for 5-10 pages.

But all those nitpicks aside, I very much enjoyed the book, which is what matters. I suspect that mostly had to do with the the core romance (I would’ve enjoyed more R — or X) and the fairly novel mythos. There are worse foundations to build a book on.

For my full list of book reviews.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Dead Beautiful
  2. Book Review: White Cat
  3. Bleeding Violet
  4. The Name of the Wind
  5. Storm Front
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: American Civil War, Beautiful Creatures, Book Review, Carrie, Fiction, Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl, Southern Gothic, Supernatural, Young-adult fiction

The Wretched of Muirwood

Mar25

wretchedTitle: The Wretched of Muirwood

Author: Jeff Wheeler

Genre: Epic Fantasy

Length: 300 pages

Read: March 3-15, 2013

Summary: Great prose, characters, and setup

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The first half of this novel was pure and unadulterated fantasy pleasure. The prose is very good. Descriptive but quick and lively. It’s pretty straight up third-person past, but it has a tinge of the poetic about it.

The story tightly follows Lia, an orphaned kitchen drudge living in an alternate Medieval Abbey. She’s a very lively personality and a lot of fun. There’s an interesting magical/religious system which is about halfway between “hard” and “soft” magic. I’m not going to get into the plot, per se, but this first half is basically of the “something new and strange comes into someone’s life” variety. This part is excellent.

About halfway through the book, this intrusion forces Lia to leave the Abbey and go on a quest. This occupies the second half of the novel and in the end the secret of her parentage is more or less revealed. There was nothing seriously wrong with this second half and I read it easily enough, but it somehow lacked the visceral grab that the setup did. Putting on my structural hat, I’d have to guess that the problem was one of drama and complication. There are complications, but they just sort of pop up and are resolved one way or another without a tremendous amount of agency from the protagonist. I’m excepting the final confrontation, which while abbreviated, did have said agency. This is all in contrast to the first half of the book where Lia is extremely proactive, even if it got her in trouble.

But there could be other factors. In the first half, she’s pretty sharp tongued, but this takes a back burner outside the Abbey.

I admit to sometimes having this “second act” myself, as it’s hard to both adhere to the plot target and simultaneously make the protagonist proactive rather than reactive. Still, it robbed Wretched of some drama. I felt less engaged.

There is also the possibility that it’s all me, as I seem to be having this problem in recent years where I enjoy the first act and not the second or third. Maybe I’m jaded. But this complaint aside, Wretched is still one of the better fantasies I’ve read in some time. It’s more personal (and shorter) than the traditional epic novel, but that seems to be a trend in this new e-book centric age.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. The Way of Shadows
  2. Book Review: The Gathering Storm
  3. Book Review: White Cat
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Fantasy, Fiction, High fantasy, Jeff Wheeler, The Wretched of Muirwood

Coffin Hop for Halloween

Oct24

This year I am taking part in the fangtabulous Coffin Hop Blog Extravaganza. Over a hundred masters of horror all sharing their work with the world.

In the meantime please take the opportunity to go and hang out with some of my horror writer pals by taking part in this year’s Coffin Hop Blog Hop.

GO HERE TO LINK UP WITH ALL THE BLOGS TAKING PART

You’ll discover some amazing reads and very talented writers along the way.

First off, if you want to be really creeped out, just pick up my dark fantasy novel The Darkening Dream. The book fuses intense action with a love of history and all things supernatural. On the eve before creation God created ten special things, among them the Archangel Gabriel’s horn, destined to sound the End of Days. But what happens if you’re a seventeen year-old girl and an ancient evil thinks it’s hidden in your basement? Find out here.

Or you can check out for free the sinister origins of Pastor John Parris, warlock and lover of all things demonic.

CHECK IN WITH THE COFFIN HOP HEAD QUARTERS BY CLICKING HERE. You will be able to find out more about the event, the authors, artists and giveaways.
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If you are hankering for some winning, I’m running two different contests:
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  1. You can win paperback copies of The Darkening Dream, drawing will be held on Halloween!
  2. Or win all sorts of signed video game and book swag at The Naughty Dark Contest!
_

Related posts:

  1. Harvard Divinity
  2. The Look – Pastor Parris
  3. Near Dark – The Hurt Coffin
  4. Big Giveaway!
  5. Truly Deeply Sick and Twisted
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Writing
Tagged as: Arts, Coffin Hop, Contest, Fiction, Halloween, horror

Harvard Divinity

Oct17

As readers of The Darkening Dream are aware, nothing is ever black or white. Certainly this is the case with Pastor John Parris. Is he a villain or victim? Well… villain, but even the most evil come from somewhere. In this short story, which began life as a chapter in an older larger versions of the novel, we explore some important questions about the creepy little man: 1) How did he come to dabble in witchcraft? 2) Who was Grandmother Grace, and what was the manner of her unpleasant death? 3) Is shit really useful for spellcraft? And most importantly, 4) When did Parris meet his succubus lover, Betty?

It turns out, one weekend reveals all four.

I’m publishing this in short story for free as part of this year’s Fiction Frolic.

Read the story here.

Related posts:

  1. Short Story: The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
  2. On Writing: Passes and Plots
  3. Call For Feedback
  4. A Fiction Frolic for All Hallow’s Read
  5. Book Review: XVI (read sexteen)
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Arts, Fiction, John Parris, Online Writing, Short Stories, Short story, The Darkening Dream

Untimed Characters

Sep19

My upcoming novel, Untimed, features an amusing cast of characters, so I gathered up their likenesses into a rather oddball “family” album which can be found here.

Longshot: Shoot first, ask questions later

Related posts:

  1. Untimed – Out on Submission!
  2. Untimed – Logo Faceoff
  3. Untimed – Meet the Tocks
  4. Untimed – The Second Cover
  5. Untimed Cover Reveal!
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Art, Dave Phillips, Fiction, Illustration, novels, Untimed

Untimed – Logo Faceoff

Aug29

A while back, Cliff Nielsen, the amazing artist who created the cover for The Darkening Dream, finished the amazing new cover painting for my second novel, Untimed. This is going to replace the stock photography clock cover to the left, but I’m not ready to reveal it (I will in a week or three) but I’ve been experimenting with logos and wanted to collect your opinions. As a side note, I’ve been doing my mechanicals myself. Not only is it cheaper, but my photoshop skillz have gotten moderately elite — at least for a programmer/author.

Below are three takes on the logo. You can even see just a hint of the cover illustration here, but I cut it tight to be a tease (and content aware filled out a bit of someone’s head!).

A fairly heavily “styled” version where the text is inspired by antique clock parts (this is after all a time travel novel with clockwork killer machines). Thanks to longtime friend Jason Rubin for help on an earlier variant of this logo.

A similar brass treatment, but using a more strait forward lowercase type treatment. The font is modeled after an 18th century typeface.

Same deal as above, but all uppercase.

Similar to the top-most one, but with arabesque tooling in the metal instead of brushing. This new variant was added 9/12/12, after most of the comments. Since people liked #1, I wanted to work in that direction.

So, dear readers, which version do you like? Let me know in the comments. None of the above is a viable opinion, but please give reasons.

The back of a Breguet watch, I was going for a similar sort of vibe with the arabesque tooling.

Related posts:

  1. Untimed – The Second Cover
  2. Untimed – Meet the Tocks
  3. Untimed – Two Novels, Check!
  4. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
  5. Untimed – Out on Submission!
By: agavin
Comments (26)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Art Design, Book, Cliff Nielsen, Cover art, Fiction, Logos, Time travel, Untimed

Wool – Life in a Tin Can

Aug20

Title: Wool (Omnibus)

Author: Hugh Howey

Genre: Science Fiction

Length: 550 pages

Read: August 11-12, 2012

Summary: Classic. 5/5

 

While this Omnibus feels like a novel, it was originally published as a series of five novellas — and self-published at that. But don’t let that scare you, it’s better written, better edited, and far more engaging than 95% of New York published SciFi. In some ways a throwback, in some ways very modern, Wool is a contained (in both the literary and literal way) post apocalyptic tale in the mould of Larry Niven or A Canticle for Leibowitz. Technically this is an ARC story, about an isolated world built to survive a destroyed environment. The people in Wool live in a 148 floor Silo in the ground. To leave is to die.

The book is written in first person tight from multiple points of view. Each section has a fairly clear POV character and the narrative voice highlights their perspective. There is no single protagonist. The first novella is basically a short story introducing the world and ending with the usual short story twist. It did very well on Amazon and the author wrote a second (using a minor character from the first as the POV) and then a third which essentially transitions to the larger story’s most important character (Jules). It’s very much to Howey’s credit that this serial construction does not feel artificial. The works holds up both individually as a cohesive and epic novel.

Several things lead to the overall excellence: The characters are well developed and mostly likable (the main villain is a little thin, but interesting enough). The world is intriguing  and detailed with an appropriate pacing of reveals. There is a good amount of death and suffering in this novel and it lends a generally tragic air to the whole situation as well as the specific events. There is also a lot of tension despite what might nominally be plotting that doesn’t showcase a lot of overt external conflict (in the first 2-3 books). Basically it’s just very good.

The silo is well thought out. My  only real beef at a technical level (and this doesn’t distract from the book at all) is the unlikelyhood that such a contained ecosystem (in all senses of the word) could remain so functional over several centuries. On a practical level earthly eco-systems function because of the ENORMOUS quantity of solar energy constantly added. Wool features a pretty big system powered by a single main fossil-fuel generator. Maybe that’s possible, and Howey’s navel background lends copious verisimilitude and gritty detail, but I suspect to really make a big spaceship or ARC last a long time you’d need some really serious juice. Large scale hydroponic farming alone would require a hell of a lot of power. But as fiction, it’s really well worked out.

Additionally, at a realistic level, I’m not a big believer in the predictability of human large scale behavior (aka history), but in the context of Science Fiction like this (taking its queue from Asimov’s Foundation), there’s no problem. In the real world, despite the endlessly repeating basic patterns of history, no human has ever proven to be a great predictor and controller of the long term specifics.

Another minor peeve is that the Kindle version, while well proofread, has a very unusual formatting with a tiny font oversized spacing between paragraphs. I had to jack the Kindle scale feature up several notches to even read the text. There’s (currently) really no reason not to use the default font style for MOBI/EPUB body text in a novel.

But if you like Science Fiction, post apocalyptic worlds, or just plain old good novels. Read this. Seriously, it’s one of the most enjoyable speculative novels I’ve read in years. Bravo.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Uglies
  2. Book Review: The Passage
  3. Book Review: Across the Universe
  4. The Alchemist – Fantasy Snack
  5. Book Review: The Windup Girl
By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, Book Review, Fiction, Hugh Howey, Larry Niven, Science Fiction, Wool

The Alchemist – Fantasy Snack

Aug08

Title: The Alchemist

Author: Paolo Baciqalupi

Genre: Fantasy Novella

Length: 96 pages

Read: July 28-30, 2012

Summary: Nice little short

 

Having recently read Baciqalupi’s excellent Ship Breaker I thought I’d breeze through his fantasy novella — and breeze I did. Written in first person, yet with a bit of almost Arabian Nights allegorical style, this is a story about a world where all magic has consequences, specifically in that it feeds deadly bramble vines, causing them to choke and strangle the city. As usual for Baciqalupi the world building and the writing is first rate. This a very contained story with a small character count and a lot of focus so it isn’t bogged down by some of The Windup Girl’s problems. The mains are good too, but I did find the villains slightly contrived. Like many shorts there is a bit of a twist.

Overall, the vibe of the story is excellent, and this is conveyed through the skilled use of voice. A tasty snack indeed.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Short Story: The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
  2. Very Best Fantasy
  3. Quick Eats: Italian-Iberian Snack
  4. The Way of Shadows
  5. The Wise Man’s Fear
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Alchemist, Book Review, Fantasy, Fiction, Paolo Baciqalupi, review, The Alchemist

Video Games, Novels, and Ideas

Aug01

Since I’ve created thirteen video games and written two novels I’m often asked how the process compares between the two. This is a complex topic, but here goes one stab at it, focusing on the generation of the idea.

The idea part 1: The What

Both games and novels start with a basic idea, and it’s essential to focus on what’s important. In both cases, this is a creative process, imagining something blurry and only partially formed that calls out to you.

Games are about gameplay, so this is then a question of gameplay genre. Not the Horror vs Mystery type of genre, but what kind of game is it. Generally you start with one of the proven gameplay types: Platformer, shooter, driving game, sports game, etc and then try to bring something new to the table. For Crash Bandicoot, this was “character platform game in the vein of Donkey Kong Country, but in full 3D” (there were no 3D platform games when we started).

This was not easy in 1995!

With novels, the core idea is also genre, but the meaning of this is different. In starting The Darkening Dream, I had this image come into my head – and some might consider me disturbed – of a dead tree silhouetted against an orange sky, a naked body bound to it, disemboweled, and bleeding out. The sound of a colossal horn or gong blares. The blood glistens black in the sunset light. Bats circle the sky and wolves bay in the distance. But sacrifice isn’t just about killing. It’s a contract. Someone is bargaining with the gods. Complex ideas are the intersection of multiple smaller ideas. To this I brought a desire to reinvent the classic Buffyesque story of “a group of teens fight for their lives against a bunch of supernatural baddies trying to destroy the world.” But the twist is that I wanted to ground all of the magic and supernatural in “real” researched historical occult. This defined the book as a kind of supernatural thriller from the get go.

The idea part 2: The Who and Where

Part 1 gives you a core, or germ, of the project, but to start moving with it you need setting.

Again, looking at The Darkening Dream I had this disturbing image in mind. This was a vampire moment, but not exactly your typical one. For years, I’d been noodling on my own private vampire mythos, grounded in a kind of religio-historical thinking. Coppola’s Dracula, for example, has Vlad’s dark power grounded in rage and the Christian god forsworn. But I liked the idea that the most ancient of vampires was far older than Christ, perhaps older than civilization itself. This got me thinking about Neolithic religion. Pre-civilized peoples were essentially shamanistic. The shaman (sometimes called a Witch Doctor) interfaces between the people and hidden powers, both wondrous and terrible. What if one of these men, millennia ago, struck a dark bargain: blood for life. And so was born the idea of the vampire blood gods, dark deities of old forests, of sacrifices bleeding on trees, of gnashy gnashy teeth, slick with blood. This held the key to a ancient vampire explanation grounded in belief. Gods created and fed on faith, instead of the other way around. And the blood gods are not alone. Other ancient gods might still linger, diminished, but still powerful. There seemed a natural synergy between their fate and the syncretistic quality of human religion. As the belief changes, so does the object of said belief. 

This meta-idea is very complex, a kind of world setting rooted in history, but reaching back to basics, novels are fundamentally about protagonist and the drama generated by the obstruction of their desire by opposing forces (often antagonist). I tend to think of the antagonists first, but this is a little backward. I knew I wanted a teenage girl, mostly for reasons of contrast with these sinister villains. She too, should be a dabbler in some school of occult-religious power. I like the idea of magic involving hard work and study, call it bookworm power, so I conceived of this studious girl, kind of an older Hermione Granger, daughter of a scholar father with a hidden past. As a heroine, she seeks to use her growing skills to “do the right thing” but all such power if fraught with danger, and her naivety gets her in way over her head.

This magical-religious thinking lead me to a conflict between the old (superstitious?) way of thinking and the modern (technological?) world. I was drawn to a number of cusp points, but settled on the eve of World War I. That war changed the human political landscape, completing the process of casting down King and Church that had been ongoing since the Reformation. It also provided an era with significant room for sequels (WWI, WWII, cold war, etc.) and a freedom from cheap plotting shortcuts like mobile phones and the internet.

The first real Crash

With Crash Bandicoot, the notion of setting was much simpler, but no less important. Back in 1994 when we were visualizing our 3D platform game we wanted to follow in the tradition of using a quasi-animal character. Various factors led us to a sort of Looney Tunes style character design and world. In the early 90s, voice for video game characters was technologically dicey and tended to be cheesy, so we thought to convey strong personality through animation.  We also liked the idea of taking a real animal that had a distinct name, yet one rare enough that few people knew what it looked like. In this way, we hoped to “hijack” the animals name and have our character become representative of this real animal. This quest for a cute, well named, and rare animal led us to the Bandicoot, and hence to an isolated island setting full of exotic animals. In the cartoon space it seemed natural for the villain to be an evil genius, misunderstood, surrounded by idiot minions that bungle his brilliant plans :-). Doctor Neo Cortex was born. Since normal rodents are a bit mousy, and not necessarily that cool, we gave him the Evolve-O-Ray program in which he was “enhancing” the animal life of his island. Crash took form as the goofy “bungled” product of these experiments, fighting, in his goofy way, to protect the natural world from this renegade scientific program.

Snowball on the hill

Once you work out the basic creative concept for a big project, the rest of the ideas tend to flow outward from these first principles.

In world of The Darkening Dream I drew on historical and religious settings, people, magics, and sects to provide allies and enemies, creating their motivations out of their own peculiar frameworks. With Crash, the cartoon style of the world and the practical needs of the platform game drove decisions. Platform games (and many other game types) have Bosses and Sub-bosses. If Neo Cortex is the boss, then he needed henchmen (mutated animals and lab assistants) and middle management (the various Sub-boss animals). His island needed varied settings (read variety), but it was a jungle island, so this led us to island-compatible settings like beach, jungle, caves, etc.

In previous posts I discussed the differing importance of story to novels and video games, the origins of the magic in The Darkening Dream, and the history of Crash Bandicoot. Sometime in the future, I’ll probably continue this series by talking about production itself.

Related posts:

  1. How do I get a job designing video games?
  2. Games, Novels, and Story
  3. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 2
  4. Crash Bandicoot – Interviews “R” us
  5. So you want to be a video game programmer? – part 2 – Specs
By: agavin
Comments (15)
Posted in: Darkening Dream, Games
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot, Doctor Neo Cortex, Donkey Kong Country, Fiction, Games, Hermione Granger, Ideas, Neo Cortex, Platform game, The Darkening Dream

Ship Breaker – desk jockeys beware

Jul25

Title: Ship Breaker

Author: Paolo Baciqalupi

Genre: YA Sci-Fi

Read: July 9-11, 2012

Summary: Great voice, great characters, great world

 

Hugo and Nebula wining author of the Sci-Fi novel, The Windup Girl, brings his unique vision of the future to YA. The conventions of this younger demographic solves my biggest problem with Windup, which featured way too many characters and way too byzantine a plot. Ship Breaker has a single narrator and a straightforward enough story. The setting is the American Gulf coast some hundred years in the future after the collapse of our oil dependent technology. This could be the same world as Windup, or is perhaps merely similar. It doesn’t matter, it’s fascinating.

The first 50-60% of the book is absolutely first rate, fantastic. Baciqalupi has a great voice: third person, yet personal, detailed, yet fast paced. I loved the introduction to the world of the ship-breaking yards (see below for more on their real-life inspiration). The protagonist is very likable and the secondary characters mostly well developed. I loved the introduction of “Lucky Girl” (his love interest) and their time together (approximately 30% – 60%, the second act).

However, the third act involves her near complete disappearance from the book. Nailer, our protag, goes after her, but this section felt weaker and more disconnected. Even at the end, she’s only around for about two lines of dialogue. Additionally, this part of the book features more traditional “big action” and this doesn’t seem to be Baciqalupi’s strong point. The early parts of the novel contained a great deal of physical tension and that was handled flawlessly, but I didn’t totally buy some of the final scenes. And the resolution with the primary villain felt slightly off.

I’ll have to go with perhaps 8 out of 10 on this book. Very very good, with a lot going for it, but not a total stunner. Still,absolutely worth reading.

It’s worth a moment’s discussion on real Ship Breaking, a strange and dangerous global market niche which is almost entirely done in Bangladesh, at the famous ship-breaking yards. In these real life places, old tankers and the like are driven aground on the beach and then swarms of Bangladeshi workers tear them apart for raw materials. Many are children and working conditions make 19th Century Cotton Mills look pleasant. Check out these amazing photos here. Old ships contain a wealth of valuable materials, but there is no environmentally sound or automated way to scrap them. The current practice takes advantage of the extremely poor to do it “cheaply.” The cost, of course, is more human.

For more book reviews, click here.

Child labor, still alive and kicking at the ship-breaking yards of Chittagong

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: The Windup Girl
  2. Book Review: Across the Universe
  3. Book Review: Uglies
  4. Plotter vs. Pantser
  5. Sophomore Slump – Delirium
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Arts, Bangladesh, Chittagong, Fiction, Paolo Bacigalupi, Science Fiction, Ship Breaker, Ship breaking, The Windup Girl, Windup Girl, Young-adult fiction

Big Giveaway!

Jun25

This week, Monday June 25 through Friday June 29, the Kindle version of my novel The Darkening Dream is on sale for just 99 cents!

Buy it on Amazon!

Check out what you can win and how:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

As you can see, there are lots of ways to earn points, and since it’s a random drawing (done by Rafflecopter.com) those with the most points have the highest chance of winning.

So tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book to enter to win.

About The Darkening Dream

As the Nineteenth Century gives way to the Twentieth, modern science and steel girders leave little room for the supernatural. But in dark corners the old forces still gather. God, demon, and sorcerer alike plot to regain what was theirs in Andy Gavin’s chilling debut, The Darkening Dream.

1913, Salem, Massachusetts – Sarah Engelmann’s life is full of friends, books, and avoiding the pressure to choose a husband, until an ominous vision and the haunting call of an otherworldly trumpet shake her. When she stumbles across a gruesome corpse, she fears that her vision was more of a premonition. And when she sees the murdered boy moving through the crowd at an amusement park, Sarah is thrust into a dark battle she does not understand.

With the help of Alex, a Greek immigrant who knows a startling amount about the undead, Sarah sets out to uncover the truth. Their quest takes them to Salem’s brutal factory workrooms, on a clandestine maritime mission, and down into their foe’s nightmarish crypt. But they aren’t prepared for the terrifying backlash that brings the fight back to their own homes and families. Can Alex’s elderly, vampire-hunting grandfather and Sarah’s own rabbi father help protect them? And what do Sarah’s darkening visions reveal?

No less than the Archangel Gabriel’s Horn, destined to announce the End of Days, is at stake, and the forces banded to recover it include a 900 year-old vampire, a trio of disgruntled Egyptian gods, and a demon-loving Puritan minister. At the center of this swirling conflict is Sarah, who must fight a millennia-old battle against unspeakable forces, knowing the ultimate prize might be herself.

“Gorgeously creepy, strangely humorous, and sincerely terrifying” — Publishers Weekly
“Wonderfully twisted sense of humor” and
“A vampire novel with actual bite” — Kirkus Reviews
“Steampunk Lovecraftian Horror by way of Joss Whedon”

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream in Publishers Weekly
  2. Hardcover Proof & Paperback Giveaway
  3. First Pro Review
  4. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
  5. The edits are all in!
By: agavin
Comments (10)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: 99 cents, Andy Gavin, Fiction, Giveaway, Novel, sale, Steampunk, The Darkening Dream, vampires

From Sketch to Final

May15

Dave Phillips, the awesome artist I commissioned to illustrate my time travel novel, Untimed, has been quietly cranking away. A couple of weeks ago he finished the rough versions of all twenty-one images. I thought I’d use this post as an opportunity not only to show off his brilliant work, but to shed some light on the process. The images on the left are the roughs, and on the right the finals.

End Game: Tick-Tock TLCEnd Game: Tick-Tock TLC

We use the roughs to establish composition and for me to check that all the details are consistent with the novel. I give him feedback and he then spends the time to polish the image up. Neither of these images required any major changes, but it’s fun to see both how well the rough makes an impression, and how much more detailed the final is.

To get a close up look at this, click one of the images and it will bring up a Smugmug lightbox. You can then use the arrow keys to flip back and forth between the images, including between the rough and the final to see the differences.

This particular image, released previously, shows the mysterious Tick-Tock gloating over a dying Ben Franklin — oops!

Looped: Meeting Mr. and Mrs. FakeLooped: Meeting Mr. and Mrs. Fake

And this new one occurs 80 years later across the English channel. Ever wonder if you’d like yourself? Time travelers can find out first hand. Or, perhaps, meeting yourself will destroy the very fabric of the spacetime continuum!

Find out more about Untimed here.

Related posts:

  1. Untimed – Out on Submission!
  2. Untimed – Meet the Tocks
  3. The Final Cover
  4. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
By: agavin
Comments (8)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Arts and Entertainment, Ben Franklin, Dave Phillips, Design, Fiction, Illustration, SmugMug, Tick-Tock, Time travel, Untimed

The Way of Shadows

May03

Title: The Way of Shadows

Author: Brent Weeks

Genre: Fantasy

Length: 688 pages

Read: March 23-24, 2012

Summary: Great epic fantasy!

_

Despite the cheesy “hooded dude” cover, this was a great bit of epic fantasy. It was recommended by a twitter follower and turned out to be one of the better “classic medieval fantasy” books I’ve read in recent years. Certainly the best since I found The Name of the Wind in 2008.

Weeks borrows heavily and to good effect from 80s fantasy tropes. This is city fantasy, almost entirely set in a corrupt capital. Our protagonist is a young boy who apprentices with a deadly “wetboy” (assassin who uses magical powers). The prose is clean and workmanlike, sometimes even modern and flip. Weeks doesn’t bother to make anything sound too medieval, in fact, it’s so modern as to sometimes sound anachronistic. Still, despite the length, the novel is not overwritten and the writing doesn’t get in the way of the excellent storytelling and world building.

For fantasy  fans, this book is an appealing ride. We have good characters, sordid and ambiguous underworld figures. We have a well conceived world with detailed and engaging political intrigue. We have a decent, albeit minimalist, magical system. And we have a lot — I mean a real lot — of very well written action scenes. Weeks is a great writer of physical action and he uses it to good effect. This book contains fight after fight. Plus lots of sneaking around. And it’s not overdone. Each individual skirmish is compact enough, well integrated into the intricate plot, and brilliantly executed.

Again, despite the length, this makes for a breakneck pace and near total immersion into the seedy underworld. The book is pretty dark too, with some serious abuse in the early chapters. It’s not A Song of Ice and Fire dark, but there is some good insight into the nature of meanness. Bravo. The adventures continue into two sequels.

For more book reviews, click here.

Or read about my own historical fantasy novel here.

Related posts:

  1. The Wise Man’s Fear
  2. The Name of the Wind
  3. Inside Game of Thrones
  4. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  5. Book Review: The Gathering Storm
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Book Review, Brent Weeks, Fantasy, Fiction, High fantasy, Name of the Wind, Song of Ice and Fire, The Way of Shadows

The Lost Gate

Apr05

Title: The Lost Gate

Author: Orson Scott Card

Genre: Paranormal / Fantasy

Length: 385 pages

Read: March 17-20, 2012

Summary: Fun read!

_

It’s been awhile since I read a book by Card, although in eons past I read dozens and he was one of my favorite authors. He’s certainly lost none of his talent or voice. This young adult adventure hooks immediately with its fairytale-like narrative tone and engaging magic system. Danny belongs to the North (read Norse) family of degenerate mages. Their talents and legacy effectively covers a large swath of myth and superstition including the powers and belief in historic pagan deities. In fact, his relatives include Odid, Loki, and the like. Nor to say that they are degenerate deities ala American Gods or The Darkening Dream, but just that ancestors with similar powers were taken as such.

We learn about this stuff from the inside, with Danny already steeped in the knowledge of his clan. But soon enough he’s on the run in the normal world and his antics — fueled by powerful magics — are equally engaging. Woven in with this is a more mythic type tale set on the world of the Mithermages origin. The relevance of this eventually comes clear, but for a while it feels quite separate, and as we learn in the afterward it had its roots as a separate and older short story. The writing is snappy and the characters likable. If there is any problem during this stage, it’s that there isn’t really that much conflict. Danny’s powers are so strong that we don’t really worry too much.

The story races along until the 80% point when both threads come together. This last bit feels over rushed and over narrated. And the coda afterward even more hurried. I really enjoyed most of the novel, but this hyper-fast and hyper-forced end bugged me. It’s a common problem. Still, I’ll read the sequel.

For more book reviews, click here.

Or read about my own historical fantasy novel here.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Lost It
  2. Short Story: The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
  3. Thoughts on TV: Lost vs The Love Boat
  4. Way of the Warrior – The Lost Interview
  5. Sfixio – Strong out of the gate
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: American Gods, Book Review, Fantasy, Fiction, Loki, Middle Ages, Mithermages, Orson Scott Card, The Lost Gate

The Hunger Games – Novel & Film

Mar31

Title: The Hunger Games

Author: Suzanne Collins

Genre: YA Distopian

Length: 388 pages, 99,000 words

Read: 2008

Summary: Intense!

_

The book: I read it four years ago on the recommendation of a friend. The beginning didn’t totally wow me, but the second 2/3 certainly did.

It’s written in a tight first person present, which for this kind of thing is my favorite tense/POV combo (I use it in my novel Untimed). Collins expertly builds sympathy for the character of Catniss via her harsh circumstances, sympathetic voice, and self sacrifice. This crucial “inciting event,” the selection of Catniss’ sister as tribute, occurs at the end of the first chapter, at the 5% mark. First rate construction. Our heroine’s choice and the voyeuristic need to find out what happens in the arena drags us through the 30% of preparation and political mumbo-jumbo.

I had mixed feelings about this future world. I liked certain elements. I enjoyed the setup, the whole lottery thing with escalating danger of more copies of your name being added every year or in exchange for food. But I just didn’t buy the political scenario as a whole. America is a big place, yet this district 12 felt like a small mining town where everyone knows each other. Small towns are less than 15,000 people. I would have bought it better if Catniss’ town were one among many in a whole region that was district 12. I know it sounds minor, but I’m a stickler for these kind of things. The level of economic/technical imbalance between the capital and the provinces seemed too great. How could this one little mining town really be that important? How could a whole continent be represented by one city?

But none of that really mattered once you pop into the arena at the 40% mark. Here Collins’ set up combines with the tight visceral present voice to work some serious magic. The action of young kids fighting and killing each other in a televised Lord of the Flies smackdown just worked. It felt real. It felt intense. There is some great survival writing here and that is what — for me — this book is all about. It’s made richer by sympathetic and well painted characters and by Katniss’ need to chose between her feelings and the practical requirements of survival (which includes the interest of her family). Nothing like a helpless little sister to up the sympathy factor.

Great stuff. A book doesn’t have to succeed on every level. This is one that hits 10/10 in perhaps 3/4 areas, and that is more than enough.

I can’t say I felt the same about the sequel which languished for too long in political marshland. But being a reader of real history, I have high standards with regards to politics.

_

Film: The Hunger Games

Director/Stars: Jennifer Lawrence (Actor), Josh Hutcherson (Actor), Gary Ross (Director)

Watched:  March 28, 2012

_

The film: Of course this is one of the most anticipated movies of the year, particularly for book lovers. I have to say that it executed effectively and faithfully as a translation. The story is identical to the book, although reduced of course. At a meta-level I thought that the pre-arena period, although a tad too long, was actually slightly better than in the book, and the area slightly inferior.

Overall, it lacks the true visceral intensity of the novel. Not that it isn’t well done, or isn’t engaging, but I sensed a restraint or hesitation on the part of the filmmakers to commit to the full reality of a bunch of teenagers killing each other in the woods. The movie is superbly cast. Jennifer Lawrence is great and does a fine job acting to fill in the missing narrative voice. She can’t make up more than some of the distance, but she does as well as any actress could. Interior connection and emotion is a strength of the novel format. Film can’t compete.

But it does do better at grand scenes. And I thought the costumes and makeup of the funky 19th century nano-punk world very effective. Perhaps not realistic, but certainly entertaining to look at. The adult actors are all good. Donald Sutherland is boilerplate but pitch perfect as President Snow. The sometimes annoying, sometimes fun Woody Harrelson leans toward fun. Lenny Kravitz is great as Cinna. Katniss’ mom kinda sucked.

The movie feels medium budget. The effects serve, but occasionally seem a little cheesy. This is just an observation, and for the most part, not a detraction. An exception involved Catniss’ two flaming outfits. Maybe it’s just the concept brought to life, but they fell pretty flat. The director does employ an interesting overall stylistic approach. By combining minimalist scoring, a sort of Appalachian feel (underscored literally by the soundtrack), and loose handheld shots, the film comes across as “underproduced” or “not very Hollywood.” This was an effective stylistic choice. He manages to squeeze a bit of genuine emotion out of us at the appropriate moments, like the death of Rue.

A couple nitpicks: The secondary tributes (basically everyone but Catniss, Rue, and Peeta) felt indistinct and underdeveloped. No one got very dirty. Come on, if you are living for a couple of days in the woods fighting for your life, you get really grimy and smelly. Hell, camping as a kid we looked downright gross without any homicidal incidents. Even as she’s dying, Rue’s cute little fro looked all perfect. The film felt to me like an 8/10, but if it had fully embraced the dark and nasty side, it might have been a 10.

For more book and film reviews, click here.

Or read about my own historical fantasy novel here.

Related posts:

  1. The Hunger Games Trailer
  2. Fright Night (2011) – Not a waste of film
  3. Kushiel’s Dart
  4. Before I Fall
  5. Story of a Girl
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Books, Movies
Tagged as: Arts, Book Review, Donald Sutherland, Fiction, Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence, Katniss Everdeen, Lenny Kravitz, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, Woody Harrelson

Untimed – Meet the Tocks

Mar13

I finished the line editing on my second novel, Untimed, last December, but that doesn’t mean the work is really over. On one front, it’s out to various agents and editors, but on the other I’m working on spit and polish.

I had it professionally proofread and just finished going over all those little fixes. This is just an extra step to make sure it’s as free of errors as possible and that the comma, hyphen, and spelling niceties are as consistent as possible. And apparently I don’t like commas half as well as I should.

But far more exciting is that I’m having the book illustrated! I know it’s relatively rare to illustrate novels, but I love art and believe — well done — that it really adds to the overall experience. Working with the agent who represented the awesome cover artist for The Darkening Dream, I found a talented illustrator named Dave Phillips (his website is here and some portfolio samples here). He has a real knack for character (see this for example) and knows how to capture lifelike personality in his figures. Over the last few weeks we’ve been developing character designs and now the first (more or less) finished image.

To the right, our hero Charlie (in front), confronts the mysterious Tick-Tock, a rapier-wielding clockwork man who serves as the only link to Charlie’s missing father.

But Tick-Tocks are full of surprises, including the ability to punch holes in time!

Two free Naughty Dark tickets to the first reader who guesses the exact physical location of the scene (reply in comments here). You must not be one of my beta readers or one of their relatives. Hint: “Ghost H…”

Related posts:

  1. Untimed – Two Novels, Check!
  2. Untimed – The Second Cover
  3. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
  4. Untimed Fourth Draft Finished
  5. Untimed – Off for Line Editing
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Arts, books, Cover art, Dave Phillips, Fiction, Illustration, Tick-Tock, Tick-Tocks, Time travel, Untimed, Writing and Editing

Story of a Girl

Mar05

Title: Story of a Girl

Author: Sara Zarr

Genre: YA contemporary

Length: 192 pages, 43k words

Read: March 4, 2012

Summary: Great little character study

_

Nominally, this is an issue novel, about a 15 year-old girl dealing with the fallout of having slept with a guy when she was thirteen. But really it’s just a well written and well characterized slice of teen life story — reminiscent even of something like Judy Blume’s Tiger Eyes.

The prose is first rate. Told in first person past, the narrator’s voice is pitch perfect. Funny, poignant, honest, all without being forced. And the characters are all great. The don’t feel like they exist to serve the plot. They exist as people exist. This was just a great little read — a kind of quick escape into someone else’s head. It felt effortless, but I know it wasn’t. The basic three act structure is there. Girl has a problem — and not really the external one she thinks she has — but instead a need for internal change. She messes up, comes to crisis, and grows.

A simple formula. But everything is in the execution.

Or for more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: The Windup Girl
  2. Book Review: Girl Walking Backwards
  3. Short Story: The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
  4. The Inside Story
  5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Arts, Book Review, books, Fiction, Judy Blume, Literature, Reviews and Criticism, Sara Zarr, Story of a Girl, Tiger Eyes, YA contemporary

Kotaku Dreams

Dec30

Gaming site Kotaku has run a quick little feature on The Darkening Dream today.

What do you do after founding and retiring from one of video games’ most successful development houses? If you’re Naughty Dog co-founder Andy Gavin, you write books.

The first of said books is The Darkening Dream, a shadowy fantasy novel about a young girl caught up in a battle that pits ancient supernatural forces like vampires and Egyptian gods against each other.

You can check out the full post here.

Thank you guys! And I’ve already seen a big sales jump. I hope all the fans of my old stuff love my new stuff too.

Discover more about my novel, The Darkening Dream, here.

Related posts:

  1. Done Again, Hopefully
  2. Call For Feedback
  3. Beginnings and Endings
  4. The Darkening Dream
  5. Video Game Page & Book Status
By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Arts, Darkening Dream, Egyptian pantheon, Fiction, Kotaku, Naughty Dog, press, The Darkening Dream, Video game

Already Dead

Dec13

Title: Already Dead

Author: Charlie Huston

Genre: Hardboiled Vampire

Length: 288 pages

Read: Dec 1 – Dec 9, 2011

Summary: Good hardboiled fun

_

Already dead is a contemporary New York take on the vampire myth, mated with, and steeped in the tradition of hardboiled crime fiction. Crucial to the hardboiled style, established by such masters as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, is the voice. Huston may be writing decades later but from the first few pages it’s obvious that he’s highly adept at the hardboiled voice. The novel is written in a lean mean first person present, unsentimental, even stripped of all dialog tagging (this last goes too far and it’s sometimes hard to tell who is speaking).

The protagonist is a vampyre (I don’t normally use the ‘y’ but this book does), and he’s also a sort of private dick for the seedy supernatural side of the Manhattan underworld. Huston’s vampires are not obviously supernatural, but the product of a Vyrus (his spelling). The narrator is very specific on the pros, cons, and lifestyle choices required to “live” with the Vyrus. This is no small part of the story’s appeal. The plot, is modeled after the hardboiled classics. He protag is hired to find someone. Several forces all have a steak in the outcome. The protag gets beat up a lot. There’s twisted sex wound up in the reveal.

This may be formula, but the execution is top notch and the ride well worth it.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Dead Beautiful
  2. Better Off Dead
  3. The Postman Always Rings Twice
  4. Storm Front
  5. The Big Sleep
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Already dead, Book Review, Charlie Huston, Fiction, Hardboiled, New York, Novel, Vyrus

Untimed Fourth Draft Finished

Dec12

After nine days of solid crunch I’ve finished the fourth (and hopefully final) draft of my second novel, Untimed (read more about it here). This involved reading the book three whole times in one week. Ug! But the book is essentially done done! I have just a few little tweaks remaining and some work to do on promotional/pitch materials and I’ll need to figure out how to sell it. This book really kicks ass. It clocks in at 75,000 words (just 300 pages) but a tremendous amount happens. Plus the voice is great and (I hope) hooks from the first line.

Now I really have to start gearing back into the production on my first novel, The Darkening Dream, and get that out the door. And start thinking about a new book for January. Woah!

To find out more about my writing, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Untimed – The Last Draft?
  2. On Writing: Yet Another Draft
  3. Untimed – Two Novels, Check!
  4. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
  5. Weekend Draft
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, drafts, Fiction, Line Editing, Novel, Untimed, Writing
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