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The Gunpowder Fantasy Review
In an effort to help raise awareness of other Gunpowder Fantasy/Muskets and Magic/Flintlock Fantasy authors, I’ll be reviewing their works and posting them here.
To facilitate the process, I’ll be using the following definition:
Gunpowder Fantasy: an alternate world story set in a world that uses gunpowder firearms (up to and including revolvers, but excluding magazine fed small arms or belt fed weapons), steam power (limited to rail transport and limited sea-going vessels) while also maintaining essential elements including some of the following elements: a fully-alternate world setting, magic, a feudal or semi-feudal setting, alternate races (including, but not limited to elves, dwarves, orc and other “traditional” fantasy races), and/or a broad-scale conflict.
Alternate History stories may be considered if they are of a sufficiently “alternate” nature and will be considered on a case by case basis.
Steampunk will not be considered for review.
I’m currently working up a list of stories to be featured, so if you have any suggestions please hit up the Contact link.
Goals 2013
So last year, I had rather modest goals. Finish The Cerberus Rebellion and publish it, get the back end stuff for my website and blog set up, including a Scrivener key, and some other minor goals. Well, I can proudly say that I got all of those finished last year.
I think I’m going to be more ambitious this year. With The Hydra Offensive nearly halfway completed and The Battle for Broken Plains in Beta, I think that I can safely plan to have both of those published and get at least halfway through the next book in the Ansgari Rebellion Series: The Centaur Campaign.
I also want to go back through The Cerberus Rebellion and trim some of the fat and add a couple of chapters that really should have been included in the first place.
I’d really like to get started on the story that my brother gave me the idea for, but the Griffins & Gunpowder universe is going to consume my writerly focus for this year. On the up side, I have most of the rest of the Ansgari Rebellion series plotted out at the book level, so I just need to outline the books by chapter and I’ll be all set.
What are your goals for this year? Or are you just going to wing it?
That Time of Year…
…when you don’t really get anything productive done.
This year, I’ll be working part-time at Best Buy (Black Friday was absolutely crazy) and working full-time at UPS for the Christmas Season.
Unfortunately, my writing is going to suffer and I’ll probably be posting very little.
However, I did manage to finish Battle for Broken Plains and I’m getting ready to send it to a couple of Beta Readers. It clocked in at just over 27,000 words, about twice as long as I originally expected.
My plan is to put Battle up for free across all of the major distributors and advertise it as much as possible to garner readers.
I’m going to try to get more work done on The Hydra Offensive, which is currently sitting at a sliver under 44,000, with the goal of having it completed and published before June. While 2 books a year isn’t the pace I’d like to keep, the rigors of life are such that it’s going to have to suffice.
Creating a Culture
When I decided to add Orcs to the world of Zaria, I decided immediately that they would be different from the stereotypical “hulk smash!” Orcs that are so common throughout most of the Fantasy genre.
I had already developed the concept of a group of city-states that had once been a republic. I knew that these city-states, or at least some of them, would be places of high culture that were also home to mercenary legions.
So when it came time to develop my Orcs, I decided that they would be the core to these city-states. But that wasn’t enough.
I decided to add a couple of wrinkles to the Orcs and so I created the colonies of Thayer and Galten across the Vast Sea, nestled in the mountains near the nation of Ansgar. But now I had another problem: these colonies would have been separated from their homeland for so long that they would have culture all their own.
Right now, I’m working on Battle for Broken Plains, the story of how Raedan Clyve came to be the Baron of Broken Plains, and as I write, I find myself creating the culture for different parts of my world that haven’t been explored as fully elsewhere.
The challenge is to create a culture that clearly descended from the established culture of the City States, but at the same time has its own aspects. The Orcish colonies have lived near the brutish Nordahrians for so long, they have picked up on some of their traditions.
It’s one of the things that I like so much about Fantasy: the worldbuilding of a culture that mixes mercenary instincts with fierce clan loyalty and a culture of marauding.
100th Post
So, since this is going to be my 100th post, I figured I’d go through and see how far I’ve come since I started blogging.
First Post: 11/1/11
Total Pageviews Since Starting: 2,359 (928 on Blogger and 1,431 here)
When I started blogging, I was working on my novel “Live! At the Front”. Gunpowder Fantasy was just a thought rambling around in the back of my head without a lot of substance to it.
It’s been nearly a year and I’ve come a long way. What started as “Griffin Steampunk” has blossomed into the Griffins & Gunpowder world, including a series in progress, three more planned and a whole variety of short stories and novellas.
I hit publish on three short stories, a collection of short stories and my first novel, The Cerberus Rebellion.
I’ve gone on a month long blog tour and I joined the Guild of Dreams, Fantasy Collective.
Thanks to everyone that has bought or downloaded The Cerberus Rebellion; shared, liked or commented on my posts here and provided feedback on my works-in-progress.
Here’s to another 100 posts!
Making Room
As I work on The Hydra Offensive, I’ve run into a problem. I originally had planned to have 6 total POV Characters, including return characters Raedan, Hadrian and Eadric from The Cerberus Rebellion and three new POVs. There would be 2 sets of 2 POVs that would follow basically the same plot lines and then 2 independent POVs with their own plot. Those 2 wouldn’t get a lot of time until mid-way through.
Well, one of the plot lines (2 POVs) has grown into a lot more than I originally planned for it to be. According to my initial outline, I should be at around chapter 12 or 13. I’m at Chapter 23. I’m finally approaching the point where the 2 independent POVs should start getting more time, but I’m beginning to worry about the end size of Hydra if I put them both in.
If I do put both of them in, I can see Hydra ballooning to over 120k words, and while that’s not as big of a concern as it may have been before, I’m more concerned with running into the George RR Martin problem of diluting the focus of the novel.
I’ve looked at it and I can reasonably push one of the subplots into the next novel, tenatively titled “The Centaur Campaign”, but if I do that, I worry that I’m going to run into the same problem until I run out of novels to push storylines to. Cutting the proposed storyline won’t either because this is a major character who features prominently in the series going forward.
Funny enough, and on a related note, I’m actually going back through my novella “Battle for Broken Plains” and adding in a new major POV. This character got some time later in the story, but I think that things will flow better, and avoid as much infodump, by adding the character in earlier in the piece and slowly introducing the content.
Have you ever had to push a character into the next book to make sure your novel doesn’t get fat?
Sneak Peek: Battle at Broken Plains – Prologue
Below is the Prologue for Battle at Broken Plains, a novella that tells the story of Raedan Clyve’s rise to power as the Baron of Broken Plains. It’s currently going into Alpha Editing phase so I’ll be printing it out and taking the red pen to it. Hopefully, this should be out by the end of the year.
-Prologue
Auberon Strait rung his hands and paced beside the bed of Lord Rendall Garand. He had cast every spell that he had learned in his short time studying as a life-giver, but the Baron of Broken Plains was sick beyond his skills. Auberon doubted that any but the most skilled life-giver would have failed to bring the Baron back from the brink of death, but he still wondered if he could have done more.
The room was one of the largest in Garand Castle. The ceiling was twenty feet above the floor, tapestries adorned every wall and large windows let in sunlight during most of the day. Lanterns burned bright in their sconces along the wall and a fire blazed in the hearth.
Auberon ran a hand through long red hair and rubbed the back of his right ear. He had inherited many of his father’s features, the red hair, the sapphire eyes and the elongated ears. Auberon had also followed his father’s choice of occupation and had served as the advisor to House Garand for nearly two hundred years. He was sad to see the once proud dynasty coming to a close.
Lord Rendall Garand had married the sister of a Frantan Clan-Lord, but she had been barren. As the only son of an only son, Rendall was the last living Garand and would leave his lands to another family when he passed. Auberon had been ready for the death of his lord: he had been studying the family trees of the local nobility for more than a year.
Lord Hadrian Clyve would be the heir to the Broken Plains Barony under the laws of Ansgar; he and Rendall shared a great-grandmother. Auberon had wondered, briefly, whether Lord Clyve would be allowed to take control of another barony. Aside from the North Griffin Cliffs, Hadrian stood to inherit the South Griffin Cliffs when his father-by-law passed. There were some in the Ansgari nobility that believed Hadrian was not qualified to hold two baronies, much less three.
Auberon believed that the Clyves were the best option for the continued existence of the Broken Plains Barony. The Broken Plains and North Griffin Cliffs Baronies shared a border with each other and with the territory of Clan-Lord Jared Terrell, the brother of the late-Lady Garand.
Clan-Lord Jared Terrell had already claimed his right as the rightful heir to the Barony, despite his lack of claim in any Ansgari court. In Franta, the eldest brother of any woman was automatically considered the heir to the territories which her husband claimed if no viable heirs were born of the marriage. He had visited the Barony three times in the last year and had made his position very clear. Auberon believed that was one of the reasons that Rendall’s condition had deteriorated more quickly in the last year than it had in the five years prior.
Rendall coughed violently and Auberbon frowned.
“Steward!” Auberon shouted. A small man scurried through the thick wooden door. He was a small man, he had gone bald years before and his green eyes were downcast. He shuffled across the stone floor with short, stuttered steps that betrayed the limp he worked so hard to disguise.
“Prepare a horse,” Auberon ordered, “and supplies to get me to the Overlook.”
“At once, milord.” The steward bowed and hurried out of the room.
Auberon knew that leaving the barony so soon after the passing of its noble would be risky, there would be no one of authority to command the guards or try to negotiate with Jared Terrell, but it was his responsibility to tell Lord Clyve of Rendall’s passing and inform the Baron of North Griffin Cliffs that he was the rightful heir to the territory.
Rendall began coughing so violently that he hunched over in his bed, then was suddenly silent.
“My Lord?” Auberon moved to the bedside. He pressed his palm to his noble’s chest. Rendall Garand did not breath.
I plan on putting Battle at Broken Plains up for Free, so keep an eye out for links!
Guest Post – Blood of the King
Today, we’ve got a special post from Bruce Blake announcing the release of his book: Blood of the King.
Blood of the King (Khirro’s Journey Book 1)
A kingdom torn by war. A curse whispered by dying lips. A hero born against his will.
Khirro never wanted to be anything more than the farmer he was born to be, but a Shaman’s curse binds him to the fallen king and his life changes forever.
Driven by the Shaman’s dying words, Khirro’s journey pits him against an army of the dead, sends him through haunted lands, and thrusts him into the jaws of beasts he wouldn’t have believed existed. In one hand he carries the Shaman’s enchanted sword, a weapon he can barely use; in the other he holds a vial of the king’s blood, the hope of the kingdom. His destination: the Necromancer’s keep in the cursed land of Lakesh. Only the mysterious outlaw magician can raise the king from the dead to save them all from the undead invasion, but can Khirro live long enough to deliver the vial?
Can a coward save a kingdom?
About Bruce Blake:
Bruce Blake lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. When pressing issues like shovelling snow and building igloos don’t take up his spare time, Bruce can be found taking the dog sled to the nearest coffee shop to work on his short stories and novels.
Actually, Victoria, B.C. is only a couple hours north of Seattle, Wash., where more rain is seen than snow. Since snow isn’t really a pressing issue, Bruce spends more time trying to remember to leave the “u” out of words like “colour” and “neighbour” then he does shovelling. The father of two, Bruce is also the trophy husband of burlesque diva Miss Rosie Bitts.
Bruce has been writing since grade school but it wasn’t until six years ago he set his sights on becoming a full-time writer. Since then, his first short story, “Another Man’s Shoes” was published in the Winter 2008 edition of Cemetery Moon, another short, “Yardwork”, was made into a podcast in Oct., 2011 by Pseudopod and his first Icarus Fell novel, “On Unfaithful Wings”, was published to Kindle in Dec., 2011. The second Icarus Fell novel, “All Who Wander Are Lost”, was released in July, 2012, with the first book in the two-part “Khirro’s Journey” epic fantasy coming Sept. 30. He has plans for at least three more Icarus novels, several stand alones, and a possible YA fantasy co-written with his eleven-year-old daughter.
Where Do We Go From Here?
So we’ve covered the things that make Gunpowder Fantasy similar to traditional Epic Fantasy, and we’ve covered the Gunpowder aspect of Gunpowder Fantasy, but Gunpowder weapons didn’t develop in a vacuum. Other technologies developed alongside rifles and today we’ll discuss a few of them.
Steam
Land
When using Steam in a Gunpowder Fantasy, you’ll want to be careful not to take it too far and wander into Steampunk territory. This would include things like fantastical creations, airships and flying machines.
Steam in a Gunpowder Fantasy will be limited to rail travel. Different levels of advancement in steam power will determine the exact details of your railway, but it’s hard to argue that having railroads won’t have a major impact on how your story develops.
With railroads available to the characters of your world, travel across large distances will be cut down to a fraction of what it would be without steam power and the ability to transport large numbers of soldiers or goods from one side of your world to another will impact the course of your world.
When I was building Zaria, as I had mentioned before, I had initially decided on a much smaller world. But when I decided to use steam power, I realized that in order to keep the extended timeline that I wanted to maintain, I had to make my world much larger.
Sea
Steam power on the sea is another element that can have a major impact on your world, if you are so inclined. Steam propulsion led to faster travel over the sea and, eventually, to ironclad ships. If you’ve built a world where the sea is a major part of the story or plot, this can change things significantly.
Telegraphy
Where Steam power will allow your characters to travel much faster than in a traditional fantasy, Telegraphy will allow your characters to communicate quicker. The advantages of telegraphy, however, are not without their limitations. Telegraph lines can be cut or, perhaps worse, hijacked to provide false information.
For the nation of Ansgar, having instant communications across the entire nation was actually something that I wanted to limit, so I decided that their telegraph network would be built in independent sections. Riders are needed to carry messages from one network to the other, allowing me to build in a small communication lag that I use later for plot devices.
Gunpowder Fantasy 