This week on Geek Speaks…Fiction! we welcome fantasy author Gail Z. Martin! With her latest book, The Shadowed Path, Gail returns to the world of her first series, The Chronicles of the Necromancer. Please welcome her to GeekMom as she tells us about her experience!
What made me geek out when I was writing The Shadowed Path? The chance to return to the world and characters of my first series, The Chronicles of the Necromancer, and provide a fresh perspective on places, events, and characters. It felt a lot like coming home after I’d been away for a while.
The Shadowed Path is the new collection of the first ten Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures short stories plus an exclusive eleventh story that is only in the collection (Solaris Books). The stories start 14 years before the first book in my Chronicles series, The Summoner, and recount the events that made Jonmarc the embittered, kick-ass warrior with a dark past that we meet in the novels.
Not only did that offer me the chance to start at the very beginning of Jonmarc’s back story–something that is only hinted at in the novels–but it let me come back to a character who has always been one of my favorites and do it in a very different way, seeing the experiences, the losses, the betrayals, and scars that make him into the cynical, hurting, and heroic man he becomes. I knew what the milestones in his life were, had mentioned them in the novels briefly, but the short stories gave me the chance to write what is basically a serialized novel about the first major phase in Jonmarc’s life in detail that was completely new.
It was also geek-out worthy because in the process, there are many minor characters from The Summoner and the Chronicles books who make an appearance in the Jonmarc stories and we get to see them from a very different perspective, at a drastically different time in their lives. We also get to see Margolan as it was in the heyday of King Bricen (whose assassination sets off the events in The Summoner and changes the fate of the Winter Kingdoms forever).
For me there was a bitter-sweet aspect to the book, because I know what Jonmarc has to go through to become the complex, amazing man he becomes. He would not become that man without the experiences in the short stories, but as we take his journey with him, we understand him so much better.
If you haven’t read the Chronicles of the Necromancer/Fallen Kings Cycle books yet, The Shadowed Path is a great place to start. (And there are eight additional Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures short stories not in the collection, available on ebook, with more to come.) And if you have read The Summoner and the rest of the books, you’ll enjoy meeting up with old friends and seeing them and their world in a whole new light.
And while you’re checking out The Shadowed Path, be sure to also look for Modern Magic: Twelve Tales of Urban Fantasy, a 12-book, 13-author ebook boxed set including Trifles and Folly, the first-ever collection of 10 Deadly Curiosities Adventures short stories!
From June 21-June 30, I’ll be doing my annual Hawthorn Moon Sneak Peek Event blog tour, and I hope readers will stop over to my website, http://www.AscendantKingdoms.com, find out what all is going on and where to find the posts, giveaways, contests, and fun events. And of course, please look for The Shadowed Path at your favorite bookseller!
The Hawthorn Moon Sneak Peek Event includes book giveaways, free excerpts, all-new guest blog posts, and author Q&A on 22 awesome partner sites around the globe. I’ll also be hosting many of my Modern Magic co-authors guest posting on my DisquietingVisions.com blog during the tour. For a full list of where to go to get the goodies, visit www.AscendantKingdoms.com.
Gail Z. Martin is the author of The Shadowed Path (Solaris Books), Vendetta: A Deadly Curiosities Novel in her urban fantasy series set in Charleston, SC (Solaris Books); Shadow and Flame the fourth and final book in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga (Orbit Books); and Iron and Blood a new Steampunk series (Solaris Books) co-authored with Larry N. Martin.
She is also author of Ice Forged, Reign of Ash, and War of Shadows in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, The Chronicles of The Necromancer series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven, Dark Lady’s Chosen); The Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn, The Dread), and the urban fantasy novel Deadly Curiosities. Gail writes three ebook series: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures, The Deadly Curiosities Adventures, and The Blaine McFadden Adventures. The Storm and Fury Adventures, steampunk stories set in the Iron & Blood world, are co-authored with Larry N. Martin.
Her work has appeared in over 30 U.S./UK anthologies. Newest anthologies include: Robots, The Big Bad 2, Athena’s Daughters, Heroes, Space, Contact Light, With Great Power, The Weird Wild West, The Side of Good/The Side of Evil, Alien Artifacts, Cinched: Imagination Unbound, Realms of Imagination, Gaslight and Grimm, Baker Street Irregulars, Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens.
Find her at www.AscendantKingdoms.com, on Twitter @GailZMartin, on Facebook.com/WinterKingdoms, at DisquietingVisions.com blog and GhostInTheMachinePodcast.com, on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/GailZMartin, and free excerpts on Wattpad http://wattpad.com/GailZMartin.
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