The Masked Superteam Answers Your Questions

Nine authors & I in participate this morning in a Q&A on Joseph Mallozzi's blog, discussing our superhero prose anthology Masked. It's a mammoth post, with responses from Yours Truly, Matthew Sturges, James Maxey, Paul Cornell, Daryl Gregory, Gail Simone, Mark Chadbourn, Joe himself, and Marjorie M. Liu!

What's more, Joe labels us a Superteam and reveals which hero he feels we each correspond to. Surprisingly, I'm not Professor Xavier. Check out the post, "The Masked Superteam answers your questions."

The Office of Shadow: Politics, Treachery, Heroism, Sacrifice and Action

"The Office of Shadow is a great adventure with a finely woven narrative and a compelling plot. Sturges’ writing is of high-quality and he brings a fascinating cast of characters to a tale full of politics, treachery, heroism, sacrifice and slick action. It also features a magic system which is utterly credible and brilliantly realised. One of the very best I have encountered. I really enjoyed this book. The Shadows are a terrific creation and I want more. Much more." James Barclay, author of the Raven series

A Midwinter Night's Dream

My interview with Matthew Sturges is up at Tor.com. Matt is the author of Midwinter,as well as the comic books House of Mystery, Shadowpact, Salvation Run, Countdown to Mystery, Blue Beetle, Jack of Fables (co-written with Bill Willingham), and the forthcoming Final Crisis Aftermath: RUN!

We talk about his use of magic in Midwinter, subverting fantasy tropes, the differences between comic books and prose novels, and a bit about the forthcoming Office of Shadow. Here's a taste of what he says:

I have a tendency to pick at the seams and poke around the unused closets of established story structures or genre patterns and see what kinds of stories are laying around in there. I always find myself asking questions like “Who is Superman’s lawyer, and what is his job like?” or “What did they do with all the dead orc corpses after the battle of Helm’s Deep?” In the case of Midwinter, the beginning of the story was, “What is prison like in Faery?”

Robson, Enge, Sturges, Lloyd and even Yours Truly

There's a fantastic interview with Blood of Ambroseauthor James Enge over on SFScope. Conducted by Sara M. Harvey, and well-worth reading, here's a taste:

The genesis of Morlock was, I think, frustration with two of my favorite writers, Tolkien and H.G. Wells. I was annoyed that Tolkien so obviously favored elves over dwarves, and that Wells did the same with Eloi over Morlocks. Morlocks did stuff—they worked and learned and thought and created. They seemed to me more authentically human than the empty, shiny Eloi. So what if they lived underground and weren't so pretty? The cannibalism is a little harder to stomach, as it were—but I'm sure that's exactly why Wells put it in. That's his thumb on the scale, trying to tilt our judgment of his characters.

Then over at The Agony Column, Rick Kleffel and I talk about Steampunk, Victoriana and Elizabethan SF, with a bit about Chris Roberson, George Mann, and old series Doctor Who. Here's a direct link.

Meanwhile in response to my accidentally traumatizing her with an offhand statement, Justina Robson asks What is Fantasy About? Please go join in the discussion. I sense brilliance on the verge of conception.

Then Graeme's Fantasy Book Review gives an 8 out of 10 to Matthew Sturges' Midwinter.They say:

...a book that any fantasy fan will get a lot out of. ...there is no denying the sense of urgency that leaps out off the page and drives the story along [at] a very fast pace. The constant plotting and scheming underneath the surface adds to this urgency as well as giving the reader the best possible reason to keep reading. There are loads of questions that all need answering and it’s all credit to Sturges that these are the kind of questions where you care enough about the answers to invest more time in reading the book. You also cannot deny the dangers that our travellers must face on their journey and these make for some great moments where anything could happen and spectacle is the order of the day!

Hey, I'd be rushing out to get that now if I hadn't read it already. But if you need more convincing, Jessica Strider at Sci-Fan Letter interviews Matthew Sturges, about the book and the craft of writing in general.

I was doing a presentation about writing comic books for a group of fourth-graders, since I'm most known as a comic book writer. Most of the questions were what you'd expect from nine-year-olds: Who'd win in a fight between the Hulk and Superman, that kind of stuff. Just as the questions were dying down, a kid in the back raised his hand and asked, "How much do you make?" I paused for a second and said, "I do okay, I guess." He wasn't satisfied, "Can you give me a dollar amount?" "That's an inappropriate question," said the teacher, embarassed. "Why?" said the kid. "How can I tell if I want to do that job if I don't know what it pays?"

Meanwhile, The King of the Nerds (what a title!) has some very positive thoughts about Tom Lloyd's The Twilight Herald:

...one heck of a wild ride, with action, excitement, danger, violence and epic confrontations occurring left and right... I’m not certain I would say The Twilight Herald is an improvement over The Stormcallerbut Lloyd at the least reveals an impressive level of verstatility in terms of style between the two novels. Furthermore he maintains an ability to include a subtle over-arching theme of revenge across the entirety of the novel that is never overwrought or glaring. Lloyd is keeping me guessing with the series and, criticisms asside, that is something I can definatley appreciate.

And that's enough news for one morning, right?

Update: Well, no, because there's a terrific interview with Tom Lloyd that is up at Fantasy Book News & Reviews.

Author Event: Matt Sturges Sigining @ B&N

Matthew Sturges, author of the fantasy novel Midwinter, will be signing at the Barnes and Noble in Round Rock, on Saturday April 18, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

The store is located at La Frontera Village, 2701 Parker Road Bldg A Suite 700, Round Rock, TX 78681, telephone number 512-600-0088. Here's a link to the event on the B&N website.

"Known for his talents as a writer of comic book series including House of Mystery and the Eisner Award-nominated Jack of Fables, Sturges turns his storytelling mastery to epic fantasy. With an enigmatic hero and a supporting cast of colorful and varied personalities, his latest work breathes new life into a genre too often stunted by stereotypical portrayals of good and bad creatures of the faerie realms. Joining Neil Gaiman in making the crossover from comics to prose fiction, Sturges represents a strong, new voice in fantasy." —Library Journal Starred review

Roberson and Sturges: Underrated and Awesome

Quotes like these have to be shared.

Two for Chris Roberson's End of the Century:

“Roberson’s imagination is in full force, and the results are magical, although a tad too epic. He deserves praise for being able to keep each section true to its genre without having the novel feel schizophrenic. Roberson is an underrated name in the field of fantasy and science fiction; this effort was no easy undertaking, but it’s ingenious and spirited, and he pulls through with his head held high.” -Bookgasm, March 27, 2009

“…suffice to say that if this is your first experience of Roberson, I guarantee it won’t be the last. Challenging the stability of the often-thin line between fantasy and sci-fi, End of the Century is a unique experience that latches on from the first page and doesn’t let go.” -Total Sci-Fi, March 30, 2009 (formerly Dreamwatch magazine)

And two for Matthew Sturges's Midwinter:

"If one were to envision a fairy tale as a high octane action movie you might get something close to Sturges debut novel, Midwinter… a fantastic read. The narrative is quick and packed with action…Midwinter keeps things diverse and always fresh. Sturges’ background in comics is (at least for me) reflected in the strong visual presentation of his writing, in particular the scenes involving Mab’s flying cities created some strong mental imagery that was absolutely dripping in awesome.” -King of the Nerds blog, March 30, 2009

"Having read and enjoyed some of Mr. Sturges’s comic book work with Bill Willingham, I was looking forward to see how well he could tell a story in prose form. If Midwinter is any indication of what his novel-writing future has in store, I’ll be a happy reader.... Sturges does a lot of things very well in his first novel– the sense o’ wonder of a fantastic multiverse, likeable characters and an engaging plot. Fans of caper-ish plots and solid action would do well to give Sturges’s impressive debut effort a try." - Rob H. Bedford, SFFWorld, March 30, 2009

Midwinter: Like Tolkien meets Abercrombie meets Chadbourn

Just added a sizable excerpt from Matthew Sturges' Midwinter to the Pyr Sample Chapters blog, making it the 43rd book to go up there (where there are also four complete short stories, one of them original to the site. What are you waiting for?)

And speaking of Midwinter,over at Fantasy Book Critic, Robert Thompson and Liviu C. Suciu have done a joint review of Matt's debut fantasy. In their intro materials they write, "think Tolkien meets Joe Abercrombie meets Mark Chadbourn." This thrills me, not just because I publish two of the three writers above (you can work out which), but also because "Abercrombie meets Chadbourn" was how I described it to my dark masters when presenting the book in the first place. (I also mentioned some similarities to Justina Robson's Quantum Gravity universe in the way the various dimensions are aligned.)

While not being blind to problems he chalks up to first-novel-itis, Robert concludes, " I really enjoyed the book and thought it was a fun, entertaining and imaginative new entry in the fantasy genre. I was also quite impressed with Matthew Sturges and believe he has the talent and creativity to make a name for himself outside of comics. Definitely looking forward to the sequel!"

And Liviu says, "Midwinter is a page-turner and a very exciting novel which managed to surprise me with unexpected twists and turns despite its seemingly straightforward plot.... Overall, Midwinter is the best pure genre debut of 09 so far for me and I highly recommend it."

I'm thrilled, further, to see that the comments section includes some love for the wonderful cover illustration from Chris McGrath. He's currently working on the art for, and Matt is currently writing, the follow-up, The Office of Shadow, about which more later.

Two New Fantasy Novels Unleashed!

Two epic fantasy novels, Matthew Sturges' Midwinter and Tom Lloyd's The Twilight Herald (Book Two of the Twilight Reign quintet) are now shipping from Amazon and other online vendors. They should showing up in physical stores in a week or so as well.

Midwinter: Winter comes to the land only once in a hundred years. But the snow covers ancient secrets: secrets that could topple a kingdom. Mauritaine was a war hero. Then he was accused of treason and sentenced to life without parole at Crere Sulace, a dark and ancient prison in the mountains, far from the City Emerald. But now the Seelie Queen – Regina Titania herself – has offered him one last chance to redeem himself, an opportunity to regain his freedom and his honor.

The Twilight Herald: Lord Bahl is dead and the young white-eye, Isak, stands in his place; less than a year after being plucked from obscurity and poverty the charismatic new Lord of the Farlan finds himself unprepared to deal with the attempt on his life that now spells war, and the possibility of rebellion waiting for him at home. The Twilight Herald is the second book in a powerful new series that combines inspired world-building, epic battles, and high emotion to dazzling effect.