Like every good author, I steal little and I steal big. Were they really disasters, those wars and terrorist plots? Or were they shadowy magicians requiring blood for their spells? This simultaneously gives my characters a difficulty rating and also casts a new shadow on a number of historical events. In We Are Not Good People, I created a magic system that requires blood sacrifice: the more blood, the more powerful the spell. Magic in your book is an excellent opportunity for world-building and characterization: What does magic cost? How does it work? Power and its use should cost your characters something. I hate The One because there are no damn rules. Or, Never explain how he manages to go from country bumpkin to Amazing Super Wizard Version 5.1 in just under forty thousand words. Or, Give your hero amazing magical powers for no reason whatsoever. Like, Make your hero The One because he fits the details of a prophecy. You know The One - he’s the guy or girl in a story who is fated to save the universe by dint of prophecy or lineage or genetics, or a giant plot-generating box the author hooked up to the electrical grid in his neighborhood which demands a fresh sacrifice every few minutes before disgorging awful storytelling advice. We dared to ask him his thoughts about the use of magic in the fantasy genre, and this is what he told us. As Off The Shelf recently learned, he’s also wonderfully and hilariously opinionated. He’s written prolifically since then, and his next book is We Are Not Good People, due out October 2014. His story “Ringing the Changes” was selected for Best American Mystery Stories 2006, and his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight. I can’t wait to read it again.Jeff Somers sold his first novel at age 16. I can’t say enough good things about this book. In a way, this man’s work defined what I expect from fantasy
I grew up reading fantasy and science fiction, and one of the greatest regrets I have is that I never found more than three books written by Lyndon Hardy, an author I still consider an automatic buy. One of the greatest fantasy novels from the 1980s
And above all, Hardy’s Master of the Five Magics.
Some of the Amazon reviews for the first edition:Īs my bookshelves continue to grow, I can name only a handful of books that I continue revisit time and time again. To be notified when my next book is available, click here Order from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, or Apple BooksĪlso includes an Author’s Afterward about how the book came to be, and a Glossary of terms and their Wikipedia URL links. As such, he had no right to aspire to the hand of Vendora, Queen of all of Procolon. “One of the most logical detailing of the laws of magic ever to appear in fantasy” – Lester del ReyĪlodar was a mere journeyman, learning the least of the five arts of magic. Available again after almost thirty years!
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