D.P. Woolliscroft's Blog

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

We've had a little break, but I'm happy that this Saturday evening we have another First, Last, Everything. And this time it's author and viking extraordinaire Bjorn Larssen.

Bjørn Larssen was made in Poland. He is mostly located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, except for his heart which he lost in Iceland. Born in 1977, he self-published his first graphic novel at the age of seven in a limited edition of one. Since then his short stories and essays were published in Rita Baum Art Magazine, Writer Unboxed, Inaczej Magazine, Edurada.pl, Homiki.pl, and Holandia Expat Magazine. He is a member of Alliance of Independent Authors and Writer Unboxed.

Bjørn has a degree in mathematics, worked as a graphic designer, a model,  and a blacksmith. He used to speak eight languages (currently down to two and a half). His hobbies include sitting by open fires, dressing like an extra from Vikings, installing operating systems, and dreaming about living in a log cabin in the north of Iceland, even though he hates being cold. He has only met an elf once. So far. His debut novel Storytellers, set in Iceland in 1920, is out now.

I taught myself to read at the age of 4. I had three or four kids' books and tormented my poor mother with demands to read them over and over and over again. "You must have memorised them by now," she huffed one night and refused to cooperate. She was a horrible parent, obviously, but she was also right. I picked the books and discovered how letters translated to words. After I spent some time re-reading them multiple times a day, I had to admit that mum had a point when even I became bored of them. So I started going through my grandparents' library.

I did not understand the difference between kids' books and those for adults. I read everything. Once I was done with a book I'd place it back on the shelf and move on to the next one. I don't actually recall what I was reading – probably crime and sci-fi, based on my grandparents' taste. I know that I wasn't aware of how sci-fi worked and imagined all of that to be true – at once. Finally my mother found out what I've been doing and started buying me books actually meant for kids. She struck gold with The Chronicles of Narnia. Which I also took as to be a documentary.

For many months I kept opening our wardrobe, then the smaller closets, then kitchen cupboards, hoping to find my way to Narnia. I had only read the first book, not knowing there were any more, so once I was presented with the second I was possibly the happiest kid in the world. And there were seven of them! It took decades before I found out that Aslan was supposed to be "an alternative version of Jesus", as C. S. Lewis phrased it himself, and that the books had Christian undertones. As far as I was concerned, the Pevensies were just unjustly lucky kids that had amazing lives, whilst I had to live in what was apparently the "real" world. Filled with broken furniture without access to anywhere interesting at all. Real world: 1/10, would not buy again. Narnia Chronicles: 10/10, would read again.

I'm cheating here a bit, because I'm not finished yet, but my pick is Annie Whitehead's To Be A Queen. The book is set in the ninth century, which happens to be a period I am researching for my own second novel... except I'm looking at it from the opposite direction. I find myself hoping that the English will win. It's all very strange, exciting, and apparently based on reality. Not one wardrobe present. 

A part of Whitehead's book is an examination of the relationship between Æthelflæd and her husband, Æthelred (don't you dare tell me that the Old Norse names are difficult to memorise, she's also an aunt to an Æthelstan). Those are my favourite parts, humanising the rulers, who for once do something else than going to battles, leading the battles, then returning from battles. It's not a fast-paced-action-thriller-murder-mystery-with-Vikings, it's a delight to be savoured rather than swallowed. Looking forward to finding out whether the ending is going to be what I want it to be and I don't care about the fact that history has written that ending over a thousand years ago.

I was way too young when I first met the beautiful mind of Julio Cortázar. I must have been ten or so, going through the entire Southern-American section of our local library in alphabetical order (this is not a joke) when I bumped into Hopscotch. I read it three times before returning to the library and casually asking – for a friend – what would happen if someone were to lose a book. The librarian made it very clear that she would not be pleased at all and I had to say goodbye to my new weird friends, then scavenge the second-hand book stores until I found a copy.

Hopscotch was magical realism before anybody came up with the phrase "magical realism". It's a book that has extra chapters you don't have to read, ones that present a side quest... story, I meant story. It has an ending, after which you can continue reading. A bit like "choose your adventure", except you're choosing your own novel instead. One of its extra chapters was later expanded into another book, 62: A Model Kit, because of course it would be. Those two books have shown me that my idea of a "novel", something that starts with page one and ends with the words "THE END" was not the only way to approach writing.

I re-read Hopscotch and 62: A Model Kit on yearly basis and keep finding new layers I had to grow into understanding. Experimental novels often tend to be unbearable, experiments for the sake of being an ~*artisté*~ and ~*visionáiré*~. Hopscotch, no matter which chapters you choose to read and whether you decide to end when told "this is the end" or read further, has dramatically upped my writing and reading standards. When I grow up I want to be Julio Cortázar. Except not dead.

Thanks for dropping by, Bjorn and giving us your selections. Hopscotch is a new one for me and sounds most interesting!

Remember, if you want to take part I’ll post your entry. Just drop me a line on Twitter or via email to dave@dpwoolliscroft.com and I’ll send you some simple instructions. 

... you can get the first three books of The Wildfire Cycle for less than $4/£4. That's less than the cost of Kingshold! There couldn't be a better time to pick up the series and have your reading for the rest of the year all planned out.

You can pick them up here.

Today, on First, Last Everything,  we have Jacob Sannox. And not only is he an author, he's obviously someone who doesn't like to follow the rules.

Jacob Sannox is a writer living in Bedfordshire, England. He is the author of Dark Oak: Book One of the Dark Oak Chronicles, an epic fantasy series, and The Ravenmaster’s Revenge: The Return of King Arthur, set in 2019 and many different time periods throughout England’s history.

Knight Errant, the follow-up to Dark Oak, is nearing completion, and Agravain’s Escape, the next in the Return of King Arthur series, is well underway.

Dark Oak was a semi-finalist in SPFBO 2018, and The Ravenmaster’s Revenge is currently a semi-finalist in the ongoing SPFBO 2019.

As will become apparent, he is incapable of following instructions. He once set fire to spaghetti while trying to boil it.

I’ve honestly tried to think if there was anything before The Hobbit, but I’ve come up with nothing. The Hobbit was my first. Mum read it to me when I was little, putting on the voices and imbuing the story with fairytale magic that has never left me. It tells the story of any one of us, expertly normal, setting out into a world of wonder, a world of possibility, a world of dark powers and enduring heroes. It represented climbing out from under my duvet, sneaking out of my safe suburban family home and setting out for adventure. I have never lost that sense of spine-tingling anticipation at the prospect of finding that which lies...just beyond.

I remember the voices she adopted for the characters. I remember how I blended my idea of Bag End with that of Mole’s home in the Wind in the Willows, so much so that when I watched Peter Jackson’s iterations, I realised just how bare my own take had been on Bag End. I remember the pencil sketch on the book cover and my fascination with Tolkien’s initials. I remember my erroneous ideas of what the author looked like, thinking he was still alive. I remember listening to the audio version on cassette tape in the car on the way to Scotland for our annual family holiday while Dad complained that something had gone wrong with the recording, thinking that the voices overlapped by mistake, when really it was just the chaos of Bilbo and the dwarves at Bag End.

I can feel the wonder building in me even as I cast my mind back. The glee. The fear.

I can still barely see, trees forming a tunnel above me as I pass through Mirkwood, the sound of elves feasting and singing just audible to my right. I must not look, must not step off the path.

Tolkien’s legendarium is my everything. Yes, I know I already chose The Hobbit, and yes, My Everything is supposed to go last, but, well...what are you going to do about it? ~rolls up sleeves and leans on the bar, muscles bulging and handlebar moustache twitching.

I came late to the wider Tolkien legendarium. I read the first few pages of The Lord of the Rings, saw something about a Bilbo rip-off called Frodo and immediately dismissed the book as ‘just a sequel’.

Shame on me. I watched Fellowship of the Ring and realised I had wasted my entire life. I skipped school and read The Lord of the Rings under a blanket, lying on my bedroom floor pretending I was in The Neverending Story, minus the heartbreaking equine interludes.

We had a complicated relationship, the LOTR and I. I loved the Fellowship, but utterly misinterpreted the Rohirrim in The Two Towers. It was only when I saw The Two Towers movie, I realised I had been reading way too fast so I could go to school the next day and in so doing, I had missed several important details and many nuances. I read it again, slower. I tend to listen to LOTR once a year, initially carting around a 46 CD set in my car and then, mercifully, technology moved on.

I read The Silmarillion commuting to my university in London, sometimes reduced to sitting on the floor of the train with my book on my knees. I fell in love. Yes, I couldn’t pronounce any of the names, but I was entranced by the wider mythology, learning of how the characters and places from The Hobbit and the LOTR linked back to people and events from thousands of years before. The audio version helped me with both name pronunciation and driving my audiobook-loathing girlfriend insane while in the car. You can’t listen to country music all of the time, my love...

My last is not going to be a book, it’s going to be an epiphany. Are you ready?

Tolkien is not the only person who wrote books set in made-up worlds. Shocked? I know, right?

It turns out there is a whole fantasy genre!

Honestly, I have been a monogamous reader and watcher for too long.

“No, I cannot watch Star Wars because I am a Trekkie, and Star Trek is the only space related show I can watch. No, I haven’t read that - I only read Tolkien! Why? Because Middle Earth is the other world that I believe in.”

Although I have always written fantasy and indulged in fantasy roleplaying, both Dungeons & Dragons (recently) and LARP (for about twenty years), I have always chosen to read other genres (horror, Napoleonic fiction etc) and rely on Tolkien and my imagination when it came to fantasy.

It is only since I published my first book, Dark Oak, and I became aware of the fantastic community of authors online that I decided to give some of the other books in my genre a try.

I am so glad that I did. There is so much out there, indie and traditionally published, though I am sure you are all well aware of that. A particular discovery, is that although I like my worlds dark or at least, I appreciate the darker aspects, I like humour and satire in fantasy.

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames holds a special place in my heart. I cried when I finished it. Honestly. I am that ridiculous. I was in a hotel room in Newquay, Cornwall, inconsolable.

Robin Hobb, where have you been all my life? If I start reading her work, I can’t stop.

Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings was so immersive I couldn’t start a new book for several days after reaching the end.

Brandon Sanderson, Mark Lawrence, KT Davies, Ed McDonald...the list goes on.

I’m currently reading A Ritual of Bone by Lee C Conley, Assassin’s Quest by Robin Hobb and listening to last year’s SPFBO winner, Orconomics by J. Zachary Pike, which has been amusing and addictive! Shrewd and well observed, Mr Pike. Also, is technically my last.

I’ve been sitting in Bag End for thirty-five years, smoking my pipe and sneaking just another cake from the plate, but now I have stepped out of the door and realised there is so much more fantasy to embrace, as well as other worlds to love. I can’t wait to hit the road.

It goes ever on and on, you know.

What a great entry, Jacob. Wonderful selections, even if they are in the wrong order!

Remember, if you want to take part I’ll post your entry. Just drop me a line on Twitter or via email to dave@dpwoolliscroft.com and I’ll send you some simple instructions. 

Friday Fantasy First, Last, Everything! This time it's author William Ray.

William Ray is the author of the Tales of the Verin Empire series, and his debut novel Gedlund was named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2016. You can find his work on Amazon and you can find the author at his website and he's (far too frequently) on Twitter @VerinEmpire

My honest first was The Hobbit. My stepfather helped me read it when I was very young. He was a big fan, and he brought me into it with a book that had big colorful images from the cartoon. It helped inspire a lifelong love of reading, and particularly of fantasy stories. I fumbled through Lord of the Rings as well, but it was years before I really understood that story.

Plenty has been said about The Hobbit though, it’s brilliant, and has earned its spot in history, so I feel like I should take a moment to give credit to someone whose praises I see sung less often, the great Rose Estes. In the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, she wrote a series of game books similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure series, called Endless Quest. They were, in essence, single-player D&D games.

In 1982 videogames were mostly limited to eating dots while chasing ghosts through mazes, Harry Potter was nowhere on the horizon, and D&D proper would not have crossed my path until I was older, but I was right in the target market for her bestselling Endless Quest books. They were a version of The Hobbit I could direct myself! I read each of them dozens of times, trying to come up with the right combination of successes and failures that would still reach the end to build the most dramatic iteration of the story.

Those books were like the story-telling equivalent of the Lego system. From those I graduated to D&D and other table-top games, but I’ve never forgotten the early excitement of arranging those pieces the way I wanted. They helped me see such games not as a matter of winning and losing, but as a way of telling stories, and that provided the early experience of building stray fantastic elements into proper tales of adventure.

My most recently finished book was Benedict Patrick’s They Mostly Come Out At Night. While I had seen him rack up SPFBO wins for his amazing covers, I’ll admit I was a bit sketchy on the premise of his Yarnsworld series. I wasn’t entirely sure it had nothing to do with knitting, if I’m honest!

It had nothing to do with knitting.

The setting was a sort of mythic fairy-tale world, where everything feels both grounded yet ephemerally legendary. I highly recommend reading the free short story, And They Were Never Heard From Again first, because I feel like it gives a certain additional perspective on the setting that really enhances the novel.

They Mostly Come Out At Night was exceptionally good. It was fast paced, and really hooked me into the action. It felt like a childhood story, but with an added layer of sophistication that gave it depth and maturity. Everything in it is sort of dreamy and familiar, but with dark undercurrents.

From a writer’s perspective, there was a lot of great craftsmanship in the story. There were a few priorities I might have weighted differently – I definitely would have slowed down some parts, but I also recognize that my own aesthetics of pacing are not for everyone. It both makes me want to construct fairy-tales of my own, and despair because I’m not sure I could ever conjure that trance-like atmosphere that makes Patrick’s book work so marvelously well.

Memory is treacherous. There are countless brilliant stories whose premises spring to mind, yet whose titles and due credit elude me. I haven’t been on Goodreads that long, yet half the titles in my reading list are barely remembered. There’s no singular anchor in that sea of titles I can point to as the most tremendous, or most influential. I’ve loved China Miéville’s work and think Perdido Street Station is a must-read for fans of fantasy, as well as Kraken.  Felix Gilman’s The Half-Made World also struck me as a brilliantly odd piece. My love, for literature at least, is an inconstant thing.

Currently, I think I am most strongly enamored with Josiah Bancroft’s Books of Babel, which begins with the brilliant Senlin Ascends. It’s my go-to recommendation to everyone I know who loves fantasy these days.

It’s not a fantasy that’s heavy on magic, or myth, or monsters, but rather an intricate world of strangeness. The plot is compelling, and feels like a familiar experience while also being unique and rendered alien by its setting. His prose is brilliantly poetic, and I often find I have to pause while reading to admire it – or sometime curse jealously at some seemingly perfect turn of phrase I wish I’d thought of myself.

There are three books in the series so far, and I think it’s planned for a total of four? I want more, and dread conclusions, so I’m happy to see the story take its time. Maybe Bancroft will get to volume four, end things and then keep going. I won’t object.

Excellent suggestions, William! Lovely to see Senlin Ascends on here as it is my go to recommendation for anyone who has not read it.

Remember, if you want to take part I’ll post your entry. Just drop me a line on Twitter or via email to dave@dpwoolliscroft.com and I’ll send you some simple instructions. 

We are having a run of authors right now on First, Last, Everything. This time it's Nick Larter.

Nick Larter lives and works in Ennis, County Clare. In a career criss-crossing four continents, he has worked as a professional consultant in areas as wide-ranging as moon-base design, information security, chemical weapons inspection, cosmonaut training, border control and orbital mechanics. A lifelong science fiction and fantasy fan, gamer and convention-goer, he began writing fiction in 2010. His other hobbies include chess, cooking with seaweed, insects and wild mushrooms, and vanishing into the nooks and crannies of the Burren. His first published book is a new collection of fairy stories for adults, called Irish Tales. He inhabits Twitter @thremnir.

As I’m writing this, I’m looking at the description of what First, Last, Everything is about that Dave posted on the FB page.  It’s helping me narrow down options, as it makes clear firstly that we’re looking for a fantasy book and secondly that it’s one that I bought.

I was reading and buying adult titles by age 12 or 13, but it was almost exclusively SF: Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Verne, Wells.  On the fantasy side I’d read all of Alan Garner’s and Tove Jansson’s stuff, as well as Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by then, but they were all loaners or library books.  I’m 99.99% certain that the first fantasy book I bought with my precious hoarded pocket money, aged 13 or so, was E.R. Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros.

Even today, it’s considered a difficult book by some, being written in Eddison’s own particular brand of cod-Elizabethan.  But at that age, with a kid’s quickness of mind, and having already been force-fed a trencher-load of Shakespeare at school, I just dived right in, sink or swim.  I swam delightfully.

Eddison is the third corner of that triptych of great UK fantasy writers whose careers straddled WW II, alongside Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.  I’m astonished that today his works have still not been adapted for TV or for the movies, since in that way, any possible language barrier could be removed for an appreciative modern audience.

The Worm Ouroboros is a book I’ve re-read many times since.  It’s a joy.  It’s has the simplest of plots, telling of the war between Witchland and Demonland, and is full of epic quests, battles, and larger-than-life characters, the hook being [SPOILERS] that the victors at the end, bored with having no-one to fight anymore, resurrect their enemies so that they can do it all over again.  This is where the title comes in of course, the dragon biting on its tail being a symbol for eternity, or for death and rebirth. 

It would have been another pretty strong candidate for my Everything choice.

My choice here is The Dryad by Justin Huntly McCarthy.  I say choice in the sense that I’ve read a couple of novella length fantasies since (Alexander Grin’s feelgood, fairytale-like Crimson Sails, and Jen Sheng, M.M. Prishvin’s semi-autobiographical magic-realist fable, set in Manchuria after the Russo-Japanese war), but I wanted to go for a full length work.

The review of The Dryad on my blog, begins thus:-

One suspects that there are few historical fantasy novels set in the fourteenth century Duchy of Athens, but this is not the most surprising thing about Justin Huntly McCarthy’s accomplished and engaging work, The Dryad. First of all, though written by an Irishman, and with a publication date (1905) at the height of the Celtic Revival, there is not a single Celtic allusion anywhere in the book. Secondly, and even more intriguing, is the great principal character that McCarthy conjures up: the eponymous heroine, the immortal Argathona – one third Wonder Woman, one third Arwen Undómiel, yet pre-dating either by three decades, give or take, and one third Lyanna Stark – it just goes to show that there truly is nothing new under the sun.

You can read the rest of my review here: https://thremnir.wordpress.com/2019/0...

I had initially intended to go with E.R. Eddison’s Zimiamvian trilogy here which I’m always pushing, to anyone who’ll listen, as “Game of Thrones meets Downton Abbey.”  But then I realised that a work by Eddison was going to be my ‘First’ so I’ve decided to choose something different, to keep a bit of variety. Candidates included George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes, and Deirdre by James Stephens.  But I’m going to go for John Crowley’s Little, Big - a once towering behemoth that seems to have become a little forgotten of late.

Little, Big’s urban fantasy type theme of people living at the boundary between our world and the faerie realm and interacting with them, seems commonplace today but it was utterly groundbreaking when it came out in 1981.  In a fictionalised New York (city and state), the book chronicles the story of several generations of the Drinkwater family, their country house of Edgewood and the urban Old Law Farm, built on a city block, against the background of a power struggle between a faerie instauration and the second coming of Frederick Barbarossa.

I’ve read the book several times – you always find something new.  The book also popularised the idea of memory mansions, which became, as a result, a staple topic for con panels in the mid 1980’s. The scene with the changeling trudging up the stairs towards the fireworks store, while snacking on a handful of red hot coals from the fireplace, scared the living daylights out of me, and still does.

Or if we’re sticking with a single book, the opener, Mistress of Mistresses.

I think this is a first; three selections that I have not heard of before. Nick work, Nick! And, I have to say that all three covers are beautiful!

Remember, if you want to take part I’ll post your entry. Just drop me a line on Twitter or via email to dave@dpwoolliscroft.com and I’ll send you some simple instructions. 

It's Tuesday and time for another First, Last, Everything. And this time it's author PS Livingstone.

PS Livingstone is the author of the contemporary epic fantasy trilogy, The Transcendent Saga. She is working on the second installment of the series and a sequel to Dragons, a short story published Bard of the Isles. PS is also an occasional blogger (when time and sanity allow), avid reader and film buff. When not writing, she can be found pottering in the allotment, torturing young minds or drinking coffee. PS lives in Glasgow with her four cats and infinitely patient boyfriend.

I can’t recall a time when I didn’t love fantasy books. From a young age, my mum read to me, mostly Roald Dahl, doing all the voices and completely suckering me into the worlds he created. The first book I remember reading on my own was The Hobbit, followed closely by The Lord of the Rings. I’d probably read loads of books before that, but it had the most profound impact.

It was the first week of the summer holidays and, as is often the case in Scotland, the rain had descended. After three days, my mum was at her wits’ end and thrust a copy of The Hobbit at me. A day later and I’d finished it, so she handed me a sandwich, The Lord of the Rings and directed me to the sofa. It was another five days before I surfaced.

I know it isn’t original, nor will I be the last fantasy author to say JRR Tolkien made them fall in love with the genre, but his worldbuilding, attention to detail and wide cast of characters just captured my imagination and heart. I even read all the songs when I first read it … yes, I skip them now.

The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso isn’t the last book I read but it’s the last fantasy book I read, and I’m keeping in line with the theme. YA isn’t usually my thing, however, I was tempted in by the reviews and I’m glad I let myself be persuaded.

It’s not an original story, but the author tells it through an unfamiliar protagonist, putting a new slant on an old tale. The political landscape plays a major role in the book, as does magic (of course), and Melissa Caruso unfurls the details in an organic and intriguing way. Her worldbuilding is top notch and the wide cast of characters all bring something different to the table. It ticked a lot of boxes for me, including tackling issues of race, gender and sexual orientation without it feeling forced.

I haven’t checked out books 2&3 yet, but they’re definitely on my list.

This is a tough one, partly because I’ve read so many amazing books over the years and partly because I’m tempted to say Tolkien again. But I’m not going to. For me, the cherry has to go to Neil Gaiman for The Sandman.

Gaiman’s graphic novel series is the epitome of fantasy for me. Not only does he say so much with so little, the sheer volume of characters, history and detail that’s gone into building the world Morpheus inhabits is breathtaking. Dream isn’t necessarily the most likeable character – his sister Death is more appealing in many ways – but his complexity draws you in. If I had to sum him up, he’s a creature of purpose, honour and grace and he holds a special place in my soul (and my dreams).

Old, traditional tales have a way of winding themselves in Neil Gaiman’s work, and I love how he spins and stretches them into something new, examining them from totally different perspectives. Every time I read The Sandman, it’s fresh for me, finding a tidbit I missed before or taking a deeper meaning. If I could crawl inside Neil Gaiman’s mind, I’d never leave.

Wonderful selections, and our first graphic novel pick. Sandman really is one of those books that shows you something new every time you read it.

Remember, if you want to take part I’ll post your entry. Just drop me a line on Twitter or via email to dave@dpwoolliscroft.com and I’ll send you some simple instructions. 

More First, Last, Everything. And this time it's author Vincent E. M. Thorn.

Vincent E. M Thorn is a fantasy author based out of Atlanta. At time of writing, Thorn is currently working on the next book in the Dreamscape Voyager Trilogy, as well as other projects to be announced later. In addition to his love of books, he is a lover and collector of art and music.

I was going to go a different way with this, at first; it would be very accurate to say the first book I ever enjoyed reading was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (I am a dirty American, so I didn't hear its proper title until years after I had acclimatized to the American title). JK Rowling is responsible for making me realize books can be wonderful, and set me on the path. However, while it's possible that if not for the adventures at Hogwarts I might very well have become one of those troglodytes who boasts about how they haven't read a book since high school, I instead want to address a different first: my first Epic Fantasy.

When I was thirteen, I read Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, the first book in his much beloved and genre-defining saga, the Wheel of Time. To be perfectly honest, that first book was a little bit of a climb, but it had such a grand scope and epic scale that always manage to reel me in when at that point in my life I may have given up on any other book with such a steep learning curve. Rowling may have introduced me to books and fantasy, but Jordan introduced me to my favorite sub-genre.

And it changed me.

I had already decided a couple years earlier that I was going to be an author. However, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time was the whetstone that sharpened my mind and my style. Other authors have impacted my style, of course, and continue to impact me as is only natural, but Eye of the World was the bedrock on which I truly began to cultivate my understanding of what storytelling could be.

Yesterday (at time of writing) I finished The Warrior Moon, by K Arsenault Rivera, the third book in the Ascendant series (following after The Tiger's Daughter and the Phoenix Empress). I have to say, it was a rather satisfying finale, even if the last four pages seemed a little too neat and tidy for the preceding bloodbaths and hardships. There is a stylistic choice utilized in this series that I absolutely love when it's done right, but it seems to be very rarely employed because when it's done wrong, it can destroy your story: In many stories I read, the author often feels the need to justify why magic happens or works a certain way, especially if it's core to the story. Rivera, however, simply decided the magic is. Why are these characters divine? Because someone had to be. Why does the magic do this? Because it does. And she made it work, creating a sense of wonder that encapsulated not only the magic itself, but the world that was touched by it. Her characters were an excellent balance of being consistently flawed without being obnoxious self-parodies about it, and through out it, I really cared for most of the characters from start to finish. 

This kind of question is almost a war crime. No matter which answer I give, I feel like I am betraying others I love. Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Brian Staveley and Brandon Sanderson all have touched my heart in so many ways, and are all authors that, whenever they release a new book in a series, I will drop whatever I'm doing to read it.

But I am going to address the Song of Shattered Sands series, Bradley P. Beaulieu, and not just because I know Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive has already been addressed in one of these First/Last/Everythings (much as I love it). This series starts with the Twelve Kings in Sharakhai. The titular city, Sharakhai, is ruled by the eponymous Twelve Kings, immortals who have governed the desert city for four hundred years, as it was bequeathed to them by the gods. Our main heroine, Cedaminh Ayanesh’ava, wants revenge for the kings killing her mother. But that classic summation doesn't do this story justice.

This story has just about everything I love in spades. For a start, Arabian Nights is one of my favorite aesthetics, and female warrior protagonists are probably my absolute favorite archetypes, and add in a rogue's wit and I cannot resist. A factions within factions of villains who run the gamut from the noble demon trope, to the evil by association, to truly deplorable and unrepentant. Shades of moral grey. And perhaps the most important part of any epic fantasy: The magic. Like I touched on when discussing The Warrior Moon, I love when an author isn't afraid to simply let magic do its thing without feeling the need to justify it. Not to say there are no explanations, of course, but like Rivera above, Beaulieu trusts that readers can accept a certain amount of 'A Wizard Did It' to create a more wonderful story.

The characters are wonderful no matter where they fall on the moral spectrum (and chances are they move along it), and the actual story is always progressing, and the status quo changes twice per book, which keeps everything fresh and intriguing.

Fans of the authors I listed will likely enjoy this one as well, cannot recommend highly enough.

Excellent entries, Vincent!

Remember, if you want to take part I’ll post your entry. Just drop me a line on Twitter or via email to dave@dpwoolliscroft.com and I’ll send you some simple instructions. 

I've got quite a backlog of First, Last, Everything entries at the moment, so they are going to come thick and fast. And this time it's author Phil Williams.

Phil Williams is the author of the Ordshaw urban fantasy thrillers and a host of other assorted words. He has just finished the final chapter in the opening trilogy, The Violent Fae, leaving him poised to change directions in new and absurd ways. Phil lives on the south coast of the UK with his wife and a very fluffy dog, and splits his time between imagining nightmares and producing educational material for English learners. He can be found at www.phil-williams.co.uk or http://twitter.com/fantasticphil

(He doesn't mention it, but he has a new book out on Tuesday).

I remember very clearly the first novel I read, circa age 8, and how proud it made me to think, I’ve read a proper book, a whole long book, all on my own. That book was The Saga of Erik the Viking by Terry Jones, and though I remember that pride, and that it was entertaining, I don’t remember much else about it. But I guess that historical fantasy setting and a balance of adventure and humour hit the mark, as I’ve festered in those areas since (a good primer for my subsequent love of Discworld, for starters).

There was another book I read around that time that I recall better, however, and may have even read first. That book was You’re Thinking About Doughnuts, and is probably even more indicative of where I’d end up, with its hefty dose of fantasy in a contemporary setting and a lot of dry humour. It’s probably little known now, but it was essentially Night in the Museum a few decades before that film existed. A boy left alone in a museum befriends a skeleton and a spacesuit and other objects that randomly come to life. Enough to make you believe in magic, yes?

Without these two books, would there be no Ordshaw? Who knows…

I’ve just got through a horror binge for October, and the fact that the last one I finished is a sequel to one I read earlier the same month should say something. The Invasion by Peadar O’Guilin is the conclusion of the story started in The Call; they’re both wildly imaginative survival horrors giving a really unique twist to fairies stirring alongside the modern world. Quick-moving and laced with disturbing ideas, they start with the overall concept that in an utterly isolated Ireland, everyone disappears for 3 minutes at some point in their adolescence. The disappearance lasts 24 hours for the taken. Those 24 hours are deeply horrible.

The books follow Nessa, who has barely functioning legs, as she grows up in a survival college, juggling the dual difficulties of the terrifying promise of fairy abduction and the usual qualms of being in school with a bunch of bullies.

Expect shocks, violence, twisted imagery and more! I didn’t realise until partway through that these books are actually aimed at the YA market, as I’ve read plenty tamer adult horror. If you’re into this sort of thing, they’re superb.

I’ve been inspired and shaped by so many fantastic books it’s hard to pick just one as the greatest. But honestly, if I’m ever asked for a best of all time, my mind always instinctively goes one place: George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Which is a pretty surprising place when you consider the bulk of my reading is fantasy, crime and thriller, with only occasional forays into Victorian societal dramas.

But Middlemarch touched me in a special way when I read it, to the degree that I wrote a Goodreads review which still sends me occasional notifications about people “Like”ing it.

What I took from Middlemarch was a deep appreciation for how fascinating a wide and accurate representation of humanity’s foibles can be. It’s a book steeped in empathy, offering a reasoned understanding of even the least likeable characters, which inspired me not just in the realms of what’s possible with great fiction, but also in the realms of understanding people in general.

There were times during reading Middlemarch (circa age 20, reading it on a beach, for fun) when I was laughing at myself for being knee-deep in the minor dramas of provincial life stretched over thousands of pages (this awful cover perhaps reflects that sentiment), but I couldn’t stop. There was something too fundamentally meaningful, and perfectly realised, about every page.

Maybe that’s just me, and it was a case of right time right place, but it’s not a feeling I’ll ever forget. It’s a feeling I’ve had recreated a few times since with other great books – most recently I’ve found Shirley Jackson giving me similar swoons – but Middlemarch, I suppose, got there first.

Interesting choices, Phil! I'm not sure Middlemarch quite fits in with the rules of the entry, but then again, I'm all for breaking rules anyway.

So remember, if you want to take part, whether you follow the rules or not, I’ll post your entry. Just drop me a line on Twitter or via email to dave@dpwoolliscroft.com and I’ll send you some simple instructions. 

Here's another First, Last, Everything. And this time it's author Jaime Castle.

Jaime Castle hails from the great nation of Texas where he lives with his wife and two children and enjoys anything creative. A self-proclaimed comic book nerd and artist, he spends what little free time he can muster with his art tablet.

Jaime co-created and co-authored The Buried Goddess Saga, which includes the IPPY award-winning Web of Eyes.

I’ve been a reader as long as I can remember. I have a vivid recollection of having Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton taken away from me in fifth grade as a punishment for reading in class. It was devastating, as I was nearing the end of the climax of the book. Sure, I’d seen the movie, but as any reader will tell you, movies rarely stack up to the books. That said, I read his work veraciously, moving onto Sphere, and Congo, and others. 

In addition to reading, I was also a video game fiend, spending in upwards of ten to twelve hours a day in the online world of Ultima Online. To this day, I have friends I’d met playing that game as Sir Odemus Leigh. One such friend was a neighbor named Alex. He was young than I was, and I was dating his sister. There’s a unique aspect to dating your next door neighbor. I think it’s every guy’s dream—however, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be once you break up. Hah!

Alex, knowing my love of reading and fantasy, introduced me to someone, who soon became one of my all-time best friends. His name is Drizzt Do’Urden, and he his a dark elf from Menzoberranzan.

Thus, The Crystal Shard, book one in the Icewind Dale Trilogy becomes my FIRST. It was, and remains, my number one Fantasy pick. I’ve recently re-read it, and although my tastes have changed, Bob’s (RA Salvatore) writing holds up splendidly over the years.

As an author myself, I don’t have a ton of time to read anymore. My rule is, generally speaking, if I have time to read, I have time to write. However, that said, I believe every author needs to be a readers as well. In today’s world, Audiobooks have allowed for a new way to digest stories. I’m a huge audiophile. I listened to upwards of 100 books a year since I can listen while I cook, clean, drive, run, shop, and do yard work, amongst other things.

My LAST listen was Sworn Guardian by T.L. Branson.

Unless you’ve been hiding in the crypts beneath Winterfell, you’ve, no doubt, seen the newest sub-genre to take Fantasy by storm.

LitRPG or GameLit is a book told like a video game. I’ve not become an addict like many LitRPG readers, but I have found myself listening to quite a few.

This one was unique in that it is very reminiscent of Final Fantasy VII, arguably the greatest of the FF franchise. I can still remember my birthday in 1997, having just received a copy of FFVII for Playstation. I spent days playing that game. I recall naming Tifa (since you were allowed to rename the characters) after a girl I had a crush on. She will remain nameless for sake of any unforeseen embarrassment.

Sworn Guardian did an amazing job recapturing this time in my life, and for that, I give it five glowing stars. There were some predictable moments, some cliches and tropes, but let’s face it—we all tend to lean on these things at times. In this case, it is especially forgivable as it is an unabashed attempt to stir the readers emotions toward the nostalgia of those great games.

I am tempted to go with the staples of fantasydom—Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, or any other series that all readers of this blog would instantly agree with. However, as worthy as those books are, the hope of a blog like this (I’d assume) is to turn readers toward new endeavors.

My choice for EVERYTHING is a series I return to often, especially on audio. Although the first few audiobooks were rough in quality, they are beyond worth powering through to get to the remaining dozen.

Narrated by James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel), The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher is a series I can’t recommend enough. It has absolutely everything I look for in a book (series). I love books written in first person with a strong protagonist voice. This absolutely has that. It’s funny, snarky, inventive and creative. It’s deep, yet light enough to enjoy without overthinking or being bogged down by details and nonsense.

The Dresden Files never gets old.

Thanks very much, Jaime.

Remember, if you want to take part I’ll post your entry. Just drop me a line on Twitter or via email to dave@dpwoolliscroft.com and I’ll send you some simple instructions.