A. Murtagh's Blog

As in, I have read nothing. Nada. I haven't finished a novel since August.

For a writer, this is obviously unusual. I have started about four novels, and got over half-way through one book, and I just...haven't found myself invested. I've been spending most of my spare time either writing or catching up with my third parent, television. I'd forgotten how much I used to love television.

I don't know; maybe the internet has eaten away at my attention span. I just feel like I've read everything before. The Goblin Emperor, one of the most widely acclaimed fantasy novels of 2015, made me want to throw it out the window quicker than you can say 'canst'. At least TV demands less time from you, and to be honest I feel as if there may actually be more originality in television at the moment than in the novels I've been coming across lately.

I'm not worried - these phases of falling out of love with reading happen to me occasionally, much as I love writing. But are we really in a golden age of telly and a dark age of literature? Or am I just getting old and jaded (and lazy)? I honestly can't tell.

I've always been a bit of an art skeptic. I like impressionism, because it conveys moods so well - almost like music - but beyond that... I feel 'we have photos now'. I'm sure a lot of people would say I'm missing the point entirely, but traditional 2D art is just something I don't 'get' and have little desire to. The exception to this is fan-art.

Because we don't have photos. We can't snap a picture of the beautiful images in our minds when we're reading our favourite scenes. So one of my many fun things to do when I get entranced by a new book or series is to do a bit of hunting on DeviantArt. And I thought I'd share some of my favourites, because they make me want to cry (good tears).

[Warning: mild spoilers ahead for Realm of the Elderlings and The Name of the Wind and moderate spoilers for Wheel of Time.]

Let's start with an old friend...for basically everyone. Harry Potter. You can find plenty of images of teenage Harry looking contemplative, in varying degrees of Daniel Radcliffity, and thousands of very lifelike Emma Watsons, but that's not what I'm going to show you.

Instead, I want to show you this. A pencil sketch by DeviantArt user gredandfeorge. (Apologies I can't insert the pics directly btw - it would end up mutilating them.) I saw this and it reminded me, "Oh yeah. They were children to begin with. Before all of the 'snogging' and death and prophecy, there were chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans and games of wizards' chess." I think this sketch perfectly captures the strange mix of cosiness, innocence and distant menace that was the early books. Hermione has the look of a world-saver in training, worried about something way too big for a girl so small.

Next, a series very close to my heart and very heavy on the shelves of every fantasy section - The Wheel of Time. And really, there is only one image to show, isn't there? Dragonmount.com made it a theme if I recall correctly. Tarmon Gaidon by dem888. I remember how excited for the last book this image made me. The three Ta'Veren and their three awesome banners. The grass growing around Rand, the gathering storm with the light breaking through, and the multitudes of soldiers behind them. Almost perfect. My one nitpick would be that Perrin looks like an overweight thirty-five year-old. But whatever; it's still amazing.

And now for something completely different - The Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix. Though they're YA fantasy and have been out a long time, I encourage any fantasy fans who haven't read them to give them a try - they certainly stuck with me. One of the main reasons for that would be their utterly unique atmosphere. It's not something that's easy to describe, but this portrait of Lirael by Laura Tolton captures it nicely. The Old Kingdom world is one of sparsely drawn lines and pervasive mystery. Cold, foggy days at stony streams. Unease, evil, and yet a quirky innocence. I don't know why, but somehow, I feel this portrait of an uncertain heroine portrays all that and more.

The next two pieces I wanted to share are based on the same work. I could probably narrow it down to one if I wanted, but I don't, because it's my current obsession and it's just had a new release. If you've read my previous posts, you'll know I'm talking about the Realm of the Elderlings world by Robin Hobb.

There is an inordinate amount of beautiful fan-art for this fandom. Probably the main reason for that is that the books contain what is maybe the biggest ship-tease in current fantasy, and yup, it's slash. But aside from that, the character of The Fool is just the sort of captivating character people like to draw. Hobb, or rather 'Fitz', tends to describe him in fairly loving detail, and portraits like this show that that detail doesn't go to waste. I mean...just look at it. It's a beautiful picture even if you don't know anything about The Fool, but if you do, you'll probably agree that it captures his character as well as simply physical beauty. Determinedly mysterious, not exactly human, and with a tendency to hide his real feelings in amongst constant coquettish teasing. Alluring and always a little out of reach, for Fitz. In fact, the artist might as well have called this picture 'alluring and always a little out of reach'.

The second picture is, unsurprisingly, of Fitz and the Fool, and illustrates a particular scene. It's the emotion that made me include this one, and the fact that this artist's Fitz looks almost exactly like the Fitz I imagine. Fitz has just pushed the Fool to reveal his true feelings for him, which Fitz regards with disgust, and makes sure the Fool knows it. The flowers the Fool clutches are something he believed to be a gift from Fitz, but turned out to be from someone else. The Fool's face in this sketch is filled with his heartbreak and humiliation, while Fitz has the bullish countenance of one who often comes to regret his temper.

Finally, one of the 'hottest' series in fantasy at the moment (probably the hottest, next to Song of Ice and Fire), The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. And I have to say, quality artwork for these books is lacking, which is a surprise. It's mostly just uninspiring pictures of Kvothe in various cloaks. But then I found this picture by Carlos Pardo. It depicts a young Kvothe in his hiding place during his homeless years in Tarbean. This picture doesn't exactly blow my mind with its beauty, and it's got some kind of weird composite stuff going on, but I included it because it was so different from the others. It took me a while to even see Kvothe at first. He's not striding masterfully with his sword at his hip or entertaining crowds with his lute; he's tucked in a corner, an insignificant part of the city's backdrop, trying to go unnoticed by the unseen people below. It's easy to forget that in striving to make a name for himself, Kvothe is mostly just trying to get as far away from that hidey-hole as he can.

And thus concludes my double-feature on fan creativity. I hope you've enjoyed looking at some pretty pictures with me, and will join me for more next time when I look at the good, the bad and the hilarious in fantasy book covers.

Ah the glorious, bizarre, furtive underworld that is fanfiction. An opportunity for fans to write and read Scenes They'd Like To See, both probable and...less probable. But what do the writers of the original works feel about it?

This post was inspired by my recent love affair with the Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb. Browsing around, I discovered that Hobb is vehemently against fanfiction. You can read her explanation here, but the gist is that she feels it violates her creative copyright as a writer, even if no monetary gain is involved. A fair proportion of the RotE fanfic does seem to be of the 'the stupid author ended it wrong so here's my version' variety, and it's easy to see why she finds that to be an insulting use of her creative work. The venom of these fans is pretty astonishing, considering that if it wasn't for Hobb, they wouldn't have the books or the characters they love so much at all. Perhaps she was simply too good for her own good in that regard.

Hobb may be among the most actively opposed to fanfiction, but many other major writers have a lukewarm relationship with it, at best. JK Rowling for example has said that she's glad to have inspired people to write and be creative, but that she's a bit disturbed by some of the common themes in the fanfic, such as the Draco Malfoy obsession. Stephanie Meyer is okay with it, but finds the effort involved confusing, and thinks these people should just be writing their own books. George RR Martin is very against it, as he says views his characters as almost his children and hates to see others meddling in his creative work: " “My characters are my children … I don’t want people making off with them, thank you. Even people who say they love my children. I’m sure that’s true, I don’t doubt the sincerity of the affection, but still… No one gets to abuse the people of Westeros but me.” Robert Jordan of Wheel of Time fame viewed it as a violation of copyright, plain and simple.

So, yeah. Confusion or mistrust from those authors, for the most part. And I have to say, I think this may partly be a generational thing. Most of those authors had never read or even heard of fanfic before their works inspired it. They never dreamed that people would be sharing original stories derived from their books, and they don't understand why it's assumed they would be okay with it. I am of a different generation. Being in my twenties, I read fanfiction of my favourite books as a teenager, and always believed that if I ever had very successful books, there would obviously be fanfiction about them. I would take it as the highest compliment that my stories and characters had affected others enough to want to write about them. They may be mine, but if I had wanted to keep them just to myself, I would have locked my manuscript in a drawer, or kept it in my head. Every reader is going to interpret things differently or imagine different scenarios. Within reason, every fan owns a piece of the story. Are you going to approve of all the fics? No, but who really cares? Fans easily draw a line in their heads between 'canon' and 'fic'. They don't hold weird or bad fanfictions against your work, and in fact fics often seem to serve to keep people interested in series in between installments. In a way, a good fic is someone doing promotion for you. Now, there are the grey areas, such as urban legends of successful writers who changed the characters' names in fics they wrote and got them published as books. But, if they wrote the thing and added their own ideas, how is it that different to regular fiction? I would be very against that practice, as a writer who works hard to create my characters and worlds, but I think it would be naive to assume that that sort of derivation of plots and characters began with online fanfiction.

So love it or hate it, I don't think fanfiction is going anywhere. Might as well embrace it.

I haven't gotten around to reading half as many books in 2013 as I would have liked, but I got through a few, and some memorable ones too.

I decided, this year, to start reading some of the things that I felt like I 'should' read. As a fantasy writer, this meant the big fantasy novels that I had never gotten round to, and as a general nerd I also decided to throw in some ancient mythology and literature. But I think I'll do a separate post about mythology in a while, since it's something I'm very interested in and I don't want to bore people without giving them ample warning in the title.

My first really good reads of the year were The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. I enjoyed them both a lot and I'm definitely looking forward to the next in the series, but they confused me. I'm not quite sure why I liked them. The protagonist, a legendary hero named Kvothe who has gone into hiding for reasons unknown, recites his life story to a traveling scholar. Without giving away any spoilers, it's fair to say that not much happens plot-wise for a lot of the book, and there are frequent sort of 'false alleys'. It's meant to resemble real life in that way, but in other ways it certainly doesn't. Kvothe, a precocious, charming, kind-hearted genius, is pretty close to Mary Sue territory as a character. He tends to run into 'exceptions' wherever he goes, because he's just that exceptional. But at the same time, I liked Kvothe and I liked the books. The quality of the prose is excellent and the first-person narrative really works. Kvothe's observations on his world and his well-portrayed emotions are what make the first two books of the Kingkiller Chronicles stand out, for me.

The other novel that really stood out to me this year was Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. Based around a royal bastard whose presence at court is tolerated at best, it starts rather slow. The main character, 'Fitz', doesn't speak or even have a name for a good quarter of the book, but it does take off eventually and it totally drew me in. It's very hard to predict where the plot's going, and it doesn't follow the usual conventions of anything, really. The story meanders in a strangely intriguing way from episode to episode, as Fitz attempts to gain skills in different areas and grows up, all while an ominous enemy of the kingdom makes its presence felt. Unlike Kvothe, Fitz is not exactly a wonder boy; he's despised by some and keeps a dark secret, and he's not overly flashy in any way. Sometimes, it is nice to have a fantasy protagonist who at least vaguely resembles an ordinary person, and I'm very much looking forward to reading the next two books in the trilogy to see how it all develops.

Out of all the books I read this year (not that there were an awful lot of them), I have to say there weren't really any others that got me so excited about starting a new series, and that feeling of discovery is one of my favourite things about the fantasy genre. I must try to diversify my genre choices a bit next year, but I enjoyed my time with fantasy and myths in 2013.

Here's to another year of great books in 2014. Happy New Year!

I haven't exactly been very active lately with promoting my books or anyone else's. It's not that I've given up on this whole writing gig or even that I've been doing anything more fun; I just came down with a hell of a flu in February and...haven't gotten better. To say this took me by surprise would be an understatement.

Hopefully, my diagnosis is postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. 'Hopefully' because it's not supposed to kill you, and believe me a non-fatal, recoverable diagnosis sounds like a dream when your heart races or you black out every time you stand. It may have been my own fault for drunkenly roaming London with random Spaniards (not at all as fun as it sounds) when I should have been in bed, but we'll never know.

Anyway, I'm in medical debt now and would like to pay off at least some of it myself, which means proofreading and editing for more money methinks. So unfortunately, for the moment my focus has to be getting diagnosed, getting cash and getting, well, walking again. If I sound bitter...it's because I'm pretty bitter. As you may have guessed from my drunkenly roaming London comment, I'm not at the age you expect this sort of thing to happen, if that age exists.

Still, I'm gonna do my best to keep plugging away at the actual writing, so if I do come out the other side of this, I'll hopefully have two or three books well on their way to done (the sequel to Soldiers being the number one priority).

I wondered once or twice what I'd say in an interview (shut up) if anyone asked me what I'd like most about being a Taylan. Even before all this, my answer would always have been 'never getting sick'.

Hello, and welcome all to Book of the Week, where every week I’ll try to bring you the best fantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction and other out-there books that you mightn’t see on the bestsellers lists (yet, at least), along with extras like author interviews. Find the main blog at book-of-the-week.blogspot.com .



This week’s book is the quirky sci-fi Sentinels by Linn Schwab, the first novel in what will be a series. The next instalment is due out in autumn 2013; stay tuned.



The plot:

Sentinels revolves around the century-old war between the human colonists of the planet Valhalla and their enemies from…Earth. Girls on Valhalla (there are no males) are institutionalised from ‘birth’ and raised to defend their home, relying on strong comradeship with their fellow fighters to see them through. At the start of the book, a young soldier (sentinel) called Virginia finds herself bereft of her squadron and thrust into the spotlight, in her first battle flying solo, while a little girl named Robin begins her journey through the machine of Valhalla…


What it reminded me of:

The space parts and battles reminded me of the Zion scenes in the Matrix. Mixed with Star Wars. A lot of it really just had its own vibe, and it did remind me more of movies and TV shows than books I’ve read.


What makes it stand out:

A lot of things, really. The opening battle scene had me hooked with its great writing, and the view of the friendly-yet-mechanical institutions on Valhalla was enthralling and oddly…homely. But probably the best aspect for me was the lack of clichés. There are times when you see things from an enemy’s point of view, as well as the fact that the enemy is Earth, and the Sentinels themselves are fairly ruthless in battle. Schwab even manages an original take on the whole ‘no men’ thing - it’s not feminist or anti-feminist, just sad. The book shows groups of people being awful to each other, even as individuals are mostly trying to do the right thing. Complex and realistic, but a world away from being one of those ‘people are shit’ books.


Good quote:

“Virginia often wondered about the girl she’d replaced. Several questions in particular kept swirling through her mind: What was she like? Was she a good pilot? Was she killed, or did she receive a promotion? She guessed that the girl had probably been killed because no one had come forward to tell her about it.”



Happy holidays and New Year everyone! Next post on Wednesday 2nd.