Chris Jags's Blog - Posts Tagged "dark-fantasy"

So I recently made my dark fantasy novel, Hate Ghost, available for Amazon/Kindle. This is my first novel - or at least, the first novel I have been pleased with and confident enough to release publicly. So now that it's out, my next move, of course, is to make as many rookie mistakes as I can while publicizing it.

That's right! I'm probably about to become that guy, the guy who bumbles into the saloon, causing the music to stop and all the locals to go dead quiet.

I have at least avoided waving my book around where it's entirely unwelcome, and better yet I've somehow managed to resist the urge to review it myself (saw that done a couple of times yesterday while looking for advertising ideas and was sort of... blown away? Ballsy, I suppose?) All the same I'm sure I am about to make a wealth of silly "new guy" blunders, hopefully the kind where I can look back in five years and laugh, gently and without too much derision.

In case you're curious about my book, it tells the tale of... well, I'll just copy-paste what I wrote for Amazon:

"When a sudden, inexplicable vortex violently tears them from the routine of their everyday lives, the staff and clientele of a small backwater inn wake amidst the bones of a city lost to time. Here, they must piece together the circumstances leading to their abduction - and determine who among them is responsible - if they hope to survive the desolate necropolis, one another, and above all, the horrifying vengeful entities which hunt them."

In short, it's a bleak, disturbing horror-fantasy, where if I have done my job, I have cross-bred the two genres with some success, and if I haven't, well, I can only hope that it has some merit which I can build on. I will hopefully continue to learn and grow as a writer, planning, as I am, to continue to hybridize my favorite escapist genres.

And hopefully, to muscle past "rookie" as quickly and painlessly as I can.

An author who wrote a new book
Just couldn't people to look
He decided instead
To build up some cred
With a poem if that's what it took.

My first novel, Hate Ghost, is a twisted dark fantasy about several strangers at an inn who are engulfed by a powerful vortex and deposited in an ancient and dying necropolis. They must determine why they have been summoned - and by whom - if they hope to survive the desolation around them, one another, and the horrifying spectral entities which stalk the streets. The guilty among them will be judged, and maybe the innocent too.

I like to say it's a horror tale in fantasy pants, or a fantasy wearing horror skin. Here is a short excerpt from Chapter 3:

Erinn hurt everywhere. Whirling debris had dealt her a blow to the skull; nails jutting from a flying board had gouged her cheek; and a spinning cask of Old Plenty's Single Malt had glanced off her left shoulder, nearly dislocating it. As the terrifying vortex had dwindled above her, she'd landed hard on her back, driving the breath from her lungs; and to top it all off, as she lay stunned, a teetering door had appeared at the fringed of her vision and toppled directly across her, pinning her legs to the cold sand beneath her.

For an endless moment, Erinn's head spun as wildly as the vanished maelstrom. Performing a swift mental self-evaluation, she decided she most likely wasn't dying, nor had she sustained any notably serious injuries. Despite being unable to move her legs, she could wriggle her toes, so she wasn't paralyzed, either.

Tentatively tracing trembling fingers across her scalp, she discovered two patches of stickiness which unsurprisingly turned out to be blood, but the damage wasn't severe. Deeply relieved but still too dazed to sit up, she stared blankly at the oppressively low, grey clouds above her and wondered what the hell had just happened.

Surprise! You lived, she thought weakly. As she'd been swept into the mouth of the funnel, soft and breakable amid a storm of flying beams, bottles, and barrels, she'd been fully convinced of her own imminent demise. Yet here she was, aching but alive. She supposed she should have placed more faith in the Goddess Neth's protection.

Wherever she'd landed wasn't her home town of Wintershare, impossible though that might seem. The air tasted peculiarly stale and sour in her mouth - or was that a side-effect of hitting her head? - and the silence was deafening. Erinn would have expected to hear the clatter of hooves on cobbles, the distant barking of dogs and lowing of cows, to say nothing of the clamor and commotion which the inn's collapse would undoubtedly have caused among the villagers. Instead, there was only unnerving, unnatural stillness... at least until someone nearby began to sob, high and thin.

Groaning with the effort, Erinn managed to turn her head, fighting to focus on the shaking lump huddled among the stones to her right. It took her a moment to recognize his threadbare, hooded traveling cape: the robed stranger from the inn. He was quaking with fright or sorrow. Erinn tried to speak, and while she only managed an incoherent rasp, she did succeed in attracting the man's attention.

Lifting his head, he clumsily pulled the hood back. His face was pinched and pale, wild-eyed; stubble discolored his receding chin. He was of middle age - Erinn had pictured a younger man - and his eyes drooped like those of a basset hound. She tried to recollect all that she might know about him, what gossip old Thom, the innkeeper, might have offered up, but she came up blank. All she really knew - beyond his surpassing oddness - was that he'd paid up front and caused no trouble, and she'd had no cause to pay him much mind.

But the vortex, she reminded herself, had opened at his table.


You can also read Chapter 1 on my website.

One of my favorite books - I've read the cover clean off it - is the compiled Sherlock Holmes collection. Holmes was my introduction to serials in general, and in recent years, I've developed a taste for TV shows as well. It was only a matter of time before I wanted to try my hand at a serial myself.

After getting the deathly serious Hate Ghost out of my system, I decided I wanted to try a "lighter" dark fantasy - keeping the horror elements, but wrapping them around a framework of adventure, drama, and humor - and Tales of Tourniquet is the result.

Speaking of TV, there are several intelligent, intricately plotted, award-winning shows running. Even taking different mediums into account, Tales of Tourniquet doesn't aspire to their company. Meant to be fast, fun, and pulpy, ToT chronicles the ongoing journeys of an undead bounty hunter pursuing targets ranging from vampires to soul-sucking demons.

Tourniquet herself is a leyak - a creature which detaches its head to hunt - in disguise as a human to avoid persecution. She's a woman with a very fluid morality; her own companions can't always figure out how she makes her decisions. She needs human blood to survive - or is presumed to - and doesn't much care who provides it.

Her most stalwart companion is the Northlands barbarian Ajin, a man of honor whose noble convictions are somewhat undermined by his loyalty to a killer as vicious as Tourniquet. It is currently unknown as to why he remains so devoted to someone who, by his own values, would be considered a monster.

Darius Zenn, failed merchant, sleazy and unscrupulous, is looking to make a profit from his travels with Tourniquet, who has a way of amassing priceless, powerful artifacts. Self-serving and immature, Zenn values himself above all others, which occasionally manifests in vindictive, ill-considered actions.

The newest addition to Tourniquet's crew is the quirky stripper Red. She's a little air-headed and awkward, but she does have a rare skill which Tourniquet values: her ability to see through mystical disguises. Her infatuation with Ajin has gone, so far, unreciprocated.

This motley crew represent the core of Tales of Tourniquet, and I hope readers will come to enjoy their continuing misadventures. Theirs is a world bursting with supernatural horrors just waiting to be confronted and I'm excited to continue building the series' mythology. Volume 1 releases on January 6 2015. I'm already working on volume 2!

Hey all. Thanks so much to those people who bought Tales of Tourniquet Vol 1 straight out of the gate! As I hope to lay groundwork to really establish the series over the five volumes I'm planning to write (gotta get that full TV-esque season in!) I am going to be putting ToT up free for Kindle for just three days starting January 13th.

So what, you say? You're drowning in free kindle books, you say? Okay, how can I convince you to pick up a copy of a smart-ass dark fantasy serial with a cold-blooded, head-slinging, bounty-hunting heroine?

If that didn't do it, well, keep in mind that she hangs out with:
-a noble barbarian with a penchant for trashy novels;
-a sleazy, obsessive merchant who keeps a dead fairy in a box;
-an air-headed stripper with a whimsical worldview and the ability to see through supernatural disguise.

So, there's someone for just about everyone to relate to!

And if none of that worked, there are a multitude of blood-sucking and/or soul-sucking fiends for our 'heroes' to cross swords and fangs with, some of which are even less socially acceptable than our heroine!

So check it out... again, it's free from the 13th to the 15th. In case words like "sleazy" and "stripper" didn't clue you in, there's some mature material involved, so if you like your fantasy squeaky clean, it may not be for you.

I had a lot of fun writing it, I hope you have a lot of fun reading it, let me know!

Chris

I've been working on a new book for months now, and not even working two jobs could stop me! Introducing my latest dark fantasy, Parasite Soul!

A mashup of fairy tale, epic fantasy, and horror, Parasite Soul follows the tale of the hapless Simon, naive farmer's son from the tiny village of Brand. Simon, awkward master of poor decision-making, decides to try his luck against a dragon which has been terrorizing the countryside, with only the help of an old sword he found in a ditch. King Minus, monarch of Cannevish, has promised the hand of his temperamental daughter Tiera to the champion who can defeat the beast.

Simon does indeed manage to slay the dragon where so many others have failed, and it is here that what might have been a heroic chronicle goes into a tailspin. It turns out he doesn't fancy Tiera much at all, preferring her exotic handmaiden Niu. Tiera's fragile ego can't handle rejection from a peasant, and soon Simon and Niu are on the run with soldiers in pursuit.

Worse, it turns out that the sword which helped Simon slay the dragon isn't what it appears to be. Instead, the blade has inflicted Simon with a terrible curse which preys upon his stronger emotions, causing devastation to anyone within his radius.

Can Simon find love, escape the wrath of Princess Tiera, survive cannibal attacks and the returning dead, and flee the kingdom, all while under the debilitating influence of the Parasite Soul?

... I'll never tell, you'll have to read it.

Is it weird that a writer is a man of few words? I have no idea, but in introducing my new revenge-thriller dark fantasy Caracal's Harvest (out March 15 2016), I think I'll just let my Amazon blurb do the talking:
​
Father Andro's world is crumbling. The aging, reclusive priest of a dying faith in which he no longer truly believes, his only friends are the bottles he's drowning himself in.

When a siren turns up at his church's door, battered and bloody, Andro is initially reluctant to lend her his assistance. Upon discovering the truth behind her condition - that she was the victim of a savage assault by a wealthy young merchant running a ruthless underground trade in non-human body parts - he vows to help her.

Andro is no schemer; he can barely make it from one day to the next. The merchant employs a small army. What use can Andro possibly be to a hate-fueled siren who has vowed bloody revenge upon the man who destroyed her life?

I'm pretty proud of this one. It's darker and bleaker than anything I've tried before, and despite being far from my longest work, I poured more time into writing it than any of my other books.

Please be aware that Caracal's Harvest is a "Mature Readers" only kind of story. If you like brutal revenge thrillers, and wonder what one might be like set in a fantasy world, please check it out!

Or more correctly, "I'm alive."

Man, 2016 was a bad writing year for me. Sure, I snuck Caracal's Harvest out in the 1st quarter, then after that? Nothing worked. I began two books, one which made it to nearly 50,000 words before it collapsed under the weight of too many characters and plot threads, and another which amassed 35,000 words before I decided it just wasn't working out, either.

The biggest problem with both works is that I was looking to expand my audience, rather than write something I cared about. I spent some time after these misfires debating: should I continue my attempts to write something a little more mainstream? Try to raise my profile by pandering?

The end result is that I've purged my desire to expand my reader base for the wrong reasons. Obviously, I hope for an ever-growing audience, but not at the expense of what I love to write. And I love to write pulpy, violent, occasionally raunchy dark fantasy tales based around a parade of weirdos and outcasts.

The good news is, I've been writing something for months now that's really working for me. I can't say when to expect it, because I have a hectic work schedule and sometimes can't write for more than an hour (or less!) a day, but it's coming along well and I'm extremely enthusiastic about it.

I'm not going to share a whole lot about it yet. I will say: anyone who has read my previous stuff might expect the pages to teem with oddball mythological misfits, and they wouldn't be wrong: there will be a harpy heroine! Stern centaurs! Disturbed dryads! Shady fish folk! There will be angst and dark humor, sad moments and sick moments! Mark your calendars!

Except, y'know, don't, because I still have a lot of work to do.

Tree Mouth, my newest dark fantasy, is a little nuts.

In order to appease the gods, six sacrifices of different races are forced to descend into the underworld, where... well, no one knows what will happen to them.

This story drew inspiration from a number of influences, ranging from the highly atmospheric and enigmatic Dark Souls video games, to fairy tales and mythology, to the kind of exploration-based fantasy stories I used to love reading before Game of Thrones-style political fantasy became the norm. The protagonists (including humans, dryads, harpies, and centaurs) have a few odd species-based abilities to help them on their way, but they aren't heroes, precisely; they are under-powered and unprepared, thrust into a ruined world of madness with little more than determination. Basically, it's a survival-horror-fantasy adventure with an undercurrent of insanity.

Thanks to anyone who checks it out!

The Amazon blurb:

In the wake of the demon uprising, the gods went silent. Scripture ends there: even the priests of the world's greatest faiths cannot say how that apocalyptic conflict concluded.

Centuries later, the six races continue to make annual sacrifice to the gods in the hopes of preventing further bloody conflict. For brash young Jorn and Kiri the harpy, this means a forced descent through the Tree Mouth, the ancient gateway to the world below, a desolate land of fallen divinity and madness.

There is no appeal.

The underworld must be fed.

Available for kindle on April 20th: US, Canada, UK.

Well, it's about that time - new book time! My latest, Crow's Meal, is up for pre-order for Kindle (Amazon.com, .ca, .uk), and set to release on December 5th, 2017.

That's all very well, you say, but why should I care? Glad you asked! Crow's Meal is the beginning of what I hope will become a series of light-hearted dark fantasy books. If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, the first entry will balance bloody violence and general ghoulishness with absurdity, gallows humor and a pinch of raunchiness. Maybe, if you squint, even a little heart!

For those of you who have followed my exploits so far, think "Parasite Soul" as run through a pulpy "Tales of Tourniquet" filter (and Crow's Meal is set in the same world, if a different kingdom, to both). The tale follows Leif Landry, my first first-person narrator, who has risen from his grave to find the whole world against him. Religious fanatics want him dead, he's displeased a very twitchy old vampire, and the crows - as you may have guessed from the title - want to make a meal of him.

With no memory of how he died Leif must navigate a minefield of hostile forces to learn who his friends and enemies are, reclaim his past, create a future for himself, and avoid becoming dinner!

Thanks for your interest! If Crow's Meal finds an audience, I'm currently toying with ideas for sequels.

The Amazon blurb:

Leif Landry is a dead man. Quite literally; he just crawled out of his grave. Unfortunately, everyone he meets seems determined to put him back in it.

With no memory of his death, Leif must struggle to piece his past together while dodging vicious vampires, religious fanatics, and the ever-watching, ever-hungry crows. Who can he trust? Who is he, really? Is he destined for great things, or will he simply become a crow's meal?

An off-beat tale marinated in gallows humor, baked in a violent sauce, and seasoned with a sprinkling of indecent behavior!