COVER REVEAL: The Fragile Things / V. Shaw

Two girls on the road to self-destruction.

A village upon the brink of collapse.

A past which refuses to die.

The beginning of an epic four-part horror serial.

At seventeen-years-old, Jennifer should have the world at her feet. Instead, she’s an ex-heroin addict living in a council estate with Tony, her boyfriend and former dealer. Shunned by her family and friends, she dreams of something greater than she’s been given.

Beautiful and strange, Ebony has moved in across the street. She’s just lost the one person in her lonely existence to cancer. She’s also a centuries-old vampire, struggling to cope with murderous outbursts and the desire to be something more.

When these two lost souls meet, an unusual friendship begins.

But with the news of Morris, Tony’s sadistic best friend and drug-dealing partner, being released from prison, Jennifer knows it’s only a matter of time before his path of vengeance leads to her and Ebony, too.

With a cast of memorable characters, a village full of secrets, and a gripping story, The Fragile Things is a layered tale of friendship, hope, survival and what it truly means to be human.

Part I of The Fragile Things is available on Amazon from 30^th April, 2013. And will be FREE 30^th April – 2^nd May.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx_jDqd8eAg

Author Bio: V. Shaw is the author of short fiction collection, The Lady of Chains and Other Stories. Having reviewed horror films for FatallyYours.com, she now focuses on creating her own monsters.

Blog: http://vshawauthor.blogspot.co.uk/

Amazon Page: http://www.amazon.com/V.-Shaw/e/B009VLNKFG/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

SPOTLIGHT: Starships Were Meant to Fly...

With the new "Star Trek" movie just around the corner and new "Star Wars" movies on the way, I can't help hoping that maybe, just maybe, starships are becoming mainstream again. I'm a sucker for space operas (hell, I wrote one!), and in my opinion, there simply aren't enough space movies these days. There are, however, plenty of space books, thank goodness. Here are some worth checking out:

The Ultimate Inferior Beings by Mark Roman
Another quirky British space adventure full of daft characters. Click here to read the Zigzag Timeline review.

The NEXUS series by Ross Harrison
A science fantasy full of space battles and ancient powers! Click here to read the Zigzag Timeline review of Shadow of the Wraith and here to read the review of Temple of the Sixth.

The New Dawn series by James Butler
Don't be fooled by the cover. The New Dawn series presents an expansive and detailed foray into an unfriendly galaxy. Butler's many story lines weave together to pain a vivid image of his speculative universe, one full of action and intrigue. Click here to read the Zigzag Timeline review of Deception and here to read the review of Revelation.

Oh, and this might be a little self-promo-ish of me, but I can't not mention my own little space adventure, which is a little different from most books in its genre in that it's not about saving the galaxy...

Artificial Absolutes by Mary Fan
Click here to check it out on Goodreads and see what people are saying. 

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Ivan Amberlake

Ivan Amberlake, author of the urban fantasy The Beholder, talks about his novel, inspirations, and writing process. Follow him on Twitter, Find him on Facebook, Visit his book's Facebook page, Find him on Goodreads, Visit his website, or Visit Breakwater Books' website.

The Beholder tells the story of an ordinary New Yorker, Jason, who learns about his critical role in a supernatural battle between good and evil. What inspired this story? How did you develop the idea of the Sighted?

Before I started writing The Beholder, I only had an image of a man standing on top of a skyscraper, with a thunderstorm raging around him. This image was so powerful that it inspired me to start writing chapter after chapter, something that I’d never done before. The scene that I had in mind was initially a prologue, but I decided to move it closer to the end of the book.

Frankly speaking, The Beholder wasn’t supposed to be a fantasy book at first, but it just happened to transform into one as I was greatly influenced by Sergei Lukyanenko’s "Watch" Series. I wished to create something like this, yet new, and the Lightsighted and Darksighted were born.

Why did you choose New York as your setting?

From the beginning I knew the story would be set in a city with lots of skyscrapers, so my choice was between Moscow and New York—cities I’ve never been to, yet would love to visit sometime in the future. I picked New York because of its grandeur and glamor, but it doesn’t mean that part of the series won’t happen in Moscow or any other city of the world. One of The Beholder chapters is set in Minsk, Belarus, and I intend to let my characters travel to other cities and countries in the books to come.

What is your favorite scene in The Beholder? Could you please describe it?

Frankly speaking, I can’t choose just one, probably because The Beholder is not a one-genre book, but has elements of fantasy, sci-fi and romance in it, so if my favorite fantasy scene would be the one I’ve described above, my favourite romantic scene is the one in Chapter 23 where Jason and Emily are strolling around the estate garden and come up to two trees with a hammock tied to them. This is where and when Jason and Emily say they love each other, and also the point at which the story takes a darker turn.

Do you consider yourself as having a particular writing style?

When writing I always try to visualize what is going on and then describe the scene. I get inside my characters’ minds and try to show what they feel. I stick to the principle of “Less is more” by using the right amount of narrative, dialogue and descriptions.

Can you tell us a bit about your writing process? How much did The Beholder change from first draft to publication?

With The Beholder, I just sat down and started hammering the keys without thinking much about what I was writing. Frankly speaking, I often think that the book wrote itself, because when rereading the first draft I sometimes wondered how I could write this scene or that. Of course, after my first draft was ready I started editing heavily. It was great luck for me to come across a writers’ community Authonomy.com, where I met lots of great people who helped me understand the principles of modern writing. The book would never be the way it is now if not for them. So when The Beholder was finished, it was completely different from the first draft.

Among the characters in The Beholder, do you have a favorite?

Oh, they are all my favorites, each of them in his or her own fashion. If we take Jason Walker, the main character, his transformed self closer the end of the book is what I’ve wanted my own self to be. As for Emily Ethan, who Jason falls in love with, she was greatly inspired by my wife, so she’s definitely one of my favorites as well. I can’t help liking even my evil characters because they are part of the story that helps me show a world I have within to my readers. Without these characters the story would be incomplete.

Can you tell us a bit about Breakwater Harbor Books, who is listed as The Beholder’s publisher?

Well, BHB is not exactly a publisher, but rather a group of self-published authors who promote each other in different ways: on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Authonomy, and on the last pages of our books where more releases of BHB authors are recommended. Scott J. Toney and Cara Goldthorpe are the founders of this group. Both helped me immensely with The Beholder, and I’m grateful to them and other members for their support.

What’s your favorite part of writing? Dialogue? Descriptions? Plotting?

I think it’s the descriptions. Plotting usually gives me a splitting headache, and while writing dialogue I always question myself: “Do people talk like that in real life?”, so I think the best part of writing for me is describing the scenes, especially the ones with lots of action and tension. That’s where I’m in my element.

Are you working on anything new?

As crazy as my real life is at the moment, it’s really hard to find the time to write, though I should say I’m writing Book 2 of The "Beholder" Series, which is called Path of The Heretic, and I also hope to finish my YA Paranormal/Horror Novel (Novella) called Diary of the Gone which tells about a boy haunted by the dead. The boy can only stop the dead from following him by writing in an old diary he accidentally finds, yet at some point the diary disappears and his life turns into a nightmare.

The Beholder is available at:  Amazon US (Kindle e-book), Amazon US (paperback), Amazon UK (Kindle e-book), Amazon UK (paperback)

REVIEW: The Gunners of Shenyang / Yu Jihui

TITLE: The Gunners of Shenyang
AUTHOR: Yu Jihui
PUBLISHER: Signal 8 Press
AVAILABILITY: Amazon US (paperback pre-order), Amazon UK (paperback pre-order)
APPROXIMATE LENGTH: 259 pages 

GENRE
Memoir

The Gunners of Shenyang is the true story of a young man attending university in 1960s China, a time when the nation starved under a totalitarian regime.

PACE
The Gunners of Shenyang is very fast-paced for a memoir. Yu writes in a bold, efficient style that carries the drama forward and leave you wanting to know what happens.

PERSPECTIVE
First person past.

CONTENT REVIEW
Every so often, I read a book so brilliant, I feel like my skills as a reviewer are insufficient for expressing just how amazing I found it. The Gunners of Shenyang is one of those books. I’m sure my few paragraphs won’t do the book justice, but I’ll try.

The Gunners of Shenyang is the poignant, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and ultimately tragic true story of Yu’s time at university. During the mid-twentieth century, the Chinese government’s attempts to steer the country toward progress and prosperity inadvertently led to devastation. In their attempts to industrialize overnight, they left the agricultural sector unattended, and the result was a famine that lasted years, costing millions of lives. But to even say one was hungry was considered and insult to the government, for it implied that the socialist regime could not provide for its people.

Yu, known as “Soapy,” shares a dorm room with four other young men, all but one of whom are from impoverished backgrounds like his. Because the famine, Soapy was forced to eat whatever he could get his hands on in order to survive, including bean curd dregs. While these dregs filled his stomach, they upset his bowels, leading him to become a serial farter. As it turns out, his “big gun” pales next to those of his roommates, all of whom frequently engage in flatulence for the same reason: they are forced to eat all manner of unsuitable “foods,” their digestive systems rebel. The book’s title refers to this flatulence, which becomes a language of camaraderie. Helpless to change their circumstances, all the students can do is laugh about their “big guns” in a crude college boy fashion.

While Soapy is the central character, the hero of the story is his roommate, Big Zhang, a courageous older student who dares to be nonconformist in a society where one wrong remark can get you sent to a desolate town in the middle of nowhere. Big Zhang is a truly delightful character. Bold, clever, and unabashedly crude, he uses sarcasm to mock and protest the system at the mandatory student political meetings. His brand of comedy is easy to laugh at, but its basis in truth is nothing short of tragic. Throughout the book, he walks a razor’s edge as he butts heads with the students towing the party line.

Yu writes in a crisp, efficient style that brings the characters and setting to life without a wasted word. The story he tells is gripping, revealing, and powerful. Some moments had me cracking up, others had me gripping the book in nervousness, and others still had me on the verge of tears. It’s easy to sense Soapy and Big Zhang’s frustrations. They’re trapped in a society where they’re not only hungry, but can’t even express that hunger without fear of persecution.

For readers unaccustomed to Chinese culture, The Gunners of Shenyang also offers a portrait a society where everyone has a nickname, where heightened emotions are expressed, and where one’s greatest fear is being publicly shamed, or “losing face.” Informative and entertaining, the book paints a vivid portrait of Soapy’s world.

Dystopia is a hot genre right now. Stories of intrepid teenagers fighting evil governments are flying off the shelves so quickly, it’s easy to forget that dystopia isn’t always a fantasy. Yu Jihui’s memoir, The Gunners of Shenyang, tells the story of one young man’s experiences in a real life totalitarian dystopia: China during the Cultural Revolution.

THE NITPICKY STUFF
I found a handful of typos (such as the occasional missing quotation mark), but nothing distracting.

This book contains adult language.

AUTHOR INFO
[from the back of the book]
Yu Jihui, a former university professor, taught English for more than twenty years in China. Born in Qingdao, Shandong province, he travelled extensively with his family when he was young. In 2001, he migrated to Australia, and he now lives in Melbourne.

You Wrote a Book... Now What?

by Paige Daniels

It’s taken years of blood, sweat, and tears, but you’ve finally done it you’ve written your first book. You’ve written query letter after query letter and had your hopes dashed time after time. Your fingers are bloodied stumps from typing pithy attention getting synopsis and after synopsis. Finally, your baby is published! You have a hard copy sitting in your grimy little paws waiting for the world to read, because you know, everyone wants to read it. So, now that all your hard work is over what do you do? No, seriously, I’m asking: what the heck do I do?

I’m a newbie to this whole writing business so this won’t be a blog about how to maximize your reader potential or whether Goodreads is better than Shelfari. No, I just want to give my newbie point of view about marketing my book. This is something that most authors, at least me, don’t give a second thought to when they plot chapters and edit grammar.

When I talk to most of my friends who aren’t familiar with the book biz (yeah, I’m hip I call it biz) they assume that the book publisher takes care of all the marketing and the author can sit back, eat bon-bons, and watch the money fly in. I’m lucky enough to have a great publisher Kristell Ink (plug plug plug) that has helped me a great deal with contacts and marketing material. However, it is really up to the author to go to local bookstores, tell friends and family (aka annoy the crap out of them), use social media to get your message out there, and generally just use old fashioned hard work to get the word out there about your book. 

I’m the shy kind of introverted type at least I don’t like bugging people too much about things, but I’ve found that I’ve really had to go out of my comfort zone when it comes to this. I’ve had to call/write bookstore multiple times to get my book stocked. I’ve had to beg and plead for reviews. But it all comes with the territory.

 I’ve had to be brave about putting my book out there for God and everyone to see. But I realize I have to be willing to risk someone not liking the book to get to those who will like the book. I’ve had to endure sitting at a cold outdoor book fair while roughly a million people (give or take) walked right by my author table. Talk about an ego blow. 

I’m not complaining though. I think all of this has been a great learning experience for me. I’ve learned to not equate the money earned on my book with a dollars per hour kind of figure. If I did it would be depressing. No, this is a labor of love. I think in the end I’ll walk away with some good lessons for the future if I decide to walk down this author path again and if I don’t then it was a fun trip while it lasted. 

Oh and by the way, it wouldn’t be a good marketing blog if I didn’t market myself. Right now I’m having a giveaway. Everyone likes free stuff not to mention, lots of free stuff. I’m having a rafflecopter giveaway that ends May 15^th. There’s lots of cool stuff like an autographed copy of my book, a tote, an Amazon gift card, a t-shirt, and maybe some other surprises. So go to rafflecopter and follow their directions to be entered. It couldn’t be any easier. 

Click here to visit Paige's website.
Click here to read a review of Paige's book, Non-Compliance: The Sector.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Matthew Nelson

10 Questions for comic book author Matt Nelson. Visit his comic's Facebook page or Follow him on Twitter.

Hi, Matt! Welcome to Zigzag Timeline. Can you tell us a bit about your background in comics?

Governments across the world engaged in illicit human and animal genetic manipulation that was less then scrupulous, and as a result global riots occurred. Using the riots as a smokescreen for their own agenda, terrorists partnered up with social activists unknowingly. Realizing their window of opportunity would be small, the terrorists blamed these illicit activities upon the United States, and a nuclear bomb was smuggled in and detonated upon American soil; Florida. The affects were immediate as several other bombs were detonated across the globe, laying waste to much of the global population. Those that managed to survive were mutated either into monstrosities beyond normal reckoning, or mutated into a hybrid animalistic humanoid. In the shadows of this event, several of the hybrids came together to pave their own way in this new world that was pushed beyond the brink of madness.

The current year is 2042, and the struggle continues... in The Grove

In your opinion, what makes comic books a unique medium for storytelling?

Well, with comics, you have a faster-paced story that is being told, one that is accompanied by pictures. It is the pictures that tell much of the story that the reader might not get via dialogue.

What was the inspiration behind “The Grove”? Do you remember where the idea for the story came from?

Well, I have always been fascinated by stories of survival against insurmountable odds, stories about animals, and stories that are told of the future. Joining them all together gave me the inspiration for the comic, not to mention various movies, such as Waterworld, Mad Max, etc...

Do you have a favorite scene from “The Grove”? Can you please describe it?

Well, not to give too much away, but there is a scene in an issue down the road that is focused on a character named Max. Alone and desperate for someone to hear him, desperate for some form of companionship, Max has stumbled upon an archaic-yet-functional HAM radio, and the dialogue and the imagery that come forth will make the reader both laugh and cry at the scene. There is another scene, in Issue #1 which is out right now, that I also enjoyed illustrating. One of the characters, Kasidy, is being chased by something and while he is racing through the swamp, he is multitasking; calling HQ on his mic asking about his extraction point, trying to evade being eaten by whatever is chasing him, and he's trying not to run into something. I know the readers will enjoy both scenes. I know I did!

“The Grove” takes place in a dark, violent future. How did you go about developing the setting?

Well, as I said previously, I was heavily inspired by such movies as "Waterworld", Tom Cruise's' newest film "Oblivion", Mel Gibson's "Mad Max" films, and other films, such as Bladerunner. I thought about all those films, and thought about what each one brought to the table. I also thought about Orwell's "Animal Farm", and English author Richard Adams' "Watership Down., and how each of those dealt with anthropomorphic animals as characters.

Of the characters in “The Grove,” do you have a favorite? Could you please describe him/her?

Hmm. I would have to say I enjoy Kasidy. Kasidy is an anthropomorphic Rabbit. The term 'Anthropomorphic' simply means "possessing both human and animal qualities". Kasidy is hyper at times, yet has great willpower. That is one of the reasons why his superiors turn to Kasidy, because they know they can count on him to get things done, and he knows how to "think outside the box". He is unique in that he possesses cybernetics, which I think actually help to control his hyper state some.

Do you have a process? Could you please describe it?

Hmm. My process is simple. Sit down at my computer, turn on my music, and begin doing pictorial renderings of the image, with a copy of the script up as well to refer back to. That's it :)

Of the characters and creatures in “The Grove,” which, in your opinion, is the most visually interesting?

Hehe, yes, that would be "Doc". Doc is an anthropomorphic alligator, and is bright and loud, and deadly. In nature, that which is bright and colorful is often equally as deadly. Well, that pretty much goes for Doc as well.

Is there a message in “The Grove”?

Yes. Don't mess with mother nature, or mother nature will mess with you, and she will fight dirty.

What are you working on now?

I am currently working on Issues of the comic. No rest for the wicked.

"The Grove" is available at What The Flux?! Comics

SPOTLIGHT: The Grove

Today, I'm spotlighting a post-apocalyptic comic book, "The Grove" by Matthew Nelson and Robert Rumery. Set in a bleak, terrifying future, "The Grove" tells its story in dark yet vivid colors. The snappy dialogue and action-filled images bring this tale of science gone wrong to life. I'm not exactly an art critic, but I can tell you that the images in "The Grove," which are drawn in watery lines and bold yet muted colors, are really pack a punch. They seem to move, even as still images. The danger-filled story is exciting and engaging, and I think both sci-fi fans and comics fans will enjoy it.

Below is the blurb:

Governments across the world engaged in illicit human and animal genetic manipulation that was less then scrupulous, and as a result global riots occurred. Using the riots as a smokescreen for their own agenda, terrorists partnered up with social activists unknowingly. Realizing their window of opportunity would be small, the terrorists blamed these illicit activities upon the United States, and a nuclear bomb was smuggled in and detonated upon American soil; Florida. The affects were immediate as several other bombs were detonated across the globe, laying waste to much of the global population. Those that managed to survive were mutated either into monstrosities beyond normal reckoning, or mutated into a hybrid animalistic humanoid. In the shadows of this event, several of the hybrids came together to pave their own way in this new world that was pushed beyond the brink of madness.

The current year is 2042, and the struggle continues... in The Grove.

"The Grove" is available at What The Flux?! Comics. Follow "The Grove" on Twitter or Like its Facebook page.