3 is a Magic Number (Giveaway)

Three represents the holy trinity in a number of religions, considered by some to be the perfect number. It's also the standard number of wishes one gets in a fairytale. Or the number of chances you get, if you're Little Bunny Foo Foo, to stop scooping up field mice and bopping them on their heads before you're turned into a goon by the Good Fairy. Fairies, genies, witches...they like doing things in threes.

Three is also a magic number in the construction of fiction. Trilogies are a staple of the SF/F world, especially in epic fantasy. Why do we tell epic stories in threes? It's the basis of the three-act play, dating back to the epics of ancient Greece. It's also the logical extension of the modern story arc: Beginning, Middle, End. And it certainly makes a convenient framework for an author who wants tell a long, complex story without overwhelming readers with one truly epic tome. Plus, it gets the reader to come back for more. And three also makes for a lovely multiple: the trilogy of trilogies, such as the original intent for the Star Wars saga. (Hopefully, soon to be realized. I'm looking at you, J.J. Abrams.)

But the End part is what I'm particularly concerned with today.

It's release day for The Armies of Heaven, the third book in my House of Arkhangel'sk trilogy. I'm excited to finally have the whole story out there, and yet sad to have come to an end of this particular story. One of the reasons I write in threes is that I have difficulty letting go, and it gives me a chance to hold on to the characters I love—whether I'm writing them or reading someone else's—without going on so long that it starts to lose its glow.

So today I say goodbye to Anazakia's journey. Begun in The Fallen Queen, and continued in The Midnight Court, The Armies of Heaven is where her journey ends. Because three is a magic number. Don't believe me? Listen to Schoolhouse Rock:

(Awesomely, it is exactly 3 minutes long.)

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The giveaway

In celebration of my book release day, I'm also giving away a trilogy of prizes: three winners will be chosen at random to receive one of three prizes: a $50 gift certificate to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, a set of three signed paperback copies of The House of Arkhangel'sk trilogy, and a copy of one of my favorite books and the inspiration for this story, Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, gorgeously depicted by Ukrainian illustrator Vladyslav Yerko. Enter using the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.

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In Heaven, all hell has broken loose…

Full-scale war has broken out in Heaven, and Anazakia must embrace her destiny, leading an army of Virtues into battle against a Host of enemies to restore the House of Arkhangel’sk.

Furious with her for putting her trust in the angel who has done them all irreparable harm, Vasily tries to ignore his growing resentment, while Belphagor returns to the world of Man with a cadre of beautiful androgynous Virtues to restore the sundered alliance between the Fallen and the gypsy underground. Without their help in enlisting the terrestrial forces of Grigori and Nephilim, Anazakia’s Virtues are hopelessly outnumbered.

But there are more things in Heaven and Earth than any of them have dreamt of, and those they cannot see will mean the difference between victory and losing everything.

The Armies of Heaven is available now at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and more.
 
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It’s the End of the World as We Know It...and I Want Cocoa

Yes, I know; I’m probably the five-millionth person to write a blog post with this title today. Well, maybe not the cocoa part. ;)

If we’re all still here, I’m doing a special giveaway of a Mayan  Xocolatl hot cocoa gift set from Stella Leona and one of the books in my House of Arkhangel’sk series.

Xocolatl is a Mayan inspired hot chocolate beverage with a hint of cinnamon. Add milk and garnish with whipped cream. Um, yes, please. Yum!

Although the cocoa is Mayan, my series takes place in Russia, so I thought I’d share some Winter Solstice traditions from that part of the world.

It’s on this longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere that many of the rituals we now associate with Christmas originated. Celebrations of light emerging from darkness were common among pagan religions. In ancient Russia, Winter Solstice was the festival of Perun, the god of thunder and lightning, and of high places.

According to the website Trans-SiberianExperience, “The festivities for the Winter Solstice would have been led by Siberian shamans. They dressed themselves in a special festive hooded warm winter gown, adorned with exotic items. To work their magic, they would put themselves in a trance – in this trance they would fly through the air, in a sleigh drawn by reindeer. To celebrate the festival they would give attractive lucky charms to children, to bring them good fortune in the year to come. Does that sound like anyone we know?”

Perun, according to the same website, is the son of Bielobog, god of light. On the Winter Solstice, Bielobog triumphs over Chernobog, god of darkness, in their eternal battle. There’s some argument as to whether these are two separate gods or two aspects of one god (or whether these gods of duality are actually a modern construct and were never worshipped at all), but the message remains the same—the ascendancy of light over the darkness begins after the longest night of the year.

And in Russia, the longest night is seriously that. In St. Petersburg, there are less than six hours of daylight today, while farther north in Arkhangel’sk, it’s less than four. And if you aren’t lucky enough to have a fire demon to keep you warm through the longest night like my character Anazakia in The Fallen Queen, I’m sure it will seem very long indeed.

But there’s something especially magical about the longest night, wherever you happen to be, because we know the darkness has reached its nadir and things can only get better from here. Which, after recent events here in the US, I hope very much is true.

To enter my giveaway to win a copy of one of my Arkhangel’sk books and a cup of Mayan xocolatl to keep you warm while you read, see the Rafflecopter below. One winner will be chosen at random on Christmas Eve.

The House of Arkhangel'sk - A dark retelling of The Snow Queen, war in Heaven, and the last days of Imperial Russia. Epic fantasy with an urban twist.

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The Unseen World

Last weekend at World Fantasy Convention 2011 in San Diego, I attended a panel on "The Not-So-Fair Folk," in which the dark side of fae folklore was explored. The importance of keeping mum about the fae was mentioned more than once, making the panel itself feel just a bit dangerous, as if talking about it just might land us all in trouble.

Like the fae themselves, the darker tales are often hidden among the seeming light. In Disney's Sleeping Beauty, the fairies are portrayed as benign and somewhat daft—except for Maleficent, who appears uninvited at the christening of newborn Princess Aurora to "gift" her with a curse after being denied the proper respect. As a child, I was always much more interested in Maleficent than anyone else in the story. Why was she so different? Why didn't they invite her? What was her history?

Another favorite of mine was the Snow Queen. She swept in with the north wind and stole away pretty boys to keep for herself. I was instantly intrigued.

When I was a little older, I discovered the White Witch in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and recognized her as the same figure, as she turned the world to eternal winter and brought Edmund under her thrall from her sparkling sleigh. And then again in The Silver Chair, the Lady of the Green Kirtle came along and stole away and enchanted Prince Rilian of Narnia.

These mysterious, powerful women are all nods to the Queen of the Fae, who was prone to stealing human children and replacing them with changelings, or captivating the hearts of mortal men who followed her into the unseen kingdom of the fairies. The fear of a powerful woman seems to infuse men's psyches in the oldest of folklore of many traditions. From sirens and mermaids to veela and rusalki, all of them lure men to their hidden realms. (Which I guess pretty much speaks for itself.)

As much as I love my protagonists, I can never quite resist a strong and dangerous woman. When I started my current series, The House of Arkhangel'sk, I had no intention of writing about dark fae. It's a story about angels and demons, and the Russian imperial family. But somehow as I was developing the villainess of the story, I ended up with none other than the Fairy Queen herself. She was the perfect enchantress to lead my fallen angel astray.



I took some liberties, of course. My Fairy Queen comes from a Celtic tradition (the same that inspired C.S. Lewis—the ballad of Tam Lin; as well as Irish poet Brian Merriman's The Midnight Court), but I moved her to the icy Russian north and gave her the qualities of a Slavic veela. Her origins, however, are something I haven't explained. Queen Aeval remains a bit of a mystery. Somehow, it didn't seem appropriate to talk about where she came from. Maybe subconsciously, I, too, was afraid to delve too deeply into her realm, or at least to speak of it. You never know what she might do.

If you dare to speak of the unseen, feel free to leave me a comment about your favorite fae. I'll give away a signed ARC of Book One of The House of Arkhangel'sk, The Fallen Queen, to a commenter chosen at random.

Jane Kindred

www.janekindred.com

Here Be Romance?

I've never thought of myself as a romance writer (well, not since high school, when my dream was to become the next Victoria Holt...look her up, ya little whippersnappers); I consider myself a fantasy writer. But somehow my books have landed with publishers who specialize in romance. I worry I'm somehow misrepresenting myself.

It's not that there isn't any romance in my books, it's just that the romance doesn't drive the plot of the story. As for an HEA ("happily ever after," a requirement in most romance), well, it depends on your definition of "happily." My characters are generally happy with their choices, and they don't usually end up alone, but the relationships certainly wouldn't be covered by the Defense of Marriage Act. (Side note: I always hear that in my head as "Defensive Marriage Act." Makes a lot more sense that way, if you ask me.)

The funny thing is, I spent many years agonizing over the fact that there was too much romance in my fantasy. Back when I started writing fantasy (yes, it was the Stone Age; thanks for noticing), the bastard child of speculative fiction—itself the bastard child of genre fiction—looked down upon the redheaded stepchild of romance, and frequently beat it up for the heck of it and stole its lunch money. Paranormal romance and urban fantasy didn't even exist then. (I said it was the Stone Age, whippersnappers. Stop rubbing it in.)

But while I was busy trying to make my epic fantasy acceptable to the keepers of the status quo, writers like Lynn Flewelling and Jacqueline Carey came along and told the establishment to suck rocks. (I'm sure there are other, earlier examples, but these are the ones I noticed and fell head over heels for.) They wrote the stories they wanted to tell, and romance happened to be a part of it.

So now I'm working on revisions to the final installment of the first trilogy in my House of Arkhangel'sk series, and I'm having a fight with the heroine. Seems I was so successful at suppressing her romantic leanings to fit the traditional mold that a scene that should have been the romantic climax is utterly devoid of passion. I think I've stumbled upon the solution, though. I had the love interest slap her when she finally confessed her feelings. That woke her up. ;)

I know I'm pretty much asking for an "amen" from the choir here, but how do you feel about romance in your fantasy? Is it "You got your romance in my fantasy!", "You got your fantasy in my romance!", or is it an awesome tasty flavor combination you can't believe somebody didn't think of before?

Jane
www.janekindred.com