HERE BE NEWS for August 10, 2020

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Monday, August 3 - 
"HERE BE NEWS" - All the latest from the fantasy romance authors at Here Be Magic, including something something something...  

Tuesday, August 4 -
"FIVE STAR BOOKS" - Hungry for fresh reads? Author and avid reader Nicole Luiken shares some of her newest favorites in several genres. 

AUGUST IS SUPERHERO MONTH!  During August, you can get all 3 of these ebooks by Linda Mooney for just 99c each! 

Go to https://lindamooney.com/choice.htm to read excerpts and find purchase links.

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Weather and elemental magic in SF/F

In the last couple years it’s been very difficult to miss events of extreme weather in the news: destructive wildfires, massive hurricanes, flooding, and more. And if you’re a fan of SF/F, it may have crossed your mind at least once to wonder how someone might deploy weather-based magic to ease the ravages of these events. If you’re an SF/F author, you may have even been asked if you’d ever write weather-based magic; I have!

So here’s a post about that.

First, I’d like to note that I certainly do like me some elemental-based magic in my fantasy. It’s a very common trope to have a world where users of magic are aligned with Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. The world of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Avatar: The Legend of Korra is a recent big example, but it’s hardly the only one. If you google for “books with elemental magic”, you’ll find multiple Goodreads lists with titles spanning the epic fantasy, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance genres, and with publication dates over the last several decades. Jim Butcher, Mercedes Lackey, Rachel Caine, Tanya Huff, Sharon Shinn, and many other authors have all dipped their pens into that particular inkwell.

I’ve also seen that legendary weather events have in fact made their way into urban fantasy as part of authors’ worldbuilding choices. Hurricane Katrina in particular has shown up repeatedly in novels set in and around New Orleans, and with good reason. It was a massive, transformative event all on its own, entirely aside of any connection to settings that include magic. In a setting with magic, weather events of that caliber gain the power to wreak even more havoc. As backstory for a character or a city, it can be a critical developmental event. As an actual on-camera event, it can raise the stakes even higher in the climax of a story—or could even be the climax of the story.

As for me?

Given that I’m already writing an urban fantasy series with magic in it, it’s not out of the question that weather-based or elemental-based magic might eventually show up in the Warder universe. I grew up in Kentucky, an area of the United States prone to tornados and thunderstorms, as anyone from the Midwest knows. To this day, I have visceral memories of a tornado that hit Louisville in 1974 when I was five. And as an adult in the Pacific Northwest, I have a very healthy appreciation for the power of windstorms that hit the Puget Sound region every fall. (Just ask folks who follow me on social media how many times I’ve warned about power outages taking down my website!)

If you’ve read Bone Walker, you know that the climax of that novel does indeed deal with a weather event that strikes Seattle, fueled by the wrath of a spirit-possessed dragon. Seattle’s Warders, along with my heroine Kendis Thompson, must raise their powers in response to that event. Kendis, Christopher, and Millicent do not, themselves, have elemental or weather-based magic. But the Warders and the Sidhe are only two populations in that universe that use magic. A story has not yet presented itself to me for that world where weather or elemental magic would be in play… but one may yet do so.

In the meantime, I’ll continue my affection for the trope in other people’s stories! I do have a strong affection for the two Avatar animated series, as well as Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden books and Tanya Huff’s Quarters series.

What about the rest of you? What are your favorite weather-based or elemental-magic-based stories? Talk to me in the comments!

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Angela writes urban fantasy as Angela Korra'ti, and epic fantasy as Angela Highland. But no matter what name she's using, you can come geek out with her on angelahighland.com, Facebook, or Twitter. Come say hi!

How I find new things to read

As I’ve written about before here on this blog and elsewhere, I’m a passionate reader as well as a writer. Like those of a lot of geeks, my household reflects that we’re readers. We have shelf after shelf of print books all over the house, as well as hundreds of ebooks between us on various digital devices.

And, like a lot of geeks, we often find ourselves hard pressed to figure out how to find the books we want to read. So I thought I’d do a roundup of where I find my newest reads, in the hope that this might prove helpful to fellow readers out there!

So in no particular order, I give you my list of recommendation sources!

1) Tor.com is one of my biggest ones for SF/F. I regularly read their site, and their reviews of recent releases as well as announcements about upcoming titles frequently make me go “ooh hey that sounds like fun”.

2) Also for SF/F, since I regularly read both John Scalzi’s and Mary Robinette Kowal’s blogs, I see the Big Idea and My Favorite Bit features that they regularly run. I’ve picked up several titles on the strength of posts that authors have sent in to appear on those features.

3) Yet again for SF/F, book reviewer James Nicoll. What he likes to read doesn’t always align with what I like to read, but he’s pointed me at more than one book I’d otherwise have never thought to pick up. For example, The City, Not Long After and There And Back Again by Pat Murphy, or The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss. I find him quite satisfying for broadening my SF/F reading horizons.

4) For romance, my go-to, one-stop shop is Smart Bitches Trashy Books. I’m persnickety about what romance subgenres I like to read, and they’ve been consistently reliable at helping me find titles as well as authors that fit into those subgenres. Two of my favorites I’ve learned about from them are Courtney Milan and Kate Noble.

5) For mystery and suspense, I keep an eye on Criminal Element’s newsletter. I don’t read those genres as often as I do SF/F, but I do like a good period mystery occasionally, or a good suspense novel.

6) Since I’m a member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association, I learn about multiple things I’d like to read just from my fellow members of that group.

7) While I don’t use the feature very much, I do keep an eye on the recommendations features on Goodreads (and by extension, my Kindle) just in case that pops up something I want to check out.

8) Other readers I know are always a win for telling me about potential fun things. “Hey Anna, you should totally read this, I think you’d dig it,” is one of my favorite things to hear out of someone!

9) And, of course, I keep an eye on other posts on this very site!

What about the rest of you? How do you find new things to read? Tell me all about your favorite book sources in the comments!

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Angela has a lifelong goal of reading ALL THE BOOKS, and this has been compounded by also wanting to read SF/F in French, because holy crap you guys there's a whole other language's worth of books over there that she hasn't read yet! Meanwhile, she writes her own books as both Angela Korra'ti and Angela Highland, and you can come find out all about those at angelahighland.com. Or you can geek out with her about your favorite books on Facebook or Twitter.

Author Recommendations

When I go to author events one of the questions I’m most frequently asked is: What is your favourite book? This is pretty much impossible for me to answer because I read so much (220 books so far this year). Even naming my favourite author is pretty hard.

I do, however, love to recommend books once I know what genre and subgenre you like. So here are my favourite authors and their series in various subgenres. (Brackets only apply to last item listed.)

FANTASY

Top Thirteen Urban Fantasy Authors (You can tell this is my favourite genre)

1/ Patricia Briggs -- Mercy Thompson and Alpha & Omega series

2/ Ilona Andrews  -- Kate Daniels, The Edge, Hidden Legacy (PNR)

3/ Jim Butcher  -- Harry Dresden Files, Codex Alera (fantasy)

4/ Wen Spencer -- Elfhome, Black Wolves of Boston

5/ Diana Pharaoh Francis -- Horngate Witches, Diamond City Magic, Mission: Magic

6/ Seanan McGuire -- October Daye, InCryptid

7/ Kevin Hearne -- Iron Druid

8/ Diana Rowland -- Kara Gillian, White Trash Zombie

9/ Laura Resnick -- Esther Diamond

10/ Anne Bishop -- The Others, Black Jewels (fantasy)

11/ Faith Hunter -- Jane Yellowrock, Soulwood (spinoff series)

12/ Darynda Jones -- Charley Davidson

13/ Rachel Aaron -- Heartstrikers, Legend of Eli Monpress (fantasy)

Top Five Epic Fantasy

1/ George R.R. Martin -- Game of Thrones

2/ Brent Weeks -- Night Angel, Lightbringer

3/ Carol Berg -- Rai-Kirah, Lighthouse, Sanctuary Duet, Collegia Magica

4/ Brandon Sanderson -- Stormlight Archive, Mistborn

5/ Patrick Rothfuss -- Kingkiller Chronicles

 Top Five Less Epic Fantasy

1/ Martha Wells -- Raksura, Ile-Rien

2/ Sharon Shinn -- Samaria, Elemental Blessings, Twelve Houses

3/ Dave Duncan -- King's Blades
4/ Guy Gavrial Kay

5/ Lois McMaster Bujold -- Sharing Knife, World of the Five Gods

Top Two Humourous Fantasy

1/ Terry Pratchett -- Discworld

2/ Connie Willis

Top Five YA Fantasy Authors

1/ Sarah Rees Brennan -- Lynburn Legacy, Demon's Lexicon

2/ Cinda Williams Chima -- Seven Realms, Heir Chronicles

3/ Alison Goodman -- Eon, Lady Helen

4/ Rachel Caine -- Morganville Vampires, Great Library, Weather Warden (adult UF)

5/ Brandon Sanderson  -- The Reckoners, Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians (middle grade)

Top Two Horror

1/ Stephen King -- The Dark Tower series

2/ Mira Grant -- Newsflesh Trilogy, Parasitology

Top Historical Fantasy

1/ D.B. Jackson  -- Thieftaker Chronicles

Top Steampunk

1/ Gail Carriger -- Parasol Protectorate, Finishing School (YA)

2/ Jim Butcher -- Cinder Spires

ROMANCE 

Top Five Paranormal Romance Authors

1/ Thea Harrison -- Elder Races, Moonshadow

2/ Nalini Singh -- Psy-changeling, Guild Hunter

3/ J.R. Ward -- Black Dagger Brotherhood, Fallen Angels

4/ Karen Marie Moning -- Highlander, Fever (UF)

5/ Ann Aguirre --Ars Numina, (plus many other series on my TBR list in SF, UF and YA)

Top Two Fantasy Romance (by which I mean secondary world fantasy, NOT paranormal)

1/ Jeffe Kennedy -- Twelve Kingdoms, Uncharted Realms, Covenant of Thorns

3/ Grave Draven  -- Wraith Kings, Master of Crows

Top Five Historical Romance Authors

1/ Lisa Kleypas -- Wallflowers, Hathaways, Ravenels

2/ Tessa Dare -- Spindle Cove, Once Upon a Castle, Girl Meets Duke

3/ Loretta Chase -- Scoundrels, Carsington Brothers, Dressmakers

4/ Elizabeth Hoyt -- Maiden Lane, Princes Trilogy, Legend of the Four Soldiers

5/ Sherry Thomas -- Fitzhugh Trilogy, Elemental Trilogy (YA fantasy), Lady Sherlock (historical mystery)

Top Five Romantic Suspense

1/ Suzanne Brockmann -- Troubleshooters, Tall Dark & Dangerous

2/ Karen Robards -- The Guardian

3/ Marie Force -- Fatal series

4/ Jill Sorenson -- Aftershock

5/ Linda Howard

  SCIENCE FICTION 

Top Four SF Authors

1/ Lois McMaster Bujold -- Miles Vorkosigan

2/ Gini Koch -- Katherine "Kitty" Katt

3/ David Weber -- Honor Harrington

4/ Robert Sawyer -- Neanderthal Parallax, Quintaglio Ascension

Top Three Science Fiction Romance

1/ Catherine Asaro -- Skolian Empire

2/ Rachel Bach (also writes as Rachel Aaron) -- Paradox

3/ Veronica Scott -- Sectors