Catching up with TOM LLOYD

Tom Lloyd is the author of the Twilight Reign epic fantasy series, which was completed earlier this year. Today, Gollancz publish the first in his new series, Moon’s Artifice. To mark the occasion, I caught up with Tom to get an update since my first interview with the author…

Your first fantasy series, The Twilight Reign, came to an end this year. How does it feel to have it finished?

Weird – damn good, but still weird. I started on the project when I was 18, so it’s been the major constant of 12-14 years of my life! Even when I was signed up by Gollancz I don’t think I appreciated just how much of my life was going to be devoted to one set of characters, one plot. It was just always there, so to suddenly realise you’ve written the last words puts you into mourning.

Of course, the very last words of Dusk Watchman are the inscription on a memorial stone – I can’t remember if I’d finished all the stories of God Tattoo by then, but most of them. Certainly in my mind, that final part of the epilogue was what really brought it home to me. When I wrote the last words and typed the inscription, I think I might have needed a few moments to myself... And again when I did the second draft of it and finally got the tone of those last couple pages as I really wanted it.

So yeah, years of my life and the voices in my head that had become my friends, all gone. I think that’s one reason why I didn’t want to go straight into an epic again. I didn’t want to have a project that I’d compare so directly with Twilight Reign. Plus I was knackered and the idea of planning a series-spanning plot was exhausting. I wanted a stand-alone book and handily had the bones of one already sketched out. I have an epic (or maybe two) idea at the back of my mind, but there’s the Empire of a Hundred Houses series and then another both ahead of them in the queue.

Two Years (ish) of DC Comics’ New 52

Someone asked me on Twitter if I was still reading comics (they pointed out I hadn’t posted many reviews of them lately). I have been, but because I’ve been reading them in big chunks, interspersed with work reading, as well as both fiction and (future-work-related) non-fiction books, I’ve been letting the comics reviews slide a fair bit. There is another reason, of course: not all of the comics have been single storylines, or complete storylines, which makes reviewing them really tricky. Once you get to around issue #10, anything you write about the story is likely to throw out spoilers. This, I think, is maybe a weakness of reading and reviewing comics on a weekly basis – and is really why I stopped doing that almost a year ago (that and financial considerations). Regardless, my insatiable need to read All The Things With Words means I have been reading a good number of comics via ComiXology’s app on my iPad. With the exception of the frankly phenomenal Hawkeye, I do not buy any issues full-price. I just can’t afford to. So, as and when things go on sale or are discounted (either one or two months after release), I’ve been collecting issues to read in bursts.

That being said, the number of series I’ve been reading has also been steadily culled. I usually give each series a single “volume” – that is, what would appear in a collected, printed trade hardcover or paperback. It’s been a useful way of separating storylines, as well as providing a “book’s worth” to review. (Ahem, if I bothered to review them, that is…)

So which of DC’s New 52 have I kept reading? Which ones will stay? And which will have to go, and why? Below is a brief run-down (by no means exhaustive) of the titles I’ve been reading, collected by theme/larger series…

[I may add to this, over time, as I remember other titles I’ve tried, or just think of something else I’d like to add.]

Catching up with SAM SYKES

I think Sam Sykes is one of the most interesting young authors currently writing in the fantasy genre. (I think, actually, he’s younger than me, which should give me license to refer to him as a “Scamp”…). His Aeons’ Gate series (which I always punctuate wrong – see the first question, below) has been a blast to read. It’s weird, dark, funny, terrifying, brutal, and populated with flawed, realistic characters. With the third book in the trilogy now available (through Pyr in the US, Gollancz in the UK), I thought it would be a great time to get in touch with him and ask him a few catch-up, post-game-style questions.

Catching Up with MD LACHLAN

MD Lachlan’s Wolfsangel reinvented the werewolf lore, turning it into in a very dark twist on Norse mythology. The novel has since been followed up by the equally excellent Fenrir and the just-released Lord of Slaughter. Lachlan was also the first interview I did for this blog, so I thought I’d send him a few, quick follow-up questions about how he thinks things are going…

Catching up with MARK CHARAN NEWTON

Mark Charan Newton’s Nights of Villjamur was one of the first books I received unsolicited from a publisher, and I really enjoyed it. The sequels, City of Ruin and The Book of Transformations just got better and better. Now, with the final book in the series – The Broken Isles – hitting shelves, I thought I’d send Mark a few questions to see what’s been going on since I first interviewed him, back in February 2011.

Legends of the Red Sun #1-3 2012 Edition Covers