Guest Post: “It’s the End of the World -- Bring Charmin” by Gail Z. Martin

In the post-apocalyptic TV show “Revolution,” one of the characters, a former Google executive, says, “80 million dollars in the bank and I would trade it all right now for a roll of Charmin.” Of all the things that society has lost, at that moment, he misses commercially-produced toilet paper. It’s the little things that count.

I write the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, a post-apocalyptic medieval epic fantasy series, for Orbit Books. In Ice Forged, the first book in the series, my characters have to come to terms with what they’ve lost, both big and small. Oddly enough, sometimes it’s the small things that matter the most.

Epic fantasy usually deals with the sweeping repercussions of events and decisions — the wars, assassinations, dynastic conflicts and economic collapses that change the balance of power. Certainly anything worthy of being called an apocalypse affects the superstructure of society: government, commerce, economics, and technology. Add in plague and natural disaster and a nation, continent or kingdom loses a significant portion of its workforce, its intellectual capital, its history and its physical infrastructure. Those losses are guaranteed to change what daily life is like for the survivors, and to make just getting by much more difficult.

Books that Fell Through the Cracks (Late Acquisitions)

Given my peripatetic existence over the last couple of years, there have been a number of address changes. These have resulted in a number of books getting sent to old and/or obsolete addresses. I’m currently visiting one of these old addresses, and have finally managed to get my hands on the following books (below) – so, apologies to publishers for not saying thank you, and hopefully I’ll be able to get to some of these soon (two in particular are very high on my TBR mountain, now).

Received: Julianna Baggott’s Fuse, Susan Ee’s Angelfall, Hugh Howey’s Shift, Stephen Kiernan’s The Curiosity, Stephen King’s The Wind Through the Keyhole, Gail Z. Martin’s Ice Forged, Frank P. Ryan’s The Snowmelt River

Guest Post: “After Apocalypse” by Gail Z. Martin

Maybe it’s a sign of the times, but we seem to be obsessed with the end of the world.

Sure, such fascinations, both literary and religious, have come and gone in times past. It’s just our luck to live in the midst of a resurgence of end-of-the-world fatalism.

Pick your poison—climate change, asteroid collision, bio-warfare, zombies, or mad scientists, there are plenty of ways to die. Personally, I prefer magic.

In Ice Forged, and the upcoming Reign of Ash, Books 1 and 2 in my Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, mages on both sides of a devastating war use magic as their doomsday weapon. They manage to destroy civilization on their continent, and magic itself.

Apocalypse-by-mage was a twist that intrigued me. Magic, in the world of the Ascendant Kingdoms, does for them what technology does for us—heals the sick, makes routine tasks easier, reduces effort, and controls the environment. Long ago, people used to do those things without magic, but since the wild power was harnessed so that it could be controlled by humans, people have forgotten the old ways.

That makes it rough when the magic stops working.

There’s a fantastic TV series about “Life After People” that shows just how quickly the modern world falls apart—literally—when people are suddenly removed and no one is left to maintain what has been built. I watched those shows, riveted, as it speculated that in about 250 years after all people disappeared, the world would heal itself and most of our structures would be largely obliterated. We’re not as important as we think we are.

That concept served well as I imagined the apocalypse in Ice Forged. Not only do survivors of the war endure hardship because of the fire that rained down from the skies in a powerful magic strike, they also suffer because there is no magic. Few people know how to treat wounds, protect crops from pests, or do many other essential tasks. Where magic was used for infrastructure, either as a repair patch or to do something important, like keeping back the sea at the sea wall, magic’s failure results in additional disaster. Not only that, but the once-harnessed magic, returned to the wild, becomes a violent force of nature, creating dangerous storms and unnatural monsters.

So when exiled convict and disgraced lord Blaine McFadden discovers that he might be the only one who can restore the magic, the stakes are high. Trying to bring magic back might cause Blaine’s death, and there’s no guarantee the attempt will work. Even if he can restore the magic, it may not function the way it did before, and in any event, the kingdom is in rubble, its leaders dead.

It’s been said that “fortune” is the combination of “danger” and “opportunity.” If you define it that way, then Blaine McFadden is a very “fortunate” man.

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The Hawthorn Moon Sneak Peek Event includes book giveaways, free excerpts and readings, all-new guest blog posts and author Q&A on 21 awesome partner sites around the globe. For a full list of where to go to get the goodies, visit the Ascendant Kingdoms website.

Book Giveaway on Twitter: Every day from June 21-28, I’ll be choosing someone at random from my Twitter followers to win a free signed book. Invite your friends to follow me – for every new 200 followers I gain between June 21-28, I’ll give away an additional book, up to 20 books!

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Gail Z. Martin is the author of Ice Forged in her new The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga (Orbit Books), plus The Chronicles of The Necromancer series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven and Dark Lady’s Chosen) and The Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn and The Dread). She is also the author of two series on eBook short stories: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Series. Her books are available in bookstores worldwide and on Kindle, Kobo and Nook.

Guest Post: “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (Again)” by Gail Z. Martin

Gail Z. Martin is the author of some great, dark fantasy novels. Most recently, Ice Forged, the start of a new series: The Ascendant Kings Saga. Ice Forged is framed around a great premise, and I hope to read and review it very soon. To celebrate the launch of this new series, here is a guest blog from Gail…

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“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (Again)” by Gail Z. Martin

What is it about an impending apocalypse that captures the imagination?

Having just survived the “Mayan Calendar” apocalypse, the idea is pretty fresh in everyone’s mind. Thanks to the Internet, warnings of immanent doom seem to crop up fairly often, so much so that most of us roll our eyes, mutter “another one” and go about our daily business.

Until the time it turns out to be true.

“The Sworn” by Gail Z. Martin (Orbit)

The Fallen Kings Cycle, Book One

As plague and famine scourge the Winter Kingdoms, a vast invasion force is mustering from beyond the Northern Sea. And at its heart, a dark spirit mage wields the blood magic of ancient, vanquished gods.

Summoner-King Martris Drayke must attempt to meet this great threat, gathering an army from a country ravaged by civil war. And neighbouring lands reel toward anarchy while plague decimates their leaders. Drayke must seek new allies from among the living – and the dead – as an untested generation of rulers face their first battle.

Then someone disturbs the legendary Dread as they rest in a millennia-long slumber beneath sacred barrows. Their warrior guardians, the Sworn, know the Dread could be pivotal as a force for great good or evil. But if it’s the latter, could even the Summoner-King’s sorcery prevail?

I’ve been aware of Martin’s work for a while, now, but for some reason I never got around to reading the first story arc set in her world (The Chronicles of the Necromancer, published by Solaris). As Orbit sent me a copy of The Sworn, and because it’s the start of a new series, I figured there was no better time to get stuck in, and I was rather happy with what I discovered within…

Upcoming: February-March on CR

Just wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know what’s coming up on the site over the next couple of months. As always, there will be plenty of reviews, but I’m also trying to increase the number of interviews I get up here. I’ll try to do one of these posts every couple of months, rather than the large “Recent Acquisitions” posts, which were rather long. Although, if there is a week where something particularly exciting comes in, I might highlight that, too.

One thing I have noticed, is that I tend to get genre-fatigue quite quickly, so I’m going to make more effort to switch between fantasy, sci-fi and thrillers, in order to keep things fresh both on the site and also for myself. We’ll see how this works out.

So, here are the books that will be featured over the next eight weeks or so, along with some scribbled thoughts. (This is not an exhaustive list, as there’s every possibility that something else will come up and grab my attention – this is just based on the books I already have in my possession.