Fantasy Books Versus Evil Tables: Who Won?

May 29, 2023

Hey,

I’m Ran, and I might have done something I should confess. Just a quick reminder that I’m a fictional character, so I may sometimes get things all wrong because things in your world are confusing for someone like me who lives in a fantasy world.

You can read all about my adventures there in the Curse Breaker Series and the Curse Breaker’s Companion Series, in our blog posts, and soon, in a book that collects all our out-of-page adventures that aren’t already in books because the blog goes back almost 10 years now.

So it’s not easy to find those posts where I fought a couch monster or that time we taught a dragon a lesson and almost got barbecued in the process or any of our other adventures in your world.

But I digress as usual because that’s what kids from fantasy worlds do. (I’m Ran, by the way, the son of Sarn, the Curse Breaker. You know, the quiet magical guy that I have to pull words out of in every book.)

I can only reach your world through a portal that hangs out in my Scribe, Melinda Kucsera’s, apartment. But that’s nothing new. I’ve used that portal tons of times, and we’ve talked about it a lot in this newsletter over the years, so you already know it’s purple and looks like a glowing hoop that floats around whenever it feels like it.

There might be reasons for why it moves or where it moves to, but I haven’t figured them out yet. I’m watching it though, so maybe in a future email I can report back my findings if I have any.

Okay, that wasn’t a digression. I was just letting you know that I’m on the case, and I might be stalling because this next bit is a little damning for me.

What did I do?

Well, you remember that contest I asked Melinda to submit our book to?

Yeah, the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off 9 (SPFBO 9). That’s the one. Well, I thought, hey, we’ve got this podcast, and we like fantasy books. So why don’t we interview other entrants?

So I suggested that to the Scribe. Melinda’s not as quiet as my papa. She thinks she is, but she’s quite talkative when it comes to fantasy books, and she loves to hear books read aloud. So I thought this would be perfect for her!

And she’d get loads of practice at audio things because I have plans for that podcast. Of course, my mild-mannered Scribe has no idea what those plans are, but that’s a small detail I can fix later, when she has no choice but to do my bidding. *Evil laugh.*

But that’s in the future. Back here in the present, Melinda did that introvert thing where she second guessed like everything and came up with all kinds of crazy what-ifs. So I suggested she just ask if anyone are interested.

Since the deep lore episode is so popular on our podcast, like it’s got 200x more listens than any other episode, and it’s just our Scribe talking about the lore in our books. I figure listeners are interested in hearing authors talk about their story worlds.

Well, Melinda took my advice and there was a lot of interest, so I’m pleased to present the first 4 episodes of our interview series, Fantasy, Lore, & More:

In Fantasy, Lore and More with Mathilda Zeller, we hear an excerpt from The Revenge of Bridget Cleary and talk about the book and all things pre-Raphaelite and Fae.

In Fantasy, Lore, and More With Olena Nikitin, we hear an excerpt from Autumn Chaos and talk about the book, dark humor, adventure-focused fantasy romance, Slavic mythology, pagan gods, monsters, and the unique soft magic system in their story world.

In Fantasy Lore, and More With Simon Graeme, we hear an excerpt from Dark Lament, a dark fantasy novel with horror elements, and talk about a healer’s quest for absolution awakens ancient evils that demand a steep price, crusades, the line between dark fantasy and horror, and many other things.

In Fantasy Lore, and More With Daniel Maidman, we hear an excerpt from the military fantasy book, The Exile of Zanzibar, that wowed our Scribe. Then we talk about ghost towers, sentient storms, time travel, the Red Knight, pagan gods, politics in Maidman’s bronze age Florence and so much more!

Where can you listen all four episodes? Fear not, fair listeners, I come bearing links!

Start at our podcast’s official home, where you can find links to it on Spotify, Apple, iHeart Radio, Amazon, etc or listen right on that page.
Or head over to YouTube and listen/watch all 4 episodes here. We set up a playlist to make them easy to find.

A few notes about the interviews:

Since all our books are G or PG-13, we provided trigger warnings at the top of the description/show notes in italics for graphic violence, children in frightening situations, and descriptions of wounds/gore if the excerpt shows something beyond what you’d find in Curse Breaker Enchanted.
Since that’s our most-read book, and it’s free to download and read, we’re using it as the benchmark for whether an excerpt in an interview needs a warning. We just want you to be safe when listening.

We hope you’ll give them all a listen and remember to cheer our book on, so perhaps Curse Breaker Enchanted could reach the semifinals.

And that’s it for my confession. You know what? It was good for the soul. I feel lighter already after telling you about that.

And now, I must rant about my book because that’s why we’re all here, right?

All these interviews and the editing for them cut into Melinda’s time this week a lot more than I thought it would. I thought podcasts edited themselves, but they don’t, and I don’t understand why.

Melinda tried to explain the process to me, but I got bored and wondered what would happen if an evil spirit possessed her desk. Obviously, we’d have to save her. But how would we do it? What would the desk to do her?

So I missed the explanation, and now I want to know what would happen in that scenario. I don’t know when we’ll face another sentient piece of furniture, but I hope it’s soon, so I can find out how Papa would fight it.

But I need to let him heal first since he was wounded in Curse Breaker Revealed and he doesn’t possess any magic to fix his wounds.

Despite all the interviews and audio editing, Melinda is trying to finish Shards For His Gift this week, and I might have to let her so I can fight a table in the future. But it would be a really mean one with cool powers.

Darn. The Scribe says we can’t do that because there are monsters in our world we’re supposed to face in the sequel, so the table fight is on hold. But I still wonder about it, and just maybe, you’re wondering too.

Come over to Patreon and read Shards For His Gift now and leave a comment for me. Tell me if you want that table fight.

Have a great week and I hope you enjoy the interviews. There are 4 more coming your way next week, and I’ll be back too.

This is Ran, Sarn’s son and chief sidekick, signing off.

Melinda’s Substack

Fantasy Books Versus Evil Tables: Who Won?

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