Choose Your Poison

Choose Your Weapon - Poison

Magical Potion Shelves by Fiulo

Welcome to my 2024, mini blog series on Weapons in Fantasy Fiction. Examples will include a range, from magical staffs, blades, bows and arrows, daggers, war dogs/horses, shapeshifters, curses and bare hands. In the case of Urban Fantasy and SteamPunk, a plethora of firearms enter the arena. 

There are hundreds of types of weapons and each can be, in fiction at least, embued with special powers, names and even personalities, like Sauron's One Ring. But a writer can't just reach into the grab bag and pull up any old thing...

They must choose their weapons wisely to reflect the culture and setting, the nature of the hero, accessibility, training, history and opportunity. Some weapons are immediate, like daggers, heavy rocks and martial arts. Others are slower-acting or may take intricate planning.

Here, I'm talking about poison. It isn't always quick on the draw, but it can be easier to get away with. 

Like many weapons, poison has been with us IRL (in real life) for a long time suggesting it requires research to weave into the story. The more familiar readers are with a topic, the easier it is for them to spot inconsistencies, and no writer wants those. They can throw the reader out of the story, and make them question everything the author says from then on (if they keep reading)!

Fortunately, there are thousands of years of documented history of poisoning to draw on. Within several hours of research, the writer can portray a convincing scenario of a fatal dose of, say, arsenic or strychnine. 

Yet again, an author with a bio-chemical background may do much better. Take Lydia Kang's A Beautiful Poison, for example, or  Maia V. Snyder's Poison Study. Also the bittersweet An Affair of Poison by Addie Thorley.

Not all poisonings are headliners though. Many authors incorporate poisonings into the story's background through secondary characters and side quests. I have done this myself in Crown of Bones and subsequent books in the series. Not only are the 'villains' playing with poisons, but the Healer savants are too. They not only mix potions to save lives but can use them in battle against enemies. Their phantoms are usually required for the process and often have extreme ways of administering the substance. 

Will they have antidotes on hand, in case of accidental ingestion, or even a change of heart? 

That's always going to be entirely up to the writer, of course. 

The most recent tale of poison I've read is Belladonna by Adalyn Grace - it's smoky dark with hints of gothic horror and romance....

What is your favorite use of poison in fiction? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

xx Kim

***

Choose Your Weapon Series 2024

Poison

The Perfect Storm

The Sword

Firearms

Ranged

Spells

Unarmed

Curses

Time Travel

Invisibility

***

About Kim Falconer

Kim Falconer, currently writing as AK Wilder, has released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy with Curse of Shadows as book 2 in the series. Currently, she is working on the third book, out in 2024.

Kim can be found on  AKWilder Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

Throw the bones, read your horoscopes or Raise Your Phantom on the AKWilder.com site

Ships that Sing - Three Books Reviewed

Shark Ship by Daniel Dociu

Hi Everyone, 

I wanted to share today three novels that have an underlying theme - sentience vessels. (Shoutout to Helen Lowe and her inspiring post on the Live Ship Trader Series.)

The three books I'm talking about today have their own style and grace, SF wonder and amazement. Each author writes with ability, power and insight. But what really excites me about these novels is their treatment of human and non-human sentience.   

What is Sentience?

Is it sapience, intelligence, consciousness? The definition can blur between self-awareness, compassion, identity, ability to suffer and also to adapt, judge and change. But once named 'sentient' everything does, indeed change.

Sentient entities are generally considered deserving of moral rights, respect, and freedom, at lease where these rights are bestowed on humans. So, do these qualities, and therefore rights, belong to humans only? If not, where do we create distinctions?

Toxic by Lydia Kang

I love these three books because they each explore these hard questions, though in different ways, yet always juxtaposed to a human main character.

The Ship Who Sang - Ann McCaffrey

Back in the 60's Ann McCaffrey wrote a short story called The Ship Who Sang. She went on to revise it into a novel and then a series which was also co-written by other SF authors of the time. I'm not sure how the premise would be handled now with more awareness, 60 years later, of persons with disabilities, but still, McCaffrey asks the questions, which is what a good storyteller does.

The Ship Who Sang is about Helva, a human born disabled to the point they only could save her brain. Her life is salvaged by implanting her into the titanium body of an intergalactic ship. When she chooses a human partner, her life unfolds in terrifying and spectacular ways. Ann McCaffrey herself said this was the best story she's ever told...

Toxic by Lydia Kang

Toxic is a standalone, Young Adult SF romance with a touch of fantasy and horror. Written in Kang's ever-engaging style, Toxic is a smart read, one that takes a 'speculative' concept and makes it feel true, right down to the core.

The story focuses on a dying ship and a suicide squad sent to record its demise for the company that made it. In that crew is a young man named Fen who plans to use the last days of his life to make up for a series of wrong choices. 

Unknown to all is Hana, the girl left behind by her crew, a girl that has never been out of her room or far from the aqueous folds of her 'bio-mother-ship'... until now.

Toxic asks questions about human and non-human rights, about shifting loyalties and the power of cultural conditioning. But none of that occurs to you while turning the pages. There's too much at stake!

Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden

This book, the first in a series of at least one more, still haunts me with its metaphysical questions and real, hard-core truths. The story is, on one level, about a young woman named Seske Kaleigh, heir to the command of a biological, city-size starship carved up from the insides of a spacefaring beast.

Carved up, literally.

While still alive.

The 'beasts' take years to die and there are classes of humans on the city/vessel/beast whose sole purpose in life is to keep it living until they find the next one to replace it. Every possible point and counter-point to the sentient experience is explored in dramatic, spellbinding, heartbreaking ways.

The world--the world-building!--that Drayden creates is so utterly unique, cinematic and so...well, real, you can't tear your eyes off the page, sure is sure is sure. 

I highly recommend all of these reads if you want to awaken your mind to the hard questions of science and philosophy, rights, laws and justice of what we deem alive and worthy. But I promise, while you're reading, you won't be 'thinking' at all of these things but instead gripping the edge of your seat until the ride is over.

Do you have a favorite 'non-human sentient' character? I'd love to hear of them in the comments.

***

Kim Falconer's New YA Fantasy Series is out August 4, 2020 - Crown of Bones. (Writing under A.K. Wilder) 


Also, check her urban fantasy  - The Blood in the Beginning - an Ava Sykes Novel and the SFF Quantum Enchantment Series. 


You can find Kim on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Or pop over and throw the bones on the AKWilder.com site.

The Great Escape

Runaway Alchemist by ViridRain

While researching why adults continue to enjoy YA Fantasy well beyond their teens, I found Abbigail Mazour's thesis on The Reality of Escape in Fantasy. It's an insightful read with two points you might enjoy.

1) Fantasy fiction is an “escape of the prisoner” genre, reflected by -- you guessed it -- characters escaping for their lives.

2) Escape fantasy is actually rooted in the real world, complete with real-world philosophical insights.

Okay, three points. This one's kinda important!

3) Reading and immersing in these kinds of stories has the same benefits to us readers as escaping danger has for the characters.

We live to fight another day...

In My Lonely Room by YuumeiaArt

And, this is good!

Research is pretty clear that escapism through books, music, film and TV shows can help us process our own relationships and life dramas.

The beauty of YA Fiction (for any age) is its immediacy. Often written in the first person and at a page-turning pace, YA Fiction puts us inside the character, right from the first line.

The competition for writers breaking into the genre is fierce, which is also good news for readers. Chances are excellent that the YA Fiction you pick up is going to be well written, with a fresh take on the Fantasy world, plot and characters.

Healthy escape. Immediate storytelling. Well written. Immersive!

What's not to love?

Sand by Guweiz on Deviant Art

Lately, I've binged on YA SF, with a reread of Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang and Merrie Destefano's Valiant, then Nicky Drayden's Escaping Exodus and finally Lydia Kang's Toxic. All worthy of a YA Fantasy #outoftheworld reading list.

How about you? Any cool escape books to share? We'd all love to hear them.

***

Jump on the Entangled Teen Blog Hop Giveaway with AK Wilder - 

Kim Falconer's New YA Fantasy Series is out August 4, 2020 - Crown of Bones. (Writing under A.K. Wilder) 

Also, check her urban fantasy  - The Blood in the Beginning - and Ava Sykes Novel and the SFF Quantum Enchantment Series. 

You can find Kim on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Or pop over and throw the bones on the AKWilder.com site.

Contact at kimfalconer.com

Choose Your Poison

Poison in a Bottle

As synchronicity would have it, the last three books I've read had much to do about poisons, toxic substances that caused grievous harm. Some of the results are accidental, some intentional, but what ties all three reads together is the way the poison itself becomes a character.

Sure, you could say that chemical/magical substances are just tools, good or evil depending on who wields them. But in these books, I found the alchemy so unique and essential to the plot that it warrants a life of its own. 

I'll highlight them here so you can judge for yourself if you want to partake. I liked them all very much, in different ways.

Poison Study by Maria V Snider -

Fantasy
Book one of nine in the Poison Study Series

In this dance with poisons, the hero, Yelena, convicted of murder, is offered the option of becoming a taste tester to the Commander of Ixia. The other choice is death. Being a taster means she's well housed and very well fed. Of course, it also means she will die at any moment if she can't identify a poison quickly.

There's another twist to the plot that keeps her from running away, an ingenious addition by Snider that keeps the story moving as well as elevating the poison to a supreme 'power over.'

Fabulous writing. I love how you can settle in for nine whole books in this series!


An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley

YA Historical Fantasy
Standalone

This debut story whisks us away to the time of King Louis XIV, focusing on a seventeen-year-old who is shocked when she learns the truth about her mother's once-revered Shadow Society. Mirabelle Monvoisin is an alchemist, after her father, whose love of chemistry and magic, life-saving and life-taking, brings to life the plants and herbs and elements she works with.

While she struggles with a life or death situation, she meets the
Royal bastard Josse de Bourbon, loathed by his father the Sun King but devoted to his siblings who are in desperate need of saving.

As the captions reads: "She’s a deadly poisoner. He’s a bastard prince. As sworn enemies, they form a tenuous pact to unite the commoners and nobility against the Shadow Society. But can a rebellion built on mistrust ever hope to succeed?"

A rich and entertaining read. It made me dust off a history book to learn more about the French Revolution.

A Beautiful Poison - Lydia Kang

YA Historical Fiction/Mystery
Standalone

I just realized this is one of the few non-fantasy novels I've read in some time. I was drawn to the author by reading her YA fantasy title - The November Girl - and although this story is very different, the writing is every bit as engaging and immersive.

Set in the early 1900s, in both the homes of upper-class New Yorkers and those less fortunate, we meet Allene, smart, educated, entitled and out to solve a murder mystery. She teams up with two old friends, the fragile and stunning Birdy, and Jasper, a young apprentice medical examiner at Bellevue Hospital. 

As the story deepens, I found myself guessing 'who done it?' but oh boy, was I surprised at the very end. Brilliant writing. Amazing toxins and characters so real it makes you cry. Set in the era of NY jazz and the Spanish flu... Highly recommended.

As I think on these three authors and how they have weaved their poisons into the plots, I am reminded of Paracelsus when he said:

Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either deleterious or healing... 

Have you read any books about poison lately? Authors, how do you use toxins in your books? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

* * * 

Kim Falconer's New YA Fantasy Series is out in 2019 - The Bone Throwers. 

Also, check her urban fantasy out now - The Blood in the Beginning - and Ava Sykes Novel and the SFF Quantum Enchantment Series. 

You can find Kim on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

People of the Sea

Salila, a Mar of uncanny beauty and brutality - image: pen and collage by Anna Campbel

When Helen Lowe blogged this month on Supernatural Beings in Fantasy: The Fey, I thought, what a wonderful idea. Inspired by her exploration of the Fey, this post focuses on another class of supernatural beings - The Merpeople, or people of the sea.

Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann's havfruen has much in common with the likes of Salila, the race of sea people appearing in my current novels.

Known through history as mermaids or mermen, melusines, sirens, Ved-Ava, water nymphs, nereids, these creatures are half human-half fish or dolphin/whale and live in the oceans, rivers, lakes and waterways. The symbolism is rich and fantastic, the subject of art, film and literature.

One of the earliest images of the merpeople is Ea, the Babylonian god of the sea. From him came the Greek god Posiden and later the Roman god Neptune, all male, powerful and half man-half fish or sea serpent. The first female image is the Syrian goddess Atargatis whose temple had large pools full of sacred fish. These ancient deities are linked to fertility, upheaval, the wealth of the Sea.


But Hans Christian Andersen brought the merpeople to the modern world with his tragic book about the young mermaid who falls for the human lad. It doesn't end well for either of them, though the Disney interpretation would have us think so.

Contemporary books featuring people of the sea, mermaid or otherwise, weigh in strong with hundreds of reads to choose from. Here are a few that I've enjoyed.

The 2017 film adapted from the novel by the same name - provocative, violent, horrific and alluring, a fitting interpretation of this being of land and water.

This book is a YA fantasy, powerfully written with provocative themes.

DS Murphy's enchanting story is the beginning of a series and probably could have been a longer more comprehensive read, but it's wonderful YA paranormal romance/urban fantasy none the less.

Urban Fantasy terrain both above and below the surface of the sea, my Ava Sykes series features Mar and human relationships, including the vivacious and hungry Salila and her unsuspecting love interests. The first book follows Ava's journey to discover the secrets of her past and the nature of the mysterious men in her life.

In my upcoming series, The Bone Throwers, the Mar play a vital role in the survival of the planet, on the brink of the next Great Dying. 

Here is a brief conversation between Ash, a young wordsmith and Kaylin, the sailor taking her to the Isle of Aku:

“What of your people, Ash? What stories do they tell in Baiseen?” 

I take a breath. “There is the idea that the Mar catch the sacrificed babies and free them from their chains. There have been sightings.”

“I’ve heard that too.” His fingers lift to play across my hand. 

I follow the movement, trying unsuccessfully to swallow a lump in my throat. 

“And what would a Mar do with the child?” Kaylin asks. “Once freed?”

“Some stories say they eat them.”

Do you have a favorite 'merpeople' story? I'd love to hear it in the comments!

***

Kim Falconer's latest release comes out in 2019 - The Bone Throwers, book one in the Amassia series, writing as A K Wilder. Find her new page on Facebook - AKWilder Author and on Twitter as AKWilder.

Her latest novel is out now - The Blood in the Beginning - and Ava Sykes Novel.

Learn more about Kim on Facebook and chat with her on Twitter. Check out her pen name, @a.k.wilder on Instagram, or visitAKWilder on FB and website.

Kim also runs GoodVibeAstrology.com where she teaches the law of attraction and astrology. 

Kim posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month, hosts Save the Day Writer's Community on FB and posts a daily astrology weather report on Facebook.