From the Backlist: Fantasy Festivals

Art by the amazing Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

Happy Equinox everyone. 

Whether your season is turning from summer to autumn, or from winter to spring, it's a time of Sola Aequo where the divine beings 'make equal' the power of the sun for day and night. It's traditionally a time of celebration and gratitude, and a time to reflect.

With that in mind, today's post from the Backlist is Kim Falconer's Fantasy Festivals.

Enjoy!

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Fantasy Festivals 

by Kim Falconer on the Supernatural Underground

There are a number of ways an author draws the reader into their story. They can use pace, suspense, fear, excitement, but behind the page-turning tools is a little something called atmosphere, the nuance that creates immersion.

For example: Harry Potter's first festival feast not only helps create an atmosphere at Hogwarts, it shows a contrast to his austere upbringing.

In this way, the readers and audience are captivated by the story, not just because it excites them, but because it feels 'real'.

Ways to create an atmosphere stem from language, word choice, dialogue, character and world-building - the sights, sounds, smells, textures, tastes and history of the story-world. Included in the art of world-building is the power of celebration. . . 

... and there's nothing like a royal wedding to make the heart sing.

Tolkien certainly new how to put on a festival! LOTR Return of the King

These fantasy festivals might match ones the reader is already familiar with ...full post here.

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Do you have a favourite fictional celebration? We'd all love to hear it.

Happy Equinox, everyone!

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About Kim Falconer

The Amassia Series

Kim Falconer, also writing as AK Wilder, has released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy with Curse of Shadows as book 2 in the series. 

 Quantum Enchantment

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

Throw the bones on the AKWilder.com site. See you there!

Read Blood and Water, a PNR alt history that will leave you questioning every natural disaster ever endured.

“There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.” 

From the Backlist: The Importance of Buddies

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cast for Reboot Grows!  Maria Lattila | July 25, 2025

The end-of-the-month pick for From the Backlist has gone to the awesome Helen Lowe's The Importance of Buddies. Written early November, 2011, I don't think she even had thanksgiving in mind that early in the month, but among the wonderful things to be thankful for, one is our circle of friends. Thank you, Helen, for this timeless reminder!

And, is everyone syked for the reboot of this supernatural amazing show? 

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The Importance of Buddies

by Helen Lowe

...the Supernatural Underground is about books. Statement of the obvious, huh? Which means that it’s also about storytelling, which is cool—well, I think so anyways! :)

But the Supernatural Underground is also about buddies. We’re a whole bunch of writers who hang out here because we all love what we do, and also love the opportunity to spend time with you—other folk who love paranormal/fantasy/SF as much as we do.

So because it’s Halloween, and because her hot new title Feast is about Halloween, I’ve been delighted to have my Supe buddy, Merrie Destefano, guesting on my “ … on Anything, Really” blog about how she personally gets in the mood for the 31 October festivities. It’s a fun post, so I hope you’ll head on over and check it out, here.

Here’s the thing though, reading Merrie’s post and generally being in October 31st mode made me think about what my favourite Halloween show might be. And because I’m predictable (I know, sad, isn’t it?) I decided that it really had to be the “Halloween” ep of Buffy, Season 2. Which got me thinking about Buffy and why I like the show—what is the magic, really? I wondered. Because, if I’m honest, a lot of the shows are kinda silly. A lot of fun, too, of course, but still …

The fun and vampyre slayage are both definitely important, but I don’t think they’d have kept me viewing for seven seasons. When I reflected some more on what did, I decided it was mainly about the buddies—the friends around the central Buffy character and the ups and downs of all their stories. That was the bit that was like real life—and maybe what kept my disbelief suspended and me watching the show. 

Read the rest of the post here...

 More about Helen - 

More on the Buff reboot HERE! 

~*~

About Helen Lowe 

Helen Lowe is an award-winning novelist, poet, and lover of story. With four books published to date, she is currently completing the final instalment in The Wall Of Night series.
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Helen posts regularly on her “…on Anything, Really” blog, monthly on the Supernatural Underground, and tweets @helenl0we.

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Thanks for dropping by! We hope you have a warm and festive holiday season. 

 

 

 

 

From the Backlist: Forbidden Fruit (And Don't We Love It!)

Art by @horseman09 on Instagram 

Today's spotlight from the Backlist was written June 26, 2010 by the spectacular Fantasy author Karina Cooper. Her thoughts on contemporary monsters and why we love-fear-love them are timely, and well considered. 

Hope you enjoy!

Check out Karina Cooper on Goodreads!  

Forbidden Fruit (And Don't We Love It!)

by Karina Cooper

 

We've all met the forefathers of the paranormal world. Bram Stoker's Dracula, George Waggner's The Wolf Man, and other early prototypes of the much-maligned fur-and-fanged world have been ingrained in our racial memory almost as deeply as a fear/fascination of fire.

Think I'm joking? Don't worry, I am... mostly. While there is no (credible) evidence of fanged cavemen stalking the Neanderthals of ages past, there is, instead, a like fascination with the things that go bump in the night. We have loved to hate vampires who creep through bedroom windows, cheered when the werewolves have been put down by silver bullets (carefully crafted from one's father's melted down watch, natch), covered our eyes when the blood-bathing witch was burned at the stake and the souls of her cursed victims set free.

If you're here, then you share that love with me.

And perhaps you can answer a question that has always interested me: How, in all that is (un)holy, did vampires go from this unfortunate child of the night to this blessed hunk of blood-love? Where in our society did we decide that being stalked by furry-faced flesh-eaters was not nearly so fun as being seduced by them?

I have a theory, gentle (and not so gentle) readers. My theory is this: We as a species, a culture and a shared memory are routinely fascinated by the forbidden. From as majestic as the ancient tales of locked gateways to heaven to the mundane as being told we shouldn't touch the stove, we are drawn to that which we cannot have... 

 

Read the entire POST. 

 

Enjoy!

 

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Speculative Fiction (Fantasy/Thriller/Sci-Fi/Urban Fantasy) for adults and teens.

 

 

We're a group of best-selling authors providing news, reviews and interviews from the darker, more speculative side of fiction.

Fiction that makes the heart beat faster...

 

From The Backlist: "What Love Means" by Kim Falconer

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It's backlist time -- & we love this post on "What Love Means " by Kim Falconer.

Time to share it again, we thought. So here it is! Enjoy!!

The "Quantum" Series

What Love Means

by Kim Falconer

I find it fascinating that the English Language has only one word for love. We love our cars and cats and pancakes. We love our new job, the latest film and the computer that never lets us down. We love our gardens, sports, family and our lovers, but the feeling for these ‘loved ones’ can be quite different. Still, we say the same thing: I love . . . Not so in other cultures. The ancient Greeks, for example, had four different words for love with different meanings and different ‘locations.’

Love as Epithemia translates into words like horny or randy. It’s a physical, sensual, sexy love that’s hard to resist. Animal attraction. Chemistry. You know the kind? It’s tactile and felt in the body. It wants to get close, to touch and explore. It wants to have sex because that’s the only thing that will put the fire out!

Love as philia is a friendship love that brings creative inspiration. There can be a deep sense wanting to be together in companionship and co-creation. Philia is felt in the heart. We can write characters that have a feeling of philia for each other and it really screws things up if they do have sex. Or if one character is feeling the philia and the other is on fire with epithemia. These make great problems for convoluted story lines!

Love as Eros is felt in the soul. Eros is a god from which we get the word erotic, but to the ancient Greeks it was much more than just ‘sex’. The original definition of erotic (of Eros) is a situation when two or more people come together in such a way there is a lasting transformation. By this definition, sex is seldom erotic, but it can be. The Eros relationship is heady, intense, obsessive. It always leads to growth and change.

Love as agape is a divine love felt in the spirit. It may not need the body conneciton to feel fulfilled. This is also tantric, sex that opens the mind to another level of consciousness. Agape can lead to transcendence where characters move beyond their earthly limitations to become more than they ever thought possible.

Stories that contrast these kinds of love can be deeply moving because they speak to our own subtle and complex longings. One character feeling the ‘brotherly love’ of philia may be confronted by their companion’s erotic fire. Someone with the reverence of agape may not know how to face pure epithemia head on. It’s not unrequited love, exactly (it doesn’t have to distance characters) but it brings trouble and that’s exactly what we want in a good read! Mixing up the love keeps the stakes high and the dynamics flowing!

... 

What a great post! To read the original, click here

To check in on Kim, try these links:

AKWilder.com, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and KimFalconer.com. 

Throw the bones on the AKWilder.com site -- see you there!

Kim also writes as AK Wilder

From the Backlist: In What World?

 

Jacek Yerka: Surrealist Paintings – Thoughts on Papyrus

Welcome Sup readers and authors to another issue from the Backlist. Today we explore a particular take on world-building by Margaret Ronald. Join us in this vivid exploration of the heart of storytelling!

Read the whole post here - from May 2011. In What World? 

In what world?

by Margaret Ronald

In a world...

The words might not start as many movie trailers as they used to, but they've become a sort of shorthand for setting up drama. And for me, they sum up one of the things I love about writing: finding that "in a world" moment and drawing it out into a real, complicated situation.

 

 

Say you have a fairly normal setting, only with magic/mythical creatures/mutant superpowers. (In a world where vampires roam the night...in a world where deities lurk in back alleys...) Said powers can range from outright awesome (immortality! control over electricity! telekinesis!) to just above mundane (control over all shrimp no longer than one inch! olfactory invulnerability! keeping a fridge permanently clean!). The first and most important question then becomes "why aren't these magicians/vampires/mutants in charge of everything?"

 

 

 

One answer is "they are, we just don't know it." Okay, then. How much energy does it take to hide something that big? And why not rule openly? Or perhaps in this world, they are already visibly in charge of everything. That's going to make a lot of changes in the governance of this world, possibly even down to who's still considered a person. If vampires are in charge, are humans cattle? If magicians rule, where's the check on their power? 

 

 

There are lots of fun ways to play with this character by character -- say, Mr. Electricity above can only exert his power at great personal cost, and so lives off the grid, away from civilization. Or maybe the fridge-cleaning guy works in a sterile lab, and so that just makes his life a little easier. But on a larger scale, the effects of adding magic to a world are a lot more pernicious.. Read the whole post by Margaret Ronald...

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Speculative Fiction (Fantasy/Thriller/Sci-Fi/Urban Fantasy) for adults and teens.

We are a group of best-selling authors providing news, reviews and interviews from the darker, more speculative side of fiction.

Fiction that makes the heart beat faster...

 

From The Backlist: "Sex, Gore, and @!*&%! " by Dakota Banks

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Here on Supernatural Underground we love us a backlist post -- and we think you'll love a reprise on "Sex, Gore, and @!*&%! " by Dakota Banks. 

In it, Dakota takes 'a step to the right' (or maybe it's 'a jump to the left', he-he) on our core speculative fiction fare (SciFi, Fantasy, Horror, with more than a little Paranormal and Romance thrown in ;-) ) and hones in on the Mystery genre.

The "ratings" classifications of Mystery fiction, that is, based on their violence, sex, and bad/gory language content. Let's go check it out!
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Sex, Gore, and @!*&%!

by Dakota Banks

"In the mystery genre, there are general classifications that readers assign to books based on their use of violence, sex, and language--just like rating movies. Some readers are comfortable only within the classification that appeals to them and rarely read beyond it. Others, like me, sample from all parts of the buffet table. Let's take a look at these classifications and see if they apply to paranormal books, too.

• Fluffies. These books drip wholesomeness, except for the fact that someone is murdered. Otherwise, they couldn't be considered murder mysteries at all. But the murder is sanitized and happens off-stage. For example, someone might get a phone call from the police informing them that Aunt Helen is (gasp!) dead. There is not even a hint of foul language and the only blood in the book will be there from the paper cut you got turning the pages. Fluffies are a fairly recent invention, created as a backlash when readers of the next classification of books started noticing language creeping in that made them uncomfortable. Thus, the fluffy was born. Guaranteed no encounters of the sex, violence, and foul-mouthed varieties. G-rated movies.
  
  

• Cozies. Light on all three aspects. These stories frequently take place in small towns, or if not, within an extended family. The emphasis on character development and especially relationships among a group of people are the controlling aspects of the story. Again, the murder usually happens off-stage and the mystery may involve something like keeping family secrets or falsifying the will. PG movies.
  
  

• Traditional. Now we get to mysteries with real meat on their bones, literally. While the murder might or might not still happen off-stage, the reader gets to see the dead body or bodies through the eyes of the lead character. The reader may see other characters in the book killed on-stage besides the initial murder. There may be couples having sex, but in a "fadeout" manner where the door closes or the blankets are pulled up just when things are getting really interesting. No lengthy specific descriptions of what's going on under those blankets. Language has slipped into usage of common curse words, and only the f-word is off limits. Or is it? Some of these books use the f-word in non-sexual ways as a strong expletive or something that is consistent with a particular character's manner of speech. These are generally the amateur sleuth books, where a character outside law enforcement becomes involved in a murder investigation, possibly to prove herself innocent of the murder. PG-13 movies.
  
  

• Hard-boiled. Language, violence, and sex are explicit but according the author's standards, not used for sensationalism. Subject matter such as serial killers, rape, pedophilia, human trafficking, gangs, kinkiness, drugs, the whole range of the human condition--anything goes. Language can be coarse, bloody violence is shown to the reader, and hot sex is usually part of the story. The protagonists are usually people within law enforcement in some capacity, or private investigators--in other words, a small segment of society that fights to keep the rest of us safe. R movies.
  
  

• Splatter books or erotica--Language has no restriction in either of these books. Splatter books detail scenes of bloody violence and torture that amount to wallowing in blood, which is the purpose of the book. Erotica emphasizes explicit, frequent, unusual, whatever, sex to the point that other story elements exist to support the portrayal of sex. X-rated movies or soft porn.

As I mentioned earlier, some mystery readers are loyal to one classification. Some will read only cozies, some hard-boiled readers think cozies are a waste of time and not real mysteries. You get the idea.

... "

To read the original post, click here.

To check in on Dakota, go here.

She also writes as Shirley Kennett, here.

From the Backlist - What's in a Blurb

 

A desperate prince… a castle full of lies… and an ancient shapeshifter trapped in the form of a human girl. Mistwood by Leah Cypress

Hello to all Sup readers! Today, from the Backlist, we are looking at the topic of BLURBS. Though the contest is long over from this April 28, 2011 post by Leah Cypess, the question remains. Do book blurbs make a difference?

NOTE - For those interested in the history of book blurbs:

In 1907the writer and illustrator Gelett Burgess decided to satirise the practice of putting women on the cover of books, whether they were about women or not. He put a sickly sweet fictional girl named Miss Belinda Blurb his new release, “Are you Bromide?” to incite sales. His plan worked, or back-fired (not sure which) when Bromide sold so well that the term Book Blurb was popularized and all future books included one on the back cover. 

Miss Belinda Book Blurb (1907) from Buried Under Books

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What's In A Blurb 

by Leah Cypess

. . . Blurbs make an author feel good (trust me), but the constant question in publishing is: Do they actually have any effect on the reader? What I’ve heard from some people is that the answer is age dependent – in adult publishing, the consensus is that blurbs do affect readers; in YA, probably not to a great extent; and in mid-grade, probably not at all. 

Of course, as with most information in publishing, this is based on a strenuous and scientific review of five pieces of anecdotal evidence. So, I’m curious: do blurbs affect your buying decisions? Will they make you look at a book more closely? Do you even notice them?

Let us know what you think in the comments . . . Read the whole post and fascinating comments ..

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What is your take on Blurbs? Read them? Love them? Distrust them?

Let us know!

 

From The Backlist: "Book Addicts Anonymous" by Kerrelyn Sparks

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I think we're all book addicts here -- right? Right!

But here's the great Kerrelyn Sparks on that very subject:

"I love to read, and that love led me to writing. I love the whole business of books so much that I get swamped. One time I was so engrossed in writing that I got a phone call from the elementary school. School had let out twenty minutes earlier, and I'd forgotten to pick up my daughter! How embarrassing! Luckily, my daughter never held it against me. She understood, because she already loved books, too. Fellow readers understand the addiction... and the consequences. Supper gets burned. You go to work after a measly two hours of sleep."

Hard to beat, huh?! 

To read the full post-of-awesome (from our equally awesome backlist) click here.

And to catch up on Kerrelyn's books-and-writing latest, go here.

Enjoy!! 

From the Back-List: Confused about Genre?

 

Reading and Writing Different Types of Books

 

Today we share a back-list post from March 2013 from our very own Merrie Destefano, award-winning artist and author of multiple, intriguing genres.

Read the entire post Confused About What Genre You are Writing? and let us know what you think of these many subcategories of Speculative Fiction.

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“What genre is this book?” 

 

This is a question that authors ask themselves frequently while writing. Agents ask it when considering representation. Editors ask it when acquiring. Marketing departments ask it while trying to promote the book. Bookstore staff members ask it when trying to categorize the book and when speaking to customers. Readers ask it before buying the book and when telling their friends about the book.

Phew.

The problem is, when you’re writing speculative fiction, all the boundaries seem to blur until you feel like you’re cross-eyed. To give you a brief example, when I wrote my first novel, Afterlife, I saw it as science fiction. When my editor acquired it, however, she asked for a few changes -- not many -- and the book was then marketed as an urban fantasy. To me, that book will always be sci-fi. But to many readers, it’s urban fantasy.

My current novel, Fathom, probably falls into the category of paranormal romance. But to me, it’s fantasy. I never saw the paranormal romance elements when I was writing the book. They’re probably there, but to me it was like a math equation:

Overarching coming of age theme + legendary creatures + mythological elements = FANTASY.

But then, I’m just the writer. Writers don’t usually get to decide what category their novels fall into. They just write the best book they can and try not to worry about things like markets or categories or the dreaded Latest Hot Topic.

So, just for fun, I put together a little Cheat Sheet for helping to define what category the book you’re currently reading might fall into. Now, these are just suggestions, not hard, fast rules. Here goes...

CATEGORIES OVERVIEW:

FANTASY: May take place in another world and often contains magic or supernatural elements. Does not contain scientific themes (otherwise, it would be science fiction.) Usually has a battle of good versus evil. May or may not have romance.
Books: The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones.

HORROR: Can contains supernatural themes; meant to scare, startle or terrify. Sometimes rooted in folklore. May have vampires, werewolves, etc. Also may have a gothic tone. Sometimes written very beautifully, despite horrific subject matter.
Books: The Shining, Dracula, The Haunting.

PARANORMAL ROMANCE: May blend elements of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Takes place in our world, but often has otherworldly creatures, like vampires, ghosts, shape shifters, etc. A sub-category of fantasy and/or a sub-category of romance that contains experiences outside the normal or supernatural aspects.
Books: Highlander, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries. Read More...

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We would love to hear about your favorite genres. Meet us in the comments!