High Praise for Awakenings and The Lost Prince

Most of the great quotes and good reviews for my books won't fit in a twitter feed, so I put them here.

The Ogre Hunt (A Tale of Aandor)

I wrote The Ogre Hunt between Awakenings and The Lost Prince. Although it features a character from my novels, which are adult urban fantasy, this one beckoned to be a young adult (YA) story. The illustration is an oldie from 1995, when I still made a living as an artist for Marvel. I only had an inkling of my fantasy series at the time and was still fleshing out the back story.  (Lelani in The Ogre Hunt is much younger than she appears in this illustration and has a full head of hair instead of a Mohawk.) I had fun writing this short and present it here for old fans and new. A PDF version is also available by clicking on this Link.

~*~

Everything was black.

The ogre had taken them all in seconds. It was implausibly swift for such a large, brutish creature—twenty-five feet tall, with the rancid odor of a garbage pit. So this is death, thought Lelani. Her cheek stung fiercely but she couldn't move, as though she were made of lead. She had always imagined death to be more comfortable then this. A tiny hand slapped her face—again.

"Wake up!" came a tense whisper.

That high, squeaky voice did not belong to any centaur. Lelani opened her eyes just as her diminutive friend Mytah was about to administer another smack of impromptu medicine. For an unabashed pacifist, Mytah packed a good wallop. She wore her hair in a pixie cut with matching big brown eyes. Her short-sleeved forest-green smock denoted the Fhlee preference for forest colors and materials, as did her hemp-rope belt and sandals woven from leaves of the water lotus. Her eyes were red and puffy, the tracks of her tears clearly marked upon her cheek.

"Thank the gods...I thought you..."

"What happened?" asked Lelani.

"It carried them off!" Mytah whispered.

"But not me?" Lelani asked.

"Don't you remember?"

Lelani could not remember—recent events were hazy. She recalled the previous two days quite clearly, however—the moment everything started to go wrong—the moment Kreeg ruined her first hunt.

The Lost Prince Brings Home The Dessert

 “This blend of urban and cross-world fantasy combines the excitement of the Harry Potter series with the dark grittiness of the Dresden Files books and should appeal to mature young adults as well as to adult lovers of the genre.”--Library Journal (The Lost Prince)

  

The Lost Prince (book 2 of the Guardians of Aandor series) made its debut on August 20th, and the reviews so far have been overwhelmingly positive. I want to point out one important change I've made regarding the ending of this book compared with its predecessor; although Awakenings also received much praise, many reviewers (and readers) were put out by the cliffhanger ending, and didn't realize they were starting a series. I'd actually read reviews where readers admitted I'd lost a star on their rating for this very reason. With book 2, I decided to go with a more definitive ending. What does this mean exactly? It's the difference between the ending of a Harry Potter book, where that book's story is relatively wrapped up, and that in A Game of Thrones book, when the story stops just as a protagonist dies, his family is scattered to the winds, and the bad guys are victorious. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

In truth, the ending I had always envisioned for The Lost Prince already lent itself to this more definitive conclusion. (Unlike the writers of the TV show, Lost, I actually do have an idea of where my story is going.) And boy, what an ending it is! The fact is, books one and two roll together like an epic self-contained 900-page story. If you didn't want to continue reading this universe, you could stop at the end of The Lost Prince, completely satisfied. If I had to create a metaphor for comparison I'd go with this: Awakenings was a delicious home-cooked three-course meal with a modest, though tasty dessert. (Think a scoop of gelato.) The Lost Prince is a scrumptious, seven-course gourmet dinner with a three-tiered dessert tray bearing tiramisu, Black Forest chocolate cake, flan, crème brûlée, pie, and of course, gelato. (For my non-culinary readers--think deep-fried Oreos, deep-fried Snickers, and deep-fried Twinkies.) Yes, folks, it's that good!

 

I'm really proud of this second novel. Some will live, some will die, and Daniel... (heh, heh).  The Lost Prince Hardcover from Tor Books is out in stores now. 

The Lost Prince (Amazon)

The Lost Prince (B&N)

The Lost Prince (Walmart) 

The Lost Prince (ebooks.com) 

The Lost Prince (Kobo books)

Awakenings (Amazon)

Awakenings (B&N)

Awakenings (Walmart)

Awakenings (ebooks.com)

Awakenings (Kobo books)

How Harry Dresden Saved Me $45

Harry Dresden saved me $45 today. I was reading White Night and was toward the end of the story (around 95% on my Kindle) when I needed to mail some things at the post office. Thing is, here in Jersey City, we have copious amounts of street cleaning (i.e. nuisance and added tax on the citizenry), and just when a street seems safe, bang, they come out of the wood works to ticket you.   

I found a parking spot near the post office at 2:00 p.m. that appeared to have already been cleaned; cleaning was from 1:00 to 3:00 according to the sign. I parked, but being so close to the end of a really great Jim Butcher story, I couldn't wait to finish reading the big battle scene, so I turned off the engine and just read in my car. Ten minutes later, I hear the honking of the ticket car letting people know the sweeper is coming. Had I been in the post office, I would have gotten a $45 ticket. But I was reading White Night that day. That one decision paid for five Harry Dresden novels. I love Jim Butcher's writing. It's smooth, effortless and a joy to come back to between chapters. I hope I am also writing stuff that people just can't can't put down and will one day save them money.

White Night by Jim Butcher

Awakenings and The Lost Prince by Edward Lazellari are available in stores and online now.  

Edward Lazellari is the author of the Guardians of Aandor Series from Tor Books and various short stories and plays. He resides in New Jersey.

Why It Takes So F#%&!^g Long To Write a Novel

A fan at my BEA book signing said she had been waiting a long while to get The Lost Prince, the sequel to Awakenings. She's right. And though I've written about the real-life challenges of trying to write novels while holding a day job and promoting one's book, the other part of that delay is the work (i.e. minutia) involved with writing a coherent, well-thought out story. Many literary writers (my favorite being Jonathan Franzen) go years between books, but we seem to expect a faster turnaround from genre writers. The delays go beyond plot, narrative, character arcs, and story development, although those too are time consuming. What I'm trying to bring to light are small moments that pull a writer aside from the bigger picture. A lot of you can read a paragraph in less than 30 seconds, but are not aware of how many hours it took the writer to make those four or five sentences ring as true as can be.

Tweep Nation: Interview With Dionne & Amber

My interview with Tweep Nation is up. Many thanks to Dionne Lister and Amber Norrgard for a fun hour and driving me to drink. (It's all good!) Hope you budding writers out there hear something useful that you can apply to your art. And special thanks to Dionne for her gushing praise of my novel AWAKENINGS. It's episode 42 and can be accessed through iTunes. Enjoy.

Science Fiction Assoc. of Bergen County Gathering

Me lecturing at SFABC gathering in Bergen County B&N

On Aug. 11 of this year, I was invited as a guest to speak at a gathering of The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County. Meeting fellow local  sci-fi and fantasy fans was a thrill and I enjoyed sharing my knowledge and experiences about general writing and publishing with them. Many thanks to director Phil Departo for the invitation.

I was excited to see people's interest in Awakenings as I explained the book to them, and more excited by how many attendees had already read the book and engaged me with specifics about their favorite characters. At the time, I was hard at work at finishing book 2, "The Lost Prince," and this was one of the rare engagements I made during he summer. (FYI, Book 2 is turned in and with the editor at TOR. We're looking at a summer 2013 release.)

Lecturing at B&N in Bergen County NJ

SFABC meets once a month at the Barnes & Noble on Route 4 in Bergen County. For those interested in joining this group, please contact Phil at: sfabcphil@gmail.com.

Me lecturing at SFABC gathering in Bergen County B&N

No Good Deed…

(This short story was originally published in August 2011 for the Fantastic Fables book giveaway contest at DarkFaerieTales.com.)  
©2011 Edward Lazellari

Lelani did not think the street looked right. The houses were too small and the blue sky looked like a matt painting used in stage plays; everything felt claustrophobic. She consulted her teacher’s notes and things were just off -- really off. There was no mention of any yellow brick road in his texts.

“Lost?” asked a woman’s voice behind her.

Lelani spun around and laid eyes on the strangest women she’d ever seen. She looked as though she stepped out of a children's storybook, plump with a greenish hue -- too tall for any of the houses in this town -- in a black and blue robe. She wore white socks with black circular stripes and ruby-colored shoes, a red cone-shaped hat with a large brim, and held a long gnarled walking stick. Her eyes were a deep black. Lelani sensed great power in this woman.

“Actually, yes,” said Lelani, cautiously. "How can you tell?"

“You are too tall and swarthy to be from this village,” said the woman. “And far too beautiful. Nineteen?” the woman guessed.

Booksdevoured.com Says Awakenings Is Meaty, Delicious, And Wonderful

 "Interesting start to a new series, I can’t wait to read more!" --Shannon

Awakenings has received a "4-Steak and Potatoes" rating from Books Devoured; This is one of my favorite reviews because of the following observation:

"It has been a while since I have read a fantasy book and it may be the first time I have read one that is set up in the way this one is. We learn about the fantasy elements but we are not really taken there.  Everything we learn is told in memories and stories.  The action of the book takes place on Earth in the current time.  I actually liked this because it kept so many elements relatable.  At the same time, I feel like I understand enough about the other world to be able to follow the story."

Yes! (Huzzah!)

Every author hopes readers will "get" the nuances of his or her story. With Awakenings, I purposely set out to write a fantasy novel that would also appeal to popular fiction readers while staying true enough to the tenants of fantasy for long-time sci-fi/fantasy fans to enjoy. My choice of words in this story was very exact -- I was aiming for almost neutral description of fantastic ideas.  I also wanted readers of mystery, adventure, young adult, and romance to feel that they had some skin in this game.

When I was in art school, one of my favorite teachers, Ben, would discuss art, politics, business, and everything else under the sun while we took life drawing. One day, he brought up the classic movie "The Fly" because there had been a recent remake, and the consensus was that it was not as good as the original. The question of the day was "why?" Using classic Socratic method, Ben would press us for our opinion about why the classic was the superior movie, and of course, a bunch of 20-something know-it-all art students were getting it all wrong. The answer, according to Ben, was that the original movie was not about the scientist who had turned into the Fly. It was about a wife dealing with a misfortune that had befallen her husband, and her efforts to save the man she loved. Though this was marketed as a horror movie, and had wonderful elements of horror in it, it was the romantic connection in the movie that gave it its humanity. Yes, the special effect in David Cronenberg's remake was better, but the story lacked that human elements that amplified the horror. Ultimately, the classic was a story of the wife's and best friend's loss, even as Vincent Price smashes a rock on the last vestiges of his mutilated friend's head in the last scene. This was one of the most important lessons I'd ever learned about story telling-- that any story in any genre needs to pull elements from other genres to give it dimension. 

Every once in a while, a reviewer will pick up on the things I like about my own story. And that puts a smile on my face. And this review from Books Devoured gave me a very pleasant start to my Monday.

Fictional Frontiers Interview Is Up

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of doing my first-ever interview, with Sohaib Awan of Fictional Frontiers, regarding my new book AWAKENINGS. This discussion series is one of the more innovative and thought-provoking of its kind on the InterWeb, and after you listen to my conversation with Sohaib, I encourage you to mine the archives for other fascinating dialogues with the most interesting creators of our time.


Hope you enjoy it.
 Ed

P.S. God bless Maria Sharapova. (Inside joke.)

SUVUDU Guest Blog Is Up

My guest blog, titled, Why Being The Anti-Harry Potter Is a Good Thing In Adult Fiction is live on the SUVUDU website as of Oct. 2.

Publishers Weekly Gives "Awakenings" A Good Review

"This solid debut will appeal to fantasy fans looking for familiar bones under a modern skin." --