Recent content by Malik

Terrarch, Court of Elves, a crapton of Romantasy, Bethany Adams's whole Return of the Elves series from Soulbound onwards, many others but if I keep going I'm going to start getting into books by authors I know and like personally, and whom I'm going to be sharing panels with year in and year out.

As far as what I dislike about elves as a fantasy convention: Shiny, pointy-eared humans who are awesome at everything. They have to have their faults. Mine are slow learners. They make the same mistakes several times--to them, making the same mistake a few times in a week is, temporally, like...

I use them. D&D type elves but I made a few functional changes. Tan or bark-colored skin, catlike fangs. They're forest creatures. I also leaned into the Vulcan shtick quite a bit, as my Faerie are feral at heart but concentrate on creating art and magic, and nurturing things for hundreds or...

So, yes. I feel you. My characters are not me. I needed to make that as clear as possible, especially with this new novel. I'm merely reporting what I saw. STONELANDS has one partial self-insertion character--a guy who has my old role--though there's nothing else about him remotely like me. I...

Refusal of The Call The Call Knows Where You Live The Call is on Your Front Lawn Holding a Boom Box Playing "In Your Eyes" at Max Volume

I'm not sure I understand this correctly. There is a main character to the story, of course. An omniscient narrator will be primarily concerned with the MC's story, but will fill in details from other characters' perspectives (and even unseen goings-on, at times), and will do it through a unique...

Absolutely. And I worked hard to not make this into war porn/gun porn/Navy SEAL Ooh Rah BS. It's much more about the personalities and functions of these kinds of units than it is about the technical aspects of ReALLy C00L GUNZ. Because I feel you on this.

Anytime I start questioning my storytelling ability, I remember the three words that forever changed the way I look at my writing: "Somehow, Palpatine returned."

The fun part was, I introduce him and his entire backstory in like three paragraphs because A.) Omniscient Subjective; and B.) readers hit that passage, snap their fingers, and say, "Got it. Fantasy Backstory Number Three. Moving on." I have a draft of his origin story, a YA "Chosen One"...

I have HAD IT with The Chosen One. Screw that guy. Also, the Lost Prince. Someone please find the damned prince, already. If he keeps getting lost, put a bell around his neck. The Big Bad in my series is a Lost Prince, raised on Earth, called back to his home fantasy kingdom where he...

Rereading this, I realize this sounds big-headed. Stick with me for a minute, though. As a lot of you Old Guard here know, I did all my characters' stunts when I was creating the world for this series. I started my worldbuilding way back before the internet, in the days when if you didn't know...

Stonelands has 265 F-bombs in 472 pages, which was necessary to give the dialogue legitimacy. So, I may not be the right one to chime in, here. As far as profanity to express eroticism and desire, there's a time and place for everything. It can certainly be done; it all depends on your...

Thank you. If I may say so myself, it is. Money. Not the lack of it; quite the opposite. Between the paperback sales and the film option, I can launch the ebook with a considerable promotional budget and start production on my next novel. When Stonelands gets pirated, I'll be fine. The ebook...

Okay, fine; I'm relenting. The Kindle version of STONELANDS will be available on 12 May. Preorder now for $4.99. After launch, it'll join my other ebooks at $9.99, because that's where we should all be selling our books.