Closure

It is with great regret that I inform you this will be the last blog entry I will be making for Fictiongarden.

It was a good run while it lasted, but due to financial troubles I cannot afford to keep the site going. I shall still supply the odd review here and there on Amazon/Goodreads but outside of that I'm done.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me over the last few years and all the kind words and intriguing submissions. It was probably the most entertaining time of my life and I'll miss it.

Last but not least: keep writing.

- J.R.

Temporarily ceasing my reading of new submissions.

Just a quick heads up to let everyone know that I will be taking a break from reading and reviewing the latest self-published submissions.

My reason for doing so is selfish but simple: Fool's Quest by Robin Hobb has finally been published and I must read it.

While I almost exclusively read self-published or small press fantasy works, this is one of those rare exceptions that I need to read immediately. I appreciate your patience in this matter and I'll be getting back to my reviews in due course.

SPFBO and Storybundle book enters the Recommended Reading list.

It's that time again, where I foist a brief and addled update upon you to let you know that I've uncovered yet another great piece of self-published fiction.

In this case it was hard to miss, given that it was both part of Mark Lawrence's Self Published Fantasy Blog-Off and making an appearance in a fantasy Storybundle. Clearly I had to check it out, and I'm glad I did.

Sand of Bone is a character-rich desert-based fantasy that doesn't pull punches. It's precisely what the modern fantasy world needs and I hope that it propels Blair into penning a long and successful series.

More Recommended Reading, you say?

It has been an exciting time for me over the last month, moving to a different country and everything, but nobody came here to read about my life!

Fortunately I was able to get some reading in, and the result is one of those books stood out enough to enter it into the Recommended Reading section.

The Penitent Assassin by Shawn Wickersheim is another book on Mark Lawrence's Self-Published Blog Off competition, but I was aware of it long before then. Thankfully I got round to reading it and wasn't disappointed.

While there are flaws, they are easily forgiven due to the quality of the writing and the superb plotting of this dark and gruesome tale of vengeance.

So if you're not above graphic descriptions of violence, you'll definitely want to give this a shot!

You Benem believe it! Another addition to the growing Recommended Reading section!

David Benem is our newest entrant to the Recommended Reading section with his delightfully dark What Remains of Heroes.

Benem is another quality author brought to my attention by Mark Lawrence's excellent self-published blog-off that I've spoken about before.

So if you're looking for a solid gritty fantasy in the style of Stover and Abercrombie then give this a shot. Yet more proof that self-published work can hang with the best of them.

Harry Connolly joins the Recommended Reading list.

It was obvious from the word 'go' that Harry Connolly was an author worthy of inclusion into the Recommended Reading section of Fictiongarden.com. To be honest, I could probably make a second entry and stick him in our hall of fame!

The Way Into Chaos is a rollicking, fast-paced fantasy adventure with all the grit and determination of its contemporaries. An excellent kickstarted book which sports a glorious cover and excellent prose.

Then again, if you've been even remotely following the fantasy self-publication scene over the last year or so you already know that.

I can only hope that the next book I read will be anywhere near as good as this one.

Thievery at its finest! A new addition to the Recommended Reading list.

After a month of reading a number of books that certainly qualified for my 'grinding through the pile' section (good enough to finish, not good enough for this site) I've finally struck gold again with another great piece of fantasy.

Michael McClung's The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids is a classic thief-based Sword and Sorcery tale, but instead of your typical heists we have a tale of a woman hunting down a murderer.

The book rips along at a fast pace and doesn't let up, giving various nods to the works that came before it but never borrowing from them wholesale.

When last I checked this title was free on Amazon, so go pick it up and give it a read. It's short and punchy and full of intrigue!

Michael J. Sullivan continues to be awesome.

Fictiongarden.com Hall of Famer Michael J. Sullivan proved a few years ago that the transition from self-published author to traditionally published brick and mortar author was not only possible, but realistic if you had the talent.

Now he's extending the opportunity to anyone with the chops to write a suitable short story!

Go to http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2015/05/extending-helping-hand/ for full details. A summary from the great man himself is provided below:

For my next Riyria novel, I'm going to bundle someone's short story with it to give exposure to a new or aspiring author. You can read the full details in the link but the bottom line is this:

• I'm going to hold a contest and I've provided a sign-up sheet to be notified when submissions open.
• Winner will receive $0.15 a word (more than 2x pro rate for anthologies) for up to 5,000 words - story can go up to 7,500 words but the payout is maxed at $750.
• Any genre is acceptable - although the audience will be my readers so take that into account when when writing your shorts
• If you aren't familiar with my work, you can get a free sample when you sign-up.

The reason for the pre-posting and sign-up is the window will be really small, and I can't have it delay the release date of the novel it will be bundled with. So, by announcing early people can start working on their query and short now and be ready when submissions open up.
I'm hoping to get some good stories, and everyone who enters will, at a minimum, get their query critiqued - an added benefit.

Now back to J.R. typing.

For those who don't already know, Riyria is a best-selling series, so if you've got a story that fits into that kind of thing then you're going to get a LOT of eyes on your short-form work. You don't need me to tell you that's a big deal and can translate to a lot of eyes on your long-form stuff, if you do that kinda thing.

So what are you waiting for? Get writing!

Grinding through the pile.

While not exactly a site update, I figured I should inform you as to why there haven't been any recent additions to the Recommended Reading section.

I read a lot of books, and it's honestly not the terrible ones that make this task difficult. Rather, it's the books that are solid and enjoyable that cause the struggle.

If a book is bad, I can dismiss it fairly easily. If a book is unsuitable for this site, that soon emerges upon reading it. I can make my way through any number of these titles with ease.

The books that are reaching for the proverbial brass ring and just slip short are the type that are causing the holdup. They flatter to deceive, with parts of them which are great followed by elements that cause problems. As a reader, I am engaged and entertained by the book, and I have to read to the end in order to determine whether it can do enough to merit a place on the site. This determination takes a lot more of my time, as these are the books that merit a review but not a position on my site.

What's 3 star to me may well be 4 or 5 star to other readers, and I feel it'd be disingenuous of me to only review books on Amazon/Goodreads that merited a 4/5 star rating. As I've stressed in the past, 3 stars from someone as stringent as I am is a good score to attain and it means that you've kept me interested throughout the whole work. Not to mention the fact that a balanced but favourable review is like gold dust to the modern independent author.

I've given 3 stars to some absolutely excellent authors, people like M. Todd Gallowglas, Patrick J. Loller and Claire Frank. All of whom are going from strength to strength with their respective series.

So while I may have gone into double figures without finding anything worth publishing on the site, I will continue reading away in the hopes that some of the upcoming titles on my vast list will result in a hidden gem.

Thank you for your patience.

A minor update to the site.

No new recommended reads, no brand spanking new section (still working on that). Instead, today's news item will be a small addition to the site in general.

When I started this site but a few years ago it exclusively sold an anthology for business purposes. From there it blossomed into what it is now becoming, a fully-fledged hub for self-published fantasy.

The anthologies will always be free, as will my own works. Having said that, you now have a second button underneath that download one. If you have the money but don't feel like searching for the work on Amazon, you can now click the 'buy' button and be linked to the purchase page. This also applies to my own works of fiction in the J.R. Karlsson section of the site.

Due to not being a United States citizen, a chunk of the royalties I receive from my own works will be held indefinitely for tax reasons. This does not apply to the United Kingdom version of the site, so if you hail from there I urge you to use that instead.

This decision hasn't been made out of necessity. Fictiongarden will continue to operate with or without financial aid of any sort. Everything on here will remain free.

There will be more updates in the coming months as I work on the new sections for the site and power through the backlog of material I have yet to read. Expect more updates in a timely fashion!

...famous last words, eh?

Congratulations are in order!

This is a short blog entry just to let everyone know that our own Graham Austin-King has been snapped up by Realmwalker Publishing Group. Congratulations, Graham!

Graham's Riven Wyrde Saga is exactly how a modern fantasy should be done, and a deal like this is long overdue. He joins the likes of Claire Frank and Lee Aarons in the ever-growing stable that is Realmwalker.

It'll be interesting to see both where Graham and Realmwalker go from here. One thing's for sure, there's exciting times ahead for both of them.

Once again, a big and hearty congratulations to Graham from everyone here at Fictiongarden.com!

The Recommended Reading section grows by one!

That's right, it's that time again! Thanks to innumerable recommendations from various bloggers, authors and fans I've finally made my way through a book that I should have read much sooner.

Century of Sand by Christopher Ruz is a fantastic desert-based fantasy chronicling the journey of a young mute girl and the soldier who protects her. It has been praised in many circles by many people and its inclusion in the Recommended Reading section is long overdue.

So well done Mr. Ruz, your vision and imagination were a pleasure to read through. Now if you don't mind I'll be ordering the sequel...

It's that time again: another Recommended Reading entry.

It has been a little while since we last had one of these, having plowed through a slew of books that didn't really catch me.

That's one of the downsides of doing this, for every readable book you uncover you have to submit yourself to several others that aren't up to scratch.

This book most certainly was up to scratch, and features an extremely interesting protagonist.

Nathan Fierro's The Demon of Cliffside is a first-person perspective 'Alchemypunk' tale told through the eyes of a protagonist with no name. A creature that is hundreds of years old and predates the humanity that has been built above them.

It's a fascinating read, and one that has been carefully crafted to give you a completely alien and detached feel as you experience the tale.

From 250 to 13.

Not that long ago I posted about Mark Lawrence's Great Self-published Fantasy Blog-off. A humorously titled take on the Great British Bake-off, presumably.

Well after making sure my cream had set correctly and my oven was at the right temperature and my sponge was correctly moistened with confiture, I went through all 250 entries that the 'short' list comprised of.

As previously noted, there were a lot of familiar faces, and in my own personal whittling down process I excluded works that I had read before and authors who were already in the Recommended Reading section.

After this, I cut out those authors whose covers didn't appeal to my artist's aesthetic sensibilities and those whose books clearly weren't aimed at me in the first place. This narrowed it down further, but the pile was still large.

Finally, I downloaded a sample of each work onto my kindle and read the opening chapters of every work that was left. The samples I was able to complete were bought outright and will be getting a review at some point in the next year.

As the title of this entry suggested, we went from 250 to 13. Here are those 13:

Pauline M Ross – The Plains of Kallanash
G. R. Matthews – The Stone Road
Melisa McPhail – Cephrael’s Hand
Michael Watson – Valkwitch
Michael McClung – The thief who pulled on trouble’s braids
Christian Freed – Hammers in the Wind
Jacob Cooper – Circle of Reign
James Islington – The shadow of what was lost
Davis Ashura – A Warrior's Path
Greg James – Under a colder sun
Christopher Ruz – Century of Sand
T.O Munro – Lady of the Helm
Barbara Webb – City of Burning Shadows

Note that this is a personal list, and there's a lot of very good fiction that has been omitted in order to compile it. I strongly suggest you check out the authors I mentioned in one of my previous entries about the contest.

You can find Watson, Ashura and Freed's short fiction in our latest anthology, and it was most gratifying to see that they had made the cut.

The others are more of an unknown quantity, but I've heard good things about a number of them.

I shall also be reading and reviewing the final 10 choices the bloggers make in the contest proper, and look forward to adding any additional titles I may have missed in my scouring.

Another entry into the Recommended Reading section!

Those of you who have been following my blog with due dilligence will notice that in the previous entry when congratulating a host of authors affiliated with Fictiongarden I slipped a name in there of someone who hadn't been in either the anthologies or part of the Recommended Reading/Hall of Fame sections.

That name was one Andrew Lowe, the author of the excellent Forging Divinity. Our latest entrant into the Recommended Reading section.

Forging Divinity is a magic-fuelled adventure story in the vein of Brandon Sanderson. It may not be the grimmest or darkest book in the section but it makes up for it with an intriguing plot and likeable characters.

Oh, and the magic system is to die for.

So well done Mr. Rowe! You can expect some pestering e-mails in future. I'll be keeping an eye out for whatever you plan on releasing next.

The Great Self-published Fantasy Blog-off Shortlist announced.

Just a brief update for you all this time to let you know that the shortlist for Mark Lawrence's Great self-published Fantasy Blog-off has been announced.

I say shortlist, but really it's a long, long list of 250 titles. This will be whittled down to a lucky 25 over the next few months by the respective bloggers involved.

The cool thing about this list is that I'm on it too!

A big congratulations to the following Fictiongarden affiliates for their making the cut as well:

Matt Waldram
S.M. White
Luke Matthews
Christopher Kellen
Tony Healey
Tom Wright
Tristan Gregory
J.S. Morin
Michael Watson
Christian Freed
Matthew Colville
Gregory Close
Davis Ashura
Ken Lim
Andrew Rowe
Kal S. Davian
Patrick J. Loller
M. Todd Gallowglas
Graham Austin-King

I've probably missed somebody somewhere, so for that I apologise. It really is a mammoth list, but having read and rated a tenth of the books in question I can say that competition is going to be fierce!

In addition to these fine folk there's a glut of talent out there that I hope to be working with in future anthologies. Good luck to those folks as well, they deserve it.

I've compiled my own substantial list of future reading thanks to the efforts of Mark Lawrence to bring this to fruition. You'll be hearing exactly what I think about many of these books in the year to come!

Last but most certainly not least, a hearty congratulations to Claire Frank, whose Echoes of Imara series has been picked up by Realmwalker Publishing Group. A most enjoyable read that I had the pleasure of reviewing recently. Well deserved!

The site continues to grow! Another new section and another Recommended Reading entrant!

As you've no doubt spotted by now, we have a lovely links page that provides you with a number of intriguing sites on the web relevant to our interests. Go check it out if you haven't already!

In other news, I just finished another great book but with a twist.

This work is the first one I'm going to put in the Recommended Reading section that wasn't published independently.

As evidenced by Rob J. Hayes and many others, the line between independent author and small press published author is growing exceedingly blurred. As a result I am now permitting small press publications to appear in the Recommended Reading section irrespective of whether they have been published independently before.

Fear not though, fair reader! Every work that is published by an indie/small-press will have a big bold disclaimer telling you so. So if you really want to read exclusively self-published materials from the section then you can.

In this case the publisher in question is Ragnarok, who already recently picked up Rob J. Hayes, author of the previously self-published The Heresy Within.

Today's addition to the Recommended Reading section is stable-mate Seth Skorkowsky's Damoren. A dark and pulpy Urban fantasy with no shortage of guns, violence and monsters.

Damoren caught me off guard with its lovingly-crafted deviation from all the standard things we have come to expect in the genre, reading like a big budget horror film at times instead of a typical Dresden clone.

It's solid stuff, and well worth a read if you're into that kind of thing.

In other news, the Artist's and Editor's Corners have taken a sideline to the production of the latest annual anthology, Through The Suffering Of Others, which as we speak is emblazoned upon the front page of the site.

I shall get around to developing them in due course, once I've found all that missing time that I seem to have misplaced.

Last but not least, if you haven't thrown your self-published hat into the ring that is Mark Lawrence's call to self-published fantasy authors then you need to get your skates on, as submissions close this Friday.

Another addition to the Recommended Reading section.

At the rate I'm discovering great self-published fantasy I may have to rename the Recommended Reading section into the Recommended Reading Library!

This particular title is the best I've read so far. It's witty but deep, clever but not aloof, and it's all crafted with that inimitable dry British wit.

Monsters of Elsewhere by Matthew Waldram is a classic tale about a boy getting lost at a bus stop.

Well, not really. It's a lot more than that, but I'll let my own review in the Recommended Reading section and your subsequent reading of the title be the judge of that!

Matthew was kind enough to give this away to the readers of /r/fantasy on Reddit, as he needed a test audience to tell him whether his life's work sucked or not. I was somewhat reticent given the curious choice of cover, but my fears were soon allayed by a classic piece of fantasy.

Kudos, Matt. It's quality stuff.

A new entry into the Hall of Fame and information on the next anthology.

I'd just like to take a brief moment to congratulate Mitchell Hogan for the spectacular publication deal with Harper Voyager.

Mitchell isn't the first independent author to become published before I could finish reading their book but the scope of his achievement means he's going straight into the Hall of Fame.

The follow-up anthology is in the process of being written and collated. It will feature about twice as many stories as the first one and in addition to a few returning regulars there will be a whole host of new authors for you to try out.

Cover art for said work is still ongoing but nearing completion and the weighty task of editing the entire volume falls upon my shoulders this time. I'll be attempting to write a piece of short fiction in addition to penning the introduction but this is entirely dependent upon how busy life keeps me over the upcoming weeks.

If you're a best-selling author with a penchant for self-publication and you feel like writing the introduction for me then by all means get in contact!

When my overburdened brain isn't doing six things at once I shall be continuing construction of the new sections, though there is no estimated date of completion yet.

Now go check out Mitchell's book, it's pretty neat.

The Recommended Reading section grows again.

It seemed like a mere matter of days since I added a new book to the Recommended Reading section... this is because it was. Either I'm getting soft in my old age or I've read three great books in a row, each deserving their place on the site.

So what is it this time that has caught my eye, you ask?

Take a look at that cover, now flip it upside down. That's not your standard fantasy cover, that's a work of art.

The intention is clear right from the get go with Ours is The Storm: it's not the average fantasy book. It's well-plotted, keeps you guessing, has well-realised characters and an excellent pace to it all.

I was contacted directly via e-mail and was impressed by both the unconventional artwork and intriguing blurb. I bought it outright before the author could send me a free copy and I consider it money well spent.

Like many of the entries onto this site, this one is very new indeed: it came out a matter of weeks ago as of this blog post. I'm hoping that this streak of great fiction can continue well into 2015. Here's hoping I unearth a number of little diamonds in the great coal mine that is the world of self-publishing.

In other news, preparations for both a new section and a new anthology are ongoing. This will involve much e-mailing on my part, and it will happen very soon.

Another new entry into the Recommended Reading section and details of new sections.

Well, it's that time again. I've got my greasy little mitts on another quality piece of writing and now I have to wax lyrically about how awesome it is.

Construct by Luke Matthews was a book that caught my eye due to the quality cover, but kept my attention through the interesting plotting and fantastic protagonist.

You can find a full review on Goodreads or the Recommended Reading section, where it has slotted in nicely alongside all the other books I thought worthy of the section.

Speaking of sections, I have plans for a new one: Artist's Corner.

Artist's Corner isn't up and running yet, and that's because I'll be contacting a plethora of cover artists to see if they're interested in having their work advertised for free.

The goal of the section is to provide authors with a selection of affordable but quality designers who are willing to make a good cover for less than $300. This will hopefully reduce the number of horrific pieces of cover art that people like myself have been assailed by in the past.

I'll be making a post when the new part of the site is up and running.

In addition to this, tentative plans are being made to provide a similar section for editors. This is very much an embryonic endeavour, so I'm keeping quiet about it until it's a little more than an idea.

That's all for now folks, expect more updates in the coming months!

New entry into the Recommended Reading section.

I'm delighted to be able to add yet another fine entry into our growing Recommended Reading section!

Graham Austin-King's Fae - The Wild Hunt is a solid fantasy tale that straddles the line between high fantasy of yesteryear with darker elements of more modern pieces. The setting is intriguing and the writing is of a high quality, much like the cover art from Vin Hill.

As with all the books on the Recommended Reading list, it was apparent that a great deal of care had been taken in the presentation and editing of this work, and as a result it was a pleasure to read.

Austin-King is no stranger to the scene, garnering plenty of positive praise from review sites and stores and maintaining a welcome presence on /r/fantasy. I've already bought the sequel and I'm looking forward to the long and interesting career that's clearly ahead for this talented author.

The first post!

Welcome to the wonderful world of Fictiongarden.com, where the best independent titles in Fantasy Fiction are reviewed and compiled into our Recommended Reading section.

I'd just like to throw out that we are not affiliated with http://fictiongarden.blogspot.co.uk/ or https://fictiongarden.wordpress.com/ for that matter. We're not affiliated with anything currently, but we wish to congratulate anybody else going under the Fictiongarden name for their impeccable taste.

It reminds me of an awkward situation where one of my characters, who had been germinating in my debut for close to fifteen years, had to be renamed due to the emergence of gaming company Trion Worlds. Hopefully I won't be getting any cease and desists due to my usage of the name!

Things are being added and updated on the site all the time, and that's what this news page will primarily be used to highlight. If we have any other interesting things to comment/inform you about then we shall.

First and foremost, the biggest change is of course the addition of this blog! We're not sure whether we're going to stick this on the front page or just have it as a separate news section in the long term, we'll see how that plays out. Hopefully the blogger connection won't blow out and everything will work smoothly. If  not you'll soon be hearing about it!

Last but not least, the 'Why is this book recommended?' addendum to the Recommended Reading section has been added. This essentially sums up what was different/special about the work, whether it be the plot or setting or genre amalgamation. Hopefully the review preceding it should have given you a fair understanding of why it holds a place in the section, but for those of you who aren't interested in lyrical waxing it can be a quick summary that you can skip to.