Category Archives: Books

By Gail Z. Martin

Not too long ago, short fiction terrified me. I didn’t flinch at a contract requiring 175,000 words, but 8000 – 10,000? Horrors! Then a friend invited me to be in her anthology, and I said yes—with trepidation. Turns out I enjoyed writing the story, which was required to have both pirates and magic in it.

That started the ball rolling. Since then, I’ve said yes to fifteen anthologies, and I’ve started to write two series of direct-to-ebook short story series, with a new story every month on Kindle, Kobo and Nook. One of the anthologies that included a short story of mine, “Magic: Esoteric and Arcane” went on to win a British Fantasy Society award for Best Anthology and be nominated for a Nebula award for Best Anthology. And from those anthologies have come other invitations to participate in new anthologies, plus a contract for my “Deadly Curiosities” novel/series, which expands on the characters and world I created in “Magic”.

Some folks love writing short stories and don’t worry about novels, in the same way some authors only write long fiction. I’ll also admit that I take a little different approach to short stories, since mine tend to be stories in a series with continuing characters, somewhat like a serialized novel. That’s very different from the friends of mine who have sold hundreds of stand-alone short stories to magazines. I’ve also heard it said that “Novelists are failed short-story authors and short-story authors are failed novelists.” While I get the humor in that concept, I think it does an injustice to most authors.

In my opinion, a short story is more difficult to write than a novel because you’ve only got about twenty or so pages to fully convey plot, character and setting with enough skill to emotionally engage your reader and spin a memorable tale. There’s a lot more wiggle room in a novel, more set-up time, more space to expand and flesh out. While writing a novel poses its own challenges, short stories aren’t “easier” just because they’re short.

For authors, short fiction offers several benefits. Anthologies are a “sampler platter” where readers who might not take a chance on a full novel from an unknown author can take your writing out for a low-risk test drive to decide if they want to go further. Depending on the anthology, short stories can also provide a nice advance check—from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Being in an anthology can put an author in esteemed company, a nice boost for a new author to be among more established peers. And as in my own experience, a successful short story can spawn a new novel or series. Not only that, but short stories allow an author room to experiment with concepts and characters that may not warrant a whole novel, but are interesting to explore. They permit an author to grow and stretch.

The two series of short stories I publish direct to Kindle, Kobo and Nook gives me the ability to keep a narrative going in two worlds that weaves around and in-between my books. My Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures series explores the background of a popular character from my Chronicles of the Necromancer books, essentially building a prequel one story at a time. Likewise, my Deadly Curiosities Adventures are tied in to my new “Deadly Curiosities” urban fantasy   Plus, writing to the theme of an anthology is just plain fun, forcing me outside my normal comfort zone.

For readers, short stories have that “sampler platter” benefit in reverse, providing access to bite-sized fiction by authors you might have heard about but not tried yet. It’s a great way to discover a new author without committing to an entire book. Themed anthologies can be lots of fun as you see authors create stories with unique variations on the central concept. And as many readers tell me, short stories are nice to read on a commute because they don’t leave you hanging mid-chapter until the end of the work day!

There seems to be some debate on whether or not anthologies are good for publishers. Magazines of short fiction have certainly seen a tough market, with many long-established publications going out of business, moving completely online, decreasing the number of issues per year or raising prices to make up for a diminished readership. Editorial cut-backs at the big publishers have left editors with less time to take on anthology projects, and budget constraints have made the big publishers wary of projects that don’t have slam-dunk potential.

On the other hand, many small presses embrace anthologies and seem to do quite well with them (based on the fact that they keep bringing out more and more anthologies). Anthologies do well on Kickstarter, since the publisher has perhaps thirty collaborating authors to promote the campaign instead of just one. Many of these anthologies are published without author advances, or with very low advances but the promise of royalties. What the small press can offer is a combination of at-convention sales to a core of engaged fan readers, as well as the flexibility to explore niche themes. An anthology with a winning theme and a few dozen authors may well seem less risky for a small press to produce than a novel with a single author, since a reader who loves the theme and loves most of the anthology writers perceives a success, where the sales of a novel hinge on a single author’s skill.

Despite what you may have heard, I think that short fiction is going strong, and will be around for quite a while. So the next time you feel like snacking on a story instead of a full sit-down meal of fiction, grab a short story and dig in!

By Gail Z. Martin

I read a lot of both fiction and non-fiction. When I read non-fiction, I read to learn and sometimes that takes me into unhappy or unpleasant territory. Many a time when I’ve finished a non-fiction book about some depressing period in history or an analysis of one of the world’s ills, I’ve felt worse than when I started the book. I accept that as the trade-off for gaining knowledge that I need for a purpose. That kind of reading is akin to work—I don’t do it for fun.

But when I read fiction in my limited spare time, I want to have fun. I want a book or a movie or even a TV show to get me away from the cares of the real world for a little bit, to thrill me and let me see the good guys come out ahead. I unabashedly want a dose of escapism, and frankly I think escapism gets a bad rap.

I’ve heard some reviewers or some “influential” thinkers dismiss a book or a movie as “mere escapism,” as if there was something unhealthy about wanting a mental vacation from the cares of everyday life. In some circles, it’s not cool to admit having read a book that won’t out-tragedy or out-angst everyone else’s reading list. But the truth is, I can get tragedy and angst by turning on the evening news. There’s no shortage of it, and wallowing in it doesn’t mean you’re more sophisticated.

In a country that consumes more than its share of prescription antidepressants, alcohol, pot and illegal drugs, getting your break from reality in the pages of a book seems like a sane and reasonable choice.

Recently, I read an interview with a very famous author who went on record disliking happily-ever-after endings and having the good guys win and the bad guys lose. The author didn’t think that was realistic. And I thought, how sad.

I immediately thought of the iconic pictures of the spontaneous celebrations at the end of World War II when total strangers danced and kissed in the streets of New York City. There were tickertape parades and lots of champagne corks (and beer bottle tops) popping as the people who lived through an awful darkness celebrated the fact that the good guys won and the bad guys lost and it felt like happily-ever-after.

And of course, after the confetti was swept up and people slept off the hangover, we woke up to the Cold War, but that was a story for another book.

See, we all have “happily-ever-after” moments in life, times when—just for an hour or a day or a few lucky weeks or years—the good guys win and the bad guys lose. You get married, have a child, get a diploma, get your dream job, build a home, buy a dog, go on the perfect vacation, get back a medical test that says the cancer is in remission, find out the cyst is benign. And you dance and kiss someone and pop a few corks and in that wonderful moment, the good guys come out on top and it feels like happily-ever-after.

Of course, tomorrow there will be bills to pay and car repairs and hassles at work and more bad guys and battles, because the story continues.

And that is why I don’t find it “unrealistic” when a book ends on a high note. Because the author is picking an arbitrary point in time for the ending. End the book a day earlier, and the skies might still be dark and uncertain. End the book two weeks later, and there will be new threats. But end in the moment of celebration when one threat has been overcome and the characters are taking a well-deserved victory lap, and it’s made all the sweeter because we know that “ever-after” is ephemeral.

We live in a culture that feasts on the dark, bitter, ironic, and unhappy. Personally, I think it’s partly the voyeurism of a generation that hasn’t had to live through any real hardship, and partly the old “freak show” effect where seeing someone less fortunate makes the viewer say, “wow, my life sucks but at least it’s not that bad!” Neither is a particularly healthy world view. There’s a strain of schadenfreude that runs wide in our culture, loving the chance to say “I told you so” when someone stumbles or a hero fails. Some people have given up in believing in heroes or good guys because they don’t want to be disappointed, which is like giving up on falling in love because the divorce rate is 60%.

Which brings me back to escapism. Why the hell not? How is it more adult to pop a Prozac than read a book with a happy ending, or see a movie that makes you want to cheer and shout? I do believe that you become what you feed your mind. Feed it depressing stories full of morally bankrupt people and you’re not likely to feel chipper and ready to take on the next challenge. If I have to choose, I’ll take happy over fashionable every time. Escapism is a healthy, well-adjusted, no-side-effects, non-damaging response to the ups and downs of everyday life.

I’ve had letters from readers who read my books while sitting vigil at a bedside in a hospital, or in a tent somewhere during a military action with shellfire in the distance. They thanked me for giving them somewhere to escape into, a place where—at least for a moment in time—they knew who the good guys were, a hard and desperate struggle turned out to be worth the cost of the scars and blood, and things ended up more right than not.

In my dark moments, reading about characters who struggled through desperate times and won helped me make it out of my own discouragement. Those happily-ever-after (at least for a while) endings, those stories where you could tell the good guys from the bad guys, they are the pick-me-up after a stressful day or a hard week.

So here’s to escapism. Long may it live happily-ever-after.

By Gail Z. Martin

Anything you keep for sentimental reasons has a hint of haunt to it.

Deadly Curiosities, my new urban fantasy novel from Solaris Books, is centered around a 350 year-old antique and curio shop that exists to get dangerous magical items off the market and out of the wrong hands. The proprietor, Cassidy Kincaide, is a psychometric, someone who can read objects by touch and sense strong magic and memories.

While Cassidy’s talent goes far beyond the nostalgia most of us experience, there’s more truth to her magic than you might feel comfortable acknowledging.

The word “memento”, one we often use to mean sentimental knick-knack, actually means “remember death,” and described the Victorian penchant of making jewelry to memorialize their dead. While we no longer make death jewelry, the items that we keep for sentimental reasons are more similar than not to those old Victorian lockets–a memorial to memories and emotions that we don’t want to forget.

Think about the treasures you’ve got stashed away in a box in your closet or under your bed—or maybe in a storage unit. You keep things that have little or no monetary value because they bring back a strong vision of the past. Pictures, jewelry or personal possessions of those who have passed away serve to extend the influence of the dead over the living, even if it’s just the power of memory.

The items we hang onto—as individuals and collectively (museums)—not only remind us of the past, they shape our understand of that past by what we choose to keep, and what we throw away. Because what we keep is selective, our heirlooms tend to reinforce the memories we value and erase the things we don’t want to remember. Many families have been sundered by vicious squabbles over heirlooms with no monetary value for this very reason. As a society, the items we enshrine in museums reinforce a code of conduct, a view of national identity, a worldview. Old objects have power.

Even the dialog over historic items and national treasures taken in antiquity posits that what we are is influenced by the objects we own and that those objects are linked to our very essence. When I’ve been in the Smithsonian, the Vatican Museums, the Louvre, the British Museum, I see items taken from one empire by another because of what those items signified, the psychological and sociological power invested in them. The recent movie “Monuments Men” shows the lengths to which nations will go to acquire or rescue their treasures. The extensive efforts by First Nations peoples to regain their artefacts suggests just how much importance we attach to heirlooms.

Go to any religious shrine, and you’ll see more objects with a hint of haunt. Relics and religious artefacts are invested by our belief with power. We look to them for clarity, luck, protection. Wars have been fought over such objects because on a deep instinctive level we sense imbued power. Think of the feeling of awe that you get in a historic site/shrine/museum, a sense that because of the objects housed in that place, the past isn’t gone, it’s just thinly veiled.

Which brings me back to Deadly Curiosities. A place that exists to find the powerful old items linked to bad mojo and black magic, run by a secret coalition of immortals and mortals who are trying to protect the world, one cursed heirloom at a time.

by Gail Z. Martin

Back when the only place to get books was in bookstores, browsing the shelves for new and interesting covers could be a pleasant Saturday afternoon pastime. Even before bookstores added coffee shops, it was easy to while away several hours just perusing the covers of books, looking for a hidden gem, a new adventure, or a tempting tome.

Now, much of our book buying has moved online, either to purchase paper books via Internet booksellers, or to download ebooks. It’s gotten harder to leisurely browse, in part because there are fewer brick-and-mortar bookstores than there used to be, and in part because those physical stores that do exist have often cut back on their range of books in order to feature profitable extras like gifts, music, movies and coffee.

So in an age when shoppers may only see the cover as the size of a webpage thumbnail, do covers really matter?

I believe they do. I know that some people lament the death of book covers in the same way they lament the passing of music album covers in the age of CDs and iTunes. And I agree that books do face some of the same threats that music has faced, although there are significant differences. All the same, I think that the reports of the death of book covers, to paraphrase Mark Twain, has been greatly exaggerated.

We’ve often been exhorted to not judge a book by its cover, yet covers are often the first connection an author makes with a reader. This is especially true if the author has not yet reached the superstar ranks of name recognition, or if the reader has never read anything by the particular author in the past.

It does appear true that the better known an author is, the less effort goes into their covers. Make it to the pinnacle of success, and covers often feature only the author’s name and the book title with a solid color background. But for most books, the cover signals the reader that this book is part of a particular genre, like other books the reader has enjoyed, and begins the job of shaping expectations before the book even gets lifted off the shelf.

A good cover–one that accurately signals the reader as to the genre and type of story–plays a major role in attracting an audience for the book. The quality of illustration and bookbinding also tells a reader something about the book, as many small press and self-published authors will attest. Watch readers move through a book festival or the vendor room at a genre convention, and notice which books get handled more often, and which ones never get picked up. Good covers make a difference.

What makes a good cover? It’s a complex mix of elements that starts with a professional quality illustration. Poor art is a stumbling block few books can overcome. Appropriate illustration is the next hurdle. Readers understand the visual shorthand that signals mystery, thriller, urban fantasy, epic fantasy and other genres. Send a miscue, and you’ll lose many potential readers while disappointing those who buy expecting a different sort of book.

Type font, placement and color matter, just as it matters to have a catchy title for the book. I’m not a graphic artist, but I can tell when the placement of the words on a book cover doesn’t look professional. Traditionally published authors don’t have to think about these things, but it’s a detail that many small press and self-pubbed authors struggle with as they strive to gain legitimacy in the reader’s eyes.

The back cover matters, too. I have my books face up on the table at signings to attract readers, but when I engage prospects in conversation, I’ll hand the book to them back cover up, encouraging the person to read the book summary and endorsement quotes. A gripping teaser of a recap goes a long way toward pulling in a reader and building a hunger to read the rest. If the reader has never read a book by a particular author, endorsement quotes by familiar authors or publications decreases perceived risk. While not every reader is swayed by blurbs, those quotes matter a lot for a certain type of book purchaser, and as an author, we want to send good cues on as many different levels as possible.

Authors like to believe that it’s the words between the covers that really matter, and they do. But without a cover that grabs the reader’s attention and makes them pick up the book, those words never get read. I can’t count the number of times a reader has told me, “Your cover made me buy your book.” I make sure to profusely thank my cover artists, and I work as closely with them as possible to provide the details necessary to do justice to the story inside. Covers matter!

War of Shadows comes out in April. It’s Book 3 in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga continuing the quest of Blaine McFadden and his convict friends to restore the kingdom of Donderath after the Great Fire and Cataclysm lay waste to their homeland. You’ll get a first look at the amazing cover right here.

Then in late June, Iron and Blood: A Jake Desmet Adventure debuts. This is the new steampunk series that my husband, Larry N. Martin, and I are co-writing, and it’s set in 1898 in an alternative history Pittsburgh. Airships, amazing gadgets, and supernatural threats—it’s going to be a wild ride. I’ve got the cover art for you to take a look at—it’s pretty awesome!

In November, the second Deadly Curiosities book will be on shelves. It doesn’t have name yet, but it’s already well on the way to being written. We’ll pick up with Cassidy, Teag, and Sorren as they keep dangerous magical items off the market and keep supernatural threats from destroying Charleston, SC.

And of course, the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Adventures series of short stories will continue in 2015. For Jonmarc, “Season 2” finds him fighting as a mercenary in Principality, where he just might attract the attention of the Eastmark army. The Deadly Curiosities Adventures follow the exploits of Cassidy, Teag, and Sorren before and between the books.

Anthologies!! I was crazy and lucky enough to be featured in a lot of anthologies in 2014, and the trend continues for 2015! Dreams of Steel 5, a steampunk anthology from Dark Oak Press features one of our Sound and Fury short stories, a tie-in to the Iron and Blood series. Big Bad 2, also from Dark Oak Press, will have a horror story from Yours Truly unrelated to any of my series. The yet-unnamed space-themed Origins Gaming Convention anthology will also feature one of my stories. And I’m sure there will be more to come! (For a full list of the anthologies that are available for purchase, please check out the Anthologies link on my website.)

Some anthologies will straddle the dateline, being Kickstarter-funded in 2014 but squeaking in just before or just after the new year. That includes Heroes, an anthology from Silence in the Library which features not-your-average superheroes and story illustrations by comic book great Mark Dos Santos. Icarus: A Graphic Novel, also from Silence in the Library, features my add-on story in that universe illustrated by LucasArts/Marvel artist Joe Corroney. Expect to see these somewhere mid-winter!

Conventions and Notable Dates for the rest of 2014 and 2015! Here’s what I have confirmed so far:

• 2014 World Fantasy Society, Washington, DC
• 2014 Atomacon, Charleston, SC
• 2014 Philcon, Cherry Hill, NJ
• January   Arisia in Boston, MA
• January   Illogicon in Raleigh, NC
• February Mysticon in Roanoke, VA
• March AZ Renaissance Festival in Apache Junction, AZ
• April War of Shadows launches!
• April Ravencon in Richmond, VA
• May ConCarolinas in Charlotte, NC
• June Origins Gaming Convention in Columbus, OH
• June Hawthorn Moon Online Event
• June ConTemporal in High Point, NC
• July Iron and Blood launches!
• July ConGregate in Winston-Salem, NC
• Nov Deadly Curiosities Book 2 launches! (I promise we’ll have a better name by then!)

I’ll update the list as I hear more about conventions for Fall, 2015. And of course, my Thrifty Author Publishing Success Meetup group continues to meet monthly in Charlotte—check out the Meetup.com site for details.

My Days of the Dead blog tour runs through October 31 with never-before-seen cover art, brand new excerpts from upcoming books and recent short stories, interviews, guest blog posts, giveaways and more! Plus, I’ll be including extra excerpt links for stories and books by author friends of mine. And, a special 50% off discount from Double-Dragon ebooks! You’ve got to visit the participating sites to get the goodies, just like Trick or Treat! Details here: www. AscendantKingdoms.com

Trick or Treat: Enjoy an excerpt from my short story, The Low Road, here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/9463190-the-low-road

Extra bonus excerpt from Michael Ventrella’s Arch Enemies here: https://michaelaventrella.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/archenemiessample.pdf

And even more excerpts and freebie wallpaper from Danielle Ackley-McPhail’s Badass Faeries series here: https://www.badassfaeries.com/freebies.ht

Q: Congrats on the new book! Will you tell us a bit about Deadly Curiosities and what inspired the story?

A: With Deadly Curiosities, the inspiration came from several sources. I had visited Charleston several times, and left convinced that it would be a fantastic place for an urban fantasy. That was where things started. Then my dad passed away, and in the process of going through all his odd collections, I started to think about the hold that objects have on our imagination and our memory, and that just went in a haunted direction….

I happen to own a beautiful pair of opera glasses… just like the ones in the book….

Q: What did you like most about writing the character of Cassidy Kincaide, and why do you think readers will root for her?

A: I’ve had a lot of strong, interesting women characters in my epic fantasy books, but Cassidy is my first female main character. The story is also set in the modern era, so it’s a very interesting departure from what I’ve done before.

Cassidy has an unusual psychic gift—psychometry, the ability to read the history of objects by touching them. The gift runs in her family, and it turns out, so does the mission of running Trifles and Folly to get dangerous magical items off the market. She’s still learning about her gift, testing what she can do. Cassidy is relatively new to running Trifles and Folly, an antique store in Charleston which she inherited from an uncle, and along with it, an obligation to the Alliance. The Alliance is a secret organization of mortals and immortals who work to keep magically malicious objects out of the wrong hands. It’s a lot to take in, and she’s still getting used to it all.

I think readers will like Cassidy because she’s the kind of person who gets through her fears to do the right thing. She’s fun and she has a great sense of humor, and she’s also got this really spooky psychic gift that she’s learning how to use. She’s a lot of fun as a character.

Incidentally, if you like Cassidy and you want to see more about her before the next book comes out in 2015, please take a look at my Deadly Curiosities Adventures short stories on Kindle, Kobo and Nook—Buttons, Coffin Box and Wicked Dreams feature Cassidy, as does the free novella on Wattpad, The Final Death. You’ll meet some very interesting people in Cassidy’s neighborhood!

Q: You’ve definitely got to tell us more about Sorren…

A: Sorren is a nearly 600 year-old vampire, and he has been part of the Alliance since his maker was destroyed. Before he was turned, he was the best jewel thief in Belgium, until an unlucky night left him running from the guards and hiding in the cellars of an old building, where a stranger made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Sorren is a pretty interesting character. I write short stories in the Deadly Curiosities universe for ebook direct to Kindle, Kobo and Nook, and several of the stories are from Sorren’s point of view: Vanities, Wild Hunt and Dark Legacy, so far. You can also see more about Sorren in the short stories from the 1700s, Steer a Pale Course, Among the Shoals Forever, and The Low Road.

Q: Deadly Curiosities features a 500 year old vampire and an antique curio store, and much more! What kind of research did you do for the book?

A: I did a lot of research on Charleston itself, usually when I needed to find something specific, or fact-check the date of a hurricane, or some other obscure point. And since I weave in both Voudon and Hoodoo, there’s a lot of research there to represent these belief systems respectfully and accurately, while still having the details needed for the fiction. But I was a history major, so research is cool.

Q: What is your writing process like?

A: My brain doesn’t kick in for actual creative work until around 2 p.m., so I use the mornings for working out, running errands, doing phone calls and email and social media. Then I write from 2 until 8 or so. I stare at the screen until something comes together. When I need a break, I jump out to Facebook or Twitter or a news site, and come back again. Lots of coffee.

Q: You’ve undoubtedly influenced many writers with your work, but what authors or books have influenced you the most?

A: Too many to list! David Drake mentored and encouraged me, for which I am very grateful. I was certainly influenced by Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni series, as well as Chaim Potok’s “My Name is Asher Lev.” And of course, all those Twilight Zone and Night Gallery TV shows I watched, along with Dark Shadows, and all the books of ghost stories!

Q: If you could experience one book again for the very first time, which one would it be?

A: All the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys/Trixie Belden/Meg/Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators books I read when I was what we now call “middle grades.” I will always remember those fondly. They sparked my love of adventure and mystery.

Q: What do you like to see in a good book? Is there anything that will make you put a book down, unfinished?

A: I like to read about characters that are likeable, not reprehensible. I have limited free time. I don’t want to spend it with fictional jerks. I will put a book down if everything is amoral and there are no good guys. The good guys can be scarred and compromised and flawed and have PTSD out the wazoo, but in the end of the day, I’m looking for someone who has honor.

Q: When you’re not writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

A: With three active book series, a monthly short stories and nine anthologies in 2014, there isn’t much free time, but I like to spend it with my three kids and my husband and our two dogs. I love to travel, and I love to read stuff I didn’t write!

By Gail Z. Martin

In Ice Forged and my new Reign of Ash, society has collapsed after a devastating war not only destroyed the ruling class and the infrastructure, but also the magic upon which the civilization relied. Along with such overwhelming loss also comes the destruction of something less tangible—all the markers by which individuals determine who they are and where they stand.

Social identity in most societies is determined by a number of markers: who one’s parents are, one’s gender and geographic location, as well as social roles, feudal obligations, nationality, religious/ethnic affiliation, profession, and for fantasy, other categories, such as the ability to do magic.

The Cataclysm that happens in Ice Forged and carries forward into Reign of Ash destroys the old order. There is no authority, no one to dole out punishment or reward. In this void, survivors must decide whether to try to recreate the old order, or remake society into something completely different. Between the war dead and those who died in the Great Fire when magic was destroyed, even the hierarchies in towns and hamlets have been uprooted. People who based identity on their role in a family or a town are left adrift.

In the case of my Ascendant Kingdoms, the king and most of the nobility have been destroyed, and inadvertently, magic along with them. Only two of the former Lords of the Blood, the nobles to whose bloodlines magic was tethered, still exist: one is an unrepentant, convicted murderer and the other is a wraith. From this, Blaine McFadden and his convict friends begin to create a network of alliances that may help them restore order and bring back magic.

What Blaine discovers is that while some seek to restore the old ways at any cost, others see opportunity in the chaos. Social class, feudal obligations, the status quo and the basis of power are all up for grabs. In this vortex, some seek to right old wrongs. Others avenge old grudges.

We forget that freedom is frightening. When all the social structures which help us regulate behaviour and which protect the majority from predators are stripped away, might makes right and most will perish in an every-man-for-himself atmosphere. The tension between community and individual, between personal and corporate identity is always at the heart of social issues, but never so much as when all of society’s structure has been stripped away.

And yet, the void begs for invention and reinvention. During the 1400s, the Black Plague killed so many people, it forced the survivors to renegotiate the bond between landowner and hireling, to revise age-old ways of utilizing land, water and other resources. In general, such an upheaval favors newcomers over the established powers. Everything is up for grabs.

As the society wrestles with big-picture chaos, don’t underestimate the personal turmoil of re-thinking gender and social roles, marriage eligibility and preferences, barter and trade rates, and personal power at every level of society.

Only in such a void could a disgraced lord return from exile to save a kingdom, raise an army, and draw together the living and undead in a bid to restore magic—or die trying.