Putting the Fear Factor Back In Tentacles

As part of the Confronting the Demon blog tour, I'm guest posting over on Silly Hat Books.

Stop by to check out my guest post, Putting The Fear Factor Back In Tentacles, where I talk about what inspired me to put tentacles in Confronting the Demon and why I didn't toss them during revisions. Don't Google 'tentacles' and 'fiction' unless you already know what results you're likely to get, or you may be shocked. Or not.

If you'd like to pick up your own copy of Confronting the Demon, check out the buy links on this page - at $1.99, it's a steal! Buy direct from my Books page and it's even cheaper. 
 
If you're an author, you might also like to check out my post A Quick Reference Guide to Copyright and Cover Art. Does your cover use stock photos? You might not be able to do with your own book cover all the things you think you can!

As part of the Confronting the Demon blog tour, I'm guest posting over on Sheila deeth's blog. 

Ever found yourself reading or wtaching a sex scene, wondering when you'll get back to the actual story? Stop by to check out my guest post, Sex Scenes - In or Out, where I talk about why some stories need sex scenes, and some don't - Confronting the Demon being one of the latter.

If you'd like to pick up your own copy of Confronting the Demon, check out the buy links on this page - at $1.99, it's a steal! Buy direct from my Books page and it's even cheaper. 
 
If you're an author, you might also like to check out my post A Quick Reference Guide to Copyright and Cover Art. Does your cover use stock photos? You might not be able to do with your own book cover all the things you think you can!

Pinky Pollock Interviews Ciara Ballintyne, Author of Confronting the Demon

After reviewing Confronting the Demon, Sharon 'Pinky' Pollock is now interviewing me as well!
Stop on by and read the full interview to learn all about my inspiration, my writing process, and what I'm working on now. 
  If you'd like to pick up your own copy of Confronting the Demon, check out the buy links on this page - at $1.99, it's a steal! Buy direct from my Books page and it's even cheaper. 
 
If you're an author, you might also like to check out my post A Quick Reference Guide to Copyright and Cover Art. Does your cover use stock photos? You might not be able to do with your own book cover all the things you think you can!

Short Stories With Delusions of Grandeur

As part of the Confronting the Demon blog tour, I'm guest posting over on the blog Indie Authors You Want To Read. 

Stop by to check out my guest post, Short Stories With Delusions of Grandeur, where I talk about how long a story should be, and what happens when a story has been squeezed into jeans two sizes too small. Confronting the Demon may even have been in jeans smaller than that when it started!

If you'd like to pick up your own copy of Confronting the Demon, check out the buy links on this page - at $1.99, it's a steal! Buy direct from my Books page and it's even cheaper. 
 
If you're an author, you might also like to check out my post A Quick Reference Guide to Copyright and Cover Art. Does your cover use stock photos? You might not be able to do with your own book cover all the things you think you can!

Writers Have Voices Too (Even If We Don't Sing)

Library Girl reads and Reviews is a tour stop in the second week of the Confronting the Demon book tour, and is hosting my guest post on authorial voice, and how one's day job may indelibly shape the way one writes. Check out the full post on Writers Have Voices Too (Even If we Don't Sing). If you haven't already done so, don't forget to enter the giveaway.

If you'd like to pick up your own copy of Confronting the Demon, check out the buy links here - at $1.99, it's a steal! Buy direct from my Books page and it's even cheaper.

If you're an author, you might also like to check out my post A Quick Reference Guide to Copyright and Cover Art. If you use stock photos, you might not be able to do with your own book cover all the things you think you can!

Ten Signs A Writer Is A Perfectionist

As part of the Confronting the Demon blog tour, I'm guest posting over on the blog of J E Haldeman. 

Stop by to check out my list of ten signs that a writer may be a perfectionist. The fifth sign is that you pay actual money to buy actual castle floor plans to design a castle for your novel. Read the full post to find out the other nine signs. Do you have any of these signs, or know someone who does?

Sadly the Rafflecopter doesn't seem to be working, but if you'd like to enter the giveaway, you can do so at the last stop over at Pinky's Favourite Reads. 

If you'd like to pick up your own copy of Confronting the Demon, check out the buy links on this page - at $1.99, it's a steal! Buy direct from my Books page and it's even cheaper. 
If you're an author, you might also like to check out my post A Quick Reference Guide to Copyright and Cover Art. Does your cover use stock photos? You might not be able to do with your own book cover all the things you think you can!

Confronting the Demon Reviewed by Pinky's Favourite Reads

Another review tour stop as the Confronting the Demon book tour enters its second week. 

Pinky had lots to say but my favourite line (and it was hard to choose!) is this one, I think: "We are drawn into the story of Alloran right from the start. His story is painted on a beautifully described landscape that sets the imagination ablaze with a bombardment of the senses."

We are drawn into the story of Alloran right from the start. 

His story is painted on a beautifully described landscape that sets the imagination ablaze with a bombardment of the senses. 

- See more at: http://pinkypollock.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/confronting-demon.html#sthash.tmia8we6.dpuf

We are drawn into the story of Alloran right from the start. 

His story is painted on a beautifully described landscape that sets the imagination ablaze with a bombardment of the senses. 

- See more at: http://pinkypollock.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/confronting-demon.html#sthash.tmia8we6.dpuf

We are drawn into the story of Alloran right from the start. 

His story is painted on a beautifully described landscape that sets the imagination ablaze with a bombardment of the senses. 

- See more at: http://pinkypollock.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/confronting-demon.html#sthash.tmia8we6.dpuf

You can read the full review at Pinky's Favourite Reads. If you'd like to pick up your own copy of Confronting the Demon, check out the buy links here - at $1.99, it's a steal! Buy direct from my Books page and it's even cheaper. 

If you're an author, you might also like to check out my post A Quick Reference Guide to Copyright and Cover Art. You might not be able to do with your own book cover all the things you think you can!

The Fiction Fairy Reviews Confronting the Demon

I'm excited that the Fiction Fairy has reviewed my novella, Confronting the Demon, as part of the book tour, and had this to say: ...Confronting the Demon is Murder She Wrote mixed with Criminal Minds.

Not a comparison it ever would have crossed my mind to make, but then it's hard to get a clear perspective on one's own work. That said, applying an analytical mind to the question, I can see she's got a point - Confronting the Demon is filled not only with the magic you'd expect in fantasy, but mystery, a psychopath, and a serial killer. 

You can read the full review over at The Fiction Fairy's blog, and if you'd like to pick up your own copy of Confronting the Demon, check out the buy links here or on the Fiction fairy's review - at $1.99, it's a steal! Buy direct from my Books page and it's even cheaper. 

If you're an author, you might also like to check out my post A Quick Reference Guide to Copyright and Cover Art. You might not be able to do with your own book cover all the things you think you can!

Review of the Last Hero by Terry Pratchett

After reading my novella Confronting the Demon Samatha Saboviec invited me to guest blog on Magic and Mayhem by writing a review of one of the books that inspired my tale.

There are two books that had a large influence on Confronting the Demon, and they are The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett and The Rogue Agent series by K.E. Mills. I was torn which one to use, but I had already written reviews on two of The Rogue Agent books, so I decided to go with The Last Hero.

Pratchett's fable is the very reason tentacles were originally included in Confronting the Demon (although not the reason I kept them). To learn how it all started, read my Review of The Last Hero.

If you want to know why I kept the tentacles, there'll be a guest post from me later in my blog tour that tells you all about it!

Maer Wilson Interviews Ciara Ballintyne

Wow, this blog hopping is getting exhausting. Can you keep up? I'm not sure I can...

Today I'm being interviewed over on Maer Wilson's blog. She's come out hitting hard, and wants to know what the weirdest thing is that's happened to me as a fantasy author. You'll have to read the full interview to find out!

If you haven't already entered the giveaway for an Amazon Gift Card, don't forget to get your entries in.

Also, if you've ever had any questions about copyright in your cover art, check out my handy quick reference guide on Somebody Has To Say It.

Ciara Ballintyne's Playlist for Plotting

The third stop of the Confronting the Demon Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway finds me over on alwaysjoart talking about the music I listen to while plotting. Drop by to check out the twenty-six songs I listened to while plotting In the Company of the Dead and Stalking the Demon, sequel to Confronting the Demon.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway - there's a $25 Amazon Gift Card up for grabs. 

Virtual Book Tour - Interview with Ciara Ballintyne, Author of Confronting the Demon

Day 2 of the book tour for Confronting the Demon, and you'll find me over on Kelly P's blog, where she's interviewing me about life, writing and dragons! Stop by and check it out.

And here's a dragon, just to brighten up your day, since Kelly is grilling me all about why there are no dragons in Confronting the Demon!

Confronting the Demon Book Tour and Giveaway

I'm touring the blogsphere with my book, Confronting the Demon, for the next two weeks. The first stop today is Cu's Book Giveaways. Pop on over to see the review and enter the giveaway!

You can find the full tour schedule here at The Finishing Fairies, or check back here daily for links to each day's tour stop.

Ciara Ballintyne Reviews the Daedalus Incident By Michael J Martinez

A refreshingly original sci-fi/historical fantasy mash-up, with an incredible premise. The Daedalus Incident combines sci-fi set on Mars in the 22^nd century with historical fantasy set in the 18^th century of an alternative reality.

The story contains two major threads. The sci-fi thread, as I thought of it, featured Lieutenant Shaila Jain, a member of the Royal British Navy (and the JSC which I took to be some joint cooperative between the UK and USA) posted on Mars as part of a small military operation supervising a mining operation. When they begin experiencing earthquakes where there should be none, she discovers a subterranean cave in which rocks move of their own accord. There she discovers a journal that is writing itself.
 
The historical fantasy thread features Lieutenant Thomas Weatherby, a member of the Royal British Navy in the 18^th century on board the HMS Daedalus as it sails through space between planets. I was initially confused by this, but quickly decided this wasn’t our past, but had to be the past in an alternate reality, one where alchemy really can turn lead into gold and allow ships to sail through space on the solar winds. Of course, in our reality, the solar wind is something that would tear apart an 18^th century frigate, but placing us in an alternate reality allowed me to suspend belief and accept that this might be possible in a world with working alchemy.

The journal Lt. Jain has found is, of course, that of Lt Weatherby and she and her team watch in disbelief as words literally appear on the paper, describing what to them seems a work of fiction. Only when they run out of other possible explanations do they begin to think this might be real.

Lt. Weatherby, in his world, is on the trail of an evil alchemist, Cagliostro, who is in the process of collecting the various alchemical essences of the solar system so that he might perform some great alchemical working to achieve his nefarious purposes. It is unclear what his intentions are to start, but it was at least apparent to me that whatever he was doing was what was causing the blurring between universes.

The story threads and the universes do eventually merge so that Lts. Jain and Weatherby meet each other, but I won’t say more than that so I don’t ruin the ending.

Apart from the spectacular story, the thing that struck me most was the ‘voice’ of Lts. Jain and Weatherby. You could open this story anywhere and know immediately which thread you were in by the ‘sound’ of the narrator. It was so incredibly distinctive I think I’ve even learnt something from it.

That said, having established these distinct voices, it frustrated me that later the story fell more into an omniscient style POV. I didn’t find this as obvious at the beginning of the book, where we seemed well-entrenched in either the head of Weatherby or Jain, and the first time I found myself in the perspective of Dr Finch, alchemist to the Daedalus, I was badly jarred, and even more so when we switched back to Weatherby when Finch wandered away. This same issue then began to crop up in the other story thread, and became even more jarring when the threads merged, as I could find myself in the thoughts of either Jain or Weatherby without warning, and my brain evidently wanted to settle into one or the other unless very clearly signalled to switch.

While I am not a fan of omniscient, I usually find it distances me more than jars me, where in this case I found it particularly disorienting, perhaps because often I did feel I was inside the character’s head. I think this was largely because of the distinctive ‘voices’ of the two main characters, so the sudden switch between characters was about as pleasant as a bucket of cold water. Additionally, each Weatherby segment opened with his journal entry, written in the first person, so there was a tendency to want to stay with Weatherby and inside his head. While the genre mash-up was effective, I found this ‘POV mash-up’ less desirable.

I enjoyed the characters, particular Weatherby who had a very strong sense of ‘British stiff upper lip’. The story had a romance sub-plot, with French planetologist Stephane as Jain’s love interest, and budding alchemist Anne Baker as Weatherby’s. Stephane’s character was the more compelling of the two for me, funny and flirtatious but sincere, and I wanted Lt. Jain to be happy with him.

By contrast, Anne Baker fell flat. She seemed a woman out of her time, and while Weatherby chided Jain for her behaviour being unseemly for a woman, Anne seemed accepted even though she behaved almost completely contrary to the expectations of a woman in her era, and this felt odd to me. Her backstory never rang true to me, or the romantic conflict with Weatherby – I don’t feel the significance of her past was explored deeply enough. But mostly, I just didn’t find her likeable, and so didn’t particularly want the romance to blossom. Perhaps this was deliberate and this will develop further later.

This is a superb story, and my gripes are only minor. With a sequel (The Enceladus Crisis) due out next year, I'll be waiting to scoop it up for sure.