Home » Posts tagged 'fantasy worlds'
Saving you a seat at the Wicked Circus
This month, Lita invites Gentle Reader to visit to the dark side of fantasy–the Wicked Circus.
Cirque du Méchant is a dark carnival filled madness, magic, and killer clowns. Take a peek into the fantasy world where the Calliope screams its steamy waltz, and you see the monsters under the grease paint.
Enter here for the Cirque du Méchant.
In Forever Boy, a dog flees his cruel master, befriends a wizard, and discovers his shapeshifting magic.
The last new cover for the spring clean takes you to the Clockpunk Wizard fantasy world in Forever Boy. There you will find Wizard Kadmeion’s ~twisty~ magic.
Life is dirty, difficult, and all too short for the dogs digging up the deadly mandrake roots that wizards animate with minor demons. A pup named Go Fer has an odd magical talent. He does not die from the fatal screams of newly unearthed mandrakes. Go Fer’s master, a prideful minor magician, sees Go Fer’s talent as a fluke saving him the cost of replacing dogs killed by the mandrakes’ cries.
One morning, a young Wizard Kadmeion and his half-elf assistant Bright watch Go Fer at work. This mandrake extraction goes horribly wrong, and Go Fer runs away during the hubbub. After seeking out the wizard, the dog’s life is not the same. In fact, Kadmeion discovers Go Fer is not a dog after all.
An exciting life as the wizard’s familiar awaits Go Fer. Instead of using mandrakes, Bright has built clever clockwork men who pilot Kadmeion’s wonderful airship. Go Fer would have a new name, a new boy appearance, and he would fly with his new master between islands that float above the sea.
But Magic Guild law makes the mandrake harvester Go Fer’s master, and Kadmeion will not go against the guild. Go Fer must return to the dog-murderer, lose his wondrous boy form, and dig mandrake roots until he dies. Which will be the very next time, unless the clever clockwork man and the kindly wizard can get him out of this fatal mess.
Forever Boy now available on Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble.
In Tredan’s Bane, a magical oddities dealer hides her kidnapped husband’s dangerous spell book.
The spring clean for the old book covers continues.
Here is the new cover for Tredan’s Bane. In Tredan’s Bane, a dead Sciomancer told Lanith to beware of fire and kisses.
He should have told her to RUN.
Enchanters are so attractive, most believe they are amoral seducers. The Church considers them a dangerous lure for a soul’s journey to the afterlife. Problem is, Enchanter essence powers all of the magic in Lanith’s world of Sye. Because of the escalating attacks from Church Enforcers, the Enchanters have fled to their impenetrable enclaves.
Lanith’s husband Tredan has vanished. Her home and curio shop have burned. Long ago, she promised Tredan to seek the Enchanters’ help if he ever disappeared, so Lanith teams up with Enchanter Nyle. They discover Tredan wrote a journal filled with spells that will ruin the Enchanters’ magic.
There is more bad news. An Enforcer has come to town, and he will stop at nothing to acquire Tredan’s journal for the Church. Lanith must stop the Church magician from getting the journal and destroying the Enchanters. Lanith must also overcome her desire for Nyle’s delectable essence.
The Church’s warnings are true. Saving Sye’s magic could damn her soul.
Tredan’s Bane by Lita Burke is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.
In Wrath, a retired Enchanter battles a powerful magician to keep a dangerous spell book from falling into the wrong hands.
It’s April, and time for a spring clean. Pardon the dust. Let’s open some windows and chase away the musty look of tired book covers.
Some of Lita’s covers were long overdue for a rework. Wrath, Prequel to Tredan’s Bane was Lita’s first indie short story. To say Wrath had a shoestring budget is generous. The reality for Lita back then was to learn, and do, all the publishing work herself. That included the cover design.
The results? Passable, to put it gently. But Lita’s talents lie not in book cover design. To know yourself is the greatest wisdom, hands down.
The budget for book covers is now much more generous, and being smarter about a book’s “face” helps, too. Mom’s advice about working hard, embracing learning, and keeping at it, paid off. Wonderful, isn’t it, that mothers are so smart?
Here is the new face for Wrath. Fire is a theme in the story and is prominent in the new cover. Wrath is the start of an epic fantasy about magic, abiding love, and protecting what you hold dear. Also, an affectionate dragonette might perch on your shoulder, coo like a dove, and leave you a kiss of blueberry-flavored magical essence.
If Gentle Reader has not yet plunged into the fantasy world of Sye, Wrath is FREE now on Smashwords. Come meet former Enchanter Tredan, learn his shameful magical secret, then be ready to run.
Is it a fantasy beast reclining on a cloud?
See for yourself the fantastic images on Wizard Kadmeion’s journey to free his kidnapped familiar.
Lita’s Clockpunk Wizard video for Ephraim’s Curious Device is in the March 2013 You Gotta Read book trailer contest. The top three videos win valuable marketing and promo prizes–so important for an indie author. Please take a minute to vote for your favorite book trailer.
Watch the Ephraim’s video to discover the surprise in dragon’s fire. Check out the video on YouTube, then drop by the You Gotta Read contest page and pick your favorite!
Voting closes on Wednesday, March 27th, so please don’t wait. Fantasy beasts and coy fey-folk wait for courageous visitors in the Clockpunk Wizard fantasy world.
In the Floating Lands, gravity is just a suggestion
Welcome aboard. This airship is now departing to the place where flying islands drink clouds, pigs soar, and lovely Harpies rule their rock-spire land.
Find out more about the fantasy locales where islands float and we visit with a horse we all know. You will also learn the one thing that most wizards cannot resist.
Watch your step on the gangplank. The forward lounge has the best refreshments and views. Come now and visit Lita’s Floating Lands World.
A Resident of the Floating Lands
It’s time to roll out another of Lita’s fantasy worlds–Floating Lands. This month is a look at lighter-than-air islands, levitating people, and soaring cows. Check out Lita’s just-released Floating Lands video.
Been There, Done That
We have all visited floating lands–do you dream you can fly? When asleep, we soar like a lark or hover like hummingbirds.
Sometimes when your legs feel so heavy during your morning run, or you’re at a standstill in commuter traffic, do you look to the sky and marvel at a bird’s effortless glide on the wind? If you parachute, then you have felt the breathless sensation of floating. Ditto if you’ve flown in a zero-G airplane or hovered in the blast of a wind tunnel.
Fantasy Fiction Loves to Fly
Fantasy fiction is airborne. The King of Eagles plucks the imprisoned wizard from atop his enemy’s tower. Sparkly-faced vampires leap the distance of soccer fields from balconies to treetops. Any sorceress worth her pointy hat can levitate a feather or a boulder.
Come fly with Lita. Certain rock-lined airships, and entire islands, float effortlessly in the Forever Boy and Ephraim’s Curious Device stories. Enchanters make dozens of flowers hover in the rafters in Tredan’s Bane. Call Floating Lands magic surreal or bizarre, but be sure to have fun flying away in Lita’s new video.
Here are a few Curious Devices (people too) from the Clockpunk Wizard world
Lita is pleased to tell Gentle Reader that the Indies Unlimited (IU) blog has a featured post about the Clockpunk Wizard world in Ephraim’s Curious Device. Please take a minute to stop by, look around, and if in the mood, leave some comments.
IU is a site for independent authors, publishers, reviewers and readers who embrace the sweeping changes to book publishing caused by online technology. IU calls it the “Indie Author Movement.”
Treasures await the visitor at IU. For posts that are sometimes snarky but always informative, check out the IU home page. Be sure to visit their featured author online book store here. For all who are low on schwag, visit their IU Gear store and load up. If Gentle Reader wants to get social, check them out on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.
Which genres lurk about at IU? Their site covers Adventure, Romance, Mystery, Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy (Lita’s favorite), and Biography titles. You’re sure to find a story to please, and meet friendly indie writer acquaintances, at IU.
Steampunk, London Style
Zeppelins. Top hats, gears and gadgets. What fun–let us explore Steampunk and its stylish attitudes.
Time to visit another fantasy world that Lita loves–Steampunk. There are a couple of flavors of Steampunk, so today let’s visit the Victorian-inspired place. It is brimming with alternative technology gadgets powered by steam, and populated with fashionistas.
Watch the Flicker Pictures
Our Steampunk journey begins by going to the picture show, 1800s style. Lita has a new Steampunk London video, so take a minute to immerse yourself in the images and sing-along fun of this alternative-world London.
See for yourself that Steampunk is a contrast of grungy and sooty settings and (sometimes bizarre) Victorian clothing. Their world is a practical and unadorned place of gears, gadgets, and rust-covered pipes. Whether you travel by steam locomotive or zeppelin to get there, don’t forget to bring your goggles.
Step Inside
Curious to discover more? Check out Lita’s new page Steampunk London World. Step inside to get out of the soot and mist of a coal-burning city. Learn about the gadgets and steam-powered practicalities of everyday devices. In the Steampunk world, electricity never evolved beyond a curiosity at the carnival. You will find out which device is the darling of Steampunk ladies and gentlemen.
Want to visit another fun fantasy world that influenced Steampunk? Check out Lita’s Film Noir World, and don’t forget to bring your trench coat.
It’s Kiss an Enchanter Day
Let’s observe Valentine’s Day today and talk about one of Lita’s favorite subjects–Enchanter magical essence kisses.
It’s been some time since Lita has talked about the Enchanters in the Sye world. Here’s a quick recap, then we will get back to magical hanky-panky.
Sye is a world where the Enchanters, Church magicians, and others (called “non-Maji’kers”) live. The humans, and some sentient magical creatures, use magic (called “essence”) as an energy source for mechanisms that would otherwise use physics or natural laws in other worlds.
The living world of Sye is a separate place from the afterlife, called the Fields of Yalu (or the “city of the dead”). Ghosts from the Fields of Yalu are regular visitors to Sye. Powerful magicians keep dragonettes as pets. Everyone has a secret name given to them clandestinely by their mothers, which is the source of a person’s magical ability.
Enter the Sye Fantasy World
Lita has visited Sye before, and wrote about her visits with the Enchanters, dragonettes, and ghosts. Here are her Enchanter stories if Gentle Reader has not had time to investigate:
Masked Ghosts Threaten the Enchanters in “Ghost Orchid”
Tredan’s Bane plunges in to the thick of things with Tredan’s wife Lanith, a magical oddities dealer, getting a ghost’s warning, then returning home to find her home on fire and Tredan missing. After enlisting the help of the Enchanters, Lanith finds and hides her kidnapped husband’s dangerous spell book. Read the back cover blurb, watch the Tredan’s Bane book trailer, or read Chapter 1.
Magic Must Make Sense
One of Lita’s pet peeves with some fantasy fiction, especially epic or high fantasy, is how the powerful magicians just wave their hand and bolts of magical energy shoot from their fingertips. Or sometimes it’s the end of the hero’s journey, and he/she has the magic wand/orb/book, and this magical lightweight (at best) use this thingummy to produce the bolts of magical energy.
Balderdash! Be gone, silly images. Magical energy isn’t that way at all. Here’s the truth–you get magical energy from kissing an Enchanter.
Just like the taste of Enchanter kisses–chocolate, cinnamon & peppery spice
What does magical essence taste like? Chocolate. Cinnamon. Hint of peppery spice.
Only Enchanters can produce the magical power that fuels the Sye world. What would be the life of an Enchanter man (or woman) if some magicians will stop at nothing to control the source of magical power? It’s not all smooches. Some of it is big trouble.
Find out for yourself. Lita suggests that you fix a cup of hot chocolate in a favorite mug, add a dash of cinnamon, and curl up with Wrath and Tredan’s Bane. Oh, and keep your Valentine darling nearby if you want to practice your own magical essence kisses.
