|
Hi, everyone! Many thanks to Kiran for hosting me today. As you may know, this week marks the one year anniversary of The Kraken Collection, of which Kiran and I are both members. A bunch of our books are on sale for $0.99 this week and we’ve created a fun quiz with a bunch of our indie friends for you. Maybe you’re most like Kiran’s character, Adan (yay! :D), or my character, Arèn. Take the quiz and find out! But speaking of Arèn… We’re all also blog-hopping to share our characters with each other on our blogs and I wanted to tell you all a little more about him. Arèn is the deuteragonist of A Promise Broken, my debut novel. It’s a quiet story about family and love. He’s aromantic asexual because it’s a pretty safe bet that one or more of my main characters falls somewhere on the a-spectrums. This is the point where I’m supposed to tell you that Arèn was written to explicitly counter some of the stereotypes that aromantic and asexual people see in fiction a lot. The truth is that I didn’t do that on purpose, but I’m really glad to know he resonates with people specifically because he’s a compassionate, sweet guy. Sadly, he’s not actually all that great with children, but he tries. He loves his niece and he’s doing what he can to make her happy and to keep her safe. Considering that half the people on the council are convinced she’s a threat to the world and are a bit, um, extreme in their proposed solution, that’s trickier than you might think. But he’s got a bunch of good friends in his corner, common sense on his side, and a young girl to protect. Do not mess with Arèn is all I’m saying. He’d rather fight with words, but his words bite. Meanwhile, he also oversees the treasury and the family estate because governing doesn’t stop even if you’re grieving and trying to learn how to be a single father. He’ll get the hang of it. (Whether Eiryn will agree that he has is another matter altogether.) And that’s a little bit more about Arèn. If he was your result on the quiz, congratulations! You’re like one of my favourite characters because he’s so dedicated to the truth and his family and because he works so hard to do the right thing. I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into his character.  Get a copy of Promises Unbroken at the Kraken Collective website today!
I'm honoured to host my friend Benjanun Sriduangkaew on the blog today to discuss her upcoming release, Winterglass! I'm definitely pre-ordering a copy, as it sounds absolutely amazing, as is everything I've read by Benjanun. Without further ado, on to the post! ____________________________________________________________________________________________________  Content warning for discussion of anti-queer violence, concentration camps, anti-queer sexual violence, misogynistic slur, anti-lesbian slur. Unless you live under a rock, you have probably heard that in Chechnya, they’re rounding up gay people and putting them in concentration camps. Recently it came out that gay singer Zelimkhan Bakaev has, most likely, been tortured to death in such a camp. This is the reality for queer people; this is happening in the real world. But in the popular imagination, of television shows and epic fantasy and science fiction, such an event is just another trope to tug at the heartstrings of and thrill the cisgender, heterosexual audience. It’s just another trope to make cisgender, heterosexual creators feel good and socially aware; it’s just another trope to make them feel radical, daring. It’s just another trope. Here’s a queer character, she lives under mortal terror of being rounded up, stuck in a concentration camp, or — as in the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, in a scene aired to critical acclaim— watching her lover hanged and then being genitally mutilated. This, popular media wants to tell you, is what it means to be queer: constantly terrified, miserable, brutalized, sexually assaulted and then finally dead. A cisgender heterosexual viewer or reader will feel emotional about it for five minutes. After the five minutes are up they’ll go on to think, not that they’ll say it aloud, how fortunate it is that they are not born queer. We are fodder for their emotional porn, fodder to reinforce their certainty that they’re the normal ones, fodder for them to feel better about themselves and that they belong in this world. I could go on about the many, many pieces of media. I could describe the specific tropes and the specific occasions. How about an anime where a lesbian dies and then her wife hangs herself after trying unsuccessfully to overdose? How about that one grimdark fantasy book where a lesbian is blackmailed — with the gang-rape of her lover — into pretending to enjoy her own rape? There’s a lot, isn’t it, usually written by men but I’m sure we can think of a few written by cisgender heterosexual women. There is a deep, nasty hatred of lesbians in particular, and men who already enjoy writing reams of graphic rape will enjoy it double when that rape is of sapphic women. Because in their heads this teaches women a lesson for rejecting them: don’t like men, you little bitch? Well, this is what happens to dykes. I’m sure they will insist they’d never harbor such a heinous little thought, but I ran out of tolerance or consideration for good intention a very, very long time ago. It’s exhausting to think about this, it’s more exhausting to talk about it. It’s exhausting to face the fact that these tropes will persist on and on, in shows given a budget in the hundred-millions. It’s exhausting to think that while the equivalent to this is decried when it comes to (presumed cishet) women, the relentless heaping of sexualized violence and tragedy on lesbians is often treated as necessary to make a point (about what?) or passes by unremarked upon, or worse it’s recommended as a must-read for its inclusiveness and its representation of queer women, just as with My Absolute Darling -- It also raises larger questions, as a man attempts to use a tale of graphic sexual violence — and the added taboo of incest — to jumpstart a career that likely would have been supercharged already thanks to his family connections and the fact that he’s a man. The notion that men like Tallent are doing women a favor by telling their stories for them ignores the fact that they usually tell these stories badly, and that their voices suck all the oxygen from the room, making it impossible for victims and survivors to be heard. [...] Using scenes of escalating brutality and grotesquerie may be a popular literary device, but it serves, in a warped and tormented way, to glorify this violence. Books like this become “must reads,” even for people who find them extremely traumatic, while the amazing women exploring themes of child sexual assault, molestation, incest, and sexual violence are pushed to the sidelines. — s.e. smith, ‘MY ABSOLUTE MISOGYNY: MALE AUTHORS ARE STILL PROFITING FROM WOMEN’S PAIN’ It is tiring. It wears you down. And it never, ever stops. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ My book Winterglass is a dystopia. It’s not a dystopia in the more conventional sense of 1984 and Brave New World, or The Hunger Games: the city-state Sirapirat, where Winterglass takes place, is a land under siege but the conditions of siege has become normalized. One of those conditions is that, in order for its people to survive the drastic change in climate — a perpetual winter — they must make use of heating and power fueled by ghosts sacrificed to the Winter Queen. In this way those dehumanized in a conquered territories (the marginalized, the politicized, the criminals) are gotten rid of, and the queen’s conquered subjects accept it as both convenient and necessary. In many settings like this, and in dystopias in general, queer people are the author’s favorite targets for slaughter. Queerness is defined not as itself but by the brutality queer bodies suffer: the loss of lovers, the strain of keeping one’s gender or orientation a secret, the persistent threat of sexual violence, the suppression of self. This is the story that dominates the popular imagination — being marginalized means living in terror, and popular media teaches that not only do stories need conflict, but when conflict arises for marginalized characters that can only ever center around their identity. Women are raped; queer people are genitally mutilated or under threat of ‘corrective’ rape; people of color are enslaved and have their heritage stolen. That isn’t a story I’m interested in telling. The world of Winterglass is a queer-normative one. It is brutally oppressive, as all imperialist invasive regimes are, but both Sirapirat’s native culture and the Winter Queen’s are not homophobic (one white gay man fled from ‘the Occident’ to live under the Winter Queen so he can marry his husband). In Sirapirat all genders are normalized, and the protagonists — both queer, one of them non-binary — may have many concerns, but being suppressed for their gender or romantic identity is not one of them. Why? Because stories that trade on and exploit queer trauma are not simply reprehensible; they are lazy. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talked of the ‘danger of the single story’, and the endless mountains of queer tragedy are this, an embrace of and a perpetuation of it — the single story, predictable, the same every time: that queer people are born to be brutalized specifically because they are queer. I am not your emotional fodder. I am not here to make you feel good about being heterosexual. I am not here to make you feel fortunate. I am not here for you. I’m here to tell a different story. Winterglass is a lesbian epic fantasy based on ‘The Snow Queen’, set in secondary-world Southeast Asia. Out December 2017, and available now for pre-order.  How far would you go to save your family?
Adilan Brennan knew from a young age that Elementalist blood was in her veins. She’d seen her sister look at her with fear, sadness, anger, hope--all before ever speaking a word. She grew up behind the sandstone walls of Ardonia, meant to keep the Council out, and her sister Celosia within them. Adilan was never much of a talker. She saw too much. She had a fate that was intertwined with Celosia’s from the moment she was born. An Enivisoner whose gift was not the immediate future, but a concrete vision of what was to occur many years later kept her from giving away what she saw when she closed her eyes. It was something unable to be put to words. When she saw her sister’s flames burn her mother alive at Daybreak--she knew it was too monstrous to speak of. That words could never do it justice. They would give things away. Betray her, and all the secrets she kept locked behind her lips. The Council recruited her with a hefty payoff in the aftermath of Daybreak. She recalled her father’s face, his shock and dismay at her proud chin. Her angry words--the first she had spoken in years. She rose quickly through the ranks of the Council forces, a brilliant, strategic mind hell-bent on capturing all that resisted the Council’s reign. Take the plea bargain, or death was certain. That was the rule. She commanded soldiers with a wave of her hand, pointed to areas on maps she’d never been to--destroyed cities she had never seen. Such was her gift, and her curse. The Council exploited her knowledge with glee, thrilled to have a powerful Envisioner on their side in the 120 years since the Cleanse. Most of all, she wanted beyond reason to destroy Celosia. To take away everything she ever loved, and make her pay for the horrible things that she had done. Any Council soldier could tell you of Adilan Brennan’s hatred for Daybreak, rivaling that of her fellows ten-fold. Adilan set her sights a little higher as the years went by. When she heard Celosia’s thoughts in her mind years later, she Spoke. Taunts, jeers, anything to chip away at Celosia’s fragile sanity. Hard-wrought barriers crashed down as Adilan threw Celosia’s past in her face, rendering her unable to call upon her magic. Celosia never expected that the person causing her such pain would turn out to be her own flesh and blood. Nobody, not even Celosia--Expected her to be such a gifted liar. Find out more in book two of the Embers of Redemption trilogy -- Arriving in 2018 from Kraken Collective Books DAYBREAK RISING Nominated for SFFANZ's 2017 Sir Julius Vogel award in "Best Novel," Category2/13/2017 As the image below summarizes, I am beyond honoured to announce that DAYBREAK RISING has been nominated for the 2017 New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy Association's Sir Julius Vogel award in the, "Best Novel," category! Final voting will take place at Lexicon 2017 in Taupo, New Zealand. If you read and enjoyed DAYBREAK RISING, please help ensure it makes it onto the final ballot by casting your vote for it by clicking here and filling out a short form. It would really mean the world to me! I don't know who first nominated it to start this ball rolling, but whoever you are, you have my eternal thanks and gratitude!!   Thrilled to announce DAYBREAK RISING got a 5-star editorial review from Readers Favorite reviewer Liz Konkel!!
"Daybreak Rising by Kiran Oliver follows Celosia Brennan, a Fire Elementalist, as she pulls her life back together after a disastrous attempt at overthrowing the Council with a mission that earned her the name Daybreak. With her second-in-command, Riva Callum, she’s able to create a second chance at a revolution. Ianthe is Celosia's opposite, from the icy nature of her abilities, and her way to helpCelosia see how to accept her past and find hope for her future. Kayvun has a rare Duality that puts her in the sights of the Council’s Commander. She uses her new found abilities to cross to the Spirit Realm to reach out to Elementalist lawyer, Adan Poole. Lark is the last member of the team who has a gift for air and a passion for renewable energy. The six of them work together to stay one step ahead of the Council, but with every decision they make, they seem to come to a dead end. Can this small team bring forth a revolution before the Council catches up to them? Where high fantasy meets the modern age, Daybreak Rising is a charming breath of fresh air. In the fictional world, magic is viewed as a threat or a tool. Elementalists either have the choice of a plea bargain or they will be part of the Cleanse (which is as eerie as it sounds). There are a lot of modern elements including the technology elemental magic, holographic monitors, and datapads. Kiran Oliver brings to life a world rich in culture, history, religion, and characters. On the surface, Daybreak Rising is the origin of a revolution for Elementalists, but at its heart the story is about characters. They’re down-to-earth and trying to make it one day at a time. Celosia has mental health issues following her time as a soldier that went horrifically wrong, but she’s able to open up to Ianthe and find something solid to hold onto. They provide a nice balance to each other that makes it easy to fall in love with their relationship. Daybreak Rising is charming, witty, with a little romance, but more importantly it’s realistic and full of heart." 
Tricks can be fun, but TREATS are way better. And this contest gives you a chance to win a ton of treats in the form of signed books, ebooks, candy, book swag and more from 13 authors!! We know...it's kind of SPOOK-TACULAR!
So WHAT WILL YOU WIN?? A creepy-awesome black canvas tote bag with a cool skull on the cover, filled with each of the books noted below as well as bookmarks and other great book swag. You will also win all of the treats that the author's list on their pages PLUS a bunch of other candy treats all in a black plastic cauldron. You'll even get the cute little plastic skulls shown in the prize photo. LIST OF PARTICIPATING AUTHORS and their AWESOME BOOKS! Amy McNulty - NOBODY'S GODDESS (advanced paperback) Kiran Oliver - DAYBREAK RISING (ebook) Dorothy Dreyer - SCARE ME TO SLEEP (Kindle ebook) Jodie Andrefski - THE SOCIETY (signed paperback) Julia Ember - UNICORN TRACKS (paperback) Julie Reece - THE ARTISANS (signed paperback) Nina Rossing - FJORD BLUE (signed paperback) Pat Edsen - BEYOND YOUR TOUCH Pintip Dunn - FORGET TOMORROW (signed paperback) S.A.Larsen - MOTLEY EDUCATION (signed paperback) Suzanne van Rooyen - OBSCURA BURNING (Releases 11/10 ebook) Vanessa Barneveld - THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE (Kindle ebook) Vicki Weavil - FACSIMILE (signed paperback) SO HOW DO YOU SNAG THE LOOT YOU MAY BE ASKING ABOUT NOW, RIGHT? It's simple, and you don't even have to dress up and walk in the cold, door to door, to get the goodies. Visit each of the THIRTEEN participating author websites. You will find the name of the candy/treat they are giving away, as well as what BOOK they are offering as part of the PRIZE PACK! Be sure to write down the name of the treat, you'll need it later. Each author will provide a link to another author website on the hunt. (We are making it nice and easy so you don't get lost in the dark) =) Have fun reading all about the books each author is giving away in the prize pack, plus any other tricks and treats the authors may have in store for you. When you have collected the names of all 13 author "TREATS", head on over to complete the Trick or Treat Hunt Page Google Forms doc and enter the correct treat next to the corresponding author name. You can enter for BONUS chances to win via the Rafflecopter found on each author's website, by doing things like following them on Twitter or following their Goodreads page, or tweeting about the Hunt! The contest runs from Friday October 28th, 2016 through Midnight, October 31st, 2016 (EST) Winner will be announced November 1st. Contest is US only. Thank you for your understanding. For my part of the hunt, I am giving away a digital copy of DAYBREAK RISING! :D Celosia Brennan was supposed to be a hero. After a spectacular failure that cost her people their freedom, she is offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance at redemption. Together with a gifted team of rebels, she not only sets her sights on freedom, but defeating her personal demons along the way. Now branded a failure, Celosia desperately volunteers for the next mission: taking down the corrupt Council with a team of her fellow elementally gifted mages. Leading the Ember Operative gives Celosia her last hope at redemption. They seek to overthrow the Council once and for all, this time bringing the fight to Valeria, the largest city under the Council’s iron grip. But Celosia’s new teammates don’t trust her—except for Ianthe, a powerful Ice Elementalist who happens to believe in second chances. With Council spies, uncontrolled magic, and the distraction of unexpected love, Celosia will have to win the trust of her teammates and push her abilities to the breaking point to complete the Ember Operative. Except if she falters this time, there won’t be any Elementalists left to stop the Council from taking over not just their country, but the entire world. DAYBREAK RISING is a dystopian fantasy novel with a demisexual character in an F/F romance as one of the lead protagonists. There's loads of awesome characters spanning the LGBTQIAP+ spectrum to be found, and it's pretty awesome if I do say so myself. If you're a fan of elemental magic, ladies kissing, and a bit of anarchy, feel free to check it out! For my prize, I'm also throwing in a personal favorite of mine--Riesen's! :D :D Things I love = Dark chocolate + caramel. To continue on the hunt, be sure to head on over to Vicki L. Weavil's blog. She writes awesome YA and NA Fantasy novels, and for this hunt she is giving away a signed copy of her YA sci-fi novel, FACSIMILE. It's pretty awesome. If you're a fan of YA fantasy, definitely check it out! Before you head out, don't forget to write down the name of my treat, and enter to win by clicking on the Rafflecopter giveaway below. Remember, you can tweet daily about the contest for another chance to win. Happy hunting, and good luck!! Thanks for stopping by! =) Happy book birthday to me! :D :D DAYBREAK RISING's release day has finally arrived!! I am beyond grateful for all of your support. Thank you doesn't seem like enough. I truly appreciate everyone's encouragement and support over the last two years. I look forward to sharing many more stories with you.  Party Cat: nedroid.com
In celebration of the upcoming release of DAYBREAK RISING, it's time for a giveaway! I like money for books. Chances are, so do you. In that vein, I'm putting a $50 Amazon giftcard up for grabs along with an advance copy of DAYBREAK RISING to the lucky person that wins this little contest. :D
Like I said, the grand prize winner gets a $50 Amazon giftcard (which will be sent to you by 10/10/2016 via email, with the giftcard in USD), and a free advance copy of DAYBREAK RISING sent to them on 9/19/2016. :D Three other lucky people will also get an advance copy! Huzzah! So, what are you waiting for? Good luck, and have fun! If you want to skip that to help me feed our cats/dog (thank you!), you can preorder DAYBREAK RISING over at: https://books2read.com/daybreakrising You read that right, folks. DAYBREAK RISING is available on iTunes and Amazon for pre-order! If you've got a spare $4.00 and want to read an #ownvoices F/F SFF novel that's full of awesomeness, you should definitely check it out. My eternal, undying gratitude to Lyssa Chiavari for the beautiful formatting and page design that made getting this to all of you on its original release date possible. If you're in the market for ebook/paperback formatting, she's amazing!
If your device doesn't allow you to click the links in the above logos, the links themselves to pre-order are as follows: iTunes Amazon Kindle Kobo If you've got another type of device/are ordering internationally, keep an eye on: books2read.com/daybreakrising to see when your format of choice is available! I plan to have print versions of DAYBREAK RISING available shortly. |
AuthorKiran Oliver is a 32 year old author residing in New Zealand with their wife, their cats Ember and Alastor, and their puppy Teddy. Archives
February 2018
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
