Authors Jacob & H.P. Holo
It’s time for another Valkyrie Protocol interview! 😀
This time, David and Jacob chat with Baen Books editor Tony Daniel over on the Baen Free Radio Hour. The YouTube link is embedded below, but if you’d like to listen to the podcast version, you can find it here (or wherever you download your favorite podcasts)! 😄
H.P. had so much fun chattering about pets earlier this month that she decided to host another panel. 😁
Join her, Jonathan Brazee, Sarah K. Stephens, and Terry Maggert on Thursday, October 29th @ 8pm EST as they just talk about…cooking! 😋
Again, the event will be live-streamed on our Facebook page, but here’s the Zoom link for those who’d like to register to watch there!
See you next week! 😀
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UPDATE: Here’s the archived panel on YouTube (or, if you’d like to watch it on Facebook, here)!
When I’m not writing, my main responsibility is marketing our books, and a lot of that involves compiling Amazon Ad keywords – usually by researching books and authors that are similar to ours, and by seeing what kinds of books show up in our Also Boughts.
This often leads me down some interesting Kindle rabbit holes. For example, there was a period where, for some reason, a lot of the readers who bought mecha action-adventure Bane of the Dead were absolutely devouring … harem lit. 😳
That said, here’s a collection of some of the stranger books I’ve come across. 😀
I haven’t read any of these as of yet, but many are so weird that they’ll probably make their way onto my reading list at some point. 🤣 Enjoy!
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We’ve reached peak light novel, y’all.
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I don’t even care what this is about. I’m 100% reading for the dinosaur hands.
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I’m a huge fan of honest, straightforward, unashamed titles, and this is absolutely that.
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I can’t decide if science has gone too far…or not far enough.
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Bizarre light novel titles are my favorite thing in the world right now.
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Ok, given how much I love animals and adorable things, I’d actually read the heck out of this.
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You know, given how much time I spend cooking and eating in games, I’d actually read the heck out of this, too.
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Have you read any of these little oddities? 😄 Tell me what you thought in the comments!
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Note: Holo Writing is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and, as such, may earn a small commission from any product purchased through an affiliate link on this blog.
Um, bookish library wizards, snarky witch dudes, and talking cats? Sign me up!
Actually, the talking cat doesn’t show up until Book 2, but that’s all the more reason to read Book 1 – to get to Book 2 faster. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons, too. 😉
In Lydia Sherrer’s Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Beginnings (The Lily Singer Adventures #1), Lily Singer is a no-nonsense wizard—yes, wizard—who would rather spend time in the secret magical library archives under Agnes Scott College than getting up to any actual adventures. Unfortunately for her, her friend Sebastian Blackwell is a witch—yes, witch—who is, if not all nonsense, at least nonsense enough to elicit frequent eye-rolls from Lily while still roping her into his latest magical misadventure.
Beginnings chronicles three such adventures which, though written like a collection of novellas more so than a singular novel, thread together to provide fun, fascinating looks at these two characters and their world. The plots are eclectic and often unpredictable—one an emotionally complicated ghost story, another a dangerous gang-related conflict (but still mostly clean enough to stay within the realm of a cozy read), and the last a heart-wrenching tale of mysterious time loops and dangerous family heirlooms.
Lily and Sebastian’s interactions, however, are the essential glue that holds the plots together. The two are polar opposite character types—Lily serious and pedantic to a fault, Sebastian the carefree, infuriating charmer—but their strengths and flaws balance each other out in such a way that they read like an inseparable pair that will probably end up married through the paradoxical unifying power of amused exasperation. Each character hides their own secrets and struggles, too, though. Lily is perpetually bothered by how much of her family’s wizard history was—and still is—hidden from her, and despite his relaxed, appealing demeanor, Sebastian is estranged from his magical family for reasons that aren’t immediately clear to Lily. The mysteries surrounding these characters alone are enough to make me curious to read more of the series.
The magic systems involved are equally intriguing, as Lily and Sebastian use two distinct forms of magic, and they complement each other in unexpected ways.
The magic that defines Lily’s wizardry is derived from a source known, pragmatically, as the Source, and isn’t cast so much as carefully wrangled through clever combinations of runes, artifacts, the user’s will, and a magical ancient language known as Enkinem. Wizard magic itself is likely one of the reasons why Lily is so strict and scholarly; it’s not magic that can be flung about carelessly. It’s magic that has to be studied and meticulously implemented, lest its effects go horribly wrong.
Sebastian’s witchery, meanwhile, derives from the fact that he can see and interact with fey and, more specifically, knows how to trade with them to earn their magical favor. It’s magic that requires charisma, which in turn is one of the reasons why he’s such a mischievous, charismatic character himself. His magical survival requires it. Additionally, when he comes to Lily for help, it’s not only to pester her (though that’s one reason); it’s because her particular type of magic is better suited to certain challenges than his, simply because of the structural differences between the two.
(The magic systems aren’t gendered, by the way, as the book emphasizes early on. Wizards study; witches make deals with the fey; and those are the only relevant separations.)
In short, the complexities of these magic systems are one of the coolest parts of the book, but ultimately it’s a book that hinges on the amusing interplay between its two leads and the surprising complexities of even its minor characters. If you’re looking for a for a cozy, sassy fantasy that puts the smart in smart aleck, Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus: Beginnings is a good place to start. 😄
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Note: Holo Writing is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and, as such, may earn a small commission from any product purchased through an affiliate link on this blog.
If you were at the first virtual ROFCon this weekend, you were treated to a whole bunch of sci-fi and fantasy authors doing what they do best (well, other than writing that is 😉) – including David and Jacob chatting about the Gordian Division series.
If not, it’s archived below for your viewing pleasure! 😄
And there’s plenty more where that came from! If you need to scratch that con itch, go check out the Ring of Fire Press channel on YouTube for a collection of panel videos from the con! 😀
H.P. got stir-crazy waiting for cons to start back up, so she made her own panel.
Join her, D.J. Butler, Lydia Sherrer, and Terry Maggert this Thursday, October 8th @ 8pm EST, wherein they’ll…just talk about pets! 😄
The event will be live-streamed on our Facebook Page, but if you’d rather watch through Zoom, you can register for that here.
We hope to see you there! 😀
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UPDATE: Here’s the archived video on YouTube! (Or, if you’d rather watch it on Facebook, click here!)
One of the benefits of having an overwhelmingly huge and ever-growing book pile is that sometimes, when you get bored, you can just dig to the bottom to see what’s been hiding there, and sometimes, you find little treasures you’d completely forgotten about.
This is one of those.
I happened upon Dave Butler’s The Kidnap Plot (The Extraordinary Journeys of Clockwork Charlie #1) several years ago after a particularly memorable LibertyCon panel which was supposed to be about The Best New YA Books…but, given that none of us had actually read any new YA books that year, ended up being about awesome YA in general (and also ended up being one of the most fun panels at that convention). This has nothing to do with the book, except that fellow panelist Butler was giving out copies at the end, and like heck am I gonna turn down any free steampunk reading, especially when the cover is as adorable as this:
Plus, in the con-less semi-apocalyptic landscape that is 2020, it’s nice to reflect on con memories, and that panel was one of my favorites.
The London of The Kidnap Plot is one soaked in steam and coated in grease, where airships dominate the sky and beneath them live overlapping cultures of humans, pixies, trolls, kobolds, shape-changers…and Charlie Pondicherry and his Bap. Charlie’s father runs Pondicherry’s Clockwork Invention and Repair, and never allows Charlie to venture far from it. But when his Bap is kidnapped by the aptly-named Sinister Man and his cronies, Charlie will have to venture further than he’s ever gone to rescue him–and in doing so, uncovers a plot that threatens Queen Victoria herself.
If you’re in the mood for a charming middle grade steampunk adventure with a whimsical storybook quality, The Kidnap Plot is it. Though some elements toward the end might seem overly familiar to anyone who consumes lots of steampunk, the characters that surround those elements are fun enough that I didn’t care (and frankly made me want to re-read/watch the stories it reminded me of, so win-win).
It’s the unfamiliar parts that make the book shine, anyway. Charlie’s is a setting where educated trolls can be lawyers, pixie duchesses-to-be can be their assistants, and kobolds help out in inventing shops. The aforementioned Grim Grumblesson, Natalie De Minimis, and Henry Clockswain join the ambitious chimney sweeps/potential aeronauts Oliver Chattelsworthy and Heaven-Bound Bob to shape the eclectic party that helps Charlie recover his dad. (Special second mention for Heaven-Bound Bob because I think his name is extra-fun to say.) It’s a large cast for such a comparatively simplistic rescue story, but the characters play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses with panache in such a way that much of the fun of the novel is not in seeing the characters succeed, but wondering what clever, audacious things they’ll have to do to get out of their absurd situations, which often have no obvious solution.
More than once, I actually started thinking of these twists and turns in terms of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, since so many of their challenges are complicated by the fact that one of them is super tiny, one is a big ol’ troll, and other such race-specific details. I doubt that was the author’s intent, but frankly now that I think of it, I’m totally down for a Clockwork Charlie RPG.
All in all, rip-roaring adventure and fun characters make The Kidnap Plot a delightful, exciting read. If you like whimsical steampunk stories, give it a try!
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Note: Holo Writing is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and, as such, may earn a small commission from any product purchased through an affiliate link on this blog.
Rejoice, Gordian Division fans, for there’s another live stream in your future! 😀
On Wednesday, October 7th @ 4pm EST, David and Jacob will chat The Valkyrie Protocol on Publishers Weekly‘s author event series Books on Tap Live! If you’re up for a chill evening hanging out with authors through the magic of the Internet, check it out on Facebook, YouTube, or the official Books on Tap Live page.
You can also enter to win a signed copy of The Valkyrie Protocol – and, while you’re at it, submit questions for Publishers Weekly to ask David and Jacob!
If that’s your style, click here or on the image below for more information. We hope to hear from you! 😊
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UPDATE: Here’s the archived video! 😀
Here’s even more from The Weberverse! This time, David and Jacob chat The Valkyrie Protocol together, from how the whole adventure started to the details of the writing process.
We’re less than a month away from the release of The Valkyrie Protocol, which means it’s almost time for interviews and live streams galore! 😀
For our first, the booksellers over at Mysterious Galaxy will be hosting David and Jacob for a discussion about all things Valkyrie on October 4th at 2pm PT (5pm EST). The event requires signup, so don’t forget to hop on over to the event page to register!
They’re also accepting preorders for signed copies of The Valkyrie Protocol, so if that sounds up your alley, be sure to order from their website! (You’ll want to scroll down to see the order option.)
We hope to see you then! 😀
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UPDATE: Here’s the archived video!
If The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets The Office is a phrase that makes you want to fling all your money at whatever inspired it – well, grab your wallet. 😀
In Dave Schroeder’s Xenotech Rising (Xenotech Support #1), first contact has been made in the form of aliens teleporting straight into the office of JP Morgan Chase and offering Earth a space in the Galactic Free Trade Association. Now, fifteen years later, Earth is bonkers with hyper-advanced alien technology, and when that tech breaks (or, more likely, when the user does something stupid to it), someone’s gotta fix it.
Enter Jack Buckston. As the head of Xenotech Support Corporation, he’s the guy to call when alien tech goes weird. Little does he know that what starts as a simple fix-it might tangle him in a plot that threatens Earth’s new place in the universe…
Okay, there are two things you need to know about this book going in: 1) Xenotech Rising is a sci-fi comedy, and 2) a lot of that comedy hinges on puns, dad joke humor, and geek references. Jack’s very first job in the book involves fixing an issue with “rabbot” lawn mowers that are replicating like rabbits at an organization called Widget Tech & Fabrication (or, WT&F). If that alone made you groan, you can put your wallet away now and go read something about taxes or whatever it is humorless pun-haters like to read about. Meanwhile those of us who thrive on silly wordplay will find a smorgasbord of nourishment here.
Even so, there’s more to the humor than puns. Xenotech’s is a setting in which one of Earth’s biggest exports is government session broadcasts repackaged as reality TV shows, and they’re so profitable that the most…erm…entertaining congresses have added extra chambers and extended sessions to maximize their on-screen time and profits. And even though Delta American Air-Space is first introduced as “the D’Am Company,” that introduction is immediately followed by a look at how airline travel even managed to remain A Thing in a universe where teleportation is also A Thing – and it all comes down to economics. Though it’s certainly a source of humor, the galactic economy is an elaborately imagined and genuinely intelligent part of this world.
Of course, with alien tech comes alien civilization, and the aliens in this novel are equally imaginative. They range from the Murm, which are tiny intelligent beetles with even tinier wormholes in their heads that allow their hivemind to communicate across galaxies (whew!), to the Dauushans, which are six-legged elephantine centaurs with three trunks that have three more trunks, which grant them the mobility they need to be one of the most high tech civilizations in the setting, despite their clumsy bulk (whewwww!). These don’t even scratch the tip of the iceberg as Xenotech’s alien races are concerned, and the unique characteristics of these races often shape the story in such a way that they’re inseparable from it.
The cast of characters is infinitely likeable, too. Jack is a regular guy who just wants to finish his jobs without some idiot getting in the way (so, relatable for anyone who works with the public). He’s also a perfect, if awkward gentleman to Poly, his tech- and disaster-savvy maybe-hopefully-girlfriend. Most notable to me, though, is Terrhi, a young Dauushan who, despite being one of the least human-looking and potentially least relatable of the alien species, ends up being one of the single most adorable characters I’ve ever read – and plays more of a role in the story than one would initially expect.
Most criticism that I have comes down to personal taste:
Its opening is slow-paced enough that it took several chapters for me to realize where the story was even going – but once the threads began to come together, I realized that everything had actually been set up from the very first chapter, which made the eventual “Aha!” moment that much more fun. 😀 Similarly, part of the climax goes long and seems to amount to “Well, it would be a waste to have an immersive virtual reality company in this book and not have an extended virtual reality video game battle, so…here’s some of that.” Still, even though it doesn’t contribute a whole lot to the plot, it’s still fun to read (even if some of its puns are shoehorned in way too hard, even for a book defined by puns).
The closest thing I have to a real complaint is that Poly’s insistent romantic advances on Jack become a little tiring. On the one hand, it’s refreshing to read a relationship in which the woman is the initiator. On the other, there was more than one scene in which I went, “Dang girl, he said no! How much clearer can he be?” 😐 It’s played mostly for humor, though, to accentuate the gentleman that Jack is, and ultimately the positives in their relationship outweigh this one small negative.
All this to say, if you’re in the mood for self-consciously dorky humor and unexpectedly complex sci-fi comedy, you’d do well to pick up Xenotech Rising. 😄
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Note: Holo Writing is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and, as such, may earn a small commission from any product purchased through an affiliate link on this blog.
There’s so much happening in my yard to distract me from writing today, y’all.
FIRST, a Nova story.
Nova gets to sit outside with me when I write because she’s generally well-behaved, doesn’t leave the porch, and doesn’t hunt. Outside cats can be a bane to songbird populations in particular, so I’ve always been glad that she’s confident enough in her food supply that she doesn’t feel the need to go for my yard critters.
Well, turns out I was wrong about that. 😐
It’s not that Nova doesn’t want to hunt. It’s just that she’s too lazy to hunt anything that presents the remotest challenge.
Which I learned when she zipped off the porch, snatched something from the ground, and sprinted to bring it in the house as it was cheeping for its dear life. 😮
Turns out she’d gotten her fangs on this little dude – a fledgling mockingbird who’d just barely left the nest in one of my trees, and hadn’t even learned to fly yet.
After lots of incoherent screeching and chasing Nova all over the yard, I finally got her to drop it. Thankfully, it was unharmed, if a little traumatized, so I left it in the shade with a bit of water and put Nova inside so it could recover without the fear of being eaten.
Then, interestingly enough, another mockingbird came to give it some attention. I’d noticed this mockingbird totally freaking out when Nova first snatched the fledgling. It wasn’t too cool about me being near the fledgling, either, so I let it be and went back to my porch to continue writing.
Over the course of the day, though, I kept an eye on the fledgling, and every now and then saw the adult mockingbird – probably its mom – hopping around with it, showing it how to spread its wings and do other essential bird stuff. Eventually mom bird finished her duties and flew off. I lost track of the fledgling in the evening, but I assume it flew off, too, and is now doing happy bird things like being in the sky and avoiding cats on the ground.
So, even though it started rather roughly (for the fledgling, at least), it was neat to see that little bit of nature’s cycle take place in my own backyard. 😊
But that wasn’t my only adventure of the day.
SECOND, when I sat back down on my porch after rescuing the fledgling, I noticed an unusual shape in my jasmine plant.
So now, in addition to a yard fledgling, I had a frickin’ yard snake to keep away from Nova. (Needless to say, she did not come back outside the rest of that day.)
This was the first time I’d seen a snake in my yard in all the years I’ve lived here, so after sharing some texts and photos with family, I learned that this lil’ dude was a rat snake, and a good snake to have around for pest control. 😊
He was a surprisingly chill snake for having witnessed all the chaos of The Fledgling Incident, and much to my surprise, stayed in my jasmine the entire day, despite being well aware of my continual presence on the porch. He was a surprisingly relaxing little presence, too, and I found myself rather pleased that, of all the local nature he could have chosen to rest in, he chose my jasmine vine.
When he was still there the next morning, though, I became extra curious. 😯 After all, why would a snake take ten hours of night and safety from humans…and still stay hidden in a plant very close to humans?
So I kept peeking out to see what he was up to.
Finally I saw him leave.
And slither into one of the vents leading under my house.
Turns out he was hanging out in the jasmine because he’d eaten himself too fat to get back into his home. He’d just needed to digest. 😂
I haven’t seen him since, but I do make sure that little vent is cracked open so he can get in and out.
And since he spent the whole day with me, I gave him a name, so now whether I see him or not, Sir Biscuit is part of my yard posse. 😊
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Originally posted on H.P.’s Instagram.
