Terry Maggert

Authors Just Talk About History – Virtual Panel

December 10, 2020 by hpholo Leave a Comment

Hey, everyone! The next Authors Just Talk About… virtual panel is coming up soon on Thursday, December 17th @ 8pm EST! 😀

Join me and professional history nerds David Weber, James Young, and Terry Maggert as we chatter about…well, history!

As always, the panel will be streamed on Facebook, but here’s the Zoom link for those who’d prefer to watch there.

See you next week! 😄

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UPDATE: The YouTube archive is here (and below)! Though, of course, if you’d like to watch on Facebook, you can do that here, too. 😄

Authors Just Talk About Cooking – Virtual Panel

October 23, 2020 by hpholo Leave a Comment

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)!

Authors Just Talk About Pets – Virtual Panel

October 5, 2020 by hpholo Leave a Comment

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!)

Halfway Dead – Book Review

April 4, 2020 by hpholo Leave a Comment

If the tagline “Come for the waffles. Stay for the magic.” doesn’t grab you by the throat and plunge your eyeballs straight into Terry Maggert’s Halfway Dead then you, my friend…well, probably haven’t met the right waffle. Which is all the more reason to visit the good witch Carlie at the diner in Halfway.
Halfway is a town in the Adirondack Mountains “exactly halfway in the middle of something,” a liminal space that’s equal parts “tourist destination, pit stop for travelers, and a repository of more things magical than I care to think about” – which is why protagonist Carlie McEwan frequently finds herself occupied with the mysterious hidden world around this cozy town. Strange forces have begun to stir in Halfway Dead. When a dumb YouTuber gets himself lost in the unforgiving mountain terrain, he unwittingly stumbles upon one of the last surviving groves of American Chestnut trees, thus setting off a race to find the trees…which happen to be sitting upon an area rife with dark, dangerous magic, and home to an equally dark mystery in Carlie’s family history. Aided by a mysterious investigator and a vampire Viking hermit, she must venture into the woods to stop this magic – before it kills (again).
I knew I was going to like Halfway Dead the moment I picked it up – I mean, waffles and magic, what more could a girl ask for? – but I ended up surprised by the specific ways in which I liked it. Frankly, the plot was the least interesting thing about it – not because it wasn’t interesting, but rather because the world and characters surrounding it were that much more interesting. More than the quirky magical adventure that the tagline led me to expect, Halfway Dead reads like a love letter to the beauties and dangers of the Adirondack Mountains. This is heightened by the fact that Carlie’s magic is nature-based, equally as beautiful and equally as dangerous as the natural world from which it derives. The book is also clear that Carlie is not a storybook witch or a stereotype (“I’m a witch. A real one, not some amateur who reads things on the Internet and likes to dress up.”), and while I don’t know enough about the practices of modern witches to comment on the accuracy of the depiction, the practical, down-to-earth way in which her magic is presented has the depth of research-based writing. Maggert’s descriptions of Carlie’s magic are simply wonderful, with thoughtful attention to detail that ultimately builds to Carlie’s own evaluation of her skill (“For now, I treat my magic like a new pair of shoes. Someday we’re going to love each other, but for now we’re just trying to fit together comfortably”) and her treatment of both nature and things in general (“I take care of my things, because they return the favor”).
I could easily see a modern witch practicing in the same way that Carlie does (albeit without the same magical clout), and this is one of the hinges upon which the book rests.
The other hinge is the town of Halfway itself, and the mountains surrounding. Halfway is unique among fictional mountain towns in that it’s not a Deliverance-inspired backwater, but a cozy town where everyone knows everyone, the locals are charming, where Carlie’s magic is known and appreciated (though not by all and not entirely fathomed even by those), and its only real limitation (or perhaps one of its greatest strengths) is its sheer distance from everything else.
I’d go to the Hawthorn Diner to try Carlie’s waffles as much as I would to hear of Tammy Cincotti’s dating conquests, take tea with Carlie’s classy, fearsome Gran, or just to hear the servers talk their special brand of diner pidgin that names a half stack of pancakes after the shortest member of the staff and somehow makes raisin bread appealing by rechristening it “bug toast.” I would eat bug toast here until Carlie had to magic up a spell to roll me out. The town is a homey point of pleasantry buried deep in a mountain range that, despite its wondrous beauty, does not give a slice of bug toast whether the people hiking it live or die, and that’s even before one considers the magical forces at work in it.
A side note: One can’t fully appreciate this book without having some appreciation for the Adirondacks themselves – or really, any vast swath of wilderness largely untouched by human presence. To that effect, if you like to read books in themed clusters, Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods pairs excellently with Halfway Dead, both because of its similarly reverent sense of wonder and terror toward the woods and because it provides historical context that enhances certain parts of this novel. Halfway Dead clearly establishes that the pivotal American Chestnuts are severely endangered, the species nearly wiped out during a blight in the early 1900s, but a later read of A Walk in the Woods took my reaction from “Ok, so they found some chestnuts” to “HOLY SH** THEY FOUND AMERICAN CHESTNUTS! 😀 😀 :D” Plus it’s just a good read for people who like the idea of hiking but not the inconvenience of probably being eaten by bears in the isolated wilderness. But I digress.
If I were to fault Halfway Dead for anything, it would be how complicated the plot becomes at points. There are lots of characters and lots of different motivations circling around every facet of the conflict, from people who want to protect the pivotal American Chestnuts, to people who want to exploit the Chestnuts (both independently of the magical storyline), to Carlie’s family history surrounding that grove, to the aforementioned Viking vampire, who has his own complicated reasons for being in the woods in the first place, to the dark force at the center of it all, which has origins the reader never would have expected at the beginning of the novel. It all comes together nicely in the end, but until the reader reaches the end, it sometimes makes for a disjointed first read as one wonders why exactly the novel focuses on this new character or that new detail without a reason that’s apparent in the moment. (On the flipside, though, it makes the second read-through that much more entertaining.)
That said, its plot pretzel can be a bit exhausting – but the world in which that pretzel was tangling was so appealing that, in the end, it barely diminished the reading experience. If you’re looking for a cozy contemporary fantasy with just a twist of darkness, and a waffle-slinging witch who wrangles it all with panache, Halfway Dead is a must-read.
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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.

The Messenger – Book Bomb

October 18, 2019 by hpholo Leave a Comment

Hey, mecha fans! We know some of you are still reeling from the end of the Seraphim Revival series, and though we’re giving its characters a much-needed rest, we totally understand your need to read more action-packed giant robot goodness.
Luckily for you, one of our #authorbuds, Terry Maggert, teamed up with J.N. Chaney to release a thoroughly kick-butt giant robot space epic! 😀
H.P. just finished barreling through The Messenger, and if you’re a fan of Gundam, Voltron, Mass Effect, or really anything that involves big-a** tech blowing junk up in epic fashion, it’s a fun read!

Dash never asked to be a mech pilot, but fate has other plans.
On the run and out of chances, he guides his ship and crew into the heart of a relic older than the galaxy itself–and finds himself on the edge of an eternal war he never knew existed.
The relic is a mech, lost to history and forgotten by all who remain. Built by an ancient race to be the ultimate weapon, the machine is capable of unspeakable destruction, and its discovery could unhinge the balance of power throughout known space.
Worse still, the A.I. inside the machine speaks of an ancient evil that will soon arrive–a race whose power far exceeds anything humanity has ever witnessed.
Only the Messenger can stand against them, the A.I. tells its new pilot. Only you can do what must be done.

Even better, if you enjoy it, the sequel is already available for Pre-Order (Release Date Sunday, October 20th)! 😀

UPDATE 12.21.19: There are more! 😮

FantaSci 2019 Con Update!

April 1, 2019 by hpholo Leave a Comment

With the May 7th release of Jacob and David Weber’s The Gordian Protocol (from Baen Books) and a contract already signed for the sequel, 2019’s looking to be a big year for us. It’s only appropriate, then, that our 2019 con season kicked off with a big start!
FantaSci in Durham, NC is one of the sister cons that sprang up from the The Royal Manticoran Navy’s now-defunct HonorCon (R.I.P.), in the form of a multi-fandom con with emphasis on the works of David Weber and the ever-growing Four Horseman Universe helmed by Mark Wandrey and Chris Kennedy. This being its first year, it was small, but what it lacked in numbers it made up for in sheer heart and brilliant company.
For us, though, the excitement began before the con even started. Since FantaSci’s location was so close to Baen Books’ main offices, Baen invited us up for a tour and to meet some of the people responsible for transforming David and Jacob’s manuscript into its final form. Assistant Editor (also an author) Christopher Ruocchio first showed us where the general magic happens; it involves a lot of bookshelves, cubicles, and most importantly, TWO CATS EACH WITH THEIR OWN PERSON-SIZED CAT TOWER. (In my excitement, I forgot both their names, but both were gracious enough to bless me with their squishy bellies so I am forever grateful.) Senior Editor Tony Daniel (also also an author) then continued the tour, showing us the podcasting station where he records The Baen Free Radio Hour (one of my regular listens), and finally Executive Editor Jim Minz and shipping extraordinaire Grace Borger treated us to a spontaneous lunch at local haunt Over the Falls (which was delicious). And then, on Mr. Minz’s recommendation, I tried out Wake Forest Coffee Company, which it turns out makes an iced caramel macchiato to rival my favorite coffee shop’s back home. (It was a coffee miracle!)
But that wasn’t even the end of our Baen adventure—or food adventures. That evening, all the Baen authors at FantaSci were treated to a lavish dinner at NanaSteak, so we were privileged to sit at the same dinner table with the Baen crew from earlier, as well as Timothy and Anna Zahn, Steve White (and wife, whose name has been lost to my con haze! Someone remind me!), Robert E. Hampson, and of course, David and Sharon Rice-Weber—and also to taste the best Mac and cheese I’ve had in my entire life. Seriously, if you are in downtown Durham and don’t try NanaSteak’s Gruyere “Grand Cru” Mac & Cheese, you are not living your best life.)
Joking aside, it was mind blowing to be sitting at the same table as some of the bestselling authors who inspired Jacob to write—and not only that, but on the invitation of the publisher who had released so many of those inspirational works. There were parts of this weekend that felt too incredible to be real, and this was one of them.
All this to say, Baen’s hospitality was amazing, and if the people alone are any indication, we couldn’t have landed at a better publisher. Many thanks to Christopher, Tony, Jim, and Grace for the warm welcome. (And to Toni Weisskopf, Marla, and Corinda, we regret that we didn’t get to see you. 🙁 Maybe next time!)
Now, on to the con itself!
Our SphinxCon panels were so well-received that we repeated many of them here, kicking off Friday with Collaboration with an Author, which I moderated while David and Jacob discussed the process of collaborating on The Gordian Protocol. We followed that with Self-Publishing for Shy People, which, it turns out, was a hard panel to fill for this con because apparently none of the authors in attendance were shy (or were too shy to want to be on a panel about shyness 😆). So Jacob joined me at the last minute for a discussion on how to fake being an extrovert for marketing purposes.
Baen brought another bang to our Saturday morning, starting it off with the Baen Traveling Roadshow. The Roadshow has always been a con favorite of ours, with its perfect recipe of author chats, behind-the-scenes glimpses at upcoming releases, and free books galore. In previous years, we’ve always watched longingly from the back row.
So when Baen invited David and Jacob not only to speak about The Gordian Protocol, but to start the program with it, needless to say we were pumped—and also maybe slightly nauseous. Turns out that a round of applause can do wonders to relieve nervous nausea, though, as we found when the audience cheered to greet Jacob! And when a Gordian Protocol ARC was the first free book chosen by an audience member. (We might have been misreading the room, but it looks like people are excited for this book! 😀)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvXRx76g9rw/
Once we’d recovered from the Roadshow, I joined author wives Sharon Rice-Weber, Joy Wandrey, Sheellah Kennedy, Wendy Woods, and a whole bunch of margaritas, which are becoming traditional for The Care and Feeding of Authors panel, wherein we discussed what it takes to support an author husband.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvXWwpdA3Kd/
After that, what FantaSci lacked in shy authors it made up for with chaotic plot pantsers, as Christopher Woods, Ian J. Malone, Jason T. Graves, and Rob Howell all joined me for Writing by the Seat of Your Pants.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvXvvYlgbNq/
Then, after a well-earned nap, Jacob and I jumped back into a panel room for Chaos of Creation: Balancing World Building and Story, in which we discussed how our two wildly disparate senses of plot and worldbuilding came together to make The Wizard’s Way.
Finally, Sundays tend to be the dead days at cons, but that was far from the case on FantaSci’s Sunday. Our hotel room was perfectly positioned to hear the carnage of not one, but two packed party rooms, and this made us wonder if literally anyone would be conscious enough to come to a 9am panel the following day. But the Jump, Jive, and Write panel ended up having such an impressive crowd for that hour that we panelists ended up giving the audience a round of applause! That’s dedication! Afterward, moderator Ian J. Malone led us, Jason Cordova, and Jason T. Graves in A Discussion of Music and Creative Inspiration that resulted in everyone’s writing playlists exploding. (I have never been so grateful to be a Spotify subscriber.)
Soon after, Jacob ended the con with one of his most exciting panels, Crafting Time Travel Rulesets. The crazy thing about this panel? One of the books that inspired Jacob to write in the first place—in fact, the fateful book that set off this whole adventure—was In Death Ground by David Weber and Steve White.
Who was Jacob’s fellow panelist? Steve White.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvaJcBjgFux/
Have we mentioned that this weekend felt nothing short of surreal?
Surreal elements aside, FantaSci was also great con for getting back in touch with what’s quickly becoming our con family. Though it’s incredibly exciting to finally be traditionally published, one of the biggest perks of the whole experience has been the people we’ve befriended along the way, so without further ado:
Thanks to Angi and Phil Clayton for carrying our books at the Weber Universal Outfitters booth and generally being awesome. The same goes for Katie and Greg Barnette, who are still our friends even after I accidentally punched Greg in the teeth in the midst of an over-excited flail. 😆 (That’s true friendship right there.)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvXX9G9AV3N/
Thanks also to Rayanne and Arasin Staubly for Jacob’s fancy new bowtie, and to Wendy Woods for my glamorous kitty ears!
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Thanks to Jonny Minion for being hilarious whether sober or sick on 4HU grog.
Thanks to other author buds Terry Maggert, David Alan Jones, Alan Isom, and Alex Rath, whom we didn’t share panels with, but should have because they are awesome.
And finally, thanks to Joel Lyons and crew for putting together a truly fantastic convention. We had an absolute blast this year and look forward to returning next year! 😀
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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.

Banshee – Book Review

April 21, 2017 by hpholo Leave a Comment

The world changed when dragons rose from their slumber beneath the earth, but dragons were not the only change to come.
They warned of demons—monsters that would emerge from the very pit of hell to wreak havoc on our world. The dragons had come to select riders who, with the dragons, would provide reinforcements against the coming carnage. But if it takes dragons to defeat those monsters, what hope does humanity have?
Not much, and soon, even with the dragons’ aid, civilization crumbles in the ashes of its former self, burned more with every Killing Moon.
Now only the city of New Madrid remains. It may soon face its own demise from underneath—but not if French Heavener has anything to say about it. With dragon rider Saavin, he’ll travel to the very cave where the demons hide. With her dragon Banshee and the last courageous band of humans, dragons, and riders, they’ll save New Madrid.
Or die trying.
I met author Terry Maggert at LibertyCon several years ago, snagged by the tagline for his then-latest book: “Come for the waffles. Stay for the magic.” Unfortunately, despite combining two of my favorite things in the world, Halfway Dead had not yet released, so instead I opted to try the next best thing, which was “the apocalypse but with dragons,” a.k.a. Banshee.
The reason why this is review is so late is 1) life, which required me to 2) read it twice, which I needed to do anyway because my first reaction was *excited pterodactyl noises.* This is the kind of reaction every author hopes to elicit, but unfortunately it does not make for an articulate review.
My now-articulate response: Banshee is a must-read for fans of dragons, apocalyptic fiction, vividly realized worlds, and competent, capable characters.
Of all the characters, Saavin is the most nondescript, but this is largely because she’s so defined by her role as a dragon rider who gets stuff done—because in this world, if you don’t get stuff done, you die, even if you have a dragon on your side. The more clearly-realized French is equally as competent as she is, though in a different way: A product of Appalachia, French knows how to survive in coarse conditions, especially in terms of gathering and organizing resources, but he’s far from the stereotypical hillbilly one might expect. He carries the novel and keeps most of the cast alive through sheer planning alone, and it was refreshing to read about a “hillbilly” who was not only more than a caricature, but an admirable leader. I’m not sure that I’d follow him into the hell cave, but I’d definitely follow him elsewhere.
Outside of Saavin and French, the cast is huge, but just as well characterized. None of the characters are the bombastic badasses one might expect of a novel like this, but many are badass in realistic ways, from the Paddy-Macs, a family of sharp-shooters, to Harriet Fleming, a New Madrid leader who knows she’s dying from terminal illness but still does her job, despite both internal and external odds. Of course, humans wouldn’t be human without some politics, which is where Colvin Watley and his lackeys come in. He’s a charismatic, folksy type well suited to the personality of his surroundings; he’s also a manipulative, useless a-hole who wants power and influence in New Madrid but doesn’t have the skills to merit it. Still, that hasn’t stopped him from gaining some traction against French, and the conflict there is nearly as intense as the conflict against the demons—perhaps more so, since a Watley victory implies the inevitable loss of the last human outpost, all because of local politics. The balance of apocalyptic conflicts and relatable conflicts are half of what make this novel work so well.
The other half is the world. While I love dragons in all situations, I especially like when authors place them in modern settings because there’s no way for a dragon to make a small impact. A creature as huge and epic as a dragon irrevocably changes the society around it, and it’s always fun to see how authors choose to express those changes. (Well, fun for the reader. In Banshee’s case, humans face so much hellacious* crap that, well, the apocalypse happens. But in their defense, the dragons were trying to stop that.)
That said, Banshee is primarily a world-building novel. The circumstances and history of the setting are as much a part of the novel as the characters attempting to survive it, and though the characters are interesting and the plot moves at a steady pace, it’s frequently interrupted by records from the Bulwark Archival Materials, which provide a look at what’s going in the world outside (or before) the main characters’. On my first read-through, I found these a little jarring, as they slow the momentum of the plot and sometimes don’t contribute to the narrative immediately surrounding them. However, on my second read, I actually enjoyed them quite a lot. They provide flesh to a world that would have been a mere skeleton had the novel dedicated itself to a straightforward storyline, and though not all are strictly necessary to the plot, they season it nicely, providing glimpses of the resources derived from the demons, the origins and personalities of the other dragons, etc.
The cast of dragons is pretty huge, too, and I regret not being able to spend more time with them, especially Banshee. Despite his name being the title of the book, his significance never seems to be greater than that of the other main characters, and I spent the novel hoping for that special detail or scene that would make him stand out above the rest. It doesn’t happen, but then, all the characters are pretty epic anyway, so it’s not much of a loss.
My only other gripe has to do with the minor character Orontes, who pops up to catalyze the story, disappears to the background for most of the rest, and then pops up at the end again for an unexpected twist that I couldn’t justify even after my second reading. However, it is a twist that demands a sequel, to which I say PLZ TERRY MAGGERT I NEED MORE DRAGONS.
In the meantime, now I can start on Halfway Dead.
*Note: Though there are frequent references to hell and demons, the demons are called so less for religious reasons, more because they come from underground and look like the illegitimate love children of Satan and every animal that wants to kill you. It’s about as religious as Doom.
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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.