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WORK TITLE: The Empire’s Ghost
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://mylifemybooksmyescape.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/author-interview-isabelle-steiger/ * http://www.speculativeherald.com/2017/05/30/review-the-empires-ghost-by-isabelle-steiger/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2017018927
Descriptive conventions:
rda
LC classification: PS3619.T44845
Personal name heading:
Steiger, Isabelle, 1989-
Located: New York (State)
Birth date: 1989-09-12
Profession or occupation:
Novelist
Found in: The empire's ghost, 2017: ECIP t.p. (Isabelle Steiger) data
view (Isabelle Steiger was born in the city and grew up
in the woods. She lives in New York. The Empire's Ghost
is her first novel)
Email from publisher (St. Martin's Press), Apr. 3, 2017:
(Isabelle Steiger was born 9/12/1989)
================================================================================
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Attended college.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Isabelle Steiger was born in New York City and attended college there. She discussed her first novel, a fantasy called The Empire’s Ghost, in an interview at MyLifeMyBooksMyEscape. Imperator Elgar rules over half of the continent of Lantistyne but yearns to hold power over it all. As Steiger put it, he is “determined to recreate Elesthene, a continent-spanning empire that history paints as both majestic and terrifying.” The novel follows the tale of the conflict between Imperator Elgar and the rulers of the land he is trying to conquer and the commoners caught in the middle. Steiger told the interviewer that she got “an extra kick out of crafting scenes in which characters with different worldviews or moral stances crash into each other and then are forced to reckon with each other.”
A Publishers Weekly reviewer characterized The Empire’s Ghost as an “enjoyable epic fantasy debut” but found that this first in a projected series “raises many interesting questions that remain unanswered.” Heather McCammond-Watts, writing in Booklist, called it a “well-crafted tale that is ripe for a sequel,” with characters that are “unique and compelling.” According to a Tenacious Reader contributor, the novel would have benefited from a guide to the many characters and plot details. Even though the The Empire’s Ghost is an “exciting and fun book” and “there were a ton of revelations (and some great opportunities for speculation),” the reviewer felt that the novel lacked “closure.” Even so, the critic termed it “very ambitious and good debut.” A contributor to Biblio Sanctum described it as a “complex, multi-faceted story complete with a rich cast of characters and many points of view” but also noted the need for a “dramatis personae” to track the characters. The critic noted with appreciation that the “basic setup for the series is complete.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 2017, Heather McCammond-Watts, review of The Empire’s Ghost, p. 32.
Publishers Weekly, March 27, 2017, review of The Empire’s Ghost, p. 85.
ONLINE
Biblio Sanctum, https://bibliosanctum.com (November 9, 2017), review of Empire’s Ghost.
Macmillan Website, https://us.macmillan.com (November 9, 2017), author profile.
MyLifeMyBooksMyEscape, https://mylifemybooksmyescape.wordpress.com (May 25, 2017), author interview.
Tenacious Reader, http://www.tenaciousreader.com (May 15, 2017), review of Empire’s Ghost.
Jonathan Grassi
ISABELLE STEIGER was born in the city and grew up in the woods. She received her first notebook when she was eight, and she’s been filling them up ever since. She lives in New York, though her erstwhile companion, a very moody gray cat, has since retired and moved to Florida. The Empire’s Ghost is her first novel.
Author Interview: Isabelle Steiger
Today I am interviewing Isabelle Steiger, debut author of The Empire’s Ghost, the first book in a new epic fantasy series.
◊ ◊ ◊
DJ: Hey Isabelle! Thanks for agreeing to do this interview!
For readers who aren’t familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?
Isabelle Steiger: This is the very first piece of writing I’ve ever gotten published, so I don’t imagine many readers are familiar with me. I was born in New York City, and I moved back there when I started college, after a ten-year stint in the country. When I was a kid, I used to take a notebook up to the highest hill by my house to write, but these days the diner on the corner serves just as well.
DJ: What is The Empire’s Ghost about?
Isabelle: A dictator calling himself Imperator Elgar has already conquered half of the continent of Lantistyne, but he won’t rest until he rules it all. He’s determined to recreate Elesthene, a continent-spanning empire that history paints as both majestic and terrifying. The novel follows the struggles of two different groups of people: the rulers of the countries Elgar has yet to conquer, who are desperate to find a way to defeat him, and a found family of not-quite-law-abiding commoners trying to keep themselves and each other safe after Elgar decides he wants to use their skills for his own ends.
DJ: What were some of your influences for The Empire’s Ghost and the series as a whole?
Isabelle: Fantastic worlds that feel like they’ve existed for centuries before the author decided to tell this particular story—the works of Patrick Rothfuss, George R. R. Martin, Garth Nix, and Tamora Pierce come most easily to mind, though I’m sure I could think of many others.
DJ: Could you briefly tell us a little about your main characters? Do they have any cool quirks or habits, or any reason why readers will sympathize with them?
Isabelle: My commoners consist of: a swindler, a mercenary, two bandits, a perfectly legitimate small business owner, thank you very much, and a teenage runaway named Seth who’s more or less been adopted by the rest of them. (There’s also a talented young pickpocket, but they haven’t quite let her into the club yet.) Though many of these characters’ actions overstep the boundaries of legality, I hope readers will be drawn to the genuine affection and loyalty they feel for one another. They live in a world that makes it difficult enough just to look out for yourself, but even though they often disagree about the right thing to do in a particular situation (or about whether doing “the right thing” matters at all), they’re determined to do right by one another.
As for the royals, they’ve been raised from birth to understand that they will one day have a great effect on their world. It’s one thing to stand against Elgar’s dreams of empire, but even if they defeat him, what will they put in its place? Their struggle is to determine their own vision for the future of their world, and what they’re willing to do in service to that vision. But just as each character will come to a different answer, I expect each reader will be drawn to some over others.
DJ: What is the world and setting of The Empire’s Ghost like?
Isabelle: For many generations, the continent of Lantistyne was synonymous with the Elesthenian Empire, a bloodline-obsessed oligarchy with repressive religious requirements. In the novel’s present, the continent has been split up into different countries. Though all the countries save one share a common past as parts of the former empire, they have rebuilt in different ways and experience different levels of prosperity. (The one exception is Aurnis, which was founded by refugees who only arrived in Lantistyne a century ago.) So, for example, Issamira is so rich in unique culture because its people were historically most resistant to imperial religion and social norms, and Esthrades is so prosperous because it has been ruled for centuries by a shrewd and iconoclastic noble family, the Margraines, who have been carefully shaping its future across generations. But Valyanrend, the former capital of Elesthene, fell into anarchy after the empire’s dissolution, and it and the lands around it have been subject to one tyrant after another—Elgar, while the most ambitious to date, is the latest in a long line.
DJ: What was your favorite part about writing The Empire’s Ghost?
Isabelle: I loved determining how this world’s history and culture have shaped its people, in both large and small ways, though I suppose more of that took place in the planning stage than in the writing stage. When it comes to the actual writing, I get an extra kick out of crafting scenes in which characters with different worldviews or moral stances crash into each other and then are forced to reckon with each other.
DJ: What do you think readers will be talking about most once they finish it?
Isabelle: I made sure to plant a lot of clues regarding questions that remain unanswered in the first book, so I hope careful readers will have plenty of theories to compare.
DJ: Now that The Empire’s Ghost is released, what is next for you?
Isabelle: I’m in the middle of writing the sequel as we speak!
DJ: Where can readers find out more about you?
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15189045.Isabelle_Steiger
DJ: Before we go, what is the one thing you’d like readers to know about The Empire’s Ghost that we haven’t talked about yet?
Isabelle: Lantistyne was not primarily inspired by medieval England, and the characters don’t sound British in my head. While there is occasional use of the word bloody for the sake of variety in cursing, you will note that no one ever says arse.
DJ: Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to answer my questions!
Isabelle: Thanks for having me!
The Empire's Ghost
264.13 (Mar. 27, 2017): p85.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
The Empire's Ghost
Isabelle Steiger. St. Martin's/Dunne, $25.99
(432p) ISBN 978-1-250-08848-2
Steiger's enjoyable epic fantasy debut weaves in and out of the lives of people on all sides of the struggle to determine the destiny of a continent. A tavern kitchen boy and his friends accidentally get tangled in the affairs of Emperor Elgar, who's trying to decide whether to turn his conquering ambitions on the kingdom of Reglay or the country of Esthrades. The boy king of Reglay seeks allies, and the marquise of Esthrades seeks power in more arcane ways, which leads her principal servant, Seren Almasy, into a chance encounter with the hapless protagonist. Steiger handles a complex plot and a multitude of viewpoints neatly and well. Revelations about the world and the characters are placed at suspenseful intervals, and the story raises many interesting questions that remain unanswered. Unfortunately, this series launch has no conclusion of its own but simply stops, and most of it is spent setting up events and revelations that readers will have no opportunity to experience until the next book is published. Steiger's talent does make this less frustrating overall than it otherwise might be, but the lack of emotional payoff in this installment is very noticeable. Agent: Thomas Flannery Jr., AG I Vigliano. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Empire's Ghost." Publishers Weekly, 27 Mar. 2017, p. 85. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA487928141&it=r&asid=aede788e23b02bab14f5edda71087efe. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487928141
The Empire's Ghost
Heather McCammond-Watts
113.14 (Mar. 15, 2017): p32.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
The Empire's Ghost.
By Isabelle Steiger.
May 2017.432p. St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne, $25.99 (9781250088482); e-book (9781250088499).
Ambition and intrigue are the fuel that powers the empire of Elesthene. Each smaller kingdom within this fractured world is struggling to survive after magic's demise, and the Imperator Elgar is intent upon conquering it all through his ruthless cunning. The diverse characters switch the novel's perspective from the alleys and brothels of the slums, to echoing palaces filled with an ever-creeping despair. Each character feels unique and compelling to the reader, with enough humorous banter to keep the darkness at bay. The thieves and the rogues exhibit a winning charm as they piece together a mystery involving an ancient stone with the power to topple dynasties. The female characters are fully realized, flaws and all, as they hold their own in a struggle for domination, and the royal families are at odds with each other but united in their quest for understanding their magical history. The pace is brisk, and Steiger drops in hints and clues along the way to keep the reader tantalized with wondering how all the plots and traps will play out. A well-crafted tale that is ripe for a sequel.--Heather McCammond-Watts
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
McCammond-Watts, Heather. "The Empire's Ghost." Booklist, 15 Mar. 2017, p. 32. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA490998478&it=r&asid=b01279af125157676ea8bbb70146fb2c. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A490998478
Review: The Empire’s Ghost by Isabelle Steiger
by Lisa (@TenaciousReader) · May 15, 2017
Review: The Empire’s Ghost by Isabelle SteigerThe Empire's Ghost by Isabelle Steiger
Narrator: Jeremy Arthur
Published by Macmillan Audio, Thomas Dunne Books on May 16th 2017
Pages: 432
Length: 19 hrs and 51 mins
Format: ARC, Audiobook
Source: Publisher
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An epic fantasy debut, The Empire’s Ghost weaves together the lives of the haves and the have-nots both desperately fighting to reassemble the remains of a fallen empire.
The empire of Elesthene once spanned a continent, but its rise heralded the death of magic. It tore itself apart from within, leaving behind a patchwork of kingdoms struggling to rebuild. But when a new dictator, the ambitious and enigmatic Imperator Elgar, seizes power in the old capital and seeks to recreate the lost empire anew, the other kingdoms have little hope of stopping him. Prince Kelken of Reglay finds himself at odds with his father at his country’s darkest hour; the marquise of Esthrades is unmatched in politics and strategy, but she sits at a staggering military disadvantage. And Issamira, the most powerful of the free countries, has shut itself off from the conflict, thrown into confusion by the disappearance of its crown prince and the ensuing struggle for succession.
Everything seems aligned in Elgar’s favor, but when he presses a band of insignificant but skilled alley-dwellers into his service for a mission of the greatest secrecy, they find an unexpected opportunity to alter the balance of power in the war. Through their actions and those of the remaining royals, they may uncover not just a way to defeat Elgar, but also a deeper truth about their world’s lost history.
Isabelle Steiger has crafted a powerful and masterful debut with The Empire's Ghost, the first book in a haunting new epic fantasy series.
The Empire’s Ghost is epic on many levels. The massive empire of Elesthene is now history, fractured into separate lands. Magic has become fable, thought to be rooted in superstition rather than historical fact. The story gives viewpoints from several rulers, all with their own agendas and ruling styles. You also get the view point of many citizens and soldiers as well. It gives a sweeping view of what life is like across the board, giving the reader insights into the life and happenings for commoners as well as intrigue from within the palace. Though the perspectives are all unique, they become intricately intertwined as the story progresses.
Through perspectives on the struggles between adjacent lands that used to be part of the Empire, we meet the rulers of all three and three and see the contrasting styles of rule. We see hints of magic, enough for speculation. The story can be dark at times, but this is not a brutal and gritty story. It is epic with ups and downs, and definitely death and blood. It’s not a happy feel good story that glosses over battles, but it is not terribly graphic either (at least not by my standards).
Now, one of the hallmarks of many epic fantasies is often a large cast of characters and varying lands to keep up with, along with all the political maneuvering, etc. This book takes the epic number of characters to, well, an epic level. Even for a large cast epic fantasy, the number of people to keep up with could be overwhelming. This is not a bad thing, just go in prepared that you will be introduced to what may feel like at times to be a staggering number of characters. I did find myself at times working to keep them all straight, but I have to say, overall, I did. That said, I truly hope the publisher includes a Cast of Characters, perhaps even with a visual representation of people and relationships/alliances (a friend was joking it could use a flow chart, and honestly, I think it really could). I do worry readers may complain that they had a hard time keeping characters straight, or remembering all the details. Some kind of reference or aid to help keep them straight would be highly beneficial. Maybe I’ll create one myself 🙂 Another downside of so many characters is that I can’t say I found myself as attached to any of them as I would have preferred just because no single character had as much page time as a book with fewer characters. Time learning about another new character is that much less time to grow attachment to existing or primary characters. I certainly was not detached, but the more page time a character gets, the easier it is form emotional attachments to them.
Another forewarning for those that love fully contained stories that can stand on their own and have a hard time when that is not the case, you may want to wait for subsequent books to be released. This is an exciting and fun book, I know way more than I did in the beginning, and there were a ton of revelations (and some great opportunities for speculation), but I left it feeling like the story is really just getting ready to take off instead of feeling like there was closure of any type. That is not something that bothers me, particularly in a book 1 of an epic fantasy series. Just mentioning it because I know different readers have different preferences. Personally, I enjoyed the journey and am anxious for the next installment.
Overall, I think this was a very ambitious and good debut. Considering the page length (this is not the heftiest epic fantasy), it is crammed with information and people and a crazy amount of things going on. I may have talked about the number of characters being hard to keep up with, but sometimes epic stories require more perspectives to really give the reader a comprehensive understanding of the world and all its facets. For me, it was worth it. Without a doubt, I plan to read the next one. I need to find out what happens next.
Audiobook Notes: I did a mix of reading the ARC and listening to the audiobook production for this one. I absolutely loved the performance for this audiobook, and hope to listen to another book narrated by Jeremy Arthur in the future. He gives the perfect touch of personality to the characters and is very easy to listen to. I have found that audio can sometimes make books with a large cast of characters more confusing, but thankfully I did not find that to be an issue with this one at all. (I did have the benefit of reading the names, which I am sure helped, but overall I felt like it was very comparable to my reading experience).
Book Review: The Empire’s Ghost by Isabelle Steiger
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
The Empire’s Ghost by Isabelle Steiger
Mogsy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Book 1
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (May 16, 2017)
Length: 432 pages
Author Information: Website
The Empire’s Ghost was a book that sounded right up my alley: an epic fantasy that touts a complex, multi-faceted story complete with a rich cast of characters and many points of view, not to mention the potential of a brand new setting filled with unique cultures and warring kingdoms—all set within a world where magic has once been lost but is ready to be found again. And indeed, it was a solid novel that delivered on all its promises, but it also had its share of stumbling blocks common to a lot of debuts—namely, that of trying to do too much.
The story opens on the empire of Elesthene, now just a ghost of its former glory. In the aftermath of the Ninist conquest, almost all traces of magic has been wiped clean from the world, leaving broken kingdoms behind to rebuild. However, it was only a matter of time until an ambitious leader like Imperator Elgar came to power and sought to create a new empire in his name, invading neighboring lands that have little hope of fighting back. In the kingdom of Reglay, young Prince Kelken clashes with his father on his idea for an alliance, refusing to risk his sister’s frail health in a political marriage. Meanwhile in Issamira, the richest and most powerful of the kingdoms, the royal succession is thrown into question following the disappearance of their crown prince. On the other hand, no such uncertainty exists in Esthrades where Lady Margraine has taken her father’s throne as his only heir—and is ruling with a determination to rival Elgar’s.
But far away from the royal courts and noble houses also stands the Dragon’s Head, an unassuming tavern tucked among the dank narrow streets of a rough and rundown Valyanrend neighborhood called Sheath. Its owner is a woman named Morgan Imrick who frequently gives shelter to the mercenaries and rogues in the area, and many of the regulars have become a group of friends. Not too many people in Sheath talk about their pasts, but when one of Morgan’s kitchen boys is arrested by the guard, certain difficult truths come to light. The Dragon’s Head crew inadvertently find themselves caught up in the tangled web of Imperator Elgar’s plans for domination, and are subsequently forced to carry out a special mission for him.
As you can imagine, there are a lot of perspectives involved, on account of the huge cast of characters. Normally, this would not be a problem—multiple POVs come with the epic fantasy territory, after all, and one of the advantages to writing a large cast is that you can quickly use them to create a rich and diverse new world. So, having a lot of characters in this genre is a good thing—but only if you don’t introduce them all at once. The first warning signs came early, when I felt I needed a dramatis personae to keep track of everyone in the prologue alone. It made getting into this novel difficult, mostly because so much of my energy was exerted towards trying to remember names without having to resort to building a spreadsheet.
With a large number of characters also comes a large number of plot threads. I enjoyed the story weaving Isabelle Steiger has done here, and by the end of the book I was really starting to appreciate how everybody and everything was coming together. Still, it took a long time for the big picture to come into focus, and while it was doing so, the narrative struggled to balance out the multiple plot lines. Some characters were parked for long periods of time, occasionally given short filler chapters (almost as if to remind us they still exist) while bigger, more important events were happening elsewhere. As the connections started to form, this also made some of the developments feel too convenient to be actually believable, what with all our key players encountering each other supposedly by chance in this vast empire.
Plus, in covering so many characters, the story may have spread itself too thin. Lady Margraine was probably the most fleshed out of everyone there, followed by perhaps Prince Kelken, while character development was disappointingly limited for the rest. Some, like Marceline, feel almost like a footnote. There were also others I would have liked to know better, like Elgar, especially since he is shaping up to be a formidable antagonist. Still, to the author’s credit, the characters that do stand out are superbly written. Lady Margraine, for all her irritating pomposity and claims to be bored, is a real force to be reckoned with and I am most excited with the future of her storyline. I’m sure the other characters and their individual plot threads will come to fruition in time, but for now, I find myself emotionally invested in only a few.
All told, The Empire’s Ghost is a solid entry into the epic fantasy genre and an admirable debut, though it does take bit of time and patience to realize the author’s vision for all her disparate characters and the great number of perspectives. The novel also has the distinct feel of an introduction, and a long one to be sure—many mysteries remain unsolved, and even with the big game changer close to the end, the final conclusion was underwhelming in the sense that no real resolution presents itself. That said, I will definitely be reading the next book, now that the basic setup for the series is complete. I expect the sequel will be throwing us straight into the action, and I’m looking forward to more revelations and answers.