Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Telling the Map
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://christopherrowe.typepad.com/
CITY: Lexington
STATE: KY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
| LC control no.: | no2011032747 |
|---|---|
| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/no2011032747 |
| HEADING: | Rowe, Christopher |
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| 001 | 8571481 |
| 005 | 20170109163240.0 |
| 008 | 110301n| azannaabn |n aaa c |
| 010 | __ |a no2011032747 |
| 035 | __ |a (OCoLC)oca08783466 |
| 040 | __ |a IlMchBWI |b eng |c IlMchBWI |e rda |d DLC |
| 053 | _0 |a PS3618.O8728 |
| 100 | 1_ |a Rowe, Christopher |
| 670 | __ |a His Sandstorm, c2011: |b t.p. (Christopher Rowe) |
| 670 | __ |a Amazon.com, Mar. 1, 2011 |b (Christopher Rowe; lives in Lexington, Kentucky with his wife, author Gwenda Bond; has had stories published for many years, but Sandstorm is his first novel) |
| 670 | __ |a His JournalScape page, website, Mar. 1, 2011 |b (Chistopher Rowe; born in Kentucky) |
PERSONAL
Born in KY; married Gwenda Bond (an author).
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
AWARDS:Best American Short Stories volume, “Another World For Map is Faith,” 2017; Hugo award finalist; Nebula award finalist; World Fantasy award finalist; Theodore Sturgeon award finalist.
WRITINGS
Contributor to numerous periodicals. Story contributor to chapbook, Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories, and young adult anthology, Steampunk!.
SIDELIGHTS
Christopher Rowe is a writer and novelist. He has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and Theodore Sturgeon Awards and his work has been translated into a half-dozen languages around the world. His stories have been in anthologies and chapbooks, including chapbook, Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories, and Candlewick’s young adult anthology, Steampunk!, edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant. Rowe was born in Kentucky and lives in Lexington with his wife, author Gwenda Bond, and their two dogs and cat.
Sandstorm
Sandstorm: A Forgotten Realms Novel, is Rowe’s first novel. Described by John Ottinger III in Grasping for the Wind website as “an excellent heroic fantasy,” Sandstorm is a story of a young man discovering his destiny and finding love. Set in the Forgotten Realms component from Dungeons and Dragons, the narrative focuses on Cephas, a slave forced to fight in a gladiator-style arena for the entertainment of others. The people of this world are known as genasi, and are split into three races: earthsouled, windsouled, and firesouled genasi. The windsouled genasi, the same who have enslaved Cephas, have rule over the land, and live in mansions that float high in the sky. Earthsouled Cephas must never touch the ground, or his true powers and potential to topple the windsouled genasi will come to be.
When Corvus Nightfeather, a humanoid hawk, and his band of circus-like friends see Cephas fighting in the gladiator arena, they recognize that he is earthsouled. Knowing the potential power that he could hold, they successfully free him from enslavement. Once in the outside world, Cephas is allowed to touch ground, causing him to hear the song of his fate. Now that his power has woken, three rivaling powers, the humans of the south, the windsouled genasi, and the firesouled genasi, all want to find Cephas to either support him on his mission or silence him. A contributor to Read Between the Lines website wrote, “Sandstorm has some great characters that made the story feel unique,” adding, “as soon as you pick up the novel, you’re hooked in and you may find it hard to put down.”
The Lost Legacy
The Lost Legacy is the first in the “Supernormal Sleuthing Service” series. Aimed at grades four through six, the book tells the story of a supernatural hotel where monsters check out rooms. Protagonist Stephen’s life drastically changes when he and his father abruptly move from Chicago to New York so his father can take over his late grandmother’s job as chef in a monster hotel. The clientele that frequent the hotel, who prefer to be called ‘supernormals,’ include vampires, dragons, fairies, and a talking elevator.
Stephen is trying to grieve his grandmother’s death while acclimating to this bizarre new environment. Lucky for him, the other kids at the hotel, Sophia and Ivan, are happy to take him in as a friend. As Stephen spends more time at the hotel, he uncovers a secret about his own past. His mother, who left him and his father when Stephen was young, was a monster herself. The woman was a Fae princess, meaning Stephen is half-monster.
When a magical family artifact is stolen from the hotel, Stephen is the prime suspect. He is not guilty, but he must retrieve the item to prove his innocence. Stephen, Sophia, and Ivan bands together to find the artifact and uncover who is setting up Stephen.
A contributor to Kids Reads website described the book as “spooky, funny, and full of monstrous hijinks,” while Terry Ann Lawler in School Library Journal wrote, “the story is fast-paced and full of action, with eccentric characters and a rewarding resolution.” A contributor to YA Book Central website wrote, “The Lost Legacy is an inventive and accessible mystery-adventure full of friendship and humor.”
Telling the Map
Telling the Map: Stories is Rowe’s first book of short stories. The stories in the collection are set in Kentucky and its neighboring states. Describing the book, a contributor to Kirkus Reviews wrote, “Kentucky gets dystopian–or just plain weird–in this debut collection of stories merging realism and science fiction.”
The collection opens with a novella, “The Border State.” In it we meet Maggie and Michael Hammersmith, two twin cyclists who are both in the midst of a tour de France-style race through Kentucky, and a search for their parents. Their father has gone missing, and their mother, who supposedly died twenty years earlier, left behind a handful of mysterious messages that the twins are determined to decipher. The Kentucky of “The Border State” is not the gentle, bluegrass-loving state that might come to mind. After a confrontation with federal authorities occurred, the state has been shut off from its neighbors. It contains magical and sometimes dark powers, such as those that exist in the telephones and rivers. As the twins search for their father, the reader is presented with scenes from the real Kentucky as the siblings hurry to win the bicycle race.
“The Voluntary State” takes place in Tennessee and exists in a non-urban dystopia in which cars need to be convinced to repair themselves, the sky is full of malicious flying telephones, and police officers travel the state on floating bicycles. In the story, a group of bandits, led by a man named Japheth Sapp, steal a man’s car and kidnap him. The man, Soma, a painter, is convinced to join the group in their plan to sneak into Nashville and assassinate Athena Parthenus, the governor of Tennessee. In “The Contrary Gardener” a woman begins to suspect that the robot that drives her bus might be developing a conscious, and foresees a political revolution on the horizon. In “Viewers at Home” the world is made up of constant television consumers, almost never leaving the couch and unable to think for themselves. The remaining stories are linked by recurrent characters, Appalachian setting, repeated elements of magic (such as flying telephones), and the theme of dystopian degradation introduced in “The Border State.” Gary K. Wolfe in Locus website penned, Rowe “writes with lyricism and great precision of style,” noting his ability to create a “firm geographical grounding.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2017, review of Telling the Map: Stories.
Publishers Weekly, May 29, 2017, review of Telling the Map, p. 38.
School Library Journal, May, 2017, Terry Ann Lawler, review of The Supernormal Sleuthing Service #1: The Lost Legacy.
ONLINE
Grasping for the Wind, http://www.graspingforthewind.com/ (February 31, 2011), John Ottinger III, review of Sandstorm: A Forgotten Realms Novel.
Kids Reads, https://www.kidsreads.com/ (March 25, 2018), review of The Lost Legacy.
Locus, https://locusmag.com/ (October 24, 2017), Gary K. Wolfe, review of Telling the Map.
Read Between the Lines, https://travizzt.wordpress.com/ (April 8, 2011), review of Sandstorm.
YA Book Central, http://www.yabookscentral.com/ (February 24, 2017), review of The Lost Legacy.
Yay Omg!, https://www.yayomg.com/ (June 15, 2017), review of author interview.
Christopher Rowe's story collection, Telling the Map, will be released by Small Beer Press in July 2017. He will also launch a new middle grade series, the Supernormal Sleuthing Service, co-written with his wife, author Gwenda Bond, that month. He is currently hard at work on Sarah Across America, an unusual fantasy novel about maps and megafauna, among other things. His first novel Sandstorm fulfilled a childhood dream of writing a Dungeons & Dragons novel and was published by Wizards of the Coast (teenage Christopher is beaming, somewhere).
He has also published a couple of dozen stories, and been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. His work has been frequently reprinted, translated into a half-dozen languages around the world, and praised by the New York Times Book Review. His story "Another World For Map is Faith" made the long list in the 2007 Best American Short Stories volume, and his early fiction was collected in a chapbook, Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories, by Small Beer Press. His most recent stories are "Jack of Coins" at Tor.com, selected by editor Ellen Datlow, and "Nowhere Fast" in Candlewick's young adult anthology, Steampunk!, edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant.
He lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with wife Gwenda Bond, Hemingway the Cat, Izzy the Dog, and Puck the Dog.
Rowe, Christopher: TELLING THE MAP
Kirkus Reviews.
(May 15, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Rowe, Christopher TELLING THE MAP Small Beer Press (Adult Fiction) $16.00 7, 11 ISBN: 978-1-61873-132-6
Kentucky gets dystopian--or just plain weird--in this debut collection of stories merging realism and science fiction.The Border State, the novella anchoring Rowe's debut, has an enduring theme: siblings searching for lost parents. But the Kentucky where the twin brother and sister are searching is less familiar, and less gentle, than the stereotypes of thoroughbreds and endless bluegrass. The state has been closed off from its neighbors after a conflagration with federal authorities, and telephones and rivers possess sentient and occasionally malicious powers. The twins' search takes the form of a Tour de France-style bicycle race, which gives the story constant movement as well as some well-turned glimpses of the landscape. Many of the remaining stories share the Kentucky setting as well as details about its curious reshaping. "Nowhere Fast," for instance, features the surprising arrival of a gas-burning car ("forbidden technology"), opening a discussion about society's greed for rushing. ("It takes as long to get somewhere as it should take...expedience leads to war and flood.") In "The Contrary Gardener," the sharpest story in the collection, a young woman becomes alert to political revolution and the dangers of technology (as with the mechanized bus driver, which seems to have developed a conscience) amid the Kentucky Derby, one of the last bastions of the state's old culture. And "The Unveiling" is a thoughtful allegory on the intersection of political resistance and what we literally put on a pedestal. Rowe's stories are rooted in Kentucky, but he's also often inventing a society out of whole cloth, and the short story form is sometimes an uncomfortable place for such aggressive worldbuilding; "The Voluntary State," for instance, introduces so many new creatures and histories that it becomes clotted with explication instead of action. Mostly, though, Rowe's stories are effective and relaxed. A clutch of complex, persuasive visions of an alternative South.
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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Rowe, Christopher: TELLING THE MAP." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2017. Book Review Index
Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491934343/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=e5b7ae74. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A491934343
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Telling the Map
Publishers Weekly.
264.22 (May 29, 2017): p38+. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: Telling the Map
Christopher Rowe. Small Beer (Consortium, dist.), $16 trade paper (280p) ISBN 978-161873-132-6
In his inventive debut collection, Rowe bends the world we know, remaking regions of the southern United States. Appalachian settings, recurring characters, and dystopian themes of societal degradation link the stories. In "The Voluntary State," a band of marauders from Kentucky attack a painter named Soma's car and kidnap him. Japheth Sapp, the leader of the captors, recruits Soma in a plan to sneak into Nashville and kill Athena Parthenus, the governor of Tennessee. Meanwhile, Jenny, a mechanic, reunites Soma with his repaired (and sentient) vehicle. All paths converge in an explosive conclusion. In "The Border State," twin cyclists Maggie and Michael Hammersmith set off on a bike race across Kentucky. Their ride takes them along a river and the Girding Wall, which isolates Athena's Tennessee. The race evolves into a search for their missing father, and a hunt for answers to mysterious messages from their mother, who drowned in a flash flood 20 years earlier. Rowe skillfully reinvents familiar narratives and widens common story lines into a world where anything seems possible. Wild creativity, haunting imagery, and lyricism--as displayed in "Two Figures in a Landscape Between Storms"--urge readers forward even as the pacing slows to provide needed exposition. While at times the poetic syntax of the sentences hampers comprehension, the book offers an immersive and original reading experience. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Telling the Map." Publishers Weekly, 29 May 2017, p. 38+. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A494500683/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=273d468f. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A494500683
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Bond, Gwenda & Christopher Rowe.
The Lost Legacy
Terry Ann Lawler
School Library Journal.
63.5 (May 2017): p78. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
BOND, Gwenda & Christopher Rowe. The Lost Legacy. illus. by Glenn Thomas. 416p. (The Supernormal Sleuthing Service: Bk. 1). HarperCollins/Greenwillow. May 2017. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9780062459947.'
Gr 4-6--First in a new series, this is a fun, character-driven supernatural mystery. When Stephen's beloved grandmother, Chef Nana, dies, his dad suddenly uproots them from Chicago to New York City, where his dad takes over Chef Nana's job as head chef at the New Harmonio, an exclusive hotel for ... monsters. Stephen learns in quick succession that Supematurals are real, his mother is a missing Fae princess, and her family wants to manipulate Stephen to gain power. He teams up with the other hotel children (Sophia the warrior and Ivan the detective as well as a Bigfoot, a dragon, and a talking elevator) in a race against time to save his family from certain doom. Character development is quite satisfying, as the children start out whiny and distrustful but become brave and resourceful. The authors artfully meld the supernatural with the modem. In one scene, the children use their cell phone ringers to scare a ghoul. Black-and-white, cartoon- style line drawings by Thomas establish just the right mood for the quirky setting and characterization. VERDICT The story is fast-paced and full of action, with eccentric characters and a rewarding resolution. A solid purchase for any sized budget.--Terry Ann Lawler, Burton Ban Library, Phoenix
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Lawler, Terry Ann. "Bond, Gwenda & Christopher Rowe. The Lost Legacy." School Library
Journal, May 2017, p. 78. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc /A491032056/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=e5426985. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A491032056
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Book Review: Sandstorm by Christopher Rowe
Mar 31st, 2011 by John Ottinger III.
Genre: Forgotten Realms, Heroic Fantasy, Shared World
Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Publication Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN-10: 0786957425
ISBN-13: 978-0786957422
Author Website: Christopher Rowe
Circuses, elementals, spies, djinn, and slave trading are just a few of the elements found in Hugo, Nebula and Theodore Sturgeon award finalist Christopher Rowe’s debut novel. Set in the vast landscape of the Forgotten Realms, Sandstorm is an excellent heroic fantasy.
The part of Faerun known as Calimshan, first made famous by R. A. Salvatore in his Drizzt series, is vastly changed. Humanity now controls only one small city, and Calimport, where Drizzt and Artemis Entreri traded many blows, is now a heaping ruin presided over by windsouled genasi in floating mansions. The greatest of these masters of the power of wind has lost his son.
Meanwhile, Corvus Nightfeather – bird-headed man, magician, and circusmaster – discovers an earthsouled genasi enslaved to the gladiatorial arena. Realizing what he has found, Corvus and his band of strongmen, aerialists, clowns and a ranger/wyvern historical act set Cephas (for that is the earthsouled’s name) free. Cephas is then quickly caught up in machinations between three rival powers, that of the humans in the south, the djinn/windsouled genasi and the efreet/firesouled genasi that control the sands of Calimshan.
Rowe’s first novel is a fine read. While credit for the creation of the world in which the story is set must go to Ed Greenwood and Steven Schend, it is Rowe who brings the new Calimshan to life. Even readers unfamiliar with anything in the Forgotten Realms will find it easy to read Sandstorm. While connected to novels that have gone before by small details, it is set far forward in time from other novels in this part of Faerun, and the world is so vastly different from any encounter a reader will have had before that even longtime Forgotten Realms readers will feel that this is a fresh and new world Rowe has described.
New readers can read this novel completely separate from any other Forgotten Realms novel, because though it is set on Faerun, Rowe describes the various aspects of the world (without infodumping) so vividly that a comfortable familiarity is easy to gain. The reader feels themselves a part of the world, knowledgeable both in its history through subtle hints in the narrative and a part of its present reality through the protagonist’s progression from secret-holders to world-changers.
Though full of a panoply of characters, Rowe makes it easy to juggle them. The story is told through a third-person omniscient perspective, but God’s eye mostly follows Cephas as he goes from gladiator to pawn in the great game to the knight who will topple a king. As Cephas makes his first friends, falls in love, and realizes his birthright, the reader is treated to an action-adventure of breakneck pacing where encounters with Minotaurs are the least of Cephas’ problems. Even though the plotline is traditional in form (young man finds his true destiny, falls in love, etc.), the unusual background and strange cast of characters give it new life.
Corvus Nightfeather is a particularly interesting character; full of character development surprises that will make you flip between wondering if he is a hero or villain in this narrative. Other ancillary characters, such as the twin halfling aerialist fighters, the goliath strongman clown, and the ancient ranger and his wyvern friend provide unique color to the vast array of wondrous encounters.
Intrigues interweave complexly in this story. Even as Rowe describes detailed and exciting battle sequences, he intertwines subtle details of later significance. The moral gray of the story (except in the case of Cephas) fulfills publisher Wizards of the Coast’s goal of avoiding strict good/evil dichotomy in the post-Spellplague Faerun admirably. Rowe comments on the practice of slavery (and its ancillary, racial prejudice) over the course of the novel, but this makes sense given Cephas’ personal history and the slave-based economy of Calimshan. In doing so, Rowe highlights societal evil while writing characters with moral ambiguity. I expect that if Rowe is given opportunity to write another Forgotten Realms tale (and he should!) we will encounter more on this theme.
Sandstorm is a really great heroic fantasy. It is unpretentious yet vast, deeply personal yet world-shaking, peopled with unusual and interesting characters, and full of the sword and sorcery action that make Forgotten Realms novels so entertaining. Rowe opens up a whole new direction for Faerun, allows for easy entry into the world for new readers, and is darn entertaining. Recommended.
About the Book
The Supernormal Sleuthing Service #1: The Lost Legacy
Written by Gwenda Bond and Christopher Rowe with illustrations by Glenn Thomas
Three kids. A hotel full of monsters. And a stolen magical artifact that could disrupt the balance between the humans and the supernatural. Welcome to life at Hotel Monster! ESCAPE FROM MR. LEMONCELLO'S LIBRARY meets "Hotel Transylvania" in the first book of this hilarious and spooky new series that blends mystery with monsters.
Stephen’s dad decided to move the two of them across the country to New York City, where he is taking over as head chef in an exclusive hotel. A hotel that has the most elite of clientele: monsters! Surprise! (Though they prefer to be called supernormals.) And an even bigger surprise? Stephen is part supernormal himself. When a magical family heirloom is stolen and Stephen is framed, he must work with two new friends to navigate this whole new world and clear his name. After all, consequences can be dire in the world of monsters. Spooky, funny, and full of monstrous hijinks, THE LOST LEGACY is an inventive and accessible mystery-adventure full of friendship and humor --- perfect for fans of Pseudonymous Bosch and R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps series.
The Supernormal Sleuthing Service #1: The Lost Legacy
Written by Gwenda Bond and Christopher Rowe with illustrations by Glenn Thomas
Publication Date: May 2, 2017
Genres: Children's 8-12, Family, Family Life, Fiction, Horror, Mystery
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
ISBN-10: 0062459945
ISBN-13: 9780062459947
The Supernormal Sleuthing Service #1: The Lost Legacy
4.0
0.0 (0)
637 0
The Supernormal Sleuthing Service #1: The Lost Legacy
Author(s)
Gwenda Bond
Co-Authors / Illustrators
Christopher Rowe
Publisher
Greenwillow Books
Genre(s)
supernatural
Family
Mystery
Friendship
Age Range
8+
Release Date
May 02, 2017
ISBN
978-0062459947
Buy This Book
Three kids. A hotel full of monsters. And a stolen magical artifact that could disrupt the balance between the humans and the supernatural. Welcome to life at Hotel Monster! Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library meets Hotel Transylvania in the first book of this hilarious and spooky new series that blends mystery with monsters.
Stephen’s dad decided to move the two of them across the country to New York City, where he is taking over as head chef in an exclusive hotel. A hotel that has the most elite of clientele: monsters! Surprise! (Though they prefer to be called supernormals.) And an even bigger surprise? Stephen is part supernormal himself. When a magical family heirloom is stolen and Stephen is framed, he must work with two new friends to navigate this whole new world and clear his name. After all, consequences can be dire in the world of monsters. Spooky, funny, and full of monstrous hijinks, The Lost Legacy is an inventive and accessible mystery-adventure full of friendship and humor—perfect for fans of Pseudonymous Bosch and R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps series.
Editor reviews
1 reviews
Overall rating
4.0
Plot/Characters/Writing Style
4.0 (1)
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
N/A (0)
March 24, 2017 (Updated: March 24, 2017)
Samantha Randolph, Promotions Manager Samantha Randolph, Promotions Manager
Top 50 Reviewer
View all my reviews (136)
Overall rating
4.0
Plot/Characters/Writing Style
4.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
N/A
A delightful tale of monsters, magic, and the meaning of family and friends
When Stephen’s grandmother dies, his dad decides to move them to New York City to The New Harmonia hotel, where his grandmother worked as the chef. Stephen was used to hearing about his grandmother’s interesting clientele, but when he arrives, he discovers they’re more interesting than he knew; they’re monsters (or supernormals)! Stephen is actually half-supernormal himself on his mother’s side, who left him and his father. Stephen’s family is on thin ice at the hotel, and when a magical artifact is stolen with Stephen as the suspected culprit, it’s up to him and his new friends to get it back and save the hotel.
After loving Bond’s LOIS LANE YA series, I was thrilled to dive into her debut MG novel, written with fellow writer, Christopher Rowe. The two prove a fantastic team in this hilarious, warm, and exciting adventure. Stephen is a highly relatable protagonist for anyone who has ever gone through several changes at once. He is grieving over his beloved grandmother, uncertain about his new living situation, and shocked at the new revelations about his family. Before he can get a handle on any of that, he’s accused of theft, and his own father isn’t sure if he should believe him. However, what I love about this story is the excellent way Stephen and his friends have a private, outside-of-parental-figures world but also have family members who genuinely care for them, even though they sometimes make mistakes. THE LOST LEGACY captures the nuances of family, both biological and chosen, while providing hilarious comic relief throughout.
The secondary characters are as fun as Stephen is, particularly a certain dragon who loves art. Sofia and Ivan are already friends when Stephen meets them, and Bond and Rowe do a fabulous job of the slow progression of the three forming a new friend group. The trios teamwork will have you smiling and rooting for them, not to mention eager for their next adventures.
With a fitting comparison to Hotel Transylvania, THE SUPERNORMAL SLEUTHING SERVICE: THE LOST LEGACY is a delightful tale of monsters, magic, and the meaning of family and friends.
The Supernormal Sleuthing Service: Interview with Author Gwenda Bond
The Supernormal Sleuthing Service: The Lost Legacy is the first book in a thrilling new middle grade series that released in May. The story takes place in a big hotel in New York City, which seems pretty normal, right? However, the New Harmonia Hotel is anything but normal. In fact – you might call it supernormal!
Supernormal Sleuthing Service: The Lost Legacy - Interview with Gwenda Bond
The hotel is home to all types of elite monsters and creatures including vampires, fae, dragons, and even a talking elevator. It’s also about to be Stephen’s new home. Stephen’s grandmother, Chef Nana, worked at the hotel as the beloved resident chef until the day she passed away. Chef Nana would always write letters to Stephen about the unique clientele and wild goings-on of the hotel, but he never believed them until the day of her funeral when everything he knew was turned upside down. With Stephen’s dad taking over the chef job, they packed up and moved from Chicago to New York, uprooting Stephen from his familiar life back home. From the moment he first stepped foot into his new home, Stephen begins to learn lots of intriguing secrets about his family history and that every story his grandmother shared was actually TRUE.
Adjusting to his new life is hard enough, but when an important family heirloom is stolen, Stephen must retrieve it. He knows he can’t do it alone, so he teams up with two other kids, the witty and fierce Sofia and shy super-sleuth Ivan, to unravel the mystery and retrieve the ancient artifact that his fate depends on.
Supernormal Sleuthing Service: The Lost Legacy - Interview with Gwenda Bond
The Lost Legacy has been described as “Hotel Transylvania meets Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library”, so if you’re all about monsters, mysteries, adventures, and laughs, this is definitely the book for you. It’s a non-stop adventure through the many strange floors of the hotel that’s brimming with fun and unique characters and a few awesome illustrations mixed in. It’s a great tale of being the new kid, growing up, and trying to figure out exactly where you fit in all wrapped up in a magical fantasy hotel filled with unusual creatures. Oh, and befriending a completely eccentric, over the top dragon who lives in the hotel basement.
We loved it so much we asked author Gwenda Bond to dish on what it was like to work on the book, what it was like to work with her husband Christopher Rowe as a writing partner, and what you guys can expect from the next book in the series!
The Supernormal Sleuthing Service – Interview with Author Gwenda Bond:
YAYOMG!: What inspired you to write the Supernormal Sleuthing Service series?
GWENDA: Would you believe goofing off on Twitter? But that’s part of it — I had gotten a hilarious piece of spam for high end hotel chains and started joking on Twitter about wanting an army of hotel detectives. And, in fact, I’ve always loved hotel detectives, but it’s difficult to figure out how to do that for kids or teens. I woke up a couple of weeks later and went, “DUH, it’s a hotel for monsters and that’s why it has hotel detectives!” When I told Christopher this, he immediately had a bunch of ideas that were just right and so we agreed to try writing it together.
YAYOMG!: What goes into transforming a story from just an idea to an actual published book? Can you share a little about the process for our readers?
GWENDA: It’s a messy process, which I feel like is what makes it so hard not just when you’re starting out (and thus convinced you’re doing it wrong) and every time after (because you wish it got easier, but it doesn’t). There’s a lot of trial and error. A lot of throwing out okay ideas to get to the good/best ones. Getting to know your characters and your story. And then, of course, finding a great editor who believes in it and can help you see the parts you got wrong on your own and fix them and only after that shepherd the book through the rest of the publication process and help get it to the right audience.
Supernormal Sleuthing Service: The Lost Legacy - Interview with Gwenda Bond
YAYOMG!: You and your husband Christopher Rowe wrote this book together. What was it like to write together and what different things do you each bring to the table when collaborating on a story?
GWENDA: It was a blast! Our writing processes are pretty polar opposite when we’re on our own. For this, we talked a lot on dog walks and at dinners and everywhere. We’d plan out roughly what happened plotwise and then leave room for invention. I’d write 500 or 1,000 words before I got up to go to work at my then-day job and then Christopher would match with 500 or 1,000 more and read that day’s work out loud when I got home.
He does the voices and everything, which is great. Christopher’s better at drafting than I am–he turns out immediately polished prose–and I’m better at planning and revising. So we complement each other pretty well. And it’s just fun to try to delight each other (and thus hopefully readers!) and make each other laugh or tear up with scenes.
YAYOMG!: The setting for the book, The New Harmonia Hotel, has so much charm and personality – it almost felt it’s own character in the way it popped off the page. Was it important to you to make the hotel really stand out rather than being just the where the book takes place?
GWENDA: Yes! But it was a process. We took the first few chapters of the earliest draft of this book to a workshop with friends I go to most every year called Bat Cave (no really) and my friend Carrie Ryan had just co-written a middle grade with her husband (The Map to Everywhere series, which is great!) was there. She really impressed on us that we should push the setting as far as we could; to stop thinking like adults and think instead of what would be the most amazing things we could come up with that would have delighted us as kids. That next draft is the one where the setting truly came together for us. It was a piece of advice that simply clicked and helped us take it to the next level. I love The New Harmonia. I want to go there.
Supernormal Sleuthing Service: The Lost Legacy - Interview with Gwenda Bond
YAYOMG!: We can’t decide who we love more – the unappreciated talking elevator or Cindermass. They’re both such interesting characters. Did you have a character you loved writing most or maybe one who surprised you while writing this book?
GWENDA: Those are two of our favorites as well, and two of the most fun to write. The Elevator wasn’t in the first draft, so it was a lovely surprise when it popped up in one of Christopher’s scenes and wouldn’t stop talking. We also have some Marina the mermaid/personal trainer scenes we had to cut for space but hope to use in a future book, because she’s hilarious to write. I also personally love writing Sofia-heavy scenes.
YAYOMG!: The book features a variety of different Supernormals ranging from vampires to fae to Bigfoots (Bigfeet?). If you could be a Supernormal, which one would you want to be?
GWENDA: I think a member of the winged folk, so I could fly! And when we do school visits and talk about the Octagon and different types of supernormals, I joke that Christopher is a subterranean dweller. (He says he’s a wizard and wears a cape.)
YAYOMG!: You and Christopher have built out an extraordinarily fun world with a truly fantastic cast of characters already, but is there a type of Supernormal or maybe a floor of the hotel you’re hoping to bring to life next time around?
Supernormal Sleuthing Service: The Lost Legacy - Interview with Gwenda Bond
GWENDA: We’ve just finished the first draft of the next book and I can tell you that you’re going to see a lot more of the Octagon and other types of creatures and go on a big adventure outside the hotel too. I don’t think we’ll ever run out of things to explore in this world and the hotel. The Manager can always just change things up. 😉
YAYOMG!: We heard you’ve been visiting schools to help promote the book. What is the most common question you get from kids?
GWENDA: Doing school visits together has been so fun. We get the best questions. Usually there are several of the ones you’ve asked here–how do you write a book? What Octagon faction is your favorite? Also pet questions. We love to talk about our pets.
YAYOMG!: Can you make 3 must-read Middle Grade book suggestions you think our readers should pick up?
GWENDA: Absolutely! Holly Black’s Doll Bones, Megan Shepherd’s The Secret Horses of Briar Hill, and Shannon Hale’s Real Friends are a few of many, many favorites. And I already mentioned The Map to Everywhere series by Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis, which is a complete fantasy delight. I can never keep recommendations to a minimum amount. It’s a thing.
Supernormal Sleuthing Service: The Lost Legacy - Interview with Gwenda Bond
YAYOMG!: What advice do you have for our readers who dream of becoming authors in the future?
GWENDA: Read everything! And trust your instincts. Write the stories you want to tell and surround yourself with people who support your telling them.
YAYOMG!: Finally, our readers LOVE secrets. The Lost Legacy is the first book in the Supernormal Sleuthing Service series. Is there any top-secret info you’re able to share about what readers can expect in Book #2?
GWENDA: Ooh, I also love secrets! We haven’t done edits yet, so everything is fluid but as of right now the title of book two is The Sphinx’s Secret. And our trio is going to face its most dangerous, difficult challenge yet. Mwahaha!
Supernormal Sleuthing Service: The Lost Legacy - Interview with Gwenda Bond
Isn’t Gwenda Bond amazing? She’s one of our favorite YA authors, so when we heard she was teaming up with her husband for a middle grade series, we were so excited for the chance to share her with our YAYOMGers. Thanks so much to Gwenda for taking the time to chat with us. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for Book #2!
Supernormal Sleuthing Service: The Lost Legacy - Interview with Gwenda Bond
The Lost Legacy is now available, so if you’re ready to step foot into this fantastical story, you can do so by hitting up your favorite bookstore or having a parent order you a copy. While you’re waiting for the next book in the series, check out our YAYBOOKS! June Roundup for a list of 20 books releasing this month!
If you’re playing YAYOMG! Book Bingo, reading this book will help you mark off squares like Mysterious or Magical, Female Author, and quite a few others that you might be missing.
Gary K. Wolfe reviews Telling the Map: Stories by Christopher Rowe
October 24, 2017 Gary K. Wolfe
Telling the Map: Stories, Christopher Rowe (Small Beer 978-1-618-73132-6, $16.00, 270pp, tp) July 2017. Cover by Kathleen Jennings.
One of the surviving conventions of golden age SF is the notion that any sort of complicated future is likely to be both urban and coastal, but there’s also been a smaller but distinctive tradition of flyover-state futures that imagine the towns and rural areas of the South or Midwest as something more than refuges from apocalypse or hotbeds of feral populism. This is a tradition that stretches from Clifford Simak and R.A. Lafferty to Andy Duncan and even William Gibson a bit (in The Peripheral), and it is no accident that Christopher Rowe dedicates his first story collection Telling the Map to fellow Kentuckians Terry Bisson and Jack Womack. It’s also no accident that Rowe, on the basis of no more than a couple of dozen stories over nearly 20 years (of which 10 are collected here), managed to gain a reputation as one of the most distinctive voices to emerge from this period. This is not only because he writes with lyricism and great precision of style, but because of his firm geographical grounding, which is reflected in all the stories here (as well as in his title), but is a key factor in several (“Another Word for Map is Faith”, “The Voluntary State”, “The Border State”). This isn’t the geography of fake world-building, with all those Forbidden Zones and Misty Mountains, but rather the geography of locals who measure distances between towns in hours rather than miles, and who know which bridges you’ll need to cross to get there. It’s also a world in which agriculture and religion are daily behaviors rather than monolithic institutions. As weird as Tennessee gets in Rowe’s most famous story, “The Voluntary State” (and that is very weird) it’s a Tennessee we can map onto the trails and highways that are there now.
“The Voluntary State” and its longer prequel novella “The Border State” (the latter original to this volume), take up well over half of Telling the Map, and together they portray a nanotech-driven non-urban future unlike any other in contemporary SF (although I occasionally picked up resonances with Katherine Ann Goonan’s similarly middle America-centered nanotech series of novels). This is a world in which nervous cars need to be coaxed into repairing themselves (the original story predated the movie Cars, but now it’s hard not to think of it), in which flying telephones chase after you, floating police officers on bicycles descend on “bubble-wings,” and the governor, a vast and apparently malign AI housed in the giant Athena statue in Nashville’s Parthenon (it’s really there) has transformed the entire state into a surrealistic dystopia which has to fight off incursions from neighboring states, especially Kentucky. The opening page alone introduces a storm of disorienting nova – the setting (even though we’re in Tennessee, the local cliffs plunge into the Gulf of Mexico), the bashful car whose broken window is treated with “glass salve” ointment, the odd communications (“he opened his head and used it to call the police”), the names (the main character is “Soma-With-The-Paintbox-In-Printer’s Alley”). By the time Soma is captured by a group of invading “Crows” from Kentucky, out to assassinate Athena, we can sympathize with him when their leader Japheth explains “Things are getting clearer and clearer to you… even if you think things are getting harder and harder to understand.” Parallel to Soma’s adventures are those of a mechanic named Jenny-With-Grease-Beneath-Her-Fingernails, who is trying to repair Soma’s car and return it to him, but the plot is clearly secondary to Rowe’s emerging phantasmagoria.
For all the apparent surrealism, though, Rowe’s setting is firmly grounded in post-singularity SF ideas, and the new novella, “The Border State”, provides both a more traditional plot and a reasonable amount of backstory. The twins Michael and Maggie are champion bicycle racers in Kentucky who undertake a grueling tour that also becomes a kind of search for their missing father and a mother supposed killed in a flood 20 years earlier. The elements we recognize from the earlier story, such as those flying feathered phones and rivers polluted by nanotech “programming matter” from artificial intelligences in Tennessee, are more restrained, and the new features range from fairly conventional inventions such as insect-like floating camerastats and flying bass boats to the more disturbing notion that a large part of the media audience for the race are “Viewers at Home,” “the attenuated, drip-fed people who made up a sizeable portion of the Commonwealth” and who “existed to consume media, and existed in a mediated state.” While we again meet the Japheth who will later lead that raid into Tennessee in “The Voluntary State”, it’s clear that life outside of Tennessee has its own rather chilling problems.
Of the other stories, “The Contrary Gardener” is the most tightly structured, concerning a skilled gardener with an unusual ability to generate surpluses, whose Luddite father inexplicably gives her a precious ticket to the Kentucky Derby, which she has no real interest in, but which entangles her in a nefarious agribusiness scheme to cripple the growing influence of artificial intelligences. This anti-technology Kentucky culture is also central to “Nowhere Fast”, in which a self-described revolutionary comes to town in a cobbled-up internal combustion vehicle after most cars have been turned into planters. The tale reveals a bit more about the uneasy relationship between the federal government and the states in Rowe’s future America, but returns to his familiar plot of a wise innocent facing the possibility of radicalization, which is also central to the plural narrator meeting a new stranger in a repressive police state in “Jack of Coins”. The notion of geographical reality literally distorted by belief is both the title and the plot of “Another Word for Map is Faith”, while “The Unveiling” is nearly a parable of revolution couched in a tale involving a statue of a previous governor in another repressive state. It’s the only story set on another planet, and a pretty grim one at that. Religion is another recurring theme for Rowe, and “Gather” may be his most touching character portrait, of a rather simple man confronting questions of faith in yet another brutal environment, while the short short “Two Figures in a Landscape Between Storms” builds another bloody world in a handful of strokes. It comes as something of a relief from all these unsavory settings to realize that there’s room for a bit of tall-tale whimsy in Rowe’s endlessly mutable Kentucky; in “The Force Acting on the Displaced Body” – the final story before we get to the Voluntary/Border State duo – we follow a devoted wine drinker who has saved enough corks to build a boat as he sails it down his local creek, into larger and larger rivers, and finally into the Gulf of Mexico and across to Paris. It’s both the slightest and least characteristic piece here, the sort of thing Lafferty might have sketched in an afternoon, but it’s a pleasant digestif after what at times can seem a pretty formidable meal.
Gary K. Wolfe is Emeritus Professor of Humanities at Roosevelt University and a reviewer for Locus magazine since 1991. His reviews have been collected in Soundings (BSFA Award 2006; Hugo nominee), Bearings (Hugo nominee 2011), and Sightings (2011), and his Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature (Wesleyan) received the Locus Award in 2012. Earlier books include The Known and the Unknown: The Iconography of Science Fiction (Eaton Award, 1981), Harlan Ellison: The Edge of Forever (with Ellen Weil, 2002), and David Lindsay (1982). For the Library of America, he edited American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s in 2012, with a similar set for the 1960s forthcoming. He has received the Pilgrim Award from the Science Fiction Research Association, the Distinguished Scholarship Award from the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, and a Special World Fantasy Award for criticism. His 24-lecture series How Great Science Fiction Works appeared from The Great Courses in 2016. He has received six Hugo nominations, two for his reviews collections and four for The Coode Street Podcast, which he has co-hosted with Jonathan Strahan for more than 300 episodes. He lives in Chicago.
This review and more like it in the August 2017 issue of Locus.
Sandstorm by Christopher Rowe
Posted by travizzt on April 8, 2011
Cephas learns that there is more to life than just fighting and stories, but is he prepared enough for the outside world?
Sandstorm by Christopher Rowe
Sandstorm is a stand-alone novel set in the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons and Dragons. This novel is Christopher Rowe’s debut novel, but he has written a few short stories along with writing a short story set in the Forgotten Realms called “Feast of the Moon” for the Realms of the Dead anthology. Sandstorm was released in March 2011 and was published by Wizards of the Coast LLC.
After only knowing how to survive in a gladiatorial arena all his life, Cephas urns to escape his prison. He is denied touching the solid ground, else his earthsouled genasi heritage may manifest. Thankfully, his chances for escaping may have just improved. Watching the floating earthmote and the young genasi gladiator with interest is Corvus Nightfeather, a kenku (a humanoid hawk). The kenku, along with his circus troupe, named the Circus of Wonders, plan an escape/rescue attempt for the young genasi. After the successful escape, Cephas finally touches the earth and hears its song, but learns that his rescuers has plans for him.
Criticisms:
1) Plot. There is one major problem with Sandstorm and it’s the hard to follow plot. The story starts off simple enough with Cephas escaping from the gladiatorial arena and slavery, then becoming the strongman of Corvus’ circus, and then learning what it means to be an earthsoul. These things alone could have made for an entertaining story and could have taken it in a whole different direction. Instead the plot is a confusing mess of elements thrown together, creating a mess. Truth be told, it’s hard to talk about Sandstorm‘s plot because I honestly couldn’t follow it past Cephas learning the abilities that all earthsoul’s have. From that point on, it seemed like everything jumps around from one scene to the next with no rhyme or reason. There were even some scenes that didn’t need to be included because they added almost nothing to the story, other than to add another element to the ever-growing mess of a plot. They just felt like padding instead of an actual plot. If Sandstorm kept going with how it started, it wouldn’t have been such a confusing mess.
2) Antagonists. The other problem with Sandstorm is that there weren’t any real antagonists. There were a few characters that could be considered antagonists, but none of them really felt like they were. The problem mostly comes from the short time that these characters appear in the story. The most dominant of the supposed antagonists only appear for an eighth of the book, not really giving them much time for the reader to feel like they were the villains. It also didn’t help that after they showed up, there were large gaps between their next appearance. It got to the point that whenever they showed up, I forgot who they were. However, this little issue wouldn’t have been so bad if they actually came off as villains in stead of just another character thrown in. The supposed antagonists all felt like just new characters or, in some cases, background characters. They didn’t feel developed or even that important in the long run. If Sandstorm had any antagonists, they sure didn’t make their presence known.
Praises:
1) Characters. Sandstorm did have an interesting and diverse cast of characters. While the main characters could have used a bit more development, they were still interesting. Most of the interest comes from the main cast being very unique. The main character, Cephas, was the more basic of the cast, but still had that unique quality to him. The main thing about him was that he saw the outside world through fresh and new eyes. It may have not been anything that new or that fresh, but it still was interesting to experience. I just wish that there would have been more of this with his character instead of him seemingly ‘going with the flow’ after the a few chapters. On the flip side, Corvus was the most exotic character, but this is mostly due to his race. I haven’t read any stories featuring or talking about kenku’s but now I’m interested. Corvus was full of mystery and you never really knew what he was planning, which made him feel different from the rest of the main cast. You never really knew what side he was on. The other characters in the Circus of Wonders really did steal the show. From the deadly acrobatic halfling twins, Shan and Cynda, to the old, crippled ranger, Mattias, they were memorable. The twins were unique because they couldn’t speak and had to use body language to get what they want to say across. This did work surprisingly well and it seemed like I could understand what they were trying to convey. With Mattias, you never really know who he really is. For almost the whole length of the novel, we only see him as an old, crippled ranger. He does seem to be very competent, but I was surprised by how competent he really is. However, the character that stole the book is the goliath Tobin. Tobin was just something else and wasn’t what I would have ever expected. When you picture a huge goliath, you would assume that he would be a strong, maybe dumb character, but Tobin really isn’t those things. All Tobin wants to be is a clown and entertain people. Sure he was strong, but he was constantly entertaining. Tobin had charisma and it really showed through reading. Overall, Sandstorm has some great characters that made the story feel unique.
2) Pacing. Sandstorm is also a fast paced and exciting read. As soon as you pick up the novel, you’re hooked in and you may find it hard to put down. The action was fast and made you want to keep going. It even seemed like this is one of those books that you could finish in a day, if you had the time. It was just exciting to read and it never felt boring or slowed down.
Side Notes:
1) Genasi. Sandstorm really helps give you an understanding of what and who the Genasi are. It’s the first book, to my knowledge, to really delve into the race.
2) Current Events. If were wondering what happened to the nation of Calimshan after the Spellplague, Sandstorm really delves into it.
3) Cover Art. I have one word to say concerning the cover art for Sandstorm; awesome. It’s just awesome. I can’t explain it better than that. It’s exciting and while it’s mostly muted browns and grays, it feels colorful and vibrant. It’s full of action with having Cephas looking like he is about to smash the displacer beast’s (the panther-like creature) head in with his double-headed flail. It’s exciting and really gets you pumped up for what you’re about to get into.
Overall: 3/5
Final Thoughts:
Sandstorm is a good book that has a lot of problems holding it back. The plot is hard to follow and at times seems almost nonexistent. The book does start out very promising, but it seems like there was too much happening all at once along with it feeling like there was way too many things to cover. Also, there didn’t seem to be any antagonist or villains. There were some that could be considered the “bad guys”, but they never seemed to be there enough to be considered as the villain. Once again, it seems like the book had too much going on and felt like it was meant to be more than a stand-alone novel. Thankfully, the characters were unique and very memorable, the best being the goliath clown Tobin. The other characters were still good, but are never going to be as memorable as Tobin. Also, this book is a fast read. As soon as you pick it up, you’ll lose track of time. Overall, Sandstorm did have a lot of potential, but it felt as though it needed to be longer or split up into another book. For new readers to the Realms, this may be a little confusing at times, but it is fairly easily to follow with little to no knowledge of the world. As for a general recommendation, I do think that Sandstorm is worth a read, just be prepared for a confusing plot.