On The Edge – a look at ICE FORGED
Gail Z. Martin’s Days of the Dead tour kicks off today! For exclusive excerpts from her upcoming novel, ICE FORGED (UK | US | AUS) and other literary goodies, keep an eye on www.ascendantkingdoms.com and her partner sites for the next week. Visit her website for further details or head on over to Goodreads and participate in a week-long Q & A with the author!
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Ice Forged, which debuts in January, is my seventh epic fantasy novel, and it’s definitely the darkest and edgiest so far.
My main character Blaine McFadden is exiled to a prison colony at the northernmost edge of his world, a place where the weather itself is a remorseless enemy. Ice, snow, bitter cold and darkness pose as deadly a threat as the wild magic, assassins, and sadistic prison guards. Extreme conditions tend to show what someone is really made of, because life or death hinge on luck and choices.
I suspect that Ice Forged feels edgier than some of my other books for a variety of reasons. To some extent, that edginess is probably a product of our times, which have been tumultuous—to say the least. I imagine it also reflects the changes I’ve experienced in the almost 10 years since I wrote my first novel—perhaps some of that “youthful enthusiasm” has worn thin on the edges. Mostly, I feel that I’m bringing a different perspective to these books, one that’s a little grittier than before. It’s a fitting feel for the book, which hinges on a few questions my characters have to answer—and ones that I hope my readers will also try on for size:
Who would you be, if everything you were and everything you had was stripped from you?
When there’s nothing left to lose, what would you do to survive?
How much would you give for a chance to put things right?
Blaine McFadden gets to find out.
As this blog comes out, The Sworn is getting closer and closer to its publication date in late January, and The Dread is nearly completed in first draft. It’s been very interesting for me working on these two books, since they show the characters maturing and dealing with some new and troubling issues, compared to the challenges faced in the first four books.