NEW BOOK RELEASE !!
A new dark fantasy novel by G.D. Penman
CALL YOUR STEEL
G.D. Penman
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Publisher: Azure Spider Publications
Publication Date: October 15, 2017
Publisher: Azure Spider Publications
Publication Date: October 15, 2017
In the sky above there was no sun.
For millennia beyond reckoning the Eaters of the Gods ruled over this sunless world, waging their secret war on each other through their Chosen, mortals granted a fraction of the Eaters in human powers in exchange for a life of servitude. Kaius counts himself among their hallowed ranks, devoted entirely to his brutal duties. Lucia is no more than a travelling minstrel, albeit one who found herself in the very worst place at the very worst time. How could mere mortals like them stand up against the vast alien power of the Eaters of the Gods?
Call Your Steel: Reconstructing Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft was incredibly racist. Let’s just get that out of the way before we even start. The heart of many of his stories was xenophobia. That constant fear of the unknown empowered him to produce works of fiction that have helped to shape the landscape of modern writing, but he was still a bad person. Anything that is written while under the influence of Lovecraft needs to be examined extremely carefully to make sure that his less pleasant opinions on the world aren’t reflected in the new work.
I have always loved monsters in stories, not just because they are big and cool and scary, but also because of all the things that they can tell us about humanity. In Lovecraft’s fiction, his monsters represented a universe that not only didn’t care about humanity, but was actively trying to exterminate them as less than insects. That existential dread really clicked with me as a depressed teenager, I latched on to Lovecraft’s stories and devoured them without ever realising just how ubiquitous his “opinions” were. Only realising with a very different kind of horror years later.
As I went from being a reader to a writer, I always knew that I wanted to do something with Lovecraft’s work, but it was impossible to separate the good from the bad. I tried many different approaches to “post-lovecraftian” horror, but it was only when I severed all of the connections to our world and dumped the monsters onto a whole other planet that I was finally able to get rid of all the unfortunate implications that his stories were riddled with.
When creating a second world fantasy, all of the assumptions of a book set in our world have to be considered, and when you are constructing a piece of fiction, you do not include elements that don’t build towards the point you are trying to make. In short, I did not have to make my fantasy world racist, sexist or homophobic. I did not have to import all of the things about our world that I hate. Which is how we have ended up with a fantasy book that was heavily influenced by Lovecraft but populated entirely with queer characters of different races.
Call Your Steel is a political book which touches on a few different philosophies of government, but it is not political because it has a diverse cast. Anyone trying to make existing as something other than a straight white man into a “political issue” is just a bigot.
Join the Giveaway
WIN PRINT COPY OF CALL YOUR STEEL*
* Available for US Residents Only
Contest runs from October 10 - 31, 2017.
Additional Giveaway
Join the Goodreads Giveaway and win one copy of Call Your Steel (US Residents only).
Contest runs from September 20 - October 15. Click here to enter.
Contest runs from September 20 - October 15. Click here to enter.
About G.D. Penman
G D Penman writes fantasy fiction. He lives in Scotland with his partner and children, some of whom are human. He is a firm believer in the axiom that any story is made better by dragons. His beard has won an award. If you have ever read a story with monster and queer people, it was probably one of his. In those few precious moments that he isn’t parenting or writing he continues his quest to eat the flesh of every living species.
Official website: http://www.gdpenman.com/
Book Tour Schedule
Follow the book tour from October 18 - 31, 2017.
Visit each tour stop daily and discover more features, excerpts, reviews, interviews, fun facts and other extras on the tour.
To check the latest tour schedule, visit the Call Your Steel Book Page at Book Unleashed.
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