Myth, the Universe, and Everything

What a wacky month it's been! We had a great family vacation, a fantastic visit from my mother, and then a not-so-terrific summer-cold-gone-feral that the house is still fighting off. (Bug manages with a few coughs here and there, while Threestripe and I have been dealing with what my friend Jess calls the "Peruvian Death Cough." It's an evocative description to say the least.)

While I've been away from the blog, things have definitely been happening in the world of publishing:

• Apple lost the e-book price fixing case (covered a bazillion places, and here by Forbes contributor Connie Guglielmo).


• Amazon went into a price war with Overstock.com to see who could discount bestsellers the most (story broken in a Shelf Awareness article by John Mutter).


• B&N's a mess, with its CEO resigning (he was the head of the digital initiative, which lost a ton of money, despite how much I and others love our nook devices). Again, coverage is everywhere, but here's Danielle Kurtzleben's coverage at US News and World Report.


• Mythcon 44 happened, and the Mythopoeic Awards for 2013 were announced. I had a great time reading both the kids and adults fantasy lists this year, and can recommend every book that made the kids finalist list. I can also wholeheartedly endorse the adult list winner, which Max Gladstone had recommended to me as a web comic years ago. (I was conflicted about some of the adult finalists, but they were all solid books.


• Speaking of Max, he's nominated for two awards this year -- the Campbell and the Legend awards. You should go vote for him. Details at his blog.

If that's not enough for one post, I also am delighted to share some thoughts on Jennifer Estep's two latest Mythos Academy installments, one of which, Midnight Frost releases today. Jennifer's been a guest blogger with this series for several installments, and I'm a fan of what she does working in world mythologies into a fun, YA mystery/adventure series. She very kindly gave me the NetGalley links for Midnight Frost and her e-novella Spartan Frost, and both were perfect additions to the developing world.

The series so far: Gwen Frost, a Gypsy who is Nike's Champion and uses psychometry, has accepted that it's her duty to fight Loki -- in this series, the big evil god -- and save the world. She has a fantastic growing sense of responsibility, despite being arrested by the supposed good guys in a previous book, and despite nearly dying by the hands of her then-possessed boyfriend in Crimson Frost (in a very Buffy vs. Angel-like encounter). It's that growth throughout the series -- accepting that this is her job, whether she likes it or not -- that makes Gwen such a great heroine to me. Not that she's getting better with a sword or that her magic's growing stronger. No, she's accepting that if she doesn't step up, the world will lose -- and if she doesn't accept her friends' help, she's going to lose. That gets intensified in Midnight Frost, where, when her boss and mentor (even if she doesn't think of him that way) Nickamedes accidentally takes poison meant for her. Despite knowing that saving him will put her into a trap set by Loki's minions, Gwen knows there's no question: she and her friends have to try to save him. And despite being burned by trusting the wrong people before, she's willing to accept new allies when the time comes. The villains in this series are still sadistic servants of an evil god -- there's no gray spectrum among them -- and most of Gwen's friends never get to experience the level of growth that Gwen's first person narration reveals about her. But that doesn't stop the series from being fun, and Jennifer does a great job of using the Chekovian guns that she sets up -- even if readers have to wait awhile for them to go off. All in all, this series keeps getting stronger, and I'm incredibly pleased that I keep getting the chance to read the books in advance. (Thanks, Jennifer!)

I big welcome back to Jennifer Estep! Jennifer's Mythos Academy series is continuing with Dark Frost, which releases on May 29. As the first stop on her blog tour, we've got an excerpt from that book -- she'll post an additional excerpt on May 23rd at Young Adult Book Reviews, so check it out!

Jennifer's also offered a US ONLY giveaway of a print copy of Dark Frost. To enter, make a comment below; you can earn an extra entry if you tweet a link to this post and tell us about it in the comments. Posts and tweets must be in by midnight EST on Monday May 14. We'll announce the winner on Tuesday the 15th. And now, without further ado, here's Jennifer!



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“Is Logan here with you?” I couldn’t keep the hope out of my voice.

Nickamedes had opened his mouth when a voice interrupted him.

“Right here, Gypsy girl.” A low voice sent chills down my spine.

My heart pounding, I slowly turned around. Logan Quinn stood behind me.

Thick, wavy, ink black hair, intense ice blue eyes, a confident smile. My breath caught in my throat as I looked at Logan, and my heart sped up, beating with such force that I was sure he could hear it.

Logan wore jeans and a dark blue sweater topped by a black leather jacket. The clothes were designer, of course, since the Spartan was just as rich as all the other academy kids. But even if he’d been dressed in rags, I still would have noticed the lean strength of his body and his broad, muscled shoulders. Yeah, Logan totally rocked the bad-boy look, and he had the man-whore reputation to match. One of the rumors that kept going around the academy was that Logan signed the mattresses of every girl he slept with, just so he could keep track of them all.

I’d never quite figured out if the rumors were true or not, or how Logan would even manage to do that in the first place. Sure, I’d touched the Spartan and flashed on him with my psychometry, but I’d mostly seen his fighting skills, since that’s what Logan had been thinking about and what I had needed to tap into at the time. I didn’t know how many girls Logan had dated, but the rumors didn’t matter that much to me because the Spartan was just a really, really great guy. Smart, strong, funny, charming, caring. Then, of course, there was the whole saving-my-life-multiple-times thing. Kind of hard not to like a guy when he kept get you from getting killed by Reapers and eaten by Nemean prowlers.

Logan’s eyes dropped to my throat and the necklace I wore there—the one he’d given me before school had let out for Christmas. Six silver strands wrapped around my throat, creating the necklace, while the diamond-tipped points joined together to form a simple, yet elegant snowflake in the center of the strands. The beautiful necklace looked like something a goddess would wear. I thought it was far too pretty and delicate for me, but I loved it just the same.

“You’re wearing the necklace,” the Spartan said in a low voice.

“Every day since you gave it to me,” I said. “I hardly ever take it off.”

Logan smiled at me, and it was like the sun had erupted from a sky full of storm clouds. For a moment everything was just—perfect.

Then Nickamedes cleared his throat, popping the bubble of happiness I’d been about to float away on. A sour expression twisted the librarian’s face as he looked back and forth between his nephew and me.

“Well, if you’ll excuse me, the museum’s closing soon, and I need to make sure the staff is ready to start packing up the items for transport back to the academy in the morning.”

Nickamedes pivoted on his wingtips and strode out of the weapons room without another word. I sighed. Yeah, I might not be the most dedicated worker, but I always felt like there was another reason that Nickamedes hated me. He’d pretty much disliked me on sight, and I had no idea why.

I put the librarian and his bad attitude out of mind and focused on Logan. He’d texted me a few times over the holiday break, but I’d still missed him like crazy—especially since I had no idea what was going on between us. Not too long ago, we’d shared what I thought was the kiss to end all kisses, but he hadn’t exactly declared his love for me in the meantime—or even asked me out on a real date. Instead, we’d been in this weird holding pattern for weeks—one that I was determined to end.

I drew in a breath, ready to ask Logan how his winter break had been and what was going to happen between us now. “Logan, I—”

Shouts and screams ripped through the air, drowning out my words.

I froze, wondering if I’d only imagined the harsh, jarring sounds. Why would someone be shouting in the museum? A second later, more screams sounded, followed by several loud crashes and the heavy thump-thump-thump of footsteps.

Logan and I looked at each other, then bolted for the door. Daphne and Carson had also heard the screams, and they raced along right behind us.

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” Daphne hissed.

She managed to grab my arm and the back of Logan’s leather jacket just before the Spartan sprinted out of the room. With her great Valkyrie strength, she was easily able to yank both of us back.

“You don’t know what’s going on—or who might be out there,” Daphne warned.

Logan glared at her, but after a moment, he reluctantly nodded. I did the same, and Daphne loosened her grip on us. Together in a tight knot, the four of us crept up to the doorway and peeked through to the other side.

BIO INFO:

Jennifer Estep is a New York Times bestselling author. Jennifer writes the Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series for Kensington. Dark Frost, the third book, will be released on May 29. Touch of Frost and Kiss of Frost are the other books in the series. Visit www.jenniferestep.com for excerpts and more information about her books.

I am delighted to have Jennifer Estep back here at Myth, the Universe, and Everything in honor of the release of her second book in the "Mythos Academy" series, Kiss of Frost. Rather than doing a guest blog, as Jennifer did for the release of Touch of Frost (here), we decided to do an interview, which gets into bits of the novel that I enjoyed, as well as some series questions.



Jennifer has also graciously offered to do a giveaway of Kiss of Frost to one of our commenters! Leave a comment answering the question: What kind of Mythos Academy warrior do you think you'd be: Valkyrie, Viking, Roman, Amazon, Celt, Samurai, Ninja, Spartan, Gypsy, or something else? Give us a second comment with a link to a tweet or blog post where you mention the contest and we'll enter you a second time. (This contest is U.S. only -- sorry international friends!) Only livejournal comments will be counted as contest entries, so if you're reading this on a syndicated site, pop over to lj to comment! Comments must be posted by 11/30 at midnight EST to be counted as contest entries. I'll announce the winner on December 1st.

And without further ado: here's Jennifer!

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MtU&E: Although Kiss of Frost is the second "Mythos Academy" book, it's actually the third story -- you published the prequel story "First Frost" as an e-book along with Touch of Frost when the first novel was released. We've got some interest in e-books here at MtU&E: What made you decide to release the e-prequel, and has it done well for you?

JE: It seems like more and more authors are doing prequels, short stories, and other bonus material to tie into their books. As a reader, I like extras like that, and they can be fun to create as an author. I’ve written several free short stories to go along with my "Elemental Assassin" adult urban fantasy series. Readers really seem to have enjoyed those stories, and I thought it would be fun to write something for the "Mythos Academy" series too. My editor and publisher agreed, and we came up with First Frost, a prequel story that shows exactly how my heroine, Gwen Frost, winds up at Mythos Academy. I’ve gotten a lot of nice comments from readers about the prequel story, which I appreciate.

I’ve also written "Halloween Frost," a "Mythos Academy" short story, that is in the Entangled e-anthology that I am participating in with several other authors. Proceeds from that e-anthology benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. "Halloween Frost" takes place after the events of Touch of Frost.

There are also some extras in the back of Touch of Frost and Kiss of Frost, including Gwen’s class schedule, a who’s who of characters, and things like that. Hopefully, readers have as much fun reading the material as I did writing it.

MtU&E: One of the ideas in Touch of Frost that is mentioned very briefly in Kiss of Frost is that if a person believes an illusion is real, that illusion is as dangerous as if it were real. Awesome metaphysics! Will illusion magic like that come into play as the series progresses?

JE: Thanks. Glad you liked that. The illusion magic is something that I hope to do more with in future books. I think it would be fun to dream up different ways the heroes and villains could use that sort of magic. As the series goes along, I hope to introduce some new magic/powers as well. For example, in Dark Frost, the third book in the series, someone has a similar power to the illusion magic mentioned in Touch of Frost.

MtU&E: In Kiss of Frost, we get to hang out with not one, but three Spartan warriors. How did you decide that their most formidable ability would be using improvised weapons?

JE: When I was thinking about the warrior whiz kids at Mythos Academy and the various abilities they might have, I thought it would be interesting to have some warriors who didn’t need traditional weapons to fight with. So I decided to give these warriors a killer instinct that would let them pick up any object and automatically know how to wield it as a weapon, and that this instinct would make them some of the most feared fighters at the academy. So the idea just sort of snowballed into Logan Quinn and his Spartan friends, Oliver Hector and Kenzie Tanaka.

MtU&E: In Norse mythology, Fenrir (or Fenrisulfr) is one of the big bad monsters, destined to kill Odin at Ragnarok. One of Gwen's lessons in myth-history class is about how the monsters trained by the Reapers have free will -- that they are not inherently evil. There's a great scene in the book where a Fenrir wolf shows just how true that lesson is. What was the impulse behind that moment in the story?

JE: There’s a lot of talk and stories in mythology about things being fated, and that you can’t escape your destiny, good or bad. Then, you have beings like the Fates themselves.

So I thought it would be interesting to do a mythology story and play around with the idea of what may or may not be destined versus free will. A couple of characters talk about free will in the "Mythos Academy" books, and the idea that people are responsible for their own actions and their own destinies. I thought if people are responsible for their own actions, then why not the mythological creatures too? So that’s something that comes into play with a Fenrir wolf in Kiss of Frost. Plus, the idea of free will is something that will also play a part in future books in the series.

MtU&E: Last (and easiest) question: how many "Mythos Academy" books do you currently have under contract, and how many do you hope will eventually finish off the series? (Here's hoping that those two numbers match!)

JE: Right now, I’m under contract for six books in the "Mythos Academy" series. Dark Frost, the third book, will be out in June 2012, while Crimson Frost, the fourth book, is tentatively set to be published in January 2013. At this point, I’m not sure if I will finish out the series with these six books or not. I’ll just have to see where Gwen and the other characters take me.

For more information about my books, folks can visit my website at www.jenniferestep.com. Happy reading, everyone!

Several fun/interesting links today.

First, Jennifer Estep, who is the author of Karma Girl (which I blogged about) and Hot Mama (a semi-sequel), is having a contest on her blog to give away copies of the books and t-shirts. She's also now on fangs_fur_fey, and will shortly be taking over the world. Just in case you wanted to prep for that.

PW blogger Rose Fox wrote an interesting post today about the weakening divide between YA and adult fiction, particularly in SF/F. She also quotes janni's recent rant about adult authors who are shocked by YA topics. If you've been following that conversation (or sartorias's recent blog on the same, which was also quite good), it's definitely worth the read.

I don't know that the boundaries are shrinking so much as that they were a little artificial to begin with. Many of the books that were shelved in the YA section I grew up with (which I loved and was very lucky to have) were probably originally marketed to adults, and many books about teens are shelved in adult fiction. I don't know that the distinction between the two needs to be bolder--but I think adults should make the realization that a lot of YA fiction might also appeal to them, which might make them less shocked at the content (or might help them understand modern teens a little better)...

Courtesy of Neil Gaiman's blog, we have a report from The Onion about the Novelists Guild of America strike, which has apparently affected no one. (It's a bit scathing in its satire, but funny none the less.)

Lastly, Stacia Kane posted a wonderful conversation with her six year old daughter that is just about the epitome of geek parenting on League of Reluctant Adults.

As for me, I got done with this round of editing my Serenity adventure for Margaret Weis (whose changes were all dead on--I only disagreed about one, she countered with reasons why it wouldn't work, one of which was roughly "Joss is boss," and I was convinced). Tomorrow, on to some Steampunk Musha work I've been putting aside for months (I'm still working on it Rick!) and some overdue reviews that I've been meaning to turn in. But for now, I'm going to go finish By Venom's Sweet Sting.

My friend Jeff just posted over on his lj a great, and currently unused, lead in to a vampire story. It's a Chicago setting that, I admit, sounds absolutely perfect for this kind of thing.

(Jeanienne? Ilona? You guys out there? I thought of you right away...)

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In other news, I'm a facebook junkie, and I've added the new Superheroes application to my list of procrastination techniques. Which reminded me today that I didn't ever blog about Soon I Will Be Invincible, a Superhero novel that reads like literary fiction. It took me about 100 pages to get into it, but once I did, man, what a read! I'm glad I stuck it out (based on a friend's recommendation). The narration is first person present tense, with flashbacks, from two different perspectives: the main supervillain and one of our heroes, a cyborg who doesn't remember her past. It has none of the hokey bits that I found both endearing and occasionally overboard in Karma Girl--it takes itself seriously, but not so seriously that it's not fun. And once the action starts, it's hard to put it down!

Scarily enough, I found myself identifying with the Supervillain more than I wanted to, which either says something about Austin Grossman's writing or something about my personal character. I prefer to think the former.