Mainstream SFF?

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A mainstream SF writer is releasing a book in early December that's very much down our alley. Sample chapters are available at the same link location.

http://www.baen.com/princess-holy-aura.html

It will be available at Amazon, too. Make sure you use the link from BCTS to support your favorite website!

Comments

Whoa.

This is totally unexpected and kinda cool. Baen is taking one heck of a chance on this author. Let's all show our support if we can, let Baen know they made the right call taking this chance!

Abigail Drew.

It looks like fun.

I buy regularly from Baen and there usually isn't too much duff stuff to be found there.

I noticed this in ARC form - Advanced Reader Copy, which is pre-publication and before the final editing. There are sample chapters to read and it looks very much like some of the Magical Girl stories that came here in recent years.

I'll probably get it when it comes out properly. Baen deserves support, on-line publishing, especially DRM-free varieties, is a difficult business to be in these days.

Penny

Princess Holy Aura

LibraryGeek's picture

Baen usually only has five or six chapters in their samples, and half of those are title pages, etc.

However, a good many Baen authors release many more chapters at another site. The Fifth Imperium - Collected dribblets of Baen

Ryk E. Spoor is one of them, to the tune of 33 chapters.
The Fifth Imperium - Princess Holy Aura

H.P. Lovecraft, memes, Reluctant but voluntary MtF Magical Girl Transformation Age Regression.

I discovered it a couple of days ago, and have pre-ordered the ePub via Baen. Which entitled me to download 3/4 of it now, as html, which I finished a couple of hours ago.

Baen isn't taking a risk, Ryk Spoor has 13 novels and stories in a number of anthologies with Baen previously, so he's very much a known quantity to them. They know he's a good writer, they know his books sell.

It's really good. Ryk clearly knows his Magical Girl manga/anime, has a very good grasp of all the memes relating to horror movies, knows his H.P. Lovecraft, and has his head on straight in regard to ethics and the battle between Good and Evil. Good characterization, good plot development, and while every seperate theme is an established trope, he succeeds in blending it into something new and original. It's been a long time since I've regularly browsed through Baen's catalog, but I'm very glad I did so this week, and spotted the title; I had to check out the title, it wasn't the usual for a Baen book.

What is the usual for a Baen book? Very well written, well thought out, somewhat Right Wing Military SF/F. They generally have a very good grasp of military history, and a jaded perspective on politically motivated interference with the military discharging it's duties in times of war, which, if you've studied the history of wars, is not unjustified.

Anyway. Baen's blurb on the book's page at their website:

What Would You Give to be a Hero?

Stephen Russ never expected to have to answer that question; he went to work, he stayed in his apartment, sometimes had friends over, and the worst thing he'd had to face was looking for a new job after losing his old one.

But that was before a child's desperate scream led him into an alley filled with faceless winged things that almost killed him, before the strange white rat spoke to him, calling itself Silvertail Heartseeker and telling him that this was but the beginning, that the Stars were almost Right and the forces of Azathoth Nine-Armed would soon be unleashed against the world… before Silvertail said that his courage and willingness to risk himself made him the perfect choice to be one of the defenders of the world against this evil.

A defender named Princess Holy Aura, the first of the five Apocalypse Maidens.

Now Steve understands the choice: not whether he is willing to die, but whether he is willing to live… by giving up "Stephen Russ" to become the one chance that the world has against the monstrous forces that wait on the other side of forever.

Yours,

John Robert Mead

This one is definitely worth reading.

Interesting story so far, I started reading it about twelve hours ago, went as far as the start of Chapter 10 before I needed to sleep.

I can't say it any better than the paragraph in John Robert's comment starting with "It's really good." Very well put together. A must read.