Steph Su Reads Interviews Catherine Fisher

Steph Su Reads interviewed Catherine Fisher. You can read an excerpt below, but for the entire thing, CLICK HERE.


3. While fantasy is not as explosively trendy as paranormal romance or dystopian, it has enjoyed steady readership over the years. Why do you enjoy writing fantasy? Why do you think fantasy has had consistent readership over time?

I don't really categorize what I write as fantasy, or dystopian or anything really. Actually I invented a term /mythic fiction/ a while ago to use when people asked what sort of books I write. It baffles people, at least! I just like to write stories with a strong element of the metaphysical, the strange, the unearthly, and that manifests in various ways - ghosts, sci-fi, elemental beings, gods. I think such stories have a consistent readership because they, like myths, appeal to some very deep need in us; they try to explain the workings of the world, and they give readers the ability in some way to control fate and nature. Which is what we all want.

Pages Unbound looks forward to reading more Catherine Fisher

Pages Unbound ... The action in Sapphique never stops for a moment; readers will feel breathless as they devour the pages long into the night, eager to learn how the journey ends.  Even so, the book sometimes seems more drawn-out than strictly necessary.  Fisher follows the storylines of several characters, jumping among them to create suspense, and at several points she might have wrapped up all the ends, but instead chose to throw in another complication.  This does have the benefit of surprising the reader, who perhaps thought the plot nicely predictable, but, after a point, I began to feel a bit bewildered by everything going on.  This troubled me a bit as I have read authors apparently so baffled by their own creations and all the convolutions in their stories that they ultimately fail to piece everything back together again.  Fisher, however, proved herself a true writer.  With a sure hand she guided all her thread backs to an entirely believable, beautifully poignant ending that perfectly captured the essence of the books.  I look forward to reading more of Fisher’s work.

Catherine Fisher guest posts on SciFiChick.com

SciFiChick.com has a guest post from Catherine Fisher on her Relic Master series. You can read an excerpt below, but for the entire thing, Click Here.

In this blog I’d like to talk about characters. I notice when I get messages from readers there are two things they always respond to, and want to talk about. The first is concept- the big ideas of the book, the setting. This overall plan often gets people excited. But what engages readers, more than anything, I’m coming to think, is the way they relate to the characters, whether that’s liking them, hating them, finding them intriguing or just wanting to be them. 

In the Relic Master set, I had my ideas for the two main characters from the start. The sorcerer and his (inept) apprentice is a really old idea; I wanted to take that and work with it a little, and see what would happen. Once I had the idea of the outlawed Order, and the powers of the keepers, I knew that Galen would be quite a bitter and haunted man. I liked that idea, because it would lead to a great deal of friction between him and Raffi. But it was only when a friend of mine suggested that Galen might have lost his magical abilities that I really saw him clearly. A proud, arrogant man, always secure in his beliefs, suffering such a terrible loss and doubt and then having to depend on a half-taught boy- he would really be interesting. So in the first book things are at their worst for him. And even the solution- his gaining the powers of the Crow- is a difficult one, because to have too much power might be just as hard to deal with as having too little. But Galen is more than bitter and reckless, I hope; he does have a great deal of compassion, and I wanted to bring that out a bit in Hidden Coronet, in the scenes after the Vortex in the town of Areto.

Teens Reads Reviews The Lost Heiress

Teen Reads ... THE LOST HEIRESS is the second book in Catherine Fisher's Relic Master series, which is being released in four consecutive installments this summer. Book Two deepens the mysteries established in THE DARK CITY. As Galen and Raffi travel across the broken landscape, they come to the Unfinished Lands, a place where all creation is being undone into destruction and chaos. Hidden within these lands is Artelan's Well, a place apart from the world where keepers go to gain wisdom or be healed. But it also harbors the Pits of Maar where the Margrave, a creature of pure evil, is rumored to hide.

The travelers are guided by Galen's faith. Now in possession of incredible powers, he believes he is a living emissary of the Makers. His visions and fierce certainties stop even warlords in their tracks. He is a driven man; everyone who comes in contact with him, including his apprentice Raffi, is swayed by his ceaseless quest and powerful vision. When the group becomes prisoner to one of the warlord's thieves, the thief must feed them all to keep them alive. "I tell you this keeper," the thief says, horrified by how starved they are, "we may be thieves, but we take more care of our own than you do."

As she did in INCARCERON, Catherine Fisher weaves an engrossing tale where technology has meshed with faith to create a powerful new mythology. Relic Master is a saga of torn beliefs and loyalties, where certainty has become a powerful weapon leveled against those who would doubt. Even as she is told by her mentor and handler that "the whole world is the Watch now. You'll never get away from it. It's even in you. Deep in you. And it always will be!" Carys can't help but be swayed by Galen's certainty and Raffi's kindness. Luckily, readers eager for the next installment will not have to wait long for the July 12th release of THE HIDDEN CORONET, the third and next-to-last book in the series.

Hollywood.com says Incarceron could replace Harry Potter

Hollywood.com talks about the movies that could replace Harry Potter. They include Incarceron on the list.

I haven’t read Incarceron, but back when Potter mania was proving fantasy novels can be big, big box office business, every studio could be found trying to find the next big thing. One of those properties snapped up quickly was Incarceron, which sounds like a truly unique blend of science fiction and fantasy that has more originality on a single page than something derivative like The Hunger Games has in its entire series.
The story is about a society that exists inside a virtual prison controlled by an AI namedIncarceron. One day two characters, each coming from two very different backgrounds, find a key that they believe will allow them to escape this realm, which has been designed to mirror the 18th century, though it’s overseen by robots and Incarceron’somnipresent eye. The trouble is they have to find what door the key actually unlocks.

• Chance it Will Scratch Your Potter Itch:
 Pretty decent. Its world isn’t quite as accessible the wizarding world, but it indulges in its own fully realized and bizarre world with similar devotion.

• Who Owns the Film Rights
: 20th Century Fox.