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The River Against the Sea
by Z. Lindsey
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GENRE: Action /Martial arts Fiction /Urban Fiction
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BLURB:
Some heroes have swords. Essimore Darkenchyl
has a pen. But it’s a magic pen.
Some wizards have spellbooks. Essie has Gossen’s
Guide to Shipping Law. But it’s a current edition.
Some sailors have . . . experience. Essie has a new
diploma and a year-long contract, and her people have won wars with less.
And that’s good because, between stolen weapons, a
coup, and a strange disease creeping in around her and the crew, she might need
to win a war.
In a world that blends traditional fantasy with the
Age of Exploration, Essie knows a pen is mightier than a sword, especially
since hers sometimes shoots lightning.
But what she thinks is a routine political dispute
turns out to be something much, much more, and she may have finally met the one
problem she can’t talk her way out of.
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EXCERPT
“Essimore Darkenchyl at your service, sir. I’m your new fully licensed shipping coordinator with Power of the Pen. It’s an honour to be aboard.”
The captain took the letter without opening it, folded it in half with no regard for the beautiful wax seal, folded it messily again, and jammed it into his pocket. The whole time, Essie winced.
“Right-o.” As he smiled, the older man’s cheeks dimpled and his white teeth shined in the sun. “Well, I thought we were leaving without you, but here you are. Good on you. Great. Yeah.” The captain turned to the teenager at his side. “Grab her bag and get her stuff to her room. She can hang out there til dinner.”
As the teenager shouldered her bag and grunted, she and the captain looked at each other, the captain with his beaming smile. Once the teenager left, she said, “Thanks for welcoming me onto your ship.”
“Yeah. Fully licensed, you say?”
“Absolutely!”
“Okay. Have a nice one. See you at dinner.”
“Don’t we need to . . . uh . . . onboard?”
“You’re already on board. You managed that just fine.”
“But . . . signing things. Paperwork. Reviewing the staff log. Staff log, sir!”
The captain’s smile faded but reappeared so fast she wasn’t sure if she’d seen it go.
“Okay, fine. Let’s talk in my cabin.”
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Write Something Cute Today
When I was a teenager, there were certain Dungeons and Dragons heroes and villains I would not use. A tortle? Their name is tortle and they’re humanoid turtles. Too on-the-nose. Multiple species of cat-people? Too cheesy. Too cute. Fantasy must be serious, it must be intense, and it must be dark! Squid people? They’re creepy, so they’re okay. Giant space hamsters? No way.
And culture agreed with me. Grimdark realism was the way of the 1980s and 1990s in comics and genre fiction. As fantasy writers fought back against the association with children’s lit and fairytales, they shunned the cute. The cultural zenith of this may have been Game of Thrones, the adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire. There, we're told, “If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Maybe it was because I wasn’t a teenager anymore, and I’d actually experienced tragedy; or maybe my university classes changed the way I interacted with art; or maybe brutality breeds fatigue. But I couldn’t finish Game of Thrones. I dropped off long before the eighth season soured many viewers. I watched cartoons instead.
By that point, I wanted to run a new Dungeons and Dragons campaign: One where the tortles and cat-people and giant space hamsters ruled the day. Around that time, I came across a quote by J.R.R. Tolkien I adored: “Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. … If we value the freedom of mind and soul, … then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
What if, to be taken seriously, fantasy doesn’t have to be blood-soaked anymore? Fantasy has been a legitimate genre since the days of Ursula Le Guin. You no longer have to prove how adult your writing is. It’s time to escape. It’s time to reintroduce the tortles.
Something can be cute and still moving; something can be silly and still evocative; something can be hopeful and still tense. “The cute commodity, for all its pathos of powerlessness, is capable of making surprisingly powerful demands,” said Stanford professor Sianne Ngai in her 2012 work, ‘The Cuteness of the Avante-Garde.’
When I sat down to write my debut novel, The River Against the Sea, it was before the pandemic, but I still felt like I needed a bit of hope. So I brutally murdered the grimdark and dove into the silly. My current work is action-packed, it’s got tension, and at least a few characters don’t make it through to the end. I don’t think it’s full-blown “cute,” although the main character Essie is the cutest heart-eating devil you’ll read about all year. But I’ll say one thing: If you think it has a happy ending, you’re mostly right.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Zac Lindsey is an anthropologist and a linguist who focuses on the Maya people of Quintana Roo. Since childhood, he's had a not-so-secret love of weird, silly, and well-structured fantasy. When other people's parents were reading them picture books, his mom was reading him, Terry Brooks. He typically writes hopeful and character-driven fantasy.
Today, he lives in Quintana Roo, Mexico with his wife, daughter, and various stray cats.
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/z.lindsey_fiction/
Face: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550498257222
Amazon preorders
(for ebook): https://www.amazon.com/River-Against-Sea-Z-Lindsey-ebook/dp/B0CH3TW3YD/
B&N preorders (for paperback): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-river-against-the-sea-z-lindsey/1144077772
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE:
Z. Lindsey will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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