The Alliance of Worldbuilders
This is the main fantasy critique/ discussion thread on authonomy.com, Harper Collins' online 'slush pile' where new and upcoming writers can upload their works (of any genre) for feedback and social networking with other writers.
Founded by member TRM after the old fantasy critique thread was removed by its author, the Alliance has grown, offering detailed in depth comments to each member's work, discussion around publishing in fantasy, favourite fantasy books and authors, and potential agents and publishing houses to submit to.
And lots of cake and random silliness :)
Click on the book titles listed to read/ learn about some of my favourite offerings from the Alliance!
Cheyenne- A Timeless Series Novel, Book 1 by Lisa L. Wiedmeier
Murder, romance, secrets and hidden pasts. Deception from every angle--who's telling the truth?
Cheyenne Wilson's life is thrown into turmoil after her adoptive parents are killed in an accident. With only her best friend Colt to comfort her, she scours through the family archives, hoping to quell her grief. Instead she begins to unravel the mystery behind her birth parents, and her secret heritage. She is a Timeless- a being that ages one year for every hundred human years when they reach their twenties- and of the royal line, destined to gain great power.
But Cheyenne has other problems. The ones who killed her parents want her too, and Colt is hiding something of his own. Surrounded by danger and with few she can trust, Cheyenne must face the dark truth of her past, and choose between a forbidden love that will forever hold her heart, or her destiny . . .
Darkened Voices by TRM
When magic is your gift, your curse, your life, your love and potentially your death, what happens when magic gets completely out of control?
The Order of Voice-casters provides the only secure means of instant communication across the Kingdom and beyond. Secrecy is fundamental to the Order. There can be no secrets between the inseparable pair afflicted by a Caster’s Bond, if they ever survive the life draining and deeply taboo addiction to the Touch. The Order decrees immediate execution for any Casters cursed by a Bond for those two reasons.
Callien and Behran had fallen into a Bond as freshers, and spent their University years trying to keep their curse a secret, as well as cope with the involuntary intimacy. When Behran is unexpectedly recruited as Caster for the Order itself, he can only pray that the Bond has gone unnoticed and that he can survive the separation from Callien, let alone keep secret his need for her Touch.
However, the ruthless Order is fully aware of the Bond and means to use the unmatched ability it gives Behran to carry out a daring assassination, on which the very fate of the world turns and in which Behran is meant to die too.
But Behran is stubborn, especially when he finds that the plots goes beyond death, beyond even the Walls of Creation.
Dawn Rising by AFE Smith
Alyssia has a choice to make. Her sanity, or everything that's ever mattered to her.
When she was ten, Alyssia Gale was in an accident. It killed her parents, took her memories and left her with nothing.
Nothing, that is, except the dreams.
Every night, Alyssia dreams of a world beyond her everyday life. Of events that seem much more real than reality itself. Of four people whose pain and suffering are more important to her than her own.
Her therapist believes her dreams hold the key to unlocking her lost memories. Yet before he can put his theory to the test, Alyssia crosses over into the dreamworld. And when she comes face to face with the people she has been dreaming about her whole life, she begins to understand just how closely her fate is bound up with theirs.
Her therapist thinks her sanity is at stake. She knows it's something much more important.
The Land of Midnight Days by Kate Jack
What do you fear most? In the deepest, darkest part of your mind, what stalks your every waking hour?
The Land of Midnight Days is a dark urban fantasy, set in a city at war with itself.
Born of mixed race parents and mute from birth, Jeremiah Tully is a talented musician, caught in a world filled with ugliness. From the Gangers who roam the streets, looking for flesh to feast upon, to the Alpha and Beta ogres determined to wipe out humankind, Jeremiah must find a way to outrun them all.
Toonpolis: Gemini by Jeremy Rodden
Toonopolis is a cartoon city that is home to the thoughts and ideas of all sentient beings in the universe. As the center of the Tooniverse, it acts as an other-worldly rest stop for these creations.
Gemini is a teenage human boy who is thrust into Toonopolis through his father’s scientific research program. He loses part of himself in the process and immediately begins a quest to regain his lost memories with the help of his Tooniverse guide named Jimbob the Talking Eggplant.
After an altercation with a mysterious Shadowy Figure, Gemini’s mission is changed, and he begins a new quest to defeat Shadowy Figure and protect Toonopolis from his nefarious destruction. Along the way, he meets new friends, discovers just how diverse and strange Toonopolis is, and learns lessons about compassion, forgiveness, redemption, and being true to oneself.
Vortex: Return of the Effra Book 1 by L J Parsons
On a night when prophecies stir, an outraged dragon vents his anger, Damian is ripped from everything he knows and Sam's nightmares become real...
Sam isn’t enjoying university life, she’s disillusioned with her course and having second thoughts about her future. It doesn’t help that she keeps having a scary, recurring nightmare and when she thinks things couldn’t get worse a creepy man follows her back to her room.
Damian is unique, he has silver eyes, horns and wings, he is also being visited by a ghost girl. She looks so sad and frightened he feels compelled to help her, but the night he reaches out to save her from a dragon’s fiery breath he gets ripped from his life, his world, from everything he knows.
Now it’s Damian who’s lost in a unfamiliar world that’s devoid of magic and full of strange monsters. His only connection with home is Sam who he recognises as the ghost girl. Sam has to put aside her fear and disbelief in Damian’s explanations about himself to try and help him find his way home.
But in a world without magic is this possible?
Founded by member TRM after the old fantasy critique thread was removed by its author, the Alliance has grown, offering detailed in depth comments to each member's work, discussion around publishing in fantasy, favourite fantasy books and authors, and potential agents and publishing houses to submit to.
And lots of cake and random silliness :)
Click on the book titles listed to read/ learn about some of my favourite offerings from the Alliance!
Cheyenne- A Timeless Series Novel, Book 1 by Lisa L. Wiedmeier
Murder, romance, secrets and hidden pasts. Deception from every angle--who's telling the truth?
Cheyenne Wilson's life is thrown into turmoil after her adoptive parents are killed in an accident. With only her best friend Colt to comfort her, she scours through the family archives, hoping to quell her grief. Instead she begins to unravel the mystery behind her birth parents, and her secret heritage. She is a Timeless- a being that ages one year for every hundred human years when they reach their twenties- and of the royal line, destined to gain great power.
But Cheyenne has other problems. The ones who killed her parents want her too, and Colt is hiding something of his own. Surrounded by danger and with few she can trust, Cheyenne must face the dark truth of her past, and choose between a forbidden love that will forever hold her heart, or her destiny . . .
Darkened Voices by TRM
When magic is your gift, your curse, your life, your love and potentially your death, what happens when magic gets completely out of control?
The Order of Voice-casters provides the only secure means of instant communication across the Kingdom and beyond. Secrecy is fundamental to the Order. There can be no secrets between the inseparable pair afflicted by a Caster’s Bond, if they ever survive the life draining and deeply taboo addiction to the Touch. The Order decrees immediate execution for any Casters cursed by a Bond for those two reasons.
Callien and Behran had fallen into a Bond as freshers, and spent their University years trying to keep their curse a secret, as well as cope with the involuntary intimacy. When Behran is unexpectedly recruited as Caster for the Order itself, he can only pray that the Bond has gone unnoticed and that he can survive the separation from Callien, let alone keep secret his need for her Touch.
However, the ruthless Order is fully aware of the Bond and means to use the unmatched ability it gives Behran to carry out a daring assassination, on which the very fate of the world turns and in which Behran is meant to die too.
But Behran is stubborn, especially when he finds that the plots goes beyond death, beyond even the Walls of Creation.
Dawn Rising by AFE Smith
Alyssia has a choice to make. Her sanity, or everything that's ever mattered to her.
When she was ten, Alyssia Gale was in an accident. It killed her parents, took her memories and left her with nothing.
Nothing, that is, except the dreams.
Every night, Alyssia dreams of a world beyond her everyday life. Of events that seem much more real than reality itself. Of four people whose pain and suffering are more important to her than her own.
Her therapist believes her dreams hold the key to unlocking her lost memories. Yet before he can put his theory to the test, Alyssia crosses over into the dreamworld. And when she comes face to face with the people she has been dreaming about her whole life, she begins to understand just how closely her fate is bound up with theirs.
Her therapist thinks her sanity is at stake. She knows it's something much more important.
The Land of Midnight Days by Kate Jack
What do you fear most? In the deepest, darkest part of your mind, what stalks your every waking hour?
The Land of Midnight Days is a dark urban fantasy, set in a city at war with itself.
Born of mixed race parents and mute from birth, Jeremiah Tully is a talented musician, caught in a world filled with ugliness. From the Gangers who roam the streets, looking for flesh to feast upon, to the Alpha and Beta ogres determined to wipe out humankind, Jeremiah must find a way to outrun them all.
Toonpolis: Gemini by Jeremy Rodden
Toonopolis is a cartoon city that is home to the thoughts and ideas of all sentient beings in the universe. As the center of the Tooniverse, it acts as an other-worldly rest stop for these creations.
Gemini is a teenage human boy who is thrust into Toonopolis through his father’s scientific research program. He loses part of himself in the process and immediately begins a quest to regain his lost memories with the help of his Tooniverse guide named Jimbob the Talking Eggplant.
After an altercation with a mysterious Shadowy Figure, Gemini’s mission is changed, and he begins a new quest to defeat Shadowy Figure and protect Toonopolis from his nefarious destruction. Along the way, he meets new friends, discovers just how diverse and strange Toonopolis is, and learns lessons about compassion, forgiveness, redemption, and being true to oneself.
Vortex: Return of the Effra Book 1 by L J Parsons
On a night when prophecies stir, an outraged dragon vents his anger, Damian is ripped from everything he knows and Sam's nightmares become real...
Sam isn’t enjoying university life, she’s disillusioned with her course and having second thoughts about her future. It doesn’t help that she keeps having a scary, recurring nightmare and when she thinks things couldn’t get worse a creepy man follows her back to her room.
Damian is unique, he has silver eyes, horns and wings, he is also being visited by a ghost girl. She looks so sad and frightened he feels compelled to help her, but the night he reaches out to save her from a dragon’s fiery breath he gets ripped from his life, his world, from everything he knows.
Now it’s Damian who’s lost in a unfamiliar world that’s devoid of magic and full of strange monsters. His only connection with home is Sam who he recognises as the ghost girl. Sam has to put aside her fear and disbelief in Damian’s explanations about himself to try and help him find his way home.
But in a world without magic is this possible?
