Saga of the Jewels Faenon

Dear reader,
I’ve decided to switch this newsletter to being all about Romantasy and change its name to ‘Romanon’s Romantasy Ruse-letter’.
Happy April Fool’s.
Also, Happy Easter Monday (a rare lunar-related coincidence). Last weekend the Western Church celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the greatest fantasy story ever told, so great that it might actually be true fantasy, as Tolkien might have said.
FANTASY BOOK NEWS (not April Fool’s):
More awards news from the last month…
First, the SFWA’s annual Nebula awards finalist list has been posted. Some really cool stuff in there, including lots of fantasy and awards for game writing.
Of the nominations for best novel, here are the fantasies:
* The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
* The Water Outlaws, S.L. Huang (Tordotcom; Solaris UK) ←looks especially cool
* Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi (DAW, Gollancz)
* Witch King, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)
Second, a new set of librarian-run book awards called the ‘Libbys’ has debuted, and it has a fantasy category (and a romantasy category, naturally!). Here were the fantasy finalists for this year (links are to ‘libby’ pages, because Libbys):
Libby Award Finalists for Best Fantasy:
A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon 🎧Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 🎧Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo 🎧To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose 🎧Witch King by Martha Wells 🎧
How many have you read? I’ve read…none. But two are on my huge TBR list! Maybe three, now!
YOUR FREE INDIE FANTASY EBOOKS FOR THIS MONTH*:
*Note: I’m aware that a couple of newsletters ago these banner links didn’t work because I’d just moved this newsletter over from Mailchimp. Sorry about that. They all work now. Please tap/click away!
MY WRITING NEWS
In terms of my own writing news, my YA superhero novel WEAKLING won a thing! More precisely, it got a ‘top 10 finalist honourable mention’ in the ‘BooksShelf Awards’:
I have no memory of submitting WEAKLING to this contest. It does not fill me with confidence that these people cannot spell the word ‘bookshelf’ and that their website looks horrendously amateurish, however…it’s something! Assuming the judges actually read it, WEAKLING beat a bunch of other books to a top 10 spot! Every little bit of encouragement counts for something…
Also, I’m spending the last of the money I earned for writing CLARENT SAGA: CHRONICLES on getting a professional edit for SAGA OF THE JEWELS VOL. 1 and commissioning a new, professional cover for its free taster short story PRELUDE: THE FINAL BATTLE. One of the advantages of being indie is that you can choose your own cover artists. The draft sketch for the cover from my artist at miblart came back, and I love it! See below.
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:
Last month I finished SWORDS IN THE MIST (Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser 3, continuing my late sword-and-sorcery education), carried on with a bit more of and gave up on SUFFICIENTLY ADAVANCED MAGIC (perhaps more on that in a future newsletter) and most recently I’ve been reading PALADIN’S GRACE by T. Kingfisher. This is a beautifully written quirky contemporary fantasy (er, and maybe actually a romantasy too…) that deals with themes of faith and duty, and so far it’s excellent.
WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:
Now this is a very, very guilty pleasure and a deep cut. Did you ever play Warhammer/Games Workshop as a kid? You may or may not remember that in a previous newsletter I mentioned reading TROLLSLAYER by William King, first in the massive GOTREK AND FELIX series which is set in the old Warhammer World. I recently read the second book SKAVENSLAYER as well, and enjoyed it so much I just wanted to keep going…
I read that the audiobooks are excellent, so I picked up the audiobook of DAEMONSLAYER and, well, they are! Jonathan Keeble gets the narration just right, employing fantastic character accents with exact

Dear reader,
The big fantasy book news from the last month all has to do with the annual Hugo Awards. Last year they happened in China, but some emails were recently leaked showing that the nominations were influenced by consideration of the ideology of the host nation. Controversial!
News to me also is that ‘romantasy’ (romance combined with fantasy) is now being discussed as a genre in its own right. Your romantasy exemplar authors would be Sarah J. Mass and Rebecca Yarros. SAGA OF THE JEWELS does have some (albeit very slow-burn) elements of romance in it, so I am wondering if I can cheekily piggyback on this label myself…
What I’ve been reading
One of the books I’ve read since my last newsletter is COLD IRON, the first fantasy by historical novelist Miles (Christian) Cameron. It was fun, with fantastic worldbuilding, if a bit ‘male’ and thinly sketched, for me. My slightly longer review here.
What Jo’s been reading
Some of the books that Jo’s read since I last wrote are the rest of the ensemble-cast multi-POV steampunk noblebright KETTY JAY series by Chris Wooding. She had already read RETRIBUTION FALLS and THE BLACK LUNHG CAPTAIN and she went and finished THE IRON JACKAL and THE ACE OF SKULLS. I have read these too and agree with her that they are absolutely awesome: fun, full of heart, meticulously clever plotting, vibrant three-dimensional characters, humour, emotion, and a hopeful core. This newsletter sometimes becomes the Chris Wooding Appreciation Society newsletter, but I’m ok with that… Recommended!
In other news…
Jo had her first book traditionally published! And by Bloomsbury, no less! This is her Cambridge (UK) Theology PhD thesis, now published as a hardback and an ebook. She wrote it while simultaneously training to be and then working as an Anglican vicar (that’s ‘cleric’ for you fantasy fans) and putting up with an unstable husband, and in the course of writing it had two bouts of hyperemesis gravidarum and gave birth to two children! She then passed her viva voce exam for it with no corrections!
If you don’t know, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a 20th-century German theologian who was imprisoned and executed by the Nazis for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler. ‘Polyphony’ is a musical term to do with multiple mutually complementary melodies in a piece of music and a ‘pneumatology’ is a conceptual system for talking about the Holy Spirit, the third person in God, in Christianity.
If that doesn’t convince you to buy this book (or at least ask your local academic institution to buy it), then nothing will I don’t know what will! An absolute steal currently on sale for £76.50 in hardback or £61.50 for the ebook!
That’s all for this month, though as ever do check out the indie fantasy book sale of the month and this month’s SAGA OF THE JEWELS episode below or on the podcast.
TTFN,
Faenon / Luke
Your indie fantasy FREE ARC book promotion for this month:
Click here or the picture below \/
Now, on with the Saga…
Need to catch up? The WHOLE of Book One (Episodes 1 to 21) is available bundled together as a FREE AUDIOBOOK here.
Previously on Saga of the Jewels…
The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. Ryn discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. He sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted bounty hunter. Together the adventurers decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far su

Previously on Saga of the Jewels…
The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. He discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the Fire Ruby. Ryn sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted bounty hunter. Together the adventurers decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. The companions now find themselves traversing the skies of Mid in Sagar’s airship, heading to the land of FARR to attempt to retrieve the EARTH EMERALD…
SEASON TWO EPISODE 23:
ABOARD THE GOOD AIRSHIP WANDERLUST
Elrann hated to admit it, but pirate-man’s airship was an absolute beauty.
She strode out of the doors of the captain’s chambers in the forecastle and onto the main deck. Rushing air immediately greeted her, whipping her purple hair around her face, and she pulled her goggles down over her eyes. The skyscape, pale orange and blue and white, was decorated with the fluffy clouds of a dawn somewhere over Aibar, above which they were currently flying on their way to Farr.
“Ah…” Elrann exhaled after taking a drink of the cold crisp air. It’s good to be alive.
Ryn, Vish and Cid were already up, she was surprised to see, stood together looking out over the prow of the ship, yapping about something or other and taking turns to point at the clouds and scraps of desert visible below. They hadn’t heard her come onto the deck.
“‘Bout time you got up, woman!” someone called out over the wind from behind her.
Elrann whirled on her heel. Above her, atop the ship’s forecastle, underneath her black blimp from which the body of the ship hung suspended by steel ropes, behind the ship’s wheel, stood Sagar.
“I never got my wakeup call!” Elrann yelled back.
“Ha!” the pirate scoffed, his ponytail flapping in the wind behind him. “You’d be lucky! Where’s her majesty--still sleeping?”
Always with the asking about princess-girl, Elrann thought. “Yeah,” she said, “for the meantime. She needs her beauty sleep. I don’t need so much ’cause I’m more beautiful.” She grinned and winked at him.
“Ha!” Sagar laughed again. He seemed happy at the helm of his ship--literally in his element. “Listen, woman; go do a check over the engine for me. She’s flying fine--but you might be able to get a little more juice out of her.”
“Where d’ya think I was going?” Elrann shot back. “I’ll go of my own accord, not to obey an order, thank ya very much. You might be the pilot of this ship, but you ain’t her captain any more, whatever princess-girl calls ya.”
She turned away from the faint sound of Sagar’s “Rrrr,” hiding her smile, and paced across the deck to steps that led below. That’s for calling me ‘woman’ twice already today. She waved a good morning to Ryn, Vish and Cid before descending.
Belowdecks were five main rooms: a hold which had been stuffed full of food supplies by princess-girl’s ‘countrywomen’ before they left, a very small brig, a very small mess with chairs and a card table, the sleeping cabin, and the engine room.
Unfortunately, you had to go through the sleeping cabin to get to the engine room.
The sleeping cabin was filthy, the walls that enclosed its rows of hung hammocks scrawled with lewd paint graffiti or knife-scored with tallies of how many days the original crew had been in the air at a particular time. Even the Imperials hadn’t bothered to clean it up when they had occupied the ship for a while. All the same, Elrann wouldn’t ha

To read the Fantasy Fiction newsletter that goes with this podcast, head to sagaofthejewels.substack.com


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sagaofthejewels.substack.com

Hello subscribers!
-In the attached podcast episode you will find some news and a sneak preview of Season 2 of SAGA OF THE JEWELS, which will start releasing soon :)
-Just as a reminder you can now also download or stream the WHOLE of Season 1 as a single audio file (a free 9 hour fantasy audiobook!) at this link.
-You will see above that the new cover for the Saga has been finished, which is very exciting! This cover was paid for entirely using money I earned by writing fiction. Yay!
-I recently made a free optional short story Prologue to the Saga called ‘The Final Battle’ available to new subscribers to this newsletter, but since you may have already been subscribed I’ll share it here as well: To download your free mp3 file of the optional short story Prologue to the Saga, which also acts as a sampler for the Saga, click here. For the e-reader or text version, click here.
-One more thing. You may not know that under my real name I recently published an audiobook of my superhero novel WEAKLING. The reviews that have been coming in for it are really good! You can listen to the novel for free if you sign up for Audible and use your first free credit on it (you can also then cancel your subscription immediately, so you don't ever have to pay anything). To do that, go here. If you don't want to do that or already have an Audible account, you can also get a free review copy here or by clicking on this picture:
That’s all for this month. TTFN, and happy listening!
Faenon


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sagaofthejewels.substack.com

This is the whole of Season One of Saga of the Jewels bundled together in a single 9 hour audio file of epic fantasy goodness. To download this free audiobook as an mp3 file for offline listening, either use ‘Download episode’ in iTunes or head to https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WiolkCScTJd4aB447SSBNTR1kgJxCqMz/view?usp=sharing


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sagaofthejewels.substack.com