Hello everyone! (I always say that, right? Sometimes I can’t come up with a lot of new things to say). We’re rolling through Summer with the 9nth Annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, and today’s featured author is Steven William Hannah! Apparently (like me), he has folded A4 paper in half to approximate a book, and his SPFBO 9 entry is …
The First Rule
Venalia is going to die.
When the newly ordained Priestess of the Mind’s Eye returns home to bury her mentor, she meets the seer, Temple. In his dreams of the near future, Temple sees her go to certain death facing a horror from the world below, a choir of the dead whose song enslaves the living.
Venalia’s failure to protect the village is foretold, the village that has shunned her since childhood – but Venalia is sworn to an oath, bound by the first rule of the Priesthood to stand her ground against even the most hopeless of odds. Beset by corrupt leadership and an ungrateful flock, Venalia must decide what her life is really worth.
Perhaps it is better to die for something than to live for nothing.
The First Rule is a fantasy novel with elements of mystery, detective, progression and horror. It tells a story about redemption, forgiveness and duty in the face of overwhelming odds.
I love that last line! Perhaps it is better to die for something than to live for nothing.
Onto the Questions!
As a Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) Entrant, you’re not just independently published, but self-published. Can you start by explaining a bit about why you chose that route and how it’s been for you?
Well, I self-published my first book over a decade ago. Then another, then another, then another. Then I unpublished them all because they were pretty terrible. I made a token effort to find publishers and had no luck. (I just have no idea why nobody wanted my 250k word scifi-fantasy epic riddled with errors, no chapters, and zero formatting.)
When I finished the Interloper trilogy, I really hit a wall trying to find an agent or publisher. I like to straddle genre lines, ignore conventions, and mess with things like formatting and style. That makes it tough to find success in trad-pub, and the more I spoke to trad-pubbed authors, the worse it sounded.
So I’ve always self-published with an eye to bigger things, but in recent years I’ve realised that bigger things does not equate to a trad-pub deal whatsoever. I can do it just fine on my own, it turns out, and in doing so I’ve found my niche in the best community on the net. I’m indie till I die now!
YES! We’re indie til we die!! (And isn’t it so fun to straddle genre lines and play with formatting?)
On a related note, why did you enter the SPFBO contest? How do you expect to find it? Refreshing your blog’s page every five minutes, or sit back and chill?
I entered because it was about time! I’ve always been afraid of competitions and the scrutiny that they bring, but my most recent novel, The First Rule, is my eighth book, and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it by this point. So aye, it was about time.
What I expected was some nerve wracking blog checks that I’d eventually forget about.
What I got instead was a constant explosion of adjacent projects and events to take part in, an amazing community spirit, and to be honest, at this point I don’t think many of us mind how our books perform. I’m just happy to be involved – the real prize is the community, and I say that with zero irony.
Truly, it is! (I’ve been cut at least twice now; but I’ve learned so much from the community, made connections, AND DISCOVERED AMAZING READS!)
Book titles. Why did you choose the title, The First Rule?
I like punchy, thematic titles. I know that fantasy has its trends, but I didn’t want An X of Y and Z or anything else. The First Rule is the thematic core of the novel; Venalia, our MC, is a Priestess who must live by an oath. The third rule is that she cannot lie; the second, that she cannot allow evil to take root. The first rule is to never give up on your flock, your people. That’s why she finds herself torn between her duty (her destiny is foretold, that she will die protecting these people who do not appreciate her) and her own desire for redemption. It’s the first rule that’s going to send her to a fate worse than death, but what kind of woman is she to break her oath the first time it is challenged?
Ooh, that sounds like a fascinating and compelling premise!
I won’t ask for your favourite scene since I know some people don’t have those (like me; I never have favourites), but can you share a (non-spoiler) scene you really like and you just can’t believe how awesome it is every time you go back to re-read it? Alternately, you can share something about a character you really like!
Oh I absolutely have favourite scenes! There’s a moment in The First Rule, its the moment that is portrayed on the cover. Venalia tries to save a shepherd in the midst of an attack by the SPOILERS, is on her own in the dark of night, and being a new Priestess, she lacks the powerful spells to fight her way through. All she has is a spell of illumination, but these are creatures that are afraid of the light.
She gives it everything she has anyway.
“For a moment, Venalia is the brightest star in the sky.
She is the dawning morning sun, a frozen flash of lightning.”
I also love a lot of the quieter character moments, those are my jam.
NICE!! — I also love quieter character moments! — I think I may be liking Venalia already!
What are some elements or themes, or combinations thereof, that really make your book stand out to you?
I love combining elements of horror with the classic genres. My scifi novels are heavy on the horror, and The First Rule is no different. I tend to avoid writing fantasy with the classic chosen-one style of destiny, fate, etc. The First Rule is a mystery novel first and foremost, more fantasy-noir than high fantasy.
I also bring a love for the psychedelic to my writing. It tends to feature a lot of the weird and esoteric stuff that I love reading about, you know, the Hermetic principles, I love to play with ideas of perception, consciousness, and our singular, contained experience of the world.
Ooh! Those kinds of things are SOO fun to explore!
Anything else you’d like to share with us?
I would simply like to shout out the incredible community of people. I feel like that kinda stuff gets said all the time, but honestly, I really hate social media and marketing. It’s etched into my bones to avoid things like that; and yet, I find myself in love with the community. They’ve given me so much. When I was a wee lad I dreamed about one day just getting to talk to authors I admire as a peer, as an equal. I dreamt about people reading my books and not just enjoying them, but engaging with the ideas in them. The writing community has given me exactly that, and so I’ve found that I’m already living my childhood dreams.
The stories in my books are the stories that I live in whilst I write them, and so to share them feels like opening a little door to my mind and letting people in. It’s been such a joy to do that.
Once again, this is so relatable! Thank you for sharing!
Steven William Hannah is a Scottish fiction writer. He writes mystery-horror, geared towards either fantasy or sci-fi. He has been writing since he could hold a pencil, folding A4 paper in half to approximate a book. These days, he moonlights as a human slush pile, reading every self-pub book he can find in order to find the gems and share them via Your Paper Quest, a monthly book-box for self published books.
You can check out The First Rule on Goodreads, and you can find all of Steven’s books here! Steven himself can be found on Twitter.
Enthralled By Love 