GUEST POST by David Litwack
Welcome, David. I am so happy you were able to join us today.
Why I write speculative fiction?
I’ve always been suspicious about absolute reality. Different cultures see the world so differently. As anyone who has ever spent extended time in a hospital or a war zone knows, you’re sense of what’s real can be easily fragmented. We conveniently choose to construct a world view that suits us—at least until something challenges it. That’s the role of the writer. What better way to challenge our view of reality—and therefore enable the potential for change—than to invent new worlds and show how characters cope with them.
There’s a poem I heard long ago by Wallace Stevens:
Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill . . .
And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt . . .
And what we said of it became
A part of what it is . . .
Our sense of reality in many ways defines the way we live, but it’s constantly evolving. The job of the artist is to be the catalyst for changes in the way we see the world. By telling what we saw and how we felt, we can change the perception of reality and therefore how people see themselves and, ultimately, how they behave. What better way to do that than to write speculative fiction about alternate worlds.
David Litwack, author of There Comes a Prophet, Along the Watchtower, and The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky
Thank you David. I hope you enjoyed your time with us.
A Tragic Warrior Lost in Two Worlds…
The war in Iraq ended for Lieutenant Freddie Williams when an IED explosion left his mind and body shattered. Once he was a skilled gamer and expert in virtual warfare. Now he’s a broken warrior, emerging from a medically induced coma to discover he’s inhabiting two separate realities. The first is his waking world of pain, family trials, and remorse—and slow rehabilitation through the tender care of Becky, his physical therapist. The second is a dark fantasy realm of quests, demons, and magic that Freddie enters when he sleeps.
In his dreams he is Frederick, Prince of Stormwind, who must make sense of his horrific visions in order to save his embattled kingdom from the monstrous Horde. His only solace awaits him in the royal gardens, where the gentle words of the beautiful gardener, Rebecca, calm the storms in his soul. While in the conscious world, the severely wounded vet faces a strangely similar and equally perilous mission—a journey along a dark road haunted by demons of guilt and memory—and letting patient, loving Becky into his damaged and shuttered heart may be his only way back from Hell.
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The urge to write first struck when working on a newsletter at a youth encampment in the woods of northern Maine. It may have been the night when lightning flashed at sunset followed by northern lights rippling after dark. Or maybe it was the newsletter’s editor, a girl with eyes the color of the ocean. But he was inspired to write about the blurry line between reality and the fantastic.Using two fingers and lots of white-out, he religiously typed five pages a day throughout college and well into his twenties. Then life intervened. He paused to raise two sons and pursue a career, in the process becoming a well-known entrepreneur in the software industry, founding several successful companies. When he found time again to daydream, the urge to write returned. His novels include: There Comes a Prophet, Along the Watchtower, and the newly released The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky.
Giveaway: A $100 Amazon/B&N Giftcard or a Book Depository shopping spree of the same value, plus two print copies of Along the Watchtower will be given away. Open Internationally. Ends 7/7.
Open Internationally. Ends 7/7. .
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4 STARS – Would Highly Recommend To Others
Wynne Channing is a national newspaper reporter and award-winning young adult novelist. Wynne loves telling stories and as a journalist, she has interviewed everyone from Daniel Radcliffe and Hugh Jackman to the president of the Maldives and Duchess Sarah Ferguson. The closest she has come to interviewing a vampire is sitting down with True Blood‘s Alexander Skarsgard (he didn’t bite). She briefly considered calling her debut novel “Well” so then everyone would say: “Well written by Wynne Channing.”
All I can say is WOW! I was blown away. I read it straight through, it took me six hours. I devoured it. The cover was interesting and caught my eye. I really liked the clean, crisp, simplistic look. The cover and the title were both descriptive of the book. It was very well written and the story flowed smoothly. The suspense built from the beginning and continued to the last page. A lot of times, the books by authors from the UK can be difficult to read and the flow can be interrupted by the phraseology. Definitely not so here. The characters were both likeable and hateable. I loved Samantha for her goodness and naivety. I loved James for all his heroism and willingness to risk his own life, but he left me wondering what he would become in the future. I even felt empathy and sadness for the “villain”. I can hardly wait until I can get my hands on the next book. A Class Apart would make an interesting movie that would be enjoyed by people of all ages, just like the book. I received this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
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