Tag Archives: author

August Stormpoint – Inner Strength Attracts Readers

People sense inner strength in people around them and in stories. That inner strength of right leads to fairness and stability. “Fair” means what is right, what is just. Readers tend to be attracted to good stories where the author defends the right and the characters are deeply invested in the outcome. Aren’t we all interested in being treated fairly?

Defending the right always appeals to us deeply, when it is our right in question. But what about when it is another’s right in question, and we are in the wrong? Then the measure of “fair” must be the same for both, or it is not just.

Acknowledging the truth of wrong and taking responsibility for where our actions lead is a major part of fairness and justice. It opens the door to mercy and enables change. It starts with telling the truth to ourselves.

“She. The witch. Did something to me.” I coughed as if there still might be a chance to purge myself of it, but even now, I could feel it settling into my heart, weakening me. If only I’d listened to God right away, rather than allowing myself to revel in my misery and anger.
The Witch’s Curse by JF Rogers

In a culture that increasingly rewards split tongues, encourages the insanity of lying to yourself and others about gender and your very identity, approving evil in so many forms, “right” and “fair” are a breath of fresh air. Don’t let anyone redefine those words and make a good word mean something bad. Challenge what they say. Is it true? Is Social Justice really just? Is it right? Is it fair?

A good story cuts through the confusion, lasers through the vague screen of responsibility shifting, the darkness of untruth, and rebukes evil. It shows us what a just world could be, what it should be, and picks a rose for us from the garden of heaven to give us an inkling of what the future holds if we pursue true justice, fairness, and mercy.

A great story helps us understand our own confusions as we follow our heroines and heroes through their confusion, and see through it to the truth. An excellent story clarifies right and wrong, enacts fairness, justice, and mercy. It helps us see the truth of many things.

Jenelle Schmidt’s Steal the Morrow illustrates this well.

Olifur hung his head. “I didn’t take the shot,” he choked. “I couldn’t. I had my arrow ready, but…”

“Why didn’t you shoot?”

The gentle question startled him and Olifur looked up, confused. He considered the question. Why hadn’t he taken the shot? The moments of terror flooded back to him and he swallowed hard. “I couldn’t tell which one was Bet,” he said. “I didn’t want to hit her.”

“That doesn’t sound like fear taking over,” Fritjof said. “That sounds like wisdom.”

Olifur frowned, his emotions a tangle of shame and confusion. He couldn’t speak. Words failed to materialize.

Fritjof kept speaking. “You might have frozen for a moment,” he allowed. “But you didn’t let it take over. You acted. You drew your bow, but when you realized you might hurt a friend instead of your foe, you waited. Instead, you saw that you could help me, and you did. Lad, you didn’t run away, nor did you stand there frozen and unable to move. You did what you could with the tools you had. Probably saved my life and Bet’s with your actions.”
Steal the Morrow, by Jenelle Schmidt

This snippet of a Fantasy Gaslamp adventure has the earmarks of inner strength, justice, fairness, mercy, and defending the right, all over it. How many earmarks can you find?

So while we search out fantasy adventures, and fight alongside the struggle for good in their pages, remember our true strength and ability and training, and the moral battle. And whether we are strong or weak in body, winning our battles first lies in the unseen realm. Then that war spills into the seen. We should be ready to fight as best we may in both worlds to defend the right.
Fantastic Journey pg. 249

Speak. Don’t let truth die in your silence. Someone else may be depending on that blade and your strength to defend them.

Until next time, enjoy a great summer!

Azalea

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

June Storm Point – Growing by Conflict in the Arena

Conflict in the spiritual arena makes or breaks a story’s characters. Conflict in that arena also builds up or tears down something in us as we read. That thing is goodness. How do we face the inner battle, how do they face it? Much depends on how that battle is portrayed. Through the characters, their actions and reactions, is the author of the story leading us on an adventure of hope, or through a tale of despair?

Characters we admire can inspire us to goodness, or characters can drag us through the ugliest levels of inhuman evil. I started to watch the series 1883, and I pulled it out of the dvd player very soon. When I watch or read something I want to be encouraged, warned, taught, inspired, and given strength to go on by a real look at people, not have indifference to darkness and evil rubbed in my face, and worse, my spirit. All we have to do to know evil intimately is to look inside. We don’t need anyone to tell us how corrupt we are.

People who try to rewrite our perception of history and claim it is valid because it is reality, are not doing us any favors. I especially hate it when they try to make out that people of past ages were as bad as we are, and end up showing the worst of us. Is that going to do anything good? Is it true?

We enjoy our heroes and heroines, handsome and beautiful or not, whether they overcome together or are pitted against their enemy alone. Their spirit, their strengths, and yes, sometimes even their weaknesses, endear them to us—when they show themselves human, yet with a capacity for greatness. [That is reality. All of us have the capacity to rise above greed, hate, and evil in all its forms, in Christ. We have been given the gift of change. Story is about change in ourselves and changing things.] Things we all wish for. We all wish to be brave, to overcome wind and wave and monster—to be a hero to someone, even if only in the ocean of fantasy. –Fantastic Journey pg. 51

Elisa Rae’s newest release showcases a conflict that shows beautifully how the spiritual arena can change characters for the better, from the lowest verbal spat to running for your life. Whether in a literal arena or that of a court, the stakes are high, and every challenge gifts us the capacity for growth.

“I long to be free.” I blushed. “He says I am a fool, wishing for something I can’t comprehend, but I understand enough. I wish to make my own decisions and not consider what would please my master.” I clasped my hands at my waist and bowed my head briefly. “You probably agree with him.”

“Quite the contrary.” Greyson glowered at the far wall. “Freedom is precious.”

After a moment of stilted silence, he spoke again. “Be at peace. Bartle will see that Silda does nothing to harm you when reporting to her mistress. And if the servant doesn’t attend to the warnings, I will see to it personally.” His ominous tone sounded almost malevolent.

I watched his expression for a few moments, debating what kind of fae he was. There were so many possibilities. He was too large for a sprite and too small for an ettin, not to mention possessing the wrong coloring. It would be rude to ask, and considering clothing completely covered him form the neck down, he seemed to be possibly hiding his true nature.

“Lord Greyson.” A halfling with glasses tucked into the wild thatch of hair at the top of his head bowed to Greyson.

“Lord?” Panic tightened my chest. Had I been overly familiar with a noble of the Unseelie court?

“I have need of your verification of this order for three hundred barrels of Tiren blackberry wine,” the halfling explained, holding up an invoice.

“Pardon me, my lord.” I curtseyed. “I really must return to work.” I hurried off without waiting for a response, my heart thundering in my chest. An Unseelie nobleman–I had been casually conversing with a member of the court. What a fool he must think me.
The Unseelie’s Wallflower

Because freedom truly is a precious thing, fighting for it carries the most risk. And the highest reward. Never stop fighting for it. Above all, for the freedom to do right, to do good. And doing that often calls out evil. Be wise as serpents . . . There is a wise and foolish way to wage war, of course.

The Unseelie’s Wallflower is a great tale, and one you will enjoy if you like stories of fae and humans and clean, adventurous romance. You can check it out here.

If you can’t get that one at the moment, read one of your old tried and true stories where the battle was hard, the conflict stiff, and the reward worth it all. If not immediately, in the end.

Not being overcome by evil, but overcoming evil with good. Now there’s a reality possible in the arena. Think about what helps you overcome in your arenas of conflict. What stories stiffen your spine when you are in the grip of the enemy and everything hangs in the balance?

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

Until next time, all the best!

Azalea

April Stormpoint – The Strength of Choice – In Story and Life

Story impacts us by reflecting choices and results, thus helping us see the difference we can make in the world of the book, and in our own sphere.

Maybe that is another reason we love the adventure of voyaging in the fantasy realm. For the magic and mystery of discovery, where choices matter and we impact everything we touch. –Fantastic Journey pg. 74

How do you think stories reflect choices and consequences and the reality of life?

Well, some things are clear. We cheer when the bad choices of villains bring the consequences of justice to their door. Or, if there are mitigating circumstances that make us weigh justice and mercy, then our brains smoke a little, which is all to the good. Our brains are too flabby, and in need of exercise. Whether the villain gets his just deserts, or another chance with a helping of his deserts, or simply overwhelming mercy, choice always brings results.

The choice to pursue what is good and right brings fruit also, including the riches of goodness itself to ourselves and others. If good choices also brings pain at times because of the reaction of a villain, at least it is not pain brought because we chose badly. For our bad choices harm others, even if on so small a level that they simply care what happens to us.

Sometimes the reflection of story is about the choice of another on our behalf, after they see our choices. Such a story is E.G. Moore’s The Last Dragonfly. Etoiny chooses to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She chooses knowledge instead of the status quo. True knowledge, after weighing good and evil, not simply what she is told. She decides to allow the wide world in, instead of remain in comfortable insularity. Others around her make their choices. One will follow a heart of greed. Another will see the error of thinking Etoiny is a foolish child. One will love her to the end, and the last will discover what they missed. But there is hope for the future, in more opportunities, choices, and change. Though there is a point where choice may not be changed.

We cannot choose our circumstances, but we can, we must, we do always choose our reaction to our circumstances. Is it not almost always so in story, and life? The desire of our heart influences our will, our will determines our choice, and our choice always brings fruit. But thank God, He gives us the gift of mercy, and change. As it says in the movie, The Redemption of Henry Meyers, the greatest gift of God to man is change. I love that. The fact that we can change, we can do right, we can be kind when our hearts are changed. It comes down to choice.

I am thankful for mercy. I am thankful for justice. I am thankful for goodness. Today, how many times must I choose between good and evil? Stories bring us face to face with choice, result, and their impact. A glimpse into another life can rip away our excuses, and show us our own faces. It can also show us what we want to become, who we want to be like. Let’s make heroes and heroines, in both worlds. May choice change us.

One such hero that comes to mind immediately is Jonathan Renshaw’s Dawn of Wonder, The Wakening Bk 1. If you haven’t read the story of Aidan’s brave coming of age, you’re missing out. A curious, vulnerable, indefatigable hero, his tale is humorous, epic, and delves deep into choices. All at a good pace.

But what do you think gives strength to good choice, to bad choice? What chains a result to its choice? How are we bound by choice? How are we liberated by it?

As Alice Ivinya says in Crown of Glass, released yesterday, “I wonder if sometimes it is hard to know what is right and what is wrong until we’re forced to fight for it. And hard to appreciate something until we are forced to wait for it. Maybe sometimes, the darkness has to happen for us to understand the nature of light.”

In other words, often we don’t pay attention to right and wrong, or think deeply about it until forced to fight for the right, against wrong. And darkness shows light for what it is.

What choices do the heroes and heroines you read about make? How do they influence your thinking? And your choices?

Until next time,

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

Spiritual Strength in Story

Strength begins in the spiritual arena. Our Stormpoint for this month is how conflict in fiction spills into battle in the inner arena.

Inner strength draws evil, or pits us against it, as our authors’ books this month attest. C. J. Milacci’s Fugitive of Talionis has a heroine who is top of her class as a kidnapped trainee but who is just at the beginning of her inner journey that will strengthen her or break her. That’s the thing about hard circumstances. They make us more bitter and defeated, or wider of heart, stronger in both spirit and body. For each affects the other, as the inner arena touches, even directly feeds, the outer parts of us.

Paths of fantasy, under water or over wold, take us to interesting places and wondrous spaces, not to mention introducing us to fascinating people where every character is involved in the battle we all fight.
Fantastic Journey – The Soul of Speculative Fiction and Fantasy Adventure Pg. 8

Gaining the skills to survive, the will to conquer, the hope that makes us look up, the courage to fight, all drive us to become strong. And the simple yearning for justice, that evil will not always rule by force and fear, that also strengthens us.

But where are the roots of spiritual strength, and what are the results? The roots of every strength are in truth. The true truth of your circumstances. The truth of what you think. The truth of what you believe. The truth you act on. The truth of what is real, not what you wish were real.

“Call me crazy,” Nika says as we walk around some old rubble, “but I thought you were going to share a little more than that.”

I rub the back of my neck. “Remember Ava?”

“The girl who died in the river?”

I nod.

“Of course I remember her. Not something easily forgotten.”

She goes quiet, and I can tell she’s replaying the scene in her mind same as I am. I can still see Ava slipping from my grasp into the clutches of the river. Her lifeless body washing up on shore hours later.

“What about her?”

“Leddington is her hometown.” I let the words sink in.

“Oh.”

I lick my lips. “I need to tell her family what happened. Tell her sister that with her last words she wanted her to know that she loved her. You get that, right.”

She nods. “Yeah. I’ll back you up.” . . .

“I need to do it, Nika. But how can I face them when I’m the reason she’s dead?”

Nika stops and grabs my arm. “Bria. You’re not the reason Ava’s dead. She drowned because of Commander Ark, because of Colonel Valarius. Not because of you.”

“Maybe.” I shrug. “But I couldn’t save her.” I stare off into the distance.

Nika squeezes my arm that she’s still holding. “But you tried.” . . .

“I just wish I could have done more. Wish I could have held onto her. Kept her alive.”

“It’s not your fault. But I get it.” Nika ducks under a branch. “You’re not the only one with regrets. I have them too.”

I look over at her in time to see a flash of pain sweep over her face.

“But we can’t let those regrets rule our lives. God’s forgiven us both, and He has a path for us to walk in. If we allow ourselves to be hindered by everything we wish we could change or undo we’ll never really be able to walk in the freedom of God’s plan for our lives.”

I let her words sink in, not sure how to respond. Silence stretches between us, but somehow I think we both need it. As we hike the last miles of the forest, I can’t help but wonder what Nika regrets.
Fugitive of Talionis – ARC

Turning from the false and following what is true gives us strength and leads to more strength.

The impact of choice remains to be seen. Candace Kade’s Enhanced demonstrates this.

Don’t miss these good reads, (Enhanced is out, and Fugitive of Talionis goes live on Kickstarter the 22d.) There will be new authors and books and more on choice next month.

Have a great week,

Azalea – Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

A Christmas Poem

A Christmas Clear

By His Father held more than dear, as a babe He gave Himself here

The full hope of the year, that we may live without fear.

With good food and cheer, God’s great heart without peer

To us, drew near, and sat down without a jeer

To abolish our debts in arrear, and at last every tear.

God Himself from eternity, with second person of the Trinity

In the Spirit gave us abundant life in perpetuity, this, no superfluity.

With full design He created me and thee.

In the light of His heart what will we see?

He sent possession of virtue by decree, and works it out in you and me

Virtue’s riches without fee.

Our hearts by grace rejoice to be

Bringing up jewels from life’s tumultuous sea, before our King, Who did foresee

My life I thought so carefree, my death did guarantee.

But with the evil one He did disagree

And from eternity, the tree

He did oversee.

He came to bend every knee, that our hearts might be free.

It is Christmas indeed, we in Him to be.

The star brought clarity

Here lay deity in humanity.

An oddity in brevity, beauty and charity.

Came that verity, reality

With sweet frankincense of humility, joined by highest majesty.

He banished enmity, and robbed vanity

That we might touch infinity.

In heartfelt jollity without banality, what ferocity of vitality.

Gone timidity, now comes tenacity;

In place of iniquity, forgiveness and dignity.

Every soul a city in unity, blessed be He, forever the Trinity.

The master of Creation, in fullness of administration

In innovation for every nation

The Jewish lion of adjuration

Kept not His exalted station, but clothed in incarnation

Took up our litigation, and offered a libation.

Worthy beyond all ovation, our joyful hearts in elation

Kneel in adoration.

Great is His salvation.
By Azalea Dabill, December 9, 2022

Merry Christmas to all!

Azalea

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

G K Chesterton – A Wise Word for Our Times

“We are then able to answer in some manner the question, “Why have we no great men?” We have no great men chiefly because we are always looking for them. We are connoisseurs of greatness, and connoisseurs can never be great; we are fastidious, that is, we are small. . . .

“When Diogenes went about with a lantern looking for an honest man, I am afraid he had very little time to be honest himself. And when anybody goes about on his hands and knees looking for a great man to worship, he is making sure that one man at any rate shall not be great.

“Now , the error of Diogenes is evident. The error of Diogenes lay in the fact that he omitted to notice that every man is both an honest man and a dishonest man. Diogenes looked for his honest man inside every crypt and cavern; but he never thought of looking inside the thief. And there is where the Founder of Christianity found the honest man; He found him on a gibbet and promised him Paradise. Just as Christianity looked for the honest man inside the thief, democracy [a Republic] looked for the wise man inside the fool. It encouraged the fool to be wise. We can call this thing sometimes optimism, sometimes equality; the nearest name for it is encouragement. It had its exaggerations – failure to to understand original sin, notions that education would make all men good, the childlike yet pedantic philosophies of human perfectibility. But the whole was full of a faith in the infinity of human souls . . . and this we have lost amid the limitations of a pessimistic science. . . .

“It was a world that expected everything of everybody. It was a world that encouraged anybody to be anything. And in England and literature its living expression was Dickens.

“He was the voice in England of this humane intoxication and expansion, this encouraging of anybody to be anything. His best books are a carnival of liberty, and there is more of the real spirit of the French Revolution in ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ than in ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’ . . .

“Whether we understand it depends upon whether we can understand that exhilaration is not a physical accident, but a mystical fact; that exhilaration can be infinite, like sorrow; that a joke can be so big that it breaks the roof of the stars. By simply going on being absurd, a thing can become godlike; there is but one step from the ridiculous to the sublime.

“Dickens was great because he was immoderately possessed with all this; if we are to understand him at all we must also be moderately possessed with it. We must understand this old limitless hilarity and human confidence, at least enough to be able to endure it when it is pushed a great deal too far. For Dickens did push it too far; he did push the hilarity to the point of incredible character-drawing; he did push the human confidence to the point of an unconvincing sentimentalism. You can trace, if you will, the revolutionary joy till it reaches the incredible Sapsea epitaph; you can trace the revolutionary hope till it reaches the repentance of Dombey. There is plenty to carp at in this man f you are inclined to carp; you may easily find him vulgar if you cannot see that he is divine; and if you cannot laugh with Dickens, undoubtedly you can laugh at him.

“I believe myself that this braver world of his will certainly return; for I believe that it is bound up with realities, like morning and the spring. . . . I put this appeal before any other observations on Dickens. First let us sympathize, if only for an instant, with the hopes of the Dickens period, with that cheerful trouble of change.”

G K Chesterton, from Charles Dickens: The Last of the Great Men, pg 11 – 12, 17

If you have not read the above book, it is well worth reading. It has astonishing correlations to our present time and stirs thought and courage.

Thank you for visiting, I hope you found it worth your while.

Azalea

Crossover: Find the Eternal, the Adventure

July Books and Charlotte Lesemann’s Gothic Literary Youtube

It’s the middle of July and time for sunshine and clean romance!
With other goodies added in. I hope you’re enjoying the summer! It’s been a scorcher in my area of Idaho, but good for swimming. 🙂

New July 15 giveaway:

Love and Sunshine Clean Romance

And here is the live link to Charlotte Lesemann’s Gothic Literary Society on Youtube.
Sorry about not sending the link last time! This time it’s easier to subscribe to this clean channel.

In case you missed the last book giveaways I sent, you still have a chance at them!
The Fight is on! Sale
A Soul as Cold as Frost $0.99 Sale

My most recent clean fairytale adventure is Kenley Davidson’s Shadow and Thorn. My latest great Sci-fi is Ronie Kendig’s YA space fantasy Brand of Light. Psst. Keep this a secret, I got these from the library. My favorite haunt.

A Wise Word:

Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.*

Have a wonderful rest of the week,

Azalea Dabill
Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

*Proverbs 4:23 (NAS Ryrie Study Bible)

150 – 175 Best Fantasy Books or Your 2017 Guide to Epic Fantasy: Post 1

Fantasy and the 7 Senses

You know the five senses that we all use.

And we explore fantasy adventure with all of them: Sight, scent, taste, hearing, touch. (Inside our minds, of course.) And of course intuition, the 6th sense, is never far from reach in a great fantasy story.

But I think there is one more sense.

Fantasy brings together the six senses into a whole and creates a 7th. The seventh sense is one you can discover often if you dive deep into fantasy realms and keep your eyes open.

The greatest fantasies create at moments a unique experience, a kind of sense not to be found anywhere else in the universe we can see. Except in bits and pieces; a kind of joy-filled truth caught in goodness or day dreams or dreams of the night, where odd things that strangely fit are often found.

This 7th sense grasps gleaming facets of truth that we could not see before. It touches them, tastes them. Not first examined by our reason, but felt deep in the actions and reactions you experience while captured within fantasy characters. Inside the kind, the evil, the young and the old, the weak and strong men and women and creatures of fantasy. It happens without your noticing it, while you are enthralled by the hero or heroine you find in many hearts, sometimes growing from a single weak seed. It makes you revolt against evil, also often growing unseen, battling within.

We are so often blinded by our familiar world it usually takes a moving deed, a circumstance, or a state of being in an unfamiliar setting or against a stark backdrop for us to see truth clearly. Such clearness can be startling.

Such was the case for me. Not long ago, I was moaning that there were not very many good fantasy fiction books from the faith sector of our world. Not that I dislike general fantasy, far from it, I admire their authors’ skill very much. I only wish more of us imitated the high bar of storytelling without deserting high moral quality.

I was shown how wrong I was to moan. Patrick Carr’s Shock of Night, Anna Thayer’s Knight of Eldaran Trilogy, Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga, C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters (a novel delightfully re-read) all kept me up late into the night. Sure, there is definitely room for more faith-based fantasy where adventure is never sacrificed, but I’ve discovered treasures everywhere over the long years—from epic fantasy to dieselpunk and beyond. If your heart is hungry . . .

I want to share my otherworldly discoveries on my lifelong venture into best fantasy novels with you.

Join the quest, and find your next adventure! There will be at least 70 posts in this series, and who knows what we may find?

If you don’t want to miss a single grand adventure, sign up in the side bar, where special treasures are reserved for those who seek them.

We’ll venture into worlds unseen where your heart will beat fast at necessary sacrifice, thrill with the triumph of downtrodden hearts against overwhelming odds, and draw lines of right and wrong in blood. You will laugh in side-splitting humor, cry with loss, fight against evil and rage against its seeming victory. But in the end you will come back to peace, hugging gems to your breast. And for those who can see, there is a light going before you.

Follow it.

Let no wall of ignorance, busyness, or other unworthy reason bar you from your next journey to unearth . . . what, I cannot tell. Prepare to use your seven senses.

Crossover: find the Eternal, the Adventure.

Here’s a minute taste of one journey waiting for us on my best books shelf, seeking its place in future posts like The Romance – Exploring Treachery and Trust.

From Victoria Hanley’s The Seer and the Sword:

Torina looked at the boy, at his heavy curling hair and remote, wild eyes.

“If he is my slave,” she asked, “does that make him my own?”

“All your own.”

“I can do whatever I want with him?”

The king nodded.

The princess shivered. “What is your name, son of a king?” she asked.

“Landen.” The boy’s manner, still that of a prince, contrasted oddly with his dusty rags and bruises.

“Vesputo,” Torina said.

“Princess?”

“Cut his ropes, please.”

The commander looked to his king, who inclined his head. A blade was drawn. Vesputo severed the ropes carelessly, trailing fresh blood. Landen rubbed his wrists as Torina stepped closer to him.

“My father fought your father.” She said it very softly, speaking as if no king or soldiers looked on. For her, they must have been forgotten.

Landen looked at the ground. A pulse in his neck beat, like the heart of a newly hatched bird.

“Landen,” she whispered. “I never had a slave.”

The boy stood quietly.

“And I never will,” she continued, lifting her chin. “Papa,” her voice rose. “You gave him to me. I set him free.” . . .