I thought the inaugural Lions’ Den should start off with a literal literary bang, so I asked my fellow co-founder of the Hispanic-Latino Science Fiction Writers Alliance and Gun Club, Larry Correia, if he would do the honors. Being both fearless and heavily armed, he did not hesitate to kick the door down and stride right in with HARD MAGIC, the first book in the Grimnoir Chronicles.
categorize. It is an alternative history, epic fantasy, noir-pulp sci-fi, diesel
punk saga about 1930s Great Depression superheroes battling the magical samurai
of Imperial Japan. Yeah, good luck pitching that genre to an editor. However,
they are also a lot of fun, and the series turned out really well. It starts
out with Hard Magic, then Spellbound is the sequel, and the final book of the
trilogy, Warbound, is coming out this week.
epic fantasy story, lots of magic, big interconnected plots, lots and lots of
characters, but it kind of mutated, mostly because I was talking with author
Mike Kupari at the time about how cool the styles of the 30s were and how everybody
loves Zeppelins. So I wound up setting this epic fantasy story in an
alternative history version of the 1930s.
absolutely fascinating, and it was a period that I’d already studied a lot so I
could add some cultural authenticity. This was also when men wore hats, and
that’s just cool. I’m a big fan of hard boiled crime novels, Chandler and
Hammett especially, so this was my chance to take on those kind of characters. I
love the vibe, I love the style, and as a gun nut there was so much classy
hardware to choose from.
people began to develop magical powers for an unknown reason. As time goes on,
the numbers with magic grow, until by the 30s it is about one in a hundred
people with some measure of power, and one in a thousand capable of truly
impressive feats. The reason it gets a superhero vibe is because each person’s
magic can screw with one part of the laws of physics (and as a writer known for
his action scenes, this meant I could do some crazy stuff). By the time Hard
Magic begins the world has been changed in a lot of drastic ways by the introduction
of magic, which as a history geek, enabled me to have a lot of fun.
who is a war hero, ex-con, forced into working for J. Edgar Hoover to catch
magical fugitives. He can control the direction and strength of gravity. And Faye
Vierra, a teenage dustbowl Okie refugee, who is a teensy bit crazy, can
teleport, and is potentially the most dangerous person in the world. Hard Magic
is about them getting involved with a secret society known as the Grimnoir and
their battle to keep a Tesla super weapon from falling into the hands of the
deadly Imperium.
“I like to say that this is the only book I’m aware of that
features a teleporting magic ninja fight on top of a flaming pirate dirigible.
And somehow, despite my unabashed love of pulp awesomeness, Hard Magic has been
nominated for and won some awards and been really well received. I’ve got back
to back Audie wins for the audiobooks of the first two, and Hard Magic was a
finalist for best novel in France! That
was certainly unexpected.”
– Larry Correia
The three reviewers have volunteered and been assigned. I will post their reviews here in two weeks.