Hi, lovelies!! It gives me great pleasure today to host E.B. Brooks and his new book, “Emissary,” here on FAB!! For other stops on his Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.
Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $25 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card!! Also, come back daily to interact with E.B. Brooks and to increase your chances of winning!!
Thanks for stopping by!! Wishing you all lots of good luck in this fabulous giveaway!!
Emissary
Emissary Quintet Series
Book One
by E.B. Brooks
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GENRE: Science Fiction
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BOOK BLURB:
Two Worlds. One Future.
Ewan O’Meara is no stranger to death: in recent months, he’s found his way to limbo at least once per week, much to his parents’ concern. It’s a necessary price for getting experience to become the greatest adventurer his homeland of Veridor has ever known, but the overbearing Veridian Church has him pinned down, soaking him for the penance gold to unlock his stats each time he respawns. And because the Church’s ancient war put an end to both the godlike Gems and the epic quests they once bestowed, Ewan has no better alternative.
That is, until he encounters a young woman fleeing arrest from the Church’s soldiers. At first glance, Treanna Rothchild needs it: she’s clueless about Veridian life. But she has other skills that defy Ewan’s understanding, and she knows things. Unsettling, seditious things the Church wants kept secret at any cost.
And she’s in Veridor to raise an army, to fight an enemy only she can see.
Risking both life and soul, Ewan follows Treanna where no Veridian has ever been and there is no respawning. But for him to have a chance at making a real difference in the strange, harsh world she reveals to him, he must first come to terms with it. Especially as he and Treanna discover how much it has in common with Veridor—and how much they depend on each other to survive.
New-adult science fiction, wrapped in gaming and fantasy around a hopepunk core, Emissary is an immersive, thought-provoking adventure with a little teen romance and a lot of heart.
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EXCERPT THREE:
Tree broke contact, then looked at the others. “I’m taking command. Samuel, move Nathan to cover by the lift. Put his feet up, and keep pressure on that wound. We’ll throw down a kit once we can.”
Sam hesitated but nodded, then knelt to scoop Nathan up.
“Love,” Tree said, locking hard, frightened eyes on Ewan. “You’re with me. Loot the corpses. We’ll disguise ourselves, then retake the camel and retreat.”
“What about Gabe and Vincent?”
“They’ll escape with us, if they’re quick enough.”
Ewan swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
She darted off to one of the bodies, and he stepped over to the robed figure he’d impaled, thinking a bloody gash in his outfit might be less of a giveaway than a giant frapping hole. But when he pulled the robes free, he knew with a sickened jolt that blood was the least of the differences in appearance.
The man’s copper-skinned face was scarred all over in what was obviously a deliberate, artistic pattern, as though he’d mistaken a knife for a pen. His nose and ears were pierced through with bits of metal, with hair and beard braided and bound in wire that could have come from the ruin’s walls. His muscles were lean and hard, far better fed than should have been possible for someone from the Wastes. Even in death he had a feral air about him, a lingering lethal intent that had Ewan half expecting him to leap out of the sands again.
His hand still clutched a gun, hardly bigger than a tablet. Ewan reached for it, hesitated, and left it to retrieve his thrown sword.
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GUEST POST:
Structure and Rings
Of all the elements of writing, my favorite might just be narrative structure. I’m a structure dork: there, I said it. Structure is the channel through which plot flows and characters grow, and it can keep the reader riding along, blending excitement at what comes next with enough familiarity to anticipate events.
There are numerous structures to play with, and each has their own merits. But for Emissary, I found myself drawn to “ring”, or chiastic, structure. This structure has been used for thousands of years, especially for epic tales: the story of Noah, of Odysseus and Beowulf, or more recently, even the first six Star Wars movies. Rings are defined by a reflective symmetry: If the story opens with element A, it ends with element A (or A’, I prefer); a ring for four elements might read as ABCDD’C’B’A’, where progression makes the ring more of an upward (or downward) spiral.
In Emissary, for example, I might say (with spoilers!) that…
A:
Ewan, seeking glory and adventure, dies fighting a mob, which leads to
B:
Ewan going to Whitehaven and encountering Treanna, becoming an outlaw, after
which
C:
They have adventures in Veridor ensue as he teaches her how to live in Veridor.
Once she has a grasp on it,
D:
they undertake an epic quest to overcome a divine opposition threatening Ewan’s
world. But
E:
Tree shows unnatural abilities and violently pressures the Veridian Church’s
soldiers to enlist with her cause.
F:
This forces Ewan to shield her from his own people, until
G: She
reveals to him the true relationship between her world and his.
H:
They vie with the Diamond Lord and barely escape Veridor, which marks the
midpoint of the book (and the transition to Part 2, which heralds a massive
tonal shift as well to go with the setting). But now,
H’:
Ewan pushes himself to the limit to enter Tree’s world, building up enough
strength
G’: To
see the bleak reality of it for himself.
F’: Tree
pushes Ewan to grow and become able-bodied, keeping him from the staff until
E’:
A violent encounter with a Central in which Ewan uses skills unheard of in the
real world demonstrates that Ewan is ready to contend with more.
D’:
He and Treanna train more Centrals and move into the Wastes to overcome the
mysterious opposition threatening Tree’s world, but after this goes horribly
wrong,
C’:
Ewan has to learn to live in the real world for his own reasons. Once he does,
B’:
After returning to Veridor and defying the Church and the Diamond Lord,
A’: Ewan duels with the Diamond Lord and wins, earning glory, although now he understands that the bigger fight is waiting in the real world.
There are 30 chapters in Emissary, plus a prologue and an epilogue. The chapters divide evenly by the parts, and there are resonant midpoints between parts. For example, Chapter 8, midway through Part 1, is where Ewan pushes himself to the extreme to survive the harshest environment in Veridor; Chapter 23, midway through Part 2, has Ewan accompanying a scouting party into the Wastes on the surface of the real world. Chapters 4 and 5, midway between the beginning and Chapter 8, have Ewan getting Tree settled into Veridor and teaching her how it works. Chapters 26 and 27, midway between Chapter 23 and the end, have Tree putting Ewan to the test on whether to stay in the real world, and the way he decides to interact with it on his own terms. So, looking at the meta, the book’s midpoint involves a transition between worlds, while the mid-midpoints involve braving the worlds’ toughest environments, and the mid-mid-midpoints (!) involve learning how to live in each world. On top of that, there are two other mid-mid-midpoints at Chapters 11/12 and 19/20, each of which play off the living-in-the-worlds theme in more social ways. Fun, geeky stuff! (By the way, in the first edition, the prologue and epilogue mirrored one another. The old prologue is still in the book, as bonus content in the back.)
This kind of structure was a blast to write, and it made it very straightforward to feel out where narrative beats needed to happen to keep the story as a whole in that epic style.
Another trait common to rings is the use of a repeated phrase, to indicate another lap or key progression in the structure. In the Emissary Quintet, I chose “Darkness, utter and complete” to be that key phrase, because Ewan has a special affinity for the dark, and the blackness of limbo is his native place to reset and start again. The phrase comes up twice in the book, but it’s present in the sequels, too.
Did I enjoy binding Emissary into a ring? Absolutely! Does the entire series have a ring structure? For that, you’ll have to read the whole series and decide for yourself.
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AUTHOR BIO:
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E.B. Brooks lives in the southeastern USA, where he splits his time between writing, research, and homesteading. He enjoys building fictional worlds, real houses, and landscape models, but he’s most at home with his wife and children, and their many, many pets.
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CONNECT WITH E.B. BROOKS:
Website:
X:
https://twitter.com/EBBrooksFiction
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG2vFKJoCSoJaP6qCECwPIA
The StoryGraph:
https://app.thestorygraph.com/authors/d82b9abb-6a6a-48a7-8563-a84689316df7
BookBub Author Page:
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/e-b-brooks-df6155fb-c7c4-4568-b612-ac5ae2eeb86b
BookBub Book Page:
https://www.bookbub.com/books/emissary-emissary-quintet-book-1-by-e-b-brooks
Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19919752.E_B_Brooks
Goodreads Book Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53855041-emissary
Amazon Author Page:
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AMAZON BOOK BUY LINKS:
Amazon US Kindle
eBook:
Amazon US Paperback:
Amazon US Hardcover:
Amazon CA Kindle
eBook:
https://www.amazon.ca/Emissary-Quintet-Book-1-ebook/dp/B087BC388D
Amazon CA Paperback:
https://www.amazon.ca/Emissary-Quintet-B-Brooks/dp/173473986X
Amazon CA Hardcover:
https://www.amazon.ca/Emissary-B-Brooks/dp/1734739878
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
E.B. Brooks will be awarding a $25 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card (Winner’s Choice!!!) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just helps pay for all those fabulous community outreach projects and awesome giveaways on here**
This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions. Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
Thank you so much for hosting today.
ReplyDeleteYes, thank you for hosting! I hope you enjoyed the thoughts on ring structure.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the post.
ReplyDeleteThanks! It's fun to play with structures and see how they impact the story's telling.
DeleteLooks like a good read.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Delete