Praise for DARK IMMOLATION

I was scaling through my blog archive, and realized I forgot to post (and finish, for that matter) this! While I stopped keeping track of reviews a while ago (hence, I figure, my forgetting about this), I'll post this anyway, because some good people have said some good things about Dark Immolation, and I think that's pretty cool. :-D

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"This is a series full of strong ideas, intriguing questions about morality, and solid writing--books I think will appeal to anyone who enjoys my epic fantasy." - Brandon Sanderson, author of the Mistborn series and the Stormlight Archive

"The second book...can make or break a series. In this case, Dark Immolation very clearly makes the series...Husberg keeps everything moving at a solid pace." - MySF Reviews

"Husberg flawlessly glides from the POV of one character to another. Knot and Astrid are as brilliant as ever....This is a series that I'm so glad I picked up." - Strupag

"Dark Immolation is one hell of a sequel, one of the most interesting I've read in a while." - Luke Tarzian Writes

"Dark fantasy of the highest order, telling an expansive story across a truly epic canvass." - Barnes & Noble

"Better than the first book (love when that happens) and I look forward to the next." - Books for Life

"An all-enveloping read that demonstrates why epic fantasy was created." - The Book Bag

"The characters are, in my opinion, the best thing about Dark Immolation (and Duskfall, the first book). It's great to see the relationships developing between the various characters, and although there are a lot of them, you never feel overwhelmed by the different points of view. There's some pretty great world-building in these books, with strong writing, well-developed characters, and a truly fascinating setting. I can't wait to read Blood Requiem, the third installment." - The Bookish Outsider

"5 out of 5." - Abi's Book Reviews

"If the fantastically written characters and intriguing plot wasn't enough to have you desperate to read this series, there's also plenty of countries looking for a fight, some not so friendly demons running loose, and more than a bit of magic flying around. The Chaos Queen series is magnificent." - The Bibliophile Chronicles

"Shit goes down in this book. Amazing shit. Crazy shit. Baffling shit. Jaw-dropping shit. Just a ton of epic and awesome shit. And I have a distinct feeling that Husberg is just getting started." - Erlebnisse

Whitney Awards

Hey folks!

Did you read Dark Immolation this year?

Did you think it was awesome?

If so, please consider nominating it for the Whitney Awards!

Here's a link to the nomination page.

🙏 🙌

Character Description

So I'm currently reading Misery by Stephen King, and though I'm only about 25% through it, I'm enjoying it immensely. It's suspenseful, but it's also fascinating from a stylistic perspective. I'll have to reserve my full judgment until I finish it of course, but right now it's shaping up to be one of my all-time favorite Stephen King novels--and that's saying a lot. (I'm also looking forward to watching the film once I finish the book, which I've also never seen.)

My copy totally has this retro cover btw.

When King's on, he's really on, folks. This guy is a professional that knows what he's doing. Check out one of my favorite sequences so far, the character description of the infamous Annie Wilkes:

That prescient part of his mind saw her before he knew he was seeing her, and must surely have understood her before he knew he was understanding her--why else did he associate such dour, ominous images with her? Whenever she came into the room he thought of the graven images worshipped by superstitious African tribes in the novels of H. Rider Haggard, and stones, and doom.

The image of Annie Wilkes as an African idol out of She or King or Solomon's Mines was both ludicrous and queerly apt. She was a big woman who, other than the large but unwelcoming swell of her bosom under the gray cardigan sweater she always wore, seemed to have no feminine curves at all--there was no defined roundness of hip or buttock or even calf below the endless succession of wool skirts she wore in the house (she retired to her unseen bedroom to put on jeans before doing her outside chores). Her body was big but not generous. There was a feeling about her of clots and roadblocks rather than welcoming orifices or even open spaces, areas of hiatus.

Most of all she gave him a disturbing sense of solidarity, as if she might not have any blood vessels or even internal organs; as if she might be only solid Annie Wilkes from side to side and top to bottom. He felt more and more convinced that her eyes, which appeared to move, were actually just painted on, and they moved no more than the eyes of portraits which appear to follow you to wherever you move in the room where they hang. It seemed to him that if he made the first two fingers of his hand into a V and attempted to poke them up her nostrils, they might go less than an eighth of an inch before encountering a solid (if slightly yielding) obstruction; that even her gray cardigan and frumpy house skirts and faded outside-work jeans were part of that solid fibrous unchannelled body. So his feelings that she was like an idol in a perfervid novel was not really surprising at all. Like an idol, she gave only one thing: a feeling of unease deepening steadily toward terror. Like an idol, she took everything else. 

Wow. That's a character description if I've ever seen one. I particularly love the third paragraph and the description of her "solidarity"--so vivid, so interestingly written.

I'll admit, the habit of extended character descriptions like the one above are sort of out of style these days--many authors, including myself most of the time, favor minimalist descriptions. I personally like leaving as much of my character to the reader as possible, although there are certainly moments when I want more concrete physicality for one reason or another and I spend a bit more time with description. That said, I think part of why they're out of style is people attempted something like what King did above, but failed at it, making it long, boring, repetitive, and useless. I have to say, if more descriptions like this one popped up, I'd be pretty happy about it.

Anyway. Character description. Stephen King. Misery. Good stuff.

 

Here's a great track

So I recently came across the trailer for the first Dead Island video game. It's...wow. It's beautiful. Incredibly well-done. I've never played the franchise, but I remember not picking it up precisely because reviews were not great and it didn't turn out being a type of play style I particularly enjoy. But say what you will about the game...this trailer is objectively good, and in large part because of the soundtrack: a track called "Dead Island Trailer Theme" (what it lacks for in titular creativity it makes up for in quiet, emotional, escalating loops) by a composer named Giles Lamb. I've looked up some of his other stuff, and it's pretty good, but I have to say I love this track and I really enjoy this trailer. It's become a staple in my writing soundtrack. So I'm sharing it with you today. Enjoy!

Signed Books and other Goodies in SLC/Utah Valley!

This one's for the Utah folks out there!

Every single Barnes & Noble in the area has signed copies of DUSKFALL and DARK IMMOLATION, along with some neat BLOOD REQUIEM postcards and other goodies embedded within. Hate coming up with Christmas gift ideas? You're welcome. Or just get them for yourself. Or don't get them at all? Just sayin' they're out there!

Here's list of all the B&Ns that have the signed goods:

Orem University Parkway
Sandy
West Jordan
Midvale (Ft. Union)
Murray
Sugarhouse
Gateway
Gateway Crossing (Bountiful)
Layton