NANP: Naming The Knights

Today’s guest on the blog for Names: A New Perspective is Freya Robertson, another new author with Angry Robot. She has published several romance novels previously and her Elemental Wars series marks her big fantasy debut. The first novel in the series, Heartwood, came out last year in November and the sequel Sunstone is due soon as well. I’m really excited for this series since it plays up some tropes of the genre that I like, such as the mystical order of knights and the quest feel of the narrative. I’ll hopefully be checking it out quite soon and the sequel as well. In the meantime, here’s what Freya has to say on the topic of names.

NANP: The Sense of A Name

Stopping by on the blog today for Names: A New Perspective is blogger and (2013 debut) author Ros Jackson with her novella The Secret Eater. Ros is the friend who made me aware of my biases in reading/reviewing, where I paid attention to and promoted male authors far, far more than I did female authors. More than any other person since I’ve started reviewing, she has had the most impact on me because of that one simple fact, and to see her make strides as an author in her own right is something I welcome with open arms. I haven’t had a chance to read The Secret Eater as yet, but its definitely on the radar for the near future, so hopefully I’ll have it read soon. In the meantime, here’s what Ros has to say on the subject of names.

“Names: A New Perspective” 4th Edition

A little over a year ago, I started a guest post series on the blog where I invited two authors every week to talk about names in fiction. I gave them a fairly open brief for it, to talk about what kind of naming conventions they used, what the names of their characters, etc meant, whether they went for certain resonance or what have you. The result was dramatic and outstanding. Every single guest post proved to be well-worth the read, to say the least, and I received tons of feedback from all of you, saying that you liked it.

In August, I posted the last guest post and then took a long break since I had kind of run out of authors to contact at the moment and just wanted to take some time off in general to let the whole idea gestate for a new version down the line. The result of that is this new edition of the series. I’ve spent more than three weeks getting all of this together, and despite some delays at my end, the authors have all been rather understanding, which has been great.

Enjoy the schedule!

NANP: I Love Names

Another Thursday, another Names: A New Perspective guest post! This time, it is Bradley P. Beaulieu, author of the Lays of Anuskaya series, which is published by Nightshade Books. He also runs the Speculate SF site, which is one of the best genre scenes on the internet, and is also an excellent resource for authors. I haven’t had a chance to read his books as yet, but I’m quite looking forward to them, and they are high on Mountain Tobereadpile. That’s in no small part due to the absolutely gorgeous covers for his novels. Here’s what he had to say on the subject of names and their significance.

NANP: The Naming Scheme

Welcome back to Names: A New Perspective after a long break! I was quite busy last month with my NaNoWriMo project, which is still ongoing for me, so I had little time to organise guest posts and stuff. Fear not though, I’m kicking off the “second wave” of the series today, starting off with Lee Collins, who wrote The Dead of Winter, one of the most fun books I’ve read this year, and a western urban fantasy with vampires to boot (my review). Seriously speaking, Lee Collins is in contention in my book for best debut of the year, since The Dead of Winter was such a damn good read. Angry Robot has done a great job this year with their debut authors. On the subject of names and their significance in narratives and settings, Lee had this to say: