A Quest Meant for Gods!

Hey Everyone!


Check it out! My Friend Sandy Lender Speaks at ConQuesT39 next weekend

ConQuesT39 "Fanimal House" announces its Memorial Day Weekend lineup and encourages fans of sci-fi/fantasy to enroll now. The faculty list (that would be the panel participants) includes my friend and fantasy author Sandy Lender.

She'll read from her first novel Choices Meant for Gods Sunday at 11:30 and will have an autograph session Saturday at 4:30. The panels she participates in include "Blog 101: Oops, I Blogged Again" and "Out 101: Out of the Space Closet, Homosexuality in SF/F/H."

If you've ever been to a ConQuesT convention before, you know there's loads of fun fan activities from art viewing to seminars on your favorite sci-fi shows to opps to meet the guests to a masquerade (on Saturday night) to improv story-telling to sessions on creative writing. The special media guests this year are Jeff East from Young Clark Kent and Ellen Muth from Dead Like Me. Check out the ConQuest site at

http://www.kcsciencefiction.org/conquest/contactus.html

or visit Sandy Lender's blog at

http://www.todaythedragonwins.blogspot.com/

to get more information. But do it fast! Memorial Day weekend is right around the corner.

And if you haven't read Choices Meant for Gods, what are you waiting for? Seriously, Choices Meant for Gods is one heck of a fantastic book.

Here's a review I wrote for the book (that was quoted on the hardcover edition! And on the publishers web site!)



What would you do to save something you loved? What would you do if you were threatened? Would you cower? Or would you fight with everything you had, every ounce of strength and magic you possessed? Some of us aren’t even given that choice.

When Jamieson Drake, evil sorcerer, attacks the settlement of Treown, Amanda Chariss is left with no choice. To escape Drake and his army, she teleports herself and her mentor, the wizened old wizard Hrazon to the Taiman family home. There, they may find help and Chariss may find a cure for the magic that has infected her blood.

Chariss has the geasa, magic older than time, and she must use it if she and the people of Onweald are to stay alive. For Drake hunts her, wants her dead on his blade. Why is anyone’s guess, but Chariss is has an inkling. For years, Drake has hunted her with the sole purpose of killing her. Chariss suspects that Drake is hungry for her power. But, in reality, Drake is in love with her.

He has enlisted the help of a Dragon who now walks in the human form of Julette. Older than time itself, she uses Drake like a pawn. She has her own plans, her own agenda and knows that she must help Drake to get what she wants. Of course, the fact that she is a Goddess doesn’t hurt either.

Chariss must depend on all the help she can and her unsteady magic if they are to survive this first battle. She must be careful though, for she must make choices meant for Gods and one wrong move, one mistake, could lead all of them to death…

As a general rule, I don’t read high fantasy. The whole genre bores me; it’s grown stagnant with nothing new added to it. Each author that tries to write an engaging high fantasy tale fails to write anything new, anything fresh.

Thankfully, Sandy Lender has changed all that. She has changed the very face of high fantasy itself.

Choices Meant for Gods is without a doubt the freshest most engaging high fantasy novel to come out in years and breathes new life into a tired genre. The characters leap off the page and the plot is lightning quick and deftly written with many layers that tease the mind and imagination.

What I love most about Choices Meant for Gods are the characters and how they interact with each other. Sandy Lender has thrown a new spin on what is good and what is bad and her characters are flawed and imperfect. They are people you grow to care for and, indeed, I didn’t want the novel to end; I couldn’t stand knowing that it would be some time before I saw them again.

Lender has reworked the standard quest into something meaningful and engaging. She has mixed magic with romance, battles, sorcerers, danger, and suspense; there is everything here that makes up a good store. My meager review doesn’t even do justice to the plot. The pages flew by as I became ensnared under Lenders spell as she weaved her story. She writes with such assurance, such poise, that it is hard to believe that Choices Meant for Gods is her first novel.

Choices Meant for Gods is not a mere novel; it is a gorgeous piece of written art. I can hardly wait for the second book! If you read only one good novel this year, no, this decade, read Choices Meant for Gods. I’m going to be reading it for a second time. But read it yourself, won’t you?

You can get your own copy of Choices Meant for Gods by clicking HERE! But you don’t have to wait for your copy to arrive to start reading.

CLICK HERE to read a 58 page sample of one of the best high fantasy novels of all time!



Happy reading!
Jamieson