K. Vale Nagle

Over the last year, I’ve had a lot of people reach out and ask for two things: a poster of the map and physical stickers of the Telegram stickers. Well, I have good news for both of those emailers: wish granted! I’ve held off for so long because I haven’t had the time and energy to handle orders myself, but thanks to RedBubble, I don’t need to. They can take care of everything for me. I may still do my own stickers for conventions, but for now, you don’t need to wait.

You can find it here: kvalenagle.redbubble.com!

Included in the stickers are Kittrel’s chapter heading designs, Kittrel’s chibi hearts, and Shepherd’s Zeph, Younce, Ninox, and Sand Gryphon stickers. It’s not just stickers, though. Shephard created three brand new masks for the store: Hatzel (saberbeak), Younce (taiga gryphon), and Pink Sparkle Younce!

The masks come in several sizes and two versions. The fitted masks have an adjustable nose bar to make them easier to wear with glasses, along with a slider on the straps.

In addition, there’s a poster for the map and covers. Yay!

If there’s anything else you’d like to see, feel free to reach out with the contact form or on social media and let me know. Mostly, I wanted everyone who requested physical stickers to know I hear them loud and clear, and the masks were a fun bonus. But if you enjoy the RedBubble masks and want to weigh in on another design, go for it. Would a Soft Paws or Tresh/Sharkbeak design make you happy? Let me know!

Also, while it’s a bit late for this, you can quickly combine a pair of Costume Shop cat ears with the mask to get a makeshift Halloween costume. Yay!

The Ruins of Crestfall, book five of the Gryphon Insurrection, is now available everywhere! Pick it up at your favorite bookstore or request it from your local library. 2020 has been a hard year, so it’s time for some happy sand gryphons. Back cover copy below, so if you haven’t read the other books and want to avoid spoilers, stop reading here.

Something haunts the desert, something that was once an opinicus.

Cherine—scholar, adventurer, metal-beak, and popular kidnapping victim. While his old mate and friends fight for his amnesty, he lives out his exile in the aneda forest. When Zeph and Kia approach him about hunting down the infamous Nighthaunt, he’s all too happy to leave his hovel behind.

Little do they know that the key to finding the most dangerous criminal the world has ever known lies in the abandoned eyrie of Crestfall. Long silent, something lurks in the shadows of the city, and its homes may not be as abandoned as once believed.

Will Cherine and his friends unravel the mystery of the desert eyrie in time, or will they become the hunted?

The Ruins of Crestfall is a full-length creature fantasy novel full of fan-favorite characters, desert monsters, fancy opinicus armor, and charming sand gryphons.

But wait, there’s more! The best part of every book launch is the Telegram stickers. You can pick up Hoppy and Sponge’s Sand Gryphon Attack Pack (by the wonderful @StupidShepherd) for free here: https://t.me/addstickers/Crestfall

As I promised when the boxed set went up, I know some readers prefer having the Jeff Brown covers in their digital libraries so Eyrie and Ashen Weald are both on sale for the rest of the month. Eyrie‘s free most places and 99 cents others (depending on the store/country), and Ashen Weald is mostly 99 cents. So if you want to pick up the first three gryphon books for the price of the boxed set, give it a go!

On the writing life side of things, I’m happily working on Crackling Sea. I started IVIG infusions to treat my autoimmune disorder, so life is a little chaotic now and should get easier as the infusions start to work in 3-6 months. I’m still hoping Crackling Sea will release in 2020, but my editing deadlines are tentative while we see how these treatments go.

Of course, that’s book 6 and you’re all waiting for book 5! It releases August 31st, and it’s… well, it’s a lot of fun! I won’t spoil anything, but if Reevesbane made you sad once or twice, The Ruins of Crestfall is here to make you feel happy =] With the infusions and global pandemic and everything else, I thought you might appreciate some warm, fuzzy feelings.

And now, guess who was busy getting stabbed with six long needles for six hours and infused with antibodies and forgot to turn in all the Kindle X-ray information for Crestfall? Yep, it’s me! Let’s see, what was Ninox up to in the last book and what do we need to stay about her in this one….

Oh! Oh! I nearly forgot. With Reevesbane‘s release, the Gryphon Insurrection series is in almost every major store. If you’re enjoying the series and want to help other readers find it, please feel free to leave a review. It’s tough to get traction sometimes, and reviews really help people get a feel for if a book has enough gryphons or not =]

Okay, back to filling out the Kindle X-ray. “Younce is a gyrfalcon and snow leopard gryphon. He is secretly afraid of fish…”

Yay! If you’re looking to catch up on the gryphon series before Crestfall releases next month—or if you’re hoping to nudge a friend to catch up—there’s now a Gryphon Insurrection Boxed Set One with ebook editions of Eyrie, Ashen Weald, and Starling in it.

Would you like to see a boxed set for the paperbacks or hardcovers, too? Which of the first three books is your favorite? Feel free to let me know on Facebook or Twitter =]

I got a chance to sit down (figuratively) with another of the authors in the SFWA Fantastic Beasts story bundle and ask him some questions. This isn’t just any writer, however—in addition to being the author of nautical fantasy, Dustin is the developmental editor on my Gryphon Insurrection series. If you enjoy the books, he definitely deserves some of the credit. Though if you think too many fisherfolk died at the start of Ashen Weald or too few at the end, you can lay blame at his feet for those. He’s been a guiding light for the series, and I appreciate all of the work he’s done helping me.

And… I love the nautical fantasy he writes. I grew up in Florida, and he did a great job of recapturing the feeling of the islands and marine life. I wasn’t surprised to see that the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America had picked Whalemoon as one of the picks for the Fantastic Beasts bundle. It’s a great match, and it was good to see a familiar face among the authors this year.

VALE NAGLE:
Hello, Dustin!

I’ve noticed how excited other interviewers (like Richard Parry in your interview from last week) have been to talk to you, and while I think you’re a very smart person and that sense of awe is earned, I also come from the place where, when we’re both not busy working on books, we often ramble to each other about the author business, editing, and books we love. Sure, you’re also an impressive writer, editor, and artist. I guess I wanted to say that, unlike your past interviewers, I’m not intimidated by you. =]

Having set that as the precedent, I just wanted to add that I love Whalemoon. I was in the middle of a 100 book reading challenge when I received my advanced reader copy, and I just happened to start reading it a little that evening when I didn’t have my usual e-reader on me. The moment I hit the shark selkie, I was in. (I refuse to say “hooked” when we’re talking nautical fantasy.) I knew I was going to drop everything to finish reading Whalemoon that night.

So my first question is this: how did you come up with the character of Mako? Listening to the audiobook, I suspect the narrator loves her as much as I do.

DUSTIN PORTA:
Oh, the narrator took that character in a completely different direction than expected.  We had a long conversation about how neither of us knew how to voice her. 

I just gave up and told Lynsey to go wild with it and see what she came up with. The result was instead of sounding like a crusty old sailor, she sounded like a know-it-all teacher’s pet. It added an entirely new dimension to her personality. Which informed some of the decisions I made while writing book two.

You just had to ask the selkie question. I’ve been dodging this question since you first mentioned it but I guess now I have to tell you. I had no idea what a selkie was until you told me that I had written one.

Ironically, Mako was inspired not by Scottish, but by Irish folklore. The story goes that Ireland was first settled by one man and 50 women. And the man I guess wasn’t up to the task so he jumped into a river, turned into a salmon and swam away. No explanation. This happens all the time in Irish folklore. While Mako’s transition is a little more detailed, the goal was the same. I wanted it to be something that people in the book just take for granted without needing to know how it’s possible. 

At the same time I was re-watching my old DVD of Jacques Cousteau’s river adventures. It was the episode where he journeyed up the Amazon and interviewed villagers about local folklore. The most interesting to me was the pink dolphins of the Amazon who turn into beautiful humans and cause all sorts of terrible mischief.

We weren’t given an explanation for why it happens, that’s just something that dolphins do. So that’s how it happened in my book. Flopping onto land and shaking off their shark skin to become human is just something that sharks do.

It’s probably a good thing that I didn’t know about selkies or I might have written her as a seal instead of a shark. 

All right, I guess I should turn the question back on you. You have taken an even stricter no magic approach to your books than I did. Everything has a biological explanation. And it is treated in such a way that it all feels very magical. Is there an early draft of your first book that includes real magic, or did you know that you wanted to write a magic free story from the beginning? Why do weird animal adaptations feel so magical and awe inspiring?

Also, what is a serpentine whale, and is it really possible for a gryphon to train one?

VALE:
That’s really interesting about the pink river dolphins. It seems like selkies are almost a kind of universal myth that exist in different forms in different cultures. I’d go so far as to say that selkies are much less interesting when they’re dolphins or seals. Those don’t capture my imagination the way Mako did. The eyes, the teeth—she’s a brilliant image even before you get to know her.

The lack of magic in Eyrie really sprang out of the origins of the gryphons themselves. There are many ways to write gryphons. Magic constructs, magical creations, genetic engineering gone awry—take your pick. I wanted to try something different and find an ecosystem that could support them. Once I’d made that decision, having mages or scientists didn’t make sense. And to help support the idea of an ecosystem with gryphons as the apex predators, I limited the land-based mammals to a few invasive rodents and made certain every other animal in the series was real, even if it was extinct in our world. The serpentine whale is based upon a real, serpent-shaped whale: the basilosaurus.

Genre is a funny thing. The same way a science fiction novel can throw science out the window and revert to knights fighting space wizards and laser dragons, fantasy can sometimes look very different from what Grandpa Tolkien read as a boy. You can strip away the magic, the humans, the swords, and still create something that’s undeniably fantasy. And I love that.

Of course, fantasy thrives on sense of wonder, but nature handles that nicely. There’s nothing I love more than learning about new cats and birds to base gryphons off of. I had no idea there were so many water-loving cats to pair with cranes and diving petrels, but coastal gryphons are a joy to write. Then there’s gryphons based entirely on extinct species like the Haast’s eagle and saber-toothed tigers. And that’s before we even start looking at green beard altruism, oilbirds, microraptors, sandgrouse, or pumpkins for inspiration.

So the answer to why nature feels magical is that, well, it is. Maybe not in the hocus-pocus, “I cast fireball” sense of the term, but I’m always impressed by the world we live in. We say dragons aren’t real, but is a wyvern really that different from Hatzegopteryx, a pterosaur that weighed 850lbs, could fly, and preyed upon dinosaurs? Or we talk about magical shapeshifting spells, then read about parasitic plants that use horizontal gene transfer to borrow the DNA from their prey. Doppelgangers, demons, and changelings are the stuff of legend, but several types of spiders kidnap ant children, steal their scent, then hide in ant hives, preying upon any ants who find themselves alone away from the hive.

Pulling myself back from listing off more strange animal facts, something I really appreciated from Whalemoon was the focus on storytelling. I suppose all authors are storytellers at their core, but you really seem to love not just the story on a novel level, but the stories that the characters inside the novel tell themselves and others. A high school student could fill an essay with peeling back the stories in sea shanties, the stories of past whalepike owners, those told in jewelry, those told by the sharkling, and those told by her enemies.

In a way, Whalemoon is a story about storytellers. Where does your love of storytellers come from? Why the emphasis on the stories we tell each other?

DUSTIN:
I don’t know. Maybe because I have a short attention span and I like big stories stitched together from little stories (Moby Dick, Dracula, Canterbury Tales). But also, stories are how we learn. I can read an entire novel without bothering to learn the main character’s name. But I will remember an interesting moth on the third page of the second chapter, because it taught me the the character is observant. And because I’m interested in bug and where to find them.

As a poet, I learned that rhymes were created to help storytellers remember long epics. If an ancient bard couldn’t remember the next line of a story, she could at least guess what the next rhyme would be and go from there. I don’t know if you noticed, but there is no writing in Whalemoon. It doesn’t exist. Even on maps and drawings, nobody has invented language. This is particularly important when the legends surrounding a magic sword are the only thing that gives it power. So, where you have stripped magic out of your fantasy and replaced it with biology, I stripped it out and replaced it with stories and superstition. 

There is a small glitch in the magic system that happens when blood interacts with steel. Swords that spill blood for a purpose develop a memory of their own and will twist fate to make it happen again. That is the closest I come to real rules of magic.

It might not be apparent in book one, but Phehl’s people are unique in that they have invented pictographs. In a world where oral storytelling can change the course of history, the ability to carve a story into bone and make it permanent is actually very dangerous. And there are some clues, in the confusing wording or the opening poem that more history has taken place on Phehl’s little Atoll than anyone realizes. That’s second problem with writing down stories instead of memorizing them, you can change what is written nobody will remember it differently.

Sorry, I sort of dodged your original question by talking about my magic system instead. Too late now.

Here’s a follow-up if you’re interested. Do you have any arbitrary rules that you follow in lieu of magic. For example:  MacGyver doesn’t have high tech gadgets, but if you give him a paperclip and some chewing gum he can invent his way out of a problem. Another example: One of my old characters always had a knife in his pocket. No matter the circumstances, or how unlikely it seemed. He was literally impossible to tie up or to catch unarmed.

Do you have any fun rules that you impose on yourself as a writer? Like: Owl gryphons do not lose fights at night. Or: Cherine will always be captured. And where do you draw the line between things that only you think are clever and things the readers will actually pick up on and enjoy?

VALE:
That’s a good question. You came close to it with your comment on Cherine always being captured. I think the actual (subconscious) rule is that no prison can hold Cherine. He’s the one character who never tries to fight no matter the circumstances. He’s a scholar and an observer, and even though he’s a lanky golden eagle opinicus, there’s no meat on his bones. So he’s every easy to capture, but karma has a way of opening the doors to his cells.

I suppose I do have one more. In one of my books, Lei comments, “Nothing bad ever happens when Zeph is around.” I would counter that if Zeph shows up, either something has already gone wrong and you don’t know it yet, or something is about to go horribly awry at any moment. He never just shows up for a preen and a scream; he’s always chasing trouble.

Okay, that’s my interview with Dustin Porta! If you enjoy shark selkies, stories about stories, or sea shanties involving sea gnomes with whisker lances riding flying fish into battle against sea gulls, pick up his book from the SFWA Fantastic Beasts story bundle.

Eyrie is in SFWA’s Fantastic Beasts Bundle with a lot of other exciting books from now until June 18th. If you’re looking for books with gryphons, werewolves, shark selkies, or dragons, you can find them all on Story Bundle!

I’m having a great time reading through all of the other authors in the bundle with me. Here’s a few I’ve read and loved.

Windsworn by Derek Siddoway is gryphon riders in a setting full of arcanepunk golems and saber cat riders. His pacing and sense of adventure are always top notch.

Whalemoon by Dustin Porta is a nautical adventure, but I was hooked (er, drawn in? I need help finding a non-nautical pun to put here) the moment shark selkies showed up. He uses sea shanties at the start of his chapters which are delightful. I especially like the sea gnomes riding flying fish into battle against sea gulls.

And most of my family has been reading Lindsay Buroker dragon books all pandemic to stay sane, so big shout out to her.

I’m still reading through the rest. Ben Galley I already know because of his beautiful teal gryphon cover for another of his series. And Richard Parry’s werewolf covers always catch my eye. I don’t know if it’s spoilery, but the cover of the third Night’s Champion book has always made me want to read that series, and now I’m getting my chance.

The rest are all great authors I’m enjoying for the first time, but I’m honored to be in the story bundle with them. So if you’re looking for some new fantastic beast books to read, check it out!

https://storybundle.com/fantasy

Reevesbane is available now at all major bookstores and library apps! As per usual, it’s available as an ebook, paperback, hardcover, or large print edition. What is new is that you can now get it from your library app and you can purchase it from other ebook stores like Apple Books/iTunes, Google Play, Kobo/Wal-mart, Barnes and Noble/Nook, or any of a few other stores. Click the link above, and it’ll give you a few choices for picking up the ebook. In fact, the whole series is now available on the major library apps and ebook stores. You can see them all here!

And if you’ve missed the Gryphon Insurrection series over the winter, you’ll be excited to know that The Ruins of Crestfall has an August 31st release date. So you won’t have long to wait for book 5, either. Brenda’s finishing up the last of the interior art pieces for that one as I type this.

Here’s the back cover copy for Reevesbane. I hope you’re as excited to read it as I am to have it release. Stay safe and healthy!

They stole her mate, so she stole the night.

Ninox.

Pride leader. Murderer. Vanguard. Mother.

When the Ashen Weald captured Cherine, they made a grave mistake. In the months since the bog expedition, bodies have begun appearing in the night. Is this the owl gryphon’s vengeance? Or is something more sinister haunting the night?

As Cherine’s trial approaches, Ninox’s allies and enemies alike attempt to hunt her down before she goes too far.

Reevesbane is an epic creature fantasy full of vengeful owl gryphons, deadly assassins, sinister scholars, and Zeph Reevesbane. Pick it up today to protect yourself from owl gryphons!

Long ago, when I wasn’t yet a gryphon author, back when I was just a gryphlet author, Jeff Brown and I talked about making a series map for the Gryphon Insurrection. Jeff, cover artist for books one through seven, usually makes maps for board games, tabletop gaming, and video games. He said he doesn’t do small maps, but he promised that if I could fill a continent, he’d provide an epic map.

Well, it took five written books, a short story collection, and an outline for the sixth, but I could finally fill in every part of the continent, and Jeff got me my map. Since Reevesbane isn’t out yet, you won’t have to wait for book six to see the map. It’ll be included with book four. Or, heck, why wait? You can click the map below to see the zoomed in version!

Speaking of Reevesbane, I have a proof copy here and it’s getting its final editing touches taken care of. My usual editor had more heart trouble, so I have a new editor I’m excited to work with. It should be out soon, however, and she’ll be doing the copy edits on Crestfall right after Reevesbane since both novels are complete.

Meanwhile, I’m writing book six, Opinicus. While editing health troubles have slowed down the publishing schedule, they haven’t kept me from writing, and now the new editor is playing catch up.

Okay, back to writing for me. It’s been weird working on book six while readers are waiting for book four, but you’ll catch up to me soon =] Right now, the series arc should wrap up with book seven. So we’re in it for at least that many!

Happy Valentine’s Day! Okay, I’m a little early. But if you have gryphon fans in your life that you need to get cards for, Crystal Gafford and I have you covered. Crystal’s dedication to cute gryphons is well-documented, and she turned all of the couples from the Gryphon Insurrection (GryphIns) series into Valentine’s Day cards you can share with your loved ones.

I added them to the Goodies page, or you can click on the images below to go to the full resolution PNG version for printing. Also, in honor of all of the people shipping Tresh and Rorin, we added a card for those two =] Your fanfiction writing efforts are appreciated.

Who’s your favorite couple (canon or non-canon)? So far, the responses I’m getting from my newsletter suggest that Henders/Foultner, Zeph/Kia, and Zeph/Hatzel are the top three. Feel free to use the contact form to let me know, and I’ll write you back on what I think that relationship would look like!

Good morning, fantails!

I’ve been reading a lot of epic fantasy with large casts recently, and I got into a conversation with a friend who says they love epic fantasy but the can’t remember more than four characters, so they feel like it’s impossible for them to read. They wished they could just click on someone’s name and get a refresher of who they were, what they did in the last book, etc., and that’s all that kept them from reading epic fantasy.

And I went: Oh. Because, at least on Kindle, that’s possible. It takes some time and effort, but if that’s the only barrier between some readers and epic fantasy, count me in. And as someone whose memory isn’t perfect (thanks, clots), I can appreciate how this is also an accessibility feature.

So I’ve gone in and enabled the Kindle X-Ray feature for Eyrie, Ashen Weald, and Starling. You may need to nudge the book if you’ve already downloaded it (I clicked the … on the paperwhite, x-ray was greyed out, so I clicked book details. When I returned to the book, x-ray was magically working), but I’ve tested all three titles and got them working.

What information it’ll tell you: A brief description of the character and what they did in the previous books and their relationship to other characters. If you scroll down to the “Author’s Commentary” below, it’ll also list the bird+cat of each gryphon and opinicus character. I get a lot of questions about that, especially because they’re in an ecosystem without cats, so there’s no way to work that into the text, and the Author’s Commentary option should answer those questions. I’ll also sometimes include comments on characters who had a different role in earlier drafts or whose scenes always get cut before publication (Pink Paw).

What information it won’t tell you: spoilers for the current book you’re reading. I considered including easter eggs like, say, Younce being secretly afraid of fish, but I don’t want to make you feel like you need to click every name.

If you try out Kindle X-Ray and you like it, let me know. While it does take time away from writing, it’s not an unreasonable amount. I’m not sure if I can have it enabled the moment Reevesbane launches as there’s an approval process on our end and Amazon’s end, but I’ll give that a try, too.

In other news, the Mega Gryphon Twitter Giveaway (4 hardcovers + Younce plushie + Brenda Lyons signed print) is still going strong. It ends in a little under a month now. Reevesbane is getting its final proofing done (I’ll take a picture when my author proof arrives, the interior art is amazing). The outline for Crestfall was approved by my editor and I’ve started working on it.

I’ve got two smaller projects that I’m keeping a secret until they’re closer to being completed, but my focus is entirely on gryphons right now. I had that slowdown with the health problems and tests in the autumn, so I “only” had around 320,000 words of fiction published last year, three gryphon novels and the short story collection. My goal this year is four novels.