Friday, October 20, 2023

Pistol Rose and the Wedding That Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn (Blog Tour-Review and Guest Post)

Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn
Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn: 
Publisher:  Swashbuckle Holdings (August, 2023) 
Category: Fantasy, Adult Epic Fantasy, Adventure, Romance, Steampunk 
Tour Dates October 16-November 22, 2023 
ISBN: 978-1962089005 
Available in Print and ebook, 194 pages
  Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War

Description Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn

As a young wilderness girl, Pistol Rose knows nothing of the advanced Strelkie City or the mad king Ward Harrol who sits behind its walls. She doesn't understand why the Strelkie forbid marriage. 

When the king forces the surrounding countryside to change their traditional culture to match his vision, the Punimin resist, and Rose learns everything about how to kill Strelkie and get away with it.

 But throwing her own secret wedding without being caught... is another matter entirely. Rose refuses to give up her lover, Clock Dancin, for the tyrants who threaten her way of life. And most Punimin stand with her–only one is a betrayer.

 In this futuristic medieval steampunk country filled with liars, killers, and wilderuckers, the strongest weapon is love. But using it comes with a heavy cost. 

About Michael Ryan Hahn:




‘Pistol Rose and the Wedding That Parked a War’ is Michael’s debut novel and the first in a planned 7- part series, The Anthem of Ash & Pistols. He previously wrote a standalone horror novella called ‘Children of the Storm’. He recently released an adventure podcast in the style of old radio plays called Fire Pockets. His stories aim to weave exciting action with humor and heart, with complicated villains—probably because of his upbringing. He comes from a big ol' raucous family, and he survived a shockingly bruising (but not altogether unfun) cadre of violently delinquent Boy Scouts to become an Eagle Scout. He loves fight scenes. Michael won a ScreenCraft competition that led to development with Bad Robot. He's a 3x ScreenCraft Finalist, and has 18 other accolades from major screenwriting competitions, including AFF and Final Big Break. As a director, he won Best Feature at GenCon and Best Director at BAFF for his micro-budget, wild sci-fi comedy action feature, ALIEN THEORY He lives in Los Angeles with his wife. In his spare time, he designs custom habitats for cats.* The habitats are highly popular with the cats. 

Buy Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn

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GUEST POST:

Pistol Rose Guest Post for Melissa’s Must Read Faster

How to Write by the Seat of your Pants: Outline or No?

Half of me is a massive fan of outlining. It all begins with an idea of a theme or an argument (that I keep quite secret and to myself), as a kind of story motivator. I wouldn’t call it a “moral of the story,” it’s a little more buried than that. And I don’t bother hoping that people will discover it, it’s more like a holy relic locked in an altar if I’m feeling lofty, or a joke written on a scrap of paper and buried in concrete if I’m feeling, well what’s the opposite of lofty, bunkery? It’s there for me alone. The seed of the apple tree. If I have that little nugget stowed in my pocket, then every strain of story that appears can more readily connect to it. And for some reason, that just feels better to me than reverse-engineering it. It’s a litmus test to know if an arc or a subplot or whatever belongs.

Naturally, I break the litmus test half the time, and wrestle over whether something should be allowed to belong despite its failure to adhere to form. Maybe half of my well-intended plans make it into the outline? The outline is an arranged marriage between feelings and action beats, something like a movie in a lot of ways. And once I’ve thought about the story for a month or so, the outline itself takes a day. It’s important to me to write it all out in a single day, if I can. Sometimes it takes two or three. But the faster the outline materializes, the more alive the story feels. I like to see it all at once.

I tend to write one paragraph per planned chapter. Ideally, each planned chunk will tangle with the Big Stakes that I set out at the beginning of the outline, so everything is moving forward all the time. That paragraph, and sometimes it’s more than one, serves as a kind of writing prompt more than an instruction list. I can write about one chapter in a sitting, 10 to 20 pages, and a good prompt can fuel that through, for the most part.

Often, I’ll get about halfway through the outline, have all these grand plans and intricate designs, and then some character will decide to up and wreck everything. Change of plans. Or it will become clear that it is quite time for this character over here to die for his crimes, and that alters the plan for what follows, somewhat. That’s the half of me that doesn’t like outlining. The half that wants an organic surprise. I’ve written chapters where I didn’t know how it was going to end… and been so thankful I had that outline to run back to, crying with my bruises, to guide me back on track.

The balance seems to be in having a well-thought-out plan and in having the freedom to roam from it. Like being an outdoor cat who likes to sleep inside at night. Whether they admit it or not, such felines are never short on pride or humility, which makes for an adventurous combination.

The particular outlining and cobbling-together of this first Pistol book is actually even a little different than my writing process as a whole. It started as a screenplay. Maybe it will reach the screen one day, but I was drawn to the idea of fleshing out the story in book form right now. A lot of people have asked how on earth you can turn a script into a book, because it seems so hard when the training for one mode is so different from the other. The answer is I just did it in layers. Baby steps. I led with what was familiar to me. First was a direct transposition of the script, then a writing pass adding all the direction (action) I might explain if I were filming it, then another pass putting in all the set and art direction, then a dialogue sweep and an inner thoughts sweep, and a point of view controlling sweep to avoid head-hopping as much as possible… and this all of course led to a fine mess.

But then there were bones that almost looked like a book. It didn’t feel organic yet. So, then it was off to the revisions, adding and cutting until a unifying feeling took over, and with a little time, it all came together and made sense. It was like building a house and then deciding to rotate the house ninety degrees, by hand, with the wrong tools.

Which was great, because after going through that, the next writings I’ve done have been much, much faster, and from those, the process I explained above grew.

I suppose you could say that I outline by the seat of my pants.

© Michael Ryan Hahn

 

 

Giveaway Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn

This giveaway is for 2 copies. The winners will have the choice of print or ebook. This giveaway is open worldwide and on November 23, 2023 midnight, pacific time. Entries accepted via Rafflecopter only. a Rafflecopter giveaway


MY REVIEW

My first impressions of this book when I received it was "WOW! This is a pretty cover!" I love the artwork, the steam punky font and all of that! I did indeed judge this book by it's cover (at least at first) and I was amped to get started reading it! 

Once I cracked the spine and started reading, I was drawn into this rich history and back story. The first shot seemed a bit quick but hints about character personality and world building were peppered into the action. I really liked how that was done, one thing I dislike in a book is a world building "info-dump" in the beginning, so this book won me over straight away! 

This is a tale that will keep you wanting to see what happens next. You'll feel like you know these characters and their life. The theme itself isn't entirely new, but with the way that Hahn writes it, it feels fresh. You will root for Rose and her people. You will want to continue seeing how everything unfolds. 

This is an excellent start to a series that is apparently going to run for a while, and that delights me! 


Follow Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn

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  Pistol Rose and the Wedding that Sparked a War by Michael Ryan Hahn

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