Blood Reign: Author Steven A. Roman Returns to Sci-Fi Saturday Night

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrThe promotional tour for Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 continues to take shape, now that I’ve been booked to make a return appearance to the popular podcast series Sci-Fi Saturday Night; my episode will air Saturday, April 18. Showrunner “The Dome”—who fell in love with Pan after reading her debut in the first novel, Blood Feud—and the rest of his crew of pop-culture enthusiasts will be chatting me up about Pan’s latest adventure, and probably cover a few other topics, as well.

In case you’re interested in hearing my previous appearance, which took place back in December 2011 to promote Blood Feud, you can check it out by visiting the Sci-Fi Saturday Night website and downloading it from right here. I come in along the thirty-minute mark. And then be sure to tune in on April 18, 2015 for my triumphant return!

And in case you hadn’t heard the news, over at my Goodreads author page I’ve activated the “Ask the Author” function. So if you’re a Goodreads member and you’ve got questions of your own about The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Lorelei: Sects and the City, or any of the other projects I’ve written over the years, head over there now and ask away!

Blood Reign: Queens Gazette Interviews Author Steven A. Roman

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrStop the presses! The promotional tour for Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 continues this week in print and digital forms at the newspaper Queens Gazette, with an interview with author and Queens resident Steven A. Roman (that’s me). If you’re in the borough and pick up a copy of the paper (free at many outlets), you’ll find it in the column “Local-Express.” If you’re not a Queens resident, you can find the online version right here at the Gazette’s website.

Being interviewed by a Queens newspaper makes perfect sense: The ’Warp’s office (okay, our PO box) is located in Dave Zwieback’s Sunnyside neighborhood, close to the White Castle burger joint where Pan and her fellow Fiend Club members hang out; Dave’s museum, Renfield’s House of Horrors and Mystical Antiquities, is based in Long Island City, within steps of the UA Kaufman movie theater, Kaufman-Astoria Studios, and the Museum of the Moving Image (not to mention it’s just a few blocks from the offices of the Queens Gazette); and the car-chase scene in Blood Reign starts at the museum and ends up at an abandoned airfield in another neighborhood, College Point. For a dark-urban-fantasy adventure about Goth chicks, shape-shifting monster hunters, and vampire-clan shoot-outs, you can’t get more Queens-centric than that!

And in case you weren’t aware, over at my Goodreads author page I’ve activated the “Ask the Author” function. So if you’re a Goodreads member and you’ve got your own questions about The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Lorelei: Sects and the City, or any of the other projects I’ve written over the years, head over there now and ask away!

Blood Reign: Talking With Author Steven A. Roman

In case you hadn’t heard (and seriously, how could you have not, at this point, on this website?), Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2—the highly anticipated follow-up to Blood Feud, the critically acclaimed first novel starring the teen Goth monster hunter—was recently published by StarWarp Concepts. (Yes, we also mentioned it quite a bit over there, too.)

SRoman_PhotoSo with that in mind, it only seemed natural to have SWC editorial director (and Blood Reign editor) K. C. Winters sit down with Saga of Pandora Zwieback author Steven A. Roman to discuss his latest work and a few other topics….

KC: Okay, let’s get started. What’s your latest book about?

SR: Well, in general, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback is about a 16-year-old “Goth” girl coming to terms with her parents’ divorce and some strange supernatural powers she’s been exhibiting, all while trying to survive a possible war between the monster realm and humanity that’s been initiated by a fallen angel. Pan’s story started in the novel Blood Feud, and it continues in the new book, Blood Reign, which takes place about five minutes after the cliffhanger ending of Blood Feud.

KC: Five minutes after?

SR: I got the idea from that James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. Its opening scene takes place, like, five minutes after Casino Royale. I thought doing the same thing with Pan in Blood Reign made sense, to get the cliffhanger resolved and keep the story moving. I’m not gonna say what that cliffhanger was; if anyone reading this hasn’t checked out Blood Feud already, I’m not gonna spoil it for them. So go and buy it, already!

star-wars-posterKC: They should. And I did notice a sort of cinematic quality in the way you describe settings and action sequences. So, what’s your favorite movie?

SR: Geez, I’ve got a few favorite movies. The Blues Brothers, Phantom of the Paradise, Army of Darkness… I guess the original Star Wars would be my number one, because it came out when I was fifteen—the perfect age to go see a movie about another teen who dreamed of doing bigger things…even though I thought Han Solo was the cooler character. (You know it’s true.) It’s also the movie that was one of my inspirations as a young writer—in fact, a Star Wars-y short story that I wrote for my high school’s magazine won me the “Best Fiction” award that year; I think the prize was $20. [Note: That story, “Again: He Who Stalks,” was the subject of a 2014 post on this very site, and can be found here.]

KC: What’s the last movie you saw?

SR: The Yards, from 2000. It’s a crime drama set in Queens, about corruption in the Metropolitan Transit system; the “yards” are the Sunnyside train yards. The cast was pretty impressive: Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, James Caan, Faye Dunaway, Ellen Bursten, and Charlize Theron, and Steve Lawrence as the borough president. It’s a really slow movie, but very character driven. The ending’s a little too convenient, but otherwise it’s not a bad film. I checked it out because I’m always curious about how Queens is depicted in movies. It’s a hometown thing.

KC: So not everything you’re involved in has to do with horror or comics.

SR: Well, especially as a writer you can’t be locked into reading or watching just one category—it can’t be horror all the time, or comics all the time. That can limit the kind of stories you want to tell. I read Doctor Who novels, too, and the occasional mystery, and books about baseball and other things. The one thing I can’t get into is fantasy—Game of Thrones and that kind of stuff. It’s just never appealed to me.

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrKC: Which characters in Blood Reign did you find most challenging to work with, and what was it like to write with them? Conversely, do you have any characters that came particularly easily to you?

SR: Well, Pan was always a challenge, right from the start, because I’d never written a teenage girl before and I wasn’t even sure I could do it. It took some trial and error to get her personality right, but a major hurdle was cleared way back in 1998, when my creative partner, a comic artist named Uriel Caton, came up with Pan’s design. (Back then we’d been trying to pitch an early version of Pan to Parachute Press, the company owned by R. L. Stein, of Goosebumps fame.) Having that visual helped me get a handle on who Pan is, and once I’d gotten comfortable with her, the writing became increasingly faster. By the time I was done with the first book, Blood Feud, she’d become the easiest character to write, and that continued into Blood Reign.

The bad guy in Blood Reign, a fallen angel named Zaqiel, is a little harder, because I keep trying to avoid having him fall into stereotypical villain tropes—you know, the maniacal laugh, referring to himself in the third person, that kind of stuff—but every now and then it slips in. I guess that’s my comic book upbringing as a reader—you can’t help but pick up those sorts of elements along the way. I try to balance it out by exploring the relationship that Zaqiel had with Pan’s mentor, Annie.

KC: That’s the monster hunter Pan met in the first book, Blood Feud.

SR: Sebastienne Mazarin, yeah. Annie’s this 400-year-old shape-shifter who hunts monsters, and two hundred years ago she and Zaqiel were an item. But after he made plans to conquer the world and raised an army of monsters, she killed him and cut off his head. He’s a little pissed off about that. And he and Annie have some scenes together in Blood Reign where he gets to…express that displeasure.

KC: Vocally, or physically?

SR: A little of both—I mean, it is an adventure story—but Annie gives as good as she gets. She’s not the type who takes crap from monsters or psychotic ex-boyfriends, and she keeps promising Zaqiel that, one way or another, she’s gonna see him dead. Again.

KC: And will she make good on that promise?

SR: What, like I’m gonna tell you? (laughs) You’ll have to wait for the next book, Blood & Iron, to find out. That’s when the whole “vampire war” storyline comes to a close—including what happens between Annie and Zaqiel.

KC: All right. Now, you mentioned your “comic book upbringing.” What first inspired you to become a writer? Was it comic books?

SR: Absolutely. Stan Lee was my first writing influence, especially his Spider-Man stories. I never really got into Batman or Superman when I started reading comics, but Spider-Man…I don’t know. I could just understand Peter Parker better than the guy who could move planets with his bare hands! Maybe because Peter was a nerdy teen and I was a nerdy kid, or maybe because we’re both from Queens and I liked that connection. But yeah, Stan was the one who inspired me to get into writing, and when I stumble into using villain tropes…well, I learned from the master!

KC: Is there a favorite place you have to write?

SR: There’s a reading room at the main branch of the New York Public Library, in Manhattan. I go there whenever I either start a writing project, or get stuck with trying to find the right words to write. Or I’ll wander over to Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City, down by the East River, and sit under a tree with my notebook.

KC: What’s your cure for writer’s block?

SR: Other than just getting up and walking away from the computer? That’s really my cure. I grab my notebook and go somewhere to write longhand—usually to that room in the public library. Or go and wash dishes, or take a walk—whatever it takes to get my mind off the writing for a while.

KC: What’s your cure for procrastination?

SR: God, I wish I knew of one; I haven’t found it yet. I mean, I’ve been meaning to look, but I always seem to keep putting it off…

blood_feud_largeKC: Funny. What one project do you daydream about accomplishing as a writer—your magnum opus?

SR: I think I’m already writing it, with The Saga of Pandora Zwieback. Pan is probably the most three-dimensional character I’ve ever written, and I really enjoy working on her stories. And based on the reactions I’ve gotten from readers, they’re enjoying my work, too. I’m grateful there are folks out there who like reading about this attitudinal Queens Goth chick who’s dealing with all these monsters, but who’s really more concerned about untangling all the complications in her life.

And I think they’ll be pleased with the direction Pan’s story is taking in Blood Reign—there’s even more depth to her character, and the challenges she faces this time really push her to the limits, both physically and emotionally. For all the “big budget” set pieces and action scenes and supernatural overtones, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback is really all about this teenaged girl trying to figure out her place in the world. Hopefully her fans will continue to come along for the ride!

Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 is now on sale and can be ordered in print and digital formats from brick-and-mortar and online retailers. Visit the Blood Reign product page at the StarWarp Concepts website for sales links and a downloadable free sample chapter.

Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 is still available and also can be ordered in print and digital formats from brick-and-mortar and online retailers. Visit the Blood Feud product page at the StarWarp Concepts website for sales links and a downloadable free sample chapter.

Proof That Happy Goths Love Zwieback

henar-torinos-pan-annualWhat you see here is a photograph of Spain’s very own mega-talented artist, writer, and self-described “happy Goth,” Henar Torinos, holding up a copy of The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, for which she provided the incredible cover art. She thinks it rawks! 😀

Henar made her comics debut as the creator/artist of the two-volume graphic novel series Mala Estrella (Bad Star), published by Ediciones Babylon; the series won the award for Best Manga of 2012 at Ficomic, Barcelona’s International Comic Fair. She currently works as a freelance illustrator and designer. I met her through deviantArt, the online art community, shortly after I joined; I’d been looking for artists for the Pan-themed promotion “The 13 Days of Pan-demonium,” and a site search for “Happy Goths” led me to her page—specifically, two pieces entitled “Happy Goths Exist” and “Still a Happy Goth.”

To see more of Henar’s creations, visit her deviantArt page. I’m pretty certain you’ll like what you see!

SWC_PanAnnual01The Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1, published by StarWarp Concepts, is a 56-page, full-color special that contains stories by Steven A. Roman (that’s me, the author of the Pandora Zwieback novels, as well as X-Men: The Chaos Engine Trilogy) and Sholly Fisch (Scooby-Doo Team-Up, The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold). In addition to Henar’s wonderful cover, you’ll find art by Eliseu Gouveia (The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0), comic-art legend Ernie Colon (Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld), and Elizabeth Watasin (writer/artist/creator of the comic series Charm School and the steampunk novel series The Dark Victorian). The comic is available in both print and digital formats, so visit the Saga of Pandora Zwieback Annual #1 product page for all the ordering information, as well as sample pages.

Blood Reign: Pandora Zwieback 2 E-book On Sale at Kobo

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrThe Zwiebackian takeover of digital readers continues, because now you can find the ePub edition of Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2—my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel—at Kobo! Here’s the synopsis:

She was stabbed in the heart with an ancient mystical spear. Her mother was kidnapped by a band of vampires led by a fallen angel—their goal: unleashing hell on earth. And every living creature on the planet faces extinction at the hands of a race of biblical monsters. But for Pandora Zwieback, the worst may be yet to come.

In this terrifying next chapter of the story begun in the critically acclaimed novel Blood Feud, join the teenaged Goth adventuress as she discovers that death is only the beginning of her saga…

You’ll find Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 here for $2.99 at the Kobo Store. Order it today!

And don’t forget: the first Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Feud, is still available from Kobo. Want to know how Pan begins her saga? Then purchase Blood Feud and Blood Reign and get started reading!

Blood Reign: Pandora Zwieback 2 E-book at Oyster Books

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrE-book lovers, take note: you can now find the ePub edition of Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2—my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel—at digital subscription library Oyster Books! Here’s the synopsis:

She was stabbed in the heart with an ancient mystical spear. Her mother was kidnapped by a band of vampires led by a fallen angel—their goal: unleashing hell on earth. And every living creature on the planet faces extinction at the hands of a race of biblical monsters. But for Pandora Zwieback, the worst may be yet to come.

In this terrifying next chapter of the story begun in the critically acclaimed novel Blood Feud, join the teenaged Goth adventuress as she discovers that death is only the beginning of her saga…

You’ll find Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 here at Oyster. Add it to your subscription queue today!

And don’t forget: the first Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Feud, is also available at Oyster. Want to know how Pan begins her saga? Then purchase Blood Feud and Blood Reign and get started reading!

Blood Reign: Pandora Zwieback 2 E-book Now at Scribd

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrHey, e-book lovers, you can now find the ePub edition of Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2—my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel—at digital subscription library Scribd! Here’s the synopsis:

She was stabbed in the heart with an ancient mystical spear. Her mother was kidnapped by a band of vampires led by a fallen angel—their goal: unleashing hell on earth. And every living creature on the planet faces extinction at the hands of a race of biblical monsters. But for Pandora Zwieback, the worst may be yet to come.

In this terrifying next chapter of the story begun in the critically acclaimed novel Blood Feud, join the teenaged Goth adventuress as she discovers that death is only the beginning of her saga…

You’ll find Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 here at Scribd. Add it to your subscription queue today!

And don’t forget: the first Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Feud, is also available at Scribd. Want to know how Pan begins her saga? Then order Blood Feud and Blood Reign and get started reading!

Blood Reign: Pandora Zwieback 2 E-book On Sale at iTunes

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrHey, e-book lovers, now you can purcahse the ePub edition of Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2—my young adult, dark-urban-fantasy novel—at Apple’s iBookstore! Here’s the synopsis:

She was stabbed in the heart with an ancient mystical spear. Her mother was kidnapped by a band of vampires led by a fallen angel—their goal: unleashing hell on earth. And every living creature on the planet faces extinction at the hands of a race of biblical monsters. But for Pandora Zwieback, the worst may be yet to come.

In this terrifying next chapter of the story begun in the critically acclaimed novel Blood Feud, join the teenaged Goth adventuress as she discovers that death is only the beginning of her saga…

You’ll find Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2 here at iTunes. Order it today!

And don’t forget: the first Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Feud, is still available from iTunes. Want to know how Pan begins her saga? Then purchase Blood Feud and Blood Reign and get started reading!

Blood Reign: Author Steve Roman Interview from NY Horror Show 2015

Blood-Reign-FinalCvrFor the past three days, I’ve told you the story of the editorial process involved in the creation of Pan’s debut novel, Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1—but now it’s time to focus attention back to the online promotional tour for the second part of Pan’s adventures in Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2!

Back in January of this year, I attended Long Island’s first NY Horror Show (you can read my show report here), where I met Kassandra Cosplayer. After introducing her to the wonders of Ms. Zwieback’s adventures on the first day of the show, Kassandra came back the next day with a cameraman and a microphone to find out more about Pan and StarWarp Concepts—and now you can check out the results of our one-on-one interview by going here.

Thanks for the interview, Kassandra!

Editing Blood Feud: How It All Turned Out

blood_feud_largeThe short answer is, if you’ve read it you know how Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 ultimately turned out: amazing story, critically acclaimed, loved by dozens. 😉 The longer answer’s a little more complicated—and amusing, in a terrifying sort of way…

In the last two posts I explained how, after sitting down to discuss the first-draft manuscript with my friend and editor Howard Zimmerman—and agreeing with pretty much everything he had to say about what a poor-ass story I’d told—I was faced with the task of not just rewriting half the book, but cutting a sizable chunk of the almost 500-page doorstop he’d had to edit. A barrage of back-and-forth e-mails followed, in which I described to Howard my plans for the rebuilding; thankfully, he agreed with them. And how I stumbled into writing what became for me the linchpin scene of the book, simply by the luck of a song playing on the radio as I was going over my notes: James Taylor’s rendition of “Up On The Roof.”

Now it was time to get to work. I went back to the beginning and started revising Pan right from her introduction. Out came the overwhelming combativeness and snark and “airhead moments” (to use Howard’s term) that made her a fairly unlikable character; in came a smarter, more introspective girl with a macabre sense of humor. Mom and Dad no longer hated each other. Dave Zwieback stopped being a dick. Annie wasn’t going to put the moves on him. And the angry tone of the first draft melted away, replaced by a cast of characters who actually cared for one another and, I thought, were pretty damn funny and likable. Except for the vampires—they were still evil assholes.

And then, before I knew it, it was done. Completed. At last I had a draft I was happy with. This, I felt, was now a story worth telling. And a good thing, too: the book was originally scheduled for April 2011, but I’d already blown the production deadlines for that to happen. So June became the new release month. There was just one problem: Howard didn’t have time to edit it—at least not in time for me to get the book out in June.

See, Howard just isn’t an editor, he’s got his own business to run: Z File, Inc., a book packaging company that’s produced some huge fiction and nonfiction graphic novels for major publishing houses: the science titles The Stuff of Life and Evolution: The Story of Life; adaptations of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes; and the New York Times bestseller, Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, How It Works. When I’d dropped the first draft of Blood Feud on his table I’d been lucky enough to catch him during a lull in his schedule. But now? He had two projects in the middle of production and wouldn’t be able to tackle my second draft for about a month.

My reaction? “Oh. Yeah, no, I understand. That’s cool. Well, uh…then I hope you like it in book form.”

I hope you like it in book form.

That’s right: the second draft of Blood Feud became the final draft with some tweaking that continued all the way up to the final, printed book. Without my editor looking it over. I sent the Word file off to designer Mat Postawa for typesetting, and from there it ultimately went to the printer to become the book you know and love. 😀

Crazy, huh? Talk about taking a major risk! But I was so absolutely confident in what I’d accomplished, so positively certain that I’d addressed Howard’s concerns about the book and that this was the version of Pan’s story I’d always meant to tell, that I sent it to press.

And again, I lucked out. The book became a critical success; Pan has been referred to as a positive role model for girls; people have thanked me for creating a character with a weird-but-awesome name who’s so cool they’d love to be friends with her; one woman even remarked that Pan is so in tune with her own thoughts and feelings that the book must have been written by a female author.

The bottom line, though? None of that would have happened if I hadn’t listened to my editor the first time around. Blood Feud might have remained an angry book about angry people, and a project I’d either have killed or spent eternity regretting being published because the world turned out to hate the nasty, overwritten doorstop that was the first draft.

Thanks, Howard!