Blood's Force Blog Tour! (+$20 Amazon GC giveaway!)

Title: Blood's Force 

Author: Ellis Morning 

Series: Sword and Starship #1

Pages: 340

Date Published: 2015

Publisher: Ellis Morning 

Format: Kindle

Genre: Fantasy 

Source: Goddess Fish Blog Tours
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Synopsis:
Dame Jessamine is a knight errant with a spaceship for a steed, a pupil of ancient science and technology who quests on behalf of the downtrodden. She’s accustomed to forging her own path through the galaxy—until she’s hijacked at sword-point and sent to investigate Nidaros, a remote barony known for bursts of rebellion.

In Nidaros, Jessamine finds a populace short on food and patience, innocents detained for torture, and a court trapped in a web of delusion. The Baron considers her a distraction. The magicians, convinced of a “curse,” dismiss her pleas for rational action. Even as Jessamine forges an alliance with the soldiers, an unknown foe seeks to frame her as an agitator.

Stuck amid murderous intrigue and cut off from her mentors, Jessamine must figure out how to save Nidaros from starvation. But the only people who understand the true “curse” have been accused of witchcraft—and if Jessamine’s not careful with her ancient knowledge, she’ll join them in the dungeon!

~Heraldry~

Hi everyone, thanks for having me here and checking out my book today! I thought I’d share a little information on heraldry, which plays an important role in the world of Blood’s Force.

Historically, one of heraldry's first functions was to identify combatants whose faces would otherwise be hidden by armor. However, coats of arms have also been used by cities and people, royal and otherwise, for identification purposes. Wherever literacy is rare, colors and symbols become critical for conveying information at a glance.

The galaxy of Blood’s Force was once united under a single ruler known as Hegemon Zander, but those days are long over. It now more closely resembles feudal Europe: fractured into dozens of domains, each governed by a Lord with his or her own color and seal. The Lord and everyone in his service, from his personal messenger to the soldiers on backwater planets he’s never been to, wears those colors.

Meanwhile, Dame Jessamine and other knights errant, unaffiliated with any Lord, wear grays and browns to reflect that fact. But they have their own symbols, called sigils, for identifying themselves and their property. For instance, Jessamine uses a symbol that originated with the ancient Shipbuilders. It used to show up in diagrams concerning electronics, and was called the variable resistor:

Jessamine has this symbol tattooed on her wrist. It also shows up on her sword’s pommel, and on the side of her ship’s hull.

Do you have a personal symbol you identify with? Does your family have its own coat of arms? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

~Try an Excerpt!~

Adrenaline allowed me to ignore pain and push myself up to my knees. Whatever was going on, I had to reach my feet, take measures to defend myself. They’d left me with my weapons, after all. I’d also take stock of my surroundings. Maybe there was still some way out.

My confines remained plunged in darkness. Straining my ears brought me no closer to abandoning the heavy silence. I retrieved my stick lighter from my pocket; the tiny bead of light revealed dungeon floor and nothing else. No immediate danger, at least. I resolved to scout the room, or cell, more likely.

Something flashed in my peripherals: the glow of lantern light, newly revealed by a door sliding open about ten feet away. Soon after, a burgundy-robed arm lobbed a hand-sized ceramic pot with a lit fuse into the cell.

Grenade!

Without another thought, I threw myself in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the cell’s dimensions were stingy. I hit a wall well before I wanted to.

A boom like thunder rattled my eardrums. Tongues of fire splattered around my feet. Turning, I found knee-high flames covering the floor behind me, surviving on the fuel from the grenade. Some version of Greek fire, it looked like. Radiant heat seared my exposed skin, while a thick smoke stung my eyes and clawed at my throat.

Forget questioning or detaining. Someone was trying to kill me. Either fire or smoke would finish the job in minutes. Ironically, my pockets held plenty of fire-making implements and things to burn, but nothing for smothering flames. Escape was my only hope. I knew of only one option: the door on the other side of the room, the one the grenade had been launched from.

~Meet Ellis!~

For the next twenty years, she wrote with varying degrees of seriousness, but always as a hobby. In that time, she fell in love with Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut, the original Star Trek series, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Science fiction became her favorite domain to work in, but she also enjoyed reading fantasy, horror, Western, and detective stories, and incorporating their elements into her work. One of her favorite things to do was make people laugh.

Ellis denied being a writer for decades. But then she sold articles to The Daily WTF, and a short story to Analog Science Fiction and Fact. After quitting her full-time job to finish her first novel, it was time to own up to writing as her calling. She's currently an editor at The Daily WTF, and having the time of her life penning novels and short stories.

 Ellis will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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