Crimson City

I just finished Liz Maverick’s Crimson City. First in a series, it introduces a number of characters I’m sure will be recurring in upcoming books. It’s an edgy vampire adventure romance. Lots of action, and an unusual worldview that’s skewed toward vampires being the elite of society with humans in the middle and werewolves at the bottom.

I learned about world building from Crimson City. Ms. Maverick, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at NJRW, created a functional universe where the world seems to have gone a little mad. The story doesn’t assume the fantastical elements are fantastical but that they are commonplace. This is a world where the inhabitants accept that werewolves and vampires and mechanized humans exist and they don’t question it. It just is, so by the end of the book the reader doesn’t question it either. It just is.

That’s something I strive to attain in my writing. I want to build worlds that the readers accept as real. Of course, suspension of disbelief in the eyes of the beholder. I know a number of readers who refuse to pick up sci-fi or paranormal books because they refuse to believe, even for the sake of the story, that aliens or vampires or magick exist and they can’t invest in a story about something they believe could never really happen. That’s exactly what I LIKE about sci-fi, paranormal and fantasy. We get a 24/7 dose of reality and it isn’t always pretty. Who wants stark realism in their fiction? I even like my contemporary stories a little bit out there – I like to dream.

I don’t know if I’ll pick up the rest of the books in the series – I honestly have so much else to read, but this one was worth checking out.