Hello hello!
Today I bring you: a blog tour post for the amazing book, Knight in Retrograde, by author Lee Hunt!
This trilogy finale is a wildly engaging story multifaceted with fantasy and scientific knowledge! I got in with the third book, and honestly, I was hooked! So, I'll be going over the previous books because I loved it so much! If you want to know why, you can read my review.
Now, let's explore this book, shall we? And make sure to stay till the end because there's an exclusive guest post by the author and a special surprise, folks! 😀
Author: Lee Hunt
Publishing Company: Lee Hunt
Release Date: Tuesday, March 1 2022
Format: Audio
Is This Book Romance?: No
ISBN: 9781999093594
Price: $18.99 USD
Story Type: Novel
Word Count: 147,000
Cover Artist: Jeff Brown
Genres: Fantasy, epic fantasy, magical realism, dark fantasy
LGBTQ+ Identities: It is quite subtle, but all the Methueyn Knights are pan-sexual, and there is a sex scene that is pansexual
Tropes (don't we love them?!): Uncovering the past, Going forward or going backwards, secret past, unlikely hero
Is This Part of a Series?: Yes
Series Title: The Dynamicist Trilogy
Position (Number) in Series: Third
Necessary to Read Previous Books: Yes
Other Books in Series:
1 – Dynamicist
2 – Herald
Was This Book Published in An Earlier Edition?: Not under a different edition, but the paperback and eBook versions have been out since Sept 2020
Where you can purchase Knight in Retrograde:
Amazon
Universal Buy Link
Book Blurb
Would you trade uncertainty for stagnation, chance for god, invention for inertia, thought for dogma?
Four years have passed since the events of Dynamicist and war is on the horizon.
Robert, Koria, Eloise and Gregory went to the New School, hoping to change the world. They thought that mathematically based dynamics, the enlightened age's answer to wizardry, would give them the power to make everything better. Their hopes were naïve.
Protestors are condemning the creation of a new vaccine. The city is seeing a series of hangings; is it murder or sacrament? The cloaked man is back stalking students. The long-absent demons Skoll and Hati reappear and begin slaughtering whoever they meet. But the real question is, will Nimrheal return? If he does, who will die first?
Uncertainty is inspiring fear, and inventions are not making the world better, only more complicated. The terrified civilians don't want dynamics and reason. They want the word of Elysium and the return of the Methueyn Knights.
Koria fears the world faces an awful conundrum: that if the Knights return, Nimrheal will stay.
Will Robert, Koria, Eloise and Gregory choose to transform into angelic knights or, at the cost of such heavenly communion, instead banish Nimrheal? What price will be paid? If a new Methueyn Knight rises, will the age of invention disappear forever?
Series Blurb:
The Dynamicist Trilogy examines the difficulties of change in a fantasy setting. This challenge manifests itself through a rigorous magic system where thermodynamic cost is accounted for, and an inventor killing god. Most realistically, the challenge of creating a better world is illustrated by the many mistakes and miss-steps of the well-meaning and intelligent characters. The power and importance of memory, love and hope are ever present.
Here Comes the Excerpt
As their eyes met, Heylor found himself abruptly pulled away from the handshake and whirled around by the strong hands of his mother on his shoulder. “What in Leylah’s long night happened to your face, Heylor?”
This again.
“It looks like he got trampled across the gizzard by a team of oxen,” said Herevor in a deadpan voice, rubbing his long narrow jaw with his right hand. His fingernails were black with dirt.
“He wouldn’t tell me what happened!” Shelley yelled from the kitchen table.
I don’t want to talk about it.
“Who’s there?” came a new voice from the couch. It was grandma’s broken, warbly twitter. Heylor peered into the den again and saw her slouched low on the half-collapsed couch. Beside her, perched primly with a straight back, sat Constable Lynwen, hands on lap. Heylor had not seen the young woman cross the room and sit down. He had forgotten about her completely, and now there she was beside his grandma.
“It’s me, Grandma. Heylor.”
The old lady squinted at him. She seemed little more than a bundle of thin, wrinkled skin, looking as if she had lost another two inches of height in the months since Heylor last saw her. Looking at her, spine hunched like a question mark and eyes rheumy and clouded with cataracts, felt like a stab in the gut.
“I thought you were out there across the line.”
“I was.” Heylor looked at Lynwen again, sitting beside his grandma. What is she thinking? “I’m back. Where are Heyden, Scrandeyn, and Helloise?”
Jesteyn crossed her arms. “They’re out farm-handing, Heylor. We told you that at the beginning of the season.”
“Sorry, I forgot about the farm work,” Heylor mumbled. “It’s probably a good thing they’re not here.”
“Why’s that?” Jesteyn asked, eyes narrowing. “They’d love to see you. You know that.”
“Why would they?” Heylor spread his arms wide in a surge of frustration. “They must be glad to be away from here. I can’t believe all the junk you have here.”
Herevor flinched for a microsecond before breaking into a mad grin that exposed every one of his missing teeth. “One knight’s junk is another knight’s armor.”
“Oh, for knights’ sake,” Heylor exclaimed, “why is there a wheelbarrow full of cats in the fireplace? What knight is going to make plate out of that? The cat would be better armor! And isn’t that Shelley’s sextant on the bookshelf? She lives in the orchid now. I do remember that. And isn’t that my old cooper’s kit spread out on the shelf yonder? And why do we have three busted telescopes? I’m sure I threw away the bronze one after second year. What is all this stuff doing here?”
“I needed a place to store my spare things,” Shelley replied evenly. “My room in the Orchid isn’t big enough.”
“Those rooms are huge!”
“Nope.” Shelley was not flustered in the least.
Heylor clenched both fists so hard his face hurt where Skoll had gripped it. “What about the cooper’s kit?”
“Heygard thought we should hold on to it for him until harvest is done,” his father answered nonchalantly
“Oh, of course,” Heylor whispered. “What about the telescope I know I threw away?”
“I think I can fix that,” Grandma piped up.
You? You can barely stand up!
“Well, that accounts for one telescope. How about the other two?”
“That’s me,” jumped in Herevor. “I thought I would see if I could make a small version of an Eindarch Eye.”
Heylor blinked. “Did you succeed?”
“Nope.”
Heylor shook his head. Of course you didn’t. “How about the old wheelbarrow?”
Herevor rubbed his jaw again. “Scrandeyn didn’t want it anymore. I figured it could come in handy. Someday.”
“Of course! Of course it could. Someday,” Heylor almost shouted, angrier than ever. Everything about his family reminded him of himself, of his own failings, of killing his friends. In that moment, he despised them like he despised himself. “It’s come in handy for the cat at least. Whose cat is that anyway? No, don’t answer, I know it came from a cousin or was thrown away by someone somewhere. Everything is useful, everything comes back. From everyone. Nothing is trash. It’s all worth something. My hand-me-down clothes probably got handed back and used for another cat’s nest.” He whirled around. “You know what this family is? Sick, crazy hoarders. It’s an illness. You’re so bad that, even when one of you finally throws something out, it gets thrown back by some other member of the family. When they throw something out, you take it. It’s a circle, a circle of junk, a knights-damned hoarding circle! We should study it in the New School. It’s a mathematical singularity for trash. Nothing ever leaves that doesn’t re-enter. There’s no escape from the entropic pull of the Style family’s hoarding circle vortex! No junk is abandoned, no mistakes are left behind, nothing is forgotten or moved on from.” Heylor held his hands up and whirled slowly around. “This might be a big new house, but we’re still just the same old peasants.”
Smack!
Heylor’s jaw rung for the second time that day, this time from the big hand of his own mother.
“My face already hurts, Mom! Don’t hit me.”
“I love you, boy, but I know that hurts less than what you’re carrying.” Jesteyn had hit him, but she did not look angry. Her liquid eyes betrayed a different emotion. “What mistakes aren’t you leaving behind? What pain are youhoarding? What happened to your face? It’s your family here. The only way yer gonna get rid of whatever it is, is to share it.”
Heylor started laughing. “That’s so clever, Mom.” He kept laughing and didn’t stop until his nose started running because he was actually crying. Through blurry eyes, he looked over at Lynwen, sitting silently, watching. “I’m sure you want to leave now, Constable.”
“Nope.” Lynwen smiled.
Still tagging along on our adventure? AMAZING!
As a mighty Knight, I bestow upon you this gift:
The Blessed Exclusive Author Guest Post
Writing for the audiobook, Knight in Retrograde
When you wrote Knight in Retrograde (KIR), did you have a clear plan?
I did. KIR is not a sequel, it is the continuation and conclusion of a three book story, and needed to draw together all the thematic elements of the entire trilogy. Each character arc and plot point were planned, and planned to an even higher degree than the previous two novels.
You wrote the entire plan out?
Most of it was on a multi-tabbed spreadsheet. There was room for organic growth and on-the spot creativity, of course, but the story was heavily charted out. Especially in regard to what it all meant and what I wanted to say.
And what was it that you wanted to say?
I wanted to examine the costs and challenges of progress, in a way both fantastic and realistic. And it had damn well better be entertaining and not feel like a lecture.
It damned well better not. But what do you mean by progress?
Technological progress, mainly, but also social progress. In KIR, Nimrheal—the demon that murders inventors—returns. It kills people who create truly original ideas. Technical inventions would be the obvious sort of thing, but Nimrheal kills poets and writers as well.
What made you think about that?
There is an anti-science struggle going on all around us. And our level of scientific sophistication has gotten to the point where our current state of knowledge can be difficult for regular people to fully grasp. But more poignantly, the struggle to define ourselves as people—who we are what, we value, and where we are going, also continues.
And you felt that this could be contained in a fantasy novel?
A little bit of it can be. There is a long tradition of this kind of thing. Star Trek has a long history of looking at social issues, and Star Trek Discovery has held progressive subjects very close to its heart.
How is KIR’s approach to progress different than Star Trek’s?
I try to show some empathy to both sides of the problem. While some of the protagonists in KIR are clearly pushing forward, they also have reasons to be apprehensive about the future. There is a cost to progress. Even if the world must change, there are winners and losers, something to be lost as well as gained. It is easy to write the folks trying to hang on to the old ways as the “bad” ones, but it is also less interesting than acknowledging and doing something with their understandable fear of what is to come.
What is the most realistic thing about progress in KIR?
I am a scientist (a geophysicist) and I have hidden a lot of scientific realism in the book. Especially in the sense that no matter how intelligent the characters may be, they won’t be able to figure out everything. Even our best aspirations have unintended consequences, and it has been fun showing some of those.
What were some of your concerns and challenges about writing and producing the audiobook format of KIR?
There were a few, but sound effects were on my mind. I elected to use some onomatopoeia in the trilogy, particularly around the sound of thunder or of the reverberations off Gregory or Eloise’s entropic shields. Deciding to use this device in writing is … debatable. Not everyone likes it. This became a discussion point with the audiobook narrator, Craig A. Hart.
How did Craig feel about sound effects?
He was reluctant to over-rely on them. He felt that, if done improperly, they could detract from the audio experience. The problem is identical in writing as it is in an audio production—it is easy to go too far.
And what happened?
Craig found a good solution that creates the right effect without overpowering or distracting from the story.
What are some other considerations that a writer should make when planning an audiobook format?
There are a few. One is how people sound. I usually try to give each character a distinguishing feature, or several. Eloise’s size and ferocity, Bethyn’s truculence, Koria’s cool use of logic and compactness of mind that is reflected in her appearance, Heylor’s inability to be still. But they may also have a distinguishing sound, or sounds should come with their features. This needs to be planned for in the writing. Heylor’s energy must come out in his speaking voice. He is going to talk quickly. And Eloise’s curt decisiveness must be written on the page and expressed by the narrator. Craig uses a flat Germanic accent for Eloise, which is perfect. But the written words need to fit the sounds, too.
How is this communicated to the narrator?
The more these character-based features are contained in the writing, the better, though writing economy must also be maintained. But narrators also discuss the nature of each and every character in the story with the writer. How do they fit in? What is their attitude, their accent? Do we want the reader to like them? This information all gets written down and discussed.
Can production costs affect the product?
Sure. If I was infinitely wealthy, I would hire a cast of narrators and special audio effects experts. Craig does an excellent job of making each different character come alive, but in the fantasy world where we are have an enormous budget, getting a few other voice actors in there with Craig would be a lot of fun. Actually, if I had infinite dollars, I might just produce a movie or series, too.
Surprise Giveaway!
The author is giving away a $30 Amazon gift card with this tour. Just click on the link, and have fun participating! Wishing you luck. 🙂
Okay, but who's the great author who wrote this kickass story?
Fret not, here he is!
The Author: Lee Hunt
Ever try to do things you were really not well suited to? Lee Hunt understands. He was born with only one working lung, but has gone on to be an Ironman triathlete, a sport rock climber, and a professional geophysicist. The poor lung function has been an excellent excuse for his unimpressive triathlon performance—he is among the worst of those able to complete the Ironman under his own power—and is of some service in eliciting a modicum of sympathy for his average at-best skills as a climber. Actually no one on a rock wall really cares about excuses. It’s a climb-or-fall kind of thing.
His marginal ability to breathe is of no use whatsoever in explaining his career as a geophysicist. He was good at that. Lee published close to fifty journal papers, articles or expanded abstracts, has been awarded numerous best paper awards, and was even sent on a national speaking tour to Canadian universities by the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists. He was born on a farm but grew up near the giant oil sand mines of Fort McMurray and is interested in discussing the environment and the amorality of science. He is also useful at parties in explaining the physics around why, or why not, fracture stimulation might be a risk to manmade structures and the fuzzy cuddly things of nature. Lee’s career helped him appreciate the difficulty in predicting outcomes, the dangers of arrogance—such as thinking you can predict even the smallest thing—and the exigent need to try anyway. He was comfortable and happy being a geophysicist, so after twenty-eight years, he quit to go do the things he was less well suited to.
If you want to hang out with Lee, look for him hiking, cycling, floundering in a lake, clinging desperately to a wall, or at his desk trying to write an entertaining story.
Author Website
Author Facebook (Personal)
Author Facebook (Author Page)
Author Amazon
Make sure not to miss the rest of the blog tour by Other Worlds Ink!
Next stops: Boy Meets Boy Reviews (tomorrow, Sunday, March 6) & Beauty in Ruins (Monday, March 7)!
Ad Librum Aeternam 