Tag Archives: Stephanie A. Cain

Equus Contributor Blog Tour Wrap-Up

We just wrapped up the Equus contributor blog tour. If you missed out on this, never fear, I have links to all the posts for you 🙂

July 7th — Lightless Alternate Opening (by K.T. Ivanrest, hosted by Sarena Ulibarri)

July 8th — The Secret History of “Scatter the Foals to the Wind” (by Chadwick Ginther, hosted by Stephanie A. Cain)

July 9th — Frankenhorse (by Michael Leonberger, hosted by K.T. Ivanrest)

July 10th – Setting in “To Ride a Steel Horse” (by Stephanie A. Cain, hosted by Diana Hurlburt)

July 11th – Florida and Horses (by Diana Hurlburt, hosted by Chadwick Ginther)

July 12th – Four (and a half) Fun Facts About “Lightless” (by K.T. Ivanrest, hosted by Angie Rega)

July 13 – Helping Rhonda STARRING CAT (by Cat McDonald, hosted by me)

Take a little time to check out whichever posts you missed, and don’t forget to pre-order your copy of Equus so you’ll be able to read it on Tuesday!

Pre-order Equus now:

World Weaver Press
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
iBookstore

Equus Contributor Blog Tour

Equus is going to be out soon. Very soon.

Leading up to its release I wanted to spend a little time introducing you to some of the contributors. A half dozen of them took some time to write guest blogs that will give you a peek inside their writing processes, inspirations or skillz with a crayon.

Here’s the schedule. If all goes well:

I am totally excited about this tour and I hope you’ll swing by each of those blogs on their scheduled day to check them out 🙂

Cover by Jonathan C. Parrish

Pre-order Equus now:

World Weaver Press
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
iBookstore

 

Equus Battle Royal — Round Four

Fourteen Equus contributors have agreed to pit the equine in their story against all the other horse-like creatures in the anthology and fight it out until only one is left standing. That victor shall win bragging rights which is the best prize of all. Almost.

How it Works:

Each Tuesday the competitors will be announced and voting will open. Every vote a story receives counts as one point.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the competitors will each roll a twenty-sided die. The resulting number of points will be added to their own score. I will update the scores via a comment on the blog post and social media.

Voting closes on Sunday at midnight MST.

Monday the winner (the story with the highest score) will be announced and move on to the next round.

VS.

Story Title: A Mother Unicorn’s Advice to Her Daughter

Author: J. J. Roth

Equine Combatant’s Name: Mother “Badass” Unicorn

Species: Unicorn

Strength: 16

Dexterity: 12

Constitution: 9

Intellect: 16

Charisma: 12

Special Attacks: Self-esteem (psychic) – her certainty of herself makes her enemy doubtful and easier to attack; Mother-flurry (dark) – she talks at her quarry, giving them unsolicited advice until they flee for their lives

Special Defences: Camouflage (usable in forests only), stealth, running away at high speeds

Story Title: To Ride a Steel Horse

Author: Stephanie A. Cain

Equine Combatant’s Name: Aenbharr of Manannán

Species: Each Uisge

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 15

Constitution: 16

Intellect: 14

Charisma: 18

Special Attacks: Sharp teeth for ripping flesh; sticky skin to capture rider; eats cattle and humans.

Special Defences: Can shapeshift between enticing human form and dangerous equine form; is an extraordinarily fine riding horse when it can’t see salt water.

How to Vote:

Comment on this blog post with the title of the story/stories you are voting for.

For example, if this week’s competitors were:

Star Wars vs. Star Trek

and you wanted to vote for Star Trek you would leave a comment that said, “I vote for Star Trek.”

It’s just that easy.

Cast your votes now, and may the best equine win!

Equine Battle Royal — Round One

Fourteen Equus contributors have agreed to pit the equine in their story against all the other horse-like creatures in the anthology and fight it out until only one is left standing. That victor shall win bragging rights… and maybe I’ll make a little ‘I won!’ graphic of some sort 😛

How it Works:

Each Tuesday the competitors will be announced and voting will open. Every vote a story receives counts as one point.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the competitors will each roll a twenty-sided die. The resulting number of points will be stolen from their competitor and added to their own score. I will update the scores via a comment on the blog post and social media.

Voting closes on Sunday at midnight MST.

Monday the winner (the story with the highest score) will be announced and move on to the next round.

VS.

Story Title: To Ride a Steel Horse

Author: Stephanie A. Cain

Equine Combatant’s Name (if known): Aenbharr of Manannán

Species: Each Uisge

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 15

Constitution: 16

Intellect: 14

Charisma: 18

Special Attacks: Sharp teeth for ripping flesh; sticky skin to capture rider; eats cattle and humans.

Special Defences: Can shapeshift between enticing human form and dangerous equine form; is an extraordinarily fine riding horse when it can’t see salt water.

Story Title: Different

Author: Sandra Wickham

Equine Combatant’s Name (if known):

Species: Unicorn

Strength: 17

Dexterity: 13

Constitution: 15

Intellect: 16

Charisma: 17

Special Attacks: Rising up on forelegs, Stabbing Through the chest with horn

Special Defences: Any touch to the unicorn burns victims

And

War unicorns were considered too fearsome to depict directly, so contemporary artists’ tended to render them in a very stylized fashion.
VS.

Story Title: “Rue the Day”

Author: Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Equine Combatant’s Name (if known): Nova & Reaver (they’re a team)

Species: Unicorn

Strength: 18

Dexterity: 17

Constitution: 16

Intellect: 11

Charisma: 18

Special Attacks: Goring Horn (+8), Striking Hooves (+4)

These specially-trained war unicorns are skilled in the “airs above the ground,” or in RPG terms Acrobatics, and thus can Rogue their way across a battlefield to stomp you dead while simultaneously stabbing your buddy. And there’s not a thing you can do about it.

Special Defences: Magic Circle Against Evil, Too Damn Pretty To Die.

Evil Alignment creatures have difficulty closing distance against a unicorn. They also are a natural example of Reynolds’ Law, being Too Damn Pretty To Die.

Story Title: “Eel and Bloom”

Author: Diana Hurlburt

Equine Combatant’s Name (if known): Eel

Species: limerunner (native Floridian cousin to the Scottish kelpie)

Strength: 15

Dexterity: 10

Constitution: 17

Intellect: 8

Charisma: 12

Special Attacks: Overrun (limerunner hooves are sharp and their kick can exert more than 200 PSI); Jawbreaker (limerunners have carnivorous teeth and strong jaws).

Special Defences: low-light vision, keen sense of smell, heightened stamina for long-distance running and above-average speed (~40 mph) for distances under a mile, dexterity in water or on land.

How to Vote:

Comment on this blog post with the title of the story/stories you are voting for.

For example, if this week’s competitors were:

Star Wars vs. Star Trek

and

Pirates vs. Ninjas

and you wanted to vote for Star Trek and Pirates you would leave a comment that said, “I vote for Star Trek and Pirates.”

And you don’t need to vote for something in each bracket–if you didn’t have a preference between Star Trek and Star Wars you could totally just vote for Pirates.

It’s just that easy.

Cast your votes now, and may the best equine win!

Equus Battle Royal

Equally inspired by a conversation with Cat McDonald about which equine from the Equus anthology I thought could beat up all the other equines, and Hal Friesen‘s character Death Match events from a couple years ago, I present to you:

Fourteen Equus contributors have agreed to pit the equine from their story against the equines from all the other stories and fight it out until only one remains standing!

Dun dun dun!

This is going to be a whole lot of fun 🙂

Here is what the tournament looks like:

(Thank you PrintYourBrackets.com!)

Since those titles are abbreviated allow me to elaborate–the competitors are:

  • Lightless by K.T. Ivanrest
  • Rue the Day by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
  • To Ride a Steel Horse by Stephanie A. Cain
  • Neither Snow, nor Rain, nor Heat-Ray by M.L.D Curelas
  • Stars, Wings, and Knitting Things by J.G. Formato
  • Eel and Bloom by Diana Hurlburt
  • Above the Silver Sky by Daniel Koboldt
  • The Boys from Witless Bay by Pat Flewwelling
  • Different by Sandra Wickham
  • Riders in the Sky by VF LeSann
  • A Glory of Unicorns by Jane Yolen
  • The Last Ride of Hettie Richter by Cat McDonald
  • A Mother Unicorn’s Advice to Her Daughter by J.J. Roth
  • A Complete Mare by Tamsin Showbrook

The battle begins on May 2nd when I will post the character stats for the first two competitors and we will open up voting. Because guess what? You get to help choose the winner. You’ll be able to vote by leaving a comment on the blog post.

We didn’t want this to just turn into a straight-up popularity contest though, so our competitors won’t just be sitting quietly and watching votes come in, they will also be stealing those votes.

Each Tuesday I’ll post that week’s competitors. Then on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday each of the competitors will roll a d20 (that’s a twenty-sided die for those of you who don’t speak that particular geek dialect) either in 3 dimensions or using Roll Dice Online. They will then steal that number of votes from their opponent and add it to their own total.

I will update those totals as a comment on the blog post as well as on social media.

Votes will close each Sunday at midnight MST, and the winner of that round will be announced the next day (Monday). Just in time for the next set of opponents to be announced on Tuesday.

If all goes well, and I counted correctly, the victor should be crowned the week before Equus comes out 🙂

Combat Schedule
May 2nd
To Ride a Steel Horse vs. Different
Rue the Day vs. Eel and Bloom
May 9th
A Glory of Unicorns vs. Neither Snow, nor Rain, nor Heat-Ray
Lightless vs. The Boys from Witless Bay
May 16th
Stars, Wings, and Knitting Things vs. Riders in the Sky
Above the Silver Sky vs. The Last Ride of Hettie Richter
The schedule after this becomes a bit more complicated because we need to know the results of the earlier rounds to determine who will be competing.
I am excited about this and can’t wait to get started. I mean, I will wait because I said we’d start Tuesday, but I’m anxious for Tuesday to arrive LOL
In the meantime, check out this slideshow of some of the competing character’s portraits!

Equus Cover Reveal

Cover by Jonathan C. Parrish

Is it a horse? A unicorn? A pegasus? One of the best things about this cover for Equus is that you can’t tell — but you know it is equine. The cover was done by Jonathan C. Parrish and I love it. I think the sparkles add the perfect fantastical element, the equine is beautiful and the white will stand out among the other covers of the series while still fitting in with them. It’s an awesome collection and I’m super happy that it has an equally amazing cover to go with the stories!

There’s always something magical about horses, isn’t there? Whether winged or at home in the water, mechanical or mythological, the equines that gallop through these pages span the fantasy spectrum. In one story a woman knits her way up to the stars and in another Loki’s descendant grapples with bizarre transformations while fighting for their life. A woman races on a unique horse to save herself from servitude, while a man rides a chariot through the stars to reclaim his self-worth. From steampunk-inspired stories and tales that brush up against horror to straight-up fantasy, one theme connects them all: freedom.

Featuring nineteen fantastic stories of equines both real and imagined by J.G. Formato, Diana Hurlburt, Tamsin Showbrook, M.L.D Curelas, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, VF LeSann, Dan Koboldt, J.J. Roth, Susan MacGregor, Pat Flewwelling, Angela Rega, Michael Leonberger, Sandra Wickham, Stephanie A. Cain, Cat McDonald, Andrew Bourelle, Chadwick Ginther, K.T. Ivanrest, and Jane Yolen.

Pre-order your copy now:

World Weaver Press
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
iBookstore

 

Add Equus to your Goodreads To-Read shelf now!

 

Equus Cover Wrap

 

Equus Table of Contents

Equus

It’s time, it’s time, it’s time!

I was telling the contributors to this anthology that I look at the TOC reveal a bit like the part of a show where the house lights go down and the curtain begins to open. Not wide open, just a peek — enough to whet your appetite and make you excited for what’s about to come next. This is me introducing you to the anthology… the cover reveal is, I dunno, the handshake perhaps? And the release is when you really get to know one another.

I love Equus. I think it’s the strongest anthology I’ve ever put together and I can barely wait for you to meet and fall in love with it like I have, but for now the introduction. The lights are going down… here’s your peek behind the curtain:

Equus Table of Contents

 

Stars, Wings, and Knitting Things by J.G. Formato

Eel and Bloom by Diana Hurlburt

A Complete Mare by Tamsin Showbrook

Neither Snow, nor Rain, nor Heat-Ray by M.L.D Curelas

Rue the Day by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Riders in the Sky by VF LeSann

Above the Silver Sky by Dan Koboldt

A Mother Unicorn’s Advice to Her Daughter by J.J. Roth

Ladies Day by Susan MacGregor

The Boys from Witless Bay by Pat Flewwelling

The Horse Witch by Angela Rega

Eli the Hideous Horse Boy by Michael Leonberger

Different by Sandra Wickham

To Ride a Steel Horse by Stephanie A. Cain

The Last Ride of Hettie Richter by Cat McDonald

We Us You by Andrew Bourelle

Scatter the Foals to the Wind by Chadwick Ginther

Lightless by K.T. Ivanrest

A Glory of Unicorns by Jane Yolen

Release date: July 2017

Be sure and add it to your shelves on Goodreads in the meantime 🙂