Publisher:
Mischief Corner Books
Author: J.
Scott Coatsworth
Cover
Artist: Freddy MacKay
Length: 34K
Format: eBook
Release
Date: 6/14/17
Pairing:
MM
Price: 3.99
Genre:
MM, Sci Fi, Fantasy, Romance, Myths, Legends, Gods, Post-Apocalyptic
Blurb:
Dwyn is
a young man in the small, isolated town of Manicouga, son of the Minstor, who
is betrothed to marry Kessa in a few weeks’ time.
Mael is
shepherding the remains of his own village from the north, chased out by a
terrible storm that destroyed Land’s End.
Both are
trying to find their way in a post-apocalyptic world. When the two meet, their
love and attraction may change the course of history.
—————
The
Great North was inspired by St. Dwynwen's Day, also known as Welsh Valentines
Day:
Excerpt:
"We
celebrate Dwyn's Day as a testament to true love and sacrifice. It's a
remembrance of the way things were and the way they've come to be. In the end,
let it be a reminder that every one of us has the power to change the course of
events through love."
—Dillon
Cooper, New Gods and Monsters, Twenty
years After Dwyn
The gray clouds scudded by overhead, blowing in quickly from the
east.
Dwyn shivered and pulled on his woolen cap. It was cold out,
unusual for so early in the fall. The rains had been heavy this season, the
wettest in a generation, and Circle Lake was close to overflowing its banks. If
he stretched to look over the rows of corn plants, he could see the waters
lapping at the shore far below, as if hungry to consume his village of
Manicouga.
His father had consulted the elders, some of whom had seen more
than fifty summers, and everyone agreed things were changing. Whether that augured
good or ill was anyone's guess.
He shrugged and moved along the row of plants, breaking off ears
of corn and throwing them into the jute sack that hung from his shoulder.
Ahead of him, two of his age-mates, Declan and Baia, were working
their way down the next two rows.
Dwyn frowned. He got distracted easily, and he'd let the two of
them get a jump on him. That wouldn't do.
He redoubled his pace. He moved with focus and purpose, and soon
he was closing the gap with his friends.
"Someone's being chased by a lion," Baia said with a
laugh.
"Or a tiger." Declan grinned, his nice smile only
missing one tooth, lost to a fight with one of the Beckham brothers the year
before.
Dwyn grinned. "Or a bear?" Dwyn only knew lions and
tigers from the fairy tale his mother used to tell them, "The Girl and the
Aus." He had no idea what an Aus was, either.
Bears he knew. The hunters occasionally brought one home, and old
Alesser had a five-line scar across his wrinkled face that he claimed came from
one of the beasts.
A shout went up from ahead of them. Dwyn craned his neck to see
what the ruckus was, but he couldn't make out anything. "What's going on?"
Declan, who was half a head taller, looked toward the commotion. "Hard
to tell. Something down by the road."
Dwyn laid down his sack carefully and ran up the hill to one of
the old elms that dotted the field. He climbed into the tree, scurrying up
through the leaves and branches until he had a clear view of the Old Road. It
ran from up north to somewhere down south, maybe near the ruins of old Quebec
if the merchant tales held any truth. Hardly anyone from Manicouga ever
followed it, but occasionally traders would follow it to town, bringing exotic
wares and news from the other villages that were scattered up and down its length.
They swore it went all the way down to the Heat, the great desert
that had consumed much of the world after the Reckoning.
"What's going on down there?" Baia called from below.
Dwyn tried to make sense of it. "There are three wagons
coming down the pass. They're loaded up with all sorts of things. They don't
look like traders though."
The first of the horse-drawn wagons had just reached the field
above the main township. It stopped, and someone hopped off to talk with the
villagers who had gathered from the fields.
"We need to get down there," Dwyn said, scrambling down
the tree trunk. "Something's happening." Nothing new ever happened in
Manicouga, and he wasn't going to miss it.
He grabbed his sack and sprinted toward the Old Road, not waiting
to see if Declan and Baia followed.
Buy Links Etc:
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Coming Soon
4.5 out of 5 stars
The Great North is a new standalone post-apocalyptic story kicking off Mischief Corner Books' new A Legendary Love line of stories.
As the blurb for the story really gives you the background I won't delve into retelling it. I'll just dive into my review.
So again our author, J. Scott Coatsworth, takes us on a completely new world building journey. Which is one of my absolute favorite traits for this author. He really, really knows how to world build the old-school way that I grew up reading. Everything is laid out for you but leaving some room for individual interpretation or in this case your imagination of what a post-apocalyptic/dystopian society might appear.
We have two very separate communities being represented by Dwyn's people, the Manicougans, and Mael's people, from Land's End. They are two total extremes in that the Manicougans are devout to their religion and what their religion has taught them to be right and wrong. The Land's End people don't follow those precepts, they are a polyamorous society but not in the way of what our concept of polyamory is. They have a mate of their heart, and they also have their mate to provide children. They are not truly bisexual, at least from what I interpreted in the story, as their heart mate is of the same sex and their birth mate is female but may not be who they are in love with. While it does play against our traditional concepts of polyamory and bisexuality, this is a <i><b>Dystopian</b></i> society...and our concepts should not be applied to their society.
I was struck by how Dwyn's community felt against 'holers' (their term for someone who is gay) and how almost Puritanical and borderline fanatical they were about their religion. Whereas the Land's End community felt more communal, slightly hippie-esque in their way of thinking. They may not be exactly "Free Love" but they understood the need to continue their society by procreating and conceptualized a way that worked for them. I do wish we'd have seen more of their society prior to it's decimation. I think it would have added just a little more depth to their way of life and their beliefs.
This novella packs a lot of depth into it's pages and you don't really realize how much until you've finished reading it and think about it a little bit. I hope to see more from this world by the author even though the series itself will be various authors and various legends/myth retellings.
I highly recommend The Great North both for the author's writing and storytelling skills as well as the story itself. Check this one out now!
Author Bio:
Scott
spends his time between the here and now and the what
could be. Enticed into fantasy and sci fi by his mom at the tender age of
nine, he devoured her Science Fiction Book Club library. But as he grew up, he
wondered where all the people like him were in the books he was reading.
He decided that it
was time to create the kinds of stories he couldn’t find at his local bookstore.
If there weren’t gay characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to
his own ends.
His friends say
Scott’s mind works a little differently – he sees relationships between things
that others miss, and gets more done in a day than most folks manage in a week.
He loves to transform traditional sci fi, fantasy, and contemporary worlds into
something unexpected.
He runs both Queer
Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark, sites that bring queer people
together to promote and celebrate fiction that reflects their own lives.
Author Links:
Website: https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com
Facebook
(personal): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworth
Facebook (author
page): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworthauthor/
QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/
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