Author: Monalisa Foster

  • I wholeheartedly agree (review of The Wheel of Time)

    I’m more of a sci-fi girl and my husband is the fantasy reader in the family. I may have read The Wheel of Time at one point (I used to read a book a day, once upon a time before dishes, laundry, and other generally mundane things took over my life). If so, I don’t recall much about it except something about how the author overuses the physical beats having to do with braids. Truly, that’s all my memory could come up with. I hope I’m thinking of the right books.

    And with all the furor over this series, I thought I might be missing out on something. So, I asked hubby if he thought it was worth reading. I’m paraphrasing, but his response was a comparison to a buffet: The food is terrible, but the portions are huge. So mostly I’ve been relying on those who have read it to tell me just how far the TV show diverges from the source material. Hubby and I watched 3 or 4 episodes. We will not be watching the rest. We found it telly, boring, and didn’t care about any of the characters. Like a lot of Amazon’s “productions” it misses the mark.

    My friend Scott did a review of the new Amazon series, The Wheel of Time, and he nails it. Read his excellent review here.



  • Ravages of Honor: Ascension available for pre-order

    Ravages of Honor: Ascension available for pre-order

    I am so happy to announce that the sequel to Ravages of Honor: Conquest (Book 1) is now available for pre-order. It will be available for download on Friday, Nov. 19, 2021. You can click here to be taken to your favorite retailer.

    Would you embrace darkness to save your child?

    House Dobromil has stood against the emperor since the beginning. For generations, they have defied tyrannical edicts and stood up for donai and humans.


    For decades, war has crept ever closer and now, Syteria, a rebellious human woman Darien has chosen to be his future queen may be the spark that sets the Imperium to flame.


    When Syteria crosses paths with the emperor’s agents, the unthinkable happens.


    With the survival of both races in peril, with the future of House Dobromil on the line, the stakes for Darien and Syteria are higher than ever.


    Driven by death and betrayal, victory and defeat, tragedy and secrets, can Syteria and Darien ascend to fulfill their destinies?

    Ravages of Honor: Ascension picks up right after the end of Ravages of Honor: Conquest. While it can be read as a standalone (it is a complete story with its own beginning, middle, and end), it was meant to be read in sequence. 

    A funny thing happened on the way to publication. I had always thought of book 1 as Ravages of Honor because of this quote from Galen:

    “I’m sorry. The ravages of my master’s honor were not meant to be borne by a human.”

    Galen, Ravages of Honor: Conquest

    But as I was finishing up the book (it took me three years to write it) I realized that the theme of it was one of conquest. The conquest of fear, of one’s desires, of the unknown, of one’s self. Syteria had to conquer her fears, adapt to an alien world, and rediscover the person she was meant to be, the person that the Rhoans destroyed. And she had to learn to trust enough to fall in love–something that would have earned her a death sentence back on Rho.

    Darien is conquered by Syteria as much as Syteria is conquered by Darien. So, when it came time to upload the book, I gave it the sub-title of Conquest, but left it off the cover because I thought it would be too cluttered.

    For book 2, the theme is one of ascension. To ascend means to rise to a higher level. I hinted at it in RoH1:Conquest:

    He opened the cylinder. It was a very short note, written in a hurried scrawl. Deploy to Gamma Iramana. End the practice called the Rite of Ascension. Lord Dobromil.

    Dragomir, Sovereign of House Dobromil, Ravages of Honor:Conquest

    In RoH2:Ascension, Syteria and Darien will face many challenges. Darien warned Syteria:

    “Our loyalty—yours and mine—will be tested,” he said as amber returned to his eyes. “This too is part of being mine.”

    Darien, Ravages of Honor:Conquest

    But even Darien didn’t realize at the time just how they would be tested, or that they would have to prove their loyalty to his father. When I wrote those lines, I had a solid idea of how I wanted book 2 to end, but I didn’t realize just how dark and difficult that path would be for both of them. I rewrote the last third of the book twice because it was too dark. As a writer, we have to put our characters in peril, to challenge them to grow, to drag them (kicking and screaming if necessary) to a place where they have to get up (to rise again) no matter how badly they’ve been beaten down. Be warned, then, that RoH2:Ascension, is a darker story than Conquest was. It had to be. But be assured that their Happily Ever After was well-earned.

    For history buffs, you no doubt recognized General Charles Napier’s words in Darien’s mouth:

    “I understand your distaste,” he said. “I really do. So perverse is man that he prefers to be misgoverned by his own kind than to be well-ruled by another.”

    Darien, Ravages of Honor: Conquest

    I put them there for a reason. I think you will recognize the subplot around the Rite of Ascension.

    For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, rest easy. You don’t need to know in order for the story to make sense, so just sit back and enjoy the ride.

  • Ravages of Honor pronunciation guide

    I’m a logophile. My Spotify playlist is made up of songs in German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Hungarian, Norwegian, Icelandic, Mongolian, Latin, French, and Italian.

    One of the reasons I love writing science fiction is that it allows me to make up words and use language in a creative way. I love making up words and names, but not all of them are original, even if they sound that way.

    So, if you were wondering about how to pronounce the unique names and terms I’ve created (and what the stories behind them are) you might enjoy the Ravages of Honor pronunciation guide. Each episode is very short (30 seconds to 1 minute long). I will be adding to it, so please remember to subscribe to my channel so that YouTube will notify you of additions.

    Click here for the pronunciation playlist.

    Pronunciation Guide

  • A blast from the past

    I was working on Ascension, the sequel to Ravages of Honor: Conquest today and went looking for some references related to a plot point. Somehow I found the very first iteration of what was then the opening scene for RoH:C. I’m sharing it with you today because I want you to see what a difference a few years of writing makes. It took me almost three years to finish Conquest and then another year to publish it (slush piles will do that).

    The 865-word hot mess below became the 2449-word second scene of Chapter Two. It went from being a thin, badly written, first draft to a well-written, fleshed-out piece with depth. Depth is really hard to explain but it comes down to how well you are able to pull the reader in and immerse him in your world. It is made up of thick, rich details that allow the reader to be more than a spectator watching a movie–it puts them solidly in the character’s head and heart. It is a hard-to-acquire skill. It is what makes a reader come back to a story again and again (so they can be the character) even after they know exactly what is going to happen next (the plot events).

    If you go to the sample on Amazon, the final form of this scene begins with “The contours of empty, midnight-quiet passageways blurred past Darien. His bare feet struck the metal decking with a steady rhythm.” You can read the entire thing in the sample for comparison if you like.

    Unlike the hot mess below–what I like to call a “first vomit draft”–the final product doesn’t open by dropping you cold into a dark room where you might as well be blind (because the details are absent). Unlike the hot mess below, it’s not full of fake details, devoid of characterization and opinions, and thin as the gruel in a Dickens orphanage.

    It took three long years of listening to criticism that cut me to the bone, that made me lose my lunch, that made me curl up and cry, but it was all worth it. Which is why my best advice to anyone thinking about taking up the madness of writing is this:



    “The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”

    – Norman Vincent Peale
    (more…)
  • Excerpt from “Good of the Many”

    Excerpt from “Good of the Many”

    I’m very excited to share with you the opening of my short story, Good of the Many, released today in Worldbreakers, an anthology edited by Tony Daniel and Christopher Rucchio.

    Dedication

    Greater love hath no man…in recognition of the brave souls, Peter Wang, Alaina Petty, and Martin Duque. You embraced your duty sooner than you should have had to.

    There’s nothing quite like walking into a tomb, although technically—I guess—it’s not. We’re not exactly underground or under a church, even though storage unit six is part of the UENS Sanctuary (T-AH-1749) and her motto is “For the good of the many.”

    That must make stasis pod 06-004 a crypt. No, that also didn’t fit. No one—not one of the hundreds of citizens—inside Sanctuary were dead. Technically.

    There were two dozen sealed pods inside unit six, each one twice as wide and deep as a coffin, but not twice as long. My steps echoed as I made my way down the rows and rows of pods, trailing a pool of light cast by a lantern floating off my right shoulder. Its repulsor field made a barely audible hum as its weak light cast long shadows. Shadows that slithered in a place where nothing had moved since I was here exactly one year ago.

    I shuddered, my skin crawling and dimpling into goosebumps that raised the hairs on my arms.

    Get hold of yourself, Elena.

    (more…)

  • Catching the Dark

    I’m happy to present the release of Catching the Dark: An Alt History Short Story* as a standalone.

    Operation Barbarossa destroyed most of the Tsarina Tatiana Romanova’s aircraft. 

    Sixteen-year-old Natalya loves to fly, to soar. And now she gets to. As the youngest member of the Tsarina’s Own Night Bomber regiment.

    A short story for anyone who loves WW2 alt-history, aviation, and stories about heroism.

    Night Witches strike terror in the hearts of darkness.

    *This short story was previously published in To Slip the Surly Bonds (Phases of Mars 2) edited by Chris Kennedy and James Young

  • Coming Soon…

    If you want notifications of new releases, sign up for my newsletter.

  • Dominion Re-release

    In the spring of 2018 I was part of a writer’s workshop that included the chance to sell stories for six different anthologies.

    Dominion was originally written for a romance anthology. However, it was bought by Ron and Bridget Collins for their Face the Strange anthology. The coronapocalypse delayed the publication until 2020. By then I had already written the first novel, Ravages of Honor, and several other shorter works in the same universe.

    I am thrilled to bring Dominion to you as a standalone. It allowed me to further explore the origins of the donai, something that I was still fleshing out in 2017. 

    Like all of my works, Dominion and its companion works are all complete, standalone works, with a beginning, middle, and end. 

    There are no cliffhangers. 

    You do not need to read any of the short stories or novellas in order for them to make sense.

    Available now from your favorite retailer.

  • Coming soon…

  • Audio version of “Bonds of Love and Duty”

    Audio version of “Bonds of Love and Duty”

    I’m a very visual person and always have been. If I see it I can memorize it, learn it, remember it, etc. But listening has always been a bit more challenging. I get distracted–usually by visual stuff.

    But I really wanted to hear my short story, “Bonds of Love and Duty” being read. It’s been out in Fantastic Hope (edited by Laurell K. Hamilton and William McCaskey) since April. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I can tell you that I got chills. I’ve held copies of the book in my hand, I’ve seen it in stores, but listening to it still made quite an impression.

    And it did bring up a question for all of you. I remember audio books as being read/narrated without “voices.” In other words, the narrator would read them with emotion and a bit of “acting” but not attempt to impersonate the characters’ dialogue. Does a man reading a woman’s dialogue as falsetto, or a woman reading a man’s dialogue by lowering her voice bother you? I can see lowering the voice for a whisper or raising it for a shout, but if a character is gasping for air, or crying, do you want to hear that re-enacted? I’d love to hear your thoughts.