The Regina Book Award is described this way: “In recognition of the vitality of the literary community in Regina, this award is presented to a Regina author (or pair of authors) for the best book, judged on the quality of writing.”

Other shortlisted in the same category: Mark Cronlund Anderson & Carmen L. Robertson, for Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers (University of Manitoba Press); Wilfred Burton and Anne Patton for Call of the Fiddle (Gabriel Dumont Institute; illustrated by Sherry Farrell Racette and translated by Norman Fleury), Britt Holmström for Leaving Berlin (Thistledown Press), and Alison Lohans for Picturing Alyssa (Dundurn Press Ltd.).

The awards will be announced and presented at a gala dinner at the Conexus Arts Centre on April 28.

This is the fifth time I’ve been shortlisted for a Saskatchewan Book Award, although this is the first time Lee Arthur Chane has been shortlisted: all the other books were under the byline “Edward Willett.” Spirit Singer won the Regina Book Award in 2002 (that’s when the photo is from). Soulworm was shortlisted for best first novel in 1997 and The Dark Unicorn for best children’s book in 1998. J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of Imaginary Worlds was shortlisted for (if I remember right) best children’s book in…2005, maybe?

It’s nice to be nominated. It’s even nicer to win, since it comes with a substantial sum!

UPDATE: It clearly pays to attend the news conference. I was featured on the CBC-TV spot about the announcement, talking about how important the recognition is to Saskatchewan writers, and I also managed to get myself featured in the Global TV and Regina Leader Post stories…although there are others nominated in multiple categories, and I’m only shortlisted in the one. So, win or not, I sure got good publicity out of it!

*Yes, that’s a rule change: in the past, anyone could nominate but only members could vote. This year, you must be a member to nominate, as well.

Their description is nice, too:

First things first: yes, Lee Arthur Chane, c’est moi, Edward Willett. The pseudonym (a marketing decision by my publisher, DAW Books in New York, because this book marks my move into fantasy from science fiction) is actually the middle names of my two older brothers and myself.

If you’re not familiar with the term “fantasy novel,” well, The Lord of the Rings would be the classic example. Or you might have seen A Game of Thrones on HBO, based on George R.R. Martin’s epic series. Essentially, fantasy novels take place in mythical lands, and typically involve magical or supernatural elements.

In Magebane, the mythical land is the Kingdom of Evrenfels, ruled by a powerful nobility known as the MageLords, because they can use magic. They rule with an iron fist over the Commoners, who have no magic.

But the MageLords haven’t always lived in Evrenfels. Eight centuries ago they were chased out of their old kingdom by a Commoner revolt, led by something or someone called the Magebane that rendered their magic useless. They fled to the far side of the world, dragging some Commoners with them, and hid themselves away behind an impenetrable magical barrier. But now various MageLords would like to remove that barrier, each for his or her own reason, a new Magebane has arisen…and there are, bubbling up from the increasingly technological advanced Commoners the MageLords oppress, new rumors of rebellion.

What no one in Evrenfels realizes is that the Commoners outside the kingdom, for whom the MageLords are nothing but myth, have explored the world right up to the Great Barrier itself, which they see as a baffling scientific anomaly. Their technology has advanced even further than that of the Commoners in Evrenfels: so far, in fact, that one day a young man crash-lands in the kingdom aboard an experimental airship that has just flown over the Barrier…and throws everyone’s schemes into turmoil.

Though a land of magic and MageLords may seem far removed from mundane Saskatchewan, local readers will actually find themselves very much at home in Evrenfels, a land cold in winter and hot in summer, largely prairie in the south, with lakes and forests in the north. They may find themselves even more at home in the capital city of New Coroba, where the King rules from a white stone palace (complete with equestrian statue in the formal gardens out front) set in a park on the southern shore of a man-made lake: albeit it a lake and park and palace protected from winter’s wrath by a magical dome that makes it always spring. (OK, yes, that was pure wish-fulfillment on my part.)

Magebane came out in early October, and reviewers have been kind: in fact, Publishers Weekly calls it “spectacular,” and says, “Double and triple crosses, fast-paced action, and powerful moral conviction will have readers hanging on every word.”

Glad to see younger readers are enjoying it too, though. The reviewer at Flamingnet (a site where pre-teens and teens review YA books), a 14-year-old from Hunting Valley, OH, writes:

“This author is a very good author. He makes you feel like you are standing right next to the characters. Some of the book was a little inapropriate, but it was a very good book…I would recommend this book to others.”

Read the whole thing!

Contest closes Sunday, December 11, at midnight CST.

Remember, you can read the prologue and first chapter (or listen to me read them) here–you know, if you’re not sure you want to win a copy and need a taste to whet your appetite.

Let the contest begin!

Chane created a fascinating and unique world in Magebane, a stand-alone fantasy novel. There is a little predictability with the main characters’ story lines. Neither the romance between the sheltered girl and the worldly boy nor the prince who wishes for a more meaningful life are unexpected. Readers are likely to overlook this, however, as they race to find out what happens next in this fast-paced, action-packed book. This is an excellent recommendation for fantasy-loving teens looking for something out of the ordinary.

Read the whole thing.

Chane combines some steampunk sensibilities with a magic world, infuses the whole thing with some potent political plotting, and presents the result – a fantastic novel.

And finishes…

Ultimately, a highly satisfying novel. I’d love to see something further in the world that Chane has created, although this book stands entirely alone. The element that I most liked was the fact that the UP’s righteous cause is not sufficient to justify hir unrighteous means – good triumphs despite its dubious allies.

Read the whole thing.

Review Room has some quibbles, but still says:

I found the book quite appealing because it pitted science against magic, and couldn’t help being drawn in by the detailed descriptions of this alternate magical reality – it’s spells, it’s inventions and it’s different life. Commoners have achieved through science which the MageLords do via Magic. Against this backdrop Chane has created well-fleshed out characters. He gives the reader a look-see into their minds, which was quite interesting. The story has many twists and turns and is quite unpredictable so it keeps one engaged and reading.

Read the whole thing.

Interestingly, both reviewers (and some previous ones) note they’d be interested in seeing more of the world of Magebane. So would I! Which is why I have proposed a sequel. Still waiting for word on it from DAW, though, so…cross your fingers for me!

(This is a slightly modified version of an essay that originally ran on John Scalzi’s blog

I know this is called “The Big Idea,” but my new fantasy novel Magebane didn’t grow out of a single big idea.  Instead, it grew out of four ideas: three big ones, and one not-so-big one. (But “The Big 3 1/2 Ideas” isn’t nearly as catchy a name.)

First: it is, of course, one of the hoariest of fairy-tale tropes that an enchantment can be broken with a kiss: typically, a prince kissing a princess. But one day while I was musing on this (and since I have a young daughter, princesses are something I have mused about quite often), I had the notion of writing a story in which a kiss didn’t just break an enchantment, it broke all enchantments: a story in which a kiss between a (sort-of) prince and a (kind-of) princess would bring magic itself crashing down in ruin.

Now, that’s a somewhat subversive notion in fantasy fiction. Typically in fantasies the destruction of magic is not something devoutly to be wished: instead, they’re all about the restoration of magic, or at least the triumph of good magic over bad magic. But magic is, ultimately, a form of power: and like all power, it can be abused. Particularly if some people have it, and others don’t.

Second: since I was already thinking subversively in terms of making the overthrow of magic a good thing, I continued thinking subversively about another common fantasy trope, the idea that restoring the rightful king to a throne can solve all that has gone wrong in a kingdom.

In the real world, restoring absolute monarchs to power is generally not seen as a good thing. I mean, an absolute monarch is just a dictator with a jeweled hat, when you come right down to it. In the real world, we (well, most of us, at least) celebrate the overthrow of tyrants…even the ones that have been, perhaps, less tyrannical than some of their peers.

Where, I asked myself, are the democratic revolutionaries within fantasy fiction?

I decided to create some.

The third big idea: what happens in a world with magic when technology (any sufficiently advanced version of which, as Arthur C. Clarke famously said, is indistinguishable from magic) begins to give those who cannot wield magic the same abilities as those who can?

With these three ideas in hand, I fired up my story-making cauldron, tossed them in, stewed and steeped and stirred them for a while, and eventually poured off 150,000 words of what I’d like to  think is pretty tasty story.

In Magebane, the tyrannical MageLords, who rule by virtue of their magical power (pretty much their only virtue), were thrown down from power centuries past in their old kingdom by the Commoners, the non-magical people they rule, with the help of something or someone called the Magebane. Fearing for their lives, the MageLords used magic to flee to the far side of the world, where they established a new kingdom, protected from attack by an impenetrable magical barrier.

But now there are various MageLords who would like, each for his or her own reasons, to remove that Barrier; there is a new Magebane; and there are, bubbling up from the increasingly technological advanced Commoners trapped in the kingdom with them, rumors of a new rebelliousness.

What no one in the kingdom realizes is that the Commoners outside, for whom the MageLords are nothing but myth, have explored the world right up to the Great Barrier itself…and that their technology has advanced far beyond that of the Commoners within the Barrier. That is, no one realizes it until one young man crash lands in the kingdom aboard the experimental airship that has just flown over the Barrier…

Yes, that’s right: my big fat fantasy novel is also steampunky!

As for the small idea that is also part of the Magebane mix? That’s the setting. The hidden  kingdom of the MageLords is largely prairie in the south and forests in the north, with lots of lakes.

It has, in fact, the same geography as the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, where I live. And there’s more: in the kingdom’s capital, there is a white stone palace on the southern shore of a manmade man-made lake…just as there is in Saskatchewan’s capital city of Regina, where the Saskatchewan Legislative Building rises on the south shore of Wascana Lake, just a couple of blocks from my house.

Alas, the real lake and the real park surrounding it are not magically protected from winter’s ravages like the one in the book. You could call that wish-fulfillment, if you like, and I daresay you’d be correct.

But then, you could also call the whole book a kind of wish-fulfillment: a wish for fantasy that recognizes that even a benevolent dictator is still a dictator, and that whatever Tolkien may have primed us to believe, The Return of the King is not necessarily a happy ending.

Also, a wish for more fantasy with airships.

Because airships, like bow-ties on The Doctor, are cool.

Lee Arthur Chane’s Magebane is an original and delightful tale of epic fantasy and magic, steampunk science, adventure, tragedy, and love….

The mix of high fantasy and steampunk is one that I regarded with suspicion; such a blend is difficult to do well, such that it makes sense and doesn’t create a sense of genre discord. Chane did a marvelous job with it, however…

Although I’ve raved solely about the worldbuilding so far, there’s plenty more to recommend it. The characters are delightful…There’s plenty of action and excitement to keep things going…

If you enjoy fantasy, steampunk, and adventure, I think you’ll find Magebane to be a surprisingly delightful blend of the three!

Can’t ask for better than that!

A particularly pleasing review since I’m in Saskatoon this evening to read from/launch Magebane at McNally Robinson Bookstore. If you’re in the area, come by:  7:30 p.m.!