Interview with All the Days Of blog today!

http://allthedaysof.blogspot.com/2011/09/author-interview-and-giveaway-with_30.html#comments

I love fairy tales, don’t you?  Let’s meet Artemis Hunt, author of Snow White and the Alien.  :)

Authors bio:
Artemis Hunt has a husband who thinks all fiction is nonsense and all writers of fiction should get their heads checked for situational delusions. At any one time, they have 16 to 20 dogs, many of suspicious virtue.
Artemis frequently wishes she has telekinesis, so she doesn't have to lift a finger to change the room temperature. She's constantly glued to her computer, which serves as her gateway to her friends, books, movies, TV serials and sometimes husband, even though they're sitting on the same bed two feet apart.
Artemis writes under the name of A.R. Hunt for the adult thriller and suspense genre.



Snow White and the Alien
Goodreads blurb:
Rude. Opinionated. Dirty. Bug crazy.

That's how folks describe 16-year-old Snow White, who is more interested in studying insects than her own beautiful, anemic face. When her bipolar stepmother sets a price on her heart, which she'd like served with baby potatoes and Chianti, Snow White has no choice. She must say goodbye to the only people who have ever loved her – her three-chinned nanny, who feels like a pillow, and her childhood friend, Tom, who has spent his life wearing a thick, fleshy armor to fend off her princessy barbs.

Snow White must outwit every studly huntsman, assassin, city guard and robber baron sent to bring her back, preferably dead, before she reaches Lapland.

20-year-old Aein is a one-winged cripple from another planet. Passionate, ridiculed, headstrong, and considered hideous in his gossamer, aerial world, he desires nothing more than to prove to his royal family that flight and beauty are overrated. He gets his one chance when he is selected to go to Earth, disguised as a 'Crawler' – who appears to us as a phenomenally handsome human youth. His mission: to pave our world for colonization and, later . . . annihilation.

The first native he stumbles upon is the fugitive Snow White.

Snow White and Aein must choose their allegiances, and fight a forbidden, growing love for each other before their worlds explosively collide.


Let us get to know Artemis better.

When did you start writing?
When I was 3. I drew naked pictures on a sketchbook and added little stories to them. No, I swear I'm not a deviant!

Naked pictures huh?  LoL

How long does it usually take you to write a book?
It depends. There was one book that I wrote within a month. Most of the time, I take 6 months in all - first draft, 1st rewrite, 2nd rewrite.

Six months is very quick – wow!  

What inspired you to write this book?I watched 'Tangled', the movie, and I was so in love with it I wanted to do something similar. Then I realized there are no less than two SNOW WHITE movies coming out in 2012, one starring Kristin Stewart and the other Charlize Theron, no less!

What kind of research did you have to do?Mostly about medieval costumes and insects. (Not medieval insects, since I'm sure none of them have gotten extinct yet! In fact, they seem to be getting more plentiful, at least in my house.)
I had to research insects because my Snow White is an entomologist! Yes, she's also the fairytale princess, but even fairytale princesses have to have a job!

Yeah, sad but true . . . even a princess need a job – LoL 

Who designed cover?
Telemachus Press.

Good job, Telemachus Press.

What is your next project?I already uploaded it. It's a short story called Psychotic, which was previously traditionally published in my bestselling 2005 collection, Dark City. I'm releasing this under my adult label, A.R. Hunt. It's extremely adult! Search for it in Amazon, read the blurb, and you'll understand why.

Mmmmm, fairy tales and adult fiction . . . what a repertoire! 

A typical day in your life would be?
Go to work. Beat the jam. (Moan.) Try to cram in a little writing during the job since no one ever knows what I'm doing, haha. Cram in more writing during my lunch hour. Check my Amazon rankings. Sigh copiously. Get back to work. Go home. Beat the jam. Socialize with the husband and the dogs.

What is the hardest thing about being an author?Trying to be one while holding down a full time, very stressful job! But I've got bills to pay. (Sighs copiously again.)

(Sighs with you – day jobs!!)

Do you hear from your readers much?  What do they say?
Over the years? I run newspaper columns as well, and I get emails asking me about this, and that. I reply to every email. On my fiction, I get the occasional email.

Who are some of the authors that inspire you?
 I love great storytellers. JK Rowling. Suzanne Collins. Anyone who tells a good story.

And your own TBR pile?
I'm currently reading Wither by Lauren DeStefano. I have Forest of Bones and Teeth waiting. Across the Universe by Beth Revis.

We have the same books in our TBR piles – lol

** Giveaway **

I am so happy to be able to tell you that Artemis has offered you a chance to win a .mobi copy of Snow White and the Alien.  You can leave a message for Artemis in the comments and I will draw a lucky winner on 07 October 2011.  She will contact you with your prize!

Here are some links if you want to see more.

Links:

This is the book on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Snow-White-Alien-ebook/dp/B005IHALMC/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

Smashwords
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/83414

My (always in construction because my lazy husband won't finish it) website is at www.artemishunt.org

Thank you so much for chatting with us today, Artemis. 

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - a review

A couple of months ago, I emailed Quirk Books, asking if they'd consider publishing SNOW WHITE AND THE ALIEN. "It's right up your alley," I gush, thinking of  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, though my book is a true reimagination and not a mash-up.

This is Quirk's reply:

"Sorry to say that your project is simply not a good fit with our current publishing program. [Quirk’s publishing focus is almost exclusively impractical reference, humor, and nonfiction, and so we do not publish much fiction.]"

Impractical reference, eh? What do you call all those mash-ups then. NON fiction? (Sniffs, swallows a sour grape, then drinks 3 glasses of sweet wine to get drunk.)

OK, what do I think of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? I'm not going to give a lengthy rundown of the story - I assume people browsing this post have read the blurb from Amazon and seen the stellar Book Trailer. (It's the James Cameron book trailer of all book trailers.)

Needless to say, 15-year-old boy has daft grandfather who tells him stories about peculiar children. By peculiar, we don't mean "Mom, Tommy knocked his head and he's now taking off his underwear to show me his -- ". These kids have superpowers like amazing strength, invisibility, the ability to raise the dead - pretty much like the X-Men, only they're in Wales. (Hem, come to think of it, the kids in my HUNT FOR THE CATALYST are pretty much like that too, only they're in a modified vessel which is always being attacked by peculiar creatures.)

When grandfather dies, boy goes on a pilgrimage to that old place and . . . gasp! discovers peculiar children!

I found the beginning a little slow. 15-year-old Jacob is filled with angst, and we're introduced to a whole lot of characters we never see again for the rest of the novel. Things start to pick up (for the story, not Jacob) when his grandfather dies and he goes to Wales. The segment where he gets to discover the peculiar children in a time loop is a little scary, and then the story totally shifts gear to a time travel genre.

WTF????

I thought I was reading a whimsical horror.

Jacob spends time with the kids, discovers who they really are, who's after them . . . and turns pretty peculiar himself. Zip to the ending, which left me majorly dissatisfied. Too many loose ends, as if the author knows he has to put out a sequel.

But what's so amazing about this book are the photos. They don't appear well on Kindle, but I downloaded the PDF format, and they're creepy. I found myself enjoying the photos more than the story itself . . . and I was thinking "Wow! So much more can be done with the execution with these photos." This is NIGHT CIRCUS stuff. WOMAN IN BLACK and HEADLESS HORSEMAN creepy stuff.

I found myself searching for stories over the web as to how the author procured these photos. Did he find them under his grandfather's bed? Was it a case of the chicken and the egg? Is there any chance of ME making a story out of my baby photos (it will have to be horror, of course.)

I found out that the author was inspired by a few photos, then he went all out to get some more from collections and personal libraries. So it's kind of a quarter egg, which led to a whole chicken, which then hatched a few more eggs.

So . . . 4 stars out of 5 from me for the story (minus 1 star for the slow start and the 'grind my teeth' abrupt ending, but a stellar 5 stars for the photos.

Interview with Kindle Author!

http://kindle-author.blogspot.com/2011/09/kindle-author-interview-artemis-hunt.html

Artemis Hunt, author of Snow White and the Alien, discusses her book, her journey as a writer, and self-publishing on Kindle.

DAVID WISEHART: What can you tell us about Snow White and the Alien?

ARTEMIS HUNT: It's a fantasy/sci-fi/Young Adult romance set in the enchanted forests of the Brothers Grimm. I call it Tangled meets The Day the Earth Stood Still!

16-year-old Snow White is rude, opinionated, dirty and crazy about studying bugs (the creepy crawly kind). But when her bipolar stepmother goes all out to devour her heart, Snow White has to go on the lam. Being plucky and resourceful, she must outwit every studly huntsman, assassin, city guard and robber baron sent to bring her back, preferably dead, before she reaches Lapland.

On the other side of the coin (and galaxy), 20-year-old Aein is a one-winged cripple. His princely birth makes him eligible to be disguised as a 'Crawler', a scout selected to go to Earth and who appears to us as a handsome human youth. But Aein has a darker mission—to pave our world for his people's colonization and, later...our annihilation.

The first native he stumbles upon is the fugitive Snow White.

DAVID WISEHART: How do you develop and differentiate your characters?

ARTEMIS HUNT: I made Snow White extremely different from all the fairytale and Disney versions. I daresay she'll be different from the 3 movie Snow White versions coming up in 2012! Snow White speaks her mind all the time, to the detriment of all her relationships. My Snow White is a scientist in a medieval world, more interested in publishing entomology journals than pretty dresses.

Because Aein is an alien, who in his natural form looks nothing like a human, I purposefully made him more human than human so the reader can identify with him. He's an underdog, ridiculed because of his deformity. He loves his beautiful cousin, but she's engaged to his most hated rival, a handsome bully who makes Aein's life hell.

DAVID WISEHART: Who do you imagine is your ideal reader?

ARTEMIS HUNT: Anyone who thinks beauty is overrated. This story is about the two most beautiful people in the world (albeit one is genetically disguised!) who are attracted to each other because of other qualities. Aein thinks Snow White is ugly. And Snow White does find out what Aein really looks like. Can they even have a relationship with so many obstacles in place?

DAVID WISEHART: What was your journey as a writer?

ARTEMIS HUNT: I started off when I was in college, doing newspaper and magazine articles for health (because I have an MD as a basic degree), lifestyle and entertainment (because my passion is movies).

Sometime in the last decade, I decided I wanted to tell stories as well. So I traditionally published a short story collection which became a bestseller. But because I'm Asian, I wanted to break into the American market. My then agent couldn't get me in, so I fired him and began the query process myself. Got a lot of nibbles from top agents for another manuscript I wrote (which I intend to indie publish), but they passed even after requesting a R&R. But then, I didn't really try that hard to exhaust agents. If I don't get a 50% request rate, I withdraw the manuscript!

These manuscripts are now being indie published. Snow White and the Alien is one of them. I'm still getting requests on it from queries I sent out months ago!

DAVID WISEHART: What is your writing process?

ARTEMIS HUNT: Because I hold a stressful full time job, I write whenever I can. At lunch, in airports, in planes. My husband complains I never have enough time for him.

DAVID WISEHART: What authors most inspire you?

ARTEMIS HUNT: J.K. Rowling. I love her stories and her writing.

DAVID WISEHART: What one book, written by someone else, do you wish you'd written yourself?

ARTEMIS HUNT: Twilight! It was so simple, and yet so engaging.

DAVID WISEHART: How have you marketed and promoted your work?

ARTEMIS HUNT: In the past, I have only marketed it the traditional way—author tours, newspaper and mag interviews, even a serialization in a newspaper. But e-publishing is a whole new different ballgame and I'm just a debutante at it.

I bought ads at sites like Red Adept and Frugal eReader. I'm contacting book bloggers for reviews. I just got started! I hang out at the Kindleboards. I set up a Twitter page.

And the best promotion is just to write some more! I'm releasing my backlist as well as furiously writing more.

DAVID WISEHART: Why publish on Kindle?

ARTEMIS HUNT: I like the platform. Mobi. files look great! Amazon is an amazing distributing arm.

DAVID WISEHART: What advice would you give to a first-time author thinking of self-publishing on Kindle?

ARTEMIS HUNT: Hang out at the Kindleboards for months first and learn from everyone. I made the mistake of not doing that (too busy writing). They will teach you how to set up a proper launch, pricing, and manage your expectations!

DAVID WISEHART: Thanks, and best of luck with your books.

Got my first book blogger's review today

http://lyricalreviewsya.blogspot.com/2011/09/review-snow-white-and-alien-artemis.html

I have to admit the title of this book made it pretty hard for me to resist, it’s one that really makes you wonder what the hell is going on in the book and it is far too tempting not to find out what it’s really all about. I have to say, I’m pretty glad that I did.

I guess the first thing I imagined was a mad re-telling, bordering on a farce, of the fairytale of Snow White and although it starts out this way, it soon becomes something a lot more epic in its own right. Snow White and the Alien is definitely a story that veers more towards the original fairytale, paying tribute more to the Grimm brothers rather than Disney, with often very dark and gruesome moments. It can be pretty graphic at times with themes such as sexual assault and cannibalism but this actually lends itself to the more macabre origins of fairytales, the versions you wouldn’t tell your children at bedtime. There are also cameos from other fairytale characters such as the grown up Hansel and his cannibal sister, Gretel. At first I was a bit confused as to why Gretel was a cannibal but a big part in the fairytale of Hansel and Gretel is that the witch enslaves them in preparation for eating them and in the original French version the twins slash the throat of their captor. It’s all pretty gruesome when you wash away that Disney layer!

What does remain, however, from both the old and the updated fairytales, is the sense of heroism and the journey the characters go through. Both the heroes, Snow White and Aein (the alien) begin the story as fairly helpless entities, constantly being trodden down by other characters but as the story builds, their potential for heroism becomes fulfilled. They go from being scared and superficial to taking control of their situations, learning to be courageous and seeing through the physical beauty of each other to find the person they love within, no matter what their form. I just love the way this story builds, becoming more and more epic. It moves gracefully from a fantasy to a sci-fi novel, ending a very different story to the one that began the book.

There’s a real sense of the universe getting bigger and bigger, from a fairytale castle in Bavaria to an all out alien invasion. Just writing that sentence makes me think “this cannot possibly work as a story” but actually it does and it does make sense when you turn the last page even though you try to convince yourself that it can’t. Fantasy, at least the once-upon-a-time variety, and science fiction are just poles apart but Artemis Hunt has taken two opposing stories, skilfully melded them together and created a story that actually makes sense in a non-farcical way. I have to hand it to her, that’s quite an achievement and I’d like to see Disney try to make an adaptation of that!

4 stars

KRISTEN STEWART AND THE SNOW WHITE DILEMMA

I’ve never been particularly beautiful, and I don’t think Kristen Stewart is particularly beautiful. But try telling that to my 15-year-old niece and her expression freezes like I’ve just cut the tail off her favorite pony.

“How can you say that?” she screeches.

On the chest-of-drawers, vases and other undusted curios rattle.

“Kristen Stewart is the most gorgeous, polished, underrated teen actress there is!” she continues in a tone that would have defended even OJ Simpson. “Kristen Stewart IS Snow White.”

Emmmm.

This is not a good time to tell her that I don’t think Kristen Stewart is beautiful enough to play Snow White.

I don’t what you think about the two SNOW WHITE movies that are coming up in 2012. Kristen Stewart plays Snow White in one, called SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, and Lily Collins plays Snow White in another soon-to-be-completed feature, called SNOW WHITE. (Yup, can’t get more creative than that.)

Lily Collins looks like the 1930s Disney version of Snow White, the one with the cute furry animals who don’t leave animal dander around for asthmatics. But Kristen Stewart is . . . well, what happens when you are one of the most famous teenagers on the planet? Can you actually play any iconic beauty role without everyone from Rumpelstiltskin to the fat bearded lady commenting on your looks?

Kristen Stewart is pretty. Hell, I would go on to say she’s majorly attractive – enough to attract vampires and werewolves, at least. But Snow White is meant to be the most beautiful girl on the planet at any given mythological time. I would have pegged Natalie Portman to play her. Or Keira Knightley. I might even be partial to Emma Stone.

But Kristen . . . the most beautiful girl on the planet?

And then it got me thinking . . . is beauty overrated, or beauty truly in the eye of those who would behold and Twitter about it?

I remember when they were casting Superman the first time round in the early 2000s. The fanboys were screeching every time a less than perfectly muscular, less than 6 foot Adonis was mentioned. It didn’t matter if the actor had acting experience or was better off modeling Calvin Klein briefs. It mattered only if the actor physically resembled Superman of the DC comics.

Then I figured I’m just as shallow as any of those fanboys. I wanted my Snow White to be the most beautiful girl who ever graced a ‘WANTED: PREFERABLY DEAD BY APPLE’ notice on a tree. I had a reason, you see. In my story, I slowly destroyed Snow White’s beauty to make a point – in the end, was she loved because she was beautiful, or because of everything else that she was? When you take that beauty away, would she still be loved?

So can Kristen play Snow White? In the end, it doesn’t matter if some people consider her the most beautiful thing since Venus de Milo got arms, or if other people think she’s not fit to roll naked around Robert Pattinson. It only matters if she makes us believe that she’s Snow White, and that beauty isn’t everything in a fairytale portrayal.

And I for one believe that she can.