Tracy Falbe

I have been hooked on fantasy and science fiction since preschool when I watched Star Trek the Original Series with my family on TV. Then came Star Wars at the theater when I was 5, and a few years later, I discovered the joys of reading fantasy with the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.

The elements I like most about the genres are the high stakes (save the world, overthrow the empire, etc.), the diversity of characters, and how magic or extraordinary technology allows plots to expand in interesting ways. The ability of fantasy and sci fi to include analysis and criticisms of social conditions like religion and politics is especially fascinating as well. When this is done in conventional fiction, people and readers descend into arguments about whether an opinion is valid or the historical information is accurate instead of assessing the concepts themselves.

Of course, fantasy and sci fi can just be fun as well. I love a good hero or heroine and villains can be the best of all. And there is something therapeutic about picking up a sword or blaster and solving the problems of the world.

My taste in genre has inevitably married itself to my love of writing. For some reason I am a person capable of writing novels. The act of creating thousands of pages of fiction does not overwhelm me. Making it a good work of fiction is the hard part that requires countless hours of editing and rewriting and lots of daydreaming too.

When I'm not writing, my other passions include cooking, growing food, reducing my plastic waste, raising rabbits, spinning wool, and reading.

Website: https://www.falbepublishing.com/
Twitter: @tracyfalbe
Facebook: Facebook profile
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracy-falbe-55a52a3/
Wattpad: Braveluck
Blog: https://movetravelhome.com

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• The Gateway (An Epic Fantasy Novella) on Dec. 16, 2009
  
  Solid heroic fantasy. For readers desiring battle with beasts of a chaos lord, this is good reading.
  
• Demon Lord on Feb. 17, 2011
  
  The terrible Black Lord of the Underworld is locked out of the green and living Overworld by seven wards set by ancient mages. This evil fallen God cannot rise to break these wards so he must twist and trick a human to do it for him. A woman is taken to the Underworld and her son cut from her womb. Raised by cruel demons and other creatures, this boy is named Bane. Vicious tortures and wicked tests make him strong as he grows. He looks to the Black Lord as his father, who imbues Bane with dark powers. As a human, Bane can go to the Overworld. When he is grown he becomes the Demon Lord and sets out to break the seven wards. The only hope for the Overworld is a sweet and innocent healer girl, Mirra. Her Sisterhood of healers raised her to undo the evil of Bane with her glorious and selfless goodness. During her upbringing, she was sheltered from anger, arguments, conflict, and any unpleasantness. She is pure and giving and guileless and believes in the goodness of the world. A riveting psychological drama unfolds as these two opposing characters influence each other. Mirra is taken prisoner by the Demon Lord as he spreads terror and destruction across the world, marching from ward to ward and breaking them. Bane is intellectually stymied by Mirra's inability to hate him. She even cares for him because she cares for all things. Bane tortures her but will not kill her, despite repeated demands from the Black Lord that he do so. Gradually Bane becomes protective of Mirra although he refuses to accept that she is stirring human feelings within him. But the progress of Mirra's good influence is slow, and Bane remains stubbornly loyal to the Black Lord. Wards continue to shatter beneath the Demon Lord's awesome power and the suffering of the world grows worse each day. Demon Lord is a tremendous fantasy novel packed with demons, trolls, depraved humans, and scuttling horrors of the night. Massive mountain fortresses fall. Towns are ravaged. Storms toss ships at sea. Wards holding back the Black Lord are hidden in a great crashing waterfall or insulated within a colossal monolithic crystal. Mirra learns the terror of being chained to a sacrificial altar. Bane rides a demon steed. Every paragraph and chapter of this novel rushes headlong into gripping action and terrible trials as Bane and Mirra grapple with their worst fears. Southwell's writing flows and is filled with stunning landscapes and lucid insights into the characters' tortured thoughts. And chapter by chapter the seeds of romance reluctantly germinate in the hostile soil. The age old story of a woman trying to change a man for his own good and the good of the world underpins this wonderful fantasy filled with dark horror, cruelty, and persistent hope. Demon Lord is the first book in a series and I will definitely be reading more of T.C. Southwell's fantasy fiction. Getting a copy of this novel is as effortless as kneeling before the Demon Lord. It is a free ebook download at Smashwords.
  
• Hero For Hire on Sep. 09, 2015
  
  This is a fun read with lots of action and a likable hero. I appreciated the intelligence of the author who included many wry and insightful observations about human nature.
  
• Return to Mech City on Oct. 16, 2016
  
  Return to Mech City by Brian Bakos gets my vote as the best free read at Smashwords. This first book of the Robot Horizon Series presents a modest book cover and a mere two-sentence description that managed to immediately snag my attention. The story is a post-apocalyptic dystopia. Humanity has succumbed to plague and environmental devastation. Only the robots remain. Before the apocalypse, many types of robots had been integrated into human society, and robot engineers in Mech City developed new ones right up to the very end. This is the place where Dr. Anna Horvath tells her blue humanite model robot Winston to go with her dying words. She has filled his data reservoir with all the knowledge of humankind and gives him the task of preserving this legacy. Her orders give Winston a reason not to jump from a window and kill himself. In Mech City, he finds robots adrift without purpose. No humans remain to give them tasks, and many hurl themselves from upper stories. Most of the robots are worker robots. They are built for manual functions and differ from a humanite like Winston, who lacks physical strength. Winston begins saving robots by giving them new purpose. He has them renovate buildings. Grateful for the direction he offers, they quickly start calling him "Boss" and he likes it. Winston meets Star. She was built to look like a perfect woman and be desirous of giving and receiving sexual pleasure. I admired how Bakos made the sex slave robot fresh again. Star is a complex character, curious, kind, and inherently good. But not all robots are awaiting orders or good in their hard drives. Fascista Ultimo, F.U. to his friends, has plotted a takeover of Mech City and plans to rule all of robot kind. Aided by robots of sinister and destructive design, he forcefully enlists Winston to his inner circle because of his influence over the worker robots. Winston complies because he does not want to be destroyed. As a scholarly robot, however, he possesses the data and programming to recognize the dangerous insanity of F.U. For example, F.U. says, "It's all about the natural hierarchy. We Humanites were created to be the Master Race, the successors of the founding humans." And from his Manifesto: "The true Fascist leader must give his followers the sense that their rotten little prejudices are something exalted and pure." This novel is both complex and easy to read. The prose flows, and the skill with which Bakos treats the development of robot characters impressed me. The post-apocalyptic turmoil drives Winston to experience sensations increasingly close to emotions. His programming sometimes literally crashes as he copes with terrible problems and tragedies. The adoration of the worker robots immediately builds his ego, and he likes the power. But when he see the evil of F.U. he recognizes how corrupting the love of power can be. For me, the novel created an amazing fictional study about what the world of robots might be like. We live in a time of Big Data, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Against this real-world backdrop, Bakos imagined an artificial culture in its infancy as it struggled with chaos, oppression, and revolution. The actions of the robots, while staying genuinely within the realm of their digital souls, reminded me strongly of the beauty and ugliness within humanity. In Return to Mech City, I joined with characters who showed that artificial intelligence finds the great problems of the ages no easier to deal with than my organic brain.
  
• Expedition Westward on Jan. 29, 2017
  
  Another great read from Brian Bakos. Expedition Westward was full of action and thought-provoking examinations of human madness, post apocalyptic desperation, and how robots might experience existence. Winston remained a compelling character. He was vulnerable to the corrupting influence of power, yet still redeemable by Star. This book introduced more human characters too as the reader discovers that the plague did not wipe everyone out. The survivors, however, are less than appealing humans and quite devoid of mental health.
  
• Battle for Mech City on Feb. 10, 2018
  
  A great conclusion to the Robot Horizon trilogy. The action is nonstop in this unique dystopian adventure. The prose is skillfully written and flows effortlessly from scene to scene. Plenty of automatic weapons' fire and kinky Lexx-style high jinks drive a plot full of interesting characters like Winston and General Reyes. The story ponders robot-robot relationships, robot-human relationships, and human-human relationships.