Summer of Indie Discusses Crystal Shade With Istvan Szabo

Our Summer of Indie author for today is Istvan Szabo, author of Crystal Shade: Angeni, Volume 1. Crystal Shade is a young adult, epic fantasy book, and it is the first book in a trilogy.

We asked author Istvan Szabo to give us a closer look at their book:

Crystal Shade: Angeni, Volume 1

“Thousands of stars could tell thousands of stories. 

Seven year old Grace always dreamt of becoming a guardian angel; like those who guarded and guided her people and prepared to bravely fight in a dreaded mythical event, the Crystal Shade – which never came. It's not like Grace ever wanted to see Demons. Or wants to know what evil and
darkness is – things that no one ever faced on her world and as the legends says, the Crystal Shade carries within –, nor does she want to die to be reborn as a guardian. But she thinks the mysterious life of angels is so noble, a fable that it sounds exciting – until it actually happens.
Crystal Shade: Angeni, Volume 1 explores the early life of a young daydreaming soul who is destined to reveal the forgotten past of her home world and to seek the answer for the eternal question; what the legendary Crystal Shade really is.

Available at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00660MU8I
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00660MU8I
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/104029
http://www.createspace.com/3753679 (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/9630826879 (Paperback)
http://www.crystalshadeangeni.com/purchase (Link collection to every
retailer)

After getting this glimpse into the first volume of the Crystal Shade trilogy, we asked author Istvan Szabo more about being an author, and their inspirations for writing Crystal Shade: Angeni, Volume 1. 

Q: Can you tell us more about yourself?

A: Based out of Budapest, Hungary, I began my writing and art
career at a young age. My strengths include Science Fiction, Fantasy,
Thrillers, as well as Spiritual, Romantic, and Political works. At the
beginning of my career, two companies asked me to create and
write the stories of two of their video games. Since 2007, working
parallel on several different projects, I mostly developed and
worked on the Crystal Shade franchise and wrote Crystal Shade: Angeni.
As an artist for hire, I have created illustrations, character art,
short CGI animations and marketing materials for various projects as
well as for my own works, Crystal Shade: Angeni, 7 Post Meridiem,
Nightfall and other unannounced projects. In 2007, I produced my
first short movie "15 Minutes of Fame", in which I was the
screenwriter, director and storyboard artist. "15 Minutes of Fame" won
3rd Place at the UPC-AXN Film Festival 2007.

Q: Can you tell us how you got started writing?

It's a family tradition. For years I was a screenwriter / director and now I'm an author. But I always wanted to be a writer and I always wanted to present a new, breathing and living world, be it fantasy or science fiction.

Q: Can you give us some background on your book?

A: One of the key phases in Crystal Shade; Thousands of stars could tell thousands of stories. While angels and demons play the key role in Crystal Shade, the trilogy tries to present these mythical and mysterious creatures in a completely different way than the well known ones as well as trying to bring them closer. To present them as less rigid and / or almighty to the readers. Because angels and demons, spirits, souls and other religious creatures are sometimes alienating readers, in Crystal Shade we present these creatures independently so that everyone may read and enjoy regardless of origin and belief.

Life is not just about mindless actions and instant adventures… as many believe when a story must be told. Sometimes a world, its culture and its past must be known, its story and its secrets must be learned and revealed to understand, especially where everything has a beginning and an end and foremost; where nothing and no one is what they appear to be. – If my heroine should summarize the story, her life this is how she would do it as this ideal led me during the development and writing of Crystal Shade.

The worst critique that a novel can get; two dimensional, boring, full of clichés and predictable. When we started to develop the storyline of Crystal Shade: Angeni I considered all these elements and tried to avoid them from the very first page, be it speaking about the characters, world development and also the most important element of all, the story. The story of Crystal Shade intends to be a rich one, which is similar to life itself, were you don’t know what the future or even the next page might bring. And sometimes you might even not know for a time where the story truly wants to flow. But in the very end when you look back you’ll see every action had a cause and effect, every single detail had a reason, a rightful place and was there where it needed to be.

Writing stories is about imagination and not about rules; at least as I used to say. And every story must have a soul otherwise it will be an empty shell. Because of this single reason in Crystal Shade I avoided and ignored most of the present binding industry rules, standards and protocols. The storyline doesn’t start so close or right in the action because it’s a must, and we also didn’t fill the pages with mindless action just to grab your attention. Crystal Shade starts where it must and ends where it should be. The story also won’t spoil you with explanations page by page. Hopefully it will raise more and more questions that might entice you into finding the answers by yourself. I’d like to lead you into this beautiful world and its story, instead of simply throwing you into the middle of it. With this I’d like to give you an opportunity to live, feel and experience, to understand all of its details, while along with our heroine you’ll discover the unknown. The goal is not to amaze the industry or any of our fellow professionals. The goal is to give a unique story that speaks from the soul to the true audience, you, the readers. Hopefully the story that we will tell you is going to win your satisfaction.

You can find author Istvan Szabo online at: 

Their website:
http://www.crystalshadeangeni.com
On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/crystalshadeangeni
And at Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/csangeni