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:
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
Living in their old
boat ‘The Griffin’ five young characters become the unlikely heroes at the end
of time when a burglary sets them on the path to finish the ‘Last Great Spell’
- a spell to stop the balance of the World tipping into Chaos...
C.M. Gray is an
Englishman who has lived all over the world, but only a small part of that in
England itself. He currently lives in Spain, just outside Barcelona. The Flight of The Griffin is his second
book.
