Category: News

My blog tour has begun. I’ll be adding each link into this post and pinning the post to the front page so you can check back and keep track of where I’ve been.

• Day 1: An interview with Donna Maree Hanson – how is Peacemaker different from Parrish Plessis?
• Day 2: Over at Fablecroft Publishing, I talk about how Joan of Arc influenced my thinking.
• Day 3: Paula Westons hosts me for a chat about where I got my worldbuilding ideas for PEACEMAKER and genre-blending and genre-bending.
• Day 3: Part Two: Skiffy and Fanty invite me to talk about my SUPERPOWER. Bet you can’t guess what it is!
• Day 4: I chat with Fi from The Bookish Outsider about picking character names and why I like SF.
• Day 5: Nuzaifa over at SAY IT WITH BOOKS asks me about my crazy ready influences.
• Day 6: Is a jaunt across to say hello to Diana Pharoah Francis to discuss how I turned a short story into a novel.
• Day 7: Is down to Tassie to visit Miss Cackle, i.e. Kate Gordon, for a chat about the female body image in speculative fiction.
• Day 8: Over at Champagne and Socks I ‘fess up about my love for Westerns.
• Day 9: Jason Fischer invited me to Fischblog to chat about my connection with the landscape.
• Day 10: At Chris Lampard’s Sustainable Money blog you can read the character notes for the novel. See the comic artist’s sketch of Nate Sixkiller.
• Day 11: Over at Mandy Wrangles’ foodie blog, I discuss my signature dish and the names of my main characters.
• Day 12: The tour visits one of our beloved staff members, Lisa, at Turning Pages where she interviews me about Virgin Jackson and shares her book review.
• Day 13: I talk with one of my BFF’s, Tansy Rayner Roberts, about Female Heroes and how I cried for a week.
• Day 14: Shelf Inflicted asks me 12 questions. Thanks Dan!
• Day 15: Over at Book Probe I talk to Braiden about the evolution of the story from comic to novel.
• Day 16: And then it’s a fly by to Coeur de Lion where Keith Stevenson interviews me about Peacemaker and my upcoming projects.
• Day 17: Then Lee at She Wolf Reads shares my top Eleven favourite SF movies and TV shows.
• Day 18: Narelle invites me to Kitty and Cadaver to talk about the Peacemaker comic.
• Day 19: At Tsana Reads and Reviews, Tsana interviews me about Dealbreaker (bk 2).
• Day 20: Book Mood Reviews has me over for a chat about the origins of Peacemaker.
• Day 21: Krista asks me about my birds
• Day 22: I gave my Top 5 Aussie Reads to the 42nd Parallel
• Day 23: And have a Yak to Belinda

Quite a few people have asked me if I had a soundtrack for PEACEMAKER. So thanks to Spotify, you can now hear it. Be prepared to surprised!

• Big Iron – Marty Robins
• Wild, Wild West – The Escape Club
• Riders on the Storm – The Doors
• Timber – Pitbull/Kesha
• Rawhide – Frankie Laine
• Prairie Fire – Marty Robbins
• Harlan County Line – Dane Alvin
• Bad Things – Jace Everett

• Saving Grace – Everlast

• They Call the Wind Mariah – Paint Your Wagon

• The Gospel of No Name City – Paint Your Wagon

• There’s a Coach Coming In – Paint Your Wagon

• Counting Stars – OneRepublic

• Royals – Lorde

• Sitting on the Dock of the Bay – Otis Redding

by Kim McMinn

Kim McMinn is a fantasy writer who masquerades as a librarian by day while she completes her first novel. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Arts from Murdoch University and lives in Perth, Western Australia with her husband and three world-domination-plotting cats. 

On a rooftop bar, on a warm Wednesday evening in Perth, local game developers Stirfire Studios, hosted by AFK, held their official launch party of Freedom Fall: a diabolical down-scrolling platform game.

Over one hundred close friends and fans celebrated the successes that the game has so far achieved since its launch last year at PAX Australia on July 19. They huddled on the couches, playing the newly released levels of the game, avoided the wrath of the eerily beautiful Princess in attendance, and imbibed the game’s custom cocktail, the Elicksir of Life.

Freedom Fall’s creative director (Art, Story, Level Design), Lisa Rye, created the delightfully twisted fairy tale adventure three years ago as a personal project. From there, it was pitched to Let’s Make Games, a non-profit association that works to support the game development community of Perth, where it sparked the interest of Stirfire Studios. Freedom Fall was launched initially for iOS, Android, Ouya, and Desura platforms, and in January this year it was given the green light for Steam, where it has already sold thousands of copies. Freedom Fall has been nominated for several awards and won Best Game at the WA Screen Awards in 2013.

Freedom Fall follows the trials of Marsh, the hero, as he attempts to escape a prison tower. But this is no ordinary prison; the beautifully creepy Princess, who finds the prison dull and dreary, has made some alterations for her own amusement. Marsh must avoid spikes, fire balls, and other devilish traps, while collecting bolts and cogs to create items that will help him through the labyrinth and find freedom. The walls of the prison are splashed in graffiti written by the Princess, delivering the darkly humorous backstory of her life. This is a Princess that you need to be rescued from!

Along with the reveal of two new levels to the game, and a door prize raffle of one of three collector’s editions of Freedom Fall, Stirfire Studios announced two more surprises for 2014. The first was the reveal of a new game called Dead End Alley that is in production with Meijer Creative. The second was a collaboration, still in its very early stages, with an Australian science fiction author who used to live in Perth, but is now based in Brisbane. It was all very mysterious and exciting, and we’ll have to keep our ear to ground to find out more about that!