Women on Fire

One of the best things I have ever found by way of the web is the Plaid Adder’s Women on Fire sequence of original fantasy novels. (In fact, it was my enjoyment of the Plaid Adder’s writings that originally led me on to LiveJournal, but that is a digression.) The Women on Fire novels have not so far found a publisher. Well, so far as that goes I doubt if any modern publisher would have taken a gamble on The Lord of the Rings. This is not to suggest that Women on Fire is yet another Lord of the Rings clone; it is nothing of the kind. It is grittier, and more political, and full of tough-minded, formidable women, and flashes of wild humour.

This summer the Plaid Adder (aka plaidder) is serialising the novel that comes first in the sequence, Better to Burn, on her LiveJournal. The first three chapters are now up:

plaidder’s preamble followed by Chapter One: Rules

Chapter Two: Trapped

Chapter Three: Gifts (Part One)

Chapter Three: Gifts (Part Two)

After Chapter Three, the serialisation will continue on a special LJ filter that plaidder is creating, so if you want to go on reading, you will have to leave a comment asking her to put you on the filter. Alternatively, you could ask her to send you the whole book by email, as a file.

The complete sequence contains five books: Better to Burn, Taken Child, Another Country, Darkness Bright, and Redemption.