I was lucky to get an interview with Timy, aka Queen Terrible Timy, from the Queen’s Book Asylum. Timy is one of the lead judges (blog-heads) of the #SPFBO competition.
Please, tell us a bit about yourself…
Hello! I’m Timy (Queen Terrible Timy to some) and I was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. I still live in this beautiful historical city. I love music, I love traveling, I love doing crafty DIY stuff (editor, DIY means: do it yourself) and most of all I’m a tiiiny bit obsessed with pandas. And I have a degree in History.
Rune looks at the assortment of panda things on his desk, and there’s an awkward silence, as he decides not to talk about them…the fact that his wife keeps buying panda merch..or her rather embarrassing nickname for him: Panda.
Oki, Timy, that’s certainly…interesting…let’s move on, what got you into reviewing books?
“I don’t think I ever really got into reviewing, you know. It’s my least favorite thing about blogging (can I even say this out loud?).”
Year blog/channel started: 2018
Number of posts: 1,076
Number of views: 89,478
Now that’s a good question. I don’t think I ever really got into reviewing, you know. It’s my least favorite thing about blogging (can I even say this out loud?). I didn’t write many reviews before I started the blog, and even then, mostly a couple of sentences at most. My first real review I wrote on GoodReads for an indie book. It was for an author I made friends with. Then I made a couple of more indie author friends and got ARCs from them, so I felt compelled to make an effort. This was basically the reason I started the blog in the first place - I wanted to spread the word about my cool indie friends and their amazing books. But in my opinion, beta reading is more fun than reviewing. Any day.
Why should I visit your website?
Apart from the fear of being beheaded? The Asylum is a place with a lot of fun features, awesome reviews, a music themed reading challenge, and a welcoming community (no one complained so far). We also have a mischievous pet demon! And occasional whipping. Some people love that. And disturbing panda GIFs.
Rune silently stares at one of Timy’s pages full of pandas…
How long have you been a judge in the SPFBO?
I was first a guest judge for SPFBO 4 with Fantasy Book Review. Then I judged as a team head with the Asylum for SPFBO 5 and 6, took a break from SPFBO7 (I had a bad case of burnout and I needed a time off from a lot of things while I adjusted to a new life situation), then returned for SPFBO 8 and now SPFBO 9. So, all in all, this is my 5th year.
How many other judges are working with you on your batch of SPFBO books?
The bulk of my team is also part of the Asylum Staff – Jen has been with me from almost the beginning, she judged with Fantasy Book Critic in the past two years but now she is back where she belongs! I also have Paul returning for his second year, whom I know from his days as a blog owner himself, then he later merged with me. Bjorn Larssen, a longtime friend of mine, indie SFF author, also officially an Asylum Staff, and he was with me last year too. I have two newbie judges this year – Liis from Cover to Cover, a friend of mine I got to know on Twitter probably in my early days. Two of my team members stepped down, so I needed one more person to have a team of 5. She was a natural choice as we are getting along really well, she supports indies and we have an overlap in taste. I knew I could trust her. And last but not least we have Olivia Atwater in the team, author of several trad published novels and also the winner of SPFBO8 with Small Miracles which was our finalist. I wasn’t planning to have 6 people on the team, but when I saw her comment on Facebook about being interested in judging, I knew I had to have her. I’m happy to report, she fits in perfectly with my team and now I wouldn’t have it in any other way.
Do you have any tips for those that would like to publish their reviews and/or become an SPFBO judge?
Man, I could say so many things about this, I actually wrote a whole post about reviewing. So, here it is in a nutshell: My advice would be that you need to trust your gut, have manners, engage with the community on social media, keep your integrity, be prepared for a lot of hard work, and keep an eye out for opportunities. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and inquire about open positions at bigger blogs - most of us would be happy to chat!
Why did you choose to review fantasy?
Oh boy, I’ll try to keep this short. I got into fantasy very late (as in my twenties), if we don’t count the Harry Potter series, which I devoured as a teen (after I refused to read it for years). I never read most of what people would deem “classics”. I was a lot more into YA, historical fiction, crime thrillers and mysteries. YA I don’t read anymore, but I still love historical fiction and the occasional thriller/mystery to mix up with fantasy. I think what really got me into fantasy, was urban fantasy, which still holds a special place in my heart. For a time I was also into grimdark, but I took a step back from that in the last couple of years as I’m leaning more toward cozy (romance) fantasy books these days. I love everything with folklore and myths, but I never got into epic fantasy. I avoid those if I can help it, unless I’m super interested for some reason. I have a bit of an eclectic tastes when it comes to genres, and while I mainly read fantasy these days, the blog never was intended to be fantasy only, so I review whatever takes my fancy.
What challenges did you face during the creation of your blog, and how did you overcome them?
Creating a blog in itself is pretty easy. What actually takes time is building it up from scratch, especially if you are brand new to the community as I was. I knew no one apart from a handful of authors. I never followed blogs. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, and I honestly never expected to have it for more than a couple of months before I got bored with it. And look at me now, 5 years later. I guess the joke's on me, lol. Interestingly, the hardest thing for me was coming up with a name. See, names are important because that’s going to be your brand, something people will associate with you. I took a name I liked, but I didn’t realise until later that it was impossible for people to remember right (the number of ways I’ve seen my blog name written, ugh…), so eventually I took the decision to change it and rebrand. With a new website URL which means I’m paying double for domain, yay. Go me. Still, it was worth the change.
My other challenge in the beginning was that I didn’t have much confidence in my English skills when it comes to writing. I mean, I knew I was good enough to read, and converse with people on a daily basis as I did for years on online forums, but writing longer texts, to an audience of mainly native English speakers… yikes. That was a whole other matter. I was sure people would be able to tell how much I sucked and wouldn’t take me seriously for it. And I have a lack of vocabulary that makes it a bit harder to express myself. The more I wrote though, the better my English became and my confidence grew – the annual meetings at BristolCon also helped in that regard. I know my English is still nowhere as good as I’d like it to be, but I don’t have anxiety about this anymore. Which is good, I have anxiety about enough other things as it is, lol.
The biggest challenge for me, as a blogger is networking. I'm sorry, but I hate it. I had these fancy dreams about having a super popular blog, actually more like a magazine with all kinds of stuff. And then reality hit. Just as an author has to market their books, we bloggers have to market our own blogs to reach people and grow our audience. Sure, there is organic growth, but if you are not active on social media and don't interact with other bloggers, authors and readers, then people will never know about you. And no matter how much you love a book, if you yell about it into the void, that's not going to help anyone. I think I was lucky in the beginning as I got to know people who knew a lot of other people, so I kind of had a guide into the community. I was much more active on Twitter in the beginning (which I also had to build up from scratch, as I never used Twitter before, it's not as popular in Hungary than Facebook), and things took off. The blog never grew as much as I hoped, but I'm okay with it now. I only interact with people I genuinely want to interact with, I don't autofollow and I mostly keep my opinions to myself (which is a good survival tactic). Pushing myself too hard only led to a massive burnout and let me tell you, that's not a fun place to be. I learned to take things a bit easier. For my mental health if nothing else.
Which author is your all-time absolute favorite when we talk indie publishing?
Benedict Patrick is my go to answer for this. I fucking love his Yarnsworld series, and his upcoming new novel, Slumdog Deckbuilder is currently on the top of my favorite reads for 2023 list. I never stop being awed about the fact that I'm lucky enough to beta read for him. A huge privilege. I also have to mention Craig Schaefer, I think I own the most books from her. I especially love her Daniel Faust series, but I’m into her Gotham novels as well. My newest favorite is A.J. Lancaster. I just binge read all 5 of her books in the Stariel series this year.
Who is your favorite author when we talk traditional publishing?
Okay, this is a bit harder. Currently it’s probably a tie between RJ Barker (Tide Child Trilogy – OMG I’m still not recovered from that ending) and Peter McLean (The War for the Rose Throne series, fucking great man. And he even put me into the last book!). Oooh, and T. Frohock (her Los Nefilim series is amazing)! Laura Shepherd-Robinson is also sneaking her way on my favorites list.
Name three things that annoy you constantly in books.
Oooh, let's see.
Repetitions, I hate them. Especially, when it happens in dialogues, where the characters in conversation keep dropping each others' names ALL THE TIME. Like… do people really talk like that to each other? Do you *really* have to drop the name of the person you are speaking to like 10 times within a conversation? This totally drives me crazy.
Another thing about dialogues is the tags. I know there are a lot of debate about this, and personally I fall into the "there are other tags besides 'said', thank you very much" group.
This is probably a 100% preference thing, but I don't like it when books start in the middle of action, like, say a battle. Where you get names and terminology and wordlbuilding thrown at you in rapid succession and you just try to even comprehend what the hell is going on. Then again, I'm not really into battle scenes to begin with, so… I know, I know, but I'm not giving away my fantasy lover card, go away.
Can I add a bonus? Of course I can.
Of course, of course.
Unreadable titles on covers. Either because of the font, or because the series title is more prominent (which is super confusing), or because it just gets lost in the background.
And three things that you really appreciate when authors get right.
Wow, okay, that's hard. Why is that I can never remember anything when asked? Ugh.
Memorable characters (main or otherwise). Look, for me characters are important, because if I'm not invested, then it's really hard to keep my interest. I want them to make me feel something, anything. Hating certain characters can be just as much fun as loving others. I'm especially all in for grumpy older characters with life experience and 100% sass. See Lhewellyn in Michael McClung's Amra Thetys series, for example.
The WTF factor. I like a good twist I never saw coming. Those are hard to pull off, and I'm not easy to surprise, so I super appreciate when I can just exclaim WTF out loud. Those are the best moments. And that's usually when I slide into the DMs of the author (only if we are friends) to call them names, lol. I also love those moments, when something just clicks in place for me after a throwaway comment from the author or one of the characters, and then later my hunches get proven. I love it when I'm right.
Balance between characters and world-building. As important as characters are for me, it's just as important to feel immersed in the world the author creates. And I'm not talking about lengthy descriptions (not a fan of those). I want to feel, like I'm there, you know? Mythology stuff is always a bonus, I love learning about all the mythological/religious aspect of any world. I…uh…might have a degree related to that. I'm weird, I know. Benedict Patrick's Yarnsworld series is an excellent example for intriguing characters, mythology and the inclusion of folktales.
Do you have a tip, or an app, tool, or resource, that you’d recommend to other judges?
I don't think so? Apart from spreadsheets. They are awesome. Plus, I think at this point we each have our own systems and resources we are familiar with and works for us. I'm not sure I could add anything to that.
What new projects or changes to your blog are you working on?
LOL. Please don't let my friends hear you asked me this. I think my blog went through more changes than it has years to its name… We are through 1 name change, 1 domain change, about 3 design changes, 1 overhaul when I moved from Wordpress to self-hosting Wordpress, and most recently the website got a new shiny theme for the 5th anniversary. I think I'm done with changes, thank you very much. For a while, at least. As for projects, I think my biggest one right now is a series of spotlights for our lovely SPFBO 9 authors. Keep an eye out throughout the season for all kinds of fun stuff!
Do you have any dreams you’d like to share?
How much time do you have?
Rune looks at the watch on his phone.
Don’t worry about it.
Okay, fine, I'll keep it short. Not that I could keep it short up to this point, but whatever.
For the blog, my current goal is to reach 100K overall views, and it's a pretty reasonable goal to reach by the end of 2023. Reaching 2K Twitter followers also would be nice, but that's probably going to take longer. Also, my biggest ambition is to make someone write a book featuring pandas. That, and to convince my favorite authors that they need me as a character in some of my favorite bookish worlds, lol.
For the community, I certainly have friends I'd like to meet in real life, authors and bloggers included. Unfortunately, my funds are limited, so if anyone wants to meet me, I frequently haunt BristolCon at the end of October each year. Or, you know, you could just invite me. I have no plans for the summer.
For me personally, I have a couple of dreams. I really would love to see Japan one day. I also would like to visit the US again, I had a fun month in California a couple of years ago, and there are many more places I'd like to visit, bands to see (don't even let me start on a list of them). I also wouldn't say no to visit a couple of European places such as Spain, Greece, oh and Italy - been there once, would like to go again.
I also, really, really want to pet a real panda. I don't think that's ever going to happen, but at least I'm finally going to see one in real life this summer! I've been planning a visit to the Zoo in Vienna for years, and I finally get to go. No idea what took me this fucking long. It's not like it's on the other side of the world, geez.
And maybe one day I'll feel the need to return to writing again, who knows?
Vienna is great. But there are two incredible pandas in the Copenhagen Zoo…just saying.
I didn't know Copenhagen has pandas!!! Sadly, it's a bit farther away than a couple of hours' train ride. Vienna is a bit more convenient for me to travel to.
Anything else you would like to say before we close?
I probably rambled enough already. The mighty giant panda be with you, and don't forget to swear fealty to your majestic Queen. Oh, and please visit the Asylum! We absolutely love guests! Whether you’ll be able to leave though…
That was some interesting answers. I wish you the very best in the SPFBO and hope you discover some new favorite books this year. Thanks for doing the interview!
