How an Engineer Became a Fantasy Author
By day, I’m an engineer. By night—and during lunch breaks, weekends, vacations, and any other stretch of time I can protect—I write fantasy novels.
I didn’t grow up expecting to become an author. I always loved stories, particularly speculative fiction, but writing a novel felt like something other people did.
Eventually, though, the ideas in my head became too persistent to ignore. I had characters, fragments of scenes, pieces of a world, and questions I wanted to explore. At some point, thinking about the story was no longer enough. I had to find out whether I could actually write it.
My engineering background follows me into my fiction. I enjoy understanding how things work, and that includes imaginary things.
If a world contains magic, I want to know what magic costs, who controls it, what assumptions people have built around it, and what happens when those assumptions turn out to be wrong.
I like stories in which the world feels larger than the page and where history, religion, politics, and personal relationships are all pressing against one another.
Becoming an author was less a single moment than a long series of decisions: hire a writing coach, finish the chapter, then finish the draft, then revise it, then let someone else read it, then publish it and begin again.
Even now, with multiple books behind me, I’m not sure the feeling of “becoming” an author ever entirely ends. Every book asks you to learn how to write it. Every book (at least for me) has a wall to break through, and each one is quite different.
I’m also a husband and the father of three daughters, so writing has always had to coexist with a full life. I don’t wait for the perfect silent morning or an empty calendar. I write when I can, keep returning to the story, and trust that a book can be built a few pages at a time.
Tropes:
Found family, monster-as-hero, reverse portal fantasy/alien invasion, humor in high stakes, heroine who starts with nothing (no magic/no powers), morally gray politics, ancient elf x human slow-burn (really low on romance), dragons, prophecy, shared-universe worldbuilding
Two series, one shattered universe: an ancient war that forged magic, and the modern invasion that it made possible.
Mother of Trees
Thaumatropic Roots Book 1
Part of the Fractured Arcana Universe
by Steven J. Morris
Genre: Epic Fantasy
A dying goddess. A fractured prophecy. A magicless elf who shouldn’t exist.
Elliah has spent her entire life being told what she is—bereft, wrong, a mistake the world would prefer to correct. Drifting from town to town with a mother who won’t explain why they keep running, she has no magic, no place, and no future. Then a single misstep draws the attention of those who’ve been looking for her, and everything her mother was hiding comes apart.
She isn’t ready for what she learns. But ready was never an option.
Mother of Trees is the thrilling first book in the Thaumatropic Roots epic fantasy series. Enter a world of dangerous magic, ancient powers, and one impossible girl who refuses to stay down.
Buy Mother of Trees today.
**Get it FREE!**
Book Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP6CNCD3?maas=maas_adg_08B13741FCB61F7070641CC50E553147_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220501397-mother-of-trees
Continue the Thaumatropic Roots Series
Magic is as natural as breathing in Elliah’s world — except to her. Born without a single spark in a war that runs on it, she has nothing but her will and her refusal to accept the limits everyone else has already decided for her. This is what happens when the world writes you out of the story, and you refuse to leave.
Get them:
The Guardian of the Palace
The Guardian League Book 1
Part of the Fractured Arcana Universe
by Steven J. Morris
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Magic isn’t real.
Red Hernandez is very sure of that.
She wants a quiet life after Special Forces—just a steady security job at a half-finished Manhattan skyscraper.
But then a sister tower implodes in a way physics can’t explain.
Witnesses report creatures in the smoke.
And something hunts her in the tunnels beneath.
Red wants answers. What she gets instead is an elf with a sword, a troll with a wry sense of humor, and a dwarf who believes every battle requires an audience. They insist an ancient enemy has crossed into our world—and Red becomes an accidental gatekeeper simply because she’s standing on the fault line when it cracks open.
As a hidden war erupts in the shadows of New York City, Red must decide: run from the past that nearly destroyed her… or fight for a world she’s only just beginning to believe in.
A veteran with nothing left to lose.
A threat born of magic and shadow.
A team she never saw coming.
The Guardian of the Palace launches the action-packed Guardian League series—perfect for fans of urban fantasy, modern-world magic, found family, and heroines who refuse to back down.
**Get it FREE!**
Book Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TV879J6?maas=maas_adg_EB04FC3A6C1CDB6AE89BAA3104DBCCA0_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59701135-the-guardian-of-the-palace
Continue The Guardian League Series!
Earth, through its technological advances, supports nearly eight billion souls; from a cosmic perspective, that makes it ripe for the picking. ‘Red’ Hernandez, trying to put a questionable military life behind her, finds herself caught in the middle of stopping an apocalyptic invasion of Earth. But to do that, she has to figure out who the good guys are, and how she can combat forces in which she does not believe.
Get them:
About the Author
Steven J. Morris writes fantasy where magic runs deep and the consequences run deeper. By day he’s an engineer and father of three in Austin, Texas. He’s the author of eight novels across two completed series — the epic Thaumatropic Roots and the urban Guardian League — both set in the shared Fractured Arcana universe. Find him at sjmorriswrites.com.
Website * Facebook * X * Instagram * TikTok * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads
Author Links
Website: https://sjmorriswrites.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steven.j.morris.author
X: https://x.com/sjmorris_writer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steven.j.morris.writer/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sjmorriswrites
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/steven-j-morris-1e2e4acf-98b4-4a6a-9b51-ba3c2247caa0
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Steven-J.-Morris/author/B08TVCYP5X
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21119304.Steven_J_Morris
Giveaway
$25 Amazon or Paypal
Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!
