Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan
Every once and a while I pick up a book that makes me want to quit writing. It’s so good, so well thought out, so incredibly written, that I can’t help but think to myself that I will never, ever be this good and I can just quit. I love these books. The Name of the Wind is probably the best example of this. Promise of Blood is another. The basic premise is about a coup that ends with the execution of a nation’s king. There is a lot about why they overthrew him and how bad he was as a ruler, but that has little bearing. It seems like the people who overthrew him were really just sick of his shit, and had their own personal vendettas to boot. Everything is well written and the characters are great, but what I love, absolutely adore, is the magic. The world…
Violence In Fantasy
Adam Callaway at A Dribble of Ink has a great article that dissects violence, particularly in relation to fantasy. He makes some great points (especially using BioShock 3 where the violence there is ridiculous). The entire time I read it, I was trying to think of novels I loved that didn’t employ violence. I have a few, but none of them are fantasy. And it got me thinking about my own story. In the first novel, Sorcerer Rising, I have a good bit of violence. I think of it as action, but really, that’s how we as a society put a nicer label on violence. That’s not really a problem for me, I’ve always handled that rather well and I think it has a point. Virgil isn’t dark or an anti-hero, but his reaction to horrible things is to throw a whole bunch of horrible right back at it. Very rarely…
Writing Progress 6/18
I did much better last night than the weekend. 16 pages edited (plan calls for ten on Monday), so pretty happy there. 1,002 words added to second novel. I’m not keeping up with how many words I’m writing in Sorcerer Rising for two reasons. First, it’s done. I’m not here to add things, if anything I am cutting out words. Theoretically, I could keep up with what is added, but it would be more trouble than it’s worth. Second, it doesn’t count. This is reworking. If I started counting the words I had deleted, rewrote, added, deleted, added again, I would be the most prolific person in the world who’d ever written only one novel.
Announcing Sorcerer Rising
It is with great pleasure that I formally announce Sorcerer Rising. I have been working on this story for over four years and finally, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m going to continue to do some posts about the series as a whole, what I learned about it, etc, but here is the gist of it: Sorcerer Rising begins the story of Virgil McDane. Once he was a powerful Wizard, an explorer, scholar, and soldier. Outcast from the Wizard’s Guild, stripped of his power and relegated to a lowly Sorcerer, he finds himself more and more desperate. His world is much like our own, only magic is an everyday occurrence. The greatest resource is Aether, patches of raw magic that spawn whole dimensions. Forged from emotion and thought, the possibilities held within these worlds are endless. Some are featureless nightmares, others whole planets filled…
Jim Butcher On Sword and Laser
I have recently gotten into Geek and Sundry‘s Sword and Laser webshow. I haven’t found any show that interview authors, particularly fantasy and science fictions authors, like they do. And they get some pretty big damn names too. George R. R. Martin, Salidin Ahmed, Cherie Priest, and several others. I’ve found a few books I had never encountered and I love hearing fantasy authors talk about their work. And in catching up, I came upon this interview with Jim Butcher. Jim friggin Butcher! My head nearly EXPLODED! If you haven’t read Mr. Butcher’s work, really, stop reading this and go buy Storm Front. It’s not he best of the series, so push on because The Dresden Files is, in my personal opinion, the best fantasy series I have ever read. Furies of Calderon is also pretty damn good, but has more obvious weaknesses. His work (probably coupled with The Name…