Time Frame on next book
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Well, there is nothing in the book that I call a hero in any sense. Even Talarius who is the most heroic of all the people in there isn’t portrayed as a hero. I think the book has more in common with The Diskworld Series than The Lord of the Rings.
Also, just remember. I had said it before somewhere here: reality is boring. I think you shouldn’t put too much reality in your work. Work for complex and situational but never the banal.
Just think of the most timeless literature. Cinderella for example has an impossible rag to riches story but it resonates with other people. Sherlock Holmes is impossibly too observant and knowledgable which the people just loved. Romeo and Juliet are the most perfect of lovers that behave in the most unrealistic of ways that has people revited.
Your book, I think, isn’t meant to cater to the masses. That is risky. It might result to great success or obscurity.
Stilll. It is a great beginning. I hope you could gather more momentum with the second one.
Thanks
It’s meant to cater to Book Junkies.
When I started it, and much of the time I wrote it I was sort of burnt out on Fantasy/SF feeling that I’d read it all and I was just starting to see the same things over and over again. I mean, how many times can Terry Brooks rewrite Tolkein? Or so and so.
So I wrote it for myself and people like me. And that’s who Tom is. He’s a kid who’s been reading a book a day or more of Fantasy and SF and so has a lot of preconceptions of what it would be like to be in a Fantasy World. My [b][i]initial[/i][/b] conceit was, “what happens when you put a fantasy reader/expert into a fantasy world? surely they can handle things better than Thomas Covenant or all these other average non-fantasy junkies thrust into these worlds?”
When I first started writing, this was a very select crowd of readers, but I’ve sort of been surprised how much this crowd has grown over the years and how many people that would have not been in the crowd are now at least conversant enough in the lingo and archetypes as to still be able to read it and get it.
Now, I just want you to keep:
[quote]Also, just remember. I had said it before somewhere here: reality is boring. I think you shouldn’t put too much reality in your work. Work for complex and situational but never the banal.[/quote]
In mind as you shoot arrows at my inaccurate bards. :d/
Hmmm. So that is why there is so much mishmash of various fantasy stuff. There are a number of fantasy elements in the book, but Astlan.net list several more. I especially interested with the fantas characters. I’m looking forward for thier cameos.
Well, I was shooting your concept of what bards are. Many people give Bards too little credit thinking that they are just simple singers. Yours go over the top though. The job description is more than a Bard.
But then, Antefalken is a demon. Who says he just practice being a Bard? He might have practiced broader kinds of music and songs. Slow rock? Classical? Pop? Grunge? He is refered to as a bard but he could be actually more than one. That is actually more interesting than just a plain bard isn’t it not?
@Madfox
Well, that is not the same reaction the fanatics have. This is especially true in RPG. Mass Effect has one disappointing ending.
[quote=Rosver;1760]
@MadfoxWell, that is not the same reaction the fanatics have. This is especially true in RPG. Mass Effect has one disappointing ending.[/quote]
O, I agree, the ending is extremely disappointing (the alternative ending making it slightly better). I just don’t let it ruin my fun with the rest of the game, let alone my expactations for future products. DA3 is definitely a good game for example, so one has reason to belief they do listen to their fans 😉
Need to make request in blood colored font!
It’s a new requirement my lawyer demons have added, apparently since one can’t actually sign a contract in blood over the internet, one has to use a nice red font to simulate blood, as an added guarantee that the victim…ahem beta reader…knowingly agrees.
o:)
[size=7][color=red][b]Well then to make your demon lawyers happy, here is my formal request to be a beta reader for Volume II in blood red font.[/b][/color][/size]
@Madfox
Well, many games and movies doesn’t really care much about the story nowdays. Most are just for the looks and explosions instead of sense or content. Have you seen the Transformers movie? WTF! You might probably one of those people who liked it but not me. I can’t stand that much stupid.
Well, from what I can see, everything seems to have lower standards in storytelling these days. TV, books, games, movies…
@The Author Guy
As for Shakespears’ works, it has to be, at least rectified. Reading it from original text is a chore! W is a literal double u or double v (uu or vv), u’s are replaced by v’s and v’s are replaced by u’s. Not to mention, they spell many words differently and many words are outdated. As for length, they aren’t that long. The Demons of Astlan is certainly longer than his works.
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The fantasy races that was encountered so far is mostly human like. There is one dragon and those shadows… still most are humanlike.
Well, it would be really great fun to know those races. I especially wonder what kind of culture they would have.
I have a question. If Exador have this regiments of evil, wouldn’t the other wizards find it foul? Wouldn’t they think that something is wrong with him? That he is evil or something? Though I can’t really see such behaviours and thoughts from the others. Any reason why?
@Tizzy
LOL
On Exador:
It wasn’t a huge contingent (about 15-20%), but nobody but Lenamare and his school saw it.
However it wouldn’t necessarily be foul unless there were undead. It would be unsavory, and would tell you a lot about the guy’s morals, but if you look at what he did in Abancia….or rather his ancestor did…that question was already answered.
Orcs are legitimate members of society, humans tend to consider them barbarians, brigands, thieves and rogues, but they are more often nomadic tribes doing there things and a lot of them are sell swords/mercenaries. They are just more likely to take unsavory jobs. The Dok Sidhe—this sort of depends on which Dok Sidhe, but there is no law against being a drow, you will probably get in a lot of bar fights. And while nobody really sees them much in human cities, unless they are making trouble or have an army they have as much right to be there as anyone else; they aren’t really “monsters” like say a dragon or a manticore or a gorgon. (some sub-races are though)
We will encounter more non humans, but most are still somewhat anthropomorphic if they are people we talk to, e.g. satyrs, centaurs, dryads, nymphs, elves, gnomes, there are some true non-humans that will show up and are named characters, not sure how much of their society I can get to. Not sure if the Denubians will show up by the end, or if that’s book iii. They are definitely non-human.
[quote=Rosver;1769]@Madfox
Well, many games and movies doesn’t really care much about the story nowdays. Most are just for the looks and explosions instead of sense or content. Have you seen the Transformers movie? WTF! You might probably one of those people who liked it but not me. I can’t stand that much stupid.
Well, from what I can see, everything seems to have lower standards in storytelling these days. TV, books, games, movies…[/quote]
You do realize that sounds condecending, at least to me? People might judge movies by different standards than you do, but that does not make them ‘lower’. I also doubt it is true. I have seen some pretty crappy ‘old’ stuff. It is just that in general when we take the time to watch and/or read ‘old’ stuff, we focus on the classics and the good work. Not to mention that people tend to forget mediocore stuff. In case of books, I doubt we can even get our hands on the crappy stuff. They just don’t publish it anymore.
As for mindless action and thin story premise, I can be entertained by it, but whether it is enough to actually enjoy for a whole movie depends entirely on other things. I really had fun watching Die Hard 1 and 2, movies that have a very thin story with the protagonist and villain doing rather unrealistic things, but which are still seen as good in general by the critics. I only watched Transformers 1, never bothered with the others. Giant transforming robots fighting one another never had a big draw on me even not as a child. Besides, just because I can ignore some plotholes and inconsistancies, or at least ignore them long enough while enjoying something, does not mean that there are no limits to it. Suspension of disbelief only carries so far 😉
As for ME3, I can tell you exactly what I like and dislike and why, but this is not exactly the place for such a discussion 😉
Trust the ancient one in the room.
They made a LOT of crappy stuff in the old days. In particular before my time, there were tons of really amazingly bad science fiction movies.
See MST3K if you doubt this. (yes even that is old now days) Same for Horror.
I think the important thing to keep in mind is that SF/Fantasy stuff goes in waves. It was really huge in the post world war II, pre-Vietnam era as people looked to the future optimistically and fearfully thanks to the bomb. And they made a ton of stuff. Most of it horrible. It was also done on the cheap.
During the 70’s and 80’s they did far less, but what they did, they did better. But there were still plenty of crappers. Logan’s Run, great story so so show. Then lots of bad sequels etc. (Star Trek: The Search for God–or whatever it was called)
And now days, they do more than ever before, both due to huge box office and huge gaming audiences, but also due to Netflix and Amazon, you can get movies out their cheap. Same with game distribution on the Internet vs a software store.
The problem is there are only so many good stories, good writers, good directors to go around. With time you can cultivate more and train them, but in the meantime you have a mad rush to cash in on something that’s popular and you get a lot of mediocrity.
This applies to big box office and to independent things. I don’t think budget is so much the issue other than too big or too small. Too big a budget and there get to be too many Chef’s in the kitchen, too small a budget and you can’t pull off the vision or hire good people to do it.
Anyway, I am losing track of my theme. The reason that there is so much “crappy stuff” today is that there is just so much more of it than there had been for the 70’s 80’s and 90’s. But go back before that and there was massive amounts of schlock.
The talent pool for good stuff is only so big at a time, if demand exceeds the size of the talent pool, lesser qualified people get involved, and this may very well be at the higher levels who over manage/destroy talented people at the lower levels.
@MadfoxII
Sorry about that! I think I’m becoming too emotional and carried away. I’ll try to be more level headed.
Hmmm. Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is awful. Seems true nowdays.
I can accept mediocre. They are a staple in every industry. It might not be made of amazing stuff, but they are still fine, but there is a great difference between mediocre and the awful and disappointing.
Mindless action with thin story lines is not the same as mindless action with horrid story lines. Die Hard’s story line is not horrid. Over the top maybe, but horrid it is not. Can’t say the same things with Transformers (and many movies now days). Transformers has an already over the top premise, the transforming robots; but the movies just overworked it. It actually has lots of explosions and action and other mindless stuff, especially the later part of the franchise, but the story is severely wanting. It would actually vastly improve if they make the story simpler and ‘thin,’ instead of this overly hyped pretentious mess.
As for Mass Effect 3, the biggest problem is that they seem to have ditched the story. The game mechanics is good but the story is not, and being an RPG, the story is an essential part of the experience. A good story is a primary requirement for such a game as this.
Not to mention, AE rather gives very big promises that Mass Effect 3 just did not deliver.
@The Author Guy
You call it “regiments of evil” so I thought… Oh well.
Thanks for the background. Very interesting stuff.
Well, at least in those very early times, they had the excuse of the fact that the medium is very new (also very expensive). Those silent films aren’t really that easy to make. Ironically, the addition of sound even makes movie makers go haywire as they aren’t able to utilize it properly. Also, not to mention, the limitation of the technology in terms of story telling.
But nowdays, there is literally very little excuse. With such technology as computers, 3d softwares, digital editing, modern camera, etc. the task of making a movie is so much easier. Even regular people can make one in their own backyard… and many do. But somehow, even with extremely large budgets, movie studio seems to be having low standards when it comes to the story.
This is also coupled with the fact that a lot films they are making isn’t really made of original content. It is based on comics, books, old TV franchises or other films.
As for video games. 1960s?…
Though, early in its birth, it is rather primitive. The very frist ones are made by hackers. Of course the arcades. Pong? Asteroids? Pacman?… Also storytelling is virtually nonexistent. However, as technology advances, the storytelling side of games become more prominent. It even become intrinsic in gaming experience as exemplified by the RPG genre.
Of course, there is the video game crash. People just become too greedy and started to publish games for quick cash. But then they don’t really know much about video games, which result to rather bad video games being published… A really a dark age in video game history.
OK, back.
Actually Rosver, there is much much more discussion of Armies of Evil in Book II. it’s actually very important to the story line.
It’s just that Exador’s army was more of an Army of Evil Lite. He had his regiments of unsavory, but it was mostly human. Exador being an arch demon basically can only have “Armies of Evil” by definition, however, he’s masquerading as a human so he’s gotta take it easy. Plus he’s been building up “conventional forces” for centuries.
Also an Army of Evil is the focal point of another book I am working on, set in an Astlan like world (same multiverse), tentatively called the “Dying of the Light” it’s sort of a Glenn Cook style thing but with a different focus.
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