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Yes, I would not take it out, just move it. I could also put the date stuff in a prose form.
Those, by the way were there in Book 2; as was a shorter version of this same prologue thing.
I really like them because it gets very easy to forget that all of this is happening on an incredibly short timescale.
Tom has only been a demon for a few months at this point and the world is a rocking.
That’s why adding too many massive battles gets tricky.
One thing I battle with is that assembling giant armies takes weeks, these guys are all pushing the believability angle on that front.
Randolf is mostly sitting it out; should have added that.
The problem is, I can’t give all the characters all the time they deserve in a single book, so sometimes they have to sit it out.
Pathologic, agred, many of the short scenes have been an issue for many, much ado about not much. So those will have to get reviewed/redone/eliminated/consolidated.
Excellent point. I need a way to flag these to get back to.
I’m afraid that by answering, I might miss the original post when I get to being able to deal with it.
Exactly, The D’Orcs definitely notice. That’s a big reason they’ve just accepted him rather point blank as the person from the prophecy.
Interestingly, no one having read Book 2 every announced much of a problem with how readily they accepted him. However, the wand is a pretty big factor.
Lilith has not seen him, nor has asmodeus.
Sam knows what Orcus looks like, but he also realizes that any demon prince can look like whatever they want, so that does not mean much.
What we do know about what Sam thinks is in the first chapter. And in that case Sam does not think Tom is Orcus based on personality.Sentir Fallon, Tiernon/Torean and maybe Beragamos would be the only ones to have seen Orcus before of those. They saw him from afar, so I am sure they noted a resemblence, but then all demons look alike. He is smaller/less scary than Orcus, but he looks like him.
but they also have the knowledge that looks are not critical for a demon prince.
I could bring it up more, but I want to be sure not to do that until Tom sees the photo.
Hi,
In the previous beta I tried to handle stuff as it came in.
This time, because we are in alpha, I may not or might not want to respond right away.
In the first reason is because I don’t want to start doing the changes until I have a finished book and then I will restart. I fear if I get too into rewriting at the moment, it will make getting a “first ending” done harder/delayed.
And thus the next reason is that “unanswered” posts are easier for me to spot than scrolling through “answered posts”
I need to figure out a better way to flag stuff for follow up.
My big concern is having some discussion on something, but not having time to fix it and then missing the fact that the core issue is still unresolved.
Once we are out of alpha, I will be able to be more proactive/interactive in fixing things/dealing with them in a check box manner.
For those of you new to the beta, I produce new versions every few days that have fixes since the last one (or maybe further back)
T-A-G
So, yes, this previously thing is starting to get too long and boring.
I actually wrote that as much to help me remember what happened in the previous two books and establish the timeline.
Perhaps prosing it up and putting it at the end might be better.
Interesting on that.
I would assume that a final kindle version would have the epub version. It makes the section look bigger/more complicated than it is supposed to be.
I am thinking to move the timeline guts to an appendix and go for a much more simpler/shorter prologue piece.
A lot of this stuff is for people who’ve only read the earlier books once or some time back. If one is up to speed it’s not that useful.
Cool….history repeats, that’s the importance of doing a beta.
With book 1 there was no beta, but I had 2 or 3 readers commenting and what was practically an infinite amount of time of writing/rewriting, where I’d go away for months and then come back with fresh eyes.
Trying to do that on a 12 to 18 month cycle is essentially impossible.
Great comments.
There is a multipart thing going on here that causes some of these problems.
Biggest Issue) From the very beginning of volume 1, so many years ago, I wanted to write a book where I couldn’t figure out the end 10% or 20% of the way through. Therefore, I am purposefully taking a circuitous route. However, I don’t want to lose anyone.
Along this line, I would expect that starting with about this book, people would start to get some hints at where it is actually going. Or what it will take to wrap up the story line.
As a rule, I find that books only truly “end” in two possible options: Death or Marriage and from an adventuring point of view, they two are basically the same. No more quests or dungeon diving once you are married and have kids. Too risky. At that point you just try to keep your kids alive until their adventure starts.
In any event, by this book, we should start to see where the final resolution will come from.
Big point, and I think this gets lost with too many characters, Tom does not know where the hell the book is going, or rather his life. He is starting to get a clue that he is playing a starring role in a much bigger game than he ever imagined. He needs to discover his role and why everyone is so bent out of shape about him and his actions.
A lot of things were set in motion during Ragnarok, with multiple parties involved, particularly during “the end” People thought Ragnarok was over, and then in a final strike, a particular god who shows up at the end of this volume, made a move that more decisively ended the battle, after the “truce” had been called.
Ragnarok was supposed to be over. There was a truce. But it wasn’t really over until Orcus was slain and the last of the “other side” (Jotunnkind) were fully beaten.
Now, Tom is here, people are freaking out thinking that Ragnarok is about to restart after 4K years because they fear Orcus is back (presumably with a vengeance).
So…this is increasingly becoming an even longer game story.
I believe it will be about 2 Million words. Roughly 8 books at the current size, maybe a bit more.
The Phoenix Cycle that is discussed in this book is very important. Many people (OK, the D’Orcs) think that Tom is Orcus reborn; Tom of course thinks some mysterious force (the AII???) or something is trying to force him to play that role, even though he knows very well he is not, could not be, Orcus. What has happened just doesn’t fit with the Phoenix Cycle.
So anyway, I need to do more to draw people in. That is probably what you are seeing in terms of lack of “oomph”
Hmm,
Interesting, I would see that as a bad thing. I get really tired of super short serialized stories.
Perhaps if Book 2 was edited like a TV show, Book 3 has ended up like a Webisode….
This trend does not bode well for book 8….
Yes, something to work/rework on.
Excellent questions, very helpful. I am going to need to think on this to provide some better detail, both for you and myself.
There are some more POV’s but for the most part I do not consider them “major POVs” or protagonists. Secondary protagonists can change a bit from book to book.
Here is what I think the order of importance is for this volume
Protagonist: Tom (always)
Protagonist: Talarius
Protagonist: Tal Gor
Protagonist: Rupert
Protagonist: Vaselle
Protagonist: Hilda (for this moment, she is in sort of a back seat role–she probably needs to be more front and center sooner)
Protagonist: Damien (sitting this book out)
Protagonist: Gastrope’ (sitting this book out so far)
Protagonist: Jenn (sitting this book out so far)
Protagonist: RandolfSecondary POV: Sammael
Secondary POV: Barabus
Secondary POV: Iskerus
Secondary POV: Exador
Secondary POV: Valg Death Cheater
Secondary POV: Ragala-nargoloth
Secondary POV: BessNeutral POV: Lilith/Asmodeus/Sentir Fallon (meaning, mostly not taking anyone’s internal dialogue)
Neutral POV: Tiernon/ToreanLet me know who I am missing if you see anyone who got a POV.
Quick Note on reporting
I said excellent before, I was wrong.
Error reporting should be Chapter Number and then Section name (assuming it’s not ~)
And yes, they need to sign a contract before tossing people in.
This is a “money” making business so to speak.
So there may be a backlog of baddies running around the multiverse.
This may explain why both the DC and Marvel Universes have an excess of Galactic Bad Guys. They are all pretty recent and so have not had access to tartarus.
