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Wow. Long-Time-No-Comment.
I finished reading the latest version a while ago (and tried to post a comment, but the Internet had a seizure and decided it wasn’t meant to be). Anyway…
I like Beta 4 a lot. The fight was good, but what really struck me was a sense of cohesion across the entire story. It seemed to come together as a novel much more that it has been (thus the revision process). I like that Vaselle did SOMETHING. I hopped over and read your notes on him, so it makes sense now (so he’s no longer the bastard child of Cliff Hanger and Red Herring). The Ruiden story was spot-on. Love it. Very clever, actually.
I’d like to toss in my $0.02 on Doom – just in case this is something that you’ve been thinking about. I think the all-powerful Tommus/Mount Doom combe thing isn’t necessarily bad. It’s not like the Zat’nik’tel from Stargate (the gun that was a little too convenient). Tommus was already immortal and nearly invincible as a demon. Adding Mount Doom raises the standard, but it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of his longevity – it just adds to it. If he’s able to squelch his opponents at his front door, I don’t see that as being silly or boring. I see it as an opportunity to create a stable geographic (multiversalgraphic? I’m not certain that’s a word…) location for whatever plot purposes you can surmise. Traipsing across the realms as the benevolent demon seems like an interesting direction – one that the story seems to have already started leaning towards in many ways.
Yes. Agreement is a nice thing, though feedback is just that – don’t cave to the readers too easily 😉 There have been some tv, movies, etc. that have done that and the results are never good.
I’d recommend against Photon or Proton Torpedoes since they are technobabble from their respective canons (pun intended). But given what I’ve read so far, I’m sure you could work either torpedoes despite their well-known ties to Star Wars / Star Trek (or more probably because of it). So maybe I do recommend those.
I’ve seen Rail Guns thrown around Sci Fi from time to time, so maybe that’s an idea. I’ve seen gravity tech work when it’s been given sufficient background (See: Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward), but other instances have seemed a little too convenient. My personal preference would be laser cannons like we see in Unending (Stargate SG-1 series finale) with the Azgard’s laser weapons. They aren’t glowing bullets; they’re actually lasers (which makes way more sense).
When Mt. Doom is on full power, Tom would able to go all-out on the battlefield and even send some of the mana to new followers. We already know that he’s very powerful. He could even channel much of that power to his comrades. The battle may not need the Sci Fi tech. But then again, the KofC are as powerful as the plot demands (as they should be), so maybe the Sci Fi tech is needed.
I realized why the Vaselle issue has been bugging me. We’re given snippets of his plot as we go through the book… like his involvement will be suddenly very important; he will be Tom’s minion. Tom will be forced to reconcile with the fact that Vaselle is bound to him in much the same way that he is bound to Lenemare, probably after Tom’s forced Vaselle to do something not entirely in line with Tom’s and Vaselle’s moral compasses – and at Vaselle’s expense. But then the D’Orcs take his place as a much larger, less personal horde of minions. So we never get that dialogue. Of course, that’s how I played it out in my mind. So I might just be SOL on that one.
I’m not sure if you’re still considering comments, but I just now finished reading the second beta version, and have some feedback. Maybe it’ll still be useful…
Firstly, external references are always welcome. I always laugh at the references like the one to Avatar (the movie) on page 230. And yes, making fun of the writers for that movie using “Unobtanium” is completely acceptable. The self-deprecating humor is good, too, but keep it to one or two references (as you’ve been doing). One that I recall was about ‘some crazy author coming up with the Abyssal landscape.’ Those are funny.
I had a moment of awed appreciation when you used ‘decimate’ correctly on page 149. – thank you. Also, the scene with Schwarzenfürze in chapter 102.4 was crude, but I just about died from laughter. So it was spot-on.
I’d liked the development of romance between Gastrope and Jenn, but I want a little more. The cloud-ship ride created an interesting contrast to the duplicity and violence we see in the Courts, etc. I think their relatively peaceful situation made the violence elsewhere stand out more. The introspection from both Jenn and Gastrope was perfect. Romance is archetypal – with everything else going on in the book, their romance will probably provide a good anchor/reference, making the fantastical elements seems even more fantastical (and thus even more awesome).
I want to know more about Vaselle. What is his motive? Why does he want to be a Warlock? We know that he opened up to Tom and there seemed to be some potential there for character development but it fizzled. I found myself wanting each next chapter to be an update on Vaselle. Maybe Vaselle and Tom need some time to get to know each other since Tom didn’t want to probe as much mentally. Maybe there’s a scene where they have a chat when Vaselle first gets to Mt. Doom. I like where that was going, but in the end Vaselle seemed to be just a glorified errand boy. Maybe we get some hints that he is more knowledgeable that he first seems. Or we get some flashbacks to his childhood.
Tom is an interesting situation. We saw him fall into these planes in the first book where he was pulled from one thing to another. In that book, Tom was very clearly the main character. Now, it seems like he’s just wandering. Sure, he conquers Mount Doom (which is fantastic word play, BTW), but I think the lack of introspection makes him seem like “just another guy” instead of the one, main character. For example, I think Tom should have revealed more knowledge of technology when they were going over Doom’s computer systems. It would have created an easy “in” for more of Tom’s introspection and tied us back to Tom-is-a-human-turned-demon.
Alluding to starships (and FTL!) and then not delivering is just cruel. It *almost* cancelled out the Avatar poke (sadly, poking fun at that movie is nearly impossible to cancel out). Tom needs to visit a space ship. The sheer ridiculousness of that (because magic, planes, demons, wizards, overly-bureaucratic nations, gods, and romance aren’t enough. lol), I think, is needed to keep the second book on par with the first in terms of shock factor. I’m not saying it needs a big chunk of the book. One chapter would probably be too much, but maybe they end up on a spaceship in order to get supplies to fix the computer equipment or something.
And “the book”. Definitely an OMG moment on the last page. It was perfect. But I had forgotten about ‘the book’. We need to hear Lenemare raging about trying to find the book more. Just dropping a couple more hints when we see Lenemare would be perfect. Of course, it was obvious by the end of the book that Tizzy wasn’t a crazy as we first though he was. That particular intrigue is pure genius.
// End Rant – sorry for the long comments; it’s late but I wanted to post my thoughts while they are fresh.
I know, right? Though I’ll admit that I was a little slower on the uptake with the SGU hydrogen Collection. BTW, the same writers are now making Dark Matter which seems to have some pretty fresh plot stuff as far as SF is concerned.
I like the inclusion of SF, but I’d hate to see the series’s direction get befuddled with technobabble. Gates are super-awesome, of course, but there’s only so much room in a book. I’d say it’d be best to stick with the interstellar spaceships since we already know of at least one character who has been on one. Personally, I’d prefer the SF-heavy scenes to focus on how Tom knows more about technology than is normal in the Abyss. This would make him stand out since he’s supposed to be really old. Where would he have learned about the technology? Would characters assume it’s just part of his mysterious past, or would they start to question his age?
I can counter-argue myself in that gates could be rather easy to write into the plot – they just use the same basic concepts as the boom tubes (I like that you specified that they actually go BOOM – unlike certain other “boom tubes” in pop culture). You already pointed out that different worlds have different level of magic permeation. Perhaps travelers can use gates to travel between magic-rich worlds and use spacecraft to get to ones that don’t have enough magic to support the boom tubes.
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I’m really liking the end of the Second Book now. I’m dying to see the interaction with Ruiden, Talarius, Tom, and the upcoming battle (curse you, cliff-hanger!). Of course, I want to hear more about Vaselle in the third book. Why did he become a Warlock? I wonder when Jenn will find out about Tom – that would be quite the spectacle. But, I suspect you’ve been sitting on that reveal for good reason 😉
I think the immortal/invincible nature of demons gives them a unique perspective – I don’t want to see that diluted (personally). That seems to be seeping in with the D’Orcs and Mount Doom. I really enjoyed reading through places in Book 1 where Tom was clearly over-powerful for the situation. He’s basically a super-hero with really, really bad press. Based on how you’ve written Lenemare in Book 2, I might be interested in seeing how an interaction between those two would play out. Especially if they just run into each other in Astlan.
Clearly, Tizzy is holding out on us – as much as I want to see the character interactions above, the real intellectual mystery lies with Tizzy. What does his ‘book’ do? How close are the Astlanians from opening it? What is the reference to mythology if there is one? How old is Tizzy? Is Tizzy really just an old demon? Or is there something more to him than meets the eye?
I’m asking myself all of these questions now, so the ending has improved a lot. Woot!
Don’t be too hard on yourself; your writing is amazing. I mean, “Dropped the ball” just seems a bit harsh. I was reading a beta copy after all.
I actually liked that Vaselle overwhelmed Tom; I was merely grousing about not hearing much from Vaselle AFTER that.
And yes. I can see how interstellar spacecraft would be a bit of a stretch – especially when there are already so many other settings and characters to keep up with.
But, if you’re planning a spin-off (just throwing in my opinion early), definitely include gate tech and the Alcubierre drive. The Klingon tie-in is good. And while any reference to the Stargate franchise is especially appreciated, I am much more inclined to suggest a gate system like the one in the book Runner by William C. Dietz – if you are going to include star gates of any kind. The blending of tech like we’ve seen at Mount Doom is particularly intriguing. I’m liking that characteristic of your work so far.
But I digress. I’ll definitely check out the third beta copy. For how much longer will comments be useful?
