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Beta 1
There was now a ten-foot diameter circular hole in the middle of his deck! Asmeth shook his head and stared down into a circular pit, for that was what it clearly was. A hole in the middle of his deck! This pit, which was apparently somehow superimposed on the deck below them, was about ten feet deep, with oddly smooth gray walls. There was a ladder leaning against one of the walls leading up to the lip of the pit. [u]Several crew members began murmuring in concern. Sailors did not like holes in their ships. Particularly, large round holes.[/u] At the base of the ladder, at the bottom of the round pit was furniture! Essentially, it was a round, pit shaped room furnished with a bunk bed, a writing desk, two chairs along with a bookcase, a hall tree and two candelabras with well-used candles. There were also a couple of rectangular chests stacked on top of each other, all sitting on a large round area rug at the base of the pit. “What the Abyss?” Captain Asmeth asked staring into the room that had just been unfolded before them. [u]Several crewmates where whispering and making religious gestures to protect themselves. This was not something one wanted to see on the deck of one’s ship.[/u]
Redundant / repeat of underlined text.
Beta 1
Tal Gor looked at Talarius angrily. “You mock my weakness?” [u]Tal Gor[/u] did a double take and looked back at the youth.
The underlined part should be Talarius.
mobi or epub is fine. I can covert for my own device just fine as long as I don’t start out w/ PDF. Calibre is awful for some PDF where double L becomes single.
So, I’ve finished the book and will be making scene specific observations later, but here are some general thoughts.
Things I disliked:
#1 – The dates. Except for the DOF +X the rest of the dates are meaningless and honestly would leave me confused unless I read the forum posts.#2 – This is supported by the dates for each chapter, but the pace is really slow. Once Mount Doom is up and running the pace is better, but prior to that (1/5th of the book!) is argh!
#3 – The Jenn & Gastropé storyline was pointless. It just stopped and contributed to nothing in the end. Same with Captain Asmeth. If you removed them the story wouldn’t suffer. Maybe they would be better for side stories?
#4 – Dual is not the same as duel. Alter is not the same as altar. [-x
#5 – The overall timespan, noted upon by others in the story, feels too fast. Simply reading it the impression is that it took a few weeks rather than one week as noted by the dates on the chapters.
#6 – When I finished Into the Abyss I was hooked for Heavenly Host. When I finished Heavenly Host I was not hooked for Book 3. I could see the the whole Tizzy thing coming once they got into the caves and the wand was found it was clinched that someone was directing things and well, I suspected and did not stop to suspect Tizzy. Also, the bit about the book at the end? It did not shock me. Unfortunately, neither reveal at the end made me go “Oooh! I want to know more!”
#7 – The reveal Vulcan felt our of place. Would have been better if Vulcan had gotten in contact w/ Tom. Tom was just starting to establish allies when the story stopped.
#8 – Talarius wasn’t enough of a foil to Tom. Instead that role seemed to be adopted by Hilda albeit remotely. One of things that was good in Book 1 was this clash of What is Good? vs. What is Evil?
#9 – Xanatos gambit plotline coupled with plot-induced blindness. Too many coincidences and I felt myself going “really?” at several points.
Things I liked:
#10 – So, Tizzy built the Abyss? Huh.#11 – The D’Orcs were very interesting
#12 – THe contrast of the Hilda story w/ Tom’s was very nice. I like how they complement each other and yet create a wonderful misunderstanding. However, nothing actually came of it… so sad.
Overall I understand that a lot of what was originally for Book 2 was moved to Book 3 due to size and trying to stop the story at the right point. But I feel that a lot of padding was added that can be eliminated to maintain tension bewteen Tom’s POV and the forces of Tiernon. I had the expectation that Talarius was to serve that role, but it became Hilda which is okay. However, the tension wasn’t really there due to a lot of other POVs. [u]Maybe stuff moved to Book 3 can be added back to Book 2 after the padding is removed?[/u]
Edited my original post now that I’ve finished Beta 1.
Overall, a decent story. Not very engaging and until around Chapter 100 I was forcing myself to read it. If I were to give a rating on Amazon: 3 out of 5.
I recall there being a post of the things you did and did not want from the beta readers. Could you add that as a link to the top post?
Could you post a non-PDF version? Using calibre to convert to Kindle for my note-taking screws it up quite badly.
[quote=The Author Guy;2058]And his original face isn’t as scary.[/quote]
You might not like to hear this then, but the when I first saw the new face I had the urge to laugh. It’s like Tom is saying, “What you looking at, eh? You looking at me? Are [b]you[/b] looking at [b]me[/b]?”
Mobi format works. I like to highlight as I go and then comeback after finishing the chapter to write up my thoughts. Copy-paste that from Kindle.
Also, how do you handle story problems that cross chapters, e.g., Chapter 1 has a conflict w/ Chapter 8. Do we post in 1 or in 8?
It varies depending on the genre & themes of the story. For Into the Abyss… I’d say stronger on the symbology since that is so important to the story. I don’t think that there are that many scenes on that would help to capture the essence of the story.
If you do a character, it’d pretty much have to feature Tom, but what would Tom be doing that helps to summarize the whole theme of the book? I can’t think of anything.
The big themes I saw:
– Slavery
– Evil is as evil does; not by virtue of being
– Human vs. Demon
– Is Tom becoming evil because he has turned into a demon?Symbols…
Chains, marionette?Don’t know about unifying themes from book 2 or book 3 or book 4. Would need a synopsis.
Maybe each cover should show the central conflict from each book? Not always a scene mind you. A central conflict in Into the Abyss is truth vs. belief.
[quote=Rosver;1682]You know guys there have to be better ways of inflicting pain than writing books.[/quote]
There are. Such as: reading one’s fanfic reviews. XD
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But, Tizzy. To draw & quarter someone? Why would having one’s picture done and then given lodgings be so bad?
Interesting. Demon’s collect souls? Thinking through book 1 I don’t recall any mention of such things. Is the currency used in the Abyss a representation of souls a demon owns or can redeem? Also, what do the souls do for the demons?
