[quote=Flakes;2908]What was the problem with Hilda. She was the best part of book 2. She was book 2’s Tom. The reason I kept reading. I’m happy with the way things turned out. All too often in self published books you get some uber main character who is over powered, who just breezes through the plot with deus ex machina saves and shallow secondary characters. Terry Mancour and E. william brown are two fine examples of this. They are the Fantasy for the adolescent male who never grew up crowd. Making it not entirely about Tom lessens this. So while some of the other sections are boring as fuck, they are still worthwhile.[/quote]
If I wanted to watch re-runs of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood so I can learn valuable life lessons, I would do so. Terry Mancour and E. William Brown are both fine writers and know their niche audiences well. The audience wants awesome magic battles in the vein of Buck Rogers, they don’t want the plucky underdog or the hero’s journey that normally goes with that. No one does. George R.R. Martin writes some wonderful fiction in the area you are looking for, so does Tad Williams. Highly detailed interwoven plots and sub-plots take decades to write correctly, as in the book came out today, sequel comes out 5 to 10 years later. I read the the first two books of the song of ice and fire back to back… 12 to 15 years ago. I don’t remember any of the characters, their motivations, convictions, none of it. None. It’s like asking me the name of the boy from Indian in the cupboard that I read when I was 8. I don’t know and I’m not sure why I should care. I’m sure I’ll give a book series with an extremely complex plot a look once it’s complete.
I found Hilda to be a fine character, and her journey to be nice. But completely redundant. She was filler. It was like Goku screaming for half an episode to build a sense of awe and suspense, but mainly because they needed to stretch two comics worth of material into 6 episodes. I, personally, liked it. I can plainly see why many would not.