One of the things I often do as I'm reading a novel or short story is keep track of words whose definitions I do not know or that I find interesting. Either way, these interesting words are ones I feel might be of use in my own writing. That, and it's good to expand one's vocabulary every once in a while.

Read my review of The Outstretched Shadow.

Even though I didn't complete The Outstretched Shadow, I still found a few interesting words.

vulpine: resembling or characteristic of a fox

convocation: a group gathered in response to a summons

vintner: someone who makes or sells wine

sennight: the space of seven nights and days; a week

finial: a relatively small, ornamental, terminal feature at the top of a gable, pinnacle, etc.; an ornamental termination to the top of a piece of furniture, or of one part of such a piece

ostentatious: intended to attract notice and impress others

plinth: a square block, especially of stone, on which a column or a statue stands

perfidious: tending to betray; especially having a treacherous character as attributed to the Carthaginians by the Romans

piquant: engagingly stimulating or provocative; having an agreeably pungent taste

slatternly: slovenly, untidy

epistle: a formal or elegant letter

tureen: large deep serving dish with a cover; for serving soups and stews

roached: hair combed up from the forehead or temples in a roll or high curve

double-milled: twice milled or fulled, as cloth, to make it finer

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As previously mentioned, now that I own an eReader and thus a viable way to read eBooks without having to print them, I plan to read and review each of the previously featured Tor.com giveaways. This is the fourth of those reviews.

Also, I'm taking LibraryThing's 50 Book Reading Challenge for 2010. This is my 9th read of the 50.

The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory is book one of The Obsidian Trilogy. It is followed by To Light a Candle and When Darkness Falls.

This first book in the trilogy starts out very promising. Unfortunately, the initial plot which I found quite riveting begins to slow and finally fall flat for me as I gave up reading about halfway through.

Kellen Tavadon, son of the most powerful mage in the Golden City, wants more out of life than the controlled, sanitized life given to him by his father and the other ruling mages of the City. He finds more than he bargained for when he happens upon the three books of Wild Magic.

Wild Magic differs from the traditional magic performed by the City's mages in that it is easier, requires less preparation, is in some ways more powerful, but ultimately was banned long ago by the mages of the Golden City because it exacts a price that is sometimes too high to pay. Kellen soon learns there is even more to it than that when he is discovered practicing this forbidden magic and banished from the City and its utopian way of life. This is all well and fine with Kellen. Others have been expelled from the city and, he imagines, gone on to lead a new, independent existence free from the stifling rules of the mages. He comes to find out, though, that of those previously banished, none still live, for the mages set an Outlaw Hunt in pursuit of him: a pack of stone golem hounds whose only purpose is to kill those expelled from the City.

This is a great premise and the story does well up until the point where Kellen settles into a life free from his father's influence. He begins to delve further into Wild Magic, albeit slowly, and discovers there is an entire world of fascinating people living outside the borders of the City. The problem is that the story settles far too much into the mundane. Meeting new neighbors, attending fairs, chopping wood, observing Kellen's sister, who is a healer, going about her daily routine. In a way, I found the manner in which Kellen settles in with his sister to be a bit… unwholesome; I think the sister character's part would have been better served as a non-blood relation.

I read some reviews on the second book in the series, To Light A Candle. Those reviews claim the second book picks up the pace. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the end of this one, so I won't be getting to see that for myself.

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Tim Pratt, whose book The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl I reviewed some time ago, posed this question on his blog:

Should I Write the Next Marla Mason Novel?

Marla Mason is Pratt's urban sorcerer character who has appeared in four traditionally published novels to date: Blood Engines, Poison Sleep, Dead Reign, and Spell Games. Also, Marla Mason is the main character in Bone Shop, a prequel to the other novels which Pratt serialized and gave away for free (donations accepted, of course) on his web site.

When Pratt originally posed that question on his blog and Twitter, I scoffed. Stephen King had tried it and failed. Tim and I engaged in a brief conversation where he pointed out the difference in scale (King has to make a whole lot more for it to be worth his time) and the fact that King tried it a decade ago. We both agreed that a lot of things can change in 10 years. Our conversation closed with the following comments from Tim:

Turns out his publisher is not interested in any more Marla Mason novels. Pratt has a great affinity for the character, though, and so on the heels of Bone Shop, Pratt's first serialized Marla Mason novel, he's doing it again, this time with Broken Mirrors.

Broken Mirrors will appear online one chapter at a time and run for "20-25 weeks". The first chapter will go up March 8.

While you can download the chapters for free, donations are, of course, accepted. In exchange for your contribution, Pratt has a tiered reward system. The more you donate, the more you get (beyond the author's undying appreciation, of course).

While I had read the before-mentioned The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, I had no experience with his Marla Mason novels prior to reading about his plans for Broken Mirrors. Intrigued by the serialization idea, I went out and bought the first Mason novel, Blood Engines (actually, I bought it through my Kindle, so I didn't really go anywhere). So far, so good, and I'm looking forward to watching Broken Mirrors unfold.

You can subscribe to the upcoming chapters via the RSS feed on the Broken Mirrors web site.

Below you'll find a short (but growing) list of short fiction I make available for free. There's no commitment to do anything but read. However, if you enjoyed a story (or even if you didn't) and would like to let me know, please leave a comment either below or click-through to each of the stories and leave a comment there. You can read in HTML, MOBI/Kindle, or PDF format.

 

Fine Wine

In which an assassin makes a deal.

"Fine Wine" is a short piece I wrote in about an hour, with several edits following that initial brain dump. It started with a single sentence that just popped into my head: "Abelard ate a lot. That was why, after I'd slashed my knife across his belly..."

[ Read this story ]

I'm supporting Kindle writers by selecting for review one eBook from Amazon's Kindle store each month. This is the first of those selections.

Also, I'm taking LibraryThing's 50 Book Reading Challenge for 2010. This is my 8th read of the 50.

Eleganta: A novel of Fairykind by Denny Swartzlander is my February and first Kindle Pick of the Month. In a way, this is an experiment. First time writers publishing in the Kindle store either (1) couldn't get their novel published by a traditional publisher or (2) didn't submit to a traditional publisher. Either way, the traditional publishing route, which some people feel is pretty important to boosting quality, has been circumvented.

Full disclosure: My first fantasy novel was not picked up by a publisher, so I decided to put it out on my site, the Kindle store, and other online venues.

So, the experiment is to see if self-published eBooks meet the same quality standard as traditional books.

Eleganta left me undecided.

The titular character, a garden fairy, has just given birth to a baby, an occurrence not seen in over a decade. It is quickly decided that the baby must be brought to the fairy queen for protection, for an invading army of trolls—and one troll general in particular—is hell-bent on capturing her. Seems that the trolls grow sick and die when ingesting the current crop of fairies, so they're consumed (no pun intended) with creating a line of fairies not toxic to them. For reasons which remain unclear to me, Eleganta's baby is the key to this source.

So begins a journey for Eleganta, her daughter, and a warrior fairy charged with protecting them that should by all accounts be one charged with suspense and danger. There's plenty of danger (though I never really felt anyone was going to suffer from it) but little suspense. Eleganta and company go from one destination to another, sometimes quickly, sometimes stopping to frolic in the forest, so to speak, all the while chased by a pair of monstrous hound-like creatures. That in itself is a problem: the trolls want the baby alive, so why send a couple of creatures who will probably do nothing less than eat it if they ever capture it?

Another point of contention I couldn't get past: fairies fly, yet their villages are walled. Perhaps this is because they've been fighting the army of trolls for some time, so they've simply built their defenses up. But, still, I had imagined a different sort of lifestyle for fairy-kind, one that did not mirror our own so much.

In terms of writing, Eleganta varies from above average to below average. Character descriptions sometimes are info dumps, with too much, too soon and descriptions that are too detailed. I prefer to find out the nuances of a character as the story unfolds rather than having information thrown at me straight off. There are parts of Eleganta that are on par with anything you'd read elsewhere. Unfortunately, there are also other sections I felt could have used a bit more polish.

The storyline is good enough, though pacing was not the best and the characters are all-too-familiar or just flat. There was no one character I really connected with nor any characters I genuinely wanted to see succeed.

Perhaps the most telling sign of all: I couldn't finish Eleganta. I made it halfway. Knowing when to stop reading isn't always easy. In this case, I was having a hard time getting enthused about picking up my Kindle and diving into the story. If that isn't a sign tell me what to do, I don't know what is.

While Eleganta racked up nine five star reviews on Amazon, I didn't feel it quite met that level. I plan to give it three stars when I post my review there shortly.

[ Purchase this book from Amazon.com: Eleganta ]

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One of the things I often do as I'm reading a novel or short story is keep track of words whose definitions I do not know or that I find interesting. Either way, these interesting words are ones I feel might be of use in my own writing. That, and it's good to expand one's vocabulary every once in a while.

Read my review of The Final Empire.

This time's Interesting Words come to us from Brandon Sanderson's The Final Empire. It's a short list, which probably tells you how difficult of a time you'll have with Sanderson's choice of vocabulary. In fact, I more or less knew the definitions of both of these, but wanted to get them written down anyway.

apathy: the trait of lacking enthusiasm for or interest in things generally

parasol: a handheld collapsible source of shade

 

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I'm taking LibraryThing's 50 Book Reading Challenge for 2010. This is my 7th read of the 50.

The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance is part of the Tales of the Dying Earth omnibus. Other novels included in the compilation include The Dying Earth, Cugel's Saga, and Rhialto the Marvellous.

Jack Vance is one of the most prolific and popular science fiction and fantasy writers of our time. Many of his works are considered classics. The individual novels found in the Tales of the Dying Earth are certainly amongst them.

This second Tales novel is just that: unlike The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld is not a collection of short stories but a full-length novel. Here we have the character Cugel, who is likeable enough throughout most of the story, though I did find some of his qualities unsavory if not reprehensible at times. Still, he is our hero, so to speak, and it is his adventures we follow as the story progresses.

We begin with Cugel trying to sell some goods. Things are not going well, though, and at the urging of a fellow merchant, Cugel gets it in his head to go steal from Iucounu the Laughing Magician if only to acquire some magical items which he can then sell for profit. Cugel is caught in the act and, as penance, the Laughing Magician sends Cugel on a quest halfway round the world to bring back a favored item. Keeping Cugel in line is a parasite called Firx, who wraps himself about Cugel's liver and promises certain death if Cugel strays from his appointed task. Thus begins a series of odd and sometimes death-harrowing adventures as Cugel attempts to locate the wizard's prized item and return home, all the while keeping Firx content that he is in fact doing all he can to fulfill said quest.

Trouble arises when Cugel sees an opportunity for personal gain, which is at almost every turn, for Cugel is concerned with himself above all other things. He steals, he cheats, he lies, he even rapes a woman at one point in the story (though, to be fair, they are married and she does agree, but only after Cugel's extreme urging). Still, Cugel is likeable if only because nothing ever seems to go his way. He's the quintessential down-on-his-luck character who, after being beaten down so many times, we just want to see succeed even just once.

The Eyes of the Overworld is, of course, set in Vance's Dying Earth world, so far in our future that the Sun is nearing the end of its life and technology is so advanced (and its operation forgotten, in most cases) that it is more magic than science. Those who do know its operation are few and far between, and are actually called sorcerers and wizards rather than technologists, engineers, or scientists.

Vance's writing style is from another era; the book was originally published in 1966. The matter-of-fact narration is easy to follow, though, and the adventures Cugel finds himself on are engaging. This is another short novel, standing in at about 150 pages, and overall I found it a quick read. If I rated the books I review, I'd give it 3 stars out of 5.

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