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Archive for Reviews and Criticism

The Godling Chronicles: The Sword of Truth

Feb25

The_Godling_Chronicles cover3Title: The Godling Chronicles: Book One (The Sword of Truth)

Author: Brian D. Anderson

Genre: YA Epic Fantasy

Length: 344 pages

Read: February 2-15, 2013

Summary: Fun teen epic fantasy

 

Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of epic fantasy novels in the Kindle top sellers, and taking a look at the epic fantasy category list many are Indie publications. This being my favorite genre, I figured I’d give some a try.

The Godling Chronicles: The Sword of Truth (don’t confuse with Terry Goodkind’s series of that name) adheres to many of the classic tropes: a sort of Indie The Book of Three meets The Eye of the World. Plotwise, we have a kind of Dark Lord, and we have a young guy from the country with a destiny. He has a mentor, he goes on a journey. There are girls (but no sex – boo!). The (relatively) unique element is that he’s really a god — albeit a reduced in-human-form god who doesn’t know it.

I liked this book, and if I were 13-14 again, I’d have loved it. The plot is straightforward but fine and it’s actually a bit refreshing harkening back to those classic “Shanara type” fantasies of the 80s. With the exception of the brief prologue, the narrative sticks tightly to a single protagonist and that keeps the pace up. As an added bonus, the story was co-written by the author’s 9-10 year-old son, which is very cool.

It’s not a long novel, 344 pages, and represents an opening salvo, more of a “first part” than a traditional “giant chunk” like a Wheel of Time book. This is fine, as it’s inexpensive and you can just download part 2 when you get there. I actually like that changes in publishing are allowing for more flexibility of form.

But I do have a few problems with the mechanics. The sentence work itself is fine. Workman like, but never awkward. However, the novel is simultaneously both over and underwritten. Let’s start with the under part. The book is written in 3rd person omni with no strong narrative voice and a focus on a few of the characters. Fine. But, the author mainly uses two tricks from his narrative toolbox to advance the plot: dialog and inner dialog. There is some action, but it’s fairly thinly painted. There is almost no narrative description, or description at all for that matter. This keeps the story lean and moving, but leaves us with a very thin sense of place and world. We pass through several cities and various countryside, but I was left with no particular sense of any of them. Most of the words are devoted to conversation and almost all plot points are revealed (and re-revealed) this way.

Which comes to the overwriting part, which isn’t so much at the sentence or fragment level (this, as I said, was decent) but occurred as (often) characters felt the urge to repeat news and revelations to new parties. Of course this happens in real life, but as a reader, once we know something we don’t usually need to hear it again. This is a first novel, and probably not HEAVILY edited, so I expect this kind of thing has improved by book 2, but in general fictional dialog (in books, movies, TV, etc) is like a facsimile of real dialog. It gets the point across in an ideally witty way (probably with more arguing than in real life) and stripped of a lot of the glue that real conversations contain. Those mechanics like “hello” “how are you?” and “Meet me at the fountain.” “You mean the one past the statue around the corner from the butcher shop?” “No the other one, um, um, past the Inn with the greenish turtle sign and the tree that got hit by lightning the other year.” I.e. Stuff we don’t really care about.

The whitespace style in this book is very horizontal (i.e. few line feeds) and I think actually having more can make this sort of thing clearer to author and reader alike. Each line must strive to say something new — ideally even several new things. These things can be plot points, details about the world, revelations of character, or general nuance. If a line can’t defend its right to exist, several ways, well as Faulkner said, “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”

But that being said, if you’re a young fantasy fan, The Sword of Truth is still a fun little romp. It’s straightforward, and unapologetic about the genre. That’s fine with me. I’ve got nothing against some good Dark Lord action.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Switched
  2. The Wise Man’s Fear
  3. The Way of Shadows
  4. The Name of the Wind
  5. Kushiel’s Dart
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Book Review, High fantasy, Literature, reviews, Reviews and Criticism, Sword of Truth

Adventures in the Screen Trade

Feb01

adventures-in-the-screen-trade-william-goldman_mediumTitle: Adventures in the Screen Trade

Author: William Goldman

Genre: Memoir / Writing Guide

Read: January, 2013

Summary: Fascinating and Terrifying

 

Having recently begun adapting my novel Untimed into a screenplay, I’m doing my usual slog through the relevant homework. What more can we say  about William Goldman than: The Princess Bride (both the novel and the screenplay). If that doesn’t make you feel invincible, then take Marathon Man, All the Presidents Men, or Butch  Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And those are but a few of his produced films. Last year, I read the equally famous Save the Cat, which is a good book, but I marveled that the late author, while a hugely touted screenwriter, hadn’t written any good (produced) films. So not true of Goldman.

This work is fascinating, but it’s only about a third writing manual. It’s really three books: 1) a witty and insightful skewering of Hollywood, 2) personal stories from the trenches about each of Goldman’s pre 1982 films, 3) the Butch Cassidy screenplay, discussions of its strengths and weaknesses, and an adaption of a short story into a screenplay.

The skewering is caustic, hilarious, and even thirty years later, dead on. Goldman is famous for his “nobody knows anything” quote and how true it seems. His discussions of studio executives, agents, stars, and the intertwined nightmare of power is insightful bordering on clairvoyant. Most of the trends that he sees in motion in 1982 have continued and accelerated to bring us to the moderately dismal state of contemporary filmmaking (there are exceptions of course). Think both Entourage and the brilliant “The Day the Movies Died” GC article. Also, having worked with/for Universal, Sony, and Fox… well it was just all too funny and familiar.

The personal section terrified me. I hope to see Untimed make the leap to film, as it will make a great one, and it’s made vividly clear in Adventures that even a major screenwriter like Goldman is but a candle in the wind before the studio gale. This is made all the more peculiar by the fact that the screenplay is the single most important ingredient that goes into a movie. Film is a highly collaborative and commercial medium, but you really can’t make a good movie out of a bad script (unless you rewrite it to be a good script). You can however, make a lousy film out of a great script, or a hit film out of a bad one (Transformers anyone?).

Part three isn’t a good introduction to either writing screenplays or writing, but I sure did find it useful. Goldman hammers home many of the oft-repeated (but for a reason) messages of screenwriting, particularly his emphasis on structure. He’s a wonderful storyteller and his adaption example is so ridiculous, that it’s impressive to watch how he makes such a trite concept almost work.

If any of these topics fascinate you, give Adventures a read. Besides, Goldman’s such a good writer, he could make cereal-box copy a bestseller.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. The Inside Story
  2. Save the Cat – To Formula or Not To Formula
  3. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
  4. The Trade Paperback is Launched!
  5. Movie Review: Adventureland
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Books, Writing
Tagged as: Arts, Book Review, Reviews and Criticism, Screenplay, Screenwriting, William Goldman, Writing

Story of a Girl

Mar05

Title: Story of a Girl

Author: Sara Zarr

Genre: YA contemporary

Length: 192 pages, 43k words

Read: March 4, 2012

Summary: Great little character study

_

Nominally, this is an issue novel, about a 15 year-old girl dealing with the fallout of having slept with a guy when she was thirteen. But really it’s just a well written and well characterized slice of teen life story — reminiscent even of something like Judy Blume’s Tiger Eyes.

The prose is first rate. Told in first person past, the narrator’s voice is pitch perfect. Funny, poignant, honest, all without being forced. And the characters are all great. The don’t feel like they exist to serve the plot. They exist as people exist. This was just a great little read — a kind of quick escape into someone else’s head. It felt effortless, but I know it wasn’t. The basic three act structure is there. Girl has a problem — and not really the external one she thinks she has — but instead a need for internal change. She messes up, comes to crisis, and grows.

A simple formula. But everything is in the execution.

Or for more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: The Windup Girl
  2. Book Review: Girl Walking Backwards
  3. Short Story: The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
  4. The Inside Story
  5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Arts, Book Review, books, Fiction, Judy Blume, Literature, Reviews and Criticism, Sara Zarr, Story of a Girl, Tiger Eyes, YA contemporary

Forbidden Mind

Jan20

Title: Forbidden Mind

Author: Kimberly Kinrade

Genre: YA paranormal

Length: 134 pages

Read: January 18, 2012

Summary: Fast and fun. Recommended.

_

This little novel caught my attention yesterday while running a Kindle Select free day. I was sold by the tag line, “She reads minds. He controls minds. Together, they might get out alive.” I like the notion of a couple stuck together by the inherent nature of circumstances. I tried to build this dynamic into my second novel, Untimed — only it’s time travel, not mind reading.

I pounded through this book in one sitting, as it is only 134 pages, making it more a novella. This is a new trend made possible by the Kindle store. Previously novellas were basically impossible to sell and besides, I was never really into them, being more the 400,000 word per volume, ten volume fantasy kind of guy (I have actually read all but the last of the Wheel of Tedium). But now, being older and having less time, I’m finding I dig ’em.

Forbidden Mind is written in tight first person past. The prose is very snappy and light, the way I like it. Perhaps it could use the tiniest bit of further line editing, but it’s good. We drop right into the character and the story and race from there. In a 134 pages, there isn’t room to dawdle and Kinrade doesn’t. Things are lean, with the bare minimum description. The protagonist is very likeable. She isn’t super complex, but she has a nice non-snarky teen voice. The setup here is that she’s a mind reader who lives in a kind of Professor X’s school for the gifted — but they aren’t so altruistic. In fact they rent out the paranormal kids for clandestine missions (slightly Dollhouse like). The scenario is very intriguing and the book so breathlessly fast that we race right through the “school” scenes and into Act 2 and the B story (romance), which likewise blur by.

I’ve always liked mind readers and what’s known in the literature as mind controllers, pushers, or coercers. Some of my favorite books are Firestarter, The Case of the Vanishing Boy, Carrion Comfort (best horror novel I’ve ever read, and Stephen King agrees with me), and Intervention.

In Forbidden Mind, the story is the girl’s perspective and so we get more of the mind reading than the controlling. This part is well handled, but I thought there was some juicy potential in the synergistic relationship between a mind reader and a coercer that was left on the table. Things move fast and character is more Kinrade’s strongpoint than complex action so their extraction from their predicament is quick and straightforward. Being a crazy nerd I’ve spent an insane amount of time thinking about physic powers and their ramifications. I love books that deal in complexity with a system of powers. The Julian May books do, as does Sheri S. Tepper’s remarkable True Game series. I would have loved to see this pair escaping using a mental version of the three legged race. Plus, this is a powerful pair of powers: unlimited mind reading and mind control, so they could easily overshadow obstacles without a very threatening antagonist (a Heroes Sylar type) or significant limitations (like Firestarter’s cerebral hemorrhaging). We don’t have these. But Kinrade constructs the story in such a rapid and straightforward way as to avoid the problem. And the ending comes equally quick, but satisfying.

Which leaves us room to explore this interesting dynamic in the sequel. If you like paranormal teen adventure, try it out.

For more book reviews, click here.

By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Book Review, Carrion Comfort, Case of the Vanishing Boy, Firestarter, Forbidden Mind, Julian May, Kimberly Kinrade, Literature, Mind control, Novella, Paranormal, review, Reviews and Criticism, Sheri S. Tepper, Stephen King, True Game, YA paranormal

The Darkening Dream – Soliciting Reviews

Dec14

With my planned launch getting closer I started aggressively soliciting online book bloggers for reviews of my first novel, The Darkening Dream. This is a rather tedious process (spent about 10 hours on it yesterday) of combing through lists of review sites, then checking out their policies (sometimes nicely tabbed at the top, sometimes mysteriously difficult to find) and then constructing review query emails.

Still, it’s amazing how many cool review sites are out there these days, and how many of them cover independently published books.

To that effect, if any of you readers run a legitimate book blog*, I’d be happy to trade you a free advance copy (electronic or paper) for a review. No requirement that it even be a good one 🙂 I like to think the book itself will stand (or flop) on it’s own, and I’m a firm believer in editorial freedom (and my own right to knock or praise things on this site as I see fit). For more information on the book itself, click here, or on the cover to the right. I’ll also post any reviews I find out about on my review page with a link back (unless they are scathing and not in the least bit funny :-)).

If you’re interested in reviewing, contact me here.

On the production front I’m awaiting (hopefully any minute) the final sketch for my new cover. The interior layout is also proceeding apace. I have final artwork back on my interior icons and hope to get an alpha of the complete paper typography any day now. I’ll share some of this with you shortly via other posts and even a planned two chapter sample. I also taught myself today how to generate epub and mobi files for the e-book version, which was a piece of cake.

*NOTE: by “legitimate book blog” I mean any site which regularly reviews books in a reasonably professional manner and has a publicly posted submissions policy.

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream
  2. About Book Reviews
  3. Uncharted 3 Reviews Live
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Advance copy, Andy Gavin, Book Bloggers, fiction reviews, Literature, online reviews, Review site, reviews, Reviews and Criticism, The Darkening Dream
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