The Highest Hope - Chapter 3 and NaNo Updates
Chapter 3 of The Highest Hope is now available on FictionPress. I always appreciate reviews and constructive feedback.
An important note: I am putting this story on hiatus indefinitely because of other more pressing obligations, and the fact that I have a NaNo novel from the prior year that deserves my attention first. You have my word that I AM NOT abandoning The Highest Hope and it will be continued to be serialized as soon as possible.
Read the newest chapter here.
Speaking of National Novel Writing Month, I am participating again this year. My profile is here and here is the synopsis of my project, a historical fantasy about, le gasp, vampires:
1875 Transylvania
After years of war, rebellion, and outside rule, Romania is ready to become a sovereign nation, taking with it the formerly independent principality of Transylvania. For strigoi - vampires - it is the end of a once-magnificent era, their society hardly resembling what it once was.
Struggling against encroaching humans with new, powerful weapons, as well as a terrifying new disease known as the Blood Poisoning killing their people, the last strigoi struggle to survive.
Two brothers, outcast Sorin and youngest member of the Great Council of the Dragon, Viorel, might just be the ones to lead their people into the future. If they can muster the courage to let go of the past.
Things I Will Never Include In A Story
Have you ever noticed that ONE thing that could happen in a story that makes you roll your eyes or even put the book down? Sometimes, an element that can even make you never pick up the book again?
- Love triangles
- Amnesia storylines
- Jesus allegories
- Not passing the Bechdel Test (might not apply to short stories)
- Bad futures
- Epilogues that take place in the future
I'll update as I think of more.
Do you have any themes or plot twists that you would never include in YOUR story?
Do you have any themes or plot twists that you would never include in YOUR story?
Thoughts on Star Trek Into Darkness
Labels:
khan,
Khan Noonien Singh,
opinion,
racism,
star trek,
star trek into darkness,
whitewashing
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I've been a Star Trek fan since I was ten years old, and I've had mixed feelings about the reboot ever since the first film came out. I liked it when I saw it in theaters but my opinion degraded over time. It just didn't feel like a Star Trek film. A great Hollywood sci-fi action film? Yes. A great Star Trek movie? Hardly.
So now to the rebuttals of common criticisms of the film:
Khan's whiteness makes more than perfect sense in context (apparently they even clarified it in a tie-in comic). I adored the characterization of Khan and Cumberbatch's performance and found myself rooting for him for most of the movie (he really only does one thing that is entirely inexcusable). I still don't see a reason why the villain of this film couldn't have been a contemporary of Khan's (another warlord from the Eugenics Wars) instead of Khan himself, but whatever.
After seeing the film, I may not fully agree with making Khan white, but I certainly understand why that choice was made. Back when TOS was airing, the idea of the perfect human being brown was novel and groundbreaking. But we now live in a world where showing a brown man perform acts of terrorism just perpetrates negative stereotypes, no matter the history of the franchise or the character.
Even the ending both made sense (people say it came out of nowhere but there was another huge piece of foreshadowing I think everyone missed...) and was emotionally resonant, if not original.
Pretty much the only thing I didn't like was the lack of originality - it did feel like they were trying to remake Wrath of Khan. But that was pretty much it - I now have much higher hopes for the next film.
Book Review - Falling Kingdoms
Labels:
book review,
epic fantasy,
falling kingdoms,
fantasy,
high fantasy,
morgan rhodes,
young adult
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| Cover image courtesy of Barnes and Noble. |
Author: Morgan Rhodes
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: March 11, 2014
Version I Read: Hardcover
Rating: 4/5
I'm pretty conflicted about this book. On the whole, it's a good story that, at least in this first volume, is a little superficial. The major characters are both likable and infuriating, which means they are most certainly not boring. Oh, yeah, and my favorite character dies. When I read it for the first time, I was so angry I didn't want to pick up the next one. But something about this world kept calling me to come back, and I'm honestly glad I did, because, putting my emotions aside, this really is a good book.
There are three kingdoms on the continent of Mythica: prosperous Auranos to the south, poor Paelsia in the center, and cold and strong Limeros in the north. The story is told from four perspectives: Cleo, the headstrong princess of Auranos who, though no fault of her own, sets off an international incident; Jonas, a young man in Paelsia, who, after being wronged, ends up becoming a budding rebel leader; Lucia, the princess of Limeros, who, unknown to except a few, is destined to become one of the most powerful sorceresses who ever lived; and Magnus, the prince of Limeros, who harbors a forbidden love for his sister and struggles to hide his true self from his tyrant father.
Some spoilers.
The action kicks off when a party including Cleo and her soon-to-be fiance Aron go to Paelsia to purchase some wine and are involved in an altercation where the wine-seller's son is killed. Cleo has nothing to do with this - Aron was trying to rip them off - but the incident becomes a rallying cry for the people of Paelsia. With the murdered man's brother out for revenge and the cruel king of the north seeking to take advantage of the tragedy, the powder keg finally explodes into all-out war. I like that a single isolated incident like this is enough to start a major war - after all, throughout history, a seemingly small event has set things in motion when tension has been boiling beneath the surface for years.
There are three kingdoms on the continent of Mythica: prosperous Auranos to the south, poor Paelsia in the center, and cold and strong Limeros in the north. The story is told from four perspectives: Cleo, the headstrong princess of Auranos who, though no fault of her own, sets off an international incident; Jonas, a young man in Paelsia, who, after being wronged, ends up becoming a budding rebel leader; Lucia, the princess of Limeros, who, unknown to except a few, is destined to become one of the most powerful sorceresses who ever lived; and Magnus, the prince of Limeros, who harbors a forbidden love for his sister and struggles to hide his true self from his tyrant father.
Some spoilers.
The action kicks off when a party including Cleo and her soon-to-be fiance Aron go to Paelsia to purchase some wine and are involved in an altercation where the wine-seller's son is killed. Cleo has nothing to do with this - Aron was trying to rip them off - but the incident becomes a rallying cry for the people of Paelsia. With the murdered man's brother out for revenge and the cruel king of the north seeking to take advantage of the tragedy, the powder keg finally explodes into all-out war. I like that a single isolated incident like this is enough to start a major war - after all, throughout history, a seemingly small event has set things in motion when tension has been boiling beneath the surface for years.
I think the biggest problem with this book is that the writing and narrative itself are a little superficial, which doesn't work well for high fantasy. There are no organic detours from the main plot, which I think detracts from what is otherwise a good story.
The characters swing from likable to nearly intolerable, which, whether you like them or not, means they invoke strong emotions, so the author is doing something right. On the likable side, you have Cleo, who, while she makes mistakes and bad decisions some of the time, is a rather fleshed out and believable character, given her age and status. I ship her hardcore with Theon. *Sob*
Jonas has the least development of the main characters (he also has the least amount of POV chapters, which I find a little odd). I'm not sure why the author gave him so much less to do than the other main characters, and, as a consequence, he's much flatter than the others. He also changes his opinion more or less at the drop of a hat, which is rather poor writing.
Lucia is naive and easily manipulatable, which gives some depth to her otherwise Purity Sue character, as these are some major character flaws that have terrible consequences towards the end of the story. Seeing where she's going to go from here will be interesting.
Magnus is a little harder to get behind because of what an ass he can be, but as the story goes along you do see why he is the kind of person he is. We'll see which road he chooses to take in the sequels.
The mythology of the Kindred and the Watchers is also pretty well thought-out and adds a lot of depth to the story. I always like it when worlds have their own mythology and stories that get told to the readers - it makes the story feel all the more real.
There are also some minor (Why did Jonas bother getting with Chief Basilius' daughter in order to gain an audience rather than request one directly as the brother of the man who was killed?) and not-so-minor logic flaws, namely, why Jonas was so obsessed with getting revenge on Cleo when she was clearly not comfortable with the situation (and even tried to get them all to leave!). Fixating on Aron would have made sense, and I understand people do stupid things when they're that upset, but it still feels contrived by the author to make the plot move along rather than something the character would logically think or do.
(And why did you have to kill Theon off? WHY?!)
The characters swing from likable to nearly intolerable, which, whether you like them or not, means they invoke strong emotions, so the author is doing something right. On the likable side, you have Cleo, who, while she makes mistakes and bad decisions some of the time, is a rather fleshed out and believable character, given her age and status. I ship her hardcore with Theon. *Sob*
Jonas has the least development of the main characters (he also has the least amount of POV chapters, which I find a little odd). I'm not sure why the author gave him so much less to do than the other main characters, and, as a consequence, he's much flatter than the others. He also changes his opinion more or less at the drop of a hat, which is rather poor writing.
Lucia is naive and easily manipulatable, which gives some depth to her otherwise Purity Sue character, as these are some major character flaws that have terrible consequences towards the end of the story. Seeing where she's going to go from here will be interesting.
Magnus is a little harder to get behind because of what an ass he can be, but as the story goes along you do see why he is the kind of person he is. We'll see which road he chooses to take in the sequels.
The mythology of the Kindred and the Watchers is also pretty well thought-out and adds a lot of depth to the story. I always like it when worlds have their own mythology and stories that get told to the readers - it makes the story feel all the more real.
There are also some minor (Why did Jonas bother getting with Chief Basilius' daughter in order to gain an audience rather than request one directly as the brother of the man who was killed?) and not-so-minor logic flaws, namely, why Jonas was so obsessed with getting revenge on Cleo when she was clearly not comfortable with the situation (and even tried to get them all to leave!). Fixating on Aron would have made sense, and I understand people do stupid things when they're that upset, but it still feels contrived by the author to make the plot move along rather than something the character would logically think or do.
(And why did you have to kill Theon off? WHY?!)
The Verdict: A more ambitious YA fantasy than most which falls short in some places but ultimately holds up.
Neither Karen Lofgren nor Loyalty Press has any affiliation with the author or publisher. This review constitutes Fair Use.
Violence in Children's Books
(That being said, I'm not opposed to violence in fiction, even children's fiction. Kids are more mature than a lot of us give them credit for. I'm just pointing this all out. I personally think violence is only an issue when it's glorified.)
But it continues to astound me how much of an emphasis our society places on visual fiction versus written fiction and the different standards for each. Minors can't buy an R-Rated movie but anyone can buy a romance novel with explicit sex scenes at Wal-Mart. And who can forget all the hullabaloo about minors being able to buy Fifty Shades of Grey, no questions asked?
And then there's the odd world of children's books. I've mostly noticed this in the genre of animal fiction (which has steadily gained in popularity over the last six years or so) that scenes and actions depicting pretty graphic violence are oddly enough the norm. Scenes that would never be put in an animated kids' cartoon, no matter how old the target audience might be, are rather prevalent in books.
Case in point? Scourge's murder of Tigerstar in Warriors, the rather graphic deceptions of injury and illness in The Guardian Herd, and the cruelty and horrible ways dragons die in Wings of Fire.
My guess? I think we, as a society, place a higher intellectual value on reading. If you read a lot, you're smart right? By extension, this means you might be mature enough to handle reading about a cat getting eviscerated. (Whether or not this is true.) Another explanation might be because these books depict animals harming one another, and not humans doing the same things.
Agree? Disagree? Thoughts? Comment!
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