An Idiot's Thoughts on Necromancy

So yesterday I got my issue of GameInformer. For those of you who either live in another country or under a rock, GameInformer is a gaming magazine. It gives updates on the latest video games coming out, some awesome posters, and interviews with developers. Well this month they had a pretty cool spread on a Dungeons and Dragons RPG game. I guess with all the hype with high fantasy games they were bound to make one eventually. However I was kinda shocked, pleasantly so, when I read that the token necromancer would be a good guy with good intentions...

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Yeah, either I don't read as much fantasy as I'd like to think I have, or they are doing something pretty unique. Nearly every fantasy book that's existed whether it's high fantasy, grim dark, or even urban, it's been written that necromancers are pure evil. Heck, even in my own book the necromancer is pretty corrupt. It's just strange to think that someone who does such dark and unholy magic, bringing up dead corpses is pretty dark no matter how you spin it, has good intentions. Unless of course he starts out with good intentions and it just slides down from there.

Anyway, this whole ordeal has had me thinking about necromancy and how its users are portrayed in fantasy. All of them have been evil, some more than others, and those who use it are normally outcasts of society. But does it really have to be that way? In plenty of Victorian era stories there's that one con-artist that claims to use necromancy to bring up the souls of the deceased so their loved ones can speak to them. Of course this guy is always evil and wants the money, but what if this was used by actual necromancers? Their sole purpose in  life is to give people closure if they weren't able to before or when that person died?

Also why does necromancy always revolve around corpses? Why can't it be broken down to different tiers of magic? You're able to summon souls, skeletons, or just point blank zombies? I think the default of having necromancers as just these evil people who summon zombies has been around so long that people have just accepted it as a rule, however with grim-dark fantasy being so popular I think it's about time to exploit it on a different level. If we can have a bunch of raping mercenaries as heroes, albeit they're mostly anti-heroes, why not a necromancer with kinda good intentions?

Anyway, I'm gonna go look over my necromancer now....

An Idiot's review of The Immortals Part 1: Shadows and Starstone

Hey guys! I know I've been off the grid lately, but that's because I was reading a high fantasy called The Immortals: Shadows and Starstone. This was written and published by Cheryl Mackey, and is a quick little novella that is pretty fast paced and set in the magical land of Ein-Aral. As usual with my reviews don't expect spoilers, and please don't leave them in the comment section.

Our story starts with those prologues I hate so much. It's short, thank goodness, and provides some background on how this story even got rolling.

Our story proper starts out with a girl on a horse riding into a village in a desert. Yup, you heard me a desert. Not some medieval plain village, forest village, or river side village. A tiny desert village that apparently makes its livelihood mining. And, get this, this village is made up of humans, not dwarves. Already this novel is making a good impression on me with those simple details! Anyway, we learn that the strange girl isn't just a normal person but an Immortal. A person who was supposed to die but the gods, The Four, make them into their special warriors who can wield magic and live forever.
Anyway, it turns out that our hero, Emaranthe, had called some of her friends and they're all supposed to fight the demons who are on their way to brutally destroy the tiny village.

Since we're on the topic of warrior companions, let me introduce them to you. First off there's Jaeger, an Earthlander who wields a massive ax and shield. He's brother's with Ivo, another Earthlander, who wields a massive sword and shield. The two remind me of the barbarian races often found in most high fantasy books. They're super macho, strong, and have a sibling bond that can't be defeated by anything. They didn't stand out too well for me, perhaps they will be in the next novella, but I found them pretty bland.

Next would be arguably the main character, Emaranthe. She's a blonde who's a seemingly nice person who wields a shepherd's staff and fire magicks. She felt like the leader a lot of the time and was the most knowledgeable about myths and stuff like that. In all honesty I found her to be really refreshing since most female MCs these days are sarcastic and rude, even in high fantasy. When the villagers question Emaranthe instead of telling them to piss off, she explains to them why she's there and her back story.

Finally we have Jadeth who has to be my favorite character. Now most people would find elves annoying, I did a piece on elves and stuff like that so you know my feelings on them, but with Jadeth I found her so entertaining. Unlike most elves in high fantasy she wasn't haughty, arrogant, solemn, or even a blonde. Jadeth is a redhead who's often unsure of herself, friendly, and wields a battle hammer. Yes, you read that right, she wields an awesome battle hammer that kills people and helps her heal people. She's just that awesome. Of course there's other things about her, like how her ears are able to move according to how she feels and what she's trying to hear, which I found pretty cool and unique.

All together the four heroes did help me enjoy the novella, however the one main villain we see in the book was not defined enough for me to enjoy them. It was a necromancer who works for the demons, but we see her for merely a chapter. From the way she sounds she reminds me of a voodoo queen you'd see at a madi gras. Whether or not that's a good thing is up to you to determine.

The plot itself for this book was linear and reminded me of a level in Final Fantasy. Cut down all the skeletons and zombies so you could make it to the big boss. Along the way we get some back story, which was typical for the genre, talk about the magical starstones, and plenty of awesome elemental powers.

Speaking of which I have a ton to say about this magic system. While it is seemingly elemental based there's a lot more to it. If an immortal should be heavily wounded they have to go to an alter of sorts and pray to The Four. The gods will then heal the immortal or just give them a new body in general, however this process could cause the immortal's soul to be wounded beyond repair. This idea is pretty unique and I love it quite a bit and can't wait for another novel to expound upon it.

In the next novel I also hope to see more of this world. There's a mention of multiple suns as well as elves, humans like Earthlanders, and winged beings called Windwalkers.(To be completely honest I wish they were called Skywalkers just so I can make a Star Wars reference.) There's plenty of other casually mentioned things that I wished appeared in the novella, but I couldn't expect to see it in a fifty page book.

So what's the drawbacks to this book? Well, I saw a lot of grammar mistakes. I also didn't like the prologue, but I hate that for all novels and this wasn't going to be the exception. The constant mention of how the characters looked got annoying after awhile, especially the eye color. Oh yeah, and there's also info dumping that will happen in the middle of a conversation.

Aside from all this I thoroughly enjoyed the novella!

If you wanna purchase it you can do so here.

Welp, I'm off to go eat some German chocolate cake....