An Idiot's Review of The Star Stone: Book One of the Darkwinds of Danaria Series

You know, if you've followed this blog for any length of time you know that I love to read. Reading is something that keeps me from murdering my siblings, and outright locking myself away. As such I'm pretty much able to read virtually anything you throw in my face. But you guys should also know that I'm pretty blunt when I talk about what I read. Saying this long and drawn out introduction, I wanted to like this book. I honest to ,whatever god you worship, did. With a name like The Darkwinds of Danaria series, I knew I was going to be in for something interesting. While TA Sullivan clearly has a very active imagination, and is extremely good at naming things, that's pretty much where the fun dies.

So let's start off with our two protagonists. Neerah, a fifteen year old girl, is your average Jane that lives in a tiny village. She can hear the music from the ever mysterious stones she collects, but aside from that she thinks she's normal. However that pretty thought is smashed and burned when a handsome young man kidnaps her and she learns that she's a reincarnated...well to put it simply, dark lord. Whenever Neerah was on the page I usually had two reactions, the dominate one rolling my eyes, and the other was sighing. While I do appreciate she put up a fight on occasions, I felt like it was so short lived that it may as well not even happened. I'm sure she'll get more character development in later books, hopefully, but I just didn't like her character at all. Constantly arguing, constantly whining, making stupid mistakes, it got annoying very quickly.

Our second protagonist is a guy called Joelnar. The interesting thing about him is that he's a half Nix half human creature. And...That's really where the interesting part about him ends. He was very angsty in the book, upset about things that were out of his control, and most of the time was a silent brooding type. Except when he wasn't and was usually snapping at Neerah or trying to deal with her. To be fair I'd be upset with Neerah most of the time too.

Now let's talk about the world. Since this was a high fantasy the world has to be amazingly interesting, right? Well, actually it is sometimes. While I wasn't too fond of calling normal things, like birds, off the wall names like feathered fliers. I did find the world that the Etherals inhabited very interesting, and would have loved it if the entire plot was set in the world. The description for it was wonderful, and the inhabitants a bit unique, almost reminding me of the Farplane in Final Fantasy 10. But once you hit the actual setting, it was just a typical fantasy landscape that reminded me of Western Europe if not Northern America.

The plot is as expected. Normal girl finds out that she's not normal, gets saved by a handsome stranger, they go destroy the plot device of doom. Aside from the fact that everyone wants to kill Neerah for some reason or another, there's no real surprises.

So to sum it all up, I have to say that the story had potential. Some aspects of it was really thrilling and unique like the Etheral world, and the Nixians, but other than that it followed way too many high fantasy tropes making it a pretty boring affair.

If you still want to get the story it can be found here.

Alright, I'm gonna go eat some grits....

You're Not Describing, You're Purple Prosing

I know prosing isn't a word, but just deal with it for a few seconds while you read this article. Now, with that out of the way, let me do my obligatory introduction. 

All writers have a duty to show, not only a good story, but an amazing world to the readers. The world needs to jump off the pages and caress the readers minds with lovely images that they will keep in their souls until Death calls them back to the never ending oblivion that is the end of their lives...

That is not describing what you need to do, that was a bunch of pointless description that had terrible grammar. For whatever reason writers, especially of the SF/F and romance genres, thinks that accurate descriptions need to be long and poetic. Now this is fine if you're like Shannon Hale, and your prose is naturally poetic, but even Shannon Hale has enough reign over her writing in order to keep it to the point. Me and at least an eighth of the human population just doesn't understand poetry or straight up doesn't like it. So instead of reading poetry, we read other mediums of fantasy telling. When people like you shove in all your glittery, fancy, and down right obnoxious descriptions down our throats it makes us upset. We shove poetry to the side for a reason, don't make us read any more of it.

Dislike of poetry aside, there's another valid reason; because my opinion does matter that's what popular culture has taught me. When you have all the flowery descriptions of certain characters, you immediately have seasoned readers hating that character. That poor character probably just popped up on the page, but when you're describing her like this: "Skin as dark as chocolate and eyes as brown as a fawn. Her black curls bounced against her shoulders like playful snakes, just begging to be pet and played with. Her smile was wide and the adorably small teeth were as white as the moon, and had their own particular shine that made Prince Leopold's heart soar..."

Now, having read that, don't you get a distinct impression of her? I don't know about you, but I think that this...thing I created is a Mary-Sue. Heck, I don't know her backstory, her goals, or even her name and I hate her. And if I'm hating a character I literally made up on the fly, then I'm probably gonna hate the character that I've read about for at least three chapters and have had nothing but whimsy descriptions shoved in my eyes.

Of course not all descriptions are whimsy and happy. Some can be outright sad and melancholy, tales of tragic heroes dying in puddles of their own blood, or the death of a great and valiant creature that once ruled the skies. This is more common in death scenes, probably to make me care more about the character, ignoring the fact I've been reading about him since book one, page 45, eight books ago...

Now I could tell you a hundred more reasons why purple prose just doesn't work, but I'll finish with one of the best reasons why you shouldn't...

You ready?

People skip it. The six hours you spent flipping through the thesaurus for the longest word that still meant tiny, all to describe a magic girl, is gonna be skipped. And not because the person hates poetry, thinks the character is a Mary-Sue, or hates kids. It's probably a better bid to say that they just want to get onto the next bit of dialogue or action. Description in long never ending paragraphs is boring! If you've read Journey to the Center of the Earth, then you probably skipped the majority of the first chapter since it described the house. A house that, if memory serves me right, you don't ever see again. 

Basically, at the end of the day, just describe things the way they are. Don't try to overdue it, you're just gonna make people upset, or waste your own time because people will skip it.

Now I need to go finish reading the book I'll be reviewing....

Masquerades

No, not those mysterious balls that you wear a mask to, that'd be too easy to pick at, I'm talking about the masquerade life. That life where dwarves, vampire, and faires can pretend to be humans or humans just don't know they exist. With urban fantasy being super popular, this trope has simply become so obnoxious and in your face it's ridiculous. Every time you read an urban fantasy, it's likely that no one knows that the fae exist. Those that do know are insane or are forced to keep it a secret for...reasons.

So that's what today's article is gonna be about. Writing masquerades and having them make sense, not an excuse for your character to be all special and whatever.

1. Decide who can know about the masquerade.

Too many times I've read an urban fantasy, and some random teen finds out that fae exist. Then there's that old wrinkly guy down the street, that new ager who runs the yoga place, and maybe your nutty Grammy. Now there's no issue with more than one person knowing about the masquerade, but at least make that whole thing interesting! Don't have the people who know about the masquerade be the most obvious people alive. If they're always smoking a joint and saying that we have to be 'one with the earth' I'm always certain that guy knows that fae exist, and that joint is just some fairy herbs that stop his cancer. Have people you'd never expect to know about the fantasy world, maybe the president of a band fan-club, that guy who owns the insecticide company, or even the ice cream man. Having teachers, old folks, and family knowing about the masquerade is just boring and stereotypical. Stop it!

2. Have a good reason for the masquerade.

I roll my eyes when I see the reason for the masquerade is that humans wouldn't understand. Seriously? Humans take better care of their pets than their children, I think that we've come to an age where we'd understand and accept quite a bit. There's always going to be cultural differences, power struggles, and outright hatred between others. So having those reasons as your sole excuse is not only over-used, but so obvious it's stupid. In the RPG game The Changeling: The Lost it's pretty obvious why there's a masquerade. The 'True Fae' are terrible beings that are more than happy to exploit your very soul for their own pleasure. It's for the humans safety that there's a masquerade, not the fantasy creatures.

3. Have the cop not be an idiot.

Every time I read an urban fantasy where the cop is the protagonist, I hold my breath and hope that the cop isn't an idiot. Now when I say idiot I don't mean smart, for some reason they're always witty and sarcastic to a fault, no I mean they deny. They deny the fact that a tiny person stole their wedding ring, that a bird spoke to them, that a dragon ate them then reincarnated them into a plant. A human only has so much disbelief that they can have, there's no way that these cops can just deny everything so obvious. One of my favorite cops in fantasy is Officer Morgan from the urban fantasy book Dolls. He just never denied what happened to him, he accepted it and tried to get deeper to the truth of the matter. Why can't we have more cops like that?

4. When something obvious happens, have people question it.

The whole town is set on fire by a dragon and the dragon slayer kills him in a jet fighter. That's great and all, but if the whole town saw it how are they covering it up? I just facepalm when no one questions the obvious stuff. If they use a glamour spell, fine. But when your character just kicks the werewolf body to the side and walks through the trail of dead bodies, why are the town folk not questioning this? Having there be constant worry about outsiders finding out about the fantasy world, is why the masquerade is so compelling. At every turn your character should question if dead beat Joe , the room mate, knows about his new found fairy wings. Or have the angsty teenage girl worry that her adopted mom knows about her ability to breathe fire. Let people wonder, it's just gonna add plenty of drama and complexity to the plot.

5. If it's a masquerade, don't let everyone know it.

I hate it when that one guy thinks he loves this one girl, but she get's upset that he's always dissaperaing. The reader knows it's his job to hunt vampires, but she doesn't know that. And the poor sap, being who he is, will tell that girl all about vampires and his job. When they break up two days later, for a stupid reason I'm sure, she's gonna tell someone else just to make him sound crazy...Now I know this type of thing doesn't always happen, but in urban fantasy it always feels like everyone in town knows about the masquerade. Maybe because the plot calls for people who know to interact with the character, but make it just one or two people in one city, not half of them.

7. Have a large variety of fantasy creatures.

Vampires, werewolves, Disney faries, and ghosts seem to be the only creatures of the masquerade. What happened to all of the other creatures in fantasy? Dullahans, kitsune, harpies, gorgons? Just because they look strange or are rarely written about doesn't mean they're off limits! The harder it is to hide, the more interesting they are to the story. I also just wanna read a story with a gorgon as the protagonist, that'd be so cool.

And here we are, a huge list on helping you write a masquerade novel. While some of these points may not apply to your novel in particular, I hope it at least helps you identify a good urban fantasy novel from a bad one. Or just entertained you. Whatever.

I'm gonna go read The Finisher now...

Because Not All Royalty are Selfish Pricks

I really love history. It's not only my favorite school subject, but it's also a hobby of mine that I'm more than happy to blather on about for hours.That's why I love looking at history for my writing projects, whether they're historical fantasy or not. History has a wonderful habit of not only teaching us about mistakes idiots in the past have made, but also shocking us about the nice things. And one very nice thing to know about past monarchs is...

Not all of them were selfish pricks.

Oh look, the article title!

In all seriousness, I've read a boat load of books where royalty are either selfish pricks that enslave their people, murder babies, and eat young lambs. Or they so good and loving that they've cured diseases, let the orphans live in the guest bedrooms, and even raise the dead with their tears. Whenever I read these types of monarchs I just roll my eyes and continue onto the next page, hoping that at least the hero is more realistic...Unless the monarch is the hero, to which I can only hope that the plot is half decent.

If you look in history the monarchs of time past have always been interesting. Some really did have good intentions for their people, but were also firm on their rules and did what they wanted to do regardless, just like Queen Elizabeth of England; often called the Virgin Queen.

Then there are rulers who were religious. They were so religious that they would often kill and destroy any who didn't agree with their religion. I could point out at least one monarch from every single country that has ever existed, but let's stick to one that's rather well known. Have you ever heard of  a tiny event called The Spanish Inquisition? Well what if I told you that Queen Isabella of Spain, that lovely queen that said yes to Christopher Columbus, had started it? Bet you didn't expect that.

In another category of rulers are those who want nothing to do with their country. They'll go as far as to leave their country and pillage and conquer. Not because they actually want to pillage and conquer, but more because they just hate their country that much. That reward would go to King Richard the Lion Heart. A guy who was technically French and hated England so much he tried to sell it...And failed.

Next you have rulers who are ridiculous in their debauchery. I'm not saying 'sleep with the chamber maids and get drunk all the time' type of debauchery. No, I mean going out into the streets and raping people in the middle of crowds, sleeping with their mothers, and spending enough money to bankrupt an entire nation.That award would go to Nero.

There you go, a kinda large list of ideas that could help you write a monarch. Now these are just examples and you can add to the list or meld two types together, but hopefully this will give you more variety when tying to create a monarch.

Welp, I'm gonna go make dinner now.

Dark Romance

So last night I was up until two in the morning watching Phantom of the Opera with my mom. And while I could go on and on about how much I loved Gerad Butler, how Joel Schumacher loved Titanic, or how much my mom and I both love the main theme, I'm gonna talk about dark romance in fantasy novels.

Now, for those of you living under a rock or another country, It was a tragic tale of a man that, at the end of the day, was in love with a singer and would try to get her in anyway necessary. He killed, plotted, sabotaged, and even threatened Christine herself if she were to refuse him. Of course everything turned out right in the end, for Christine not the Phantom, and we get our happily ever after.

Now in most books dealing with dark romance, especially YA, the way people go about it is to make the heroine a lamb of light. She's never smoked, never drank, never saw a man without his shirt on, and thought that blood was really strawberry pop/juice. And you know what? I'm not even sure why people even go down this road. Never in my entire life have I met someone so innocent, and if the world you're trying to paint is a dystopian land of violence and cruelty, the chances of your heroine being that way is next to nill. The only way I'd expect her to be that innocent is if she got amnesia....And I'll talk about that on a later date.

Now, if the heroine isn't some squeaky clean angel from squeaky clean angel land, then the heroine probably has a strong sense of justice. She'll help the little old lady cross the road, hate stealing, and hate those who kill...Unless it's killing the bad guys who hurt others, then it's fine.

Or it's our dark, brooding, trigger happy love interest.

For whatever reason, boring and dull love interest has to be ready to kill without a moment's thought. He probably makes sassy remarks, if he isn't the silent brooding type, and smokes and drinks like no ones business. That really doesn't sound like a dark romance, more like a romance with some kind of pirate anti-hero or something.

No, the way to write a dark romance is actually rather simple. The answer will probably shock you, make you stare at the screen with a raised eyebrow, or just click out all together. Are you ready? Well the answer is...

Making the love dangerous.

What? That simple? Something about the love interest has to be dangerous. Sure he can kill all the time, but that really doesn't make him dangerous depending on the world. In Phantom Eric/Phantom was dangerous because he was strangely obsessed with Christine and would do anything to get her. Even when she made the decision to reject him, he decided that she didn't know what was good for herself and held control over her life. The creepy part was that he was able to get from one side of the opera house to the other so quick you'd thought he used magic. All together that makes is dangerous, almost an allure to have someone care so much about you, but at the same time scary enough you stay a good foot away.

At least normal people. Obviously your heroine isn't 'normal' if she get's with the guy at the end.

Now I just want to note that dark romance always has to have boundaries. If the girl truly loves this guy, don't be the moron who allows the guy to constantly smack her around, kick her unborn child, and choke her. That isn't romance, that's abuse. But you all should be smart enough to figure out where the boundaries lay...

I hope.

Alright, I'm gonna go do some Phantom of the Opera karaoke.

An Idiot's Review of Dolls

So after taking exams, crying in a corner, and getting ready to move out of my lovely parents' house, I'm reviewing this short story written by one Simon Ericson. As usual I don't post spoilers about the story, so you shouldn't either in my tiny and very inactive comment section.

So our story starts...Without a prologue. It jumps straight to the point and introduces us to the main character Officer Morgan. Unlike a lot of stories that just up and throws their characters into the occult world, our officer has been there before and he's even made friends within it. He calls these people the 'Craftsmen' and they make different things like eyeballs and strange potion stuff that, from the way it's described, reminds me of a magical lava lamp. These people are the ones who help him learn of our plot word, and coincidentally enough the title,'Dolls'. Dolls were coming. These dolls are apparently coming and with them coming the criminals are leaving, either under their own power or being butchered like pigs.

However not all is lost, but then again isn't criminals leaving a good thing, because Morgan has found his prime suspect. A dashing young man named Arthur who was about as fake as they came and didn't do a good job of concealing the fact that he was suspicious. After a debate that went in circles he finally leaves and our plot launches into action when Morgan get's a strange phone call and remembers what happened only a few minutes before hand.

Now the plot for this book is pretty standard for an urban fantasy cop escapade. The cop is warned/accidentally finds strange happening, they go about trying to stop the strange happenings, the day may or may not be saved. And while this is true for this story, it's interesting in the fact that the whole time Morgan doesn't deny that anything happened. He doesn't deny that little doll girls tried to kill him, that they are commanded by older men, and that they are not the least bit human.

Which reminds me of the magic system. If you've like Rozen Maiden, Chuckie, or something along those lines, then you'll like this book. The dolls aren't human and instead are spirits that are put into dolls made from various ingredients and are constructed by Dollmakers. According to Arthur it's not an exact science and there's much shadow over the entire operation. However what's explained so far, such as the doll's heart having to be something with a constant tempo, is rather interesting and I hope it gets explained further in the next books.

So those are all the good points, so what's the bad? I didn't like the way that some of the actions were explained. 'As surly a tone as he could manage'. The writing should tell us that he is trying to be all sour. Also there's some things that really didn't need much explanation, it was just snippets of life that gives Morgan more character, but what was put there could have been more doll musings or something. Aside from that it was an all round good book with good characters, an interesting magic system, and the beginning of a pretty good series.

So yeah, I'm gonna go play some Spiderman 2 now....

If you wanna get Dolls, for free might I add, just go here.

Teenagers, the Original Idiots

I know it's almost been a month, I know I'm due for a book review, and I know I have a video that needs to be uploaded. But there's this very strange thing....I have a life. A very boring if not monotonous life, but a life none the less.

And in this life I'm a teenager.

....

...

Is that the title I see? Okay, enough with the stupid jokes. This month's...week's....something's post is about teenagers in fantasy. With YA being a big hit and teens being the subject of all kinds of adult coming of age stories, I guess it's about time to address the original idiots of the world. However you'd never know that if you were unlucky enough to read a terrible fantasy story. Most times these teens know EXACTLY what they need to do in life, all the steps it'd take to do it, and all the finesse and skill that would take normal people who has one foot and half their left arm in the grave they're so old. Now some people could chalk this up to protagonist rights or chosen one privileges, but I like to call it for what it really is.

Terrible writing.

I'm a teen and I think I can speak for all of us when I say we don't have it all together. Heck, just two days ago I was freaking out about buying and filling out a money order for the first time. That sounds easy to most people, and it is, but I'd never done it before and people were actually counting on me to get it done. It was a responsibility and something new to learn, two things that never blend well with teens. So why is it that all the teens in fantasy have no REAL issues with saving the world aside from the usual teenage, or what you adults must think is teenage, angst?

So since I can't find whatever the teen protagonists of books are drinking, I'll just help you adult writers remember what it was like to be an original idiot, and help you teen writers get your head's out of your butts.

When writing teen characters don't forget that we're young and haven't actually experienced life to the fullest. Now that doesn't mean characterizing us as terribly naive, there's no such thing as a mentally pure teenager no matter how often you see it in movies or books, or making us angsty childish pricks. Have a balance of someone who knows when to take up responsibility, but doesn't know all the ropes yet. And please for the love of all that's holy don't have us complain all the time!

Believe it or not teens don't complain to every living or non-living thing about their lives. Do we do it when you adults are around?

 Yeah.

Why?

Attention! If we complain enough we hope you'll tell us to stop washing dishes and you'll do it yourself! At least that's why I do it, that may not be why the brat down the road does it. Even for characters that aren't teens,  far too often it get's boring to read about how Esmerelda the Valiant lost her puppy, Gir, to the evil knight of Hamminess. It not only get's old, but you begin to wonder if Esmerelda had no life outside that idiot dog of her's.

For you urban fantasy writers out there let me tell you a secret. Not every single teen alive either wants to be outside of the social conga line, or think they have to follow whatever the conga line is doing. Most of us are a healthy balance of both. I'm not into social media all that much, just Twitter because I want to follow some really awesome authors and anime studios, and I don't enjoy watching reality TV. However I LOVE finger nail polish and will squeal when I see something super cute in the store or even on someone else. So don't think your character is 'good' because they aren't popular, because a lot of the unpopular kids can be just as jerky as the popular school barbie.

So to sum it all up let me put it to you this way. If it will help you relate more think of them like interns at your super important adult jobs. They know when to help out, but they may over or under do it, or they complain and want to take a break to get a coffee. Sometimes they say the wrong thing, sometimes they have the wrong impressions on things, and sometimes they're just real idiots.

Now I'm gonna go take a nap....