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.

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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....

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....

Idiot's Never Start on the First Chapter

Why does anyone bother starting their first draft on the very first chapter? Yes, this bit of information is important, it sets up the entire story...But it's also an author's worst nightmare. While you're busy typing, erasing, re-typing, and then just smashing buttons on your poor keyboard trying to get out the perfect first chapter, you could be working everything else out for your novel. You could just begin the second chapter, the chapter that could quite possibly throw all of your characters into the tasty plot. But of course that'll never happen while you're busy flipping out over the boring and almost impossible to write first chapter.

And I'm sure all of you are going to tell me about structure, the importance of the first chapter, and that you would never harm your keyboard in such a way; but I'm all round ready to just give up on the first chapter until I'm sure I'm ready to tackle it. When I got this amazing epiphany yesterday I was able to crank out two chapters in one day, both nearly five thousand words long. Both of them were relaxed, steady, and moved along quite nicely even without the first chapter of the novel. Heck, maybe I should just call the second chapter the first one, just throw my poor audience into a loop.

Anyway, I'm gonna go play Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess....

An Idiot's Review of Delwyn of the Realms

I know, I know it's been way too long since my last post. However lots of things have been going on in my life, things you probably don't care about, so let's jump right into today's topic...A review. Now this isn't a main stream book instead it's a self-published fantasy book. So yeah, just a warning before you decide to kill time by reading the review. But you guy's should know I'm all about fantasy books by now, unless you're dropping in for the first time, in which case welcome.

Anyway, boring intro aside, let's get down to business!

So, as previously mentioned, the story is called Delwyn of the Realms written by Mrs. Kelly Proudfoot. If Alice Liddell became a thirty year old with mental disorders, divorced, and Australian this would be her story. It just has the curious atmosphere and array of interesting characters that the drug dream that was Alice in Wonderland. However, unlike Alice, we get the opportunity to have a plot and a woman that had some life experiences. Which actually starts me off on the first point of this review...

Delwyn isn't a young adult.

Now as a teen I mostly read YA fantasy. Why? Mostly because I like urban fantasy and you can find that in abundance in that section. Not only that but, as stupid as this sounds, I can relate more to the teens than the adults. However Delwyn is refreshing in the fact that even though we're over a decade apart in age, I can still relate to her on some level. That just shows that Delwyn in herself is a rather fleshed out character that anyone can just up and read about. Of course she still has her flaws, but those only help to progress the story along and show that her family life wasn't just her fault.

Speaking of which.

The family members in this story make up a huge part of the way Delwyn thinks. I won't go into overwhelming detail, but let's just say that it's like a Cinderella story. Except that Delwyn didn't have any step siblings and her father didn't die. However she almost has a fairy godmother in the form of her Aunt. Unlike Delwyn, however, I didn't see her as fleshed out and actually was bored whenever she was on the page. Her dynamics with her niece are sweet, but any form of conflict between the two felt so contrived I almost laughed a few times.

Now, I know I went into the whole spiel with the characters first and I'm sure you're curious about the plot, but please excuse me for that, I'm pretty character driven. Anyway, the plot is an interesting tale about Delwyn and her adventure in-between her normal and almost peaceful life within Australia and her exciting journey through the land of dreams. The story has a false start, but when it is explained later on about her issues with nightmares it makes some sense. The actual start has Delwyn leaving a mental institution and heading off to her aunt's farm in the middle of Australia. There she lives with her aunt and things begin to happen that lead to the plot of this tale. Unlike a lot of stories where the hero/heroine's mental issues are forgotten once the plot get's going this story sticks to it. In fact that is woven into the entire story and affects her in plenty of ways both good and bad, dream world or real world.

Speaking of the dream world.

I enjoyed Delwyn's time in the dream world far more than Australia. The way it is described is just amazing as are all of the colorful characters she meets while there. This brings up possibly the best thing that the authoress is able to do: write amazing smell descriptions. Every time Delwyn took in a breath and smelled something I swore I was smelling the same thing. The words used are colorful and yet also relatable enough to give me an idea on exactly what I should be smelling at that point and time. I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to have that experience with any book I've ever read in my entire life. Mrs. Kelly does a good job with the visual, auditory, and feeling senses as well, but the sense of smell just takes the cake.

However, like all stories, this one does have its problems. While I did enjoy the story the beginning was just so slow. It took a long time to get into the actual plot and fantasy aspect of the story, especially since I got a chilling; although over used, first few lines. Another issue I had was the head jumping that would randomly happen during a conversation. One minute I could be in Delwyn's head, but another time I could be inside her aunt's. It was rather irritating and almost threw me off at times. The final issue I had was the all round over used plot devices that were thrown into the story. While I did like the mirror since the story gave off an Alice in Wonderland vibe, I didn't appreciate the false start at the beginning of the story, especially with that slow exposition filled beginning I had to read through.

All of that aside I did enjoy this story and the many interesting landscapes that I was dropped into. I'm hoping that the authoress takes note of her mistakes and will improve when she get's the next volume of the series done. Guess we'll see then, huh?

If you'd like to purchase Mrs. Kelly Proudfoot's book you can do so here: http://www.amazon.com/Delwyn-Realms-Storming-Archives-Book-ebook/dp/B00TD0RF7E

What is it with Women and Bows?

Well since I'm working on a special project, I decided I still ought to post something, so here it is!

I love Katniss Everdeen. She's probably the first actual action gal in YA who can't be duplicated properly and starred in a battle royale just for the sake of her family. Heck, it's thanks to her that I can go wander over to the store and buy female Nerf products. For those for you who live under a rock, or just another country, Nerf is the name of a kids toy gun brand. Colorful purple, blue, and orange guns that shoot foamy stuff is a staple part of my childhood. However they were always geared for guys so I had to usually skip out on the idea of pink. Yet in the last few years Nerf came out with a pink bow set...And quickly moved onto small guns.

Now I don't have any issues with this, I actually do archery with a recurve bow. I'm no expert and I suck at it, but I do support the modern archery industry. But why is it that young girls are expected to use bows instead of guns/swords in fantasy? I know that the bow is pretty easy to use and it's a common thing for the poor people in fantasy to use, but that's still no excuse! I personally feel as if using a bow just keeps you out of the general danger while still keeping the character useful.

 Oh, what's that? The Dark Lord decided he wants to murder a poor bunny village? Well come magical heroes! Let's go fight his evil chili pepper orcs! And you, Ms. Bow, can go sit on the mountaintop far away from the action and just shoot them down.

Maybe I'm just thinking too deeply into this...I mean elves commonly use bows, and I rarely read about female elves prancing around with the group of heroes. However it's just shown time and again how girls/women are the bowmen. Look at Chronicles of Narnia, Susan got a bow as her gift! A bow that didn't even force her to sit down and aim! And I don't even want to get into other characters from fantasy who are just given bows. I guess it was just a way to throw the females out of the way so the men can do the proper fighting, yet still claim that the women wouldn't be following in Princess Peach's footsteps...

But have you played her in Super Smash Bros? She's killer.