A Cavern of Black Ice by J.V. Jones

A Cavern of Black IceA Cavern of Black Ice by J.V. Jones was a hard read for me, but I made it all the way to the end. I should warn you that there is no resolution whatsoever; it’s one of those series books that simply stops, rather than providing a self-contained story. According to the Internets, there are four more books planned, but only two have been released.

It’s a low fantasy in the vein of Conan, meaning the world is dark and horrifying and Celtic and Norse and mountainous and snowy and the most advanced technology is the bow, fire, and horses. There is magic, but it’s demonic and unnatural.

What I liked was the tremendous attention to detail in the characterization and descriptions. The author brought attention to little things here and there that really pulled you into the world. The characters were complex, and grew and evolved over the course of the book, both good guys and bad guys. The writing was what I might call “heavy,” in that it had the feel of an aged, rough-voiced narrator telling a story of the ages. (As opposed to, say, something more frivolous.)

Unfortunately I thought the plot pacing suffered quite a bit for the detail. It was a little like Robert Jordan in that the author spent so much time on details that it took quite a while to move the story forward. I found myself skimming now and then when I wanted to get things moving.

The other problem was that it took a long time to get to a point where I felt like the story started. I felt like I was reading back story until roughly the point where Raif and Angus met up with Ash at the gate, which was well into the book. I want to say a third of the way through. Raif’s back story was not enough to keep me reading, but Ash was interesting enough that I wanted to see what happened to her. There were other plot elements and characters that were clearly setup for things in successive books and had little or no relevance to the first book.

For me as a writer, this book was a great example of low fantasy, and a great example of “going too far” on the details. A lot of people probably enjoy that, but I don’t think it’s in my writing wheelhouse. Certainly not for a rookie.

Dr. Who Season 7, Episode 1

I really don’t remember how the last season ended, and I haven’t yet seen the Christmas episode. (Thank’s for nothing, Netflix.)

00:00 – Who’s Hannah? Oh.

02:30 – WTF! They’re all grown up! And broken!

04:15 – Why doesn’t Matt Smith look human? His face is all … weird …

05:20 – And why is he slurring his words? I mean, more than usual for British television.

06:00 – The intro looks different somehow. The tunnel is more blue-green than blue. And, oh, that red fire is definitely new.

08:30 – Who is this red-haired chick with the Dalek thingy poking from her forehead?

09:45 – “You think hatred is beautiful.” “Perhaps that is why we have never been able to kill you.” Awesome.

10:15 – “What color?” LOL.

13:00 – “You’re going to fire me at a planet?!?” Hehe.

14:35 – I thought this guy was Micky at first.

20:15 – “How did he get all Dalek-ed?”

24:15 – “Eggs.” LOL. Classic Rory.

28:50 – I’m getting a bit tired of the mobile-camera-pointed-at-people’s-faces shots. Not just Dr. Who. They seem to be everywhere. Like people are filming movies with their iPhone front-facing cameras.

42:00 – Well that was predictable …

45:15 – So I guess she’ll be back later.

48:30 – Not bad for the opener. I kind of wish Murray Gold would come up with some new hero music for the Doctor though. It’s getting a bit old.

Dr. Who Season 7, Episode 2

Liveblogging Dr. Who stream on BBC thanks to a proxy …

00:35 – Sometimes it’s impossible to figure out what’s going on without rewinding a bit.

01:40 – Oh, the dog barking outside was actually on the stream …

02:30 – Wow, he doesn’t even ask anymore.

02:50 – That was a super-fast setup.

06:00 – Wait, is that a two-headed dinosaur? Oh, it’s just a pair of them hanging out together.

07:05 – “I’m already clever.” Hehe.

09:25 – Uh oh …

14:15 – Press buttons…

15:00 – Dinosaur people!

16:30 – Ewwwwww..

18:45 – Apparently computers that respond to voice commands really are useful. In the future. The far, far, far future.

19:45 – It’s the Hoggwarts cat person!

25:55 – “I feel like you’re judging me.” Ha!

28:00 – Do you ever get the feeling that episodes of Dr. Who are sometimes written during NaNoWriMo?

34:00 – Well this has taken an odd turn.

42:00 – Woo, vengeful Doctor.

Well, that was an okay episode. It went downhill a bit after the “Dinosaurs … on a spaceship!” line.

Airworld Experiment

I’m trying an experiment. You may have already noticed it. I’m going to post the text of my novel draft “Airworld” as I write it (more-or-less). Some days I might post thousands of words, and some days I might post a couple of sentences or nothing. (Lately it has been more of the latter.)

I’m also trying an email subscription plugin. The idea is that you subscribe and new posts are sent to your inbox, so you have a serialized story delivered right to your doorstep without the hassle of using a bookmark link. The emails don’t seem to be working yet, but I’m still tinkering with it.

Let me know what you think. Leave a comment about characters or events you like or don’t like, things that make you laugh, things that startle you, things that horrify you, or things that bore you. But please refrain from commenting on spelling or grammar, because I will ruthlessly ignore you, and deliberately misspell something in the future.

Do I have to tell you that this is copyrighted material? I shouldn’t. So don’t be a jerk.

The Blade Itself, Part Two

I have heard for quite some time that Joe Abercrombie was more of a “gritty” fantasy writer, more in the vein of George R.R. Martin than Robert Jordan. So that’s what I expected in The Blade Itself.

What I read was not gritty. I would describe it more as an action-adventure with a fantasy flavor. Actually it felt more like an urban fantasy style of writing in a medieval fantasy setting. The characters had a lot of flippancy in their dialog, and it was very fast-paced with no setting descriptions. But I’ll admit I only made it 15% through the book before I got bored.

I see that the book was nominated for a Campbell Award (for new writers) in 2008. Perhaps there was a dearth of fantasy books by new authors that year.

Getting Back Into It

I’ve been distracted a bit by moving into a new place. Which is a
flimsy excuse for not writing, to be honest. Even in the middle of
moving, one can easily take an hour out of one’s day to write a
thousand words if one really _wants_ to. The truth is I have gotten
out of the habit of writing every day and getting back into it is kind
of hard, which is why 95% of potential authors don’t ever write
anything.

The good news is that I still have enough time to get a modest-sized
novel done before NaNowWriMo, so I hope to get that going soon. I have
a few characters, a neat setting, and the seed of a plot, so I have
all the pieces in place to start writing. Contrary to all of the
advice given by Writing Excuses, however, I have no clue how the story
will end. I only know that in terms of Orson Scott Card’s MICE
quotient, it is an Event story, probably made up of a series of Milieu
chapters.

The Squared-Off Sine Wave

I forgot to do a status update in June, so this will be a two-month report. So, yeah, I haven’t written much. :) I’ve been playing The Secret World and Rift and rebuilding my computer and watching tv and other non-writery type things. If I had a deadline coming up and an editor or an agent or something like that depending on me, they would probably be quite distressed over it.

I think if one were to make a graph of my self-motivation, it would look a lot like a squared off sine wave. Like this: Hey this is cool. This is awesome! This is awesome! This is awesome! Hrm, this isn’t so great after all. This sucks. This sucks. This sucks.

image

I’ve repeated that cycle a million times in my life with all manner of different hobbies and tasks. Usually the "this is awesome" parts are longer than the "this sucks" parts but that’s not always the case.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the "Curses" project is on permanent hiatus. I like the basic concept but nothing about the characters or story is appealing to me anymore. Maybe those curses will turn up again somewhere else.

I still have a little over three months before NaNoWriMo, which is plenty of time to write 100k words or so. However, I have little to no idea what to write. I have no settings, no plots, and no characters.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I *do* have a setting, which I have dubbed "Airworld." And I have recently been looking at the War of the Spanish Succession as a template for an epic story.

But considering my project failure rate is nearly 100%, my ego is pretty shaken right now. Kubak, Tel, and Neofuel all have fatal flaws that must be fixed in time-consuming rewrites. Should I go back and fix them? Or soldier on with new material?

Unfortunately for me, I think the correct answer is to soldier on with new material.

The Blade Itself

I’m taking a break after Book 8 of The Wheel of Time and reading some other things. I’ve started Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself. Thusfar it’s not growing on me, but it’s still early. It is, at least, a very different style than Robert Jordan.

I know, I know, I haven’t written enough in the last few weeks. I’ll get back to it any day now! I will. Don’t look at me like that.