Book Reviews

The State of the Writer: 9/23/18

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<–The State of the Writer: 9/9/18          The State of the Writer: 10/7/18–>

A biweekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 5

I wasn’t sure whether or not I should count finishing and posting a chapter of The Broken Rose as a project, since the story itself is one, but I guess I could consider it a finished part of a huge project so I’ll allow it.

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 257,319
Prior Word Count: 258,319
Word Difference: -1000
Status: Editing
Progress: First edit of Chapter 12

It’s been over a year, but I’m finally back to editing and posting chapters.  I still need to update the story on Deviant Art, and I’ve decided I’m just going to directly post from here onto tumblr.  DevArt is already a pain in the ass to post to, and since I can take that shortcut with the little t I’m going to do it.

Aeris has a big choice to make in this chapter, which is currently entitled “Ways and Means.”  I’m 90% good with that title since it fits with the happenings, but doesn’t give anything away.  There’s a lot of extraneous stuff in this chapter, so the delete button has been my friend.  I like how it tightens up the narrative.

I haven’t done a snippet in a while, but a comment I received this week made me think this one would be appropriate.

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Witch Hunt on Crystal Lake by B. Batiste (Moon Investigations Book 1)

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Title: Witch Hunt on Crystal Lake
Series Title: Moon Investigations
Author: B. Batiste
Date Started: December 23, 2017
Date Finished: January 6, 2018
Reading Duration: 14 days
Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural, Mystery

Witch Hunt on Crystal Lake coverPages: 215
Publication Date: January 1, 2018
Publisher: Self
Media: Kindle

If you are a magical or mythical creature in your human form or other and need help the police can’t or won’t provide, come on down to Moon Investigations. Where help may be only a spell away. 

On the island of Crystal Lake where technology and magic are intertwined, magical gangs will rob and or curse you and dragons strut their stuff down the street, anything can happen. 

Private Investigator Hazel Moondance tries her best to help those in need. Family members of the missing, forgotten and runaways are her main clients. So, when a mother comes to her looking for her daughter Rose Stone, Hazel is determined to find her. With the help of a bounty hunter and a seasoned witch, Hazel must sort through the life and secrets of Rose. She finds a secret that leads to other unsolved cases and a ritual that could destroy the island. 

Now Hazel and her helpers must find Rose, the other missing girls and the person who took them before the night of the Emerald Stars or it will be too late.

This is an excellent witchy mystery that doesn’t rely on cliched tropes.  Of course there’s magic and mythical creatures, but it reads more like a “whodunnit?” with a variety of magical characters.

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The Prophet of Yonwood by Jeanne DuPrau (The City of Ember #3) (DNF)

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Title: The Prophet of Yonwood
Series Title: The City of Ember
Author: Jeanne DuPrau
Date Added: September 17, 2017
Date Started: December 23, 2017
Date DNF: December 27, 2017
Reading Duration: 4 days
Genre: Mid-grade/Young Adult (YA), Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian

The Prophet of Yonwood cover

Pages: 289
Publication Date: April 1, 2006
Publisher: Yearling Edition
Media: Paperback

Nickie will grow up to be one of the first citizens of the city of Ember. But for now, she’s an eleven-year-old girl whose father was sent away on some mysterious government project.

So when the opportunity to move presents itself, Nickie seizes it. But her new town of Yonwood, North Carolina, isn’t what she’d anticipated. It’s a place full of suspicion and mistrust, where one person’s visions of fire and destruction have turned the town’s citizens against each other. Nickie explores the oddities around her–her great-grandfather’s peculiar journals, a reclusive neighbor who studies the heavens, a strange boy who is fascinated with snakes–all while keeping an eye out for ways to help the world. Or is it already too late to avoid a devastating war?

There seems to be some disagreement with whether or not this is the 3rd or 4th book.  Goodreads has it marked as the 3rd, but in my set The Diamond of Darkhold is the third installment and Yonwood doesn’t even have a number.  I can kind of understanding putting the prequel in the midst of the series to have readers reflect on how the world arrived at this point while the resolution to the narrative is still up in the air, but I see better advantages of reflecting when the original story is full told.

Regardless, The Prophet of Yonwood wasn’t nearly as engaging as the other books.  This is disappointing since the lead up to what caused the conditions prompting Ember’s construction could’ve been a gripping tale.  While I didn’t finish it, it seems like the author’s focus was on prophesy and proselytizing instead.

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The State of the Writer: 9/9/18

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<–The State of the Writer: 8/26/18          The State of the Writer: 9/23/18–>

A biweekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 2

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 258,319
Prior Word Count: 259,639
Word Difference: -1320
Status: Preparing to (Re)Post
Progress: Early chapter review complete

Extremely realistic painting of a white rose with pinkish interior with the artist standing in the right cornerI don’t even remember when the hell I decided to go back and do this revision, but I think it’s finally done.  I completed a third edit of Chapter 11 yesterday, and while I think it would benefit from a fourth, there’s no reason I can’t start reposting the beginning chapters at this time.  This week’s plan is to figure out the best way to do that, since it has to be done on multiple platforms.

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Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (Strange the Dreamer #1)

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Title: Strange the Dreamer
Series Title: Strange the Dreamer
Author: Laini Taylor
Date Added: April 18, 2016
Date Started: August 26, 2017
Date Finished: December 20, 2017
Reading Duration: 116 days
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult (YA)

Strange the Dreamer coverPages: 528
Publication Date: May 28, 2017
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Media: Hardback

The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?

The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

When we become waterlogged, and the cage disintegrates, we will intermingle.  When this paper aeroplane leaves the cliff edge, and carves parallel vapour trails in the dark, we will come together.

-Dear Esther

The dream is strange and strange is the dreamer.  Lazlo, the only other name he has.  A war orphan raised by monks, he very early on falls in love with story even as he’s near broken by abuse, and the one tale he can never forget is of the forgotten city of Weep.  Lazlo’s passion for this lost land is equivalent to mine for Final Fantasy VII, which no one can ever quite share.

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The State of the Writer: 8/26/18

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<–The State of the Writer: 8/12/18          The State of the Writer: 9/9/18–>

A biweekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 5

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 259,639
Prior Word Count: 261,248
Word Difference: -1609
Status: Review
Progress: Chapter 11 First Edit

A lot of cuts these past two weeks.  I decided to move the nail polish thing to another chapter (…it’s amazing what writers deem important lol), because I think it would better serve in a place that’s not introspective and more active.  I’m in the process of doing the first edit, and it’s only been difficult because I’ve been so tired.  But I persevere.

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Parallel by Anthony Vicino

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Title: Parallel
Author: Anthony Vicino
Date Added: May 9, 2015
Date Started: November 19, 2017
Date Finished: December 12, 2017
Reading Duration: 23 days
Genre: Science Fiction, Novella

Parallel by Anthony VicinoPages: 94
Publication Date: November 17, 2014
Publisher: One Lazy Robot
Media: eBook/Kindle

Hari and Gerald tore a hole in space and time. It’s a small hole, but it’s a big problem. A pinprick to a new Dimension. Too small for either Hari or Gerald to fit through, but it looks pretty. They’re about to learn that pretty things can be very dangerous.

Ryol, Ambassador to the Lenoreans, must investigate the Rift on behalf of the Alliance. What she finds there could usher in the destruction of every world she’s ever known.

Time is running out for the Lenoreans to discover more of the precious energy source that powers their world. Perched upon the brink of calamity their fate is inextricably tied with Earth’s. Now, with the fate of both worlds in her hands, Falia must decide which planet to save.

In opening a portal to another dimension, two scientists arouse the attention of a far more advanced alien species, the Lenoreans, with an interest in whether or not our planet has the energy their world needs to survive.  These aliens have technology that allows them to divide their attention/consciousness between numerous tasks, so the character Ryol could be having a conversation with you while simultaneously monitoring several integral systems on the Lenorean home world in addition to paying attention to events on other planets.  They can also alter their biochemistry to survive on otherwise uninhabitable landscapes and restructure their minds to cope with new stimuli.  In short, if they wanted our planet, they could easily take it.  The only thing that slightly annoyed me about these aliens was that Ryol was describe as “tall and blonde” because of course she’d have to be.  Them looking human/being humanoid is perfectly understandable in the scope of the story, but there’s no reason aliens always have to fit the most privileged model.

The story itself was fantastic.  It didn’t go at all how I expected, and the author pulled no punches at the close, leaving an ending that while hopeful was still bittersweet.

4.5 stars.