S. J. Deal - It Comes in Pints!

CSFF Blog Tour Day Three: The Ale Boy's Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet: Closing Thoughts

2011-05-18T00:01:00.001-07:00

The Ale Boy's Feast: Closing Thoughts

Finishing The Ale Boy’s Feast was a moment of disappointment, not for the fact that I didn’t like the ending, quite the contrary. I enjoyed the ending, and loved the balance of both mystery and resolution. But it was a disappointment that the story has come to its end, in a sense. The story obviously, goes on. But our reading of it has reached its end.

It’s not merely the end of the one book, it is the end of the series, and our part in discovering that world. All throughout the Auralia Thread was this sense of being an explorer of that world, discovering it, as if for the first time ever. It wasn’t so much a setting as a place for us to wander in. But now, our wandering is over, and I must reflect on what it is I have seen in the expanse over the course of the last four books. And in my case, the last four years.

There is comfort that in a matter of time I can reopen the pages of Auralia’s Colors and once again be filled with wonder.

Part of the reason that these books have the ability to transport the reader into the story is, no doubt, the power of the language used to write it. There is a richness to the writing itself that lends itself to the world within the words, rather then sidetracting the reader, it draws them, to quote C. S. Lewis’s The Last Battle further up, and further in.

I am, in addition to disappointed, very pleased with the story and its resolution. Of all the characters in it, and there are many, I still love Auralia the most. There is something about her that I’ve always related to, yet she always has, and still remains a mystery. I like that in a character. It gives the sense that there is so much more to the person to be revealed then is given us, that their personality and so forth goes so much deeper then what we read about, it really helps to bring them to life. It is her mystery that makes her so interesting, and I’m not sure I would want to know every detail about Auralia. I think that would flatten her character a bit, it would deaden, rather then bring her to life.

In closing, I found The Ale Boy’s Feast a satisfying end to the wonderful Auralia Thread.

The Ale Boy's Feast on Amazon.com

Author Website: Jeff Overstreet, looking closer.org

As part of the CSFF blog tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, for the purposes of this tour.

Participants’ links

Gillian Adams

Red Bissell

Grace Bridges

Beckie Burnham

Morgan L. Busse

Valerie Comer

CSFF Blog Tour

Shane Deal

Chris Deane

Cynthia Dyer

Andrea Graham

Katie Hart

Ryan Heart

Bruce Hennigan

Jason Joyner

Carol Keen

Dawn King

Inae Kyo

Shannon McDermott

Shannon McNear

Karen McSpadden

Rebecca LuElla Miller

Eve Nielsen

John W. Otte

Sarah Sawyer

Kathleen Smith

Donna Swanson

Rachel Starr Thomson

Robert Treskillard

Steve Trower

Fred Warren

Dona Watson

Phyllis Wheeler

CSFF Blog Tour Day Two: The Ale Boy's Feast: How The Auralia Thread Has Impacted Me

2011-05-17T00:00:00.001-07:00

The Ale Boy's Feast: How The Auralia Thread Has Impacted Me

Rather then focusing on just The Ale Boy's Feast this post deals with the series as a whole, of which the fourth book is indeed a part.

Jeffrey Overstreet's book series has been one of small handful of book series that over the past few years have impacted my outlook, even after I had set the book back on the shelf. The overwhelming feeling for me that came through the books and into the way I view the world is the appreciation for beauty. I also have gleaned from these books the sense that art can impact the world very powerfully. Of all the things I've learned from them it is to look for the beautiful, even in the most unlikely of places. This of course is something I have gleaned from other places besides The Auralia Thread. But among many things this book series took some of those thoughts, those passing moments of wonder when I see something beautiful, and gave it a voice. The book is clearly not an allegorical work, nor is it meant to be. But I did draw some parallels to many things, political, and yes, spiritual from the book. This I think is more from the book being in a world with characters, both of which seem alive in that world of theirs. These things are part of the fabric of the tale, not the tale in itself. They are little lights that shine out of the entirety of the book, which shines as if it were a single light composed of all these little lights of meaning and wonderment that I found within the pages of the books. Other lights I saw were themes of redemption, of forgiveness, of mercy, of grace, of love. The book series reflects my own love of art and beauty, in many ways it seems as though I am looking in a mirror rather then reading a book. Seeing myself and the world around me through the lens given me within its pages. At other times it seems as though I'm the mirror and that the wonder and the beauty of things in my own world, experiences, and imagination is reflected in the pages, and in the reading of them the things in my world become clearer, sometimes the beauty is drawn out in the words, sometimes the darkness is amplified, yet both are things that need light to shine upon them; beauty to reveal and darkness to expose. The Auralia thread has deepened my appreciation for beauty, and for the wonder of the world around me, and perhaps, part of the magic of books like these is that it is different for each person who reads it, yet it remains the same looking glass before all, reflecting what is already there within each of us, shining its own light upon us, giving us something of its own reflection back to us. That is the mark of a good book, and such is The Auralia thread.

The Ale Boy's Feast on Amazon.com

Author Website: Jeff Overstreet, looking closer.org

As part of the CSFF blog tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, for the purposes of this tour.

Participants’ links

Gillian Adams

Red Bissell

Grace Bridges

Beckie Burnham

Morgan L. Busse

Valerie Comer

CSFF Blog Tour

Shane Deal

Chris Deane

Cynthia Dyer

Andrea Graham

Katie Hart

Ryan Heart

Bruce Hennigan

Jason Joyner

Carol Keen

Dawn King

Inae Kyo

Shannon McDermott

Shannon McNear

Karen McSpadden

Rebecca LuElla Miller

Eve Nielsen

John W. Otte

Sarah Sawyer

Kathleen Smith

Donna Swanson

Rachel Starr Thomson

Robert Treskillard

Steve Trower

Fred Warren

Dona Watson

Phyllis Wheeler

CSFF Blog Tour Day One: The Ale Boy's Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet: A Review

2011-05-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

The Ale Boy's Feast: A Review

I've been a reader of the Auralia thread since late 2007, I have always found each of the four books to be something astounding and beautiful, but always in a different way. So it was with the first three, and so it was with the fourth and final book of this series. At first I thought that The Ale Boy's Feast didn't quite match up to the others as far as holding that beauty that the other three endeared themselves to me so deeply with, and I continued to think so until I reached the final chapters. Then once again the story became beautiful to me as all the various threads and loose ends of this book, and the previous books, started to resolve a bit. The last few chapters were the most beautiful of The Ale Boy's Feast

My one complaint that I did have while reading it is that it took me nearly eight chapters to get into the story, at that point there were many plot-threads being given but with very little resolution and no sense of being tied together as one story. Each chapter seemed to be going in a different direction then the one before it. Of this, it is that it took me so long to get into the story enough for it to capture my interest.

Yet, as the book reached its conclusion I was thankful for the laying down of threads that once resolved, made sense. It made for a much more pleasant conclusion then if the conclusion had been written without the confusing beginning.

The writing style is, as usual, well done. However for much of the book it didn't seem to hold the same sense of wonderment that the first book of the series did. There were many passages throughout that were beautifully written, but it wasn't until the end that the familiar beauty of Mr. Overstreet's word-craft really seemed to present itself. Yet, again, looking back from the end of the book. It was beautiful. I don't know whether to be awed by that or disappointed that I missed it at the time I was reading it.

Overall, I am quite satisfied with this book, especially as the conclusion of so much that went before it. I felt it resolved very beautifully and believably the many threads that Mr. Overstreet has woven throughout, not only The Ale Boy's Feast but the entire Auralia thread. When I finished I felt, not disappointed, but satisfied, as if I had just taken a drink after being thirsty, and found my thirst quenched.

I would definitely recommend this book, but definitely would recommend reading the other three first. For anyone who hasn't been following along the books are in this order: Auralia's Colors, Cyndere's Midnight, Raven's Ladder, & The Ale Boy's Feast

The Ale Boy's Feast on Amazon.com

Author Website: Jeff Overstreet, looking closer.org

As part of the CSFF blog tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, for the purposes of this tour.

Participants’ links

Gillian Adams

Red Bissell

Grace Bridges

Beckie Burnham

Morgan L. Busse

Valerie Comer

CSFF Blog Tour

Shane Deal

Chris Deane

Cynthia Dyer

Andrea Graham

Katie Hart

Ryan Heart

Bruce Hennigan

Jason Joyner

Carol Keen

Dawn King

Inae Kyo

Shannon McDermott

Shannon McNear

Karen McSpadden

Rebecca LuElla Miller

Eve Nielsen

John W. Otte

Sarah Sawyer

Kathleen Smith

Donna Swanson

Rachel Starr Thomson

Robert Treskillard

Steve Trower

Fred Warren

Dona Watson

Phyllis Wheeler

CSFF Blog Tour Day Three: Some Links

2010-04-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

Raven's Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet

Talks by Jeffrey Overstreet (via iTunes University):

"We Gotta Get Outta Here" - How Tolkien, Lewis, and L'Engle Help Us Hope

Beast... and The Beauty

I highly recommend you take the time to watch "We Gotta Get Outta Here" - How Tolkien, Lewis, and L'Engle Help Us Hope. It's fantastic, and even though I've seen it or have listened to it dozens of times I still keep learning from it.

More Links by and/or about Jeffrey Overstreet:

Jeffrey Overstreet Facebook Fan Page.

Twitter

Syndicated Looking Closer Feed for LiveJournal Users.

Looking Closer, Jeffrey Overstreet's Website

Tour Links:

Raven's Ladder on Amazon.com
Jeffrey Overstreet's Blog

As part of the CSFF blog tour, I received a free copy of the book from the publisher.

CSFF Blog Tour Day Two: Ten Sure to Fail Predictions About Book Four.

2010-04-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

Raven's Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet
Before you read any further, please, SPOILERS are definitely present. If you have already read the book, or don't care if it's spoiled for you, read on:

My sure to fail predictions about what we'll see in the next book, mostly based on thinking about what I learned in Raven's Ladder:

1. Auralia will make a definite appearance.

My reason for thinking so? In a lot of literature, the end of the story usually has some appearance of all the major characters both living and dead. In truth I think we've already seen her, but I'm not sure yet.

2.We'll see a union, most likely romantic, but perhaps political as well between House Abascar and House Bel Amica.

My reason for thinking so? Aside from liberal clues dropped about romances between Abascar characthers and Bel Amican ones, we see a reforming of Bel Amica is in progress as well as Abascar. I'm looking for some sort of strong alliance between the two.

3.House Cent Regus will either rise above it's problems or will completely fall.

My reason for thinking so? Too much storytelling has been invested in house Cent Regus to not have some sort of payoff.

4.We'll learn the true identity of The Keeper.

My reason for thinking so? I believe much of what we learn in Raven's Ladder is a case of narrative misdirection. We believe what we see because Cal-Raven believes what he sees, but what we see isn't what it is all about.

5.King Cal-Raven will return to Bel Amica with far more clarity then he ever had before.

My reason for thinking so? It depends on whether he will be purified by the challenges or if he enters into something a little more dark and depressing. But I suspect he'll be purified, refined, and things will be made clear to him. Leading towards an end where he reaches a state of kingly perfection. In literature it's not at all uncommon for things to go from dark and depressing to purifying to perfection. We've seen Cal-Raven pass through the darkness already, and now he's dissolving into something else. I believe we'll see him arise a whole new man.

6.We'll learn the truth about what becomes of Queen Jaralaine and Jordam.

My reason? Narrative misdirection striking again is part of it, but more because I think the truth will decide much of House Cent Regus's future. If for example King Cal-Raven were to learn of Jordam's part, how would he react to that? If Cal-Raven and Cyndere form a sort of a attachment I can see him having to choose between her or his own desires. Would he forgive Jordam or would he seek to eliminate the beastmen? I don't know. Yet I think we could see a tension forming between Cal-Raven, Cyndere, and Jordam in our final book as a result of this. Or we may learn that Jaralaine is fine, but if we do learn that, it'll be too late to take things back.

7.We'll see something of House Jenta.

My reason for thinking so? We've gotten a glimpse of all the houses except House Jenta. It only makes sense that we at least see a little of it before the story is over. How much we see remains to be seen, but I do think we'll see it.

8.Scharr ben Fray moves into the spotlight for a moment.
My reason for thinking so? Scharr ben Fray has been woven throughout the story as if he's a major character, but he remains a mystery. We'll learn more about him, perhaps even follow him a bit, but he will still remain a mystery at the end of the story.

9.Something will happen.

My reason for thinking so? It's a story. Something always happens near the end.

10.I will prove to have been a complete lunatic in my predictions, except for this one.
My reason for thinking so? The real book four will prove to be completely different then what I think it will be.

Links of interest:

My review of Auralia's Colors

Cyndere's Midnight: My first impressions from a previous blog tour.

Cyndere's Midnight: My review from a previous blog tour.

Cyndere's Midnight: An interview with Jeffrey Overstreet, from a previous blog tour.

Raven's Ladder on Amazon.com
Jeffrey Overstreet's Blog

As part of the CSFF blog tour, I received a free copy of the book from the publisher.

CSFF Blog Tour Day One: Raven's Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet. A review and a few thoughts.

2010-04-25T22:03:00.000-07:00

Raven's Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet

First, as I always like to do when reviewing an Overstreet book, the cover. It is, like Auralia's Colors and Cyndere's Midnight before it, a beautiful cover. I believe it to be Cal-Raven on the cover of this one, I do have one problem with the cover and that is that I keep calling it by it's initial name: Cal-Raven's Ladder. A minor issue, and one only born out of following the release of the book so long before it was published. I am interested in seeing the cover of what I presume to be the title of book four: The Ale Boy's Feast. As part of the series, Raven's Ladder has the least fitting cover of the the three, only in the sense that the text is different and it carries a more painted look then the first two did, not a problem, just my first impressions upon seeing it.

That said:

Jeffrey Overstreet has a particular gift in his wordcrafting. Some people complain that flowery, or even poetic prose distracts too much from the story, I disagree. Well written writing, in my experience, has almost always been when the words themselves are almost as or as beautiful as the world within them. When I find myself disliking a book, more often then the plot, it was the prose that turned me off to it. Not so with Jeffrey Overstreet. In Raven's Ladder there were a couple scenes that in most books, I'd probably slam the book shut and consider it a waste of my time to continue subjecting myself further torment, yet in this book I was not tempted to consider them to be such, for they were there, yes, but beautifully crafted and as such, were able to sneak past them pesky watchful dragons that C. S. Lewis warned about. Do not ask me about the plot, I wouldn't be able to describe it to you in anything more then vague details. It's the world of Overstreet's books that remains in my mind, as if I looked through a window into it. This has been my experience with the first two books, and it continues to be my experience with this book.

I almost wish I didn't have to bring this up, but as this is the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy tour, it bears mentioning. I could not find any particular reason in the text itself to consider this, or its predecessors to be Christian Fiction. I view it as such to be a work of fiction that happens to be written by a Christian. I do not have any problem with that. A lot of great artwork has been made by people who happen to also be Christians. In my view, these works can sometimes be far more powerful, and vastly more dangerous. Dangerous, but good. By dangerous, I mean, life altering, idea changing, transformative literature. Books that dare to present themselves as something beautiful, to reveal in the reader, like a mirror, a portrait of something, taking something of the reader and reflecting it back, yet still remaining independent and beautiful. Raven's Ladder, I believe, is a book that dares to be beautiful. I'm not saying that books with explicitly Christian themes can't be life changing and beautiful. They can be, and have been, but with those it tends to be when the art is held as being as important as any message within it. For me I learn the most from those without messages being pounded at me, leaving that up to me as a reader to be affected rather then telling me that this particular thing should affect me in this particular manner. That is what I get from Mr. Overstreet's books, art that moves me. Do I learn things from it that strengthen my faith? Absolutely! Challenged me in my prejudices, blind-spots, misconceptions, and ideals? You bet! I still do not think I would categorize this book as a work of Christian Fiction however, in the traditional sense of the word. It's art, it's good art, and as a work of art, it does indeed draw me to God, in that sense it very much is a work of Christian Fiction.

Throughout the book the theme that kept emerging to me was something along the lines of what I just wrote above about the book, only it was about art. It is a theme that I picked up as I was reading Auralia's Colors, in many ways it seemed to be stronger there, but I still felt it as I was reading this book. This is only a private interpretation of the text, not something I am suggesting is what these scenes are about at all, but I also picked up several interesting commentaries about the world we live in. Reflections of things in our own world, for instance I saw certain ideas of our own world reflected in the beliefs of the Seers, I was reminded strongly of certain portions of the church in a chapter called “Auralia's Defenders”. I still find myself drawing parallels between the Cent Regus curse and the darker side of the human nature, that was a theme I remember strongly from Cyndere's Midnight. This I suppose brings us back to the work as literature.

Dehumanization, the Beastmen were once humans. But they became something monstrous. This is a theme that runs, not only throughout Jeffrey Overstreet's books but through a whole library of English Literature. From the classics to Harry Potter. Dehumanization is a consistent theme in literature, it is no different here. I would say that the Cent Regus curse is another example of this, but brilliantly done. Overstreet has left enough humanity to recognize yourself in the beastman's eyes, yet has created a monster that is all the more terrifying for it. It is no surprise to me that those who act like beastmen tend to act, become beastmen themselves. C. S. Lewis explored this theme in his Narnia books. It's throughout them, but a specific example is in The Last Battle when the ginger cat ceases to be a talking animal. A different twist on the theme, surely, but the theme is there nonetheless.

I like Raven's Ladder for it's beauty, for further exploring the wonderful world I loved from the first two books, for the words themselves. I am pleased to discover that interesting characters we have already met have become more interesting still. I am pleased to find new characters to be of interest, though to be honest, most of the characters I met there have been at least mentioned in the first two books. I love the prose, beautiful as I was anticipating from my readings of the first two books. I like the many themes that presented themselves to me as I read it. I did pull me in, I did have a little difficultly getting into it at first, but after about the first third I couldn't put it down as easily.

I try to always list something I like and dislike when I write a review, for what I didn't like? That requires a great deal more thought then what I liked about it, I guess I would have to say I didn't like one or two scene's implications, but other then that, I can't really say I had a high dislike for anything else in the book. I was a little disappointed that there are so many loose ends at the end of the book, but that's only a good sign that we can expect a lot of great moments in the books to come.

In conclusion, I highly recommend Raven's Ladder. If nothing else, read it for the beauty of the words. Read the three books, savoring them, allowing the words to move you. It's beautiful.

Links of interest:

My review of Auralia's Colors

Cyndere's Midnight: My first impressions from a previous blog tour.

Cyndere's Midnight: My review from a previous blog tour.

Cyndere's Midnight: An interview with Jeffrey Overstreet, from a previous blog tour.

Raven's Ladder on Amazon.com
Jeffrey Overstreet's Blog

As part of the CSFF blog tour, I received a free copy of the book from the publisher.

Delays, delays... Always delays!

2009-12-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

Just a quick announcement post to say that I will be posting the rest of the Curse of the Spider King chapter by chapter commentary sometime around February. Sorry about that, If I get done before then I will post it early.

Edit: I guess not. I may not get to it. My apologies.

CSFF Blog Tour Day 3 - Curse of the Spider King - Chapter by Chapter Analysis Part One of Four

2009-11-17T21:25:00.001-08:00

Curse of the Spider King: CSFF Blog Tour Day 3:

A Chapter by Chapter analysis, part one of four.

First: WARNING: Spoilers abound galore below and I will not be noting them past this warning.

Also, these are my own thoughts about the book, this isn't an interview, and not a review so much as a log of my thoughts as I read through the book. I'm probably way off target on a lot of what Christopher and Wayne really meant, but that's part of the magic of books, they teach us things, sometimes even the author doesn't know about or wasn't intending.

Chapter One: Eight Hundred Year Echoes

Jumping right into the action, the first thing we encounter is a mystery, a supernatural mystery. Questions arise: Who and what are these characters we meet. Brynn and Elle, concealed in the trees? Why are they hiding? What are they hiding from? What a fantastic beginning. We are introduced to the fact that there is an enemy. We learn that something is taking place in an unseen world and the Earth. This chapter, about four pages in length is full of many introductions to new characters and places, and yet is not overcrowded, it has just enough familiarity that you don't feel completely lost, and enough new ideas to catch your interest. We are presented not only with the introduction, but also with the fact that there is a conflict, not only in the story, but as part of the story. This is to be expected, this is a tale that follows the familiar good verses evil conflict plot after all, most stories talk about fall and redemption, good verses evil, and what happens in between in some form or another.

We are told of a portal. The supernatural brought right up front. This is a clue, something is not normal, this is the first clue we receive that we are reading a story that goes deeper then what meets the eye. We get a taste of the fact that there are actually horrors. We are told of a knowing enemy. But as of yet he is kept out of the picture, this fact alone brings just a small amount of fear into this very first chapter.

Personally, I feel this is a great introduction to the rest of the book. We are told most of the major plot points that we are we will be encountering later, a lot of little clues in this short chapter, yet there is more mystery then revelation.

Chapter Two: A Surprise Gift

After a quick introduction for Tommy Bowman, not sure if Tommy or Thomas means anything, but the Bowman is a nice reference to what we later find out is young Mr. Bowman's gift. A little clue of what we see later on. We discover that part of our story takes place in an environment we are perhaps more familiar with then the first chapter, a middle school.

And then comes the horror. A mysterious figure arrives in a black sports car, young Mr. Bowman at first curious about this sports car feels a fear. We're starting to get a taste of the more freaky side of the book. The familiar made scary. This is horrifying. To see something ordinary, in this case what looks to be something cool, a classmate in a sports car, turns quickly into something horrifying.

We find more clues here, but we also find how Tommy Bowman thinks of himself. He is an ordinary kid who can't really do much of anything, has no particularly wonderful qualities about him. Ahem, Tommy is a Hobbit. Not in the literal sense perhaps, but in the sense of being the weak, and the foolish that confounds the wise. He's even got the curly hair. When I see Mrs. Galdarro telling him he's got talent, I'm a little reminded of Gandalf's selection of Bilbo Baggins for the position of burgerler.

And then after more introducing of the characters, including two new ones. Mrs. Galdarro and Mr. Charlie, we find a clue skittering across the floor. A little clue perhaps, but an important one. The subtle placing of a spider running across the floor. It may not be Hogwarts castle, but Tommy is still wandering around darkened corridors, and creeping things are present.

Not only that but the school is described as having a feel like “My grandma's house” as well, so here we have that which was at first creepy, turning into something familiar. Several more hints and clues are planted throughout the next pages as Tommy converses with Mrs. Galdarro and Mr. Charlie.

All the while, there is a terror lurking just beyond the walls, as the familiar again becomes horrifying.

Chapter Three: Blue Girl

Here we meet another of our main characters, Kat Simonson. A couple of things are immediately noticeable about young Kat Simonson. The first is that she's blue, as in the color, and she's incidentally, blue, as in depressed about it. Kat, otherwise, seems very like the common teenager. But, I love the themes that start to come up in this chapter. Difficulties with feeling accepted, dealing with prejudice, feeling distant, even from those you love. Dealing with fair-weather friends, and dealing with a blessing disguised as an illness.

There is a lot I like about this chapter, on the first two pages we introduced to the same problems that real people face. I think, not for Kat's sake, that this is great. Here we see one of my favorite aspects of books: They allow us to face our fears, hopes, dreams, losses, and heartaches in a relatively safe environment. Whether we like it or not, life is full of these exact things.

Our first scene presents us with the difficulties Kat and her mother have with feeling distant from each other. It's not at all uncommon that children feel a distance between them and one or both of their parents. Yet this isn't written to have Kat be a rebellious child. I like it, it's not the typical portrayal of distance, and I think it's far more believable and powerful for it.

The issues go on, Kat has incredibly deep feelings of being a disappointment. That she wasn't the child her parents really wanted.

Really, for the entire length of the chapter, we are given this beautiful picture of what real people face. And yet, everyone has their humanity. The parents are not made out to be clueless villains, and Kat, though distant from them, nevertheless does love them.

These things, having faced some of these issues myself, made Kat one of the characters I most strongly relate to. We get a very good glimpse of her personality and character, and it's believable.

A slightly humorous story, when I first read about it I related to the fact that she was blue. Now I don't have the disease, but several years ago I started turning blue, all over my body my skin was blue. This had gone on for about a week before we discovered the culprit: The dye in the sheets we had bought the week before was turning me blue. This was when I first heard of the disease, for my mother of course was concerned that I had it. I didn't and still don't but, I have been blue before.

Chapter Four: Manifest Destiny

We continue to follow Kat as she is now in her school. In many ways the themes of the last chapter are carried over into this one. Yet we see our first clue that the destinies of Tommy Bowman and Kat Simonson are in some mysterious way entwined. The silent and mysterious horror that has been slowly creeping up on us arrives on the scene. We then meet Mr. Charles Wallace. I enjoy the name choice, Madiline L'engle readers could probably tell you about young Charles Wallace Murry. The intelligent young lad that is one of the main characters in her 'Time' books. When I saw the name, a flag immediately went up pointing to L'engle.

Then we start to see the barriers broken down, two worlds colliding into one. And while this seems to be in once sense or another rather common in literature, we see here that the strange, the supernatural, and the unusual are again marching right into the normal mundane world of Kat. Some call it magic, others special ability, others an art. It doesn't matter, this is the essence of fantasy fiction, the breaking down the barriers of the mundane and revealing a world of wonder. J. R. R. Tolkien in his essay On Fairy-stories tells us: “The magic of Faërie is not an end in itself, its virtue is in its operations: among these are the satisfaction of certain primordial human desires...” For more on that listen to This Podcast 1 hour and 10 minutes into the show, Tolkien Scholor Amy H Sturgis talks about When Harry Met Faerie: The Tolkien Solution to the Rowling Problem. An excellent talk, (Be aware however, that the retaining of the language in a quote or two could prove offensive to some.) that goes into far greater detail then what I'm about to. But in Tolkien's essay he tells us that fairy-stories offer us: Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, and Consolation. Again, listen to the podcast to learn about that or read his essay, but I bring all that up to say that Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper bring into their story this remarkable quality called fantasy. They've opened a door for us, and Kat, to step through, a door through which we find recovery, escape, and consolation.

And it's both frightening and wonderfully transforming.

Chapter Five: Red Dusk

We are now back with Tommy Bowman, and in a sense he is about to encounter Faërie, as we are, in one of the most brilliant characters in the story, I call it a character rather then object as we discover that this book behaves in a peculiar way, almost as if it is a living book, or at least has a consciousness. For instance, when Human's view it, it has completely different contents then when an Elf views it.

But that's not why it's brilliant, it is brilliant because here is a story of a book, within our own book. In many ways it is a self-commentary on the reading of books. That's brilliant!

As I said a moment ago, the book Tommy Bowman is reading is not an ordinary book, it is a gateway to Faërie in one sense, but in the most real way possible. It is a larger then real reality that Tommy encounters when he touches the pages of this book. So too it is like that for us when we read. This commentary within, is an instruction manual for reading, it tells us what it is that stories do for us, it tells us how it is that stories transform us, change us, immerse us. It's a book within a book. This book is a history book, but more then that it is a teacher, like a person, like a character. So it is with any book of any real value, it will transform the reader, it will change them. Storytelling is very powerful, and yet, in a sense it has a sense of safety to it. At any time we can close the book. But even if you don't close the book, chances are you won't desire to actually face an actual giant spider, but in the pages of the book you can experience it, an be transformed by it, and in many ways, that is determined by how immersed one is. So it is that young Mr. Bowman quite literally finds himself immersed inside the pages of a book, yet still has the power to close it. An excellent commentary on reading, and all done with an item within the story.

Within our book within a book we then move into an account of the attack on Berinfell, mostly introductory, but with a few hints at what is to come later, including the introduction of the wisp.

Chapter Six: The Fall of Berinfell

We are continuing our account of the fall of Berinfell, and with it we are introduced at last to our horror that is haunting our heroes. The Drefids, are for the first time mentioned in this chapter, and I believe they are rather frightening. Not only are they deadly, but they are deathly. It is their deathlyness rather then their deadliness that makes them truly frightening. The description of them: Shadowy figures, long white hair, burning embers in otherwise empty sockets. They remind me very much of something dead. The description continues to describe knife blades extended from bony knuckles. That's rather frightening too.

We also find out in the beginning of this chapter what exactly a wisp does. Can you think of something more frightening then that?

This chapter is one of the darker chapters in the book, the grim scene in the throne room, death staring our heroes in the face, death of their comrades, death of their friends, of their Lords. So much loss in just a moment in time. And defeat. The lost of life, love, and land, in an instant, gone.

I often wonder if there is any torment greater then love lost, I can only imagine what the remaining Elves are feeling like. And these Elves, each of them so old, a broken history, it's gone. This is one of those chapters where it is extremely difficult to imagine the agony of those left behind. To lose someone tragically, I believe that the survivors must be feeling crushed.

At the very end of this chapter we return to Tommy's viewpoint, as he closed our book within a book.

One more thought on this strange book, it is not only like a book within a book, it is rather like a book that is for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. This book, is perhaps one of the more fascinating aspects of Curse of the Spider King.

Chapter Seven: Curious Customers

All new characters, all new location. Depauville, New York. Interesting location, for Christopher Hopper happens to live around or in Depauville, New York. Good choice!

Here we meet two new characters, Johnny and Autumn Briarman. (Good names, I've always liked Autumn as a name.) They are a brother and sister, and they act like it. These two are a rather interesting pair. And, in beginning of this chapter they encounter two things: A book shop, and a sense of humor. Avoiding books as if reading was a disease they might contract, what should these two encounter but a bookstore. As for the sense of humor, I love it. “A Likely Story Book Shoppe.”

In case you're wondering I don't think it was the books that had them visiting the book shop. It was the sign in the window. “Prize”.

In a sense this reminds me of how I began to love to read. Never a big reader growing up. Then like entering this marvelous bookshop I watched The Lord of the Rings movies. And as my hunger for more of Middle-Earth quickly outgrew the movies, I had to get a hold of the book. It was the same year I discovered Harry Potter and Narnia. Three marvelous books that totally immersed me in the worlds of Middle-Earth, Hogwarts, and Narnia. Like a spark that lights a fire. Drawn by the sign in the window, a movie, I found reading to be something I rather enjoy. And now I'm finding that the more I read, the more I want to read. Despite the fact that I read the books I already have multiple times. My Amazon.com wish list has become about 95% books. All because of a spark started by a good story told, in a movie, then being carried over into a book.

Again we are starting to see the approach of Faërie, that otherworldly aspect to the story, that greater reality shining through the existence of the visible world they're familiar with. Noticeably absent is the presence of a man in a trench coat. That horror aspect is currently missing from their realm, but still there is something going on that is more then what meets the eye. A nervousness hangs in the air, in a sense not only are the dangers and horrors perilous, but the wonderful things have a way of being perilous as well, but not in the same ways, it's more the peril of the decidedly dangerous Aslan. Dangerous, yes, but good. Gandalf and Gimli have a conversation in Fangorn Forest, Gandalf tells Gimli that he, that is Gandalf, is probably the most dangerous thing Gimli will ever encounter, unless he should be brought before the dark lord. In the Harry Potter books, who is the one that Lord Voldemort, whom most of the world fears to even say the name of, who is he afraid of? Albus Dumbledore, the school Headmaster. Lord Voldemort is terrified of Dumbledore. There is a great scene at the very end of the Goblet of Fire book where we see a glimpse of why this is so, Dumbledore is confronting The Minister for Magic with the truth, and Harry realizes then why Dumbledore is the one Wizard Voldemort ever feared. That is the wonderful peril. Whether it be Gandalf, Aslan, Dumbledore, or a bookshop, there is the wonderful peril. It's the peril The Fellowship finds upon entering Lothlórien, it terrifies Boromir, who at this point has a heart that is less then pure.

That is the peril that Johnny and Autumn are feeling. The sense of something great, or a hidden power, hiding just around the corner.

Once in the shop they encounter Nelly. Their encounter with Faërie has begun.

Speaking of Fangorn Forest, when Johnny says “I almost feel like I like the place.” and Nelly's response. “Almost feel like you like the bookstore.” then the description of her eye, then. “That's uncommonly kind of you.” reminds me of the encounter two young hobbits named Merry and Pippen had with the Faërie, those legends that seem to pop up out of the grown and walk under the light of the sun. The Ent Treebeard. I loved it, but then I am very fond of Hobbits.

The chapter ends with a new mystery unfolding, two actually. One, how is it that Nelly knows about them, and two, what could possibly be better then ice cream?

Chapter Eight: Geographical Anomaly

A hidden room, a strange painting, and and a mystery to be solved.

The room as it turns out is Nelly's private reading area. The mystery has yet to fully unfold, but we find another copy of the book, the book within a book, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. But in Johnny and Autumn's case, I think we are seeing, not so much those with eyes to see and ears to hear as those whose lives are being orchestrated for when they have eyes to see and ears to hear. They still have not quite encountered that which will change their lives forever. But, in time.

The conversation that follows is both humorous and believable. We are introduced to the character and personality of Autumn and Johnny. They argue a lot, true, but you can tell they don't really hate each other, they just have a loud relationship. Relationships are funny things, and in many ways every one is unique. We forget sometimes just how unique a person can be, and the strange ways that we can and do relate to each other. For Johnny and Autumn, it's sticking together like they've been glued, but arguing all the while.

Then, the world of Faërie comes crashing in. They open the book. And while they haven't quite touched the page yet, they recognize the illustration. Only Johnny, isn't quite ready for his encounter.

How very true, so often we encounter the wonderful, the mysterious, the beautiful, and we just let it pass on by, unnoticed, or barely noticed, or noticed and then ignored. Think about it, life, the fact that people are alive and breathing. That's wonderful, that's beautiful. Everyone you see out and about, they're beautiful, they're a living wonder. Yet how often are we quick to hurl insults or ignore them, both can be hurtful, to insult and to ignore. There is a world of wonder out there and we are blind to it.

The argument is brought to what my uncle would call “The Parental Unit”. The mom. After a quick and odd discussion about the book, Mrs. Briarman takes a look at it.

That's when we finally get a hint that something about this book is remarkable, and not just how it immerses the reader. It's more then that. This is the aspect that made me think of it as a character rather then an object. Mrs. Briarman sees it as Pioneers of the Western United States” by M. S. Ward, Esquire. That, incidentally is not at all what Johnny and Autumn see. For them it is The History of Berinfell, The Chronicles of the Elf Lords and Their Kin.

I enjoy this sense of mystery, this hiding of a larger story hidden just beneath the surface, and a book that seems to be aware of it's readers. Yet now, Autumn and Johnny are seeing the Western United States book, a very interesting book indeed.

I mentioned my uncle a moment ago. When Mrs. Briarman said that the cave in the woods was probably formed through erosion as glaciers receded, I immediately recalled the time I was riding in a car down in the Catskill mountains with my uncle, there was some sort of interesting geological feature and he told me about the glaciers. This somehow reminds me of my own childhood and the adventures my sister and I would go on with our aunt and uncle. That was the first time I'd ever heard about the glaciers. When you're a kid, picturing anything with that kind of power, doing that kind of thing, in your state, it is rather awe inspiring. Living in New York made Johnny and Autumn's sections of the book come alive in a personal sense as well.

The chapter ends with a bit of foreshadowing and a humorous note.

Chapter Nine: Lighting the Blue Beacons

We return now to Kat Simonson. Poor Miss Simonson is anxiously waiting. The dreaded “Please, see me after class.” question has come up, and it was directed to her.

And then there is the hearing voices, voices in her head. That is indeed frightening.

Her nervousness is more about the meeting with her teacher then the voices in her head at present, though the voices do come into play.

Then to her surprise he hands her a copy of the book, our peculiar, book within a book. Once again, we encounter the realm Faërie as it breaks through the hidden door into our very own realm. In many ways books are to us what this book is for Kat. Especially fantasy fiction. I mentioned how I came to have a love for reading, yet I can honestly say, that reading has changed me. I'm not the same person I was five years ago, and if I ask why, it is in large part, because of the books I read. Books can transform a person, they have a powerful ability to change the person who reads them. Knowing this I always have a bit of a nervousness myself right before I start reading a new book, I've had it happen before, most of the major changes in my thinking have been brought about by reading a book. When I read, it is entirely possible that when I finish reading that book, I'm not going to be the same person I was when I opened it. Fantasy, in particular is powerful for transforming the reader. Lord of the Rings changed me, when I finished with that, my view of life had become split into pre-Lord of the Rings and post-Lord of the Rings. The way I thought going into the book was not the way I thought coming out. Such changes have only strengthened and continued with each re-reading of Tolkien's masterpiece. Then along came young Harry Potter, the lost orphan child with no particular talent, except playing Quidditch, who nevertheless becomes the hero who saves his world from the evil Lord Voldemort. And with Edmund Pevensie, the traitor turned king, and with Eustace Scrubb, the boy turned dragon turned hero. Each time these are the stories that transform me.

In that sense, there are books in our own world that are rather like this book within The Curse of the Spider King.

However, with the power books have to transform, like with most things, that can be for good or for evil, books can be dangerous, not only can they transform us in a positive way, but they can corrupt our thinking. The last few hundred years we've seen the rise of various philosophies, philosophies that have arisen from books. That is one way that we have seen the more dangerous side of books. I mention that, and it is important to keep in mind. I once read an article or a book chapter, years ago, I believe it was by scholar John Granger that talked about Harry Potter's book within a book, this one is of the evil kind, Tom Riddle's Diary. Indeed it transforms, and almost destroys those who read it. Rowling herself warns, comically, of the dangers of books in the book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Thankfully, near as I can tell at least, the book that Kat has is not the evil kind. She however is wondering that as she takes the book from Mr. Wallace.

Like Tommy, Autumn and Johnny, Kat is about to embark on reading the book. Embarking on an adventure she's not quite aware of beginning. So it tends to be with most great adventures. Samwise Gamgee says in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings:

“...adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten...”

That is the sort of adventure we find our heroes on. And while Mr. Wallace's desk is not Mordor, for Kat, like Frodo and Sam had chances of turning back, only she didn't.

Tolkien again, brings up the concept of a book within a book, he mentions that tale of Beren going to get the Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim. A tale within a tale, a surprisingly common theme, yet in Curse of the Spider King it has a fresh feel to it, perhaps it is because of the immersive quality of the book, or perhaps because the tale seems almost to be a living one. I have a suspicion that if one of our characters didn't read English, the book would be whatever language it was they could read. I don't recall that being said outright, but I have a suspicion that the book can do so.

Kat opens the book, and once she touches the words, once again we and Kat encounter the hidden, the strange book, strangely enough the section that Kat reads is a continuation of what Tommy has just read. Not only is this book aware of who is reading it, it seems to know where the others have left off. The book now reveals a few more clues, tells about the progress of the battle, and leads us into a whole different world.

It is in this chapter that we learn that the Elf children were taken. Once again, we are left with a mystery on our hands as the chapter closes.

Chapter Ten: Leaving the Sunlight.

We're still within the pages of the history book. We find a sliver of hope, there is a way of escape for those who live, yet to do so, means a great sacrifice, leaving their world as they knew it behind them for a dismal life where they may live. Here we also find a greater hope, we learn of Ellos. Defeat, yes, but there is hope. Hope has a way of being powerful, even when it is just the tiniest of slivers left, hope is like a seed, it can grow. There is a way to escape, a hidden passageway that leads to Nightwish Cavern. The name I find to be a rather amusing choice, I'm guessing that it is the work of Wayne Thomas Batson. Nightwish, if you're not familiar with music, is the name of a symphonic metal band. I like it.

The kingdom of the Elves is in shambles, the Lords are dead, the children are taken, it is unknown how many will survive, things look very grim indeed for the Elves.

But there is hope. One of my favorite lines from The Lord of the Rings films is in The Two Towers, when Viggo Mortensen's character Aragorn says: “There is always hope.”

I don't recall that being in the book Lord of the Rings, but that is one of my favorite lines in Middle-Earth.

So it is with our characters here, all seems lost, all is lost, but a small remnant of hope remains.

Then view changes, we learn a couple interesting details through the remainder of the chapter, one of them is the presence of churches, for a church sanctuary needs a church to be a sanctuary in. I find this one line of dialog interesting, and it fits into place with what heard a page or two back about Ellos, I believe that Ellos, is what The Elves call God.

Near the end of this very grim chapter, we meet a little child, A small Elf child. The child wants to know, will there be any spiders in their new home. They assure the child that there will be no spiders. One other thing, they call the child an Elfling.

That one made me stop in my tracks as I was reading, but only because I've been using that term for a couple of years now to refer to Elf children, it was funny to see it in another book.

We see that there is a saying. “Endurance and Victory,” this seems to be a common phrase among the Elves, yet the very end of this chapter ends with the thought that they might endure, but there would be no victory, not yet. Defeat would have been, but thankfully the word today is on the end.

“There is always hope.”

Chapter Eleven: Lifeflight

A new character. Mr. Jett Green. A football player and motorbike enthusiast.

He can't wait to use his new motocross bike, a sense of excitement is there. He's getting ready for his big day when he looks into the mirror, and behold, his eyes, they're not brown, they're deep violet. We're also introduced to his parents Austin and Hazel.

I'll move on to the next scene, he's at the Motocross Park, he's ready to go, he gives his new bike a trial, and it succeeds beautifully. However with his growing confidence there is a growing danger. He takes on the Monster, only to crash. In the chaos and confusion that follows, it turns out that he has had a serious accident, but is somehow still aware, sort of, the world around him, he doesn't even realize just how badly he's injured. He's awake enough to hear someone say “fatal”.

Jett basically finds himself in a world of his own, unable to feel things and paralized, yet aware of who is around him.

Chapter Twelve: Mr. Miracle

He finds himself, alive, but in the hospital. He still doesn't quite know what's going on. But what is going on, is something remarkable.

Jett, is kind of having a reverse experience then the others. Instead of Faërie being found by him, it has rather found him. So it is, sometimes we were minding our own business when something seems to just come out of the blue and lead us through the wardrobe into Narnia.

I recall how I began writing. Like with reading, I wasn't really into it growing up. I still don't really know why, it's not like I really had any examples or anything, but one day the webmaster for a writing website for homeschoolers, ApricotPie.com, asked me if would be interested in writing for them once a month. I do not know why they asked, like I said, I don't recall having any examples of my writing or anything. I accepted. Now I am working on my first manuscript. I'm astounded, because I didn't really do much of anything, it's not an adventure I went out and pursued so much as an adventure that seems to be pursuing me. Looking back I believe it was the hand of God that worked the website writing, for no logical reason, episode out. I probably wouldn't be writing today if not for that.

In this chapter we see that Jett had broken just about every bone in his body, not to mention a number of serious wounds. Not only was he more aware then he should have been, he was suddenly completely healed. We see that something is different about Jett, and it's not only his changing eyes. We shall see why this is so, and that there are other aspects to Jett that he is not aware of.

The last lines in this chapter I happen to find rather amusing. The doctor says to his mom. “You better watch out for this kid. With eyes like those, girls will be chasing him all over school.” I find this amusing because in my own story there is an Elf who is regularly chased down the street by “Crazy American Fangirls”. To the point where his terrified of Americans. I put it in my story because my Grandmother used to tell me that it would happen to me. “All the girls will chase you down the street because you're so handsome!” she'd say. Thankfully, so far at any rate, my grandmother's words have not proven to be true. I have yet to be chased by anyone.

I was hoping to write the whole book, unfortunately I have not finished past this point, it turned out to be far more time consuming a project then I expected, I will be posting it in four post as I complete each quarter over the next few weeks.

Curse of the Spider King - Amazon.com Link

Wayne Thomas Batson’s blog - http://enterthedoorwithin.blogspot.com

Christopher Hopper’s Web site - http://www.christopherhopper.com

The Berinfell Prophecies Web site - http://www.heedtheprophecies.com/

Participants’ Links:

Brandon Barr

Justin Boyer

Amy Browning

Valerie Comer

Amy Cruson

CSFF Blog Tour

Stacey Dale

D. G. D. Davidson

Shane Deal

Jeff Draper

Emmalyn Edwards

April Erwin

Karina Fabian

Todd Michael Greene

Ryan Heart

Timothy Hicks

Becky Jesse

Cris Jesse

Jason Joyner

Julie

Carol Keen

Krystine Kercher

Tina Kulesa

Melissa Lockcuff

Rebecca LuElla Miller

Mirtika

Nissa

John W. Otte

Cara Powers

Chawna Schroeder

James Somers

Speculative Faith

Robert Treskillard

Fred Warren

Jason Waguespac

Phyllis Wheeler

Jill Williamson

KM Wilsher

CSFF Blog Tour Day 2 - Curse of the Spider King - A Few Words on Genres.

2009-11-16T22:06:00.000-08:00

First, a warning, in today's post spoilers will be present.

Day 2: Curse of the Spider King: A word on Genres

This is going to be, by far, my most boring post in this tour, here I'm just dissecting a bit of the genre-blending that Curse of the Spider King contains, or at the very least, seems to:

Genre One: Curse of the Spider King as Gothic horror.
Curse of the Spider King has several elements that one might find in a typical work of Gothic fiction. From old ruined castles to skeleton-like ghoulish creatures to spiders, to darkness, to the fear of the unknown or the familiar being made frightening.

Frightening creatures galore. You have the Drefids. Ghoulish monsters with knifelike hands. They are nothing hpwever to the horrific Wisp, with the Wisp it is their familiarity that makes them so terrifying. They take the form of people you know or someone you trust, they could be anyone, and then attempt, usually, to kill you. Another familiar horror is these trees. They kill. These forces of darkness are far more terrifying then I'm accustomed to seeing except for in books that have Gothic horror as an influence. It may not have ghost, but the wisp are pretty close and yes, ghostly, they can go through places you wouldn't expect, vanishing, and more importantly they seem to like taking the form of dead people more often then not. The Drefid have skeleton or ghoul like features, empty eyes that see with a glowing ember, inhuman strength, and they have a projection of fear. Then there is the spiders. Great big spiders and The Cragons, black-hearted killer trees in alliance with the Spider King.

Speaking of the Spider King, he remains offstage, and is thus more terrifying. Like Sauron he's just in the background and is all the more terrifying for it. Will he remain offstage in Venom and Song? I don't know, but I suspect he'll make an appearance or two.

This is without mentioning the scene in the old abandoned psychiatric hospital. You could hardly ask for a better Gothic horror setting except the old castle ruins where the battle at the end of the books takes place. I don't know if it was intentional, but the ghostly wisp, skeleton-like Drefid, and spiders are all what I would expect to find in a horror novel. Particularly in the Gothic tradition. A strong resemblance at any rate does exist to that genre. Somewhere between the tales of Poe and Lovecraft there is this genre of horror that the Curse of the Spider King certainly taps into.

Genre Two: Curse of the Spider King as Science-Fiction.
Not really a lot there, but it does have a few minor Science-Fiction aspects. The existence of more then one world, portals between worlds, and the fact that in a sense, though perhaps not entirely, the Elves are aliens. While it doesn't seem to have a lot of emphasis on a human made dystophian future there is the scene near the end of the book where some humans become aware of the existence of another world, and it is hinted that there will be consequences of that.

Genre Three: Curse of the Spider King as Fantasy.
Elves, portals, special supernatural abilities, ancient curses, giant spiders? This is fantasy. Lovely, wonderful, fantasy. Magic flowing untamed and wild through the pages of the book, and as expected there is a story within the story. The lessons are taught through the use of the symbol rather then the use of direct teaching or even allegory. While I do not have suspicions that it was built upon the scaffolding of literary alchemy like you might find with Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, but it does have the transforming power that this, most sacred of the fictional genres holds. I mention this one last, but doesn't mean it's the least present. It is probably the most present genre in the book. In fact I would say that Fantasy is the scaffolding that surrounds and supports the entire book and that the other genres are woven throughout.

Fantasy has many sub-genres, but Curse of the Spider King appears to me to be what is known as wainscot, a subcreation or society hiding within our own world. In one book of mine Travis Prinzi says:

"J.K. Rowling puts the two worlds very close - in fact, her subcreation is hiding right underneath the primary world. Harry Potter, then, is a wainscot fantasy, because the Wizarding World is a "wainscot society" (Clute 911). Wainscot societies are "invisible and undetected societies living in the interstices of of the dominant world" (911). That's a good description of Rowling's subcreation." (Page 26, Harry Potter & Imagination - The Way Between Two Worlds, Travis Prinzi, Zossima Press, 2009)

It was this sub-genre that I was reminded of by the notion of a bunch of Elves hidden in amongst the Earth, in many ways a fantasy world that is hidden amongst our own.

Of course there are other fantasy sub-genres that make up the book and it isn't tied to that particular one, but that is what I was reminded of when I read it.

There are, naturally, other genres woven throughout with the ones I mentioned above, including mystery, tragedy, and comedy, but I'm not quite familiar with those genres to do more then recognize their presence, and in some cases I don't recognize it at all, even if it's there.

Tomorrow I'll be posting something a little different then I originally planed, it is still what I was going to do, but I am unable to post it in it's entirety as of yet. Therefore I'll be posting the entire thing over the next couple of weeks, but the first part of it tomorrow.

Curse of the Spider King - Amazon.com Link

Wayne Thomas Batson’s blog - http://enterthedoorwithin.blogspot.com

Christopher Hopper’s Web site - http://www.christopherhopper.com

The Berinfell Prophecies Web site - http://www.heedtheprophecies.com/

Participants’ Links:

Brandon Barr

Justin Boyer

Amy Browning

Valerie Comer

Amy Cruson

CSFF Blog Tour

Stacey Dale

D. G. D. Davidson

Shane Deal

Jeff Draper

Emmalyn Edwards

April Erwin

Karina Fabian

Todd Michael Greene

Ryan Heart

Timothy Hicks

Becky Jesse

Cris Jesse

Jason Joyner

Julie

Carol Keen

Krystine Kercher

Tina Kulesa

Melissa Lockcuff

Rebecca LuElla Miller

Mirtika

Nissa

John W. Otte

Cara Powers

Chawna Schroeder

James Somers

Speculative Faith

Robert Treskillard

Fred Warren

Jason Waguespac

Phyllis Wheeler

Jill Williamson

KM Wilsher

CSFF Blog Tour Day 1 - Curse of the Spider King - A Review

2009-11-15T22:07:00.000-08:00

The Berinfell Prophecies: Book One: Curse of The Spider King
By Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper

What I want to say for my review is: What are you sitting around reading this post for? Go get yourself a copy and start reading. It's that good. The end, goodbye, and good luck.

Besides being a non-acceptable review, what makes it good you ask? That's a reasonable question. Several things, and I'll try to get into that a little more in-depth tomorrow. This post will be my least in-depth as I am going to attempt to avoid spoilers. I am going to freely use spoilers in the second and the third day's post so beware!

I'll begin with a little background: The Curse of the Spider King, the first joint work of storytellers Christopher Hopper and Wayne Thomas Batson, is the one book I've been anticipating this year. Ever since I first learned that they were writing a book together I was pretty excited about it, and with good reason. Christopher and Wayne are both fantastic authors and their existing works are some of the best in their class. To set the stage for my review The Curse of the Spider King I'm first going to talk about their previous works and why I had very high expectations for their latest:

Wayne's The Door Within Trilogy consisting of The Door Within, The Rise of the Wyrm Lord, and The Final Storm are modern fantasy reader staples and like the Harry Potter books have been known to spark a love of reading. The Door Within Trilogy combines wit, wisdom, Wayne's particular sense of humor, and a great story suitable for readers of all ages. That is to say nothing of his fantastic Pirate series that explores the depths of more then just the sea, but the human heart as well. Combining great characters with fantastic storytelling, Wayne Thomas Batson tells a tale in his Door Within Trilogy that remains with you long after you close the final pages of the book. While often humorous, Wayne is not afraid to allow some tragedy and difficult situations into his books, and I think, particularly with a primary audience of children, that's wonderful. Children need to encounter the more difficult aspects of life, and fantasy fiction is a great way for them to face their dragons. I love to see real world issues brought into fiction that is probably going to be read by children. There are things that are truly terrifying in these books, and again, fantasy fiction allows Children to face their dragons. All of Wayne's books have wonderful messages and are full ofmeaning.

Christopher's The White Lion Chronicles consisting currently of The Rise of the Dibor and The Lion Vrie are books that reach that often touted but rarely actually achieved literary depth that readers of Tolkien and Lewis are familiar with. Serious literature with enough depth to be re-read again and again and still give “WOW!” moments. Seriously, if I was asked to name the deepest and most profound fantasy books written in recent decades The White Lion Chronicles would be near the top of the list, right along side L'engle, Lewis, Tolkien, and Rowling. Christopher's books are transformative literature, filled with more then one layer of meaning, incredible depth, and the ability to reach past the mind into the very heart and soul of the reader. This is literature at it's finest, the kind that would make folks like Dickens and Shakespeare proud and extremely happy that English literature hasn't lost all it's profundity. In my reading of them, Christopher's books reminded me of medieval literature, deserving of a spot right next to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings on the bookshelf. Christopher Hopper has done it, he's actually written something I would definitely say is an absolute 'must read' for the serious reader and worthy of many re-readings and because of the level of depth contained within them. It is because of this profundity that I can honestly say that Christopher Hopper is one of the best authors I've ever read. His chronicles are among the very best that Fantasy has to offer.

On a final thought before I start my review, incidentally these are the two authors whose books I cannot seem to keep on my bookshelf for long before friends are begging me to let them borrow them. With these things in mind I had, understandably, very high expectations for The Curse of the Spider King.

Did it meet up to my expectations?

I think so. It is an excellent work, especially considering it has two different authors. While not perfectly seamless, their writing blends together very nicely. A few places where viewpoint changes were a little lost and confused, but not enough to be totally head-scratching as to who it is we're hanging around with now. The plot is good, promising for future books, and maintains the suspense nearly throughout. Again a few places where it almost began to wander down a rabbit trail, but never straying far. It has the marks one would expect from master storytellers in modern literature: Plot plantings, subtle details, genre bending and blending, rags to riches characters, suspense, and the peculiar ability to keep one turning “just one more page”. Definitely a book I would recommend. Similar in tone and style to Madeleine L'engle's A Wrinkle in Time, it had the ability to arouse the same feelings within me as that book did. A good thing that. For the most part, the heroes of the book are not spoiled, rich, already know everything, people. A few are unusually talented, but not ridiculously so, not only that the heroes almost all have to deal with things that real people, both children and adults, have to deal with in the real world. I am going to have to read it again to really get a feel for how I think of it, but as of right now I am left feeling very pleased with it, I do not expect a rereading to defuse that, if anything I think it will re-enforce it.

My criticisms of the book are few, but here they are:

The cliffhanger ending isn't quite my style. Not exactly a cliffhanger in the traditional sense, but more it's like you're walking along and then all of a sudden it just stops. Kind of makes for a poor stand-alone book, while not necessary, it is a positive quality to have. I personally, didn't like how it did that, but that's just me perhaps.

There were a few places where characters could have used a bit more of a description initially. I found it a little difficult to picture some of the characters when we were first introduced to them. Not a tremendous problem, but was enough to stop me in my tracks as I was reading it.

But like I said, my criticisms are few.

What I particularly enjoyed will be mostly left to tomorrow and day three but I will mention a few things now:

I enjoyed the realism of the characters and plot, it wasn't too far fetched an idea to believe what Christopher and Wayne were suggesting had been taking place for years could actually happen. I've heard this called 'the ability to suspend disbelief' before, it's a great thing to have in your book if you can pull it off successfully. (I believe I heard the term from Travis Prinzi on his The Hog's Head podcast.)

It deals with real world issues and problems. This can be a healing balm to those who are going through that kind of thing. It's wonderful to see that Wayne and Christopher have the courage to place their characters in such situations.

It doesn't get preachy. Not that it is lacking in spiritual value, my goodness it's not. But it doesn't get preachy in the negative sense of the word. By preachy I mean the author's are not shoving some message down your throat against your will. I've seen preachy in books both Christian and Atheistic and it repulses me every time. No such problem here.

There are several scenes where you almost feel like your there. You can almost hear the noises around you, see the place the characters are in, feel the emotion being felt, you really have a good sense of the atmosphere. I cannot stress how important having a good sense of the atmosphere is to good fiction. Christopher and Wayne deliver it well with only a few minor places where I failed to get a sense of the atmosphere of the scene. It is this remarkable aspect that allows for you to begin to get suspicious of the littlest detail mentioned as being a clue about something bigger.

The rest I'll cover in the next two post, but one of the things I was most surprised to find was some beautiful inclusions of other genres besides fantasy. Gothic horror even makes an appearance or two. I suspect that Poe and Lovecraft would be proud of some of those scenes. But that's for the next post.

In my post for day three I am hoping to be going far more in depth about why I liked the book, thoughts it inspires, and what I've been getting out of it.

Curse of the Spider King - Amazon.com Link

Wayne Thomas Batson’s blog - http://enterthedoorwithin.blogspot.com

Christopher Hopper’s Web site - http://www.christopherhopper.com

The Berinfell Prophecies Web site - http://www.heedtheprophecies.com/

Participants’ Links:

Brandon Barr

Justin Boyer

Amy Browning

Valerie Comer

Amy Cruson

CSFF Blog Tour

Stacey Dale

D. G. D. Davidson

Shane Deal

Jeff Draper

Emmalyn Edwards

April Erwin

Karina Fabian

Todd Michael Greene

Ryan Heart

Timothy Hicks

Becky Jesse

Cris Jesse

Jason Joyner

Julie

Carol Keen

Krystine Kercher

Tina Kulesa

Melissa Lockcuff

Rebecca LuElla Miller

Mirtika

Nissa

John W. Otte

Cara Powers

Chawna Schroeder

James Somers

Speculative Faith

Robert Treskillard

Fred Warren

Jason Waguespac

Phyllis Wheeler

Jill Williamson

KM Wilsher

Book Signing

2009-10-31T20:42:00.000-07:00

We spent today going up to Pittsford. (Near Rochester, New York) It was fun.

This time it was for a book signing with Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper for the release of their new book The Berinfell Prophecies: Book One: Curse of the Spider King

There were sword-fights galore, an entirely different reading then his usual by Sir Wayne, and then they both played a song that Wayne wrote the words to that was really, really, good.

Then repeated again two more times for all the new guest that came in.

Always a fun thing. After that we went to an italian restaurant which had a gluten-free menu. My sister Heather and I ordered the gluten-free chicken parmesan. It was probably the best chicken parmesan I've ever had. (It wasn't breaded and was very moist.) Definitely a town, bookstore, wegmans, and restarant I want to visit again.

NaNoWriMo has started so I'll end here.

It was fun.

(Thanks to AnneMarie for taking the group photo)

A bit of writing advice, which you may freely disregard.

2009-10-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

NaNoWriMo is coming up this next month. If you haven't done it I would suggest that you give it a try, if nothing else then that writing a story of 50,000 words in 1 month is excellent practice for writing under pressure. Besides that, any excuse to practice your writing is good. My advice if you wish to write would be the following:

Write, write, write, and write some more. It doesn't matter how good it is initially, you need to write as much as you can, find your voice, it may be tempting to follow "rules" to a 't' but you need to have your own voice, that is very important too. NaNoWriMo gives you a great excuse to practice your writing, and if it turns out to be a horrible story, who cares! You're that much the wiser of what doesn't work for it. Writing isn't easy, it is a painful process with a lot of junk produced before you get to the good stuff. It's kind of like digging for treasure, there is probably going to be a whole lot more dirt then treasure, but you can't get to the treasure without first digging up the dirt. Writing is an adventure, you never know when that crazy idea you put in your NaNoWriMo novel might bring forth your next spark of literary genius.

Second piece of advice: Read, read, read, and read some more. Nearly or as important as writing, reading as many books as you can get your hands on will help you write better. Believe me, it is very important. Ask just about any of the most successful and/or best writers out there, chances are pretty high that they are huge readers. Try to read as wide a variety of genres as possible, even things you normally wouldn't like that much. Read outside your comfort zone. If you're a fantasy fan, try picking up some Austen or Dickens. If you're into romance novels, try reading a dystopian science-fiction novel.

My third piece of advice: I don't see this one very often, in fact I don't remember ever seeing it in a writer's advice article. Study the art. Study what it is that makes great fiction great. Learn about why things like Shakespeare move, inspire, and occasionally even transform us. Learn what it is that causes some books to impact the very soul of the reader. Learn about symbolism and what it is and isn't. Study genres, even those outside your particular niche, learn what it is that defines them. Be aware that the culture is Post-Modern, and that like it or not, you are probably going to be writing for Post-Modern readers, it is not a bad idea to study Post-Modernism. It is the language of the culture, if you're going to talk to the culture, you need to at least know the language. Study the art. Learn about literature, both classic and modern. With rare exceptions, great writers don't usually just sit down and think up a fantastic story, there is an art to it. Learn it!

iTolkien

2009-08-23T18:32:00.001-07:00

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings eBooks for iPod Touch/iPhone.

First an iPod Touch or an iPhone is required

Then you'll need to have the Kindle for iPhone app.

Finally you can buy The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings:

The Hobbit.

The Lord of the Rings

And then you have a pocket version of the books that you can read anywhere. I love it!

The Hunt For Gollum

2009-07-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

Dr. Amy H. Sturgis recently posted on her blog a link to a fan made Lord of the Ring's film about Aragorn's search for Gollum. The film had a budget of around what equals to about $5,000 and is surprisingly well produced. It is about 40 minutes long and can be viewed online. (The graphic above links to the website.)

While there are a few things about the story that are not quite true to Tolkien, like I'm not entirely certain Aragorn would have asked a statue for advice, it is generally similar to the tale Gandalf tells Frodo in the early part of The Fellowship of the Ring book. I'm impressed with the job that the actors did playing the roles. The Gandalf actor fits surprisingly well, though he says one thing that seems in direct confrontation with one of the biggest insights of the Lord of the Rings concerning Gollum. Aragorn's actor did a pretty good job with the role, I still like Viggo Mortensen's portrayal of Aragorn best, but this fellow was pretty good in the role. A few places were you can tell it was CGI but concerning the budget of the film, it's not too horribly disappointing.

I like independent films. Ancanar is a film I've been following the progress of, but unfortunatly the website has been "under development" for the past year or two. Still the trailer can be viewed here. It had/has promise, but never seems to have gone anywhere. Pity. Still, perhaps it'll be revived sometime.

It has been a dream of mine for some years to be involved in or make a film of my own. What I really would like to see is part of my story as a film. Or a story of mine at least. Definitely something I'm interested in. No matter what I do, it's a lot of work. But perhaps I can see it happen in time. I have so much to learn about it, it can be rather daunting.

Bamm Bamm Bamm.

2009-06-16T19:34:00.000-07:00

Life is short.

Make lots of noise.

What are you waiting for?

Congratulations!

2009-06-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Sir Christopher

H3 has arrived!

Congratulations on the arrival of Judah!

(Oh and I finished your published books for the second time around this afternoon. They're awesome!)

Where have I been.

2009-05-01T13:04:00.001-07:00

There is not much to report in my world lately. The most exciting thing being my new netbook which runs OpenOffice.org (my preferred word processor) quite well. I find it quite convenient for my writing and have written loads more with it. (Finally think I've got my tenth section underway, I've been having difficultly, this is the fifth time I've started it over from scratch.) Sure it has a small keyboard but once I got used to it that wasn't a problem.

We have a number of errands to run this afternoon, but I haven't posted anything here in ages so I wanted to post something. The Pub, Wal-Mart, the Gift Shop, and Grocery Shopping at the least.

I think I'll rename my blog to something more like "Tales From a Haunted Refrigerator" or other absurd non-sense. I'm open to suggestions. I rename my blog from time to time, and incidentally, probably frustrate my readers in the process.

I'm going to go see if I can write a sentence or two before we leave.

-Shane

Wow

2009-04-19T14:53:00.001-07:00

My new computer has a built in blogger editor. Is that cool or what?

It even loads up my blog background for me.

2009-04-16T01:06:00.001-07:00

boo!

Kind of funny

2009-04-15T21:53:00.001-07:00

President Bush isn't the only one with verbal mishaps....

Obama was showing off his new dog, he mentioned the following of the breed:

"It herds fish in Portuguese."

I believe he meant Portugal.

Otherwise, we have talking dogs on our hands...

Made me laugh.

Sticking with Blogger.

2009-04-12T11:20:00.001-07:00

As of right now, I'm sticking with Blogger. LJ has too many complications at the moment to make it worth it. If they improve or their permanent accounts go on sale again, I might change over then, but it's very likely to be a year or two before that happens.

Thanks!

-Shane

2009-04-09T07:05:00.000-07:00

I may be moving my blog here to LiveJournal... I'm not sure yet. I've copied my post over just the same.

Mostly I'm unsure because of comments and advertisements.

The advertisements can be gotten around by registered users who are either paid members or basic members. (The plus members, which is the default, has more features then the basic but is ad supported.)

Comments... Not sure if registering for LiveJournal would be a requirement for commenting. That could be inconvenient. Not that I have a whole lot of people who comment a lot either.

It has some advantages, like I can hide spoilers behind what is known as an "LJ-Cut" and it has loads of privacy options.

CSFF Blog Tour Day One: The Miller Brother's - Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow - A Review

2009-03-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow. I don’t know if I could say it is my favorite book, though it does have a lot to like. The storyline is pretty well told, not exceedingly confusing, with subtle clues placed in at proper places. This is well done. I wasn’t however completely surprised at the ending. The big climatic revelation had already been overly hinted at throughout the book and was removed of it’s power to surprise and significantly provoke any particular feeling or passion within me. However, despite also being telegraphed in advance, another event happens in the same scene that provokes those feelings. It is unfortunate that the main storyline didn’t work as well. There are a few other things that just didn’t feel right about it. It felt overly allegorical in places, like the story was getting lost in this guy equals that guy and this place equals that, etc. Nothing wrong with allegorical storytelling, but when you start to become suspicious of ever new character and place you meet as being equal to something else the story itself begins to lose its power, which indeed proves to be an unfortunate fault of this book.

Regardless, the story is well told once you get past the few things that just don’t work quite so well. I am very impressed with some of the questions that are brought up in the story. Extremely thought provoking ones like: “Why is there suffering and if God is all powerful, why doesn’t he stop it?” and other such questions. Excellent, excellent, stuff. Few authors are brave enough to ask the questions asked in this story, even fewer are brave enough to attempt to answer them. And while at times Hunter Brown an the Secret of Shadow doesn’t answer a question fully enough or answer as many aspects of the questions as much as I’d like, it does attempt to answer them. Definitely something to applaud.

The writing style is about average, not as poetic as Mr. Jeffrey Overstreet’s Auralia Thread perhaps, but still quite sufficient, particularly for the age group the book is targeted for. There is nothing wrong about it being such, Lewis’s Narnia isn’t the most poetical book either, and linguistically can’t hold a candle to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This book gravitates closer to Lewis then Tolkien in terms of language. But it is not poor writing and despite having two authors it is difficult for me to distinguish differences between them, the similarity in style is well established.

All in all this is an excellent first book for the Miller brothers. I would read it again and recommend it to someone desiring a good story, thoughtfully told, with a good message, and some exceedingly good questions.

----

Featured book, Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow:

Amazon Page for Hunter Brown and the Secret of Shadow
The Miller Brother's Website
The Miller Brother's Blog

I should post something.

2009-03-13T20:02:00.001-07:00

You know I really should, but I'm not going to.

:-)

Alright, it's Friday the 13th, that's worth noting.

Barbarians at the BBQ.

2009-02-25T15:36:00.000-08:00

Quite funny.

It comes from this group: B.A.D.D. (Bel Air Drama Department)

CSFF Blog Tour Day Three: Jeffrey Overstreet - Cyndere's Midnight: An Interview

2009-02-18T08:40:00.000-08:00

Shane Deal: What inspired the characters of Cyndere and Jordam?

Jeffrey Overstreet: Jordam the Beastman is not a new character, actually. He's one of the monsters who appears in the first book, Auralia's Colors. I didn't want the beastmen to be just ordinary monsters. I wanted to suggest that even these bloodthirsty mutants have a longing for beauty and a thirst for healing, so I gave Jordam a scene in that first book just to hint at that.

But that wasn't enough for me. The image that kept coming back to me--the idea of Jordam discovering some of Auralia's creative expressions out in the wilderness, and being calmed and inspired by beauty. Just like King Kong is inspired by the woman he loves. I relate to that. Beauty calls out to Jordam just as the beauty of a painting, or a tree, or a sunset can make me stop in the middle of my distractions and take a deep breath.

Like any Beauty and the Beast story, there also had to be a beautiful woman. But Cyndere came later. I knew that it would take a brave woman to stand her ground and deal with Jordam. Most people would run screaming at the sight of him. So Cyndere came to be inspired by brave people who have been willing to give up their comforts and safety in order to to and help people in need. A friend of mine said that Cyndere's like Elizabeth Eliot, the missionary who returned to the tribe that had killed her husband and ministered to them. I hadn't thought of that. But I like that connection.

Shane Deal: Now that Cyndere's Midnight has been released for awhile, is there anything you wish you could go back and change?

Jeffrey Overstreet: Oh, that's a painful question. Yes, every time I read my published work, I see things I would change if I could. I have what you might call "the George Lucas itch." But Star Wars fans know what happens when you let the artist keep messing with things years after they've been published, right? It's probably better for me to just let those things go. I don't know... maybe someday I'll publish Cyndere's Midnight - The Director's Cut.

If some of my readers could have their way, I'd be putting in more battles. But don't you think the fantasy genre has enough of those? I want to go places I haven't been before, to see what else might happen in a fantasy story. When I realized there would be a battle in Cyndere's Midnight, I re-read all of my favorite battle scenes so that I could avoid accidentally repeating anything. Nevertheless, after I wrote "The Siege of Barnashum," I realized what old, old battle story must have influenced me. Readers will have to figure that out on their own.

Shane Deal: What is the most challenging part about writing your books?

Jeffrey Overstreet: It's tough to find enough time... and the right kind of time. Time when my ears aren't ringing from the busyness of the day.

I work full-time at another job. And I have deadlines for my film reviews. It's tough to shift gears, to quiet down and drift off into a fantasy world. There are dishes that need to be washed, catboxes that need to be cleaned, and my library books are overdue. Traffic in Seattle is a wearying experience. Sometimes, I'll write from 7 p.m. until midnight, and only get one good paragraph out of it. To finish a book the size and complexity of Cyndere's Midnight in the course of one year, with a schedule like mine, is really difficult. It's a second full-time job.

But it's also tough to keep readers' responses from messing with my imagination.

Forgive me, but I've got an itch that needs scratching. I've been grateful for the criticism and the encouragement from readers. But it's disappointing to me when readers think I'm trying to "hide" or "bury" my faith behind fantasy.

Storytelling is part of my exploration of faith. It's one of the ways I express it. I'm not trying to hide anything. I'm trying to find a way to explore and celebrate aspects of faith that I can't otherwise explain. It's like composing instrumental music, or cultivating a garden, or dancing -- those pursuits reveal truth in mysterious and extravagant ways that a "lesson" never could. Fantasy can do the same thing. The Lord of the Rings is evidence of that. And I'm encouraged to find that even stories written by unbelievers--including pagan myths and fairy tales--reveal aspects of the truth, even though it would frustrate their authors to discover that. Tolkien understood this. It was while he explained this to C.S. Lewis that Lewis came to embrace Christianity.

I approach storytelling as a chance to play with beautiful sights and sounds and experiences in hopes that they will give readers the joy and inspiration they give me. The pursuit of these stories has drawn me much closer to God, and I'm sharing them with you in hopes that you might share some of that experience. It's not my job to simplify it or explain it for you. I'm not trying to write a book that can easily be translated into a study guide. I'm trying to paint pictures that reflect my experience of the mysterious glory of God. I'm a beginner, and I'm learning as I go, so I don't claim to have succeeded. But that's my earnest endeavor.

We're told in Psalm 19 that "the heavens declare the glory of God," and "day by day pours forth speech." Sometimes I wish the heavens and the days would be a little more explicit about what they're saying. But I know that the truth dazzles gradually, through beauty and through grace. And when I'm patient, I come to sense that beauty is speaking to me about God in ways I cannot paraphrase. I'm hoping to capture a sense of that in Auralia's world

And I do hope readers will be patient, and refrain from declaring me a heretic until they've seen all four volumes. We're only halfway through, after all.

Shane Deal: You have some rather interesting names, do you wish to share any particular stories of how you came up with some of them?

Jeffrey Overstreet: Sometimes it's as simple as finding words that describe the character, and then smashing them together to see what happens. I can't remember exactly, but I think "Auralia" came from playing around with the word "aura" and the name "Laura" (which means "light.") Sometimes, I look for sounds that give me a sense of the character.

One of the Gatherers is a rough, crass, hard-edged fellow, and the name "Krawg" just sounds right. It sounds rather like a cuss word from some other world, doesn't it?

Krawg's friend is overly cautious and worried, so "Warney" just sounded right for him. I was delighted when someone reminded me later that C.S. Lewis's brother was called by the same name.

Shane Deal: Do you have any story ideas for after you finish this series? Or is that too far ahead at this point?

Jeffrey Overstreet: I have a lot of big ideas. I have an adventure series for younger readers that takes place in a world of talking animals, like something Pixar might turn into a movie. (Forgive me if I dream about that for a moment.) And I have a few stories from my high school experiences that I'd like to tell, with a bit of a fantasy flourish. There's another huge fantasy story--a horror story, really--about a group of artists who start experiencing something truly unusual in their work. But I don't feel quite ready to launch that ship just yet. And I have a couple of non-fiction projects brewing as well.

But I'm going to rest for a while when I finish The Auralia Thread. I'll need to rest, recharge, and start training for the next marathon.

------

Many thanks to Mr. Overstreet for allowing me the privilege of an interview.

Also worth checking out:

I highly recommend watching the following talk, given by Mr. Overstreet at Seattle Pacific University in October of 2007:

"We Gotta Get Outta Here" - How Tolkien, Lewis, and L'Engle Help Us Hope"

I watch or listen to it quite often. (Usually listening while driving.)

-Shane

Featured book, Cyndere’s Midnight - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400072530
Jeffrey Overstreet’s Web site - http://lookingcloser.org/
Jeffrey Overstreet’s blog - http://lookingcloser.org/category/journal/
Jeffrey Overstreet at Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeffrey-Overstreet/42902959

CSFF Blog Tour Day Two: Jeffrey Overstreet - Cyndere's Midnight: A Review

2009-02-16T23:41:00.000-08:00

There is very little to criticize about it, actually. Thus I fear that the review will be overwhelmingly positive.

Jeffrey Overstreet’s Cyndere’s Midnight is a novel, the second in the Auralia Thread series, the blue strand.

The book’s wonder starts even before you begin to read it, the cover itself is excellently designed. It was the cover of Auralia’s Colors that drew me to that book, Cyndere’s Midnight has an equally well designed cover. I definitely have to praise the work of Kristopher K. Orr & Kelly L. Howard on their excellent design.

Jeffrey Overstreet is unapologetic in creating real, believable, and beautiful, characters. From the very first sentence he weaves the tremendous personality of our heroine. “Cyndere walked down to the water to make her daily decision–turn and go back into House Bel Amica, or climb Stairway Rock and throw herself into the sea.” Such golden verse, such beautiful prose. The book is filled with it, like Auralia’s Colors before it, it is poetic and powerful. Not only that, the book is filled with things that would usually be considered quite strange. Half-beast, half men. And yet, Jeffrey Overstreet has such a gift of weaving beauty into his books that he can make a book about what would at first glance seem deplorable, beautiful. His storytelling will bring questions to your mind, and challenge you to ask them. Begging you to look closer and presenting you with the idea that perhaps the monsters without are not that different then those within. And while such plots have been done many times over in literature, you have several books featuring good orcs for example, Jeffrey Overstreet doesn’t have the preaching that I often see such books have, instead Mr. Overstreet trust the reader enough to draw what conclusions he or she might make from the story itself.

The book is able to challenge your prejudices without raising your guard, I found myself relating to a character so different from me as to be nearly alien. I have to say that this is one of the most well written books, from many angles, that I’ve read in a very long time. It is the kind of book I’d like to see folks discussing the same way that we still talk about Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

I highly recommend it.

-Shane

An earlier review of Auralia's Colors

Featured book, Cyndere’s Midnight - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400072530
Jeffrey Overstreet’s Web site - http://lookingcloser.org/
Jeffrey Overstreet’s blog - http://lookingcloser.org/category/journal/
Jeffrey Overstreet at Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeffrey-Overstreet/42902959

CSFF Blog Tour Day One: Jeffrey Overstreet - Cyndere's Midnight: My Impressions

2009-02-16T00:17:00.000-08:00

I've been looking forward to this tour since I saw that it might be coming up. I had the chance to read Cyndere's Midnight over the holidays and in nutshell it has joined the favorite, worth reading over and over, book section of my shelf. Overstreet is the rare writer who can tell a good tale in elegant language that has enough depth to make it worth reading several times.

Cyndere's Midnight starts pretty much where Auralia's Colors, the phenomenal first book in the series, left off. The poetic language of Auralia's Colors is maintained in Cyndere's Midnight but a much more distinct plot is formed. It feels well as a book on its own as well as with Auralia's Colors, another sign of the excellence of the writing.

I am astounded by the depth that Overstreet brings to his writing. His writing is deep, profound, and beautiful. Literature as it is meant to be. I believed Auralia's Colors to be an outstanding example of modern literature, my belief has not been disappointed upon reading Cyndere's Midnight, it has been reinforced.

Every once in awhile you will come across a novel that is rich in meaning, even if you can’t say what the book means. There are several themes to be found in Cyndere’s Midnight, but there is not any problematic telling the reader something they need to learn. Lessons learned in Cyndere’s Midnight come from the readers own observation of the story, which is generally speaking, exactly what a good book tries to do. In my opinion, a book, even and perhaps especially, a fictional book’s first and primary purpose is to instruct, to change, to impact the mind and soul of the reader. Redemptive literature does not leave one the same as when they started the book. Cyndere’s Midnight is no exception. It delights the reader while giving them the opportunity to think about things in a manner they might not have before. Which is why when I read Cyndere’s Midnight I was astonished about what character it was that I most related to.

A highly recommended read! I believe that Mr. Overstreet’s writing could hold its own among the classics.

-Shane

An earlier review of Auralia's Colors

Featured book, Cyndere’s Midnight - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400072530
Jeffrey Overstreet’s Web site - http://lookingcloser.org/
Jeffrey Overstreet’s blog - http://lookingcloser.org/category/journal/
Jeffrey Overstreet at Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeffrey-Overstreet/42902959

Holiday Post

2009-02-14T03:58:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day

Of Book Signings and Pubs.

2009-02-08T14:29:00.000-08:00

We had an awesome time going down to The Banshee in Scranton, PA yesterday. Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper were doing a book signing/lunch and we decided to go to it.

We left our house about eight o’ clock in the morning, it’s a three hour trip but we wished to give ourselves the extra hour in case we ran into trouble along the way. After rest stops (The New York welcome building has WiFI!) and such we arrived about 11:30 at “The Banshee”. After being greeted by and greeting Sir Wayne and Sir Christopher, we sat down at a table.

It was a tremendous afternoon. Food, fun, and great conversations. Sword fights and book readings, we had a blast! A news station even showed up! It was a fun afternoon. Glad to have done it.

Besides the wonderful time we had with Sir Christopher and Sir Wayne, we had a great deal of fun on the ride as well. The most fun part of the trip was obviously the book signing event, but the rest was still good. Dad drove Heather and I down, it was good to spend time with him. We were all tired by the time we got back to our house, but during the trip we listened to a lot of music by a wide variety of musicians and genres and were having a pretty good time. I brought a book with me to read but it was forgotten in favor of scenery. When I read I tend to get totally absorbed. Even though we traveled nearly the exact same route in May of last year on our trip to Maryland I still enjoyed watching the scenery.

I find I like traveling. But I probably wouldn't like obsessive amounts of it.

On the subject of Scranton, I was thrilled to be visiting Scranton, when I put a scene in my book that takes place at "The Banshee" I was bit by the "Must Visit The Banshee Bug"... That was in November. If I had time I would have walked the same route that my characters did one evening.

In my book a group of Dwarves were visiting "The Banshee" and enjoying it very much. They were not there yesterday, must have been somewhere else. :-) Still it was kind of cool to stand in a spot that my characters stood in. I think I'm going to have to have the Dwarves visit our local pub.

Speaking of our local pub, we visited it as well for our dinner. It would have been a nice quiet evening as there were hardly any other customers except for a large but quiet party at the longest table or groups of tables... Not sure what they did. It would have been a nice quiet evening except that about five or ten minutes after we sat down the fire alarm went off. (It turned out to be a false alarm that someone accidently set off by hitting the alarm button on the forth floor.) Needless to say everyone had to leave the building. It wasn't too cold out yesterday thankfully. Most people hadn't grabbed their jackets. Glad it was a false alarm.

I also found that the local pub serves excellent salads, and they will let us bring our own dressing in the future. (Which is good because we have allergy issues to worry about.)

Of Presidents and Technology.

2009-01-22T23:35:00.000-08:00

Whether you agree with him or not the new website design for the White House is better then President Bush or Clinton's websites:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Well it's much better then President Clinton's. President Bush? A little better. President Clinton's site was basically a list of links. President Obama's has better graphics... Not sure if it's easier to navigate then President Bush's site.

There is a certain amount of hilarity in the President using YouTube for his weekly address. I mean back in the old days it seemed like the Government hosted just about everything for themselves, and now the President is just using YouTube. They do have a copy for download... But still... YouTube! I think someone needs to found GovTube or something.

Government websites usually have the worst design ever. I do have to hand that to President Obama, at least he's got good website designers. Now, let's just hope the trend spreads to the rest of the Government websites. Some of them still look like they were designed in the 90's... Probably were!

-Shane

CSFF Blog Tour: D. Barkley Briggs: The Book of Names - Day II

2009-01-20T17:17:00.000-08:00

I was not planning to do anything beyond the first day of the tour but I thought this afternoon that I would list the things I do like about the book.

One of the more interesting aspects of the story line is the use of runes. I won't say what they are for, but a quick wikipedia search did bring up some interesting stories about some of the places mentioned in the book.

There is one character with a clever sword that I found rather amusing.

Despite already having encountered a similar concept in Christopher Paolini's Eragon books, I love the idea of the word being the thing. I imagine this will come into play a lot more later in the book and be revealed to be more important then it appears at first glance. Lovely idea, if fully realized, we could be in for quite an adventure.

In my review I did fail to mention one character who is not a villain and yet is complex and interesting. A young lady named Asandra, a very interesting character with quite a bit of potential.

I liked the preview chapters for the next book, nice setup for the rest of the book. :-)

-Shane

Links of importance:

The Book of Names on Amazon
D. Barkley Briggs’s Web site
D. Barkley Briggs’s blog

CSFF Blog Tour: D. Barkley Briggs: The Book of Names

2009-01-18T21:04:00.000-08:00

I generally don't like writing negative reviews, but I have to be honest, I really did want to write a positive review, but I was less then impressed by the book.

I must say that I came to this book, like I do for all books, with high expectations. Perhaps for a satisfying story or at least some kind of great philosophical point to chew on for a few days. Perhaps I had expectations that were to high and missed the joy of the storytelling as a result.

The Book of Names, a novel by D. Barkley Briggs, is the first book in the Legends of Karac Tor series. It reads similarly to Madline L’engle, though less polished, and not as deep as L’engle’s work. Still, it is a moderately good start to a series, but not an excellent one. The first four chapters proved to be interesting and meaningful, but from then on it failed to fully capture any sense of wonder, though there were some things to think about from time to time.

For much of the book it felt as if the characters were wandering about in a fog. I never felt I could get close enough to the character’s either, they seemed very distant, remote. The exception to the rule being the villains, which often was given in the very intimate first person point of view. I felt a closeness and personality to them, why not the heroes? The villains were well done enough, having more depth then most villains, they are the ones that leave you thinking at the end of the book, not the heroes, which by contrast felt very flat. One character, of whom I got the impression was playing the teacher role in the book kept conveniently forgetting some important and very obvious details that one of his station and occupation etc wouldn’t be very likely to overlook on several occasions, a plot device far overused.

In truth, I was disappointed. I hope that perhaps I will receive the wish for more depth in the rest of the series, the first two chapters to the next book are at the back of this one and they seem promising in that department. I am hoping that it won’t got back into wandering around in a fog, which really was this books biggest failure. It seemed to lack an overall shape. What was the overarching definition of the story? It didn’t seem to have any kind of set beginning and more importantly an end, even if it’s not the end of the series it felt like it was just cut off one day when it seemed like a good length for a book. I was holding my breath for the again in the “There and Back Again.” that we read in The Hobbit. Perhaps there isn’t meant to be an again, I don’t know. The story isn’t over yet, I will give it that possibility. Still it fails to stand as an individual book apart from the rest of the series.

I really did wish to like the book and had a number of high expectations, but they were left unfulfilled and disappointed. I hope that the rest of the books will redeem the first one and help clear out some of the fog the characters were wandering in, or maybe it simply needs a second reading on my part. I will allow that a brilliant overall narrative is a possibility, and the fog wandering is just some kind of “set up” for the rest of the series.

Overall, despite my complaints, I did enjoy it a bit. Just not nearly as much as I would have liked to. Mostly for the simple reason of not feeling like I’ve had the chance to actually get to know the main characters, at the end of the book they still seemed like strangers. The exception being the villainess, her I felt like I knew a bit and she stands out in my mind as the most distinctly different character.

We’ll have to see how the story plays out. I will not say that it isn’t worth the time to read, but it isn’t as good as it could be. It may just need a re-reading on my part, I hope to do so eventually, when I do and if I find it better, I’ll post another review of it. I’ve had that happen before, a book turn out to be much more enjoyable on the second reading then the first. So there is still hope! I do applaud D. Barkley Briggs on the tremendous amount of effort put into the story, despite my feelings about it, I must acknowledge the depth of the work involved. Writing a story isn't easy, and it was a good effort.

-Shane

Links of importance:

The Book of Names on Amazon
D. Barkley Briggs’s Web site
D. Barkley Briggs’s blog

Happy Birthday...

2009-01-03T17:56:00.000-08:00

J. R. R. Tolkien!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

Well it's here, after about 2008 years of waiting in line...

2009

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T05:34:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas Eve.

In our family, it's the bigger holiday. Christmas Day is a nice day and we do continue to celebrate then as well, but Christmas Eve is the big one. :-D

Merry Christmas!

Done with Part Eight.

2008-12-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

I know, you're probably saying. "Wait a minute... Didn't you just finish part nine?"

Yeah. I did.

But I had to put Part Eight on hold. Now I have finished that as well.

I'm fast approaching my word count goal, which I expect will be vastly reduced during revision.

Even so, I'm hoping to divide it as a trilogy when it's finished. In the meantime, working on it making it the best I can. As far as publishing goes, it will not likely be the first book I attempt to have published. That may not come in fact for another two or three completed books. (Which will likely be quite a bit shorter then this trilogy will be.)

-Shane

Done with Part Nine.

2008-11-25T09:35:00.000-08:00

I've finished the ninth part in my manuscript. Which brings the total number of words before I can actually begin to start cutting things out of it to have a trilogy is less then sixty thousand. I've got some finishing up to do in part eight before I can start the final part, part ten.

When I finish, it'll probably be a trilogy with each book being roughly 125,000 to 150,000 words each. I'm writing to 500,000 as I expect to trim back during editing and revision.

Dreadfully busy.

2008-11-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

I've been exceptionally busy this November, I haven't gotten the Christmas tree up yet. I usually put that up in October.

And now I must get back to my writing... :-D

-Shane

Sometime Today...

2008-11-03T22:51:00.000-08:00

Vote.

(If you're an American)

Political Pride

2008-11-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

I usually don't like reading or writing political blog posts, but I wish to write about politics for once.

This post is to bring up an issue that is of importance but ignored.

Politics. There are parties and individuals, all of them with many merits and failures. But looking around at the opinions flying of the shelves in the last few months I think that maybe there is just a bit of pride involved. At what point does a person become so concerned about a political view that they cease to be concerned for another person? It seems to me that we truly do not appreciate the value of human beings. We hold ridiculous ideas ahead of them? We're not even talking about truth here, I'm talking about issues of relative non-importance to the human soul, economy, social-security, and more issues then I can count. Why do I call the economy a non-important issue? Simple, it really shouldn't matter us whether we be rich or poor. People are people regardless of how much or how little they have.

There are of course several very important issues that are indeed important and "soul-impacting" in their outcome. For good or bad they do affect human life and dignity far more then the non-important issues like economy, and other things of that nature.

In the end it all comes down to pride. Pride of the candidates, pride of parties, and pride of the people. Pride is what makes us say "I'm better then they are." which is exactly what people of every type are saying everywhere. Liberals are better then conservatives, republican's are better then democrats, and vice versa. Biden is better then Palin, McCain is better then Obama... You get the picture. Even the third candidates are not exempt from the political pride. Indeed one of the things that always turns me off about the third parties is that they tend to be very arrogant and filled with pride. If possible, more so then the major parties and their candidates do. Though I've seen it in past elections in the Constitution Party, I've not researched them enough to know if their current candidate is a man of pride or humility. When we see the candidates start to attack each other, once again pride and ego are too often at the center of it.

This is what makes Aragorn such a wonderful king. His lack of pride. Here he is the greatest of men in middle earth and his rule is characterised by his humility. It was what made Moses such a great leader for the wandering Israelites. In King David we see some examples of humility and of pride. There are examples all throughout history of great leaders who walked in humility. It seems to me that the greater ones, the ones who we look back and honor are the men who were humble. Not always, but more often then not. The most admirable leaders in history and literature are those who are humble.

I know I verge on moralism by what I'm about to say, that is not my intention.
I for one am tired of a country divided by political parties. Let's take sides and puff ourselves up. Even the followers are like that, not just the candidates. If these candidates, if these political activist, these supporters, these republicans, democrats, liberals, and conservatives really wished to solve anything they would begin by tearing down the political walls and pursuing righteousness. Namely, learning to walk in humility. Name an issue, it's solution is almost always getting yourself out of the picture. In my mind a good president is several things: First he is a man of principle, he walks uprightly in righteousness and truth. He is a man of high moral standing. I'm sorry, but contrary to some ideas, personal morality does matter in a leader. I suppose we ought to elect Hitler if it doesn't matter. He is charming and promises hope for the future after all. (No I'm not taking shots at our current candidates.) His problem? Personal morality was absent. A man filled with hate. I do not like the lack of integrity in our candidates. To be honest, I notice it stronger in John McCain then in Obama. Though both are lacking.

I'll start with John McCain. A true flip-flopper. He is hardly pro-life. (Appearing to me to be what I call "Will Be Pro-Life for Votes!") The marriage side of his life should be as appalling to us as the actions of former President Clinton were a decade ago. And it seems he has a tendency to lie a lot. I heard he has a nasty temper as well. I don't hear a lot about his moral faults however. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Obama, while a decent family man in support of the role and responsibility of the father in raising a family, suffers from one ailment of lying, two or more counts of questionable ties, a tendency of secrecy, and his biggest fault by far is his disrespect for human life. There really are no excuses for not telling the truth, and for disregarding the importance of human life. All human life. He does however have one good thing about him. He tells you what he thinks frankly. Whether it is true or not, is up for debate. And perhaps I'm wrong here too.

As for the third party candidates, I haven't been following their personal lives closely enough to know if they are morally courageous people. Folks who will take the cost of doing what is right. Though I must admit, that the Constitution party's candidates usually have a little more morals then the rest of them. I have a number of other reasons I do not particularly care for that party however. They talk about being very constitutional in their ideas, but seem to get in a jam when someone they disagree with shows up.

Second: A president must be humble and self-sacrificing. He must truly see the citizens as being better then himself. He must be the kind of leader who will personally stands in harms way in order to protect his people. He must not view himself as above the other people in the country. Unfortunately I can only think of a few example and most of them are fictional characters. I'm sure there are more but: Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, king Luik from Christopher Hopper's books, Wayne Thomas Batson's King character, and of course Moses.

Third: A president's duty must be to be honest, and to be frankly honest. If the country is in grave danger from within or without it is his duty to give us the truth.

Fourth: A president must be fair but just. It is this factor that makes it hard, because a president's role is one of representing everyone. Everyone. He has to represent those with whom he doesn't agree with. To do that without compromise, I do not know if it can be done. In the end there must be a line of tolerance, still... The best president limits government power rather then overextends it, wavering on the side of liberty over law. Though with every good exception there seems to be a bad one.

In the end, it is important that we get out and vote, but with whoever wins we must not throw celebrations that the other lost. Oh we can be excited for our choice, but I do not relish seeing celebrations of defeat.

A few thoughts, and if they make sense, congratulations, because it doesn't make sense to me. :-D

-Shane

NaNoWriMo

2008-10-31T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's time for NaNoWriMo...

It's crazy. But hopefully I'll have something by the end of the month.

-Shane

CCSF Blog Tour Day Three: Beyond The Reflections Edge - Of Names and Doppelgängers.

2008-10-21T21:54:00.000-07:00

So here we are on the third and final day of the Beyond the Reflection's Edge edition of the CSFF Blog Tour.

And part two of my thoughts (which again, may contain spoilers, proceed with caution):

My thoughts on names:

Kelly: While my interview with Mr. Davis on day one of the tour seems to indicate that Kelly's name was chosen for other reasons, I find it strangely ironic that the name means “brave”, given that Kelly really is the most courageous character in the book as far as I see it, the name fits her perfectly. It can also mean “warrior woman”, which also fits quite well.

Mictar and Patar: Interesting names for interesting characters. I can't help but think of Mictar and Pactar as being doppelgänger characters. One of them gives insight to the other and vice-versa. The other is the shadow-character of the one. Patar seems as good as Mictar is evil, They have a great deal in apparent common. Reading about Patar gives us a small look into Mictar, where as Mictar gives us insight into Patar. In regards to their names. I am reminded of malevolence with Mictar, and peace with Patar. I think it's the use of the “M” and the “P” as their starting letter, still it fits their respective personalities. I do not know why Mr. Davis chose their names but that's my thoughts on them.

Nathan: Again, my interview with Mr. Davis on day one indicates that Nathan was named after Nathan the prophet who spoke to King David, however, he is a person who lives up to his name's meaning: Giver. He does have a sacrificial tendency, and I couldn't help notice this nature whenever he threw himself between danger and Kelly or whoever else he was with at the time. Again, it's still a fitting name.

Mictar and Patar are not the only shadow characters, many of the characters have another set of themselves that show up at some point or other in the book. Often times I see another aspect to the character that the other version of the character wouldn't have revealed to me.

Speaking of names, I love the use of proper names for places such as “Wal-Mart” it's unbelievable how such a small little touch as that gives it a much more believable feel. I was surprised at how much more believable that little touch made the book.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series, with any luck, I'm hoping to receive Eternity's Edge, which is the second book in the trilogy, sometime within the next few days.

You can learn more about Bryan Davis and Beyond the Reflection's Edge at the following websites, or you can purchase the book from Amazon.com or from Bryan Davis's website. Check it out!

Beyond the Reflection's Edge on Amazon.com

Bryan Davis's Website

Bryan Davis’s Blog

CCSF Blog Tour Day Two: Beyond The Reflections Edge - A Few Thoughts

2008-10-20T21:44:00.001-07:00

Today I'm writing about my personal thoughts concerning Beyond the Reflection's Edge.

This isn't so much a review as a blog post about my personal feelings and thoughts about the book and story. It may sound like a review, but that's not its primary purpose. Be aware that this post may contain some spoilers. As such, here are the links... I usually place them at the end of the post but in order to give the opportunity to avoid spoilers I am placing them here:

You can learn more about Bryan Davis and Beyond the Reflection's Edge at the following websites, or you can purchase the book from Amazon.com or from Bryan Davis's website. Check it out!

Beyond the Reflection's Edge on Amazon.com

Bryan Davis's Website

Bryan Davis’s Blog

----

As for my thoughts, let's start with the characters:

I really like the main characters, Nathan and Kelly. They are both vastly different and yet there is something similar about them. I like that. They work together in a way that is pleasant. They have depth and personality that is unique to themselves. It's beautiful to watch them work together. Nathan is wonderfully considerate. (For a guy at any rate.) Kelly is a fascinating character in many ways, emotional, but not overly so, strong, but not ridiculously so, and she really is a good friend to Nathan even when he fails to think something through all the way or something of that nature. She's not overly dependent on him, something I appreciate.

And let's face it, villains are hard. Mictar is an exception. You do not know what he is going to do next. There is the true element of surprise. A lot of times villains can be rather predictable. Not Mictar. (At least I think that Mictar is the villain.) As far a villainous characters go, Mictar is an exceptional one. His henchmen are equally unpredictable. (Or are they really henchmen?)

Then there is Tony. His treatment of Kelly can be maddening and yet there is a funny aspect to him. He seems shallow on the surface, but I think there might be more there then meets the eye. Liver and Anchovies pizza and all.

Clara is another interesting character. Playing the mentor role in many ways, besides being Nathan's teacher, she guides Nathan and Kelly throughout the book. It'll be interesting to see what happens with her character as the series progresses.

And movie-quoting, fun-loving, super-intelligent, the rather spunky Daryl. She's hard to forget! Makes me want to start quoting movies all the time when I read those lines!

Besides the fascinating characters I love all the cross-dimensional aspects of it. In an earlier review I wrote I found it a bit bothersome, but perhaps I kind of missed the boat so to speak... I don't know whether I think of this work as a science-fiction piece or a fantasy one, it has elements of both genres. I kind of like seeing that mix of different kinds of storytelling. I don't suppose there really is a way to travel between various spaces and times or space-times or whatever via music, and light, etc. Thus it reminds me of fantasy, on the other hand, we don't know everything there is to know about science and maybe music does play a bigger role then we currently imagine, thus it reminds me of science-fiction. Whatever it is, it is brilliant. The whole cross-dimensional aspects of the book actually to tell you the truth, thrill me to the core. I love it! It's not like most of the other books I've read.

I do think I'm enjoying the book more upon the second reading. It makes more sense to me now. The plot is a rather complex one, which might be why.

And though this isn't supposed to be a review, I do highly recommend Beyond the Reflection's Edge by Bryan Davis.

I love it!

-Shane

CCSF Blog Tour Day One: Beyond The Reflections Edge - An Interview with Bryan Davis.

2008-10-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Bryan Davis for letting me conduct an e-mail interview with him over the weekend.

-Shane

The Interview:

----

Shane Deal: What inspired you to write Beyond the Reflection's Edge?

Bryan Davis: My second-born son gave me the idea. He envisioned a mirror that reflected a trunk, but in the mirror the trunk was open while in reality it was closed. We brainstormed the idea until we came up with the roots of the story.

Shane Deal: What was the inspiration for the main characters?

Bryan Davis: I wanted two diverse characters, one male and one female. I like representing both genders with strong characters in order to grab the interest of all readers, and I wanted to develop a pair who came from very different upbringings. Nathan comes from a very strict home. He is spiritually aware, though, in a way, somewhat naïve with regard to those with looser standards. Kelly is a girl who represents the “other side of the tracks” family, at least in Nathan’s eyes. Nathan becomes aware of Kelly’s past indiscretions and has to learn to deal with them, because they are thrown together as a team and have to work in harmony.

Shane Deal: Kind of a related question. Their names?

Bryan Davis: I chose Nathan because he was King David’s prophet, a rather bold fellow who didn’t mind telling like it is. My Nathan has some of that gumption, but he doesn’t always know how to use it. So his mouth becomes acquainted with his foot at times, if you know what I mean. I chose Kelly, because I wanted a gender-neutral name. Kelly’s father, an avid athlete, always wanted a boy, so the name is a constant reminder to Kelly that she wasn’t exactly what her daddy had in mind. That pain causes her to pursue athletics and shapes her character, for better and for worse.

Shane Deal: What are your hopes for this book, in what ways do you wish for it to impact your readers or yourself?

Bryan Davis: I hope my readers will remember to look deeper than what they see on the surface, to allow people to change, to show compassion toward those who are different without compromising their values. As readers progress in the series, I hope they will be impacted by the power of real forgiveness and the joy of true reconciliation.

For myself, I portrayed the hero, Nathan, as a strictly raised homeschooler, someone with a spiritual background much like my own children’s. As I watched him navigate a culture with which he is unfamiliar, it helped me examine what I teach my children. Are they ready to face the strange world out there? Can they cope with people who are so different and do so with resolve to stay pure while displaying compassion? How will they use what they have been taught when their teachers are absent?

These questions have led me to use Nathan’s adventure to query both my children and myself as I slowly open up their horizons to the world outside our home.

Shane Deal: Why did you choose music and light to open the dimensional portals?

Bryan Davis: Music allowed me to show symbols of harmony, both in the makeup of the universe and among people. Dissonance, or the lack of harmonious flow, was the constant enemy in the story, causing multi-dimensional cosmic meltdowns. Whenever Nathan and Kelly learned to work together, they were successful in bringing harmony to the created order. Although this aspect isn’t obvious in the story, I hope the parallels are clear to the astute reader.

Light has long been the symbol of truth and knowledge. Since light opens our eyes to truth in many situations, it made sense for light to be the final factor in opening portals to other worlds. When combined with the idea of musical harmony, I was trying to symbolize the balance between harmony and truth. Without truth, agreement among people is sometimes based on falsehood and will eventually crumble. Without harmony, truth can be harsh and lack compassion. I wanted both components present to symbolize how the two must be in balance.

----

Thanks again Bryan! You can learn more about Bryan Davis and Beyond the Reflection's Edge at the following websites, or you can purchase the book from Amazon.com or from Bryan Davis's website. Check it out!

Beyond the Reflection's Edge on Amazon.com

Bryan Davis's Website

Bryan Davis’s Blog

CSFF: The Motiv8 Fantasy Fiction Tour.

2008-10-08T23:56:00.000-07:00

Motiv8 Fantasy Fiction Tour .
The authors: Wayne Thomas Batson , Bryan Davis , Sharon Hinck , Christopher Hopper , L.B. Graham , Donita Paul , Eric Reinhold , and Jonathan Rogers .

This week is the remarkable and wonderfully entertaining to watch via live broadcast, Fantasy Fiction Tour 2008. You might just see something interesting such as Christopher Hopper totally rocking out or doing a dance in the background while L. B. Graham is speaking. (I'm not going to let him forget that little episode.) :-D Or you can chat with the other folks that are watching. Beware of coffee, marshmallow trolls, and flying orange juice.

I'm very excited about the whole thing, despite only able to attend it virtually, via the webcam. The author's websites are above. Well worth checking out.

I look forward to what tomorrow's webcast might bring us... Another sword fight perhaps? Or maybe another totally hilarious and unexpected random moment like the one described above.

Lot's of exciting things. Sometimes, the authors will even answer your questions via the live web-cam/chat.

If you happen to be in the area, of the tour (West Coast.) you might want to try seeing these folks... Besides doing funny things, they are all very talented and wonderful authors.

-Shane

Watching Live.

2008-10-05T06:49:00.000-07:00

Eight Fantasy authors are touring the west coast this week... I've been watching them live at:

The Fantasy Fiction Tour website.

-Shane

That is also what the little video player on my sidebar is for.

2008-09-26T16:49:00.000-07:00

I was tagged like a month ago by Christopher Hopper with this game, mission, quest, thing...

Here’s how it works.

I’m going to list five MUST Read novels and five Keep Your Eyes on These novels, then tag five bloggers who I’m asking to post my list on their site. They may then add one book to each list but must also subtract one book. Finally they should tag five other bloggers, link here at A Christian Worldview of Fiction and comment to this post so visitors here know to check out how they may have changed the list.

- - -

MUST Reads :
The Door Within by Wayne Thomas Batson (Tommy Nelson)
Demon: a Memoir by Tosca Lee (NavPress)
The Lion Vrie by Christopher Hopper (Tsaba House)
The Restorer by Sharon Hinck (NavPress)
Beyond the Reflection’s Edge by Bryan Davis (Zondervan)

Keep Your Eyes On These :
Scarlet by Stephen Lawhead (Thomas Nelson)
On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson (WaterBrook)
Auralia’s Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet (WaterBrook)
The Last of the Nephilim (AMG Publishers)
The Paradise War by Stephen Lawhead (Westbow Press)

FIVE BOOKS TO LOOK FOR SOON:
Shade by John Olson (B&H)
Field of Blood by Eric Wilson (Thomas Nelson)
Isle of Fire by Wayne Thomas Batson (Tommy Nelson)
Stepping into Sunlight by Sharon Hinck (Bethany)
Eternity’s Edge by Bryan Davis (Zondervan)

The bloggers I’m asking to post the list (and make one book-for-book change to each list if they wish):

Grant

Chris (B)

Unfortunately I cannot think of three other bloggers at the moment... SO the last three are open to the takers. :-D

I'm having a wonderful time

2008-09-24T15:39:00.001-07:00

I'm having a wonderful time at the pastor's conference. I'd post a picture but my memory card quit working.

We are going to the

2008-09-24T03:10:00.001-07:00

We are going to the pastor's conference today!

Mostly a test.

2008-09-23T13:01:00.001-07:00

Well, it looks like I can post photographs from my new cell phone! That's pretty cool.

-Shane

Isle of Fire

2008-09-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

So at long last I finally received my copy of Wayne Thomas Batson's book Isle of Fire

I enjoyed it quite a bit, I appreciated that the brutality of the violence was toned down a little from Isle of Swords.

I hesitate to say much more then that it was really good, as there isn't much to say about it without spoiling something, the book is one surprise move after another. One of my favorites involving a game of sorts. My favorite character survived so I'm happy. (No I won't say who my favorite character is.)

And yes, there is a line that leaves room for a sequel if Mr. Batson ever gets the inclination to do so.

You can buy it off of Amazon and probably a variety of bookstores and such!

A Lantern in the Woods.

2008-08-23T03:20:00.000-07:00

I'll admit that I got the inspiration for this project straight from C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia.

My guitar teacher gave me his old lamp post when we stopped by his house one day as he was digging it up to put in a new one. He was like "Do you have a use for that?" I knew exactly what to do with it... It became a summer project of ours running wiring up into the woods since we had to dig a trench to do it, but the results were nothing short of absolutely magical!

-Shane

Angels We Have Heard On High!

2008-08-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

My sister and I had a bit of a laugh late last night conjecturing what types of music the angels might have played when God created the universe. (I can't remember where it is but it seems like I remember the Bible saying that there was music during the event.)

Heavy metal or hard rock on day 1. The earth and other rocks were formed on this day. But what popped into our heads, but a rather different looking group of angels then your usual illustration. Including a drummer angel who used his halo* for an additional percussion instrument. "ding ding"

*halos might not actually exist, at least not playable ones at any rate.

2008-08-11T15:02:00.000-07:00

The arts are interesting.

It's amazing how much of it relies on personal taste. For example, the "Into the West" song on the Return of the King soundtrack, my friend thought it was awesome. I personally cannot stand the singer's voice. On the flip side, I love Gollum's Song from The Two Towers, he doesn't.

You'll never please everyone as an artist. But that's ok.

Because it makes me laugh.

2008-08-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

"They're Taking The Hobbits to Isengard!"

Great site:

2008-08-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

I'd even venture to say that if you wish to improve your writing, take the time to read all of the tips, it's well worth the effort:

Fiction Writing Tip of the Week

Political Pictures I Find Amusing...

2008-08-04T19:36:00.000-07:00

(This is a politically neutral post, not meant to be an endorsement of anyone in particular, I just think they're funny. The comments are my own made-up "quotes")

"Oh we're best friends now."

"Well if Dad can hang out with Bill I can hang out with Bono."

"There is a suspicious looking character over here."

"Alright, so the Secret Service position isn't available. I guess I can try to be president! Next best thing you know."

"Maybe I could be a comedian if I lose! Do you think this is funny?"

"Or if I lose, why not fulfill my lifelong dream of being a hero, but not just an ordinary hero, no, a SUPERHERO, evil doers beware, you are no match for the awesome powers of OBAMA-BOY and his super-suction ears."

"They want a recount on the Global Warming findings. It's just one of those inconvenient things I have to put up with while the Earth gets warmer and warmer and warmer..."

Painting...

2008-08-02T23:04:00.000-07:00

We are painting our, I guess it would be more of a dining room... It used to be our porch.

I'll keep the colors a secret and post a picture when it's done.

-Shane

Don't Rickman and Post.

2008-07-31T13:41:00.001-07:00

You'd think so wouldn't you.

2008-07-30T23:47:00.001-07:00

The Video.

2008-07-19T09:42:00.000-07:00

Here is the video of VBS that I said I'd try to post:

It's VBS week.

2008-07-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

The yearly week at our church that our Vacation Bible School takes place on is nearly always a very busy time. This year I'm helping out with the sound mixing and video editing. I might post that here if I can, depending on whether we put it up on the church website or not. Tomorrow is the last day, which is when we play the video for all to see. I'll be putting it on DVD as well.

Auralia's Colors.

2008-07-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

About six months ago I read Jeffrey Overstreet's Auralia's Colors. When I finished it, I thought it a decent book, but nothing particularly special. Problem is I can't stop thinking about it now, five months after finishing that last page and placing it back on my bookshelf. The subtle charm of the colors, the vividness of the characters, the strange and new places.

Now as I read it again for this review, I realize how much I enjoy this gem of literature. Imaginative, charming, and magical are words I could use to attempt to describe it, however, they fall short of the overall sense of beauty that the book paints. Reflecting on it, I can't help but think that it is like a jewel, the plot is not as straightforward as some other books that I have read, but that's where part of it's beauty comes from. Like a jewel it has many sides to the same story, but it also has a central focus that all these other sides revolve around. Missing a side, you lose the beauty of the whole. This isn't a mere novel, it is a work of art.

The writing itself could be considered poetry, most of the words seem to be exactly where they ought to be in relation to the whole of the work. I find myself taking almost as much delight in the words themselves as I do the story, and yet they are written so that they are not a hindrance to the story but an aid. A difficult balance to achieve indeed, yet Mr. Overstreet has done so.

It is a rare book indeed that will captivate my imagination more upon the second reading then the first, Auralia's Colors is one of them, much to my delight.

When I am reading it I find my mind immersed in a world, different and recognizable. Not so foreign that it is completely alien, but different enough to find it quite interesting. Though I keep picturing it as a world of somewhat dull colors with vivid ones placed throughout. Several times I wish I could explore the places that are mentioned or described in the book in greater detail.

Several of the characters seem to practically jump out of the page and take form... They are so vivid and not only that, they are vastly interesting. Enthralling would be a better word. The two characters I found most intriguing was Prince Cal-raven and Auralia. Both mysterious in their own ways, both seeming almost to weave a spell of sorts in my mind. There is not the usual flatness to the characters, instead they come across as something alive, each with a history of their own and secrets both of light and of darkness. Even minor background characters tend to hold to a certain degree the quality of living beings rather then just being some sort of disposable resource to move the story along.

It tells a story, first and foremost I would say that Jeffrey Overstreet is a storyteller, when I read Auralia's Colors I do not feel that I am being assaulted with some idea of something I'm supposed to be getting. I can just, for lack of better words, bask in the glory of the story itself. Though not all events in the book could be described as enjoyable or something I would personally care to experience, the tale is woven so that I can learn what I receive from the scene before my inner eye. That being so, I do not feel myself threatened by some ideology... Being free to make my own conclusions of an storyweaver's work is a refreshing change from what I'm used to. One of the things I'm drawing from it is a deeper appreciation of art and of the world around me. I would say that a good story is told when the author is forgotten, this story certainly falls in that category.

There are a few minor things I didn't like... I didn't exactly enjoy reading about one characters actions in one chapter, and another character did tend to mildly rather get on my nerves. Mostly my own personal distaste. My dislikes of the book are so far and few between that I'll leave this part of my review short, which is something in and of itself that I find delightful.

In conclusion, Auralia's Colors is a work of literature that is most worthy of being called literature. Reminding me more of the works of earlier writers such as Dickens then that of more contemporary authors: in the quality of writing and the story woven by Jeffrey Overstreet in his debut novel Auralia's Colors. It is with great anticipation that I look forward to reading the second book in the Auralia Thread: Cyndere's Midnight which is due for release in September. This is definitely a book I'd highly recommend.

Auralia's Colors website.

Art.

2008-07-04T03:46:00.001-07:00

What is it?

Wooohoo! (Was that an Elf?)

2008-06-19T20:34:00.000-07:00

I've finished the minimum word count on part seven of my book. (Or Book 7 if you want. It's kind of like the six "books" that make up The Lord of the Rings")

50000 of 50000 words completed.

I'm excited. Finishing a project you've been working the last eight months on is always exciting.

-Shane

(This is also the reason I've not posted anything in 20 days.)

Maryland Trip

2008-06-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

Heather (My sister), Myself, and my Dad (not pictured) came drove down to Columbia Maryland for a book signing with Sir Wayne Thomas Batson and Sir Bryan Davis. I suppose I ought to have known it was only the beginning of a wonderful adventure when we left our driveway early yesterday morning. We encountered Valiant Knights, Pictured with my sister and I in the middle, roaring fires, malt beer, ripe meat off the bone! (Well, actually it was a comfortable bed, excellent dinner at "Longhorn Steakhouse" (T-Bone steak!) and quite a bit of Iced Tea to boot.) Not to mention a few dragons and such. (Or where those cars?) Sir Wayne and Sir Bryan are really nice people. I really enjoyed meeting them, it was great. They patiently signed my (now complete) collection of their published books. Thanks guys if you happen to read this!

I really, really, liked it. I usually don't like going to secular book stores, but even so, this was great! Got to hear a bit of reading. That was great. Bryan and Wayne both did a really good job reading their books. Wayne is a wonderful storyteller. I don't know if I've ever heard someone read with such passion! Even though I've read that part before it was like encountering it again the first time. After the book signing we were unsure of what fine tables existed in the area, and so we went on a quest! To find some food. We headed towards Washington D.C. but halfway there, after wandering aimlessly in pursuit of dinner, we decided to go back to our starting point practically and eat in Columbia, at the same mall we just left half-an-hour earlier. From there we headed to the Holiday Inn to spend the night. It was a nice peaceful, quiet night sleep. We didn't have anyone attempting to murder us in our beds or anything dramatic like that. Not too much of a problem, but it's fortunate as I didn't have my sword with me. I think my sister and I stayed up past midnight talking about all the exciting happenings upon our Adventure. Come morning, it was time to begin our journey home again, but we couldn't pass through Scranton Pennsylvania without giving The Banshee a try. People wonder if there is really such a thing as love at first sight. Well, when it comes to Irish Pubs... Yeah. Most definitely. The Banshee is one of those places where you can just sit and relax and watch the world go by. It's unfortunate it's 150 miles away or I'd quite likely be a regular visitor there. I doubt I'll ever be able to pass through Scranton without visiting The Banshee. After the Banshee we finally headed in the direction of home. What an adventure it's been. I've got more adventures awaiting me in dreamland however, I'm quite tired. All in all, it was fun. Crazy drivers and all. There is a very nice picture of Sir Wayne and Sir Christopher Hopper upon the wall of The Banshee. I had to look at that and most of the other pictures. I love it there. You can see a picture of the picture below as well as a picture of my sister and I in front of the Banshee bookshelf.

The Banshee is a great place for writing. I wrote a short, pretty random, poem about it while waiting for our Banshee bill.

The Banshee

Here we be

At the fine pub Banshee

Whose Irish fare

Takes good care

Of the hungry travelers we be.

Here we are.

We've come so far.

Many sights to see.

But last of all

We visited The Banshee

And now we turn home yonder.

With much left to ponder

About all we had to see.

And now I really am off to bed. Goodnight!

Heading Down to Maryland.

2008-05-31T02:25:00.000-07:00

We're heading down to Maryland in about an hour or so to see Wayne Thomas Batson and Bryan Davis!

Should be fun. Hopefully we'll have some pictures to share. I've only ever been out of state once and that was when we took a plane down to Florida on holiday. But I was like six at the time and can't remember everything we did there.

Independent Film Projects.

2008-05-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I stumbled across the website of a homeschooling family who is making their own movie.

The Pendragon Project

I watched the trailer. It looks like it might be interesting. I like the concept of a family made movie.

It reminds me a bit of another independent movie project I've been following for a few years: Ancanar who never updates their site and is alas, currently under construction. There was a trailer for it which is where I learned of the music of one of my favorite musicians: David Arkenstone, who kindly remade one of his songs just for their trailer.

Ah, here is the trailer: Ancanar Development Trailer

Though "Ancanar" has been in the making for almost a decade I get the impression that "Pendragon: Sword of His Father" will be finished long before Ancanar will be.

If you want a laugh.

2008-05-12T03:59:00.001-07:00

Search for Burt and Ernie videos on YouTube. They're hysterical.

Never Fails to Excite Me.

2008-05-10T00:37:00.000-07:00

Whenever I order a printed copy of my draft from lulu.com (I only have to pay the cost of production of one copy.) it excites me. Somehow having your words in printed form between the covers of a book, even if it's just for correction purposes and having a "hard copy" just thrills me.

This evening I ordered the last two "sections" that I wrote and should be receiving them in the next few days.

Self-publishing is a difficult way to publish, true. But with lulu.com at least, I get to keep all the rights to the book... An absolute must for me. Which will probably totally ruin most chances with a major publisher for me, but that's fine I guess, at least for now. I may reconsider it in the future as I learn more about the publishing process, but I need to know a lot more particulars. I've pretty much decided years ago that if I was going to get a book published, it would only be done under the circumstance that I keep the rights, all the rights, to the book. With a conviction such as that I can only answer "maybe" when people ask me if I'm going to try to get it published. Quite honestly, I don't know if it'll happen outside of self-publishing.

Then again it might, or perhaps my convictions will change, we'll see.

Book Trailer

2008-05-06T03:20:00.000-07:00

I made a trailer for the draft version of section three of my book. A section I titled "Into The Light" while I try to think of a name that fits it better. It was just a fun project, trying to see what I could do with iMovie, everything about it is subject to change. Enjoy it anyways.

Books I've read since December.

2008-05-04T16:37:00.001-07:00

The Return of the King - J. R. R. Tolkien
Eragon - Christopher Paolini
The Door Within - Wayne Thomas Batson
The Rise of the Wyrm Lord - Wayne Thomas Batson
The Final Storm - Wayne Thomas Batson
Isle of Swords - Wayne Thomas Batson
The Restorer - Sharon Hinck
Raising Dragons - Bryan Davis
Rise of the Dibor - Christopher Hopper
The Lion Vrie - Christopher Hopper
Auralia's Colors - Jeffrey Overstreet
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Two Towers - J. R. R. Tolkien
Beyond the Reflections Edge - Bryan Davis
Inkheart - Cornelia Funke
The God-Hungry Imagination: The Art of Storytelling for Postmodern Youth Ministry - Sarah Arthur (Thought it might provide some insights for my writing. It was interesting, but I never could figure out what the main point was.)

Currently working on reading The Return of the King again. I plan to read "Persuasion" by Jane Austin next.

Happy Birthday!

2008-04-25T08:34:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday to Christopher Hopper!

Sweet!

2008-04-21T22:24:00.001-07:00

I'm halfway done with the current section of my novel.

25,025 words of 50,000

Delightful.

2008-04-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

I just discovered an iTunes radio station that plays nothing but soundtracks... It's great writing music.

It's found in the classical section and is called "StreamingSoundtracks.com"

Sweet!

Beyond the Reflection's Edge. A Review.

2008-04-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

In a word? Enthralling. The book captures your attention and has you turning the pages from the very beginning. Not only does it have me in a state of not being able to put it down, I believe it has the makings of a true classic, and that is a true gem in our world today. The book starts right off the bat with gripping emotion, powerful characters, and enthralling writing. A thrilling tale is told concerning the hero Nathan and his friend Kelly. Not since The Door Within Trilogy by Wayne Thomas Batson have I found a book so enchanting as Bryan Davis's incredible first book in the Echos from the Edge series. It has the elements of a great story. A chilling villain, a believable hero, a mysterious maiden with secrets in her past, both wonderful and horrifying people, and a charmingly done ending. Throughout it all runs a beautiful, one could even say loving, melody. The book leads you through a high-paced, nonstop, action-adventure story from the first page to the last, a page that much to my disappointment was not followed by another. I literally spent every free moment reading it from the moment I picked it up.

However, I do have a few negative things to say about this book: I found certain references to rather mature subject matters to be at times unnecessary and distracting though I can understand their relevance to the story. Another negative aspect was purely my own fault but distracting nonetheless, my scientific side was revolting at one of the concepts, which being a major spoiler I cannot talk about what that concept was. As far as I know the “thing” doesn't work at all like that. (I'm very sorry I can't go into more detail about what it is.) My third and final criticism is that I felt that the impact of tragedy didn't hit hard enough as it really would in most such cases. However, in closing of my criticisms I will say that all three of them are criticisms of my interpretation of the story rather then criticism of the author.

That said, I highly recommend Beyond the Reflection's Edge as a book and as a work of literature, I cannot finish this review without complementing Mr. Davis on the excellence of his writing. It is precise, logical, and beautiful. Blending truth and beauty into a symphony of words and wonder.

-
The Echoes from the Edge website

Just a quick note.

2008-04-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to say that I shut down my old blog, The address was: http://www.irishautumn.com/blog/ Now that address will bring a visitor here instead using a redirect. So if you came from there, don't panic. Nothing's wrong... My old blog hasn't been hacked or anything.

-Shane

Why I Write: Part II.

2008-04-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

Why do I write? In my first post about why I write I told of my desire to impact the world around me, this time I'm becoming introspective and am going to talk about what I personally get out of my writing. (In no particular order.)

1. Writing as therapy. I have found writing to be an incredible outlet for expressing my feelings and thoughts about situations that life brings. For example, there has been one particular and quite stressful situation that I've been going through for the past year or so that I have found my writing to be the single most helpful thing in helping me deal with it.

2. Writing as worship. Writing, for a Christian writer, can be a very spiritual experience. You literally start to write in such a way that it glorifies God above all else, I'm not quite exactly sure what I'm trying to say here, I can't quite describe it. But it tends to happen that you find yourself just totally thinking about our great King as you write and considering his nature. I'm constantly considering Biblical truths in ways that just come alive to me, and I learn things much better then I do from sermons.

3. Writing just because it's fun. I write because it's quite frankly, fun! You get to meet all these fantastic characters. Characters which tend to have a tendency to become friends of a sort, obviously not like real people, but they really do tend to take on a personality of their own after awhile. It's great! I find myself wanting to know what happens to them next. I don't always know where they're going to end up. That's just one of the aspects that makes it fun, there's also research and going places and other things that make it very enjoyable.

4. Writing as a form of self-education. Many times in my writing I'll explore concepts and ideas. I learn from my stories and occasionally something profound will present itself. I am consistently challenged by my own words. I think it's quite true that for Christian writers, there are times when The Lord starts to direct your writing. It's quite wonderful to see. Then there is the actual education aspect of the research. I've learned more about a number of subjects while researching some fact for my stories then i do reading something like the encyclopedia, and I find the information tends to stick in my head longer as well.

5. Writing as a way of life. One reason I enjoy writing is that it helps define who I am. I am one of those people who tend to view their artistic work as an extension of themselves. I sometimes joke with myself that my story is really just my mind written down on paper.

-Shane

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-03-27T06:25:00.001-07:00

I'm 23 today.

I still feel like I did when I was 22 quite frankly.

This and that.

2008-03-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

I've been sick with the flu or a bad cold since Saturday night. I don't know if it was a good idea, but I did attend the sunrise service at church, Sunday morning. Got home about eleven (AM) and promptly went to sleep. In fact I think I slept over thirty hours. That was my Easter and now since I skipped Monday, I'm terribly disoriented.

Yesterday we received a catalog for Christian Book Distributors. The fiction catalog to be exact. Though I think the Romance Novel catalog would have been a more accurate description. (Sorry to any Romance writers out there, not my thing.) Finally nearing the end of the catalog I found the section I was looking for. Fantasy. Yeah! It was half a page, but I was pleased to see Sharon Hinck's and Bryan Davis's books on there. (Unfortunately Sir. Bryan's books didn't have a picture.)

My Birthday is on Thursday. I hope I'm feeling a bit better by then.

I'm still getting used to these new mac keyboards. They are nice, and your fingers can flow over them much better then the old ones, which is good for me because sometimes I need every little bit of typing speed I can get to keep up with my thoughts. I'm just not used to such shallow keys after nearly 20 years of using the ones that are taller.

Well that's it for this post. I suppose I should try to write something a bit more meaningful sometime... I keep getting ideas about what I want to write, but then I sit down to write them and my mind goes on holiday. Most annoying.

And last but most certainly not least, I'd like to thank Frodo for (with a bit of help) banishing Sauron from Middle Earth on this fine day.

GIVE YOU STUFF!

2008-03-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

What a busy weekend it has been. Starting Thursday really...

On Thursday Evening my sister and I attended our weekly Bible Study. It's a totally awesome interactive Bible Study group for people my age, that would be late-teen to about thirty perhaps. It's mostly attended by students from the nearby Chiropractic College and a few folks, like myself, from our church. I love it!

On Friday morning my dad, sister, and myself head over to the nearest Apple Store in Syracuse, NY. The reason? Two MacBooks!
Yes, that's very exciting to me. My sister and I are the proud new owners of some really nice computers. These things are compact but they are pretty speedy. I like them. We've got the 2.4 Ghz model.

On Friday evening there was a benefit dinner and talent show at the local Christian school/our church. This is where the GIVE YOU STUFF! comes in. Our host for the night were two of the high school students Jon and Chris. They were dressed up in a costume of sorts. I believe it was your stereotypical hillbilly type of thing. First session they get up on stage and say "You tricked us! We heard somethin' bout giving money if we did this thing. We come up here and we find you wasn't givin' it to us! But as it's for a good cause we'll do it anyways." Perhaps I ought to describe their costume a bit more... Well it mostly consisted of plaid shirts, overalls that were rather dirty and tattered looking and one of them had a cap hanging down over his eyes. One of theme even didn't bother wearing shoes. Second announcement. A raffle for a free green new toyota. Yes. A Free TOYATA! For a dollar you had 1 chance. For two dollars you had FIVE chances. They did great. In between every act they'd try to get more folks to enter in the drawing, accompanied by the phrase GIVE YOU STUFF! Which of course the audience was expected to repeat. (Some little kid would always do it after everyone else though and that was kind of funny.) At the very end of the show when most of the students and a few of the teachers did their acts, which overall were pretty good, our two host come up for the last time and pull the winning ticket. After the winner acknowledged the matching number Jon pulls out of his pocket a New Green Toy Yoda. Needless to say, the audience laughed. Yoda sure has come a long way... I guess Star Wars was banned in some churches back in the day because of Yoda. Now the little green guy is being given away in a church.

Saturday Morning through Afternoon. One of our friends was having her seventh birthday party. Quite a few folks were there, but I think it was mostly the family, and three family friends. (Us and two other families I mean.) It was fun, though it's been ages since I've been to a seventh birthday party. I'll be celebrating my own twenty-third birthday next week. A person who we call "Aunt" (she's not really our aunt.) thinks that this one pin of mine looks too much like something her old Aunt Elizabeth would have worn and has been teasing me about having it. (I actually made the pin myself to go with a fake cloak of mine, the reason it is fake is because it is nothing but a recycled blanket. Hence one reason why my mom won't let me go out in it. Pity, I don't know where to get cloaks so I'm making due with what I have. It looks very hobbitish.) Our "Aunt" is a pretty awesome person though. We like her.

Sunday Morning. I intended to go to church. Problem was I overslept and woke up too late. I have a problem of being able to turn off my alarm clocks in my sleep. I might as well not set the thing for all the good it does me.

Sunday Evening. I went to a Kutless concert with our Thursday Bible study group. That was fun. Before the concert I'd only heard maybe one Kutless song. The first person to open for them was a guy by the name of Chris Taylor whose debut album is coming out next month or so. He has a really good voice... It was very pleasant to listen to. The second opening "act" was by a band called Esterlyn. I'm not certain but I think the lead singer is the son of a pastor that I really liked at a pastors conference I attended two years ago. Finally Kutless takes the stage. It was pretty cool. Before this the only people I've ever really seen in concert have been rap and hip-hop artist. (UK's M.O.D and a Philadelphia group called Redeemed Thought.) It was a pretty quiet ride home... Perhaps everyone was too tired. We did stop for a bite to eat at McDonald's on our way back. You know I think they raised their prices or something... A quarter pounder with cheese meal cost like $8.00. I was kind of surprised by that... There are restaurants where for a little more you can get a very delicious steak. We were at a tolled highway "Thruway" rest stop, perhaps that's why it was so expensive. When we met up with dad in Seneca Falls we headed over to the local food store. I just realized we bought the wrong kind of cheese for the pizza. Oh well.

And now I am working on this blog entry.

Passion. (Five thoughts)

2008-02-29T21:28:00.000-08:00

Human beings are designed to be passionate, designed this way to be passionate towards our creator.

What a gift. Not only did God create us able to love, he designed us in such a way that we can experience it passionately.

We all have passions, I would say I'm passionate about music, tea, Lord of the Rings, writing, Apple computers, my friends etc.

And those things are all good things. But I need to remember to keep Christ as my passion, or master passion if you will, that is, the passion that impacts and rules over every other passion of mine, be it writing, music, tea, my friends, and even Apple computers.

What astonishes me is the passion that God displays towards us.

A problem of mine.

2008-02-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

I love listening to people talking and as a result I tend to write page after page long conversations. Need to work on that.

(P.S. I'm working on a longer post, but I'm not near finished with it yet.) :-D

I love it.

2008-02-13T21:37:00.000-08:00

Got over a thousand words in tonight on my writing. :D

On Dry Erase Boards.

2008-02-12T15:38:00.000-08:00

I purchased myself a dry erase board yesterday. I find it's a great way to sketch out quick ideas for my story or for drawing things like menu items at a café. Unfortunately it's not permanent so anything you want to keep has to be copied over to something. But still it does help me to "Think Temporary" and serves as a bit of a "Buffer Space" for ideas. It's nice in developing an idea for your story because you can erase things and put in something else extremely easily.

The White Lion Chronicles.

2008-02-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

Christopher Hopper is going to be doing an audio-reading and podcast of his (Excellent I might add) White Lion Chronicles. Well worth reading if you haven't already.

Also, he's looking for guest introduction narrators for the podcast. You can read about that here:
http://www.christopherhopper.com/?p=361

Check it out!

I have a feeling.

2008-01-29T12:46:00.001-08:00

I'll be doing a fair amount of writing to this fellow's music:

Jamie Christopherson

Excellent work. Has a lot of free downloads of his work on his website too. Over 100 songs... :D

I had the Soundtrack for Battle for Middle Earth II, but a lot of his other stuff is perfect writing music. It has that soundtrack feel, but not an overly soundtrack feel. It's more like an epic piece of some sort.

Great stuff.

We’re taking over the world... ...I just thought you should know...

2008-01-26T21:09:00.000-08:00

Taking a break from my writing post to mention this.

While doing my administrator duties on the ApricotPie message boards I kept finding two topic titles (In a row) that when read together as one sentence produce rather humorous results:

Little Women... ...Boy Scout of a country

Should We unstick any of the Sticky topics?... ...Results: Governor Term Limitations

Explain your Screenname... ...Only in America

What’s your FAVORITE SUBJECT?... ...*History*

Hey Guys! :D... ...I’m back

Some deep stuff... ...Between the Eyeballs of a Gnat

Are there any members who are Canadian?... ...Announcement of Intent of Running

Happy Birthday Mary!!!... ...Did I read that sign right?

This was probably already discussed... ...Football

This is knda random but... ...Do you wear jewelrey?

I had an idea... ...Story lackage

Considering Homeschooling... ...How many times a day...

Guys wearing make up... ...I’m so sorry.

What are your top three fav LOTR characters?... ...the leader of canada

So who do I ask...... ...what do you use for im?

We’re taking over the world... ...I just thought you should know...

i’m a lousy piano player... ...What do you look like??

there is no justice... ...AIM

Hey!... ...my screen shot

Is your town down?... ...SHAAANE! (or somebody, but probably SHAAANE!)

Help!... ...Becoming a veggie again

Ever seen real true spring water???... ...Oooppps...

They kicked Hitlers butt... ...I’ve done it!!!!

What are you afraid of?... ...Matthew...

what would we do without... ...Superstitions

All right... ...Why did the chicken cross the road?

I need someone to take over the mafia game for me!... ...Owwwww!!!!!

This is not a debate!... ...This is the post...

Newbies and Semi-Newbies Board... ...Ha ha ha!!!!... ...Just thought i’d drop in and say hi!

We ain’t got any young people... ...Happy Birthday JRR Tolkien!

For all who are interested..... ...Panasonics anyone?

The Brilliance of Tolkien.

2008-01-25T03:45:00.000-08:00

This is a poem in The Hobbit from the chapter "The Gathering of the Clouds" by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Under the Mountain dark and tall
The King has come unto his hall!
His foe is dead, the Worm of Dread,
And ever so his foes shall fall.

The sword is sharp, the spear is long.
The arrow swift, the Gate is strong;
The heart is bold that looks on gold;
The dwarves no more shall suffer wrong.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

On silver necklaces they strung
The light of stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, from twisted wire
The melody of harps they wrung.

The mountain throne once more is freed!
O! wandering folk, the summons heed!
Come haste! Come haste! across the waste!
The king of friend and kin has need.

Now call we over mountains cold,
'Come back unto the caverns old'!
Here at the Gates the king awaits,
His hands are rich with gems and gold.

The king is come unto his hall
Under the Mountain dark and tall.
The Worm of Dread is slain and dead,
And ever so our foes shall fall!

And now why I think it's brilliant:

Under the Mountain dark and tall
The King has come unto his hall!
His foe is dead, the Worm of Dread,
And ever so his foes shall fall.

Tall, hall, fall. The first two lines and the fourth line on each stanza. On the third line it's dead and dread. Also, the first, second, and forth line's rhyming words all have the letter "A" in them as their vowel.

The sword is sharp, the spear is long.
The arrow swift, the Gate is strong;
The heart is bold that looks on gold;
The dwarves no more shall suffer wrong.

Same thing only "O" is the vowel.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

Again, but this time with "E"

On silver necklaces they strung
The light of stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, from twisted wire
The melody of harps they wrung.

"U", and here the third line doesn't use a "U" in it's rhyming words. Instead using "I", this is the central stanza of the poem so that makes sense to me as that's the only vowel we haven't seen rhymed yet.

The mountain throne once more is freed!
O! wandering folk, the summons heed!
Come haste! Come haste! across the waste!
The king of friend and kin has need.

"E" again.

Now call we over mountains cold,
'Come back unto the caverns old'!
Here at the Gates the king awaits,
His hands are rich with gems and gold.

"O" again.

The king is come unto his hall
Under the Mountain dark and tall.
The Worm of Dread is slain and dead,
And ever so our foes shall fall!

"A" again.

So we have A,O,E,U,E,O,A as our rhyming vowels, And we have "I" in our central stanza on our third line.

Pretty cool. Even in his structuring Tolkien shows his brilliant command of language. I love it!

My desktop in it's usual state of mind.

2008-01-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

Well this is my desk where I do most of my writing. It's an old PPC Mac Mini, like one of the very first Mini Models but it gets the job done nicely enough. Also seen on my desk is my external harddrive. (The black brick-like object sticking up, it's actually a dark blue.) An adapter to hook the computer up to the television. Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet, The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, Various gadgets and USB Hubs. 17" CRT Monitor, current wallpaper is something that I think I downloaded off of Wayne Thomas Batson's blog... I tend to be a compulsive image downloader, I can't tell you how often I wonder how THAT one got there or why.... It's a Fantasy Four Fiction Tour promotion wallpaper thingy. I also have an external sound card which I can connect professional microphones to. On top of that, but I don't think it's in the picture is an extremely cool device that lets me broadcast my computer's audio anywhere I want. A mug from one of the folks at church. Also not seen is what is above my monitor. Which is a cheap stereo system I bought years ago, another mug with my favorite quote on it: "Be the change you wish to see in the world..." which is by Gandhi apparently. But it's excellent advise for a Christian storyteller. I have two other quote mugs as well on my desk. Also on top of the stereo thing is a daily calendar I never remember to flip. And a webcam sits atop my monitor. Then there are things like blank DVDs and various software and audio CDs. And of course the speakers, mouse, and keyboard.

I also have my external DVD writer and a router I'm currently using as a switch.

And also my hand lotion.

Ah the wonders of cuts.

2008-01-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

I just cut 9,000 words from my novel. Ah well. I'm back to where I started as far as that particular section's word count goes. I still have a ton of editing to do with that book. I'm already finding things where I have to rewrite the rewrite.

I'm glad I enjoy writing.

Excerpt.

2008-01-07T05:34:00.000-08:00

A small excerpt from the story I'm working on. Likely to be changed. (When I write I like to try to think temporary for the most part, assuming that whatever it was I just written can be made better, or perhaps I will find some information that needs to be changed as I unfold the story. For me, it's only when it's published and on the shelf that it is finally a concrete story.) This may not even be part of my finished book, or it may be a separate "History Book" volume. It's mostly back-story with little to do other then setting the stage for the actual story I'm writing. My goal is a mythology that chronicles the world as it is in my imagination from beginning to end. If I ever publish the story, it will probably not be my first attempt at getting something published. It is strictly a hobby, perhaps obsession, of mine that could take years to finish. I'm writing it for my own enjoyment rather then writing a book to sell or even publish, and as such it something that delights me regardless of what it does for other people. If it ends up someday being a marvellous epic when I get done with all the rewrites and edits, then great! If not, that's fine too... So long as I enjoy it. I would like for it to be something that a lot of people can enjoy, but my first objective with it is to simply tell the story I have to tell!

"Darkness. Every word, every thought, every feeling, was darkness. Silent, empty, darkness. Then the first whispers of melody broke through like a pinpoint of light. A song, a note? Another whisper, then another. With every whispering a little light. Out of the darkness a note turned into a melody, a melody into a song, a song into a symphony. With every note a little more light. Soon light crept over the darkness until every place was filled with it's glory. And then there were voices. One voice could be heard, all the other voices were merely echoes of his own. As The Creator sang, a ball formed within his hand, it was dark and had little swirls of light inside of it, as if it was lit by a little fire within. The echoes ceased as the singers cast their gaze upon The Creator's hands holding the little ball as if it were precious and fragile. The Creator began a new song, softly he was singing, nearly whispering over the ball as if imparting life into it or attempting to hear the soft heartbeat of a living creature while he sang to it. Then he began to sing so that they could hear the words he said. Every word had never been spoken before and took forth meaning and wonder in the eyes of the echoes as they watched and listened to each new word. The melody began softly and grew with growing intensity as he sang his song of creation. The lights danced within the orb and clouds of colour swirled around them. Then they dimmed into blackness leaving no light to be seen within the ball. Then as if in their minds they saw a planet being formed, blue in colour and pleasant to look at. A smaller silver orb was placed near it. No source of light could be seen yet it seemed to them that it was illuminated. And all was silent. The Creator began another song, a darker song, a sad song, and as he sang, though the echoes knew not what the words were, Lucifer, The Morning Star, the most beautiful and lordly of the echoes stepped forth before The Creator. He gazed upon the dark orb still in The Creator's hands and sang a song of his own making. In harmony with The Creator's song yet something more then an echo did it contain. The Creator's song transcended his song regardless of how much he tried to make his song a sweeter song. Fury awoke within him as he stared at the black orb, desire to master the orb grew within him and he spoke forth with a new song, a song completely of his own making, no longer harmonizing with that of The Creator's song. A great shape like that of a dragon, made of flame rose up as Lucifer sang his song. And still the Creator's song continued on, untouched by his pride, unmoved by his flame. As Lucifer left from in front of The Creator's throne, a third of the Echoes followed after him, becoming known as the Noise. Down onto the blue planet they descended. Down from their glory, down from their splendor, Lucifer looked with hatred upon the world that The Creator had made, rising up against it he cast his rod upon it's surface and covered the surface with flame. It turned from blue to orange and the water became as clouds of poisonous steam. He cast his rod down upon the surface once again and the brown lands crackled and broke apart like a broken eggshell. The planet was made desolate and formless. And over the horror a small melody, the melody of The Creator could still be heard, grating in the ears of Lucifer and the Noise the planet that had been made formless became whole again. The rod of Lucifer broke asunder as it descended deep into the abyss. And suddenly light like that which had never broken forth before shone forth, it's brightness and glory surrounding Lucifer with it's torturing brilliance. No corner of the worlds was left in darkness, for darkness had been pushed aside by the tremendous force of the light. And behold the light grew dim as darkness once again settled over the land. Lucifer's hatred burned within him as he saw the waters be likewise divided, he saw a layer of water surround the planet above and below the atmosphere of the planet. The Creator's song then formed land, a great land, most of the surface remained covered with water, and one continent stood upon the surface of the Earth. The sea and the land. Then the song of The Creator reached a beauty unheard as green things crept across the dry, brown, surface of the land. Tendrils of living color stretched across the land and under the sea. A great forest stretched from the top of the land to the bottom of it and from east to west, yet there were significant places of valleys and mountains, rivers and streams, lakes, and wild and untamed plains. The forest consisted of every kind of tree the fields contained every kind of flower and herb. A great light spread across the surface of the Earth as a great star was placed nearby. A silvery orb floated just outside the Earth's atmosphere. But then the most wonderful things of all began to take place. The first creature to walk the earth was the unicorn. It's gleaming horn shining in the light of the newly created sun. Another unicorn joined it, with a smaller horn and slightly smaller build. They watched the Sun with unblinking eyes before taking flight across the land with marvelous speed. Then it was that birds took flight into the sky, chief among these was the phoenix, a marvelous bird with vivid bright colors, different for every phoenix and beautiful to behold. Powerful, able to transport itself anywhere instantly, deceptively stronger then it looked, able to withstand fire, even The Dragon's fire. A ball of flame, a pillar of light, a pile of dust, and a boulder of extremely hard stone stood in field. The creator looked at the flame and the light, the dust and stone and behold there came forth out of the light and dust beings, clothed in robes of white, the dust and light disappeared as there stood before The Creator two marvelous beings. The being that he made out of light he called Galandor. Firstborn of the Elves, enemy of Lucifer from the moment of his creation. He had piercing grey eyes and long golden hair. Next to Galandor, also clothed in a white robe stood the firstborn of Men. Glorious, more like the Elf next to him then men of later days, he had eyes of blue that glistened in the sunlight, his hair was dark brown and lordly, like a great king or mighty hunter. Little difference there was between the Elf and the man next to him. Theoeadam. Then out of the flame there came the firstborn Dragon. Mighty and glorious to behold, strong and beyond words to describe. His vast wings able to carry him into the skies at tremendous speed. He was the dragon of dragons, the sire of Nila and Uaithne in later days. Last of all, out of the stone came, clothed not in robes of white but glistening, silver robes that were almost more like a suit of warrior then the lordly looking robes of the Elf and the Man, there came last Hourgah. The firstborn of the Dwarves. He was about four foot five in hight, had a great mane of brown hair and a beard that fell to his belt. A crafter of stone he was to be, a seeker of jewels and things of the earth. Man was to take to gardening and the caring of the earth. To the Elf was given everything to rule, save his fellow beings. The keeper of knowledge, the keeper of secrets. Teacher of all was Lord Galandor's role. It was not long after that four more beings were created, like and unlike they were to be. Of their names, only one do I know. Katheryn it was, and still is to this day."

Revising and the lack of plots.

2008-01-05T20:47:00.000-08:00

As I write I find there is more and more of what I've already written that needs to be revised, deleted, added to, and sometimes just left alone. Most of the first section (I'm writing in 50,000 word segments) needs to be completely re-written, but I'm ok with that. The result has been one of a much better story where I've edited it.

But revising that first section has also revealed a major problem with my story. It's lacking a plot. The characters seem to wander around aimlessly waiting for their next cup of tea. I have lots of little sub-plots but there really is no overlaying quest or mission. I need to figure that out and soon. As well as revising it is going, without that quest, it will be boring and a reader will feel as if they are just wandering around, lost in an endless forest of words looking for a way out. As a writer I don't really want the reader looking for a way out, I want them to be enchanted by what's in the forest and wishing to see what lies around the next tree, er... page.

The lack of a plot is my current dilemma, and therefore my focus. I first began to suspect I had a problem with the plot when a friend asked me what the story was about and I couldn't tell them because I found no plot to summarize.

And with that I must get busy, developing a plot and then revising from there.

Edit:
It's particularly embarrassing because the first thing I taught in a writing class I taught once was outlining the plot, and my boy student created a captivating, albeit a bit violent, story with it. At least he had a plot! Which is more then I have.

Might as well.

2007-12-31T22:55:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

How was your last year?

A sad goodbye, goodbye, or goodbye and good riddance! Or was it something else entirely?

The fun part of writing.

2007-12-29T22:42:00.000-08:00

Research and note-taking.

Writing a fantasy book where one of the towns nearby is one of the central places in the story provides a great deal of exciting research opportunities. One example is the folks who own this one very fine restaurant. The restaurant, which incidentally has wonderfully delicious food, is the location where my characters meet a lot. I confess that every once in awhile I don't really need to research their excellent dessert selection all that much, but you know, I need to be familiar with just how wonderfully delicious that Tiramisu really is, because as one of my characters Pistachio the Pirate's favourite dessert it's not optional to describe just any Tiramisu. As a result of this "Research" we've actually managed to strike up a bit of a friendship with the folks there. Taking notes can be a very fun and good tasting experience.

I do other things less interesting things besides that, such as spell checking, but in the end it's those little things like making notes on Tiramisu that make writing fun.

Special post.

2007-12-23T23:40:00.000-08:00

Normally this blog is for writing thoughts and such, however Christmas Eve. is here and I must take the time to say:

"MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

Distractions.

2007-12-21T19:44:00.000-08:00

Distractions can sometimes be a good thing, but for the most part I find them not to be. I was considering trying to find a bit of my writing to post on here. I've not found anything yet, however I have managed to get a spot in the story where I've been stuck for two months unstuck a bit, by becoming distracted from my original purpose, which brings me to my topic.

Of all the things, when it comes to my writing, distractions are the worst. Quite unfortunately for me is the fact that I am my very own, worst distraction, bar none. I get distracted checking my e-mail for the millionth time during this hour, or checking to see if any of the blogs I regularly read have updated. Of course I get distracted writing comments and journal entries like this one as well. Wikipedia can prove to be a bane of mine when I need to look up a fact. It's amazing how you can get from one topic to something completely unrelated to it just because some link to another article looked interesting. "How did I get from chocolate to cowboys again?" Even the dictionary can sometimes prove to be a bit of distraction. Most of the distractions are completely my own fault, it's true. The internet is a great tool for a writer, but it is also a writer's bane. At least I don't have solitaire installed on this computer. (It's a Mac.)

Alas, I'm becoming distracted yet again... Some books I ordered came while we were out shopping and I'm anxious to read them.

-Shane

Go Peter... Go Peter...

2007-12-18T14:25:00.000-08:00

Jackson gets The Hobbit!

Why do I write?

2007-12-15T11:05:00.000-08:00

First off, a little intro. Hello, I'm Shane Joseph Deal, as a writer I like to go by S. J. Deal. I'm starting this blog to post my thoughts on my writing, my books that I'm working on, and occasionally maybe something about chocolate covered pickles.... Just kidding... But then you never know. My Elves do like both Chocolate and Pickles... and some of those Elven Lords are terribly eccentric. Today I am writing a philosophical post on why I write.

I often ask myself, why bother writing?

In answer I respond, because writing impacts the world around us more then nearly anything else. Let's face it, storytelling is one of the most effective ways at shaping the ideas and thoughts of those who listen to/read them. With that in mind, I see a way, within my grasp, to influence and impact the world around me. I may not be able to go out slay dragons with a sword or stand up against some evil dark lord or any of those heroic quest that characters go on, but I can write. I think I've heard it said: "My pen is my sword." I like that.

I'm not talking about writing propaganda either. I think one thing that frustrates me as I read Christian literature, is that far too often it's a thinly disguised tract. There is a place for evangelism, but every Christian book isn't it. However, I don't have a problem with writing allegorical works and it's good that people can write about concepts from the Bible and the gospel message in ways that you haven't even thought possible to communicate the truth with. I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't like being preachy or being preached at when I'm writing or reading a book.

In my opinion, the largest impacts on society are made through storytelling and it is that impact that inspires me to write. It's not enough for me to just sit back and passively watch the world drift on by, I want to be out there making an impact, and using writing is an excellent way to do so.

Second, writing is a wonderful way to share truth.