[Tatterdemalion]

Macros, on 12 May 2016 - 11:05 AM, said:

Quick question Joel.

Could you clarify the time/day/week/year cycling for me?

I get that a span = a year.

But I like to have a good idea in my head how long something is if you get me.
How long is an endea? How many endea to a span etc?

Give up all my secrets, eh? Gonna use 'em to scour for continuity errors, eh? Fa on you! Use the context!

Okay, fine.

...but only because you guys are giving me love. These are the general conversions from my almanac.

TIME
sixtieth ~ 1 second
tic ~ 1 minute
tora (centoratic) ~ 1 hour
endae ~ 1 day (usually simply referred to as a 'day')
midendae ~ midday
endae aft ~ afternoon
half-decadae ~ 5 days
decadae ~ 10 days
enspan ~ 1 month
half-span ~ 6 months
span ~ 1 year
centoraspan ~ 100 years
on the morrow ~ tomorrow
last endae ~ yesterday

But for distance and weight measurements, you gotta pay extra!

This post has been edited by Tatterdemalion: 13 May 2016 - 02:42 AM

[Macros]

I think I have the measurement/ distances sorta in my head anyway.

[Macros]

Ok, just finished.

First off, to anyone who doesn't like my review/critique can go fuck themselves, I told Joel Od be honest and I will.
Also possible SPOILERS, but very minor if at all



Now, Purge of Ashes.
Well the name certainly makes sense now and I caught a little bit of the deluge reference near the end too.
Pacing was pretty good, no parts of the novel really dragged for me, and I imagine it would have been quite easy to get sucked into a day by day of the retreat but it was contained nicely and only focused on the big days. My only negative take on this section would be that it probably felt a little flat on the emotional scale as we had no connection with the fleeing refugees, and only a small cast of the Locians to engage with so yes people die, in significant numbers, it reminded of the death of one is a tragedy, the death of many is just a statistic.
There was however a good deal of involvement on some character deaths in the novel, I'll say no more on that for fear of spoilers. I thought some of it was very well handled.

So overall the story was engaging, for me, the world well realised, and clearly (going off Joel's maps) has a wealth of background and thought put into it. Pacing suited me fine, Id have been through the novel an awful lot quicker if I had of had the reading time available.
The build quality I'll praise again, this is a well made book, the tight margins don't bother me in the slightest. Were I to nit pick I wouldn't have minded the world map maybe broke in 2 so it was a little larger to pick out names. Took a bit of squinting to find Arc Dago etc.


Now, my problems with the times/ measurements stuff are mostly down to my personal preferences and little idiosyncrasies. Its a different world, based on different cultures, there will be different cycles and so forth. But the fact that you've made a minute 60 seconds long just pulls me out of immersion when I see the word tic and sixtieth. Bear with me on this, the first few times I saw tic I struggled massively to equate it to minutes, a tic has such common use in english speaking countries as slang for a second or a few moments that it was simply the wrong word for a minute for me, every time it would make me pause for a second to put it in place. Same with sixtieth, but this is more down to my brain acting silly. There's no need for a word for a second, heartbeats or moments works fine, seconds weren't really counted until the advent of reasonably accurate clocks, I don't think we even had a commonly agreed seconds duration until the 60s? Even well into the industrial revolution people worked in 15 minute intervals for timing as common watches weren't really up to marking minutes all that accurately. If its a different world with different rules then time demarcation would likely be totally different, we wouldn't have base 12 for hours (24 in a day is lunar phases I think) (egyptians?) 60 for minutes/seconds (babylonians and greeks?) and etc etc. So seeing these things that are clearly the same as real world timing with totally different names always grabs me, like I said, this is probably just personal to me, and wont be changed as you've set your worlds parameters in stone with the first novel completed and published. Decades makes sense as your numbering is the same and so a base ten is logical on that stand point (we'll not get into my own personal bugabear with the numbers 11 and 12, cause that's not relevant to anything ever)
I know you want to keep your world fantastical and fear delivering an info dumpnwould.ruin the magic so to speak, but I really think in you DP at the start, a quick breakdown of what your measurements roughly equate would.be a good thing. What is a run? A mile, a league, as far as a drunken donkey can stumble before tripping over its own nose?
This probably all reads as very petty, and I don't mean it to sound this way, these are thoughts (minus the donkey) that genuinely run in my head whenever these words crop up, and it does pull me from the immersion of a story, in many novels. I not saying MAKE IT ALL MILES AND LEAGUES AND MINUTES DAYS AND HOURS, far from it but I like to know from the get go what a measurement is in real world terms, so I can visualise a journey or description of something easier and more accurately to what the author intended. And tic just doesn't work as anything other than a tiny amount of time due to the nature of a ticking clock. Sorry.


Beyond my pedantry lies what I see as the only true issues in this novel.
The prose.
Now most of the prose flows reasonably well, but its a bit over indulgent in places, you have a penchant for using $10 words when a buck will do. A large and diverse vocabulary is all fair and well, and I pride myself on having a reasonably broad one but on occasion I found myself having to track back to gain context before deciding if I had read the word correctly and swing if it really fitted in what I thought was happening.
All authors have their own little 'things' (erikson loves bald pates and potsherds, eddings has a serious love for sly looks and grins, jordan is obsessed with a well turned calve and cleavage, granted I can understand the calves thing). I found myself thinking Joel's was a fear of overuse of some language, or a desire to use words he loves, and the misuse of decimated, but that's world wide now and is something I just have to live with. I love the word flibbertigibbet, I think its the best word in the dictionary, but I don't whip it out as regular people will just go, what the fuck does that mean? I just put myself in a higher class than regular, go me.
This problem for me was compounded because sometimes a word was simply out of place in a sentence or was the wrong word entirely for the situation. So when I caught one Id go back to see if I had read the sentance wrong and try and see if there was a contextual situation that made the word work better or maybe it had been a minor typo that changed things.
On that stuck in my head from early in the boom, I think from Katylos, someone took into a saclion and whacked their face off. You wrote 'diced their face', to me it should have been sliced, and dicing is something you do to food, make it into little dice shaped cubes. A single swipe from a blade slices.
This mightn't bother some people, but it was something again that pulled me from immersion and happened frequently enough that it did become a slight irritant.
It brought to mind Apts comment about the blurb, if these things caused me to jump back and reread sentences here and there to gain context or puzzle out if it was an error, it is bound to be an ask for someone whos first language isn't english. Im kind of curious to see if this was the case or if its all macros' crazy little brain overthinking things and making his own life difficult.

Im rambling.
Again I can't stress this enough, its a good story, with good characters, decent pacing and a well realised world. I want to know more. I did enjoy the journey, and will pick up Grip of Dust. I encourage other members to go forth and read, its a lot better than a lot of the stuff out there, I'd say its more.... Realistic (probably wrong word) and enjoyable for that than several very popular authors currently selling very well (I'll say no more because the fanbois might strike)
But, I felt like you needed a tighter editor on board to take it to that next level, or an extra few proof readers with highlighter marker pens, the prose could definitely do with a bit of streamlining here and and there and in some instances its simply the wrong word or grammatical structure used.

Not going to give a score overall because...
Xyn take you, I don't feel like it that's why

[Macros]

Typed on phone. Not fixing any typos (is this something Alanis Morisset should sing about?)

[Mentalist]

Thanks, Maccy.

Gonna order the book with my next paycheck, I think.

[Tatterdemalion]

Macros, on 20 May 2016 - 01:28 PM, said:

Pacing was pretty good, no parts of the novel really dragged for me, and I imagine it would have been quite easy to get sucked into a day by day of the retreat but it was contained nicely and only focused on the big days.

Again I can't stress this enough, its a good story, with good characters, decent pacing and a well realised world.

Man, my pacing went from "pretty good" to "decent" just in the course of the review!

Macros, on 20 May 2016 - 01:28 PM, said:

My only negative take on this section would be that it probably felt a little flat on the emotional scale as we had no connection with the fleeing refugees, and only a small cast of the Locians to engage with so yes people die, in significant numbers, it reminded of the death of one is a tragedy, the death of many is just a statistic.
There was however a good deal of involvement on some character deaths in the novel, I'll say no more on that for fear of spoilers. I thought some of it was very well handled.

So overall the story was engaging, for me, the world well realised, and clearly (going off Joel's maps) has a wealth of background and thought put into it. Pacing suited me fine, Id have been through the novel an awful lot quicker if I had of had the reading time available.
The build quality I'll praise again, this is a well made book, the tight margins don't bother me in the slightest. Were I to nit pick I wouldn't have minded the world map maybe broke in 2 so it was a little larger to pick out names. Took a bit of squinting to find Arc Dago etc.

Thanks! For the most part. I will admit, there's really only two or three scenes where the Locians or our Xyntoi friends engage directly with the refugees. It was a choice of tight pacing or deeper tragedy, and I opted to keep the story about the soldiers and royalty. Glad you enjoyed the weight of their personal stories.

The world map is clearly somewhat inadequate. Online is much better. It was too huge to fit in the softcover. There were plans to make it the entire interior (in colour!) after opening the cover for the Hard Cover release, but having lost the publisher I am now uncertain of a hard cover in the near future. So many references to other places on the map and the reader is left with a tease of the rest of the world. Again, a casualty of the publisher dying the week the book came out.

Macros, on 20 May 2016 - 01:28 PM, said:

Now, my problems with the times/ measurements stuff are mostly down to my personal preferences and little idiosyncrasies. Its a different world, based on different cultures, there will be different cycles and so forth. But the fact that you've made a minute 60 seconds long just pulls me out of immersion when I see the word tic and sixtieth. Bear with me on this, the first few times I saw tic I struggled massively to equate it to minutes, a tic has such common use in english speaking countries as slang for a second or a few moments that it was simply the wrong word for a minute for me, every time it would make me pause for a second to put it in place. Same with sixtieth, but this is more down to my brain acting silly. There's no need for a word for a second, heartbeats or moments works fine, seconds weren't really counted until the advent of reasonably accurate clocks, I don't think we even had a commonly agreed seconds duration until the 60s? Even well into the industrial revolution people worked in 15 minute intervals for timing as common watches weren't really up to marking minutes all that accurately. If its a different world with different rules then time demarcation would likely be totally different, we wouldn't have base 12 for hours (24 in a day is lunar phases I think) (egyptians?) 60 for minutes/seconds (babylonians and greeks?) and etc etc. So seeing these things that are clearly the same as real world timing with totally different names always grabs me, like I said, this is probably just personal to me, and wont be changed as you've set your worlds parameters in stone with the first novel completed and published. Decades makes sense as your numbering is the same and so a base ten is logical on that stand point (we'll not get into my own personal bugabear with the numbers 11 and 12, cause that's not relevant to anything ever)
I know you want to keep your world fantastical and fear delivering an info dumpnwould.ruin the magic so to speak, but I really think in you DP at the start, a quick breakdown of what your measurements roughly equate would.be a good thing. What is a run? A mile, a league, as far as a drunken donkey can stumble before tripping over its own nose?
This probably all reads as very petty, and I don't mean it to sound this way, these are thoughts (minus the donkey) that genuinely run in my head whenever these words crop up, and it does pull me from the immersion of a story, in many novels. I not saying MAKE IT ALL MILES AND LEAGUES AND MINUTES DAYS AND HOURS, far from it but I like to know from the get go what a measurement is in real world terms, so I can visualise a journey or description of something easier and more accurately to what the author intended. And tic just doesn't work as anything other than a tiny amount of time due to the nature of a ticking clock. Sorry.

Just one note on this: the list of time terminology I supplied you was a general comparison from my almanac to keep me on track. It is not exact in-world, per se. A tic is usually just a 'long moment' so to speak, around a minute but not mathematically equivalent. Likely less. Sixtieth was an addition based on the ambiguity of how long a tic really was. Maybe it did not help quite so much.

Macros, on 20 May 2016 - 01:28 PM, said:

Beyond my pedantry lies what I see as the only true issues in this novel.
The prose.
Now most of the prose flows reasonably well, but its a bit over indulgent in places, you have a penchant for using $10 words when a buck will do. A large and diverse vocabulary is all fair and well, and I pride myself on having a reasonably broad one but on occasion I found myself having to track back to gain context before deciding if I had read the word correctly and swing if it really fitted in what I thought was happening.
All authors have their own little 'things' (erikson loves bald pates and potsherds, eddings has a serious love for sly looks and grins, jordan is obsessed with a well turned calve and cleavage, granted I can understand the calves thing). I found myself thinking Joel's was a fear of overuse of some language, or a desire to use words he loves, and the misuse of decimated, but that's world wide now and is something I just have to live with. I love the word flibbertigibbet, I think its the best word in the dictionary, but I don't whip it out as regular people will just go, what the fuck does that mean? I just put myself in a higher class than regular, go me.
This problem for me was compounded because sometimes a word was simply out of place in a sentence or was the wrong word entirely for the situation. So when I caught one Id go back to see if I had read the sentance wrong and try and see if there was a contextual situation that made the word work better or maybe it had been a minor typo that changed things.
On that stuck in my head from early in the boom, I think from Katylos, someone took into a saclion and whacked their face off. You wrote 'diced their face', to me it should have been sliced, and dicing is something you do to food, make it into little dice shaped cubes. A single swipe from a blade slices.
This mightn't bother some people, but it was something again that pulled me from immersion and happened frequently enough that it did become a slight irritant.
It brought to mind Apts comment about the blurb, if these things caused me to jump back and reread sentences here and there to gain context or puzzle out if it was an error, it is bound to be an ask for someone whos first language isn't english. Im kind of curious to see if this was the case or if its all macros' crazy little brain overthinking things and making his own life difficult.

Im rambling.
Again I can't stress this enough, its a good story, with good characters, decent pacing and a well realised world. I want to know more. I did enjoy the journey, and will pick up Grip of Dust. I encourage other members to go forth and read, its a lot better than a lot of the stuff out there, I'd say its more.... Realistic (probably wrong word) and enjoyable for that than several very popular authors currently selling very well (I'll say no more because the fanbois might strike)
But, I felt like you needed a tighter editor on board to take it to that next level, or an extra few proof readers with highlighter marker pens, the prose could definitely do with a bit of streamlining here and and there and in some instances its simply the wrong word or grammatical structure used.

Not going to give a score overall because...
Xyn take you, I don't feel like it that's why

Macros, you've done me a wicked solid by giving it your undivided attention. Thank you kindly, sir. It was more than most will do (although you other folk reading it - how's it going? Catch up! Don't let him beat you to the punch ).

If you've read my previous thread about publication, or followed Maark's cutting of ties with our former pub, then you will know the conditions under which the novel was produced were far from ideal. It pains me greatly, because most everything you like comes down to JOEL while most everything you didn't like comes down to EDIT THAT SHIT. Makes me proud the content works as it is supposed to, but scared the conditions of publication will haunt me.

Aneom rest his hand on you.

This post has been edited by Tatterdemalion: 21 May 2016 - 03:42 AM

[Tatterdemalion]

Also, I think "realistic" is the perfect word, in that there are few superheroes here, and most of our mains are coming of age stories wrapped around the epic conflict brewing. It was my hope that the dialogue was not super clever, per se, but more natural and raw.

[Macros]

To be honest I had an feeling realmwalkers collapse might have had a hand to play in the editing issues, that and iirc correctly someone read a few of their other small stories and they said it had quite a few editing errors so with then being a small publishing house anyway they might nit have had a budget for such in depth editing...

There are some excellent grammar nazis floating around this site that you could maybe approach to be proof readers or some such (not my forte alas, Im good at the words context and usage stuff but full on correct sentence structure is something I struggle with from time to time)

[Itwæs Nom]

Arrived

haven't read yet


I think the Germany(Leipzig) printed ones are still the grimdark versions.

The weighing plate of scales on the left, the bottom of banner and scale chains on the right all blend with black background and are invisible under any light. Allright just noticed it's very faintly visible on very close look. I would post a photo but it wouldn't be much accurate with the crappy camera I'm afraid.


I don't really mind just thought I should let you know.

[Macros]

Ohmygodnomyou'resovainandsuperficial!!!didntyourmotherevertellyouitswhatsontheinsidethatcountsandbeautyisonlyskindeep???!!!!1111one

[Maark Abbott]

Macros, on 21 May 2016 - 08:20 AM, said:

To be honest I had an feeling realmwalkers collapse might have had a hand to play in the editing issues, that and iirc correctly someone read a few of their other small stories and they said it had quite a few editing errors so with then being a small publishing house anyway they might nit have had a budget for such in depth editing...

There are some excellent grammar nazis floating around this site that you could maybe approach to be proof readers or some such (not my forte alas, Im good at the words context and usage stuff but full on correct sentence structure is something I struggle with from time to time)

I think the factors were myriad, truth be told.

[Tatterdemalion]

Itwæs Nom, on 21 May 2016 - 10:26 AM, said:

Arrived

haven't read yet


I think the Germany(Leipzig) printed ones are still the grimdark versions.

The weighing plate of scales on the left, the bottom of banner and scale chains on the right all blend with black background and are invisible under any light. Allright just noticed it's very faintly visible on very close look. I would post a photo but it wouldn't be much accurate with the crappy camera I'm afraid.

I don't really mind just thought I should let you know.

Thanks. I know exactly what you mean. Most all of my friends and family have purchased this version to help me out... so thanks!

Not sure what I can do to fix it... Amazon updated everything well over a month ago. It should no longer be offered 'grimdark' style (a great way to make a ridiculous difference in tint sound cool). Fortunately, what's within is (mostly) the same. A few edits at the start of chapter 4 and a re-centering of 'PROLOGUE', plus a change to the ISBN page, and that's about it.

I bet your copy says 'Realmwalker Publishing Group' on it, while the brighter ones dropped it to just be self-pub: Joel Minty.

I hope you like it, Nom! I hope it fulfills your deepest, darkest fantasies.

[Tatterdemalion]

Macros, on 21 May 2016 - 08:20 AM, said:

To be honest I had an feeling realmwalkers collapse might have had a hand to play in the editing issues, that and iirc correctly someone read a few of their other small stories and they said it had quite a few editing errors so with then being a small publishing house anyway they might nit have had a budget for such in depth editing...

There are some excellent grammar nazis floating around this site that you could maybe approach to be proof readers or some such (not my forte alas, Im good at the words context and usage stuff but full on correct sentence structure is something I struggle with from time to time)

Well, there's 'correct' sentence structure, then there's 'optimal' sentence structure...

[worry]

Just finished your book, Tatts. I think my review would echo Macros's almost word for word. Pacing is great. The characters you focus in on are all well drawn. The characters you don't focus in on are maybe a little too lightly drawn, at least among the named ones. I think that may have to do with the clear Malazan inspiration for the freelancers, but without Erikson's knack for weaving tons of short story-like character moments into his novels. Though on the few occasion you do that for POV characters it really works (eg Phlanx, Avery). So if you want to take that as a compliment, in that I'd like more of that kind of stuff and you can definitely handle it, you're very welcome to.

Like Mac, the vast majority of my complaints would be nitpicking word choice and phrasing, for meaning and flow. It's never a deal-breaker, but still something I'd call semi-frequent enough to be a noticeable issue.

On top of that, I think some of the in-world vocabulary could use some in-story expansion. I get the notion that characters don't explain this stuff to each other cuz they already know it, and I get the need to leave a few terms mysterious until their proper time (eg Tetsun), but for creatures and stuff there's gotta be a way to paint quick pictures in a POV/narration balance. As is though I have terms like "rog butcher" in my head with pretty much no referent.

If I had one bigger request -- and it's a tall order so I don't expect this to come true; it's more like a wish -- it's city maps in addition to the world map, of Katolys and Remn.

Anyway, on the whole I thought it was a pretty darn good book. You were right when you said it's not grimdark but also doesn't pull its punches when they come. You managed to write a pretty solid love quadrangle that was never mawkish (maybe pentagonal come to think of it), and even more importantly, never exploitative of any of the characters' feelings. Ultimately you left me wanting more, of both the immediate story and the big picture.

[RACHEL]

Finished last night. Let me start by congratulating you on accomplishing something few on this site have.

I liked the little story told at the beginning of each chapter. I liked that I could see the Malazan influence. I loved the Scalions how they are like a certain animal. My favorite thing is that I could tell you had the story already figured out so nothing felt tacked on just for kicks. You have a big world here and I am interested in seeing more.

I did have some problems. The back cover blurb was worded so strange it was a chore to read and I don't think it did the book justice, and if I picked this up in a store I probably would not have bought it. The wording for time that you used was jarring for me. It felt like "hey we're not on Earth can't you tell by the words we use for time". I know it is a personal nitpick but it jarred me every time. It just seemed strange to me to change all the words for time when words like dress and tree and cloak ect. remained the same.

My biggest problem is the same as people above have written. This book needed some major editing. Every other page I found a sentence in which the wrong word was used, or the sentence read weird and should have been rearranged, or words should have been added or taken away. Just like Macros said up-thread the very first sentence should have been rearranged. One example is a sentence in which a character looks at another character and thinks "he looks older and stronger than he did two years ago". No shit he looked older that could have been left out. I found a lot of this sort of thing.

As much as I liked the Malazan influence I did feel like some things were left too mysterious and I wish they had been explained better or earlier. Some of this may have been caused by the fact that I read it in snippets over the course of several weeks so maybe I wasn't making all the right connections.

Overall I liked it but I didn't love it. Best of luck on getting the next two books out and I will gladly pick up a copy to support you.

[Maark Abbott]

I do feel that I have to stand up for Blackspear* a little - a lot of the editing that came out of RW was (from what I've been told) questionable.




*DOUBLEMINT JOKES I GOT DEM

[RACHEL]

I could not agree more about realwalker dropping the ball on editing. When Tatter first posted about his book I checked out realmwalkers website and saw that their kindle books were on sale on Amazon for $.99 so I bought the four realmwalker chronicles. I could not even finish the first book because the editing was such shit and I returned the others. Thats why I wish Tatter (and Maark) the best of luck getting publishers. Because of the poor editing I was constantly jarred out of the story and so my opinion of it suffered, which is sad because I really like the world.

[Tatterdemalion]

worry, on 03 June 2016 - 03:17 AM, said:

Just finished your book, Tatts. I think my review would echo Macros's almost word for word. Pacing is great. The characters you focus in on are all well drawn. The characters you don't focus in on are maybe a little too lightly drawn, at least among the named ones. I think that may have to do with the clear Malazan inspiration for the freelancers, but without Erikson's knack for weaving tons of short story-like character moments into his novels. Though on the few occasion you do that for POV characters it really works (eg Phlanx, Avery). So if you want to take that as a compliment, in that I'd like more of that kind of stuff and you can definitely handle it, you're very welcome to.

Like Mac, the vast majority of my complaints would be nitpicking word choice and phrasing, for meaning and flow. It's never a deal-breaker, but still something I'd call semi-frequent enough to be a noticeable issue.

On top of that, I think some of the in-world vocabulary could use some in-story expansion. I get the notion that characters don't explain this stuff to each other cuz they already know it, and I get the need to leave a few terms mysterious until their proper time (eg Tetsun), but for creatures and stuff there's gotta be a way to paint quick pictures in a POV/narration balance. As is though I have terms like "rog butcher" in my head with pretty much no referent.

If I had one bigger request -- and it's a tall order so I don't expect this to come true; it's more like a wish -- it's city maps in addition to the world map, of Katolys and Remn.

Anyway, on the whole I thought it was a pretty darn good book. You were right when you said it's not grimdark but also doesn't pull its punches when they come. You managed to write a pretty solid love quadrangle that was never mawkish (maybe pentagonal come to think of it), and even more importantly, never exploitative of any of the characters' feelings. Ultimately you left me wanting more, of both the immediate story and the big picture.

I'm replying to worry, but also will reply to RACHEL here as well.

First of all, thank you both for reading my book! I would love it if either of you would take the time to Amazon review - as honest as ya feel. Reviews are hard to come by and it's a big book. I'm very thankful for all of the Malazan Empire faithful who have taken it upon themselves to read the novel.

First off, worry, regarding the non POV Locians. In this case, I imagine you mostly mean Blade Raruk (half a page of POV, more or less) and Corporal Eunice? Of the many other 'names' you hear from the third, I can say that moving forward into Grip of Dust many of these characters get fleshed out. They become more and more select by surviving, and thus have more opportunity to get out there. There is an intention, at least, to draw out the characters of

Spoiler

Chorain, Cordo, Em, Loosetooth, Root, Frjjojin, Muddrow, Gideon, Hester, etc

.

Good point about the animals. As most of them hail from other climates, they don't show up on the journey itself. They are principally used by Avery or Minette, or others, as metaphors. The Jugrahan are detailed in the prologue of Grip, but I suppose all you get in Purge is 'they're big.'

Your request: OH LORD. WHY. Heh. YES, I was going to have THREE city maps: Katolys, Edis, Remn. Each before the chapter they enter the city. Realmwalker's editor was a cartography student and was going to build them for me from quickly-jotted Photoshop drawings I made. But as the deadline approached, and plenty of my time was wasted on other properties / OTHER more IMPORTANT fuck ups on their behalf (say, not having a cover). Anyway, his software broke in the days before the release and the I never got my city maps. He's since said it needs updating and he isn't paying for it, so for now I'll never get them. And they WERE DONE. He just couldn't export. FML. (btw, this was the least of my damn worries in the 48 consecutive hours I stayed awake leading up to release day). Sigh.

You're the first person to mention the pentagonal, and I appreciate it. A gentle touch there was essential.

As per RACHEL... boy, every review comes back to editing and it's killing me. Because the publishing deal was supposed to include this shit. I'm pretty sure they just ran my MS through a computer program (as I actually had to dig out two to three errors ADDED by the 'editing' done). By the time the editing came back to me (with almost nothing to fix) I had about a week to print. At that moment, after 7+ years of work.... it was unthinkable to hold off. I sat on the project for 2 years because I was let go from work and couldn't afford the (amazing) editor I had caught the attention of... and then accidentally ended up pulling the rube mistake of going without that second set of professional eyes (emphasis on accidental. I never meant to go it alone).

Truth is, I don't know what to do. Everyone is gushing well and truly about the content, but I'm yet to get a truly independent review that does not indicate to holes in the communication of said content. No matter how many times I edit, I'm not going to see them. But after the blaaaaaargaagagaa release... well, it's out. There's no more prep. I've learned a lot more about the industry in the past half year since getting the 3-book deal. I've also met at least one excellent fantasy editor - who is on sale at the moment, even. But... what, pay a bundle for editing on a book that's released already? It would almost be an insult to you fine people who have already championed the work unless I could divvy out free copies. eBook that's easy, but softcover... I can't just go around touching it up here and there every few weeks. 0 professionalism. But I can't LEAVE it when there's so much awesome poured in. Not to mention putting up that money when all the key people (like yourselves) have already forked for it once (and fortunately seem to like it enough not to send it back, at least ) Plus, IRL, I'm having a second child in a month. Not a good time!

Anyway, these reviews are REALLY important to me. They are shaping what I must do. Having each new reviewer dislike a different part of the story would implying overall weakness, but having everyone seem as though they would all flat out love it if I hired a real editor... that implies a rooted strength in the rest of the content itself. And changing the content is a lot harder than changing the delivery. It sounds like something needs to be fixed - and, importantly, that is it readily fixable with the right person on board - but I am beating myself up over if it needs to happen ASAP (hire editor pal, edit, update book, keep pushing) or later on (let kids grow a bunch while writing Grip of Dust [72k!], pay for edits for BOTH books and try to find a proper pub to promote both through.)

Thanks worry and RACHEL - and everyone else out there still reading (Mentalist mayhaps... other sneaky peeps). I salute you.

[amphibian]

100% the right move to get the good editor(s) for the next book. This book is still very good, even with its weak spots. I'm taking my time going through it because it is so damn worthy of my attention and I'd like to point out the spots in a way that helps you be a better writer without tearing down your enthusiasm or joy.

This set of characters and story is going someplace interesting. You can do this, Fresh.

[worry]

I actually suspected some of the characters you listed were definitely gonna get filled in, since you do hint they have more to them (a certain dour bandaged fellow, for instance), so I'm really glad to hear that.

That map thing -- wow that's tragic. You've had a bunch of frustrations for sure, but I hear you about getting the book out. Opportunity knocked and gambling with your baby is just an insane choice to have to make. I know this is kinda pie in the sky thinking, but if you ever get the shot to put out a revised edition (and again, I'm talking for word choice and flow, not major story edits) I'd say don't shy away from it out of purist reasons. That said, I know you're already writing the next one and have to be forward-thinking cuz of the publisher issues, so most of my reaction is just a big fat congrats.