[Maark Abbott]

Goose - I'm at work so I'll have a look at your post in full over the weekend and provide some responses. Be gentle though, senpai! ;-;

[Aptorian]

I was pretty hard on the book. I thought being thoroughly negative was better than using kiddy gloves.

[Maark Abbott]

Alternative Goose, on 02 February 2018 - 08:42 AM, said:

I was pretty hard on the book. I thought being thoroughly negative was better than using kiddy gloves.

Take my comment as tongue in cheek. Authors need thick skin, your thoughts are what they are so there's no point in me being petulant about them. And you're quite right on a serious note - I'd rather have you be harsh than too gentle (although... be gentle, senpai, it's my first, kyaaaa~ and so forth, D'rek can probably advise on these anime-isms better than me).

Rather, what I'll do is I'll go through point by point and then look to explain the rationale behind my decisions in respect of the same. It won't alter your opinion of the book (nor should it be intended to) but if it can at least give you an insight into the process behind it, that seems like it'd be a good thing.

[RACHEL]

Spoiler

I read your reply Maark and you are right. I greatly oversimplified the end battle but not because I didn't see all that was going on but because that was how it made me feel. You said you like a slow build up and a Malazan style ending. I guess I got excited when I thought of the showdown of the incarnates at the end but it was barely epic.
I see now that Anderas just got really angry at his brother and didn't use his powers but I am still confused why the God that was using him as incarnate didn't help him to defend himself. I mean the ageless helped inspire a trip to the floating murder island but then didn't protect him at all when he tried to leave. Was he only supposed to activate the island but the ageless couldn't care less if he lived after that?
You did explain the magic system and I did like the glossary at the end but I wanted a little more about how it felt to use magic. I don't really get what the ageless are, gods, godlings, super advanced technological race? How do they pass on their powers to people who can access them? Are they just ancient users of the magic system who somehow lucked out and were extremely powerful. I get that all this is probably RAFO.
You say that to trim anything from the book would make it feel rushed and unsatisfying but goose and I were left unfulfilled even with the length. I really think you are not taking serious my earlier comments of all the repetitive words you have in your book. I have three examples in an earlier comment of things that could easily have been cut and I explained that I noticed stuff like that on almost every page. I would not ask you to cut important things out just repetive things that readers don't need to be told over and over again. Getting rid of these things would not in any way make the book feel rushed or unsatisfying it would just be taking out unnecessary filler. I mentioned that when Kaenna was escaping Kargas temple you slowed down the action by describing the clothes of the soldiers following her and had to tell us they were thick to deal with the cold Skol weather. This was less than unnecessary it was distracting from an exciting escape scene. It should be cut along with hundreds of other little things I noticed. I think you are mistaking length as the measuring block by which a book is good and this is a big mistake to make. As a first time author it is career suicide to think that there is nothing wrong with your book and that nothing needs to be cut or changed. Its not that I just don't get your vision you really do need to cut the fat and it could all be done while still having the same book, just a better flowing one.
I think every author writes a book that they would want to read. I also think that what you might want to read and what you wrote are separate entities and should never be confused with each other. Your book is your baby that you spent hours even years writing. It is your beautiful creation and because of that it is harder to be subjective. You cannot come to your own book with fresh eyes, you know the end game and all the secrets so even vague lines make sense to you. You wrote a long book because you prefer long books but I'm not sure you would agree that this book is right up your alley if you hadn't written it.
Anyway, like goose said I think it better to give it to you harsh rather than baby you like I think your beta readers did. You are a good author but what you really need is an experienced editor. I mean it when I say I will pick up book 2 when it's out but I hope to see some improvement.

[Maark Abbott]

Alternative Goose, on 01 February 2018 - 03:41 PM, said:

I finished Incarnate earlier this week. As promised here is my rambling criticism of the book.

MASSIVE SPOILER GLYPHS ABOUND

I think I mentioned it more than once during my read through but this book didn't sit right by me from the start. The pacing seemed slow or just off in terms of events shown and time spent following Kaenna, I thought there was illogical story plots and Kaenna was not a fun character to read about. This more or less solidified into a disliked of the book overall the closer I got to the end.

I think you've got what it takes to write a book, Maark, but I think you've written a book that is at best mediocre, at worst a complete miss fire. I'd say it was a 3/5 star book but to be fair to you as a new author, figuring this stuff out, I think it's better to be harsh. I think this is a sub par fantasy book that probably shouldn't get more than a 1/5 or maybe 2/5 if you were reviewing it commercially.

Now why do I think that? Ignoring the books editing issues - that the book is too long, that there's lots of misspellings, etc., my gripes are twofold. One, I think you've written a miserable tale for a set of unsympathetic characters and I think the story path you've laid out, lacks ambition, logic and edge.

Just a heads up. This is pretty much just one long list of negatives with few positive elements inserted. I think you have more need to hear the bad than praise. So hang in there. You mentioned in another thread that you'd mainly gotten positive feedback and if this is true, I think your advanced readers have done you a massive disservice (Or their taste in writing and fantasy differs greatly from mine).

Now let's start with your characters and how they're treated.

There is a meanness to the way you write these characters. Mainly Kaenna but also Anderas and Anderas girlfriend. There is traditionally a contract an author enters into with his reader. When an author lays out a story of pain and suffering and setbacks for the character, it is with the understanding that this is a trial - for the reader and the character. When the story concludes there will be success, ascendancy, glory or revenge, etc. Some kind of release. Some significant change. There is none of this in the book. Your characters get raped, humiliated, beaten, murdered, etc. and it doesn't let up. Life in Skjøli is harsh. Which for me personally is uncomfortable to read and left me with blue balls on the last page.

This isn't unique to your book. It's quite common in many dark and gritty stories in these modern times. But usually, when these dark stories are told, it features a strong character who has the personality that carries the reader through. Cain Blackknife, Harry Dresden, Garfield the Cat. The character has the intelligence to figure things out or the sheer toughness or single mindedness to see them through. But neither Kaenna nor Anderas have these features. They're weak and stupid people. They get fucked over and fucked up all the way through and none of them have the personal drive or focus to change this. In Anderas case it's mostly just a case of existential suffering but it's awful none the less. There is a difference between writing a sympathetic character and a character that is just pathetic. I can't root for a character that has no likeable characteristic and little spirit to persevere. Anderas disposition is written soundly. You've created a truly weak human being. It's just a protagonist that is truly unappealing to read about.

I don't want to read about a main character like that. It has no pay off for me. Maybe you, as the author, are looking past the first book to the finale of book 3 and as such, you know that patience will payoff but as a reader I have no such knowledge. I just suffered through 500+ pages with characters I never grew to like. In my optics, you've written 3 main characters Herik, Kaenna and Anderas who never grow, who don't change and who's outlook and station don't really change over the course of the book. Sure Kaenna is now a god puppet and Herik got a promotion and Anderas got married, but they're still the same. Especially Anderas is frustrating because you see a change in him, when he fights his brother but then he goes back to being a coward and an anime character (I'll get back to that).

I mentioned in another post that I wasn't happy with the rape in this book and that didn't change. Kaenna's rape scenes were depressingly frequent and that tentacle rape sequence was just utterly unnecessary. I'm no feminist or social justice warrior. I'm not bothered by women getting roughed up in fiction but there are limits and there are matters of taste and there are ways to write that. Kaenna's lot in this book seemed like torture porn for neckbeards to me. Similarly, when you introduced Shiza or what ever his name was, magical shogun guy, you use his sexual use of his people as a way to characterize him and the Agatan society. But it just seems like a cheap "look he's a villain rapist" characterization. A throw away line about him raping a boy messenger that night because he feels like it. You can chalk this down to it being a different fantasy culture and youøre adding character to the story but it just seems unnecessary. Maybe I'm just squeamish but you should keep in mind that many readers are and this could effect book sales. Or maybe you'll just attract a lot of Terry Goodkind readers. Maybe there's money there. Rape all your characters while you expound your moral views.

As for Anderas, he is such a weak human being that I felt no sympathy for him. He brings out the bully in me. That part of the male psyche that has me mentally shouting at the book "Man the fuck up, you fucking pussy!". Made even more frustrating when he vacillates between cowardice and anger. You see a change in him but then you drop it again? Which actually has me wondering.

Do you read a lot of manga/anime? Because the way some characters speak in this book, but especially Anderas talks to women, is very anime. Tons of scenes where he is blushing and shy, stammering and don't know how to behave when confronted by an authority or a love interest. This kind of stuff I connect with anime and I find it really off putting. Nobody speaks like that. I know stammering is a literary affectation in some stories but I've never met anyone in my life who actually began to stammer when talking to other people. I don't know if it's something you can sell to a western audience of readers. Maybe it's just me but what ever the case is, when ever Anderas would mentally rebuke himself "vile, sick boy!" I mostly just hoped he'd get shanked by a hobo on the next page.

I'd prefer something more Jane Austin and less chess club about Anderas writing.

And Anderas really does piss me off because he has no pay off for the reader from start to finish in this book. He doesn't become a man at the end. He doesn't turn into an incarnate. He doesn't get his father's respect. He doesn't even receive reciprocal affection from the woman he pinned for and nearly died to save. You could emit him from a second book and I would thank you for it.

Herik on the other hand I liked. Herik is probably the most likeable character you've written (all though I also sort of like magical shogun guys confidence). But his character begins to get annoying when his entire being seems to revolve around drinking from a flask, being annoyed that people don't like him drinking from that flask and him always remarking on how the flasks contents taste bad or burn. It's tedious beyond anything else in the book. And it's also utterly paradoxical. You could probably save 10,000 words by editing that down.

Seriously, considering your early jab at Robert Jordan in the book, it's amazing how many similar affectations your characters have.

You've written a miserable soldier character with PTSD and alcoholism. What appears to be a self destructive, abusive man. But you also write him as a competent "cop" and a functioning alcoholic. Which makes no sense. You hand wave it by claiming that his vow magically makes Herik more resistant to drink but it doesn't really work in my opinion.

A person that drinks, what sounds like 5 liters of spirits a day ,is either going to be a stinking, putrid mess of a human being on death's door or, it's just going to be another day in their ongoing suffering and as such, the alcohol should be something in the back of their mind but not something that takes up every second of their thinking. You've over exaggerated his drinking and completely let it take over the narrative in a way that clashes with Heriks station and function.

So overall, you've treated your characters like shit the whole book and never let up. And you've made your characters either annoying or horrible to follow through their day. This is bad because the only people I was rooting for at the end of the book was the bad guys. At the end of the story I wanted Nixuin to kill every last person at the court and I wanted Shogun guy to flatten that mudhovel of a city.

--------------------------------------

Now to the other side of my quibbles with this book. The actual story. It goes no where and never builds up tension beyond a slight boil.

Now, early on, I remarked that I felt the book was slow and you mentioned that it would get into gear. I never felt that. When the book ended I felt like we were at the point where a normal fantasy thriller was at the half way point.

The pacing is completely off. You spend pages and pages on the characters life that are unimportant or repetitive or brush over chances to really build up tension. You are taking your time in place where you should be rushing and vice versa. For example, let's take Anderas storyline.

Anderas goes to the hidden temple. Anderas touches an incarnate link. The loreseekers go to flying island. Thye come back and Anderas mopes around and courts woman loreseeker whose name I am too lazy to look up... and that is that. What about the incarnate orb? Why don't you activate it at the end of the book during the fight with Nixuin? It would both have giving Anderas the power up and character building we longed for the whole book and also given you a chance to make Nixuins Manifest form more formiddable. By having her stuggle to defeat two mortals, you fail to sell the incarnates power in the readers eye, but if you had Incarnate Anderas come to the rescue, you'd have been able create a cool scene where storm god ageless awakens and two gods punch it out Ascendant convergence Malazan Book style.

But going back, more importantly, the A, B and C of the places Anderas and the Loreseekers travel to seem more like a checklist in a manuscript than important events in the actual story.

When Anderas and cowman (I forget his name) wander off into the temple alone (not a very believable act by the way, too slasher movie logic, not enough academic excavation procedure) why does what they discover mean they have to go the flying island? They find a map? So what? Surely there are a hundreds or thousands of ancient temples that reveal stuff about this proto-Ageless civilization? The Otheriyan Empire is old and vast. Surely they have tons of knowledge about this stuff. But lets assume they don't. Why on earth would they put Anderas in charge of the trip? If this was some paradigm shift in the understanding of the Ageless, wouldn't some chief Loreseeker and a hundred veteran loreseekers, plus a god damn armada of ships had been sent to the floating island?

You had a chance to build up the grandness of this revelation and the following undertaking but up make it seem like just another archaeological excavation.

Hell you could have had Cyborg Skyrim zombies in there that the Umbral Shields had to defend the loreseekers from. I found it strange that the Umbral Shields would not go with the academics into an unknow ancient fortress in the ground. Like, did Ridley Scott write the Loreseeker manual on entering unknown ancient temples of doom?

It feels like there should have been more information waiting in that first temple and something more concerning that made the loreseekers eager to quickly seek out the floating island. You don't sell the mystery and wonder. It just seemed like a necessary set of scenes that served as a story vehicle for Anderas to get the incarnate orb.

Which bring us to the trip to the island. Again it felt rushed. You don't sell that place at all to me as a reader. You should have had a more thorough history dump on prior trips to the island, failed expeditions, legends, maybe a Memnos revealed to know a lot more about the island than the rest realize, etc. Think something like the beginnings of the movies Sphere, Alien, Avatar or what ever. Some meeting that gets you pumped and builds up the idea of the place.

Next, when they arrive on the island, it should have taken them weeks to get to that pyramid and delving into it should have been a fraught, organized affair, not just a couple of buffoons bumbling into the lair of Zordon the Power Rangers leader. Nor should the retreat had been so simple. You undermine the power of the Mnemos mages by suggesting they were all easily taken down, when a couple of loreseekers managed to protect themselves for a prolonged running retreat. You could have made this escape from island much more tragic and disastrous by showing characters (that you should have introduced more thorouhhly) getting cut down. Showing the lead mnemos fight a dozen robots to a stand still giving other loreseekers time to retreat, etc.

Not that those automatons weren't cool. I loved them. But you could again has sold their danger by having a scene of say an evening the first week on the island, where a couple of engineers is trying to dismantle one and they discover these things are still active and very dangerous to disturb, etc.

Similarly I might have liked for you to have used Anderas as a scholar to actually describe and analyze not just the remains of the culture but what about his new found magical ability? How these runes function and how they are manifested. What's the difference between Otheriyan glyphs and ancient Ageless glyphs? Not to mention what is the difference between glyph writing and glyph magic casting?

Actually that reminds me of a missing element in the story. You have Anderas suddenly begin to be able to make glyphs after the incarnate gem enters him. Why not have scenes where Anderas is practicing and showing him mentally analysing how magic now comes to him. So that you give the readers their first proper explanation about the magic system? How the glyph casting feels, what it takes to create these glyphs, etc. maybe with comments from the cow friend about how to use the magic, etc.

Anderas becoming able to summon magic should have been a momentous experience for the kid. Not something you just brush over, like "oh by the way Anderas now casts glyphs, anyway...". Hell why not throw in a scene where his father hears about his sons change, comes to evaluate him and then discards his son once again when he sees how weak he is, furthering this image of a separation between the father and son? Considering how much focus you have on Anderas inferiority complex, you don't spend a lot of time showing the relationship between father and son.

Moreover, why wouldn't Anderas incarnate ability manifest itself to save his friends and the ship when the automatons came to kill them? Why save that reveal? And save it again during the ending. You'd wait 500 pages or more before giving the readers the joy of seeing this weakling of a man exploding into action? For what purpose? You should reward the reader here. Explosions = Happy Apt.

Overall there is a lack of depth, complexity and sophistication in the world building and character perspectives. I'm not sure how else to say that. It feels like either you're not "good enough" to write a book this complex or you were rushing and didn't do enough rewrites to add layers of detail to the dialogue and observations. Like the last finish is missing. Mainly I think the book overall demonstrates that you are a (I assume?) new author and you don't yet have the perspective and experience to really squeeze the blood out of the metaphorical stone.

When reading about Herik's chapters I wanted to know more about the order, their vow, their patron, other orders and magical groups in the world. When reading about the Loreseekers I wanted to learn more about their civilizations structure, what loreseekers do, what goes on back on their continent, etc. When reading about Kaenna and her thieving buddies I wanted more info on the slums and the harbour district. And I don't just mean that in an impatient "wait and find out" kind of way. I felt you were stalling and unnecessarily drawing out revelations. I should have had info dumps on Ohlsson and the fence within the first chapter or two. Not half way through the book, etc. Do call backs to earlier mentions. Generally I wanted more information boiled down to a shorter page length. Which I realize is a tall order to ask of an author, but that is the difference between a bad or mediocre book and great tale.

I wanted the characters to be more complex and more adult. I felt like, because Herik and magical Shogun guy are the only adult POV's, most of the inner monologue we got, was the minds of children. Kaenna, Anderas and One armed loreseeker were written in a manner I associate more with Young Adult writing. I feel like you need to go over these characters again and again and beat their dialogue and thoughts into something more prosaic but also more focused. And generally I don't think any of them were intelligent enough. Kaenna wasn't street smart and cynical enough and Anderas and One armed loreseeker weren't academic and nerdy enough in their perception of their surroundings. I was left with the opinion that especially Kaenna and Anderas are just dumb as fuck. Naive, unsophisticated, weak minds that couldn't fight their way out of a children's sudoku. Not poorly written, just unappealing.

And I realize what I've just spent 2-3 A4 pages describing is just me armchair writing your book for you. My gripes can be dismissed as simply an expression of the story I wanted to read and not your vision. But it ties into my overall feeling through out this book from start to finish. There was far too many times where I thought "why don't they just..." or "Why didn't Maark just show this?". This is not a good thing. This suggests that you've failed as an author to solidify a logic narrative and the feeling of a grander scope and vision than the reader can perceive of.

In my opinion a really great book is surprising and overwhelming. It's written in a way that you feel that the author is always a step ahead of you. That the author is smarter than you are and it's you, the reader, who's job it is to try and figure out what is going on. I didn't feel like that for most of the book. I could see the powers moving in the background and I could tell where the story threads were heading, But nothing was happening. Not with the speed I was anticipating anyway.

Which means we've now come full circle back to my issue with the pacing. You're not in enough of a hurry and I think you did a poor job of selecting the right characters, in the right scenes, to show and tell what the story is really about – IE the first steps in what otherwise appears to a promising introduction to a God War that could rival the Malazan books convergences. But the convergence never came in this book which drove me absolutely mad.

Seriously, why would you drop an epic fight between Nexuin and the combined strength of Umbral Shields, loreseekers and mnemos... to sell a secret mole plot inside the government... that I won't get to read about for another year or more? You undermined your own convergence to build a narrative reason for reading the next book, which really wasn't needed. You just set up an alliance between a fire god and an ice god. That's cool enough for me.

Anyway. I realize this was a long ramble of barely coherent opinions. Look on them as a readers complaints more than another writer's professional criticism. God knows, I've never had the stamina or drive to write a brick of fantasy.

I think you should join a writing circle or something and have people throw poop opinions at you every week until you figure out some way to condense your writing and become better at creating interesting characters.

I think you've made a good attempt at writing a big fantasy book but I think there's way too many flaws and inconsistencies in the book for it to ever be picked up by a publisher or gain popularity by a discerning audience.

The hard truth is that there is a ton of very good fiction out there. Mediocre isn't good enough if you want to do this professionally.

Ok so to answer each point in turn:

I have to say it's odd that you'd consider rating a book down due to the fact it's a nascent author, but perhaps that's because I tend to offer the benefit of the doubt as a reader and don't tend to factor in a lack of prior output in my reviews/considerations et al.

I will also add that I'm not going to drop comments such as 'the proofers / Ando / Reader X enjoyed it so NER' because your reading experience is as valid as theirs and doing so would demean the fact that you saw it through to the end (which, if you didn't like it, I wholly respect, because you could just as easily have bailed out).

Re meanness: People are shitty. Skjøl is a shithole (it's very loosely based on post-industrial decline South Yorkshire towns, which are rough at the best of times - obligatory 'cheers Thatcher' here). The characters aren't meant to be likeable - I'm quite firmly in the Bakker School of Character Writing. So perhaps this is more a stylistic issue than anything else. I personally have grown very tired of books where we have a character that we're expected to get behind and root for - maybe I read to much Eddings as a younger man? Either way, Bakker influence.

Re character growth: "Book 2 is where they start to grow" is a cop-out statement but it was always the intent that book 2 is where the characters start to really develop - Anderas growing as a nascent Glyphcaster/Incarnate, Kaenna no longer possessed. Herik is an odd case because he's already at the limit of his growth and he as a character knows it, hence his alcoholism and why he just tries to do right insofar as he sees what right is.

Re Shiza: The Agatan culture holds that being sent to him is an honour, and as such it wouldn't be considered forced in any way because the recipient in question wouldn't refuse. The culture is based on respect of strength, and the strongest leading. I think that element may be perhaps a slight misunderstanding of intent there, which means I didn't explain it in the right way, which is valuable because I can go back and examine my wording and think over how it can be tweaked for next time.
- SUB re SV: I think this may be a general qualm with modern 'grimdark' stories (it is rather prevalent in the same, I can't deny). Again, book 1 rather heavily features it and then from review of the book 2 manuscript, it effectively drops off, bar Kaenna dealing it out during her moments when possession creeps back in. In terms of readership, I've never really been in this for financial gain (artists who create art merely for money always sit wrongly with me). Regarding your comments about Goodkind, I've never read anything of his so I can't comment / the comments don't really mean much to me.

Re Anderas: He actually did turn into an Incarnate, the moment his Link bonded him. He's meant to be weak, and snivelly, and generally someone to dislike. See: Took A Level In Badass - he just does it slowly.

Re Herik: I could omit the flasks, but as his alcoholism is core to his character it would omit a rather sizeable portion of who he is, and as such this again seems perhaps more of a stylistic issue. I've noted the commentary about the level of description though as it's valuable. I should note that what you've seen as a jab at Jordan should be taken as a knowing tip of the hat instead - If I recall I started writing Incarnate around the time that I was reading WOT (which was a 14 month no breaks prospect). There could just be a correlation there...

Re his alcoholism: Fair enough, but I can't really agree there.

It's good that you wanted Nixuin to just flatten the entire city though because that was exactly what I wanted people's view to be. All according to plan!

RE the story: It's fair enough if you didn't feel it gets into gear. My commentary was based upon the feedback from the proofers / other readers who came back with a general consensus that the opening is slow but that a head of steam then builds.

It seems this is primarily a stylistic disagreement. You say there are places where I should be rushing, but I cannot stand when a book rushes.

In terms of the magic system / Incarnate power: Think of a gimped Golden Form Frieza. Spurts of power but unable to do much due to being new to it. Then contrast Shiza, whose confidence is entirely that he's mastered his ability, hence why his sword is a desk with a stick in it (and I love that goddamn thing so much it's not even funny).

Re the magic theory: This is somewhat already addressed in the #2WIP but your comments are noted. I think in retrospect some inner monologue during his first castings might have been beneficial.

Re Anderas again: He got bonded because he was the first thing in however long to touch the Link. But Uvaer doesn't really like him because he's snivelling and weak. The Ageless / Incarnate relationship is a partnership more than anything else, and a partnership being a two-way endeavour, if one side won't go along with it, it'll cause problems.

Re info dumps: No. Goodness, no. Info dumps are one of the things I vehemently hate in books, and especially in places where it felt when writing that they'd have no relevance.

As before though, even though there are obviously elements where I'm not in agreement with you, your criticism is welcome and I'm glad you took the time to feed back in such detail. It's all good, and for a new author, feedback that's hard and a bit negativistic isn't just something you want, it's a requirement. It'd be well and good for me to take the views of those who enjoyed it as gospel but then there's no growth, no element of "hmm, well, why are they saying this about this bit?".

Hopefully my reply has explained out a few of my reasonings for you at least. I am of course happy to discuss any other elements, by the way!

[Mentalist]

Bought. Gonna be my next read.

[Maark Abbott]

Mentalist, on 17 February 2018 - 10:30 PM, said:

Bought. Gonna be my next read.

Thanks, I hope you enjoy it! Although if you don't, I'd prefer you adopt Goose's approach and don't hold back when you tell me why.

[Mentalist]

After ch1 I was getting these odd Thief vibes... and now I'm reading the bear pit convo.

(And the water arrows monologue)

ROFLMAO, but talk about wearing your influence on your sleeve...

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 20 February 2018 - 11:24 PM

[Maark Abbott]

Mentalist, on 20 February 2018 - 11:13 PM, said:

After ch1 I was getting these odd Thief vibes... and now I'm reading the bear pit convo.

(And the water arrows monologue)

ROFLMAO, but talk about wearing your influence on your sleeve...

I was umming and ahhing about whether I drop a reference to boiled knickers after playing The Metal Age...Call it homage?

But yeah, Thief 1 was the main influence when I was writing. Need to do another playthrough sometime.

[Maark Abbott]

Can we take a moment away from the book's contents to just point out that cover creator can eat my whole, entire ass?

[Macros]

You can't leave us hanging like that Maark, give us the gory details

[Maark Abbott]

Macros, on 21 February 2018 - 08:59 PM, said:

You can't leave us hanging like that Maark, give us the gory details

So I'm working on the print version and trying to cobble a cover together with Cover Creator. It's an absolute pain to use - there's no help wizard, all the online tutorials are rubbish and it's often counter intuitive in that nothing is really labelled.

The guy who did the cover (my av) has offered to step in and do a paperback cover as well, extending on the previous one, but first I need to work out how the spine will work. I'll be printing in 6x9 size and I'm not 100% how many pages that will bring it out at. Probably 500 or so.

[Mentalist]

Halfway through now, and things certainly got interesting (that temple scene gave me weird vibes- like when in Beast Wars they stumbled onto alien tech artifacts), but I definitely like where you might be going with the Incarnate and Links

I had one really major eye-rolling moment so far, and that was with Venkus making an ASOIAF reference. Too random, too much--the other times they were at least sort of in context, this was just reference-dropping for the sake of reference dropping.

I like what you did with Cezia- I was kind of afraid Anderas was gonna go all Rhulad Sengar over her.

The going is slow, but it's not the book's fault- I'm just generally a slower reader with ebooks, and it's been a busy week at work, so I sometimes zoned out in commute, which didn't help.

EDIT: I looked @ the comments back and forth on top of the page.

I will say, as someone who played Thief , Maark basically wrote Kaenna's robberies as Garrett fanfiction. All of it.
I was not seeing a fantasy city in my mind. I saw a Thief level.

I was not seeing a blue-skinned little thief girl skulk and clamber. I was feeling my fingers on the keyboard, making the moves.

Whether that's a positive or a negative, I'm not really sure. Just like how I'm not sure how someone unfamiliar with Maark's source of inspiration would take it.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 24 February 2018 - 01:25 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Mentalist, on 24 February 2018 - 12:30 AM, said:

Halfway through now, and things certainly got interesting (that temple scene gave me weird vibes- like when in Beast Wars they stumbled onto alien tech artifacts), but I definitely like where you might be going with the Incarnate and Links

I had one really major eye-rolling moment so far, and that was with Venkus making an ASOIAF reference. Too random, too much--the other times they were at least sort of in context, this was just reference-dropping for the sake of reference dropping.

I like what you did with Cezia- I was kind of afraid Anderas was gonna go all Rhulad Sengar over her.

The going is slow, but it's not the book's fault- I'm just generally a slower reader with ebooks, and it's been a busy week at work, so I sometimes zoned out in commute, which didn't help.

EDIT: I looked @ the comments back and forth on top of the page.

I will say, as someone who played Thief , Maark basically wrote Kaenna's robberies as Garrett fanfiction. All of it.
I was not seeing a fantasy city in my mind. I saw a Thief level.

I was not seeing a blue-skinned little thief girl skulk and clamber. I was feeling my fingers on the keyboard, making the moves.

Whether that's a positive or a negative, I'm not really sure. Just like how I'm not sure how someone unfamiliar with Maark's source of inspiration would take it.

Did you also look at a tiled floor and think, 'THE HORROR'? Well, DID YOU? I fucking hate those bastard things.



Cezia is actually my favourite character. She's more of an active player in book 2. She's kind of an Anti-Kaenna in that she has some pretty horrible stuff happen to her, but how she deals with it is entirely different.

There's another influence to pull out of the pile, actually. One that you could view this series as a love letter to, perhaps.

[Maark Abbott]

The Swampfather, on 25 February 2018 - 08:11 PM, said:

Skies of Arcadia

That's no fair, you probably saw the status saying I was playing it again (see: gaming subforum).

But yes, you can draw clear lines of influence and homage between the Links and the Moon Crystals. Obviously the execution and purpose is markedly different, but still.

Unrelated note: Physical copies will be available soonish - I'm just working with my cover artist to make sure I have a coherent exterior.

[Mentalist]

over 80% in

Maark, huge request for Bk 2(yes, this means barring some terrible explosion of stupidity in the ending, I will be buying Bk2): Venkus HAS to STFU with the genre commentary. It's incredibly (since you are inspired by games, this will be appropriate) immersion-breaking . everytime he opens his mouth, he's a doofus. When a doofus starts breaking the first wall, it's not clever, because he comes off as an idiot-savant, and there's nothing endearing about it.

Also, Anderas is now starting to channel the whole anime/JRPG "troubled-coming-of-age-teen" thing HARD. It's bearable, but barely. I hope he has his growing up moment soon.

[Maark Abbott]

Mentalist, on 28 February 2018 - 01:00 AM, said:

over 80% in

Maark, huge request for Bk 2(yes, this means barring some terrible explosion of stupidity in the ending, I will be buying Bk2): Venkus HAS to STFU with the genre commentary. It's incredibly (since you are inspired by games, this will be appropriate) immersion-breaking . everytime he opens his mouth, he's a doofus. When a doofus starts breaking the first wall, it's not clever, because he comes off as an idiot-savant, and there's nothing endearing about it.

Also, Anderas is now starting to channel the whole anime/JRPG "troubled-coming-of-age-teen" thing HARD. It's bearable, but barely. I hope he has his growing up moment soon.

In order:

1) There's a lot less of that in book 2. I'm not entirely sure in retrospect why I thought it was a wise move, but 'tis what 'tis.

2) It comes in book two. At present, he's meant to be a little unbearable. Where Kaenna takes her level in badass almost immediately, Anderas' is much slower in coming on account of how meek and lacking for confidence he is.

I'm glad that overall you seem to be enjoying it though!

[Mentalist]

Okay, finished the book. Also read Apt and Rachel's extended commentary. SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY

I agree with Apt to a degree about repetitions, though I am far less bothered by style, as long as the pacing does not drag. In your case, it was mostly fine.

There's also the fact that I can forgive a lot of minor flaws for good world-building. And you threw in enough crumbs that I remain interested.

That being said, my main, overall impression of the book would be that it's too.... derivative . I realize that this is at least partially intentional (you yourself describe the series as a love letter to JRPGs, and that Thief influence is unmistakable, and, as I mentioned earlier, conveyed well), but nevertheless, the best description I can give to Incarnate is that it's a combination of familiar (many of them game-y) tropes, remixed in a fairly interesting way with plenty of grimdark sauce.

This doesn't make the work bad, per se , but it's just that.... I didn't feel there was anything particularly original happening. The most unexpected thing was how refreshingly totally psycho Nixuin was--although unlike Apt, this didn't make me root for her., and especially the Brondt assassination was terrible, imho. But I mean, the reason it worked is because you actually defied expectation there- in most works you'd expect a god breaking all the rules to have some kind of plan, but here it's literally, "no, KILL EVERYONE", which is repulsive, but also interesting .
-See also, my earlier comment on Cezia. Quite frankly, her and Herik are the best things in the book. That being said you definitely dwell on Herik's condition too much. I feel it'd have been better to have him dwell on how his affliction ruined his life (by driving his family away), rather then reduce it all to a simple "and he took another pull from the flask-the only thing that still got him through he days" ad nauseum. I don't mind his banter with Rasha over this--co worker IRL DO drive each other nuts by invoking running personal jokes non-stop, but he shouldn't be doing that in every single situation, imho.

I'll probably have more thoughts for a proper Goodreads review later, but overall, I'd rate the book 3/5 Once you got over teh lengthy Kaenna intro of Part 1, the pace picked up, and it was enought o keep my interest, and towards the end I was eager to read more. But I'm hard-pressed to say what actually stands out except for some incredibly dark scenes courtesy of a psycho godddess, and that's really not something I would want to be using as a recommendation or endorsement.

[Maark Abbott]

Nixhuin is absolutely exhausting to write. The headspace I have to get into to actually write her is fucking horrible. It leaves me irritable, prone to bouts of misanthropy and generally any segment where she's doing... THAT stuff, I have to take a few weeks away from the character before I can come back to her again.

The comments are appreciated though. There's always scope to improve.

Oh, and if it hooks you in:

Spoiler

In book 2 Herik runs into his former wife at the Pass and is forced into a situation where he has to try and reconcile with his family, even if it makes his sons loathe him.