[Tatterdemalion]

If the title didn't tip you off, I think Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher is really good.
In this thread I will pitch it a bit, because I just finished it, and feel great.

Published by Harper Voyager, it was on all these top 10 lists in 2015 but then didn't hit sales quotas so he was straight dropped. He self-published a sequel which I intend to start reading immediately. It has to suck to have critical success and then not even get a look at your sequel. Like an Oscar winner opening in 0 theaters.

Why it didn't sell? Two obvious reasons: 1) it's grim, dark, and full of crazy folk doing crazy things, and 2) there's lots of German-esque terminology that can be intimidating. It intimidated me before reading the book. Bothers me not at all now.

The story revolves around a world where the farther you go toward insanity the more powerful you become, and common people are all caught between the machinations of all these different forms of power-inducing mental illnesses. It mostly follows three buddies who hate each other as much as they love each other but mostly hate each other, all of whom are surefire killers and arseholes. Also a god-child and the man massaging him for ascension, who has doppelgangers based off his root fears, who he knows will grow powerful and one day try to kill him. Super-fast paced, super grimdark, super tight writing, great ending, weaving story lines, tragedy, complexity... I loved it.

Y'all should read it. Rant over.

[Aptorian]

I've added it to the shopping list on Amazon. Will buy when the price is right.

[RACHEL]

These books have been on my radar for awhile now after Mark Lawrence reviewed book three. Damn, off to thriftbooks.com to purchase.

[Tatterdemalion]

Swarm and Steel is the same world, brand new characters and story, I think. So a third book sorta. Like if Erikson released GotM, DHG, MT as a trilogy.


Glad to have been of influence! Everyone should also note, speaking of Lawrence, he likes his data and created a database of "The Most Grimdark Books" wherein he had a lot of people rate each book entered on a 1-5 scale of grimness. His own work is right up there, but Beyond Redemption reigns at the *ahem* #1 Grimmest Book going. I was reading Sharp Ends (physical copy) while I read the first 30% of this (on phone) and I just up and stopped Sharp Ends to finish BR. Abercrombie has oft been considered my second favourite author...

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

I'd much rather read the Imbalance book 2!

[Macros]

Don't you mean the sequel to the erotic novel Purge of Asses, part of the Rimbalance sequence?

[Abyss]

No has earbooks.
Bummer.

[Tatterdemalion]

Yo Whisperzzz! Thanks for the support, yo. It's been tough. My son has 4 anaphylactic allergies and a developmental delay - making him unaware of his allergies, and he's almost 4. So I've been slow at writing. I'm 130k into Book 2... but that's only about halfway at this point. I will never give up though!

THAT SAID: if you wanna read a short story from Imbalance that recently came 2nd Place out of 20 in a 'Grimdark Short Story Contest' over at NegativeHP, then you can pop over HERE and give "Rag the Grenadier" a read! It takes place in that loveliest of cities: Crux. That goes for all of you who read Purge of Ashes! (Whisperz, Rachel, Macros, Worry, Mentalist, Itwaes Nom of the top of my head, don't know how to 'tag' on the forum) and anyone else who wants to give it a go!

[Karsa Orlong]

I can tell you, the so called German that is in there is the exact reason I never tried it. As a native speaker, the use of those words is just so jarring, it hurts. If you have to use words from a second language, at least do your research how those words should be used appropriately!

On another note: a grim-dark meter via Lawrence?! Nice! And you want to tell me, this work is grimmer than R. Scott Bakker's work?!!! I don't believe you!

[amphibian]

Tatterdemalion, on 13 November 2019 - 07:45 PM, said:

Yo Whisperzzz! Thanks for the support, yo. It's been tough. My son has 4 anaphylactic allergies and a developmental delay - making him unaware of his allergies, and he's almost 4. So I've been slow at writing. I'm 130k into Book 2... but that's only about halfway at this point. I will never give up though!

THAT SAID: if you wanna read a short story from Imbalance that recently came 2nd Place out of 20 in a 'Grimdark Short Story Contest' over at NegativeHP, then you can pop over HERE and give "Rag the Grenadier" a read! It takes place in that loveliest of cities: Crux. That goes for all of you who read Purge of Ashes! (Whisperz, Rachel, Macros, Worry, Mentalist, Itwaes Nom of the top of my head, don't know how to 'tag' on the forum) and anyone else who wants to give it a go!

Did you give Purge of Ashes a full rework already? I remember talking about it with you a while ago.

[Tatterdemalion]

I cut about 8k words on a final run through of my own and then had 8 beta readers have a go at it. I took some little advice from most of them, but nothing groundbreaking with the exception of adding a scene I always knew I wanted but never figured out until the beta reader put words to it. Got some nice pull quotes. I then submitted to a handful of agents and got nowhere. An author helped me improve my query. Then, the most recent agent gave me a rejection BUT held the book for extra time to give it a good long look first. I took this as a 'my query worked but my first chapter didn't excite enough' and now I'm working with said author to try to get Purge of Ashes kickin' in people's doors/faces instead of its more... well, typical opening.

So the last-last-last thing I'm doing is trying to reorder or rewrite the opening chapter, maybe two, to accelerate the story faster and, more importantly, demonstrate what makes the book unique. I think I need to cut the opening sparring scene because it's too generic, and there's some questions about the newer prologue as well. Also, I'm finally caving to swapping the seniority of my corporal/captain ranks. A sad, if necessary, day.

Thanks for asking! I WILL republish, either self or with rep... and I'll ensure this time the production quality is legit. It's just a matter of time. And I'll remember all y'all when I do. See if I can get updated copies into people's hands without expense. Out of respect.

[Tatterdemalion]

Oh, and Karsa: here's a link to the Lawrence moderated Grimdark listing.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Quote

Also, I'm finally caving to swapping the seniority of my corporal/captain ranks.

What's the context of this?

Otherwise, a reassuring update! It's cool to get a peek behind the scenes

[amphibian]

Tatterdemalion, on 13 November 2019 - 07:45 PM, said:

Yo Whisperzzz! Thanks for the support, yo. It's been tough. My son has 4 anaphylactic allergies and a developmental delay - making him unaware of his allergies, and he's almost 4. So I've been slow at writing. I'm 130k into Book 2... but that's only about halfway at this point. I will never give up though!

THAT SAID: if you wanna read a short story from Imbalance that recently came 2nd Place out of 20 in a 'Grimdark Short Story Contest' over at NegativeHP, then you can pop over HERE and give "Rag the Grenadier" a read! It takes place in that loveliest of cities: Crux. That goes for all of you who read Purge of Ashes! (Whisperz, Rachel, Macros, Worry, Mentalist, Itwaes Nom of the top of my head, don't know how to 'tag' on the forum) and anyone else who wants to give it a go!

Rag the Grenadier was AWESOME.

Could this be your opening chapter for Purge of Ashes? It would have to take a little reworking to somehow connect that to the army grunts sitting around waiting in the beginnings.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 19 November 2019 - 04:43 PM

[Tatterdemalion]

amphibian: thank you, thank you! It took about 2-3 days to write and I got it in with minutes to spare for the deadline. I've submitted Rag the Grenadier to the Gdm Magazine in hopes they will pick it up and publish it, giving me an official fantasy writing credit which I can add to my resume before I pitch Purge of Ashes again. I don't think I could work Rag into my main series, at least in book 1. I DO have 5-6 chapters written in Crux (the setting for RtG) for Book #2, though, so he could turn up there. As of now, he's a short story. I have another called 'Residue' and I throw them together whenever I feel I can't work on the main story but still want to write. As well, Rag is gruesome in ways my main books aren't. As such, a good fit for a grimdark contest and magazine. Thanks again for reading it!

And Whisperzzz.... Heh. WELL.....

So when I created my first character sheet for Purge of Ashes in 2003 as a 21-year-old, I had the following ranks in the Locian Third: Squadleader, Corporal, Captain, Blade, Hand.

Squadleader leads a team of 4
Captain leads 3 squads in a unit
Corporal leads 4 units
Blade leads all 8 units
Hand is just one guy, Hand Kitran Sorel, who is the top and leads the Blades.

But I didn't know much about the military per se, and only years later did I discover that in OUR world corporal is far below captain in rank. Now this isn't a "problem" as Imbalance is MY world, so I can do what I want, but it IS a problem because anyone with vague military sense (or a large amount of Americans) will and do find it irritating that the order of rank for the two real-world terms are swapped. I've gotten the sensible suggestion: "why not switch captains with corporals? Voila."


This, of course, makes sense... but it hurts, because since 2003 I've had those titles attached to particular characters and it sounds weird to me otherwise. She's not "Captain Eunice" she's "Corporal Eunice" dammit!

In the end, though, my fussiness should not supersede a logical improvement to the book and I've finally come to grips with the fact I should change the ranks. I could also come up with new terms entirely, but... not sure on that.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Caporal and Corptain. Done.

[Karsa Orlong]

Tatterdemalion, on 19 November 2019 - 04:17 AM, said:

Oh, and Karsa: here's a link to the Lawrence moderated Grimdark listing.

Cool, thanks!

Now I might have to give Beyond Redemption a try. I can't believe it is grimdarker than Bakker's work. I just can't. And if he indeed manages that (without just being ridiculous, mind you), he probably deserves a spot higher on the success-ladder ^^

[Puck]

Karsa Orlong, on 21 November 2019 - 06:28 PM, said:

Tatterdemalion, on 19 November 2019 - 04:17 AM, said:

Oh, and Karsa: here's a link to the Lawrence moderated Grimdark listing.

Cool, thanks!

Now I might have to give Beyond Redemption a try. I can't believe it is grimdarker than Bakker's work. I just can't. And if he indeed manages that (without just being ridiculous, mind you), he probably deserves a spot higher on the success-ladder ^^

Lawrence never read beyond the first Bakker book and gave it a 4 star review on Goodreads (note: he gives everything and their dog's wet dream 5 stars on there no matter what) for not having enough likeable characters and thinks philosophic ideas have no place in fantasy fiction. I don't really trust anyone who hasn't read at least the first Bakker trilogy to know how grimdark it is or isn't.

As to Beyond Redemption and whether it's more or less grimdark than Bakker, that strongly depends on what definition of grimdark one uses. Lawrence allows the "I don't like it, so it's grimdark"-approach as equally as valid in his cute little polls as more nuanced definitions, so there's really no way to tell what measuring stick he or the people voting in his polls apply. That said, grimdark or not, I don't trust an author who has to apologize in his foreword for not taking the time to research the language he is heavily using in his book to care about what he is writing.

[Abyss]

Puck, on 21 November 2019 - 09:37 PM, said:

an author who has to apologize in his foreword for not taking the time to research the language he is heavily using in his book to care about what he is writing.

Wait...he what now?

[Tatterdemalion]

It's not German. It's unique terms to his fantasy world borrowed from German. He just admits he uses a bastardized form of German for the linguistic basis of his 'magic' system / world building, and recognizes this may irritate German-speakers. There's no actual German or attempt at German in the book. Not fluent in the language, it sure didn't bother me. It deterred me, but once I started reading it didn't bother me at all.

As for Lawrence's polls: remember that Lawrence himself is ONE vote. The basis for voting in that poll was you could only vote if you read the book and just don't vote on books you don't know. The measure isn't a book's quality at all: the measure it 'How Grimdark would you qualify this book?' We don't know how many votes each book got, but I think only the 1st of a series was entered. No one has to see this as a 1st or 2nd place thing: Bakker and Fletcher are just hella Grimdark - enough over half of all votes put them at maximum grimdark (5).

Nicholas Eames, for example, said he was perfectly happy with Kings of the Wyld being about a 1.7. Because it's not very grimdark and that's about accurate.

Now the real poll: CORPTAIN YES OR NO?
CROWD: CORPTAIN, CORPTAIN, CORPTAIN!