Evil Editor's Blog, page 96

Evil Editor Classics

The All-Evil Editor Shopping Channel (part 2)

Evil Editor Classics

The All-Evil Editor Shopping Channel (part 1)

Feedback Request

A new version of the query featured in Face-Lift 1214 has been posted in the comments there, and awaits your input.

Face-Lift 1215

Guess the Plot

The Matter That You Read

1. One physicist's love story, told through peer-reviewed journal articles.

2. A woman in Edwardian England needs a new servant after her latest servants quit. She goes on the Internet and orders a unit that she hopes will satisfy her needs, but it has no hands, and doesn't speak. It can't even teleport, so...ah, never mind. My plot makes no more sense than the title.

3. One day, Yoda has a brain fart disguised as a cerebral aneurysm. That day, his critical job to monitor the matter/antimatter engine suffers. All gauges glowing green is optimal, but when the engine hiccups everything turns red. The Captain calls for a prognosis. "An anastrophe, it is. The matter that you read the gauge it is."

4. Reed has that rarest of all literary gifts – he can read the fate of anyone he meets in the detritus found in their pockets. The problem arises when Evil Editor, curse his wicked proofreading skills, confuses Reed’s sense of tense, and now Reed can’t tell if he’s going to read their fate, or has already read…The matter that you resd.

5. The Red Shoes, The Red Violin, The Red Badge of Courage… all classic works, involving choices resonating through the ages. The National Enquirer? The Globe or the Star, or any other of . . . the matter that you read? Yeah… Not so much…

6. Carly Porter is a proofreader for a drug company. She has to make sure all the diseases and side effects and ingredients are spelled correctly in the fine print in those ads you see in magazines. When she meets hunky Chet Baines, it's love at first sight. But will his atrocious spelling on Twitter doom their relationship?



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

Any human servant would choose the workhouse over Evlalia – and her most recent two just have.

She sacrificed hours informing them of every flaw. But her words were wasted on people, as usual. At least she didn't dare to make a positive start: it would clearly have gone to waste as well. [No idea what that last sentence means.]

No High person makes their own food [Actually, when I'm high, food is my top priority, although I'll admit that sometimes I can't be bothered to make food when I can just open a bag of Doritos and crush them over a carton of Cherry Garcia.] or laces their own corsets. [Never lace your own corset when you're high. You end up as tangled as an octopus caught in a fishing net. I've heard.] Evlalia needs a new servant, and a magic one will have to do. [Ah, so Evlalia is a character. When you said someone would choose the workhouse over Evlalia, I assumed Evlalia was a place. I mean, if I said to you, "Any idiot would prefer Tokyo to Thaliponia," wouldn't you think Thaliponia was a place? Wouldn't you be so certain Thaliponia was a place, that even when I used a pronoun in the next sentence you'd think I was talking about a character whose name I haven't mentioned yet, or possibly the idiot in the first sentence? Wouldn't it shock you to later find out Thaliponia is my pet iguana? Of course it would. You'd never suspect me of comparing apples to oranges in sentence 1.] [Perhaps you want something like: Yet another of Evlalia's servants has walked out on her. People are so ungrateful. She sacrificed hours informing him of his every flaw.] [Also, there's no need to specify that the servants who quit were human. We'll assume they're human unless you say otherwise, and even if we don't, we'll figure it out in the next line when you call them people.] [Even after I know Evlalia is a character, the fact that you referred to her servants as human is going to have me thinking Evlalia is a Klingon or a Romulan.]

Part metal, part human, a 'unit' is a magical servant summoned [Ordered?] from the Internet. They come with unique software: some read or run faster than a forming thought, others grow their toenails or eyelashes six times faster than normal. [When a woman purchases a unit, I suspect it's not the toenails she wants to grow really fast.]

Buying a unit so damaged it's considered unsellable? [If it was considered unsellable, whom did she buy it from?] At least he needs her too much to ever leave. And itreminds everyone that Evlalia picks the road less travelled, even if it leads over a cliff. [As I understand it, a properly utilized unit takes the passenger down the most-traveled road, across the plateau and definitely over a cliff.]

Her new unit is Tace, and he can teleport. At least he could, before his old user left him without handsand on a ventilator.  [Why would the old user or the new user want a servant without hands? Did he have robotic hands that can be replaced?] Thanks to Evlalia [Has anyone else noticed that Evlalia is what it would sound like if you said "Evil Editor" while eating a bagel?] he no longer passes out after twenty seconds, but he still waits on the roof every night for his old user to come back.

Evlalia's words stop her disappearing into just another average, replaceable person; [Strange, as you've declared that her words are wasted on people.] Tace's muteness is more voluntary than everyone thought, and his body is built around being able to disappear at will. Friendship between them was a risk neither planned to take; it just seemed to happen, like the cutting remarks Evlalia always assumed she could keep back if she tried. [I feel like I'm disappearing into a black hole. Not that I know what that would feel like.]  Not being able to dismiss people makes interaction complicated; as Evlalia meets other units, she's relieved to find them just as easy to offend as humans. [How many units can one woman handle?] Being installed with dictionaries and perfect memories just seems a bonus.
Kyrillos can read every blood vessel pumping in Evlalia's neck, and when his domination over his user is questioned he knows exactly which artery to pinch shut. [Who is his user? Why are we interested in him?]  Halimeda can read every regretted word and past mistake in Evlalia's mind, and when the motives of her sudden friendship with Tace are questioned she knows exactly what Evlalia wants left unsaid. [Suddenly we're meeting new characters, but we don't know anything they do. Why would Evlalia want to be anywhere near them?] Tactful silence might save Evlalia's life, [from what?] but also makes her indistinguishable from everyone else. That less travelled road does end in a cliff – and it might be better to jump.

THE MATTER THAT YOU READ is a 130,000 word slice of life/urban fantasy novel, [The title makes no sense. What does it mean?] set in an alternate Edwardian England. [It's exactly like Edwardian England, but with androids, the Internet, software . . . Actually, wouldn't it be easier to just say it's exactly like the year 2030, except that women wear corsets?]

Thank you for your time and consideration.


Notes

130,000 words, and all you can tell us about the story is that a mean woman replaces her servants with a junky unit?

You need a story. If you have a story, you need to summarize it for us. What is Evlalia's goal? What's preventing her from achieving it? What's her plan? What are the consequences if she fails? Why should we care about her at all? How does she grow in the story? What decision does she have to make? These are the elements of her story. All you've provided is her situation. Start over.

Evil Editor Classics

Guess the Plot

No

1. Two dogs attempt to speak in English, but their vocabulary is so small . . . hilarity ensues.

2. A complete guide to successful parenting, from toddler to teen.

3. Look, let's just cut to the chase and say that this is my answer to your query.

4. Convicted of treason in the Andromeda galaxy, Lachette is given the ultimate sentence: banishment to Earth! Her response upon learning this: "NOOOOOooooooooo!"

5. An author attempts reverse psychology to sell a novel about the childhood of an evil genius as an autobiography. It's a meta thing.

6. Whether it followed your sales pitch, marriage proposal or drunken pick-up line, if anyone's ever asked you, "What part of 'no' don't you understand?" then this is the book for you. Over 300 pages of clear explanations and real-life examples, plus chapters on etymology, pronunciation and spelling. Soon you'll be able to answer, "Baby, I'm an expert."



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

When Lachette, one of a species of humanoid aliens composed entirely of fire called Fianites, [And you thought you were burned out?] [Is it the species or the fire that's called Fianites?] is banished from her home planet in the Andromeda Galaxy [If she was on her home planet, why is she referred to as an alien?] for high treason, she is sent to Earth. Her crime: revealing the planet's most highly guarded secrets to the enemy in the midst of war. [In the midst of war, a space ship would have better uses than transporting a criminal to another galaxy.] [I've never thought of planets as having highly guarded secrets, though admittedly, our scientists are always trying to figure out what causes the strange noises coming from Uranus.] [What are Earth's most highly guarded secrets, and from whom are we guarding them?] [Apparently we haven't even been able to keep the fact that Earth is the perfect place to send your worst criminals secret from planets in the Andromeda galaxy.] After befriending a few humans--two girls named Rex and Kaz, [Would a human name a girl Rex?] and two boys named Justin and Andre--she dodges the United States Armed Forces as she keeps in contact with her best friend and princess of the planet of Fianate, Zatini. [Wouldn't Zatini die of old age in the time it takes Lachette's first message to get to Fianate?] [Also, isn't Zatini a pasta?] All together, they gather evidence, examine it, and send it back to the Elder Council of Fianate to prove Lachette's innocence [There's evidence of Lachette's innocence on Earth?] and uncover the one who framed her, all this within a deadline. [Twenty-seven light years.] [Yes, smartass, I'm aware light years are a measure of distance, not time, but would you have thought it was as funny if I'd said Twenty-seven exaseconds?] [(One exasecond = 32 billion years.)] She has one month to leave American territory or the President will give clearance to hunt her down and capture her as United States property. [Why has she been dodging the US military if they haven't yet been given clearance to capture her?] [Also, the US is already crawling with millions of illegal aliens. We hardly ever manage to capture any.]

No is the completed second book in the unfinished Uncertainties Series at 52,016 words. [There's nothing Uncertain about No; change the title to Maybe, Maybe Not. Or is that the title of the first book?] [Also, as an homage to to the Uncertainty Principle, change Zatini's name to Heisenberg.]

Thank you for your time.


Notes

I wasn't sure if this was a real novel until I realized that "RexKazJustinAndreLachette" could be anagrammed to form "EE in drunk sex tryst in Uzbekistan."


Selected Comments

Anonymous said...It's clear that you've got a plot, always good, but what happens is so vaguely described and generic to the genre, I find myself focused on the only specifics: your seemingly random assortment of character names.


AlaskaRavenclaw said...So this is set in a Fianite universe, eh?

Lose that penultimate graf. Oh do you need to lose that penultimate graf. Or else change it to "NO is complete at 52,000 words." It's true that's a little on the short side for anything but middle grades, but those extra 16 words aren't going to help much.

And you probably don't want to start out by making the agent wonder why you're querying the second novel of a series.


Misty Nelson said...I agree that the query is vague and also wonder why you're querying the second book in a series? Was the first book published? If so you need to mention it and, if not, you need to start querying that book. If the books are standalone (meaning the connection is they happen in the same universe but with different characters) then you should make this the first book and query it as such.

Other than that it does sound pretty generic. I'm not saying it IS generic, just that the query is so vague that it doesn't tell me what makes it unique in the SciFi Universe. It's a good start though and sounds really interesting! :)


BuffySquirrel said...Sometimes I think the minions are better at writing Guess the Plots than at writing queries. Some great ones here.

If this query successfully represents the novel, then the novel has problems (aside from being a bit short). Wouldn't a being composed entirely of fire destroy everything it came into contact with? What sustains the fire--fires need fuel. Presumably Lachette doesn't arrive here in fire form, or she wouldn't have any friends, merely carbon copies of them.

Hah. No, seriously, a being entirely composed of fire? What does it think with?


batgirl said...Yeah, I'm still trying to visualise a humanoid made of fire. If you're made of fire, why would you have a fixed form at all, let alone a humanoid one? Sure, the Human Torch looked human, but that's because he had that solid form, just sometimes it was on fire. I think.

If I were made of fire, I'd rather have an avian (avianoid?) form.

Evil Editor Classics

As my Twitter followers are well aware, my Twitscription is: World's most famous editor. Does that qualify me to be on Dancing with the Stars? Now you may say, Of course it doesn't. Most people have never heard of Evil Editor. To which I say, I just examined the list of celebrities who have appeared on Dancing with the Stars, and had never heard of 64 of them until they made their appearances. Which is not to say that no one's ever heard of them, just that the list of celebrities sports fans have heard of doesn't necessarily intersect with the list soap opera fans have heard of. One viewer's Kelly Monaco is another viewer's Clyde Drexler is another viewer's Evil Editor.

Here are some of the fields from which celebrities have been invited to compete on the show: Rodeo cowboy, fashion entrepreneur, disk jockey, chef, son of famous singer, brother of reality TV star, daughter of ex-governor, beach volleyball player, daughter of famous singer, idiot from New Jersey, and unicyclist. No one from the publishing field has competed.

I'm sure they'd love to have Julia Roberts and Bruce Springsteen and Tiger Woods on the show. Those are top celebs in the acting, singing and sports fields. Instead they get such c-list stars as actor Ralph Macchio, singer Marie Osmond and football player Chad Ochocinco.

The point is, Evil Editor is the Julia/Bruce/Tiger of editing. King of the hill top of the heap A-number 1 New York, New York. A-List all the way.

It must be embarrassing for the producers when they introduce the "star" to his dance teacher, and the dance teacher is more famous than the star. The star is some geezer who played Ernie, the 4th son on My Three Sons, 50 years ago, while the dance teacher has 20,000,000 Facebook friends and gets invited to state dinners at the White House in hopes that he/she will endorse the president in his bid for reelection.

It's a joke every season when they announce the names of the Stars and people are saying Who? Who? Who?!! And the producers say, He played drums in Bette Midler's stage show in 1987. She's a real housewife from Omaha. And she once served a sandwich to Lauren Bacall.

Of course they might prefer to go with a literary agent rather than an editor, but no agent is higher than B-list, the only B-list agent is Kristin Nelson, and according to a source on her staff who wishes to remain anonymous, Nelson has two left feet.

The only reason I can think of why I haven't received an invitation is because they're afraid I'll win, and they prefer that the winner be a TV star. Have they looked at my picture? I'm fatter than Penn Jillette, less attractive than Steve Wozniak, and older than Cloris Leachman. And none of them even made it to the final four. I could dance like Fred Astaire and I wouldn't make it past the fifth week.

Too bad I don't have 20,000,000 followers who could bombard the producers with suggestions/demands that I be invited. I need to become a TV star. Is there a network that might be willing to cast me in a sitcom about an editor who's always at odds with his most famous client, John Grisham? Call me. 

Selected Comments

Whirlochre said...It may be that you have to work your way up via a reality cookery show or some variant on the Celebrity Big Brother theme.

I'd suggest brushing up on your vol au vents and hanging out in a poncho while you practice your skating. I hear Ramsay is rather partial to a vol au vent and everyone knows Clint Eastwood is dying to crack the reality scene with his stone-faced persona and whipcrack holster talents — all it would take is a nod from the grizzle-faced chef or a death rattle from the spaghetti-forged gunslinger and you could be going out on prime time TV.


Sarah Laurenson said...Maybe you need to start out on Survivor. But I'm sure those producers are afraid you'd eat the rest of the contestants. Betty White got the gig on Saturday Night Live through a Facebook campaign. Maybe we need to start a Twitter campaign - #DWTS4EE


Mother (Re)produces. said...Have you considered yarn-bombing? It's so much more 'now,' man. Or swimming the Thames? Too bad 'The Love Boat' went out of business. That would have been a definite-maybe.


Chelsea P. said...Send them a head-shot in an envelope filled with glitter. I hear people love that.

P.S. You'll get more followers by following people.


Blogger Evil Editor said...Yeah, I tried following everyone who followed me, but it meant getting hundreds of tweets, and half of them made no sense because they were responding to other people's tweets, and a lot were repeats of what they tweeted four hours ago, and most of the rest were personal info from people I didn't even know. Obviously I'm using Twitter for the wrong reasons.

Is this the future of EE's blog?

 And then we came to the end!
Probably not, as the fewer queries, openings and comments that come in, the less work I have to do. But let's not overdo it.

Evil Editor Classics

Olde Timey Toons

Face-Lift 1214

Guess the Plot

Cry for Mercy

1. Mercy Martin sacrificed everything to pay her fiance Paul's way through medical school. Then he dumped her for a nursing school freshman. But don't cry for Mercy; she's bought a Glock and pretty soon Paul's the one who'll be crying for mercy.

2. After Mercy is kidnapped, raped and tortured and nine other people are murdered, she decides that the killer is the cop investigating the crimes. No one's likely to believe her so she must solve the case herself. But can she survive a rigged death match and bring in her quarry before the Afghan War veteran trying to avenge his slain grandma does?

3. It's been 10 years since Percy Jackson came on the scene. Now he's married and has two children, but he can't fight anymore. He threw his back out in that last battle. His daughter Mercy knows about his past and is ready to take on the Gods herself. But whens she picks up a bazooka and trips as she heads out the door, it's time for Percy to . . . Cry for Mercy.

4. Mercy Jones thought yesterday was bad when the bank repossessed his truck. Then his girlfriend left him after she shot his dog. Everyone thinks he's a callous, red-eyed SOB because he won't cry, so they heap crap on him. He can't cry--no lacrimal glands. So Mercy goes on a mission to find that perfect country record to play backwards. Then everything will be right in the world. Or will it?

5. No one knows how Mercy Lewis died, but some say her ghost can be seen wandering the track around the abandoned sex toy emporium after hours. When young, attractive and well-endowed ghost hunter Longley Hardcastle steps into town hoping to disprove the existence of this spook, he instead finds himself confronted by something he doesn't understand, but is irresistibly attracted to. But what happens when the best sex of your life is with someone already dead? Either way, Longley can't constrain his orgasmic cries...for Mercy!

6. Mercy was a lock to be next year's prom queen, so when her dad announces that they're moving across the country and she'll be attending a new school full of strangers, she's heartbroken. Will she spend her senior year frantically making friends in hopes of realizing her dream, or will she wallow in self-pity and blame her father for the miserable rest of her life?



Original Version

Dear Evil Editor,

I am seeking representation for CRY FOR MERCY, a [an] 80000-word Commercial [commercial] fiction [novel] set in NYC where fifteen-year[-]old prostitute Mercy has carved out a nest [niche?] for herself and her tight-knit street family of three boys. Too bad, there is a contract on her life, and Mercy is kidnapped, raped and tortured. [Does the person doing this know there's a contract on her life? If so, why not just kill her and collect?] She manages to buy her way out of the death trap, [If you'll untie me and let me go I'll give you all my money. Just hand me my purse over there.] but her street family isn’t so fortunate. The boys are murdered one by one, and the killer is not done yet: six more people die in a seemingly senseless killing spree. [Then an elementary school is bombed and an Ebola outbreak kills millions in this upbeat romcom.] Mercy is the only one who can tie the murders together and guess the killer’s identity. [If the killer is the person who kidnapped, raped and tortured her, why is it a guess? Was he wearing a goalie mask during all this?] Unfortunately, she can’t go to [the] police, for the killer is a cop in charge of the investigation. [Also, the police prefer actual evidence to a guess.]

Mercy is not the only one with the clues to [the] killer’s identity. [You just said she was the only one, two sentences ago.] An Afghan War vet with PTSD seeks to avenge his slain grandmother. However, he’s not interested in helping Mercy to crack the nefarious plot, but uses her as a bait to get to the killer cop. Outmatched and outnumbered, Mercy either has to flee and start from scratch in a new city or defend her hard-earned place on the Streets [streets] of New York. [She's fifteen. You talk like she's spent the last decade establishing her current position.]

The killer cop is not waiting for anyone to make a move. He nurtures [Has? Holds? Harbors?] a secret worth millions, and he’s not gonna let a little ho derail his beautiful plan. In the rigged death match, Mercy will either avenge her boys or fall down the latest victim. [What a drag to buy your way out of a death trap only to land in a rigged death match.]

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,


Notes

So killing a bunch of street people and some guy's grandmother is part of the cop's beautiful plan that will bring him millions? If you want us to buy that, you'd better tell us what the cop's "secret worth millions" is.

Fifteen is kind of young to have a contract on your life. Is it the cop who wants her dead, or someone else?

Readers are more likely to root for a young prostitute who's trying to start from scratch in another field than one who's trying to avoid starting from scratch by defending her hard-earned turf.

I mean, I have as much sympathy as the next guy for someone who's been raped and tortured, has contract killers after her, had her street family murdered, and is being used as bait to lure a serial killer, but can you give me a reason to like her?

The errors may be minor, but this many in a one-page letter will suggest to the reader that the manuscript has a similar density.

Face-Lift 1213

Guess the Plot

Damnation's Blade

1. Baelzebub, Hell's metalsmith, creates a sword for Satan that can slice through any angelic beings. Yes, 'Saint' Michael, this time it's ON!

2. Kerwyn Thunderstone finds a magical ax blade and embarks upon a perilous quest to get the blade to the capital city. It's perilous because every time he touches the blade it burns his hand.

3. Polishing Satan's? butter knife collection three hours a day in a luxury suite beats working retail ten hours a day. Is Lucy on the top level of Hell, or the lowest level of Heaven? Should she risk losing her job to find out what's outside her chamber door?

4. Sixteen-year-old Jenna is sick of the abuse. Worse than that, she's sick of her father calling screaming out, "Damnation, child! What have you done now?" Well this time, she'll show him what she's gonna do. She grabs the knife off the kitchen table and marches into the living room...
 
5. Spanish swordsmith Carlos Rodriguez Martinez has had it with fat nerds demanding 'combat ready swords'. After a long night of drinking, he sets out to make the ultimate fighting weapon: a rotating, six-bladed, laser-firing chunk of steel with bombs and grenades. Suddenly Hollywood is calling, the armies of two dozen nations are at his door, and fat nerds still demand 'combat ready swords'.

6. Mentally unstable artist Marcy is excited to host her very first exhibition, a display of sharp objects with abstract nouns attached to their names: Curiosity's Knife, Brutality's Axe, Redemption's Letter Opener. But when a snarky art critic slams her work in the local paper, he'll soon come face-to-face with Marcy's favorite piece, Damnation's Blade.



Original Version

The Three Altars, Book I: Damnation's Blade, 98,719 words, adult fiction that may appeal to readers of Joe Abercrombie's The First Law Trilogy, Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle or George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Synopsis below as per your format. [If you put that first sentence below the synopsis, you won't have to say "synopsis below." Actually, even here you don't have to say "Synopsis below" unless you fear the agent will read your first sentence and then struggle to find your synopsis.]

After killing a small army of murderous escaped slaves outside the small town of Hammerdale, exiled faerie Kerwyn Thunderstone and gruff slave-catcher Haon Kellbrack [If your job title is slave-catcher, I'm pretty sure killing an entire army of escaped slaves is gonna look really bad on your resume.] discover a mysterious magical ax-head that burns at the touch and turns bodies of water into a deadly magical poison. [If you want us to like your main characters, you might have them help an army of slaves to escape rather than kill an army of escaped slaves. Just sayin'.] When the local priestess offers them a fortune to bring the ax to the capital city for inspection by higher authorities within her worldwide church, they assume they have it made.

However, the ax is too dangerous to take without magical preparation, and while Kerwyn and Haon are waiting, they find themselves distracted from their journey [Has their journey begun?] by the mysterious disappearance of local children. Upon solving this mystery, they also find themselves at the center of a desperate local power struggle between Rhydion Warlowe, a nobleman's son desperate to save his ailing father, and the sinister physician calling himself Father Miracle, whose methods seem at once too good and too horrific to be true. Will they be allowed to leave Hammerdale alive? [Do these "distractions" before they begin their journey constitute most of the book, or are they subplots? I was thinking the main plot would be what happens when they get the ax to the capital. In which case the disappearing kids and Father Miracle can be left out of the query.] [And I say that reluctantly, as I'm sorely tempted to suggest focusing the entire query on the sinister physician Father Miracle.] Will the ax leave in more malevolent hands? [Almost, but no.] Who is the childlike figure who follows them at every turn? [Cricket Buttonhole.] And who, in the end, will be left holding Damnation's Blade? [My money's on the beautiful country lass Glory Glittermoon. I hope she has asbestos gloves.]

Damnation's Blade is the first of a planned six book series [Now I'm worried that it takes six books to get the ax to the capital, like it took three books to get the ring to Mt. Doom. You don't want me worrying about that.] entitled "The Three Altars," a dark epic fantasy told through the eyes of the mysterious exile Kerwyn Thunderstone, the magically gifted and impetuous Viscount Rhydion Warlowe, the petulant, penniless and amoral former nobleman Victor Touinkcelot, the bitter former priestess Bara Ironthatch and the tragically naive faerie princess Sarna Mourningdell. Each of these five characters find themselves drawn into a cosmic cold war between rival Gods, and the ruthless religious leaders so devoted to those Gods' worship that they would sacrifice their own souls. Yet this religious war itself may be a distraction, as a potentially world-ending threat rises in the centuries old, impenetrable desert to the West. As these five characters confront that threat, they will also be confronted with questions on the nature of redemption, justice, divinity, and ultimately, creation itself. [No need to list characters whose role isn't important enough to warrant telling us anything they do other than confront (possibly in book 6) some vague threat.]

Sincerely,


Notes

Partial list of adjectives used in the twelve sentences of the plot summary: murderous, mysterious, magical, deadly, magical, dangerous, magical, mysterious, [Maybe you should change the title to Magical Mystery Tour.] desperate, desperate, sinister, horrific, malevolent, dark, mysterious, magically gifted, amoral, petulant, bitter, ruthless, world-ending.

Partial list of adjectives I didn't put on the first list: small, small, gruff, ailing, childlike, penniless, naive, impetuous, cosmic, centuries-old. impenetrable. The point being, cut down on adjectives. You can delete a half dozen adjective from your first plot sentence without losing anything important. Try rewriting the plot summary limiting yourself to ten adjectives. It's not that adjectives can't be useful, but it's nouns and verbs that tell the story. You don't want to give the impression that every noun in the book has an average of two adjectives attached to it. To put it another way, if a clown rides a unicycle past your window every twenty seconds, pretty soon you're gonna start ignoring the clown.

I can see how you would figure out that the ax head you found burns to the touch; less clear is why you would dip the ax head into a body of water.

You're better off declaring this book is a standalone novel with the potential to become a series than to hint that you're looking for someone to publish six books.

It's well-written, and the character names are cool, but the query needs to focus on the main plot of this book. What happens if they fail to get the ax to the capital? What happens if they succeed? Who is trying to stop them, and why?