Michael R. Baker's Blog, page 23

The Big One: My Top 5 books of 2017

No. I know I cannot vote for my own book! I’m aware of that. *Whistles while pointing to my Amazon link…*

Anyway! It has been a wonderful year of reading for me! I pledged to read 25 books this year, and I managed it. To be fair on this list, I will count books I’ve read this year, and it does not matter when they debuted!

Just because a book I read is not in my Top 5, does not mean that it is not good! I’ve read so many good books this year that it’s been nearly impossible to narrow it down to a Top 5. But I am gonna do it anyway!

There are also countless books that did not make my list simply because I have not read it. If I haven’t read it, I cannot count it. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

There are a few titles I have not completed that would probably have made it onto my list. Deadhouse Gates, The Court of Broken Knives, Age of Assassins and Red Sister are primary candidates. Maybe for 2018, hmm?

Onto my top 5 anyway!

5. Malice by John Gwynne 

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The sheer scope of this book is frankly impressive even for a veteran fantasy author. To do it on your debut, well, I’m blown away, and inspired for my upcoming series Counterbalance. It takes a lot of “easy” fantasy tropes but builds them up so well it is a riveting read. I understand why this is so well received. There really isn’t any problems with the book at all apart from a slow buildup and Corban not stabbing Rafe through the balls with his own spear, but it is an excellent read and builds up to something truly gut-wrenching. If you love Vikings, demons, giants and Norse mythology or indeed fantasy, you’ll like this. A solid coming of age tale that keeps getting better. I’m on Ruin, and wow.

 

4. The Heart of Stone by Ben Galley 

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An amazing example of how to do non-human characters.

Raised up to be a machine of war, the last stone golem Task is recruited by a rather large dickwaffle commander called Huff to end the brutal civil war that has brewed for years. Reading a novel largely from a non-human point of view is very rare in fantasy (Unless it’s elves or dwarves. Which turn out to be virtually the same as humans. Go figure). And it does it well. I genuinely enjoyed this book, and it performs well on all accounts.

Lesky, Alabest Flint, Ellia and Task steal the show on countless occasions, and character design by Ben is overall incredibly well done. Lesky I feel was a bit too smart and snappy for a child, but her young nature and her bond with Task is a growing part of the book. I legit felt for her suffering on the battlefield and loved it whenever Task defended her. I usually hate spunky teen characters on principle, let alone children, but Lesky was done just well enough to keep me liking her character. Alabest is a wonderful disgraced knight trying to get out of the hellhole, and every one of his scenes had me cheering for him and laughing. Fayne is the wonderful double agent, completely bonkers at times and her nature kept me guessing all the way through.

I just couldn’t stop smiling throughout. The prose is comfortable to read but not too simple, the worldbuilding is solid and it has some great character interactions.

 

3. The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson

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I do like Mistborn’s second Western era more then the first, but I am a big fan of Mistborn in general in spite of some of its issues (admittedly few!) But I adore this book, and I would say it is the strongest of the Mistborn books so far.

After the brutal climax to Shadows of Self which made me hate Sazed as a god, this book really hits it home with a solid steampunk setting, continued great characters and the evolution of Brandon working on his humor. He also finally nailed female characters in this book, with the wonderful Steris really pulling the punches and her relationship with Waxillium Ladrian is the cornerstone of the book. Wayne continues to be hilarious and the plot overall is quite solid, with a little cooldown in filler. The Allomancy infodumps are also thankfully reduced in this book. While the ending was a bit weak, I’ll wait for the finale book before I pass judgement on it. Overall, I really enjoyed it, and were it not for two exceptional reads in 2017, this could have hit my top spot this year. It really could have.

 

2. Faithless, by Graham Austin King

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What a way to debut by King!

It pulls no punches and has some pretty dark themes. However, I will say that neither POV character is really lovable, and I must say I wanted to reach into the book and strangle both of them. Wynn for being incredibly naive and constantly out of touch with the violent underworld of the mines, and Kharios for…well…saying so would spoil too much. But his choices at every turn are cruel at best, brutal at worst. Be warned when you delve into this. It is not for the faint-hearted. There are some incredible moments throughout the book and one particular scene which just blew my mind. It is borderline genius.

What Faithless completely sold for me was its realism. Every decision the characters make is just that, realistic. Not once did I see anything which I didn’t believe. The worldbuilding is also fantastic, on par with the best up there. It really blew me away delving into the violent, underground world of the mines, and the polished shit that was the Temple (I mean that in its grimy nature underneath the sheen, not that it was bad). A brilliant book, and held my no.1 spot for most of the year. . .until a certain Michael R. Fletcher ruined everything for me!

 

1. Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher 

 

Holy shit this book!

Book one of the Manifest Delusions series, Beyond Redemption is really that; a grim, gritty and realistic look into grimdark fantasy.

Set in a grim-painted realm of constant war and grief, Beyond Redemption explores consequences of magic, the power of religion and the stability of a soul as it slowly fractures. The magic system is solid, especially when dealing with consequences, something not many fantasy books either does well, or they just ignore consequences completely!

The book really highlights characters quite well, and it pulls no punches in its brutality. The main cast, a trio of dangerous, ill-redeemable killers; Wichtig the Swordsmen and master manipulator, the vicious Kelptic and killer Schelten, and their “leader” and often sick Bedeckt, were a brilliant joy to read, despite them being borderline evil. Their relationships were believable and relatable, and despite all of their many vices and problems with each other, they got along…just. They are all such shits, and I love every one of them.

Michael R. Fletcher’s Beyond Redemption is a joy to read. It is in depth, and it flows without going through the purple prose crap that plagues so many generic fantasy novels. The action scenes are fast and crisp but don’t over-extend, and the prose is extensive but not flowery. All I can say is…well done. Picking my favorite book of the year was extremely tough, but Fletcher just takes it. He will be so pleased, him and his bloody doppels.

It’s been a wonderful road of reading this year, and I cannot wait to continue! Stay tuned for more.

 

 

Games of 2017 – The Other Awards!

It is that time of year again. It’s going to be difficult for me this year. With only a laptop and no sixth generation console (sobs at having no Nintendo Switch or Ps4), it won’t be easy for me to make the list. However, you know the drill. Here are a bunch of games I have played this year which are….decent, but some have serious problems which mar its legacy. Some are excellent games, but flawed. And some are just gutter slime. Here we go!

Let us begin, shall we?

Gaming of 2017: The Top Five

The “If only?” Award: Middle Earth: Shadow of War

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Might be a bit controversial opinion here. I was not too keen on Shadow of Mordor. I love the Nemesis system for sure, and it was a decent hack and slash, but I found the game a bit… dull. It was okay? I enjoyed it, but there were a lot better games out.

Now, I was looking forward to Shadow of War. Really looking forward to it. It looked amazing and was destined to great things. And then they shoved in microtransactions and loot boxes. . .

Sigh.

Why?

Why?

WHYY!

There was no need for this at all. What really annoys me is when publishers try and shove as much seedy, controversial crap into a game to try and shill as much cash from idiots as possible. As you can tell, this really angered me.

However, I am going to be fair on Shadow of War. It is a good game. The Nemesis system is a formidable piece of tech, and should be incorporated into many other games. They added in a lot of things which made Shadow of Mordor a bit of a burnout, which was nice. And the loot boxes? You can mostly ignore them. That does not stop it having a grindy end game to get the true ending, however.

The orcs really sold the game. They are the life and soul of Shadow of War and have such vibrant personalities they were better than the main story. The game looks good, plays well with good fluid movement controls and combat, and the new army system was impressive. Even though the end game war-fest is grindy without resorting to the loot crates (A massive problem, I will add!) I genuinely enjoyed the sieges, and I did not mind spending a lot of time with them. I liked polishing my orcs into a deadly war machine. It isn’t for everyone, however.

Unskippable orc introductions though? A problem in gaming that needs to be neutered with a rusty knife. Get rid of them, please!

Overall, Shadow of War doesn’t deserve all of the hate it gets. It’s a pretty decent game. Just in future, try to get rid of the microtransactions, yeah?

 

The Love-Hate Award: ELEX 

Oh god.

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Love-hate doesn’t even come close. I said in my Top 5 that this game nearly became Number 2 on my list, for so many reasons. ELEX is a love child to RPGs. You know, the really immersive ones. It reminds me like a 2013 version of Morrowind. Now, that has good and bad in it.

I really enjoy Elex. I especially like the open world and jet pack that allows many areas of exploration, and it continues to impress you even after 30-40 hours of exploration. Once you find everything, in one of these open world games, they are not as much fun. Very few games pull off this level of immersion. Remember my Big three of RPG:

Immersion
Combat
Movement

Again, ELEX doesn’t nail all three, but not even Witcher 3 managed it. But man oh man, this game hits the immersion. Piranha Bytes are becoming an increasingly rare sort of developer. Despite a small team size, and regardless of what else is happening in the world of video game trends, these guys have been steadily putting out unique, challenging, ambitious and somewhat unpolished RPGs that don’t really seem to be getting made anywhere else. Now, ELEX has a lot of frustrating problems. The opening 20 hours are punishingly difficult (but this is a subjective thing), the game is really rough around the edges with some shoddy controls and visuals, the pacing like I said earlier is pretty slow, and it takes a long time for anything to really happen. The graphics look alright in the world visuals, but the character models and voice acting really are painful. Again though, a small developer on a small budget, so this I can forgive.

Some of the characters are quite good, but your main NPC (the player) is about as interesting as watching grass grow. Ugh. There is so much to love about ELEX, but much to hate too. Still, it’s one to look out for.

 

The “I underestimated this” Award: Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon

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I will be very honest here. I was a bit skeptical of Ultra Sun and Moon. Why did Nintendo go and release this a year after Sun and Moon? It just screamed, “LOL, you’re going to pay another 45$ for a slightly improved game, with features that should have been in the original!”

I hate it when developers do this.

I wasn’t very keen on Pokemon X and Y, and I found the third generation remakes very disappointing. I voted Sun and Moon quite highly last year (Number 4, actually). I played the Moon demo before it’s main release and found it very enjoyable.  It looks fresh, the evil gang this time around look like gangster rappers (which was both amusing and fresh for Pokemon), the graphics are nice and the region is also fresh. Team Skull also has one of the most badass intro themes of any Pokemon game, and it’s something I loved listening to.

In hindsight, however, I probably should have ranked the original lower. It was good, but the post-game content was seriously lacking, and even worse, those fucking unskippable cutscenes.

Ultra Sun and Moon, however…I am liking it. The hand holding and cutscene syndrome are still there, and the game is mostly the same, just refreshed with a lot more options to build your team. Mantine Surf is a great minigame to build BP to get new moves for your team, and I’m really enjoying the game so far. A lot more then the original, I’d say. Nearly 30 hours in now, and I’m not bored. It also has a decent amount of post-game content it seems, so hopefully I will enjoy that too. It would not have made Top 5, but Top 10? Probably.

The “Stop flogging a dead horse” Award: Skyrim and Creation Club. 

 

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Fuck off, Bethesda. You could be making Elder Scrolls VI, instead of constantly rebooting Skyrim? Yes, it’s good fun. Switch, VR, Special Edition, when does it end? Sigh.

That is not my gripe with Skyrim this time, however. My problem is their rather foolish attempt to create Paid Mods again. Remember the controversy of their attempt on Steam? This was another version, which they kept claiming not to be. Sorry Todd Howard, but it is paid mods. Paying third-party developers to make content is all well and good, I do like seeing modders paid for their work. But the Creation Club was a disaster.

Let’s start with Fallout 4. The game was already on murky thin ice with its terrible Season Pass and wonky mechanics, a poor man’s New Vegas. Fallout 4 isn’t a bad game, but it was disappointing in my eyes. Then they brought out Creation Club. Oh my God, what a mess. Forcing through patches on both games that breaks better mod content, selling sub-standard mini-DLC that is frankly inferior to free versions, and above all, all the content is overpriced.

And while we’re at it, you can’t buy these directly with money, you have to purchase Credits in awkward bundles that mean you’d always end up having to buy way more credits than an item costs. This is a huge problem and it better get rectified soon!

I love Skyrim. I really do, but Bethesda has really soured my feelings towards them this year for their appalling methods to cash in on mods. Now, it does nothing to stop free mods elsewhere…yet. My fear is that they will take this into a micro-transaction system for later Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. If they do so, I will vote with my wallet and refuse to support them.

And speaking of micro-transactions. . .

You will have to wait! Join me in the third part soon, where I will talk about the things and games this year that really annoyed me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Thousand Scars by Michael R. Baker

Massive thanks to Joshua Robertson for posting this! He is a wonderful guy and an excellent writer, check his stuff out!

Joshua Robertson

Congratulations to Michael R. Baker and his release of The Thousand Scars, the first book in Counterbalance.

Counterbalance tells the brutal story of a land in turmoil, as two desperate superpowers battle for survival in a war of terror and clashes of morality. A complex series, it involves bloody battles and sieges, vengeful necromancers, rampant mercenary companies, a young man desperately searching for a new home, and powerful conspiracies.

For good or evil, The Thousand Scars shall bleed the world…and they will save it. Or will they? The first book of the series releases on December 9th, the opening book of this epic fantasy series.

The greatest war since the time of ancient Chaos has reached the Balian Empire. Within the Balian council, a rogue faction unleashes an unthinkable dark magic to defeat its enemies. As the Empire loses ground, disgraced scholar and exile Tyrone Cessil is forced to…

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A Thousand Scars – The Turnaround

Well. It’s finally happened. Five years in the making, but my debut novel is out on Amazon! The links to it are down below:

Amazon Link

So, where were we from my tale? I think I recall from the 2015 period? I think that is right. I could be wrong. Here are the links to Parts 1 and 2:

A Thousand Scars – The Beginning
A Thousand Scars – Years of Backpacking across Thickets of Nothing

 

Slow but Steady

So, 2015. Counterbalance was still going. Slowly, but it was getting there. Or so I thought. I look back and laugh now at how naive I was at the time, because it was barely worth a first draft, let alone be anywhere near publication – worthy. It was bad. On a level of Ride to Hell: Retribution bad. Yes, I went there.

So, it was June 2015, and my girlfriend Vicky was staying over at mine for the week while the old ones (the mum and dad) were on holiday. It was an ordinary day, and I came across a post on a random Facebook writing group I was on from a certain Michael Kobernus (of Nordland Publishing). As I say, this was completely out of the blue meeting. He was wanting to know about people’s writing, because of a lot of Facebook groups just have people spamming their book links. I posted regarding my book being 140k and “no end in sight.” Yep. I REALLY did not know anything!

Naturally, he was intrigued and we connected on messenger, where he told me a bit about himself, Nordland and wanted to know more about my writing. As an editor, this got me excited. Finally, someone else can rip apart my stuff and give me the kick I needed to improve! Poor Vicky spent three hours downstairs on her own while I went on Skype with Michael (Sorry hunni!) She is amazing, she is. (She knows where I live.)

Strictly put. I had a lot to work on. and I mean a lot. My chapters were terrible, the opening had about 6,000 words of nothing before anything started. I barely had any meat on the bones throughout the “book”. Remember, it was barely half done. I had so much to do. Michael kindly but firmly advised I make it a series, split it and strip it all down from the beginning. It was exactly what I needed and wanted to hear, and the long journey began from there.

The Blessing

When I started my journey of writing, I will admit I had no idea what I was doing. (Let’s be fair, I still don’t, but I know more now then I did back then!) Counterbalance is my first novel, and before June 2015, it was one terrible, bloated mess. I was writing, with no plan.

Then by complete chance, I talked to who is now my publisher, Michael Kobernus of Nordland Publishing. We talked a great deal, I took advice from a great friend and split the novel from one book into three. It involved stripping the whole book and rewriting pretty much everything. It was the hardest lesson, but I cannot enjoy it more. The book turned from something which was a fragmented mess, into a (still in my eyes) fragmented mess, but one which is far superior to what it was. I was rewarded with the offer, and I couldn’t be happier.

Main Information

So, in a gist of it, that is the story! Here is some information about me and the book!

What is Counterbalance?

Counterbalance tells the brutal story of a land in turmoil, as two desperate superpowers battle for survival in a war of terror and clashes of morality. A complex series, it involves bloody battles and sieges, vengeful necromancers, rampant mercenary companies, a young man desperately searching for a new home, and powerful conspiracies.

For good or evil, The Thousand Scars shall bleed the world…and they will save it. Or will they? The first book of the series releases on December 9th, the opening book of this epic fantasy series.

Bio:

Michael R. Baker studied history at University of Sunderland, and at last he found a use for his degree. The idea for Counterbalance came off the back of an exhausting bus journey, ironically starting an even longer voyage into writing and publishing fantasy. Alongside his passion for storytelling and worldbuilding, Michael is an avid video gamer and cartographer, bringing his fantasy world and others from the mind onto paper reality. The Thousand Scars is Michael’s debut novel, and the first of the epic fantasy series.

Blurb:

The greatest war since the time of ancient Chaos has reached the Balian Empire. Within the Balian council, a rogue faction unleashes an unthinkable dark magic to defeat its enemies. As the Empire loses ground, disgraced scholar and exile Tyrone Cessil is forced to go on the run. His only chance is with a band of cutthroat mercenaries, the Thousand Scars. Tyrone’s new commander is the notorious and hated Necromancer, Tyir of Irene. Life with the Scars is hard, but Tyrone believes the Necromancer can stop the Empire’s forbidden sorcery. Tyir leads the Scars on a campaign of bloody vengeance, and they commit acts of horrific brutality, leading Tyrone to question the price he is willing to pay to survive. The Thousand Scars will bleed the world. And they will save it.

The Thousand Scars book links:

getBook.at/Thethousandscars: Paperback
getBook.at/Thethousandscarskindle: Kindle

 

Here are my links if you’d like to follow me! 

My blog!
My Author Page on Facebook
Amazon Author Page
Cartography services
My Twitter!
Goodreads Page
My Patreon

It has been a wild ride, but it is just the beginning. Next time in Counterbalance: I will write some articles exploring the more intimite lore behind Rengar, the world that is Counterbalance.

Gaming of 2017: The Top Five

Hello everybody. This is going to be a different way of doing things this year! Last time I did a four-article series. This time, I am going to go through my usual review in a different order. This year, I will only be doing a Top 5 games of the year instead of Top 10, but there will be awards in other categories including Most Underrated Game, worst game, you know the drill. I will do this in later articles.

Unfortunately, there are many titles that are not on this list. Because I do not have a Nintendo Switch, Xbox One or PlayStation 4, many options were off for me, I’m afraid. So that means no Oddessy, Horizon Zero Dawn or Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I’m sorry! If I don’t have the game, I cannot review it or count it

A Thousand Scars – Years of Backpacking across Thickets of Nothing

Welcome to part two of my writing journey. This time, I will take you from the early days of Counterbalance, right up until the moment that changed it all for the better. It was certainly an intriguing path, but extremely frustrating and ended up with me swearing angrily at my computer for years to come. Oh, what the fun I had!

The Beginning 

So. In October 2012, I decided to give novel writing a go. George R.R Martin and his bloody Westeros really got me wanting to write something. I had a world of sorts I wanted to further enhance, and some elements from my fanfiction I liked the idea of. (That was a 200k torrent of bullcrap, but at least some parts of it got revived into this world.) It took me six months to work out some kind of storyline, and some kind of world. The fantasy world I had made from my teenage years was still viable but would need a complete rebuild to be even close to viable.

I will not lie in that this was a gigantic undertaking. It has gone through many different forms. I originally was going to write a massive epoch exploring the politics (using Game of Thrones as heavy influence) on all the manners of Harloph (The birthplace of my fantasy world, and the hub of this series) before the Great War which develops between the Bale Empire and the United conglomerations of the Selpvian Dominion.

This was the early idea before I realized in late 2013 that it was way too ambitious. For my first novel, and when I had no clue what I was getting myself into, this was out of my league. I got about 30,000, maybe 40,000 words in before I hit the wall, so I decided instead to scrap all of that for Counterbalance, and decided to focus solely on the final year of the threatened Great War, which leads into the Counterbalance series for real. It is cool seeing all my notes and watching how it all evolved, however.

The Abandoned Storyline 

So, I really bit off more then I could chew on the original plot. A massive combination of politics, archaeology and civil war might have worked for a more experienced writer, but for my first go? A tad too ambitious. I recognized this and decided to reign it in. Here was the overall gist of Alpha Counterbalance, as I now like to call it:

The gradual immersion of the scholar/archeology school in the city of Valare, which eventually links into the Counterbalance storyline. It was going to use a lot of ideas that were taken into the new (published) version which you will see soon, and also go into Valare’s history and detail a bit more.
The Kahal Civil War in which a fierce rebellion against the Pharos Order is underway, with three POV’s in an intersecting account of the war itself.
The Empire and its politics, culminating in Lance Ironheart’s manipulation of the Empire to fight a war it cannot win.

Yes, one of my major protagonists in the real Counterbalance was originally going to be a villain. Some elements of this were taken and refined, but I had to scrap it in the end.

Special tip of the week

Now, here is my main piece of advice: KEEP ALL OF YOUR WORK! No matter how bad it may be, keep your work! I have never deleted a single word of my writing throughout my 4-year long adventure, and for how many years I have left, I will not delete anything. Save it. Put it aside. You’ll never know how useful it may be for later!

And this is exactly what I did. The first version of Counterbalance was shelved, but all of it was kept in separate folders. I have already planned on writing a novella based on one of the key plot arcs from that alternate timeline because it happens in the lore around 20 years before the events in Counterbalance. It explores the Kahal civil war and the rebellion of the Kahal tribes against the might of the fanatical Pharos Order. It was meant to have two POV’s on either side of the war, and alternate through the storyline as it went. While this won’t happen in the new Counterbalance, it is still an important part of history and lore, and it shapes tons of the characters even into this day. It is a horrible piece of the Order’s history.

Then I went through two years of writing the new and improved Counterbalance. Originally just one whole book (A stupid idea since I was around 140k in, with no end in sight) I was getting there, but the work was awful. I freely admit that! I still have the June 2015 version of Counterbalance before my huge overhaul, and it is a load of bollocks. Just look at this bit:

Hardenne looked about himself nervously, as he waited at the foot of the stone steps; shivering. There was an ominous chill, and he didn’t like it. He felt something brush against his ankle and he started, his hand reaching for the sword by his side, but he found the tail of a rat slip past, and felt his face reddened with embarrassment. Coward, he berated himself, half amused and half annoyed with himself. What was making him so jumpy? He never liked the shadows, even as a child. When he was twelve years old, he and his siblings used to explore the caves and rooks of Bawsor, stepping into the deep underground tombs of the capital. He always hated it, found the catacombs terrifying. They laughed at him for that. He looked up above his head at the midnight sky, a beautiful, cloudless night, but he could feel the bite of the cold even through his woolskin tunic. Hurry up Aldmer, he thought irritably. Why did he want the council to meet in here of all places? He was an elite member of the high council, not a gutter rat.

Abandoned POV, 2015. 

First draft, but it was pretty appalling. Right up until June 2015, I was making slow progress, but I really did not have a clue. During my parent’s holiday away during the summer of 2015, and while my girlfriend was staying with me (I usually stay home during their little jaunts.)

Everything changed by complete chance…and my first meeting with somebody who actually knew what they were doing.

But that is a story for another time, Part Three!

A Thousand Scars – The Beginning

Book Review: The Final Empire

It has been a while since I have written one of these, but it is high time I returned! Today is the beginning of my long series into the Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson. I finally completed both Mistborn trilogies, and with Oathbringer now out (the book sitting on my shelf ready) I cannot wait to get back into the thick of things.

Today, I bring you my review of Mistborn Era 1: The Final Empire. I started reading this back in February, at the turn of the year. I picked it up and decided to give it a go (as well as hearing good things about it.)

I really liked it. At least in its overall sense of what it set out to do. There are issues I will discuss throughout my review, but overall I am quite a fan of this book (helped by the excellent Graphic Audio edition of the audiobook, which transforms it into a true mind-movie).

Set in the vicious and ash-laden world of Scadrial, the Final Empire as it’s called (roll credits) has been under the heavy thumb of a tyrant demigod known as the Lord Ruler, who rules his lands with an iron fist. There is a lot of classism in this, with the nobility being seen as the violent, dickish group, and the masses of the skaa, seen to all as inferior and fit to be abused. It really sets a dark tone for the opening book, and the opening scene shows this completely.

Now, if people have read my reviews before and know me, you will know I am not a fan of YA fantasy. This is exactly how Sanderson portrays the series as. Now, I think this was his first book/series, and it…kind of shows in the writing? Not to be harsh in that sense, but the writing is quite basic, with very one-dimensional actions and descriptions and very little risk-taking. This doesn’t make it bad; on the contrary, I rather liked it because it is very easy to understand, but there is a time when there is a bit too much eye-rolling from every character, to the point I wanted to strangle them. For YA, this book really pulls the punches in terms of brutality. You get to see a skaa kid get his throat slit in front of a bunch of noblemen later in the book, and they do not give two shits (Except for Valette, but of course, she is a skaa herself. Tension!)

The plot is about as simple as it gets in a traditional fantasy. A group of rebels conspires to overthrow the evil emperor, led by a charismatic leader (This will be Kelsier, a powerful sarcastic twat with likable tendencies. No really, I do like this guy), but again, this is not a bad thing. I had zero trouble following the storyline, and even today find myself going back to the book and picking up odd bits. The world is well designed especially in this opening story, and it really has the Heros Journey vibe to it. There is a fair bit of info dumping throughout the book that can be trying to get through, and he keeps shoving the rules of Allomancy in your face throughout the series. Yes, I know the skaa are oppressed. I know the magic rules already. Stop showing me them! I got it the first time. I listen to what I read.

My word though, the action scenes were completely nailed by Sanderson, holy shit. Gut-wrenching and brutal with so much love for the metal-based magic system, I can write essays on how much thought went into it. This was the two parts that nailed the series for me, and the battle between Kelsier and the brutal Inquisitor of the Steel Ministry was the crux of the entire book. Much better then the climatic fight (I do feel sorry for the Lord Ruler though, even if he comes off as a bit of a knob.)

Main Protagonist Vin starts off as a street urchin with brother issues and a ton of trust issues but slowly comes into being as the most powerful Mistborn in the world. Now, again, I hate chosen ones. I really bloody hate them, and in my first read of the trilogy, Vin really annoyed me because she didn’t really seem anything special. However, in re-reads, I am growing to like her again. It might have just been from the basic layout of the writing for the masses that ground me, as she is a bit overpowered (very overpowered in fact, but one of her fights two-thirds into the book was excellent).

This takes me into characters, and there is a good range of them. I really liked the thieving crew, although once again, having them as nice thieves felt a bit convenient. Give me the backstabbing arseholes any day, but I did enjoy their dynamic. Breeze and Ham are hilarious when they are together even though the crew at times felt a bit like a frat party. Kelsier and Sazed steal the show from book one, and you’ll see Sazed slowly grow in importance (him turning into a love-broken emo during Book 3 annoyed the hell out of me, however), and in Era 2…well, he is a bit of an asshole. (Spoiler Alert) Although there is a lot of black and white viewpoints, we get to go into the nobility mind, which brings us to Elend Venture.

A lovable moron, his and Vin’s growing…romance was a big part of the book and a mixed one. If there is one thing I’ve seen Sanderson sometimes struggle with, it is pulling off romances, and their relationship always felt a bit strange. Book Two really struggled on this regard in one of the worst love triangles I have ever read, (Nothing beats Twilight on shit though), but the final book of Era 1 was a masterpiece on their romance, and the final scenes were heartbreakingly beautiful. You got me rooting for their romance, and I really dislike romance in fantasy in general. Their scenes together throughout The Final Empire was interesting and I slowly grew attached to the pair of them, and the scene when Elend comes looking for Vin in the climax is one of my favorite moments and a huge moment for Vin. Nobody ever came back for her before and her emotion was beautiful.

In conclusion, even though I had a couple of gripes with The Final Empire, I really liked it, and reading more of Sanderson’s works, he managed to fix a lot of issues he had with this opener, especially regarding romances. Era 2 was brilliant for that I think (and hilarious, Wayne is fucking brilliant) and some of his attempts at humor was a lot better. (Except for Shallan in the Stormlight Archive. Seriously. Fuck off Shallan. Love that series though!) Easily a 4/5 book, on some days it is a five star. Usually when I re-read Kel fight the Steel Inquisitor.

 

 

A Thousand Scars – The Beginning

A bit off the beaten path, this time. I haven’t really written any personal blog posts like this for a good while! Maybe this will inject some personality back into my work.

First off, massive thanks to everyone who has read my stuff. I have a mad mind and I just like talking about things. It’s probably something in the water. Second, with the upcoming release of my first published novel so close (no release date yet, but once confirmed I will be sharing the hell out of it!), I thought I would take some time and write this post to talk a bit more about myself, the challenges into writing the story, and what lies ahead. I hope it will be a fun experience for us all! This will probably be part of a series, releasing them as The Thousand Scars release draws ever nearer.

The Writing Muse 

I’m 27 years old, going on 28. I’m starting to get old! (As my girlfriend loves pointing out, I am younger at least then some buildings) and for most of my life have loved reading and writing fiction; it’s a great feeling being able to craft your own world and tales with a stroke of a finger on the keyboard or a pen. Onto this. Back when I was maybe 10 or 11, I was creating a fantasy world around which eventually became the crux of the novel I am writing. I also wrote a story called Attack of the Silver Serpent, which I found in my room while I was tidying it. Here is a picture down below of the monstrosity.

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Michael…that is a green serpent. I cringe reading it now, but it was a fun little thing I wrote when I was ten. Back to the world. It took a very long time before it took shape, “borrowing” writing books in my English class to type up the battles and lore. Unfortunately, it seems I have misplaced a lot of this, but I hope that some of it will be salvaged! Think Time Commanders with loads of information about the armies and battles. Most of it was not brought forward into my fantasy world of today, but some elements remain.

The Catalyst 

I graduated in 2011 with a degree in History, and quickly ran into the “I’ve graduated. What the hell do I do now?” dilemma. I admit, I took my degree out of interest rather than a business plan, but I do not regret doing it. I always followed my gut instinct on doing things I wanted to do, rather than conform to a life of work and death. Of course, work is vital, but humans should enjoy their life, not just spent the entirety of it training to work to pay bills then fade. I never wanted that.

Next came the slew of health problems. Irritable Bowel Syndrome is messy and really took it out of me during the 2011-12 period, and barely a day went by where I wasn’t in agony from stomach pains. Coupled with a very difficult year in 2012 with problems at home and my continued struggle in finding a job culminated in a nasty bout of depression, which I am not afraid to hide. It was a hellish year, but thankfully I was able to get help.

Dealing with the diagnosis…was not easy. I felt I was letting everyone down, and I had to deal with a few unhelpful people who tried the “people have it worse than you” card. No shit!

It was proving to be a strenuous and hard period in my life. In this mess and while I was starting to recover from the dark period, I watched the first season of Game of Thrones, and frankly it blew my mind. (although now Season 7 has happened, it’s really dropped in quality. Which is a shame).

With the help of useful friends, I secured the first copy of A Song of Ice and Fire and begun reading. Reading George. R.R. Martin’s work changed me for the better. Furthermore, it got me thinking of my fantasy world and won red if I could make it a reality. By this point, I had not touched the world in nearly a decade, but I had already had some experience with writing long fiction, but that was mainly fan-fiction. (Very poorly made fanfiction, I might add, but it was popular at least) In the middle of another failed rewrite of that fanfiction, I realised I could use that knowledge and lessons learnt to work on my own novel.

I thought: “If people could do it, I can too!” And I began my journey then. Call it a rebirth, but it was the start of a long, enjoyable and frustrating journey.

Closing Comments: 

This reaches the end of Part One. Might not have been in as much detail as I would like, but a lot of it involves delving into the awkward times of my life, and I prefer looking forward as much as possible.

Part Two will come next week, and I will discuss the ever-growing tendrils of progress as I continued to write Counterbalance, along with some talk into what it originally was. There is so much change. I will finish with one of my favorite fantasy quotes:

Elend Venture, A Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson: 

“Today, men, I ask you your lives.”

“I ask of you your lives and your courage. I ask of your faith, your honor– your strength, and your compassion. For today I lead you to die. I will not ask you to welcome this event. I will not insult you by calling it well, or just, or even glorious. But I will say this….

…..”Each moment you fight is a gift to those in this cavern. Each second we fight is a second longer that thousands of people can draw breath. Each stroke of the sword, each koloss felled, each breath earned is another victory! It is a person protected for a moment longer, a life extended, an enemy frustrated!”

“In the end, they shall kill us. But first, they shall fear us!”

Best Games Ever Made: Part 3

I do have a plan for this series. Eventually, I will go on a Top 20 list, but until then, this is just a good way for me to talk about some of the best games I’ve ever played. As always, this is personal and subjective, everyone will have their own opinions!

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Dragon Age: Inquisition

The Dragon Age series has been weird for me. I didn’t play much of Dragon Age II, and Origins was a weird one. I played it and enjoyed it, but at the same time, it ground on me at the same time. Then Inquisition came out in 2014, and….I have rarely felt so torn between liking a game and disliking it. Yes, I know my series is called Best Games Ever! Man, this is awkward. I need a drink.

How would I best describe this game? Single Player MMO. It has that feel for certain. The game is MASSIVE for certain, with a lot of content. Now, I generally hate MMO’s on principle. Maybe that is because I got burned hard by ArcheAge (An MMO I did enjoy, but it is so Pay2win it just pissed me right off it, and I will never touch another game published by Trion Studios again.) A word of advice to devs. Just because you make a game free to play does NOT make it okay to force players to spend fucktons to get in on a competitive level. It drives customers away, like me.

There was really a lot of weird stuff to Inquisition. I’ve played this game for around 60-70 hours so far, and only just managed to finish it a few months ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like repeating the game again. Just too much effort, you know?

I wasn’t lying in that this game is immense. Bioware knew what they were doing at this time. (Let’s not mention Mass Effect Andromeda.) Huge amount to do, but suffers from “open world syndrome.” Many of the quests are cheap, MMO like fetch quests to me. Bioware did a lot of things right in this game, but many things were also wrong. It’s a good RPG no questions asked, but again, it’s an RPG, and summed up by the problems in such games in a nutshell. Large in scope, a good cast, the combat I enjoyed more than I thought I would, and a funny script which had me laughing throughout.

This game did make me wonder if there’s such a thing as “too big a game.” Lots of good things to do, but how much of that is fetch quests I wonder? It has some technical issues, but overall runs very well, even on my middling game rig (GTX 660M, i5 processor, and 8gb ram.) This was on my old laptop. Now on my newish one (Gtx 950M) it runs even better. It really is a Fantasy Mass Effect (obviously, its ran by the same people) and overall it’s good. Play it, try it out. You may be bogged down though. Is it the best RPG of all time? God no. I can count a dozen better options. Most of them are on my Top 10 of all time. But overall? Well worth the money, especially now it is a lot cheaper.

 

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Dominions 4

Now, usually, I do not like 4x games. I find the vast majority of them dull and many of them lack any compelling gameplay. There are a few exceptions, of course. Stellaris was quite an enjoyable little game from 2016 (so much so it made honorable mention on my Top 10 games of that year), and of course Civ series was pretty exceptional overall. I’m not going to talk about those, however. This time, I’d like to discuss this little gem: Dominions 4.

Now, graphics knobs (or how I would like to call them, New Age Morons) will blast this game for having archaic graphics, and okay, it is a pretty bad look. It looks like something from Medieval: Total War, but that didn’t stop it from being one of the best strategy games of all time. The graphics in Dom 4 are passable, but they get the job done. The colors are pastel blue, dun, pinkish orange and grey, and they look alright. The buildings such as temples, forts and castles are clear and actually look alright. Terrain features such as mountains, bridges, forests, marshes, rivers and buildings are shown nicely but not spectacularly, and the symbols are clear enough to get the right angle. Graphics aren’t everything, however, and this game proves it.

Do you know what this game reminds me of? A 3d Dwarf Fortress. That game is a behemoth, but it has one hell of a steep learning curve. So does Dominions 4. It’s clunky, difficult, very hard to master and there is a crapton of content all meshed in together, but there is so much depth to the combat system that it’s quite frightening. You know a game is dense when it comes with a 300 page manual! You can lose yourself for days with this game, but it takes some getting used to. It’s a massive game that requires effort, but I don’t think you can get disappointed by it. You need to put in serious hours though. It’s not a game to just step in and out of like a drunk man making love to his wife.

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The Age of Decadence

Yep, another RPG! I play them, get used to it.

This game actually hit the number 3 spot on my Top 10 of 2015. I enjoyed it that much. Now, this game isn’t for everyone. It is hard, and at times brutal. You’re no champion of warfare, or some jumped-up superhero who is a master of all trades. (Hello Skyrim! You are awesome, but man you had some flaws, this being one of them! Your combat sucks.)

This is an RPG, in much the same mold as games like Pillars of Eternity, Baldurs Gate and Planescape Torment (Possibly the greatest RPG ever made, although Divinity Original Sin 2 is one hell of a contender!) Set in a Roman-esque world, there are different factions to work for, large immersive cities, plenty of choices and plenty of believable characters. It’s virtually all text-based, so if reading isn’t your thing, you’re not going to like it.

The combat is tough. Most often you’ll be doing trial and error, and you’ll die a lot. Your character isn’t going to be some combat god, not initially anyway. Muddling through is what I found was often. It can be a turn-off, definitely. Not everybody will like this game. But I did, and it was really endearing, I found. Very solid overall, but it does not make my Top 10 RPGs. Similar in level to Inquisition, actually in my personal feelings.

 

Yep, only three games for this article, sorry! I’m still going through my list. A certain game from 2017 will likely go into my Top 5 of all time at this rate, so I’m still figuring out.

What are some of your favorites? Let me know in the comments below!

Best Games Ever Made: Part 1

Best Games Ever Made: Part 2!

NanoWrimo, Tings and Things – Life Update

Haven’t made one of these in a good while, most of my blogs have been author interviews lately. In fact, for the past 3-4 months, nearly all of them have been. As enjoyable as it is, I do still want to talk about the stuff I’ve been doing too, so here it is!

I thought it would be nice to go back to basics for a bit. I’ve had so much planned for the blog, and yet I am struggling to get out even one article a week. Apologies for that. I’ll keep to the current plans and see what I can do with it, most of which I’m happy to just keep going as long as people want it. I have a couple of author interviews left. If any author would like an interview, contact me and I’ll be happy to send the document. This is something I love doing because we’re all writers, and writers should help each other out! I’ve really enjoyed the book reviews lately. Again, if anyone would like their book to be reviewed, check out the link down below:

Extending my Book Reviews.

This will just be a small round-up of many different things that have happened the past few weeks. Nothing too heavy mainly because I can’t be arsed with such stuff, but I haven’t made a personal round-up blog in a good while, at least a few weeks. So expect to listen to me prattle on for the next half hour! Muhahahahaha….. anyway. Onto my summary.

NaNoWriMo 2017

2017 Nano has come a little fast for me. However, I have plenty of ideas for it this year. I’m on Day 6 and I’m at the 12k mark, through very little inspiration. If I do not hit the target, that is fine! Here is a roundup of my projects.

Complete the 1st draft of the Aegis Mora by either the end of 2017 or beginning of 2018. There is a lot happening for this book, and with the launch of Book 1 The Thousand Scars so close now, things are going to get interesting.
Have the 1st draft of my dystopian fantasy novel Turning The Page complete by the end of 2017. This is a pet project of mine, set in the western continent of my world Rengar. It recently went through a massive overhaul, and this is probably going to be a wishful thinking. 100k though…it’s getting there.

 

 

Those were my main three projects. Nanowrimo has me doing Turning the Page, The Aegis Mora and the lore of my world, and up until now, it worked. Turning the Page, however, I decided to turn into a series, so I’ve been writing chapters non-chronologically for that. Not sure what I’ll do for the last two weeks, but hopefully I can further my word count. Here are some little nuggets of advice for all my friends doing Nano 2016.

Don’t edit. This is about speed. Don’t worry if the first draft is crap, all drafts are. If you believe it’s good, that’s your self-perfection talking. Get rid of that fast. In December/however long it takes for you to get your work done, use that time for editing and polishing. Polish Polish Polish!
Everything you write is relevant. Explore your characters, ask them questions. Ask them about the world, write it down. It all counts, and it’ll make your world a lot more believable.
Try and write every day, even if it’s 10 minutes. Any word count is better than none. If 50k is too much, set your own personal goal
Finally, when you’ve finished your novel at the end. Please, I repeat. PLEASE do not rush it out into publication for the “honor” of being published! So many people, mainly self-published, do this trap and fall right into it. It takes a lot of effort and money to get your work out there, edited to the best it can be. Don’t rush it, for your sake and readers. I’ve seen so many books come out shortly after Nano finishes which are badly edited, formatted and frankly lazily pumped out because people make the mistake of thinking it’s the easy part. There are no shortcuts!

Just a little post. I’ll try and upload another article later in the week!