Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 29

GHOST IN THE TOMBS brief preview

Let’s close out the week with a short preview of GHOST IN THE TOMBS:

###

“I have an idea,” said Caina. “Well, two, actually. One that might work, and then another if the first one fails.”

“What’s that, then?” said Mardun.

Caina told them as quickly as she could.

They stared at her.

“That,” said Tyndarion, “is absolutely insane.”

“It’s only insane if we lose,” said Caina. She dismissed her valikon and summoned her Veilplate’s helmet. “Ready?”

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 222: Story Conflicts

In this week’s episode, we take a look at four different types of story conflict, and explore three different ways to add them to your stories.

You can listen to the show with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site, and you can also listen to it at Spotify, Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music, and Libsyn.

-JM

Rings of Power, Season 2

(A short preview of my Fall/Winter Movie Roundup for 2024, posted early for reasons of timeliness.)

I have the same attitude towards RINGS OF POWER as I do with STARFIELD – I really like it, but I get why some people do not.

The series is essentially very elaborate Tolkien fan-fiction. Like, THE LORD OF THE RINGS movie trilogy, despite the changes from the book, was still recognizably THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The RINGS OF POWER is almost entirely its own thing.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this for a couple of reasons and hope it continues.

First, it’s nice to have an epic fantasy TV series that’s not a nihilistic pornographic torture-fest like GAME OF THRONES/HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, and is more competently executed than Disney’s ill-fated WILLOW series.

Second, art must often be considered within the context of its creation. What do I mean by this? Perhaps a food comparison will illustrate the point. The book THE LORD OF THE RINGS is like Kobe beef prepared by the finest chefs in the world, the sort of experience you get maybe once or twice in your life if fortune smiles upon you. THE LORD OF THE RINGS movie trilogy is like a high-quality steak grilled in a backyard by someone who’s pretty good at it. THE RINGS OF POWER is like McDonalds – but there are times when you really want some McDonald’s.

But it’s really good McDonalds. Like the kind of McDonalds you have after driving in the car for 250 miles without stopping across one of America’s flatter and less populous states, and the only place to eat for like a hundred miles in any direction is this McDonalds in the same building as a gas station, so you stop and don’t expect very much, but it turns out the fries are crisp and salty and the nuggets are just right.

I don’t think it’s surprising that the RINGS OF POWER had such a mixed reception. The Venn diagram of “enjoys THE LORD OF THE RINGS” has some wildly divergent circles to it. It is a testament to the fact that THE LORD OF THE RINGS is such a great work of literature that so many people from so many very different ideological identity groups enjoy and identify with the book. Even ideological identity groups who are mortal foes agree on their approval of THE LORD OF THE RINGS! So, naturally, each different group has its own strong opinion of what an adaptation should look like.

That said, I liked season 2, and thought it was an improvement over season 1. A lot more narrative tension. Season 1 perhaps spent too much time setting the table and building context, but Season 2 works well in making Season 1 better in hindsight – RINGS OF POWER’s version of Galadriel is improved in Season 2 because she was one of the few characters able to throw off Sauron’s mental domination and seduction. Like, in Season 1 it seems like Sauron is trying to seduce Galadriel, but in Season 2 we see that’s his standard approach to twisting people to his side and it was highly unusual for Galadriel to be able to resist him.

The highlight of the season was the toxic dynamic between Sauron and Celebrimbor. Actors Charlie Vickers and Charles Edwards did an amazing job portraying the slow-moving disaster that Sauron’s and Celebrimbor’s collaboration would create – two intellectual equals working together to create something great, but nonetheless Sauron twists everything to his own ends. Their final scene together was just astonishingly good, and the portrayal of Sauron is both very modern and true to Tolkien – a destructive narcissist who actually believes whatever lies he’s speaking at any given moment. He really, truly believes he’s going to “heal Middle-earth”, no matter how many people he has to kill to do it. The scenes with Prince Durin, his father, and one of the dwarven Rings of Power were great as well – it had the same sort of feel to it as a child watching with horror as a beloved parent succumbs to a drug addiction.

The best new character the show created, in my opinion, is Adar, one of the progenitors of the orcs. Tolkien himself could never really decide on the origin of the orcs and came up with different thoughts throughout his lifetime, and when editing THE SILMARILLION Christopher Tolkien settled on the “corrupted former elves” version, which seems to be what his father had been leaning toward anyway. RINGS OF POWER takes that to its logical conclusion. Adar wants his orcish progeny to live free of the Dark Lords Morgoth and Sauron, which makes sense, because in the books the orcs hated Morgoth and Saruon and only served them out of fear. (Indeed, in THE LORD OF THE RINGS Sauron apparently had secret police and informers among the orcs to keep track of their loyalties – the character of Grishnakh in THE TWO TOWERS seems to have been Mordor’s equivalent of a secret police informer.) And since the show displays how twisted and cruel Sauron really is, it makes sense that Adar is willing to go to any lengths to stop Sauron, no matter how extreme. The orcs are still monsters, including Adar himself, but they are monsters who want to be free of an even greater monster than themselves.

And since if you’ve read the SILMARILLION or THE LORD OF THE RINGS, you know all the characters’ efforts are doomed to failure, especially Adar’s and Celebrimbor’s, which lends an air of inevitable tragedy to everything that happens.

I know some people were mad that Tom Bombadil was basically Wizard Yoda, but I thought it worked. Tom Bombadil is so inscrutable of a character than he can really do whatever he wants, and RINGS kept his inscrutability.

One last note: the soundtrack was superb, and it will be writing music for me for years to come. It was also great how composer Bear McCreary wove in variations of Sauron’s theme throughout the show. The soundtrack was A+ work in my opinion.

Overall, I enjoyed it and would like it to continue. If you know the difference between Fëanor, Finwë, Finrod Felagund, Finarfin, Findulias, Fingon, and Fingolfin (without having to look it up), and in fact have everything about them from THE SILMARILLION and THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH memorized, you’ll hate this show. But I think it’s worth watching.

Overall grade: A-

-JM

GHOST IN THE TOMBS Table of Contents

It took all week, but I am finally ready to share the Table of Contents for GHOST IN THE TOMBS, which you can see below.

If all goes well, the book should be out toward the end of next week.

(The rough draft ended up with 16 really long chapters, so you can see how I had to do a bit of reshuffling.)

-JM

SHIELD OF DARKNESS now in audiobook!

I am very pleased to report that SHIELD OF DARKNESS is now available in audiobook, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills.

You can listen to it at Audible, Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon AU, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Payhip, Chirp, Storytel, and Spotify.

War is coming between the Shield Knight and the Exarch. But neither sees the dark power manipulating the battle from the shadows.

To drive the Exarch from her stronghold on the Isle of Kordain, Ridmark is gambling on a bold strategy – to reach the Isle through the twisting caverns of the Deeps.

But the caverns of the Deeps are filled with deadly dangers and deeper mysteries.

And disturbing one of those mysteries might wake a darkness to dwarf even the Exarch herself…

-JM

Question of the Week: Where Do You Listen To Audiobooks?

It’s time for Question of the Week, designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics.

This week’s question: if you listen to audiobooks, where do you listen to them? Like while cooking, or driving, or perhaps walking?

The inspiration for this question was that I was looking at some old sales spreadsheets from 2020, and I was sure the start of COVID was going to wipe out the audiobook market because a lot of commuting was temporarily going away. Except this turned out not to be the case, and audiobook sales overall actually went up during COVID, so clearly I was wrong about how most audiobook listening took place while commuting.

For myself, these days I usually listen to audiobooks when making long car trips by myself where I don’t need the GPS to navigate. That happens less than it did, so I generally listen to audiobooks less than I once did before COVID. That said, in 2023-2024 I listened to the new audiobooks Andy Serkis recorded for THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and was blown away by how good they were. Definitely recommended.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 221: Audiobook Sampler Platter, The Second Course!

In this week’s special autumn episode, I share samples from four of my audiobooks.

Each audiobook is the second book in its series!

1.) Dragonskull: Shield of the Knight, narrated by Brad Wills.

2.) Ghost in the Flames, narrated by Hollis McCarthy.

3.) Wizard-Thief, narrated by Leanne Woodward.

4.) Cloak of Wolves, narrated by Hollis McCarthy.

You can listen to the show with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site, and you can also listen to it at Spotify, Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music, and Libsyn.

-JM

Progress updates

I’m about 15% through the main edit of GHOST IN THE TOMBS, and am hoping to be far enough to finalize the tablet of contents by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, I’m also 26,000 words into CLOAK OF ILLUSION and 6,000 words into ORC-HOARD.

-JM

STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: LEVELING now in audio!

I am pleased to report that STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: LEVELING is now available in audio, as excellently narrated by CJ McAllister!

You can get it at Audible, Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon AU, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Payhip, Chirp, Storytel, and Spotify.

Even high-level players can be derailed by a side quest.

Noah Carver is trying to find the dangerous secret within Sevenfold Sword Online, the most popular epic fantasy MMORPG in history.

But to do that, he needs to reach a high level, and that means finishing a lot of side quests for experience and loot.

And even side quests can be deadly to the unprepared…

-JM

GHOST IN THE THE TOMBS rough draft finished!

I am very pleased to report that the rough draft of GHOST IN THE TOMBS is done at 93,000 words!

I have also written a short story called GHOST TABLET set between the events of GHOST IN THE FLAMES and GHOST IN THE BLOOD. Newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of GHOST TABLET when GHOST IN THE TOMBS comes out.

If all goes well, TOMBS should be out toward the middle of October.

Meanwhile, let’s take a look at the cover image below!

-JM