Brondt Kamffer's Blog, page 13

chapter 2, part 3

[*To subscribe to this serial novel's exclusive rss feed, click the "book" icon in the "Other ways to follow" box on the right of your screen.*]

"Now, the mages had so long had mastery of the human race that they knew what was best for us all, even all those years ago. They built into the hymaberry a safeguard against too many having access to its power. To all but a select few, those who would be chosen by fate to carry on in the footsteps of the mages, the hymaberry bush would be poisonous e...

chapter 2, part 2

[*To subscribe to this serial novel's exclusive rss feed, click the "book" icon in the "Other ways to follow" box on the right of your screen.*]

I shall now endeavor to recall, as accurately as I can, one of the first lessons we received from the mouth of Golpin Anamis. This, like so much of what I record in these journals, is written for the sake of posterity, for in the near future I believe the lies we were fed in that classroom as ten-year-olds will soon be swept away and replaced with...

chapter 2, part 1

[*To subscribe to this serial novel's exclusive rss feed, click the "book" icon in the "Other ways to follow" box on the right of your screen.*]

We were not to be given any time to settle in to our new home. As with all things pertaining to the Dominion, we were thrust directly into our studies without preamble.

In all, roughly 230 ten-year-olds had been chosen on Midsummer's Day to move out of the pleb precincts into the wonderfully privileged life we were to live as Synths. We were roused...

chapter 1, part 2

[*To subscribe to this serial novel's exclusive rss feed, click the "book" icon in the "Other ways to follow" box on the right of your screen.*]

Ilion, the first city of the Aarian Dominion, is home to about a million souls, which means there were some fifteen thousand children in the tenth year of life in the same summer Cyn and I were presented to the Synths. Fortunately, not all fifteen thousand stood before the same Synths, as we were divided by precinct, and there are over a hundred in...

chapter 1, part 1

[*To subscribe to this serial novel's exclusive rss feed, click the "book" icon in the "Other ways to follow" box on the right of your screen.*]

My name is Toven Bakkis, and this is my official apology to the world.

I do not write these things in order that you might think better of me. I write in order that you might think no worse of yourselves. One of our great poets has written:

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interréd with their bones.

So let it be with me.

* * * * *

The ...

the scion of abacus

I had started to post my current work-in-progress, The Scion of Abacus, on a separate dedicated site, but I have decided to move it over here to my main blog for a variety of reasons, simplicity being the chief one.

There are two factors involved in why I am posting this novel as I write it: Firstly, since I began self-publishing, I have been able to maintain a publication rate of a book every two or three months. This was possible for two reasons: I was not working full time, and I already...

the death of turin

The Children of Hurin lecture 8 of 8, looking at Turin's final battle with the dragon Glaurung, the death of his wife/sister Nienor Niniel, and his own death.

*Special thanks to Stephan Davis who pointed out to me the Kullervo references in the novel. Not having read the Finnish epic poem The Kalevala, I was unaware of this part of Tolkien's influence.*

Text:

Chapter 16, "The Coming of Glaurung"

Chapter 17, "The Death of Glaurung"

Chapter 18, "The Death of Turin"

Direct Download – 51:27 –...

the week ahead

Well, the new school semester is in full swing and I am scurrying every which way to keep up with planning, teaching, and writing, so much so that this website has been unfortunately relegated to the back burner. Still, I want to outline what is happening this week as I move to make some changes to production and hopefully reestablish something like a regular update schedule.

Podcast

Two weeks without an update is nothing short of unforgivable. I have one last lecture remaining on Tolkien's...

serialised novel

I've been giving this a lot of thought over the past few weeks. Those of you who keep pace with this blog will know that with the university semester having restarted, I've suddenly seen a massive drain on my available writing time. This has actually thus far proven such a detriment that I find I'm struggling to motivate myself to write. It's not that I don't have the time, just that I don't want to use it as wisely as I should.

Thus I have come to a conclusion, one which should be mutually...

scott fitzgerald gray: clearwater dawn

Clearwater Dawn is a book I really wanted to love. It has lovely cover art, the description sounds exciting, and the prose is fluid and almost poetic in places. There was just so much potential here, but I feel that on the whole this first book in a projected series failed to live up to it all.

The story follows one Chriani, an apprentice bodyguard of sorts. There is a fairly complex military structure going on here, so it is difficult to place him exactly on the scale, but he's near the...