Richard Raley's Blog, page 47

FYI, Prime Pickings is Free on Amazon

Get it while you can, I don't control the length of the freeness.  If you like post-apocalyptic sci-fi you should enjoy it.

Prime Pickings by Richard Raley on Amazon Kindle

Meet Tyson Bonnie, Electromancer

In the words of the only other Ultra in town:

"Yeah, yeah." I put the box back under the counter. "Takes about two hours to full charge using static electricity, quicker if you find a piece of carpet and start rubbing your arm against it. Theoretically you could attach it to a power-pad but I wouldn't recommend it—too much power too quick might blow the containment field."

"Wow, King Henry," Tyson said, his face all lit up as he swung a lazy punch across his chest that was far too much arm and not enough body torque. "This is awesome. It's just how I imagined it."

"Speaking of that, satisfy some curiosity on this…how did you imagine it?"

A brief bit of embarrassment crossed his lit up face, his forehead crinkling. "Stole it from a fantasy novel."

"****…"

"I know, you hate the things."

I shook my head. Hated them? Nope, I was jealous that they had it so easy with their 'magic'. The Mancy's a long way from some wand flipping and twirling. "Next, you'll want me to make you a lightsaber."

His eyes got bright with crazy dreams. "Could you?"

Read more on Tyson in The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady by Richard Raley: available on Amazon and Smashwords and Nook.  Or just type "Foul Mouth" into your Kindle...they'll know what you're talking about.

Meet Ceinwyn Dale, Aeromancer

In the words of her favorite student:

"I ain't going to your school, lady." 

"Why not?" She was genuinely curious. Ceinwyn Dale, always the interested observer. 

"I'm not a freak. I get by. I got a life. So I fight, who gives a rat's ***?" 

She picked up my iPod and browsed through the playlist. She had beautiful hands. Not a body part most guys notice, and Ceinwyn Dale had some others that were pretty noticeable, but her delicate fingers and sapphire fingernails drew the eye when she used them in front of you. Nimble manipulation, just like the rest of her, turning those fleshy stubs into the finest tool, skinny and elegant. "Is this the entirety of your reasons? 

"I got a girl." 

"And you love her?" The smile quirked extra. 

"Sure. I guess." Love wasn't a big emotion in the Price household. We had trouble managing giving a ****. 

"Or do you just like what you get to do with her?" 

"That too." 

One part about Ceinwyn Dale I started figuring out during that first conversation is she mocks everyone but she treats her kids the same as she does adults. Which I wasn't seeing much of back then. It was inclusive and part of the reason she's such a good recruiter. 

"You'll have to give her up."

Read more on Ceinwyn Dale in The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady by Richard Raley: available on Amazon and Smashwords and Nook.  Or just type "Foul Mouth" into your Kindle...they'll know what you're talking about.

Meet King Henry Price, Geomancer

In his own words:

I was screwed up beyond all repair by then.  Only reason I hadn't been to Juvie was that I had an extra something the other delinquents didn't have, not that I realized it at the time of my crimes.  All I knew was that I was lucky.  Yeah, cursed more like it.  But back then, it sure was nice to be sitting in the shopping mart contemplating stealing some magazines or candy bars or Chinese-assembled electronics when a display magically fell apart to be a distraction I desperately needed. 

Cigarettes and electronics had been my steals of choice right before I was co-opted into another life and if it wasn't for the Asylum, I'd be well on my way to lung cancer by now, or dead twenty times over.  Not from hard stuff like you're thinking—worse I can admit to is bumming some weed when I could—but from fighting.  I loved to get into a fight.  Still do. 

Here I am twenty-one years old and I'm lucky to hit five-foot-eight on some very generous tape-measures.  Back then, middle school and elementary ****holes with babysitting teachers and cruel lunch-ladies, it was even worse.  Some district counselor got all doctor on me and diagnosed it as a Napoleon Complex; that I was trying to prove I was tough despite my size.  But it wasn't that. 

I liked to fight.

Read more on King Henry in The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady by Richard Raley: available on Amazon and Smashwords.  Or just type "Foul Mouth" into your Kindle...they'll know who you're talking about...

Little King Henry is OUT

Little King Henry, my short story set in The King  Henry Tapes world has been released.


Little King Henry by Richard Raley on Amazon
Little King Henry by Richard Raley on Smashwords (FREE)

Real Review: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Link:  The Way of Kings

Brandon Sanderson is one of the most creative forces in Fantasy today and I have to praise him for it. 2011 and we are still strapped down by this notion of GRITTY IS GOOD and our supposedly gifted writing minds are left to play the same stories in the same medieval worlds over and over again. But not Brandon Sanderson, not "The Way of Kings".

This novel could have been riddled with tropes, it could have started with a farmboy, two friends, and a wizard, and I would have forgiven it. Only it didn't. Plot = creative. World = creative. Magic = creative. Book itself = gorgeous. Paid for by Sanderson himself, as I understand it, "the Way of Kings" hardcover is worth the price alone, filled with illustrations and colored maps. If more novels looked like this instead of the paper-thin ready-to-fall-apart-on-the-second-read-through messes the publishers put out nowadays, I wouldn't have moved over to the Kindle.

"The Way of Kings" and the Stormlight Archive will be the most influential fantasy novel/series since Martin added the Character-Killing-Wheel-o'-Death to the genre in 1996. Every page of it remembers…we're only bound by what we can't imagine. We can make any world we want. Authors don't even need to pay for CGI.  It marries the New Weird with the Traditional...that's an important step.

While Sanderson's prose sometimes is mocked as awkward, here it proves workman-like and that's to its advantage, beautiful words would have only distracted from the world he builds before the reader. Instead we're left to enjoy and ponder over Roshar. Of Shadeplate and Shadeblades, of Stormlight and Windrunners, of Fabrials and Knights Radiant. We are plopped down on wind-swept wastelands where life only shows itself after the storm. We see unhindered shattered lands of running slave crews and assassins who seem to defy gravity.

My only complaints have to do with the Shallan character taking so long to get going, the Kaladin flashbacks that don't seem to keep up with the rest of the novel, and...that no one seemed to teach Sanderson how to curse as a teenager. Storm you? Really?  Try: Stick it up your storm hole.  Better...

More like this, fantasy authors, more like this. Four and a half stars and give the man a curve.

Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady is OUT!

It's out!

The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady by Richard Raley on Amazon
The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady by Richard Raley on Smashwords

Get a sample at least to meet King Henry Price, he'll rock your world...

Review: The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett

Link:  The Warded Man

It's important to understand that going into THE WARDED MAN you aren't going to get anything groundbreaking when it comes to character or story. This is very much in the Eddings/Brooks mold of following the Monomyths that was prevalent in the 70s and 80s. There's a farming village…it has a boy in it…he's probably going to save the world. Or maybe not…

What Brett brings and proves to be the most interesting thing he's done, is an idea and theme. What happens to humanity if we're truly scared of the night? Once upon a time mankind knew this fear. The sun went down and fire left us only a few feet to see. There were lions and tigers and bears and maybe even men roaming the forests. We had reason to fear, we locked ourselves in castles, we banded together, we never slept sound…but we lost that. Now we have all the glories of civilization, light bulbs, door locks, shotguns, Chihuahuas barking at four AM at the paper delivery boy…shut up, Cisco!

But here, with THE WARDED MAN, what Brett does is take us back into that past and then pushes down the gas pedal. He creates a world where demons roam and if you aren't behind wards you aren't going to be making it through the night. If your ward fails you also aren't going to be making it through the night. If……well, let's just say there's a lot of ways those demons are going to make it so you don't live through the night.

This theme and how Brett plays with society as it confronts it are the best parts of THE WARDED MAN. As we know, humans can get pretty ingenious…especially those farmboys…

Four stars for nice ideas but bad farmboys.

Review: The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

Link:  Black Prism
Green Lantern meets the Man with the Iron Mask. This seems like an absurd combination to describe something, but that is exactly what "the Black Prism" is, and even more absurdly...it works. It has heaps of world-building and a Jordanian precise magic system. Instantly I thought of Brandon Sanderson's style when I heard of color and light magic, and they do have much in common when it comes to the breath and scope of their worlds...thought Weeks knows how to curse...and apparently his characters actually have sex, even the non-married ones...especially the non-married ones...

Weeks created a world of light, where light is used to build and destroy, where light is used to kill and protect, where the sun is the most important object in the entire world, even more important than in our own. He has yellow buildings, blue tools, mirror armor, and boats made of every single hue. Perhaps the most interested creation is Weeks' version of the White Tower, which rotates to follow the sun. I liked the visual, sir.

It is not without its faults. I used Green Lantern to describe it and, yes, it feels like a comic book at times. Those who don't like Erikson hyper-fantasy might best stay away. If you're into green golems and blue crystal wrights though...you're going to have some fun.

As far as character, this is an area that lacked. Kip is a whiny farmboy, Liv is a perfect student, etc. Only Gavin Guile proved to have depth and some wonderful skeletons in his closet. The humor was also comic book worthy...earning many a groan. Despite these faults, I'll be getting the next in hardcover. Weeks is one to watch. He dreams big. Writers still content with just swords and horses could learn a thing or two from him.

Four stars.

Real Review: Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

Link:  Leviathan Wakes

Leviathan Wakes gave me the most fun read of the year; as far as FUN goes it had more of it than even "The Heroes", "Wise Man's Fear" or especially "A Dance with Dragons." I enjoyed almost everything about this book. I enjoyed the space-jockey aspect, the noir mystery, the vomit zombies, and the WORLD IS GOING TO END back half. It all plays well.

It doesn't feel like each part shouldn't naturally lead to the next part and the stakes keep rising in a way that you're pretty sure the authors are just crazy enough to blow up the solar system. They make it absolutely clear they'll kill some characters, and if they don't kill them maybe they'll just irradiate them, or suffocate them, or pressurize their eyeballs out their heads….so many ways to die in space…

The best part of the novel is the world they've chosen to play in. A solar system bound humanity, not stuck on Earth, not yet reached out towards the stars. We see all the troubles this brings the species: population control, gravity mutations, economic concerns, rationing of resources, knowing all it takes is for one asteroid driver to crack your planet like a walnut.

If I'm forced to complain about something I could say Miller as a character was a bummer to follow for half the novel.

Check this one out.

Four stars.