Christopher Kellen's Blog, page 4

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 3

Current word count: 3,886

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Though it was now covered by a poultice made from local herbs and wrapped with strips of cloth cut from their last blanket, Emelethana knew that the sucking wound Oharin had taken to the gut was a mortal one. Whether it was a matter of hours or days, the young man was doomed without the intervention of a High Priestess… and the closest one was weeks or months of travel away.

Oharin locked his pale gray eyes on hers, grabbing Aspar’s hand as he labored to breathe. “How… how bad is it?” he gasped.

Emelethana and Aspar exchanged a glance.

With a shuddering sigh, Oharin let his back go limp and relaxed against the wall of the ravine. “Oh.”

“You’re not going to die, Oharin,” Emelethana pronounced, even as she tasted the bitterness of the lie on her tongue.

“That’s not… what your face says…” he breathed. A faint smile touched his lips. “Not… supposed to lie… priestess.”

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 2

Adding a few dozen words to my first scene pushed me over 2,000 words; so, as promised, here’s the second excerpt.

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For a mere instant, there was perfect silence. Even the insects and early-morning birds had been stilled by the chant of Cal Dorejn’s warriors. Mirhalan’s head was spinning, his heart pounding, but his fear was gone. All that remained was the fire, the commitment to defend his people, even if it meant his own death.

From her place atop the rock, Queen Freydis spoke the last words of the battle prayer in a soft voice, which yet carried to the ears of every one of her subjects on the field before her.

“Light, be our victory.”

NaNoWriMo 2013: Excerpt 1

“You told, Afrith,” Mirhalan grunted.

“I couldn’t let you just wander off without your shadow,” Afrith said. “Besides, Krejk was getting nervous.”

At the sound of his name, a nearby bush the size of a small pony let out a rumbling growl of approval. The bush shivered and rose onto four powerful legs, and then shook itself violently, spraying morning dew and thick ropes of drool in every direction.

The massive war hound, who only resembled a bush in the darkness, trotted lightly over to Mirhalan’s side and nuzzled his hand with a cold nose. Mirhalan chuckled and scratched Krejk’s head and ears, and was rewarded by a hand bath from the hound’s rough tongue.

“He doesn’t much like it when you leave him behind.” Afrith rubbed Krejk’s back with her free hand, and the great beast gave her a soulful, appreciative glance.

An Update

Over the past few months, I have been hard at work on a number of projects. Here’s where I’m at, for any who might be wondering.

SORCERER’S TRUTH (Lesson V of the Elements of Sorcery), the final entry in Edar Moncrief’s saga, is in a beta stage and is currently being reviewed by beta readers. My target release date is December 11, 2013, marking precisely two years since SORCERER’S CODE hit the market. As my most successful work to date, I feel like the two year mark is the perfect time to send Moncrief off into the mists until he arrives on the page in LEGACY.

Following the release of SORCERER’S TRUTH, likely sometime in Q1 2014, I will be compiling all of the Elements of Sorcery into a single volume, which will be released in both electronic and paperback formats. I’m really excited to put them all together and offer Moncrief’s adventures in paper and ink for the first time.

In November, I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month for the first time in a couple of years with some friends. Part of my plan for NaNo this year is to make regular short updates here on the blog with my word count progress to keep me on track.

I’ll have a couple more fun announcements in the coming weeks, but for now, I’m going to be moving my new book reviews over to the Genre Underground. I’m also contributing to GetcherGeekOn, where you can read a sci-fi short story that I wrote!

As always, thanks for reading!

Royal Paranoia

Image by Mr. Biggs from DeviantArt

When I was brainstorming for SORCERER’S WAR, I happened across an article on meter and verse. As happens occasionally, I was struck by inspiration and decided to try something a little unusual for me. My original plan was to include this with the text ofWAR, but after some reflection I decided that it didn’t quite fit.

I imagine this as a popular tavern song in the Old Kingdoms of Eisengoth, sung with that sort of tuneless swagger that you only get when you’re singing medieval tavern songs as a group and nobody really knows what the melody is.

If you’ve never had this experience, imagine a church hymn where all of the parishoners are attending for the first time and everyone is sopping drunk.

Royal Paranoia

author unknown

Though the meat may be poisoned and cups overflow

With cheap wines and the worst kinds of death I could know

I must sit in this throne simply waiting all while

With my subjects my son plans my doom with a smile

It is plain in his eyes, his intentions are clear

What he might attempt next leaves me shaking with fear

He’s sent stableboys out to make my horse go lame

Even servants now try to make me do the same

They have all turned against me, the blaggards and sots

‘less I do something soon they will make sure I rot!

Every shadow makes me want to leap from my boots

And the drop of a hat makes me let out a hoot!

There is no one believes me, not even my wife

She’ll be sorry–oh NO! Here comes the–

(raucous laughter and cheering)

Sorcerer’s Code on Kindle Books & Tips!

Sorcerer’s Code made an appearance today on the Kindle Books and Tips blog! They have great recommendations on a daily basis for discounted and promoted Kindle books.

Check out Sorcerer’s Code here: http://www.fkbooksandtips.com/2013/08/01/6-discounted-free-kindle-book-offers-36/

 

 

Game of Thrones Season 2: A Rant

Fair warning. Spoilers for HBO’s Game of Thrones Season 1 and 2, George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords abound!

Further note: I have read all 5 existing volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, but I have not yet seen Season 3 of Game of Thrones.

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When I watched Season 1 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, I thought it was pretty good. It was necessarily somewhat abridged, but for the most part, the casting was spot-on (even improving my image of the characters in some cases), the acting excellent, and the writing translated well to the screen. For the most part, events and characterization was consistent with the source material, and I even saw the occasional improvement from the brevity–characters being condensed in ways that made more sense as a story, things like that.

I only recently finished watching Season 2. Hoo boy. Where do I start?

Let’s begin at the high level. How is it that in 10 episodes they managed to either reverse or otherwise corrupt nearly every character’s motivations? When they weren’t flip-flopping characters on their heads, they seemed to take every opportunity to revise a situation to give the character an easy way out.

Now for some examples. I’ll take the characters one by one for crystal-clear illustration.

CATELYN STARK

TV: Catelyn’s story is accelerated somewhat in Season 2, as with a number of other events. Somewhere in the middle of the TV season, she’s forced to set Jaime Lannister (the Kingslayer) free from his imprisonment in the northmen’s camp because Lord Karstark’s son (I think…?) was killed during Jaime’s escape attempt so now they’re gonna cut his ‘ead off, and he’s her last hope of getting Sansa (and Arya, she thinks) back from King’s Landing. This paves the way for Robb getting super-pissed at mommy, and begins turning the northmen away from Robb’s cause.

SOURCE MATERIAL: Okay, fine. Those are roughly the events from the books. Here’s the problem: for this scene, Catelyn’s motivation was supposed to be the fact that they had just gotten a raven from Winterfell, informing them that Bran and Rickon had been killed (even though they hadn’t). Her desperation had nothing to do with a “countdown”–it had to do with the fact that she’d just lost her two youngest children, as far as she knew. However, this only serves as a primer for the NEXT (and much larger) problem…

ROBB STARK

TV: In Season 2, Robb I Stark the Adorable, first of his name and King in the North, stumbles into a cliched meet-cute with a sexy exotic doctor from beyond the Narrow Sea. She gives him lip, he falls head-over-heels in love, she gives him more than lip, and then he chooses to forsake his vow to marry the Frey girl (you know, the honor-pledge he made to get his people across the river) for teenage moon-eyed puppy love while his mother desperately pleads for sense. When she brings up good points, he snarks at her about making good decisions, revealing him to have neither sense, honor, nor any apparent Stark blood whatsoever. I was forced to wonder whether Ned Stark was truly Robb’s father at all. Maybe in the TV show Robb’s as much a bastard as Jon Snow (or even more, if you subscribe to certain conspiracy theories!)

SOURCE MATERIAL: Okay, this is a little complicated, but here goes. In the books, Robb is almost entirely off-screen, but his events are still important. During a battle to take a place called the Crag, Robb is (mildly) wounded. After his men have taken the castle, he receives the raven from Winterfell informing him that his younger brothers are dead. A young lady named Jeyne Westerling “comforts” Robb in his physical and spiritual pain. The next morning, Robb immediately marries Jeyne out of a sense of honor, proving himself to be a fool for honor, and this is important,exactly like his father.

When he returns to Riverrun (where his mother has just freed the Kingslayer and sent Jaime and Brienne on their way), Robb neatly traps her by forgiving her for setting Jaime Lannister free and then revealing his sudden marriage mere moments later.

“If I could wish the Kingslayer back in chains I would. You freed him without my knowledge or consent . . . but what you did, I know you did for love. For Arya and Sansa, and out of grief for Bran and Rickon. Love’s not always wise, I’ve learned. It can lead us to great folly, but we follow our hearts . . . wherever they take us. Don’t we, Mother?” (Robb Stark, A Storm of Swords, Chapter 14: Catelyn)

SANSA STARK, CERSEI LANNISTER, TYRION LANNISTER… okay, the whole KING’S LANDING gang

Actually, they did mostly okay with this. There were some abridgments, but Peter Dinklage steals every goddamn scene he graces, Lena Headey is more than sufficient as nasty Cersei, Jack Gleeson is very convincing as Joffrey, and the Battle of the Blackwater was pretty much exactly what happened, minus the whole “ghost of Renly” thing.

Honestly, the corruption of Robb’s storyline is probably the thing that bothered me the most. However…

DAENERYS TARGARYEN

What. Just… what the hell were they doing with this whole thing? It’s true that Dany doesn’t get a lot of screen time in book 2, and I know that some of her things would have been prohibitively expensive/impossible to show (say, the visions in the warlock’s tower foreshadowing the events of Season 3, Episode 9–which I haven’t watched but know about–or the vision of Rhaegar, which would have required casting Rhaegar, which… anyway, I have a headache just thinking about it) but I admit it was nice to see Jason Momoa make one last appearance as Khal Drogo, because he’s awesome.

Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawl in pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed hands clutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal. (George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Daenerys IV)

The last one, and this one bothers me more and more as I think about it…

STANNIS BARATHEON

It’s really that last scene that gets me. He voices doubts to Melisandre, and in this weird melodramatic soap-opera-ish scene she promises him that he will be king, for she has seen it in the flames. He accuses her of failing at Blackwater, blah, blah…

Except these doubts are supposed to exist in Davos Seaworth‘s head, and occasionally out loud. Stannis doesn’t doubt Melisandre, any more than he would have ever let her get away with saying that he “will” be king. Stannis is, like, the definition of Lawful Neutral (Stupid). He won’t be king. He is the goddamn king, even if it’s only in his head. In the books, he knows they failed at Blackwater because Davos talked him out of allowing Melisandre to join them for the assault (whether or not it would have made any difference, who knows, but that’s beside the point).

Stannis has no doubt about his claim. His sole source of humanity is what he voices to Davos about his encounter with Renly (from which the peach was also cut, sigh, mutter). The whole point of Stannis is that he isn’t even sure that he believes in Melisandre, but he believes in her power, which was PROVEN (in his mind) at Blackwater, not undermined.

And one more for the road…

ARYA STARK

TV: I actually don’t mind the condensation of Arya’s story, giving her to Tywin Lannister to serve as cupbearer instead of Roose Bolton. Condensing all of that into the scenes we had was fine, plus it put Charles Dance on the screen for more time, and that alone was worth it.

Ja’qen was done well (that actor is now officially my picture for Ja’qen) and his reveal at the end was also quite excellent. My biggest problem with what they did to Arya was the “escape”.

In the show, Arya gets annoyed with Ja’qen and petulantly names him as her third kill. He begs her to reverse it, she agrees, but only if Ja’qen helps them escape. Ja’qen kills all the guards and pins them to the gates to make it look like they’re still keeping watch.

SOURCE MATERIAL: After suffering for months under Gregor Clegane’s rule over Harrenhal, a band of northmen are captured and placed in the dungeon. After careful thought, Arya names Ja’qen H’ghar as her third kill. He begs her to reverse it; she agrees, but only if he helps them to free the northmen from the dungeon–in the end, giving Harrenhal over to Roose Bolton, whom she serves as cupbearer. Ja’qen gives her the coin (valar morghulis) and vanishes forever.

Much, much later, Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie make their escape. Arya uses the coin to distract the guard at the gate and then she kills him herself.

That’s twice now that they’ve let Arya off without having to make the hard choice of taking a life–in Season 1, she never had to kill the stableboy who was going to turn her in, and now she didn’t have to kill the guard either. I get that Maisie Williams is young, and a girl… is that why she can’t kill people on screen? How is she ever going to (WARNING WARNING SPOILERS SPOILERS) become an assassin?

Sigh.

Oh, and one more thing. In TV-Westeros, does Jon Snow even know what the Halfhand’s plan was? Qhorin made it pretty clear in the book, but I’m not certain at all that our much denser (as if it were possible) Jon Snow had any clue what Qhorin was talking about when he dropped those hints.

I guess Ygritte (who is pitch-perfect in the show, btw) is right after all. He really does know nothing.

Okay, I don’t really think this made me feel any better. Still, it’s good to get it written down and out of my head.

I’ll just go back to enjoying the books.

Whether or not I’ll watch Season 3… I really don’t know.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Sorcerer’s WAR

SORCERER’S WAR, the fourth installment in the Amazon.com best-selling Elements of Sorcery series, will be released on all platforms on July 20, 2013.

Three years after the events of SORCERER’S BLOOD, Edar Moncrief has stolen the name and the reputation of the Arbiters and made them his own. The kingdom of Kalais has declared a holy war against the Daemon King of Lannth, and Moncrief has joined forces with the Kalais general to bring down those who would partner with corruption to further their own ends.

Trapped within the facade he’s created, Moncrief restlessly pursues his own agenda. If only he can prove to the world that his sorcery can slay the worst of humankind’s foes, the fading Arbiters will at last be a footnote in the annals of history, and sorcery will reign as humanity’s greatest ally against the darkness.

When kings and queens go to war, nothing is ever entirely as it seems…

Children’s Book Week: A Tribute to Bruce Coville

Welcome to #ChildrensBookWeek! This series of discussions on children’s literature is sponsored by the Genre Underground.

As a kid who started reading very early (like, very early) I missed a lot of the time that readers spend in the literature which falls between picture books and YA/adult. Middle-grade books hardly ever interested me, because by the time I was their age, I was already immersed in the lands of Xanth, Krynn, and more.

However, there was one middle-grade author that kept me reading his work all the way into high school: Bruce Coville.

If there was ever an under-appreciated master of the form, spinning worlds of delight and imagination for kids, it’s this guy. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher isstill one of my favorite books of all time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read it, but my first copy has long since crumbled into its composite pages.

In case you’re unfamiliar with it, Jeremy Thatcher features the eponymous boy who discovers a magic shop, from which he purchases a bauble. This strange shiny thing turns out to be a dragon’s egg (much as the shopkeeper warned him) and when it actually hatches, Jeremy has to figure out what to do with this critter that just keeps growing.

Now, maybe the reason this book spoke to me is just because I so badly wanted to be this character when I was young. I really would have given just about anything to find that magic shop, consequences be damned (I still want a dragon–come on, scientists, where are our DNA-designer pets?!). Whatever the reason, this story endures in my mind as a formative experience, something that truly resonated with my young brain like a perfect harmony.

From the comical and whimsical to the more somber adventure, Mr. Coville always seemed to bring his A-game. His books teemed with aliens, monsters, magic and wonder, and each one was a fresh delight when I discovered a new one hiding in the school’s library. Even as I got to high school, I would still always put time aside for a new Coville book.

As time has worn on, it has unfortunately been a while since I’ve sat down and read (or re-read) a Coville adventure, but as soon as the topic of children’s books came up, I knew that this was what I wanted to share. Someday I’ll have kids of my own, and I hope that these stories will instill in them the same sense of magic and wonder that they did for me.

What’s your favorite Coville book? Sound off in the comments!

Tell A Story Day: Part 20

This is Part 20 of the Genre Underground’s #TellAStoryDay blog chain tale! For the previous installment, click here. To see a list of all the posts in the series, go here instead!

Check back later today for Kat Richardson’s Part 21!

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Bullets and lasers spattered across the pavement with bright flashes of light, whizzing sounds like angry hornets the size of lobsters, and small explosions that ruffled the elf’s hair and clothing.

None of them touched him.

He seemed to be surrounded by an impenetrable wall of sheer charisma, which none of the android’s weapons systems could damage.

Simultaneously, the elf suddenly felt a strange, deep sadness, and a nearly overwhelming urge to get on a ship and head west… except that he was in Assembly, and nowhere near an ocean. Later, he decided.

Instead of firing wildly, the elf used the advantage gained by his temporary invulnerability to carefully aim his ironwood-wrought bow at the true problem standing between him and his goal—the damnable troll and his universal remote.

With effortless grace, the elf’s fingers released the taut bowstring, which snapped back with an audible twang. The arrow whistled as it sliced through the air, barely skimming past the missile launcher mounted on the android’s shoulder, and pierced the iDroid universal remote directly at its center.

The troll let out a surprised and angry snarl as the remote shattered in its hands. “Galdifrign-DAMNYOU!” it thundered.

At the exact moment that the remote died, the android’s weapons systems stopped firing. The elf had already pulled another arrow and drawn the bow, with the point aimed directly at the android’s central neural network.

A moment of silence passed between elf and android as their eyes met across the divide. “You’re going to have a problem when you get back to the office,” the elf said.

The android’s mouth quirked to one side. “Your humor algorithm needs to be updated.”

Behind the android, the troll began to pound the pavement toward them, shouting and ranting in three different languages.

“Get down!” the elf shouted.

The android flung himself to the ground, just in time for the troll’s fists to pass through the air where his head had been a second before. Instead of pulping the android’s head to milk, the troll’s fists slammed into each other. The cracking of troll finger bones resounded, and the creature screamed in agony.

“You’ve ruined everything,” the elf said to the troll, his voice cold as ice. His fingers trembled on the drawn string of the bow. “But maybe, just maybe, with you out of the way, I can still take the vengeance that I came here for. The Assembly General will be here any minute; he won’t be able to resist with this much chaos in his realm of order. Then we’ll see what he has to say.”

The elf sighted down the arrow, aimed directly for the troll’s right eye.

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