Tom Mock

NOTE: This is a backlog of my notes from SPFBO9. It may look a little rough. My apologies!

You can read my final thoughts on the contest here: Tom Mock’s SPFBO9’s Opening Reads Final Thoughts | JamReads – Making your TBR closer to infinite

I’m doing a read through of the openings of all 300 novels submitted to the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off 9 (SPFBO9), organized by Mark Lawrence – a free to enter fantasy novel contest. I’m going in (mostly) blind on these & I’ll be impatient with the stories because I’m trying to get through an absolutely unnatural number of them (for me) at speed. That isn’t fair to any of the books, and I know it. This is my disclaimer. Know I do this with love.

• Your fellow indie author

1. (Darkstrider, Aaron Hodges)
   
   Strange prologue. Not bad, but it goes on too long b/c the 1 action is very telegraphed. I think the prose is good, but I’m suspicious this opening isn’t going to be necessary because it’s a bit vague and we could be told about it later.
   
   ch.1. is more engaging, but is dragging. Too much thinking, analyzing every detail in an uninteresting way. Story is hanging at a standstill. Beginnings are hard, but it makes me worry, “Is it all going to be like this?”
   
   like amnesia tropes, but I may just not be the right reader for LitRPG. This at least isn’t grabbing me. Pass.
   
2. (Fragmented Fates, Nancy Foster)
   
   Interesting opening, seems high stakes, but I’m quickly struggling with the character details, I don’t know whose who, prose is a bit awkward & overwritten, I’ve tripped over a tense issue. I feel like the trouble here is an attempt to write heightened Fantasy prose. Write the way you talk and not the way you think writers write and it can smooth out this stuff. Fast pass.
   
3. Prince of the Fallen (Record of the Sentinel Seer Book 1) by M.H. Woodscourt

Great opening line. See, I don’t hate prologues. Prose is purple at times, but it’s evocative. There’s something big & uncomplicated happening! Good steady flow of information that doesn’t clog up the action.

Characters are emerging! A dark medieval setting! Grief, madness, murder. I love the names! Subtle dialogue. These are real people. I’m in!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58999637-prince-of-the-fallen

4. Crown Prince, by W.D. Kilpack III @WDKilpackIII
   
   I have been inordinately patient with this opening, but that is to the credit of the author. Though the beginning is several pages heavy with uninteresting info dumping, once the much-interrupted story finally begins, it wonderfully rewards.
   

When you know so much about the world of your story, there is a temptation to tell the reader as much as you can as soon as you can. Beware this temptation. But, regardless, I’ve been won over by Crown Prince. The world seems deeply conceived.

The prose is well crafted. The solemn, inhuman seeming guardian seer & the circumstances of a deadly siege even as the young queen is giving birth to an heir – when we finally get to them – are intriguing, strange, shadowed by ill-omens. It is Shakespearean. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50737620-crown-prince?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16

5. (THE UNTOLD PROPHESY, R.R. Hunter)
   
   I’m noticing a tendency to over-describe in some of these. There’s lots of concrete details, but what is being described isn’t particularly interesting. I’ve done it. I think it’s a desire to show the reader-look, I can write, okay?

This is a slow start, but there’s a character at the center of it and I like him. But! some of this is too on the nose. Telling me poor people were treated badly in the city and that made them bad people feels a bit juvenile.

Some character family trauma leaping onto the page unbidden in lieu of a story and I’m struggling. I want something to develop. It’s happening, but the prose is so clogged with details and exposition, it’s getting buried.

The author is telling me things, and then also showing me the same things by having them happen to the protagonist and I wish they had just done the latter. I’m interested in the protagonist tho.

This is good, but it’s dragging. Nothing is throwing me out of the story, but not enough is pulling me in. Great details, but they’re misused.
This is a MAYBE. I can do that. It’s my list.

6. (Curse Breaker: Enchanted, Melinda Kucsera)
   Here’s an oddity. A kind of brief synopsis instead of a prologue. It’s like a “last time on our program” but there’s no previous book. I’m charmed, actually. Go on…

There’s LitRPG vibes here (not a fan) but there’s also an exuberance in the writing. This is a YA read, tho, and I’m getting whiplash from the protag’s motivations.

This is probably a lot of fun, but I feel like an over-caffeinated high-schooler is shouting the story at me. I’m charmed, but I’ll pass.

7. Morgan Stang, MURDER AT SPINDLE MANOR
   Ah, gaslamp fantasy mystery! This is fantastic! Playful, eerie, immediately magical. I’m wowed. I have no reservations. This is going straight to the top of my TBR.

A woman comes to a manor through the torrential rain, leaving wil-o-the-wisps dancing in the woods behind her. Her magic compass spins in a mad circle. What’s she’s after is here. But what is it!?

“Isabeau Agarwal stood before Spindle Manor at seven o’clock in the evening with every intention of killing someone.”
This entry is delightfully intriguing, and it gets better with every page. I already bought the book. I’m in!!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62993337-murder-at-spindle-manor?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_18

8. (Juliet Vane, Tales or Sand and Stars)
   Another not so inviting prologue, but at least it’s really short, and there’s a little bit of setting vibes here, so, okay. I’m beginning to see why people complain about these, though.

First person present tense is going to be a hard sell for me, but I’m trying to adjust. This tense generally feels affected b/c it gives everything that’s happening a false sense of importance & writers fall into a lot of stage direction narration.

I’m worried this is going to be a protag that things happen too, rather than an active part in the story. No other big problems for me, but I’m underwhelmed. The POV feels narrow. Pass.

9. (A LOW COUNTRY, Morgan Shank )
   This is the 1st beginning where I want more details. Something (admittedly ordinary) is happening but … what. It’s oddly obscure. Where are we? What’s happening. I think our MC walked into the street? I don’t know why.

We get some exposition, but it zooms too far out. We get national/regional world-building, but nothing much about HERE and NOW. And our MC is still mostly another blank face in the crowd.

This is a western. I love westerns, but I’m not loving this. There’s nothing here that says this is a YA novel, but it’s reading a bit like one. Some simple exposition could have set up the scene and characters.

This is awash in telling. I feel stuck inside the MCs perspective, tho it isn’t 1st person. There’s no focus to the storytelling. Pass.

I’m really impressed with the professionalism of many of these books tho. The maps, the covers, the chapter titles. It all looks great. Indie fiction everybody. Look out. But we’re reading books here, not decorating, so.

10. A LADY IN CRYSTAL, Toby Bennett
    This one is densely poetic, but hard to parse at first.
    It is leveling out. I’m getting my bearings, & the effect is heady and dark, which marries well with the dreamweavers that are the subject.

There is a Gormenghast meets The Shadow of the Torturer quality to this. The prose is competent, patient, slowly developing our gothic setting and dream stealing priest with some dark plan…

This promises to be a nightmarish, dark fantasy read. The prose is like a drug, drawing me steadily, heavily into this fallen City of Night. I want to know where this goes. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17253225-a-lady-in-crystal

A Lady In Crystal was published in 2013 and to date has no engagement on goodreads. Based on the weight of this opening, that may be a travesty. This deserves more attention. I hope it gets it. (Only $0.99)