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

90. Reed Logan Westgate, Soulsteeler Origins
    This next read is a mixed experience. There are moments of good, physical action, and when the narrative zooms out into pure world building, the writing is at its best (if somewhat overindulgent).

There is a monstrous, horror quality to the fantasy action that works well, but there’s little else I feel I can say in the story’s favor. I am told some things before I am shown them, robbing the moment of its punch.

The MC’s emotions and motivation are inconsistent. They seem to be what the author thinks will be cool in the moment. He goes from running himself to death in fear to cooly bandying threats with one of his pursuers.

From there, things only get harder to follow. The narrative seems to feel withholding information about its MC is the trick to pull readers in, but it just makes the conversations he has with characters from his immediate past impenetrable.

I find myself more confused than delighted. This opening needed to be more focused, for me, on the immediate circumstances of its MC so I could learn what the story is. I have to pass.

91. Maxime Jaz, Khirion
    Smut deserves attention, but it can be a hard sell in an otherwise broad Fantasy contest. The problem, from a story perspective, is it’s tendency to present scenarios rather than the setting, characters, and motivations we expect.

The most evocative element is supposed to be the sex bits, and I think that’s the case here, but the narrative is not particularly interested in filling us in on many other details.

The writing serves its purpose, but is over the top. Pass.

Day 29…

92. K.B. Sprague, Out of the Grey
    Our story begins with an investigation of ruins for cult activity. Once it gets going, this is an immersive, realistic, and wonderfully detailed fantasy.

The prose in this next story is descriptive. The locality is laid out workmanlike before me. But I’m lacking a character.

The author has tried to sprinkle in some commentary from their MC, but without any context of who they are, or why they are in these ruins. We don’t even get a description of them. They are barely there.

I’m willing to be patient with the story as the author paints this wholly visual portrait of this particular place, but the choice to begin this way is strange to me. It feels more like something out of a ttrpg manual.

Once it becomes clearer who our characters are and what they’re doing here, though (which is to say, once the story starts a few pages in) I find myself settling into the action. The dialogue is natural and progresses the story.

I feel a bit thrown into the middle of the setting. I don’t know what a lot of these names and orders are, but I find that immersive, and because something is happening, I’m willing to let it go past.

Once the story does focus on its characters, the author renders them every bit as well as the scenery. This is a visually appealing adult story. I’m in.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34818438-out-of-the-grey

93. Joe Coates, The Darkness Calling
    A world of post-war Nuclear rain set in a near-future London, this detective mystery calls itself Sci-Fi, and that’s probably why it was cut b/c the beautiful prose reminds me of Cormac McCarthy.

Ch1 is really a prologue, it seems, but does a fair enough job of introducing some elements of the setting. The star here is the prose. It is a wonderfully detailed and expressive.

You can feel this novel more and more with every sentence. Although the prologue goes on too long for me, I’d very much like to see what it’s like once the story starts. It has an excellent narrative voice.

You can probably expect to see this in SPFBO’s sister sci-fi competition. But its worth a look.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58144550-the-darkness-calling

94. Lincoln Law, A Crown Of Blood
    A Druid and her Fox familiar catch and prepare a sacrifice for their god. I enjoyed the unique and immersive take on magic, here.

I also enjoyed that the Fox familiar was not merely a heartfelt, sweet friend, but that he had a bit of an unempathetic, predatory edge to him. He is not like his soft-hearted Druid.

She might not be a Druid really, but the magic she was doing, controlling the ground and touching the thoughts of animals, led me in that direction.

The prose here is focused and expressive. The narrative isn’t in a rush to tell me everything – tells me very little in fact – but because it is grounded and it’s characters are working towards a specific goal, I found myself pulled into the text.

It might have been good to know a little bit more, because a druid (about whom I know nothing – not her level of experience, how easy this is for her, etc) catching a rabbit is not in and of itself very interesting.

That the rabbit is going to be sacrificed does not particularly move me as much as it seems to our protagonist. Don’t get me wrong, I love bunnies, but if she was hunting the animal I would be just as nonplussed.

Also, I don’t understand why, if our druid can put the rabbit to sleep, which she does, she needs to catch it in a magical cage first except so that the author can show us some of their magic.

Despite this oversight, the competence of the writing and the ephemeral sense that I am reading about real characters (one of whom is a talking fox) has pulled me into the story enough to want more. I’m in.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59784894-a-crown-of-blood

95. Alex Robins @stumbleine44, Panacea
    The prose and voice of this fantasy set amidst the legends of Greek antiquity is perfectly competent. It has a workmanlike beginning between a father and son sparing.

The narrative takes its time to introduce us to the setting, our old warrior father, and the relative calm of our characters lives that is sure not to last.

The setting is expressively depicted. The characters feel real. Their dialogue is natural and revealing. The action is well communicated.

I can’t comment on story from the little I’ve read, but anyone interested in a muscular Greek fantasy would do well to pick up this title. I’m in again.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75646628-panacea

Day 30

96. Carol Carman, Twicetime
    I do like the energy in this next book. There is a playful fairytale quality to the story. But… what is the story? It doesn’t feel focused at all.

I thought the MC was going to be the girl tragically forced into marriage … but then she never appears in the scene?

I’m told a whole heap of things about these two characters, or at least their unhappy arraigned marriage situation, just for something silly to happen and then the chapter to end – onto a new character.

This is a bit of an odd jumble of a story. It has spirit, but otherwise feels like a collage of ideas hastily thrown together. I Pass.

97. PJ Alexander, Dark Innocence
    I’m really impressed with the 1st person narrative voice of this. A girl hiding from the government that killed her parents during a civil war is transported to another world.

The voice of the protagonist narrator is really wonderfully natural and immersive. In only the space of a few pages, I feel like I’ve gotten to know a real person, and I’m routing for her.

She’s in a tight spot. She has a definite goal: she needs to steal supplies from a hospital to keep her and her little sister going. She doesn’t want to do this anymore.

It’s all very compelling. I do think the beginning goes on a little long, & her interaction with her sister is less compelling & a tonal shift. But, I want to highlight this. It stands out. I’m in!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61612489-dark-innocence

98. CM Debell, The Many Shades of Midnight
    I both like this, and am quickly confused. The first paragraph has 3 different opening ideas, and it needs to have only 2 at most. I’m losing my sense of what’s important.

The prose is very good tho. The narrative focus, however, is what suffers. This really highlights what makes a good opening so hard to write. I can tell the author has TOO MANY ideas, and they couldn’t decide which to go with.

And so the lack of narrative focus continues beyond the first paragraph. Because the author hasn’t firmly grounded me in any scene in the NOW of the story, all these diversions and asides about their MC leave the story disoriented.

I find myself thinking: wait, didn’t he say something about a woodsman? What about the woodsman? Where are they? What’s happening? Okay, our MC is sorta a medical guy, but go back to the bit where something is happening. WHAT IS happening??

I’m on the fence about this one, because I am enjoying many of the details, what I gather the setting to be, the nature of the goodly protagonist. There is a promise of danger in the woods at night, but it doesn’t materialize.

The narrative is more focused going forward, but it is also repetitive. The action isn’t developing. We get what is effectively the same scene twice.

I’m intrigued tho. This could be really enjoyable once it properly starts to develop, but because it’s off to a bumpy start, for the purposes of my openings evaluation, I have to pass. Sorry!

Day 31
99. BSH Garcia, Of Thieves and Shadows
I’m torn about this next entry, and I think that goes so much to the point of the subjectivity of fiction. There is competence in the prose, and yet … let me see if I can express why I’m not being drawn into this.

I think it is because this has a soap opera quality about it. The prose is descriptive and the setting is fairly detailed. There are no long, introspective passages. There is nothing tangled about the ideas presented, and yet…

Our MC is not a nice person. Not evil as far as I can tell. Just mean. He says mean things to his wife and servants in a petty way. And then they leave. The characters, I think, (and specifically our MC) are the great weakness here.

Our MC’s behavior is heavy handed and he seems to have mood swings motivated by the author wanting a dramatic moment that doesn’t land because we don’t know any of these characters yet.

There’s also a lack of context for whats happening. The author knows, and I can sense that, but for some reason they’ve mystery-boxed the very details that would help me be invested in the circumstances of their character.

It’s hard to know what details are important when writing, especially when writing an opening to your story. Since I’m judging openings, and not merely prose, I’ve got to pass on this one.

I find my interest withering. I don’t want to read more. The characters are not interesting enough in and of themselves, nor do they have any evident goals. They are colorfully behaving, but I don’t see a story here. Not quite.

I’m finding, as I read through these openings, that story is everything. The prose, as long as it is not confusing, doesn’t have to do much to keep my interest. It can even stumble and be muddled or somewhat inexpressive at times if the story is interesting.

Take heart, fellow writers, and direct your focus accordingly.