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

100. Raina Nightingale, Heart of Fire
     Camilla, a human slave to elves, wants nothing more than to see a dragon hatch. Wants to be bonded with a dragon. Wants it so badly she’s willing to have the skin whipped off her back just for the impossible chance.

This next fantasy entry with broad age appeal is a great example of my point. It begins expressly interested in character and story. Something is happening. Our MC wants something.

What she wants is hopeless and dangerous, but she still wants it so desperately that she doesn’t care about the danger. Her life means nothing if she can’t have just this one glimpse of something beautiful.

It’s a wonderful beginning. It’s full of promise and conflict. It deftly introduces those setting details necessary to give our story context. It upends the goodly elves trope.

There could be some more scene details to ground me in the action, but there’s nothing in this story to dislike. Everything pulls me in. It’s focused and developing fast and I don’t know just what’s going to happen next. I’m in!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/176646524-heart-of-fire

101. Paul Mouchet, Between Land and Sea

This next title is fine. The dialogue is a bit cliché, but my main concern is that I don’t think it has appropriately invested in the conceit of its setting.

We’re supposed to be underwater here, but the idea of an ocean setting is just papered over the top of an ordinary fantasy, right down to wooden desks with actual papers on it.

I mean, it’s a story about merfolk who breathe water. I don’t mind a light fantasy, but from the outset the kind of details that could have made this story a treat have instead made it seem thoughtless. Pass.

102. Mike Mollman, Becoming A Druid

This novel seems more interested in its transformation magic than its characters, conflicts, setting, dialogue … the story seems like something of an afterthought.

I started writing because I loved daydreaming, but that sent me into an exploration of narratives. This story feels like it is a vehicle for the author to imagine themself turning into different animals.

There’s not much for us, as the reader, to experience. I’m thinking of The Once And Future King as a comp title. In it, Arthur becomes different animals and immerses us in some part of the uniqueness of the experience of being, say, a fish.

The world of the mote full of other watery life enlarges around us. He feels the water over his scales. The way he moves is different. He becomes something, and the world around him feels different.

The transformations (and there are a ton in the first few pages) feel shallow by comparison.

There is a story here. There is conflict and characters, but they seem simplistic and underdeveloped. I pass.

Day 33

103. RS Ford @Rich4ord, Herald of the Storm

This has the same take off point as 13th warrior – a middle-eastern type intellectual, pursued by the wife of a powerful figure, removes himself to a distant kingdom. But what next?

I’m not sure. The opening takes its time to narrate how our MC gets to now, but I’m sold on the competence of the active prose here alone.

Characters have not yet quite begun to emerge, and I think it would have been good if the overview that starts our story had been more direct and specific with its details, but I’m ready for our MC to be thrown into a strange new world.

But our hero is not heading to a mead hall. A city with a dark reputation lies before him. I want to know what he finds there. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17623344-herald-of-the-storm

104. Becky James, The Tenets in the Tattoos

This has a faint Lies of Lock Lamora quality to it in the way of a group of friends, tho here they’re in a fantasy military unit instead of thieves.

The novel is dialogue driven, so far, and that dialogue bounces along naturally. I suspect there will be an ensemble of characters who out MC is close to, but the book is doing a good job introducing them one at a time.

The story itself is slow to form, but our MC is nervous about someone coming to the city who they’re going to meet.

I don’t know why, nor do I know what’s significant about this person’s arrival, and  I think that would have gone a long way in helping me get invested in the story. I’m not sure why it’s been withheld.

I think I would have liked some more setting/story context details broadly speaking. We’re very much plopped down in the middle of things, but the world feels lively and lived in.

The characters feel like distinct people, and the emphasis on character action, along with the stakes of this impending meeting (it’s important, I just don’t know why yet), are enough to keep me turning pages.

I want to know the answers to my questions, and I’m willing to stick with it to find them out. That means the story is doing something right. It’s also listen under Humorous Fantasy, so I’ll look forward to some lightness as the story develops.

Did I mention this is also currently Free, at least on Amazon US? Check it out. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57842985-the-tenets-in-the-tattoos

105. Victoria Tecken @ToriTalks2, Phased

Val might earn the right to leave the Center, where she has been confined for some time, if she can pass this last test. She has to control the wolf inside her. But it feels too right to be wild.

An institute, faceless lab techs with clipboards, stimulants, dangerous werewolf sisters, one far more in control than the other – this has the makings of a great paranormal urban fantasy.

The prose is natural and expressive. It throws the reader right into the experience of its characters. I commented before on another novel where the MC transforms as a matter of fact. Here, you feel it.

Already, glancing ahead to the next section, I see our 3rd person narration will be moving around between characters who feel distinct in only a few lines.

The setting is concisely rendered. I feel like I’m in capable hands. I have no idea just where this story will go, but it seems full of wild possibilities, and I want these sisters to be okay. I’m not sure they will. I’m in!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55782846-phased

Day 34

Day 34 of my #SPFBO9 opening reads and I’ve got two more books that pass my wholly subjective opening test.

One is worth a look if you like YA-ish fantasy with detailed magic. The other is a knockout!

106. Michael Roberti @mikesroberti, The Traitors We Are

I’ve read less than two pages and I’m already in. This is one of those openings that’s wow’d me. An old witch, overwhelmed by evil portents, contemplates a ritual.

That isn’t the story of this book, that’s only our prologue launching point, but the prose is so steady, I feel I would keep reading whatever the subject of the narrative.

That said, this is not merely competently written. It is creative – immersing the reader in the concerns of our witch. No, there’s none of the usual prophetic signs: no war, no plagues, no sightings of monsters, and yet she can’t shake the feeling of ill omen.

We’re treated to a sprinkling of inviting details – allusions to Reachmen, other, less observant followers of the goddesses of the sun and wilderness, the necessary materials for our witches ritual…

It’s all wonderfully paced, steadily introduced, effortlessly described – just so. I’m reminded of the old witch from the first Malazan book. At this point it is really that good.

At under 400 pages, I expect this to be a focused and immersive fantasy. If the author can maintain the quality of this opening (in which I see no cracks whatever) this should be a finalist contender. I’ve bought it. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198840139-the-traitors-we-are

107. JL Mullins, Mageling

A young mage teleportation does not exactly go as planned. Barely clad mages, spell-lines, and interesting magical details from page … well, page 2.

It’s always a tough sell when a novel starts and I am confused. What do these sentences mean? Where are we? Who is this about? I know we all want a splashy opening, but orient me in the story.

The problem with this opening is the order of information. I just read what should be the opening paragraph. It’s a great, dry, beginning that clearly tells me what’s going on.

This author is talented, they just bobbled their opening. Once the narrative settles into itself, it’s engaging. It’s a slow start, story-wise. All we know is our mage MC has teleported in.

In where? I’m not sure. Why and to what purpose? We don’t know yet. But being dropped into things can be an appealing way to start. And the magical details here are engaging.

The prose is fairly competent. The dialogue has good pacing. And the idea of spell-lines drawn(tattooed?) onto mages to give them power is interesting. I can tell the author has put time and effort into developing their unique approach to magic in this story.

Other elements of this YA-ish fantasy may be only light – some guards are quintessentially generic, & I have some qualms about mages blushing when they see a naked woman even though all our mages, male and female, are as little clad as possible all if the time.

But this feels like it has a good central character who is headstrong despite the rigorous conformism of her order, and the magical details have given me just enough to want to keep reading. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123035950-mageling

Day 35

108. CL Jarvis @StAndrewsLynx, The Doctrines of Fire

An Edinburg medical student has been murdered and two professors look for clues suspecting some secret society has had a hand in the death.

I think the prose is strong, the dialogue is natural, and the details we get are interesting. This is the work of a competent writer.

I will say I’m having a hard time sinking into the narrative. The fact that a student is dead isn’t delivered with much punch, & I don’t know what the circumstances of the death are to justify these two (old?) professors snooping around where they shouldn’t, looking for clues.

Being told those details from the outset would have gone a long way towards pulling me into the story. Some more details about these particular professors as well would help a lot too.

That said, the promise of magic (by nature of being in SPFBO) and the historical murder mystery aspect of the plot has me intrigued. A little rocky on story, but well written otherwise. I want to see where this goes. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108516750-the-doctrines-of-fire

109. Joshua Scott Edwards @JoshSEdwards, An Ocean of Others

A bounty hunter tries to make a living in a sprawling city with destitute districts ruined by a great riot. May promise a city adventure something like The Lies of Locke Lamora.

This has competent prose, and an active beginning, though it’s not exactly fast-paced. We’re slowly getting introduce to our setting and MC as he chases his latest bounty through the ramshackle houses and walkways of the Old District of the city, the action being interrupted by narrative asides.

 I’m not really sure what the story promises to be about yet, though there is a promise of some conspiracy/mystery, I think. That’s fine, though. Our MC seems interesting enough (the little I’ve seen of him.)

Who doesn’t like a bounty hunter for an MC? The city also feels like it’s going to be a secondary character in this story, and I’m looking forward to getting to know our MC and our setting better.

Already there are a few interesting features of the city Liwokin. I’m not sure what this “Last Bounty Hunter” business is in the chapter title or book description. Nothing in the text seems to suggest that our MC is the last…

The book also starts with a kind of prologue section referencing a massive riot that killed thousands, but I don’t know why it’s included. It was very short, & doesn’t seem to bear on the story in any way…

I know it WILL become relevant, but because it’s abstract and doesn’t appear relevant, it doesnt serve as a good taking off point. Once I start the next section I have to reorient myself. Is it before? After? Why did I just read that.

That said, this seems like it will be an interesting, grounded, active story with a resourceful, morally gray MC trying to make his way in an unforgiving world. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61219433-an-ocean-of-others