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

150. Derek Alan Siddoway & Katie Cross (@D_Sidd @kcrosswriting), A Spring for Spears
This fantasy leaps into action with a fight between two tribal girls: an ogre-like bully, and our less favored but still plucky MC.

The action of the fight and character of the opponents leads in this opening, the battle minutia of which reminded me of the work of RA Salvatore. It is detailed and spirited.

Because the thrust of the opening pages has a narrow focus, there isn’t too much for me to say, but it is an effective opening. I do get a growing sense of the natural, somewhat tribal world of the story – at least this part of it.

Wolves, spears, hunters, and shields will undoubtedly feature, and if that sounds like your kind of fantasy, this is certainly for you.

Small details like the invented idiom “it would hurt like shine” that, although I don’t understand it, charms me as it both sounds good to my ear and captures the nature of natural idioms which make little sense unless you know their etymology.

There’s much I don’t understand yet, but I have a growing sense of the things the story has introduced in passing into the narrative, and, more importantly, I understand how the characters feel about the as-yet elusive details.

A mystery box (from the readers perspective) is a trivial thing on and of itself. There’s all sorts of things we don’t know about in novels. That doesn’t compel us to read on. But when the characters feel a certain way about the thing in question, that sparks intrigue.

What does it mean for our MC to have not yet heard the Wolf Song? I’m intrigued and want to read on to learn because I know it matters to her deeply and is a source of great shame. I‘m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/126140799-a-spring-for-spears

Day 54

151. VA Boston, Fairy Door
     This next opening is pleasant, light, has a sense of place full of reeds and work to be done, and yet there is also something a bit bland about it.

The focus, after some exposition about where our village is, is on character dialogue. The dialogue isn’t about anything really. It has a sense of realism, but it is like the scenery.

There are moments of cliché. Their intent is unnecessary exposition. I’m stuck with the feeling that this isn’t very important. Every moment in a story doesn’t have to have urgency tho. And yet …

I suppose the problem for me is that as yet this has no sense of promise beyond the title. I have no sense of who my MC is besides that she is a girl who has a good relationship with her father.

What kind of a person is she? Nice, I suppose. Everyone in the village seems nice. There’s not much more to say yet, and that is, as I said, just a bit bland. There is no apparent conflict of any kind anywhere.

Maybe part of the problem I’m having is that this opening buries it’s lead in the course of a roundabout introduction. There’s been a bad storm that did some damage, but because the opening paragraphs jump around in time and focus, I lose track of that detail.

The opening doesn’t focus on the storm, it’s just something thrown into the mix, but as I read on and come into the village with our MC, it seems like everyone is repairing the damage, so maybe the storm is important? Maybe it was unusual?

I don’t know. I’m not told. I don’t know what’s important in the beginning. It’s pastoral and the people are nice, but it just doesn’t quite do enough to be interesting, so I’m going to pass.

152. JE Cabrera, Strangers in the High City
     A group of Clan Redbeard dwarves are put to death for a rebellion against the Lord of The Covenant in the prologue of this surprisingly human epic fantasy.

The greater story of this work is only slowly revealing itself, but already I am getting a sense of scope from this focused prologue that opened close on a dwarf sentenced to death and awaiting his execution.

The prose is grounded and understated in a way that makes it feel effortless. The gravity and solemnity of our character is felt rather than told. And through him, we begin to get a sense of the world of the story.

The opening is punctuated by a wonderful reading of the names of the condemned. The titles and place names we are introduced to are exactly the kind of thing that brings me to fantasy as a reader.

The personal regrets of our momentary MC, thinking of the family he is leaving behind in death, we’re a wonderful touch that pulled me into this opening better than any politics or lengthy exposition could.

I might have liked to know just how our dwarves got here – that is, what form their rebellion took and how it failed, but perhaps those details will be forthcoming.

Cabrera’s poise in this opening, of its sublimely tragic but still defiant character juxtaposed with its brutal, but artfully rendered finale, has me eager to read on. It’s a great start! I’m in!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/140979434-strangers-in-the-high-city

DAY 55

153. Kevin Wright @KevinKwright50, Terminus Rex
     A wagon train of supplies & rough characters arrive at a frozen encampment of a crusade in time to listen to the long line of local resistance being beheaded.

This gritty fantasy leads with voice (1st person pov) and dialogue, which are both irreverent and crude, and contribute to the hard and unforgiving setting. The narration.

The prose is punchy, effectively using short clauses and fragments to establish a brash voice. It and the dialogue gradually introduce us to the where and why if the story.

Our MC has a big business venture in the form of this wagon train. It’s bigger than he has any right to. His goal is clear and relatable: be successful in this. The promise of complication intrigues me.

The setting is historically based – how loosely I cannot quite say, but the dialogue has a more modern sensibility, and the effect of the piece reminds me of Joe Abercrombie’s work (which I haven’t actually read).

I am a little confused just how close to this enormous crusader’s camp our MC is. Any threat to the wagons seems minimal if they are as close as it seems? This is an issue of stakes, really.

The voice and atmosphere of this stands out to me. There are some technical details that ground the story well. I’m interested to see how the story will develop. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/122995099-terminus-rex

154. EC Greaves, Daughter of the Beast
     Two village children play at being combatants in the forest only to discover that the reality of battle and bloodshed is nothing like what they dreamed.

Our two young protagonists (1 the pov character) feel like real people, and for me there was a charm in the shared experience of make-believe. It’s hard to write kids being kids well. This does it.

The dialogue in this opening was equally charming, natural, and revealing of character. It grounded me in the setting well, and gave me a good sense of where I was – with families of long-ago knights, now villagers.

I found the prose energetic and easy to read. The twist at the very end of chapter 1 was the most surprising element of this beginning, and compels me to read on. There is something evil that comes to this village, but it’s not merely there for pillaging. A real surprise.

The description of the Things that descend on this village reminds me of gnolls, but we aren’t in the world of DnD here. The beasts are monstrous, but intelligent, but also like something from a fairy tale, and that’s provocative to me.

This is the first finalist opening I’ve read after the book has been named a finalist, and Greaves has asked me not to pull any punches in my assessment of his work. And so:

This feels like an opening of two different and distinct parts. The first, focused on our characters, goes long with its kid conversation, all the more so because much of what our kids discuss clearly isn’t going to matter now.

The second part of the opening is externally focused on the attack on the village, but our characters feel like an afterthought.

The beasts lead, and our kids get there to see the chaos in summary and then stay there waiting to be taken because that’s how we get to the next chapter of the novel.

The final twist, which I won’t spoil, was still very effective for me, but without it this would have been a borderline read for me. It propelled me into ch2 with more eagerness than I felt a page earlier.

I do wonder what these beasts are and why our kids seem to have never ever heard of them. I also wonder if these beasts have some kind of glamour to them, and that’s why our MC didn’t run – but I doubt it.

Nonetheless, I’m very much intrigued to know what ch2 is going to do, and the title of this book makes me even more intrigued for the direction the story is going to take. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60129056-daughter-of-the-beast

((This ended up being one of the blog-off finalists, and Ed reached out to me to revise the opening based on my notes. It was a fun experience for both of us.))

56

155. Michael Michel @Michael__Michel, The Price of Power
     A marriage unites a nation. A rebel legend and his new wife pledge their love to each other and swear to break the chains of slavery binding his people.

The dialogue of this opening won me over. It is theatrical rather than realistic, and I found the high, stylized tone effectively revealed character and progressed my understanding of the story.

This is another prologue, of course, so I don’t have a clear sense yet if we will be sticking with these characters (I would be shocked if we didn’t) or skipping forward in them, but the high stakes or two people sworn to see a nation free is appealing.

Furthermore, our viewpoint character, the bride, is not a worldly person, and so there is great opportunity for learning and growth as she encounters all the challenges of the story to come and learns The Price of Power, perhaps?

The details that we get of the different peoples brought together in this conflict made the setting feel grounded and began to help me get a sense of who was involved in this conflict.

This was something overall I felt was lacking from this beginning. It starts focused much more on the fact a marriage is taking place to unite some various groups, but I still don’t have a clear sense of who they are or the broader conflict.

If there were less prose, which I found a weak point of this opening, and the story was focused more immediately on the scene of the wedding night (I almost wonder if these two have never been on the same room before this) this wouldn’t have bothered me.

But the story seems expressly interested in the politics of the conflict rather than our MCs wedding encounter with this heroic rebel legend, so the lack of information stands out.

Glancing ahead, I see ch1 begins 64 years in the future, which leaves me thinking this prologue was not the best place to begin the story. The very first lines of that ch. seem both more effective and more grounded.

You often hear people say “please no prologues.” Some prologues can be written in a different style than the rest of a novel, or exist to supply introductory information that would be better introduced once the story is properly underway.

STILL! The setting & dialogue have pulled me in, as has the promised scope of story. I think it’s developing well once it gets going. This is a semi-finalist & that helps give me confidence ch1 is more focused than the prologue. I want to know more. I‘m in

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63945821-the-price-of-power

156. Barry K Gregory, A Thing Immortal
     A wing-thief watches along the shaft of his nocked arrow as a naked man menaces a girl, wondering why a holy man has brought him here.

This is a strange opening, the dialogue of which does become repetitive as a device to describe what narration could have made short work of – however the use of character perspective to ground is in the scene of the story was very effective.

The tribal(?) characters are invitingly unusual. The opening is well focused on its characters and on the developing action. It reads fast, quickly invests the reader, and keeps them guessing.

This is another first chapter that also ends with a wonderful turn that breaks the possibilities of the world wide open and fairly demands the reader continue turning the pages to discover where it will go next.

This is uncluttered, a fast read, dialogue driven, something is happening from the first page, I get character, tension, a deepening sense of magic and otherworldly powers, & ch2 introduces an old gunslinger? I’m in!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141216150-a-thing-immortal

Day 57

157. Brian O’Sullivan @ImbasInfo, Liath Luachra
     The empty cold valley in Ireland 188 AD makes for an evocative setting in this beautifully rendered beginning, the desolation of the land mirroring that of the tragiclly self-isolated MC.

Loneliness is the main characteristic of Liath, our warrior woman MC. She is isolated, emotionally blunted by trauma, hard, but not so hard she does not feel a deep and uncertain yearning for something more than this.

This slow opening is a character study as much as a meditation on the land, the deepening winter, and the challenges of surviving. The prose is gorgeous and immersive. I would rec it for that alone.

It is distinct. It had a voice and a sensibility entirely its own, and that makes it worth reading.

I have a single lingering question, and that’s why has our MC come back to this desolate place? We’re told she left, was rejuvenated by being away, and seems to dread her return. So why?

I do feel, however, the author has a thoughtful sensibility. It may well be that Liath does not know herself why she comes back. This was her home once … and so she is bound to return because she cannot move on.

Perhaps this will be a story about how she does move on. I do not know for sure, but I have been patient with this one, and I feel my patience has already been rewarded. Give it a chance. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/133122223-liath-luachra

158. Abigail Morrison, The Yochni’s Eye
     A young bogey prince (huge, dog-like creatures) quibble with his cousin over what story his father will tell in this irresistibly charming opening.

I’m in love with this. It’s perfect. There isn’t a sour note. Not one misstep. Everything about the opening wins me over more and more – the dialogue, characters, warm tone, setting – everything.

The comparisons to Redwall leap to mind straight away, both in the character of the bogeys and the quality of the writing. This is a lighthearted, humorous prologue that deftly introduce us to setting details.

Morrison, through her characters, tells us that the dwarves in this story are “wish-crafted” like our bogeys, as opposed to the “constant” elves.

While first charmed by the antics of the squabbling princelings, the reader is as drawn into their bogey elder’s story as they are (or at least as Atlan is – his impatient cousin only wants to hear bogey stories, the little brat).

I find myself introduced to a fantasy setting that is both familiar and totally unique. I’m thrilled by the creativity leaping energetically from these pages. I don’t know what a Yochni is just yet, but it seems wonderfully magical.

I don’t know yet what will be the driving force of the narrative to come, but in a matter of pages I feel I would follow Morrison’s writing anywhere.

I sense a love of animals, and of wonder and adventure in this story. I see from Morrison’s twitter that she is a fan of Studio Ghibli, and that comes through in the world of the story.

I don’t know what else to say. I’m smitten. This has wow’d me in the funnest way possible. This seems like a perfect Christmas read for a reader of any age. I’m eager to meet the rest of the characters in this story. I’m in!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61982012-the-yochni-s-eye

Day 58

159. Belinda Crawford, Demons and Battleskirts
     This next entry feels too much to me like I am participating in the author’s violent daydream rather than receiving a story. It is hyper focused on the physicality of its battle action, and equipment of its mc.

Nothing is introduced except, perhaps for our MCs armor. They are fighting a demon… somewhere? … for some reason. This is what they do all the time, presumably… whoever they are.

They’re alone … except this is a battlefield? So maybe there’s lots of … whoever they are also fighting these weird sounding demons?

This, I think, is really the single biggest failing is this opening. Ultimately, I do not understand what I’m reading, and because I’m never oriented in the story, the action means nothing.

Were this a film, I’m sure it would be thrilling, but I would learn a great deal more from a film because I could see all the details this narrative won’t tell me.

This has energy and style, but that alone isn’t enough. I pass.