Tom Mock

The Warriors Path – Princess Of The Broken – The Bones of Prophecy |
I found a sublimely focused and engaging desert Conan-esque fantasy that had me spellbound by the end. 2 other openings just fell short.

(from Before We Go Blog)

128. Karim Soliman, The Warriors Path

An effective prologue begins this desert tale. The prose is focused and steady, revealing a great deal with few words. It does not over emphasize. It is crisp and evocative, and leads with the here and now of setting and character.

Our MC of the prologue introduces a mysterious terror of the desert, as well as the superstitious men who cross it guarding caravans. Maybe he survives. You’ll have to read on to see.

Chapter 1 introduces an altogether more experienced protagonist. A Conan-like figure. A huge man of action from another culture altogether who has traveled the desert to come to this foreign land.

He has no plan, because he did not think he would survive the desert. Now he is here, he makes a plan. Get money. For the moment he has nothing but his sword and his horse – until three bandits try to steal his horse.

I assure you, they picked the wrong horse to try to steal.

The action here is thrilling. Our MCs capability fills me with a surge of energy. He is smart. He is direct. He knows the effect his size has on other men. Even with his stomach gurgling with hunger, he is not a man for thieves to trifle with.

There is a directness in the storytelling of this opening that has set me totally at my ease. Hand me this opening and tell me it was from a Hugo award winner and I would not bat an eye.

I am not merely told about the world, I am immersed in it, and always from the POV of a compelling character who wants something, whether it’s a safe place to rest, or to impress his fellow travelers, or a meal and a place to sleep, or to survive.

This storytelling does not try to be anything. It is. It is as simple as the open desert, and yet as irresistibly deep and full of strange life. I’m hooked. It’s off to a wonderful start. A terrific sword and sorcery opening! I’m in!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41740234-the-warrior-s-path

129) Jasmine K Swinburne, Princess Of The Broken

This next story has a double prologue. Of the two, I think the second is much better, clearer, and overall more engaging. This is a fairytale retelling, and so the second prologue has a summary, catch-you-up style which I kind of regret.

I regret it because the substance of the story is the kind of thing I would love to read! But instead I merely get to hear about it from removed overview style.

It starts, I think, too early. Is this a bit of story about a newlywed couple and the brides hopes that her husband will fall for her? Yes… no. That comes and goes. Why does he fall in love with her? Something she said.

Do we get to know what she said or what it pertained to so that we can get a sense of either of their characters? No. And then the story isn’t about love, it’s about children.

They have a son who becomes a beautiful prince! But the story isn’t about him either. It’s about our bride, later queens difficulty bearing any more children.

That’s the conflict of this prologue: the King and Queen’s desire for more children (out of love, not regal duty), the Queen’s inability to do so, and what they do about it.

The details of what they do about it – the fortune teller and the crone in the mountains and a sudden surprise visitation in the garden one night – are all riveting stuff … or they would be if I got to experience them.

Instead, the summary leaves me wishing for more. And after I’ve sat through what I found to be a stylistic miss of a twin-gods myth written in much the same summary tone, I find myself hunting for something else to read.

These ideas are wonderful! Truly wonderful! I can’t stress that enough. But this reads a bit too much like outline notes for me. I want to hear about the grief of the king queen and see this festival and hear from this fortune teller.

Put them before me on the stage and you’ve got me! But that’s just me. I can’t pretend to know anything about stories. This is just what would work on me. Maybe you’d feel the same. I pass.

130) J Rokusson, The Bones of Prophecy

This next opening is like some dark 90s anime come on late at night on the back channels. It has odd but exciting shapes to it. It’s exciting, but strange, and at times incomprehensible.

Not totally incomprehensible, but disorienting. The dialogue is strange. Intentionally so, but I feel like the dials have been turned just a little too far here.

I’m in love with the ideas here. A magically imbued killer sent to a remote area, a bizarre companion that is a figment of his imagination, a sudden sorcerous adversary, a deadly fight… but aspects of the prose keep knocking me out of the story.

There is an incomplete nature to the thoughts, I think. Take this apparition traveling with our MC. Other than our MC saying he isn’t real, I have no sense what he is or when he showed up.

Has he always been following our MC around? Did he just show up in these mountains? What gives? This is a really exciting idea, but because nothing is added to it, it is, for the moment, merely an oddity.

Much of this opening is like that. Our MC has tattoos that give him power, it seems. But over the course of the fight that follows, he does some neat things, sure, but our narration tells me he does certain magical things I think I’m supposed to understand, but don’t.

There’s also a motivational issue here for me. The story introduces a growing desire in our MC to shirk his duty and be free of his master. This adversary that appears almost seems like a potentially powerful ally that could help him do that?

But, no, that isn’t the direction the story goes. Our MC doesn’t even entertain the thought. This sorcerer is barely introduced. I little understand how he fits into this world, but now they’re fighting.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool. The fight is magical and exciting. There’s real energy here, and a FEEL to the magic.

Yet I don’t feel drawn into the characters or their conflict. It’s just a little too vague. A little too tonally overwritten. Too unsteady. I want more depth. I want to understand just a bit more to help draw me in instead of confuse me. I pass.

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