Tom Mock

Elemental – Legacy’s Price |
I found a story about a boy from a quiet village with a unique magical future ahead of him. I’m just not sure if its going to be a pleasant future. Another opening just fell short for lack of detail.

(from Before We Go Blog)

131. Tam Chronin, Elemental

This 1st person opening does a terrific bit of cinematic flashback fiction-craft in its first page or so that landed so well I have to recommend you read it for yourself.

The narration establishes a good sense of voice as our MC looks back at where it all began. In his quiet village. This starts with a good sense of pace, provide the reader with a flourish of establishing details.

Our apt magical pupil is simply rendered in his simple, tho studious life, while at the same time we’re exposed to one interesting world detail after another – from Gods killed by wizards, who then became like gods, to village smiths who use spells to keep plows sharp.

Magic is a fact of life in this world, but it’s a practical magic that meets the everyday needs of ordinary folk. Until our MCs tutor gets a letter. Suddenly everyone around him is very nervous. A strange visitor is coming, and he sees his mother weeping.

The prose is clear and effective, delving into the narrative with ease. Even tho we get a lot of 9-year-old kid dialogue, it isn’t grating or generic, as child characters can sometimes seem. Our kids have their interests and understand what they understand.

The beginning of Wizard of Earthsea came to my mind while I was reading this. Not for the immediacy of action, or for a similarity of pacing, but because of the child with magical promise in a small village in a strange land and the sense that his world is soon to change.

There is a uniqueness to the setting here as well. Our child (for the moment) MC only knows so much about the world, and that makes it seem big and strange to us as well. I still can’t tell just how bad things can get in this narrative, but the unease of the adults sets my teeth on edge.

This is a splendid beginning that makes several engaging promises to its reader, and does a good job of beginning to pay them off. I’m drawn into the narrative voice and the world of the story. I want to know what happens next. I’m in!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36630102-elemental

132) TL Rolston, Legacy’s Price

 I find the prose in this next piece to be competent and clear. The dialogue comes from distinct characters with intention. The story teases an accident in our MCs past, and at a secret kept from our MC.

The challenge I encounter here as a reader is that what is teased is not quite enough. There is little enough else here to draw me into the world of the story. Who our MC is I pick up from context clues.

She’s young. Lady such-and-such. A woman looks after her and dotes on her more than she likes. Her grandfather is the king and her great grandmother is a bit stern. There are guards, a butler, cars outside, high society affairs of some kind. Our MC has upsetting dreams and can’t remember some section of her past.

I don’t know anything else, really. Nothing about her relative station in her family. Not the demands on her, if she has any feelings about being nobility, not how big the family is, where she lives, how close she’s been to her grandfather and great grandmother.

I don’t say I need to know all these details, but I would like some more substance here to draw me into the character and help me understand the setting. I sense vaguely that this is faux early 20th century. But is it?

There’s some talk of nations, but what nations? There’s no names. Everything is vague. And that brings me to the teases. They’re also quite vague. I don’t know much more about these dreams and some kind of blank in our MCs memory than our opening passing reference.

How much has she forgotten? What does she THINK happened? Do people around her act the same? Has anything changed for her since before? How long ago was this thing that happened?

These kind of details seem to me to be central to the story and my understanding of our MC. I want to begin to know her and the journey we’re on together. I get to know her some by watching her, but I’m told so little else.

I don’t have demands about character appearances being described, but it can be nice to at least get an impression of our characters. I don’t quite get that here.

The secret national happenings that the king is dealing with and that may have something to do with our MC are glanced at, but even here any defining details are missing.

Something is happening in this opening, I’m just not sure what it is or what kind of thing it is or what it will mean for our MC. There’s too much I’m unsure of, despite the other positive qualities of this opening, and so I’m putting it down.

If this book had been recommended to me I would certainly continue reading. But going in blind, and with some 300 other SPFBO openings to sort through (an arbitrary goal), it hasn’t quite done enough. I pass.

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