Tom Mock

Haelend’s Ballad| A Rose Among Thorns | Fires of Caprica | 

Two openings with young woman MCs made me want to read more to discover just where the story would go. One was a fun, fae-ish contemporary fantasy, the other a gothic, plague-ridden Venice-like city medical drama (from Covers with Cassidy)

166) Ian V Conrey, Haelend’s Ballad

Two navel men meet in a land neither are fond of and one tells the other to go get a wanted man in an opening that has many physical details, but divulges little of its story.

I’ve fallen out of this opening surprisingly quickly. Nothing was poorly done, but what’s missing from the text and what takes its place is ultimately the problem for me, I think.

The opening (to say nothing of what might prove to be a fantastic narrative to follow) neglects to include necessary context about the characters, their roles, and their actions.

Two Commanders talk to each other about some orders and about this place they’re in, which seems little to their liking. But why are they here? Where is here in the context of the story? We arnt told.

They are in a foreign land, I guess. Maybe some far flung corner of an empire? We don’t know. One of them has recently arrived, and he carries orders for the other. The orders are to arrest a man that has been located in the interior.

This man has a name, and his is part of some group or other. But who is he? We don’t really know except that he’s wanted. What is the group? We don’t know that either except that our Commanders and whatever government they are associated with aren’t fans.

To be specific, we learn that our wanted man is a leader of something called The Silent Hither, and he is homesteading in the Western Plains. None of this is expanded on beyond those words.

As a result there is precious little story actually on the page. There are names of men, of ethnicities, and of groups, but without any sense of how any of them relate to one another.

There is some presumed conflict, but it is not merely ill-defined, it is UNDEFINED. This leaves the opening passages feeling vague and unoriented.

The scene shifts to our wanted man and he is chatting with someone and hunting. The dialogue is good throughout. It sounds like people talking. It’s natural and unhurried. But still, key narrative elements remain undivulged.

Characters are on the page, but we little know who they are or why they are doing what they are doing. This makes it hard to tell the good news from the bad news, and hard to have anyone to invest in.

While this obscure form of storytelling has failed me personally, the prose itself has been descriptive physically. It has not lingered to long on any details, and has painted a totally effective portrait of its place and characters.

They are physically present. And the 3rd person close narration does a fine job of approximating the outlook of its MCs and how they evaluate those around them.

There are, I think, too many physical details re: scene directing (where characters look and what they do with their hands), that has taken the place of clear and concise narrative insights.

This is written much more like a film. We are told what is physically available to the senses (with some minor and immediate insights into character). We hear what the characters say. Nothing else is available to us.

Fiction has one great power over cinema, and that is its power of exposition. This needed more exposition to hook me into the story, especially since the characters (whoever they are) are not yet doing anything, but only talking about it. I pass.

*Sometimes I feel I have raked openings I pass on over the coals with my critiques. It makes me self conscious. That isn’t my intention. I’m only trying to offer an open and honest read of the story as I (imperfectly) find it.

I encourage everyone who reads these little reviews to check out the openings I pass on as much as, if not more than, those I want to see more of. Maybe you’ll see what I see. Maybe you’ll see things altogether differently!

167) Ash Fitzsimmons, A Rose Among Thorns

This is a fun, straight-to-the-point, contemporary fantasy opening with a plucky girl on her own thrust suddenly into unbelievable circumstances. All in all, she handles things well!

The 1st-person narration gives us a good sense of our MC. She’s a young woman of our times. Probably of all times. She keeps a pair of clipping sheets close at hand while minding her great-aunts shop because those will look scarier if she has to run at a man with them.

Well, a man does show up – a blond in a nice suit – looking very out of place in the rural Blue Ridge mountains. He’s perplexed that Rose has been left in charge, because her great aunt was due for a special inspection.

The dialogue-forward series of reveals sets the story and Rose’s head spinning as blond in suit reveals himself to be anything but human and Rose’s aunts shop to be anything but mundane.

The talk is natural and fun, it doesn’t drag a bit, and it gradually exposes to reader and MC the secret world of magic into which we will both be thrust.

I don’t know whether this would be considered romantasy coded, but it seems like a light novel with good pace, competently written. It’s also the first in a series that I hope is full of exciting coincidences like what has spurred this story into action.

All is not necessarily well! Rose’s aunt has seemingly gone on the run because she’s in some kind of danger. To find out what kind, we’ll just have to read on! I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60845864-a-rose-among-thorns

168) Mandy O’Dell, Fires of Caprica

I’ve been drawn in by the gothic strangeness of this plague-beset Venetian city of islands and canals where a beleaguered doctor has replaced his sick assistant’s eye with one he experimentally grew.

Setting the brief prologue aside, which was less compelling, the 1st person narration of ch1 provided interesting exposition, setting the stage of a city in peril on 2 fronts.

A plague causes grizzly internal bleeding, often necessitating amputation (if it is even worth it to try to save the patients life), and Tigers prowl the night, coming in from an outer island.

As a physician’s assistant, perhaps our frail MC can do something about the 1st peril, but even caring for the sick in her current state is a strain.

Before she fell ill, she excelled at researching blood illnesses to try to find some treatment for the plague, but now somehow that little holds her interest. She is preoccupied by how her strange new eye can see better in the dark than the light.

There is some expositional repetition that feels like revision spillover. Some of the exposition—esp. our MC’s reflections—could perhaps benefit from being more concise. But through it all, her character and circumstances emerge.

All is not revealed, and that’s good. There’s some intriguing bits of background that are hinted at but are unexplored just yet. That creates a promise that I’m interested to see fulfilled—always good in a story.

I particularly appreciate that, even amidst the despairing times of the plague, the core cast of ch1 (all women) are thoughtful, well-meaning, and doing their best together to help the sick and each other.

This creates a sense of community about the opening that extends beyond our MC. We are not merely in a sick ward with her below the water-level. The story feels as much about the city at large.

This is off to a slow but competent start. The sense of place and character are steadily engrossing. The choice of Tigers as a threat is unexpected in a fantasy story where a wealthy doctor can secretly grow eyes.

For me, this mix of the fantastic and the mundane creates a feeling of uniqueness about the setting and the story.

Something has changed with our MC, and maybe it’s much, much more than an alteration of vision. Is it for better, or worse? Who was that strange figure from the prologue? What’s this about her previous life  I want to know. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58805565-fires-of-capricae-experiment

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