Getting things updated a little later than usual, but today’s blog post also promises a more “bloggyness”—we’ll see if that’s a hit.

I am aware that the date of this post is technically wrong—yesterday, water began seeping up from under my floorboards, and it seemed a pressing matter to get that issue corrected. Rather than correcting the date of this half-written post I decided to roll with it.

Quick Updates

I should be getting proofs for the final formatting of The Failed Technomancer this Saturday, which means release is being pushed back to early March; I do not have further updates on this book. Well, beyond my audio guy letting me know that mixing the audio is going to take a little longer than predicted. Fortunately for him, his timing is following the main book’s timing alarmingly well!

Grand Odyssey (working title for the Third Realm universe book introducing Mariynne to the world) is getting some quick edits, then I’ll be back to finishing draft one and, perhaps, providing word count updates.

And last of all in this general category, Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, and Google Books have all accepted my application to self-publish on their platforms, so The Failed Technomancer will be available in all the major platforms. Using Draft2Digital for ebook and IngramSpark for print, it should also be available in smaller locations as well.

“Bloggyness”

I thought Joe Abercrombie’s Half a King was okay. I’ve heard a lot about Abercrombie for a while, and maybe his other books are better, but for the most part while reading this book I found myself reflecting on John Gwynne and how much I enjoyed his grimdark viking epic fantasies more.

I enjoy the occasional dark, gritty book, but Gwynne actually managed to infuse hope into his stories, which makes overcoming the overwhelming darkness an exhilarating and strangely uplifting experience—Truth and courage! It shows that goodness wins out in the end, no matter how long and grinding that victory may be. I got to the end of Abercrombie’s Half a King and got the sense that, at least in that world, only strength or cunning wins out in the end, that there’s not really a sense of objective truth or good, and that fate or chance matters more than what’s right. Kind of bummed me out.

This is a trend in a lot of modern fantasy—having characters in dark worlds trying to overcome harsh and overwhelming odds, but completely lacking the hope or other ideals that provide meaning to overcoming opposition. Instead, trying to “defeat the bad guy” (if there even is one) is simply a matter of self-preservation or revenge, and the result feels very animal in motivation and lacking deeper meaning. (Books don’t need to actively strive for profundity, of course—thank heavens most books aren’t literary—but I find that meaning comes naturally when characters have positive ideals, love, or some other greater meaning. If at least one central character of this sort is present, it can lift the whole experience while still keeping the focus on entertainment.)

Credit where credit is due, despite the bummer of an ending I did, overall, enjoy the journey of Half a King and currently plan on reading the other two books. Yarvi began much more interesting than he ended, and if the other books keep that trend up then I’ll have at least 3/4s of great enjoyment each time.

Also, the prose of Half a King was very nice. It was almost amusing the juxtaposition of this dark, gritty, rotting, falling-apart world depicted with beautiful, at times lyrical writing. Makes me think of Follow Me by Uncle Kracker, specifically his own description of his song: “That song is like a dirty picture painted with a pretty brush.”

If you like gorgeous pictures of dirty things, you’ll love Half a King.