Browsed by
Author: Sharrukin

A Change in Plans

A Change in Plans

Comments 0 Comment

I went to set up the first few chapters of Second Dawn in the Kindle Vella platform last night – successfully, as you can see from the image above. However, in the process I also discovered that Amazon is very close to taking Vella live. I’m seeing hints that it may be up and running for the general audience as early as this week, almost certainly by the end of July.

Well. When I started writing Second Dawn, it was under the assumption that it would be a couple of months before I needed to work on the next section. Apparently that isn’t the case. When Vella does go live, I want to not only have those first six chapters in place, I want to have a few more chapters ready for weekly release.

All of which means that I’m changing the plan for July a bit. My main fiction-writing effort, in what’s left of this month, is going to involve building a backlog of chapters for Second Dawn. Ideally, I’ll have six more chapters ready to go within a couple of weeks.

How that interacts with my other plans for the month, I’m not sure yet. I’m probably not going to be working on Krava’s Legend quite as much as I’d planned on. I do still want to get some work done on Architect of Worlds so I can at least send out a free update of that material for my patrons. I’ll probably also produce a free update of the Scorpius Reach setting bible along the way. We’ll see how the next few days go.

Review: Saint Dorian and the Witch, by Michael Raship

Review: Saint Dorian and the Witch, by Michael Raship

Comments 0 Comment

Saint Dorian and the Witch by Michael Raship

Overall Rating: ***** (5 stars)

Saint Dorian and the Witch is a splendid piece of fantasy, a personal journey and a love story set in a world torn apart by quarreling gods and religious fanaticism.

Bartholomew is a young monk, living in a monastery on the outer edge of an Empire that seems to take a great deal of inspiration from the landscapes and cultures of South Asia. The Empire is a very orderly place, ruled by an emperor and subordinate local kings, all supported by the powerful monastic order in which Bartholomew has been raised. Everyone reveres the great god Ael, the Lord of Destiny who maintains the rigid order of the world. Sometimes Ael sends a special servant, a “saint,” into the world to carry out some holy mission. The history of the Empire is full of tales of these saints, their special powers, and their epic struggles against chaos.

Bartholomew is a young man, but he has a special talent: he is a Librarian, someone who can not only read all of the sacred texts, but who can recite them from memory. Unfortunately, the more he studies the sacred texts, the less he believes in them, and the more he feels that there is something missing in the world under Ael’s dominion.

One day Bartholomew begins to dream of a new saint, one not yet recognized by the Empire and the monastic order. This new saint seems to promise the serenity that Bartholomew’s status as a monk and Librarian can no longer provide. Caught up in his new devotion, he leaves his monastery on a quest to join Saint Dorian in the heartland of the Empire. Along the way he meets Ruth, a young witch with her own special talent for spell-casting and magic.

What follows is a gorgeous tale woven around multiple themes: quests for spiritual fulfillment, the perils of religious fanaticism, the clash between order and chaos, the value of love and compassion, and the abiding power of stories. I found myself constantly surprised by the tale, constantly turning the page to see what might happen next.

Mechanically, the novel is very well put together. The prose style is impeccably clean, with a minimum of distractions and no copy-editing errors that I could catch. One thing that may throw some readers is that, for all the excellence of the world-building, the story is largely driven by the logic of myth. Things happen in the story because they’re dramatically appropriate, not always because they make coldly rational sense . . . but then, that appears to be part of the point.

I loved Saint Dorian and the Witch, quite a bit more than I expected when I began it. I came to the end of this book wishing for more. Very strongly recommended.

Planning for July 2021

Planning for July 2021

Comments 0 Comment

Well, I said I was going to spend the month of June focusing on writing new fiction. Apparently I wasn’t kidding. I produced about 22,500 words of new early-draft fiction in June, for an average of about 750 words per day all month. Pretty good work rate for me.

The new material included the first six chapters of Second Dawn, which is mostly likely going to be the first serialized novel in a series, all published on the Kindle Vella platform. Second Dawn is placed in my new Scorpius Reach space-opera setting, and I’m quite happy with how it’s turning out so far.

I also wrote “Derga’s Tale,” a roughly 10,000-word novelette set in the Iron Age setting of Krava’s Legend. “Derga’s Tale” is the story of how Krava’s parents met. It’s the first short piece in what’s eventually going to be a collection of 5-6 stories, all prequels to The Curse of Steel. Once I’ve written all of those stories, I plan to edit them into a book-length collection, which I’ll then use to practice the new publication and marketing methods I’ve been researching. In particular, the collection will serve as a “reader magnet” that I can use for promotion of the series.

Finally, I also released a minor-version update to the Scorpius Reach setting bible, and published one book review. Not a bad month in all, even if the month didn’t quite go as I’d planned it. Planning is essential, even if you don’t always stick to the plan.

Incidentally, June was also surprisingly successful on the social-media front. I appear to have lost a patron at the beginning of the month, but since then I’ve seen three or four new patrons come in. Welcome to all the newcomers! Surprising number of new Facebook contacts as well, given that I’m not taking any specific action to promote this site. I’m not going to question good fortune.

Now that I’ve gotten some fiction written, I think this month will be spent focusing on pushing Architect of Worlds a few steps forward. Here’s the priority list for July 2021.

  • Top Priority (“this is how I’ll judge whether the month has been successful”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Return to improvement and polishing of the Introduction and Design Sequence document, leading to a new minor-version release.
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section describing the structure of the galaxy and of interstellar space, and providing guidelines on how to make maps for interstellar settings.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write a few more chapters of The Sunlit Lands.
    • Scorpius Reach: Finish final editing of the first six chapters of Second Dawn, and post the novel to Kindle Vella so it’s available to readers when the platform goes live.
  • Second Priority (“work on this as time permits”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section of special cases and additional worldbuilding material that doesn’t fit into the design sequence.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Krava’s Legend: More research toward improvements to my release-and-marketing workflow.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller.
  • Back Burner (“work on this only if everything else gets blocked”):
    • Human Destiny: Write a new short story for eventual collection and publication.
    • Human Destiny: Write a few thousand more words of the Cortex Prime sourcebook and setting bible.

For my patrons, this month’s free releases will probably include a new minor-version release of the Architect of Worlds design sequence. This month’s charged release, if there is one, will probably be a block of new material for Architect of Worlds, and possibly another short story from Krava’s Legend or a few new chapters of The Sunlit Lands.

As always, I’ll want to complete one or two book reviews for self-published or indie fiction this month. I’m in the middle of a very good candidate right now, so two reviews this month seems possible.

Watch this space for status reports, and if any of the above interests you, please consider signing up as a patron using the link in the sidebar.

Review: The Crimson Throne, by Gordon Doherty

Review: The Crimson Throne, by Gordon Doherty

Comments 0 Comment

The Crimson Throne (Book Four of Empires of Bronze) by Gordon Doherty

Overall Rating: ***** (5 stars)

The Crimson Throne is the most recent volume of Empires of Bronze, Gordon Doherty’s ongoing historical fiction series set in the ancient Hittite Empire. In this volume, Mr. Doherty continues to weave a superb action-adventure story out of the scraps and tatters of documentary evidence from the period.

The Crimson Throne continues to follow Prince Hattu, a member of the Hittite royal house. After his victories over the Egyptians during the Kadesh campaign, Hattu returned to his homeland to find that his brother had died under mysterious circumstances, and his brother’s son had taken the throne. He soon learned that the new king, called here by his original name of Urhi-Teshub, was responsible for his own father’s death.

Prince Hattu despises his nephew for his treachery, but the young king has many allies, and he holds Hattu’s beloved wife and son as hostages. Hattu therefore tries to remain a loyal servant of the Hittite throne. At the beginning of The Crimson Throne, he has been sent as a diplomatic envoy to the court of King Priam of Troy. Later, he returns to the Hittite capital, only to be confronted with his nephew’s corruption and misrule. Soon enough, he begins to consider rebellion – but the path to the Hittite throne will not be an easy one for the war-weary prince.

Mr. Doherty continues to do a fine job of working with the original sources. Students of Hittite history will recognize many of the references here. Prince Hattu, his wife Puduhepa, Urhi-Teshub, a renegade named Piya-maradu, all of these are well-known in what few documents we have from the time. Troy is also becoming central to the plot of the series, and here the story draws from the familiar Greek myths. I can attest that pulling all of these disparate threads of history and myth together into a coherent narrative is a challenge, one that Mr. Doherty meets with aplomb.

In this volume, the plot continues to be tight and plausible – the minor stumbles in the plot of the first two volumes of the series are no longer visible here. There’s not a lot of moral ambiguity in this blood-and-guts story. I found myself rooting for Prince Hattu as he struggled his way through danger and hardship, and hissing at the malevolence of the villains. As I’ve come to expect from this series, the prose style is clean, with very few copy-editing errors.

Readers should be aware, of course, that the story is set in a brutal and violent time. Descriptions of human cruelty and violence are common and very explicit.

I very much enjoyed The Crimson Thone and am looking forward to the next books in the series – especially now that the Greek heroic age is being woven into the plot in some detail! Strongly recommended, as an action-packed story of treachery and rebellion set in ancient times.

Status Report (20 June 2021)

Status Report (20 June 2021)

Comments 0 Comment

A quick note for my patrons and other readers, at the two-thirds point for this month. Things are going reasonably well, and I’m making good progress on this month’s projects.

As I mentioned at the beginning of June, this was likely to be a month for writing fiction rather than working on non-fiction or world-building projects. At this point that certainly seems to have been the case.

Later today, I believe I’ll reach my objective for getting started on the first “Scorpius Reach” novel – six complete chapters, setting up the main story with some action, a bunch of character introductions, and some world-building.

Rather than spend the rest of June working on The Sunlit Lands, I think I’m going to write the first of several short stories set in the same Iron Age fantasy world. The idea is to write incidents pulled from the back story of my main characters. When I’ve got five or six of those, I’ll pull them together into a “reader magnet” collection that I can use to help promote the series. I’ll also make use of that collection to practice some of the improvements I’m making to my publication process. The idea is that it should be easier for me to share the collection, and future work, more widely.

The first story, I think, will be “Derga’s Tale” – the story of how Krava’s parents met and became lovers. Krava’s father-to-be, Derga, is an ordinary mortal man in love with Tivetha, the daughter of a god. What’s more, Tivetha has sworn a Red-Sonja-like oath, never to become involved with any man who can’t defeat her in a fair contest. Derga knows that several men have tried to meet her condition and failed, and he also knows that he has no chance to defeat her in any fair contest of strength or armed skill. So how does he proceed?

So by the end of June I should have about 16,000 words of new fiction. My patrons will get that as their charged release for June. I’ll also release a free minor-version update to the Scorpius Reach setting bible, and I may release a free minor-version update to the Architect of Worlds Introduction and Design Sequence document. That last item is looking kind of iffy right now – it may be next month before I have enough new work done to justify that release, but we’ll see.

Two Starships

Two Starships

Comments 1 comment

I’ve been playing with the current (Mongoose Publishing) edition of Traveller, specifically their version of the High Guard starship design rules. Here are a couple of ship designs that might possibly be relevant to another project I’m working on. Also, hopefully, of interest to Traveller fans . . .

Niarchos-class Far Trader (Modified)

These small merchant vessels are based on the TL12 Niarchos-class far trader, but have been specifically modified to support covert operations. They may (appear to) make a profit through normal free-trade operations, but are also likely to be covertly subsidized by an interstellar state.

  • Tech Level: 12
  • Hull: 200 tons, streamlined (80 Hull points, MCr12)
  • Armor: Crystaliron, 2 points (5 tons, MCr1.2)
  • M-Drive: Thrust 2 (4 tons, MCr8)
  • J-Drive: Jump 2 (15 tons, MCr22.5)
  • Power Plant: TL12 Fusion, Power 105 (7 tons, MCr7)
  • Fuel Tanks: Jump 2, 4 weeks operation (41 tons)
  • Bridge: Standard (10 tons, MCr1)
  • Computer: Computer/20 (MCr5)
  • Sensors: Improved (Power 4, 3 tons, MCr4.3)
  • Weapons: Double turret with pop-up mounting, Pulse Laser x2 (Power 9, 2 tons, MCr3.5)
  • Systems:
    • Fuel Scoop
    • Fuel Processor – 40 tons/day (Power 2, 2 tons, MCr0.1)
    • Cargo Crane (3 tons, MCr3)
    • Advanced Probe Drones – 5 TL12 drones (1 ton, MCr0.8)
    • Library (4 tons, MCr4)
  • Staterooms:
    • High Staterooms x1 (6 tons, MCr0.8)
    • Standard Staterooms x8 (32 tons, MCr4)
    • Low Berths x6 (Power 1, 3 tons, MCr0.3)
  • Software:
    • Electronic Warfare/1 (Bandwidth 10, MCr15)
    • Maneuver/0 (Bandwidth 0)
    • Jump Control/2 (Bandwidth 10, MCr0.2)
    • Library (Bandwidth 0)
  • Common Areas: 10 tons (MCr1)
  • Cargo: 52 tons
  • Standard Crew: Pilot, Astrogator, Engineer, Gunner, Medic, Steward. Usual crew roster combines Pilot and Astrogator, Engineer and Gunner, and Medic and Steward.
  • Cost: MCr93.7, monthly maintenance cost Cr7810.

Chen Zuyi-class Corsair

These ships were designed for long-term operation and small-scale commerce raiding in hostile space. Most of them have been sold to pirates, mercenaries, planetary governments seeking to maintain their independence, and other “troublemakers.”

  • Tech Level: 11
  • Hull: 400 tons, streamlined (160 Hull points, MCr24)
  • Armor: Crystaliron, 4 points (20 tons, MCr4.8)
  • M-Drive: Thrust 3 (12 tons, MCr24)
  • J-Drive: Jump 2 (25 tons, MCr37.5)
  • Power Plant: TL8 Fusion, Power 250 (25 tons, MCr12.5)
  • Fuel Tanks: Jump 2, 4 weeks operation (83 tons)
  • Bridge: Standard (20 tons, MCr2)
  • Computer: Computer/15 (MCr2)
  • Sensors: Military Grade (Power 2, 2 tons, MCr4.1)
  • Weapons:
    • Triple turret, Pulse Laser x3 (Power 13, 1 ton, MCr4)
    • Triple turret, Pulse Laser x3 (Power 13, 1 ton, MCr4)
    • Triple turret, Missile Rack x3 (Power 1, 1 ton, MCr3.25)
  • Systems:
    • Fuel Scoop
    • Fuel Processor – 80 tons/day (Power 4, 4 tons, MCr0.2)
    • Cargo Crane (3 tons, MCr3)
    • Breaching Tube (3 tons, MCr3)
    • Forced Linkage Apparatus (2 tons, MCr0.075)
    • Armory x2 (2 tons, MCr0.5)
    • Medical Bay (4 tons, MCr2)
    • Training Facilities x12 (Power 24, 24 tons, MCr4.8)
    • Workshop x2 (12 tons, MCr1.8)
  • Staterooms:
    • High Staterooms x1 (6 tons, MCr0.8)
    • Standard Staterooms x4 (16 tons, MCr2, set up for double occupancy)
    • Barracks x12 (24 tons, MCr1.2)
    • Brig x1 (4 tons, MCr0.25)
    • Low Berths x6 (Power 1, 3 tons, MCr0.3)
  • Software:
    • Fire Control/1 (Bandwidth 5, MCr2)
    • Maneuver/0 (Bandwidth 0)
    • Jump Control/2 (Bandwidth 10, MCr0.2)
    • Library (Bandwidth 0)
  • Common Areas: 13 tons (MCr1.3)
  • Cargo: 90 tons
  • Standard Crew: Pilot, Astrogator, 2 Engineers, 3 Gunners, Medic, 12 Marines.
  • Cost: MCr145.575, monthly maintenance cost Cr12200.
World-Building Exercise: St. Basil

World-Building Exercise: St. Basil

Comments 0 Comment

Here’s a bit of additional world-building for the Scorpius Reach setting, mostly done with the current draft of Architect of Worlds.

St. Basil is the fourth planet of the A component of a binary star system. Its primary star is named Emmelia. Emmelia is a typical Population I star, somewhat more massive, hotter, and brighter than Sol. It possesses a substantial family of planets.

Emmelia

  • Mass: 1.06 Sol
  • Age: 5.7 billion standard years
  • Metallicity: 1.0 standard
  • Luminosity: 1.63 Sol
  • Effective Temperature: 5940 K
  • Spectral Classification: G0V

Mazaka (Companion Star)

  • Mass: 0.55 Sol
  • Age: 5.7 billion standard years
  • Metallicity: 1.0 standard
  • Luminosity: 0.06 Sol
  • Effective Temperature: 3850 K
  • Spectral Classification: M0V
  • Orbital Radius: 96.8 AU
  • Eccentricity: 0.25 (Forbidden zone at 24.2 AU)
  • Orbital Period: 750.6 standard years

Planetary System Summary

Planets and other major bodies in the Emmelia star system are named after people associated with St. Basil the Great.

OrbitNameUPPNotes
0.20 AUMeletiusY7A0000-0Tide-locked world with a hot carbon-dioxide atmosphere. No moons.
0.36 AUEustathiusY8A0000-0Tide-locked world with a hot carbon-dioxide atmosphere. No moons.
0.62 AUSt. MacrinaY600000-0Hot airless world. No moons.
1.28 AUSt. BasilC645456-8Primary world in the system, with a thin but breathable oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere tainted by biotoxins, a moderate amount of liquid surface water, and a temperate climate. Colony world. No moons.
1.85 AUSt. GregoryLarge GGSpectacular ring system. One large moon, many moonlets.
3.83 AUSt. PetrosMedium GGModerate ring system. Two large moons, several moonlets.
7.17 AUSt. NaucratiusSmall GGModerate ring system. One large moon, several moonlets.
11.61 AUJulianosYAA0000-0Dense, bitterly cold hydrogen-helium atmosphere. No moons.

St. Basil

St. Basil is a marginally habitable world. It has a pleasant climate in limited regions of the surface, but the local ecology is somewhat incompatible with human biochemistry and airborne toxins are common.

Orbital and Rotational Parameters

  • Orbital Radius: 1.275 AU
  • Orbital Eccentricity: 0.08
  • Orbital Period: 12260 hours
  • Rotation Period: 21.50 hours
  • Local Day: 21 hours, 32.5 minutes
  • Local Year: 569.13 local days
  • Obliquity: 24° (unstable)
  • Satellites: None

Mass and Surface Gravity

  • Mass: 0.47 Earth
  • Density: 0.92 Earth (5.08 g/cc)
  • Radius: 5090 km
  • Surface Gravity: 0.74 standard

Geophysics

  • Geophysical Parameters: Mature plate lithosphere with mobile plate tectonics
  • Magnetic Field: Strong
  • Hydrographic Coverage: 50%

Atmosphere

  • Surface Atmospheric Pressure: 0.69 atm
  • Atmospheric Components (by Mass):
    • Nitrogen 75.5%
    • Oxygen 22.3%
    • Carbon Dioxide 0.4%
    • Argon 1.0%
    • Water Vapor 0.3%
  • Atmospheric Scale Height: 11.6 km
  • Atmospheric Classification: Thin, tainted (low oxygen content, seasonal airborne toxins in regions of plentiful native vegetation)

Climate

  • Blackbody Temperature: 279 K
  • Bolometric Albedo: 0.27
  • Total Greenhouse Effect: 31 K
  • Average Surface Temperature: 289 K

Native Life

  • Age of Advanced Biosphere: 1.71 billion standard years
  • Dominant Life Forms: Sophisticated animals, both aquatic and land-based, including several pre-sentient species
  • Biochemical Compatibility: Poor

Human Habitation

  • Human Population: 50,000
  • Founder Groups: Eosi (100%)
  • Government Type: Feudal Technocracy
  • Law Level: 6
  • Starport Class: C (Routine facilities, repair yard for small ships)
  • Base Facilities: Scout base
  • Local Tech Level: 18
  • Trade Classifications: Non-Industrial

Notes

St. Basil is notable for its proximity to the massive gas giant planet St. Gregory. St. Basil and St. Gregory are in a stable 7:4 orbital resonance. While the gas giant’s influence stabilizes St. Basil’s orbit, it also causes the smaller planet’s rotational axis to undergo wild excursions over million-year timescales.

St. Basil is currently recovering from a mass extinction which apparently took place about two million years ago. The largest native land animals are about the size and sophistication of a domestic cat. The history of life on the planet is full of such incidents – the variability of the planet’s rotational axis means that its climate is also extremely unstable over long periods.

Native life on St. Basil is biochemically incompatible with Earth-derived life – the two can usually obtain no nutritional value from one another, and the very attempt is likely to provoke serious allergic or toxic reactions. Even the native plant life is prone to give off airborne toxins that can lead to serious illness or even death in Earth-derived animal life. The St. Basil colony tends to expand its territory by burning the native ecology to the ground, plowing the resulting carbon under, and then introducing Earth- or Eos-derived life forms. Humans venturing away from the protected colony are advised to wear filter masks and carry supplemental oxygen.

St. Basil was originally colonized in 2403, by founder groups of Chinese and Japanese origin. The original name of the colony was Guang. The Guang colony failed slowly after the Silence, with all human inhabitants deceased by 2600. The planet was rediscovered in 2833 and recolonized from Eos in 2840. St. Basil is currently organized as a semi-autonomous province of the Kingdom of Eos, ruled by a consortium of technical and scientific experts, with support from the Kingdom’s interstellar navy and scout service.

The local economy is more or less self-sufficient at a TL8 level. It is centered around scientific study of the native biosphere, which promises to produce a variety of useful pharmaceuticals. Prospectors have also recently discovered prodromoi remnants on the planet.

Planning for June 2021

Planning for June 2021

Comments 1 comment

The last few months have been very productive, and I think this pattern of posting a status report and priority list at the beginning of each month is helping. Not to mention that it’s likely to be useful information for my patrons, and anyone else who’s following my work.

May was a good month overall. I released an update to my Scorpius Reach setting bible, adding a fair amount of material to the initial draft. This gathered some good attention from the Traveller communities on Facebook and Reddit. I also released a minor-version update to the Architect of Worlds Introduction and Design Sequence document. Finally, I wrote and released the first draft of a completely new section of Architect of Worlds: the Working with Astronomical Data document.

I did not get any new fiction written, and I think I need to refocus on that in the coming month. Earlier this year I had a potential project to write and sell several stories, and for a while I was holding time and energy aside for that. Unfortunately, that seems to have fallen through, so I’m turning back to writing in my own original universes again for a while.

One very useful milestone happened this month. I’ve been developing my Scorpius Reach setting, not just as a test-bed for the Game of Empire rules, but also possibly as the backdrop for some serialized fiction to bring to market. Although the stories themselves are going to be entirely original to me, and I don’t plan to market them as anything but original fiction, there was still a potential IP problem there. I’ve been using the Traveller game rules to help develop the setting, and the “bible” for it is framed in terms of a Traveller universe. So I decided to approach Marc Miller, the owner and primary publisher of Traveller, and discuss how best to avoid stepping on his intellectual property. Once I described what I was planning to do, he immediately and graciously granted me permission to proceed without any concerns. So that’s a big potential obstacle out of the way. I plan to start writing the first Scorpius Reach serialized novel in June.

So here’s the priority list for June 2021. I’m reworking the format a little, to organize by a hierarchy of urgency first, rather than by overall project:

  • Top Priority, or the “this is how I’ll judge whether the month has been successful” level:
    • Architect of Worlds: Return to improvement and polishing of the Introduction and Design Sequence document, leading to a new minor-version release.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write a few more chapters of The Sunlit Lands.
    • Scorpius Reach: Write the first few chapters of a serialized novel to be published via Kindle Vella.
  • Second Priority, or the “work on this as time permits” level:
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section describing the structure of the galaxy and of interstellar space, and providing guidelines on how to make maps for interstellar settings.
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section of special cases and additional worldbuilding material that doesn’t fit into the design sequence.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the first short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Krava’s Legend: More research toward improvements to my release-and-marketing workflow.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules.
  • Back Burner, or the “work on this only if everything else gets blocked” level:
    • Human Destiny: Write a new short story for eventual collection and publication.
    • Human Destiny: Write a few thousand more words of the Cortex Prime sourcebook and setting bible.

For my patrons, this month’s free releases will almost certainly include a new minor-version release of the Architect of Worlds design sequence. This month’s charged release, if there is one, will probably be a block of new fiction from the Krava’s Legend and Scorpius Reach settings. I do hope to produce some new Architect of Worlds material this month, but there probably won’t be enough of that to bundle up as a release for my patrons, so maybe look for that in July.

As always, I’ll want to complete one or two book reviews for self-published fiction this month.

Watch this space for status reports, and if any of the above interests you, please consider signing up as a patron using the link in the sidebar.

A small administrative note: I spent some time this morning cleaning up the post tags on this site, merging a few tags and making sure they had consistent format. In particular, I merged all the tags that made any reference to my high-fantasy novel series into the krava’s legend tag. I also merged the tags that referred to the various Bios-series games by Phil Eklund into the bios tag. Might make the site a little easier to navigate.

Review: The Craftsman and the Wizard, by Joel Newlon

Review: The Craftsman and the Wizard, by Joel Newlon

Comments 0 Comment

The Craftsman and the Wizard by Joel Newlon

Overall Rating: **** (4 stars)

The Craftsman and the Wizard is a flawed but entertaining story, a high-fantasy novel with the trappings of an old Norse tale, but which is firmly rooted in the present day.

The village of Two Rivers has a terrible problem. Ever since one of the farmers disturbed an ancient runestone in the middle of his fields, the village has been haunted by a draugr, the revenant of an old burial mound. The monster has been taking children from the farms all around, binding them beneath the earth and leaving their families to mourn.

Two unlikely heroes, and later a third, come on quest to help Two Rivers. The dwarven smith Dvalinn is called to answer an ancient debt, bringing all his skills as a warrior and craftsman. The apprentice wizard Asmund is called by a series of terrible dreams. Later, a woodcutter girl named Kolga joins Asmund, at first out of a yearning for adventure, later out of love.

Most of the story follows first Dvalinn, then Asmund and Kolga, as they make their way separately toward the stricken village. The two sets of heroes move independently – they know nothing about each other and don’t interact until the very end of the story.

The two plot threads have very different flavor and feel, almost as if the heroes are moving through two completely separate worlds. Dvalinn’s scenes are more entwined with Norse myth, involving epic battles against supernatural foes. Asmund and Kolga seem to be moving through a more generic fantasy world, facing down human bigotry and corruption. In fact, some of Asmund’s scenes turn into rather unsubtle political satire, of a kind that would only make sense in today’s world.

In fact, this dichotomy is what I had the most trouble with while reading The Craftsman and the Wizard. It was as if the novel didn’t know what it wanted to be. One moment I might be lost in a truly audacious scene built out of deep myth, the next I would find myself plodding through a scene about a cowardly warrior or a pathetic mad king. I kept getting pulled out of the story as a result.

Still, Joel Newlon has done a good job with this story. His prose is clean, with only a few copy-editing errors (and one consistently irritating misspelling). The story has plenty of emotional heft, especially when it focuses on the heroes and their motivations. I found myself caring about the characters and their struggles, turning the pages to see how the plot threads would resolve. The conclusion was entirely satisfying. Recommended.

Status Report (29 May 2021)

Status Report (29 May 2021)

Comments 0 Comment

A very quick note: I’ve just finished the next section of the Architect of Worlds draft, titled “Working with Astronomical Data.” This is about 13500 words on where to get authoritative scientific data about real-world stars and exoplanets, and how to marry that information with the Architect of Worlds design sequence, so you can build plausible planetary systems.

That section is available for my patrons only at this point. If you’re interested in that material, or in Architect of Worlds in general, please consider signing up for my Patreon at any level: https://www.patreon.com/Sharrukin.