Category Archives: Fantasy

“You might like this”

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So, today, I am to share my thoughts about one of the things that can be useful, but can also cause you to facepalm hard. recommendation systems. What made me wonder about this more the last days? YouTube.

I was watching metal covers of game and film soundtracks, so as good as it could be, it recommended things to watch next. Since I have some other related things in my watch history (like best-of scenes or videos showing making game/film weapon replicas) it went quite well on pointing me to what I might know. Heck, I found some really good stuff there. Since I was in the rare mood when I felt like actually giving a thumbs up, I was logged in for all of the time.

Fast forward three days. I watch one of those things again. And that’s when the hilarity kicks in. Many of those were in the recommendation with the usual text “you might like this” (in my language). You don’t say? (I was so tempted to insert the Nicolas Cage meme…) Of course I might like this, I played it 10 times in a row the other day…

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Book review: Soldier saved

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Fourth book in the Teralin sword series, and one that I went through really fast. I had it read some 30 hours within release, which says much I guess. Again, I’ll do my best to avoid even small spoilers.

Anyway, the fourth book follows the events of second book, starting a few months later when Endric returns to Vasha from his journey ‘to his roots’ in the third book. He would like to say he’s returning home, but he can’t be sure anyway. He was away for almost a year, and he returns to see that much has changed.

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Book review: Shattered fate

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This books picks up where Splintered fate ended. A few days after the battle that ended the first book, Lana wakes up but is given little time to rest. While one danger was dealt with, the greater one still remains and is getting more pressing.

Lana and Kaiden will be tested in many ways I don’t want to tell right away to avoid spoilers, but it’s not going to be easy. There’s much more interesting and (to me) quite shocking revelations as they delve into the backstory of her main enemy and the land itself. Well, I guess that’s pretty much all I can say now, because I feel anything more would risk spoilers.

Book cover

Shattered fate cover

Again, due to low amount of ratings on both Goodreads and Amazon, I am not listing them.

In conclusion, this and the first book were quite good reads by story, even if the language suffered in the first book. Still, for something pretty much unknown about, pleasant surprise. Also, it hints possibility of another book.

Book review: Splintered fate

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Finally I am doing another review, with quite some delay. This time it’s a shorter book. Splintered fate takes place in a world that is split between Rami and Madonians. The Rami are led by a king that hungers for war and even between the Madonians there are those who lust for fight and due to the enmity between those two races, the world is on brink of war.

The main character, Lana, is Madonian council member that probably just crossed into adulthood and with some personal tragedies behind her. Eventually, things go downhill and it comes to fight, where Lana meets Kaiden, Rami warrior that is her childhood friend. There are also creatures called ‘Aorra’, spiritual beings bound to Madonians, usually in form of an animal.

After series of events, Lana, Ardin (Lana’s wolf Aorra) and Kaiden are forced to run together, in hopes of saving themselves and hopefully Lana’s people as well as her faction of Madonians are those most willing for peace.

They eventually discover a hidden city where members of both races live together and in peace and try to earn their trust and support in ending the war, but eventually Lana is forced to leave the city to protect her own. Without spoilers, it gets down to a close fight with one of her enemies.

Book cover

Splintered fate cover

 

Due to low amount of ratings on both Goodread and Amazon, I am not posting them here

I must mention that I have a thing for connection to a creature, in many forms, which is one of the reasons I really liked Eragon and James Cameron’s Avatar. The bond between a Madonian and an Aorra is something that got my attention easily.
On the other side, it’s visible that it’s self-published book of someone who does not have English as native language and someone more sensitive to this, it could be troublesome.

Book review: Averot’h saga #1 and #2

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This is review of two books: ‘The City of Wizards’ and ‘The War of Spells’. Since these two books are very short, I decided to merge them into single review. As I asked the author, it is meant to be a trilogy (hinted by the end of second book) but the third book is not out yet – I believe it might be coming the next year. This two short books were also quite strange in one thing: despite having the same first language as the author, I was reading them in English, because e-books are always easier to get in English. The books are very nice quick reads (around 150 pages each) but keep the pace very well.

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Book review: Soldier Sword

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Second book from the series (first book reviewed in my previous post) and just as good. The immersion from first book was regained quickly despite the slower start. Endric tries to learn as much as he can about the things that caused even of the first book but it seems that no one wants him to know much.

The traitor from first book is hiding somewhere with almost no way to lure him out, information about anything that could help him understand is hard to get and if there is one good thing it’s that Endric is getting better in his combat skills. His part in events of the first book earned him a promotion but many think that it’s just because he’s son of the general and respect is something he can’t seem to gain or understand how to get it.

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Book review: Soldier Son

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Another book I discovered by browsing lists and recommendations and another That was very good pick. I was reading it before I started this blog but after I finish the second book (at 40% as of writing this) I’ll review the second one and it would feel strange not having the first one posted as well.

First thing to mention is that the description does really good job of not only getting attention but at describing the plot. I might just copy-paste it and be done with this adding a very short comment of my own but I won’t do that.

Shortly said, it had me immersed quite fast. Endric is a problematic young man in situation no one would be in: his father is general, his brother is also much better than him and eventually Endric can get his few friends into troubles as well and wonders why they even stick to him.

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Fantasy thoughts: currency of the realm

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While details in this matter are not always needed in books, no hero would probably complete his journey without single coin in his/her pockets unless he would have a great deal of luck, contacts everywhere or just a bunch of questionable techniques to achieve anything.

While my thoughts in this regard were greatly inspired by games, I’ll start this chain of thoughts somewhere else: Harry Potter series, which had a few scenes featuring money: Harry’s first visit to Gringotts’ bank and seeing the stashes of gold, silver and bronze. Draco “buying” his place in quidditch team by his father gifting them Nimbus 2001 brooms. Or the moment where wizards arriving to watch quidditch world cup confuse the local landowners as they want to pay the rent for their tents with their wizarding gold coins instead of GBP or the 1000 galleon reward for winning triwizard tournament. That’s just a few.

Then there are classic mentions like endless gold pouches or just the fact that someone might get upset by losing some money while playing cards and cause a bar brawl. Pirates that tend to be out of gold just as soon as they find a place where they can get some rum.

The original plan was to use nine Pieces of Eight to bind Calypso, but when the first court met the Brethren were, to a one, skint broke. – Joshamee Gibbs, Pirates of the Caribbean: At world’s end

If things happen fast, currencies will probably not be something of an issue but in longer story arc, it could very well happen that a character (especially if he/she is driven out for any reason) will be facing the slowly drained purse in addition to any other hardship. Example could be Inheritance series where Roran is forced to pirate a ship because he (and the Carvahall refugees following him) could not pay the full journey; or the bounty on his head.

Now, full circle back to what I mentioned at first: gaming. Here and there, nostalgic people who enjoyed the hard days of World of Warcraft 1.x (not me, I started in 3.3.5) remember how even 50 gold meant something compared to days now when Blizzard implemented a huge spider mount that costs exactly 2 million gold to give the richest (in game sense) players some way to empty their pockets. The fractions below gold don’t matter any more. Same could be said about Diablo III where the lack of unit below gold causes massive inflation and after some time spent playing the game, any number lower than a million means almost nothing.

In regards to my own writing: a gladiator tournament happens in my story. By the very early phase (pre-first draft thoughts) I was working with placeholder prize money of 50000 gold (damn me for lack of specific currency name). Even in the first draft there was no mention of specific amount, only that the reward is a small fortune, especially for the main character who is on the verge of adulthood.

In that stage of pre-writing thoughts, the weapon he obtains some 10-15 years later was guesstimated to cost around 75000 because of the ingredients needed to forge the very special alloy. Another irony: while these ideas are some 10 years old, it was only a few months ago I had any specific ideas for what the ingredients will be and some weeks ago I finalized the list and still need to decide sources of some.