![]() They will stick with you through thick and thin, if you’ve made them feel something real. EXPANDING THE SCOPE MEANS RAISING THE STAKES All of a sudden I had a thousand extra crates of nails and nuts and bolts available to me and oh god what do I do with this shit. On the one hand this was SUPER COOL, but on the other hand I’d gotten used to working on a comparatively tiny word budget. The plot structure of the book is also bigger, it covers more ground, and the build is slower. Basically, my sequel meant that I had to spend more words on getting to know the core cast better. More Hark, more Vant with his brilliance, Vlana’s devotion to her chosen family, Bjorn’s wisdom, Clutch’s wit and raw badass talent. You get a lot more of Aimee and Elias as they work and fight together to seek truth and bring justice to the Eternal Sky, but you can also expect to get to know the rest of the cast better, too. It’s like a triangle: the narrower the base, the less space there is to work in as you hurtle towards the apex.ĭRAGON ROAD is a broader story. ![]() Ideally no book wastes words at all, but different story structures have different word-allowances. The benefit of a story like this is that it forces brevity and focus. Then the rest of the book is the explosive consequences of what they do when what they were looking for turns out not to be what they expected. It’s a combination quest/war story that follows two PoV’s chasing one goal as their stories weave closer and closer together until they both collide. THE SECOND ACTS MEANS EXPANDING THE SCOPE Picking up your legs and doing it all over again is exhausting. ![]() Oh wait, no, that’s a foothill and there’s a much bigger mountain. Finishing it is an epic act of catharsis that feels like cresting the final ridge of the highest mountain. The first time you write a book it’s this herculean effort of pole-vaulting, bare-knuckle bear-boxing, and naked oil wrestling with giant naked mole rats. This is the thing about writing a series. (It is in no way fine my face is melting please help) So what if the world is vibrating? It’s smooth sailing. God, that third pot of the coffee you’ve been mainlining looks appealing. It’s racking up great responses, and you have your own pile of encouragement words that you can turn to the second you start to feel yourself flag on the next book you’re contracted for, right? This should totally be a breeze, because it’s the same characters and the same setting and you know them and what you’re doing and this is all fine, right? It has a slew of 5 star reviews on the Amazons and the Barnes and the Nobles. So you’ve finished your debut, and it’s launched. Meanwhile, their new recruit, Elias, struggles to adapt to his unexpected gift of life while suffering dark dreams of an ancient terror.Īs the skies darken and storm-clouds gather on the Dragon Road, the crew of the Elysium come face to face with deadly intrigues, plots from beyond death, and a terrible darkness that lurks in the heart of a thousand-year storm. I will buy it if it does.When portal-mage Harkon Bright and his apprentice are asked to help select a new captain for the immense skyship Iseult, they quickly find themselves embroiled in its Machiavellian officer’s court. I hope that Dragon Road comes out in audio. If those few lines per chapter were corrected, I'd have had a much smoother listening experience. I think she needs a better editor/sound booth person. I found myself repeating sentences to get the emphasis in the right place. She has a nice voice with good emotional range and different accents, but she mispronounces certain words, and her inflections are wrong a lot. The Eternal Order are very evil people, and Brassey does a good job showing enough to drive the point home without wallowing in the atrocities. They both happen "off screen," but the horror is evident and evocative. ![]() **trigger warning** There are 2 instances of child rape. The exposition is delightfully painless and relevant, which is so often not the case in sci-fi. The writing is good, the characters are interesting, and the story moves quickly. It's good! You can definitely see pieces of various sci-fi fandoms in the bones, but it quickly becomes its own thing. But I love Authors and Dragons, and Joe sounds like an awesome guy, so when this book went on sale, I bought it. I'm someone who can take or leave that particular saga, so I wasn't enthused by the description. The blurb makes this book sounds like Star Wars with different names.
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