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Reflecting Fires
In times past great powers ruled the world, but left the for the 'Stardome', taking everyone's dreams with them. The 'Bright Mechanics' (magic) are in favour and the ruling elite do their best to suppress the 'Dark Mechanics' (science). As time passes the Bright Mechanics powers slowly wane as the Dark Mechanics flower. Fusils (fire arms), and other Dark Mechanics are just too useful. Cardinal Skye, the last of the truly powerful Adepts is not at all happy with this, and plots to use an ancient prophesy to turn the tide back in favour of the Bright Mechanics. But Skye isn't the only one plotting, and events take turns that no one expects.
Mr. Claburn has created an interesting and complete alternate world somewhat reminiscent of feudal Europe. There are Nobles with armies who scheme and plot, the Adepts who wield great personal power, and the followers of Helion. The Adepts, masters of the Bright Mechanics, play an active role in politics and war - sometime with and sometimes against the Nobles' causes. The great Adepts are feared and powerful figures who can influence great events with a few words. The church of Helion uses its influence in much more subtle ways, promoting peace and thoughtful meditation. The nobles and Adepts both seek the favour of Helion to lend their activities the glow of righteousness. Of course there is a huge underclass that does all the toiling, and a less numerous middles class of merchants and artisans. It is the middles class that is promoting the rise of the Dark Mechanics and their useful arts. And there is one more, mysterious, group called the Eclectics. The Eclectics are feared and reviled by the ruling powers as obscene monsters - half human, half machine. The Eclectics plans are unknown, but they wield fearsome mastery of the Dark Mechanics.
The book is well plotted. The story moves forward quickly with interesting and surprising twists as it goes. There are a number of political factions who react convincingly to the events of the story. Action, personal daring, quiet bravery, and backroom politics all help propel the story forward. The story covers about 30 years, and follows a few main characters over this period in detail. This is a cusp point for this society. The powers of the Adepts and their Bright Mechanics are waning, but the Adepts are doing their best to hide this fact. The once completely banned Dark Mechanics are becoming more and more tolerable as the devices created become more useful. Even the most old-fashioned Noble can see the use of firearms.
The Nobles are starting to embrace the Dark Mechanics to get an advantage over the Adepts, but events are accelerated when a young boy fulfils an ancient prophecy. Now, each faction is trying take advantage of the prophecy while the Eclectics slowly move forward their more patient plots. Events seem to sweeping everyone aside, but is someone still bending things to conform to a grand scheme?
Events leap forward at the beginning of the book, and this leads to one of the minor flaws in the story. Sometimes things leap forward too fast and leave you wishing you were able to read more details. At one point a character goes from young girl, to wife of a powerful political figure with no intervening events. It left me wondering how this man courted and won this strong willed girl. Did he just order her to marry? Did he seduce her with power, or was it true love (at first)? We are left wondering. This problem only happens two or three times in the beginning chapters. The last two thirds of the book move along at a more satisfying pace, and explore the characters and their lives in a fair amount of depth.
The language, to better suit the period, is sometimes flowery in its description, and formal in speech. I enjoyed the writer's style and use of language. The main characters are generally well rounded and stay in character. They sometime do surprising things, but you are never left thinking that 'they would never do that'. I did sometimes wish the novel was a bit longer and took more time exploring the characters lives.
The theme of the book can be read many ways, but to me it explored the lengths that the people currently in power will go to, to remain in power. Those in power want to stay in power, and aren't shy about exerting their influence to stay on top. Huge amounts of effort are expended to protect the status quo even when there are strong signs that a new order might be more profitable for both those in power and their subjects.
The decisions that the prejudices that people have ingrained into them by a lifetime of both overt and subtle teachings are also explored. Sometimes this can lead to self enlightenment, but too often it leads to squalid hate. Don't let this make you think the novel is preachy. It isn't. These things are drawn out in the natural course of the story, and simply add an interesting subtext to the action.
All in all, this novel proves that high quality novels are available outside of the normal distribution channels.
You can purchase Reflecting Fires from Xlibris or Amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Click on the actual link to "Reflecting Fires" at the bottom, and it takes you to http://www1.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp? bookid=12036
aka where you can buy the book. Might not be very clear, but it is there.
I see a link to Xlibris. Click on Reflecting Fires.
PS Its $3 cheaper on Xlibris, and they offer an eBook version which Amazon does not.
see here
If you're at all considering self-publishing your own book, No Media Kings is a must-read. Jim Munroe describes how to take on the publishing giants, drawing from his experience in self-publishing two comedy/sci-fi novels and a number of zines.
Even if you're not game for that, Munroe has an old-school text adventure game called PunkPoints and some video shorts in his "I like to make tiny movies" section, it's worth a look.
Also, some bricks-and-mortar bookstores won't bother to carry your book unless it's on Amazon, so it's good to know that Amazon.com allows you to sell online by consignment through their Advantage program.
But getting accepted by an agent is often just as hard as being published, as the agents don't want to waste their time with works they think will be rejected by publishers.
When it comes to it having to be bad quality not to be published, consider that many highly regarded works were rejected time and time again before a publisher took them on. It's not unusual for books to be rejected by 15-20 publishers before you find someone to publish your work. Most of them will take their time before they respond, if they ever do.
Quite a few people might give up well before that, even if what they've written might well have been a tremendous success if it had been published and marketed properly.
Publishers aren't omniscient. Beatrix Potter self published her childrens books because no publisher would take them on, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights was rejected multiple times, Dune was rejected 13 times, M*A*S*H was rejected 21 times, just to take some examples.
And not everyone are in it for the money.
Of course you'll find lots of crap among self-published works, but you'll also find lots of works that are great but just too narrow to find a wide enough audience for a publisber to be interested, and you'll find the occasional work from someone who have given up on the publishers despite having an incredible work...
A book doesn't have to be bad to be rejected, there are plenty of poorly written novels published every year. You just have to appear poorly marketable.
Publishers aren't looking for "good" they're looking for "marketable". They're often the same, but not always.
With regard to the price, I agree it's too high. That's the one of the main problems with Xlibris: The otherwise fair contract, which grants the author all rights, lets Xlibris set prices without consulting the author. The reason for that is that Xlibris is set up to make money off of authors rather than readers. A friend of mine recently published his own novel as well and I suggested that he avoid print-on-demand. By using a traditional printer and a short run of 1000 or so books, he can price his books around $14 and still make a decent profit. I get about $2 per book sold at Amazon...Amazon and Xlibris get the rest.
With regard to the post, "Self publishing could be a sign of bad quality" that's true, unfortunately. I like to think Reflecting Fires is among the exceptions because I make a living as a writer and editor. Still, that's not really my call to make. But also note that the primary consideration of publishers is not quality but commercial potential. The state of the publising industry is beyond the scope of this post, but for those interested, check out Holt Uncensored. Here's a quote from one of her newsletters...
Thanks for listening.
Thomas Claburn
-- Some things are to be believed, though not susceptible to rational proof.
- adam
A few years ago, I published a novel with Xlibris. I don't know that I would do it again, but it hasn't been a bad experience. At the time, the entry level publishing cost nothing. Only if you wanted to choose your own cover, or have your book available in hardback did you have to pay. I don't think that's the case anymore. I wouldn't have done it if it cost anything at all. Something about paying for publication strikes me as... Well, it's like paying for cable. Why bother when a splitter off your neighbor's line works fine?
For any prospective writers out there, Xlibris isn't a bad choice, but it's not a good one either. At one point they unilaterally decided to make author payments into a convenient e-cash thing instead of actual cash. ("You can use your whatever.com card at hundreds of participating locations!") Thanks. They reversed this and I've always received payment by check.
Over the years, I have done absolutely no promotion of my novel, and sales have been very poor. It may be because it's just not worth buying, but you can read the whole thing online. (See my sig).
If anyone wants more information about the Xlibris process, send me an email.
A lot of bricks and mortar bookstores won't carry your book unless it is available through Ingram, the big distributor. Ingram had (or used to have) a program similar to Amazon Advantage, where they would warehouse a few copies as long as you are willing to take returns (just like for Amazon Advantage). The big issue with bookstores carrying print-on-demand books is that most print-on-demand publishers don't take returns (Amazon, to its credit, will take returns on a print-on-demand book, although I'm not sure what they do with them except hang on to them and hope someone else buys them).
Incidentally there is at least one print-on-demand place that will allow returns in some case: Superior Books. After all print-on-demand and "no standards" don't need to be synonymous.
- adam