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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.
Mix of Fantasy, satire, sci-fi, etc. Terry Pratchett's Night Watch is due out, November 4th. The US edition has the customary hideous cover art, where the UK version (which I've already ordered) has the decent cover art.
We "know" what's good in music and books, because it's stuff we hear on the radio or see on the shelves in stores, stuff by our favorite artists and authors.
But how do you tell with an unknown or an indie, where the industry hasn't shoved it into your face, or where it's too diffuse for word of mouth?
I enjoy the format of CDBaby, with sorting by genre, reviews, "If you like this, you might also like..." and most of all, samples. (Sabbatum - Black Sabbath visits the 14th century, in Latin) I wish there were more of this, especially site-neutral reviews.
Seeing something like this on the publishing front is welcome.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I don't want to sound like a troll, but $18 for a paperback?! $8 for an ebook?! I realize there are significant costs involved in the publishing process, so self-publishing undoubtedly costs more, but good lord!
The whole point of an ebook is to eliminate the major portion of the cost of publishing. And yet, the price is still $8.
Remember when cheap pulp paperbacks were actually cheap?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
There might be some sort of barbarism scenario like that in the future, seeing how wealth continues to polarize and concentrate in the top 1% of the US population while the third world poor breed out of control, thanks to the Pope.
If there was a cheap way to print out books other than sneaking into your local community college, since even laptops glare very badly in the sun, these might be worth reading. You will get pretty bad eyestrain reading an entire novel on the computer, though it's not bad for single-sitting things like Edgar Allen Poe.
The charge of a book should be more for the materials cost, since data -- especially text -- can be copied for absolute pennies, and could have been even back in the days of floppy disk sneakernet. Paperback is still the way to go for buying books until very cheap book reproduction can be done, or until we run out of trees.
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Are you a Mallcore Kid? If so, kill yourself.
That's crap. Good editors -- and there are plenty of them out there -- are a writer's best friend, where the quality of the work is concerned. (They may not be where the money's concerned, but that's why you have an agent. Which you don't need until you already have an unsigned contract in your hand, by the way.)
The toughest thing facing an aspiring author today is getting the damn book written. (All of you would-be writers in this forum wondering if Xlibris would be the way to go if, as, and when you get around to writing that book are putting the cart before the horse.)
The second toughest thing is writing a good book. Interestingly, probably 95% of the aspiring writers and up-and-coming writers I've met fall into one of two categories: Either they write really well but don't get much done, or they already have two manuscript the size of phone books that they're trying to get published, and they're crap. (The other 5% are Tim Pratt, who doesn't seem to have either problem.)
Writers of the first sort have trouble because their drive for quality makes them spend more time on their stuff, more time revising, and even yet still more time throwing it out and starting over. ("Writer's block isn't not being able to write. It's thinking that everything you write is shit." -- Maureen McHugh)
Writers of the second sort have trouble because they don't understand why they can't sell their stuff, and so they blame the editors, the publishers, the slush pile readers and the reading public, instead of putting the blame where it belongs: on themselves, for not working to improve their writing.
(P.S. Yes, IAAPW. Barely. But ask one who's been around a while. You'll get the same answer.)
-- Some things are to be believed, though not susceptible to rational proof.