Dragons, Tigers, and Elves, Oh My!

Dragons can be annoying.

So if you don't like those preternaturals,

How about vampires, trolls, shifters, and half-breeds galore?

 

Lessons from My Reading

This year I've been working my way through Lindsay Buroker's laugh-out-loud dragon
series, featuring Val, a middle-aged, half-elf loose cannon assassin and Zav, a powerful, pompous dragon lord who wears interesting shoes, like yellow crocs.

Oh, the fantasy elements are there in abundance, as is action, magic, and shifting around multi-dimensional worlds. Humans, goblins, dragons, fairies, elves, vampires, shifters, trolls, half-breeds of all kinds, both friend and foe, abound. The wondrous part is that Buroker manages to make even the clichés her own. [Example: Buroker uses caramel chocolates to distract a pissy fae queen.]

Mostly, I enjoy the wicked first person point of view Buroker uses to make the most of a wise-cracking middle-aged protagonist. Her take on our modern world--Seattle in particular--often makes me pause even when I'm not laughing.

Buroker is also strong on drawing secondary characters. I enjoyed the fact that her human characters are almost as diverse as the preternaturals. All are well drawn and distinct. Her boss, Colonel Willard, is even more snappy than Val plus the more intimidating woman. [Val has an insecure streak as wide as a fun house mirror.]  Basically, Buroker makes Val's band of friends a crucial part of the stories.

Oh, I forgot the tiger companion. He's the i-beam that makes the series with his dry, snarky advice to Val.

Bottom line on the nine books in this series: They're action-oriented urban fantasy. By definition that means that the books are basically light and move fast without much introspection from the characters. Yet they have endless charm...and laughs. More important, well-done humor is rare and a great treat.

All I can do is look on with envy. I'll never write as funny...or as fast. There's still one more book for me to read in this series which I think is complete. Buroker does have other series...though I haven't read them.

You can find the Death by Dragons books on Amazon, and Barnes & Noble 

You can find her other many novels on iBooks and kobo.

 

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My Writing Rut

My book The Pig Wars, a Half-Elven novel set after the Rebellion created a safe-haven for them in the Far Isles, is coming along nicely, complete with a romantic ending. [I
don't know where that came from, but it's there.] Renna isn't quite as snarly as she is in Vengeance, set 400 years later.-- I'd think I'd be cantankerous, too, if my hair was white and I needed a walking stick when my childhood friend still looked like a sexy young woman.

My editor is going through the third content edits...slightly delayed by the death of her dog. After I transfer her suggestions/comments, come the copy edits and formatting. I really think the book will be published in Fall, 2021...in spite of how slow I am.

Perhaps, my eye troubles haven't be able to keep a good book down. At least, my editor thinks it's good. Said I should try a traditional publisher. My ego would like me to try. But I'm a realist. At my age, I'd probably be dead before the agent/publisher-finding-process ran its course. Yeah, it'd probably take five years and umpteen "not for us" rejections before I even found an agent...if I found an agent.

Heads up. This is my first blog in awhile, and I don't seem to be working it too well. I can't find the links or buttons I want.

 

Cute is as Cutesy Does: Describing a Villain

Guessing who the villain is is the fun part of reading mysteries...in all genres. Dare I say, I like a mystery with my romance or fantasy or any other type of fiction. And, villains are the key ingredient in a mystery. Good villain almost always equals good story.

We all know a villain signals. Basically, they are unattractive with small eyes and large noses or other unsavory characteristics. Just came across a couple of them, aka hulking bullies, last night in the trilogy I'm rereading.

But what if a writer wants to conceal the identity of their perp? I'd guess they go for cute.

Maybe "cute" is stretching it a bit. Maybe attractive is a better word? After all, Ted Bundy, a infamous serial killer, had large eyes and a small nose and smiled a lot. I suspect many of his victims didn't grow suspicious of him...until the end.

Science has proven that our brains are wired to like cute. Some scientists say cute led to us becoming human by learn to cooperate. But writers use attractive traits to fool their readers. No, serial killers don't need to look like Hello Kitty, the ultimate cute fad product. But they aren't necessarily on the rat end of the feature spectrum either. Even Mickey Mouse has evolved over the years to look more and more like a baby.

It's the writer's job to keep their readers in suspense, but readers have their own tools to solve the "mysteries". The exceptions often prove the rule.

My Daily Rut

My rut has changed. I no longer live in my house but an apartment. The move is mostly done, and it's basically comfortable...given all the things I don't have to think about anymore, especially climbing stairs.

Now I'm writing again...sort of. Editing is the better word. While moving, I discovered the content edits for a Half-Elven sequel. I pulled an old manuscript of Troublesome Neighbors out of my computer to combine the two novellas into a novel. At the moment, I'm slowly rewriting it, like adding mostly back story, a couple new chapter from the villain's point of view, and more sharply defined motivations. I've got about 50,000 words in the file now, from about 44,000.

My Reading Pile

I've been mostly rereading...though I've been visiting a couple bookstores in town. Am almost finished reading the Carson Springs trilogy of Eileen Gouge The books are set in Neverland, but the characterizations are deep and three dimensional. All except one major relationship among the main people are heart-warming. I reread the series every couple of years just to remind myself that there's possible warmth still left in the world. Of course, the books were written in the early 2000's.

The books are worth digging up, though.Gouge's description of the southern California landscape, before the forest fires, is lush, and for me, nostalgic...like before the orange grooves were replaced by urbanization.