Re: Which book sounds most compelling?

Michelle Bottorff wrote:
[...]
BOOK ONE: Prince Asond values nothing that comes to him solely by
merit of being his father's son, not even himself. He is willing to
risk his life to save a ragged band of wanderers from unjust
accusations, enemy swords, and the winter wrath of a harsh northern
climate, but rescuing innocents is not enough to satisfy him. As long
as he doubts his own motivations, he will never consider his actions
truly heroic.

The name doesn't sound real to me, and I don't like the psycho-babble in the last sentence. Then again, it's not for a back-cover blurb, so it might be okay.

BOOK TWO: Lord Kide is charming, intelligent, suave, and very, very
poor. The emperor's daughter is kind, beautiful, rich, and magically
obsessed with the Art of Dance. Rescuing the princess from this most
exhausting curse will take every resource Kide has: an eye for art and
fashion, a razor sharp tongue, a bevy of young school girls, and a
were-monkey..

That name works. It's obviously made up, and I don't know how to pronounce it (I can think of several ways), but it sounds real anyway.

I also like this writeup a lot. You could probably improve it here and there by obsessing a lot over very small details, but it works at it is, and if you've already spent a lot of time obsessing over it then don't do more of that. It sounds like a fun novel, and a bit light-hearted but (hopefully) not in a too-girly way.

BOOK THREE: The problem with investigating the theft of a top-secret
alien artifact, is that nobody will tell you what its does -- or even
what it looks like. The problem with taking a case in a technological
preserve is that the criminals you are trying to catch have guns and
computers, and you have a measuring tape and a sword. And the problem
with saying 'so its a tough job, we can handle it!' is that you are
already up to your neck in trouble when the space pirates show up.

Slightly positive. Sounds fun, but the second one sounds a bit more fun. I think this novel would end up appealing a bit more to me, though: Less girly. I like the tech stuff and the talk about guns. Somebody might get killed (people can use guns to kill people, you know). That's actual real drama, as opposed to some fictional stuff called "emotions" that we (largely) agree happens inside other people's heads even though we can't verify that they are factually occuring phenoema.

Somebody maybe killing someboyd else, or somebody maybe sticking a body part into somebody else's body (i.e. sex). That's *real* drama. That's *stuff* *happening*. Not just emotional fictions. Nor people talking (which is also unreal, although it can sometimes be entertainig, e.g. if it is witty)

And yes, I'm exaggarating. Slightly.

BOOK FOUR: A member of the Imperial Court of Borgim couldn't possibly
be anything less than perfect, so the empire's newest lord couldn't
possibly be an oversized ex-sailor with a salty tongue, a down-to-earth
attitude, and a forceful disposition. Nor could his dislike of courtly
affairs have made him the target of malicious gossip, gotten him engaged
to the wrong girl, or forced him to sing before the entire court. Most
particularly, he could not have brought forbidden magic into the court
or endangered the life of the emperor, because that isn't just less than
perfect -- it's high treason.

Messy and a bit unappealing. Third lowest score, although the story behind the blurb-thing might be good enough. You just need to re-do the blurb from scratch.


I liked #2 and #3. To be brutally honest, my choice between #2 and #3 would boil down to peripheral things like whether the author's name is obviously female or not (if #2 is by a "Michelle something", there's a higher risk it's a too girly story), and about the cover illustrations. And what the back cover blurbs say. And if there's a quote-of-praise (what is the technical term for those) on the cover from someone whose opinion I value, either one of my favourite authors or else from a subset of the people in here.

If I could afford it I might very well buy both novels, though.

--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
.

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