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The Final Empire (Mistborn, Book 1)

Sandersen not only saves the WoT series, but writes amazing action fantasy to boot. Four very satisfied stars.

A Darkness Forged in Fire: Book One of the Iron Elves

Poor character development and ungainly pacing mar this otherwise exciting story. The refreshing change of setting for a fantasy novel is not a gimmick, it really adds a lot. Two stars.

Ugh, third time I tried the NaNoWriMo, and third time I failed. I’m still writing more than I’ve been in the last few years. I’m putting together the last two scenes in a short story I started back in August. I’m pretty excited about this one. I’ll no doubt post it here when I’m done.

In 2005 and again in 2008 I attempted to complete the NaNoWriMo challenge, and came up short both years. 2005 I was deployed, so getting the right time to devote to writing was almost impossible. And in 2008 I just ran out of steam, in the first week, and didn’t come even a little but close to completing.

But it’s a new year. I’ve done significantly more writing this year than I did last, and I feel more solid about my skills.

However, I have no story. The story I attempted in 2005 was so under developed, that I just started from scratch and tried it again in 2008. While I didn’t get far in 2008 with it, I did get far enough that I couldn’t really justify picking up where I left off, that would be cheating. So I need to come up with something else I guess.

I’m considering online plot generators or even just character generators and go from there. Oddly enough, for the moment, I don’t have any spare characters just sitting around collecting dust, waiting for a story. But there are a few things I’d like to avoid this year. Vampires, out. Zombies, definitely fucking out. Fey folk, probably out. Elves, dwarves, halflings, out. What’s left? I’ve nothing against fantasy, and while I wasn’t completely wowed by China Miéville’s, “Perdido Street Station,” I did like that it wasn’t bound to many of the standards (maybe clichés?) of fantasy fiction. Or at least the ones I’ve restricted myself to in the past.

So, I got to get to it. Only like 10 days to go to get brain storming, and character creating, and world building, and all that fun shit before I get to the frustration that is actually writing.

I haven’t really read a whole lot of modern urban fantasy. “Valiant” and “Tithe” by Holly Black were both great books, and I certainly loved “The Good Fairies of New York” by Martin Millar. In fact “Fairies” was so good I even picked up Millar’s “Lonely Werewolf Girl” though I don’t really read much in the way of werewolf fiction. I’m going to stop right there, if I say much more about Millar, you might think I’m in love with him. I’m not. Just his voice.

Anyways, this was just a little bit of flash fiction I started this morning, and finished this evening. It might be a prologue to another story I’m kind of percolating right now, but that will have to wait a while, if it ever appears at all. This is really my first attempt at a modern, urban fairytale.
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