About a month into the new year of school, and man am I tired. I know you don't come here to listen to me bitch, but I just needed to say it. School is exhausting this year, and things like the Network really help with constantly having something to look forward to on small timeframes.
Speaking of things to look forward to, we have some kinda big news this week! Cubicle 7 games, the makers of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, have given us the Soulbound Starter Set and we're going to live stream playing and learning the game October 17th at noon, Eastern Standard Time. I'm pumped. I've dabbled in Age of Sigmar, but I'm always down to try a new RPG. What I've seen so far, Cubicle 7 has done a great job melding rules similar to WFRP with AoS into something wholly new (or was it entirely?). I'll be running the stream along with Dani, Tim, JB, and Big Chuck as the players. They'll be choosing from the roles of Isharann Tidecaster, Kurnoth Hunter (11-foot-tall tree person), Excelsior Warpriest, Stormcast Eternal Knight-Questor, and a Kharadron Skyrigger. Don't know what those are? Then learn along with us at twitch.tv/professionalcasualnetwork on the 17th!
Also on Twitch is our Marvel: Crisis Protocol stream Mondays at 7pm. This coming Monday I'll be facing off against Tim with Asgardians and Ghost Rider along for the ride (get it?).
In my nerd life, it's pretty much been all Network. I have begun dabbling in watercolor painting, you can see them on any of my social media, including my Instagram, @Icedan3. I'm making the artwork for my RPG, which I still need a name for. For now I've been calling it Andora RPG, because that's the name of the world. Hopefully I'll get some good name ideas when we playtest the game on the Network.
The book review this week is City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, following the regular blog entry. The fact that it took me over a month to get through should tell you a lot...
As for my own fiction, I've been querying the hell out of Hundred Dollar Heroes, and submitted to Pitch Wars, to try to get some Mentor help. I love the story and think it's at a really good place, but nothing is perfect and any help is appreciated. If any readers here would like to volunteer to beta read it, let me know and you can enjoy a fun superhero novel! The latest few 100 Words/100 Days will be posted here as well, before the book review. I think that's how I usually do it.
Stay Classy!
-Dan
Ok, there is only one new entry since last post. Give me a break, school started ;)
52: 9/23/20- “War and Peace 14”
When Ronan entered Skorn's abode, the demon laughed. "You are not the one spoken of. It matters not, I will rid the world of you same as all the others." "I care not about false prophecies, I have come here for one purpose, and that I will fulfill today."
Skorn laughed again, rose from his throne, and stalked towards Ronan. The demon had pale green skin, stretched tight over impossible muscle. The Goblin King towered over the young man, Ronan barely stood above the monster's waist. In his clawed hand Skorn held a terrifying double-bladed war staff. The blades were huge, each nearly the size of Ronan himself. The young warrior knew his ancient sword was more than a match for this Void weapon, but there was more to Skorn.
Now for the glorious book review!
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Well, I got through it. I almost gave up about 3/4 the way through, but I pushed through and read it all. And boy, was it a chore. So. A lot of people probably won’t agree with me, but I had a rough time with this book. I thought it started out alright. Learning about the Underworld and the City of Bones was kinda cool, but then it became incredibly hackneyed. I think a large part of it is the fact that this book is from 2007 and it helped catapult the Urban Paranormal genre into stardom, but I feel like so much of it had been done before. Maybe it’s since and this book was super influential, but there just seemed to be hardly any new ideas. Nothing was even really twisted from typical fantasy tropes. Vampires riding demon motorcycles was new, I guess, but they were lame. Even the werewolves were just kinda there. They were exactly like werewolves in any other setting. If you watched any of True Blood, you’ve read this book.
Then there are the characters. Ugh. They were all awful. Clary, short for Clarissa (dumb name), was insufferable and kinda stupid. Jace, the beautiful boy was beautiful and strong and beautiful, and brooding and beautiful and a jerk and I just didn’t care. The other side characters were there, and didn't add much. One was a bitch, who wasn’t really at the end I guess, another boy who was just an asshole, and Simon, Clary’s best friend. Simon was decent, as the only ‘normal’ person. He had it bad for Clary, for whatever reason, but he had arguably the best moments.
The story was full of ‘show this, tell that.’ Where the reader saw one thing, then later was told in excruciatingly long dialog that it wasn’t true, or not what it seemed. Obviously this is meant to keep things going, showing there are ‘layers’ to the story, but it was just annoying. It wasn’t long before I just assumed anything that was shown was false, and it made the book incredibly predictable. The big ‘reveals’ at the end fell flat because of this. A big part of this was the heavy, heavy amounts of exposition, especially in the first and last thirds of the book. It was overwhelming at times, just pages and pages of exposition that often didn’t add all that much.
I couldn’t wait to finish this book. Not because I wanted to know what happened- I really couldn’t care less- but so I could be done with it. Suffice it to say I will not be continuing this series. How did this become such a hit? I don’t get it. Now, I will fully admit that as a 34 year old male I am not the target audience, but I usually love YA fantasy with a female lead. Clary was not a strong female lead though. She was led through the story by males much stronger, in personality and body, and it wasn’t until the very end she finally started putting her foot down about things.
Overall I give this 2/5 slain demons. Stay away.
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