Last week I spoke of Igniters and how I had to scrap this series of Star Wars novels for legal reasons, or maybe just to avoid having any legal reasons to begin with.
Since then I’ve been thinking about the best way to handle it, what the setting should be, and how to turn what was once Star Wars into a new idea, something that suits me. Continue reading Igniters – Planning Stage
I think if you check this site for five minutes, you’ll probably come across a couple dozen articles that at least mention Star Wars. It’s a big deal for me, one of my favourite franchises and one where I’ve lost hours on, both reading or in other ways consuming stories or making up my own, be it for RPGs or just simple daydream. Continue reading Star Wars: Igniters – Time for a Revamp
The city of Summersalt is a dangerous place, particularly for the Summer Knights, the regulation agents for The Salt, the wondrous substance at the core of the city’s technology, mysticism, economy and everything in between.
Regulation agents come from various background but they all have one thing in common: the job is their last hope. Some like Keegan Leona Mercer, have spent centuries burning bridges and making enemies. Then there are those like Julianne “Tracer” Allen, with two clear choices: service or some ghastly capital punishment, particularly if they have her unusual skills in Saltcraft. Continue reading Summersalt – Character Concept – Blankface
Hi everybody. I mentioned a short while ago that I would come back to you with new premises and updates on the current stories.
Let’s get the updates out of the way. The stories I’ve already written are still with my proofreader, whom I’ll stick with a cattle prod this weekend to get him reading and giving me the feedback I so desperately need, so I can start working on second drafts and possibly posting the stories (sadly, don’t have many proofreaders or beta readers at the moment, though I’m in the process of roping a few more people in). I’m also thinking of getting some custom artwork made for them, to enhance the stories with a couple of visuals–well, that and the fact that I need very few excuses to commission more stuff from my go-to artist, Biddoodles. It might cost me money, but the quality is phenomenal and I just dig her style. Continue reading Fiction – New One-shot Premises!
There are many subgenres of fantasy, but unlike other articles on the subject, I won’t go into a giant tirade on how Fantasy is the mother genre and technically all stories are Fantasy, even if they don’t have even a hint of mysticism in them. I’ve said that way too many times now and I just want to focus on this subject, because my recent first impression article on Wynonna Earp brought it to mind. Continue reading Historical Fantasy – It’s a Delicate Thing
Last time I spoke of the Fantasy genre I went on about the Trapped in a Game genre. It was on my mind as I watched the very good Overlord anime, about a player staying on the last day of his MMO’s lifespan, spending the time with the NPCs of his Guild House, then as the servers shut down, he finds himself inhabiting his character.
The series does many interesting things with the genre, particularly with having a nice guy main character that is evil at the same time. Well, not entirely evil but as his character is a Lich, he adopts the personality of an undead lord, cold and detached. It creates a nice contrast between the character’s inner monologue and how he behaves on the outside. Continue reading Genres of Fantasy – Science-Fantasy
I read a lot, watch plenty and game my fair share, and there is one concept that I’ve always found the most fascinating: Dual Worlds. From The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past with its Light and Dark Worlds and His Dark Materials with its infinite realities to The Longest Journey’s Arcadia and Stark, I don’t think this concept will ever stop fascinating me. You already saw a variation on the subject with the premises for Crows and the two I published yesterday.
But there is a sub-set of that concept that I admit fascinates sometimes even more, and it’s one I haven’t seen done outside of Japan, where it’s perhaps done to the point of nausea and with some stellar showings, such as Log Horizon, Sword Art Online, Overlord and .Hack. Continue reading Genres of Fantasy – Trapped in a Game
Last week I mentioned some of the short stories I’ve been thinking of writing, leaving you with the premises for each of them and asking you to vote on which one you’d like to see the most. As tends to be the case with polls on The Mental Attic, everyone who voted picked a different story, leaving me with a massive tie.
I’m used to this, so I made the call on which story to write first, picking one I had worked on for some hours already. Lion’s Claw, with its non-magic fantasy setting was my pick and I wrote most of it, leaving it just shy of the last scene, as it’s a big confrontation sequence that I need to think to make sure it’s believable. Continue reading Back to Ficton – Winners and New Challengers!
I’ll be honest, I was planning on having the first of my new short stories for you today, but I did go through a giant rant the other day about taking the time to make the stuff I write be as good as it can be, so I decided against it, so I can finish it properly, edit it as I should and polish it to near perfection for a story I came up with while riding the train back from the Bristol GeekOut Meetup.
But I do want to let you know that I have fun stuff coming, some stories I’ve had bouncing around my head for a while, some of them already started but never finished, in various genres, none of them Romance because if there’s one thing I learned while writing my third novel it’s that romance is not my thing. I’m a sucker or romance, that’s true, I know what makes good narrative romance and what’s bad one, and I can tell a good intense scene if I need to, but an entire novel based on the genre…yeah, not this guy, at least not yet anyway.
Right now I have five stories to work on, two of which are in progress and the others are barely an interesting premise in my mind. Continue reading Back in Fiction!
The Ellcrys Died, the demons rose, the heroes fought and pushed back the darkness. Heroes died, some were lost, and new evil is getting ready to fight. It’s all there, in the Shannara Chronicles
|
Genre(s): Fantasy Created By: Alfred Gough & Miles Millar |
Network: MTV Air Date: First Season Ended Recently |
|
Good:
|
Bad:
|
The last time I reviewed The Shannara Chronicles I’d only seen three or four episodes. At the time I thought the pacing was phenomenal, how the series kept advancing its plot without getting muddled in side stories or unnecessary padding. I was relieved to see they kept this going until the end of the season. Part of what makes it work is the framework of the story. It’s a quest, with an origin and a destination, so everything that happens in between, everyone they meet and every place they visit feels like a natural part of that journey. But it’s not just the framework of the story but also the fact the characters continue to grow. They keep evolving, changing, becoming better or worse people, making friends, enemies or admitting their feelings.
As the season went by, I loved the world more and more. This is definitely not your typical fantasyland, but one built on the remnants of our world, our history. The series makes a point of showing humans watching Star Trek on a projector, convinced that it was a historical record instead of a TV series. Of course, for them, seeing a pointy-eared guy talking to Kirk meant he was talking to an Elf, not a Vulcan.
But the strongest part of The Shannara Chronicles’ world has to be the other races. The gnomes are awesome, a cross between mole people and Assassin’s Creed. They’re stealthy, deadly and wear hoods. The only thing missing were hidden blades to be honest. But the enmity between them and the elves, born of decades of conflict and how it feels to have to work together to survive the demon onslaught, adds such amazing layers to the story and the world that now I wish they did prequel series, adapting the earlier novels in the chronology, telling the story of how the world became what it was. Trolls will play a bigger role in the next season, I’m sure of it, and this season, they’re the big intimidating hulks, imposing and lethal, a threat that no one takes lightly.
The Demons are intense and scary as hell, particularly their leader, the Dagda Mor. He is always in control, and a few steps ahead of everyone. He manipulates events and even interferes directly when the time comes and never does he feel like a weak villain. He doesn’t play with people, doesn’t underestimate them, instead counts every enemy as a potential roadblock and plans accordingly. It makes him an effective leader and most importantly, an imposing villain.
The best part about the demon invasion is that they abandon the dodgy CGI for the most part, focusing on practical effects and monster suits. It makes the demons much more realistic. There is still some CGI of course, particularly the magical duels between Dagda and our good friend Allanon the Druid, but they’re minimalist in their approach, which I approve of. The spectres the main party meets near the end of their quest though are hit-and-miss.
The secondary villain though, the one that will rise to the position of Dark Lord in the next season is weak, terribly so. It feels like a minor villain taking the place of the big bad. It doesn’t help that the actor’s performance for this character is uneven as hell. His performance lacks punch in some of the more dramatic and key scenes, which in turn somewhat ruins the character arc and makes the turn to the dark side unconvincing.
Overall the rest of the performances are very good, with the main party having the best actors. These are very human characters and keep the fantasy story grounded and feeling like something that could happen any day in our world, just replace the demon invasion with any other real-world threat. They hurt, they feel, love and cry, and make you connect to them and you’ll be as invested as they are with the success of the quest and the fate of the world.
I loved the twists near the end, the meaning of the prophecies they follow as guides to their adventure. I didn’t see any of it coming and that in my book is a big big big plus!
The Shannara Chronicles Season One is astoundingly strong, and I sincerely hope we get more of them. This is a classic quest story, a fantasy series that doesn’t need rampant violence and swearing to keep you entertained and it deserves to continue doing so for a long time.
|
TMA SCORE: 4.5/5 – AMAZING |
