Star Fantasy: The Voice of Darkness

I think combining fantasy and space is an interesting choice—in a good way. You have a talent with imagination. The story has an authentic feel. The beginning war scene reminds me of Lord of the Rings. Good and evil are obviously at conflict here. It’s creepy how dark it gets with the child sacrifice. I’m a mother, so that just chills my bones—too dark for me. But I’m curious to see where the story goes. I especially want to get to the space part.

MiriamNConde
The Immortality Experiment

Hi Derek, thanks so much for the comments. Your a totally right about the prologue. It has been mentioned a few times and I have already done the re-write of this section. I am in the process of re-editting the story and going through it with a fine tooth comb. I have managed to get up to Chapter 7 now but that has taken me several months already. Like you said there are grammatical errors which on close reading I am finding and correcting as a go along. (I love the writing bit but HATE the editing phase. I really appreciate the feedback.

Hi John
I enjoyed reading this - man you've got a lot going on in here, Goblins, elves dwarves humans and outer space - I love it. You have plenty of good characters and Vederan stands out for me as strong protagonist material. One thing - I would maybe give more explanation as to why he became part of a death squad in the first place - I know you touch on it but it didnt sit right with him in my mind as a character - even tho he decides to save the girl and turn on the squad.
Suggestions:
Prologue - feels a bit long John - prologues tend to be short and snappy and are your shop window for agents etc who only read a very small amount apparently before deciding if they are interested. I think giving a short prologue, then weave the rest in as you go would increase your chances of hooking an agent. A few grammaticals - not essential I know but I think every little helps with this as often we're too close to notice them. My book is riddled with them I'm sure.
Cut out extra words - that's the motto I try (and fail) to live by. e.g. "Vederan had endured, but now it seemed as though his time had finally come." I would ditch the "as though" - it's not needed and I think the sentence is stronger without it. Same principle with e.g. "The Goblin fell forwards; his balance had been totally lost" - ditch the "had been" I go thru my work anrd try to prune these things - it definately helps pace and flow. Stephen King says the key to telling a story is "to get the words out of the reader's way". I agree with that.
"an underlying instinct for survival had kicked in" - I'd lose the "underlying" as instinct implies this anyway,
"girl had given into the struggle" - should be "given in to"
"broken disjointed words.." I would ditch the "disjointed" and also change the dialogue so his words are a bit broken or odd. "Urrr...yaee redie to daee?" - ha ha that just makes him sound Scottish - not like that but you get the idea.
"he swung his think blade" - just a typo - I'm assuming it should be "thick"
"the other wounded soldier that he been left during the campaign." just needs re-wording.
I hope these make sense John. Good work sir - I think with a bit of smoothing out this could appeal to a lot of readers - you cross genres so that means - big target audience.
I've starred it and put it on my watchlist to read more and comment further as I go on. All the best
Derek
The Angle Chord

Thank you so much for the review.
The prologue gives me real concern as you are not the first to mention it. I find myself in a conflict - how do I change it? I feel it needs to be there to give the book more depth and history to the universe I have created. Yet its too much of a read to be thown in at the start...I have been suggested that I break it up and add it through the other openning chapters...perhaps split it into three Chapter and woven into the rest of the story...do you think that would make any difference?
This is a real concern as I know that the prologue will be the make or break of the book.

Thanks again!

John

A SF42 review of:
http://www.authonomy.com/books/32523/star-fantasy-the-voice-of-darkness/


Once I got past the prologue, I found myself really drawn into the story, and I will continue reading it – but I'll only comment if something big catches my eye.

Let me say, wow. You've really created a unique mix of two worlds that play together much better than I had expected them to. I am /enjoying/ reading this. I've read up to chapter 6, and I'm planning on backing your book. I found it that good.

Thats the good, but as always, there are some things I think could be improved as well:

1) Your prologue really has to be changed. It doesn't fit the flow and style of the rest of the book. Had I been reading for pleasure value, I would have stopped there. (By the way, I'm glad I kept going.)

2) There is a major unanswered question that is, quite literally, driving me nuts. If all the creatures of the universe all started off on the same planet, how did they end up settling in different regions of space? Had they all spanned out from the same origin, wouldn't they be mixed and dotted throughout known space?

3) There is a tendency to tell things, rather than show them. There has been a lot written on this subject that I can't condense here.

4) You'll need to have someone go through and help with the final proofreading of the MS once you are ready. There are a lot of minor grammatical errors, including missing comas and the like.


Chapter 1:

Why is Bal'khan different from the other humans, since there were other humans known in the land (and even part of the Death Squads)? I didn't quite follow that.


Chapter 2:
There are some things that are narrated in this chapter that don't seem to be directly tied to the plot, yet are the kind of details that bring a world to life. Rather than telling us that each race gave its own touch to ship design, you might have someone watching the docking of the Redstar and noting something about it that spoke of its origin and crew, just by sight alone.

Slang: “John Doe” feels out of place in a fantasy world.

“a sector of space” – you'd be better putting in /something/ there... some kind of co-ordinate system. You could also give the reader some feedback about how far away that is.

“I need a ship to travel to sector DD8xE16x94.”

“Wow, thats a tall order. If you want to get there in this lifetime, the Redstar is the only ship fast enough.”

Chapter 3:

In chapter 1 you suggested that the ships tended to be built by certain races – in that case, I'd expect a crew mostly made of that race. If nothing else, it would be hard to set up a control panel that would be comfortable to use by both dwarf and human. – Just something to think about.


Chapter 4:
There are three different descriptions of the Goblin world, all in the same chapter:
The goblin homeworld was nothing more than a dark swamp – start of chapter.
The plant was one giant rainforest – middle of chapter
desolate land – same paragraph

“She was led” – Show us what the guard do? Or show us the breeze that teases her.

Chapter 5:
Nobody could look at the course the ship was plotted to take before it got there? Even GPSs today let you see the proposed route.

Sebastian should refer to Karel as Captain: “Nonsense, relax Captain.”

Chapter 6:
Shouldn't have to elaborate on Helena's orders being followed. It is expected behavior.

Its hard reading a review and suddenly it makes you feel very down.

Its even worse when the comments are spot on and amazingly accurate. Thank you so much for the detailed review. I will do my best to get working on the detail you have mentioned. Yoru not the first person to say to me about the length of the prologue. I really likey your idea of spliting it and adding it as seperate chapters throughout the rest of the novel.

I will ofcourse be reading your work, I can't promise same level fo detail - to be honest I am not that great at reviewing but I will do my best to give you feedback.

Thank you so much for the kind words at the end, and I hope with the help that you have given me that i will be able to make a very polished novel. :)

Kind regards,

John

SF42

Hi John

I like the sound of this from the prologue - actually surprisingly similar to my own second novel. I'll go straight to my notes:

I'll start with the worst! To be completely blunt, I think the cover may harm your chances of getting read. It looks like a picture of you playing with a sword in your garden, and doesn't match how good the book is. Might I suggest you ask Bradley Wind for a cover?

'The people[...]rife with disease' - people were rife

'General' does not need capitalisation except when used as a name - General Vederan is the general

'his side(,) cutting deep'

'oozing' and 'splattered' don't work together - if something is oozing then it can't splatter

'ferocious(,) deafening'

'...encapsulated his body' - you need more than a comma at the end. Either a full stop (period) or a semi-colon.

'others had (fallen) to their death'

You say the Goblin speaks with 'disjointed words', and yet he then speaks very eloquently.

There are contractions throughout

You need to decide whether you are using capitals or not for some things, and not switch back and forth - ie, 'Death Squad' and 'the Tribe'

There are some very long paragraphs which need to be broken up (unless its an Authonomy fault).

'any other person other than' does not work

'near all but gone' doesn't work - either they are all but gone, or they are near gone

'in vain' not vane

'their sacrifice' not there - this is done quite a lot

'brick-sized(,) lava-like' - also, how can rock be lava-like? Lava IS molten rock

Don't use '?!' - It is also not a question anyway, so the question mark makes no sense

'The remark was made because of...' Don't tell us that, show it with his words.

'halfling cousins who were all but wiped out' - you've already told us that

'aggressors took most victory' - surely there is victory or defeat, small victories or small defeats; no bits of victory. "You have 60% of the victory, we'll have 40%'

Although hand-to-hand TECHNICALLY can include weapons, it generally MEANS hand-to-hand (unarmed), so an axe is not a hand (why does Authonomy keep telling me 'axe' is spelled wrong?!)

Lastly, I think this chapter is horrendously long even for a proper chapter, but certainly for a prologue. I think it needs sorting - either remove the prologue and make this just part of the chapters, splitting it into at least two, probably 3. Or, shorten it considerably, and have the MC have some kind of vision or something to see the rest of what happened. Or, you could even intersperse the main chapters with bit bits of this prologue. ANYTHING, really, rather than have this eye-meltingly long prologue. I wanted to continue reading, but I'm too tired after reading this.

In fact, another thing shortening it or interspersing would do is not give the reader a sense of disappointment when they realise Vederan isn't the MC. That's a very long time to be reading and getting used to him, only to have him ripped away and replaced.

Anyway, there's not much else to say, except that it needs an edit with nothing but wording in mind. Don't read it with story in mind, only grammar, punctuation, and 'can I say this with less words, or more simply?' Otherwise, it is very well written, and I got into it very much. Although I realise it has taken nearly 2 hours to read it all(!), it didn't feel like it for most of the chapter.

I will back it, as I think it will do very well, and needs to be read and critiqued by more people.

I'd appreciate it if you have time to have a read of, and comment on, my own book, too. Thanks :)

Ross, thank you for the kind words and the comments. I am glad I have written something that has taken your interest. I am very encouraged by what you have written.

With regards to the typos....your so right...

I hate editting my own work as I seem to miss so much...i have always believed I can create a great story but the craft in writing that I still have to further develop is use of langague and correction of grammar etc....

I hope with time this is something that I can learn to do effectively.

Anyways....

Thank you so much


John

- Star Fantasy -

(Based on the prologue and chapters one and two)

I should state from the off that I'm not usually a reader of fantasy so I'm not a great judge on the genre. Add to that the fact that I'm a novice writer and you have fair reason to take anything I say here with a pinch of salt.

I did enjoy this though. I liked being dropped straight into the action in a way that still gave me a sense of character, of Verderan. The story of him stopping the assualt against the women later on also sets him up well as a real hero. Another thing I noted from the off was the kind of old-worldy dialogue which fit well with the situation and to the genre, as far as I can see.

The first chapter shows a huge amount of imagination as more of the sci-fi element comes through. This is true of chapter two as well, I'm always amazed when someone can convincingly create cities as I could never manage it myself. The drug addict in there took me by surprise but it gave a sense of realism in amongst the fantasy world which I thought effective.

Some typos....

The prologue
-He swung his think blade....
-up to the weapons hilt (missing apostrophe)

Chapter one
-The Goblins discovery of advanced technology.... (missing apostrophe)
-The temple was build on this place....

Chapter two
-a position accustom to one.... (accustomed)

This is one of a few sci-fi/fantasy novels I've enjoyed of late so maybe they're starting to make a convert of me. I'm sure that readers more into the genre would absolutely love Star Fantasy.

All the best with it,

Ross

Thanks so much for the review - I will be reading Seasons very soon.

great story- there is a spiritual feel to this anyone of faith could adapt this for their own beliefs; on my watchlist...
6 stars******
read SEASONS...

This is a great example of a cross-genre novel. The elements of fantasy and sci-fi are interwoven well and it works. The pitch was alluring and for the idea alone I have backed it. Your writing is good as well and I think you could be on to a winner here.

Regards
David Whelan
The Silent Saga Book 1: Desolate

great story- there is a spiritual feel to this anyone of faith could adapt this for their own beliefs; on my watchlist...
6 stars******
read SEASONS...