Comments on Gardens of the Moon

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It's not really proper to do a review on a book I didn't finish, but I worked too hard for too long to leave it alone. So I won't file this under my reviews, but merely voice my reaction in informal fashion.

Some people are sure to throw rotten eggs my way when I say that I could not finish Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon. More than once I heard, "If you can finish the first book, the rest are great." Red flag. But I had already bought the thing before I heard this general reaction, so I gave it a try. This book looked like my kind of book: a huge, well-developed world, dense with characters and details and subplots revolving around a big overarching quest. Indeed, this is exactly the kind of book Gardens of the Moon is. Unfortunately, though I have read to the halfway point, I cannot explain what any of those subplots are. I do not know. Seriously.

The problem with this novel is "withholding." There is so much going on, and some of the characters even know what is going on, but the reader is not told what that "thing" is. Some of this "thing" I was able to puzzle out. I think. And I'm not a stupid person. I like puzzles and mysteries in the books I read. I like to have to work for some of the content. That's part of what makes the reading experience so fun, involving, and rewarding. Gardens of the Moon, however, goes a step too far and doesn't let me know enough of what's happening among all the different factions vying for power and survival. Really, it's okay if the reader is told what someone hopes to accomplish; it gives the reader something to hope for, too. Then let the reader see how the characters' hopes are dashed. That creates reader sympathy and evokes big reactions in the human heart.

This also brings up the fact that halfway through the novel I felt little emotional attachment to any of these characters. The characters I liked best are in the book the least, up to this point. I thought, finally, I can get attached to someone, then they vanished again for umpteen pages. At the halfway point, I still haven't found them again. Where did they go? What are they doing? I don't know. I knew this novel and I were not going to work out, when at the middle climatic point where one of the main characters apparently dies, I felt no emotional reaction whatsoever. Eh? Shouldn't I be astonished and boohooing and pleasantly angry or something?

There's only so many times I can say to a book, "Okay, I'll give you another chance. It will surely all click into place today." But nobody's telling nobody nothing and I can't get involved when I don't know what I'm supposed to be hoping for. So when I picked up the book today to try to press on to the finish line, I literally groaned when I saw that after struggling along this hard, an equal amount of the book still awaited (?!?). Grimacing, I asked myself, "What is the point?" Shelve it. Swallow the disappointment. Move on.

If this were an official review, I would give Gardens of the Moon three magic wands. Dock one for massive, frustrating withholding. Dock a second for lack of character-reader involvement.

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So now I'm torn. In the queue is some self-pubbed material I need to read and review, along with what I'm sure is a great short by Milo James Fowler. Also, is a beat up copy of Kate Mosse's Labyrinth that a friend gave me, and The Help, which movie I loved.

What to choose first?
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Travelogue: Writing, with BATS!

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My weekly progress report is several days late because travel knocked me off routine, but that's okay, right? Last week, my husband and I drove to Austin, Texas, for his work. My work got to take place on the eighth floor of a hotel room with a river view. I've had to learn to enjoy writing from hotel rooms. Years ago, the change in location threw me off, and it used to take a day or so for my brain to adjust and start creating again. But now? Glorious. There are no distractions in a well-placed hotel room. No dishes to be done, no cleaning, no weeding, no shopping, no cats to feed and push off your laptop, no reason to even answer the phone because you simply can't come to dinner tonight, you're out of state, see ya later.

I did not expect to like Austin as much as I did. A lovely city. The best part to me was the natural wonder right in the middle of downtown, all of fifty yards from our hotel. Most people are creeped out by bats, but bats are one of my favorite animals. I mean, c'mon, they're mammals that FLY! And they're furry, and they eat West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes. So when I heard from a friend that Austin had a colony of bats, I was thinking, "Okay, we'll get in the car, drive to a cave in the hill country, and see the bats." Noooo. We walked out of the hotel, onto the bridge that crosses the Colorado River and experienced the bats. On one side of the bridge, we got to watch an amazing sunset turn the sky and the skyscrapers orange. On the other side, dusk approached. Under the sound of the traffic crossing the bridge, we could barely hear the squeaking as the bats woke up and became more and more excited.

When sunset was almost completely faded and the sky was the right color of lavender-gray, the first bats started darting out from under our feet. Then wheels of bats started circling, and the squeaking became odd little clicks. At last, three narrow columns of thousands upon thousands of bats flew out over the river and into the city. I'm sure I was standing with my mouth and eyes popped wide open. At my house, we have exactly three bats that come out on summer nights and eat our mosquitoes. So I was not expecting clouds of bats. Literal clouds; once they flew out over the city, the three tidy columns bunched up into shifting black clouds. And they kept pouring out, pouring out, pouring out, till after dark when we could no longer see them.

Another unexpected surprise was the scent. Exactly three bats don't put off much perfume, you know. But when thousands upon thousands of bats get the air moving, there is this distinctive sweet, musty odor. I might have chalked it up to some little old lady's odd perfume, but we smelled it the second night as well. The second night was even better, because we walked down the riverside trail and rented kayaks. I had never kayaked before, so I was very glad the river was wide and calm, else I would've ended up in the water with the turtles and catfish. But I stayed in the boat and at sunset we paddled to the bridge. Down on the water, the roar of traffic was much softer and the squeaking of the bats far more distinct. The bridge, we saw, is actually constructed with deep slots made to house the bats, so we couldn't see them until they started flying out.

When the sun dropped behind a skyscraper and the sky turned to lavender-gray, here they came. Three columns right over our heads. I paddled as fast I could to keep up with them as one of the columns followed the treetops along the bank. A second column crossed the river and flew along the water on my other side. Then came that sweet, musty odor and the black shifting clouds as the bats left the treetops and joined up over the city.

An unforgettable experience. So, if you happen to travel through Austin, take the opportunity to see this amazing nightly nature event right in the middle of downtown.

All that to say that, while in Austin, I finished Chapter 6 and it was a doozie. *whew* But writing more about it here would spoil the bat story. 
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Inspiration: Character - Lyrienn

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Those of you who have been following my blog for a few years may be aware that I love art and collect it in various files on my computer so that I can gaze at it and ponder or sigh or be inspired or what-have-you. Once, I even posted weekly Art History/Appreciation entries. Remember those?

Well, every once in a while, movies or my web searches for new art will cause me to stumble across images that inspire stories or seem to fit ones that I've already written. And as Wordweaver has come to revolve solely around my writing, I thought it might be fun to occasionally post some of these images and a tidbit about the character or setting that they bring to mind.

The image that inspired this blog idea was this one:

Disclaimer: I know nothing about this image, neither its name nor who painted it, but I would dearly love to know. I found it on some wallpaper site during a random Google search. Please post if you have this information, so I can give credit where it's due and promote the artist with a link.

Point is, the moment I saw this image, I gasped and said, "That's Lyrienn!"

CHARACTER PROFILE
Project: The Falcons Saga
Name: Lyrienn
Race: Elf
Home: Lady's Palace, Linndun
Family: daughter of Danyth and Leavhan, sister to Lothiar and Laniel
Significance to the story: handmaid to Lady Aerdria; helps Kieryn through his darkest time.
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Falcons Saga - Progress Report #5

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Well, last Monday I thought, "This chapter is going to be a breeze. I'll bet I get it finished, plus part of Chapter 6." That was until I saw the need for a new scene, and remembered that I had a contest entry to write for LegendFire. So my contest entry took up the last few hours on Friday, meaning Chapter 5 didn't get finished after all. This is the first week that I've not reached my chapter goal (given normal circumstances). Bummer.

The contest promises to be a fun one, however. We've never done one exactly like it. One of our members proposed a Character Creation Contest, in which we choose between two prompts, flesh out the character in a profile, then write a brief excerpt showing their, um, character. I can't give away too much about my entry before the voting is over, but it resulted in my first-ever piece of flash fiction, so I'm doubly excited about it.


THIS WEEK'S PROGRESS
Chapter(s) of the Week: 5 
Pages Revised: 7.5, which became 17
New Scenes: 1, 4.5 pages worth
Good things that happen: Kethlyn and his royal cousin conduct a successful kitchen raid.
Bad things that happen: They end up stuck in a dark, haunted place.
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The Falcons Saga - Progress Report #4

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The last two weeks have been slow going on the novel. First a head cold threw a kink into things, then one of my beloved uncles died. Ah, perspective. There I was, complaining about being unable to breathe or sleep, while my uncle was lying in a hospital battling a Staph infection. After visiting the family and attending the funeral, only halfway recovered from that blasted cold, I was exhausted come Wednesday, and so the writing had to wait yet another day. But here comes Friday and chapter 4 is complete.  

THIS WEEK'S PROGRESS
Chapter(s) of the Week: 4 
Pages Revised: 8, which became 16
New Scenes: 1, 3 pages worth
Good things that happen: Laral ventures into Fiera
Bad things that happen: Laral must choose between love and loyalty
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The Falcons Saga - Progress Report #3

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 Lots of meaningful information in these pages. Now, just to find the most entertaining, punchy way to tell it. Ah, but it is so painful when scenes I love no longer work and must be cut. Killing one's darlings is never fun. Good thing is, I will still have them saved in the old draft, so they're not gone completely, and readers will never know the difference. Trick is, then, to make the entire final version my darling and be proud of the content that survives the cut.

THIS WEEK'S PROGRESS
Chapter(s) of the Week: 3 

Pages Revised: 12
Deaths: 0
Births: 1
Good things that happen: Thorn goes home
Bad things that happen: old tensions surface
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The Falcons Saga - Progress Report #2

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Given that there are currently 44 chapters in the rough draft, and given that there are 52 weeks in a year, and given that there will be holidays and the occasional need to flee the novel for a few days here and there to save my sanity, I think it's safe to say that rewrites on Falcons 2 will take at least a year. That's if I succeed in rewriting one chapter a week. The tally does not make me happy, but there it is. A realistic estimate, for now.

But, like I said last post, rather than look at the whole wall to be built, take it one brick at a time.

THIS WEEK'S PROGRESS
Pages Revised: 3 1/2
Pages of New Content: 5
Deaths: 30+
Dreadful Happenings: There is much blood on the snow
Positive Happenings: Kelyn is going to miss a certain lady

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