Official Blog of author R. K. Bentley
Month: March 2011
Body of Evidence, filmed in Providence Rhode Island will be premiering on ABC 6 tomorrow night at 10pm with Dana Delaney and Jeri Ryan.
“Looks like a Netflix rental to me.” – My brother.
So, after being blown out of the theater, yes, the front speakers were turned up waaaaay to loud. Where do we begin?
Do we begin with the entire internet comparing this farce of a plot to Inception’s use of levels of time? Yes, let’s.
In full disclosure, Del Ray/Spectra was sending out ARC of Kevin Hearne‘s Hounded via Facebook and here we are…
Urban Fantasy comes in many forms and generally has the same cast of characters: Werewolves, Vampires, Witches and such. Many times the “rules” for these characters are different but overall it all comes down to: Old creatures of the night living among us mere mortals and either everyone is out of the closet or not.
In Kevin Hearne’s Hounded, the Fae and other creatures of the night are still hiding in plain sight. Our main character, Atticus O’Sullivan is a two thousand year old Druid living in Tempe, AZ enjoying his life as a bookstore owner when his life is thrown upside down when some old Gods demand he hand over a fabled sword of great power. When I say old Gods I mean the old Irish kind, the ones that make audio book presenters either cringe or grin at the fact they did just slip over their tongues.
My tip toeing through urban fantasy has not really come across many Druids and beyond playing one in World of Warcraft it was refreshing not be: A) Werewolf, B) Warlock C) Vampire D) Skinwalker. Atticus abilities are rather normal and nothing that makes him all powerful since he can still get shot. Atticus comes off as a generally likeable fellow and throws in enough pop culture references to make the audience laugh. This is helped along by Atticus’s telepathic banter with Oberon his irish wolf hound, the Irish Widow across the street, several gods who may or may not be on his side, the vampire/werewolf lawyers under retainer or the coven of witches who all want one thing: The blasted sword.
Hounded is a thick and fun adventurous read, the cast is kept in a manageable amount and all the plot lines are tied up nicely at 292 pages.
The only flaw in the ARC copy I had was one misplacement of a comma and a description of action was italicized by accident.
Hounded arrives 4/26/11 and the second and third books in this series will be arriving 5/24/11 and 6/28/11 respectively.
Well, it looks like they’ve recaptured the fun of the first movie while ignoring the angst and doom and gloom of 2 and 3.
The current work in progress went through a few revisions recently all thanks to feedback from writing groups.
Feedback from someone not related to you is worth it’s weight in gold. It can also be a nice ego boost when 1/3 of the group are not avid sci-fi readers but enjoyed the story and found it easy to read.
Sure, it means more revising but revising is good too since the first draft of anything will always suck. Look no further than Transformers 2 or in my case the first two chapters of my work in progress.
The first chapter worked, the second chapter sucked. So out went the second chapter, I kept the first, moved it and after feedback about what the hell was going on I tried to explain what happened before but that sucked due to too much exposition. Another chapter one was started and it felt right. Example: A family of Salvage Operators find our protagonist and it leads to chapter 2 and so on.
More feedback came in about the space aged nuclear family of 4 let’s call them the Reynolds for now, why not drop Mister Reynolds and let Missus Reynolds lead the family instead. So, slicing off the fat off your prized baby is a good thing.
Now, I have five print outs to go through to check for grammar also a good thing since I suck at that and hopefully the other reviewers don’t.
I also have Chapter 3 to worry about since sorta starting to suck too.
So, over all, I’ve had a good experience with all this and I highly recommend finding a group if you’re looking for feedback since they will give it to you.
If you are looking for a writing group, I’d recommend checking meetup.com first, they have their act together.