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I'm somewhat grumpy today, so I hope not to be channeling mostly negativity... I'm still enjoying the book!!!


- I can't really pinpoint this, but to me Brin comes across as a lot younger than 17(?), more like 13 or 14. (It could have to do with the fact that his name resembles that of the young boy 'Bran' from 'A Song of Ice and Fire'.)


- p.77 "Ah, Fari, he thought. I never thought it would be you."
What is Mehen referring to? Farideh being the irresponsible one of the twins? The Toril Thirteen? Or something we don't know yet...? 


- As a DnD-outsider, I had to focus a bit more while reading the passages taking place in the Palace of Osseia, which were quite heavy on lore and names. (I've been trying to steer clear from the FR Wikia, because of spoilers. It spoiled 'the T13' for me already, to name just one thing.) I wasn't really feeling the gore, like walls made out of tissue.
 

- Nice to see Bryseis being referred to as "the Brimstone Angel" on p.79. @Erin, did you put that in there after coming up with the title of the book? I'm usually a sucker for artifacts, so I digged the Kakistos ring.


- Misprint on the last line of p.79: "himBut"
@Erin: if you point out typo's to WotC, do they correct these for future print runs?

Well, my 4 days of coughing were followed by 3 inches of rain in a few hours which promptly started pouring into my 100-year-old basement and is still filtering in as we speak a day later.  I'm so sore from running the shop vac and carrying buckets of water out that I'm walking around like an old man.  The good news is that a few sick days gave me a chance to check out this next section, and it's been just about the only bright spot in that timeframe!  Isn't that what fantasy is for, after all, letting our mind get away from it all?

OK, to the book.  It's so amusing how Lorcan seems like this super-powerful being to Farideh, but in his own family he's at the very bottom of the food chain being only half-devil and male on top of that.  He definitely seems like he's got a bad case of little brother syndrome.  I also found it interesting that some of his more awe-inspiring powers (like being able to appear wherever he wants) are only possible because of powerful magic items he's "using" from his mother's stash.  Farideh and Havilar are presented as being immature, obviously, but Lorcan seems like he's not much better. (I wonder how old he is... it seems like a sensitive question.)  He strikes me as the 20-year-old guy hitting on the 17-year-old girls and acting like he's a world more mature than them, when in reality he's barely any better.

I enjoyed the descriptions of the palace in Malbolge and the look we're getting at the heirarchy of devils there.  The power-play between Rohini and Invadiah should make for some interesting twists and turns moving forward as well.  I'm wondering if/when we'll see if Rohini is linked to the succubus who appears in Salvatore's Neverwinter, but I guess I'll wait and see!

It looks like Rohini is messing around with the "Sovreignty," referring to the Abolethic variety, and this was also touched on in Salvatore's book.  Everyone has a hand in Neverwinter, now don't they...

I'm going to have to go back and re-read Erin's short story The Resurrection Agent to refresh my memory about Shepherd.  The story, and the Realms of the Dead anthology as a whole, were top notch.

Dado, I hope you're feeling better!

 

May 16, 2012 -- 8:08AM, dadocollin wrote:

Farideh and Havilar are presented as being immature, obviously, but Lorcan seems like he's not much better. (I wonder how old he is... it seems like a sensitive question.)  He strikes me as the 20-year-old guy hitting on the 17-year-old girls and acting like he's a world more mature than them, when in reality he's barely any better.

I like this description! Age seems like it would be kind of a foreign topic to immortal characters, to me. Like asking someone how many cells are in their body--why would you count that? There are as many as there need to be. Done. 

This section has the scene I said I'd mention with regard to changing the outline. In my original plan...there was no Sairche. Lorcan had only erinyes half-sisters, and they were involved in exactly the ways described in the book, no more. 

It wasn't until I tried to write the scene in the inn and found that Farideh and Lorcan were sort of just standing around, rehashing their previous scenes that I realized they were really waiting for an interruption. And I sort of just went with it, and out popped Sairche, who was truly a joy to write. So as you read further, you can imagine how different the book might have been if I weren't flexible on my outlines.

Overnight? Wow. It takes me at least a month to do a full outline. I'm slow...but I can't imagine being THAT much faster.


I don't like outlines, but I've come to grudgingly respect them. Before I would hold all of the book in my head or go by the seat of my pants and invariably get stuck. The nice thing about an outline, even if you're not going to adhere to it, is that it really makes you think about the whole arc of the book and where you might hit rough patches. And especially how you're going to land the ending.

But I know for some people once you write it out, it's hard to get the juices flowing to actually write the book.   

I continue to love this book, so much that I am failing to keep up with the readings for the Vaginal Fantasy Hangout which is my other online reading group. I am interested to know if members of the WotC Novel club are on goodreads or partcipating in other reading groups?

This sections move to the Abyss is awesome & came just at the right time--all the characters seem to be in play, they are setting schemes in motion, they are connecting, and BAM! Off we go to Hell to learn all about Devil Politics!

Fantastic pacing, right?

And I am loving the 'otherworldly' aspects of the Hells. My experience has been that generally Forgotten Realms novels stay in the Realms and the rest of D&D Cosmology is the Forgotten part--it is really refreshing to bounce around like this.

One thing, I have not seen in our discussion this time around is talk of levels--generally, we discuss what level the various characters are--often even describing them in terms of class--I think we even had someone make up character sheets for us once! Clearly we have some obvious classes, but levels seems a little tricky. Not sure if that was 'deliberate' at this stage in the book [I assume things will be clearer in the upcoming fight scenes which I *know* are coming soon, right?].

> I don't like outlines
Amen!

As a nanowrimo pantser I know exactly what you mean--thinking through everything with a lot of attention to detail seems to take some of the magic out of the writing process for me. There was a recent Writing Excuses podcast where Brandon & the crew read another writers outline--the 'issues' they found and the way the resolved them was really awesome to hear. In fact, issues is likely the wrong word--I would go with variences--mostly they seemed to correct plot points that did not work within the story that was being told. very interesting.

I also love that Erin remembers where the outline and final book differ--I think that points to a really valuable trait of the outline--the author is more aware of the choices that they are making while telling the story & why they are making these choices. I think that this may translate to the story. The characters actions start to feel like choices rather then random acts of plot points. Brimstone Angels is doing a great job of showing us characters making choices, I am thinking mostly of Lorcan continously choosing to try to stay of the radar--I have a feeling that is not going to work out well for him in the end!

Great book--cannot wait for the next section.