Some fun and creative stuff. And I'm all for outlawing that chalk you climbers plaster all over the cliffs. : ) 160,000 sounds like a lot, especially for laymen not into the arcane vocabularies of geology and mountain climbing. I like the short story solution, which if strung together could add up to your ambitious 160 k word ascent.
One observation. You may be aware of this, indeed it may even be a deliberate allusion which will be resolved in a chapter or two; but just in case: the reference to 'green skinned … Bofors Creetchie', immediately put me in mind of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest, in which the native Athsheans are referred to by nasty Terran colonists as 'creechies'.
On the one hand, what became Books 1 and 2 of The Shattered Moon series was originally one novel of c140,000 words, and I took the decision to split it, but this was also influenced by it offering the chance to flesh out some parts that had been a little bare.
On the other, by George R R Martin standards, 160k is barely out of novella range. (See also Robert Jordan, James S A Corey, and many others). I think it's also about the same as The Fellowship of the Ring…
I enjoyed the read very much. Loping along with your narrative was fun. But if a prologue is a scene setter, I was left confused. 160,000 words later might I still be ?
I’ve never read Dante’s Inferno, but over the years have enjoyed artist’s limitless imaginings of its hellscape.
Whatever, you’re writing is wonderful, and it’s difficult to imagine you penning a bummer.
The illustrations you chose are exceptionally good too.
I might add that my sci-fi began with Jules Verne and H.G. Wells in the long gone dim'n'distant past of childhood.
In my late youth I avidly consumed Asimov, Heinlein, Doc Smith, A.C. Clark and such. In around my 30s I discovered Jack Vance. I can return and re-read a lot of his stuff and not squirm.
I have practically all of his SF/F stuff in a cupboard. A lot of his stuff is republished under different titles. Some of his long stuff are split into parts and serials. He also did straight writing under the pseudonym Ellery Queen. There were others too.
His future is still a future where mankind is universal and its spawn evolutionary, Darwinesque. But he paints a picture of worlds like no other. The mountains are prodigious, as are its chasms. In his later stuff (Vance passed away in '23) there are a few lapses, though.
Sci-fi and Fantasy art is a treasure trove for the avid Googler - and artist!
Some fun and creative stuff. And I'm all for outlawing that chalk you climbers plaster all over the cliffs. : ) 160,000 sounds like a lot, especially for laymen not into the arcane vocabularies of geology and mountain climbing. I like the short story solution, which if strung together could add up to your ambitious 160 k word ascent.
Intriguing for me, and I would certainly read on.
One observation. You may be aware of this, indeed it may even be a deliberate allusion which will be resolved in a chapter or two; but just in case: the reference to 'green skinned … Bofors Creetchie', immediately put me in mind of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest, in which the native Athsheans are referred to by nasty Terran colonists as 'creechies'.
Also, yes, 160k is long…
On the one hand, what became Books 1 and 2 of The Shattered Moon series was originally one novel of c140,000 words, and I took the decision to split it, but this was also influenced by it offering the chance to flesh out some parts that had been a little bare.
On the other, by George R R Martin standards, 160k is barely out of novella range. (See also Robert Jordan, James S A Corey, and many others). I think it's also about the same as The Fellowship of the Ring…
I’m in. 👍
I enjoyed the read very much. Loping along with your narrative was fun. But if a prologue is a scene setter, I was left confused. 160,000 words later might I still be ?
I’ve never read Dante’s Inferno, but over the years have enjoyed artist’s limitless imaginings of its hellscape.
Whatever, you’re writing is wonderful, and it’s difficult to imagine you penning a bummer.
The illustrations you chose are exceptionally good too.
I might add that my sci-fi began with Jules Verne and H.G. Wells in the long gone dim'n'distant past of childhood.
In my late youth I avidly consumed Asimov, Heinlein, Doc Smith, A.C. Clark and such. In around my 30s I discovered Jack Vance. I can return and re-read a lot of his stuff and not squirm.
I have practically all of his SF/F stuff in a cupboard. A lot of his stuff is republished under different titles. Some of his long stuff are split into parts and serials. He also did straight writing under the pseudonym Ellery Queen. There were others too.
His future is still a future where mankind is universal and its spawn evolutionary, Darwinesque. But he paints a picture of worlds like no other. The mountains are prodigious, as are its chasms. In his later stuff (Vance passed away in '23) there are a few lapses, though.
Sci-fi and Fantasy art is a treasure trove for the avid Googler - and artist!