Recent content by Alex Reiden

I'll go you one further and go straight to the real culprit: bad writer.

I think the contemporary wisdom says, "If debut author uses a prologue, it's probably not a good book." You aren't going to find many good books with bad prologues because good writers can often write a prologue as well as they can write chapter X. For some reason, people...

Or, let there be silliness off page; just don't mention it in the book. If they don't fit the tone, mood, and setting of your work, readers it won't miss them.

Heh. Can't believe I forgot the coolest one. In another novel, I have a character that uses a "charged particle stream that ionizes and dissociates manifested electromagnetic radiation attuned to the archons – what laymen call “magic” – rendering it inert."

In my work, I have few ways to debilitate a magically-powered individual and other mana channelers from accessing magical power. Most can probably be adapted to any magic system, magical person, or wizard/etc. The most common for mortals is to simply drain them of all mana so they have no...

No worries. It just looked like it was starting to take over the thread. I remember I preferred Borders to some other books stores because they had the kiosks where you could look up book info for their in-store and online catalog. Nowadays, I don't even get to the artists' websites. I'm still...

That reminds me of my bank website. Trying to log in to my account is like finding my way through a maze of credit card promos. I already have the damn card, now let me manage it! My go-to was the page after the copywrite info. If the series wasn't listed there, in order, I'd pick up another...

I remember that as well. I was usually okay if the series was listed inside the jacket or in the blurb, but that wasn't always the case, especially for first printings of the debut novel. I'm not sure if it was the same for your experience with finding such books. Perhaps the publisher was...

Yeah, that's the general feeling I'm getting. There seems to be a great difference of opinion on the matter depending on whether it's a printed hard copy form or published in e-format. It seems the e-formats are a lot more forgiving with including the series markers in supplemental sections...

Note on the OP: As stated in the OP, the second cover is only an early draft and not representative of the final style. When edited by a graphic designer (I all the graphics, fonts, color palettes, etc. for the series on file) it will match the imagery of the first book more closely -- and look...

Light: Photomancer Love: Dopamancer Sound: Sonomancer Illusion: Imitamancer

I'm going to guess this is the most common, and certainly for me. :whistle: (Exercise) :whistle: I've never let the first 2 stop me. I'll also add a 4th: Straight up time constraints (muddled by either internal or external priorities). There are many things I'd like to to do and even make plans...

Those are pretty good covers. I like them both.

The opposite really. The probability, the vast probability by far, and then some more, is that they would evolve into something which wouldn't match a character description that can used to describe any human character beyond vague, cursory detail. After a certain point, the closer you get to...

The examples you list may result in other species evolving into something similar to humans, if they start off as carbon-based life in the first place (another broad assumption!), but most probably not quite human. I'm fine with that, but even the smallest difference would result in character...