Cynebold and The Son of The Prophecy

i feel you did a good job in your book so far well written and very enjoyable
will watch for more to come so i can read it :))))
only thing of ? is the length of the paragraph's
a few miss spelled words but that no biggy
i'd buy a copy of the finished product for my personal library
THE BEAST

Brian,
I am familiar with this genre and your storyline is excellent. Those who are not familiar with fantasy writing have a hard time associating with the "worlds" that are created. They have no basis in fact and that explains their difficulty in comprehending what is written. I found a few grammar mistakes, past and present mixed in the same paragraph. Paragraphs were long, but not to the point of being objectionable. Details are important to allow the reader to place themselves in the story and participate in the action. Good Luck with this.
Gretchen
"Drágön Spawn"

Brutally Honest Critique
Hi Brian
Long pitch - good, but a spelling mistake - entranced, not entransed
Typo - Nurato "it could crush a skull crush" when describing his weapon
Style - I am unfamiliar with this genre, but will do my best here. The paragraphs are extremely long and I feel they might benefit from being broken up somewhat. Also, perhaps the writing could be tightened up a bit :- things like "Finally she nodded and walked away. He watched her tall figure walking away from him." No need to mention her walking twice.
Plot - your prologue is very, very long and detailed. I would assume a prologue was just a quick resume of how we come to be where we are, but this is a long chapter in itself. I felt there were some mysteries in the prologue that were skipped over. Eg What exactly did M say to the council or ask them to do that they told him was lunacy? How did he come to be an ally and leader of the fearsome Trinity (that must be a major story in itself, yet is glossed over). Was there a battle? How did M get all his power? If elves strongly believed everyone is equal, then why appoint a king? It seems to be opposite of that belief. I also wondered while I was reading why Drastian was the person who knew more about M than anyone else, but this was explained later in the plot. Some sentences seem to start off well, then float off Eg "His vastly outnumbered army was determined to fight to their last breath, and was waiting for the battle to commence, a fierce gaze searching the horizon." That sentence should probably have ended at 'commence'. The fierce gaze searching the horizon seems not to have anything at all to do with what came before within the sentence.
This is all I have managed to read so far, but I hope some of what I have said is helpful to you. Good luck with this. Lynda

Hi Brian,

First, I have to say that this is a genre I never, ever read. It's almost like a foreign language to me, so it's hard for me evaluate with anything resembling authority. I will say that you are a fine writer, and some of your descriptions - like that of the sword - are quite marvelous. While the writing is strong, I feel that it would flow better with more breakup of paragraphs. They're awfully long, which is a bit daunting for this reader. I think you have a terrific imagination, and will give you many stars for that and your good writing.
Best,
Andi
Animal Cracker

I can't say that the genre is of my choosing, but can say that the flow and clearness of the words was much better than I expected from a fantasy author on Authomony. There weren't many things that would merit a complaint from me, and they were just a matter of opinion or preferance. The parts of your books, which I read, met my expectation for any author, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris, Gregory McQuire or J.K. Rowling. Your manuscript is a piece of work that I would expect to see on the shelves at bookstores such as Barnes and Noble, Bookstar or Davis-Kidds.

Cynebold has an eye-catching cover and an alluring pitch. It starts with elfin King Drastian who is awoken by a report. Murtugahr’s army is on the move! We know that the King must be a powerful foe because his sword is named. And we know this sword is important. Nice descriptions by the way, vividly told. But they must hurry, the army is assembled. The golden city of Kalgun Fuhr is at risk but with the powerful dragon Fahren at his side, the King cannot lose? Or can he? The Trinity is an enemy not to be reckoned with and a powerful ending hook takes us to the next chapter. . .breathless . The pace of this book is fast although there is a much history to sift through in the opening. The names of the characters are unique and the descriptions of those integral to the plot, colorful. Others are not described and this may be because they are not central and appear infrequently. However, we still like to ‘see’ them especially if they do re-appear, albeit rarely. This is a great plot, exciting and well done. Claire ~ Chasing Pharaohs.

Hello there! I saw that you were a new member to the Brutal honesty group and that you write YA fantasy, so I rushed right over!!

I think there's a check list of sorts for how to do this but I can never remember it. Mostly I just list my thoughts as they come to me. For example after reading through here I noticed that I liked the formal dialogue and found it fitting. I also felt a little caught off guard with the pacing. I expected things to take off suddenly and then felt distracted when you slowed things down to describe the king in detail. Also--and this is me coming back to add this--I noticed you didn't spend as much detail on anyone else. He's the one I have the clearest picture of.

I noticed you have a great writing eye and a natural flow with your writing. Like the detail with the "blood stained teeth" was really effective. Things like that made the action come alive. A random thing: "and they embraced silently" I thought silently was unneeded since it was implied to me as I read. I also liked how well you controlled mood. Resist the urge to overuse adverbs (I struggle with this too). They stuck out at me, but probably I'm just sensitive to my own failings.

"The elf king had fallen, his sword lost, waiting to be found." <--That's a strong way to end a chapter! Very compelling. Intriguing concept. Have you put all your chapters up so far?? Or is there more to come?