Tag: Steve D

Book Review: AMONG THE BEASTS AND BRIARS

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

I discovered this book somewhere on Audible and gave it a listen a few weeks ago. (I’m a bit behind on posting my book reviews.)

Among the Beasts and Briars by Ashley Poston is an enjoyable story about gardener’s daughter, Cerys, who is cursed with the magic of the dark forest that borders her home, and who must save her kingdom from the forest’s dark powers.

This was a classic quest/coming-of-age story with a strong underpinning of fairy tale lore – the dark forest, old gods, terrible curses, and young people reaping the sins of their forebears. There is a spot of romance throughout the narrative as well, but I would not describe this as a romance novel — it fits well with the plot. The story is well-paced, and there are enough little twists to keep the reader guessing as to the final resolution.

There is some surprisingly fantastical and frightening imagery as the characters survive and then confront the dark magic of the forest, and I think this story would translate well to an animated horror/fantasy treatment.

For the audiobook version, male and female narrators trade point-of-view sections for the two characters who end up becoming our protagonists. The dual narrators definitely provided interesting perspective, as the conflicted perspectives of particular scenes drove some of the conflict. However, I didn’t find that the narrators’ voices matched what I felt were much more intense or frightening scenes, especially in places where Cerys confronts gaunt and terrible visages of the people of her kingdom. I think there’s a version of this narration that could lean much more heavily into the horror aspects.

Still, this was an enjoyable standalone novel, and I’m curious about of Poston’s other work.

Steve D

July Write Day: Space to Plan

On By Steven D'AdamoIn Fantasy, On LifeLeave a comment

I unintentionally took a week off from this site, so we have some catching up to do.

June gave me some much-needed headspace in a lot of different ways. First, we had a destination wedding vacation with some family, but without our kids, which was a really nice change of pace. The boys had fun with my mom for a week, so they also had a change of pace. Then, we had an extended 4th of July holiday in our usual spot with a bunch of my wife’s family, which is a different sort of relaxation.

This all gave me a mental break from work that I’ve been putting off for ages, and also some quality time with my wife, and then also our kids. It also allowed me to do a lot of thinking without the pressure of everyday routines.

Last Month’s Goals

  1. Finish three books. Likely:
    • Current read: Star Wars: Tarkin by James Lucena
    • Likely next reads: The Storyteller by Dave Grohl, perhaps The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
  2. Finish New Earth? I just need to power through to a fitting ending. I think I just need to be okay with a decent ending, and then come back to it in revisions.
  3. Enjoy vacation. Work has been crazy, and a big deployment is happening while I’ll be away, so I’m stressing a bit about that. But this will be a real vacation from everything, so I want to embrace it. I just need to get ready for it, mentally and logistically.

Finish three books?

I finished four books in June, all audiobooks:

  • Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake
  • Tarkin by James Luceno, which I reviewed last month
  • Among the Beasts and Briars by Ashley Poston, which is worthy of a review
  • The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which closes out my long trek through The Complete Sherlock Holmes collection on Audible

Honestly, I’ve read so much since late June that I had forgotten which books I had finished just a few weeks ago. Vacation time is also reading time.

Finish New Earth?

No, but I got closer, and then had some distance from the pressures of writing. I thought about writing a lot, and I thought about what I wanted my next steps to be. Not what I thought I should do, or what would be expected of me.

That’s the trap I perpetually fall into — conflating what I think others expect of me with what I actually want for myself.

I won’t go into detail until I take some meaningful action, but a publishing plan is beginning to coalesce in my mind, one that hinges on me getting my self-publishing shit together, and also finishing these books in a reasonable timeframe.

Enjoy vacation?

Yes! We spent a week in Tenerife, Canary Islands for a destination wedding, a trip we had not planned on taking a year ago, but one where we could not pass up the opportunity to celebrate with family and visit somewhere new.

Then we spent six days at a family lakehouse with my wife’s siblings and cousins. The family has grown in the last year+, so our boys have some baby cousins to play with. And our oldest, turning six soon, has come out of his shell in a big way this year, and it was on full display on this vacation, when he tried all sorts of new things without the timidity he often showed as a toddler.

A further thought

Overall, I’ve had a real chance to evaluate my priorities and refocus my attention where it’s needed most. I haven’t had exercise as an explicit goal in a couple months, yet I feel like I’ve been more active more consistently in recent weeks. Even just feeling like I’ve improved in this area is a good step forward.

For the moment, I’m focused on retaining my shifted priorities and not just reverting back to bad habits now that vacation time is over.

Goals for July

  1. Read three books. I’ve just finished Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, so I’m off to a good start.
    • Current reads: The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl, and The End of the Story by Clark Ashton Smith (a collection of his short stories that I will likely pick away at for some time).
    • Likely next reads: A Plague of Giants by Kevin Hearne has long intrigued me, and I feel ready to sink into a proper fantasy series again.
  2. Finish New Earth. Yeah, yeah, I know. Just finish it and worry about the ending later.
  3. Stay on top of my shifted priorities. This is not the space to detail these, but there are a number of things guiding my attention and focus that I need to stay on top of. Exercise/health is one, but there are others. So the goal is to just stay on top of these things and not allow myself to be weighed down by them this month.

Steve D

On Being and Enduring the Storm

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On LifeLeave a comment

I had a recent epiphany of sorts that I wanted to articulate somewhere… and what else is a blog for??

I had written a review of Of Monsters and Men’s second studio album, Beneath the Skin, in 2015. While I haven’t kept up with this band’s music of late (and I should really revisit them), this album has left a mark on my soul. Its storytelling power and lyrical imagery still sticks with me.

One song in particular, “Thousand Eyes” ends with an unforgettable climactic declaration by the narrator: “I am the storm… so wait.”

At the time, in the budding-adulthood tumult that can be your mid-twenties, I interpreted this statement as a threat — a warning to those who might wade into psychological or emotional depths with the narrator and find the chaos and rage of a storm at sea. It felt powerful and ominous.

Recently, however, it occurred to me that “I am the storm” does not merely have to mean that someone is a looming threat to others around them — bringers of a storm.

I think it could also mean to embody the storm, to constantly bear the torrent of emotions that could cloud your interactions with yourself or those around you. So yes, you might bring the storm unto others, but you yourself might also need to weather and endure your own storm.

I am the storm. I embody the storm. I endure the storm. As everyone does, in their way.

Perhaps this is a more meditative perspective to this expression, but it feels more complete to me now.

Steve D

Book Review: STAR WARS: TARKIN sheds light on enigmatic character

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

I listened to the audiobook version of Star Wars: Tarkin by James Luceno, a story of one of Tarkin’s endeavors in the early years of the Empire that helped him rise to prominence. This is essentially his backstory for the opening of A New Hope, and it was a solid read about an otherwise enigmatic character in Star Wars lore.

I’ve never read any novel in this universe, and this seemed like a relatively innocuous place to start — a bit in the middle in terms of timeline, but likely not explicitly connected to any other stories, aside from the obvious background/lore pieces.

Tarkin effectively follows Moff Tarkin as he oversees a secret project for the emperor and tries to track down suspicious attacks across the galaxy. Simultaneously, the reader is introduced to Tarkin’s upbringing that made him the ruthless, calculating strategist that he is.

Darth Vader plays a surprisingly prominent role throughout the story, effectively teaming up with Tarkin to track down the “dissidents”, and I found their relationship highly engaging, as Tarkin tries to understand Vader, whose identify he believes he knows, and Vader largely remains a mysterious personality.

As a first-time reader of the Star Wars canon, this was a solid entry point. There were references to things about the universe I’m unaware of, but they did not stand in the way of the main plot, which had a clear trajectory for Tarkin and the growth of the Empire at large.

This book has me interested enough to continue reading Star Wars lore. I’m just not sure which direction I’ll go next: back to the High Republic, or these interwar years.

Steve D

June Write Day: Vacation Time

On By Steven D'AdamoIn Fantasy, On LifeLeave a comment

Welp, summer has arrived and all of a sudden we’re preparing for a couple of extended vacations. Not that I’m complaining. I just feel unprepared for the first one. This will be the longest vacation we’ve taken in at least two years, and it is followed fairly quickly by an extended holiday for the 4th of July.

So I need to make a to-do list before we leave.

Last Month’s Goals

  1. Finish three books. I already mentioned my current reads:
    • Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Entangled Lives by Merlin Sheldrake. I will likely finish both in the next couple weeks.
    • Likely next read: I’m eyeing Thor, Volume 1: The Goddess of Thunder for a change of pace, and because I never finished reading Jason Aaron’s run on the Thor comics. After that, I’m not sure.
  2. Finish New Earth, please? Focus on 15-minute writing sprints, a couple nights per week, and I should get this done.
  3. Continue to contemplate my writing/publishing vision. I went into more detail above than I had anticipated, so maybe I’ll end up writing about this more this month to get my thoughts onto virtual paper.

Finish three books?

I finished one book (Children of Time) in May and a second one at the very beginning of June. I’m now well into the audiobook version of Star Wars: Tarkin by James Luceno, and still figuring out my next paper read. I’ll likely pick something weighty to sink into over vacation.

Finish New Earth?

Getting closer. I’m not great at writing endings, and I had forgotten that. Whenever I come upon the end of a story, I too often slip into summary mode, where I try to tie off all the threads neatly and concisely. I haven’t quite landed on how I want this story to end, so I’ve been puttering over smaller plot threads until I come to the moment. This feels like the type of story that doesn’t necessarily have a neat-and-tidy ending, but getting it to a satisfactory place is the trick.

Contemplate writing and publishing vision?

Casually. I haven’t come to any decisions about what I might do. I generally like the idea of just publishing my two-part novella when it’s ready and seeing what happens. That would allow me to go to a couple conventions with more than one printed book. I’m just not sure how much I want to invest in marketing and such at the moment. Enough for a release, perhaps?

More contemplation is required.

Goals for June

  1. Finish three books. Likely:
    • Current read: Star Wars: Tarkin by James Lucena
    • Likely next reads: The Storyteller by Dave Grohl, perhaps The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
  2. Finish New Earth? I just need to power through to a fitting ending. I think I just need to be okay with a decent ending, and then come back to it in revisions.
  3. Enjoy vacation. Work has been crazy, and a big deployment is happening while I’ll be away, so I’m stressing a bit about that. But this will be a real vacation from everything, so I want to embrace it. I just need to get ready for it, mentally and logistically.

Steve D