There's a Def Leppard song that this series of posts is partially inspired by. It's called Promises, and it made it to my first playlist (Fall 2009) called YOUKNOW.
(I won't make promises)
that I can't keep
(I won't make promises)
that I don't mean
(have I ever explained my convention on parenthesis when typing song lyrics? No, probably not. They indicate harmony or backup vocal parts that differ in wording or rhythm from the lead/solo/melody part)
Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites
is the premier fantasy series marketed to the Mormon market. So most of my friends who read this are certainly familiar with it. I'm less sure about my international readers (on a side note--what else is knew--nethspace posted to twitter--so much for forgetting about that--shut up!--that blogs need an RSS feed to be read. I'm not really sure what RSS is despite looking it up on wikipedia, but my experience with it is that it's annoying, showing everything in code. But I don't have a reader for it. Anyway, I have no idea how to add RSS to this, so feel free to help) who I don't know. Of course, with the exception of my Danish readers, none of you have seen this more than twice (okay the Canadians too), so I don't know why I worry. In addition, since I'm completely sidetracked anyway, thank you all for reading, my blogs views doubled in the month of October. On the other hand, the days when I could command thirteen views just for posting a link to a new post seem to be gone.
So, in any case, when the series began it was pretty good. Great voice, easy for me to resonate with the protagonist. The sequel
was even better. The two part
Feathered Serpent
bit was still good, but Chris Heimerdinger definitely had already hit his peak. When the next one came out, originally The Seven Churches and later renamed The Sacred Quest
, the series leveled out more or less for that stretch of three books. Then he began the current story arch. This is where he made his fatal mistake. All the rest of that, the slow droop in quality would have never been noticeable, certainly not by me, without this. It's the Cardinal Sin of writing (Okay, there are other cardinal sins, bad punctuation, no punctuation, using text-speak, etc.--and I'm certainly guilty of bad punctuation at the very least), normally only employed in bad fantasy novels (RA Salvatore is terrible about this--and in my mind notorious for it) and comic books.
He brought a character back to life. So, as a note to all aspiring novelists, editors, and comic book writers, NEVER bring a character back to life. Never. There is no excuse. I don't care how good you are. I have only seen one author pull this off, and he did it so flawlessly, that I didn't even realize he'd broke the rule (obviously I knew he'd brought a character back, but he didn't do it in a way that just grated of being dumb and contrived like it usually is. If you really feel the need to break the rule never bring up the space-time continuum or quantum, and really just stay away from those entirely. Don't even hint at that possibility) until discussing this a few weeks ago with my roommate. Part of it is that subliminally he (okay I'm talking about Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time) had the possibility there for it the whole time. Also note that once you've broken the rule, reader's (me at least) become hyper-sensitive forever after about it, and notice if you even skirt the line of the rule. So just don't. And as an afterthought, I'm going to add bad sci/fi to the list of offending genres.
Sorcerers and Seers
is the latest installment in the Tennis Shoes universe. And to tell the truth, it's not bad. I didn't reread at all for it, except for the first one and that was incidental, so the series isn't really fresh in my mind, but I think this was actually the best one since the Feathered Serpent. There weren't any glaring issues, like bringing people back from the dead (okay I back down from my previous statement, I'm sure it can be done well. This just wasn't an example of it-- and I really mean it, don't go the time continuum route), and all in all I would consider it very sound. The biggest issue I have now is that I want the series to be over. I want Heimerdinger to get off his one-trick-pony and come up with something new. All his novels, excepting his national one published through Random House and Daniel and Nephi
, deal with manipulating time (Eddie Fantastic
is, well, fantastic as I recall). Passage to Zarahemla
(I haven't read read or seen it but I'm right) is based on the exact same premise as Tennis Shoes is: Going back in time to be with the Nephites. Heimerdinger still has one more book in this series, and there is no indication that it's the last. I need to stop enabling him by buying the books :)
(I won't make promises)
that I can't keep
(I won't make promises)
that I don't mean
(have I ever explained my convention on parenthesis when typing song lyrics? No, probably not. They indicate harmony or backup vocal parts that differ in wording or rhythm from the lead/solo/melody part)
Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites
is the premier fantasy series marketed to the Mormon market. So most of my friends who read this are certainly familiar with it. I'm less sure about my international readers (on a side note--what else is knew--nethspace posted to twitter--so much for forgetting about that--shut up!--that blogs need an RSS feed to be read. I'm not really sure what RSS is despite looking it up on wikipedia, but my experience with it is that it's annoying, showing everything in code. But I don't have a reader for it. Anyway, I have no idea how to add RSS to this, so feel free to help) who I don't know. Of course, with the exception of my Danish readers, none of you have seen this more than twice (okay the Canadians too), so I don't know why I worry. In addition, since I'm completely sidetracked anyway, thank you all for reading, my blogs views doubled in the month of October. On the other hand, the days when I could command thirteen views just for posting a link to a new post seem to be gone.So, in any case, when the series began it was pretty good. Great voice, easy for me to resonate with the protagonist. The sequel
was even better. The two part Feathered Serpent bit was still good, but Chris Heimerdinger definitely had already hit his peak. When the next one came out, originally The Seven Churches and later renamed The Sacred Quest, the series leveled out more or less for that stretch of three books. Then he began the current story arch. This is where he made his fatal mistake. All the rest of that, the slow droop in quality would have never been noticeable, certainly not by me, without this. It's the Cardinal Sin of writing (Okay, there are other cardinal sins, bad punctuation, no punctuation, using text-speak, etc.--and I'm certainly guilty of bad punctuation at the very least), normally only employed in bad fantasy novels (RA Salvatore is terrible about this--and in my mind notorious for it) and comic books.He brought a character back to life. So, as a note to all aspiring novelists, editors, and comic book writers, NEVER bring a character back to life. Never. There is no excuse. I don't care how good you are. I have only seen one author pull this off, and he did it so flawlessly, that I didn't even realize he'd broke the rule (obviously I knew he'd brought a character back, but he didn't do it in a way that just grated of being dumb and contrived like it usually is. If you really feel the need to break the rule never bring up the space-time continuum or quantum, and really just stay away from those entirely. Don't even hint at that possibility) until discussing this a few weeks ago with my roommate. Part of it is that subliminally he (okay I'm talking about Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time) had the possibility there for it the whole time. Also note that once you've broken the rule, reader's (me at least) become hyper-sensitive forever after about it, and notice if you even skirt the line of the rule. So just don't. And as an afterthought, I'm going to add bad sci/fi to the list of offending genres.
Sorcerers and Seers
is the latest installment in the Tennis Shoes universe. And to tell the truth, it's not bad. I didn't reread at all for it, except for the first one and that was incidental, so the series isn't really fresh in my mind, but I think this was actually the best one since the Feathered Serpent. There weren't any glaring issues, like bringing people back from the dead (okay I back down from my previous statement, I'm sure it can be done well. This just wasn't an example of it-- and I really mean it, don't go the time continuum route), and all in all I would consider it very sound. The biggest issue I have now is that I want the series to be over. I want Heimerdinger to get off his one-trick-pony and come up with something new. All his novels, excepting his national one published through Random House and Daniel and Nephi, deal with manipulating time (Eddie Fantastic is, well, fantastic as I recall). Passage to Zarahemla (I haven't read read or seen it but I'm right) is based on the exact same premise as Tennis Shoes is: Going back in time to be with the Nephites. Heimerdinger still has one more book in this series, and there is no indication that it's the last. I need to stop enabling him by buying the books :)
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