{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Faith of Beasts (The Captive's War, Book 2) by James S. A. Corey by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Faith of Beasts (The Captive's War, Book 2)

by James S. A. Corey

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware spoilers! 

The authors James S. A. Corey--made up of writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck--of The Expanse (you can read my in-depth review by typing the series name in the search box) have started a new trilogy called The Captive's War. The first installment was The Mercy of Gods published in August 2024 along with "Livesuit", the first novella for the series, released October 2024. Read that particular review here: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2025/01/put-this-one-on-your-tbr-list-book.html. 

The newest novel is The Faith of Beasts, Book 2, published in April 2026. In this science fiction space opera, the Carryx are a hival empire that's been conquering worlds for centuries. Borg-like (actually, on second thought, it reminds me more of the Reapers in the Mass Effect franchise; find out more about that race of evil aliens at this link: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/search?q=Mass+effect), they destroy or enslave, ever in search of those they can use to continue their totalitarian dominion in the universe. Once the alien enemies conquer slaves, they force them to learn how to survive the best they can in a hostile environment. At the end of the last book, an attempt to break free is made and fails utterly. Their captors again subjugate those that survive, requiring they prove their worth or be destroyed. 

My review of this newest installment is little different than my review of the first. That initial offering felt long and tedious to me, with a lot of characters I didn't find particularly interesting. Not much has changed here. At the end of Part 3 within The Faith of Beasts, I thought something exciting was about to happen, hinted at in the closing sentence there. Alas, no, not really. The story passed into Part 4, and I was still searching for a compelling reason to continue for more of a reason than that it was the only audiobook I was interested in on my library app. When I was more than halfway through listening to this book, I read the back cover blurb and thought, Huh, is that what it's about? As I said, Book 2 didn't seem all that much different than the second half of Book 1. 

I do find it interesting the parallels that can be extracted from this scenario in terms of real-life war and occupation--the instinct for survival, the considerations for rebellion, the adjustments that need to be made to relearn life and day-to-day functioning when you're compelled into a situation and amongst beings you don't understand. The protagonist, Dafyd, is a futuristic Daniel figure (as described by the authors) who's carried off by the enemy, along with a bunch of other humans, and put in charge of making them all somehow useful to their captors. Beyond that, though, true enjoyment wavered for the majority of my listening to the audiobook. 

While a part of me wonders if finishing out this trilogy is worthwhile, I'm two books in at this point. Might as well finish it out. Also, I loved the authors' previous series, The Expanse, so much, I'm willing to endure whatever comes my way to reach the end of this comparably much shorter (and very inferior, IMHO) series. 

At the time of this writing, there isn't much being reported about when the third book will be released. Risingshadow.net (a dedicated platform for speculative fiction) mentions 2026 as the year for a next publication in this series, which may actually be for the second novella. As The Expanse did in that particular universe, this trilogy of novels is also supported by standalone novellas that expand on the various aspects of the Carryx Empire, existing technology employed within the galaxy, and a broader view of the interstellar conflict that surrounds the characters. "Livesuit" was released just after Book 1, and, following the release of Book 2, Amazon began touting an upcoming second novella on the way, as yet untitled. Additionally, nothing new has been announced concerning the television series in development based on this trilogy by Expanding Universe, a multi-platform content company headed by the authors themselves (among others). 

A few weeks after I listened to the audiobook of The Faith of Beasts, my place in line for the ebook version came up on my library app and I checked it out. I wondered if reading the book might give me a significantly different experience than I had with the audiobook. It's true that I find I miss so much with audiobooks. By reading the text yourself, if you have a question, you can just turn back a few pages and seek out an answer. With an audiobook, it would require listening to whole sections again to locate what you missed, which can quickly turn into a hassle. Unfortunately, after a half dozen chapters in the ebook, I found I wasn't enjoying it any more than I had listening to the story being read to me, so I abandoned the endeavor. I don't know if I just don't care for this particular series by these talented authors, or I'm just not in the mood for it at this point in time. Either could be the case. 

Well, my conclusion is that, if you're a fan of the authors and particularly liked Book 1 in this series and/or the first standalone novella for it, there's no reason not to pick up this installment. I'm still hoping maybe, once more offerings are available, the series will eventually culminate into something exciting.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of 156 titles and 16 series. 

Visit Karen here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Astra Academy Series by Shami Stovall by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review:

Astra Academy Series by Shami Stovall

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

I picked up a trade paperback copy of Shami Stovall's first Astra Academy Series, Academy Arcanist, from a used bookstore. Even from just the back cover blurb, I had a pretty good idea that it was going to be a Harry Potter series knockoff. The premise of Astra Academy is a school full of arcanists (witches and wizards) who have to bond with a mystical creature, called an eldrin, in order to really tap into their magical potential. (Gee, can you say Patronus anyone?) 

The main character is Gray Lexly. Gray has a hugely muscular twin brother named Sorin who loves to make up his own poetry extemporaneously. Sorin is also a wizard in the making. Later, Sorin gets a witch girlfriend named Hermione. Okay, her name is actually Nini--but Victor Krum calls Hermione "Hermy-own" in the HP series and that kind of sounds like minny, ninny. All the Eldrin creatures are different with various types and degrees of power. All this is exciting, only Voldemort wants to break free and take over the world. Wait, I mean, Death Lord Deimos wants to break free from the abyssal hells--where the dead live. For some reason, only first-year student Harry…um, I mean, only Gray and his small band of misfit friends can defeat this evil.

This is actually just the start of all the endless connections I made with the HP series while I was reading Astra Academy. The sheer number of parallels became so overwhelming, I sometimes felt hit over the head with them. Just when it seemed like the series might set itself apart from its predecessor, the reader is held down and kicked with "Do-you-see-the-similarities-now?" driving-force boots. 

Does this make the series any less compelling? I'm not a hundred percent sure how to answer that, but I'll try to make some sense of this conundrum in the latter part of this review. I will say for sure that if I hadn't found Books 2-4 in audiobook format on my library app, I wouldn't have continued the series beyond Book 1 (as I didn't want to pay to read this particular series--the vow I started last year was to only put out cash for books I've actually read and loved instead of buying anything that vaguely sounds like something I'd like). The audiobooks were lively and fun and kept me coming back for more. They were all immediately available to me for checkout on Hoopla (none of them were available on my Libby library app in audio- or ebook format). When I went searching for Book 5, I found out it wasn't coming out until a later time (luckily, the library app did get a copy of the audiobook when it became available). That forced a lag between Books 1-4 and the final in the series. Fortunately, I remembered everything necessary without having to go backward, as it was only a few months I had to wait. Oh, how I dislike starting a series when all the books in it aren't out yet. Add insult to injury because libraries tend to be hit-and-miss in regards to making sure all series books are available. Again, I got lucky and they did get this one (though I'm still waiting for a final in another of Stovall's other series, which I'll review next week).I was really glad to get closure with this series. 

Additionally, while I was undertaking more research on this series, I found out that Astra Academy is also just one of a subseries with other connected series. Per my usual modus operandi, I'd jumped into this "umbrella" series (which doesn't have an overall name that I'm aware of) in the wrong place, as this was not the first series in technical reading order. At least, I don't think it is. Ugh! Here's what I dug up: 

  Frith Chronicles Books (with 8 novels and a collection of shorts) features a gravedigger who becomes an arcanist with a knightmare--a Eldrin made of shadow and terror--the very same mystical creature that becomes Sorin's Eldrin in Astra Academy. These books were published between 2019-2023. 

  The Kirin Arcanist Books were novels written with Ryan Tang. So there's a tournament that arcanists from around the world can participate in with the prize being that the one who gets the crown also gets turned into a powerful god-like arcanist. Pretty cool, right? These books were published between 2023-2025. 

The suggested reading order of these connected series is very unclear, so I'm going to guess, based on the publication dates, that Frith comes first, followed by Astra Academy, and finally Kirin Arcanist. As to what the chronological order should be, the author should have put more specific information about all this on her website, but there's nothing there (all the series are all plunked on the pages in willy-nilly fashion--don't expect any help sorting this mess out there). I did find more in-depth information about the author's many series on Fandom Wiki (in the search bar here, put "Shami Stovall" to see a listing). If someone spent hours upon hours or was already a widely entrenched fan of this author, I'm sure they'd find whatever they were looking for here. But my point is that brand new fans are left in the dark, dense woods about where to jump into all this. I didn't really want to go deep diving for it, so I'm sorry to say that, if you're new to Shami Stovall's series, you'll have to lump it and blind-plunge in just as I did. 

Now that we've established…not much of anything useful with what proceeded, let's have some summary of the five Astra Academy books: 

Academy Arcanist, Book 1 (published in 2022), opens with Gray plagued by terrible nightmares where he's visited by monsters in a dreamscape and they can actually injure him. He wakes up with real wounds. His parents think he fell out of bed, but his twin Sorin believes him and tries to help him. He's eventually saved from death within the nightmare by Professor Helmith, who tells him she's a powerful arcanist and she invites him to attend Astra Academy. Gray becomes a mimic arcanist, his Eldrin Twain (whose permanent form is an adorable kitty cat) can take the form and power of any other mystical creature nearby). Once Gray and Sorin are established in the school, the plot heads down the road so Professor Helmith is in trouble because a traitorous professor (no, not Quirrell) is in league with an evil Death Lord that wants to escape the abyssal hells, opens a portal, and Gray, who's a brand-new arcanist and green as algae, somehow is the only person who can save the day. Well, temporarily anyway. 

Mimic Arcanist, Book 2 (2023) has Gray, Sorin, and their fellow student "company" hoping to focus on studying and honing their new magics at the academy. But Gray finds a horcrux…I mean, a fragment of the portal he'd closed in Book 1 that allows abyssal hell's monsters into the world of the living. Now Gray's group and the academy need to find all those rogue fragments. But, before they can, Chief Death Eater Vold…{cough} Death Lord Deimos arrives in the mortal world, and Gray once more has to save everybody. 

Abyssal Arcanist, Book 3 (2023) revolves around treasonous arcanists within the academy plotting to destroy the school. Deimos has been trapped in an itty bitty baby's body and has to be fed by bottle and carried around everywhere… No, that's not right. He was actually he was trapped in a dreamscape by Professor Helmith. But Voldemort and Harry are connected by the horcruxes, and Ron, and Hermoine are standing right there beside their friend-- That is to say, Gray and Deimos are connected by soul fragments, and, instead of the teachers at the academy doing the heavy lifting, it's up to wet-behind-the-ears Gray, Sorin, Nini and their other unpopular friends to clean up this mess. 

In Death Lord Arcanist, Book 4 (2024), Harry is trapped in a hedge maze that teleports him to a graveyard where Voldemort and his Death Eaters are waiting… Nope, got bludgeoned again, but I'm all right. It's Gray that's trapped in the abyssal hells and Death Lord Deimos--who is now not a friend but also not an enemy--is injured. Another Death Lord (Naiad) wants to destroy all other Death Lords who are trying to open abyssal portals into the world of the living. Gray shortsightedly teams up with Deimos to fix it and, well, that can't lead to anything good, can it? 

The latest installment in this subseries, Labyrinth Arcanist, Book 5 (2025), details the final confrontation between the juvenile arcanist superheroes (and some of their occasionally half-witted teachers) and Death Lord arcanists from the abyssal hells. Right from the start, I was pretty sure who would win (against all odds). I will note that I don't believe this is the final offering in the series. It ended on a cliffhanger, with Gray pointing out that they still had to defeat the remaining Death Lords. So I expect there will be more to follow.

While I wouldn't say I was a huge fan of Gray Lexly in these books--he's a pompous character who unfortunately almost always gets exactly what he wants, which sets a bad precedent. (I did love Harry Potter and all his friends. Just saying.) Gray seems to think everyone around him is stupid, though occasionally he has good thoughts for the weak, pitiful mortals he looks down upon and graces with his sympathy. Sorin was a more interesting character, and Twain was cutely fun. I also really liked that the villain of this series, Deimos, wasn't straight-up evil. While the reader was aware he was always acting in his own best interests, he, like Voldemort, was a complicated character with a backstory, internal and external conflicts, and motivations that made him intriguing. 

Each book in the series was rollicking good fun, especially read by Michael Langan in the audiobook versions, which had me coming back nearly every day for more. There was always something happening, providing pretty much constant tension. The characters were basically well-drawn while the settings were interesting. In a general way, I'd say I actually liked this series. My big problem was that I couldn't escape the feeling that this was all taking place within a world created by someone else. The author inserted her characters, settings, and plots into it, then spun all her "like series" out from there. In many ways, I would call what she's done here "fan fiction". I looked up the definition of this word. AI gave me the gist of it as: "Fanfic…is creative writing that allows fans to explore their favorite universes and characters in new ways, often expanding on scenarios not covered in the original material." So, yeah, seems like maybe could be fanfic??? 

Polite people might also say artists use "tropes", which offer something so conventional in the plot or theme, etc., that it becomes recognizable almost in a single glance or within a few sentences. But at what point does it become something, well, nefarious? Is it weird for me to be bothered by this? I would absolutely hate it if someone took my characters or worlds and wrote something of their own based on them--especially if it's intended to mock my work. Even if it's actually supposed to be a compliment they liked your work so much that they're emulating it, this seems to be skirting a wider issue that's become so commonplace these days, no one seems bothered by it anymore. No one, that is, except me and a few other curmudgeonly ancients. 

Bottom line, Stovall is a good writer and certainly a prolific one. I also can't be too hard on 1) any writer who's obsessed with playing videogames (as I am), 2) whose favorite videogame is Mass Effect (as is mine)--and Stovall's The Star Marque Trilogy book covers could definitely be both male and female Shepherd, straight from the character creation menu in the videogame--and, as if those weren't enough, 3) someone whose favorite book as a child was The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (mine as well). I'm giving this author a pass because the fact of the matter is that I just plain enjoy her work too much to avoid it, despite my possibly outdated principles. 

Neither of my library apps have any more of Stovall's work available for me to check out other than the first audiobook in another of her "fanfic" series, which, I don't deny, had me hooked. As I said, you'll see the review of it on the Alien Romances Blog next Friday. 

In conclusion, if you want something familiar and adventurous to pass the time, these audiobooks should give you hours of enjoyment…and, you know, also make you want to dust off some true "oldies but goodies" by revisiting Hogwarts, Harry, Ron, and Hermoine just for old times' sake. 

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Who Came First? {Astounding Advances in Electronic Publishing}, Part 4 by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Who Came First? {Astounding Advances in Electronic Publishing}, Part 4

by Karen S. Wiesner 

E-books and e-publishing have really advanced in the last three decades. When I first entered this arena in 1998, e-books were the ugly stepsister of "real books". Fast-forward thirty years, and it's a whole different world now than those early pioneering days in the industry. In the past three weeks, I posted previous sections of an article I wrote in 2003, when e-books and e-publishing still hadn't made much of an impact. Back then, universal acceptance of them always seemed out of reach. Reflecting on changes keeps history relevant. To that end, this week, I'm posting the final part. 

 

WHO CAME FIRST?

by Karen S. Wiesner

© 2003 as featured in ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING The Definitive Guide, 2003 Edition by Karen S. Wiesner, published by Hard Shell Word Factory OOP

 

Another Brick in the Wall…

 

So where are we in e-publishing? The beginning? The middle? What does the future hold?

I asked some of the earliest e-publishers, given that they have such a long view of the medium, to share their thoughts:

Nancy McAllister of C&M Online Media, Inc.: "We had none of the tools years ago available in a practical way for multimedia and other enhancements. Publishers today are doing a wonderful job of using the technology. There is, however, sometimes to overuse a good thing and the book being published can suffer from too much technological attention.

"[What mass market publishers are doing with e-books] doesn’t look right yet. We’ll have to wait and see what the effect is of all that hype and motion on the core concept of online publishing. All we can do now is observe.

"E-publishing is here, not only for academic or informational books, but also for the general commercial publisher who is disciplined, knowledgeable, professionally expert, and patient."

Ray Hoy of The Fiction Works: "I think [the fact that many small press e-publishers are now offering print formats in the form of print-on-demand is] an evolutionary process. I think The Fiction Works is a rare bird because we produce audiobooks, e-books and paperbacks. Many of these little publishers will fall by the wayside. I’m sorry to say that is already beginning to happen.

"[The future of e-publishing is] going to be huge! Right now there’s very little money in e-publishing. We have the advantage of being able to live on our audiobook and paperback sales, so we can continue to pour money into e-book development. But believe me, the e-book business is going to be simply enormous. I think that’s about a year away, but when it starts to move, we’ll be ready and waiting."

Glenn Hauman of Bibliobytes: "I recently got my hands on some numbers from a publisher (not me) showing the sales of a book in hardcover and e-book formats. The hardcover sold in the 20,000 unit range. The e-book hadn’t sold 400. Not surprising to me—the e-book was priced at the same price point as the hardcover—in fact, it was a nickel higher. And being an e-book, there was no discount at the register, as there was for the hardcover. We are now looking at the long-term endurance run in this industry. The sprinters are dropping. The ones who are keeping their burn rates low are staying around for the long haul out of sheer cussedness. They survive the lean times because it’s always been lean times to them. But the big publisher that spends millions on payroll for its e-publishing venture and can’t crack a million in sales for 2000—well, it’s time to update the resume.

"E-publishing works, obviously. Whether or not e-publishing for books works is still up in the air, but for magazines it’s clearly more than arrived. I can’t think of a paper magazine that doesn’t have an online component anymore. I’m beginning to think mandatory licensing for texts may be coming down the pike, much the way radio does with music.

"I don’t think there is an answer which will allow the book industry to survive in anything even closely resembling its current form. And I think that’s why they can’t find a solution. Because most solutions leave them out of the game."

Bob Gunner of Cyber-Pulp Houston/USA: "I dream every day that I will eventually develop a profitable and acceptable way to get the words of writers to readers electronically. I know that having a user-friendly and inexpensive reader device available and manufactured by a company that supports the work of smaller e-publishers is the way to do it."

Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg: "The corporate structures have figured out they can make you buy new copies of the same movie over and over as they plan the obsolescence of format after format [U-Matic, Betamax, VHS, CD, DVD]. I think they will try to do the same thing with books...so they would not think it was a bad thing for such formats not to be used in the decades to come. I am afraid that the only [format] likely to survive the coming decade intact is HTML.

"[Mass market publishers] are like kids fighting in a sandbox, which is appropriate since their corporate ages do make them only kids in that respect, other than Microsoft. They haven’t even reached adolescence yet...while Project Gutenberg moved out of adolescence over 10 years ago. We have been doing Etexts for 30 years now, with no money, but they still argue if it is feasible. If we had all the money they have spent thinking about feasibility, we could have given away a trillion Etexts by now!!!

"There are currently about 16,000 free Etexts to download, and about 22% or 3500 of them are from Project Gutenberg. Ten years ago anyone would have been hard pressed to find more than 16 Etexts on the entire internet, and most, or all, of these would have been Project Gutenberg Etexts—today there are 16,000—1,000 times as many as a decade ago, and still growing at a fantastic rate—a rate, which if it is continued for only another decade will yield 16,000,000 Etexts and the like to download free via the internet. Ten years ago there were only a few million internet users to download these Etexts, today there are hundreds of millions.

"[Speculation on the future of e-publishing]: Big shake outs...some format takes over...then we see about planned obsolescence."

John Galuszka of Serendipity Systems: "With the exception of Martin Eberhard, the designer of the Rocket eBook, most of the mass market publishers’ efforts and related hardware devices are coming from the marketing departments, not the editorial and/or engineering departments. What we have are mostly conventional books copied onto e-devices. We are not seeing manuscripts being written to take advantage of the features of the digital devices. Furthermore, they are pricing e-books as if they were hardcover books. $25 for an e-book file of a bestseller conventional novel? E-publishers don’t have to chop down forests for paper, buy ink by the barrel, or even have to have warehouses and deal with remainders. E-books should be as cheap or cheaper than paperbacks. High prices are alienating our potential customers. Despite all the media hype, a viable market for electronic books does not yet exist. No one is making money with this. We consider it to be a good year when we break even.

"We need better, less expensive, and open-system hardware, and we need lots of it. We were going in that direction with the Rocket eBook. Prices of the device were slowly dropping, memory upgrades were available, and best of all, it was very easy to publish works for the Rocket eBook. If they could have gotten the price under $100 and, for example, put a student’s textbooks into a package, this thing would have sold millions. Instead, Gemstar killed it and substituted a more expensive, closed-system device, the REB1100, with severely limited publishing opportunities.

"On the software side, we are not seeing writers who are adept at taking advantage of the features offered by electronic publishing. Almost everything I see could exist on paper as easily as in electronic form. Where are the Generation-X innovators? We had a brief period of new genre development in the late 1980s. I hope we will have a new wave soon. However, those writers should not be so dazzled by the digital glitz that they lose sight of the fact that they must have a tight plot with believable characters. The media may be digitally interactive hypertext, but we are really still telling stories around the campfire with lurking, mysterious shapes flitting about in the shadows beyond the light’s edge."

 

My thanks to the following e-publishers who contributed to this article:

 

Bob Gunner of Cyber-Pulp Houston/USA, John Cullen of Clocktower Books, Diane Greco of Eastgate Systems, Inc., Ray Hoy of The Fiction Works, Marilyn Nesbitt of DiskUs Publishing, Lorna Tedder of Spilled Candy Books, Stephen Ellerin of The Great American Publishing Society (GR.AM.P.S.), Glenn Hauman of BiblioBytes, Nancy McAllister of C & M Online Media, Inc., Sunny Ross of Mystic-Ink Publishing, John Galuszka of Serendipity Systems, Mary Ann Heathman of LionHearted Publishing, Inc. and Michael S. Hart of Project Gutenberg.

 

Special and a hundred-fold thanks to Jamie Engle for forwarding me almost two years’ worth of archives of eBC’s ePub Market Update.

 

Sources used in this article:

 

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING The Definitive Guide, 1999 Edition by Karen S. Wiesner, published by Petals of Life OOP

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING The Definitive Guide, 2000 Edition by Karen S. Wiesner, published by Avid Press, LLC OOP

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING The Definitive Guide, 2002 Edition by Karen S. Wiesner, published by Avid Press, LLC OOP

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING The Definitive Guide, 2003 Edition by Karen S. Wiesner, published by Hard Shell Word Factory OOP

eBC’s E-Pub Market Update™, April 10, 1999; eBC’s E-Pub Market Update™, September 13, 1999 Volume 1, Issue No. 8; eBC’s E-Pub Market Update™, November 5, 1999 Volume 1, No. 11; eBC’s E-Pub Market Update™, November 9, 1999 Volume 1, No. 11; eBC’s E-Pub Market Update™, December 08, 1999 Volume 1, No. 16; eBC’s ePUB MARKET UPDATE™, February 20, 2001 Volume 3, No. 02; eBC’s ePUB MARKET UPDATE™, April 5, 2001 Volume 3, No. 03; eBC’s ePUB MARKET UPDATE™, January 19, 2000 Volume 1, No. 19; eBC’s ePUB MARKET UPDATE™, February 20, 2001 Volume 3, No. 02; eBC’s ePUB MARKET UPDATE™, May 22, 2000 Volume 1, No. 26; eBC’s ePUB MARKET UPDATE™, September 20, 2000 Volume 2, No. 07

"The digital future is now: Pocket Books to release KNOCKDOWN in e-Book and on-demand formats prior to publication," July 19, 1999

"STEPHEN KING AND SIMON & SCHUSTER TO PUBLISH NEW STORY EXCLUSIVELY ON EBOOK," New York, March 8, 2000

The Plant Income/Expense Report Through 12/31/00

Books@Random Divisional Information, September 2000

Discover Modern Library eBooks, 2000

AtRandom, About Us, 2000

"TEXTERITY ENTERS INTO eBOOK CONVERSION AGREEMENT WITH PENGUIN PUTNAM," Southborough, MA, and New York, NY, November 15, 2000

"PENGUIN PUTNAM, LIGHTNING SOURCE ENTER INTO STRATEGIC ALLIANCE

Lightning to Provide Digital Fulfillment Services, Ensuring Secure E-Book Delivery," Nashville, TN, and New York, NY, August 22, 2000

"Women.com Networks and Harlequin Launch Site for Romantics," SAN MATEO, Calif., February 14, 2000

"SIMON & SCHUSTER TO PUBLISH FIRST FULL SEASON OF eBOOKS Fall 2000 List Highlights Original and Simultaneous ePublications from Major Authors and Franchises," August 23, 2000

"SIMON & SCHUSTER TO PUBLISH ALL-NEW STAR TREK® NOVELS IN eBOOK ONLY," New York, August 8, 2000

"THOMAS NELSON, INC. BECOMES FIRST CHRISTIAN PUBLISHER TO LAUNCH MAJOR E-BOOK PUBLISHING PROGRAM," October 6, 2000

"Holtzbrinck, Lightning Source Create Global Digital Content Alliance Digital Fulfillment Company to Provide Full Range of Services to Publisher Worldwide," New York, NY, and La Vergne, TN, August 3, 2000

"About iPublish," 2001

"E-Publishing: Threat, Phantom or Menace?" by Glenn Hauman, The Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America, Winter 1999

"E-Publishing: The Drawing of the Long Knives in which we discuss the problems with locking up imaginary things," by Glenn Hauman, The Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America, Summer 2001

"E-Publishing: Freebooting Rebooting in which we discuss press deadlines, precognition, piracy, plunder and profitability," by Glenn Hauman, The Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America, Fall 2000

"HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF PROJECT GUTENBERG," © August 1992

 

For those who believed in this medium right from the beginning, you were ahead of your time, and kudos for your fortitude and contribution to making history! It's a new day. Look how far we've come. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Who Came First? {Astounding Advances in Electronic Publishing}, Part 1 by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Who Came First? {Astounding Advances in Electronic Publishing}, Part 1

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

 

Oh, we have come a long way, baby, when it comes to the leaps and bounds e-books and e-publishing have advanced in the last three decades. When I first entered this arena in 1998, e-books were the ugly stepsister of "real books". Traditionally published authors, mainstream publishers, and nearly every reader encountered didn't have a clue what electronic books were, let alone what to do with them. When physical copies of the books were introduced, floppy disks and then CDs complete with cover art, astounded and nearly always repelled those who frequented bookstores and book signings. The electronic reading devices were as alien as Star Trek technology, and very expensive, to the point where few could imagine such an investment just to read books. Even the compelling arguments that countless trees could be saved, eye strain could be drastically reduced, and an e-reader "suitcase" could hold thousands of books had little or no effect on the audiences e-published authors attempted to persuade to our cause. 

Fast-forward thirty years. Printing paperbacks has now become an "on demand" practice and scarcer. Almost every reader I know enjoys and even prefers their books read on a phone or electronic device in a wide range of inexpensive models. Every publisher now offers a variety of electronic formats and huge strides have been made in making book files secure. Almost all newspapers and magazines have an electronic component--in fact, it's the only format most now offer. You can also check out e-books from libraries. Wow is it a whole different world now than those early pioneering days in the industry. 

In late March 2025, while I was completing the "legacy" compilation of a comprehensive list of details about the 156 books I've had published in the timespan since my first book was released electronically, I came across an article I wrote in 2003 that became a chapter in my annually updated ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING The Definitive Guide, which, in its heyday was truly the most complete reference for non-subsidy e-publishing available in the industry. Compelled to relive such a pivotal part of my publishing history, I read it, and found myself even more astounded by all that'd come to pass. Mind you, in 2003, e-books and e-publishing still hadn't made much of an impact on the whole. Most of us clung to hope that someday the possibilities would just explode while a small voice inside whispered that we and our products would never see universal acceptance. For that reason, this article seemed even more amazing to me, almost like a prophecy about the future that always seemed out of reach at that time. 

I believe looking back and reflecting on changes is an important part of keeping history relevant, so, for the next four weeks, I'm going to post this 2003 article I wrote. I took out the many, many links that were in it, since all/most of them were broken anyway. In fact, most of the publishers mentioned are defunct--so I took out most of the references to publishers who closed their doors already then and now. I also updated the spelling and grammar of some words that were written differently back then. Other than that, I'm posting the article in its entirety and intact, without revising any part of it. I think you'll marvel just like I did when I dragged this article of the ruins and saw that the world as we know it when it comes to e-books and e-publishing has been turned upside down in only three decades. 

And, now, without further ado, here's Part 1 of that article.

 

WHO CAME FIRST?

by Karen S. Wiesner

© 2003 as featured in ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING The Definitive Guide, 2003 Edition by Karen S. Wiesner, published by Hard Shell Word Factory OOP

 

Since electronic publishing became the ultra-popular buzz word of the industry, there’s been a lot of talk going around about who first came up with the idea of e-publishing and who the first e-publisher was. We hear things like "It was 199-; there was no such thing as e-books" and "We only see futuristic things like e-books in episodes of Star Trek."

Mass market publishers have been claiming they broke new ground with publishing since Simon Schuster released Stephen King’s novel Bag of Bones in both print and electronic formats (April 1999) and Pocket Books announced on July 19, 1999 that it would release an e-book and print-on-demand edition of one of their titles prior to hardcover publication (KNOCKDOWN: The Harrowing True Account of a Yacht Race Turned Deadly by Martin Dugard). This "leap into the electronic future" was touted as a "first time venture."

On March 14, 2000, Simon & Schuster went one further and published Stephen King’s novella Riding the Bullet in electronic-only format. It was said of the venture: "This innovative publication strategy takes the e-book from the realm of novelty and directly into the very mainstream of today’s culture…" But was this a leap? Was it actually innovative or fantasy-made-reality? Ironically, it was also Simon & Schuster that asked authors for 15,000-40,000 word works for e-books and offered advances of $1000 (2.5 cents a word on the low end; 65 cents per word on the high end) in exchange. An S&S spokesperson said of the deal, "We’re a traditional publisher. We don’t have dot-com dollars to throw around."

Random House established Modern Library e-Books, which published 100 works of classic literature from the Modern Library backlist in electronic form, beginning July 2000. In September 2000, Random House claimed it "has just become the first major trade publisher to announce publication of a complete editorial list of original electronic books, commissioned expressly for this publishing format." The first 20 e-books, both fiction and nonfiction, appeared in January 200l under the new imprint, AtRandom, and were offered as trade paperbacks as well as in digital format. Yet at least one mass market publisher beat them to the punch as the first trade publisher to offer their editorial list as original e-books. In 1997, Denlinger’s Publishers Ltd. produced original titles in both electronic format and print-on-demand paperbacks from their Emerging Technologies Department.

On October 6, 2000, Thomas Nelson, Inc. announced they’d become "the first Christian publisher to launch a comprehensive e-book publishing program." However, MountainView Publishing Company had been publishing Christian books in electronic format since July 1998.

The media has accredited Stephen King with the (supposedly) never-before-attempted venture of offering a book via installment chapters (a.k.a. serial), though King himself claimed he was trying "out a concept so old it may seem new." The Plant was experimentally self-published in e-format in July 2000 by Stephen King, chapter by chapter (and remains at the time of this writing unfinished), with readers paying a dollar for those chapters, on an honor basis. The Plant brought in an astounding (by e-publishing standards) net profit of $463,832.27. In the ’70s, Bob Gunner (currently the owner of Cyber-Pulp Houston/USA ePublishing) became aware that another e-publisher was using a name similar to his first e-publishing venture, Mind Eye ePublishing. That company was Mind’s Eye Fiction owned by Ken Jenks. According to Gunner, even back then, Mind’s Eye Fiction used a free-sample/buy-the-rest-if-you-like-it system: "He would let them read a page or so, and then the reader would decide if they wanted to read the rest of the story and pay for the key." Mind’s Eye Fiction remains in business to this day, having been purchased by Alexandria Digital Literature in November 1999. In the late 1980s, Bob Gunner published his e-books as "Donationware"—if the reader enjoyed it, they could send a dollar to the author. "I never received too many of those dollars," Bob says. "We felt the writing was most important; the money really did not matter at the time. We always believed the money would come later." Suddenly Stephen King’s solo venture with The Plant in 2000—profit aside—seems very clichéd, doesn’t it?

Even small press electronic publishers are vying for the "first" title—first e-publisher, first 5 star review of an e-book, first bestselling e-book, and on and on.

So who’s right? Who’s confused? Who’s taking credit that isn’t due them? Who’s quietly going about their business without ever realizing they’ve started a revolution?

Next week we'll really get into the meat of this article. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog 

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Part 1 by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews of George R. R. Martin's

A Song of Ice and Fire and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,

Part 1

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

I can't help it, I feel bad for George R. R. Martin. He takes a lot of flak I don't believe he deserves. He had an idea for a phenomenal, epic fantasy story a la Tolkien (and yes, he, like the father of modern fantasy literature, considers A Song of Ice and Fire one very, very, very long story published in several volumes) and it became larger than life, to the point where he couldn't keep up with it and was quickly finding that each installment was growing and spiraling wildly in a way that undoubtedly felt out of control by the time HBO got involved and began producing the television series. 

Add to that stress, Martin isn't just an award-winning author and editor for many, many success anthologies featuring other authors--he's also a successful TV and feature film writer. When he begins to feel writing for TV compromises "the size of his imagination", he, in frustration, returns to book writing. In 1991, after having a vivid idea of a boy seeing a beheading and finding direwolves in the snow, he wrote the first scene of A Game of Thrones. In this fictional world, seasons last for years and can come to an unpredictable halt. Violent political machinations with several family dynasties vying for control of Westeros--including the daughter of the deposed Westerosi king attempting to return from exile and assume the throne she believes belongs to her--are at the heart of the tale with the growing threat of powerful supernatural creatures returning to the civilized world forming an intriguing backdrop I found irresistible from the first time I heard about these "White Walkers". 

Before long, Martin was researching, making maps and genealogies, and writing a few more chapters, which were interrupted for a TV series he worked on for years that ultimately never aired. In 1994, he returned to novel writing and A Game of Thrones. 1,400 manuscript pages in, he started to realize this was going to be a much larger endeavor than he'd originally thought. It was published in August 1996 with 1,088 pages, not including the appendices. At that time, it was touted the first in a trilogy, but, by the time the second book was published, "trilogy" was dropped. A Clash of Kings was released February 1999, coming in at 1,184 (sans appendices) pages. 

In 1999, after Book 2 reached #13 on The New York Times Best Seller list, producers and filmmakers started showing an interest in the film rights to the series. A Storm of Swords, the third book, was turned in several months late, published in November 2000, with well over 1,500 pages. A Feast of Crows, Book 4, came out five years after the previous (November 2005) with events set up to directly follow where Book 3 had left off, and focused on characters from King's Landing, the Riverlands, Dorne, and the Iron Islands. Book 5, A Dance with Dragons (with a whopping 1,600 pages) was set in the same time period but focused on characters in Essos, Winterfell, and the Wall. Only Arya, Jon Snow, Tyrion, and Daenerys had chapters in both parallel-running volumes. It came out in July 2011. With this story, the series had caught up with what had happened in the previous installment around the two-thirds mark of the novel, and then went further. However, it covered much less than the author intended and left several agonizing tenterhooks that fans have been hanging on all this time. While rude critics claimed Martin had lost interest in the series or, devilishly, was looking to make more money and so held off on finishing the book for publication, he says he just spent too much time rewriting and perfecting it, which I heartily believe. 

In the meantime, in 2007, HBO had acquired the rights to turn A Song of Ice and Fire into a TV series, Game of Thrones. The first 10-episode season aired in April 2011. The series was officially a hit. Though the book series debuted without any mass market publicity or buzz of any kind in the genre, forcing the author to earn his audience the hard way--by writing damn good books that his fans were avidly talking about with other readers--Game of Thrones practically came out of the gate with a cannon explosion. Soon, Martin was carried along by the blitz with a seemingly endless succession of book tours and conventions, though he was trying admirably to juggle all that while writing one script per season of the TV series, writing the sixth book in the series, along with his The World of Ice & Fire companion guide and the Dunk and Egg novellas. 

In March 2012, Martin said that he expects the final two installments to be 1500 pages each but later talked about not being "firm about ending the series with a seventh novel". Book 6, The Winds of Winter, is supposed to resolve the cliffhangers from A Dance with Dragons early on, opening with two big battles that were built up in the previous installment. The viewpoint of Sansa and Arya Stark is supposed to be covered, as well as Arianne Martell's and Aeron Greyjoy's within this title. As for the ending to the series, the author says he wants a satisfying depth and resonance but plans to avoid disappointing fans "by deviating too far from their own theories and desires". 

By October 2012, 400 pages of the sixth novel had reportedly been written, half of which needed revising. HBO was churning out the popular series by mainly following the books already published to a fanatical increase in viewers, and Martin was working hard to deliver in hopes of Book 6 being published before the sixth season of Game of Thrones. By early 2016, he announced he wouldn't be able to catch up with the books in time for the last season of the show. As of this writing, July 2024 (13 years later), we still haven't seen the sixth installment (though in October 2022, he said it was approximately three quarters done), let alone the final (probably) book, A Dream of Spring. 

Martin is said to have told the TV show producers the "major plot points" of what may be in the final two installments. One presumes he told them enough so that the show and its stellar actors (some of whom received a million dollars per episode toward the end) went on to earn countless awards. That said, the final season's ending responses from fans and critics were a pretty mixed bag, with a lot of people unhappy with it. 

For my part, I didn't appreciate the very abrupt end of the supernatural angle of the series. It was almost like the producers came up with a checklist out of nowhere and this vital subplot was checked off summarily within an episode or two. I can't really think of how else it might have been done, so I survived that. That said, for the ultimate end of the series, I had three requirements or I would have been absolutely wroth: Arya, Tyrion, and Jon Snow had to survive and Dany had to die by Jon's hand. So I was pretty pleased with the series conclusion. I don't expect to be quite as pleased with the author's own ending, should we get it, given his own words to the effect of killing off major players so readers don't rely on the hero coming through unscathed and instead experience the tension those characters go through page by page. 

You can almost hear the exhaustion in his voice in a 2003 interview when Martin talked about never again writing anything on this scale, of returning to his fictional universe only in standalone novels, and of writing about characters from other time periods within the setting, such as his Dunk and Egg stories. Disaffected fans in this thirteen year interval between book have been abusive and downright merciless, judging the writing process by their own woefully ignorant prejudices, adding to the stress this author is no doubt feeling to the extreme since the Game of Thrones TV series ended in 2019. 

Martin has also been involved in HBO's follow-up attempts to cash in on more success in this fictional universe, not only with writing the massive two-volume, complete history of House Targaryen that--along with novellas "The Princess and the Queen" (published in the 2013 anthology Dangerous Women), "The Rogue Prince" (2014 Rogues anthology), "The Songs of the Dragon" (2017 The Book of Swords anthology) and the Asimov's Science Fiction and Dragon compilations "Blood of the Dragon" (taken from Dany's chapters in A Game of Thrones), "Path of the Dragon" (Dany's chapters in A Storm of Swords), and "Arms of the Kraken" (based on Iron Island chapters from A Feast for Crows)--spawned the House of the Dragon HBO series currently (as of this writing) in its second season as well as the upcoming one for the Dunk and Egg adventures, and several others which seem to have failed to move forward (the Jon Snow one was what I personally was most looking forward to) or are still being discussed. 

I, for one, devoured every installment of the book series when they were first published and continue to read them every couple years in hopes that a new volume will come out soon and I'll be ready to read it the very instant it's released. I also watch the HBO series at least once a year. My only complaint with it is that it's very hard to watch the over-the-top gratuitousness that goes far beyond the "honest necessity" to reflect real people Martin deliberately includes for "an immersive experience" in the novels because sexuality is "an important driving force in human life". I tend to fast-forward through the worst of it. Other than that, over the course of three or four intense days, I binge-watch the entire series every time I get started with it because I'm tortured with the situations the characters are going through and I can't leave long before I have to return to find out what will happen (though, at this point, I obviously already know). 

I love that the characters are so complex and well-fleshed out, it's sometimes hard not to believe they're just fictional imaginings. Not surprisingly, Ned Stark, Jon Snow, Tyrion, Arya, and Davos are my favorites. The settings are lush and vivid while the events are so authentic and suspenseful, I would love to live in the time period--in theory anyway…okay, so maybe just LARPing there. According to Martin at some point since 2012, he definitely doesn't plan to allow another writer to finish his book series for him if he's unable to complete it himself (he is 76 years old, after all). 

In the meantime, I'm avidly, anxiously, agonizingly waiting for the series to be finished, but I'm also understanding of the author's need to do it in his own time, to the very best of his ability, while also trying to juggle so many other things in the process. The less stress his disgruntled fans put on him, the more likely we'll see the next installments, which hopefully come out with satisfactory conclusions instead of the series exponentially growing and growing and growing with each new volume. So practice patience and enjoy what else the author has to offer, as I am, including non-Song of Ice and Fire offerings, as well as Ice and Fire connected House of the Dragon and the Egg and Dunk adventures, which I'll review next week and hopefully provide something to tide you over for The Winds of Winter. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Karen S. Wiesner: Combating Big Book Overwhelm with Audiobooks or {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, A Fractalverse Novel by Christopher Paolini

Combating Big Book Overwhelm with Audiobooks or

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review:

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, A Fractalverse Novel

by Christopher Paolini

by Karen S. Wiesner

Within an extensive article I wrote called "Presentation is King", previously published on the Alien Romances Blog, I talked about Christopher Paolini's first science fiction mega-novel, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, which was the first offering in his Fractalverse series, and provided a review for it. While I thought the novel was well-written, I complained about the obscene length that overwhelmed my basic enjoyment of the story. You can read the article here:

               Part 1: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/12/karen-s-wiesner-presentation-is-king.html

               Part 2: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/12/karen-s-wiesner-presentation-is-king_01963401706.html

               Part 3: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/12/karen-s-wiesner-presentation-is-king_02089261396.html

The weird thing is, I wanted to love that book wholeheartedly instead of just liking it but fervently wished it'd been published as three, manageable, separate stories (which it could so easily have been, given the way the book was conveniently divided into several parts) instead of a massive one. That way my overwhelmed brain could have enjoyed it more.

Within my three-part article, I also talked about Paolini's other series, The Inheritance Cycle, which suffered from the same problem. His stories are too big to allow true immersion and would be so much better presented in multiple parts, allowing the reader time between to recover from the page-overloaded, detail-heavy material. This brings to my mind my favorite fantasy series. Most people who love this genre know that J.R.R. Tolkien intended The Lord of the Rings to be one, exceptionally long novel. Wisely, I think, his publisher thought one book would be cost prohibitive and also they wanted to get the material to eager readers faster, so they turned one book into a trilogy. I might never have read that book--my all-time favorite fantasy--if not for the brilliant presentation. As one volume, I would have been instantly intimidated and deterred from even starting it. Instead, we now have three installments, presented in a way that allows readers to enjoy segments of the story without becoming overwhelmed by the sheer size of the material and ponderous details that need to be absorbed to follow it.

I wondered in the time since I wrote the article/review for To Sleep in a Sea of Stars what other people thought of the book. I found a review by Lotte on The Escape Velocity Collection website, which amused me, though it was a bit too harsh in my opinion--however, I didn't fully disagree with the conclusions drawn. You can read Lotte's review here, if you want: https://escapevelocitycollection.com/fiction-fix-to-sleep-in-a-sea-of-stars/.

Two things stood out for me in that review. First, that the reviewer felt Paolini was a good writer and wanted to love To Sleep… just like I did but didn't quite get there. The second thing that stood out was in the very first sentence of the review: "…I've been listening to the audiobook of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars…" This is how the reviewer managed to get through the enormous amount of material without giving up out of exhaustion. I think one of the biggest reasons people prefer to watch a movie over reading the book is because it's just so much easier to grasp the concepts in that visual form. What may be hard to wade through and grasp in a dense, overloaded read is simpler to see and comprehend playing out on a screen. The brain pulls everything together in a different way that doesn't lead to fatigue, the way it might in reading. I think audiobooks may also provide another means of making sense of a tremendous amount of material--not quite as visual as a film, but I was hopeful this was an avenue that could help my brain fatigue with some large books that I genuinely wanted to love.

I thought about it for months and finally decided to start 2024 with a new willingness to listen to audiobooks, which I confess I tend to think of as cheating for a true reader. But if the sole reason I'm avoiding certain books I know I'd enjoy if they were presented in a different way is because the size overwhelms me, why not try?

The best time for me to listen to an audiobook is while getting ready for the day in the morning as well as while I'm doing household chores at various points throughout the day. Normally, I listen to music during those times, which I'd miss, but it seemed like a worthwhile, temporary swap. I'm not a fan of downloaded audio files, in part because I want something tangible for my money that can be utilized even when technology changes, as it inevitably does and would. Finding cd audiobooks wasn't easy (Amazon doesn't seem to carry them, that I found anyway--only offers Audible.com files, and Barnes and Noble has the same issue) but I did manage to purchase audio cds elsewhere for To Sleep in a Sea of Stars as well as all of Paolini's Inheritance Cycle titles, including the brand new offering in that series, Murtagh, Book 5. I started with Eragon, Book 1, since I received that first. I enjoyed listening each day and looked forward to progressing in the story. As soon as I got the audio cds of To Sleep…, though, I switched to that.

This is a much, much better way of digesting Paolini's brilliant Fractalverse, a way that doesn't strain my brain and make me share in Lotte's hilarious, wearied weeping for reprieve: "Please save me. This book is legitimately 900 pages long and I don't deserve this." Thus far, incorporating audiobooks into my "reading" is a revelation for this diehard, traditional bibliophile. I never would have realized what a difference it would make in dealing with what could otherwise be considered an agonizing endeavor in reading a book too big to be believed.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was well-written with exciting and compelling, well-developed characters and plot conflicts, with plenty of universe and contextual detail to make everything logical. I love science fiction, and, when combined with horror…forget about it. Win-win. I do admit with To Sleep…, I wanted more Alien, less Enemy Mine (Dennis Quaid). Regardless, the bottom line is that I highly recommend not just To Sleep… but the whole Fractalverse series to any fantasy and sci-fi lover. I especially enjoyed listening to Jennifer Hale read To Sleep… with the audiobook. Like Paolini, I'm a huge fan of Mass Effect, and Jennifer Hale was the voice actress for fem Shep in that videogame series. I also learned that Hale, with music producer Todd Herfindal, wrote and performed some beautiful music for To Sleep… Find out more here: https://fractalverse.net/works/music-to-sleep/. If you want to dig deeper into anything in the Fractalverse Universe, Paolini's website has a ton of visuals and explanations for anything from lifeforms to star systems, organizations and religions, as well as a fairly detailed timeline.

There's also talk about a film adaptation or possibly a TV series of To Sleep… I strongly believe either of these would make the most of an incredible story that almost can't be enjoyed in its original format.

Over the next two weeks, I'll review Paolini's other two, subsequent offerings in his Fractalverse.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/