Release Blitz for The Savage Peak (The Morgalla Prequel) by Jon David
╔═.♥.═════════╗ ♥ RELEASE BLITZ ♥ ╚════════════╝ Title: The Savage Peak Series: The Morgalla Prequel Author: Jon David Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Fantasy Purchase ↓ Amazon US: https://goo.gl/3hpi3Z Amazon UK:https://goo.gl/GgW5ew Amazon CA: https://goo.gl/6LktjM Amazon AU: https://goo.gl/43Zr8s #NewRelease #KindleUnlimited #YA #Scifi #Fantasy #Bemybookboyfriend #JonDavid
Title: The Savage Peak Series: The Morgalla Prequel Author: Jon David Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Fantasy Two years before the events of “The Trilogy of Morgalla”, a young demon and her mentor are forced to abandon their sanctuary on a far-off world and return to the realm of Hell. Never having been around her own kind before, the young Morgalla is thrust into an alien culture. She…
Returning for #RustCity17: Roselynn Cannes & Jon David
Returning for #RustCity17: Roselynn Cannes & @Morgalla_
Every book convention must have authors. There’s no question about it and I am working hard to ensure that we not only have a ton of fun people to hang out with, but there’s a wide range of genre talent as well. I know many readers tend to stick with their preferred genres, and there’s nothing wrong with that; but you never know what you’ll find, what you’ll like, until you take a leap of faith.
Returning for #RustCity17: Roselynn Cannes & Jon David
Returning for #RustCity17: Roselynn Cannes & @Morgalla_
Every book convention must have authors. There’s no question about it and I am working hard to ensure that we not only have a ton of fun people to hang out with, but there’s a wide range of genre talent as well. I know many readers tend to stick with their preferred genres, and there’s nothing wrong with that; but you never know what you’ll find, what you’ll like, until you take a leap of faith.…
I tried Livejournal for a little while. Didn’t like it. So I’m posting a slightly edited version of something I did on there last year. Once I have a decent length of free time, I hope to continue this sporking. Bold quotes is something another person originally wrote. Everything else is my words.
So, Diary of a Lonely Demon. Much as I loathe to spend money on this trash, I had to in order to spork it. Oh well. If I can save future generations from having to buy this “book” just to see how terrible it truly is, it’s worth the five bucks. Anyone reading this? Please don’t buy it. I’m wasting my time, my money, and my sanity to spork this thing. Don’t make my sacrifice be in vain.
Just a general disclaimer: every judgment I make is a matter of opinion. I may be wrong about some things, like the intentions of the author, Jon David, with such and such, but unless he contacts me directly to tell me that, I will not know. Perhaps you think something I thought was terrible was actually well done. That’s fine. It’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it. Also, since I quote his book in the name of reviewing it, I’m fairly sure this is not copyright infringement, especially since I generally shy away from quoting. I believe that falls under “Fair Use”.
One last thing: I am writing these comments as I go along. I do not have the benefit of foresight. Therefore, incorrect assumptions may be corrected later on. This is to truly replicate the experience of someone reading this for the first time, since most of the incorrect assumptions are probably going to be because this book is damn confusing
Now, to start: the title. It makes me think that Morgalla (the titular lonely demon) is emotionally desperate. Or maybe that she’s a member of a Lonely Hearts Club. Neither of which is the best trait for a demon protagonist, since that’s a good indicator of “whiny and useless” and demons make you think “strong, ruthless, and a least a little amoral”. And this being a “diary” doesn’t help. I don’t care if it’s more alliterative that way; it has the side effect of making Morgalla sound like a self-absorbed emo teen who needs to weep into her diary every night to get through her oh-so-horrible life. Even changing it to “journal” would make it sound more badass! Hell, the title makes me think of a cliche ex-girlfriend who you broke up with for being too needy. And this is supposed to be a romance?
It also seems to indicate that her standards might be a little low. Which tells me a lot about our male protagonist before I even know his name . . .
As to what this thing promises to provide, I’m going to quote the summary from Amazon: “Morgalla is a young woman with a good heart and a dark secret: She's a demon from Hell. Nobody's perfect. Upon one of her many trips to Earth, she meets a young man and a romance begins. But does she dare show her TRUE self? Can a human being love someone so different? At the same time, plots unfold that hold the human race in the balance. A battle of good vs evil ensues and the meaning of true love is revealed.”
Even the summary sounds cheesy and unprofessional. Was it really necessary to capitalize “TRUE”? Also, the “Nobody’s perfect” line sounds like it’s actually supposed to be part of her secret or the plot or some part of the book. For God’s sake, just stick that into parentheses after the bit about her being a demon. By the way, as to the “can a human love someone so different?” section? I’ve heard of someone who married the Berlin Wall. Clearly, a demon wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.
The summary’s content is so trite it makes me cringe. At this point, the only thing that could salvage this from mediocrity is it being a parody, some really fantastic writing, or a unique spin that the person writing the summary (presumably the author, since he self-published this) didn’t mention.
But then, even mediocrity is something for this author to aspire to.
“In a hallway in Hell, there was a closet.”
Say what? Okay, seriously, first of all, if you want to present Hell as a viable threat (and I’m assuming he does, since I’ve just checked the back of the book and he claims there Hell is worse than what you’ve read, and considering some of the stories I’ve heard, that should be pretty bad), your first line should probably be a lot more dramatic. If it is absolutely imperative to mention the closet in the first line, at least mention the burning fires of Hell or start describing how terrifying Hell before mentioning the closet. The feeling I get is that the author was trying to go for some mood whiplash, like “Haha, Hell has something as ordinary as a closet,” but it doesn’t work. He didn’t spend enough time building up a contrast for that to work. You can’t just rely on pop culture’s idea of Hell to do the work for you! In fact, now the idea’s shifting to more redeemable demons and the overall idea that Hell isn’t so bad after all. Just say something like, “Past the doors leading to lakes of fire and screaming souls being tortured brutally for their sins, there was a closet.” Then you can still keep it down to one sentence and retain some comedy.
Second of all, why would you even need a closet in Hell? Most depictions I’ve read have the demons having, you know, magic, so they don’t need a darn closet. If you want to present Hell as a bureaucracy or something, which I’ve seen done well in a few books, then fine. It’s still a crap first line because it doesn’t establish that fact well enough. It hints at it, maybe, but closets can be found in most places, be it office or residence, and you’d need the rest of the paragraph to make the point. Whereas, if he’d just changed the line to something like, “In the bureaucracy of Hell, down one hallway, there was a closet,” that would explain it at once. And a Hell bureaucracy could still be and probably should be scary, so that doesn’t erase my first point.
This is just a terrible first line. It doesn’t tell me anything about the characters, the setting, the plot, or even set a tone for the book. Take Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, for example. The first line is the Dursley’s insisting they’re normal, which not only gives us a very good impression of what they’re like, but also established that there’s something in this book that might be considered abnormal. Namely, magic. It gives both an impression of character and plot, and when we find out that Harry isn’t normal, it gives us a very good impression of his childhood. Well done, JK Rowling.
In essence, if all my assumptions are right, the first line should probably be something like, “In the bureaucracy that was Hell, past the doors leading to lakes of fire and screaming souls being tortured brutally for their sins, there was a closet.” A bit long, but hey, I’m not the one purporting to be a writer worthy of someone’s money. If the author had skill, he could easily write a better version of my line that still captures the general idea. But clearly, he doesn’t.
I’m one line into this story and I hate it already.
. . . Okay, now I’m very confused. The rest of the first paragraph explains that it’s a mostly forgotten closet that “she” lives in, but it doesn’t establish who “she” is. Then the next paragraph switches to talking about a “he”. I’m gonna assume this is supposed to be third-person omnipotent narrator, and that “he” and “she” are the male and female protagonist respectively, since it’s ostensibly a love story. If he didn’t want me to conclude that “he” and “she” were his protagonists, then he should’ve specified. If he doesn’t give me at least a little more information about “he” and “she” then I’m going to think they’re the most important characters in the book, especially since this is the first page and it’s not even a prologue. If it was a prologue, I might think this was setting up the villain scheme that’s the focus of this. If it’s the first chapter, I tend to assume it’ll at least start with a protagonist before giving the villain a chapter.
And for God’s sake, if it’s important because the female protagonist lives in it, why can’t you just say, “Morgalla lived in a closet”? You could just go into all the rest of those details after that. If I don’t find some reason for the author to be so mysterious about the identities, I will hit my head against something.
While I’m at it, let’s talk about the absolutely jarring transition here. The first paragraph is devoted to “she”, and the rest of the page is devoted to “he”. There is absolutely nothing to indicate the switch. No space between paragraphs. No symbols separating those two paragraphs. Actually, wait, I change my mind. I will now assume this is not a 3rd person omniscient narrator, because generally they will provide a little detail about the characters, like, “This closet was the home of a demon called Morgalla” (I assume. Since he hasn’t actually established who “she” is), and say something like, “Now, in another town something or other was going on.” That at least provides a basic transition. This? This quite literally just says, “The first rays of the morning sun came through his window to wake him, as they had on previous days,” which is a pretty stupid line in of itself, since it talks as if the light is animate and purposefully woke him up. It also has too many words that do too little for the sentence. I’m pretty sure I could accomplish the same point just by saying, “He woke up at first light.” To me, this sounds like he was trying to purple prose it so he'd sound sophisticated. Anyways, I didn’t even realize the POV had changed until I saw the third line began with “He,” did a double-take, and went back to the beginning of the paragraph to check. In fact, considering that “he” apparently fell asleep on his desk (I say “apparently” because nothing has been clear about this thing so far. Next thing I know, he’ll have turned out to have fallen asleep on a cage instead for absolutely no reason), and “she” was in a closet the last time I heard, I don’t even think they’re in the same location.
Also, POV sections should not be a single paragraph long. I don’t care what you say; that’s just poor pacing. Sure, it could work for characters narrated through a 3rd person omniscient narrator, but not for something like this, and I don’t think it works well in a supposed love story. That should stay with each protagonist for major portions of time. I’m also going to assume this person is important, since he’s getting a POV section on the very first page. So, even more fail.
The rest of the page just establishes that “she” stays in her closet because she has a Very Important Father and is trying to keep a low profile, but eventually wants to leave. After the POV switch, it says “he” pulled an all-nighter and fell asleep at his desk (which blatantly contradicts itself, since an all-nighter means you didn’t get any sleep), and he’s over a century old, has trouble remembering the date, is not quite human, comes from a different world, and lost his leg. Kinda an info dump.
Ladies and gentlemen, if someone has to make that many assumptions to even try to understand the first page, that’s a sign of bad writing.
The War of the Dark one: Review (full original amazon piece)
So the end has come. Ladies and Gentlemen kindly sit yourselves comfortably; I have a story to tell you. A story where the USA is portrayed as a pacifist country, non primarily funded by war or violence. Where fair and free trial is a right for all - even those of you slightly more demonic than the rest. Where a gigantic bomb on US soil and thousands dead isn't enough to warrant the most bloodthirsty country on the planet to declare all out war, because it's not like the USA ever nose-dived head first into that crap before. No my kindly readers, welcome to the America of Jonland. Where them politicians treat those bad guys too nice like. Who am I to criticise though? I'm equally as outraged by all these terrorists being given penthouses and pardons straight from the President. It's not like the USA has a current movement completely centred around the fact that the US police forces and government are completely corrupt and consistently bend the law to avoid fair trial and justice for humans. Not to mention I'm sure a Christian country would welcome Demons with open arms the way they do in this book. So believable!
