Off the Bookshelf: ALL THAT WE SEE OR SEEM, by Kristina Mahr

You know what's the mark of a really well-written story? When the main character makes a choice and you cringe, because you've come to be so invested in her story, you know she's going to get hurt, it's the wrong choice, and you just want to reach through the pages and grab her shoulders and shake her until her eyes rattle and she changes her mind.

Yeah, Reeve, the main character in this book got that reaction from me.

And did you hear me last night when I got to the last page and I didn't want it to end? (Attention, Kristina Mahr, there better be another book following up on this one, and right quick! You cannot leave Reeve and Bran where you left them -- at least, not permanently. Please?) Okay, I didn't shout, I didn't scream, because it was after 11 at night and the rest of the household was sleeping, but there was some mental agony involved. Close to the destruction of Alderaan.

There were a number of cringe-worthy moments in the story. No, Reeve, don't!

And when I ached for her.
And I held my breath, hoping the short moment of sweetness and hope would last.

Okay, what's so special about this book? I really don't want to give it all away. But here are the basics:
Reeve is the niece of the king, lives in the palace, and very realistically, the luxuries she enjoys don't make up for her restricted, somewhat lonely life. And yeah, she's expected to make a marriage to benefit the throne. Her choices all have drawbacks. Some bigger than others. Some, she doesn't discover until it's too late, and turn near-deadly. The only real friends she has are her bodyguards and her ladies maid, and even they aren't close enough for her to tell her biggest, strangest, scariest secret.

Every night, for her entire life, Reeve goes to another land in her sleep. A horrible place, full of darkness and fear and pain and blood. She wakes under a gallows, and often there is a body hanging there. Sometimes she's lucky and it's a fresh body, other times she's not lucky, and these horrible, warped falcons have started to feed. The falcons are also the nighttime security forces in this awful land, where only those with a death wish go outside. Fortunately, Reeve seems to be entirely invisible in this land, so she's safe. But lonely. And unable to stop visiting this awful place in her dreams. Every night.

A few months before the story starts, she discovers a young man whose presence turns the nightmare into a dream, and gives her a sense of company, even though he can't see or hear her.

The story, of course, is what happens when Reeve becomes visible. To the young man and to the falcons and to the evil in that dream land.

READ this one.

Want to learn more about the author and the book and the publisher? Come back on Thursday. Or just go to Uncommon Universes Press, the publisher. There's a big promotional blast going on right now, a blog tour, to celebrate the release of the book.

Note: the publisher provided this book in exchange for a review.

Off the Bookshelf: WORLD-BUILDING FROM THE INSIDE OUT, by Janeen Ippolito

Every once in a while, a book comes along that you know you're going to re-read multiple times because it's so useful and what it covers is an area where you need to keep going back and refreshing what you've learned.

This is especially true and priceless when it comes to some writing books.

WORLD-BUILDING FROM THE INSIDE OUT is one of those books. Honestly, it's common sense, but something a lot of writers (guilty!) don't think about until we run into a problem. Usually about halfway through the 2nd book in a series, or the 8th in a series we didn't realize was going to be a series until we got one of those brainstorms of, "Hey, if I change this name and this relationship and tweak this bit of history, Book A is pre-history to Book C, and they both tie into Book B, which influences what happens in Book D ..." Get the picture?

God can wing it when it comes to building worlds (because face it, He's GOD and He isn't restricted by fiddly little things like time!), but writers shouldn't. Dang, I wish I had run into Janeen a lot earlier and she had made this book available like 20+ years ago. It would have saved me a lot of contradictions and headaches trying to make history and details and geography and other fiddly details actually line up and behave, between one book and another. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

The book tackles topics that are absolutely necessary, and some that you don't think about until draft 4, when you're wondering what the hero's childhood was like, because you need something in his background to explain why he blew up over something that his friends think is trivial, but the explosion is a necessary plot point. Know what I mean? Yeah, you've been there. This is all common sense, but so many of us don't think about planning these details out ahead of time. Kind of like knowing a quote you want to use in some climactic scene, but you don't get it right and you don't realize it until your editor sends the book back to you with the quote marked in red highlighter and a note that says, "This ain't right!" And then because the quote was so mangled, you need to rewrite the whole scene. If you had done some research and checked it ahead of time, you wouldn't have that problem, would you?

Do the work ahead of time, and your world will fall smoothly into place and probably help with a lot of minor plots points at the same time. Chapters deal with: Religion, Government, Societal Structure, Art/Media, Technology, Naming, Food, Appearance and Location, with appendices covering Health and Medicine, Military, and Education.

The great thing about this world-building book is that it has an accompanying WORKBOOK. She removes even more of the headache and hassle by organizing the questions you need to ask yourself about the society you're putting together, and giving you space to brainstorm and then record it all. Organization! What a revolutionary concept. (Well, for ME, anyway...) I received both books in PDF, which made it easy to print out the workbook and put in a ringbinder, to fill in as I go through the process, and then keep for future reference.

You can get the book online, or go directly to Janeen's website for more information and resources: www.janeenippolito.com. Or Uncommon Universes Press, the publisher: www.uncommonuniverses.com