Review: The Dragon's Fury

The Dragon's Fury
by D.C. Mickelson

Reviewing another's art can be a tricky thing. The sensibilities of artists and audience members are different. Sometimes a book and a reader simply fail to connect; to no fault of either party, the chemistry is not there. This is a stark reality for me, given that beta readers recently finished engaging my 2nd novel. Writing works for some people but not others, and that's okay.

The trouble comes when those people become your sounding board for revisions or your reviewers after the fact.

Using Old Notes to infuse New Ideas

If you've been at your writing craft for any amount of time, you have likely produced an inordinate amount of notes--notes on this idea or that location, on some intriguing character or a great maguffin or plot. You've probably had more false starts than a pee-wee-football offensive line and a hundred great moves in your playbook that have never been seen by another set of human eyes.

Do you know what that means?

Be my Reader, Editor, and More!

I'm excited. Really excited.

I am going to release another book in the next twelve months, a young adult novel entitled, To Retreat from Romance. I am happy with the preliminary drafts, and I look forward to making it the best novel it can be.

But I cannot do it alone. The truth is that I need help to do it; real help, not affirmation from "yes men" and cheerleaders but strong feedback from people who like what they know and know what they like. I am building an amazing team of committed readers to help me refine and proofread this latest novel. And guess what, I want you to join that team! Yes, you! Especially, you!

Here's the deal: 

Chasing Shadows: Back to Barterra: A Recommendation

Author John Mark Reynolds and I have something of a strange history. At the age of 17, I was invited to join the Torrey Honors Institute that Dr. Reynolds had begun at Biola University. I declined the offer, because at the time I did not want to spend my entire college life reading (I know, I was an idiot). Later, during my senior year at university, one of his students asked me to adapt a play Dr. Reynolds had written into a script for a senior project. And I did. Very poorly. The doctor made that known to my friend rather than me, and he was right to do so (I was, after all, not really his student). After this, Dr. Reynolds and I saw each other very little and years later crossed paths when we I was working at Biola. We chatted briefly, and that was that.

The Preacher's Bride: A Recommendation

Where do I begin with Jody Hedlund's The Preacher's Bride? I find myself conflicted. On the one hand Jody's is the first romance novel I have ever read outside of Jane Austen; ergo I find it difficult to call her an exemplary of that genre. However, books are books, and The Preacher's Bride is an excellent one regardless of genre. Given modern romance's reputation for being less than literary, I can only assume that this fine work is the best that genre has to offer. But as I've said, I do not know if that is where I'd like to start. 


A better place, perhaps a more appropriate place for one author to recommend another's, is to speak of execution, plain and simple.  The highest compliment that I can give Jody is that she makes it seem so easy, not unlike George Lucas and Steven Spielberg made it seem with their blockbuster hits of this late 70s and early 80s. In some ways, I feel like The Preacher's Bride is to romance novels as Indiana Jones and Star Wars are to pop culture film, in that all of these projects make good storytelling look effortless. Hedlund's composition as well as her structure and design are such that they feel organic and natural, plucked from the memory of a person present at the events as they unfolded. The fine-tuned story and rounded characters in The Preacher's Bride are unmistakably well-written and carefully developed; and the levels on which the book works are numerous. The pleasure one gets in reading it, is well, the stuff of which "good reading" is made. Being a writer I know that such execution is difficult, and I also realize that making one's craft seem natural and easy is perhaps the best writing of all. 

JLA: A League of One: A Recommendation

Wonder Woman is something of an interesting icon in American comic history. Oft referred to as one of three members of DC universe's "trinity" (a gross misuse of the word, by the way), Wonder Woman has had one animated film, a short lived television program, and numerous supporting roles in cartoons such as the JLA. However, unlike the other members and the trinity, Batman and Superman, she has not been given a full treatment on the silver screen nor has she struck a chord with the American cultural vernacular in the same way. This is a great loss, for Wonder Woman is perhaps the most noble of three. 

I did not always believe this, but Christopher Moeller, with his graphic novel JLA: A League of One, has changed my mind. After reading this book I would certainly put Wonder Woman into my Top 10 Comic Book Heroes Of All Time, and I look forward to seeking out more of her adventures (though I think all will pale in comparison to this initial one that made me value her so).