Countess of Desire

[twips182]

I went into reading this book thinking that it was just going to be erotic and a good part of it was. But the book also moved the story forward a bit and had what I thought was a very touching moment between two main characters.(No Ron not that kind of touching..well there was that kind of touching but that's not what I mean here) Between this book and the Sara book I think Dale has set up a nice spring board for the next arc. I look forward to more.

[PS Power]

The trick there is that it isn't something I can't explain later, in a few lines of text. The idea wasn't to take out people that don't want to read things like this, or to force them to do so. (My mother reads this series. I nearly put a warning on it saying "Don't read this mom!" But forgot at the last minute.)

Hopefully people will be fine with that one? I didn't want it to be so far from interesting that no one would like it though. Once the tissue was used up, I mean.

*What, erotica is supposed to be for some other purpose? I suppose...

[RyanM]

The erotica portions definitely change the tone a bit, but it progresses the story line too. Personally, I like how Maria is forced to rely on her skill, intuition, intelligence. One of the things that kinda annoys me about the other main characters is they've progressed to the point where they're practically demigods. They're able to bull their way through tough situations through application of brute force. Maria doesn't have that option, so she has to rely on finesse. That's a far more interesting circumstance IMO. As it stands, the only way for most of the main characters to play a part is to either find a way to marginalize their powers so normal people can be a threat, or to get into an arms race where a greater power is introduced.

I also like the smaller scope of the story line. Maria isn't trying to save the world, she's trying to save her county and Noram. Too often, the story can progress to world (and now solar system) spanning scope, but given all that's happened, there's a lot of potential for stories of little people facing basic problems. Maybe it's my childhood influencing me, but old school A-Team, Knightrider, and MacGuyver proved you don't have to huge settings to tell a good story.

I hope similar stories are in the works. The world is certainly primed to support small scope stories with low-powered characters. Soam facing starvation, disease (I'm assuming the bulk of the healing devices dispersed for the Gray Plague have been retrieved), and lack of housing that can lead to exposure. Tellerand is breaking the starvation problem, but still has to deal with lack of strong housing and a citizenry that's at a severe disadvantage in regards to the rest of the world. Vagus and Afrak will probably have to deal with some cultural changes as they're opening up to a wider world. Austra is just a mess. Then there's the problem with unemployment, not just world wide, but on the moon and soon Mars as well; magic has replaced a LOT of professions. It will be interesting to see how that problem is tackled.

[PS Power]

The next arc in the series is going to be incredibly fascinating to write!

I agree, the power level is high enough that some characters can pretty much do what they want, when they want. I have to find ways for them to be given real challenges without simply sitting down, making an amulet or two and fixing everything without any real problems.

The easy way of doing this (oh, and I will be using this option for part of things! Don't doubt that one!) is to follow characters that aren't already at that level, and don't have access to the highest levels of magic all the time.

At the same time, valuing my continuing existence, I need to make sure some of the books are written with the characters people want to hear from. Or else, no doubt. Still, challenges are useful things, and as long as I don't let myself take the easy way out all the time, this might help me continue to get better in both the crafts of writing and story telling. So that's exciting!

That actually gave me an idea... It might not be a horrible one, either.

Fiction novels that will help the people that read them, based on the content of the story. Hmmm. I have some ideas, but I need to think about it. Talk about risky!

[RyanM]

One way you can get around the power levels is by introducing some sort of natural backlash; The rapid growth of magic use causing damage to whatever natural system powers the creation of the amulets which in turn makes it extremely difficult to create new magic (even simple magic), it could even cause existing magic to operate unreliably. Slow things down, create magic drought.

That might actually work out better in the long run. The nobility has become increasingly dependent on magic to the point of addiction. What happens when their clothes, weapons, luxuries, and in come cases, their houses simply cease to function? They'll turn to the skilled labor in the commoner caste. If there are some commoners that have learned to break through their conditioning to automatically submit to nobles, a revolution could take place -- and it doesn't necessarily have to be a bloody one.

[bdrosen]

[RyanM]

[Ronald Dukarski]

Well actually, Tiera designed a weapon that turned off magic and destroyed fields on amulets already. A commoner revolution could simply rely on that function if needed. It wouldn't need to have Gerent as a leader as any of the Bakers, at least the older ones had experienced "shortism" first hand.

[RyanM]

Hell, you could even go the other way with it, instead of magic dead zones, create wild magic zones. The use of magic could saturate some areas where magic is unstable and does wild and crazy things. Go ahead and activate that clothing amulet, but don't be surprised if there's a penguin in your pants. Use that magic weapon, but hey, it could fire out the smell of dirty socks.

[John Baughn]

The big thing is to consider if this is fantasy or science. I have always had the feeling that we would need the Ancient power levels to deal with who or what is attracted to that much quantum manipulation. I had considered that Tor is much more than he seems and we have been lead to believe that by mentions of the Deeper Tor. I have envisioned that the pattern that makes Tor is much more than we can grasp. It was finally able to find a physical form that could manifest itself without reorganizing several square parsecs. Thanks to Burks and Lara customizing both the genetics and physical field parameters we have allowed a god like entity obtain living form. We can look back at Tor as the start and I imagine it was the deeper Tor that has reorganized things on Earth to allow such level of magics to be built.