The Coming of "Prince Lander and the Dragon War"

Well, S.D. Smith has finished writing the 10th book in the Green Ember universe, and I'm stoked.

Pre-order your copy of Prince Lander and the Dragon War (Tales of Old Natalia, Book 3): https://sdsmith.com/store/

 

 

 

I'm writing this post for three reasons:

1. S.D. Smith has a contest for the release of the new book, and I didn't read all the details, but you have to create your own post about the series and you can read more details on Mr. Smith's blog.

2. So that all of my many zeros of readers will know how much I love the Green Ember series, I'm including in this post my 3-year-old review of the very first book, The Green Ember.

3. Finally, my nine-year-old daughter colored these pictures when she was seven! I've been a terrible father, and never shared them with S.D. Smith on Facebook like I was supposed to. So here they are:

And here's my review of The Green Ember. Don't let the 4 stars fool you, we truly love this series. I have re-read this book at least four times after my initial review, one of those times being when I began reading the entire series to my daughter.

The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(Original review was posted 17 January 2019 on Audible. Updated some comments during my second listen in July 2019. Let a second listen within a year tell you how much I've enjoyed this series, even if I only gave it 4 stars.)

I was a little slow to get into this story, but perhaps it's just adjusting to a new narrator or getting to know the new characters in an audiobook. I can't say I was terribly fond of the reader. Sometimes his accents were far too strong and difficult to understand, other times his accents and pronunciations were inconsistent. For example a character with a gruff, raspy voice would sometimes lose the growl and occasionally have a much more normal voice. Overall, I think he did a decent job reading and he certainly has a wide range of voices and accent variations at his command to personify the different characters. There were just a few that needed to be toned down a bit. (On my second listen through, I still agree some of the accents should be toned down, but overall, I think I'm more able to appreciate the narration. He really does do a great job bringing these characters to life.)
The story starts off with a brief moment of peace before quickly throwing the characters into chase after chase. As soon as you think things are calming down, they're sprinting again. Even when the action lets up and allows you to catch your breath, the story builds a rich lore with glimpses of the histories of the world and characters. The running seemed a bit excessive early on, and started to lose my interest, but the middle smoothed the pace out and it all ended with an exhilarating dash to the finish.
There were certainly some things that didn't make much sense to me and although I tried listening to chapters over to see if I had missed something, I ended up just accepting it and moving on and usually things eventually became clear. One of these was the idea of the Mended Wood. At first mention it was given such weight by the character describing it and while the importance passes to the characters in the book, the description fell flat for me and I felt somewhat uninterested in the heroes' cause. It wasn't until a good while later when more history and lore was revealed that the idea truly started to feel important to me.
Another characterization that bugged me was Pickett's anger. Although I understand he's going through a lot and emotions are bound to run high, his constant and irrational anger seemed to be a crutch the author used to make him seem young or flawed. I still don't understand why he was angry all the time unless I'm supposed to just perceive him as an angsty teenager.
Everything seemed to come together very well at the end, and it was very exciting. Definitely ended on a high note.
One thing my imagination did while listening that I found very interesting was how I visualized the characters in my head. Although I generally visualized the characters as humanoid rabbits on two feet, as seen on the book cover, throughout the whole book, whenever characters were running, I instinctively imagined them on all fours. I continued this visualization instinctively all the way until some point near the end of the book when a description stood out to me to more clearly express a character was running on two legs rather than all fours and it almost diminished the effect of the movement for me. Just an interesting thing, I thought. I think I'd like to continue imagining the characters as running on all fours as it makes their movements seem more graceful and powerful as opposed to two large rabbit feet flapping around awkwardly like trying to run in diving flippers. (Guess I could always imagine Officer Hopps from Zootopia)

Overall an enjoyable read. I'm looking forward to continuing the journey in the Ember series.

View all my reviews

 

Don't forget to pre-order Prince Lander and the Dragon War!

 

Book Review: Deep Work (by Cal Newport)

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love the concepts presented in this book. As such, I probably shouldn't be here writing a review (others have already written reviews better than what I could write).
All I need is a day-by-day guide and a coach to keep me on track building good focus habits for a year.
Speaking of a day-by-day guide to coach me into focus, my biggest critique for this book is with pacing. I don't know if it was the narration of the audio book, or maybe the length of sections and chapters in the book. The narrator isn't bad, but he just couldn't hold my attention (the irony). I can't say that this is entirely the narrator's fault. It could be the writing, it could be that I've been tired or distracted while trying to listen. Whatever the case, I found myself constantly jumping back 5-10 minutes because I had lost track of the point.

I don't need this book to convince me that I (and all of society) are chronically distracted. What I do need, is a guide to help the chronically distracted learn to focus, and I feel like this book misses that mark. Cal presents a lot of great points and ideas, but could have made them easier to digest and put into practice. That is to say, if I need to have deep focus in order to read your book and start practicing deep focus basics... well, I'm already failing, aren't I?
As I was jotting down notes on my highlighted bookmarks, I found several well written summaries of the book and concepts online. I'd start there.

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The Absence Between

I tried to type this up to mimic the way I used space when I wrote it on paper.

2021-10-16

The absence between

        A    and    C

As though leaving it out means

        It goes away

    1    and    3    equals    B

Bliss must be ignorance

    Because if I just pretend

        Then it doesn't exist

But some things are better left unsaid

The space between

        The floors in the building

    This tower to heaven reaches higher than it ought

(Has no one noticed the foundation is flawed?)

    But there's no stopping a bullet

        Train of thought

Better we not say anything at all

The absence between

            The thoughts you I say

        And the words that you I mean

    I'll be imaginary until proven guilty

Because a jury of peers

            Lack the control for silence

Background:  I wrote this while flying on an airplane. On the plane, I noticed they did not label the 13th row of seats, just like in buildings that also tend to skip numbering for the 13th floor. Along with everything else going on in the world, I thought this was a somewhat absurd practice and tried experimenting with it.

In the first stanza, I'm using the letter B as imagery for 13 if the 1 and 3 were pushed too close together. The second stanza speaks of the building with more floors than the actual height, because they number the 13th floor as 14. In the last stanza, I originally wrote "you" but I crossed it out and changed to "I," and I liked the look of that because it could be either, or both. The final stanza was meant to allude to mathematics and the imaginary number, as well as the court trials that have been consuming the news.

 

 

 

Returning to the scene... 2021.12.14

I wrote the poem above while flying home from San Antonio. I wrote the poem below the night before, trying to capture some of the emotions going through me while I was visiting San Antonio. "Returning to the scene" was supposed to be a clever way to identify that this was an update/edit to this blog post, but it could also be a good title for this poem.

2021-10-16    (0131)

Hard to find words to identify

These feelings have been overwhelming me

The anxiety building inside my heart beat

I was last here a child

Now, though grown, I still feel the shadow

The breakdown of self as I travel

Do any of you see the significance?

Am I alone in this awe?

I was first here a child

Background:  I'm unsure how to capture my feelings as I return to Lackland for the first time since I went through Basic Training in 2009. I had a lot of feelings washing over me and I felt small and insignificant.

As I was flying here, I saw a group of "kids" wearing Air Force shirts. When we transferred planes and they boarded the San Antonio flight with me, I knew they were on their way to Basic Training. They're not kids.

This is also my first time traveling away from my family in almost four years, and that brings its own emotions. Not to mention the stress added by COVID restrictions and the past two years.