News Post: Book 2, Second Prints, Newspaper Reviews!
BLAKE’S INBOX: Yo, man, WTH?
BLAKE: (gazes off into distance with vaguely uncomfortable expression, listens to INTERIOR MONOLOG saying “Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.”)
BLAKE’S INBOX: Helllllooooo?
BLAKE: (Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.)
BLAKE’S INBOX: Do you have any idea how full I am?
BLAKE: (Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.) Oh, sorry, what did you say? (Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.)
BLAKE’S INBOX: Don’t even pretend like you didn’t hear me. Yeah, and, I was talking to Twitter last night. She is not so happy with you, man.
BLAKE: (Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.) Oh no! What…um…what’d she say? (Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.)
BLAKE’S INBOX: You guys used to be all close and stuff. I think she thinks you said you loved her.
BLAKE: (Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.) Oh, yeah, I totally love her. (Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.) Hey, do you think I can get book two done next month?
BLAKE’S INBOX: Do you think you can answer an email that’s not from a MD next month?
BLAKE: (Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.) I have to go. There’s this…book. (Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two. Gotta finish book two.)
BLAKE’S INBOX: Dude, WTF? How can
BLAKE: Yeah, sorry. I’m not going to finish typing out all of your dialog, because I have to, like, go write.
BLAKE’S INBOX: You can’t do
BLAKE: In fact I’m not even going to finish typing out my own senten
BLAKE’S INBOX: This is the WORST ide
BLAKE: I don’t know, man, it’s
BLAKE’S INBOX: GAHHH! That’s it. Cut me off one more time and
BLAKE: I don’t think that’s physiologically possible even if you lubricate the rubber chicken with
BLAKE’S INBOX: I’ll show you what’s physic
BLAKE: I’m not even going to spellcheck this post. that way I can get back t
BLAKE’S IN: YOU DIDN’T EVEN FINISH WRITING BOX FOR MY NAME? YOU SON OF
BLA: I really have to go wr
BL: DIE!!!!
B: k, bye
:
: I hate you so m
: You supposed to go away now and
: I’m still her
: please go awa
: just answer one ema
:fine, then you’ll leav
:ye
:just emailed mom
:fine bye hate you
:by
Ancillaria
I’m very proud to announce that Spellwright has already gone into a second printing! Of course, it is like most things in publishing something of a gamble-the publishing house betting on the book doing even better. But it’s a great sign! Keep all available appendages crossed for me and knock on everything wooden.
Very exciting, the Chicago Sun-Times gave Spellwright a wonderful review! Breaking into the mainstream print media isn’t easy, and I’m honored to make my debut in such with the Times!
Spellwright brims with a love for the genre and a thrill for written language that can come only from a long struggle to understand it. The system of magical languages that Charlton creates not only distinguishes Spellwright from other fantasy writers works, it allows him endless opportunities for wordplay. As long as Charlton continues the excitement that marks this book’s second half, the further adventures of Nicodemus Weal will become a terrific fantasy saga.
Locus Magazine, another premier print medium, gave Spellwright a balanced but overall positive review:
[Spellwright’s] setting is evocative, the wizards’ school occupying only a small part of a city built and abandoned by a long-gone species; the magic system is intriguingly different, with the concept of cacography providing a truly distinctive twist…a solid first novel, with some impressive world-building.
Cara over at Speculative Book Review examined the book in a very thoughtful-and helpful to the author-review:
My overall impression of Spellwright is one of awe and fascination with the magic system. [This book] is a quality adventure story in true fantasy style. Murder, prophecy, cursed heroes, political factions, gods, druids, even a dragon; they all appear in this first novel, set in a well-constructed world which is beautifully described without detracting from the overall plot.
Professor Crazy (and how could one not listen to such a Professor?) over at BSC Review also made a thoughtful analysis and positive review of the book:
Spellwright would be an impressive novel if an author with many bestselling books under his/her belt had written it. It’s even more impressive, to me, in that it’s Blake Charlton’s debut novel. I can’t wait to read the forthcoming books in the series, if they’re anywhere as good as this one!
Blog of the Fallen enjoyed Spellwright but had a few reservations:
Spellwright is not a stand-out debut, but it is a solid story that will appeal to several different audiences.
Walker of Worlds very gratifyingly relished Spellwright‘s classic fantasy ethos!
Blake Charlton has written a hugely enjoyable novel in Spellwright - the good guys are good and interesting, the bad guys motivated and mysterious, the magic system is unique and impressive, and most importantly, the characters are relatable and a joy to read. There isn’t much wrong here and Spellwright should be a must read for any genre fan. Highly recommended!
The Torch Online also very much enjoyed the book:
[T]his is a solid, enjoyable read, and the real-world implications give it an added resonance.
It’s always a wonderful feeling when a critic “gets” exactly what you were trying to do with a certain aspect of a story. LEC Book Reviews hit upon _exactly_ what I was trying achieve with Nicodemus’s character (oh, and gives the book a positive review):
The truly winning factor of Spellwright is how relatable Nicodemus is. He’s not at all your typical epic fantasy, prophesied child kind of character. Instead of going on a quest to gain all these crazy abilities (as our aforementioned typical heroes do) Nicodemus pretty much already has quite a lot of magical ability, except that he can’t use it properly and there is no predicted foolproof way of fixing that (as would typically happen), though he may give it a try. If anything, his abilities degrade as the story goes on. The fact that he is set apart, both by others and himself makes him indefinably relatable.
Comments
33 Responses to “News Post: Book 2, Second Prints, Newspaper Reviews!”
Mary Victoria
12:14 pm Mar-31-2010
Yay yay yay! This is all such good news! Excellent reviews! And well deserved.
Hang in there with finishing bk 2, though I do have emails languishing in your inbox (nothing about chickens, luckily.)
blakecharlton
11:05 am Apr-1-2010
oh, yes, i’ve even started to reply to that email *guilty look* in essence, thank you so much for all the feedback!
more later.
Brandon Markham
6:40 pm Apr-9-2010
Oh my god…wtf did i just read! Stuff like this makes you an enjoyable author. Man, you are funny!
blakecharlton
8:01 pm Apr-9-2010
thank you, sir! humor keep me sane (kinda).
Christie
12:18 am Apr-1-2010
SO AWESOME.
But yeah, Twitter is really pissed at you, dude. You really oughta give her a call.
blakecharlton
11:06 am Apr-1-2010
wulfsiege
3:53 pm Apr-1-2010
Does this mean that my first edition Spellwright is now worth more? egad!
blakecharlton
8:02 pm Apr-9-2010
oh yea, for sure. it’s going to be the most valuable paperweight you own
Adam Russell Stephens
4:02 pm Apr-1-2010
Awesome reviews, man! I can’t wait to be published, so that people will actually get a chance to read my books. It must be a joy to share it with so many people. God bless on all your future endeavors as well as your current and building success!
blakecharlton
8:05 pm Apr-9-2010
thanks so much Adam! a blessing is a wonderful thing to have and it’s lightened my day
LEC Book Reviews
1:31 am Apr-2-2010
Thanks for the quote, I’m glad that I “got” it right with my review!
blakecharlton
8:06 pm Apr-9-2010
But not as glad as i am you got it
Thank you kindly for the consideration you gave to Spellwright!
Kate Elliott
2:16 pm Apr-3-2010
Excellent reviews!
And congrats on going to a second printing. That is very very awesomely good news.
blakecharlton
8:07 pm Apr-9-2010
Kate! Thank you so kindly, and everything is crazy over here and there’s a package sitting on my kitchen table (a long with many other things that need to be taken care of) that needs to be shipped to HI. Must get on that
Alan Kellogg
11:00 am Apr-7-2010
Speaking of Spellwright, how much did your dyslexia affect the course the book and series would take? Would modern treatments for dyslexia be effective in treating the cacographic? Does your dyslexia get real bad when you’re real tired (I know mine does)?
Does an autism spectrum disorder play a role in cacography? Is it possible to visualize magic in a different way than as words and sentences?
And speaking of words and sentences, what are runes made of? How complex are they? Are they like Chinese ideograms, where each is composed of simpler symbols that represent more basic ideas coming together to represent a more complex idea? The runes of the language prime, why do they remind me of the four nucleotides that make up DNA? Why do I get the impression that the runes of Language Prime follow the same rules as the nucleotides of DNA?
Not finished with Spellwright yet, so expect more questions later.
blakecharlton
8:16 pm Apr-9-2010
whooo boy, that’s a lot of questions. lemme see. cacography is analogous to dyslexia; so yes, there are ways one can lean to adapt to it. my dyslexia is not affected by how tired or intoxicated i am. i do become more careless in both of those states, but that’s a process different than the one that affects how i understand the encoding of words.
there’s no “magic” in this world only “magical language,” so no, it can’t be manifested as anything else.
the runes to each language are very different, some complex some simple.
re: Language Prime, guess you’re going to have to read the next book to find out
Lizette
7:10 pm Apr-7-2010
Congrats…..and thanks for the entertaining post.
blakecharlton
8:16 pm Apr-9-2010
you are quite welcome, as always!
Alan Kellogg
11:30 pm Apr-7-2010
Here’s another question; what about people who perceive magic as colors, scents, feelings, fibers, sounds instead of words?
blakecharlton
8:17 pm Apr-9-2010
you’re referring to synesthesia? that is a phenomenon common to all spellwrights who encounter active magical text in a language they do not know.
Alan Kellogg
11:20 pm Apr-10-2010
Sir,
I submit that magic as a set of languages is a case of synesthesia, and that magic could be expressed as a number of different languages; some of them quite different than the ideograms of the typical magical languages.
Besides DNA you have binary. And the derived languages based upon binary such as hex, basic, and even fortran.
You also have color based symbology, and sound based. Think of all the musical scales humans have invented over the ages. Then you have the various non-linguistic visual symbols we have devised. Symbology found in weaving, embroidery, even those symbols that later gained linguistic meaning.
So there’s more to magic in the Spellwrightverse.
To make this short, dweormercrafters in the SWV are, to some extent, dyslexic and profoundly synaesthetic. Dyslexic in that their brains perceive things the non-dyslexic don’t, and synaesthetic in that they interpret data in ways others do not. And the important thing to remember about synaesthethia is that it isn’t always a matter of smelling a color or hearing tastes, for the very center of our senses processes all senses and thus can lead some people to hear color, taste color, even see color but in a different way than normals see it.
There’s a lot to be said about magic, but that can wait for later.
Where dyslexia is concerned I was lucky in that my mom was an English teacher trained in phonetics. I was having trouble learning how to read using the whole-word method, so Mom taught me using phonetics. When I’m tired or discouraged I see things wrong, but thanks to her I learned how to adjust. most of the time I have no problems reading.
The loss of focus and clarity of thought when I’m tired can be credited to Aspergers, which is a whole ‘nother source of fun. Now I’m off to compose my reply to your statements regarding magic
blakecharlton
12:10 am May-5-2010
hey amigo, i got so caught up in finishing up book two that i dropped the ball on this one. so so few things to think about a) you are now the official metaphysicist of the SWV, b) there’s no “symbology” as you allude to it above left in “texuality.” For example when you see the letter A you no longer think of a cow, even though that was its orginal symbolic meaning, similarly B no longer makes you think of a house, etc etc. so the magical runes in the SWV don’t have ‘symbolic’ meaning only ‘textual’ meaning. c)the color of a language represents the frequence of the runic wavicles released by that particular language. some are more energeic some less. runic wavicles are speculative fundamental particle that can easily change between mater and energy and can be amassed in the spellwrights muscles.
that help?
Fiddler
5:44 pm Apr-9-2010
Just finished Spellwright. Awesome book! Keep on writing book #2. Title yet?
blakecharlton
8:27 pm Apr-9-2010
wonderful to hear! thank you kindly. We do indeed have a title “Spellbound.” Just hit save and have 118k in this draft. the end is in sight
Alan Kellogg
12:02 am Apr-11-2010
On Magical Symbology
Spellwrights use magic. The magical language they use are just the set of symbols they employ to affect the dweomer. The less flexible the symbology, the more symbols it takes to affect the desired change. Language Prime has the advantage of being very flexible,
Magic relies upon symbols. Not just what the symbol is, but what it means, what it signifies. And as with written language, the symbols a magical language can mean all sorts of different things depending on intent and purpose.
The late Gary Gygax divided the first two laws of magic into the Law of Sympathy, and the Law of Antipathy. Which law a casting falls under depends on what the symbols are to be used for, what the purpose of the magic is. An eagle’s featther can be used for sympathic magic if the aim is to attract an eagle for some reason, for antipathetic magic if the aim is to craft a dweomer purposed towards affecting someone or something hostile, antithetical, or otherwise opposed to eagles. Say, wolves in the mythology of a people symbolized by an eagle while their enemy is symbolized by wolves.
For that is the important thing, how symbols are used, how they affect things depends upon the user and why he is using them. One episode of the original Nightstalker with Darren McGavin began with a rabbi discovering his synagogue covered with swastikas and what appeared to be occult symbols. Turned out, the symbols were Sanskrit, and the swastikas were placed there as symbols of good fortune and protection against rakshasas, Hindu demons. In short, how a symbol is used depends upon the user and what he means to do. So something like an eagle’s feather can be used to symbolize something positive, sympathetic magic, or negative, antipathic magic.
It doesn’t matter how an outsider sees the symbol, what matters is how the user sees the symbol, the purpose towards which it is going to be put. If the symbol is going to be used positively, then it is sympathetic magic. If it is going to be used negatively, then it is antipathetic magic.
And that is why I say that spellwrights use magic, they just have one of a number of sets of symbols to use. They are dyslexic in that they need to have a set of symbols with set meanings, and synesthetes in that they perceive sensory input in non standrd ways. An SWV spellwright sees magic visually, and their dyslexia makes them see see magic as symbols of various sorts.
That’s what I have so far, there’s lot more to say.
Tom DuBois
8:21 am Apr-14-2010
Hei Blake,
One of my students mentioned that you mention a Tom DuBois in your preface; which Tom DuBois is that? (There are a number of us…) Okay, congratulations on your book, Tom DuBois
blakecharlton
12:12 am May-5-2010
Wow, another Tom-of-the-Woods! the Tom DuBois mentioned in the acknowledgment section is a friend who plays in a local basketball league and who was kind enough to read a few early drafts. If your anything like the other Tom DuBois, you’re a wonderful person. So lemme know if your in town and I’ll introduce the two of you and we can see if the universe implodes.
Nathan Cronauer
3:33 pm Apr-19-2010
Hey,
Reading the book right now! I will admit on the first two pages I thought that I grabed a book attempting to teach grammer but the more I read the more I am enjoying this book.
I am glad you have this blog so that I can actually tell you that I am really enjoying this book. I am only half way through the book so have the 2nd book ready for me! lol
Congrats on the success
blakecharlton
12:13 am May-5-2010
Hi Nathan! thanks so much for the kind words
i hope the second part of the book made the words come alive for you. and sorry for being such a slug on these comments. I did in fact finish up a first draft of book 2 this afternoon. I’ll touch it up a bit and send it off to the editor and hope he likes the big picture stuff. (fingers crossed)
Roy Holmes
3:30 pm Apr-21-2010
Hello,
I normally don’t do this sort of thing but I was so entranced with your book, the minute I finished it, I was online searching for the author. I am a very avid reader of many different types of genres, and I have to say that you are a truly amazing writer. Please keep up the good work. There is not enough authors, of your caliber, out there anymore. I can not wait for the second book in the series! I will definitely get everyone I know to purchase and read Spellwright.
Thank you again for writing such a gripping novel, it has been a long time since I have truly enjoyed every bit of a story that I am reading.
Sincerely,
Roy
blakecharlton
12:16 am May-5-2010
Hi Roy! Thank you so very kindly for all the faltering remarks. Really there’s no higher honor for a book than to win the approval of the avid reader! And big gratitude for spreading the word. A newbie author these days has to do a lot to get the word out. Oh, and sorry for the slow reply. I was cranking away at the first draft of book two (finished it today!) Hopefully, I’ll get Spellbound into your hands ASAP!
Dave Nix
8:32 am May-2-2010
Just finished Spellwright and loved it. Can’t wait for book two…get back to work!
blakecharlton
12:19 am May-5-2010
Hi Dave! Thanks so much for the words of encouragement. I burned the midnight oil for you and finished up a first draft of Spellbound today. It goes off to yon editor in a few days and we’ll see what he thinks about the “big picture.” Hopefully, now that I’ve done this once before, we can get a pretty fast turnaround time.