Chapters and book review

I've finished chapters 10 and 11 of the first draft of The Eternal Chain, and you can find them at the bottom of this page.

These were originally meant to be a single chapter, but there was too much to fit into one so I split it into two.  This is the end of Act 1.  In a three act structure the first act is for introducing the characters, the world, and the conflict.  I think I've done that pretty well here so far.  And I wanted the first act to end with a climactic even, showing all of the characters in action.  You will notice that I broke my pattern of changing off viewpoints here and tossed in about 12-15 viewpoint changes between these two chapters to follow the action.  This is my way of emphasizing that the pacing is speeding up for the climax of the first act, the pattern has broken down and viewpoints are changing all over the place, giving the story a more hectic feel to it than the pre-established pattern that I set up leading up to it.

Stark, one of the main villains of the story, makes her first appearance here.  This character ties in very heavily with Spires of Infinity, though I'm not going to say exactly how, because it is kind of a massive spoiler if I ever get around to writing out the next part of that story.  She is the Blessed Radiance whom the Seven serve and the Priory and their followers worship as a god.  She is very powerful, and she has been imbued with the power of Destruction, one of two Gods of this universe, but she is not actually a God herself.  She has deluded herself into believing that she is, and she is completely freaking crazy enough to believe it.  Basically, she's powerful enough that she might as well be a God, even if she isn't actually one.

I've also posted my latest book review, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi if you feel the great urge to read it.  I recommend NOT reading the books.