I don't know... there's always a new starlet making bad life choices. Makes it hard to leave a lasting impression on the genre.






So I should be expecting some sort of kickback from your publisher for my efforts then?






I know how that goes... The entertainment company I worked for was looking for submissions from the employees for game ideas. People were very possessive of their concepts, especially after one of the guys submitted an idea he had been bouncing around for a long while, and the powers that be turned it inside out until it was unrecognizable and it pretty much died mercifully.

Naturally, I had plenty of story/character ideas of my own, but I purposefully set aside a time to brainstorm something specific for them. It resulted in one casual game that got made... the dustbunnies thing... and one elaborate game pitch for a full console game that the company's agent just loved, but I'm assuming it died with the company. It's something of a shame, since people did respond very well to the world/concept that I proposed, but I don't mourn what happened with it too badly because in my mind it was created for them.






If it's available for the iPad I may get it... I was owed a Christmas present and I thought I'd give that device a try. I like the book reader app for that device, formatted to look like printed pages you flip.






All right. I'm really looking forward to finally seeing CSFB's team in action though.






I saw a episode of some recent Robin Hood television series, but it didn't do much for me. The episode I saw felt a bit lifeless. There was some Arthurian show I caught recently as well, with Giles from Buffy as Uther, I think, and a teen Merlin. I couldn't get into that one either. Either one might be better than my brief impressions, though.

It's sad, because I really feel like I need a new genre show that isn't always deadly serious and horribly drawn out. I miss the heady days of Buffy, The Star Trek: Next Generation, Xena, The X-Files, etc.



Oh, speaking of Buffy, I needed to bring my Amazon order over $25 to get free shipping, so I ordered the latest Buffy Season 8 collection along with Robin Hood... Sadly, I'm losing interest in the comic series as well. Some better editorial work would go a long way with that one, as part of it is a frustration from never knowing what characters are supposed to be on panel. They really should think about giving the comic book versions of the cast some distinctive element to their looks... have Dawn start wearing funky glasses, have Faith dye a lock of her hair purple, give someone a disfiguring scar, have people always wear the same clothes... I don't care what it is, but some kind of visual shorthand for who I'm looking at would be great. The artist is decent, but it's not easy to differentiate the characters and keep them realistic as well. Xander always stands out with his eyepatch (and usually wears the same kind of clothes every day), but then he's like one of only 2 guys in a sea of female slayers, so he wasn't exactly hard to pick out to begin with.

Bit of a tangent there.






No map. A map would have added value, I'm sure.

The interior illustrations had a lot of personality despite being mostly quiet moments, but I'm never 100% sold on such illustrations with prose. They rarely end up matching the images my mind conjures up, so they can end up fighting with my imagination rather than helping it along. I tend to prefer setting illustrations rather than character ones for that reason... those can set the mood, and can actually appear before the text they illustrate rather than come a page after the scene in question.

Likewise, the cover illustration just feels all wrong to me now that I've read the novel. It's a nice image, certainly, it just doesn't seem to have come from the story I've read, neither in the look of the character nor the solitary composition he occupies. Of course that goes for 99% of books I've ever read... It would probably be a very short list of novels which you could at least somewhat-validly judge by the cover indeed.






Interesting. How much time passes between the end of book one and the start of book two?






Congratulations on that! I'm guessing it must have been submitted for the award before publication? Otherwise, that nominating committee works fast.