By
Paul Weimer | Thursday, January 17th, 2013 at 2:00 pm
REVIEW SUMMARY: Sprunk finishes his series in strong fashion.
MY RATING: 
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Caim continues his journey north to find his heritage and legacy, even as the young Empress he left behind has her reign tested.
MY REVIEW:
PROS: Strong finish to the trilogy; more interesting worldbuilding; further emergence of characters.
CONS: Some hangovers from the second book clutter up narrative.
BOTTOM LINE: A very good, if not spectacular, end to what will hopefully be not the last book series from Sprunk.
Shadow’s Master is the third and presumably final novel in the Shadow’s Son Trilogy from Jon Sprunk, following Shadow’s Son and Shadow’s Lure. In the world of Nimea, Caim has managed to depose a local potentate, bury his father’s sword, and head further north to find the true source of his heritage. The Empress he has left behind faces the greatest challenge yet to her rule, and Kit the faerie has a fateful decision to make that could change the lives of all three of them forever…if it doesn’t get one or more of them killed first.
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By
Paul Weimer | Wednesday, August 29th, 2012 at 12:29 am
[Do you have an idea for a future Mind Meld? Let us know!]
This week we asked about Revisions. I’ve come across a couple of examples lately of authors reissuing books with significant changes from the initial publication, or changing it relatively late in the initial publication process. With the rise of ebooks, the potential for rolling revisions to books is a very real possibility.
We asked this week’s panelists the following:
Q: As a reader and as a writer, how do you feel about the practice of revising books after they have been published (or at least have reached the ARC stage)? How much revision goes into your writing process? (How clean are your drafts)?
This is what they had to say…
Lucy Snyder
Lucy Snyder is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of the novels
Spellbent,
Shotgun Sorceress,
Switchblade Goddess, and the collections
Sparks and Shadows,
Chimeric Machines, and
Installing Linux on a Dead Badger. Her writing has appeared in
Strange Horizons,
Weird Tales,
Hellbound Hearts,
Dark Faith,
Chiaroscuro,
GUD, and
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. You can learn more about her at
www.lucysnyder.com.
I’m a measure-twice, cut-once kind of writer; I do a lot of note-taking and thinking before I start a project. I try to have a plot destination in mind, although sometimes that will change — if the story wants to go someplace other than what I planned I’m happy to take that detour. But the upshot is I seldom start a story with no clue where I’m going, and consequently I only rarely have to make major changes to a story or novel. I do my very best to turn in clean, ready-to-publish drafts to my editors. But typos and continuity errors happen, so fixing them is part of the editorial process.
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By
Jaym Gates | Tuesday, May 15th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
REVIEW SUMMARY: A strong Sword and Sorcery flavored with Epic Fantasy.
MY RATING: 
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Nimea and the surrounding nations are threatened by a faceless threat from the north. Standing against this threat are a young Empress, a tortured swordsman, and a boy struggling with fears of cowardice.
REVIEW
PROS: Well-plotted with a steady pace and good character development.
CONS: Drags just a little in the middle.
BOTTOM LINE: Readers expecting the quick-read sword and sorcery will probably be stymied by the bones of epic fantasy Sprunk uses to flesh out the story. For epic fantasy fans looking to expand their libraries with faster-paced work, this is a good place to start.
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In episode 112 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester and Jaym Gates (continuing the discussion from Part 1 and Part 2) sit down with a mega panel of authors to discuss modern Sword and Sorcery with the authors who are currently writing it.
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SYNOPSIS: Having put Josey on the throne of Nimea, Caim heads north to unlock the secrets of his heritage. In the meantime, Josey learns that uneasy lies the crown of a newly crowned Empress.
MY RATING:
MY REVIEW
PROS: Excellent development of the main character, his abilities, and the world.
CONS: Josey’s thread is not quite as strong as Caim’s.
VERDICT: Sprunk satisfyingly expands the vision and scope of his protagonist and his world.
In Shadow’s Son, author Jon Sprunk introduced us to Caim: assassin, death dealer, a killer with strange and growing abilities even he doesn’t fully understand — to say nothing of the connection to his friend Kit, ghost, fae or something else that only he can see. Shadow’s Son takes this sword and sorcery protagonist and throws him into a plot and scheme that he manages to turn around, and place his friend (and love interest) Josey, on a too-long vacant throne of a decaying Empire. Oh, and give more-than-hints to him that he is far more than he himself knows.
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