Sam Ryan's Blog

Hello. Tis I once again. The person who said they would be more frequent with updates then went silent for a month. Sorry about that. The plan was that I would post my next milestone update at 60 thousand words and the[image error] reason it has taken me so long to reach that is simply because I got stuck on a chapter and was writing it and rewriting it over and over again until finally I deleted it entirely and went in an entirely different direction.

So yeah, that seemed to fix the problem and I am now back on track and just passed 60 thousand words today.

The hope is, or the goal I am shooting for at least, is to have this book done by Christmas. That of course depends on me not getting stuck for several weeks again among other things. But hopefully you will not have to wait long for this regardless.

I really do hope you all like this new book series that I am working on. It is a little bit of a departure from Dynasty in that Dynasty is an operatic like story, dealing with large scale conflicts and wars as where this is on a much smaller and personal scale of a single person. [image error]

I’ll be honest I am a little nervous in writing it not sure how it will be received but I am having a blast writing it and hopefully that will carry into the enjoyment of reading it as well.

So that’s about all for now. I am roughly half way done with the story but a lot of the set up has been finished so the hope, again, is that it will be all downhill from here.

Hello everyone, sorry for my lack of updates as of late. I wish I could say that I was nearly done with my book but sadly that is not the case. This book is the biggest book in terms of the scale of the world and I have had to spend a lot of time just working it out in my own head.

 I am just over 45 thousand words in my next book and just over 20 thousand in another book that I am doing on the side. Ironically percentage wise they are both about the same as the second book is going to be much

 shorter than the other, so while not my plan it is possible that my side project gets done first but we will just have to see. I also really want to do a Science Fiction book at some point as epic space operas are so rare from what I have seen and have two plots that I think would work but those will likely become my next side projects for when I am finishing Dynasty 5.

Can’t really say more than that at this time other than to  thank you again all for your continued patience and support and I will do my best to get you better and more timely updates in the future.

So way back in the age of yesteryear when I was publishing my first book The Heavenly Fox, I of course needed a cover for that book. Now understand that at the time I never thought that my work would ever be all that popular, certainly not nearly as popular as it is now, (Love you guys, you are the best) so when putting together the cover I was trying to do it as quickly and cost effectively as possible.

This lead to a very basic style that only sort of got across what I was going for. And while I did put a lot more effort into the rest of the books, I was wanting to keep them stylistically consistent with each other leading them all to have a very basic, bare bones look to them.

Well now that over the past few years I have greatly improved my skills in graphic design, I am finally able to create covers that I feel far superior in terms of overall quality as well as being simply more eye appealing. I do strongly believe that the effort someone puts into their cover is a good indication as to the effort that they put in their work and I want the impression for my work to be that I always give it everything I have.

But I want to hear what you guys think, as it really doesn’t mater if I think it’s wonderful as you are the people it’s meant for. So let me know, better, worse, should do something entirely different?

Hey everyone, yeah it had been a little while since my last update. Sorry about that. Been a bit of a busy past couple of months, moved to another state, been working at something resembling an actual job as well as doing editing work for an actual documentary among other things. But rest assured that I have been writing, though not consistently, and took some time to work on several of my many works I have going right now to see which one I wanted to focus on. It was sort of a elimination tournament but for book ideas. (Now that would be an interesting thing to see.) And now that I have narrowed it down, I have begun cracking the whip on my self and started writing. (Think that’s called flagellants)

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And I am pleased to say I am just over 36 thousand words in my next book.

Now I am not currently working on Dynasty 5. I really need a break as writing the last book nearly killed me and I really want to do the ending right and get everything situated in my head before I start writing so I don’t have a repeat where I keep writing and deleting everything until finally out of frustration I say good enough. I’m exaggerating but not nearly as much as I am proud to admit.

I want the conclusion to Dynasty to be gratifying as well as fulfilling, something a lot of series have a hard time doing so I think it best to take my time. Though the plan is not to have over a year of not publishing anything this time around.

So sorry.

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But hopefully you will all like what I am working on now, and with any luck it will be done here in the next few months. Until then I will keep you updated and as always welcome any comments or critiques that you might have.

Alright thanks for waiting everyone, as promised some more reviews on books that I have read and given my personal thoughts on them.

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Siera Maley

So this was a book that I picked up mostly on a whim and it is probably not a good sign that my first thought after finishing this book was ‘does this mean we are going to do this eleven more times?’

So the basic concept is interesting. Woman wakes up with no memories of who she is and is told that she was appointed by this worlds gods to find the successor after the previous emperor was assassinated. After a little hemming and hawing about it she finally agrees and head off to find the first of twelve of these people. And the entire first book his her finding the first potential successor and ends with them going to find the second. And sadly not a whole lot happens in between.

The story is written well enough, no real problems to speak of but for a 340 page book it feels like a lot of time is just spinning its wheels. It was almost as if there was no third act. The was the beginning and a middle and [image error]then it just kinda ended and left me wondering what we had been doing for so long. There was supposed to be the underlining intrigue and a bit of a who done it mystery that I had guessed correctly almost immediately after it was introduced which left me sitting there waiting for the rest of the characters to catch up which is always annoying.

Now this kind of slow not much happening pacing doesn’t always bother me if I really like the characters and am truly invested in them. Sadly that is not really the case here. The characters are fine but there is nothing about them that would make me want to sit and read about their daily life for 200 pages.

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And as for the lesbian romance… there really wasn’t any. The princess is openly a lesbian and does a lot of flirting with our MC and I have little doubt that is the way the romance is supposed to go but nothing is really developed between them in this book as they don’t even really interact with each other until almost half way through, and even then it is a lot of dancing around will they wont they sort of thing.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This book was alright, good enough that I will probably read the second and based on what happens in that one will determine if I drop the series or not. Though if it does look like there is going to be twelve of these books it had better get a sight more interesting or I really will drop it. If you like fantasy set stories and have some time to kill and no other books on your reading list then go ahead and give this one a try and see what you think.

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Melanie Jackson

Alright now some of you might remember when I reviewed the first book I was really on the fence about it, ultimately saying that I would reserve judgment until I saw where the story went in the second book and in the end I came to a conclusive ‘Eh’. Not the best start when the tittle is spelled wrong. It should be Alexis’ Memories not Alexis’s Memories.

Now I am going to talk spoilers for the first book so if you haven’t read it yet and want to know my opinion just jump down to my final thoughts.

Now firstly, I still think it would have been far more interesting to have started with the second book and let us the reader discover things as Alexis did during the book. You [image error]have to reintroduce the world of Vampires anyway so we might as well do it just the one time. Also then we are right there with Alexis as she tries to decide if what Jaden is saying is true or not and feel just as surprised when she discovers the truth about things.

I am also not a huge fan of how the first third of the book played out. Here you have Alexis living her life with no memories of Jaden and shocker she has a boyfriend now to add to the tension and increase the drama only this guy is what I like to call the Hallmark Starter Boyfriend. You have the MC already in a relationship with another guy and to justify down right cheating on that person with the true love interest they either make him kind

but boring, with no real redeeming characteristics that the MC is dating mostly because she settled for him. Or he is a huge jerk and is actually using/cheating on the MC and it is only right that he gets dumped by the end.

The Author here decided to go with both options, he was nice enough but plane, and possible undertones of just wanting to marry her because she is rich and powerful until he found out that Alexis liked girls and then suddenly out of nowhere became a bible thumping fire and brimstone nut job. It reeked of the author trying to make a statement and nothing else. It was jarring as all get out and  I could only sigh every time he was present.

But seemingly aware of how bog standard the first half of the book was the author decided to throw a bit of a twist in a little after half way and had the entire tone of the book change drastically.

Then there was the actual Vampire stuff. Or Immortal stuff because these vampires want to be edgy. I’m not sure how to really describe my feelings in all honesty. They are in the middle of a civil war with other vampires and are constantly on the defensive mostly because they do not have any kind of unified military to speak of and the leaders refuse to organize one because of… reasons? But they are very quick to blame and demand that [image error]Jaden save them and win the war even after they so bluntly tie her hands and refuse to let her do anything.

I have always hated stupid rulers. Like here you have people thousands of years old and have ruled for just as long and yet dont seem to know the first thing about ruling. If history teaches us anything it is that incompetent leaders are either manipulated by the competent, are quickly deposed or run whatever they are running into the ground. As none of those three things have happened in, like I said, thousands of years I am only forced to assume that these are competent leaders even if everything I see is evidence to the contrary.

To me the whole war subplot always seemed a little forced, something tacked on just to add action into a story that really doesn’t need action. I’m not reading this book to read about vampire politics I am reading it to see the love story.

FINAL THOUGHTS: In the end I find that it is an interesting story but just about every aspect of it could have been done so much better. The author created an interesting world and an interesting set up enough so that I will probably read the third, and presumably final, book but I can’t really recommended it.

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Benjamin Medrano

Now this is an interesting one. I am going to go ahead and review both books as almost all the problems I had with the first book are present in the second book. I will be spoiling the first half of the first book but nothing really happens in the first half that will really detract by having it spoiled here. But if you want to go into completely blind then just skip down to my final thoughts.

That said. I both love and hate this book. Now please understand I read the entire first book in a single night. It did good in hooking me and I am still firmly hooked, that being said, this book had so many problems with it. So while I will tare a little into it, please know that I am doing it out of affection… and hate.

Now most of my problems don’t even start until after the first half of the first book. The story is intriguing, you have a demon who was betrayed and trapped in a gem for

presumably thousands of years, slowly forgetting anything and everything slowly losing her sense of self and all of her power. Then she manages to escape and binds herself to a seed and becomes a druid basically. She then starts to expand her domain, regains her power and we slowly start to experience the world just as she does. And this world is a very interesting one.

It is your typical fantasy with elves and ogres and the like. With magic and spells, and beautiful elven princesses who have been branded with a slave brand and now must follow the order of anyone with a command brand without question or even ability to resist.

I’ll admit this book deals with some dark content that it walks a little tightly. And I don’t hate it. In fact there was something enjoyable about how uncomfortable some of the things made me. Feeling my heart break as good people are forced to do things that they don’t want to do and the helplessness that the characters feel as they can’t even try to rebel as they have been ordered not to.

As the story progresses many of these slaves for various reason find themselves in the MC’s layer, or dungeon, and she has the ability though her former demon magic to re-brand the slaves so they only have to take orders from her. This also gives her more[image error] power but she does it for altruistic reason as well as sheer boredom. As such she has lots of beautiful women continuously joining her harem, though most of the sexy times are implied more than stated.

Now when the story is focused on the MC or the Priestesses I am fine. Those two plot threads are interesting and are intertwined enough that I want to read more. Also in the second book, the plot thread with the queen and her daughter is also interesting. The problem is the other dozen or so plot threads that keep getting introduced that I actively began skipping and at the end of the book never felt lost or confused which really begs the question of how important they really were to the story to begin with.

Now I can point to the exact moment where the book started to run into problems for me. It was the moment the dungeon was discovered and Adventurers were called in to clear it. So understandably the MC druid lady not wanting her home destroyed started building defenses, but actually said that they were to strong and weakened them to give the adventures a fighting chance.[image error]

Like I understand the lore behind dungeons in this book and I quite liked it actually. I thought it very clever and original. But none of those rules apply to the MC because she is actually a demon not a true dungeon so why is she playing by those rules. This is off handedly explained in the second book that she enjoys watching the adventurers try to clear the dungeon but I don’t buy it.

But from there we have the problem of constantly jumping around as the author tells us all this other interesting stuff that is happening or showing us people reacting to things we already know about while almost completely ignoring the actual people that we have come invested in and want to see more of.

Again I started blatantly skipping parts. I understand fully why the Author felt he needed to this but he really needs to narrow it down to maybe three different people and focusing only on them. For instance our MC, the Jewels, and the Queen. Keep all other hopping around to a minimum and I think it would have been a far better book.

FINAL THOUGHTS: All in all, I am really enjoying this series and can’t wait for the next book. It has a little dark subject matter but it is handled well and there is nothing graphic. Well nothing graphic that is shown anyway. It could have been a lot better with a little tightening up and better focus. But even with all it’s faults I still say give it a go and see if you like it.

Well here we are, one month after Dynasty 4. Firstly let me thank all of you for being so patient with me over this past year as I slowly progressed on this book. I really hope no book ever takes me that long to write ever[image error] again. And also a big thank you to all of you for supporting me an this book and gave me feed back. As always I will be working to fix the things that I can and use what I learned to improve on the books in the future. Expanding on what you guys liked and hopefully removing the things you guys did not like.

So what happens next? Well, simply put I start writing my next work. I am not going to dive right into Dynasty 5 at least not immediately. Mostly I am burned out on this series at the moment and I want the conclusion of this series to be the best I can make it. Something I will love writing hopefully as much as you love reading and not something I just forced myself to write. I also want to just sit down and read through the first four books before starting the fifth.

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But for now I want to work on some of the other stories that I have wanted to write but have been putting off because I wanted to get Dynasty 4 done before I started doing anything else. No time frame yet on if and when any of them will be done, right now I am just starting and have no idea if I even like them yet.

With all that said, I might not be posting a whole lot in the next couple of months but as I said in my last post I do have some book reviews that I want to share with you so I will be putting those up between the dry spells.

Again, a big thank you to all of you, and thank you for your support so far. I always hope to do better and hope that you will enjoy my next works as much if not more than my previous ones.[image error]

Alright, Dynasty 4 the Divine Empress is officially done and up ready for launch on the 8th.

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I will still probably be making some tweaks on it up until then and well after. I’m still working on the first Dynasty but the wait for now is over as  some Monday the book will be up and ready for you to read.

It’s been a struggle with this book and I ca[image error]n’t say how happy I am to finally have it done. It will be a while before I start the last book in earnest and hopefully I will have a few more books out in a couple of months now that I am not focusing only on Dynasty. But for now I have some other work that I have been putting off that I really need to get to.

I really do hope that you guys enjoy this book, and that it was well worth the wait I put you through. No promises that I won’t do it again but just know that it was no fun for any of us.

I have been reading a lot though so be expecting some more book reviews to be going up soon.

So as some of you may have noticed that I pushed back the pre order release for Dynasty by a week.

The book for the most part is done, it is just going through the editing process and there was just  no way that I was getting it back in time to post it in the 72 hours that Amazon requires. A week might have been a little to long but I decided to error on the side of caution and give myself plenty of time cause I really don’t want to put up a book that is riddled with grammatical errors. I mean it still will be but I want to at least try to get most of them.

So sorry again for the delay but good news is, whether I think it ready or not, Amazon will have it go live on the 8th cause they wont let me delay it any longer than that. Also they wont let me do a preorder for the next year now that I did this, so yeah, thats a thing.

So to sum up, I am so sorry and hope you guys can understand and bare with me just a little bit longer.

Hello everyone, sorry for going quiet for so long. There were various reasons that if listed will only sound like I am making excuses so I won’t but all that aside I did not wish to post anything until I had something worth posting and I was about to post something yesterday and realized that posting anything on April Fools day was a bad idea.

But as the title of this update suggest in the next couple of days Dynasty 4 will go on Pre-order. It is still not quiet finished else I would release it now, but it is almost there and I just need some time to polish it up for you. The release date is the first of May. If I get it done before then than I will release it early but this way I should have plenty of time and everyone will get it as soon as possible.

If you have previously donated to editing and asked for a free copy of this book as your reward then I will email it out to you on that day using the email you gave for the donation.

Other than that, thank you all for being so patient and I really hope that this is worth the weight.

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Well just a really quick update for you guys, I just passed 100 thousand words.

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For comparison the first book was about 80 thousand and Dynasty 3 was about 120 or so. I really wish I could say that I was nearing the end of this book, but I really can’t at this point, though I am certainly winding down. Hopefully I will get a lot more done in the next few days and I will have even more good news for you guys.