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Spellslinger Chronicles #3
Spellslinger
No one should ever come between a man's family and his guns.
Not if they want to live.
Not even a dragon.
Especially when those guns belong to a spellslinger.
The dragon who had killed his brother had a death wish.
Koren D'uene is a ja'lel, a gun knight, and his is the job of granting wishes.
His guns spoke and the world listened.
Not if they want to live.
Not even a dragon.
Especially when those guns belong to a spellslinger.
The dragon who had killed his brother had a death wish.
Koren D'uene is a ja'lel, a gun knight, and his is the job of granting wishes.
His guns spoke and the world listened.
176 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 9, 2016
6 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Joseph J. Bailey
47 books23 followersThrough such simple questions as, "What if we lived in a world where our beliefs were real, tangible, and actualizable?" Joe explores the possible through thought, fantasy, wit, and character.
Including influences such as Shunryu Suzuki, Tolkien, Krishnamurti, Iain M. Banks, Laozi, Stephen R. Donaldson, Philip Kapleau, Raymond E. Feist, Edward O. Wilson, Dan Simmons, and David Bohm, Joe creates existential fantasy filled with rich worlds, concepts, stories, and ideas.
Joe holds an advanced degree in environmental management from Duke University where he also studied religion with a focus on meditative, experiential, and transformative traditions.
When not at play with his family, he enjoys reading, writing, and relaxation. When he can, Joe also practices various martial traditions in which he has attained the victim level of proficiency.
For more information, please visit Joe's website at: www.josephjbailey.com.
Including influences such as Shunryu Suzuki, Tolkien, Krishnamurti, Iain M. Banks, Laozi, Stephen R. Donaldson, Philip Kapleau, Raymond E. Feist, Edward O. Wilson, Dan Simmons, and David Bohm, Joe creates existential fantasy filled with rich worlds, concepts, stories, and ideas.
Joe holds an advanced degree in environmental management from Duke University where he also studied religion with a focus on meditative, experiential, and transformative traditions.
When not at play with his family, he enjoys reading, writing, and relaxation. When he can, Joe also practices various martial traditions in which he has attained the victim level of proficiency.
For more information, please visit Joe's website at: www.josephjbailey.com.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 6, 2017
This one started of quite fun! I really enjoyed the beginning, even if the prose needs some getting used to. It is a really weird mix of all sorts of things (fantasy, western, magic, scifi, drones, dragons, mystrals, ...) that somehow managed to work for me!
Why only two stars then? The end was an utter and total let down. All the book built up to finding and fighting that one dragon! And that battle just underwhelmed me completely. It also managed to up the weird to a point where I could only roll my eyes. Some characters who were important before are just discarded with a side sentence... This ending really killed the whole book for me.
Why only two stars then? The end was an utter and total let down. All the book built up to finding and fighting that one dragon! And that battle just underwhelmed me completely. It also managed to up the weird to a point where I could only roll my eyes. Some characters who were important before are just discarded with a side sentence... This ending really killed the whole book for me.
September 21, 2016
'I would take what I got, because that was all I would receive.'
Koren D'uen is a Jelal, a gun knight, a spellslinger. His will is iron and his magic is indomitable. We learn this early on and come to get a sense of the limitless heat in our protagonist's hearth. With his brother's death, the man goes to seek revenge against an ancient dragon. With his trusty guns by his side, the Jelal goes on to do what he does best in this fantasy western.
Let me start by saying that I've never read a western themed book before. This book had the tropes I had associated with it, grit and all. Joseph almost strayed too far with adding interdimensional and space funk into the mix of magic and guns but to my delight, his pen-wielding hand was stayed by something. The novel is split into many tiny chapters, each aptly titled.
There was less detail to most characters than I would have liked, but Joseph (I hope it's fine to use first name bases here) managed to get around that with sheer scale of fantasy. species, magic and interaction managed to get enough across. This tale is, at heart, about Koren, and we certainly get a lot about him, with flashback parts very often. I found myself wondering at some of his actions, thinking them different from how I expected him to act. This seems intentional, and towards the end we remember that Koren is tired and flawed, more so than many. Joseph really does some characters justice in this book, and I found his talent for likability immense. There was plenty of magical action as well, and there was enough lore to convey depth.
There were linguistic issues when I felt the author sometimes overuses words, especially some that seem artificially 'smart'. Sometimes I felt him reach for the epic with that sort of Bond. James bond. Licensed to kill. BORN for a license. Sometimes it just didn't land or was overkill. But when it did land? Oh boy!
In the end, I was hesitent to give this book more than four stars on account of its flaws. Then I read the chapter titled "Childhood's End". Besides, there were parts in this book that deserve extra stars. I will gladly say that it's one of my favorite books this year, and certainly deserves the following score.
5/5
Koren D'uen is a Jelal, a gun knight, a spellslinger. His will is iron and his magic is indomitable. We learn this early on and come to get a sense of the limitless heat in our protagonist's hearth. With his brother's death, the man goes to seek revenge against an ancient dragon. With his trusty guns by his side, the Jelal goes on to do what he does best in this fantasy western.
Let me start by saying that I've never read a western themed book before. This book had the tropes I had associated with it, grit and all. Joseph almost strayed too far with adding interdimensional and space funk into the mix of magic and guns but to my delight, his pen-wielding hand was stayed by something. The novel is split into many tiny chapters, each aptly titled.
There was less detail to most characters than I would have liked, but Joseph (I hope it's fine to use first name bases here) managed to get around that with sheer scale of fantasy. species, magic and interaction managed to get enough across. This tale is, at heart, about Koren, and we certainly get a lot about him, with flashback parts very often. I found myself wondering at some of his actions, thinking them different from how I expected him to act. This seems intentional, and towards the end we remember that Koren is tired and flawed, more so than many. Joseph really does some characters justice in this book, and I found his talent for likability immense. There was plenty of magical action as well, and there was enough lore to convey depth.
There were linguistic issues when I felt the author sometimes overuses words, especially some that seem artificially 'smart'. Sometimes I felt him reach for the epic with that sort of Bond. James bond. Licensed to kill. BORN for a license. Sometimes it just didn't land or was overkill. But when it did land? Oh boy!
In the end, I was hesitent to give this book more than four stars on account of its flaws. Then I read the chapter titled "Childhood's End". Besides, there were parts in this book that deserve extra stars. I will gladly say that it's one of my favorite books this year, and certainly deserves the following score.
5/5
May 4, 2017
I admit, I waffled between a 1 and 2 star rating and finally settled on 1 star.
Bailey had the basis for a good story here. A magical gunslinger in a science fiction/fantasy world full of differing races, interesting technology, and even dragons. Unfortunately, there were a number of elements that dragged what could have been a fast paced weird west story and turned it into anything but.
First off, Bailey's style choice for this novella is a weird one. Often individual sentences are their own paragraph. This creates a very, VERY choppy story, and when the action hits, it only serves to feel like you're driving a high speed car over a pothole filled side road. No matter how fast you're driving, you keep being jarred around. It also seems as if Bailey is trying to eat up page space to make the page count longer than it should be, much like kids do in school when their essay assignment is based off pages, not words.
Second, Bailey's got an obsession with purple prose. Though this would work wonders at certain points in the story, it appears even when the character is in a situation which he's in danger (though he's never really in danger, which will be my next point), or when he's in a battle of sorts. Sure, tell me about the ranch and how beautiful it is. Tell me how epic the landscape is. But during a battle I don't see the protagonist spouting off that kind of prose, no matter how bad ass he is supposed to be.
Which brings me to the third point. Koren D'uene is a Mary Sue. He has magical guns that can do anything, he has an amazing flying demonic horse that is super rare as a mount, and he constantly talks about how he could kill the dragon on his own. Even the situation he finds himself in at the start of the book is nothing to him. At no point in the entire novel is Koren ever feel like he is in danger. And what's even worse is the dialogue he constantly spouts. Like a kid trying to be badass, he throws out one liners about how dangerous he is. There are no complexities to his character, there is no character growth, there is nothing relatable or sympathetic.
And lastly, Bailey's approach to world building is to make reference to a race/place/thing and give no descriptions of it. Instead, the reader is supposed to flip to the appendix and read a very short, not very descriptive description of said race/place/thing. This leaves the reader to fill in the blanks with whatever images they come up with on their own. Thus, instead of Bailey's vision, readers are left with their own interpretations. This will work for certain readers, but for me it just felt like lazy writing.
All that aside, I really liked Bailey's world (from what I saw outside of my own interpretations), and I really thing that with a bit more editing to streamline things and remove the stylistic choices, this could have been an amazing story. (with a significantly shorter page count) The races sounded interesting from what little I read about them in the appendix, and given a bit more time and description to them over other story elements like the setting, there really could have been something amazing here.
For people seeking weird west stories, I would put this one closer to the bottom. There are a number of people who enjoyed the story (just look at those reviews), but as I am in the middle of reading a bunch of weird west tales, I found that the writing just detracted too much from the story Bailey was trying to tell. Still, it's a unique take on the weird west genre and if you are looking for a fresh take, this would be the book to pick up.
Bailey had the basis for a good story here. A magical gunslinger in a science fiction/fantasy world full of differing races, interesting technology, and even dragons. Unfortunately, there were a number of elements that dragged what could have been a fast paced weird west story and turned it into anything but.
First off, Bailey's style choice for this novella is a weird one. Often individual sentences are their own paragraph. This creates a very, VERY choppy story, and when the action hits, it only serves to feel like you're driving a high speed car over a pothole filled side road. No matter how fast you're driving, you keep being jarred around. It also seems as if Bailey is trying to eat up page space to make the page count longer than it should be, much like kids do in school when their essay assignment is based off pages, not words.
Second, Bailey's got an obsession with purple prose. Though this would work wonders at certain points in the story, it appears even when the character is in a situation which he's in danger (though he's never really in danger, which will be my next point), or when he's in a battle of sorts. Sure, tell me about the ranch and how beautiful it is. Tell me how epic the landscape is. But during a battle I don't see the protagonist spouting off that kind of prose, no matter how bad ass he is supposed to be.
Which brings me to the third point. Koren D'uene is a Mary Sue. He has magical guns that can do anything, he has an amazing flying demonic horse that is super rare as a mount, and he constantly talks about how he could kill the dragon on his own. Even the situation he finds himself in at the start of the book is nothing to him. At no point in the entire novel is Koren ever feel like he is in danger. And what's even worse is the dialogue he constantly spouts. Like a kid trying to be badass, he throws out one liners about how dangerous he is. There are no complexities to his character, there is no character growth, there is nothing relatable or sympathetic.
And lastly, Bailey's approach to world building is to make reference to a race/place/thing and give no descriptions of it. Instead, the reader is supposed to flip to the appendix and read a very short, not very descriptive description of said race/place/thing. This leaves the reader to fill in the blanks with whatever images they come up with on their own. Thus, instead of Bailey's vision, readers are left with their own interpretations. This will work for certain readers, but for me it just felt like lazy writing.
All that aside, I really liked Bailey's world (from what I saw outside of my own interpretations), and I really thing that with a bit more editing to streamline things and remove the stylistic choices, this could have been an amazing story. (with a significantly shorter page count) The races sounded interesting from what little I read about them in the appendix, and given a bit more time and description to them over other story elements like the setting, there really could have been something amazing here.
For people seeking weird west stories, I would put this one closer to the bottom. There are a number of people who enjoyed the story (just look at those reviews), but as I am in the middle of reading a bunch of weird west tales, I found that the writing just detracted too much from the story Bailey was trying to tell. Still, it's a unique take on the weird west genre and if you are looking for a fresh take, this would be the book to pick up.
May 3, 2017
It was a good read -- I was not expecting it to be in first person, and the dialogue style threw me at first, but overall, it was a good read. I think the book fulfilled on its promise of 'Wild, Weird West', though I was hardly expecting aliens, they seemed to fit in to the world the author created. The one main issue I had was all the unanswered questions the narration itself raised, or implied through the story line. Though the main plot ended, many of the 'driving forces' were not. It left me feeling a little like the conflict was plucked out of no where, if those questions weren't worth answering.
The book was good. I wanted to keep reading. But I gave it three stars for what felt like an incomplete ending, or a conflict occurring in a vacuum.
The book was good. I wanted to keep reading. But I gave it three stars for what felt like an incomplete ending, or a conflict occurring in a vacuum.
February 24, 2018
A fast read, and thebrief sentences of the text gave it a rhythm that made it easy to keep going. Cool world, but ultimately I didn't feel engaged with the characters.
March 20, 2016
A fascinating blend of three very different genres, including certain expectations of writing style and characterization.
Bailey gives the protagonist, Koren D’uene, a rich inner life that supports the honored image of the "lone hero of the West", who sees much and says little. The readers move through that inner life a step at a time, just ahead of the external details of the strange world Koren inhabits; we share his impressions of the situation at hand, get glimpses of the trail he has ridden to get here, and taste the heady brew of his emotions as a young "ja'lel"-in-training.
Of the strange world through which he moves, we receive many tantalizing morsels of a much wider world than the one we know: magic is real, the planet itself is far removed from Earth, aliens and faster-than-light travel is a practical reality, and so on. We also learn that the planet has hosted intelligent, starfaring life for many human generations, though Bailey has avoided using the trope that the world has "grown old" or other implications of decadence and decline common to high-fantasy works. No, the Skaelyrian Wastes is a setting that has still to be fully settled, by any culture with any level of technology or magic. Any similarity to the American West may be attributed to humans using what works; in these "Wastes", the trappings of the Wild West are used because they keep the desperate, the mad, the foolish and the greedy going better than any other such symbols.
The "fantasy" aspect of the work comes through in the displays of magic, true, but more clearly through persistent memories of Koren's early ja'lel training and references to his family heritage: the mystic guns at his hips. Most Western-genre stories make references to a single generation, either prior to the protagonist ("I'm lookin' fer the man who shot my Pa") or immediately subsequent ("Where's the snake-in-the-grass what took my boy?") as a way of reinforcing the uncertain nature of life on the Frontier; the Wastes, on the other hand, present enough active and passive threats that most sentient species prefer to seek easier resource-supplies elsewhere.
Perhaps the weakest of the three genres in the book is the "hard science fiction", discussed mostly through off-handed references to semi-pronounceable alien species that are not described with as much detail as I would prefer, though there are also examples of very high levels of technology, up to and including faster-than-light travel through space.
All in all, the book reads like a recipe using classic Western novels by Louis L'Amour as the "base" with high fantasy elements layered above it, and "garnished" with science fiction.
The writing style reinforces this by setting individual sentences as paragraphs.
This emphasizes the importance of the sentences, but is somewhat overused in this book because the reader may find it difficult to properly prioritize the relative importance of one thought over another.
I would recommend the book to my friends who are interested in any of the three genres incorporated into the writing as an example of how their particular favorite can be blended with the other two. It's not perfect, as Mr. Bailey has clearly chosen to emphasize the "Western" motif at the occasional expense of a potentially rich reading experience from emphasizing or contrasting the "fantasy" or "sci-fi" elements, but still quite enjoyable.
Bailey gives the protagonist, Koren D’uene, a rich inner life that supports the honored image of the "lone hero of the West", who sees much and says little. The readers move through that inner life a step at a time, just ahead of the external details of the strange world Koren inhabits; we share his impressions of the situation at hand, get glimpses of the trail he has ridden to get here, and taste the heady brew of his emotions as a young "ja'lel"-in-training.
Of the strange world through which he moves, we receive many tantalizing morsels of a much wider world than the one we know: magic is real, the planet itself is far removed from Earth, aliens and faster-than-light travel is a practical reality, and so on. We also learn that the planet has hosted intelligent, starfaring life for many human generations, though Bailey has avoided using the trope that the world has "grown old" or other implications of decadence and decline common to high-fantasy works. No, the Skaelyrian Wastes is a setting that has still to be fully settled, by any culture with any level of technology or magic. Any similarity to the American West may be attributed to humans using what works; in these "Wastes", the trappings of the Wild West are used because they keep the desperate, the mad, the foolish and the greedy going better than any other such symbols.
The "fantasy" aspect of the work comes through in the displays of magic, true, but more clearly through persistent memories of Koren's early ja'lel training and references to his family heritage: the mystic guns at his hips. Most Western-genre stories make references to a single generation, either prior to the protagonist ("I'm lookin' fer the man who shot my Pa") or immediately subsequent ("Where's the snake-in-the-grass what took my boy?") as a way of reinforcing the uncertain nature of life on the Frontier; the Wastes, on the other hand, present enough active and passive threats that most sentient species prefer to seek easier resource-supplies elsewhere.
Perhaps the weakest of the three genres in the book is the "hard science fiction", discussed mostly through off-handed references to semi-pronounceable alien species that are not described with as much detail as I would prefer, though there are also examples of very high levels of technology, up to and including faster-than-light travel through space.
All in all, the book reads like a recipe using classic Western novels by Louis L'Amour as the "base" with high fantasy elements layered above it, and "garnished" with science fiction.
The writing style reinforces this by setting individual sentences as paragraphs.
This emphasizes the importance of the sentences, but is somewhat overused in this book because the reader may find it difficult to properly prioritize the relative importance of one thought over another.
I would recommend the book to my friends who are interested in any of the three genres incorporated into the writing as an example of how their particular favorite can be blended with the other two. It's not perfect, as Mr. Bailey has clearly chosen to emphasize the "Western" motif at the occasional expense of a potentially rich reading experience from emphasizing or contrasting the "fantasy" or "sci-fi" elements, but still quite enjoyable.
October 27, 2016
This book was a "fun" tale of revenge and danger. It had its foibles, but all in all I enjoyed it a lot.
The biggest issue was the strange paragraph breaks. It worked sometimes at establishing a rhythm for the words, but could become confusing once dialogue was underway.
Also, these people have magic technology and interstellar travel. Why no land vehicles?
The biggest issue was the strange paragraph breaks. It worked sometimes at establishing a rhythm for the words, but could become confusing once dialogue was underway.
Also, these people have magic technology and interstellar travel. Why no land vehicles?
May 24, 2016
A magical gunslinger hunting a dragon in a world with similarites to the Old West, with elements of both science fiction and fantasy. What King's "The Gunslinger" should have been. Tons of fun, and (hint to the author!) I'm hoping there'll be more stories with this character in this world!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews