Ashley’s Reviews > Of Blood and Fire > Status Update
Ashley
is 27% done
I am boggled of the mind that this book has received hundreds of thousands of dollars of marketing and publishing money (maybe more!) when it reads as if it was written by a precocious, overexcited 19 year old, and nary a professional editor has touched it. And it could very easily have been improved by just one editing pass! Imagine if it had gone through more!
— Aug 29, 2026 09:23AM
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Ashley’s Previous Updates
Ashley
is 13% done
The story should have started here. The first fifty pages, aside from the prologue, are worse than useless.
— Aug 28, 2026 05:05PM
Ashley
is 11% done
"he crunched his fingers into a fist and thrust his hand in the air"
go see a doctor, bro, fingers shouldn't crunch
— Aug 28, 2026 04:53PM
go see a doctor, bro, fingers shouldn't crunch
Ashley
is 10% done
when you are constantly making your characters laugh at the things they are doing around one another, because nothing that's happening is actually funny but you want readers to think it is
— Aug 28, 2026 04:51PM
Ashley
is 7% done
when a book has a big important moment where a wise old elf tells a very important, very "interesting" story, but you can't make the elf tell the story very well even though he is a MASTER STORYTELLER, so you have to keep mentioning how the audience is "enthralled" and "enraptured" to really sell it. you also make sure to include the elf taking a swig of ale and wiping his face with his sleeve for no reason at all
— Aug 28, 2026 12:38PM
Ashley
is 5% done
Can we just skip to the part where you’re not borrowing heavily from Tolkien and Jordan? I’m tired.
— Aug 28, 2026 12:00PM