Eye of the Oracle-Bryan Davis

If you haven’t read the Dragons in our Midst series then you can still read the Oracles of Fire series.  They draw off of each other.  However, if I had a choice, I would read Dragons in our Midst before reading this.  Either way I think you’ll deeply enjoy the series as in drawing off each other they delve into the world of the unknown.

A Word of Caution:

The author of this book writes fiction mixed with Biblical events.  While I cannot find anything that would compromise a young believer’s faith, I would still suggest being careful.  In another sense, it encourages the reader to read their Bible to verify certain things.

Description:

What ancient mysteries lurk behind the amazing stories in the Dragons in our Midst series?  Eye of the Oracle takes the reader back in time to the days when dragons abounded.  From the era just before Noah’s ark, through the battles between dragons and mankind in the times of King Arthur, and to the haunting presence of dragons in our day, this stunning prequel reveals the mysteries that led to the bestselling fantasy adventure that began with Raising Dragons.

How did dragons survive the flood?  Who helped preserve an ancient evil force that led to the dragons’ demise in the days of King Arthur?  What heroic sacrifices kept that evil from exterminating the dragon race forever?  If you enjoyed the heart-stopping action and spiritual depth of the first four books in this series, you won’t want to miss the astonishing story that began it all.  Eye of the Oracle will captivate young and old alike, and it will challenge every reader to search deep within for answers to the mysteries in their own hearts.
(Taken from back cover).

Plot:

Bryan Davis handles the plot exceptionally well in this novel.  It’s a little more history then the average plot.  This is, of course hard to not do when the timeline spans some five thousand years.

Even with the ‘history’ factor of the novel, the author still manages to draw you in and keep you there until the end.  While Mr. Davis may have done very well at keeping the reader, he also established many sub-plots.  The main plot itself was almost the collection of sub-plots and I think it depends on the reader whether it is a good thing or a bad thing.  I somewhat enjoyed it.

The amount of detail put into this book is superb.  It revealed many of the mysteries of Dragons in our Midst while creating some of its own.

Characters:

With some fifteen to twenty main characters in the books cast, I had no trouble distinguishing any.  Even two characters who were supposed to be completely identical, I could recognize because of their slightly differing characteristics and behavior.

I can only imagine how tedious the task must have been creating so many characters over the book’s timeline.  It being four/five thousand years long many characters were born and many died.  Yet with all the characters, they all have unique personalities.  I fell in love with each and every character even though it becomes clear who the protagonist is in the story.

Writing (Quality):

Mr. Davis knows his craft.  I can honestly say I saw no writing issues in this novel.  To hook a reader for, in a sense, four thousand years you have to have a lot of things-loveable and realistic characters, exciting plotline-but you really have to be able to bring it all together with good writing.  And Bryan Davis does just that.

Conclusion:

Whether you’re a long-time Dragons in Our Midst fan or you’ve never read anything by the author before, you will love this book.  Eye of the Oracle is a great book with Christian values and is a welcome addition to my shelf.
My Rating: 4.5 Pens

Genre: Young Adult Christian Fantasy
Intended age group:  12-15 (but can easily extend in either direction)
First in four part series (More reviews forthcoming)
Where to buy:  Amazon, ChristianBook, or authors website (signed if requested).
You can get in contact with the author by going to his website where you can go to the very active forum, check out fan art or go to his blog.

Venom and Song Winners

Yes, it's true.  The giveaway has ended.  Many of those of you who entered may have noticed that your entries are gone.  True and not true.  I have all comments on my blog emailed to me so I have every entry even though it doesn't appear so.  Actually, I kind of like the new comment system, it definitely has it's uses.
Anyway, getting to the winners!
*Drumroll*

• Melissa Rose!
• Goldarrow!
• Tahl!.

I will need you all to email me within 48 hours to claim your prize else I will give the book away to someone else.
Also, tomorrow morning I will be posting the first part in my review of The Oracles of Fire by Bryan Davis.  Each week I will be posting a review of the books in the order they're written.  And to end the reviews I am going to be posting a review and giveaway of Starlighter.  Be on the look out for both of those.

Blogger Design and the Simplicity of It

Many of you will remember a while back when I changed my entire blog design from the classic template to the current one using a little thing called 'Template Designer'.  I also added other pages on the blog at that point.  Just recently I've been working some more on my design.  You've probably noticed that it looks pretty much the same.
The reason for this being that I worked on the minor things.  For instance, you'll notice that the comment system is different.  I now use a system called 'Intense Debate' for the comments.  The reason for this?  It is much better.  You can reply to actual comments as well as things like giving replies a thumbs up or thumbs down.  I really like it.
Also, you may have noticed that the favicon (the little thing on your search bar by the address of the site) has changed from the ordinary orange Blogger B to an image of my choosing.
I've also done lots of other little changes.  While I haven't changed much and am no HTML master, I have learned a few things.  Next week I will be going over a few of these things throughout the week-so you won't to miss that.  It's really not difficult.  The hardest part is finding the right tutorials to help you make the changes.

The Narrowing Road

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."-Matthew 7:13-14

The way to Christ is a narrow road.  In my opinion, narrowing.  Getting smaller.

As of late I hear a great majority of Christians claiming that the rapture is happening soon.  I do not think this is altogether wrong, since it is said in part out of hope.  I myself look forward and have hope that the rapture will come soon.

That said, however we must remember that no one except God knows the timing of the rapture.

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."-Matthew 24:36

Not even Jesus in His man-ness (as a friend of mine put it) knows the time when He will come back.  I can just see Jesus standing in Heaven, pacing back and forth, waiting for God to say "Go get 'em!".

Earth is God's world, but satan does have some power.  There is a spiritual battle where the angels and demons do battle but there is also the physical where the Christians do battle with the subtle and also unsubtle sinful ways of the world.

We are the resistance.

We are the warriors in the service of the King.

We fight the pretender.

We are destined for victory.

But it is not ours.  The victory is the victory of God.

Being a Christian isn't 'easy' as it is often made out to be.  It is war, and war is a bloody affair.

As a Christian we face many, many struggles.  I would go as far as to say we face more struggles and hardships then non-believers.  But we have something they don't.  Something that is brings hope to the hopeless.  Rest to the weary. Healing to the hurt.

We have God by our side.  And if we allow Him too, He'll step in front of us.

God does not tempt us-but He does test us.  The beautiful thing about both though, is that He's with us.  Whether we're being tempted or tested, He always provides a way out and if we ask Him and pray He will always reveal it to us.

We are citizens of the Kingdom of God, but we're also its army.

The funny thing about the Kingdom of God's army though is that it's unlike the armies of the earth.  If we allow Him, Christ will come and inhabit our bodies and do battle for us.  And Christ is perfect.  It’s an army of perfect warriors.  An undefeatable army.

It’s right there.  It’s not magic like fantasy magic.  It’s not a spell.  It’s not going to make you fly or have fire spit out of your hands.  But it is powerful.  It’s the power of Jesus Christ.  It’s the power of God.

We Christians have it within our grasp, but we often ignore and dismiss it.

An ex-vampire came to our youth group last week.  To say the least it was an amazing testimony.  I won’t go into the details of what he went into but two things really stuck out.

One:  He told a story about a time two teenagers had been riding bikes and had wandered off into somewhere they shouldn’t have been-a landfill.  An occult ritual was happening and when they saw this they spun around on their bikes and pedaled away.  Without going into too much detail one of the teenagers who wasn’t a Christian was taken by a being.  The other was almost taken, but when he felt a claw-like hand on his chest he screamed out the name of Jesus.  The beast retreated and didn’t bother the teenager.  (The teenager that wasn’t taken was also a Christian).

There’s power in the name of our Savior.

Two:  He told us that through his sixteen years as a vampire, a witch and many other things involved in the occult he hardly ever saw any ‘action’ such as ‘magical’ things happening.  He also said that in the time that he has been a Christian he has learned much more about the spiritual and scene many more ‘magical’ things happen.  Magical being more along the lines of miracles such as healings.

I don’t know about anyone else but I’d say we serve an awesome God.  No need to get into the dark arts to see amazing things.  The devil is weak, our God is awesome in power.

“If you’re reading this, you are the resistance."

In Victory,

Book Blogger Appreciation Week

(If you're looking for the Venom and Song three book giveaway go here)
I recently found out about an award called the INSPYs and from that site I found another about Book Blogger Appreciation Week.
I would encourage you to go to BBAW's site and register-but be quick, registration ends on the 7th!
Book Blogger Appreciation Week basically is a great way to find more blogs that you enjoy reading as well as make your blog known to more readers.

I entered the Best New Blog category as The Narrowing Road has only been up a little over three months.  Since I entered this category I am required to submit five posts for BBAW to review.  Two posts must be reviews while the other three I have the freedom to choose.

 BOOK REVIEWS

Swords of the Six by Scott Appleton

A Century Turns by William Bennet

ARTICLES OF CHOICE

Fantasy, Part Six: Evil Creatures-Part six in my series on fantasy races

Sin=Punishment-A little thought-about factor in fiction

Know Your History!-A thought on history in fantasy

I also entered the YA Book Blog category and am required to submit three reviews and two of my choosing.  I have listed them below:

BOOK REVIEWS

Swords of the Six by Scott Appleton

A Century Turns by William Bennet
Venom and Song by Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper

ARTICLES OF CHOICE

Dragons Anyone-First in my six-part fantasy race series

You can't do anything? Hold up-A call to action in politics

How to Design Your Blog-Page One

How to Design Your Blog-No HTML Knowledge Required

This guide is, in short, to explain to those not tech-savvy, or simply don’t have the time to deal with all that HTML mumbo-jumbo how to fully utilize Blogger’s potential-specifically, Blogger in Draft’s blog design template.   I’m not going to deal with the HTML jargon; you can get that on any old website simply by searching Google.  I want to explain how to build an efficient blog template that can be unique from the hundreds of thousands of bland blogs out there.

There will be a few sections that explain some more advance tutorials that will have HTML coding in them-but very small and simple at that-and can be skipped if you would like to avoid it.

 

Venom and Song Three Book Giveaway

This Giveaway Has Ended...


I'm giving away three brand new, hardcover copies of Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper's newest book, Venom and Song. Wayne Thomas Batson with The Door Within Trilogy and the two-book pirate series has become one of my favorite fantasy authors and Christopher Hopper's White Lion Chronicles is a great series as well-it's been proposed to ransack his house and get the manuscript for Athera's Dawn, it hasn't been attempted yet though.

What's Venom and Song about though?  It's a Young Adult Christian Fantasy novel.  Yeah, I know, there's a lot of those books lol.
Below is my 'smaller' review:

(To view my longer and more in depth review of the book you can go here.)

I would suggest to anyone planning to read Venom and Song to first read Curse of the Spider King.

Venom and Song expands on the glimpses we saw of Allyra in the first book in the series. 

Now in the strange realm of Allyra, the Seven young lords confront a traitor in their midst, a creature-infested forest, teenage fears and doub ts, inexplicable mysteries and the Spider King himself.

I noticed the writing flawed at the beginning.  There were a few viewpoint shifts within scenes and the dialogue tags were off from the beginning to the end of the book.  That doesn’t matter much to me, even though I do notice it.  The book’s plot was amazing.  I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the world of Allyra and its history.  There were a few typos that I found amusing, but didn’t bother me at all.  Such as a time when one of the characters ‘ased’ a question.  Of course, it was mean to be ‘asked’.

The plot kept me on my toes and kept me turning the page and the ending was very satisfying, though it made me quite sad.

All-in-all I rate the book a eight out of ten.

How do you enter?  There are three ways to get entered:

• Comment on this post, that automatically gives you one entry
• Follow this blog (if you're already following, just tell me and that will still count as an entry)
• Post about this giveaway on your blog.  In the comment tell me the link to where you posted.

That's all there is to it!
 If you've already ordered or own the book, enter anyway!  Give one to a friend or there's no harm in having an extra copy lying around the house.
On a side note, I cannot ship over seas.  Only in the contiguous United States.  Sorry, if I could send over seas, I would.

In Victory,
Seth,

Venom and Song-Christopher Hopper & Wayne Thomas Batson

VENOM AND SONG

Wayne Thomas Batson-Christopher Hopper  

  

(For my full review of Venom and Song you can go here.)

I would suggest to anyone planning to read Venom and Song to first read Curse of the Spider King.

Venom and Song expands on the glimpses we saw of Allyra in the first book in the series. 

Now in the strange realm of Allyra, the Seven young lords confront a traitor in their midst, a creature-infested forest, teenage fears and doubts, inexplicable mysteries and the Spider King himself.

I noticed the writing flawed at the beginning.  There were a few viewpoint shifts within scenes and the dialogue tags were off from the beginning to the end of the book.  That doesn’t matter much to me, even though I do notice it.  The book’s plot was amazing.  I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the world of Allyra and its history.  There were a few typos that I found amusing, but didn’t bother me at all.  Such as a time when one of the characters ‘ased’ a question.  Of course, it was mean to be ‘asked’.

The plot kept me on my toes and kept me turning the page and the ending was very satisfying, though it made me quite sad.

All-in-all I rate the book a eight out of ten.

 Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Stay tuned for a THREE book giveaway of Venom and Song.  

Word War 6.8.10

 WORD WAR

Tonight we're doing a Word War!  We'll be starting at eight o' clock eastern time and going until nine.  I know of at least one other person besides myself who will be going for another hour after nine until ten, so if you want to stick around for another one, go ahead.
Basically how Word War's work is we wait until the start time (eight), then we sit down at your computer and type like a maniac on whatever you may be working on.  I'll be writing in my book, Tales of a Rider, but you can also be writing essay's, articles, poems, anything.  After one hour is up we post our total word count in the comments section and see who got the most.
I bid you good luck... Er, Endurance and Victory.

Fantasy Maps

Many fantasy stories are accompanied by a map.  Think about Tolkien-his stories ranged in many different places, and he always had a map to accompany them.  Think about the Inheritance Series (Eragon, Eldest, Brisngr), it has a map of the places where the story takes place.  The Door Within, The White Lion Chronicles.  There are many more as well.
I'm not going to try to convince you of the importance of a map, they are very handy for the reader and the writer though.  I'm going to attempt to explain how to draw a convincing map.  I'll do my best, even though I'm not the best artist or geographist lol.
Below are pictures of a map that I had worked on for the book I was writing before the one I'm working on now.

There were actually nine of these, but I don't see the need to show them all.  As you can see, I'm not the greatest artist, but it's still a map.  Below is a picture of a map of Middle Earth drawn by J.R.R. Tolkien.

I've also worked on many maps for what I'm writing now, but I'm unable to upload those for technical reasons.  The newer ones are much better, however.
To make a fantasy map realistic though it needs to feel realistic.  I had a good laugh this morning about how unrealistic my first attempts at maps were.
In a real world, or more importantly in a real map, there are many rivers.  That's something I've noticed.  Plus, the world is mostly water.  To make it feel realistic you need to have many rivers.  But not too much, you've got to find a balance.
Also, a river isn't completely straight.  It will curve and swerve through the map until it reaches the sea or it's stopping point.  It will also branch out numerous times.  I have a map that has about seven or eight rivers that came from two rivers.
Another thing is mountains.  In a fantasy world there are-or should be-many mountains and so in your map there should be many mountains.  Because it's a fantasy world though it's the writers decision on how long the mountain range is, how many there are, etc.  It's good to have a variety.  Going back to the example with Tolkien, he had a mountain singled off.  It was even the major place in his first published work, The Hobbit.  So it's good to have a variety of mountain ranges.  Mountains can also be used as border points, to separate lands.  Just off the top of my head I can think of a possible story making a huge mountain range that is so tall and fierce-some that no one dared cross them.
Then comes forests-it is relatively the same as mountains.  You want to have a good variety of sizes of forests and there should be many of them.  They can also be used to hide ancient secrets such as the Seven Sleepers in Wayne Thomas Batson's Rise of the Wyrm Lord.
When making borders to the oceans and sea keep in mind things such as gulfs, cliffs and havens.
Since it is fantasy you have an advantage-you can throw in things such as gigantic cracks and chasms in the ground, trees that reach past eyesight into the sky, rivers that flow so fast that if you were to go in you'd be swept away and be unable to get out.  Don't be afraid to really go into things that are impossible-it's fantasy.  But still be realistic enough that you don't lose the reader.
Also don't feel limited when you draw maps. It's usually a good idea to not put bounds on your world so that you can always explore new lands.  That's part for the fun of the writer though.
And last but not least, do not feel like you have to be an artist to draw a map, I can barely draw but it doesn't stop me from at least trying to draw a map, however horrible I may be.