A Lua de Joana, por Maria Teresa Maia Gonzalez. | Em Português, simplesmente porque sim.

Muito tempo sem escrever aqui, culpa da tese. Este vai em Português, porque sim. 

Tenho uma memória deste livro. Não de o ler, mas sim de ouvir falar dele. Já não me lembro em que ano tal se passou, provavelmente no final dos anos 90, ou nos princípios do novo milénio (já nem se considera este milénio como "novo"... e ainda só se passaram 19 anos, faltam pelo menos uns 481 anos para se poder dizer que já não é jovem.) Houve uma altura onde só se falava deste livro neste país. Pelo menos na escola lembro-me de nos referirem este livro, nas aulas de Formação Cívica, todos anos. Calculo que também tenha sido destacado na televisão e jornais. Enfim, já me estou a esticar e ainda nem cheguei ao livro. Com ajuda de tudo o que se falava na altura, sei que a minha mãe acabou por comprar o livro e por na minha estante de livros, tenho também a memória de colegas minhas terem falado sobre o livro na altura, mas como eu sempre fui do contra (especialmente quando se tratava das "modas da época") nunca peguei nele.
Ontem à tarde estava a olhar para a velha estante de livros, à procura de alguma desculpa para não trabalhar na tese, e lá os meus olhos me levaram ao dito cujo. Comecei a ler, leitura fácil e simples, poucas páginas... acabei por ler por completo em pouco tempo.
Não sou o público alvo deste livro. Já fui. Portanto, não consegui ler sem me desligar da minha mentalidade um pouco mais adulta (penso eu, sei lá).

Spoilers daqui para a frente.

A Lua de Joana é uma tragédia, uma dupla tragédia até. O livro consiste em cartas que a personagem "Joana" escreve à sua melhor amiga "Marta", que morreu recentemente. As cartas são uma forma de desabafo e confidência por parte da Joana, visto não ter ninguém com quem falar após a dita tragédia. Acompanhamos a vida da Joana durante cerca de dois anos, entre os seus 14 e 15 anos (entre o seu 9º e 10º ano de escolaridade). O leitor é testemunha de uma gradual espiral descendente da mente da personagem, tentando lidar com os problemas da escola, adolescência, família e amigos. A junção de todas estas situações levam a que Joana acabe por cair de forma semelhante que Maria (ena... queria dizer Marta, mas com isto reparei que não recordo de nenhuma Maria no enredo, deve passar-se num Portugal alternativo com certeza, devia de haver pelo menos umas três para ser realista. Menos uma estrela.) [Ps: Ups. Ok, reparei agora que o nome da autora é Maria. Está perdoada. Vou voltar a pôr a estrela no sítio.]
O tema principal do livro revolve em volta das drogas e do que acontece quando alguém morre. Maior parte das pessoas parece focar-se nas drogas, mas julgo que a temática dominante é a forma como lidar com a morte inesperada de alguém próximo. Penso até que este é um livro que seria mais bem empregue para os pais, do que se os adolescentes (especialmente no contexto de 2019). Já não é propriamente necessário um livro para ensinar aos miúdos que consumir drogas é mau... toda a gente já sabe isso, é quase conhecimento geral actualmente. Os miúdos sabem que drogas, álcool e tabaco (é tudo drogas basicamente), são de evitar. Quando não os evitam é porque algo não está bem. Por isso, talvez este livro agora devia ser mais uma ferramenta para pais e professores, do que para os alunos. Não faço ideia se ainda falam deste livro nas escolas.

Como disse antes este livro é uma dupla tragédia.
Por um lado a Marta e a Joana que morreram devido a uma acumulação de problemas (não foi só as drogas), outros personagens como o Diogo e a Rita meteram-se em drogas e problemas relacionados (mas não morreram... ainda), e a avó Ju... (essa doeu forte no coração. R.I.P. ;-; ).

Por outro lado quando a mãe da Marta oferece à Joana a colecção de caleidoscópios, e obrigou-me a ir ao google ver que tipo de pokémons são esses, que nunca ouvi falar... fez-me perder uma parte da minha dignidade. Quando a Joana vai a um clube de vídeo buscar um filme para ver (acho que era com o Diogo), fez-me vir as lágrimas aos olhos (R.I.P. clubes de vídeo). Na carta onde a pobre Joana está tão desesperada que quer fugir para Plutão (pobre Joana, talvez mais vale morrer do que fugir para o planeta mais longínquo do Sistema Solar, só para depois receber uma cartinha da NASA a informar que foi despromovido de Planeta para "Planeta-anão"... se bem que agora querem, restitui-lo a Planeta outra vez. Deixem o coitado em paz!). A Joana vendeu o seu walkman para comprar drogas... caramba, o que eu hoje não dava para ter um, para por numa ‘vitrine’.  Concertos do Michael Jackson ("big oof" from 2019). O Diogo pede 50 contos à Joana, para comprar drogas é claro, mas o que doeu foi voltar a abrir o google para ver o que vale "50 contos" hoje em dia (por volta de 250 euros, com as inflações e etc etc... puxa a miúda de 15 anos andava a dar 250 euros ao namorado quantas vezes por mês? De onde desengatava tanta massa? Nota-se que a família têm dinheiro mas possas...). A Joana a jogar xadrez no computador... e ainda dizem que video jogos são maus para a "canalha"... se tivesse tudo a jogar Minecraft não havia tragédias nenhumas com as drogas (a tragédia era cair na lava logo depois de encontrar diamantes... um momento de silêncio para todos os que já passaram por este momento traumático).

Enfim, o livro foi bastante interessante e gostei da estratégia da autora em abordar as temáticas. Diverti-me ainda mais a escrever esta review, não sei porquê.

Joana é um bom nome... o que aconteceria se alguém roubasse ("pegásse emprestado" vá...) a Joana e a inserisse no meio se uma situação caótica... talvez de guerra? Oh oh... vamos ver.

Greyblood: Adventurer's Academy, by Daniel Prince. | A happy review... for a change.

A few weeks ago, me and a group of people were talking about things that we like and don't like in stories, and one person recommended to me Greyblood: Adventurer Academy. Said person also offered me the book (thank you so much "Jane", you the best! :3 )! 

This copy of the book has it's own adventure... it went from England to Spain, then roamed between various Spanish provinces for about a week, ending up being sent back to England. Then it was sent to France, then back to England, and then back to Spain and then finally shipped to Portugal and then to my home... this damn book traveled more in a few weeks than I did in more than two decades... but oh well. It finally arrived.

To start I had never heard of  "LITRPG" before, and I was quite surprised to find out about it. It didn't cross my mind that this kind of writing existed as a type of fantasy. The closest that I had read/seen was the "Isekai" genre, and this book reminds me a lot of that. 

Since I was a kid, I've played many games, and (in a more recent time) I've read/watched many Isekai series. So, entering into this book I felt right at home, and that's the beauty of it! Everything seems familiar, I've "visited" many similar worlds in games like Runes of Magic and RaiderZ, and I've accompanied Kirito's adventures in SAO, Kazuma's trainwreck in the world of Konosuba, poor Subaru's unfortunate life in Re:Zero, Momonga's Ainz's plans unfold in Overlord, and the ongoing quest on Shield Hero. All is familiar, and yet, like a good game or show, everything seems new. This book managed to keep me interested even though I knew what was going to happen in most cases. I think that it can be explained with a factor of "familiarity" with the characters, the world and the story. I didn't knew these characters or world before I stared reading, but at the same time I've met them before, different versions of them. And just like what enables a new Isekai to succeed, it's the approach to the characters and story that makes this book so good. With a word of warning, however, this might not be an enjoyable book for people that are not familiar with the "RPG world stuff".

*WARNING: Spoilers from here forward.*

We start the book being introduced to the protagonist while he is trying to fight a goblin. And so we start with one of the best "twists" (calling it a twist is not right... but meh, my brain is not coming up with a better word in English). Our protagonist starts as "regular" village boy with ambitions to become an adventure, a completely familiar start and yet, like everything else, it's perfect. What would change the most from the regular RPG story is that our protagonist is actually half-orc, and there we immediately have a social tension inserted into the story! Not going to explain everything in the story, as it's not the point of this, but I would like to mention that the initial arc of build up and character growth before Lugor (the protagonist) departs for the academy is excellent. When I started reading I feared that we would not spend enough time in this initial stage of the story but that was not the case. This first part of the book was, in my opinion, very important for the build up of everything that follows. And then, later when the author introduces us to Shiva and Sandal (the protagonist's friends and party members), and it's a joy to see the tree of them interact  with each other and with the other characters. The author managed to make it so that none of the tree characters that have more prevalence are humans! Usually all authors play it safe and add a human protagonist, or a few human party members, or (going back to some of the Isekai) the protagonist has a human background. In this case the protagonist is only half human, the other half is an orc (that is considered a monster in this world), the human characters are more secondary. I consider this a bold move, but it worked out quite well, at least in my opinion. 

Still, the one moment that really got me, and made me realize that I was going to love this book, was the Skyrim reference... when I start reading that guard's line, I literally dropped the book and gave out a big wide smile, while thinking to myself "this dude is one of us".

Across the book it's possible to see the little details and the care that the author had to write such an intricate and yet recognizable story. While reading each chapter I could not help from identifying elements from different games that I played or other stories that I read, like for example (I just finished reading so it's the last one that I have in mind) the tournament, actually the entire academy... it reminded me of Hogwarts. Not in a "oh the author stole the ideas way" but in a happy, almost nostalgic kind of way. The author manages to put is own touch on every aspect of the story, making it able to stand on it's own.

And on the topic of chapters, this was the first book that I read that has really small chapters... and I love it! It works really well! I would say that most chapters are about five to six pages long on average, some reach much more but it's still very engaging. The sense of progression is much greater with the 49 chapters flying by the reader with an intense pace. It's much better when in comparison with other books that I've been reading... (I'm sorry to Felipe Faria for using his Chronicles of Allarya has a virtual punching bag... but those were the last books that I read so... eh I'm going to do it).
It amuses me how Daniel Prince manages to write around the "cliché", it's still there but you can't see it because of the author's art of story telling. Oh! And the way that the author improves on the general idea of the world itself is fantastic! The characters and the world feel alive, they make sense within it's own rules, and some things are even created to make the world feel credible. Maybe it's just me, but I never saw the element of combining skills to create new ones anywhere before this book.

And I just realized that I can write more when I'm angry at a book than when I loved the book... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And I really loved this book, I can't wait for the next one and follow our adventurers into that new found island! That's not to say that the book doesn't have a problem or two, mostly it's typos and editorial mistakes, and I really don't mind them, to me the story is what counts the most. But I regret not having taking note of all the mistakes that I found (probably some slipped by me, as English is not my first language and I give a lot of typos myself - as can probably be seen in this very text)... when I reached the end of the book there was a nice note of the author, thanking the reader for reading the book and asking for people to notify him if they noticed any mistakes. At this point I think that most of the mistakes that I noticed have already been reported to the author, but I'll try to re-find some of the mistakes and send him an email with it and a "thank you" anyway. In the future (if I ever get there) I wish that people would help me find mistakes in my book as well, so the best I can do is do the same now. :)

I gave this book a 4 our of 5 on Goodreads, I really really loved this book. But the "5" is reserved for books that manage to blow my mind with something. Still, for me the "4" is considered an Excellent Book! And I will recommend this book to everyone that I know (sadly i don't know that many people xD). At least is not a "3" out of pity... looking at you Faria. (Sorry again :3).

"Crónicas de Allaryia: Os Filhos do Flagelo", by Filipe Faria. | And a little rant about "dumbing down characters".

Just last week I finished reading the second book in the “Crónicas de Allaryia” series, named “Os Filhos do Flagelo” by Filipe Faria. I must say that this book was a considerable improvement on the first one, the plot makes a lot more sense without the annoying side-quests and the characters are a lot more developed. I feel that the writing style has improved, but some of the parts (especially when the characters scream in dialog) feel a bit too exaggerated to me. But maybe that’s just my preference, I prefer when the narrator explains how the character is screaming, instead of a graphical representation of said scream [for example: “- OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”, and things like that.]

Warning: The text below contains spoilers and a fair amount of sarcasm.
 

                This book follows two stories, (in the end of the first book, the main cast of characters separate into two groups), so we basically have alternated chapters, one for one group and the next for the other. This worked quite well because, if at one point I got bored of one of the groups I would still push myself to read the chapter about the group that I’m less interested in, so that I could reach the next part of said groups story. Occasionally the author gave me a treat, instead of alternating between groups each chapter, there would be a chapter about the brother of the Main Character, that was pretty much abandoned at the beginning of the first book. In these chapters we are presented with the politics of the realm, getting a chance to observe Aewyre’s brother ruling his kingdom. Thus the world building in this book is much deeper than in the first, the world is starting to feel like a place that could exist, instead of a place created for the main characters to play around and save from evil. For example, I found it really interesting the way that the “thuragars” bury their dead, and I hope that the following books expand on this race’s culture. But back to the main stories. Both are interesting but, at the same time it becomes a bit predictable, it was quite easy for me to see an action coming, sometimes many chapters in advance. There are, just like in the first book, quite a lot of clichés around, not all of them are bad, but all together it becomes a bit too much.

                Another big problem, in my opinion, are the fighting sequences, that became “better” but “worse”.  It could be considered “better” for a reader that enjoys this kind of description, and “worse” for a reader that does not. The fighting sequences are many, usually one per chapter, and they are very detailed, too much detailed in my opinion. I guess that this is something that this author likes to do a lot. Since the first book the descriptions became more detailed and coherent in terms of flow of the action itself. But is it still way too long in my opinion, some fights take more than five pages, and there’s a chapter with two sequential fights, so that should make more than ten pages of detailed description of fights. What makes it worse is that the reader knows who’s going to win. The fights are well choreographed, almost looks like a movie script, but the result of the fight can be seen from the start… and, if our heroes are losing, worry not… either some reinforcements arrive deus ex machina style, or the villains suddenly become brainless and forget how to fight and basically let the heroes win with a scratch or two, sometimes very hurt, but we know that they’ll recover fast. On the opposite side of this argument, the author surprised me with the death of one of the most important characters! And I was even more surprised that the author didn’t cheat to, somehow, bring that character back. It seems that he’s really dead, unless the author brings him back in one of the following five book, which I hope he doesn’t, let his death have some meaning. At the same time, the character’s death was completely predictable and the character was literary killed by the author. The author made said character and his companions make completely dumb decisions (that no one with half a brain would do), and eventually those make this character sacrifice himself so that others could escape. So, I’m happy that we got a sense of danger for the characters, they can die, and I hope that some more will die in the following books, but I also hope that their deaths make more sense (or are more credible).

Now on to the chapter were this character dies. Well it’s pretty obvious, since the beginning of the first book where the character Lhiannah is introduced, that she is and will be the main character’s (Aewyre) main love interest (even though that’s an entire other problem). So, when we discover, on a certain chapter, that this other character (Babaki the antroleo – lion man creature) loves Lhiannah, we get a really visible red flag that he’s not going to live long. The entire first arc of this group of characters is focused around Quenestil and Babaki trying to find and rescue Slayra. From the start the two rescuers don’t seem to stop to think for a single minute, getting themselves in the worst possible problems. They arrive to a city controlled by eahanoir (drak elves / night elves… whatever you want to call them), and they don’t want to stand out, so they devise a formidable plan! When entering the city every visitor is directed to a lane that corresponds to their interests, there’s a lane for the “pleasure houses”, a lane for “merchants”, a lane for the fighting arenas…  guess which lane they choose? What could possibly go wrong? Obviously when they get to the arena, Babaki is separated from his friend and forced to fight to the death in the arenas while Quenestil watches impotent and regretful. Babaki is very shy, but he had plenty of opportunities to explain to the people that were processing him into the fighting lists that he didn’t come to fight, but just to watch and bet on the fights… and Quenestil also had plenty of time (seems like hours) to get up from his sit and go talk to someone to get his friend out of the arena before it came the time for Babaki to fight… but nah… they can’t call attention to themselves shhhh keep quiet and let it happen, nothing could possibly go wrong. Everything goes wrong, Babaki is forced to fight and kill some opponents in the arena, then trying to escape with Quenestil by attacking the guards of the arena and both get captured and caught in the end… so much for “not standing out”, great plan it was, going the merchant or pleasure house route would decently be much worse…

Anyway, jumping forward a ton of chapters (like more than half the book), to the point where all tree (Quenestil (wounded), Slayra (unconscious) and Babaki (very very wounded, to the point that he should not really still be alive, but hey… I’m no expert on how much a lion-humanoid can take, let’s not judge) are finally making their escape from that dreadful city. So, they manage to get a carriage and make the son of some powerful noble in the city hostage to drive the carriage. So far so good! The plan is decent, they intend to force this hostage to act as their master and so pass by the guards without being stopped, since time is on their side and no one still knows that they took him hostage (they even went after and finished off a witness). At this point Babaki and Slayra are inside the carriage (unseen from anyone outside) and Quenestil is outside with a dagger pinned against the hostage so that he doesn’t betray them (there’s even the typical treat of “if you don’t do as I say I’ll kill you, so behave”. Everything is going well, was I thinking, for once the plan is solid and credible, and if they all escape it would be a legit escape by my standards, a bit cliché, but still valid in this situation. But what the author gave me was the opposite of cliché. Babaki needed to die, so the author lowered the character’s intelligence to -20 for the next couple of pages. The hostage took them safely to the main plaza next to the city gates, until there no one tried to stop them! The plan was working! And then Quenestil decides to throw the hostage off the carriage and drive it himself, saying something like: “You have done good so far, now get lost!”. And guess where they arrive next? Yep… the gatehouse, where the guards proceed to stop them and ask them a few questions… (woah, I wonder if that hostage would have been useful now, if only they didn’t get rid of him in the last paragraph). Meanwhile, inside the carriage, Babaki is giving his goodbye speech to an unconscious Slayra (even the character knows that the author really wants to get rid of him… yeah ok he has a barbed dagger in his belly but he’s doing well so far, I bet that, if they manage to leave the city, his friends would find a way to save him). The guards do the usual “gate guard questions” and actually don’t seem very interested in our characters, to me they actually had a decent chance of escaping even without the hostage, those guards were a bit oblivious of the situation… But Babaki must die! So the author lowers the character’s intelligence (again – not poor Slayra, she’s unconscious anyway), and Quenestil is the one that actually starts making bad faces to the guards and basically provoking them. So obviously Babaki jumps out of the carriage with a menacing roar and attacks the guards, removing that dagger from his own guts (so much that his intestines come out with it) and fighting to the death so that his friends could escape! And so he dies… in a completely avoidable situation. Even worse, (I’m not done yet and this was not even the main point that I intended to talk about in this review), they had a carriage pulled by two strong horses, the gate was wide open, one guard was interrogating Quenestil and another was standing in front of the carriage (I think it was one, but even if it was two, same issue), our heroes decide to fight, attracting more guards and sacrificing Babaki to escape. Quenestil escapes via the gate with Slayra by cutting loose one of the horses from the carriage and riding it. So… they were in a carriage pulled by two strong horses, in front of them there are two guards maximum… and they decide to get off the carriage and fight at the gate sacrificing one and escaping with one horse… *sigh*. If the author simply had Quenestil make the carriage go forward, the guards would have no way to stop them. Would they be pursued? Yes of course, since they ditched the hostage that could have gotten them out possibly without problems, yes, they would be pursued… but they end up being pursued anyway and having to ride for days without stopping. “Oh but if they had left with the carriage without fighting they would have limited mobility and they would have been caught, they can’t go off road with a carriage.” Yes absolutely, but Quenestil made remarkable progress in science and discovered that it is possible to cut horses loose from a carriage. And then they would have two horses, one for Babaki and one for Quenestil and Slayra!

*Takes a deep breath*… Anyway, my point with all of this is that I’m happy that the author showed us that his characters can die, but I’m not very satisfied that the character was literally forced to die. It ruins the idea that Babaki died heroically when the characters clearly make the worse possible decisions without making any sense, these are characters that made good decisions before, it’s clear that they were "dumbed down" so that this death could occur. This happened before, in the first book, but not to a relevant character (since the moment that this character was introduced, it was obvious that she needed to die), I ranted about it in the first book’s review. This finally leads me to what I aimed to talk about when I started writing this review.

                I would like to write a bit about what I call “dumbing down characters”. Along a story the characters develop, with each chapter the reader becomes more familiar with them, be them the main heroes, some side character, a main villain, or a side villain. Taking this book (and the previous one) as examples, and having into account that the author loves to describe every single detail of a fight, the reader knows the character’s abilities, we see them get better at fighting and thinking, sometimes we see their full power (for example some villains), sometimes we see them gain new abilities! Let me take, as an example, two characters that have “grown” along the two books. Aewyre is our protagonist, he has always been good with a sword, but he’s been improving more and more! And his sword is magical, at one point in this second book, he manages to use some of his sword’s magic to slice the air and cut off the bodies of two enemies in half. Aewyre is learning and improving his skills a lot! Another important character, and villain is Hazabel the Harahan (basically an evil creature that eats livers, can merge herself into the shadows, is very physically strong and looks like a woman), she is actually introduced to us in the first book while seducing Aewyre (and succeeds, it’s not that hard after all, as long as it’s female he will fall for it). Anyway, she manages to get pregnant from him etc etc and then we see her murder a family with ease, we are shown how strong she is, gutting people left and right like it’s marshmallows. Her main objective is to steal Aewyre’s sword, and then her personal goal is to kill him, but evil creatures can not touch that sword without getting burned (she still can use something to grab the sword, as long as she doesn’t touch it). Well to start it makes no sense that her master sends her (and another character actually) to steal a sword that neither can touch… bit of a flawed plan I must say, but ok, she can wrap it up in something and then carry it. But let me get to the example. At a certain chapter, towards the end of this book, Aewyre is alone in his room laying in his bed, resting and thinking about stuff (aka sad that Babaki died), meanwhile his companions are downstairs (this is like a tavern/inn) eating dinner and such. The group downstairs gets attacked, and at the same time, Hazabel sneaks into Aewyre’s room via the window. Aewyre’s sword is on the other side of the room and he can not see in the dark, so he has no idea of the danger near him. Quick reminder: Hazabel’s objective is to steal the sword and kill Aewyre. So what happens? Hazabel jumps on top of Aewyre (remember she is super strong) and starts punching and scratching him, he fights back. She gets hurt, he gets hurt and they keep wrestling. Meanwhile one of Aewyre’s friends enters the room to help him, it’s Lhiannah (which, at this point, is basically already his main love), and she has armor and her own sword! At this point, suddenly Hazabel turns to her and sakes off Aewyre. Lhiannah is quickly overpowered and gets knocked down, while Hazabel keeps wounding her greatly. Meanwhile on the other side of the room, (btw it’s a really small room, the inn keeper said something about that in that same chapter) Aewyre gets back up and sees his love being killed by that evil super strong creature! His sword is nearby, the room is really small, so he picks to sword up and hits that monster in… oh nevermind, that’s what the semi-intelligent Aewyre would do, that character is not here! Here the author gives us the dumber version of Aewyre! So let me restart: Aewyre gets back up and sees his love being killed by that evil super strong creature! His sword is nearby, the room is really small, so he decided to punch and kick the hell out of Hazabel! The fight ends with Hazabel escaping by the window, Aewyre somewhat wounded, Lhiannah completely K.O., and Aewyre’s magical sword, Ancalach, still resting against the wall of the room. Then Aewyre proceeded to pick up his mighty sword and go downstairs to help kill some of the shitty thugs that are fighting is friends…

And so both characters, Aewyre and Hazabel, were completely dumbed down for the sake of “the hero must survive for another battle” (possibly until the end of the series), and “the villain must survive and be a threat until the time comes were she must be defeated”. This is what bothers me the most in this book series so far. I can forgive a lot, even though it bothers me, like when armor becomes paper, or weapons become “lightsabers”, not everyone knows how weapons and armor work, and its fantasy, so I try to let that pass… a bit. But this is simply too annoying. The author makes the protagonist grow in power but then, as to create tension, he removes some of his power when fighting a villain that the reader knows is powerful. But then the author doesn’t want the protagonist to die in this fight… so the villain must also be dumbed down so that the protagonist can overtake him without access to his full strength! So both hero and villain get dumbed down or nerfed to the point where you have two physically capable, cunning and smart characters, saying stuff like “I’m going to kill you this time.” and then proceeding to punch and kick each other until one runs away, and the hero always wins. This leads to what I decided to call the “Team Rocket syndrome".

Taking the scene that I described as an example, Hazabel had the full advantage on that situation, she got the jump on Aewyre, he was unarmored and unarmed… and we have seen her gut people and break then in half with her bare hands before. And even if she was not capable of such, she jumped on him, she gave the first few blows, punches and scratches… if she had a knife, a butter knife, a fork, even a spoon, she could have ended him immediately, she is super strong, she could have ended him with her hands right there. But she was dumbed down, “the protagonist must not die now”, the author says. This, for me, ruins the entire book. It didn’t happen once or twice, these two opponents have fought and failed to kill each other multiple times, always ending up with a hero win and an (un)said: “next time I’ll get you”. It takes away the tension from the story when these things happen. And there’s still more five books to go! I really hope this improves. I gave this book a 3/5, it’s not a bad read, at some points I was really enjoying it, especially when it comes to world building or the plot was becoming more and more intriguing. But then something like this happens, usually during a five pages fighting sequence that I almost feel like skipping (not because it’s bad, it’s technically well written, but it’s not engaging nor tense, you know who wins, if a character is in danger there comes a flying arrow, spell, dagger to save him).

                Overall the book is decent, no pointless side quests and the plot moved forward a lot, the objective of the protagonist and his friends is to get to Asmodeon to search for his father etc etc, in the first book it felt like they actually went backwards for a long time. In this book the companions made it almost all the way to their objective, I would say that they made it about 90% of the way to Asmodeon, they are right next to it… now what worries me is the end of the book and the knowledge that the series has a total of seven books. In the end of the book the protagonist basically says that he’s going to go after the group that attacked him in the inn, before proceeding with his quest. This is the end of book two, there’s seven books, I really really hope that the next four books are not about the group “sidequesting” and then on the last book they go back to the main plot… I really hope not. If it does I don’t think that any improvements on the problems mentioned above will be able to keep me interested.

Again, all this ranting is not me attacking the author. I wish I could write as he does and earn as much respect has he has! This book was written in the beginning of this century, many standards might have changed since then, I have changed since 2002. Maybe if I read it while I was younger I would enjoy it more. At least I would not be so bothered about some details. I think that all reading is about learning, I’m absorbing what I like and learning what I don’t enjoy, so that I can mold that into my own projects.

"Crónicas de Allaryia: A Manopla de Karasthan" | "Chronicles of Allaryia: The Gauntlet of Karasthan"

Where to begin? Well I'll start by saying that the author, Filipe Faria, was very young when he wrote this book. For that I have to praise him for achieving the publishing of a book at such a young age, specially in a genre that is not very common in our language. From what I know, there's only tree authors in our country that have successfully followed the fantasy route, Filipe Faria being one of them. So take in account said facts before judging what I'm writing bellow.

Warning: The text below contains spoilers and a fair amount of sarcasm.

I wanted to start reading fantasy books as a preparation for possibly writing my own. Decided to choose one written in English and one written in Portuguese, the English one was a classic The Hobbit, for Portuguese the options were much more limited so I ended up choosing A Manopla de Karasthan... I must say that the book became a bit hard to read after reaching about the half way point. Not because the writing was complex and hard, it's actually very accessible, detailed but easy to understand. There's the occasional mistake here are there, but that is not relevant at all for me, (I give way more mistakes in my writing), what matters to me is the story, the characters and the world.

The preface is basically an info dump, where the author/narrator compresses the history of Allaryia since it's creation until the start of the story. I personally think that it's a bit too long, (about nine pages - A5 format).

Then comes the prologue where the story starts with a practice sword fight between the main character Aewyre Thoryn and his mentor/master of arms. We get to know a little bit about him, basically that every female within the city wants to jump on him... and he jumps on them all. We also get the start of the journey, where the protagonist and his friend... mentor... wizard begin their journey to find out what happened to Aewyre's father (he was last seen fighting an evil being that wanted to take over the world in the evil territory of Asmodeon). And that is basically the premise.  

 The adventure begins with the two characters leaving their city, and here is where things start to bother me a little. In just a few chapters the group increases from just Aewyre (filling the role of the warrior with the special magical sword) and Allumno (the wizard), to eight members! Lhiannah (a arinnir - aka basically an amazon), Worick (a thuragar - it's a darf, he has a hammer and everything, his people live in mountains etc), Quenestil (a eahan - a human like being that as a deep contact with nature and uses a bow... it's an elf), Babaki (a antroleo - lion humanoid), Taislin (a burrik - more or less a small hobbit with two knifes and the habit of stealing everything) and Slayra (a eahanoir - dark elf or night elf). Now it has to be appreciated the effort that the author had in renaming all these kinds of "species", but their stereotypes are the expected ones. Lhiannah doesn't accept when males abuse females, Worick is stubborn, loves to drink and hammer things, Quenestil likes the purity of his race's contact with nature, Babaki can not control the lion/beast inside of him, Taislin is confused with a child and is very curious and, Slayra is more like an "assassin" type, being mischievous and such.

Why did they all decided to join Aewyre in the quest to find what happened to his father? Well.. Lhiannah joined because she wanted an adventure, Worick joined because he had to keep Lhiannah safe (she's a princess) so both abandon their kingdom to go the land of evil... Quenestil knew Aewyre and joined because they are friends, leaving his own people in the mountains, Babaki joined because Quenestil saved his life in the past, so he also left the elves eahan of the mountains. Taislin robbed the group and joined because they invited him to join... Slayra, and other two eahanoir, basically got attacked by Quenestil (by basically no reason other than they where there), and got captured, being a prisoner for a while and eventually deciding to join in on the adventure (again totally abandoning her people and not even caring that the other two that were with her where killed). So... I feel that their reasons to join up are very shallow... and their reasons for staying in the group are even more confusing.

When the group is in a good mood they have a very good dynamic and it's fun to see their interactions. But most of the time there's some beef between some elements of the group... and this is where it doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I just don't understand people...

Lets take Lhiannah for example, she's a warrior princess that doesn't need anyone's help, she defends woman and seems to look down upon people that don't respect others. She almost immediately has problems with Aewyre because he basically "goes" with any woman that appears in front of him, also having problems with every woman that they come across for the same reason that they are all mindless beings with an urge to get the protagonist to date them. She even looks down upon a woman that made the protagonist "settle down" (and that's an entire new problem... I'll explain later). And then... after almost an entire book of criticizing Aewyre, she has the brilliant idea of not wearing pants at a party, accepting the protagonist's challenge for a drinking game while saying something like "If you think that you can make me drunk and have sex with me you are very mistaken."  and then, obviously getting drunk and ending up having sex with him... What kind of character is this? And then after the act she's back to being even more mad at him... makes no sense in my head. But even refusing to talk to him for long periods of time, she never even shows any signs of not being loyal to the protagonist's objective.

At a certain point there's a woman (one of many) that grasps the protagonist's heart and manages to make him settle down and give up on his quest... before the middle of the book... obviously is not going to end well. So the group frees her by defeating an evil being that basically enslaved a town... a few days after being defeated said evil being returns (obviously... no one ever checks if he's dead) more powerful than before and the group fight's him again. For the sole reason of  "It's my time to die because i'm in the way of the plot", this young woman decided to jump to the middle of the fight completely unarmed with open arms when the protagonist and his group are struggling to defeat their enemy... Well she dies immediately (obviously) but "that" gives the protagonist the rage and strength to finally defeat the enemy. It's a shame... she was a good lass... if only she had 1/4 of a brain, they where going to win anyway. But oh well she was in the way of the plot. After this the protagonist, instead of giving her a burial where her family could pay their respects (I'm sure the city had a graveyard), decides to take her body and give her a special burial with the protection of the God of War basically. Because they truly loved each other... basically knowing one another for one or two weeks and simply having a lot of activity in the bed.

So, in order for her grave to be under the protection of said God, they have to do this wonderful "side-quest" were they have to retrieve a gauntlet (hence the name of the book), and here we are half way into the book. And the second half of it is the completion of this side quest, for the sake of a grave of the protagonist's greatest love... (don't worry he's just sad for a few chapters until he's grabbing maids and, as I exemplified above, ending up in bed with Lhiannah and being quite amused by it).

I think that I've more or less transited the general idea of what are the problems with the book, in my opinion. There are other instances, like when we are introduced to another species, the drahreg, evil creatures that do evil things, have dark skin, dark blood and... they're Orcs, no need for more description. So when these creatures capture the group... their first instinct is to put their hands on Lhiannah and start touching her everywhere? Basically attempting to rape her (I lost count to the amount of times that Lhiannah was in a similar position). And I have nothing against a character getting (or almost getting) rapped in a story, if it's an action that will improve the plot or a character's development, then it can contribute for the progression of the story and create an interesting problem for the characters to overcome. But it would need to be done with some sense, and the problem here (for me) are the drahreg, why would a species different from humans, that despises humans and that eats them like cattle... why would they attempt to touch and rape a human? If an explanation was given in a "Goblin Slayer" style, like the drahregs not having females of their own and reproducing by impregnating other species, then I would understand that it had a purpose. But nothing like this is explained... they are doing it because... well because the rest of the group is tied up right there and someone needs to be so mad that they break out of their ropes and save her... that's why.

So this is my major issue with the book, things like what I've described above are in almost every chapter. At one point near the end, the group meets a group of soldiers loyal to Lhiannah... then they walk away from said group for  seven weeks in the opposite direction of where said soldiers where going. And then, the group gets involved in a battle, already in another region of the world and in a remote place... out of nowhere these same soldiers appear shouting "For the princess!" and saving the day. Like... how the hell did they know where to find them in the middle of nowhere after seven weeks without contact? Does the princess have a chip and they where tracking her via GPS? Or is it the magic equivalent? But if it is the magic equivalent to a GPS, then the chapter where they first meet these soldiers makes no sense at all... because they payed someone to know where she was.

Oh well this is already getting way too long. The book as many many problems, but maybe it's just me, I nick pick a lot and details are very important to me. Ah... one more funny thing, when I open the book I see a cool hand drawn map of the world, I always appreciate when books have a map to help the reader locate the story and characters. And this also shows that the author planned at least some of the remaining parts of the story, since the map as the major cities, mountains, rivers, forests, roads... roads... I can see a road starting on the city where our protagonist lived, if i follow that road with my finger it can take me right to the border of Asmodeon! Why on earth are the characters not following the road then? They are literally going by the middle of nowhere... actually they seemed to be further away at the end of the book than at the start of it! It's not like all these other kingdoms where the road passes are Mordor... it's human kingdoms no? Just take the damn road there!

I'm going to stop for now. If I new nothing about the author I would give this book a 2/5... but considering that it was written when he was a kid, and considering that it is one of the only original fantasy series written in Portuguese I'll give it a 3. It's not like I hate the book, I wish that I could write a book like this one and receive at least half the praise that this one did. So in the end I look up to Filipe Faria as almost a father to Portuguese literary fantasy. I hope that the other books improve a bit... there's still six books to go, and I ear rumors that a new one just started being written.

Thank you for anyone that took their time reading this. Remember that this is just my opinion, I recommend that you get the book and give it a read yourself to know more... maybe i'm being very unfair.

First draft of a map for my World.

Today I found out about inkarnate.com it's a very simple tool, and it's a little limited (specially the free version). It allowed me to make a first semi-accurate map representing part of the World that I'm creating. I had to  adapt it to a square and the corners look terrible, I couldn't figure out how to fix a lot of things, but I'm still happy that I found this program. My drawing skills are terrible, so this is as close to a proper map that I can get for now.

Bird Box - Can people eat cork?

I just finished watching the movie "Bird Box", so I guess I should write something. Although I know it's not related, specially because of these creatures/monsters, it reminded me a little bit of "Ensaio sobre a cegueira" ("Blindness") by José Saramago - basically because they have to adapt to "being" blind, nothing else.

By the end I felt that a few things where left a bit too unexplained, like why do some people look at these "creatures" and commit suicide and why others do not, instead aiming to find people that use blinds and force them to look. But that's ok, i guess it leaves some mystery in the air. So these creatures don't prey on blind people, that's why everyone ended up gathering at a school for blind people... so many people there, blind people, people that can see, dogs, a lot of kids... finally they are all safe from those nasty creatures. That is until those other kind of people (the "evil ones" that make others see the "evil creatures") find them and make them "see"... well the blind people can't see so i guess they'll just use some bullets on those. AH! But that school for blind people is in the middle of the woods, so maybe the "bad people" will never find them. Oh... they are in the middle of the woods, for 5 years, with a ton of people and even pets... *flashback to the first half of the film: Basically they had trouble finding food for a handful of people* I don't think that it's possible to farm in a forest, I saw (yes... yes... I took my blindfold off, sorry mom) no farms while Sandra Malorie was trying to find the kids in the woods, and I doubt that they can have an indoor farm that would produce food for all those humans... and pets (I think I saw a dog multiple dogs... humans can be vegetarians, but those dogs need meat). Considering that the dogs are just there for the scenery (probably to give the sensation of a more homely comfort to the viewer), there's a lot of people on that place and (unless Malorie arrived there right on time for everyone's tea break) no one seemed to be actually working... can people eat cork? I hope they can, otherwise I'm already waiting for the sequel where Malorie has to run away with the kids (with the blinds again of course, otherwise where's the fun?), because everyday someone goes missing, and dinner is always meat...

So... I'm starting to nitpick a lot and the world-building bug is starting to make me itch, so I'm just going to stop for now before I ruin the movie for myself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

First test message

I created this Blog to try to improve my experience in writing, storytelling and world-building. In November of 2018, while listening to a song, right after watching a youtuber's reaction to a great show, a story came into my head. It all started with the lyrics of said song and a character from said show... together they formed a plot in my head, from there more characters where born, then a world started to take shape. Long story short, I now aim to write said story in the form of a novel. My ultimate aim is to write a trilogy around that main plot point, but I have no experience in writing. I was never great at languages, specially grammar, and (even though I'm now also writing a master thesis to finally conclude my university studies) I make many mistakes while writing. Specially when writing my own language, Portuguese, I feel great difficulty when trying to express myself. Probably because of movies/series and History books... I usually watch/read everything in English, so my language almost sounds unnatural to me. Because of this I tend to write my notes for the book in English. But I feel that I'm almost betraying my language if I don't write this story in Portuguese. So I had the brilliant (aka stupid) idea of writing two versions of the books, one in English and one in Portuguese. But that, I guess, is a problem for a later date.

I stopped reading for fun at around the 6th grade, up until then, I had actually read a fair amount of books aimed at about my age, including a series "Viagem ao Tempo dos Castelos", that probably (now that I think of it) inspired me to study History. Maybe I'll make a small entry about that series of books later (not that i remember much of it, I read the last of it almost 14 years ago). But my point is that, because of this sudden desire to write this story that popped in my head, I've decided to start reading (for fun, because I already spend the entire day reading and writing for my thesis) again! This past Christmas I received a book as a gift, it was about an American man that lived with his cat and was basically telling his life experience with said cat. Now... that might have been a good book (and I really hope that the people that gave me that book never read this) but on that same Christmas eve, when I went to bed, I researched the price of said book (around 13€), and came to the conclusion that I could buy something more to my tastes with it. A few days later I went to the store and exchanged said "cat book" for a copy of "The Hobbit", a classic in fantasy, and I aim to get the LOTR trilogy soon. I read the first chapter and... well I guess I'll make another entry about that. Maybe this is already becoming too long.   

Long story short, I'm creating this Blog to write down my opinions on everything that will caught my attention, be it books, TV series, something on the news, or something that happened on my day. This is supposed to be my self training journey at explaining things, sharing thoughts and telling stories, hopping that writing my own book will hopefully stop being only a dream for me.