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Thank you all for your patience this week! It’s been tough with getting the Kickstarter live, my parents are moving, we have a few new projects coming up, and the boys are starting 4th grade today.
I also wanted to thank you all for helping us get 25% of the way there on our Kickstarter drive for book six. All within the first 24 hours!
I know it’s going to “drop off” sharply after the first day. But if you’re as excited as I am about the possibility of reaching higher goals for sketchbooks, t-shirts, Nicodemus Plushes, and Daniel, Nicole, Oberon, or Young Merlin figures…then I hope you can help me get the word out to more people.
If you have any suggestions…please do let me know.
The next 60 days are going to be a bit awkward for me as I HATE to promote my work. It’s never a comfortable thing for me.
So, please bear with me as I try to promote the next book until October.
Anyways…thanks again and see you on Monday.
Scott
You set yourself on a course, not a recourse. A recourse is a source of help in a difficult situation.
They get to borrow some wings?? That’s awesome!!!! 😀
I keep trying to think of ways to bump up my contribution to the Kickstarter campaign without upsetting my husband, but I haven’t been successful yet. 🙁 It really doesn’t help that we just moved (I don’t want to admit how much the movers cost) and we’re getting a puppy in 2 weeks (got to pay for our new baby and then pay the apartment deposit to not get in trouble for having her…why are precious four-legged babies so expensive??)…
If I find random money lying around though, I’ll see if I can give it to your campaign. 🙂
Thank you.
Anyone else agree with this?
Just want confirmation (no offense ShinyHappyGoth) as I’m definitely not the one to make this determination.
I’ll agree that ‘course’ is correct…
Recourse is used in sentences like “He watched as they dragged his friend away, but weak as we was he had no recourse.” – or, from dictionary.com’s definition – “If one of the poker companies disappeared tomorrow and took all its customers’ money with it, they’d have no recourse.”
Recourse must be something one has related to a situation, yes… but not in the context you have it currently 😀 If you want to relay the sense of remorse and desire to pay back in kind that the royal couple is feeling… well, you’ve already accomplished that with the closing line in panel 2. “determined to right a wrong their curiosity had created.” conveys that desire for recourse and intent to follow through.
Right idea, wrong usage… at least where you have placed it.
Alright… that done with. Wooooo! Flying Royals!
In this case, from the “Pharoh’s” point of view it could well be considered a “maddening recourse”. Simply replace the “maddening recourse” with ShinyHappyGoth’s definition and you find the sentence still make sense.
In this case, their recourse for the invasion is to go after it, but they’ve set themselves a course. Shiny is correct.
Uh, oh. Their plan looks pretty desperate.
They should have collected an army or forge out a secret alliance with other races against Nicodemus & the Realm instead of this solo run ….
Coups de main only pay if you have a clear conception what to do and a reasonable chance to win.
“Certainty of death, *small* chance of success… What are we waiting for?” -Gimli- LOTR: Return of the King
It makes sense to me. Though, I am not an English wiz. I understand recourse to be short for “responsive course of action.” Even looking it up in Websters I find that its use here is legitimate.
But… I do agree that ‘course’ would sound better, as well as rewriting it so it reads “…course upon which they were about to embark.” Upon is a preposition and should not be put at the end of a sentence, esp. by royalty.
I agree with Shiny Happy Goth and Tolin. I do not believe that recourse is something that someone can set upon. It is an something that one can turn to or have, but it is not a path. In this sentence, it would not work to replace it with “resort” or “resorting”, which are synonyms, which demonstrates that it is not the appropriate word for the context. Also, ending sentences with prepositions is perfectly fine. See the Mirriam-Webster video on the subject: http://www.merriam-webster.com/video/0025-preposition.htm?&t=1344613810
Still, I do find the sentence to be rather awkward in its overall construction in addition to its strange use of the word recourse. To get everything in by rearranging, I would probably say something like, “Before the sun rose, they had settled on a maddening course with the legendary head-strong determination of the Ashendel Elves, which is nigh impossible to deter.”
Hm.. Maybe you should have the Kickstarter link below the new page each day? Like the one you had yesterday. The link in the video isn’t very obvious. People might feel like they have to search through the old pages otherwise. Just a thought.
I have doubts about turning student pilots loose like that, without an instructor! Those wings must have some pretty awesome safeguards built in, and Oberon is an experienced sky sailor if I recall correctly, but still…
Maybe they’ve just been stuck in a holding pattern outside Atlanta all this time. 😉
I think he is using rather stilted language in order to reflect the nobility of the person who is narrating, but I agree that one sets themselves upon a course, not a recourse.
we are the flyin’ elves! (obscure movie reference)
followed by
elves has left the building
PLEASE forgive me this comment, I mean it with the very best of intentions, but… this looks… well, there are some plotholes here. Some questions would need to be answered for it to be realistic:
1) Seraphopolis is terribly isolated, and its denizens rarely seen in the wider Dreamland. This is why they kept the portal safe for 2500 years. As a result however, the current ruler of Seraphopolis presumably doesn’t know many elves, and certainly not well enough so how would he speak of the “legendary head-strong determination” thereof?
Second, given that one thing that keeps Seraphopolis safe is the fact it’s inaccessible without the right combination of magic and technology, why would its king, who must keep is safe, give away this combination (and access to his city) to- essentially- a stranger with a madcap plan/death-wish?
Third, is there a reason why this particular man WOULD take such a risk (ancestral oath of fealty, nothing more to lose now that the wraiths can come to the city anyway, etc), as well as -perhaps- a reason why he would be prepared to trust Oberon & Titania (perhaps he owes the elves a particular debt for their intercession 2500 years ago?).
4) One final thing occurs… at the time when the king and queen of elves went to Seraphopolis, Nicodemus was not -yet- an enemy to the local folks; the war had not begun. So, they would just remember him as the dragon that helped their stranded ancestors, if at all. So perhaps this could also have been an element (the men spoke highly of Nicodemus, prompting the elves to steal wings to escape, but fall in Nicodemus’ clutches with the men watching on?)
Scott, forgive me for being critical, it is your story and I like it as is, but I would feel dishonest if I did not share the above. I hope it’s ok?
Scott,
It may just be my Android browser, but I have no way to get to the Kickstarter project. When I click your studio photo, nothing happens. Would you restore the counter you had up yesterday? Thanks.
No worries, Scott. You look all right. Maybe talking a bit too fast in the very beginning compared to how a professional presenter would do it, but even that’s nitpicking.
Now, TWC.
#5: 3,971
#6: 3,758 <= us
#7: 3,499
Vote, fellow Readers! Let’s hammer the competitors. Gently. 🙂
Hmm, true, I don’t think these have been addressed yet, but there’s plenty of room for speculation, which is always fun 🙂
To me, a lot of it comes down to: the king/Guardians must have some way of knowing what has been happening in Dreamland that influenced these decisions.
We know that the Guardians patrol the skies near their city, and their skills with technomagic. I think it would be prudent for the king of the Guardians to be aware of what is happening in Dreamland, since it may have consequences for Seraphopolis, so I’ve kinda assumed that they occasionally send out disguised scouts or something to collect information. Perhaps posing as airship crews. I think this, plus their magic and technology, could somehow keep them aware of what was happening in Dreamland (“my ancestors looked on helplessly 600 years ago as Nicodemus usurped the throne.”)
If the king was not aware of what had been happening, he would still have reasons to side with the elven monarchs. The Guardians saw them imprisoned by Nightmare Realm pirates and attacked by wraiths, plus just had the wraiths steal their gateway. This could have led the king of the Guardians to trusting the elves since they had a common enemy, and was unlikely to, at that time, be prepared to attempt a retrieval of the gate (but it would be interesting to know if they have tried to get it back in the 2 years since then…)
As for Nicodemus, I don’t think he would play much of a part in this; his role seems solely tied to Dreamland, while it was the Nightmare Realm that just stole the gateway from Seraphopolis. I think Nicodemus would be a secondary concern to them at this point.
I’m kind of with Bennel on this. It’s been loosely suggested that even though Seraphopolis is unreachable by ordinary magic or flying, that the denizens (or at least rulers) have kept an eye on things elsewhere somehow (at least I feel like I remember it being suggested somewhere…).
If nothing else, they’d have to be at least somewhat aware of and connected to the goings on in many places to A) have one of the legendary tablets (some of which weren’t written until after Arthur’s betrayal), and B) to know that Lord Abaddon wanted their portal.
Excellent point about the tablets. I’d forgotten that. If they were given tablets to protect part of Dreamland’s history, that shows that as recently as 600 years ago, the existence of Seraphopolis was not just a legend in Dreamland, but well known to at least some leaders in there (perhaps why the Guardians were drawn to the Oberon and Titania in trouble?). When they were reading the Ashendel tablet, I think Arvamas mentioned something about a war after Nicodemus came to power, though I don’t think we’ve had any details about it. Guardian involvement in the war, and then subsequent isolation, could have been the source of current legends about the sky city as well?
So… the king and queen went to the Nightmare Realm… without an army… to retrieve a very hefty (and probably heavily guarded) stone gate?
Either they have more powerful magic than we have seen, or they weren’t thinking very well.
I agree that ‘course’ is more appropriate here. A ‘recourse’ is sorta like a “plan B” that you fall back to when something doesn’t work out. You don’t set yourself on a plan B; you only fall back to it. You set yourself on plan A, that is, the ‘course’.
Good point.
Fixed.
Thanks
“Elves has left the building”
LOL!
You’re totally not being too critical. You guys have helped me shore up plotholes in the past. I love it!
My take on it is that while Seraphopolis is “separate from the rest of Dreamland… they DO have access (magical or otherwise) to what’s going on. They’re not as isolated as you would think.
This would explain their knowing who Oberon and Titania were…and what Nicodemus’ plans were.
Yes, in this context “course” is the correct word as it refers to “a direction or route taken or to be taken” (dictionary.com).
I love how these panels are turning out.
I’m posting your kickstarter link on my Facebook page and will send it out to the people I have on Hans’s book “promotion” email list. Hope it helps. 🙂
If they’re heading east,is that where the Nightmare Realm is? Or does it shift it’s location?
It would make sense that they’re not completely isolated – unless they have massive hydroponic farms tucked away somewhere, they probably have to have some way of getting fresh food from time to time and other things they can’t grow/make.
The tablets Alex, Nastajia, et. al. found when they took on the Kraken spoke of seven races, including the Guardians, (chapter 6 page 418) so assuming that refers to the people of Seraphopolis, at one time they must have had contact with everyone else – they were still known and participating in creating the tablets. When Nicodemus started re-writing history, they must have had to scramble to keep from getting eliminated.
Nivienne said they could peer into the world of men much as she does with the pool of auryn. Who knows if they can’t also peer into Dreamland in similar fashion? (Besides Scott, that is.) And, if they are descended from humans, is it possible their children also find themselves traveling around Dreamland in their sleep? Now that would be getting a bit recursive! Maybe not – like the old joke. “You can’t get there from here.”
second star to the right, straight on till mor– oh, wait…
They don’t have to retrieve it. They just have to destroy it. And we haven’t seen what Titania and Oberon have in the way of destruction magic…
I think the context needs “course” also.
Another factor, with elves in particular: if elves live a long time (often centuries, if not immortal), then Seraphopolis may have records, if not of the current rulers, than perhaps of their parents.
Yes–go that way, and they’ll never land!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that anyone could fly in dreamland without wings? :/
Only humans – dreaming humans – can fly unassisted in Dreamland. The elves, no matter how royal, can’t fly on their own except in the presence of a human.
The Guardians are technically human, but they aren’t dreaming; they’re physically present in Dreamland. Hence they can only fly by use of their technology/magic (i.e. wings).