Kevin's Watch

Tales of a Warrior-Prophet has gone Live on Amazon KDP Vella! I'm very excited to offer the first three chapters for free. Please comment, review and rate, and of course Follow to receive more episodes. Two hundred free tokens may be available for purchases. https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/episode/B09YQQYMKH

Well, it's an awful lot of fun so far! I like your writing style. I like what we we've seen of the characters so far. I like the mixing of mythologies and magics. Really good stuff.

One problem:

In Episode 3, you wrote:"But before he could attack, I heard the door shut behind me. I turned around to look. It was Roy, come to help me!"

"Who's Roy?"

"Roy is a chemist whose head and face were warped by acid in a lab accident. He gained his psychic powers after being in a medically-induced coma for two weeks. His psychic vision caused him to leave his home two days before the battle for souls in Portland ever began."

We already know who Roy is. We learned about him in Episode 2. I guess you originally introduced him in Episode 3, then decided to do it earlier, so we'd know who he was when we read "It was Roy, come to help me!", but forgot to take it out of Episode 3. Definitely like it better with the intro in 2, then his appearance in 3.

And a few paragraphs later, the narrator asked, "Don't you think Roy was a coward for running?" We already heard about this, also. White Buffalo gives a good talk about his feelings about Roy's possible cowardice in 2. Again, I believe you reworked it, doing a more thorough job of it, putting it in earlier, and forgot to take it out of where you originally had it in 3.

Thank you for the compliments and feedback! You are quite correct! In the beginning of this novel there was some piecemeal writing. This only continues for a short time, thankfully. I'll take a second look at it and make some improvements.

As you can tell, it was self-edited.

Thanks again!

I'm setting up for a Roy redemption story. I might've overemphasized this part a tiny bit. In early 2020 I was putting pieces of this story together. I didn't realize it was that much of a mish-mash in episode 3.

There is a poll question at the end of each installation. It looked like a fun idea so I'm including a poll at the end of each one. There's almost always a mystery for the reader to ponder, and a lot of narrator subtext.

I changed it to say "Who's Roy again?"

I just fixed the issue in installment two. Thanks! There shouldn't be anymore problems like that.

Yes, a Roy redemption story would be cool. Although I'm sure he's the only one who thinks he needs redemption.

I agreed with 100% of the voters in the polls. I don't know if I am 100% of the voters.

I don't either. I can only see that the first three polls were responded to.
Roy's redemption is a very relative thing. He only fought for 71 hours straight without a break. But White Buffalo hung on till the end. It was probably Roy's angel that told White Buffalo how to defeat Set. He may be a god, but he's also just a typical bully - tough on the outside, but a pure coward on the inside.

Roy is, at the same time, the Macguyver and the Samwise of the novel. He's a technologically savvy Samwise. But Samwise was naturally loyal; he had nothing to prove. Roy also has natural loyalty traits, but now his loyalty has been called into question and so he has to prove it to himself. It's not White Buffalo that judges him. Roy judges himself too harshly. This in itself could prove that his loyalty is pure, but the surest test of loyalty is in reality not in some psychological loyalty test.

I didn't consciously create Roy as a Macguyver/Samwise combination. The novel just needed a character like Roy.

True, Roy's is the only redemption story/subplot. White Buffalo is a pure hero archetype like Luke Skywalker. There are several key differences in their personalities. For example, Luke is humble, but White Buffalo is the very opposite of humble. The narrator of the story, whose name is yet to be revealed, doesn't want to play that game. His job is to record events, not get involved in them. He's so very objective that he doesn't need a name. Or so he thinks.

I hope this information stimulates your curiosity to read past the first three chapters. After those first three, 20,000 free words are available to purchase through tokens. That's about nine chapters. Also keep in mind that, although I started writing this novel for fun two years ago, at this time I'm trying to make enough money to pay bills and make house payments. And my writing improves substantially after the rough beginning. It's my first novel. A sequel is in the works. It needed a sequel for the same reason that the First Chronicles needed a sequel.

I've received two reviews on Vella, one positive and one negative. A third review that is positive has failed to go through on two attempts. I think it's because this person read the entire book on another platform. So she will buy the book and review it there.

Disappointing that a positive review won't go through. I understand the reason. It looks like it came from a friend who didn't read the book. She read the ebook off-Vella, not on-Vella, so that would explain the reason for the review being bounced.

Both reviews received, the positive and the negative, don't do the book justice. Neither reviewer read the entire book. The positive reviewer only read chapter one and claimed that it was "Constantine on steroids." My book is far from that. The negative reviewer said the book is boring. A book containing Thor, along with war scenes, is not boring, but it is slow to get going. So the negative reviewer did not read the entire book.

By the way, the positive reviewer didn't read the book because, he said, he's read so many just like them "on steroids." I guess they are Matrix on steroids, as well as Constantine on steroids, Star Wars on steroids, Star Trek on steroids, Battlestar Galactica on steroids, Ghost Adventures on steroids, and Ghostbusters on steroids. Hey yeah, I'd go with Ghostbusters on steroids! That's a lot better than Cake Wars on steroids. But I imagine my reviewer read some Cake Wars on steroids too.

wow congrats 👌 will check it out

My Wormoftheworld'send account doesn't work and my avatar was removed.

Never mind.

SeventhWard wrote: ↑ My Wormoftheworld'send account doesn't work and my avatar was removed.

LOL, sorry, it wasn't removed. Well, per se. We moved servers and lost a bunch of images. If you have a backup you can just upload it. Also, PM me if you want me to reset the password on the old / other account.

--A