House Cambodia

Ah, well since you side-stepped my previous notion of including dragonglass under 'glass', I'm going to punt and say it's the dragonglass dagger Samwell used to kill The Other.

In my mind, it does.

Something small, made of stone that fits in a pocket. For example a statuette.

Is it made of stone?

I put "glass" in quotation marks to include dragonglass. nb I consider leather 'organic' as it comes from animals. Does it have any kind of religious function or meaning?

Yeah, I was thinking of food or dead leaves or something. I'm going on the assumption that it's not another book or too similar to the last answer, so my next question is, Is it "glass"?

I think you're looking at it from the wrong angle here. GRRM set it up from Daenerys 1, Game of Thrones that she goes to Westeros. It'd been a given from her first chapter to her last. No way does the author suddenly change track. Who gets what out of it is a legitimate discussion, but to suggest that it never happens makes no narrative sense whatsoever.

I'm worried that by misclassifying it, I might deter agents and publishers from reading it. I'm not bothered what it's labelled as, so long as it gets picked up. Double-checking here - are you saying 'post-apocalyptic' includes worlds where the situation is due to get ever-worse? Makes sense, I suppose.

Brighton Bargain Recruitment Department strikes again!

Is it organic?

Thanks for the response. I'm consciously subverting a number of what I regard as well-worn tropes. All my main characters are deliberately normal, relatable people. There are no eccentric scientist who have all the answers but were used to being ignored in normal times, no born leaders, no spunky orphan kids with superpowers - just relatively regular people. nobody goes Dr Evil, or mad, or overly irrational (actually, most people in the story do, but not my main characters!). Calling it 'setting-driven' makes sense, since it is the environment that's extreme, not the characters. I was inspired by Emily Bronte to make the weather/environment a driving force of the whole story. However, I put a lot of work into layering the characters. To give one example, the tragic case of the teenager who attempts a redemption path after perpetrating violence: the chapters through her point of view are written (slightly, subtly) in the mode of Suzanne Collins, and his/her character is also partially a reflection of David Bowie. One of the older guys is based on Robert Plant, and his literary style is partially influenced by Patrick Rothfuss and Terry Pratchett. So there's a lot of complexity to each character, while at the same time they don't fall into the overused tick box tropes (at least, that's my intention). One of the key themes (that I wasn't conscious of until well into my draft) is that of found-family (the community) proving stronger than blood-family. The characters mostly have loser or dead parents but find that they bond strongly to overcome the odds in the central community. In that sense, there are no individual 'heroes' (no icky 'romance' either) - my subversion of the trope is to imply the collective succeeds ("the lone wolf dies but the pack survives")

Is it fragile?

I thought the whole Boehly strategy was to pay relatively low wages on stupidly-long contracts?

It's generally classed as 'post-apocalyptic', but it doesn't fit neatly, as with mine. Another term that Margaret Atwood coined for The Handmaid’s Tale is "Speculative fiction" She means it to involve a near-future setting where there is no technology that doesn't exist in today's real world (or did in the past). I follow those 2 criteria. However, it seems most tick-boxy types require you to say which kind of speculative fiction - sci-fi, dystopian or apocalyptic.

Happy to address these - I was being mindful of the length of the post. I'd say the novel is more character-driven, although many readers might focus on the plot and others the background. Inspired by ASOIAF, I have eight POV characters, 4 teenage and 4 middle-aged. The setting is quite interesting - it is authentic to the real world, mostly set n the Scottish Highlands, with some events occurring in London. The setting down to individual buildings, roads, hills and lochs are accurate, but projected into the year 2040. Each character has memories, personal stories and opinions about what happened in the late 2020s leading up to the collapse in 2030, as well as their struggles in the 2030s before the novel opens. The collapse of society and impossibility of maintaining modern equipment, and the ongoing climate change cannot be reversed - the struggle is to survive in an environment that is continually degrading. There is no magic or fantasy - it is an entirely realistic depiction of our society in the near-future. Whilst our community is frequently threatened by and occasionally attacked by desperate outsiders (infiltrators and marauders), the individuals in 'our' team are all decent people. I make sure even the worst people are given convincing motivations, so you could say there are no 'evil' people (in their own minds). The main characters coalesce in a community in the remote Highlands where the environment and climate are so bad that outsiders mainly assume the land is uninhabitable, thus it is initially a 'sandpit' setting where characters can develop and adapt to the lack of technology (eg the last of the wind turbines and solar panels are conking out and cannot be repaired) without too much outside interference. There is danger and violence outside the community that needs to be dealt with, and gradually they need to prepare defence and even flee in the face of threats. Towards the end of the narrative when a degree of peace is established in the region, the community along with neighbouring ones in the region discuss forming a federation for mutual protection and trade, a rudimentary beginning to creating a society for the future. The focus of the novel is on the 8 POV characters - their individual struggles and character arcs. In brief: 1. 14-year-old (looks 11) girl orphaned in ch1. Absolutely broken, entire reason for existing taken from her. A long and patient arc of healing. 2. An 18-year-old idiot based on Morrissey who wants respect; eventually matures and becomes a decent guy. 3. A 16-year-old girl lacking self-esteem, forced to become leader of community after death of mother, needs to find self-belief and leadership skills. 4. 18-year-old gender-fluid youth, starts with belief in necessary violence, tricked to partake in a massacre of innocents, is traumatised by the experience and always tries to find non-violent solutions. Time and again has to resort to violence to save community. Meets tragic end. 5. 44-year-old mother of #3. Based on Sinead O'Connor, has battle mental illness but is getting it together. Tragically drowns in storm by half-way point of story. 6. 54-year-old man who enjoys the solitary life, free of responsibilities since death of his wife in demonstrations before the collapse. Child #1 latches onto him in ch2, and he finds himself responsible for nurturing her back to (spiritual) health. 7. 54-year-old man, best friend of #6, based on Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin. He has a dodgy backstory that he tries to keep hidden (a past as a 'ladykiller' of young students) and exaggerates his past 'heroics' in fighting 'the system'. For all that, he's a decent guy apart from the fact that he abandoned his wife and kid, which subconsciously haunts him. He has a near-death-experience which causes him to be honest with himself and seek to repair his past. 8. 35-year-old woman careworker taking care of patients with dementia in London. She's based on a character from Camus' 'The Plague'. She becomes spiritually exhausted with her role, with London becoming uninhabitable. She escapes with some of her patients to the Highland community, where she is able to care for and cure dementia patients [the illness isn't real dementia although the symptoms are. The illness is a form of PTSD brought on by the collapse of everything. Over 50% of the population succumbed to it in 2030 and after]. I should mention, all these characters are based partially on a musical icon of my youth and a famous literary or mythological character.

Given it's set in the near-future of our real world, it's definitely free of any utopian notions!

Thanks. Is it metal?

The slaughter was so disproportionate and, it was presumed, all but wiped out a major 10000-year-old family line that was warden of the Kingdom's biggest region, there's no way it can be swept away by a kumbaya. This is Westeros - massive massive retribution is required.

Can it fit in a pocket or sleeve?

I see the thinking, but for me Summer being in proximity to One-Eye doesn't give any reason to warg into the weaker wolf, unless Summer were to experience sudden death syndrome, like Varamyr's eagle.

Gotta play the game if you want his value off the Saudis.

Can a person carry it?

Okay, thanks. I hadn't come across that thread. Mind you, this one seems more popular, so I'll post on both. I'm not writing with a specific market in mind - I'm not even sure if it better qualifies as Young Adult or not, but at some point I'll need to send off an initial submission and describe it in a paragraph or so. I'm just trying to think ahead.

I have a question for you folks, if I may. I'm writing a novel, and I've consciously set out to subvert so many tropes that I can't quite figure out what genre box I should tick when I come to looking for an agent. A software programme I'm tinkering with insists on calling it "post-apocalyptic", but I don't see it that way. Is it 'dystopian'? Maybe - let me lay out the scenario and you tell me what you think. I set out to write 'cli-fi', but set it in the very near future where readers could relate to it. So the story begins in 2040 in a world where technology has ceased and the population crashed. The climate is steadily becoming more and more volatile and deteriorating, but with it being barely 15 years from now, the change isn't substantial. The backstory focuses on 2030. The world was focused on meeting carbon net-zero and other targets in line with the IPCC deadline of 2030. But as we moved through 2030, scientists were able to confirm the deadline to prevent key trigger-points was passed in 2028, and we're too late. It wasn't the climate directly that caused the collapse of society, but people's reactions to it. Due to increasing volatility of trends we currently see such as widespread disinformation and information bubbles, no one is completely sure what happened, but a domino effect happened over weeks, starting with investors panicking and withdrawing funding, declaring bankruptcy and basically foreclosing banks and crashing the financial markets. This led to immediate widespread job losses, losses of services, and technology used to transfer funds including payments of salaries digitally crashing. With no staff to manage servers and so on, the internet and phone communications were gone, all trade including the transportation and manufacture of foods and medicines were gone. Security personnel, unpaid, had to prioritise their families. Basically there was a wholesale collapse of the economic order leading to the collapse of the political order, society and culture. I pick up the story 10 years after the initial panic and confusion. The story is mainly rooted in the extremely rural Scottish Highlands. I've found narrative ways to steer clear of the usual tropes of authoritarian governments, militias, guns and all the stuff expected in a typical dystopian America setting. So on to genre, I don't see 2030 as an 'apocalyptic' event; the climate is still inexorably deteriorating - the heatwaves, rising seas etc are inevitable as the trigger-points were passed, but it will be gradual. Is it 'dystopian'? It's certainly not "Mad Max" or "Bladerunner", and there's no government like "The Hunger Games" or "The Handmaid's Tale". It's nothing like as bleak as 'The Road' - people do form small communities and try to grow food peacefully with failing technology and poor climate to contend with. So does "dystopian" fit the description, or is there a subgenre I could use (maybe I invented it)? Can you suggest a book or movie that this scenario reminds you of? Thanks for any feedback.

I have a question for you folks, if I may. I'm writing a novel, and I've consciously set out to subvert so many tropes that I can't quite figure out what genre box I should tick when I come to looking for an agent. A software programme I'm tinkering with insists on calling it "post-apocalyptic", but I don't see it that way. Is it 'dystopian'? Maybe - let me lay out the scenario and you tell me what you think. I set out to write 'cli-fi', but set it in the very near future where readers could relate to it. So the story begins in 2040 in a world where technology has ceased and the population crashed. The climate is steadily becoming more and more volatile and deteriorating, but with it being barely 15 years from now, the change isn't substantial. The backstory focuses on 2030. The world was focused on meeting carbon net-zero and other targets in line with the IPCC deadline of 2030. But as we moved through 2030, scientists were able to confirm the deadline to prevent key trigger-points was passed in 2028, and we're too late. It wasn't the climate directly that caused the collapse of society, but people's reactions to it. Due to increasing volatility of trends we currently see such as widespread disinformation and information bubbles, no one is completely sure what happened, but a domino effect happened over weeks, starting with investors panicking and withdrawing funding, declaring bankruptcy and basically foreclosing banks and crashing the financial markets. This led to immediate widespread job losses, losses of services, and technology used to transfer funds including payments of salaries digitally crashing. With no staff to manage servers and so on, the internet and phone communications were gone, all trade including the transportation and manufacture of foods and medicines were gone. Security personnel, unpaid, had to prioritise their families. Basically there was a wholesale collapse of the economic order leading to the collapse of the political order, society and culture. I pick up the story 10 years after the initial panic and confusion. The story is mainly rooted in the extremely rural Scottish Highlands. I've found narrative ways to steer clear of the usual tropes of authoritarian governments, militias, guns and all the stuff expected in a typical dystopian America setting. So on to genre, I don't see 2030 as an 'apocalyptic' event; the climate is still inexorably deteriorating - the heatwaves, rising seas etc are inevitable as the trigger-points were passed, but it will be gradual. Is it 'dystopian'? It's certainly not "Mad Max" or "Bladerunner", and there's no government like "The Hunger Games" or "The Handmaid's Tale". It's nothing like as bleak as 'The Road' - people do form small communities and try to grow food peacefully with failing technology and poor climate to contend with. So does "dystopian" fit the description, or is there a subgenre I could use (maybe I invented it)? Can you suggest a book or movie that this scenario reminds you of? Thanks for any feedback.