Dragon Quill

There is an easy way to avoid the problem of historical magic.

I said making it our world but magic the whole time is basically impossible. The closest you can get would be having people know there’s magic and it just ended up in a very similar place as our world at this point in time – Sunshine did that, and while there still ended up being a lot of secondary plotholes spawned from it, it worked pretty well overall. But this creates a tissue-paper world, because the moment you start trying to explain how you got to this point, it gets complicated or you realize that there’s just no decent handwave for why we aren’t currently chattel owned either by the fairies or vampires. Plus, if established magic, it’s hard to make your character special.

This story is built around the idea that the modern technological world is opening up contact with the magical one, and Harry is the first openly magic practitioner. That means magic needs to have started mattering recently, because societies generally don’t decide to just ignore the things murdering them. (more…)

Last time, sexy vampire lesbian sex lesbian sex sex that Harry is so disgusted by he has to watch every second so he knows just how disgusted to feel about it. (more…)

It took me the rest of the night and part of the morning, but I worked out how I could murder someone in the same manner that Tommy Tomm and Jennifer Stanton had been killed. After the fifth or sixth time I’d checked the figures, I stared at my calculations.

It didn’t make any sense . It was impossible .
Or maybe we were all underestimating just how dangerous this killer was.

At which point he explains nothing, just repeating that it’s a big deal, Murphy needs to know, big deal, tell Murphy, big deal.

There’s a couple things wrong with that even aside from the fact it’s not suspenseful when characters do this, it’s just irritating. (more…)

Last time, Harry heads to the police station, a junkie, and a lot of speculation, all while he waits to see Murphy. (more…)

Last time, concussion. Today, we learn Harry did indeed pass out! (more…)

Last time, Harry got dragged to his house by Murphy. He kept thinking he was forgetting something, but ended up falling asleep because concussion. (more…)

Last time, yes, this book is this terrible. Today, can it get worse? Yes. Yes, it fucking can. (more…)

Last time, the love potion business. Today,

As it turned out, Linda Randall had a darn good reason for skipping out on our appointment Saturday night.
Linda Randall was dead.

As was inevitable. She had casual sex and knew precisely how attractive she was. (more…)

Last time, Harry is terrible.

Today, Harry continues to make it all about him.

my thoughts and emotions a far more furious thunderstorm than the one now rolling away from the city, out over the vastness of the lake
…
I had lost Murphy’s trust. It didn’t matter that I had done what I had to protect both her and myself.
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And I wasn’t sure that, even if I found the person or persons responsible, even if I worked out how to bring them down, even if I did Murphy’s job for her, that what had happened between us could ever be smoothed over

Yes, Harry, even if [you] did Murphy’s job for her she’s probably not going to be happy, because she doesn’t want you to do her job for her in the first place so that’s just going to piss her off even further. (more…)

Have you ever felt despair? Absolute hopelessness? Have you ever stood in the darkness and known, deep in your heart, in your spirit, that it was never, ever going to get better? That something had been lost, forever, and that it wasn’t coming back?
That’s what it felt like, walking out of the Varsity, walking out into the rain.

Yes, this is over the hair, not the actual people who are actually dead. (more…)

So last time I talked about magic in a world that’s otherwise ours, and how it’s extremely difficult to make work. Today I’ll tackle a similarly difficult thing:

“It’s not that the book is sexist, it’s just the character is.” (more…)

Harry takes a cab to his client’s house. You know, for someone whose magic supposedly wrecks cars, he’s sure riding in a lot of them without issue. You’d think every cabbie would have his photo with DO NOT PICK UP THIS MAN scrawled over it. Or a sketch, if photos don’t work either. (more…)

Last time, Harry decided everything was a woman’s fault and forced his way into her home. (more…)