Some people are saying Nice Things About Me
No, that’s not the indication that hell has frozen over! People say nice things about me all the time. Like, uh, that time. You know. Stay tuned, cold hell is coming . . .
Over at Book Reading Gals, they’re doing a giveaway, and have this to say:
Carolyn Jewel is a master storyteller. The world that she has created is in this reviewers humble opinion one of the best in the paranormal and romance genre. The conflict between the fiends and the mages is a perfect combination. The hero and heroine are a perfect complement to each other.
. . .
If you like a great paranormal story with a great romance and excellent characters than I recommend picking up this series.
. . .
Grade A
More Nice Things
Over at Renee’s Book Addiction there’s this:
One of the things I really enjoy about this series is the originality of the world. The demons (known as the kin, among themselves) are engaged in a struggle with the magekind. Dark mages use enslaved demons to provide power and as coerced minions. Witches, too, often get caught in the crossfire, becoming pawns for the dark mages.
…
One of the things that made My Immortal Assassin a stand out in the series for me is the relationship between Gray and Durian. More than any other book in the series, there is a give and take to their relationship that is really refreshing. While Grey has “submitted” (not in a D/s way, but in a magical way) by binding herself to him, rather than being subservient to him, she is pledged to protect him, and becomes his bodyguard. As Gray increasingly comes into her power, she assumes a more protective role toward Durian that male heroes more typically take on. I really liked this shift in traditional power dynamics.
Has Hell Frozen Over?
I think maybe it has, because my day job and my writing job have gotten married and produced (dun dun dun!!) a parody! Bear with me, because this actually gets interesting.
Over at the SQL Server Simple Talk newsletter, the mysterious Phil Factor (that’s SQL humor, by the way) has written Parodist, a SQL Server “application” that will create a parody of text you provide. Note: This ONLY works if you happen to have SQL Server installed, so unless it’s installed on your web server or for some reason you have access to SQL Server, it won’t do much good to check the link. Unless you want to satisfy idle curiosity or look at T-SQL code. The application consists of two procedures, one to accept the text and stick it in a database and another to spit out the parody, which SQL builds like this, in the words of Phil Factor, describing what you would have to do if you did this by hand:
You have the starting word of a sentence: Then, you would find the second word in another sentence that started with that initial word. Once you had the third word, by proceeding likewise, you would be ready to start. You find, at random, a sentence containing the previous two words, adjacent and in the same order; and you take this third word and append it. As authors tend to have mannerisms, and use favourite phrases, this technique seems to pick them up: One gets clichés strung together. The more text you have the better the parody. with small amounts, it just sticks to the sentences it selects, but the richer the text bank, the more creative it gets.
So, you can see that SQL Server is doing some pretty interesting text manipulation. What does this have to do with My Immortal Assassin? Well, I fed Parodist Chapter 1 and got this:
Not any of it. Obtain a sanction on me. There was the rest of her head. She had impressive control. Just as he watched. Her eyes lost focus again and she let out a puff of air. They were not at liberty to disclose that information. That ought to be in her late twenties maybe early thirties. She wasn’t stupid. Her magic flared up– the magic inside. If you answer my questions. Her expression hardened to ice. I’m not saying I didn’t kill anyone. A wild bitterness edged the sound. Most mages of sufficient ambition considered it worth the risk and there were indeed significant dangers. She pushed herself to a sitting position.
Personally, I think it’s hilarious. What do you think?
Also, please go buy My Immortal Assassin. You’ve read the parody, now read the real thing.
Tags: My Immortal Assassin, reviews, SQL Server
The Parodist application is certainly rather good at highlighting the author’s mannerisms. Like you, I couldn’t resist feeding the program my own writings, only to find it mocking my prose-style. Actually, I’ve found it entertaining to use with a large variety of authors. The results are always funny.
I thought of doing it as a website, so that everyone could join in, even when they didn’t have a suitable SQL Server database; but you really need to feed it a large amount of text to get an effective parody.
Phil Factor himself!!! Squeee!!!! I know a LOT of writers who would have a blast playing with the Parodist. You should totally do a website. I only did chapter 1 of mine, but when I get the chance, maybe I’ll do the whole thing.