From Share My Destiny Archives: Dima Zales' The Sorcery Code, #fictionreview

Dima Zales’ The Sorcery Code is heavy. Everything about the fantasy is leaden with importance. Zales wraps a steamy romance in a tapestry of magic, complete with fish-out-of-water subplots, magical intrigue, political deception, and not to mention the burden of inner conflicts.

Zales’ weighty fantasy is loaded with backstory and cool magical spells such as Life Captures which allow for the user to envelop themselves into another’s life. Code’s early strength lies in the rich description of the magical world, and the steamy sexual tension between Blaise, Gala, Augusta, Barson. The prose pushes forward with lots of heavy names, history, and themes, and at times the forced relationships and political dalliances weigh down what should be a more fluid sexy romance fraught with danger. I’m not sure how much the average reader will care about Blaise’s hero Lenard the Great, or Ganir’s invention of Life Captures; most readers will be flipping pages for a bare chested bar brawl between two hotties, or a steamy courtyard romp with women wearing diaphanous gowns and men in leather armor. Much of the footwork in Sorcery Code is to set up the world of future adventures, sexual liaisons, and backstabbing socio-geo-political revolutions.

Gala’s creation from the realm of pure magic is the real conflict of the novel. Blaise has created life. And she’s hot, and in more than one way. She’s innocent, sexy, smart, potentially dangerous, powerful, and close to Blaise, whose reclusive shunning of all things Council make him a misunderstood outcast to other sorcerer's around. It is his special relationship to magic personified makes him a suddenly powerful pawn. Blaise is now important.

Zales plunges Gala into a world of sensory overload, and the readers are along for a ride as she discovers the world and all the pain that comes from being a living being. In ends up in a wild fight in and outside the Coliseum, and along the way lies are told, flesh is paraded, and lots of magical odds and ends combine to what makes up for an entertaining escape.

Zales is detailed, and so is the world he creates, much of heavy handed and serious, but Zales’s strength lies in the soap opera machinations laid out here. Essentially a young girl, Gala relationship with Blaise takes on mentor mentee/May December romance traits, while Augusta’s affair with the sneaky and aggressive Barson is a typical bare chested sexual tug of war between fiery physical specimens. Zales may have set up enough backstory to launch future volumes right into action, or perhaps there’s more world building to come in a series that is sure to entertain urban fantasy readers. Three stars.

Summer Poetry Reading in Rehoboth

If anyone's interested in a mid-summer run to Rehoboth's outlet malls, consider Tuesday, July 27th, and stop by the Rehoboth Beach Librar y for the summer poetry series. Besides moi, Denise Clemmons, poet and food critic for the Cape Gazette, and Sherry Chapplle, poet and professor. Excellent company. Books will be for sale afterwards. It's a quality series, and full of surprises. Garry Hanna has done a bang-up job organizing the summer series. Bring a few quarters to ward off the meter maid. Reading starts at 7:00 PM.

#PresidentBannon, feudal #America. Dugin's influence on the White House

Op Ed. Ramble. Steve Bannon is often described as a Neo-Nazi, or just a Nazi. He really isn’t. That’s way too simple. He knows his Nazi imagery and iconography, evident from the “America First” inauguration speech, the lingo of the campaign, plus the regime’s early policy. Bannon claims to be a Nationalist, one with an originalist view of the Constitution, much like Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s pick for SCOTUS. So what do you get when you thread a Fascism fetish, Old-School Constitutional thinking, and capitalism? American feudalism. A loose federal government, controlled by a strong military, the oligarchy ruling class lording over the spoils of the states which would possibly be recombined, even, into loose nations, pooling resources, and trade leverage. Dystopia schmopia. And how would that even happen? We’ll have to go through Russia to get there. If you’re just catching onto Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller for that matter, two power hungry conservatives ru

Common Core Standards and Urban Decay Inspire First Poem for 30/30 May

This May I will be giving my time to write 30 new poems for Tupelo Press, which is in the throes of raising money via crowd-sourcing for new projects. They are non profit. Grants remain at recession lows. So, this morning as I met with my graduating seniors during their one on one conference (we discuss plans for success, grades, papers, attendance, etc) I pulled up Common Core Apps while waiting for a senior to fetch his book for his book report. The app is Common Curriculum , a cool lesson plan and web posting service. For some reason the idea struck to adopt some of the standards for a United States of Poetry--which sounded dystopian and Orwellian to my ears. So I mashed up some made up standards with some urban decay riffs. The urban decay riffs will need tweaking as they don't really strike any new visual ground, but rather cull standard tropes together. The made-up Common Core riffs are meta, and will also need to be made consistent. There is obvious commentary about CC

Field Recordings

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