The Stormlord Trilogy by Glenda
Larke (called the Watergivers trilogy in Australia, and maybe some
other countries) is a secondary world epic fantasy, consisting of
three volumes,
The Last Stormlord, Stormlord Rising,
and Stormlord's Exile. I wholeheartedly recommend it as
a fine adventure epic with nifty political intrigue, knotty moral
dilemmas, clever and consistent worldbuilding, and emotionally
affecting characterization. The reason I'm mentioning it here is
one particular character, a FtM transsexual. He doesn't appear until
the third book, but he has a fairly major role to play when he appears.
I haven't posted anything here for a while, but I haven't been idle.
I've finished several first drafts recently, and would like to get
feedback on them from beta readers before I do final drafts and post
them here, or offer them for sale on Smashwords and the Kindle store.
Some time ago, when the editor of TGStories.com asked for submissions in fairly vague terms, I asked for submission guidelines and got no reply. Recently, I submitted a new story blindly, not knowing anything about the format or subgenres they prefer, and inquired about what publication rights they buy.
When Wasps Make Honey, the sequel to Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes, is now available from Amazon in Kindle Format
and from Smashwords in EPUB format. This novel follows the continuing adventures of Kazmina and Launuru as Kazmina secretly rescues slaves from various estates and Launuru is drafted as an acolyte of Kensaulan, the god of the dead. Psavian and Znembalan play larger roles here than in the first book, and there are many new characters, several of whom get transformed in interesting ways.
I'm looking for beta readers to critique the sequel to Wine Can't Be Pressed Into Grapes. Copyediting would be nice, but what I mainly need is for someone to look at it with fresh eyes and see if there are any plot holes, whether anything is unclear or (unintentionally) ambiguous, whether the various plot threads hang together in a cohesive whole, whether the ending is satisfying, and so forth. It's 204,000 words,
I started to post this as a comment on a specific story, then decided it makes more sense as an observation about tg fiction in general than a criticism on a specific story, because the problem I noticed (if it is a problem) is pretty common.
Namely, an awful lot of characters in tg fiction, when they find out about another character being transsexual or gay or both, have one of two extreme reactions -- total, instant acceptance, with displays of affection (if the author wants us to sypathize with the character) or extreme bigotry, very vocal and possibly violent (if the author wants us not to sympathize).
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