The Dead Isle

You know I love Sam Starbuck, and find his unusual process fascinating. I read Nameless and Charitable Getting and all that's available of Valet of Anize, but I can't believe I hadn't finished reading The Dead Isle until now. Its' first draft has been sitting in my Firefox tabs for months, which is absolutely not to say that it deserved to be put off. It is a story of adventure, fantasy, alternate history, steampunk, and revolution, and it is fabulous. It made me want to learn about all sorts of things, which is a reaction that I associate with all my favourite books. And how often to you get to read the whole first draft of a novel? The final, paper version is not yet available, but some day it will be, and I'm sure it will be a fascinating exercise to compare the two. And though I know major revisions are planned, this story is already wonderful. I'm sure rewriting will make it even better, but don't be afraid to read it as it is. I won't review it properly, because it somehow doesn't seem fair to review a first draft, though I wouldn't really have any serious criticism to make.

You can find the complete first draft of The Dead Isle here.