Ebony Flames: A kickstarted book I spent real human money on

☆☆☆☆☆
(0 stars)

AND IT WAS MONEY WELL SPENT.

Well, not in a way the author would like. Speaking of, here’s a disclosure and warning: I am one of ten people in the world who has this book, most likely, because I bought it off Kickstarter. It is very, very little and doesn’t have its own Goodreads page- though it is still for sale on the author’s Etsy. Because of this tiny scope, I really want to hammer in to anyone who finds this not to track the author down and give him any beef. This is a little blog for me and you, okay?

However, if the author does find this review, here’s my note: don’t read this review. I will be presenting my honest opinion and critiques and pointing things out, and having some japes along the way, but it’s really bad for your mental health as a writer to just dive in and read a review like I’m going to type out here. I speak from experience as also an indie author, it just ain’t good for you.

Anyways.

0 stars to Ebony Flames, by Sir Alistair, the random book I bought on Kickstarter.

It’s October 31st and the full moon is arise. Goldfish and amber leaves crunching beneath party-goer’s feet. Rolan thought it was the perfect day to put on their dark academia, yet gothic vampiric suit.

The opening lines, errors kept, as I’ll be doing with all the (many) quotes

The immediate issues

I’d really like to talk about the plot and such, as I usually start there then get to the smaller bits, but I hope that excerpt explains why we’re going backwards.

We need to talk about basic formatting, spelling, and paragraphs.

As I mentioned, I backed this on Kickstarter. I have been going through a phase where I just scroll about Kickstarter publishing and games and read up on random ones, usually to make fun of how badly made they are. Call it spiteful, they’re the ones asking me for money. Ebony Flames caught my eye with the art- pretty nice- and the aesthetic around the art- very cool. However, the page offered very little information about anything else. There was no excerpt, no plot details of note, no meta info like length, no breakdown of money. This is really common, especially with publishing, because no one on Kickstarter has any common sense. Ebony Flames was asking for about £100 and was already funded, and because I have a special interest in random, dubious looking books, I signed on for £7. Out of curiosity I asked in my backer survey about things like length and editing, and was answered- the book was a short story, actually, only 39 pages long. And it had been edited with the help of the author’s partner (also the cover artist).

This… isn’t strictly a bad thing. I’m a poor editor and worse copy editor, but enough careful combs through can suffice if you’re on a budget, especially with a short piece. Having someone else helps makes it much easier, too. I’m not particularly stuck up about typos if there’s only one or two, with leeway for smaller writers who can’t afford professional help. Though, with a piece this short getting a proper copy editor wouldn’t be that expensive.

Anyways, that was a lot of boring text, here’s what the book looks like:

It’s not properly formatted in the slightest and absolutely rife with errors. There’s guaranteed a typo every page out of the 39, and beyond that almost every sentence is bizarrely written and hard to parse. Especially in the beginning, I had to read most pages 3-5 times to actually be sure I knew what was happening on them. One very easy to miss fact on the first example page there is the full massacre of everyone in a nightclub. It happens so lightly I thought it was a typo or metaphor or something the first few reads. Information in general in this book comes in two flavours: glossed over so quickly you can immediately miss it, or repeated and directly explained like you’re in a video game tutorial level.

I think the most egregious fault here is the paragraph and scene breaks. There are none. It’s not just a lack of indents, it’s a lack of any sort of break- between character’s dialogue, natural stopping points, and scenes. On the other hand, there are scene breaks. They’re actually used correctly later on for some flashbacks. Often though they are used for dialogue or seemingly at random. It’s shockingly sloppy. If you’re going to put a book out there for money, you should have some basic knowledge of what a book looks like inside. It makes the hard-to-read text all the more worse.

The book also has a very weird issue in that there is a first-person narrator, occasionally. It throws you out of the story immediately and adds nothing but a few fourth-wall breaking remarks such as ‘Even though it is a known fact that angels do exist they are not the same ones you’ll know from certain faiths’.

Another quirk: A character at one point uses parenthesis in her dialogue (how are you doing that with your mouth, miss?) and the end of the book is actually dialogue that’s just “…” (commonly used in visual novels or games, but not publishing).

Side Note

I was very torn about making this review in the first place, but ultimately thought it was an entertaining enough book that was available for real money despite its quality.

This review and book just… weighed on me a lot. I get this way about indie books where I think because it’s so small, I start to really think about the author and the backstory of it. I get really into wondering and a bit concerned that I’ll be found in real life and hunted for sport. As I said at the start, don’t find the author and don’t talk to them. I did because I was a kickstarter backer, and I wanted to offer some very basic advice about formatting a book for print and offer to help if he needed it. He was nice and receptive. As we tackle the book, and with any book, I think it’s important to remember authors are people. They can, and generally do, learn and grow. The author was/is eighteen at the time of this and likely got a bit ahead of himself in just being excited to share a story, and didn’t take much care in the editing and actual preparation side of things.

I’m doing the thing where I read way too into things again. Gah- art, artist. Separate but kind of linked. Anyway, look forward to (maybe) a revised Ebony Flames coming out one day, making this whole review irrelevent.

The story

This book- short story- packs a surprising lot into it for being 39 pages, but not in a good way. The pacing is confused and non-existent, there is no world building, there is no character development… there is a plot though, which I guess resolves. So.

There’s a friendless vampire named Rolan. Rolan goes to a nightclub called Lilith to make friends with humans, but a dude in a skull mask shows up and murders everyone in the club. He stops to tell Rolan off for presumably wanting to be friends with humans. As Rolan leaves the club, they notice it is burning with ebony flames, the symbol of the demon Lilith, and figure the skull-mask was probably working for her.

Rolan goes home and draws a picture, thinking pretty sympathetically for the mysterious demon. Then, the demon returns to their house, murders two intruders, and leaves. This time without a mask- so Rolan realises the dude they just drew is somehow the demon, who is named Chord.

Meanwhile, Chord laments how Rolan doesn’t remember him, and says it’s been 650 years since he reincarnated into a demon. Chord graphically tortures and kills a man.

Rolan goes to the home of the vampire that turned him and asks about who he was before he was a vampire, as he can’t remember. Lady Vampire explains: Rolan was a prince, and Chord was his loyal knight. They were deeply in love and about to be wed when angels attacked and Chord was killed. After Chord died, Rolan was deeply injured, and Lady Vamp then intervened to save him. Chord saw this happen (somehow) and made a deal with Lilith the demon to become a demon, so that he might see Rolan again. However, being a demon means killing and torturing people, which is slowly killing Chord’s human soul.

Rolan goes to the nightclub Lilith again and runs into Chord again, and asks him to dinner.

Chord explains he’s torturing himself by being a demon because he blames himself for Rolan’s last death and the angel attack. Chord used to be an angel, and was actually Rolan’s guardian angel, but fell in love and was thus ousted. Rolan tells Chord that he shouldn’t torture himself like this and that Rolan can’t remember him, and Chord gets super pissy and storms out.

Months later, Rolan is having dreams about Chord being tortured and suffering under Lilith, and resolves to go save him. Rolan suddenly regains all their memories. Rolan finds Chord in Lilith’s dimension, where he’s dying, and then Lilith makes him extra dying. Rolan explains how they have their memories back and they are totally in love and such, but Chord is dying and asks Rolan to just move on and find someone else. Instead, Rolan takes their sword and kills themself, and the end of the book is them dying together.

Romance

The author’s note is going to add some good context for us here. Art, artist. They’re separate, until they’re not.

We’re not here to psychoanalyse the author being Chord and his partner being Rolan, I just want to look at the character traits. And the funny little bit where, probably due to the current online culture in the book world, the author feels the need to note he doesn’t condone or excuse the actions of the mass-murderer, torturer Chord. I think all debates and hot topics are pretty complex, so I don’t want to weigh in on any side of this purity-cancel-whatever thing that is going on on Twitter these days, but feeling the need to write in your author’s note that you don’t condone the actions of your serial-mass-murderer character seems like a result of that debate.

Chord is bad though, but not really because of the murder stuff. Who cares about that? He and Rolan are bad because they are in a very toxic relationship, and Chord in particular is deeply codependent. Yes, this book ends in their suicide-death scene, which is a bit codependent, but I’m not going to pretend the exact same trope in my all time favourite book series hasn’t made me cry numerous times.

I’m here to talk about their relationship otherwise, and how the author’s note only condemns Chord’s crimes- not his contribution to the ‘romance’ story at the heart of this. In fact, the narration is very much on the side of Chord-Rolan :

I promise this will be a warm heartfelt story- somewhat. A good story isn’t a good story without some downs as well as ups.

Page one. A bold assumption that the following story is ‘a good story’

There’s no joy in this story, no warmth to keep me going. But anyway, the story here is meant to be a tragic doomed romance where two characters deeply in love die, then reunite thanks to the supernatural, only to be torn apart again. With plot based memory loss thrown in too. The issue is that Chord and Rolan’s romance in the present has no weight and a lot of issues. The one in the past is so deeply idealised it’s hard to critique- they are just both so perfect, happy, and in love that there’s nothing else to say. Present, however, they have four conversations before Rolan kills themself because Chord is dying, and those four chats aren’t swaying me that this romance is any good.

By good, I mean convincing. Interesting. Believable. Worth… anything. Are we meant to mourn their lost past life and cry that the present is so thick in tragedy? I think. Or are we meant to scoff at the candy-coloured past and view this as a cautionary tale where a lonely vampire falls too fast for a psychopathic demon? Probably not that one, but it’s a valid read.

Rolan feels an immediate draw to Chord, despite their first meeting being a mass slaughter of many innocent humans, and feels sympathy and curiosity only for him. However, Rolan has no romantic or even particularly platonic interest in Chord until the end of the book, where they suddenly get their memories back and loves Chord. This change is about two pages before Rolan commits suicide, so it’s not like there is a wealth of added depth due to the memories. Rolan loves Chord, so now they must die.

“Then so be it my handsome Knight, my sweet guardian Angel. I’m glad I know the truth now; my love and I remember everything. Funny how you remember something when it is too late, isn’t it my dear, Chord.”

P34-35

Chord is in love with Rolan. Chord has a perfect memory of what happened in the past. He has been in love with Rolan since they were young, but has an infinite chip in his shoulder about Rolan’s first death. He’s been slaughtering humans for hundreds of years as a demon now and holding out until he can see Rolan again. Great new Chord: this happens. Chord’s reaction to this fateful reunion though is strange. His first introduction to Rolan in the present is to ramble incoherently about how vampires rock because they kill humans, and he hates humans, and also angels, and Rolan is kind of pathetic. Immediately after that hostility, he’s instead very mopey.

“Shame that night had to end…” Chord punches the wall of his room. “For everything was once so perfect- maybe too perfect. You were too perfect my love…” He paces his room taking everything he has out of walls of his room, sparing the drawings he holds close to his heart. “My immortal – mortal soul is fading my dear. I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there for you… I’m sorry my King for not being able to keep my promise to you…” Clawing at his eyes with his fingernails, he draws blood in the shape of tears, grabbing his head as he slumps to the ground like an unwanted corpse. “If you don’t remember me, Rolan. Then there is no way I can be of use to you anymore. I mean it has been so long and you don’t need me anymore. If you did you would have found me a lot sooner.” There’s nowhere for me to go now… he laments in his head.

P24
Sorry this is so long but it’s one of the best bits of the book. Do I even need to point out why? The wall punch! The retrieving of wall treasures! The ellipses! The eye clawing! The unwanted corpse! The rambling lament! The sudden only-time-ever use of internal thoughts right after a private monologue of internal thoughts!!

On their dinner date, these two annoying dudes finally discuss their past and present, but it again is head scratching. There’s a pretty natural plot progression, you would imagine when you hear ‘in a past life, the vampire and the demon were in love, but now the vampire has amnesia and the demon blames himself’. Yet… even though Rolan is friendly, their short conversation sours immediately, thanks to Chord.

[Chord] “I can’t just let go of you like that and let THEM [angels] win. I get life isn’t supposed to be fair- but- I love you.”

[Rolan] “Chord, we can’t continue- you can’t continue like this when I can’t remember enough to even love you like you deserve, after waiting and hurting for so long. As much as a part of me still longs for you, it’s best if you let yourself rest now.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Stop being stubborn.”

“If I mean nothing to you now, why does it matter if I am in pain or not.”

“That’s- no. You can’t do that. You can’t just say and use that against me.”

“Do you not understand? I’m risking a lot slacking off the job to see you. [Chord explains Lilith, his demon not-mom, is abusive and evil] If you so wish it, Rolan. You will never see me again. And don’t play ‘saviour’ if you just didn’t want me, a filthy murderer, around you. I’ve had enough of this place.”

P28-30, cutting some description for ease

Whoah! Whoah, right? Am I… alone in this? This exchange, their third out of four, changes everything about the ‘romance’ of this book. Chord’s hopeless love for Rolan, his past life true love, suddenly loses all grey area about it being an unhealthy obsession. Not that ‘demon torturer deeply in love with your forgotten past self’ isn’t a bit of a red flag, but it could have been done to be a tragic doomed romance like the story obviously wants to be. Instead, this is toxic.

This is where I finally tie back to my thesis of ‘the romance of this book is not a romance, and the actions Chord is condemned over in the author’s note aren’t actually the issue with him’. Chord has been in love with a dead prince for (I believe) 650 years, and here they are again as a vampire. A vampire with amnesia, but who has learned of their shared past and is even having flashbacks to it. They are getting their memory a little. This vampire is nice to Chord, and flirts with him a little even.

This is not good enough for Chord. Here he is offered a start to something, and it is not good enough for him- it is Chord who turns this into a doomed story, right in this scene, not fate or angels. Chord pulls a classic ‘manipulative friend guilt trip’ about his pain and storms off when Rolan points out that’s messed up. He pulls up one last ramble, about how horribly abused he is by his evil demon not-mom, as if that is his excuse, and leaves. He is not seen until his death scene, months later.

This is a very pivotal scene, and it’s such a strange one. It reminds me again how oddly constructed this narrative is. It feels very, very much like it was being made up as it went along. The past life stuff only showing up halfway really, to the sudden fallen angel reveal, to how inconsistently paced the plot beats are. One of the strangest is the next section, the lead up to the end, which is months in the future.

Rolan does not think or reflect on Chord’s actions or character, their conversation over dinner and how that may have changed their relationship. Nothing happens over these months really- I assume Rolan simply is standing in a blank room doing nothing beyond having the nightmares we hear they are having. The dinner chat going this sharp, toxic way hasn’t impacted anything or made Rolan pause in the slightest.

Several months go by and Rolan is haunted by never ending nightmares about Chord. Constant torture, blood spilling nonstop and all they can do is stand there and watch, not being able to move or help him. Sleepless nights began to set in for the vampire as they couldn’t find a way to heal or forget. Bruised eyebags swung like nooses, hands shaking from the anxious endeavours.

“Do I need to find him? Is this a sign to go out and ‘save’ him? He told me not to come, but I can’t sleep anymore. How do I even find him?”

Before Rolan could even come up with a plan they passed out completely, falling back into the darkness. Chord’s pale moon body is crusting with deep purple bruises, dried up to black blood around his mouth and limbs. He’s sitting in a pool of his own embarrassment, chained up against a wall, malnourished and broken. He looks like his life is about to leave his eyes, but his torturer won’t let him. She begins to clean him up, feed him, hydrate him, then-

“NO! DON’T TOUCH HIM!” Things I wish to never describe takes place, but he is still not dead- not yet. “He can’t die like that… That can’t be the last thing he sees… I’m coming my love- I mean, Chord.”

P30, paragraph breaks added by me

There’s that super weird intrusion by the first person narrator again. It’s fun when that happens because it’s very bizarre. The book several times refuses to be clear on the nature of the abuse/torture/whatever going on, but then there is one extremely graphic scene we’ll cover shortly.

Anyway, this is the turning point to the climax. Chord, after acting like a dick, has been in Hell torture prison for several months, and Rolan keeps picking up visions of it, somehow. Now I guess in love, he goes to rescue him, regains all his memories suddenly, and commits suicide. Huzzah…?

I’m quite certain this is meant to be a love story. I mean, didn’t the narration on page one say ‘I promise this will be a warm heartfelt story’? It’s even a promise. The intrusive first person narrator wouldn’t lie to me, right?

So my point stands: the central point of this story, the plot and characters and everything that drives it, is at its core flawed by Chord. There isn’t an attempt to justify what is driving Rolan really, or why we should root for Chord. I think we’re meant to just think it’d be nice if they got together because in a past life they were in love, and their deaths at the end are tragic by proxy of them being in love. Your story is not good because people die in it- that’s something I think a weird amount of writers need to learn. Your fantasy isn’t dark because you slaughter characters at random. Your YA protagonist isn’t cool because they casually kill. Your romance isn’t deep because someone dies at the end.

Hey that torture scene was like- hey what wa- that torture scene thou-

The scene begins like any other: Chord ‘chuckled to himself, forcefully’, and then page eight begins the weirdest part of this 39 page book by far: the very graphic, needlessly gorey, pointless torture scene at the hands of Chord. I’ll be posting exact quotes, which when I was first discussing this book on a server I found the need to spoiler-block for being a bit Much, so warning. It’s very funny, but also kind of gross.

Immediately after the first scene of the book where Rolan and Chord have their nightclub-mass-murder-meet-cute, Chord goes home to check in with his not-mom Lilith, who tells him to go kill a rapist. Okay, chill, except it’s literally not that at all. I’ll just be posting a lot of quotes because it’s just WILD stuff.

I’m not sure it’s a good idea to go into detail about what Chord does to the young man, but I will anyway. You need to understand he isn’t human anymore. He’s a demon, and Lilith’s son no less, making him one of the most powerful in existence. That part of him died 620 years ago, I’m sorry for what you’re about to read.

P9. I feel like it’d be just as natural for the book to stop and just have a paragraph that just reads CW: Blood, gore, dismemberment, torture ❤

Chord finds the rapist he’s been sent after using ‘parkour’ and catches him in a warehouse, where he decides to torture him before killing him and sending him to Hell. It’s not extremely clear if Lilith told him to torture him first or not, or is it clear if Chord’s ‘demon side’ is an entirely different entity to his ‘human side’- as in, how much control Chord has over his actions while working for Lilith. It’s said Chord has been destroying his humanity with ever kill he’s done, which paints to me the idea that he’s like, 5% human right now. As we know the author doesn’t condone his actions, but I’m trying to figure out if he’s even technically guilty of them. I’m voting yes, because he super loves murder, and he also shows remorse about how much he loves murder.

“Lucifer has plans for your vulgar little self. You’re just lucky I’m Lilith’s dog so you won’t have to deal with me! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” He chortles like a mad man.”

P8, I counted those HAs out precisely.

This is also the time of fragments- most sentences just start with a verb and lack a subject. To respect that, I think I’ll just do a highlights reel of some of the best lines from this two page wall of text.

Plastering the flesh onto the wall with Jesus inspired daggers[…]

[…]he continues to practice vegetable peeling on the legs[…]

Chord forces his thumbs to slightly crack the moron’s forehead getting inside his brain to initiate the screams of the crime against existence he committed.

(I don’t know what this means)

Disintegrating the clothes controlled with black flames he inserts a tube into the external urethral orifice pumping hydrochloric acid into the tip.

yeah he’s putting acid in his dick

Taking a syringe Chord deposits more hydrochloric acid into the centre of the halfwit’s blood pumping devise[…]

Scorched markhor [it’s a goat] horns extravagantly start protruding from Chord’s own demonic structure in a sort of power up of twisted pleasure.

So, anyways.

It’s like, so much. Just a crazy amount of so much. It’s strange how the book later refuses to discuss exact details on say, Chord being tortured, considering what it tells us freely in this section. I should probably also mention nothing about this book really screams ‘get ready for a two page long graphic torture scene!’ It surprised me and was pretty disconcerting to read.

I think putting the highlights loses a bit of the depth of sheer over the top detail put into this section, so I’m going to sum up what happens to the victim here: Chord picks him up by the neck using sharp claws, and impales him to the wall with daggers. He pulls at and severs one ear as the victim vomits. He taunts his bleeding ear hole as he removes the other ear. Then, Chord cracks the man’s skull and fingers his brain, possibly using magic to mentally torture him. Chord puts acid up the victim’s dick. When the victim tries to bite his tongue to mitigate the pain, Chord dislocates his jaw. Chord ‘puts a control’ on his heart to prevent heart attacks as he skins the victim’s legs, then cuts them off entirely. Chord uses a scalpel to cut through the victim to his heart. Chord pumps acid into his heart as the victim begins to choke on blood. Chord cuts off the man’s hands and drops him down into a pool of his blood to die.

So uh, yeah, it’s kind of disturbing stuff when I put it like that…? I wasn’t exactly thrilled with Chord already from his first appearance, and now I have to read the rest of the book with a certain air of ‘dude, that was just, messed up’ echoing around my head. I’m quite certain the victim would have died or passed out before Chord ‘kills’ him, but still.

What is this scene doing here? Why is it here, if other torture scenes are rejected by the first-person narrator or much vaguer on detail? Why is our lead one of those edgy anime boys who is addicted to murder but evidently in a sexy way? I’m not a moralist on fictional characters. I love me some characters who have done and will do warcrimes. It’s fiction, you can have fun, and you certainly can tell pretty interesting and complex stories about characters who are morally evil. But- why. Why did I have to read this.

The next section is enlightening at least. We all read the words ‘twisted pleasure’, but once the deed is done, Chord is full of remorse.

“Rolan can never find out that I do THIS to people – can’t really be considered people as such cause they’re a sorry excuse for anything really, but that isn’t the point. I torture and completely vanquish these cretins. In my past with Rolan I only killed for war and protection – NEVER torture to such a degree.” Chord slightly pulls his hair from his scalp to physically feel his own anguish.

P11

This is a pretty interesting piece, because it’s something we’ve seen before- the story is self-aware. Not of it being a story as that usually implies, but of the wider world of moral debates over fictional characters. Chord takes a moment in his own emotional lament about how he murders people to note he only murders bad people, then disregards it to continue his lament. He is reminding us here that well, he does only kill like, rapists, so the act of killing is kind of okay, right? Except no! He is very sad because it is very evil!

I’m not here to take a stance on murder and morality, again, just point out the story obviously has that on its mind. It’s a hot topic, and has been for a bit now in some really dire places like ‘Twitter’ and ‘Book Twitter’. The need to try and present as not condoning the horrible acts of the book characters is high enough it escapes into the writing itself, presenting an oddly clouded end product where it’s unclear to both the reader and Chord if he is problematic. I don’t really read a lot of things where that question is the main one I’m left debating, but I don’t really read a lot of kickstarted short stories.

Worldbuilding

This is a little thing, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about it. I care about worldbuilding and this story has some of the strangest around. You might have picked up on it from quotes or other parts, but if you’re hoping I can explain what time period, world, or genre we’re in, bad news.

The book starts on October 31st, which is called Hallows- people dress up as cartoon characters and go to nightclubs. So the real world, right? Absolutely not, because rather immediately we learn Rolan is a vampire. Okay, so it’s an urban fantasy hidden world? No. Maybe. Um.

So, the nightclub Rolan and Chord meet is called Lilith. Chord kills everyone inside the club that night and Rolan sees black flames rising from it after- which he recognises as the sign of Lillith. Lilith owns a nightclub named Lilith, which she sometimes sends her demons to in order to do ritual mass-slaughter. Rolan the vampire is pretty up to date on their demon lore, as well as angel lore, so supernatural beings exist in this world comfortably. Do humans know?

Er- Yes…?. Back in the past, Chord and Rolan die do to an attack of angels, after which Rolan is revived as a vampire and Chord makes a deal to become a demon. That’s a lot of human-supernatural interaction there. We know the past is about 600 years ago, and there’s nothing to suggest humans have forgotten that supernatural beings exist.

With that in mind, what the hell is up with Lilith the nightclub. You’re a human in a city and there’s a nightclub named after the real demon Lilith. Not the safest place, really, but maybe it’s just an edgy cool name? Except Rolan immediately is able to assume Chord killing everyone inside was part of a ritual sacrifice to Lilith- meaning that is an occurrence which has happened before. His lack of surprise shows it must not be uncommon. Later, maybe a day or two after the mass-killing at Lilith, Rolan and Chord meet up again… at Lilith! It is still open despite the random attack on Hallows. In fact, it’s busy. Who is going to Lilith.

The worldbuilding is, if you haven’t noticed, pretty absent. I don’t think we’re on Earth, because the flashbacks to the past are very generic fantasy- there’s a line about Rolan’s kingdom being ‘hidden away from other kingdoms and beings with prying eyes’ which doesn’t super sound like any real life 1400s kingdoms I know (I don’t know any 1400s kingdoms). Yet the restaurant Rolan and Chord go on their date to is ‘Francia’s, a French themed restaurant’. (I like to imagine it doesn’t serve French food, it’s just France themed.)

My favourite section of poor worldbuilding is on page 4, where the first person narrator- probably?- stops the story to introduce the fact there’s angels in this book.

Rolan sits in their tall cedar library that caresses the ceiling that’s painted with angels. Rolan isn’t necessarily an advocate for angels it’s just been here since the house was made so they just embraced it. Even though it is a known fact that angels do exist they are not the same ones you’ll know from certain faiths. Angels in this world have connotations with grey and the appearance of drowning or suffocation in general. Somehow still being pure and innocent they only seek to ‘help you’ for their own benefit to get golden stars from the creator – who is an asshole. Fucking up people’s lives for their own pure sadistic entertainment. Moving on, Rolan is drawing in their library.

P4

It’s just… let me kiss my fingers here. I’m doing it- I am kissing my fingers, because it’s such a funny, badly done bit of writing and worldbuilding. ‘Michael was walking to the office and he saw a dog- funnily enough werewolves are real in this book- though you’re not going to see one- but they’re not like, you know, wolves. They’re all hyenas in my world and they suck ass. Anyways, Michael entered the office building.’ It’s really hard for me to joke about this segment without just quoting it exactly. This is what I mean when I say I think I could teach people a class on how to be better writers by reading poor writing. Sometimes a strong example of how not to do something is pretty useful.

I like angels. I wish this book actually had any.

Conclusion

Ebony Flames is not a good book. It’s not a good story either. I keep getting those terms mixed, but both apply in various ways. The romance that the story centres around is toxic, the unlikable main characters act without clear motivation, the worldbuilding is nonsensical, and the writing is simply very poor. Around all that is a crudely formated book and you have what will now rest on my shelf for all eternity, proudly, next to that vampire yaoi book and the psychological torture of Tridea’s Children. I… really enjoy reading books like this. I stopped every page to take a photo for a group chat, lament to someone about it, or talk excessively to my flatmate.

This book is amateurish and shockingly bad from someone who has any passion for writing. But then, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. None of this is an end of the world thing. Oh, Ebony Flames is horrible, but I’m not some authority on high casting bad authors into the pit (yet). This book and writing should simply not be for sale. It’s not ready for that.

That’s it. It’s sloppy and messy and feels like something I wrote when I was 13, and there’s nothing strictly wrong with that. That’s why I keep pressing everyone who might read this to mind their business and not bother anyone involved, and that’s why I want the author- if he finds this- to not read it. You have to keep writing to get better at writing, and that’s the only real trick. I hope they’ll improve, and I hope they can get advice before they try to put a book for sale on kickstarter again.

(I mean- okay- there is another book by them on Kickstarter, but it’s not funded right now, and since I did give them some tips on formatting and editing I hope it’ll be a lot better!)

This has been a weird review I feel weird about. I had so much fun and so many laughs and I feel a bit guilty, but also let’s just be cheeky. Let’s be bad. This was probably the best 7 quid I’ve spent in over a year.

• Zero stars