Dragon's Pawn, fantasy novel series

[runedaur]

username -- runedaur, if you please

email -- lostforth at gmail

This is a fantasy series.  The first installment, Dragon's Pawn, covers a three-year period in this world's early iron age.  Later ones revisit the country of Peria about every two centuries or so, a developing history; should I live long enough, the later ones will reach space travel. 

The thread through them all is an order devoted to the god of Death, the Runedaur.  Are the gods "real" in this world?  Depends on what you mean by "real", I guess; your (the reader's) call.

Sometimes I describe it as "Jackie Chan meets Think and Grow Rich".  I've spent a couple of decades learning stuff like neurolinguistic programming and other ways of living effectively, and my writing is frankly fantasy-coated "success technology".  I've got exactly no patience with angsty heroes, and my heroine learns quickly enough to get over herself.

My favorite compliment is, "Oooh.  That really made me have to think."

I expect to update at least weekly.  Having read Databits' lovely SSH guide, I could well make it semiweekly, it looks so easy!

I don't know from coding.  I mean, I wrote the stuff for my site -- which is how I know how much I don't know.  If the site looks bloody simple, it's 'cos it is.

www.runedaur.com is currently hosted by PowWeb.  The crucial stuff (the novel, updates & archives) works; one link off the home page doesn't work 'cos I haven't put anything there yet (intended to be "about the author" kind of stuff), and the other nonworking one (Drummers Inn) because I don't know how to create a forum.  The link at the bottom will be very much elaborated on, but it's what you might call gravy.


---runedaur

[runedaur]

OK, PowWeb seems to have lost my site.  I'm currently on hold with them, trying to find out why I get "address not found" when I try to go there.  Grr.


---runedaur

[tapewolf]

Judging from the output of whois, it expired on the fourth.  Usually these are two-year registrations, and it was created on 2007/02/04.

[runedaur]

So I just found out.  I get lots of emails from them; never a one about "time to renew" -- nor yet yesterday, after I called Tech Support, did they notify me that the problem was I'd expired.  I guess they don't want my money!

So, I'll attach two files:  one is the gif that's my home page, at one-third actual size.  All five doors and the boat are links (and more links may get sneaked in).  The main door, Storytellers Hall, links to whatever today's update is (or, it does when the site runs. . . .)

The second is my opening & first chapter; ought to be reasonably representative of my style, at least.



---mellyrn

[runedaur]

Wow.  Ok, then.

Still, if you wondered what it would look like or how it worked, it's up & running again at PowWeb.
www.runedaur.com


---mellyrn

[dragyn]

Okay...

It looks cool.  But looking cool and being functional are entirely different.  The 2 links lower down (3, I suppose...forgot to count the boat) don't show up at first, since I have to scroll down to see them.  Most of the time, you want all the links to show up immediately.  Heck, it took me a bit to realize I even could scroll down...I probably wouldn't have caught on if not for the fact that you mentioned the boat, here on the forum.

The boat link is...an easter egg?  Is that what it is?  Or is it eventually actually going to serve some purpose?  (The image it calls up is pretty cool, though...it just seems sorta' pointless.)  Maybe a gallery, or something...I don't know.

The 2 "Under Construction" pages, the forum and the market, seem common enough.   I've never made a store of any sort, so I'll say nothing further, there.

The "Explanatorium" link is broken.  It gives me a "404, file not found" error.  Besides that, I'm pretty sure Explanatorium isn't a word.  If you knew that, then okay, it sounds cool.  If you didn't...well, now you do.

The "Storyteller's Hall" and the current chapter (top book in the stack in the archives) seem to be exactly the same.  Why not just make the Storyteller's Hall page forward to the newest chapter page?

Lastly...what's with all the empty space at the bottom, below the boat?  All that empty space takes time to load, ya' know.  Sure, I'm on high-speed internet, but not everybody has that, ya' know.


Okay, that's my complaining.  Despite it all, the site looks impressive.  Just...ya' know...a lot of it seems pointless, from my perspective.


I'll actually get around to reading the story, someday.  Really.  Maybe sometime when I don't have a million reading assignments I'm behind in, already.

[runedaur]

Thank you kindly.

In reverse order -- the blank space under the boat worked aesthetically when I was working on the whole image in gimp.  I could trim it out, if that would help.

The Storyteller's Hall is supposed to go to the latest installment; just, at the moment, chap 4 begins there.  I hope.

"Eplanatorium" is indeed not a word.  It's going to contain "about the author" stuff, plus commentary on bits.  I don't much like writing about myself, which is why it links to nothing yet.

The boat is an easter egg, kind of thing.  It's waiting on my learning how to do a web trick I can't even name, but I can describe it:  if you go to girlgeniusonline.com (just that; nothing after the .com), what will load in your browser is a random pick of any one of six different images.  Doing the "view source" thing, I haven't been able to tease out the bit of code that's doing it. 

Thanks for looking in.  I understand about a pile of reading.


---runedaur

[dragyn]

Hmm...

I'm guessing that's a php random script.

Let's see...there was a thread on that somewhere in here...

Here we go:  http://xepher.net/forum/index.php?topic=401.0

Is that what you were after?

Anyway, the black space is probably fine--though it does increase load times, I doubt it does much.  I could be wrong on that, though.

[runedaur]

Ooo, yes!  Thank you very much, Dragyn!  I haven't tried it out yet, but it sounds like just the thing.  Also, it bought me a huge clue and I've gone & found a php tutorial site.  Gonna have fun this weekend....



---runedaur

[dragyn]

Well, glad I could help, then.

[Xepher]

Web design issues aren't really a huge deal when I'm considering an application. All I'm really looking for there is that you have the ability to present your content is some sort of accessible way. As you're writing a novel, that's pretty simple. You seem fine there. The thing though, is that you really only have a few chapters of a novel for the whole of your content. To be honest with you, that's not really enough to warrant an entire site. I'm sorry, but I wish the best of luck on the project.

[runedaur]

"A few chapters of a novel for the whole of my content" -- should I have put the whole book up at once, or did you mean there ought to be more of other kinds of stuff (illustrations?)?  The whole thing can be bought, now, dead-tree or e-book, and the maps.

The first book is complete.  The "Explanatorium" will have a link to draft sections of the next book, open for comments as I go.  But it's all kind of moot till 2/2010 anyway.  I'll check back here then.  Best of luck to you as well.


---runedaur