Poll: Dragon Seed blurb rewrite
Added 2023-08-29 02:40:10 +0000 UTCI'm currently in the process of refining the blurb for Dragon Seed, and I'm curious: what do you all think about the rewrite compared to the current blurb?
New Blurb:
Would you risk it all to soar with dragons?
Hector Park, a combat-hardened veteran conscripted into the turmoil of the Third World War, now fights a war more personal and insidious — the battle against an unforgiving virus threatening to obliterate humankind. He has three days to live.
When all hope seems lost, a lifeline emerges from the darkness: Hector's estranged brother offers him a chance to transcend mortality itself with a one-way trip into the revolutionary virtual reality of Archemi.
Hector embraces the experimental digital transformation and chooses the difficult path of the Dragon Knight. But Hector isn't the only one with dreams of taking to Archemi's skies. Vicious, ambitious fellow players, corrupt knights and ancient gods make Archemi a battlefield just as dangerous as the war Hector left behind. But if he succeeds? He will earn the trust of a dragon hatchling and forge an impenetrable psychic bond with her, a connection deeper than any human relationship.
LitRPG novels combine the structure and satisfaction of role-playing games with sci-fi and fantasy elements, seamlessly weaving game elements with story. If you love Dungeons and Dragons, Final Fantasy, and-or the Dragonriders of Pern, then this series will grip you and not let go. Join Hector on this Epic JRPG-inspired LitRPG journey, where the skies beckon and mankind's survival hangs in the balance.
And this is the old blurb:
What would you give to be a dragon rider?
Before being conscripted to fight in the Total War, Private Hector Park had a shattered family, a collection of old videogames, and a promising career as a motorcycle stuntman. Now, he is dying from a virus threatening humankind with extinction. He has three days to live.
When Hector’s brother contacts him after years of hostile silence, he offers him the chance to cheat death by joining him in Archemi, a full-immersion fantasy VR-RPG videogame. Determined to forge a life worth living, Hector undergoes the experimental upload process and chooses the difficult path of the Dragon Knight. To achieve his dream, he must prove himself worthy of imprinting a dragon, a being with whom he will share a telepathic bond more intimate than any human relationship.
But at what cost?
Join Hector on his first steps towards mastering the skies in Dragon Seed, the first book in the Archemi Online LitRPG series!
Comments
The new one but add imprinting a dragon, a being with whom he will share a telepathic bond more intimate than any human relationship. I really think that shows just how close the bond is in the later books
Thomas Maher
2023-08-31 00:23:45 +0000 UTCI've learned quite a bit since I wrote Dragon Seed in 2018. Five years makes a lot of difference :)
James Osiris Baldwin
2023-08-30 00:59:52 +0000 UTCI definitely prefer the new blurb. It drops lines that aren't as important to describing the overall course of the story and its contents, (such those lines about his career as a motorcycle stuntman), and focuses more on the types of conflicts he'll face. It emphasizes the tension far better than the original. The only challenging aspects of his new life outlined in the original blurb was that he would "have to prove himself worthy of imprinting a dragon", and a vague statement that the path to becoming a dragon knight was difficult. The new blurb talks about far more varied and emphasized parts of the conflict, such as the other competing and vicious players, corrupt knights and the novel circumstances of the gods. It's a significantly better hook. You didn't mention the apparent possibility of corruption that's a lingering threat in the first few books, but I'm uncertain if/how you'd want to work that into it. Either way, the new blurb is significantly better.
Jacob Robinson
2023-08-29 21:36:21 +0000 UTCYeah, I've been feeling the same way whenever I read it.
James Osiris Baldwin
2023-08-29 04:18:18 +0000 UTCNew one's more concise. And given everything that's happened in the later books, a significant part of the old blurb became less impactful than the weight it was given therein.
The Half Blind Prophet
2023-08-29 03:04:17 +0000 UTC
