Trailer park trash

Now I've never been a massive fan of Youtube. There's something about it that I find a little strange. I'm the first to enjoy nostalgic clips or bits from films that I find funny, and only a dullard wouldn't enjoy the 'Annoying Orange Kitchen Massacre"...'knife!' But there's so much crap on there, what with people posting unfunny home made videos.

So it was with a healthy slice of hypocrite pie that I embarked upon posting a home -made video to promote the book. Yes, that's correct... a home -made video. I'd been advised by the Company that it's a really great thing to do and, let's face it, it can't do any harm (unless it ends up on those shows near Xmas about 'world's crappest videos').

So the first thing I thought about was the cost. That was a no-brainer... nowt (For my US readers, that's 'nothing' or 'nadda'). So that meant images generated by me. I thought transiently about asking the missus to wear chain-mail, but as it's not worked for the last decade of our marriage I suspected that that was doomed to failure. So I put my imagination to use....

[Cue Barney singing "Just imagine...just imagine..."]

So the first image was simple.. the book cover. At least the knight on it. It's supposed to represent the Knights of Ebony heart from the book, although, for those that've read the book, it's not entirely accurate. The Knights have face plates designed to look like leering demons, which are soldered to their faces. Their armour is also almost chitinous in nature, although being as strong as metal (we find out why in Book 3). But I liked the image so I've gone with it (it was a Gimped version of a knight from a joust at Lulworth Castle, if you're curious).

The dark mage image represents the Ghasts, the main villians of the trilogy. There are seven in the series, although we only meet three in the first two books- Xirik, Garin and Vildor. The latter is the Lord of the Ghasts, the Darkmaster, and I suppose the image is of him. It is actually me in my son's Halloween gear (it was rather tight, hence my odd expresssion). I then Gimped it...

The demon image is one of the Humours. they are demons from the Pale (the version of Hell in Nurolia) who are summoned by Vildor using the Elixir of Thrall and the bodies of allied Dark-mages. The one in Dreams is Black Bile and, unsuprisingly, the other three crop up in the later books. I'd visualised their heads as plague masks, which were designed in Nurolia during the Dust Plague in Azagunta brought about by the Mage Wars. The photo was from Stratford-on-Avon's Tudor House.

The forest scene from Scotland (near Aviemore) melts into the altered image of Warwick Castle, which hasn't really got an equivalent in the book. The two key castles in the novel are The Keep, which features heavily in the first part where Emelia is discovering the Wild-magic within her, and Blackstone Castle, where Aldred lives with his father, the Baron and where our heroes end up.

The music I found on a great site, which is credited at the end of the video. It was difficult to find the right track, most were too upbeat. I'd thought about something slow and hardcore, like Fugazi (who did an instrumental only soundtrack in their latter days) but that would be copyright doom!


So either watch the vid below or click on the link and post a comment and we'll make it go viral. Failing that let me know what you think! If it doesn't have 100 views by March then...then..I'll post a video of the kids acting out a scene from the book. Honest. I will.

Honest.

 Dreams of Darkness Rising promo video