Day 74 - Alright, Rate THIS version of the blurb.

First, thanks to everyone who commented on the last post for all the input you gave. I had people sending me rewrites via email plus all the wonderful and ultra-useful input I got in the comments section. So, before I do anything else, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you.

You know, it's funny how we (I) writers can think we have something so spot-on, you know? I mean, you write stuff and you tweak it and revise it and spend all this time on it, and once you're done, you're like, "Dizzzam! That is some bad ass writing right there. I own this medium. This blurb is mutha-F-ing PERFECT!"

Then you toss it out there and, Dizzam, no it's not.

(Sigh.)

So, again, thanks for all the awesome suggestions. I read them all several times, very carefully.

Anyway, so as not to make more of a reading project out of this than it is (and I do hope a few folks will come back for round two on this), here's what I came up with based on what people had to say. In particular I addressed the need for more on the "why" of Altin's part of the story.  Let me know what you think (and don't worry, I'm not going to keep doing this. This is my last pandering for input). It's a little longer, but still way under the word count allowed by Createspace's template:

They told him space travel was impossible. They told him the five greatest wizards who ever tried it died. He’s going to do it anyway.

Altin Meade is planet Prosperion’s most promising young sorcerer. He’s also the only Six. Six is the mark of death on that magical world, a mark few socerers are born with and a mark foretelling ruin for every wizard touched by it in history. Always. Which is why Altin has to prove them wrong. And he’s not going to do it by hiding from his destiny.

Driven by curiosity, stubbornness and an inner mystery he must unravel along the way, Altin knows the only way to escape the fate of Prosperion’s previous Sixes is to escape Prosperion itself. And so his quest begins. He wants to find a way out into the stars, but he's going to discover that ignorance is more dangerous than even orcs and dragons are.

Far across the galaxy, Ensign Orli Pewter wants the exact opposite. She wants out of space. Bright, strong and beautiful, Orli is an officer aboard the Aspect, a ship in the fleet from Earth. Brought aboard as a child, her entire life has been spent in the cold emptiness of space, a life she never asked for, a prisoner of fate. As the lumbering sub-light-speed fleet hunts an inscrutable race of genocidal aliens in the enormity of the galaxy, years are ticking off Orli's life. She’s got to get off the ship. She’s got to get out of space. But there is nowhere for her to go.

Or is there?

The Galactic Mage is the story of two lives, two destinies, and two dreams—whether nightmare or wondrous fantasy will be the mystery.