Hosted by: Mike Verant

Join us for a novel critique of Benjamin Armerding’s fantasy novel, The Iceberg Palace! The novel is 78,000 words. To join one of our novel critiques, you must have already attended at least one of our monthly critique sessions. Benjamin’s blurb for the book: Elgin is going to live forever, but he also knows he is going to go insane. His father has dementia, and the doctors say Elgin will suffer the same fate. He dreads his future, avoiding friendship and intimacy, preferring the company of strangers. But when his father rambles incoherently about a mind-stealing scroll hidden in the family library, Elgin wonders if he doesn’t have his father's dementia at all. Before he has a chance to find out, he is violently derailed—drugged, abducted, and forced aboard a perilous ship, on a voyage that will deliver him to the answers he seeks. In a world inspired by the 1870s San Francisco Barbary Coast, Elgin must navigate vice and greed as he discovers an iceberg city, a kingdom of pirates and forgotten magic, a world of illusions, where reality is written and rewritten. If only he can puzzle together the mysteries of his father's past, he might predict his own future. But in the Iceberg Palace, those who hold the secrets are as merciless as they are deceitful. Content Warnings: racism, mental illness, depiction of a metal health facility, forced labor, injuries to magical animals (minor), nudity, sexual content, violence, death, murder, some gore. To familiarize yourself with our critique style, please read our Rules of Engagement: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RKp0hisz-RSZgE1xF65DzUhOwRQZ6JqwAJ5fbAwrCwU/edit?usp=sharing To attend, you’ll need a registered Zoom account. Enjoy Benjamin’s story and please join our discussion!