Author's Notes: 565 words. This chapter - called Interlude, amusingly - is much shorter than I anticipated. Or wanted, really, because we're getting right back into the action in the next one. NaNo me apparently didn't believe in taking breaks.
"They should cause no harm," dismissed the general, stepping away from the procession to look outside. "The children will be alright. Send word to Eurynome and Trevonn to continue searching nevertheless."
"Seres," called the advisor as he ran over to join the general, passing by a staircase that spiraled towards the ground while he approached another balcony providing a clear view of the city. "Does this not threaten our strength if our ally is so disorganized? Have they not already pulled some of their troops from here? Too, doesn't our enemy already suspect the children's location, or is moving to find them?"
Seres turned and stared him down. "You will address me as your leader and general. The Alliance knows better than to fight us, lest they lose too many of their own soldiers, with or without Exedor's help. This city-state is well-guarded. If Alarick is smart, and I know him to be, he will keep as close to our land as possible. If the Alliance wants to lead a preemptive strike, they will only invoke wrath among themselves and lose the initiative they crave. They dare not attack."
"As you say so, general. Yet, be ever so careful. You don't know how reckless people can be when they find reason to." The advisor had unbelievable nerves, Seres noted, at times; those occasional bursts of confidence allowed him to stand up to any talking down or condescending behavior. It also happened to be incredibly irritating and useless.
Seres chuckled without happiness or pleasure. "I know that much. Nevertheless, if the Alliance thinks it can capture them and hold them for ransom, I'm sure Aelius will be most displeased to see that they are surrounding his daughter. As much as he hates us, it is clear to whom his loyalties lie. The Confederacy can also instill spies and resources as necessary, and their army would be large enough to make a good target to infiltrate and break apart."
Seres stared from the balcony. The city-state of Wyandanch gazed back, in its glum and dreary tones. Gray houses stretched from beneath him, extending to imposing walls that surrounded the city. The roads were abandoned and covered with garbage, and many roofs were dotted with holes. There was no life here anymore; it had all been lost only a couple of generations ago. Now, most residents were conscripted as soldiers, and the patiently waiting army was stuck in a decrepit and weakened city with few allies, fewer resources, and still fewer respect for their leaders. Even beyond the walls, endless grassy fields rustled in the breeze, taunting the city by demonstrating their readiness to outlive it in spirit and mind. Which they could feasibly do so now. Still, the earth looked dull and quiet, and the colors of the setting sun from behind Seres did little to splash color onto the scenery.
He turned around. The advisor hurriedly conversed with a man of similar attire, who ran down a flight of stairs upon seeing Seres. "The young prince is done with today's ceremony," noted the advisor. "Will the coronation commence as you ordained?"
Seres joined the advisor as they began to proceed down the polished black-stone staircase. "In a fortnight, yes. And speak nothing of the ball; I do not know how the Alliance spread such a lie, but it was effective."
And the world returned to silence.
End of chapter
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139,331 Literary Works • 672,537 Reviews
I am so incredibly lost. Now I know how BlueAfrica must have felt reading my work.
Technical Comments:
Skipped.
Plot, Characterization, and Misc. Items:
1. So like, I know Eremia and Jonah are royalty and in a somewhat vulnerable position, but I find it odd that they're being hunted/pursued. Part of it I think is because there are so many royal people and/or political powers that it feels like the siblings aren't that special, but another part is because, from Eremia's perspective, I'm not getting the hunted vibes (like, she and Jonah sort of ran away "for funsies," and most of their trouble has come from doing stupid things like starting fights in border towns)
It hasn't really felt like the siblings are being chased down specifically because they're royalty, and so it'd be helpful to foreshadow that a bit more during the portions that are written from Eremia's perspective.
2. In general, I'd like to have more information about each location that pops up. It's difficult to differentiate between all the kingdoms without some very unique trait that I can pair them with. I know Excedor is sort of "perfect," but I have little else to go on. Is there a country with a particularly unique architectural style (something like Spain) or associated climate (Greece and the Mediterranean climate)?
This is sort of an addition to the map question from last time, as both are ways of reinforcing connections in the brain so that readers will better remember names.
And fyi, if you're having trouble with the planets and systems in Conics, you can 100% give this same comment to me. I know it's hard to think about stuff like this while you're writing.
3. It's good to see yet another gear in this mix of countries and politics. If I'm remembering correctly, this is not the same king that we saw last time there was an interlude to another location, so the jumping around is really effective in showcasing how widespread the two organizations are.
...And that's it for this chapter. I make no promises on when I'll review next, but it should be soon, unless architecture studio gives me troubles tomorrow.
Later!
-Buggie
Yeah, there's going to be plenty of jumping around after this, I'll admit. <.<
The thing about the kingdoms of the Confederacy is that they're all similar. You pointed out that they were like the pre-Napoleonic German Confederation, and it's actually an extremely apt description. The Confederacy doesn't resemble its neighbors closely, but its component nations blend together a lot. Admittedly, Claec has more swampy terrain; Walenty has barren/arid areas to the south; Eimhin has mountains; and Wyandanch is best known for The Pillars. As for Comas and Exedor, they're both pretty common, except Exedor has eagles and the architecture more prominently features wood, whereas Comas is stone-oriented and borrows plenty of Romanesque structures from its northern neighbor. Otherwise, there's plenty of overlap, the exceptions of which I should have elaborated a long time ago for, as you said, the sake of clarity.
And yeah, there's a stream of royals, so Eremia and Jonah wouldn't normally be important. It's just that the current situation is a massive balancing act that's teetering on war, and every piece on each side counts (think pre-WWI Europe). Hence, they're pretty valuable, and their value as royalty definitely gets emphasized with time, since it's key to the plot and all.
Thanks for the review!
Hello, TheSilverFox! I apologize in advance if my review isn't helpful. I've been trying to settle on a reviewing format that I love, but I'm still not sure what works for me and what doesn't. If this review isn't helpful, please let me know.
Grammar and Syntax
I didn't have any problems with your overall grammar. So nice job there! Grammar looks like it's one of the strongest aspects of your writing.
Characters
I also can't say much here, mainly because I don't know too much about the characters. There's another reason as well, but I'll go into that in the following section.
Plot
Like you said in the beginning of this chapter, it's a pretty short one! You could definitely expand upon it, but I also feel like this quick little interlude works perfectly with the chapters I've read so far. It might not work as well after I read the next one. I'll just reply to this review if that's the case.
My biggest problem with this chapter is that I'm still not quite sure what I just read. It's not that your writing is terrible or anything along those lines. I understand the general idea of what was discussed. But the groups that they mentioned - for example, the Confederacy - went flying over my head. I remember you mentioning at least some of them before. It's just that I don't understand their importance, especially because I'm reading these parts of your work at a weekly rate. While someone reading this as a complete novel may read through it in an hour, I've been reading through it for more than a month.
I do have a simple suggestion for this, though! Maybe you could try making a glossary for the readers to refer to? You could cover both the politics and magic of your world so the reader can more easily comprehend what is happening.
I really enjoyed reading your work, and I'm sorry if any part of my review seemed harsh. Also, please feel free to PM me if something I said doesn't make sense. I'd be happy to explain it to you. Keep up the great work - which I doubt you'll have trouble with - and good luck on your writing endeavors!
I'm bad at explaining things, especially in these early chapters. It's what I get for writing a continuity-heavy story and trying to cover it all. The glossary sounds like a good idea, though I may also bring up the concepts more often in my revisions. Otherwise, I'm happy that everything seems solid, and that it had some sense to it. Thanks for the review!
Hey, Silver! Storm here for a review this fine Review Day, so let's jump right into it!
In advance, I'm sorry if I ask dumb questions. I haven't read the previous chapters, so I'm reviewing in the dark here.
Woah woah woah. There are a lot of questions here, and while it technically isn't an info-dump, I certainly get that feeling. It's honestly difficult for me to comprehend what's being said here (though that might be the reviewing fatigue catching up with me). Also, the 'too' at the beginning of the last sentence doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Fewer respect for their leaders is grammatically incorrect.
The overly formal dialogue in this made it incredibly difficult for me to read, and even more difficult for me to enjoy reading. I get the idea that these people are the bad guys, and that may explain why they speak the way they do. However, I think this is an extreme that is unpleasant to read, and you should probably tone it down just a smidge. If your main hero(es) speak this way too, you have an even bigger problem on your hands. Since this takes place in a fantasy world, you don't have to worry about period accurate speech. In fact, you can just say that this takes place in an entirely different language, and you can 'translate' it into modern English.
~Storm
It's hard to define who's good and who's bad, but these guys are mostly on the good side; like I said in the last review, these chapters don't make much sense without context. And yes, I tone down in the dialogue in post-2016-Nano chapters (chapters 7.1 and beyond). It's why, among many other reasons, I hate these early chapters. So, thanks for highlighting it, and for the review in general.
damnit. *I tone down my dialogue
*it's why = the poor dialogue is why
*thanks for highlighting it = thanks for highlighting the poor dialogue
Hey there Silver and happy review day. I have not read any of the previous parts but you know that. Let's see how far to hell this review goes.
This was rather short but still enjoyable in some way, maybe because I'm on mobile and trying to cruise through these reviews as quickly as possible. That's definitely a joke. I liked it because it wasn't overally simply but I didn't need to read all the previous parts to get some grip of what is going on. There's obviously some sort of military staff meeting going on and then pepole at different levels are disagreeing over what to do. Kind of standard in these cases of fantasy, always the government involvement of some kind.
I haven't actually read any of this chapter beyond the first line. Those are just my predictions there so i guess I'll soon find out how many of them are true, hopefully most of them. The first line is also a bit confusing without any context from the previous chapters. When the General is referring to the party that will not cause harm, is he referring to the children he mentions next? Or was that just some ordering issues? And I guess there also might be a children's army.
And the plot thickens. It rarely feels appropriate for me to use that term but in this case, I think it's rather justified. Before we went from plain old warfare and I'm guessing some form of civil war, to now royalty existing and spies in some form. I am actually interested at this point even through I read the first chapter back when you posted it and thought it was crap.
Overall this brief chapter was rather brief and while I didn't learn too much about your story, I am amused by some of the going ons.
I think I'll just head out now.
Because it is all crap.
Yeah, my chapters probably don't make too much sense without context. For instance, this is a conversation between two military officials, rather than a military staff meeting (though you are correct about the government involvement part, especially as this story has a very political bent). The party is also an army that's protecting the children in question, rather than a children's army or anything like that. Otherwise, I'm happy you like the happenings here, that you find this chapter coherent, and that you like the whole civil war/spies thing going on. Thanks for your review!