Reviews of Runeless by Kyazi - Webnovel

Hello, your novel has been reviewed by Virtual Bookshelf. A review excerpt is as follows: Technical & Writing Style: Overall, your writing technique is sound. You also have a distinctive style; however, the strength of this distinctiveness fluctuates between chapters. The beginning and ending chapters of Arc Zero contained the best writing. With the actual start of the main story, there is a stark drop in writing quality. It’s still good, but after a strong background arc, it noticeably pales in comparison. However, it shouldn’t take much to get this up to snuff and consistent. The original TQ score was 2. Reviewing this after doing many more assessments since, this should be a 3. There are still some minor errors, but overall spelling and sentence construction is correct. For example, at the end of chapter 14: “Tossing a small glance at the letter[,] Kal left[,] shutting the door.” It should have a comma after letter and left. Even though this is correct, this is somewhat awkward for reading as the commas sandwich the most basic/shortest independent clause (a subject and verb). A better construction would be: “Tossing a small glance at the letter, Kal left and shut the door.” Characters: As it’s early in the “actual” story arc, the development of the young MC Kal is lacking compared to Arc Zero’s MC, Leon. His character is well fleshed out; although his backstory is rather brief in the time of span it covers. Somewhat similarly, his brother, the antagonist Itgar, is developed to a pretty good degree, although, not as much. Due to the brevity of the ‘history’ or beginning of the runeless, the other characters, such as Leon’s wife Tallia, are even more underdeveloped in comparison. It might not be of importance as this arc is just a beginning backstory of the story world’s foundation, but it would nice if Tallia, his children, or others, got more developed since they seemed like promising characters. Moving onto Kal and the main story, the characters in general are pretty good considering the few chapters. None of them have been as developed as Leon, but I can easily foresee it happening as the story progresses. Kal is but a five-year old child, so his character might be trickiest to handle as he is also the MC. Such a young protagonist will be hard to pull off realistically without making him seem too mature, but too childish, and readers might not be attracted to him. After all, this is a novel, not a children’s story. As long as his childhood is sped up to a decent age of at least 8 or 9, this shouldn’t be a big problem considering you were able to skip many years in Leon’s arc..........(cont.) The full review: https://virtualbookshelf.home.blog/2019/02/23/review-runeless-kyazi/ Thank you, and the best of luck on your writing endeavors! :)

I have mixed feelings. Your writing is good as I had said in a chapter comment; it’s descriptive with enough varied language to make it very engaging to read. Where the ambivalence comes in is the long Leon backstory. Perhaps because it’s only the beginning, I don’t yet see the necessity of knowing the backstory. My guess from the title and that Leon and Kal are both runeless, this is the important connection to Leon’s backstory and tragic end (which, as much as I sympathized with Leon, his death and fall of his kingdom was well done, by far my favorite chapter). Nevertheless, I feel that such a backstory could be condensed so that we could have more beginning chapters on the true MC Kal, who I suppose is Leon’s grandson. Poor Leon who had his character fleshed out nicely only came to a disappointing demise. It felt like he was the MC but alas. However, yet again, I could see this being a good tactic. To empathize with the grandfather of the MC in order to seek vengeance! It is too early to tell. But as it stands now, I can see the great potential in this story. My only caution is to keep up the style of writing in Leon’s backstory. Kal’s chapters seem more simplified and lacking in comparison. Other than that, good job, and keep at it! (:

One of the very few original stories on this site. While there are familiar plot elements the world and magic system are unique. I would recommend anyone who likes a good "weak to strong" story to give this one a try. The author is able to create a new world and pull you into it with vivid descriptions. Chapter 1 to 8 are the history and in Chapter 9 the story begins. Ensure you get to 9. It doesn't take long. The only criticism I would make is I feel the antagonist, Itgar, is paper thin plot puppet bad guy. I would recommend a rethink on his motivations, the plot can still move in the right direction with a more complex person here. A real person. Remember Hitler thought he was a good guy. Saddam Hussein thought he was a good guy and some ppl in Iraq still think he was. Whether or not you agree doesnt matter, the villain usually thinks they are good. They can be conflicted and still do bad things... They can be in denial... I've never met someone who knows himself perfectly and acts like a psychopath or sociopath. They are always in self-denial and justify their actions.

I kinda disliked the way itgar developed it seemed a tad unrealistic. Leon was also made to look incompetent. But I like the world the descriptions are stellar if a bit excessive. There is plenty of uniqueness in there. Also after you put this down come on over and check my book The rise of a noble cheers.