Webnovel Author: Raven_Poet - Novel Collection

This will just be a critique of the first seven chapters, because that is what I have read. The writing needs more foundation. The first two chapters follow Yassine, an elderly man, and implies that he might be something of a protagonist before he gets absorbed by the actual protagonist, Fray. This twist could be done well for a comedic effect, but it is written in such a way that the reader is left behind. Who is Yassine? How did he even get this mysterious book? What was the “New Life” project he was working on before being sucked into the book? Similarly, who is Fray? How does he feel after taking Yassine’s memories? What are his goals? How did he get from where he assimilated with Yassine to the boat? These are all things we need to know to follow the story properly. I get the feeling that the author is exposition-shy, but exposition is vital to a story. Payoff without any setup rings hollow. When we first see Fray’s perspective, he turns around the boat he is on, but we aren’t really told why. Fray just tells his butler(?), Montaser, that they aren’t strong enough to beat the dungeon, and it isn’t until several chapters later that he briefly mentions that the main reason is that Montaser would have died and that would lead to the decline of his family, but we don’t know anything about his family except for some connection with spirits. The perspective also needs to be nailed down. I’m not sure which kind of third person this is meant to be. It starts with third person limited with Yassine, but after that it seems like a muddled mess. It almost seems to be third person objective that follows Fray, but then it will suddenly show the thoughts of the spirit he summons or the person he’s fighting. The story would benefit greatly from showcasing Fray’s own thoughts a lot more, in my opinion. As it is, everything is revealed through dialogue, which is a very unreliable method for characterization, especially if we have no idea what the character is actually thinking. Furthermore, the world building needs to be expounded upon a lot more. Apparently, there are seven surviving races in this world, something that is repeated several times, but there are eight continents/kingdoms with one race each. We aren’t really told what these races are beyond humans and something similar to demons based off description. There are implied to be giants, but it isn’t directly said, as well. Fray makes several references in his fight about how he surpasses the sixth kingdom or whatever, but it is never explained (in the beginning) which kingdoms are which. It would be much more impactful to say he surpasses the strength of giants or dragons or whatever he is being compared to. Along that same vein, we have no idea what race Fray is. He is the leader of the enemy forces, which are implied to be demons, but he is described as though he is a human or something similar. We also don’t know much about the role of the dungeons in this world. I think some of these issues could be solved if, after leaving Yassine’s perspective, we were shown a day or two before Fray assimilated his memories. That might have helped better introduce the status quo before that. It probably wouldn’t help the fact that we have no idea what the contents of the prophetic book are at all. We know some dude named Luke is a human, and that he will eventually fight Fray, and that’s about it. If we knew the relevant events before he went to Turtle Mountain, we could guess at his motive. Instead, we just have to trust what he says about a stolen sword until we are told the real reason. He tells the kids that he is no hero and that he is a villain, but we aren’t shown at all why he is a villain. The rule of “show don’t tell” is just kind of ignored here. We aren’t shown that he is an object of fear for the terrified masses, that he is a cruel person or the leader of cruel people, or that he has done anything that can be called villainous. All we really know about him is that Yassine thinks he’s a villain, he seems to have a high status based on his family, he has a legendary soul (whatever that means), something or other about contracting spirits, his hair and eyes are black, he is fairly young, and he can fight. Notice how none of those are personality traits? Overall, I think the author needs to work on setup, perspective, and characterization. I didn’t mean to be too harsh, but I wanted to get my point across. There are almost two hundred chapters at this point, so maybe the author has already improved; I don’t know. The story concept is promising and a lot of people seem to like it, so yeah. Sorry if my review was a bit long.

Extremely well written. The concept of the story paired with the writing style is unique enough to grab your attention right away. Characters are smart and haven't acted stupid for the purpose of plot. The worldbuilding is absolutely amazing as well. The author is good at showing rather than telling and writing characters with believable strengths and flaws. I really love this story. Thank you, author, for writing it.