#or in the case of stormweave

[tee-dohrnii]

I'm gonna try to do the Hades 2 textbox thing and stuff but have a rough draft God Gale in Hades but he's depressed and yearning for tav who left him because he ascended and Gale's dialogue is all about how he regrets choosing godhood over being with his loved ones

Finished version: God of Ambition

[hanalghilan]

I know your voice. I've heard it before.

but she had been dead for twenty-nine years. hadn't she? oh, but there are harder things to believe in the world than that a mother might watch over her daughter.

[featherbutt]

Iron Prince: Pacing

As of chapter 30

Did not expect to have to add an addition to this so fast, but holy shit?? The pacing improved in less than three chapters after 15. My applaud to the author and much of my previous statements no longer apply.

Gonna address this in order of my points prior. Will also color them the same.

As always, the Narrator?? Phenomenal. Characters are easily identifiable, the range of pitches and accents, the tone?? Wonderful. Absolutely love the work put in here.

As the book ahs gotten faster paced and more character centric, i feel that we lost a lot of the original background descriptions, particularly scenery. This isn't to say I'm too upset about it, as delivering on descriptions i feel is difficult in an action centric book. However, I do miss the scenery being more heavily discussed, as it really is beautiful.

The rambling world building info dumps are a thing of the past! It all flows so naturally at this point, and I'm certainly enjoying the immersion involved with it. There are some technicalities that are out of place in the setting, but it allows for reader and, i assume, the author to better connect so, its alright with me.

Fight scenes and training montages, oh my god. Adore them. As an ex martial artist, they're well written and easy to understand, which is something I adore. God, I could listen to this author go on with fight and training scenes for days.

Character descriptions. I have feeling about how the author writes this. The more the character matters, or is of closer proximity to Rei, the more detail and the longer they get. To the point of being a plot device! Literally so excited about this fact I'm-!!!

So much of what I criticized is now not an issue! Or even an important writing element I missed!! So excited!!!

Iron Prince: Pacing

As of chapter 15...

Iron Prince is a long audiobook. Like, over 30 hours kind of long. I try to keep this in mind when judging the pacing, but I do have my issues with it. (Also, there's colored text here and there because i got bored and liked it.)

First and foremost, I have to praise the narrator for this, if it was not for his method of reading, I would not have been able to make it through Iron Prince in an audiobook format. His methods of reading added so much character and interest to the book that would have been lost. So thank you, Luke Daniels.

Now, onto the pacing.

Iron Prince is a very description heavy novel, which in some ways I feel could have worked out, if it had been paced and proportioned better.

Overall, a lot of the descriptiveness focuses on background. Mostly in the setting sense. And in all honesty, if it weren't for the themes of this book, could have worked, as the setting is gorgeous. But, this is an action based book, with a fast moving plot. The setting descriptions were long, slow paced and intrusive to that pace; it just would feel out of place a lot of times. I feel it would have been better to fit those long, winding descriptions for lulls in the plot, or even if it was spaced out more between actions and dialogue, following as the narrating character took note of different things.

What about world building? Well, while i do enjoy a lot of the world building, as its rather complex and interconnected, i feel as if there could have been more natural ways to introduce it. Rather than the narrating character or whatever other method of delivery bein an info dump, perhaps through things like context clues, memories, or in story articles and history brush ups between characters. This was another case of out of place and too rambling.

In a praise to the authors, the fight scenes were fantastic. Well paced, easy to keep up with, without being uninteresting. Using the most recent fight as an example, Reidon and Aria's fight was phenomenal. Very well described, and paced, my only issue with the scene was how the narration switched between the two. I feel as if it would have been improved by keeping them going, rather than doubling back over what the other character already covered.

I do feel as though character descriptions were rather lacking, in favor to describe the environment and history in deep detail. There we of course moments when wed get a description of a character, seedtimes with heavier detail, but they were so infrequent and short that i had moments where i forgot several characters appearances.

Overall, despite the content being good in quality, i do feel the delivery and pacing of that content could have been improved.

[ironclawallosaur]

Something blurred and shifted. Liglanaerr paused, and frowned, twitching her antennae rapidly. It was as though she'd momentarily fallen asleep on her feet, but somehow not.

She was still standing beneath the shaggy pines and sharp-scented hemlocks of the Tangled Wood. That was true. Glint, her familiar, was skulking nearby, whining faintly with the same vague agitation she felt and gathering shadows to himself. Overhead, through the trees, the stars were in a subtly different pattern. Liglanaerr felt an unpleasant twisting inside her. So she had fallen asleep on her feet, for more than a day. Nothing natural could cause that—so the cause must be magic or a drug or a Plague parasite. Yet she could detect no traces of magic on herself, nor were any of her belongings missing. There was no dew beaded on her oilcloth-muffled armor, and her legs did not feel as stiff as they should if she'd been asleep for a day. "...I have more pinecones than I know what to do with!" Liglanaerr started slightly, flaring her wings. A small knot of dragons was coming toward her, momentarily illuminated by the foxfire of a stand of glowshrooms, jabbering loudly and happily. Their emotions felt bright, as full of merriment as their voices. Silently, she slipped off to the side, reaching for her notebook. Glint whined, just audibly, and drew closer to her. There were three dragons—a nocturne with giant lacewing wings painted on her own, a fellow skydancer with a shifting pattern of violet on his underside, and one of the new breed, whose name she could not recall. A faint flicker of darkest purple flashed past in a whisper of wings—a shadowy elemental in the form of a bat, which she suspected was weakly bonded to one of the trio. Just Trickmurk merrymakers. Liglanaerr adjusted the straps of her chestplate and sword, and, casually, stepped out of the shadows to walk back the direction they'd come from. "Hey!" the other skydancer called. "Happy Trickmurk." Liglanaerr nodded curtly. Glint paced her from the trees. "You look cold, sssstranger." the new breed said. "We have wares if you have the cones for it." Liglanaerr gave the finned dragon—like a bramble guardian with a fae's fins stuck on and a tragic case of mushroom rot, she decided—a hard look. "I thought you had more pinecones than you knew what to do with." "Of course, of course, but who couldn't use more?" the other skydancer grinned, flaring his crests affably. Liglanaerr found herself vividly and unpleasantly reminded of Stormweaver before his breed-change. The nocturne shook out a dark, thick cloak woven with brambles. "Straight from Joxxar himself." she purred, though Liglanaerr doubted this very much. "But you're right, you can have it at a discount—40 pinecones, or one of those rainbow coins, if you've one to spare?" Liglanaerr frowned, a decided chill that no cloak, straight from Joxxar or counterfeit, could fix creeping through her. She handed over the pinecones and took it—thick, and warm, and imbued with the tinge of Shadow magic she'd expect from a festival piece. But it was nothing like the cards she'd bought a set of just yesterday.