Description

The beings born with five fingers on their hands are able to manipulate the powers of their gods, controlling the elements and altering reality itself. All heleny are born with this blessing, all except Asterion, who, despite being considered the weakest heleny in the world, serves as a military strategist of the highest level, a polemarch.

Community Reviews(3)

CKJ5Royal Road

★★★★★ 4.5

Disclaimer: This review is based on the first chapter and may not reflect the story as a whole.
Asterion Without Stars is described as a high-fantasy story featuring military strategy, adventure, progression, and action elements, with multiple leads.
For this review, I want to focus on what worked well for me. While there’s always room for growth, these are the aspects I thought the author handled particularly well and deserve recognition.
The setting of Asterion Without Stars appears to draw inspiration from mythical Egypt, which immediately stood out to me as fresh and intriguing. The vivid descriptions brought the world to life, and I found myself eager to explore more of it. One of the main characters, Asterion, comes across as likable and well-developed, making it easy to root for him. Additionally, the pacing of the first chapter struck a good balance between action and exposition, keeping me engaged throughout.
Overall:
Asterion Without Stars immerses the reader in a unique setting with strong imagery and a well-fleshed-out protagonist. Once I adjusted to the author’s stylistic approach, I found the chapter quite enjoyable.

N-ShadeRoyal Road

★★★★ 4.0

A really good story in my opinion. The world building is very strong which showcases the research done by the author.
Characters are also well made and the descriptions given is pretty fantastic.
A bit grammatical errors here and there but overall it's good. A little bit of editing and proper dialogue format will do great.
I loved the opening part where the description of the fingers was given and as a mythological lover, I loved the Egyptian references. It's refreshing to see a strong female character in this story and I loved Asterion's personality.

God of LiesRoyal Road

★★★ 3.0

This story opens brilliantly with a lengthy extract upon the divinity of fingers! I like the sophistication and confidence of an author setting out store and theme in an indirect, less obvious way. The MC wakes up with maps of a labyrinth strewn around his dwelling - and more subtle hints are dropped to the point where it becomes clear he and the other denizens of the world he inhabits are living in a giant labyrinth - so large that it has taverns (not really a spoiler - I recommend this is added to the synopsis as it is intriguing - the entire Maze Runner is basically premised on this). Again, I was intrigued.
The main character is hobbled by not having a fifth finger (so... a thumb doesn't count?) and thus is far less powerful than others. He is saved by having a powerful female protector with hydra blood (nice! - does she regrow heads? We shall see...). Greek legend abounds, and I love me some Greek Gods... I also love a weak male lead with a strong female backing him up - not quite sure why - shout out to Shadows over Arcadia that does this well too! Maybe it's the delicious inversion of the norm and the romantic potential...
I do have criticisms however. I am not quite sure that the characters' goal or motivation is going forward - I won't spoil, but I am not yet clear. The biggest problems are with the punctuation and style however. Hyphens are used where we really need quotation marks for speech and italics for thoughts. Fixing this alone will help! Some grammar (overuse of pronouns during fights) can make it hard to know who is doing what to whom. One particular para I read over and over trying to work out who had won and who was injured. So some editing needed, and my three star rating is an encouragement to improvement (the teacher in me, sorry!) but I think there is the kernel of a really interesting story here! I look forward to watching this author as they grow (and, believe me, we are ALL still growing)!

Asterion Without Stars (Abandoned)

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Chapters(31 total)

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Community Reviews(3)