Astral Escape, a Scientific Progression Fantasy.

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

A futuristic woman falls into an eldritch dimension and must use science, magic, and some goddamn common sense to get out.

...

In order to make an unprecedented portal from the other side of humanity's highway/dump you're going to need to crack open a whole lot of shit. And Tara was born ready to crack open an entirely new field of science while trapped in a terrifying eldritch void.

Follow along as Tara is forced to roll with the punches when on a normal trip through a wormhole in the year 2143 she gets sucked to the other side. A strange eldritch dimension called the Astral Plane where the rules change on a whim. And death by getting turned inside out, or eaten by invisible bugs isn't as impossible as you would hope.

Now Tara must navigate this strange world, and find out how the hell it all works. She has to carefully experiment on the nature of the fundamental rules of this world, and calmly think through her actions in order to survive. And in order to thrive she must build the tools necessary to do so or at the very least something to stand on. Oh, and she also has to teach herself magic. All the while desperately exploring the hostile plane for any useful scrap, and wrestling with her own mind in a bid to make an "Astral Escape"

If you like a scientific approach to magic, an MC who uses logic and deductive reasoning, a dash of base building, and explorations of foreign, and hostile worlds. You will love Astral Escape, A Scientific Progressive Fantasy.

[Participant in the Royal Road Writathon ]

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2023
Author: Titania136

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 249
Views: 84,155

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

RagnarsRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The story is awesome and extraordinarily unique, I really like the concept of the Astral, and all the cool experiments and everything the author does along those lines. The main character is upbeat and fun to read, so they make the story much more interesting on their own. The world building is very impressive, and I am excited to see what the authors comes up with next in regard to the experiments and the chaos of the Astral.
It's a really impressive story that I'm really excited for the new chapter of.
The author could definitely stand to put their work through Grammarly or some sort of grammar checker that is similar, but that is my only complaint, and the author should be able to fix this problem without much time or effort given.
This is a review at the tenth chapter, so keep that in mind when reading my review, but once more chapters come out, I'm going to review again so I can be more accurate to more of the story. The story is just so interesting that I feel the need to review it now despite the fact that it won't be relevant for all that long.
Second LawRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, or so the saying goes. But when Tara finds herself stuck in the astral, a place where conviction that something is true actually makes it real, she realizes things are not as easy as they seem.
But Tara, the young human woman from a futuristic world, isn't a quitter, and is determined to learn the rules of the astral and harness the powers of wishes and conviction to conquer the astral and find her way out.
Style : The author has a unique style of storytelling in that she uses the best tool for the job as and when required. The story starts in first person, with beautiful prose and detailed worldbuilding, and then occassionally shifts to diary entries which advance the story fast without spending too much time on bits that are neither fun to read nor write. Then she uses experimental logs to concisely explain all the theories she tries to figure out various mechanisms of the astral. And then back to the first peron again. All in all, it's a refreshing way of story telling and one that I enjoy a lot!
Story : The story starts with a prologue that shows Tara having well and truly mastered the astral space, and saying goodbye to everything she had built. With that teaser setting the premise of the fiction, we get right into the action as Tara takes a FTL astral transport from her current planet to old planet earth where her grandmother lives. In that transportation, a exceedingly rare and unlucky occurence happens. She gets stuck in the astral. With that premise set up, we follow along Tara's adventures and her use of the scientific method and old Youtube DIY videos to survive and thrive!
Grammar : While the writing is excellent overall, one early chapter had minor issues with punctuation. However, that problem rectified itself naturally as Titania, the persistent, wrote better and better quality chapters as I read on!
Character : The character of Tara is quite well developed, and so far is the only character to really feature
TonyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story is different than what I usually see on this site. The MC, Tara, is a strange and quirky girl. She’s intelligent and often humorous. Trapped in a magic realm, the MC uses scientific experiments to figure out how the magic of the realm works. Written in the first person, mostly a slice of life where you see the thinking and logic behind how she approaches experiments, as well as detailed journal entries, absorbing emotions from motes, replication of infinity, magicking things into existence, corpses in clouds, and other craziness.
Luca DRRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The original review was deleted due to a misunderstanding.
This novel is quite interesting. It talks about the exploration of the astral, of its quirks and potentially boundless power. And it does this in a very unique way.
But before all that, it opens up with a prologue that shows us a glimpse of the endgame, of what it will be in the end, of what we work up towards. I don't know how to feel about this stylistical choice, on one hand it takes away a lot of the stakes for me, while at the same time it makes me want to read more to see how we even got to that point. The choice is up to the reader.
Then comes the style in general. This novel is sold as a rational fiction, and at the beginning I was unsure about what it even meant. Until the experiments came. Then I got it. A scientific approach to magic in the astral, where the rules are expectations and what happens is never clear? I'm sold. Very interesting stuff. Lots of mubers too, which can be a bit jarring to some people but I found them very interesting. What's more, you don't have to read all the tables if you don't want to.
As for the grammar... well. The first chapter is readable, but from the second chapter we have a few chapters that are below average. I suggest you to just power through because it gets better, the style becomes more polished and the grammar returns to normal. At the time I first wrote this review I suggested a rewrite of the early chapters, and I will come back to check on this novel once in a while to see if it happened.
All in all, it was a good read for fans of smart, capable and curious characters. There is only one, at least at the beginning, but she talks a lot with herself and makes up for the lack of other people.
Good read!
Mundorum_Scriptor 1337Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This one quickly hooked me in, I can only hope its momentum keeps building and holding strong. I'm not typically a fan of first-person writing, and in most cases, the default is back to the good old third-person narrative, but despite some slight unrelated issues, which I'll get to in a bit, the writing style draws me in further, whether its the allure of a well done first-person, or the general fluid vibe of the piece, or perhaps it's the combination of both. It also features a progressive build to the, albeit limited, form of "magic" or otherwise supernatural spin. Instead of throwing something mostly unfathomable at the wall Titania136 gradually builds up the process of understanding a different realm's logic, with a general process of elimination that makes the scientist in my bones giddy with joy. Now, on to the meat and potatoes.
Style-
Astral Escape takes a style I never particularly enjoyed, being the whole first-person narrative, and spins it in a way that feels like I, the reader, get to see what Tara is not just doing, but thinking, and the why's behind it all, the whole process of decision making. It wouldn't even be too much to say It's kind of changing my view on the writing style alone, but sticking to this work's world it shines through in chapter six, I won't say too much but the above statement on the process of elimination wasn't exaggerating, getting to see not just how a plan works, but why it fails when it inevitably does and the changes that are prompted is impressive, to say the least.
Grammar-
The only weak point in this piece to me is the early chapters' grammar usage. The sentences often come off as rushed or rambling, and even with the word usage being nearly perfect the read becomes a lot more challenging to enjoy within the first three-ish chapters. By chapter four this has already been heavily remedied, further fixed in five and six, reaching a point where reading even larger scale text blocks are easy, and not to mention a lot more fu
sixfootshuffleRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
I've played around with idle thoughts of finding myself in a desolate void, or an otherwise bizarre space where the rules of conventional reality don't apply anymore.
That process of discovery, of unraveling a context fundamentally alien to our conventional understandings--that is what is promised by Astral Escape, and it does a pretty damn good job.
The style is great, a little wild at times but I think that the perspective of someone in a position like Tara's would be, and so it only enhances my ability to relate to her experience.
The story isn't quite conventional, the usual conflicts and interactions that you might expect from a narrative don't appear in the setting. Instead other conflicts and goals become the focus: building up creature comforts, understanding the Astral space, and eventually interactions with some new characters in later chapters that I'm excited to see explored more.
The grammar is a little rough in the early chapters, but polishes up over time. I'm sure that when the author has the time (perhaps after the write-a-thon that is ongoing at the time of this review) they will be corrected, as they've demonstrated more polish with the practice they've been putting in.
Tara's character is my favorite kind of sciency nerd character: obsessed with experiments and constantly in her own head, laughing at her own jokes (a useful skill when you're the only sentient being in existence).
Ed AzpeitiaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Do you want originality?
Here is originality, slapping you with a chaotic concept the MC has to make sense of
We follow the story of a woman trapped on an astral space, and she has to make sense of her environment in order to survive and thrive
The first chapter begins in the future, where we can see her already mastering the strange natural laws of the Astral, then we switch back to day 1, to see her begin her journey
While the Astral looks nonsensical at first, the scientific part comes from the methodic way the MC uses to try and unearth the secrets of that place
There is lots of experimentation, hypothesis, trial and errors
The MC has an upbeat personality, which is very important as she is alone, this has the added detail of leaving a mark on the astral, prpbablty affecting the formation of her dwelling
The narration is the part most readers will have troble with, as is first person, and she is stranded on a place that responds to her thoughts, so the "stream of consciousnes" style becomes an integral part of the work
Overall its very recommendable, just fot the originality of the concept, but it does a losidn job keeping the story going
Turk MistroRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Astral escape is as creative and unique as the synopsis implies. It is also however badly in need of proofreading.
words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words,
words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words.
Kaz-senseiRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Wow! I guess that's the first words that came to my mind upon reading this novel. Now, full disclaimer, science, involved with any concept wouldn't particularily be my cupcake, however, this novel certainly had me drawn at some times.
So lets start with the positives. Firstly, the whole concept and idea of the Astral really intrigued me, as well as the nods to aliens and other planets. It almost reminded me a bit of the civilisation categories. Anyway, the Astral is a place of mystery to me with its current description, but I think that just allows for further headway and expansion to the world. Another thing I really enjoyed was the humour. The panicked or even overly excited tone that the protagonist produces cracked me up. Right up my alley, especially with the profanity. For my final point I would like to point out the discovery and knowledge our protagonist gains and how they achieve thier results, and this was done by a really nice touch of describing the experiments and providing us with the nessecary tables and explanations to the conclusion of each. I thought those were really nice and neat touches.
Now for my negatives, obviously grammar, however that can be simply corrected by running your work through either grammarly or even google docs. One thing that put me off was the writing style. I am not a fan of first person stories and especially such stories that throw us into the deep end without a real introduction to the world that allows us to build small building blocks. The only thing I've really been able to gain from the Atsrals appearance is that its probably like outer space. Another thing would be the lack of explanation to our characters background and how this world came to be, or even any sufficient information about the starting point. It really threw me off and left me quite confused. The protagonist herself also doesn't have a description, so all I've managed to picture is a generic figure. I understand maybe just saying how you look in first
Bookworm readerRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
I don't typically like "Progression" stories. Especially not ones with a single character. This is just so imaginative and creative in a unique way that I do. It is quite likeable.
The blurb says the MC is using a scientific approach to teach herself magic. That's not quite accurate. She is inventing magic through trial and error, and testing. Spurious logic works despite itself in the magical plane of existence that the MC is trapped in. The invention and creation of magic is the progression. Emotions, expectations and thought creates matter and energy. I would not call it scientific, nor do I think most of the story tags are important enough to include. It is as scientific as flying by forgetting to hit the ground. It is original and fun but no cyberpunk space opera.
The grammar and transitions really need fixing up and clarifying before I could truly call it 'good'. It's a bit too confusing and hard to follow at times. A dozen extra words here-and-there would go a long way. Especially between chapters. I don't expect future edits given the story's age.
I cannot quite give it a blanket recommendation but I can give it a qualified recommendation. If you are looking for something different, give the first 4 chapters a try.
Note that the first chapter (Prologue) is actually the end of the story. The jump to Chapter 1 is an example of a transition being confusing.