Between Mountains and Moons

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Under the light of the three suns, the scorching sands of The Great Desert test any who are brave and or foolish enough to cross its vast and treacherous expanse.

With each passing year, it becomes more and more of a necessity as The Great Desert is ever expanding. Omid knew this as he signed onto a caravan crossing. He knew of the dangers and ancient magics that this unrelenting land holds. He knew of ancient kingdoms long lost, buried by the sands. He knew of the strange in-human inhabitants, the true masters of The Great Desert seeking to expand their dominion and drive humanity to the edges of the world.

When he is offered the chance to learn magic from a master, Omid agrees eagerly at the chance to discover such ancient arts, and to even dream of defending against a hostile world and all that would claim to rule it. But nothing in this formidable domain is ever easy, nor simple, nor as it seems.

Be vigilant, act with cunning, and always remember to choose your words wisely.

(Cover art by https://www.deviantart.com/dyrdottir)

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2021
Author: SylasWrites

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.9/ 5.0
Followers: 73
Views: 27,727

Reviews

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Community Reviews(2)

MulBe039Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
A great fantasy story taking place in a magical desert setting with more of a middle eastern vibe instead of the post-apocalyptic mad max vibe.
The world is beautifully crafted, and while I do not know enough about middle eastern mythology to assess whether the magical races of this story are entirely original, they are at the very least novel to me instead of the typical elves dwarves dragons etc.
It isn't simply assumed that the reader knows about the nature of these creatures and the in-world lore about them is elluded to without it ever feeling like am exposition dump for the sake of the reader.
Story:
There is romance in this story tough it evolves more along the lines of stockholm syndrome than a traditional romance. This sounds a lot worse than it really is, but it bears mentioning for people that might be sensible about that sort of stuff.
Half a star deduced because I believe that the timescales involved in this story for the changes that occur in the characters are somewht on the short side.
This ties in well into something which really doesn't belong into any one clear category but influences my ratimg for several of them:
We experience this world very much from the perspecitve of the MC, who tends to get a bit trapped imside his owm head sometimes, as he is an intellectual first and a fighter second. As such, we get a nice view of his tought processes and the way they evolve over the course of his journey. There are things we don't know of the world because Omid doesn't know them, and the way his emotions shape the way we experience his environment is very well done and contributes a great deal to the frankly excellent worldbuilding in this story, as it easily manages to convey the magical and dangerous nature of the Great Desert, which should be, by all accounts a very boring and mundane environment.
Character:
As we are privy to Omids perceptions, of himself and the people he interacts with, both he as a character and those he interact with come across
BullerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
In chapter 4, the author used "Stop!" or something like it. This was a shout enhanced with the use of italics and bold text. Through my entire other reading experience with the story, I couldn't find the author using this style any other place. While it might be used after chapter 6, I couldn't find it before that again.
Was mildly annoyed by that small detail, but it didn't really matter. On the other side of the spectrum, I would say that the grammar, characters, and overall score are pretty high-end. From what I've seen, I'm pretty sure that a whole lot of this has been edited through. 4.5/5 for that.