Drinker of the Yew

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Words are Magic, and Magic is Power.

I was born on the night of the double moon nearly forty years ago, cold and lifeless.

In a world that is slowly forgetting itself, a nameless village rejoiced at the arrival of a paladin. Those celebrations, though, turned towary tension as the paladin brought an unknown into their midst - his wife Nayinis, who wears the markings of a necromancer.Who is this woman? Why has she come to their village? Nayinis divulges her shadowed past, for she needs the village's trust to defeat the powerful foe that not only threatens divine, but the very fabric of existence itself.

You will hear the story of how I walked through The Rippled Plains, and how I supped the teet of The First Yew as I sought vengeance. You will learn how I uncovered the secrets of the lair Yuorinis and how I lived to remember the wretched song of the thirteenth saint that only brings pestilence and death. I will speak my many secrets to you, for the rotting maiden and Decay have brought me to your village to defeat a threat that is ancient and powerful, and to succeed in defeating it I will need your trust.

What to expect: This is a slow-paced, dark, epic-fantasy book written mostly in an archaic first-person style, reminiscent of fairy-tale at times. I am expecting the final product to be close to 600-700 pages. The first few chapters introduce a somewhat-steep learning curve of names and mythology of the world that plateaus at around chapter 5.The Cover is by youthartwork on Fiverr

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2021
Author: JMWebb

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 128
Views: 27,630

Reviews

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Community Reviews(9)

fknmzRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
In Programmed Visions, Wendy Chun described the longstanding tradition of performative language as sourcery, a neologism of source and sorcery. She referred to the nature of programming languages as protocologic, i.e. a mesh of rules that allow (and govern) autonomous nodes of expression. To Chun, coding is the closest we have to fantastical magic. This is not because coding is alien to her (which it isn't). Instead, coding is, by its very nature, performative.
Drinker of the Yew (DOTY going forward) is obsessed with this concept of language as a performative apparatus, a set of out-there utterances, not simply acknowledgements between its performers and actants, but as a living, breathing entity.
The story bears a quite Austinian image of language. JL Austin describes language as performative in that its utterances can drive people to act, that speaking leads to doing. In this sense, the act of magical spellcrafting - the conjuring of specific words in specific ways to lead to particular outcomes - is an interimplicated imagination of both code-as-magic and magic-as-code. To cast a spell is to write code, and vice versa. If we take that analogy further, Austin notes that those utterances are only possible because of agreements: acknowledgments within orders and between operators. After all, to say something and have someone act only works if the receiver responds to it.
There are obvious and overt examples of how DOTY grapples with an Austinian understanding of performative language. The spells each mage crafts, partly their own, have a linguistic flourish that carries consequences despite their command of magick. Mages need to take great pains to ensure they don't mess up:
"Two weeks it took, to craft the baron's requested spell, and no more than two weeks did it take. Any longer, and the language of the spell would have changed, for the nature of disease is that of constant change."
Here, JMWebb is interimplicating this understanding of magic as a mediation betwe
VMJaskierniaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is a very new story to Royal Road, but it's amazing, and I cannot wait to see it grow. The style is immaculate, and reminds me of Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice in how it's written. It's first person, but written by the older protagonist in a type of memoir. I cannot stress how well written this is.
The worldbuilding is subtle, but touches every part of the story. From unknown words to mentions of paladins and magick, each sentence advances not only the plot, but gives us more insight into the world.
I really love the protagonist. We hear about his growing up and learning magic from the time he's a young adult. He tells us this, again, from the point of view of himself later in his 40s, so not only do we have what happened, but reflection about it now as he is a man.
Grammar is perfect, I see no issues there. The style is great, and a little dense, but in a wonderful fantasy way.
We only have a few chapters out now, and this literally was just posted yesterday, but start reading it.
This story is going to be huge on Royal Road, and I highly advise the author to also think about publishing it as well.
Blind_WatcherRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I was going to do an advanced review, but there were a few areas I couldn't make my mind up on just yet. On the whole, the story is very well written and the author remains consistant throughout. So, if you don't like the first chapter, the story probably isn't for you. And if you do like it, well, you will be happy to know that the things you like are present every chapter.
The story is very different from the rest you would find on RR, which while refereshing, also amkes it hard to pin down.
Thus far, the story is in fact a number of smaller stories being told of the protagonists life leading up to this point in order to convince an unnamed village's populace that she can be trusted. It's actually a rather interesting writing device to expose the reader to key points of her life and backstory without bluntly expositioning all over the place like an episode of DBZ. Whether people will like it or not? Honestly, I am unsure. People who like slower immersive experiences will probably enjoy it quite a bit, but I strongly suspect that most younger readers will give it a hard pass. So given the demographics of RR, only time will tell.
One thing i would probably like to see changed is breaking up the paragraphs a bit more. Other than that, it's all very well done, keep it up.
Sea_chelleRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
There may not be many chapters out at the point of my review, but Drinker of the Yew is most definitely worthy of your attention. The writing is captivating, almost lyrical as we learn the past of this mysterious woman. With a slight dark edge, and a mythic feel, this story builds up an interesting world.
The descriptions are vivid, and everything works well together. One strong point of this story is worldbuilding. We get a real idea of the culture of the setting, how this affects the character’s lives. This is expertly weaved into the plot and feels seamless. The characters are interesting and fit well with the whole feel of the story. Last but not least, I did not find any issues in grammar.
Overall this is a strong start to a story and I recommend you give it a read.
TblewRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I fell into this world, and I was instantly invested. I wanted to know about the wife, why the villagers were so wary, and the paladin husband who arrived to save the day. The story does not wait long to dive into the wife's past, as the villagers want answers and they are suspicious enough to demand it of her husband, but it is she who stands in front of them and tell them who she is while standing tall and unflinching in the face of their wariness.
Grammar is awesome. Nothing caught my eye and it was smooth sailing.
The style was absolutely wonderous, and I really like it.
The characters, woah. Just woah. Even from the villagers, you get the impression that these are people in a world who have their own problems and concerns. They feel alive.
The world building is present but it isn't anything overly detailed. It more of a slow picture being painted as you get used to the foreign words and land. I suspect as the story progress these terms will become very familiar.
The story is amazing. It pulls you in and leaves you wanting when you realize not a lot of chapters have been published yet. Needless to say, this has been favorited and I will be following. I can’t wait until more chapters are posted. Really great work.
TurtleKingRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall Score, the story slowly builds a captivating world, that is not only well designed and well thought out but also written in a fun to read sort of medieval fantasy style. It is captivating and made me feel as though the characters are more real because they're written in a way that fits the context of the story.
Style Score 5/5 - The style heavily uses dialogue to expertly showcase the character's motives as well as employ very descriptive paragraphs that inform the reader of the world in which they live. It is a relatively slow-paced book, that doesn't make the fatal error of skipping from scene to scene. This gives the actions of the character more weight because they're a larger part of the story.
Grammar Score 5/5 - I found no flaws with the grammar. Everything is spelled correctly, and fairly clear. The varied sentence structure makes the reading enjoyable, and interesting.
Character Score 4.5/5 - The characters within this work are realistic, they all have their own motives that at times conflict with each other. Sometimes I found the dialogue to be a little clunky and long-winded, but for the most part, it was good. I can definitely see myself growing attached to these characters, as I become further invested as I read more.
Story Score 5/5 - The story is interesting. There is a clear plot and direction that the author is taking the story. For now, the story is good, but future chapters will tell whether or not the story holds up. For now, it's great.
TwelveGreatApesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'll preface by saying I was very upset to find that I had run out of chapters to read - hopefully more will be released soon!
The style is wonderfully anachronistic, with a noticeable style shift between the past and present segments (as there should be). Both fulfil their roles well, and some segments are nothing short of poetry. It often reminded me of works such as the Silmarillion in its worldbuilding, and in the far off wonder instilled by hearing exotic (yet internally fitting) places and names. The prose does not beat you over the head with descriptions, it just sucks you in until you can almost taste the mountain air. It's really quite beautiful.
It's hard to say this early, but the premise seems well thought out, and the first chapter does a fantastic job of setting up the rest of the story. It's intriguing and prefaces both the character's background as a tale within a tale (a context that really works well here), and a potential larger story. That's actually very hard to do, and it's achieved impressively neatly here! So far I've found Nayinian's story entrancing, and I'm excited to see more.
Grammarwise, it's far better than almost anything else on here, but still needs some work -if you look hard enough you can find some minor mistakes or formatting errors. I'd also encourage the author to space out their paragraphs slightly more (something I've really only recently learned to do properly) as it makes things flow more easily in a digital format. Believe me though, I'm being very critical here.
It's very early in the story to talk about the characters, but I can still say that they feel like real people, rather than simply plot devices. Considering the rate of the story and that many interactions are sped through in the past tense, I'd say this is quite impressive. They may not be especially well-drawn at this stage, but they come to life when the author's brush lingers on them.
I'm genuinely happy to see work of this quality on this site, and I sincere
BullerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
For at least the four first chapters, it feels like a lot of information has been dumped on the head of the reader. We get names, lore, locations, pretty much everything you could ever possibly need, and it's getting shoved down your throat again and again. If asked, I could probably answer a few questions about the world from this reading alone. Not something I am usually capable of, so I guess that's a new experience.
Looking past that rant, I think this is pretty dang interesting. When I finally get the time, I might actually read a bit more of this. 4.5/5
MrBRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Overall: Drinker of the Yew has rock solid foundations in its story and characters, but doesn't fully live up to those promises in execution. Nevertheless, this is an engaging fantasy series that's bound to please anyone who's even remotely interested in the genre.
Style: I feel bad for saying this after reading the glowing recommendantions from previous reviewers, but I personally found the style to be the weakest element of this series, with the author making several choices that are to the story's detriment. The first chapter, written in standard third person, is simply fantastic, masterfully setting up the premise and the characters. Then Nayinis, our protagonist, begins to tell her story, and the writing shifts into a first-person recapitulation of everything that led her to where she is now. The language is verbose and descriptive, and convincingly made to sound antiquated; at times, the intentionally archaic choice of words and descriptions teeters a little too close to being pretentious. Nayinis relays her past matter-of-factly, much like a narrator would, and I couldn't help thinking that this part of the story would have been much better served as an actual flashback. I'm fully aware that the work would lose much of its uniqueness and allure in this transition, but the payoff would come in the form of far deeper reader investment in what's happening. Everything Nayinis felt or said during her travels is simply described in a rather detached way, whereas a realtime first person perspective would put us in her shoes and allow us to experience her emotions firsthand. The author is also very fond of using repetition as a deliberate stylistic choice, and I can't say it really worked for me.
Story: From its very first chapter, Drinker of the Yew offers an interesting hook, and once you bite it pulls you deep into a world that has obviously been worked out in great detail. I quite like this type of story structure where readers arrive at a certain point in time a