Herbalist

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

[Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

In the eyes of most practitioners, magic is a tool, a passionate and inexhaustible treasure trove of potential that can be used to move whole societies toward a better future. Unfortunately, like any tool, it can also be used for exactly the opposite purposes. As a result, people's attitudes towards magic range from cautious optimism to bitter hatred. As if that weren't enough, even in the most reluctant regions, a spell that brings rain to a drought-stricken area may be met with tacit approval and at least temporary tolerance of the related field of magic, while, say, necromancy? In almost every land of the known world, a practitioner of this field would be better off saying that he or she is a herbalist or something.

Small tags: The story has a romantic element.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2024
Author: AgarTheBearded

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 249
Views: 55,651

Reviews

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Community Reviews(2)

nameraRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
The title and introduction are a bit misleading, i was expecting a longer story similar to the beginning chapters.
I am dropping the story at this point because of the love interest, a romance tag would have been appirciated, as it seems to be a rather large part of the story.
- the story is well written
- i found few to none spelling mistakes
IseGuyRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
I like the story of this book, and I see a lot of potential in the characters. If you want a little self-contained empowerment fantasy with a female lead and no multi-volume commitment, this might be it.
The plot elements are well-written from a technical standpoint. You're never left wondering what's going on, and there are few distracting errors.
However, there's a lot missing in terms of emotion and character motivation.
There's a lot of potential for that in the story. We have an MC finding meaning in a role that's not her true calling, leaving her comfortable life, becoming open about her dangerous truth, and falling in love, maybe. With a love interest isekied 200 years into the future in enemy territory.
However, all of that just happens for no particular reason other than the outline calls for it. The love story goes from nothing to fully attached in one chapter with no deliberation or even communication.
There are many aspects of her characterization that are described but not actually written. We're told her very existence is controversial, but she never suffers for it. We're told she wears out her magic, but there are never any consequences for it.
The antagonist is cartoonishly evil. They're a sufficient hardship for the story, but they're the only hardship the MC or anyone else ever faces.
Setting and characterization could have been pulling a lot more weight, and there's a lot of emotion missing from a story that has a lot of potential.