Phantom Wings

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Two cities, closed behind walls, halfway across the world, are all that's left of an atomic war lasting many decades. Fueled by hate, disagreements, misunderstandings, and stubbornness, the war rages on day after day. Caught in the crossfire, two opposing teams of pilots, united by fate, took with them a hope to find the truth, and to end the war for good. This is their story—a story of war, discovery, and rebellion.

Volume 2 is in the works!!

NOTE: This story is currently undergoing an editing pass, do expect significant differences in quality. Current progress: Chapter 14

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2023
Author: VyarkX

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.0/ 5.0
Followers: 12
Views: 16,310

Chapters(43 total)

Reviews

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Community Reviews(2)

LAScottRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Overall:
An exciting read with interesting world-building. It doesn't follow a generic formula and brings a fresh, original concept while introducing dystopian elements and mystery. I suspect the ending will keep me guessing and will likely be bittersweet, but that's pure speculation at this point.
Style:
I do appreciate the multi-POV style, though I will definitely say it became easier to follow the Europa POV when:
they were given names rather than numbers. Symbolically I appreciated this moment so I don't want to penalize harshly for it.
There was what felt like a slight rush between chapters 5 to 8 on the Europa side, but it's easily forgiveable.
Story:
What can I say, I'm a sucker for fighter jets so this immediately spoke to me. The military speak is well-executed and the accompanying pictures are fun. The dual sides of the story are compelling but right now do seem to favour a "good side" and a "bad side", so it'll be interesting to see if complexities on both sides are further drawn out. There's a very matter-of-fact approach to war, so it does seem like a lot of people on both sides don't fully understand what they're fighting for, or why, just that it's their duty. I think this story has a lot of potential to dig deeper into the more philosophical side of things so I'm going to keep reading to see where the author goes with this.
Grammar:
No points to take away here! It flows well and nothing significant stood out to me.
Character:
It took a little while to start separating the characters out into their own distinct entities, but again I feel this was a symbolic choice given that they are presented as a team first and individuals second. It did mean that some of the main characters still feel a little one-dimensional and don't start to flesh out until about Chapter 8. For example, I way I relate to Rei most right now is for his general annoyance towards Yang, which maybe distracts a bit from who he is as a person. But at this point in the story there hasn'
joygirl007Royal Road
★★★★ 3.5
I enjoyed the Robotech vibes of this sci-fi military thriller. It's a story of two opposing fighter pilot squads engaged in a deadly cat-and-mouse game out on the border between two cities. You could easily skip the prologue if you read the blurb - and right away you'd be dropped into this clear-cut dichotomy between a rigid, almost totalitarian society where the fighter pilots have numbers instead of names staked against a more chill/liberated society that seems inspired by modern-day Korea or Japan.
Dialog is easily the draw, here. You get a real sense of character from how people speak to one another and each person manages to sound completely different. The liberal fighter squad featuring Rei and Lenn are fun to read and extremely relatable while the terse talk between One-six and his commanding officers is suitable terse and restrained.
Where the story could use a little more attention would be in physical descriptions of the people to go with the juicy banter. Doesn't have to be a whole lot, but even one or two descriptors to give us age or a facial feature would be so helpful for setting scenes and conveying more backstory. Like is One-six younger than the commander? Older? Is Rei a teenager pilot like in Evangelion or are these more like Top Gun twenty-somethings? Little stuff like this is a treat for people who read sci-fi military fic.
The last note is on the story/grammar scores. I went with 3 year because the author has the bones in the right place and no glaring typos or errors - but there is passive voice throughout and in a few places they accidentally switch tenses. The biggest thing is that sometimes the narration dives a bit too deep inside "third person close" and then go back to plain "third person," which can be confusing but it's easy to get past once somebody starts speaking again.