Question of Scale

Information

Status

Hiatus

Author

Milo Kiernan

Reviews

Community Reviews(3)

• StainedGlassThreadsRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Willaartauraxx the Gorge Defiler the dragon lives a good, and incredibly efficient, life. Occasionally he awakens from hibernation to go on a hunting spree, and discovers that his hoard has miraculously swelled thanks to tributes by the local village. Occasionally he finds a thief trying to take from his hoard, and gets a nice and tasty snack. One day, however, a wizard who's been watching him since he was a hatchling grows dissatisfied with his slothful ways, and curses him to become that which he loathes--a weak and paltry human! Reborn as Will George, our 'hero's adventure has only just begun...
  Question of Scale is a story that begins in media res, meaning in the middle of the action. You are given the pieces to determine what is happening, but are largely left to put those pieces together on your own. Fortunately, the author is an incredibly skilled writer with an especial talent for both prose and characterization. Most of the plot, characters, and magic system I was able to put together rather easily, and the action had me quite intrigued from the very first sentence. I especially appreciate the author's eye to detail. That does not mean things were done perfectly--a few aspects of the world, such as what a 'sewing circle' is in this setting, and why one would be camping out near a dragon's home--could have been better explained. But things such as Willaartauraxx's introduction and eventual transformation and the slowly-unfolding explanation of the magic system were incredibly well-constructed. The author is very good at pacing themself, and has clearly done a lot of prep work in constructing the world, characters, and story.
  There is the occasional issue with punctuation, and once a sentence was accidentally repeated, but I tend to take way more notice of these things than the average reader, and so it shouldn't bother most people. A lot of the content on this site spoonfeeds exposition to the reader a bit, so if you're looking for something a bit more stimu
• Genuine55Royal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  We start in media res, which is always great. I get that exposition is important, but sometimes it's nice to just dive in before memorizing a few dozen made-up words. :D This story makes both a virtue and vice out of missing the exposition and going straight to the rising action.
  Now, as a vice, I did struggle to follow the story. It switches quickly between different points of view, and only a couple really stood out - lots of people running from a dragon. Plus, if I'm not mistaken, we get some time skips and flashbacks that make it even harder to follow - it may just have been a few descriptions that seemed more similar than they should like the golden staff reappearing a few times. A tendency to focus on action over description doesn't always help. It does settle down, within a few chapters, and the view switches get easier to handle as I get to know the different characters. For the record, this kinda applies to both the style and story.
  On balance, I'm ok with those choices. Some difficult reading isn't a bad thing, and generally, I prefer action over drawn-out, purplish descriptions. Learning about characters from what happens to them is often preferable to just being told about them. Maybe we could see some more character development, but that's always a hard call to make, five chapters in.
  If you want another synopsis, then take this: a lazy dragon sorta terrorizes an area but essentially just turns himself into one of those problems where the lawsuit settlements aren't expensive enough to force a recall. He then gets forcibly humbled and presumably will learn to operate with a little more ambition and a little less in-born advantage.
  Grammar is grammar, and honestly, I kinda hate that it's a topic I'm supposed to talk about in a review. So long as it hits the basic "didn't distract me with mistakes" then it's five stars. No problems with grammar here.
• IndigoSparksRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  You'd think that part would have been stated more clearly in the summary, which I find to be very poetic but not exactly grounded in the story, so I found myself a little adrift as I began. I didn't know who I was supposed to focus on or recognize because we aren't told which ones they are.
  But, that aside, the prose is very very good. I love the prose. Just the right side of poetic and descriptive and thoughts and dialogues. Especially the dragon's, whose name i cannot spell, but trust me when I say his POV goes the whole ten yards and then some. Wonderful style.
  The... horror-adjacent style of the early chapters is brilliantly handled. We are very scared of this dragon. That makes it doubly shocking when we are immediately put into his shoes. The story has a lot of promise, and I enjoyed reading it. Very good stuff.
  Any critques I have come solely from the fact that I have trouble reading overly long paragraphs. Of which there are many in chapter 4 and 5. No new paragraph breaks are introduced when one character is talking while also descriptions are happening at the same time, and its very hard to keep focused on that. Takes away from a lot of the story, in my opinion. But, other than that, it's good!