The Albatross

Information

Status

Hiatus

Author

Jack.

Reviews

Community Reviews(1)

• SarbatcheRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  I devoured the first 14 chapters (all that's available at this time) and found myself thinking of the story hours later.  It's a great story with a nice twist on common mechanics!  Now, the start of the story wasn't immediately clear to me how the main character suddenly gets reset to his younger self, so here's the gist:
  One million people are transported to an individual trial (or series of trials) called the Eligeri.  Of those million, the top performers become Delegati.  Delegati are taken from their trials in the Eligeri upon their death to a final cooperative group competition called the Potesta.  Delegati must all start the Potesta back at level 1 in the same body they came from Earth in.  They can opt to trade in items, skills, etc for new traits or to retain their soul bound items that they start with in the Potesta with.
  Essentially, Delegati are allowed to rebuild their character sheets with a bonus from their performance in the Eligeri.  The only confusing part for me was the transition between the Eligeri and the Potesta.  Just roll with it and the story will pull you in.
  My second [minor] gripe is the starting number of introductory characters.  There are 10 Delegati per Secta, which is the starting unit in the Potesta.  10 characters introduced all at once are a lot to keep straight, but the author works hard to give them each some unique defining characteristic.  By chapter 14 this is starting to resolve itself.
  Writing and style gets great marks.  There's some missing punctuation that will push clauses together, which can make for occasional confusion.  But that may be a gripe for me because I'm a grammar nazi.  Don't let the occasion missing comma keep you from reading this story.  'The Albatross' is well written and I don't say that lightly.