The Alchemist's Dilemma
Community Rating
Description
In a kingdom where the legality of magic is questioned, a young girl named Lily sets out on a quest for revenge against the god of the afterlife who killed her mother. Along the way, she meets Marcus, a skilled alchemist who agrees to teach her for a price. Lily also meets Jack, a man of many secrets. When Lily is drawn into a dangerous conflict, she finds herself torn between her loyalty to Marcus and her desire to fight for what she believes in. As she navigates the complexities of love and loyalty, Lily must use her alchemical skills to overcome formidable challenges and ultimately confront the god of the afterlife. Will Lily find the strength to embrace her destiny as an alchemist, or will her quest for revenge consume her?
Information
- Status
- Hiatus
- Author
- AthenaWrites
Tags
Royal Road Stats
- Rating
- 4.0/ 5.0
- Followers
- 9
Chapters(2 total)
Reviews
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Community Reviews(2)
- MimiNiiRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0I like what I've read so far, I hope we get a more detailed description of Vettie. Unless that's intended by the Author so the reader is almost able to self insert their own image. I like how descriptive the author is as they take the time to really lay out a scene for the reader.
- Brandon CarterRoyal Road★★★★ 4.0Let's just dive right in.
Style: On one hand, the author's presentation of the story is quite good. Varied sentence structure, good rhythm, good paragraph structure. It's an easy read.
On the other hand, the story almost reads more like a very detailed outline than a fleshed out story. There is a strong tendency to 'tell' instead of 'show'. In some places, this is fine, and the author does it well. But I'd very much like a better description of a scene at times without the author coming to conclusions for me. Some descriptives need to be earned by a character before we're told them. How do we know her mentor is powerful and learned? I'd much rather see the results of his experience play out in a scene than to simply be told he's powerful.
Grammar: Zero issues. A great grasp of the language. Well done.
Story: I'm interested to see where the author goes, as the story does get better as we go along, but the weight of what is driving our protagonist isn't felt as strongly as I'd like. I think part of the reason this happens is, the story doesn't play it out in scenes. We move rapidly from place to place, idea to idea, and don't have a lot of time to settle into any one in particular. That being said, the flow is fine for the most part. I understand her motivations and where each decision is taking her. I would just like to see the focus zoomed in a bit more instead of jumping from one plot point to the next.
Character: Early on, we don't have many characters, and due to the telling nature of the writing style, we don't get a very detailed view of who they are and what they are about. That being said, I'm not unhappy with the author's characters. I would just like them to slow down a bit so we can get to know them better.
Overall: As a first draft, this story is pretty damn good despite my criticisms. When the author goes through and performs edits/updates and gets more into a showing over telling style of writing, I strongly suspect this one will be well worth revisitin