The Binder
Self-Published
Community Rating
Description
Nial wakes up to find himself near death and abandoned in the middle of a thunderstorm. Follow his search for answers as he tracks down those he used to call friends two years later.
Information
- Status
- Completed
- Year
- 2021
- Author
- Really Bard Ideas
Royal Road Stats
- Rating
- 4.0/ 5.0
- Followers
- 1
- Views
- 1,070
Chapters(4 total)
Reviews
No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!
Community Reviews(1)
- Cosy CurseRoyal Road★★★★ 4.0This is a short story, so I won't be doing an advanced review.
Rating system: In my system, 2.5 stars is average. I think this is a 3/5 quality story. To me, a 3 star is above average and I am happy to have read it. However, many users on Royal Road tend to think anything less than a 4 indicates a bad work. As the only rating right now, I don't want people to be turned away by a 3 star rating, especially since many would leave without reading this review.
There will be a spoiler section that will spoil pretty much everything, as I want to discuss story structure and plotting, as well as specific bits of dialogue and characterisation.
Review
The Binder is a simple, small adventure, the first short story set in the author's world Esthia. The TL;DR is that this is a somewhat generic story that doesn't do anything particularly special with it's plot and characters, but entertaining enough to be worth the short time it takes to read.
This serves as an introduction to Esthia, which I think originated from a TTRPG campaign the author runs. Esthia seems to be a relatively interesting take on the generic medieval European setting, with care placed into a unique magic system and lore. If that is something that interests you, you can follow the author and be alerted for when they release new stories set in this world.
Ok, speed round. It's environmental descriptions are atmospheric and interesting. It's action is pretty alright, though at times confusing. It has a few character moments which, due to our short time with the characters, mostly fail. One works, but that's spoilers.
In some ways it is shorter than it needs to be, jumping from plot point to plot point with little character or world building in between. However, this does mean it can have a familiar plot while being short enough such that the audience doesn't get bored. It doesn't try to be more than it is. While it couldn't keep an audiences interest for an entire book, as a short story it is less of an issue.
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