The Glyph Queen

Information

Status

Completed

Year

2018

Author

Flibbles

• 104. A Nightmare Machine
  Dec 6, 2019
• 103. Trust
  Dec 4, 2019
• 102b. A Mottled Egg
  Dec 2, 2019
• 102a. The Calm
  Nov 29, 2019
• 101. Head Duty
  Nov 27, 2019
• 100. Dead Man's Switch
  Nov 25, 2019
• 99. Public Support and Land Mines
  Nov 22, 2019
• 98. For the Best
  Nov 20, 2019
• 97b. "Last Wishes"
  Nov 18, 2019
• 97a. Reactions
  Nov 15, 2019
• 96b. A Right to Know
  Nov 14, 2019
• 96a. Inherited Problems
  Nov 11, 2019
• 95. Far Beyond
  Nov 9, 2019
• 94. Zero Sum
  Nov 6, 2019
• 93b. Resentment
  Nov 4, 2019
• 93a. Guiding Eyes
  Nov 2, 2019
• 92. A Top Secret Project
  Oct 30, 2019
• 91c. Evaluation: Tan
  Oct 28, 2019
• 91b. Evaluation: Winnie
  Oct 25, 2019
• 91a. Evaluation: Josephine
  Oct 23, 2019

Reviews

Community Reviews(10)

• your_sweetpeaRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  While reading The Glyph Queen, I was constantly engaged. Many fictions on this site take after light novels and Chinese webnovels in many ways, and while I enjoy both of those this story truly feels like a well-polished, published fiction in every sense I can think of.
  I took one star away from Character because I was unhappy with the treatment of a character who seemed to be a transgender woman. Other characters frequently say things like "that's a man, actually" when they are bodyswapped with a woman in the course of the story. No particular disgust is expressed, which is why I didn't take away more than one star -- it seems more like a lack of understanding on the characters' part. If nothing else I would like to see the author have more awareness of these kinds of issues in their future works.
  More information on this below, but beware that it contains relatively major spoilers for the story.
  The character mentioned is presented as the "ultimate evil" in the story, who's twisted and cares about their desires more than anything else.
  While it isn't inherently true that transgender people and other minorities can't be bad people, all too often we find it being the case in stories being told. You can see as much easily with the "queer villain" trope and it's overall quite harmful for said minorities to have little to no representation in stories other than the villain.
  It's as if the world is telling them that they can only be villains, deviants of society, when that's not the case at all.
• ZiggyTStardustRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  This is the best story I've read on Royal Road so far. I've been looking for something that really gripped me for a while now, and in The Glyph Queen I have finally found it. There wasn't a moment where I wanted to put away the book, I basically couldn't stop reading.
  From around the halfway point of the story my heart wouldn't stop razing because the story was just that tense. I had really grown to love these characters and I was worred about hteir well being.
  I wish this was a published book on amazon (or kindle unlimited), I would have glady bought it and given the author some compensation for the great work they put out.
  Truly a remarkable story
  Edit: Even after a few months this story doesn't leave me alone and I keep thinking back to it. Kinda scary actually :D
• BiofluorRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Flibbles creates & exploits a unique magic system in The Glyph Queen to flip characters back and forth between predator and prey in a roller coaster ride. The story commits to its magic rules in such a way that the power swings become believable – even though it’s magic in a sci-fi world.
  The naration braids together different perspectives to explain competing and sometimes compelling rationales for the character’s actions. While at the start the different perspectives interfere with the flow of reading, they develop into a real treat to read as the story progresses.
  Give it a whirl. You will not be disappointed.
• JazehiahRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Where do I start?
  The Glyph Queen is a sci-fi novel that primarily takes place a few years after a nuclear war. In the time since, one of the old tech companies began taking over the world. The story is told from three perspectives. The first is a girl whose life only improves after the empire takes over. The second is from someone whose life only got worse. The last is a flashback to before the bombs fell, and explains how the Glyph Queen and her empire rose to power.
  Style
  At first, the multiple perspectives is a little jarring. Each character's story takes place at a different point in time. The date stamps at the start indicate who the reader is following. It doesn't take long to get used to, and each character's perspective helps to explore a different side of the world. The author also has a tendency to lampshade apparent inconsistencies. A good portion of the flashbacks is actually dedicated to this.
  Grammar
  I don't think I've seen any glaring typos, or gramatical errors. That's pretty impressive. I'm usually the guy who leaves comments about spelling mistakes and awkward phrasing.
  Story
  The setting is not one seen very often. Six years after the bombs, and most of the world is still struggling to survive a nuclear winter. The people in power, are the people who supply the food. What now? It's hard to pin a single genre. There's slice of life, but there are also some mysteries to be unraveled as characters slowly wise up. Recent chapters (I'm on ~22) have started a school arc and a super power (called flairs) discovery arc. Most of the story is dedicated to seeking the limitations of powers. That said, this is not a superhero  story.
  Characters
  So far, all the characters all feel like real people. Even some of the ones we meet once and never see again have distinct voices and identities. Some of them seem a little aimless and lacking motivation, but they're in the minority. Since it's the apocalypse, the main goal for many is simply "to survive." How they cho
• Jean Michael MemeRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  This is one of the best books I have read in years and I read every single day. This is a story who reminds me of Games Of Thrones and a story where it is very difficult not to root for an evil person. There’s definetely good people in the story, they don’t have much agency. The story is never boring, at first it is a bit slow and you are wondering about the stakes but very good landing
• Richard DainRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  It starts off slow, but it's needed for the world building. The only negatives are the pacing (which is wholly subjective in my opinion, so doesn't deduct the score), some minor grammar issues here and there, and that some of the characters are a bit predictable in their tropes. But then again, they're tropes for a reason, people don't re-use bad ideas.
  Overal I loved my time with this and I'm waiting with excitement for the next chapter.
• Skylark (Dion Sky)Royal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  I stumbled on this story by chance, and am so glad I did. It's fantastic. It features compelling, multi-faceted, diverse and intelligent characters steering well clear of stereotypes, logical and fascinating exploration of magical powers, and fast-paced intrigue that's never dry. My favourite combination.
  There are many excellent things to say about this story, but the intelligence with which it was written really shines through. Character decisions and motivations make sense and come across as realistic, which is a tricky thing to do when dealing with complex interactions between different powers and their impact on the world and society around them. I love that this sort of thing is explored in detail, and the author doesn't shy away from addressing significant, meaningful consequences, either. When events occur, they have impact.
  There are some interesting ethical debates to be had out of this story, too, and I mean that in the best possible way. Characters have to make tough moral decisions, but the story never comes across as being preachy, and their decisions are backed by solid reasoning. Most of the characters are likeable in their own way (with one notable intentional exception) while being quite distinct from one another at the same time.
  The writing quality is not only to a professional standard, but a great professional standard. What can I say - it's fun, and it's clever. If you like smart fiction, I think you'll appreciate this one.
  I think this is my favourite story on Royal Road, and can't recommend it enough. Looking forward to more!
• ZethuronRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  So, I have been blown away by this story which was much better than what I was expecting initially, after that fine start I wasn’t expecting it to get this good and become such a page turner.
  The story takes some time to get in gear as it has to introduce all the characters and set up the world thus it may seem somewhat boring even if the premise is interesting, but once it gets started, it kicks off hard and just doenst stop at all until the very end of the story.
  The characters in this story, oh are they well written, though with a couple of exceptions that become noticeable upon reading the story, but that’s a minor issue frankly. But for the rest, they’re all amazing characters that in a way feel like they actually could be real people even with their flairs that make them unique, and even while they have a flair that makes them stand out from the average human, being able to do more, they are still human at their core, no matter how old, and they aren’t above intrigue and plotting against each other either. Like from the start you can get a fairly good grasp on what their personalities are like, and oh boy can you actually legitimately hate some of the characters and what they are doing which is another mark of good writing here.
  To bring up that point about the exceptions to the good characters, one of the 3 main viewpoint characters has like no actual characterization nor progression, and becomes more of a plot device but that’s more due to the nature of her Flair and her upbringing, too bad though that the author had to write her this way.
  At first I thought that there were some glaringly obvious issues with the setting, like post nuclear apocalypse world having relatively much infrastructure intact for what happened, but that does get explained eventually in the story this also does happen for some other things that may seem weird at first, flairs though never actually do get explained and frankly I personally prefer it that way as the story is good as it i
• ImMrMeeseeksRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  Good story all around it seems like just not fantasy enough for me, it's more sci-fi very little to no fantasy.
• craxuanRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  This novel's only sin is posting it in Royalroad. Anywhere else it would be a best seller, given the right kind of marketing.