The Great Continent
Community Rating
Description
Death and decay. The smell was the first thing Florian noticed when he came to. He slowly tried opening his eyes, callings of birds echoing in his head. When he finally managed to open his eyes he could make out dark silhouettes circling above him in the sky and realized he was lying on his back.
Where was he?
Countless images suddenly overwhelmed his mind and he let out a horrifying scream when he was simultaneously struck by excruciating pain. Out of reflex, he pressed his fingers into his skull to ease his suffering, almost piercing the skin in the process. Images of raging fires and the howling of people flashed before his eyes. Then it stopped. The pain disappeared instantly and Florian couldn’t help but feel confused.
What was that? And then it hit him,whowashe?
He looked into his mind’s eye but found nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Information
- Status
- Hiatus
- Year
- 2021
- Author
- devapanda
Royal Road Stats
- Rating
- 4.5/ 5.0
- Followers
- 3
- Views
- 1,031
Chapters(3 total)
Reviews
No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!
Community Reviews(1)
- L.R. KnightRoyal Road★★★★ 3.5Just as a reference point; three stars is average, not an indictment.
Devanpanda's beginning is strong. It seems to be an isekai story, with a man named Florian "waking up" in the injured body of a Spartalian soldier on a gory battlefield. Crows are feasting on a heap of bodies, as well as some other nasty creatures. Fairly quickly, he meets Baudric, a helpful, but slightly mysterious person who takes Florian in.
Devanpanda's dialogue is fairly good, though it is spaced out by 'crunchy' descriptions of what the characters are doing between many, or most, lines of spoke dialogue. Stylistically, I think this shows that Devanpanda has a director's eye, but it does read a bit clunky. Word choices are sometimes awkward or unnatrual, I think because the author is trying to keep it fresh. Personally, I would probably trim the exposition down and let the reader's imagination take over, but this is a subjective style critique, and others may read this much differently than I did.
Of major typos or grammatical issues, I saw nothing worth remarking on. A few dropped points of punctuation, sometimes around dialogue lines. Devanpanda's writing, mechanically, is sound and will not get in the way of you experiencing the story.
There are other areas where the language is choppy or clunky, or the vision seems to contradict itself. In the first chapter, for instance, the crows are feasting on innards and eyes, but then they're merely flapping in circles above the mound of bodies. I think with revision, these sorts of internal contradicitons could be teased out for a moody, bewildering intro to a horrorish fantasy short that doesn't shy away from the ugliness of war.
I don't see anything here that can't be improved on and tied up over time, which is a good thing! I'll be back to read more as it is posted.