The Silent King - A Story from Lo'Et Sha'Eroth

Information

Status

Hiatus

Year

2022

Author

NectariosBW

• Chapter 6 - Mistkeep
  Aug 3, 2022
• Chapter 5 - City of Iron
  Jul 28, 2022
• Chapter 4 - The Funeral Pyre
  Jul 27, 2022
• Chapter 3 - The Arch-Arbiter
  Jul 26, 2022
• Chapter 2 - The Warmth of Frostbite
  Jul 26, 2022
• Chapter 1 - Farewell to Silverreach
  Jul 25, 2022
• Prologue - A King's Wedding
  Jul 25, 2022

Reviews

Community Reviews(6)

• A V DalcourtRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  Story: The story follows a newly minted band of soldiers caught up in what feels like a nation-wide war. We're met with deeply political twists and turns, which makes this story not only interesting, but thought provoking as the character's diverse beliefs are challenged.
  Characters: At first, it's a bit overwhelming being introduced to so many people, but it was surprisingly easy to keep track who is who, their personalities, and their motivations. Each character is distinct from one another despite sharing similar backgrounds. It's very well done. An odd feature is that non of the characters really stand out, but that's not a bad thing because they all shine. I believe that each character will be given a moment to shine and make their mark within the story, solidifying their presence in the reader's mind.
  Style: The story is told in 3rd person, primarily from Hashim's perspective, but it's sprinkled in with alternate POV's to add a layer of political intrigue to the plot without hand-feeding us why everything is happening.
  Grammar: My grammar skills are poor, so it's really unlikely I'd pick up much of anything that would really take me out of the story.
  Very well thought out from plot to characters! I'm looking forward to more.
• DWinchesterRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  The Silent King has a real old testament feel to it, and it compares favorably to better known titles trying for the same effect like Gardens of the Moon and R. Scott Baker's Aspect Emperor series. These are both stories I loved, that tried hard to be something besides another spin on Tolkien. It's a fleshed out world that asks the question: what happens when history fades to myth, and those faded clues become different, and often adversarial cultures and religions. Answers don't seem to be coming any time soon, and when they do arrive they are sure to be almost as complicated and multifaceted as the questions themselves.
  The book starts of slowly enough from several different perspectives, but does not attempt to dump all of it's lore on you at once. Rather it takes a leisurely stroll through the lead up to war, sprinkling scheming and battles with ancient religious ceremonies and lush descriptions of the world as mysteries continue to build. The author has excellent grammar, and though I would sometimes break things up a little differently. Any choices I disagreed with while reading were stylistic rather than problems.
  Overall this book is definitely worth a read and i look forward to further exploring his world with him in future chapters.
• William M.Royal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  The first thing that came to my attention was the level of detail in the world. The story doesn't shy from presenting the scope of its stage, and the cultures which breathe life into it.
  The style is solid. It delivers information in a direct manner such that nothing feels difficult to understand, and it isn't overly simplistic. It does at times however come across as a bit impersonal, which makes it difficult to get a handle on the characters.
  There were few grammatical issues, and none amounted beyond what could have just been a typo.
  The story doesn't feel hindered by the level of detail in the world. I was expecting a slower build, but was pleasantly surprised with a good amount of action early on.
  The biggest problem I felt was that the story moves faster than the characterization. The characters didn't make much of an impression on me until at the beginning. I definitely see how the characters are coming along after a major event takes place, and I think the characterization than is handled well, but up until then, little stuck with me regarding their personality and motives, making it feel like they were just being formed rather than changed over the course of events.
• lordearthRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  Style:
  There's a lot of worldbuilding in the story, and the style supports that. The description and dialogue reflects the amount of effort and thought the author put into creating a realistic world with large scale events. It's not a super easy read as you would probably expect with this type of story, but as long as you're not expecting a casual read it's fine.
  Story:
  I really like the amount of thought put into the culture behind the characters and their behaviours. They act on their own motivations, but you can tell that it's driven by larger country-level events. It's still the early chapters so we're getting very limited scope in terms of how much we can see into the higher level events, as the only time we get a glimpse of this is during changes in POV.
  The issue that I have is the relative lack of tension/investment the reader has for the protagonist given the scale that the events are operating at. It's hard to care for a single soldier's battle when you know there's a war. It might be better for the story to not hint at the larger scale events driving the small scale events until we get further into the story, but this can be hard to do especially when the author had put so much effort into the worldbuilding.
  Grammar:
  Great grammar. I didn't spot any mistakes, and it definitely made the story smoother to read. Good work!
  Character:
  I do like the characters. As I mentioned above, they're heavily influenced by their culture and their background, making each character distinct from one another. There were a few too many characters introduced in the first chapter for me to understand who is who, but it gets much better as we get into the later chapters.
  Overall, it's an intricate story, and I could tell that the author really put a lot of thought into the world and the characters. The execution of the story has room for improvement, but it's still a great story in its own right.
• LexifRoyal Road

  ★★★★ 4.0

  Much like other stories that focuses on world, the pacing might be slow, but in my opinion it goes well with the writing style which in my view is more to classical than modern (classical being blocky, more description, not much gimmicks; while modern being fast-paced, attention grabbing through methods and having much more gimmicks. At least that's by my definition.)
  The grammar is good, at least when I was reading, the grammar wasn't what broke my immersion.
  The story and character, in my opinion is lacking, and I would suppose blame that on focusing on the world (not saying that it's bad to focus on the world, it's just something which I believe happens when a story is focusing on the world). The world moves the plot, and the plot moves the character, which flows rather nicely, but all these are still just events progressing. To me, the "why" element, as in "why should I care about the unraveling events?' is still lacking; therefore, impacts the story and the characters. I think that with more time and more writing, the writer would be able to come to a solution naturally to this.
  Considering the build up of the story, this story should end up better in the long run than in the short run. If you'd like to invest your time for what might be a good story in the long run, then pick this story up.
• mjcervanezRoyal Road

  ★★★★ 4.0

  The author had built a very interesting world that can be brought its lore more to feed the readers with such wonders and at the same time progress the story, which it did. It tells a dreadful tale of war against a powerful empire which seems to be quite an impossible challenge that makes you want to buckle your seat belt for more.
  Style: It tells in a 3rd person narrative. It puts you straight into the story’s lore while keeping the story’s progress forward. It tells the people and their unique terminologies.  I like the fact that the flow was perfect for me to be engaged and immersed within the world itself-  a job well done. This is just a nitpicky part, but I noticed that the paragraphs that I thought should be separate were merged into one another, and sometimes I got confused about who was speaking… almost at least.
  Grammar: It flows nicely, clearly, and at least understandable to the point I got hooked on every sentence that I am reading.
  Story: The story sets in a fantasy world that reminded me of somewhat a game of thrones vibes. Its storytelling also serves as a tour guide (Aside from the map shown in the author’s note, which is a brilliant idea) telling you all about its world and what is the context behind it. With the characters, it’s good to see each of their sides to make the story rich… though it could be richer.
  Character(s): Now this is the part that I want to address. I’m not going to say this is a bad thing, I want to stick the author’s words inside my mind about the world being a character itself- which is overall very good in a way,  however, despite the story’s pacing into the action and the introduction of the stakes- I felt that I still couldn’t get a grip with these characters, including the mc as well. Sure, there are a few hints of their backgrounds, especially their roles in the story, but I just thought behind those faces was something more with their complexity, mystery, and personality, that needed to be brought into the spotlight in