The Swords of August

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

On the planet of August, you either fight, or you die. Corporal Edward Riley leads a four-man Marine Fireteam. The four of them find themselves stranded on the surface of August, a planet where magic reigns supreme and monsters terrorise those without The Gift. The Terran's technology, however, is a game changer, and the Augustians covet this new game-changing power in their midst. Forced to abandon ship, Edward leads his team as they fight through insurmountable odds to find their way back to Terran-controlled space, before they die forsaken and far, far from home.A first draft of a first novel, so feel free to give me feedback.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2024
Author: AtavisticTexas

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 103
Views: 32,517

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(9)

NotKonoRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
For being 11 pages and part of one chapter of many more to come hopefully, I could see myself buying this from the Big W shelf. I'm quite a fan of the various uses of Sci-fi elements used within his story. All i feel like the chapter needs is more pages in my opinion
Faedin V.Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Alright, so this story? Pretty solid.
First off, the writing style is straightforward and very gripping. You don’t get lost in long-winded descriptions or unnecessary tangents; it just throws you right into the action and keeps the tension high.
The author does a great job with the pacing, too—there's a nice balance between moments of high adrenaline and calmer sequences where you get to know the characters a bit better. That said, the story is definitely action-heavy, so if that’s your thing, you’re in for a good ride.
Speaking of characters, they feel pretty human, even when they’re dealing with space battles and crazy shit like potential dirty bombs and ghost-like enemies. The interactions between the Marines are believable and sometimes funny, adding a nice layer of realism. Oh, and I really liked the way the banter and camaraderie between the team felt genuine, like conversations you'd actually hear from real people in high-stress situations.
Grammar and language? Pretty clean. I didn’t spot any glaring errors, and the writing was easy to follow. The military lingo and world-building details were solid, though sometimes I felt like I needed a bit more context to fully grasp the universe’s setup. The main plot is engaging, but there are a lot of mysteries set up early on. I’m definitely curious to see if and how they get resolved.
Overall, this feels like a mix of The Expanse and military sci-fi classics, but with a modern twist. If you’re into space combat, squad dynamics, and a sense of mystery in a hostile universe, it’s worth checking out.
ic3rav3nRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Really looking forward to where this is going. Mil Sci-Fi is one of my fav genres and the author is not mucking about. Ship is under attack and the power armor is on, chapter1 .. nice. There are some cool ideas here too, verification via DNA for example, usually the suit will inject stims.. not take samples.. good way to know who you are talking too.
LiarbytradeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Let's take this by the numbers...
Style: in terms of style, I think tSoA has a lot of promise. There are a few spots here and there where the word choice becomes a little repetitive or overelaborate, but none of it's really a deal breaker for me, and the latter's a matter of taste. Is it to mine? No, but that doesn't mean it won't appeal to anyone, and I could see myself getting used to it after a couple dozen chapters.
Story:  the tl;dr is that it works. There's a story. Our characters are smoothly introduced, we're presented with the initial conflict and everything is paced at approximately the right speed. I think I might enjoy a little more elaboration on the fight scenes, but that's a personal preference - not an actual flaw. As for the fine details, it's still the early days, so it's hard to get too granular. With that being said, I think most people will enjoy it based upon their personal preference because from a technical standpoint it's all competently done.
Grammar: the grammar's pretty good for royalroad. There's a couple of misplaced punctuation marks, and a few we don't need, but nothing interferes with the book's readability. Not really. If tSoA maintains this level of quality going forward, I think I'd be willing to bump my score up to a five. As it is, it's a four and a half. Great, but not amazing
Characters:  I actually really like the characters from a design perspective. We're introduced to about half a dozen extremely quickly, yet it's still easy to differentiate between them, even though they're wearing identity-concealing armor. That's a pretty impressive trick. As for the dialogue, most of it is perfectly serviceable. Every once in a while, you'll get a line where someone mindlessly repeats what's going on (or what another character has said,) but I can't actually bring myself to say it's inauthentic. Sometimes people make dumb comments. It is what it is.
Overall:  I kind of like it. I've certainly stuck with books that
A. StargazerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This is part of a review swap and the author doesn’t want me to pull my punches so I’m going to come out swinging.
this novel has 2 flaws that I see. The biggest issue is that the characters, at present, are entirely military stock characters and a mc self insert.
the second issue is some minor issues with grammar and formatting (walls of text) which detracts slightly from the reading experience.
nothing too serious, but those are my thoughts and I’m being honest.
but this is me being hyper critical at the authors request. For a regular review I would mark this 5 stars and rave about it
what the story has going for it is…
everything else.
the style is action packed and intense. The story is hard to predict, which for me is a strong indication of quality. The grammar is not perfect but good enough
basically,
it’s a great story and I really enjoyed it. The opening provides just a little background before throwing you right into the action. Then the action doesn’t stop. I was disappointed when I ran out of story to read.
keep up the great work! Hoping chap 4 comes out soon.
rKlehmRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Style
The militaristic style is exceptionally well done, I'm a big fan of this genre, and the author definitely knows how to craft it! I also think the use of first-person perspective is a great choice for this kind of story. It brings to mind some fantastic published works like Scalzi's Old Man's War or Haldeman's The Forever War, which is high praise!
My only reason for the 4.5-star rating, despite loving most of the style, is that there are moments where the prose becomes a bit too dense, especially in the exposition-heavy sections. For example, the sizable info dump at the beginning or some of the textwalls in the middle of action scenes slow the pacing down.
Additionally, while I really enjoyed the opening battle, I felt it dragged on just a bit too long. It might benefit from some tightening in a future revision, which could create more space for character development and smoother worldbuilding.
Story
The worldbuilding is clearly rich and detailed, but it can feel overwhelming to absorb so much new information while a tense situation is unfolding, especially in just five chapters (20k words). If the worldbuilding were more streamlined and the author allowed more time for us to absorb the details, the story score could easily become a solid 5-star.
Character
Character development is one of the strengths of the narrative, especially with the protagonist and their immediate team. The relationships between characters, such as the camaraderie and banter among the Marines, add a lot of depth and authenticity to their interactions.
As is often the case in first-person narratives, the MC is more developed than the supporting characters. However, since there are only five chapters at the time of this review, I’m hopeful that the rest of the crew will be further fleshed out in the chapters to come.
Grammar
The grammar is pretty good, I didn't noticed any mistakes.
Overall
It is a greate read! I'm already following and ansious to read the rest.
AsmodemusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
The author has a way with words that keeps you interested throughout. Sentence structure is great, I've not once had a moment where I thought it was getting dull or boring at all. The dialogue flows naturally, he doesn't use superfluous words and thus keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Amazing work, you should be very happy with your early chapters! When I get the chance, I'll be reading the rest, keep going. I'm looking forward to reading it all!
Ethan Y CottonRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Here we have a sci-fi military ‘action’ story in space. The setting is pretty interesting in deep space beyond the reach of any assistance WHEN things go wrong. But the action tag feels unwarranted. I will talk about it in the rating breakdown:
style: right in the beginning we are thrown into an emergency situation and our squad gears up! And… nothing happens… they eventually make contact and fight in chapter 3 but all the build up to the fight is incredibly detailed, and the fight itself is a couple of paragraphs talking about how they did it, not actually being there with the squad in the firefights.
then there are the contradictions. At one point the MC says that ship based battle is very different than land battle because of the nature of ships and vacuums and decompression. So you get to anticipating an interesting ship battle. Then they talk about how they do all of those things you can’t do in ship battles, blasting doors (even using extra charges because bigger booms are better) using grenades because it is easier that way… it was rather disappointing. Another contradiction that bothered me was the escape pod, they are made to run checks on the pod to ensure that it will function, even though they have a serious threat going on. Then they talk about how this serious threat is really quite serious and deadly, so you definitely need to leave now, but then they check the pod anyway. And after all that… well I won’t spoil it but contradictions aplenty.
part of the buildup to the battle that didn’t happen and some of the aftermath had concepts or phrases that were repeated several times to the point of being obtrusive, though that was a bit overshadowed by the other issues.
story: I stopped at chapter 7 so I cannot say how much it changes after that, but the story does have some interesting points. There is some potential there to see what sort of shady backstabbing has gone down. As well as some paranormal type things as well. The ingredients for an interesting
Shadows of fantasyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
The book is a great one for people who love outer-space, sci-fi, a bit of anticipation and a military MC. A great story so far, though i would say the first chapter did have a lot of descriptions where it could’ve just gotten to the story, but maybe thats just me eager for plot. Anyways, overall its a great story that i would recommend anyone to read if they wanted a great, entertaining story with, from what i can tell, a bit of mystery as well.