The World beyond the Veil

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

This story is deprecated

After this story was published (and a lengthy hiatus), I haverewritten the story from scratch, with both minor and major changes. I have decided to keep the first version of the story here for several reasons. Just know that this is unfinished and a "better" version of it, at least in my opinion, exists.

After witnessing a brutal massacre, Martin's life would inevitably change. He just hadn't expected exactly how much it would change. How much he would change. How different the world really was, beyond the Veil.

As Martin will learn, magic is real. As for why most inhabitants of Earth was unaware; the very presence of mundane individuals dampens magic around them. That problem, as it turns out, is pretty exclusive to Earth.

Regarding genre

I find it hard to decide exactly which genres to apply to the story. The ones I have put on the story (Contemporary, Adventure, Fantasy) are the ones I'm certain about. In addition, it arguably contains elements of Drama and Psychological, at least according to their descriptions:

Drama:Dramatic stories focus on emotional themes and interpersonal relationships. These stories feature realistic characters and their emotional development.

Psychological:Psychological stories focus on the inner action of the characters, including motives, thoughts and emotions from which plot events result. Characterization is particularly important to the story. (...)

On the topic of Gender Bending

There is a gender flip fairly early in the story (Male to female, chapter 7). This is an important aspect of the story that I want to explore with respect. If the very idea of gender-bending bothers you, please feel free to ignore this story.

As a result, the story has a Male Lead up to chapter 7, and a Female Lead afterward.

Release schedule

I post a chapter every Thursday at 20.00 (8 PM) CET. I may occasionally release two chapters at the same time if they're particularly short.

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2017
Author: Ayeba

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.2/ 5.0
Views: 1,779

Chapters(48 total)

Reviews

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

Community Reviews(3)

SusurrusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Stumbled across this story yesterday and thought I'd give it a go.
Am not normally into gender bending stories but this is done superbly. The detail actually helps you feel for the poor guy.
Keep up the great work. And Moooooore please
slatsauRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
As a 30's Male this is the first genderbending story I have read that takes the genderbending part very seriously. Martin did not harbour any desire to become a woman, let alone a teenaged girl. Now he has to deal with periods, crazy teenage hormones, different emotions as well as being in a semi-dangerous and somewhat exciting situation.
The latest Arc looks like a bit of a magic school element which I'm really excited about. Thoroughly enjoying this book, the writing, grammer and word choices are excellent. The characters are well done, I feel like Martin is an older man. I feel like Caroline/Britney are older women. The 'bad guys' are a bit 2D villainy but hardly a complaint, and we will probably get more depth to them as the plot progresses.
Thankyou for your creative efforts, please keep writing your great sotry!
luda305Royal Road
★★★★ 3.5
The technical skill on a small and medium scale is very, very high. The first chapter is probably one of the strongest I've read on Royal Road full stop, and would make a very good beginning for a published work. The characters are deep and interesting, with the protagonist evolving in very interesting ways.
Besides the story going on permanent hiatus, there are two main concerns that warrant demerits.
First, especially in the early chapters when the protagonist is being pursued, there are several instances where various characters seem to know information that they shouldn't know or plausibly would not know. The most obvious of these is Martin's absolute conviction that he was both somehow observed leaving the premises and that he would be hunted to the death. Now that is what's happening, but there's no reason for him to know that.
Second, the worldbuilding has consistency issues. While the author has done an interesting job of subverting or avoiding various fantasy tropes, the choices that the author has made don't appear to have fully meshed together. As a result, some action or decision is made by a character based on some part of the worldbuilding, but it seems to me rather obviously that there were alternative, potentially superior actions or decisions to make. Missing those alternatives seemed less like a characterization issue and more of certain worldbuilding choices not being thought out fully.
That said, neither of the two stated flaws would be enough to not recommend the story. That the story went on hiatus so early (the plot hasn't progressed so far) means that the story really is quite a stub. Actually, given the lenghty pre-school arc in the first Harry Potter book, a good analogy would be if you had to stop reading the first Harry Potter book after the first day of class. Caveat lector.