There Is No Mana In Space

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Fantasy IN SPAAAAAAACE!

Follow a group of people in a world where magic and technology has merged. A girl yearning for freedom, an awkward teenager far from home and a band of adventurers that use too many explosives in a wild adventure to understand the deepest mystery of this world. Namely, why is there no mana in space?

Chapter schedule is MON / FRI

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2022
Author: Filford

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.1/ 5.0
Followers: 351
Views: 60,745

Reviews

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Community Reviews(4)

TonyLRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I haven't had the time to read everything yet. But the first chapter was already excellent. I'll definitively try to read the rest as soon as I'll get a bit more free time.
The concept is pretty nice and I love the idea of the mana only being present on the ground and not in space. It is like a technological/magic world and I always found those interesting.
luda305Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is really good.
The setting is in an intrastellar space colonization age. Like Cowboy Bebop or The Expanse. But in a fantasy universe with a system.
As to the story, it's like the Expanse in the sense that characters get introduced in small groups and then they're individual plot lines all bangle together. For the first volume, in brief one thread is slave escape from a pirate ship (roughly) and one thread is a group of adventurers who pick up a kid isekaid from earth. The second volume introduces a new character who had her own plotline but it soon brings her into contact with the main group.
The writing is really solid. I could see picking this up in an airport to read.
EDIT: Removed parts no longer applicable.
SyndicRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
As the title says, this story is a fantasy and sci-fi mix with one of the protagonists being isekai'd (not really reincarnated - he is transported as-is, not reborn) into it.
Style: not too much to complain here. At some points the author takes a shortcut and describes what we should be feeling/thinking about a scene instead of showing it - good example for why people say you should "show, not tell". That's what the one star off is for. It very much feels like the first work of an inexperienced author who tries hard to do well, and since authors tend to get better as they write more I have high hopes that the little bumps I felt while reading will get polished out over time for future chapters.
Story: the setting is nice and fresh, not one of the often reused ones we see so often. As of chapter 22 we just got the introduction done and all the characters together so not too much can be said about the actual story yet, but the introductory arc was well-done and introduced the characters and their circumstances in a natural way. Since minor issues with style and characters will be adressed in those sections, I can give full points here.
Grammar: nothing too bad, but at times odd phrases or places where the author seems to have forgotten how he started the sentence so the end doesn't quite fit rip the reader out of the flow. Those occassions are luckily rare, but are noticeable when they occur.
Character: An odd mix here. Some of them feel natural, well-designed and real. Others would be more at home in a saturday morning cartoon mutating cabbage into giant monsters to attack cities or something. And for some that I assume won't be around for long (or appear again now that they're out of the scene) the author went "no time for a proper introduction, I'll just tell the reader what this guy is like in a short summary". Clearly the author is capable of writing good characters, and most of the main cast fall into this category, so again I have high hopes for the future of t
DarkwoodRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Just a note for clarity, the author has since updated chapter orders, which may change your experice with my criticism in this review.
The story itself is fairly decent and sets up an interesting premise for both of the main characters, even if I find Kali's story more interesting than the other. Sure the method of isekai was slightly novel but considering the setting of the story I don't see why an isekai was really necessary. The premise of a civilisation whose homeworld blew up is a pretty great one and there are surely plenty of interesting characters that could be written for it without it. Especially since the other main character is literally doing a slave revolt in space right out of the gates. One is an honestly awesome backstory and well written too whereas the other, whilst still well written, feels a bit like a wasted opportunity for a more interesting character backstory.
My main critique however is to do with the way the author has decided to pace the story and constant POV shifts to the point of absurdity. Every single chapter changes between the two settings since the main characters don't start together. Hence my complaint of whiplash. I am not saying that POV changes are a bad thing, far from it, but the author has clearly put no thought into when to put a POV change.
An example, though probably not the only way, would be to carry on with one POV for a few chapters until there is a clear break point in the story or at a cliffhanger and then change to the other POV. It is not like this would be hard to do, by chapter 8 (where I have read up to) there have already been significant break points/cliffhangers in both POV that could have been used for a much cleaner swap from one to the other. And in fairness both were used; not because they were good points to swap but because the end of the chapter had been reached and a POV swap was going to happen anyway.
As for the pacing within the chapters, all I can say is that it would be fine if only one of the