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xvicesx's review
See, the thing is that I respect the author. She put in the work that many people wouldn't and managed to actually finish her vision. Now time for some constructive feedback.
The problem with the work is that it's just not got anything redeeming. Isaac is briefly likeable, but the main characters are all despicable. I'm not sure Nicholas could be liked if he tried, and Muriel is the sort of woman that you'd avoid if you ever had the misfortune of being acquainted. It makes sense to have flawed characters, characters who don't necessarily understand themselves and don't always do the reasonable thing, but there was hardly anyone you could genuinely feel for - the only reason the bad people were bad people was that they were even worse than Nicholas and Muriel put together. The enemy is as important a character as the hero is, and they deserve the same kind of vivid life that the hero has, because when that is missing, it becomes difficult to portray the hero's challenges as challenges worth fighting for and the sympathy of others.
There's also a touch too much information dump. The author most certainly did her research, but the information is spoon-fed: this works like this and that works in a different way because of X,Y,Z. What our narrator forgets is that the reader must believe the world they are in. There is no need to explain why a word is used or what it means if it does not necessarily impact upon the story (especially for a Kindle version, where the reader can just look up the word). Neither is there a need to explain the social system as a separate section when it could be woven into the story. There is no need to explain that Nicholas is called by his holdings because that is the proper way - the reader should not have the opportunity to bring their world-view into the world-building.
The problem with the work is that it's just not got anything redeeming. Isaac is briefly likeable, but the main characters are all despicable. I'm not sure Nicholas could be liked if he tried, and Muriel is the sort of woman that you'd avoid if you ever had the misfortune of being acquainted. It makes sense to have flawed characters, characters who don't necessarily understand themselves and don't always do the reasonable thing, but there was hardly anyone you could genuinely feel for - the only reason the bad people were bad people was that they were even worse than Nicholas and Muriel put together. The enemy is as important a character as the hero is, and they deserve the same kind of vivid life that the hero has, because when that is missing, it becomes difficult to portray the hero's challenges as challenges worth fighting for and the sympathy of others.
There's also a touch too much information dump. The author most certainly did her research, but the information is spoon-fed: this works like this and that works in a different way because of X,Y,Z. What our narrator forgets is that the reader must believe the world they are in. There is no need to explain why a word is used or what it means if it does not necessarily impact upon the story (especially for a Kindle version, where the reader can just look up the word). Neither is there a need to explain the social system as a separate section when it could be woven into the story. There is no need to explain that Nicholas is called by his holdings because that is the proper way - the reader should not have the opportunity to bring their world-view into the world-building.
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