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A review by naleagdeco
The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters by Nick Smith
Did not finish book.
One of those books where the best reviews are the articles about it, I suspect. Anyone who hasn't read articles about this book should really do so.
I'm not going to rehash the premise (sonic? fanfic-esque neuro-atypical author fantasy proxy saves the world which runs in JRPG physics) or the method (the book transcends text to actually go into the physics and mechanisms of the world in the most literal of ways) more than I have to; while it's not a enjoyable book in a conventional fiction sense (which is the _point_, the fascinating with this book is that it's its outsider art by a non-writer in the traditional sense, a particular personality who has conveyed his values into a complete work with integrity to his vision and values. And I don't mean this as a dog-whistle for some kind of unsavoury content: this book is a perfectly viable young adult fantasy novel with good people winning over villains, albeit one written by someone who is a particular kind of neuro-atypical and optimized for that particular kind of neuro-atypical.
And in that sense, the book fulfills what it sets out to do. It's not one I can personally connect with, but if someone said they really connected with it on their mental wavelength, I'd believe them, and I'd be glad this book existed for them.
I'm not going to rehash the premise (sonic? fanfic-esque neuro-atypical author fantasy proxy saves the world which runs in JRPG physics) or the method (the book transcends text to actually go into the physics and mechanisms of the world in the most literal of ways) more than I have to; while it's not a enjoyable book in a conventional fiction sense (which is the _point_, the fascinating with this book is that it's its outsider art by a non-writer in the traditional sense, a particular personality who has conveyed his values into a complete work with integrity to his vision and values. And I don't mean this as a dog-whistle for some kind of unsavoury content: this book is a perfectly viable young adult fantasy novel with good people winning over villains, albeit one written by someone who is a particular kind of neuro-atypical and optimized for that particular kind of neuro-atypical.
And in that sense, the book fulfills what it sets out to do. It's not one I can personally connect with, but if someone said they really connected with it on their mental wavelength, I'd believe them, and I'd be glad this book existed for them.