10/7/24 - Ace of Hearts - Everlasting Sunset sub 35, 3423 words

[Appol PhD they/he]

Hi everyone,

 

The finale to Everlasting Sunset is finally here. A huge thank you to everyone who read it, be it the whole thing or a few submissions!

 

As for this one, I honestly don't have a ton to say. I'm likely going to be rewriting it even if it reads well since I'll be changing the arcs around the individual soldiers which is a lot of the focus here. So what would be the most helpful is knowing if there's any more buildup needed to make the ending satisfying.

 

Thanks!

[ginger_reckoning]

Congratulations on finishing the first draft! That's a huge accomplishment! 

I didn't really have any LBL's, and since you said you'll be rewriting it anyway, I figured that would be okay. 

It definitely feels as if there is more to this story, like a sequel is being set up without too much of a huge cliffhanger. (At least, that's my hope haha, I would like to see these soldiers continue to develop their friendships) and it seems like there is still a lot of tension between the ministers and soldiers. That being said, it does feel like a pretty good wrap-up.

I liked the detail of A missing the simplicity of a time that was pretty objectively bad. I also thought it was wild that they didn't even have clothes and just used the exoskeletons the whole time.  I also don't see something like the big property transfer described there going smoothly. 

The comment about siblings not wanting to know each other's sex lives felt weird to me because it felt more like they were talking about crushes in a pretty innocent way

 

That's about all I had for the epilogue. Again, congrats, and good luck on the next draft!

[Silk she/her]

“…with P’s [gravestone] farther out.” So just gravestones, then, since P’s death was a minute ago and they wouldn’t have his body. I guess they’re just making gravestones for their own crew, this isn’t a larger site for all soldiers?  I’m curious about where they got the land and whether there was a fight about it, though you sort of hint at that with the comment about segregated graveyards.

“I appreciate how much effort you put into supporting G…” This line was a bit of a surprise for me, since G hasn’t really been a major character and then we skipped over the two weeks, though G did seem to be having a bit of a rough time.

P2 “…back at square one.” I would think part of the task is making a plan in case that exact thing goes wrong… but also, is Xan in charge of all the soldiers now, beyond the characters we’ve met over the course of the story?

So uh, call me a pessimist but this “property transfer” thing seems like a civil war waiting to happen…

P9 “…by looking for a soldier to be interested in.” So… did this not happen before? Don't get me wrong, I love the gay-as-default thing you've got going here, but this can't be completely new, can it? 

P11 “You didn’t warn me that you were no fun at all…” lol!

On 10/10/2024 at 2:02 PM, ginger_reckoning said:

The comment about siblings not wanting to know each other's sex lives felt weird to me because it felt more like they were talking about crushes in a pretty innocent way

Agree, though maybe that's part of the point, since these characters have so little experience in that regard.

The only other comment I have is that the epilogue feels like it hits a lot of the same emotional beats as the wrap-up in the previous chapter.

Huge congratulations on finishing this draft! 

[Mandamon he/him]

Wow--I totally dropped the ball on this one. I've been neck deep in developmental editing the past couple months. Congrats on finishing this up! I know a lot of this will change as you do edits, but I think the general story is an interesting one and once it goes through another round of edits will be an interesting read!

Looks like similar comments to the others on the attraction side of it. I think that part could easily be shifted to a second book, though.

Notes while reading:

pg 3: "ministers being in love with each other"
--I'm assuming this is like teenager crush love sort of thing since they haven't had a lot of time to know each other.

pg 5: This is a getting a bit long for an epilogue. It runs the risk of starting up new threads for the story rather than ending them.

pg 5: "most of us don’t have clothes or means of washing them.”
--Such as this. I don't think I realized this the whole book. Have they only been wearing exoskeletons?

pg 8: I think you can cut talking about the school. It's starting a whole new thing not in the rest of the book.

pg 9: the immediate pairing up is a little awkward in the amount of time given to it here. I think this also runs the risk of opening the ending too much rather than closing off the first book. It might be a good thing to put right at the beginning of the second book.