Appol PhD

Agreed. Looks like @Mandamon and I focused on two different plots, and both of us felt like we were missing something when the focus shifted to the other one(s). I think switching pronouns could work, but it could certainly be quite confusing if not handled carefully. And if you do go down this route I think it needs to be clear that J is using multiple/all pronouns. Because J expressed disdain at picking pronouns, I've been trying not to use pronouns (or at least third person whatever pronouns) when referring to J at all. Okay now I feel bad for not catching this because while I'm not a mycologist per se, fungi are relevant to what I'm studying. No pressure but if you're going to do some educating on what's up with the fungi here, I'd appreciate listening in.

Let's see what we have here... Pg 1. -For me, the first paragraph is teetering on the balance between the narrator sounding authentically young and the text repeating itself to the point of taking me out of the story. I didn't have a huge problem with it necessarily but it did catch my eye as something to look out for, though I guess I'm not the intended audience. -W glares... At J? Not entirely clear to me. -"Dr. Mom" is great Pg 2 -Was A here the whole time? I'm now a bit disoriented -A reading the journal is kinda a jerk move imo, and despite J's comment it doesn't feel like the story gives enough weight the invasion of privacy here (unless there's some history between the two that makes this okay). Or unless it's just J who doesn't get it and is stuck in a toxic situation here. Pg 3 -The internality after J says yes isn't necessary imo. All of the info is already there because we can see J is infatuated with A. Pg 5 -Not sure if I should be taking the line about being fed to a tree seriously. It just seems so ridiculous by my (admittedly narrow) preconceived notions, and the characters make no attempt to expand on it or give me context. If we are supposed to take it seriously, I think some sort of description of the "tree" in question is necessary. -We know they're in trouble of getting caught, but who will be doing the catching? Because this is SFF I think we need a bit more background about how this is all set up instead of being able to assume it's school administrators/teachers. Pg 6 -A referring to J (I think?) as he caught me off guard. Is J okay with that? We know J doesn't want to pick a pronoun; does that mean J is okay with all pronouns? -Still don't know if I should be trusting the tree thing or not. L talks about it so matter of factly and not like someone living in constant terror of being sacrificed. Though maybe that's because I'm not getting a great read on L's personality overall. Pg 7 -Pretty large tone shift here. Makes sense in character but not sure how I feel about it in the narrative sense. -Honestly I'm more on board for the J has a crush on A conflict than the mom is in danger conflict. I didn't get the impression I was supposed to focus on/care about the mom before now. Pg 8 -to be blunt the life-and-death stuff isn't hitting me as hard as I think it's supposed to. I'm here for J's tone and the relationship with A, which was the hook I latched onto. Pg 9 -There's definitely going to be another surprise inspection now that they've said there won't be one -Should I be taking W seriously too? Seemed more like an annoying rival in the opening pages but I guess he could be more of a bully figure. He hasn't exerted power over J in a bullying type of way so I haven't really given him much thought in that regard. Pg 10 -I'm getting way too excited about the prospect of these people kissing for someone who's aro -"literally swoon" and "exploring their skin" don't do it for me, sorry -mint and chocolate are good descriptors here Pg 12 -Would they really get a warning for making out? I think I need to know more about the cultural norms here. -Oh no J's going to go for the fight I can feel it -okay nvm false alarm (J standing up to W does work well for the story) Pg 14 -I simultaneously feel like I don't have enough info on the culture about this tree and that I don't care about it as much as J's and A's character relationship -The spores thing is cooler than some lame tree (I study plants so I think I can make that joke without offending any botanists around), but it really feels like its own story to me. Or at least not the story I wanted from the hook. Pg 15 -Tense change at bottom Pg 16 -Really like J's imagination going off here Overall: I was engaged throughout. The length the story is working with here is tricky, since it definitely feels more involved than most short stories but has to wrap up more quickly than a novella, but I guess that's a good length for many SFF short story ideas. As mentioned in the LBLs, I was more engaged with J's romantic life than L's existence and the mom potentially being in trouble. That's because the initial hook we get is about J's feelings for L, and that becomes the conflict due to the context of teen romance being awkward and difficult even though the story doesn't start off with romantic tropes necessarily. So that becomes the part I focus on, and I don't really want to deviate from it. I also think J's relationship with A is more fleshed out than with L or the mom, which is another reason why I gravitated towards that. Another aspect is that the coolest aspects of the SFF universe such as the spores are introduced 4k words in when it's really difficult to establish a new conflict in a short story. Couple more things I'll say. The initial setup of the SFF world is stronger imo since it comes before we can get preconceived notions of this being on Earth. Also, while last time people said they really liked J's voice, I think it's better here since it's more focused on the plot and less repetitive (with potential improvements outlined in the LBLs). Good luck with the rest of the story and in revision!

My interpretation was that the cougar bowing reminded her to bow, but I don't think this was actually spelled out. This wasn't something I focused on, but since it's brought up I do agree. Hmm reading over everyone else's commends and looks like I'm in the minority for thinking this chapter needs a lot of work. I'm guessing that means I'm reading the story for something different than everyone else is right now. My best guess is that the motion in Ir that other people are seeing and I'm missing is the lasting consequences her conversation with S has on the larger family dynamic, while I was focused on how she was acting within the political system. For people like me, I think being more explicit (though cautiously so as to not be heavy-handed) about how Ir's and S's dynamics here connect to Ir's motivations and family could point me in the right direction as to what I should be focusing on here. ...And I do still think she should be making her own plans instead of throwing her lot in with BK but I guess I have to recognize that I'm just one voice out of many here.

You know why don't I try out that whole LBL thing for once? Pg 1 -If Ir is convinced that S is going to be executed when she was captured, why side with the BK so wholly? Pg 2 -Still the same question. If the resistance losing the fight is enough to make her give up all hope, why side against them completely? Pg 3-4 -BK's actions make sense here. I think this is consistent with my read on him: wants to be compassionate when he can, but puts order above all else. Pg 6-7 -What is this scene trying to accomplish? Right now I care a lot more about Ir talking with S than knowing the details of how she gets to the prison. Pg 8 -All caps and exclamation marks has the opposite effect of what I think the intention is. To me, it says that the story can't express its own emotions and tries to force it with punctuation instead of language. Pg 9 -At the risk of sounding hypocritical as an American given my country's situation, why and how were the resistance ever in a position to win? The guards should be better armed and better fortified than the resistance, even if they're outnumbered. Resistance narratives are great but there needs to be something spurring them on against seemingly impossible odds. Or it should be clear that BK's rule is already on the brink of collapse, which isn't the impression I was getting. -Bottom of the page, same comment about exclamation marks. My suggestion is to rewrite everything without exclamation marks, seeing if you can find specific words that convey harshness/conviction/whatever you're going for instead, just to get in the habit of looking for alternatives when you think you need an exclamation mark. Pg 10 -What did this conversation actually accomplish? It's plenty realistic for the characters to butt heads and not get anywhere but scenes are expected to move the narrative forward or be summarized instead. Overall: As with many chapters, I think BK here is the strongest character. He's the only one really advancing the plot by being forced to make difficult choices. For S and Ir, the way they're going to act is pretty obvious. And while this may be odd to say given the tension of the situation, the fact that they're both sticking to their guns makes it feel like their characters aren't being pushed. There are ways for the sisters' stubbornness to lead to development in other ways, such as if Ir realizing that S will choose death convinces her to stand against the leadership, but we don't see any signs of that (also that idea of mine is not particularly good since it would make Ir seem really wishy-washy; I was just throwing it out as an example). To frame it another way, one common framework for assessing chapters is asking "what changed from start to finish?" Here, it's the fact that S is going to choose death, which is entirely the work of BK since we know how S will act and Ir isn't able to change her mind at all. Not that she should be able to change S' mind easily, which means that the story has reached a bit of a tight spot. Personally, I think the story should stick to its guns. BK makes sense and S makes sense here. Ir couldn't persuade S to stop before, and she shouldn't be able to now. But something should change for Ir here. Her sister's about to be executed, and she needs to come up with a plan for preventing this from happening. To do so, she needs to navigate both S' stubbornness and assess how much she can get away with bending BK's rules. Ir is the only major character who has the name magic power, and is the only major character with real personal connections on both sides of the conflict here. Despite this, she's leveraged neither attribute to get what she wants, and has mostly been working for BK's side with no plans or ambitions of her own. If she's going to be the real protagonist of this story, I don't think that's going to cut it. I think the story is really on the verge of something great here. Hopefully this helps!

Okay so yeah the first couple of pages are very helpful for grounding us in the scene. I mean, I guess all things considered it's actually a good sign that the chapter reads so weirdly without the first couple of pages because that means they're necessary. I still feel the same way about the tear having room for a louder personality. Only larger comments here are that I'd avoid using slavery vocabulary and calling people "it" unless you have a really good reason to. Even removing the social aspect, slavery can evoke any number of connotations based on historical context (slavery in the colonial Americas was quite different from slavery in the Ottoman Empire, for example), so without more information it's not a super useful descriptor imo. But hey plenty of SFF books get away with it so what do I know. not sure about the first point, but for the second I'd think tears would stick in globs attached to skin/eyes from surface tension.

Okay that makes me feel better about being confused. Normally I have to read through submissions pretty efficiently because grad student life, so this time I was like "man I must have missed a lot of stuff from the last chapters."

In terms of narrative structure, I thought these chapters were stronger than the previous ones. In particular, in chapter 3 we get what looks to me like the inciting incident with E revealing that the emperor is dead and everyone not taking it super well. For me, this is where it feels like the setup ends and the real motion of the story begins, because it looks like the book's going to be about this rebel group dealing with the fallout of their actions on the various planets that are represented. Because of this, I didn't feel like it got too info-dumpy after that point because I knew what the point was and the story was sticking with it. I thought chapter 4 flowed well because of this; the actions of chapter 3 inform the within-group conflict of chapter 4. This made me wonder if the first couple of chapters are even necessary. Killing the emperor seems like a flashy opening but so far the story has more to do with this group trying to deal with the aftermath of their revolution, so strange as it is to say the emperor himself isn't really relevant. That is, unless his cryptic words in the first chapters are going to be pivotal, in which case they should be the main focus of those chapters. Agreed with the others that I think we need to know a bit more about motivations, especially in a plot that focuses heavily on politics. Though, this can and probably should include some characters who intentionally hide their motivations, and other characters who try to figure those motivations out. Especially within the rebel group. Also, I second not really understanding E's role as figurehead. Is she supposed to appear as the new emperor? If so, why is everyone mad at her for doing so? If not, why did she think that was a good idea? I assumed she was more of a PR person for the rebels but I get the feeling that my earlier reading of that was off. One last minor note is that especially because the chapter started in dialogue, I was a bit disoriented as to where we were and what was going on at the start and could have used a bit more scene-setting. And the sassy orb thing could probably be played up even more, honestly. Objects need to have an extra-loud personality to stand out and have more leeway to be extra since we don't always expect human subtlety from them.

Oh yeah I want to reassure you but that's definitely going to happen. Best of luck navigating that if/when it happens. Going to echo what everyone else said about this being impactful. This is one of the cases where Ir's focus on family throughout the larger narrative really pays off. So as much as we said that many of the family scenes in earlier chapters lacked real motion, they're key for moments like this to have full impact. I want to make sure the story keeps track of that in revisions. I do hope the family scenes get integrated into the main plot, but cutting them will expose different holes in the story. Like San and Par being so sweet and precious made me much sadder about their dad dying. Though I'm still not sure how the whole spy crystal plot fits into this... but maybe that's a conversation for another day. Speaking of earlier chapters, while I think this chapter does its best based on the current setup I think there's still room for improvement in terms of Ir's proactivity. In my mind, her charging in blindly and even admitting that she's an idiot for doing so feels like a band-aid solution to her really having no role in this conflict until very recently. She doesn't have a plan, and she's just sort of hoping that if she sides with BK that things will turn out well. It's a step up because she's proactively choosing a side, but I still don't feel like she's carving her own path like the best protagonists do. She has a unique power here and I think she could try to flex it more. Her saying that BK can only go for nonlethal attacks based on her powers is a good start to this, and I want to see her flex that muscle more. I think much of this needs to be done in buildup during previous chapters because really Ir doesn't seem to be leveraging her skills much at all, as a bargaining chip or otherwise, to get what she wants. That being said, there are certainly other ways for her to be more proactive, but leveraging her special powers seems like the natural place to start for me.

Agreed with the above on many fronts. Smooth read overall. Didn't get the symbolism with the peonies but honestly I don't think I needed to. I'm more interested in the large-scale character dynamics. If symbols play a role in that then fine but I don't see them as the end all be all. Which leads into my point about the main thing I was missing from this story being details of her mundane life. There's something compelling about an old lady living alone (?) who ends up chatting with aliens (real or imagined) as a way of dealing with the isolation and loneliness (which hits different during the pandemic, I must say). If that's the dynamic the story wants to focus on, I think we need more about the loneliness in her mundane life, and how aliens bridge that gap to the point of her wanting to leave with them. Right now the decision seems sudden to me, but if the story is explicit about there being nothing for her on Earth then it makes more sense. This is all assuming the dynamic I've identified is one the story wants me to be focusing on. If not, I need a bit more guidance on what I should have been looking at instead.

Answering your questions: Combat: Good news is I do think it's mostly clear what's going on. Less good news is that I didn't fully get the "brutal" vibe that the story was after. For me, a lot of how a fight comes off has to do with the framing and atmosphere. The actual motions of battle usually aren't that interesting since they feel more like a series of actions than a story. If the battles want to be gritty, I think that needs to start with the tone and non-combat details (not gore, necessarily, but moments that convey something like grit). Bad news is those kinds of fights aren't the ones I write or read much of, so I don't really know how to build that kind of atmosphere. One more observation is that the story leans a lot on adverbs in the fight scenes. These are usually places where the story recognizes that it needs something more and uses an adverb as a band-aid solution when it really needs more characterization/atmosphere setting/imagery ect. Maybe try removing the adverbs, seeing what's missing, and trying to explore what can fill that hole. Dialogue: I think the dialogue is serviceable with potential for improvement. First note is to watch for is when dialogue is primarily expository (such as listing titles). This will almost always fall flat and if it needs to be told to us outright getting it internally is often better (though this should be limited too). Second point: you know how I said the fight scenes try to band-aid holes with adverbs? The dialogue does that with exclamation points. If a line needs the extra oomph of an exclamation point, that (usually) means the words themselves aren't strong enough. It might help to try forcing characters to convey conviction using word choice alone and avoiding all exclamation points until you feel comfortable doing so. This sort of ties into my third point. My general rule for dialogue is that if I can imagine any other character in the story saying the same line in same situation as the character speaking, it's not specific enough. Each line should feel like it comes from the character first and conveys info second. It's a lofty goal and one that I certainly don't always achieve, but it keeps me pointed in the right direction. Sword: I'm going to be blunt here and say that I didn't notice them all too much. Have you read Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson (given that you're on these forums I figure it's a decent chance)? One aspect of that book is that the blade whose name I'm forgetting has a loud personality with how they want to kill evil, much more so than most of the human characters. The same is true for the ship from Skyward that I'm also forgetting the name of. An object come to life often needs to have a larger personality to stand out since they can't rely on the subtlety of human cues. Plus if they're not super weird you could probably get the same effect with a human companion instead, so living objects often gravitate towards the wacky. You'll have to decide if this conflicts too much with the brutality you want to have for the fight scenes. Oh, and calling the blade an "it" makes me less interested in them as an entity since the story isn't gracing them with personhood status. General comments: This was my response as well, harsh as it might seem. For me, this is usually a sign that I don't know enough about the character's motivations and the history that shapes those motivations. We're here to read a story about a person, not watch blades go swinging everywhere. Well, at least I am. So what is C after? What does he really want? What's precious to him that could be taken away? And how did he get there? We don't need all the answers in the first couple of chapters, but I think we do need hints. I think we get more about A than we do about him. Yeah I noticed this too. Didn't make me put the story down or anything but could use a clean-up. Best of luck revising and moving forward with the story!

Aw, I wouldn't agree with that. And even if I did, what I'm trying to talk about is different from stakes, at least the way I rationalize it. It's less "there's no action here" and more "we were talking about stumbling on your employer stealing a crystal and now we're dealing with a revolution--what's the connection here?" Agreed that this is a great idea, though I'm sure there are other good ways for the story to go here if that's not the route you want to take.

Wow everyone has such in-depth analyses and I feel like I don't have too much to say, though a lot of that is because I really liked most of this. I did feel like I got a much better understanding of the world than before. Being in the dark didn't really bother me before, though now I feel like I'm more prepared to go into the main story. One thing I'll say is that I feel fairly comfortable with the concepts presented about the planet N, including the seeds, but some of the interplanetary stuff didn't stick as well. I don't think it needs to right now but if the concepts mentioned at the space station are going to be key I'll still need to be eased into them. What I liked the most about this prologue is that we get a clear emotional centering of N's desire to return home. Whenever N's doing something to try and achieve her goal of landing, such as listening to her uncle talk about their religion, I'm grounded in a clear enough emotional plot that the story's allowed to slip in worldbuilding info without it being too confusing/dense to me. If I had to identify one area I wasn't as certain about, it was the plot about the seeds. Right now it feels like we have some scenes that focus on the seeds and some that focus on N's desire to go home, with the two interacting in some capacity like when the uncle is talking about the religion and N finds a way to ask about the history of plant breeding (super cool, by the way). For me, N's emotional plot about wanting to return home is the more interesting focus here, and whenever we're only focused on the seeds like at the beginning I wasn't as engaged (because I studied plants in undergrad I found myself getting interested in the plants themselves, but not in a way that drew me into the story if that makes any sense). This also goes for the space station scene, where I was more interested in N being an outsider and having to keep her hands in her pockets than her ideas for the seeds when talking with A. The story rationalizes the seeds as being important since they allow N and Y to have jobs and maintain an income, which is fine as a background detail and important in their lives on a practical level but isn't sufficient as a narrative device to me. N doesn't seem to be primarily motivated by work/profit, so I don't get a good sense of stakes for what happens if she loses money from the seeds not doing well. My first thought is that the seeds could be connected more directly to her desire to return home, either through some emotional value N places in the seeds that represent home or more practical circumstances that prevent her from getting home if the seeds fail and she and Y are out of jobs, though I'm sure there are other ways to raise stakes here. I think it also depends on what the larger story wants to do with the seeds. If they're not going to be important in the main plot, I don't think we need nearly as much as we get about them here. If they are important, I think there are ways to more directly weave them into N's emotional plot. This didn't bother me as much but I certainly wouldn't say no to more specificity about what home means to her and why it's so appealing. I was reading the prologue for N alone really so this didn't really bother me. If I felt like the focus was supposed to be on the larger world of the story and interconnected planetary systems then I'd want to know more about this, but if it's just supposed to be about N's experience (which is how I'm currently reading it) then it works for me as is. One last comment is that I think the character moment at the end is quite strong, but only if the story follows up on it by focusing on the changing society of the planet moving forward.

It's always hard for me to critique prologues because they rarely hook me but they also rarely turn me off a book but I'll do my best. In this chapter, I was most interested in I as the sentient ship lady. Talking through the flower is also a great image, but I's powers and personality drew me in. Does every ship have something/someone like her? I was wondering how invested to get in case she only shows up in the prologue and isn't a feature of the larger world. If I had to identify one area for improvement, I'd say how the chapter closes out. I'm not sure if this is a one-line change or if more setup work needs to be done in the background, but the "I've failed her" is too general to key me into a specific character dynamic to be excited about. What does failing her mean for him and for the world? What makes this tricky is that our unconscious friend here isn't able to articulate all of this, but I still think it's necessary for the story to delve into more specifics here to get a bigger oomph. Whether that comes in a different line or something else happening that reinforces the danger depends on what the story wants to do with that dynamic. One question I had: We know that W doesn't recognize the tech, but does he recognize the culture the young man is from (either from appearance or uniform or something else)? I feel like this reads different if it's someone close to home having this secret giant mech vs someone from a faraway land he's not fully aware of. Wish I had more comments but like I said most prologues don't evoke much in me positive or negative. Best of luck with this story going forward!

One of the changes that helped me out a lot here are solidifying Et's place in the group and establishing something that sets her apart as a pacifist at heart in the middle of a revolutionary group. That idea has a bunch of potential and that's one of the major hooks for me. I'm expecting to see this idea develop and lead to more clashes with the rest of the gang in the future. I also liked knowing that she was the second choice. This is especially helpful since we get some "chosen one" vibes since she's the only one who can touch the Tear and the emperor seems to know quite a bit about her. A chosen one who was never supposed to be chosen is another dynamic that I really like, and is the other main hook that I'm reading the story for at this point. I found the meeting to be a bit slow as well, and for me it's because it doesn't really advance the two dynamics above that I took personal interest in. The end of an early chapter like this is especially important for setting up an arc, and I think it's the story's chance to show what it's really going to be about. There are real concerns raised in the meeting, to be sure, but nothing that I could see kicking off a major conflict or arc for Et. Ideally, I'd like to see a conflict forming here that draws on Et's personality. One of the main concerns that the characters talk about is the lack of knowledge they have, but that doesn't seem to have anything to do with Et in particular since her thing seems to be acting as the face of the party and showing compassion. If it's important to hash out those details but they don't relate to Et directly, I think it's okay for the story to summarize it for us. Either way, I think there needs to be something related to what we know about Et pushing her forward in the story since right now it feels mostly like bigwigs talking and her listening. One final note: I was able to get a clearer view of the side characters this time around, though some of that could be already knowing them from the first draft. Good job!

Going to second that S felt a bit off and that I was wondering why the guards were giving her such a hard time. Also, as a short note I think we get the idea pretty quickly that the small talk between Ir and S is intentionally awkward and not substantial. After this is made clear I don't think we need to see the rest of it written out since the info itself isn't important--only the dynamic is, so no need to keep hammering that in. I think the strongest part of the chapter is where Ir thinks about all the people she's trying to save while breaking out of the house. This is exactly what I was mentioning a while back where I want to see Ir's proactivity be informed by personal motivations, which for me makes this moment stronger than the time she helps W out. Agreed. I'd like to see a more specific plan here for Ir than just warning BK. Because unless she blindly trusts him (which I don't think she does and she also shouldn't based on what I've read), it doesn't make sense to give all her cards away to him if she can use some sort of leverage to secure S and T's safety. My main comment here as someone who's only read the last few chapters is that this feels like it should be the culmination of the arc where Ir makes a decision to protect her new friends, but the arc/conflict here wasn't set up in the previous few chapters. If you told me before this that the story was about Ir learning to connect with and protect the people in the new position she's thrust into, I would have been surprised. It didn't seem like there was any real struggle to come to this decision because most of her woes focus on family and homesickness instead, so it feels less momentous as a result. Best of luck in editing!

Have an angry upvote

I really liked the description of the city of B this chapter (I guess I should shorten city names too?), and I'm always a sucker for sweet kids. They're just too pure. TBK's little section definitely caught my interest as well, especially when he goes through the different people who have Ir's powers. I got the same feeling that everyone else did so I'll try to look at what's going on from a different angle. To me, it feels like the story doesn't quite know what it wants to be about, and it ends up feeling like two separate stories as a result. This chapter pushes us towards Ir's conflict of family relationships, which is great character building for Ir. I really get to see her situation and personality shine through. And if the family struggles were the main plot of the story, I think this would be a great chapter. But I can't say that I think the family struggles are the main plot because they aren't advanced at all through many of the previous chapters when she's traveling. Instead, I think all of the commenters (me included) are thinking of the larger political conflict as the main plot. When something like this is introduced, it's hard for it not to overwhelm the small-scale conflict. But if that is the main plot, chapters like this don't really advance it. I think the story needs to answer the question of if it wants to be about Ir getting involved in TBK's affairs and integrating herself into the political world around her, and if family is a subplot that informs Ir's personal struggles with what she's doing. Or does the story want it to be the other way around, and have the family be the main issue while TBK mostly exists to set up conflict between Ir and her family? Because right now it's trying to push both as the main story and they're clashing with each other instead of building off each other. I think the story does recognize that there needs to be some connection between family and Ir's actions with TBK, but right now we don't have one creating motion in the other. She thinks about family when getting involved in TBK's schemes, but it ultimately doesn't change how she behaves. She thinks about TBK when meeting with her family, but that doesn't change what she wants or does with her family either (it changes what her family does with her but that's not enough imo). So yeah, my (prescriptive) suggestions are for the story to more clearly lay out its priorities, connect the two plots together through having one part of her life inform the actions in the other, or both. Anyways this large-scale plot and focus stuff is how I tend to think about writing in general so I hope it's helpful. Also, one small note is that N reads more like a preteen than a teen to me. I think a teenager would be, if not totally opposed to wearing their heart on their sleeve like N does, more cognizant about doing so. ...And now I'm thinking again about how precious these kids are. Good luck wrangling with this story!

I barely even remember this character from WoT. And dang it must have been a long wait for people who were reading them as they came out. I remember reading the entire series in middle school when I had nothing better to do with my time. Anyways, I'm here for actual comments. I think there's a lot of good potential here. In particular, I was interested by the tear and the destruction of the library, and how they fit into E's character and the larger plot. Other readers have mentioned that the pace is pretty slow, and the best way I can rationalize why is that it seems like the story doesn't have tight control over its characters. What I mean by that is that each character clearly has things they want to say, and the story's just sorta letting them blurt it all out. This means the events of the story end up falling to the background, and their words feel a bit weaker when it doesn't feel like there's anything pushing them to say what they are. The emperor's words, for example, don't really feel urgent to me. It feels like he's going on about whatever he wants to, and nobody's going to make him hurry it up even though they're here to kill him. Yet at the same time, I also feel like I need more characterization from E and our supporting cast. This might seem contradictory with my above point, but I actually think it comes from the same place. We get a few glimpses of personality such as her feelings about the library that I liked, but I think we need more about her motivations and relationships to the other characters. I think if the story decide which dynamics it wants to focus on (class struggle, meaning of freedom, camaraderie, ect.), we can get stronger characterization of E based on what those ideas mean to her, and it will keep the characters more directed while also fleshing them out more. This is especially important for helping me keep track of the other characters, because right now it was a bit much for me. I need something to make each of them stand out, and the easiest way to do that imo is through E's view of the story's central dynamics. Like if E's core focus is on teamwork (just an example, not saying you should use this), we could learn how everyone fits into the team. If E's focus is on freedom, we could learn what E thinks freedom means to each of the people she's working with, and who will support her in achieving freedom and who will stand in her way. There are lots of options the story can take here. Good luck going forward with this story!

I think the first line is really strong, and I liked hearing the MC's thoughts on humanity. It definitely seems like you have something good going here. The voice is strong, but at the same time I think the story leans into it a little much to the point that it takes me out of the story. My best guess is that the core issue I'm seeing is that the story is repeating information to double down on the tone, which makes it feel forced to me. For example, the line where they say they're human and the line after convey basically the same info, so it starts to feel like the MC is ranting from my perspective. One thing I always like to point out is how the beginning of a story leads into the main story, grounds us in the world, and tells us what to focus on. Right now, I'm not sure the first paragraph is accomplishing that. I think this is something that can be looked at more closely after the story is finished, but right now the sci-fi setting felt out of the blue when it comes in, the transition to scene was a bit disorienting for me at the bottom of the first page, and I was focused on the madness idea that doesn't feel like it's what the story wants me to fixate on, which left me unclear which dynamics to track. I think getting us into scene more quickly, establishing the sci-fi setting very early on, and pointing us towards the main dynamic to follow could help ground me in the story. Beyond that, A's dialogue feels like a lot of commenting on ideas that are already introduced, and I don't really see any motion in those ideas. So far all of their focus is about our MC, and it's hard for me to see who A is as a person. Is the story supposed to be about the budding romance here (at least that's how I interpreted it)? If so, I think the dynamic between our two characters should be centered from the start and needs a bit of work. The best romance I've read grounds character personalities in hyper-specific details that very quickly convey the type of person they are. But if the story's supposed to be about something else then ignore me. Good luck with the rest of the story!

I think the plot/ basic sequence of events here is really strong. A creative writing professor I had once talked about the "rule of threes," where an escalation generally happens over three steps with each one being more serious. I think this is done quite well here with the snake, the collapsed building, and the eventual death. It's enough that the death feels properly foreshadowed without it being too much. My main questions at this point are what this means for the story. So far the MC's focus has been on the young emperor as a person with the tender awkward romantic feelings (that's how I interpreted it but I'm also aro so I could totally be misreading it), and because of that the emperor's death feels like it deflates the tension for me since I was reading this to see how H interacted with the emperor. I think the story is trying to kick off an inciting incident with the emperor's death but I don't really know what it's inciting. I think we need a bit more character motivation and backstory from H here that helps frame the events of a story in a way that lets us focus on the important dynamics. Unless the focus is on how the setting develops rather than this individual character, in which case we need more of the political context and implications. Basically, I want to know what this all means for H so it feels like the story's kicking something off rather than erasing the buildup of the interpersonal relationship between the two major characters here. Best of luck going forward with this story!

My favorite part of the chapter is when Ir keeps speculating about what could be in the scroll, and if it's a greater risk to her people/family for her to keep it secret or hand it over to the BK. Normally I don't like when internal thoughts go on for this long, so I'm not certain this is the ideal format for these ideas, but I think what drew me in was how Ir was getting involved with the larger ideas we've been hearing about in the background throughout the story. In the previous chapters it's felt a bit like we're reading two separate stories, and only now are they beginning to converge. That leads into my main comments for the chapter. For most of the chapter, while the events are finally getting into motion, they don't really interact with Ir's character much (so far as I can tell). Her getting involved happens on something she blurts out without really thinking it through, and as with previous chapters in the story it feels more like stuff is happening to her than her guiding the story along. I think a lot of this for me is how disconnected the events are at some points from her main motivations. From what I can tell, it seems like the main powerful forces in Ir's life are home and family. I liked her thoughts and hesitation about the scroll as described above because that was what brought the events of the story in contact with those character traits of her. So even though she wasn't doing anything in that moment, she felt more active than before. I think the story can push that further, and do more to show the events through the lens of Ir's character motivations. Because right now it feels like she as a character is still being pushed to the background for the events of the story to take place. A minor question: who exactly is holding the BK/W accountable if their ploy is discovered? It seemed odd to me that they would need to fear so much retribution from wine merchants. Best of luck with editing the story!

This is the kind of first chapter I really like! As mentioned the learning curve is high, but I get enough from it that I get the main gist of it and there's enough focus on character connections that the story feels directed and I feel okay not knowing everything about the history. As for the history, I also didn't really pick up everything, but it seems like the main important part right now is that S and E have extreme powers (due to how they were born/created?) and have suffered a lot, so A is trying to help them. I think the chapter doesn't overdo exposition or expository dialogue either. So yeah, I find this accessible, but I also don't mind steep learning curves so it could be a personal thing. I think in particular I was hooked at the sentient fungal people, and I'm happy even if it won't be a main focus going forward since it gives me a lot of confidence in the story to throw in really cool stuff. Aro here so maybe I just don't get it but if I had to pick a weak link for this chapter I'd have to say the flirting between A and G4. There are three comments I came up with about it. 1. I didn't need as many reminders of the A's awkwardness as were in the chapter. After the first couple I got the idea and the rest felt like they stalled out the story. I did like how A's awkwardness faded when talking about science though (mood btw). 2. I wasn't really sure why A and G4 were drawn to each other. From what I hear about romance people can just be... drawn to each other, but in narrative I like to see a stronger sense of cause and effect that lets me know the story is in firm control of its events. The closest the chapter got was talking about G4's pilot resume, so if that's what A likes about her then I think that could be played up. This one has the greatest chance of me just not understanding romance but I thought it was worth putting out there. 3. I don't really know how serious they are. Okay this could also be me not understanding romance at all, but I really couldn't tell if they were flirting for fun and it was going to stop there, if A wanted to sleep with G4 as a short-term thing, or if they were interested in a long-term relationship. I think part of it for me is that I don't know the norms of this setting. Is A in an open relationship with E (they're in a relationship, right?)? Is polyamory common? Would E be mad if she knew this was happening (presumably not but I wasn't positive)? So I think the story has to do extra work to spell out what's going on here, though still avoiding being expository since there's already a decent amount of necessary exposition in here. Tricky. I think #3 is the biggest question for me in terms of reading forward because I really don't know if we're going to drop this after a chapter or if it's going to be a main arc throughout the story, or anywhere in between. Oh random question: are the fungus people directly related to earth fungus? If so, what phylum/phyla are we talking here?

If the main purpose of the prologue is to establish S's relation to the main pairing (A and E, right?), what would help me the most is putting A and E in the emotional spotlight of S's mind. Right now I care less about knowing specific details about what happened between S and A+E and more about how S sees them as people generally and how that relates to: 1. what she's being asked to do and 2. her own motivations as a person. Right now, what I think this means I don't need to know as much about how the three of them relate to the sociopolitical context (as interesting as I find it). So long as we know that people want them for something, the personal connection will stick in my head better than worldbuilding details right now. I think that setting details are best left to be viewed through the lens of our main pairing since it will be easier to telegraph arcs and hint at payoff through our main pairing's reactions to the info to justify the input effort required. Anyways I tend to be biased towards this technique of grounding SFF stories through interpersonal relationships while not explaining too much of the setting but I do think it would work here.

(writing out responses to chapters individually to see how they stand on their own) Ch 30: This chapter right now is doing a lot of setup work, where I see two main conflicts. First is Ir's homesickness, which is really hammered in for the first few pages. The emotion really shines through here, so good job! The second is the budding romance with J, which I also think feels quite genuine. So I think this chapter successfully sets up two different conflicts for Ir. I only have a couple of comments here. First is that I get the impression that the chapter is trying to link the two conflicts by having J talk about homesickness, but I don't quite feel it yet. It seems like the story wants the context of Ir's homesickness to be important to the relationship dynamic with J, but that right now it doesn't know how. Is she leaning on him to fill the void of leaving the familiar? Is the traveling something that will connect the two of them together? Right now I can't tell. Second is that, like other people have mentioned, chapter 30 of 40 feels like a bit of a tricky place to have a chapter that's mostly doing setup work. If you think the setup here is necessary for future chapters to work, my guess is that it's because previous chapters aren't pulling their weight, and that these conflicts should be introduced earlier so that they can be expanded upon now. But I'm taking a shot in the dark here because it's not like I've read through the majority of this book. Ch 31: Okay, this one reads even more like a setup chapter to me. This is due to what everyone else has mentioned with the BK being the only one to move the plot forward. Again, my first instinct is to say this means that previous chapters aren't pulling their full weight if we need to have Ir be passive here so that the BK can set up the plot. Right now my impression is that Ir can't interact with a lot of the interesting dynamics in this story because they're only now being set up, and that she could be more active if she and we had more access to information about what's going on earlier in the story. But again I'm trying to extrapolate what was and wasn't set up previously based only the info we're given here so I could be off. Can't comment too much about character shifts. I also liked all the mushiness but maybe that's just me.

Hi, (basically) new reader here. There were definitely a lot of concepts here that pulled me in, the main ones being the race(?) relations with the genocide history, the powers, and how our friend Sal deals with both in relation to each other. I'm not sure how much of that is those being the most fleshed out vs. personal preference, though. For me, I think I'd continue reading on because there's a lot of interesting material and it's clearly well-written, but I wouldn't say I'm totally hooked. When I read a prologue, I typically assume that the character isn't going to be a main PoV character, but here I wasn't quite sure in this case because there's a lot going on, narratively. Typically my favorite one-off prologue characters have a clear motivation and a singular strong emotion shining through that is present from start to finish, whereas Sal's feelings and motivations feel a bit more muddled. I think Sal's situation here could be centered around a singular dynamic here, whether that be a goal, question they want to answer, relationship, ect. Right now there's too much for me to focus on, especially if I'm not going to be following this character again for a while (but even if I am going to be focusing on her I still feel this way to a lesser extent). This is prescriptive, but I see a lot of potential to set the focus of this chapter in the first paragraph. I do like the jump from paragraph 1 to 2, but I don't know which character dynamics to follow. This also hits at my other main comment here, which is that Sal is living in the past for a lot of this chapter, and it feels a bit expository as a result. I think if the chapter simplifies its focus it can get away with less exposition and instead mention foreign concepts without explaining them and the reader will be able to recognize that they aren't expected to know what they mean yet. I don't feel like I need info dumps this early in the story so long as I understand what the character's basic deal is, even if that means I don't know why she feels the way she does. I'll offer these comments about centering a dynamic and reducing exposition about the past both if Sal is going to the the main character vs. a one-off prologue PoV, but I think it's stricter if Sal isn't going to be a main PoV character because then we really don't need to know much about her. Good luck editing!