Next Big Recognition Contest

Round 30

I loved how you talked about the peacocks. The myth behind them was very Greek for me. Tho I'm Asian, I'm not aware whether the Chinese think that way about the peacocks. If they don't, it was a very nice mix of the East and West.

For me, a good writer is one who takes his time and has a clear and well laid out syntax. Each of your sentences lead nicely and logically to the next like a well paved path to a conclusion. I know that might seem such a strange and low standard to measure by, but u'd be surprised at how some writers chop and change their narrative and pack it too full of complicated things that end up being a tangle of a prose. I felt like I was watching you build the story one at a time with Lego's building blocks and seeing how the construction was taking shape was highly satisfying. That's how I feel about your narrative style.

There wasn't any surprises for me, there was just a sense of a trust in a nice ride and that's the best type of feeling for a Fantasy story. Surprises are ok but trust is better, imho. And I trusted you to take me through your fantastical vision and it was great.

Now, back to Alyanna... I think, at the point where she talks about the sorcerers of Kalyuni's Star Towers being as bad as the women of any harem, that's the point where she became "common" for me. Not only that, but it became apparent to me that it was a male writing writing a female's POV even tho the char, and hence the narrator, is female. Up till that point, I was kinda ok with thinking of the whole lens as from a woman's POV until that para jarred me back to reality.

I'm not sure how to describe this and I'll probably get flamed for this but I've rarely, if ever, read a realistic and decent woman's POV written by a male writer. When I say that I mean realistic and decent in the sense that when you're with the female char, you totally forget the gender of the writer. You are completely immersed in the belief that the gender of the char is the gender of the voice. I've read one other story that came SO close but then fell apart prob like 10 chapters into the book and it was painfully obvious that it was a male writer and the female char's personality wasn't realistically female.

In regards to Alyanna, when she thought those things about the sorcerers and women of the harem, I get the impression of a disdain for womenkind, and I don't find that completely consistent with the fact that she had thought that eunuchs were "just as petty as any other men" and, later, that "Men were fools, whole or not".

I am aware, through my own deductions from her recounting of her magical hunts, that she is no longer a normal human. She is immortal through dark magic. Therefore, I'd expect a disdain for humans, regardless of gender.

But her thoughts seem to suggest a discrimination towards men, in particular, with also a very unfavourable view of women. In short, if you were trying to carve her as a non-human dark magicker human, I would suggest changing the narrative to point out a disdain to all humans, with no particular mention of gender. Or to emphasise that she's viewing the affairs of mere mortals as the genders fight for supremacy over affairs of passion or glory and riches. Does that make sense?

Let me give you an example:

"Alyanna had, during her long life, known more than a few eunuchs, and she had found them just as petty as any other men – (en dash, I believe, which is longer than a hyphen) perhaps more so. The desire for women was replaced by the desire for glory and riches. The eunuch order that had served the sorcerers of Kalyuni's Star Towers were no better than the women of any harem. All spent vast energies in raising their own status relative to their rivals; plotting to gain a foothold in power. And all were fools: men, women or eunuch.

Aryanna did not mention this to Wen. Instead, she smiled and fluttered her lashes, pretending sweet insipidness.

It made no difference to her. They were all pliable, easily bent to her will."