(I actually thought that was a moving gif, but screw it, I like it!)

Recently I was looking through my various lists and I found this one. My first thought was "oh.... shiiiiit." I had completely forgotten that I had said I would review it some time back, so that's my bad. I put it at the top of my list and I'm jumping on this sucker and gonna knock it out. Better late than never right?

The story is a reasonably long one. Even has a side-wiki book attached to it.

TLDR; An original medievalist story exploring loss and revenge, exploring new lands, and exploring exploration.

I'd rate it 2 smashing out of 5. Its flaws outweigh its strengths.

Grammar and word usage: Messy - Normally I don't touch grammar first. I rarely care. So long as I can read it, so long as it doesn't directly act as roadblock, then I give it a passing grade. Commas or semi-colons or a few misspellings don't bother me. So... yeah. This story bothered me and made it very difficult to be emotionally invested in scenes as I felt I should have been. The reason being three things on a word level, sentence level, and paragraph level:

A) Verb Tenses were chaotic at best. No sentence ever seemed to stay on the same past/present/future/perfect tense from sentence to sentence, AND you often had multiple different tenses in the same sentence. This isn't a small isolated thing in one paragraph or even one chapter. It is all of them. This was jarring.

B) The paragraphs either tried to do far too much or far too little. This one is a bit harder to explain, but the overall structure of the story at the most basic level is in the word/sentence/paragraph structure. A sentence is a single thought. A paragraph explores that single thought further, expanding on it and poking at it and experimenting with it and seeing where it goes for a bit further. It is like music. In music, you get a few chords, and then you write an entire song exploring variations of those few chords. (Look up Axis of Awesome - Four Chords for a taste of this idea.) But no matter how you explore it, it is still an exploration of a single thought. This exploration can include brief events connected to it, or thoughts connected to an event, or a chain of events within a brief moment of time. These still work. But what the story does is either have no exploration, whatsoever, of dialogue or thought that is important or it piles on seventeen or more thoughts ontop of each other that have nothing to do with one another. It's like someone showering while watching tv while cooking while vacuuming their hair and suing North Korea for plagiarism of sending a dog to the moon instead of waffles because it insults your red fingernails that are suddenly sentient. (now do you remember the first thing that sentence touched on? Showering.) With everything disconnected and jumping and having no idea what it really wants to say at that moment, then it's very difficult to explore that 'thing' further and invest in it.

C) When you have. Very long sentences. After long sentence. After long sentence. It gets repetititive. There needs to. Be some kind. Of mix up. Otherwise it sounds. Very very odd. It gets difficult. Lengths of sentences. Is like music. It needs mixture. It needs melody. Or it sounds. Robotic as hell. Same thing with. Very short sentences. Like I did here.

These problems within the grammar were the biggest things in the grammar department and they made it very difficult to be emotionally invested in the story as much as I should have been.

The story it was trying to tell was still quite good though, which I will explore next.

Main Character (MC) - SemiSmashing - The Main Character was quite endearing. I don't remember her name for the life of me because the story spent 90% of its time using "I" as it was from a first person perspective. Not a bad thing in its own right but makes it difficult to remember her name amidst the many names given constantly. So far as MCs go, I liked her a lot. She wasn't a chosen one, she wasn't the most expert at anything, but she did endure some serious crap and tried her best even when she failed. What really won me over for her was that she went from being babysat early on by stronger character while shit hits the fan to a proactive character who took advantage of oppurtunities in only a few chapters. I imagine she will fail more along the way, but she doesn't strike me as someone who fakes compassion and concern. She wasn't told that she was awesome or beautiful or talented or compassionate, she DID those things instead. Perhaps with a little help, but who doesnt need help even in things you might excel in? However, I did find that even with all of this, she lacks something early on. Quite simply the driving force of the story was removed far too early before a new one was made within her. I don't mind chapters where nothing is done as we just explore regular events, if anything I preferred her casual and unimportant interaction with the Side Character Molly over everything else in the entire story, but when the story tries to come across as progressing towards the next act, then it flops as it can't seem to figure out who the driving force is, who the leader is, what their motivation is, or any clear picture of what to do. Its very unclear if its survival or revenge or defense or offense as it says things and then directly contradicts itself very quickly by their words and actions.

Part of why the MC felt lackluster is the villain, the thing she opposes, isn't much of a villain in any capacity. A good villain can make for an easy MC, and this villain is the definition of stupid. Not even in how he is written, as he is written fine. But he is just plain stupid. I spent the entire story dubbing him, in my mind as I tend to give people nicknames to track them, as Captain Dumbass. His reasoning, his choices, his words, his motivations all just are vomit level stupidity. How he ever made it to General is beyond me. I work for the Marines, marines are known for being among the stupidest military branch, and this guy would get laughed out of the Marines for having the intelligence of a vegetable. He literally breaks just about every Overlord rule there is. And the end result is that... he feels like a laughing stock, like a cartoon villain from a show on cartoon network. Sure, his action is heinous and warrants bringing the MC growth in so far as it does, but this is in DESPITE OF the villain, not because of him.

Side Characters (SC) - Needs a purge - Some of the characters are great. I loved Uncle Blacksmith and Molly. The rest... well... With the exception of Adult Orphan-Man (my nickname for him) then they all are the same. They fulfill the same role and purpose. They have the same personality and ways of speaking. They all have the same level of importance, which isn't high, and the same level of impact, which isn't much. They seem more as a kind of army with a lot of names in a group than as individuals. And while this isn't the worst thing, as even having an army of named individuals gives a level of humanity to their potential losses in battle, this becomes a massive problem as everytime there is a character with even 1% of personality or impact they instantly disappear. Who is the driving force of this story? At first it was Uncle Blacksmith. Then, for an agonizingly long time, it was nobody. And when I say long time, I mean basically half the entire story if not longer. They just meander around like chickens with their heads cut off and cant make up their minds, as I mentioned earlier, as there is no real leader among the chaotic mess that is this group of names. Not even people, just names at this point. I spent more time wondering who the name is, what purpose they have, and how they are contributing in any way, than is healthy.

Another thing about the SCs... is that I loved Uncle Blacksmith... when he was shown. His characterization was great and didn't need any help. but the story insisted it had to keep trying by constantly giving information dumps and praises for him when he wasn't around. Constantly "you know how he always loved you right? he thinks of you like the daughter he never had"(apparently everyone in the world knew this and think its the only thing to talk about) or "we go back like 50 decades and he has always liked this shop, didn't he tell u he had a thing for fishman". I'm making this last one up but its the basic tone of it. Like... seriously. Just let the guy prove himself awesome and important and different from the others, stop word vomiting entire wiki pages about him when he isn't there. It is one thing to sit around a campfire and tell a story remembering the past, this story takes it to a whole different outrageous league. The MC might as well be Uncle Blacksmith instead of whats-her-face because 90% of it has been about him for the first half.

World Building - Semi-Smashing - The World Building was nice. Not at first, but it did grow on me. Early on the problem was the way the information was given. In real life I was screaming. But I will say this nicely here. When the beginning of the story starts with "You know how [information dump of stuff the character apparently already knows but we as readers dont]" then you lost me. There is good world implementation by showing rather than telling, which the story does. There is information dumping, which the story also does periodically in small chunks (not bad when in small chunks at necessary times). And then there is what the story did in the first half of the first chapter... which was insulting and agonizingly painful.

After that the World Building went well and I found the world lovely. The best thing about it is how the MC is a bit clueless at times, and we are right there along with her figuring out little things. Like apparently money is a thing hehe. Stuff like that endeared me to her more and more as we find ourselves as aliens in a new world. (Yet apparently she knows a fair bit about the world as her thoughts information dump geography and culture??? Which is it? Does she know nothing or does she know a lot?)

I also loved the parts of chapter 1 where it wasn't trying to constantly insult me with how it provided information. When things were shown, it was shown well. When it was being information dumped via dialogue in such a way as it did, it wasn't done well. Still, enough goodness shined through that I found the community to be quite lovely and nice and warm and inviting, which helped sell the loss.

Plot - fails under the weight - The plot fails, but not on its own merit. It fails on the merits of everything discussed thus far. Between the joke of a villain, grammar/word-usage that destroys most of the MCs pacing and thoughts, side characters that are mostly expendable and faceless pawns while the good ones disappear as soon as they only start to help the story get good, and a few other smaller things that really aren't worth bringing up for how long every small thing would take to discuss in this 29 chapter epicly long story... then the plot just can't bear the weight of everything on its shoulders.

It proved difficult but I can see what the plot is trying to do, and I like it. The plot and the nice moments with the MC and good SCs were what gave me hope enough to keep going. It has a powerful trigger early on as you see a truly lovely village go to crap, then you have a bit about hiding and escape and Uncle Blacksmith SOLD THIS (*chef's kiss*), and then you have exploration and learning for the MC on so many levels that helped her grow for me as a person both in herself and in my perception, and I won't say more here for spoilers. Its a story that doesn't try to reach for the stars or crazy things but plants itself in the basic humanity of loss and revenge and love and family. The problem is that despite the plot trying to sell a very human story, its characters just don't feel human because of what I've mentioned, and this keeps it from working despite the authors great efforts. The author put huge effort into the world and its plot and this shows, and has thought long and hard, and I love that. She even got a nice cover picture and a wiki! How many work that hard?! I want the story to become what it is trying to become, but it hasn't.

The reason I am rating this as 2/5 is because I see potential for a really good and grounded story that anyone can relate to, but despite my best efforts the before mentioned flaws turned every chapter, every paragraph, into a struggle of endurance as I have to read a few paragraphs, walk away, read a few more, walk away, eventually finish the chapter and think back on what I read and breath through it. I am up at 4:30am without sleep. I am not half-assing this!

I'm out with a smashing!

If you are interested in learning to write, mastering the craft, want some really good reads, or just to chat and hang out with a mature group of adults, feel free to hit me up for a smashing discord book club that has lasted years.