Aug 08, 2023
Hi!!
Early on, the thought I kept having with this novel was that it being an isekai didn’t feel like it was adding anything to it. I was pleasantly surprised when it actually started doing something very original with the concept that’s trippy, gripping, and even straight up chilling at times. Reading the afterword, I’m very glad you corrected this early issue and you seem to be very good at recognizing your own shortcomings incredibly quickly, which I’d argue is just about the only thing that actually matters while writing.
The work on display here is very impressive. There’s some amazing imagery like the fireworks and the lock at the end of arc 2, and as far as spelling and grammar goes it’s written better than a lot of things on this site, not to mention the prose is both intelligent and entertaining. I only dislike how the world is very stock and a little boring. Not a single one of the characters are bad and I certainly love any kind of merpeople showing up in anything, but other than that it doesn’t really bring that much new to the table. It just bugs me cause fantasy kinda relies on that whole intrigue of having an interesting world and 90% of the stories in the genre fall flat on their face by doing the same things everybody else is. And this feels especially bad for me to say because your actual worldbuilding is amazing. The sad thing is that the market is just too oversaturated for that raw skill of yours to stand out without a LOT of creative ideas to back it up. This doesn’t ruin a good story, but I’d argue it holds back plenty of would-be great ones. I would freaking love to see you go crazy with something super original in that department one day, you’d probably kill it if you put in the effort.
The interactions are on the edge of being really cute but they can seem a bit basic at times. You might get more out of these lovebirds if you put them in some more unique scenarios- it doesn’t help that the plot can come off as meandering at times. I love these two! But I either want to see them entangled into more exciting long-term problems or else engaged in more complex interpersonal drama than what they are here. It definitely looked like it was building up to that near the end though, so I wouldn’t worry about this too much.
Isekai is not a genre I typically enjoy. It takes a lot to get me into one. So PLEASE just take what I’ve said with a healthy grain of salt and take pride in the fact that you seriously did still manage to win even my pretentious ass over in a lot of areas. You have a lot of talent on your hands. Use it for what you want, not what I want.
