Feb 18, 2025
So far so good. I really feel like the story could use some slowing down. There's way too many concepts thrown at once with no explanation and too many characters and locations. The way I've seen this done before is by having a baseline amount of time with one character so the audience can ease into the story and world a bit before moving on to the next, but as is, I almost got whiplash with 3 POV changes and little to no time to breathe between concepts. I understand the intention is to reveal what the Nexus is as the story goes on or what tribe does what, but maybe... don't add so much at once? While I do find the worldbuilding interesting, I feel like I can't properly enjoy characters meeting and their personalities (which I honestly like so far) because I'm too busy thinking 'who' and 'what' every 5 seconds.
To be fair, though, I'm not a fan of in medias res precisely because they tend to throw too much too fast in an attempt to hook the audience. Thing is, I'm less hooked and more tangled in the fishing net.
With that said, I'm interested enough to keep reading, but I must question the decision of entering this in a light novel contest when it feels anything but. I feel like these kinds of stories are meant to be read in between short breaks, like when you're on a train or standing in line, hence the pitiful soft word limit. I get that in order to fit into those you might be compressing a lot of concepts at once, but... yeah. I think I like the dialogue the most because characters so far do act and sound like real people. My one gripe is the sheer amount of information, although it is a major one.
