Jan 26, 2026
Clean ending. Satisfying. All major plot points properly addressed. This is just a solid entry overall, with very little to critique and a lot to praise.
At the risk of repeating myself, I have to highlight once again how strong Death is as a main character. Her unique POV, witty narration and grounded, well-executed development just make her a joy to read. Pestilence is another extremely compelling character, especially once we get the context of her past. It makes us realize that, in every scene where she's acting and trying to deceive Death, she's also deceiving herself, giving a touch of underlying sadness to all her crazy shenanigans. And while I love to hate on Raven, she's still a solid character in her own right: intentionally unlikable at first, yet tolerable enough by the end. I won't extend this section by going in depth on the rest of the good side of the cast(Famine, War, ET), but they're all well defined and strong despite having far less screentime than the main trio.
The worldbuilding and power system are extremely imaginative, and so complex I'm too intimidated to fully dissect them here. So verdict: this is my favorite worldbuilding out of the entries I've read for this contest. That said, I'll again repeat that the sheer number of magic artifacts did feel overwhelming at times. Still, I'll praise that the final battle remained understandable despite featuring a total of seven artifacts(probably because by then I had a good grasp of how each one worked from seeing them in action throughout the story. It also helped that we got a mention of all six artifacts Death would bring right before the fight.)
Now for the main negative, again something I've already mentioned before: Hideka needed more time. She had far too much impact on the plot for how little screentime she received and how secondary she felt to the reader(or at least to me). Giving her more focus would not just improve her Death scene, but also the climax itself since she had so much weight on Pestilence. She literally remembered Hideka alongside Elis(who was far more impactful to me despite appearing in only one chapter, probably because his importance to Pestilence was stated to happen over decades and we saw their relationship develop explicitly). More development for Hideka would also enhance the epilogue when Raven and Death mention her.
Ah yes, the Zoe bit was also a bit underdeveloped. I almost forgot about it, not because it was bad, but because it didn't leave much of an impression. It was okay, just not very memorable especially when compared to Pestilence's backstory.
And that covers just about everything I wanted to say. Great work with this novel Gem. I wish you the best of luck in the contest.
