Aug 15, 2021
Hmm. General thoughts...I think one thing I'm constantly having to square with myself is the fact that this is meant to be a multi-volume series, so it's hard to say things like I feel like so many things are sorta incomplete, because I'm sure given the right opportunity, time, and place, that there's a lot more to this story and more to give.
I definitely think the first half of the story are the strong focal points. It was nice to see Bastien again to sort of flesh out aspects of him, hint at developments that happened between the jumps in time, but I'd definitely say the first two arcs were my favorite, while the latter two struggled with some of the same excitement that I felt in the initial duo.
That being said, as a kind of jarring contrast with the rest of the story, this arc with Mallory is kind of interesting. I wouldn't say I loved it, but I did enjoy what you set out to do here.
I understand now why it was so important to have the Elm section first, and to end it the way it did, because the confusion in Aaron's disappearance doesn't really explain itself until the very end here. The sort of people you see dying in the other parts of the story seem to be people Aaron wouldn't really care less about, but Kai's final actions in Mallory's story are a direct callback to the "epilogue" and we are faced with the same moral question that enraged Aaron. It's a poetic turn, a volta in a way, that has us reassess Kai's motivations, character, and whether we should be rooting for or against her. In a way, it also makes me reconsider my previous opinion of Aaron as just boring and inept, whether that was colored purely by Kai's narration and whether Kai's opinion of Aaron should ever have been trusted. I don't think it's a mistake that in the final moments of this first volume, Kai uses a weapon made by Aaron to commit her deed.
All this makes one think, it makes one reflect on the journey you have taken us through, and I think in general, my favorite stories in this competition have been the ones where I have actively thought about how their narratives have played out.
I think one thing that does kind of bug me is how much we have to sort of infer about the world. I like the shroud, the atmosphere, the illusion of real information, and I'm definitely not in favor of just explicating everything. In addition, there's a certain charm in having terms and factions like sequence, Kohsan, not to mention Paul's powers, all remaining largely mysterious or referential. However...if I were to offer a critique, it would be that perhaps the reader is left with too many questions at the end of the first volume and not enough answers.
Good job.
