N. D. Skordilis / Comments

N. D. Skordilis

“The Sun ascended slowly above the land of the rising Sun. The sky was ice crystal clear and the low Sun was so red that it looked as if it escaped from a Japanese flag. The last few hours were dead quiet in the frozen Tokachi wheat fields, in Hokkaido; a male barn owl just finished hunting rodents hiding among the wheat fields and the snow.

The owl caught two red squirrels, a crying rabbit and a small snow-white lizuma weasel; it caught its last prey despite having hidden perfectly in the thick snow and barely making a sound. It stood no chance against the barn owl's acute hearing though. It was a good night’s harvest for the male owl, his mate and their four fledglings...”

The rest can be read here:
https://medium.com/illumination/the-field-of-ice-and-blood-5a678be3d617

All my links:
http://my.bio/sharpedon

registered at: Jul 09, 2021

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aaa

Oct 22, 2021

A fine, well-crafted prologue, written with a lot of heart. The Merlin bits were touching. Apart from a few minor errors here and there that can be easily fixed I have nothing else I would suggest looking into.

I wonder why your MC Lusha Viscerilis is immortal and sleeps in a coffin like a vampire. Was she cursed? Maybe by *that* man, whoever that is? So her 'quest' in your novel will apparently be two-fold:
1. Deal with *him*.
and 2. Find an 'antidote' to her immortality.
I hope she can achieve both :)

I placed your novel in my library and I will get back to it when I take a reading breather (I have been reading semi-finalist novels). I'd appreciate it if you also took a look at my own novel and gave your input, good, bad or neutral :)

The Immortal Witch's Death Wish

Chapter:1

Oct 22, 2021

Both long and a heck of a lot of chapters.. I estimate the first chapter alone to be ~5,000 words. I place your novel in my library, add a few provisional reacts and take note to start reading after the contest ends and/or when I take a reading breather :)

X = Y

Chapter:1

Oct 22, 2021

So? Is your synopsis your entire story or did you abandon it before even starting? 🤔

The elevator

Chapter:1

Oct 22, 2021

"Did the ‘past me’ have a hard-on for trees?”
“Hehe, that’s why you wanted this forest *erected*, hmmmm?”
Hentai!!! 😆 😛

As for that maze.. damn. I wonder how many bodies have been rotting in it since it was, er, 'erected' 😊 Not very heroic conduct from a Hero. I am sure there are many other non lethal ways to retire. I think Hanasuke was kind of a dick.. :)

The Consequence of Saving the World

Chapter:3

Oct 22, 2021

"I could tell that she was crying tears of happiness this time. This lady really fancied me, huh"

(SPOILER from the synopsis)
No, you idiot. She most likely realized* that Hanasuke's spirit/soul returned to Japan and Evan's body was returned to his original owner. Hanasuke had probably told her that when his mission ended he would go back to his homeworld and thus her tears were probably from a mix of happiness and sadness.

(I read a few lines more..)
*Nope, she didn't; she needs the input of a.. Sage to figure it out. That's despite Evan's conspicuously selective amnesia -I mean he has forgotten *only* Hanasuke related stuff- and despite the obvious fact that the body that hosted Hanasuke was not a puppet but someone else used to live in it. Not to mention the freaking end of Hanasuke's mission due to the passing of the Demon Lord. (SPOILER end)

Sereya Bladecrest (lovely name btw, high fantasy naming at its finest) is hot, dorky *and* funny, but despite her love for knives she is not the sharpest knife in the kitchen, is she? :)

I predict that Evan will gradually start remembering what Hanasuke did with his body and maybe, just maybe, he will also expose / awaken some of Hanasuke's skills and/or powers since most likely they lie dormant in his body. Or he will develop them fully on his own, from scratch, we shall see 😊

The following was the line that made me switch my react to 😆 from two btw. Very funny!

"I needed mum to say 'yes' first. No, no, even before that I needed to know what kind of person she was!" 😂

The Consequence of Saving the World

Chapter:2

Oct 22, 2021

Your synopsis unfortunately spoiled what is actually happening for me. I sympathize, fully, because I spoiled my own novel too with my synopsis- and, partly, with my prologue 😅 It is apparently hard to write a non-spoilery synopsis.. In retrospect I shouldn't have read your synopsis, since it was your novel's turn to read anyway.

So Evan -SPOILER following for the wise eyes who turn themselves away from synopsis- is back in his body from wherever he was after 10-odd years. During all that time his body served as a host for Hanasuke, who is now back in Japan. As a result Evan is naturally perplexed about what the heck is happening.

Your novel belongs to what I would call 'backward post-isekai' sub-genre. I think mugmoth's novel (The Traumatized Hero) is of a similar but not quite the same subgenre. I only read his first 3 chapters but I would argue that his novel belongs to the '*forward* post-isekai' sub-genre.

mugmoth's novel -apparently- largely takes place in Japan. I suspect you are going to ignore Japan completely and your exclusive setting will be the isekai world. Which is quite neat!

I reserve my opinion on plot, characters style etc for the next few chapters I'm soon going to read. I doubt you're going to need it, at least at this stage, but good luck with the contest! 😊

The Consequence of Saving the World

Chapter:1

Oct 21, 2021

Mellifluous is such a heartless goddess.. I wonder if she even worried what would happen to Andrew--> Jiro if she crudely sent him back to Japan. Most likely she didn't even care. She is a goddess after all..

I love how you have developed Andrew/Jiro in these three first chapters. We readers can *feel* his guilt, sadness and desperation every step of the way. On top of everything else he has his old/new family drama to deal with.. Will he be endure the pressure or will he 'crack'?

"What if it didn't?"
A nice little moment of doubt from your MC, a "What if all those 18 years were merely a dream?". Not just a doubt from your MC, of course, a possibility the reader is also meant to entertain:
"Was this guy really an isekaied Hero or does he just have a very wild imagination and/or suffers from a hero syndrome?" :)

As for potential references / Easter eggs..
Was 'Master Armin' blonde and non-binary-ish? :)
And these 'maids and butlers' reminded me of a certain anime where they serve a *very* thin dude (he cannot get any thinner) 😆

The Hero Who Returned Remains Traumatized in the Modern World

Chapter:2

Oct 21, 2021

To:JK

More likely (I have not read the following chapters so I can only speculate) because they would call 'the men in white' to 'isekai' him in a psychiatric clinic 'for his own good'.

Since it would be virtually impossible to prove it without mana / magic / skills / etc Occam's razor would suggest that he went insane. Particularly if his parents lacked imagination and/or did not keep an open mind, which I think applies in this case.

The Hero Who Returned Remains Traumatized in the Modern World

Chapter:2

Oct 21, 2021

To:Ana Fowl

I have not read the following chapters yet, but if time flowed much faster in the isekai world (say ~1 isekai year for each week -or day?- in Japan), as was suggested, it would not technically be time travel, thus he would not 'go back to the past'; not quite.

This would also preclude any pesky time travel / logic paradoxes from occurring. I'm reading a few more chapters to find out for sure though, because the clock is ticking and the voting window of the prompt will soon close 😊

The Hero Who Returned Remains Traumatized in the Modern World

Chapter:1

Oct 21, 2021

A solid, well-written chapter. I liked the first part in particular, which played inside the head of 'Andrew': A meditation about the PTSD of post-isekai heroes (or, maybe, 'Isekai veterans'?), sprinkled with some guilt icing on top. Neat and quite deep.

The interaction of 'Andrew' with that boy (whoever that was) beside his hospital bed confused me at first but eventually I understood who said what. Ditching dialogue tags results in a leaner narrative flow but the side effect is that it can confuse the readers :)

That's all for this chapter. Good luck in the contest mugmoth-san! 😊

The Hero Who Returned Remains Traumatized in the Modern World

Chapter:1

Oct 21, 2021

Added to my library along with a provisional 🤔 react to take note to read when I take a 'reading breather' from the semi-final novels 😊

My Fantasy is Just a Mirror

Chapter:1

Oct 20, 2021

It appears you are not a machine after all.. I managed to fish no less than *three* 'editing pearls', and very close together too. Here we go, rejoice (I did 😂 ) :

1. "...as the beast emitted -->a<-- ear-splitting shriek.."

2. "At his words, the creature --> ? <-- to a halt and whined.."

And.. 3.
“Thank you, dear friend. I shall handle it from here.” Sevastian said. His strangely musical, sonorous voice (was) -->setting<-- all of Ven’s nerves alight."

This one is a bit more.. nuanced. The highlighted 'setting' is called a 'reduced relative clause' in the language of grammar; it is reduced because the 'was' was omitted, otherwise it would have been a 'full relative clause'.

The problem is that in this context 'setting' serves as an object of the 'said' of the *previous* sentence. Reduced relative clauses are not technically verbs, so your sentence lacks a verb, and it lacks it because it was.. left in the previous sentence.

I think this was a side effect of your habit of finishing dialogue segments with full stops and starting new sentences mid dialogue. The remedy, in this case, is to either add 'was' and thus turn 'setting' into a full relative clause or keep it as reduced clause but join the two sentences together.

That's my two editing cents. I will concisely comment on plot and characters or my comment will turn monstrous. I loved this chapter too. Sevastian is a shady as I expected, and even worse.

I thought Vast was the unknown 4th monster but it turned out he wasn't. Yet another plot surprise, kudos for unpredictability. And oh boy, these... incandescent eyes of the monsters emitting freaking yellow light are way too creepy! Your monsters are scary! 😱

I wanted to read at least 4 chapters of your novel before considering to vote for it. So, the 158th vote that was cast in favor of your novel a few hours ago was mine. It was my second vote of the prompt.
While I'm very curious about what happens next I need to read some of the other novels of Prompt #3 to consider voting for them or not. I will continue reading your novel after the contest ends though. Good luck in the contest! 😊

A Whisper in Scarlet

Chapter:3

Oct 19, 2021

When are 'Lord Sevastian' and Harkam Telishan going to show up? Does Sev expect all the villagers to be slaughtered first so that, I don't know, the monsters get tired and are easier to capture maybe? And I thought there were 4 (3+1) monsters, not a couple of dozen. Or are the 3+1 monsters the arch-monsters which called upon lesser but still lethal monsters? 🤔

That was quite a massacre, the entire village was surrounded.. The poor villagers never stood a chance.. And the powers-that-be or whoever Sevastian is or represents knew about the attack but used the villagers as monster bait (and.. food). I hope he dies a slow painful death - perhaps at the hands of Ven :)

It appears that you novel is not quite like Claymore after all 😊

A Whisper in Scarlet

Chapter:2

Oct 19, 2021

To:Clowniac

"Everything you're reading is first draft."
No way!! 😲 At least tell me you are writing slow and carefully.. Please?? lol 😂
(Ι am ashamed of feeling jealous but I'm currently am :) )

A Whisper in Scarlet

Chapter:1

Oct 19, 2021

A masterfully written chapter, and this is the first time I've used these words here. The well-written ominous prologue passed the narrative baton to the officially first chapter elegantly and naturally. And, of course, it ended with a huge cliffhanger, which means I *need* to read what happens next :)

Your prose must have been either edited and polished multiple times or you are one of the super rare few who can write their first draft with barely any errors. It is *quite* rare to read a web novel chapter with no errors (none that I spotted anyway) but this is the case here. To be honest I'm kind of.. disappointed, since I like giving editing tips lol 😆

So, since I spotted no grammar / syntax / spelling etc errors let's proceed to the singular flaw that I think this chapter has, so that my critique is more balanced :
your prose is finely written and elegant, I like its old-style pre-Victorian flavor which I think suits the story's genre well; as for your descriptions they are elaborate, but occasionally they are *too* elaborate, i.e. a bit too verbose and detailed.

Some 'fat' could have been trimmed so that the lean-ish narration was even leaner and tighter. I also found it weird (not necessarily wrong, since I'm not sure it technically is) to end each dialogue segment with a full stop and start the next segment with a capital letter. It felt like the flow of the dialogue was broken or intermittent when it wasn't.

That's all about 'Chapter One'. I take a little breather and move on to the next chapter 😊

A Whisper in Scarlet

Chapter:1