Twice Lived

Review as of CH. 16:

A wonderfully written shouting match between Elm's inner moral, Earthly past and the new reality he must face. Despite the story still being in its initial stages, Elm could easily be the subject of a study on trauma, shock and PTSD. Many authors try to write harsh, dark, gritty characters. Few have the sheer gall and moral stamina required to truly flesh out the sadistic, twisted, visceral imagery that truly portrays a broken psyche. Obran has my respect for the sheer level of psychological pain expressed in their writing.

The story feels professionally edited with no obvious mistakes in grammar or spelling. The author even goes the extra mile to make accents and slang seem believable and well punctuated while providing a distinctly separate tone during dialogue. The story arcs flow well due to the clear goals and well quantified progress the main character experiences. Common pitfalls like RPG-esque statistics are avoided and the magic system flows well in context without breaking the immersion of the story.

The overarching tonal connotation of Obran's writing does a wonderful job of expressing that the universe could give a goblin's ass about you, but chooses not to because it would require using an extra sheet of paper. An abrupt death replete with a nail-biter of a rebirth is contrasted with the growth and change of the main character as he experiences trauma, goblin shit, and hillbilly elvish slang.

This story checks all the boxes:

• A well thought out and emotionally developing, if traumatized, main character.
• Clear goals and a story arc that visibly progresses towards new events.
• Professional grammar and spelling.
• A riveting command of the English language with frequent and varied imagery and literary devices.
• A congruity of thought and planning that sets a consistent tone for the whole story and clearly demonstrates that the author has a concrete picture of the world they are writing.

I look forward to reading more.

Not for the faint of heart. 

I do love the realism and worldbuilding, after a few chapters i found myself soaked in this new world.

Not everything is explained in detail, you never feed forcefeed, and the atmosfere and smal details left unaswered slowly starts to unravel what this world is like. the explanation of the magic system is top notch so far, and lo and behold, not only a belivable Mc. but relatable as well.  

I feel uneasy enjoying this story too much, because i highly doubt anyone can preform this good on a regular basis. or keep delivering content like this without falling for the comon burnout.  5/5 on everything. lets just pray this story gets to play out 

(second langugae user here btw, pardon any misstakes)

For readers: Read it if you enjoy a well told tale of reincarnation and fantasy in a world as much grit as it is enticing. There are monsters, some in the skin of men and magic aplenty. Should you be sqeuamish or idealistic then this isn't a novel you're likely to find easy to read. On the other hand if you like blood, guts and realistic medieval fantasy then this is for you.

For Authour: Please keep on going with this work. It is damned good and you've carved out a unique world with only 17 chapters. I for one want to see what you can do with two or three times that. Keep it up!

As I've proclaimed in the title this is good.

Very good.

But it would be unlike me to not have nitpicks.

And even if this is a practice book without much thought, and the author has already read my  opinions on the comment section I believe that having to go through pages upon pages of comments just to find the advice from nitpicky mc nitpick is extremely dull and boring.

 So, here I am, with spoilers for the first chapters and too much free time on my hands.

As anyone who has ever read one of my reviews will tell you, spoilers are inbound followed by nitpicky douchiness.

Yes, even if I do recomend this book with all of my heart and gave it 4.5 five stars I still have things to complain about.

Nitpicks, yes, but things none the less.

But, really, this is going to be a short review in terms of actual reviewing.

Mainly because there is only one thing I have complained about.

And that is the portrayal of certain characters and the wasted opportunity to make a 3d character with relatable thoughts.

I'm clearly talking about the Mc's new father whose name I forgot, he is a mustache twirling, dismembered twice lived kicking villain with 'no feelings' or morals.

Yes, we, as the reader are meant  to root against him and hate him but as a wise sage on the internet once said, the best villains are the ones you relate to, if the father had been acting like a good loving parent up until the big revelation part it would've made it ten times as hard on the hearts of the softies.

Imagine, one second he loves you and you love him back, almost like a second father, then when he works he changes completely and turns into a cold hearted monster that believes to be in the right when he slaughters little children for sins they didn't know they were commiting.

And then he returns to his child and explains that is how a demon looks like hoping to transmit the same conviction and beliefs to his son.

Now, THAT would be an emotional kick in the balls.

And that is the only thing I really would like to see changed.

Of course I love the everliving shit out of this novel and I have recomended it to a couple of friends already but I really get annoyed when I think about how much of a wasted opportunity that was.

Anyways, I wish the author good luck and hope to see more of the awesome stuff he will publish.

Thank you for reading this, whoever you are on the internet, and I hope that my here words would help not only this book's author but another author too.

Overall: I love the story and enjoy it a lot and that's really all I need. It's also nice and gory. cackles madly 5/5

Style: The story is great and certainly has its own unique flair. It doesn't gloss over dark aspects of inquisitors or public executions. It shows how doing that sort of thing can twist you. It also has a hick who speaks with a god-awful accent which I find hilarious and definitely adds to the immersion. 5/5

Story: The story is still starting out, but there are the beginnings of hidden plots and an overarching story. There are also problems the protagonist will need to resolve in the future. He, which by extension means us, just don't know enough yet. 5/5

Grammar: The grammar is great and definitely not going to detract from the reading or break the immersion of the story. I don't remember any errors when I binge read the story yesterday night. Although I am sure they are there for very few things are perfect. 5/5

Character: They aren't flat. They have motives and the motives so far are believable; however, as I mentioned earlier in my review the story is still just starting out, chapter sixteen as of the moment, and more depth will probably be added. 5/5

Loving it so far.

I'm not a huge fan of the latest mentor and the ongoing Forest Training Montage Arc (Ch10 onward) but it's still very pleasant to read. Still wish it would move past that soon.

The MC particularly isn't overly introspective, at least not in a manner that is flagrant to the reader, which make this FPOV-style story stand out among the rest. No unending whining, which is nice. He lament in the here-and-now but doesn't revisit the past.

Some typos are present, but they are rare.

The story is original and unique. It turns the reincarnation archetype on its head.

There's gore and graphic violence, but while it has a lot more of it than most, it also oddly isn't as gratuitous as most gory/violent fictions are.

And it's paced in such a way that the violence isn't grating, nor there just to be edgy. It's used as an actual legitimate device to advance the story and develop the character. As result, you don't feel sort of fatigue from constant violence that you generally from grimdark stories when you try to binge read them. Because of this, I was able to read from the start to the most current chapter (17) in one sitting and was still urgently craving for more.There's mild comic relief interspersed and the story is just so damn interesting that even if you weren't a fan of gore, you might nevertheless be compelled to continue reading.

The author says he's not at the stage of writing where he can reliably "show rather than tell", but from what I can see, does a pretty good job of the showing.  

The MC is sympathetic and well rounded. The supporting characters, are not featured anywhere near as prominently as the MC and his thoughs/observations. They thus don't have the opportunity to be developed, but are interwoven into the story in such a way as to make them compelling nonetheless. 

The pacing is good. The level of detail and worldbuilding is perfect -- not too shallow or light on details, but not drowning you in verbose descriptions either. There is just enough suspense and mystery to keep you reading and wanting to find out more, without it being overdone or frustrating. His mastery of the english language is top notch, with very few errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling for a self-published rough draft. His use of prose is creative and helps inject some of that subtle humor/comic relief I was talking about.

Overall, I highly recommend to anyone who can stand gore, even a little bit. For those who can't, then by all means, steer clear. Just know that you're missing out otherwise remarkable storytelling. Words don't do justice to how good this story is.

So. The author describes this as a first draft, and as a violent story. Believe him. There are several people who are publicly executed in painful ways, there are more people who are killed, and at one point the MC beats a person to death and the towns guard's response, after a suitable bribe, is along the lines of Very good, and can we dispose of the body?

Grammar is of a skilled, rushed English speaker. Characters are interesting. But the world building is really interesting, with hints of a magical, formally created caste system, and reasons for people from Earth to be despised, and their influence kept hidden.

One of my favorite stories on RR. I absolutely love how the world is build up and how the culture of the world is influenced by the "Twice lived". I like that the protagonist isn't afraid to make hard decisions and doesn't whine all the time. The author also lovely describes the world in all its grimdark glory. The grammar isn't perfect, it's serviceable with few mistakes, but nothing that is glaring. 

Read it. It's seriously good.

Reminds me of full metal alchemist brotherhood.

Unfortunately, feels like it's on permenant training montage. Which in itself isn't bad. It's just harder to relate to the MC. Would be nice to see him face some moral struggle again. Ya know, to verify I'm not in the mind of a sociopath. Or maybe further emphasize what he's had? Or maybe acting more like someone who could arbitrarily be executed at any time, and to vent from time to time.

Most of the time, the world is introduced in an organic way. Doesn't often feel like sitting through walls of info dump.

Time skips can get confusing if you really try to add the math up. Maybe it's right and checks out, but it's still disorienting and feels like a missed opportunity.

Has really well done magic systems. Doesn't feel like random asspulls screaming "BECAUSE A WIZARD DID IT!!!" Truly feels like the author thought about the consequences of magic and how it impacts the world. Still not sure why people use swords and arrows when there's fire artillery and fire guns.

A few misspelled words and repeat sentences, but nothing too distracting.

Excellent web novel, 5/5. Slightly above average novel at 3.5/5, although it seems inconceivable to take all this and trim it down to novel size. It is a first draft though.

Would be nice to see how reincarnation affects the story in a unique way rather than the overarching plot. Like persecuting reincarnated could be replaced with almost anything else and the story would spill out similarly. What reason did we choose reincarnation? 

It is nice seeing the impact our culture has on theirs though.