Horizon

INTRODUCTION:

Horizon is a traditional story that deviates from the formula by featuring a protagonist who isn't strictly speaking "good", but more in the Chaotic Neutral range. He is self-serving and single-minded in working towards his own ends. For me, that improved my enjoyment of the story. The grammar and dialogue was a bit weak, but might not affect your enjoyment much as a reader if you think that premise sounds interesting.

STYLE:

Paragraph and chapter length are both good, making it so that the story is easy to read through. Word choice is nice and breezy as well, although I would have preferred more vivid descriptions.

The tone is fairly light-hearted, especially the MC's inner monologue. There's a good amount of violence, which is given decent weight as the MC sustains damage and makes mistakes.

Overall solid.

GRAMMAR:

The story stumbles here. Numerous mistakes do make the flow stutter. On the upside, the author appears to be very receptive to feedback in this area, and appears to be working diligently towards improving the story, which is always a great thing to see. I assume that this area will change for the better later on.

STORY:

There isn't too much of a "plot" for me to speak on so far. Where I left off, it mostly consists of the MC improving himself in various ways. If that's the sort of thing you enjoy seeing in a serial, as opposed to a "defeat the bad guy" or "find the thing" plot, you're likely to enjoy this aspect as well.

CHARACTER:

I believe that the MC might put off some people. As mentioned in the intro, he is fairly self-serving and dedicated only to achieving his own motives. I found this to be a nice twist to the usual formula, and it was one of the things that kept up my interest in Horizon.

I did find it a little heavy-handed at times, and I thought that the MC went to extremes such as contemplating eating humans without much of a natural progression to get there, since he goes from just a normal individual.

Regardless, I thought it was a cool concept executed well.

OVERALL:

Pick up Horizon if you think that the concept of a morally ambiguous MC working to get stronger without worrying about friends or morals sounds cool. The grammar stutters do bring the story down a bit, but I think it's still worth a read if you enjoy unique POVs.

The world is intriguing and the genre-savvy character is interesting enough. The author is clearly well-acquainted with the tropes of the genre, but perhaps to his/her detriment, as the phrasing sometimes comes off as cheesy and cliche.

If you can push past the grammatical errors, though, there really is a diamond in the rough here. Thus, I'd recommend it for a fun read.

This is a solid piece of xianxia-inspired work, with a main character with many characteristics you don't often see in stories like this. Despite the interesting aspects of the MC, I think the story lacks a 'hook' or a 'distinguishing feature' to set it apart from the many stories that exist like this.

Style: I think the author has adopted the 'martial path' genre very nicely, using well-structured chapters and humorous elements. I do not, however, appreciate all the internal monologuing, which I find to be too long and frequent. I'm a lot more interested in what characters do than what they think.

Grammar: Spelling is excellent, syntax is consitent, and while tense gets muddled up a bit, it's nowhere near too distracting. All-around solid, as mentioned above, however, the author often merges distinct sentences into one long string of a sentence. Long sentences are not inherently bad, but they need special care when structured, else it becomes an exhaustive read.

Story: There is a story worth exploring here, but in many ways it gets bogged down by heavy exposition, both in- and outside the aformentioned monologues. This also comes down to preferences, but I, as a reader, don't need to have everything explained in exhaustive detail. As long as the message is clear, on a sentence level, I like to be free to make inferences about the world and its inhabitants.

Characters: I'm ambivalent about this one because, on one hand, I think the author has an interesting main character, but on the other hand I'm not completely following his motivation. There's a lot of philosophising and justifications going on, especially in the beginning, where it seems like he is set upon a warped path from the outset, rather than arriving at it out of necessity or action. In addition, while there are several side characters, I dont feel any incentive to care about them in particular. It feels like the MC doesn't quite either, so why should I?

Overall: As I have said, this is solid work. It has interesting elements worth exploring, and a main character with potential, but there's no real 'hook' for me. Why is this story worth reading, rather than any other story like it? That is the question I think the author needs to consider.

It's interesting and a very fun read. The MC is kind of a psycho focused on not just surviving, but thriving in a new and alien world.

Oh yeah, the 0.5 star missing from the rating is because some of those dark moments change things so abruptly they feel out of place. They could be presented a little better, it feels like they're stabbed into place.

Here's how he's described and it fits perfectly:

“In my vision, it was a wolf, a gluttonous black wolf. Its paws were dyed red with blood but its body smelled like wine. Its fangs were sharp but always kept hidden. The wolf was cowardly and cautious, selfish and solitary. It likes to be seen as weak by other animals but it was all a façade. The black wolf was a vicious and remorseless predator. Its enemies only had one end, killed then eaten. Each time it fed, it grew stronger and stronger.”

“I foresee you’ll meet the wolf, in what form, when, and where, I do not know. If you tried to manipulate it, no matter how clever and meticulous your plan is, the wolf won’t help you; there’s even a great chance you’ll end up in its jaws instead. The wolf was wandering and it crossed path with you by chance. If you fail to seize the initiative to make contact with this dangerous being first, then it won’t pay attention to you as it continued to wander.”

It's not the best novel, and there are certain issues that appear once in a while with spelling, but overall it's a good read.

I also have a bit of a bias for characters that don't want to follow the "common" tropes, so if that's your thing then you should definitely read it.

• Well, I just read the first chapter, so i can't really write a review per se.

But all I have to say for now is that an editor is needed

and don't mind my score

Most readers can freely ignore this review and many might think I am nitpicking, especially given the fact I did not finish the first chapter before I decided to write this.

From the reviews and comments I have read, this appears to be the third draft of this web novel - at the very least of this particular chapter - and from the bits of the original I have seen, the current draft is much improved.  It is, basically, readable although there are still slip ups in the grammar apparent within the first few paragraphs.

Still, for an ESOL novel the grammar is perfectly acceptable.  I don't find perfect grammar in novels written by authors who have english as their first language, so it is easy to excuse errors from an author who has english as a second language.

So why did I stop reading so quickly?  Because a grammatically correct sentence is not necessarily a good sentence.

It is difficult to put into words the issues I saw.  While I could explain for each individual case what is wrong and why, the basis for my thoughts is not a codified thing like grammar.  In fact, calling anything I noticed wrong in any particular way wouldn't really be accurate.

In one of the first paragraphs, for example, the author has two or three sentences where he has lists.  The author uses "he" something like nine times in a row.  There is not technically anything wrong with it, but it just feels wrong.

 I'll probably stick this in my "read later" and try it in a slow week.

So, I'm revising this at the end of Book 1, which at the moment is the only book there is, and I've got to say, I really enjoyed this story. So basic premise, guy gets isekaied, but he has read thousands of such stories just like the many other isekai stories here on RR. And he uses the knowledge of those stories to guide his decisions. He's a bit of a psychopath but it isn't something that I found distracting.  It actually made the story interesting, he rejects a lot of offers and and standard tropes because he knows what the tropes are. The first couple chapters are a bit rough grammar wise, and a bit rough in other ways but I think that's more the author figuring out just how to start off. 

The MC thinks things slowly, smartly, methodically.

it's great.

a bit of double-triple lucky chances at first, but he also encounters issues.

it's not the best story out there, but it's still very good.

I just don't like much that he decided beforehand to not have "friends / GF / nakama"... that's a bit sad as people interaction and relationship is one of the things I prefer in novels.

otherwise... slowly but methodically becoming stronger... and if life gives you lemons, become the KING OF LEMONS !!!