Silver, Sand, and Silken Wings

Silver, Sand and Silken wings is a coming of age fantasy story about Slyph, an aer dragon and her personal quest to find out more about her own true origins and family. The meat of the story so far has been Sylph trying to find out about herself as well as trying to prove herself to those around her, to varying degrees of success.

It’s not a very actiony story, but it’s definitely strong in its development of the characters and their relationships to another. The story is 95% Sylph, so obviously we see things from her point of view, which is a little rough for me as an old man, because she’s essentially, well, she’s exactly what she’s supposed to be. A confused young woman trying to come to terms with her place in life, as she feels a bit out of sorts with where she has found herself thus far. But she’s written convincingly for someone in her position and she flows well with the world around her.

The world-building itself is solid and the author knows how to paint a strong picture of the environments. I found no noticeable spelling or grammar mistakes and anything that had already been pointed out in the comments, the author handled in good grace, which is always a positive sign.

All in all, if you’re looking for a story about dragons, about self-worth and about self-discovery in a world that seems oddly against it, then please give this one a fair shot! =)

This is a breathtaking dragon fantasy where humans, dragons and magic coexist. Sylph, the young dragonness is an abandoned, insecure MC that is very relatable. The landscape and otherworldly description is also beautiful.

1. Story.

I am very much in love with the story! The prologue had me a little disappointed but the following chapters changed my mind completely. We follow our MC Sylph who has multiple mothers who raised her into being. We are thrown into a dragon-human world where people/dragons live above the clouds. This seems to be a journey of growth with Sylph rediscovering herself and her identity. So far, the story is great! 5 stars for that!

 2. Style.

I really like how the author uses similes and metaphors appropriately to paint a clear picture for his readers! The action scenes are described elegantly and allows readers to really feel the tension in each fight scene. This style also helps to elevate the depth of his characters. Great job but some polishing would be good! 4.5 stars!

 3. Grammar.

The grammar is decent with some tenses errors here and there but overall decent as well. I gave 4stars but it’s really more like 4.25.

4. Characters

Sylph is really relatable and she’s a MC that everyone detests. No one wants to be her. And this insecurity is nicely portrayed in her thoughts, dialogue and behaviour. The other characters seem interesting as well. In the early chapters, I think the author has done a remarkable work in making Sylph an insecure dragonness. Thus, 4.5 stars!

5. Closing 

It’s an adventurous story with Sylph at the core of it all. Her background remains a mystery and I would very much love to see her mature in terms of her character. The worldbuilding is done well and I don’t have much complaints besides the occasional grammatical errors. The story flows well and it’s exciting to see how Sylph would grow! Well-deserved 4.5 stars and I would say give the first few chapters a try. The prologue was not as good but the chapters make it worthwhile! Thank you author for this thrilling adventure with Sylph!

Before we start, you should know that I am a beta reader for this story, and was reading it before it was published here. Now, let us begin:

STYLE: I am not the best person to talk about style, given my native language not being English. However, I had no issue reading it, and the words flowed very smoothly for the most part. Though, there were some sentences/paragraphs which required me to re-read.

GRAMMAR: Similarly, I should not be critiqueing grammar. I did not noticed any grammatical errors besides a typo or repeated words here and there. Nothing major.

STORY: I will keep this spoiler free. Firstly, I love everything about dragons, and SSaSW delivers. At first, I was expecting a generic, uninspired fantasy story, but I was so happy to be wrong. The story is not super unique, but it serves the genre very well—not a bad thing at all. The worldbuilding, however, is where SSaSW stands out; flying continents, airships, various kinds of dragons living with humans and an interesting magic system are all awesome.

CHARACTERS: This is where the book shines in my humble opinion. All of the characters are very well fleshed out and loveable from the overprotective Oasis to strict Veria to the goofy side characters—and some others you will meet in the future. Sylph, the protagonist, herself is the best among them. She is very stubborn, likes to hit stuff, knows when to use wits and vulgar in an enjoyable way. Her struggle about discovering herself all feels real.

Reviewed with NO agreement to swap. I always welcome a swap, but it is not required, and this is my true, unbiased feelings for the story.

Overall Score: I gave it a 4. The elements that I love in fantasy are there. Dragons, fantastical cities, and characters. Those elements are the load bearing parts of a good Epic-Fantasy, and I think the author nailed it.

Let's start with the lower points first so we end on a high-note.

Grammar [3.5]: Every chapter I read had some mistakes, and it was the weakest part of the story for me. Every time I would get into it, some mistake would pull me out. I'll be honest, this is still solid for a first draft. (which I'm assuming it is) The author could easily clean this up and the story would... soar. :-) (get it?)

Style [4]: You change paragraphs a lot when the topic is still relevant. (meaning no paragraph change needs to happen) I'm assuming this is to keep paragraphs short, but it doesn't work for me. I know this is nitpicky but it bothers me for some reason I can't explain.

Ok that was really it for the negatives, let's go for positivity.

Story [5]: Hooked immediately. Using the story teller to drop Exposition is clever and did not feel like an info dump, but more like a fun moment. The world feels fleshed out, and I love the call backs to past events. It gives depth to the world.

Character [5]: I already love Sylph. She has this childish charm to her, but it is intermingled with a pain that you can feel from her words and actions. What would it be like to be a flightless dragon in that type of world?

This was reviewed at Chapter 3 and I will be pressing on. Only thing I wished was that author could update more often... but that has no bearing in this review.

But it's otherwise fine. Feels like the older novels that you'd find in the libraries instead of the ones you usually find her. If that's a compliment or a negative, I can't really tell. Depends on the individual, I suppose. Personalities are great, giving us a MC that I in no way want to become like. Instead of making an MC that people will insert themselves as, the author has done their best to do the opposite. For that, I commend them. 5/5 Great stuff

The story is about a young girl exploring the world outside and trying to find answers to some personal mysteries. The twist is that this young girl is a dragon in a fantasy world. Various psychological and philosophical concepts that are often delved into in literature are explored here from a different perspective.

The writing style of the author is description and exposition heavy, which made it a bit hard for me to retain interest. But the story and character development seems intriguing to me. 

Style: The style is one that demands your attention, it's definitely not a classic 'RoyalRoad' type of writing but one that's more fitting of contemporary fantasy literature which is great! There's nothing in peculiar which leaves something to be desired.

Story: Is interesting, while not the most revolutionary thing in the world, it serves its purpose quite well, and the pacing and worldbuilding are both satisfactory and fulfilling. That being said, I suspect it's still quite early into the overall plot, so you can't quite formulate a opinion regarding the story quite yet.

Grammar: I'll just admit I didn't notice anything but I also never notice grammar issues unless they are that bad so don't take me on it.

Character: Sylph is a great character having a dragon be the main character is a unique concept, and shes characterized quite well through it, there were some great worldbuilding moments where I believe discussed how she was unable to relate to a 'Metia' for example which was quite great. Other characters also make sense and aren't just pieces of cardboard which is always lovely and they have different ways of speaking and convey their personality well. Though there also aren't ones that are particularly noticeable or stand out as of now (in my opinion).

A fun and fantastical story about a dragon with tradtional "coming of age" elements. The main character, Sylph, is very relatable for anyone that has ever felt like an outisder. 

Style and grammar are both solid, albeit a bit on the simple side. There are plenty of descriptions, however, that do liven up the world and characters.

The main premise is rather straightforward, but the author is able to create a deep and engaging world with plenty of backstory and lore to accompany it. 

Silver, Sand, and Silken Wings was a classic gaslamp fantasy following a young Aer called Sylph. The story was about the life of a post-war, coming of age, child searching for her past. It was beautifully written with immense and thoughtful worldbuilding behind it.

While it was eventually get addressed, there was a time, especially in the earlier chapters (prologue and ch.1) where I was confused to which the capitalized name mentioned were either a race name, a city name, or a person name, IMHO a snippet that would later be introduced in the chapter 2 could be shifted in earlier chapters just to clear the exposition a bit.

The story overall was exciting, I particularly loved how to know what secret so great that made Slyph's foster parent insist on hiding it from Sylph. The worldbuilding was another part I loved; it was top quality how the author describe the logic of a society that was inhabited by dragons that live along other mortal species.

The characters. The fleshed out characters so far was only Sylph. Her struggle was very realistic, the chapter 1 especially with the storyteller, it gave the readers tinge how information unreliably spread due to the lack mean of fast communication.

As for grammar, it was good. There was some odd commas here and there that I think could benefit by changing them to a semi colon (;) or just period (.) and few missing articles. However the biggest distraction so far was the double space between the paragraph. Something that the author can easily fix by clicking the clean paste button next time (I assumed the author copied their manuscript from 3rd party writing software).

In conclusion it was a lovely story to read. A bookshelf quality.

***

Disclaimer: This review was created as part of the swap with the reviewer story (Tales of an Unlikely Wizard) in accordance with the Royalroad Rules regarding Review Swap. Reader discretion is advised.

In this story, we follow Sylph, an Aer dragon that apparently no one would like to be in her shoes. The prologue gives you a glimpse of a certain event and then, we follow Sylph, the dragon that was (probably) most impacted by it, in her quest to find out what happened, why, and how.

The story itself is nice and captivating and makes you want to know more about what happened, especially in the prologue's situation.

The style and grammar may be the author's strongest weapons. Beautiful prose and the author is very good at making you sympathize with Sylph. I'm sure I'm not the only one that wants to punch that storyteller's face.

The characters are all unique with their own personalities, things they like and things they don't and it's easy to distinguish who is who, which makes scenes easier to read and visualize

My only issue with the story (and it may be a personal thing) was that there were too many names and terminologies given to me at the beginning which made it harder for me to acclimate to the story, but once I did, everything was great.

Definitely a story I would recommend and will follow