The Pillar of Enera

The Pillar of Enera is a fantastic fantasy novel that continues to blow my mind. We follow Simon and a group of children that begin to explore Enera, which has been affected by the 'Fracturing', an event that resulted in the continents being lifted up into the air(which is pretty sick!). 

Style: The worldbuilding and exposition are almost perfect to a T. I had no problems reading and enjoying the lore the author has laid out. Although Simon's dialogue format with italics did create confusion on whether it was his thoughts, it was overall enjoyable. The mix of thoughts and narration blended well to know what the characters were thinking in the chapters. Dialogue flows like water and helped play a part in worldbuilding and characterization. 

Story: The world is so massive that I'm sure that all the lore can be compiled in a fandom or wiki page. The author has clearly put in a lot of effort in detail, and interesting gripping lore that makes me want to read more. The state of affairs of Enera are exciting and makes me curious how everything is playing out in the world. 

Grammar: I did not notice anything that deterred my enjoyment of the story. 

Characters: All of the characters are fleshed out and have unique personalities, and the character dynamics are really well done. Each character has their own thoughts and opinions, which makes each character easier to be attached to. Immense characterization is present every chapter I've read so far. 

The Pillar of Enera is something I'd think out of the His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philipp Pullman or even better than it. For anyone into massive worldbuilding and life-like characters, this one is it!

(HEAVENLY DAO. HEAVENLY DAO. HEAVENLY DAO.) 

To put it bluntly, I'm only a few chapters in so far and I can already tell this has all the makings of a Masterpiece. 

The world building is very well done, highly detailed and imaginative and it follows alot of the core logic of most fantasy novels. It's clear that the author has put in alot of care and thought when designing this world as everything fits together so well that it's more like the author is putting together a giant puzzle for us and knows exactly how each piece goes together without any visible effort on the oberserver.

Another thing that the author does extremely well, the shifting POVs of the 8 Main characters. Normally I'm NOT a fan of multiple POV stories due to how jarring and immersion breaking they can be. Through some kind of modern witchcraft of sorcery the author has pulled of the impossible and made the story extremely immersive even with the multiple POVs. If someone had told me a week ago that a fiction existed that I would enjoy that had multiple main characters, I would have called them a darn liar! I'm very happy to admit that I would have been wrong in that regard.

Each chapter I've read seems to pull me deeper into the rabbit hole, and yet I find myself smiling and holding hands with the rabbit along the way.  Overall the reading experience has been enjoyable and I'm looking forward to continuing forward with this fiction. 5/5 stars. Easy.

Highly recommend!

This is a golden story. An immense world-building, and fantastic characters, this is a hidden gem. You need to read this story! (the end twist of the first book is magic!)

I just don't understand why it's not followed more. This story is well above RR standards. 

The world-building is absolutely unique. The world is full of countries, dangerous zone, habitats, sky-rivers, and a floating crust. And we feel that this world is complete and moving, autonomous. Everything is constructed beautifully.

The characters!!! Just the best multi-characters I ever read. Usually, I hate when there are more than 2. But in this story, the 8 characters have a unique personalities forcing the plot forward. And each character has a unique personality growth.

The grammar is perfect. But I have nothing to say I am not a native speaker.

The style is also very good. Maybe the fight scene needs to be more described, more fleshed out. 

If I have one problem is the exposition, too much, too soon at the start of the story. A lot of it is not immediately needed. And give too much information on the first plot twist of the identity of the characters. It was way too easy to guess.

Author you need to have a better synopsis to catch the audience, More click-bait. And put the fact that there are 8 characters not at the start of the synopsis, this can stop people.

Thanks a lot for the story!

Pillars of Enera is too big a story for a quick synopsis. It is a meeting of immortals, a clash of fates fueled by a world that feeds on the narrative itself. It is also really freaking good. 

STYLE: The story is narrated by a number of different characters. Memories and information flow from them as they progress, providing backstory as well as their thoughts and feelings. Little snippets of thought are spliced in. It's an odd stye, one I don't think I've seen before, but it is extremely immersive and grows on you quickly. The prose, descriptions, and dialogue are all top notch.

STORY: The story takes its time, unfolding history and current events concurrently. On the one hand, that means a simple meeting takes several chapters to unfold. On the other, an extraordianry number of events and characterizations happen during said meeting. The pacing is masterful, weaving a complex thread of characters and events into a single cohesive narrative that is surprisingly easy to follow. The scope is epic, and the tone is grim. Reading it feels a lot like reading Steven Erickson's Malazon Books of the Fallen. Dark and compelling and surprisingly hard to put down. 

CHARACTERS: There are so many characters I occasionaly struggled to keep track of who was who, but I attribute that more to my swiss cheese brain (I've had a lot of head trauma) than any fault of the author's. Great care is taken to make each character stand out, with distinct personalities, motivations, and power sets. Even those only touched upon lightly give hints of greater depths, and I found myself far more invested in these people than I would have expected.

GRAMMAR: Flawless. If there was a single mistake, I didn't find it. 

OVERALL: This is a heavier, more serious tale than most you find on Royal Road. Read it anyway. It is phenomally well done, and absolutely worth your time. Share it with your friends, and tell them Destroyatron sent you.

Overall

The story draws the reader in with promises of high fantasy then twists your expectations with ideas of martial arts and daoism. It's a take rarely seen and the melding of eastern and western fantasy is very welcome. The magic system appears very dense and full of mystery. The main eight are isolated from most of the world's story, allowing the narrative to naturally explain a lot of this world's particulars. 

Story

Characters mention new concepts with regularity, suggesting from the beginning that the world of Enera is dense with history, mysteries and adventure. 

Grammar

I found few to no mistakes though the liberal use of italics both for thoughts and occasionally used for dialogue can throw one off. Although the care given to other topics might mean that the italics represent something that will be revealed further in the story.

Character

All the characters are actually very unique and interesting. I'm a sucker for psychic characters, after all. The first couple chapters can feel a little front-loaded with so many people to introduce and keep track of. The group, however, are interesting and unique people so I'm sure they'll flourish once given time to breathe. Eight main characters is truly a feet of writing and difficult to juggle so kudos to the author for taking on the challenge and doing the group justice.

The Pillar of Enera is a wildly ambitious story set in a post-apocalyptic world full of magic. It has a huge host of characters (eight children plus two adults that I’ve encountered so far) and a number of other named characters that really fill out the world’s history.

Style

The style of the story is very immersive. It’s cerebral in a lot of parts, and we’re seeing the world through a lot of characters’ thoughts. The only minor confusion I had was

But otherwise, very engaging style that left me surprised when I looked up to check my progress, as I was tearing through the story faster than I thought.

Story

The story is on an epic scale to say the least. We’re entering a world that has already seen heroes fight against an apocalyptic villain to secure a Pyrrhic victory. The world is literally crumbling as a result. A lot of stories may have glossed over this or tried to TELL you the consequences rather than SHOW you, but the environmental detail in this story was superb and really made it feel more believable (in the context of a fantasy setting.) The worldbuilding is probably my favorite part. I also love the meta nature of the story with storytelling rules and tropes forming new laws of nature in this world. Leaves me very curious as to what will happen with these rules and the HEAVENLY DAO.

Grammar

Other than the occasional typo we all have, the grammar was flawless as far as I could tell.

Character

I was initially overwhelmed that the story was going to have eight main protagonists. Very few stories can pull that off, but I think this story does it well. The characters are all at least distinct enough to differentiate in your head, with unique names, personalities, and abilities.

In summary, I definitely recommend you read this story! I know I’ll be coming back to continue reading.

Except when they are Necromancers... Or literally immortal, and ageless. But that does not mean that they cannot be killed. And what a way to begin a story with a hero's death?

Pillar of Enera is, what it seems at a first glance, a typical superheroes vs a supervillain story, where in the superheroes literally have the 'Heavenly Dao' on their side, but there is much more to the story, and to the world, than that. The superheroes are not just your goody two shoes heroes. They are heroes willing to kill. Heroes, who carry hatred, centuries old. And this just what the story offers on the surface.

Style: The story is largely consistent in its style, and the way the world is explored. It is just that some times, there are instances where one person's dialogue ends, and another person's thoughts(not in the form of narration, but clear, italicised, thoughts) begin, all in the same line, without explicitly implying whose thoughts those are. This could be a choice of style though, so there is not much to say about that.

Story: The story looks solid, with a good base to it. The world is fleshed out, and does not look like it is made up of twigs, and branches. Some really great world building has been done here. But not at the cost of story. So far, there is a clear goal in the sotry. However, that goal is not a unified one. Each character have their own goals... A character driven story. That is always a plus point in my book. 

Grammar: There werre a few little punctuation, and grammatical errors(mostly in dialogue tags). But that is just me being a grammar nazi. It could also be that this is the style that author likes to use, so I cannot say much about that. Other than that, everything seems fine.

Character: There is a great cast of characters here. And by great, I mean both in number, and quality. I do not want to spoil the sotry by expanding on them in detail here. All I can say is that these characters all seem to have their own flaws. And I likecharacters with flaws. I can see a lot of room for the growth of the characters. Besides, the story itself is being driven by these characters. What else can I say about them?

Conclusion: If you are looking for a superhero story, just not one with goody two shoes heroes like batman, and superman, then look no further. After all, who needs other heroes when you have a centuries old necromancer roaming the world, trying to catch a villain? Except Enera, of course. And the Isle of... oops, that would be a spoiler. If you want to know more, then you would have to read the story yourself.

This story is a delight to read. The worldbuilding is well thought out, and there's some large info-dumps in the first few chapters that really let the author expand on the larger setting without detracting from the introduction of all the main characters. Well done.

Style: Its written in the third person as per usual for the site. The use of italics is an interesting choice to say the least, however my one gripe is that Simon speaks in italics while everyone else thinkgs in itealics. Its a stylistic choice, but one that is slightly jarring. Otherwise its perfect.

Story: As I said before there's a few info dumps. Originally I didn't like the whole "Heavenly Dao" is God thing but once it was explained I began to grow more curious and interested. It's a far better take than any other story I've read that contains a "Dao" style progression system.

Grammar: Fantastic. Perhaps only one error within the first nine chapters is insanely high quality for RR

Character: While their names might be simple, the characters themselves are not. By switching POV's and showing some of them individually the reader is able to get a real sense of each character. I look forward to seeing more of them. (Wise is the best!)

From the initial description of this story, I thought the HEAVENLY DAO was going to be more of a background plot device, and not an actual character who takes a very real and heavy hand in the affairs of the world. While this could easily be overplayed, and future chapters will likely tell one way or the other, from its initial outset I really liked how the author was utilizing its presence, both to explain large sweeps in historical events and to lay a framework for how various powers and magics will eventually present through the story.

But this isn’t a tale about the DAO (not to be confused with Dao, or dao, or any other rendition thereof), it’s about children. Ones which from the moment of their introduction reminded me of The Umbrella Academy, if not exactly in specifics than at least in how each possesses a unique powerset, along with a personality driven both by those abilities as well as their somewhat fractious family life. There’s a lot of potential for chaos even in just these early chapters.

Character— You can tell the author put a lot of work into thinking about the powers these eight children wield and how they’ll interact—both in a physical sense, and how they view each other. There is an impressive array of group dynamics on display from the get-go, and that’s not even talking about some of the supporting characters like the necromancer Simon or the MCs’ mother, both who also have a vividly fleshed-out past and interesting personality quirks of their own.

With the vivid world also on display, there’s the potential to get lost in all the world and character building, but, caveat to my next point below, I didn’t ever feel like it was bogged down or info-dumping. Each MC’s personality—and the clashes between them—provided enough space that whole narratives unfolded with relative ease.

Story— Unfortunately, I think there is a potential stumbling block here for some readers. All of the character setup, while enjoyable, comes at a cost, that being the lack of any driving narrative and stakes at the beginning of the story. There is a bit of a setup for a murder-mystery puzzle which is also the catalyst for getting the characters out into the world, but it takes a while to develop (by the end of the sixth chapter, it was still mostly still in the setup stage of the story).

Now, that’s not necessarily a problem, and I’m sure that future chapters will begin to develop higher and higher stakes, but don’t go into this with the expectation that the action kicks off right from the get-go. When there are no less than eight main characters to introduce, fast setups and in media res simply aren’t an option.

Style— The story is an easy read, and despite a veritable avalance of made-up words I didn’t ever find myself getting lost in the narrative. The varied and unique characters also help keep this a story where you can burn through chapters at a fairly quick clip.

Grammar— I didn’t really notice anything that would cause me to stumble in the reading, so full marks there. The author clearly knows his stuff or uses a good review program.

Conclusion— Overall I enjoyed reading this story, and while some readers may have an issue with the pacing, I personally didn’t find it to be a problem. The world building is top notch, and if for no other reason you should read this story to find out about the ‘black banquet’. I promise you won’t regret it.

Although I agreed to swap reviews of the first 10,000 words, I was immediately engaged with the world that contextualizes the characters in The Pillar of Enera, and will definitely continue reading the entire novel.  The eloquent descriptions of this world naturally stage the "frozen setting" for the hero hungry characters displaced from their personal histories, and challenged by their unknown futures.  Surrounded by a literal population of Fantasy tropes reinvinted to compliment the assertive motivations of Simon and Astra and Rose.  Their inner musings genuinely expose such character motivations without appearing contrived or overly plotted.

On an entertainment level, I was immediately drawn into the story arcs and remain interested to continue. The author does a good job balancing showing and telling and containing the story arcs in the impressive context developed from the onset, in Chapter 1. 

Looking forward to reading more.