Lament of the Fallen

Okay, so some people might be wondering why I would rate such a great story only a 3.5. But hear me out first and you too will understand.

WORLD

The world that the author is writing is great. Its one of the few reasons I still keep reading this novel. Sure its got your typical fantasy jargon, etc. but the author knows how to make a decent world with very little hypocricies or missed details written in. The world is large, and has a lot of races, environments, motivations, and power structures to it while still being kept relatively simple (aka with ranks, immortality, etc). It could do with a little spicing up in certain locations, but the MC isn't in those places for long so the written detail would go to waste.

STORY

Speaking of the MC, the main gripe I have with this novel comes into play. The author is caught in worldbuildism and explanationism, something that I too suffer from. Its why I usually forget my novels; because I get a great idea, start a Chapter 0, and write up a huge world. But I completely and utterly forget about my /characters/ and how they'd fit in the worlds I create, and end up getting either bored or frusterated and moving on. The author of this novel has something similar going on. He is very good at EXPLAINING everything, but thats the issue; he tells, and doesn't show very often. So most of the novel is simply him explaining his characters and the world, and not how they actually fare or grow up in their environment.

We don't feel the emotions of what happens to Dee, or get invested when sometihng happens to her or other characters because we don't get time to or shown how; it merely "happens" as the author explains it through third person or another character and then we are told the aftermath. Its hard to explain in words, but those who know what im talking about can see this happening numerous times throughout the novel.

This brings me to the timeskips. Timeskips are great, but I feel like the author is doing them because they cannot write a proper childhood or training period. Which is understandable; I myself suck a lotta butt at them; the main issue, however, is the same as the above. We don't get to understand truly why they are training and the feelings they are going through; its just one or two chapters of characters talking about the training as if they are a narrator and us then moving on to a more powered up MC. It reminds me much like the bad Xianxia and Wuxia novels I read; the MC gets talked about needing to power up, they go closed door for 10000000 years, then come back as a beast till they have to do it again against a more powerful enemy.

These major gripes is what is holding this story back from greatness, in my mind. Less telling, and more showing is required to get us much more invested into the character. This telling is even within emotional scenes like (SPOILER) when Dee and the Sidhe woman Noyla start developing feelings. I felt like (FINALLY) the author was going to slowly integrate them, but then HUGE walls of text appear about "how dee is feeling, how it usually is, how it is now", it was like reading a weather report. We don't need that much detail told to us; we can slowly infer it from their actions. But all of that suspense is removed when everything about the characters is explained in a few paragraphs constantly.

CONCLUSION

A lot more showing, a lot less telling (which is done sometimes in the latter parts of the story, though this review is up to Chapter 99, so I can't be completely sure).

While I don’t like the idea of lowering this story’s average rating, I do hope I can shine some light on the problems this story has. The biggest and most migraine inducing writing style. The 28 chapters I’ve read so far are ALL tell don’t show. The story itself looks fantastic, but it suffers from the author not being used to dialogue and character traits. If I were to give 3 quotes from 3 different characters, each containing more than 50 words, you wouldn’t be able to tell the characters apart. Another huge problem is that the author doesn’t let the setting speak for itself. There are random asides to describe things in the middle of what counts for dialogue that is completely unnecessary. Even worse is that half of what is said can be inferred by a third grader. The great part is that this is probably one of the easier things to fix. It’s hard to make a great world and plan it out like this one clearly is. I know the characters have feelings, it’s just really hard to tell with the authors current style. I plan on updating this review if I make it to chapter 100. 

I thought the tone "Explain!" is tied to only one character, but my oh my, everybody using that rude single word style to keep explanation going.

To potential new readers, this novel try to expose setting through conversation, which is good. But author doesn't seems to put effort to make them fluid. When two people speaks, sometimes they focus on gaining as much information as readers require. For readers' sake. That means, you can remove quotation mark, remove conversation partner, and still be left with exposition without any lost of quality -- that means, conversation doesn't add much value. This lack of style, in turn, has bigger implication: characters sound the same. With most of them female, people quickly forgot who is who.

That's my pet peeve. As for other aspects, everything is fine. This novel is very readable. Although to make it great, author must try to address these problems.

Pantheon is not often talked about. I don't mean who is at the top or where we are currently placed. But about why each group try to move into higher position. As far as I can remember, the world is created by a number of uber powerful individual to provide assylum, which is evolved into your just another world to live in. It should not motivate people to compete to live among the most powerful. Because, resources are scattered and visits are allowed; you can get rich or get strong anywhere you live. That leave prestige. To be frank, prestige only appeal to certain kind of people. The world where everybody strive to gain prestige is too strange. If there's perk to live in higher strata, I honestly forgot.

The Gods are boring. So far, they're only sit around and watch their champions. They don't indulge in power play, or subterfuge, or anything really. For Gods, mischiefs is nice, but sibling quarrel is awful. That much power but they only there accepting the situation dictated by the result of their past champions.

Lastly the sex. So far, author doesn't write his main character as a sex symbol. Only an initiate in the art of carnal desire and attracted only to the same sex. Which is fine. However, whenever the main character present, every female character suddenly only enjoyed that same sex relationship. There's no attraction toward male character explained in adequate detail (if only for balance sake). This unerringly paint a picture about author's sexuality. He attracted only to female body but feel icky toward male body. It is great if he's heterosexual male, or gay female, I don't judge. But characters now become representative to author's taste. This make reading the novel feels like reading author's sexual fantasy, which frankly, is not that great.

there is only one obvious fault I can find with story, though, it is the worst kind of fault any story can have.. It releases slower than I can read it.

orher than that, well written, decently long chapters, fine characters and.... Just read m'kay.

why do i feel like every character is a robot?

sure the story is good but i mean... paragraph after paragraph of explanations kinda gets annoying after a while.

and its a repetitive theme with every novel the author makes. 

and what i mean with the characters being robots is that i feel like they LACK something when they talk to YOU or other characters.

sure, i can understand that people like Haydee (Dee) can be suppressing emotions with what happend why her (brutal) childhood, but this is applied to every other character Dee meets.

and the damn paragraphs! they piss me off to a point where i just skip completely over things that are very much important, but are expanded to 100 words when they could just be around 30-40, and i understand that long chapters are better, but there's a point that stuffing 10 paragraphs of explaining what the Life Tree is, is just annoying and unnecessary.

It is a really good story on par with the last work from the author. It is a good balance of sweet, interesting with a pinch of sour sometimes to give the MC a purpose. The created world is well made (slighly confusing at the start but it gets explained later) But i feel like the author has a bone to pick with angels/celestials ;-)

The MC is well fleshed out and has a good depth of personality. The side characters are well developed. The only thing is the antagonist part, which is lacking a bit. But as it might be very early in the story for it yet, i think it will come (review as of c.16)

Always looking forward to reading new chapters. I just wish they where released faster, but the current release rate is at a good pace.

This is also the only reason it isnt on the top 5 weekly. The quality is there, the story is there, but with only 2-3 chapters a week it is hard to get it on top 5. (It is by far superior to atleast 3 of the current ones)

Alright my first review on RR, I'm not great at writing reviews so I'll go over a few points that bothered me (till chapter 100)

Ok so first of all the whole explain no show thing. It is very very obvious in this novel like when MC got captured by the assassins. You are told she suffered but hell even the MC herself doesn't seem to have too many feelings about that, we are told she hates them and she suffered but you don't feel it. Seriously, except crying one time and reminding us occasionally she hates them she doesn't seem to have any trauma or serious damage from that time. I don't care how mature she is supposed to be for her age, forget a child even an adult that goes through such hell will either break or be at least heavily traumatized.

Dee herself is a very dull MC she's smart but except for coming across snarky and condecending sometimes theres no real personality. There are no real meaningful connections with people (even that elf captain which is supposed to be like a sister to her feels to me like a familiar stranger), no real motivation to do anything or any attachments. Other characters are also very bland, not much personality either and like another reviewer said their conversations with each other seem to happen only for the purpose of explaining to the reader what is going on.

Next are the time skips. Time skips are great, they help avoid what could be tedious parts of a novel. Here they happen all the time. Dee starts learning or training and skip rince and repeat a dozen times which is done in a way that takes the feeling of achievement, she is learning a new move, next chapter she mastered it.

And finally the OPness. I like strong MC's but she is LITERALLY overpowered in every way possible: as a psion (a conviniently op power) she is smart, learns fast, has mental abilities of all sorts, stealthy. She is made of a bunch of strong races giving her a couple of forms to make her even stronger. Given some body reinforcements from the assassins. Given blessings from 4 top gods with a near limitless supply of holy power (which she for some reason uses very little in battle compared to her other abilities) one of which is a deus ex machina type that activates near death, ensuring she can't really die. There's more but you get the drift... It seems everything comes too easy for her, Not just abilities, masters too they just come to teach her one after another.

Long rant short, I enjoyed the novel in the beginning until gradually I couldn't take it anymore.

Grammar: No problems with his stories at all, perfectly readable, Can't find anything for me to mind, I don't grammar nazi, only to barely readable

Style: His style is nice.... who the heck am I kidding, awesome

Character & Story:

a story with a very dark childhood, but has its happy-go moments.

I have to say that the "description" does'nt justify this story at all, it's just to basic without revealing anything but the start, If you havn't read this I do recomend it more than highly, especially if you read her/his/it's earlier work then its a must

The story itself has a very dark childhood, I can reveal that, the MC is quite dark sometimes otherwise its quite good story, the MC is OP but in fact the MC isn't really OP, more in terms of OP in terms of her peers compared to others

(meaning same level, for example she has twice the strength of her level, while having less strength the level above her, that's just a plain example)

I must admit I did read few chapters when it was released and then forgot the story, but that was probably due to release times or other stories took my while, or something else was in the factor.

But currently? at the chapter 42, I am so hooked.... read it from ch.1 to ch.42 in one go and it was disapointing to meet the greyed out next button that is.... I got depressed due to no more reading and had to check the reviews so I could write one of there weren't that many reviews....

This story requires A LOT of love, people.... GIVE IT LOVE!

it's veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery good! even if its not like the previous story but this story is veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery addicting when you get past the first chapters. (can't remember which ones)

also note, this is a indepth review by me which hardly gives full 5 stars.... =) I do give 5 stars for quick reviews and just scoring if It doesn't have enough love but not for indepth stories. hardly such stories

Interesting universe with a lot of races, powers, gods, factions and societies.

The characters trade some funny barbs with each other and go through a nice growth power wise and somewhat characterwise.

But often i wish circumstances and developments would be "experienced" from the view of the characters and not explained. Much training and world lore just exists but is not experienced from the pov of the characters or read like a report. That made this interesting world a little less engaging than e.g. the authors previous story.

A definite improvement over the author's previous story, Lament of the Fallen is a fun, exciting read without any major downsides. It's a bit weaker in the "story" and "character" departments, but only because they both progressed fairly linearly and without major upset. There was nothing wrong with them in particular, but the MC didn't face any serious obstacles at any point, internal or external, and the characters never really had any major impetus to grow or change in a significant way, which is why I'm giving these two aspects four stars instead of five.

There was a bit too much meddling from the "powers that be" which gave off a bit of a deus-ex-machina vibe, but that element was only rarely played as a "get out of jail free card" as was more of a subtle manipulation, so it's not as bad as it sounds.

That said, the characters all had proper motivations for their actions, always acted in-character, and never randomly picked up the idiot ball for plot convenience. Just the fact that those three common problems did NOT exist in this story places it head and shoulders above most other amateur works (and indeed above majy professional works as well).

There were no major or consistent problems with grammar or style either, so there was not much to detract from the actual story, which is a rarity on Royal Road. The work is completed and had a satisfying ending.

On a more personal note, I usually don't do well with periodic updates and prefer to stack up chapters to binge-read, but this story kept me reading update-by-update, so make of that what you will.

The story itself is a fun, exciting, OP-MC power-fantasy that did a good job sticking to its own rules and delivering exactly what was promisied. This is definitely one of the higher-quality stories here on RRL and is worth a read for anyone who likes the genre.

I'm looking forward to the author's next work.