Wayward
This story felt like I was watching a game of DND unfold, which isn't in itself, a bad thing, but when characters are thrown together, don't mesh or even like each other the entire story, have no real chance to bond, and make decisions based on their alignment (good, neutral, evil, etc.) rather than on what's smart, it can be a bad thing. Worse, it felt like the plot was decided by a dungeon master trying to craft a tropey but "fun" tale and keep things interesting with monsters and mysteries thrown in between rests. The story was PREDICTABLE to the point I rolled my eyes a couple of times when the characters didn't see what was coming. In between that were small plot holes or things that happened that the purpose/reasoning behind were just never explained.
Besides all that, while the writing itself wasn't bad or unenjoyable to read, it dearly needed polish. The author would get caught on a word and use it repeatedly for a span, such as "incandescent" or "mosaic." There were also a lot of nitpicky things that were odd or awkward in phrasing that, had it been rarer, I would have shrugged off, but it happened SEVERAL times (such as "the champion plunged his helmet over his head"–plunged over?–or "his lips twisted beneath his bushy beard"–do you mean moustache?). It wasn't a terrible writing style, and I could get pulled into the story when I sat down to read it, but I think it needed more work.
Then there's Gerome, the main character. Some of this part is going to be a personal preference problem, but at the end of the day, I just didn't warm much to Gerome. I liked him a BIT more in the middle, but he lost me again as the story wore on. He felt like a "man" in a negative way. His humor almost never landed, and while that definitely has the potential to be a *me* problem more than a *book* problem, I absolutely found myself cringing more than once at his thoughts or commentary. He was also the type of person who has talent but not because he wanted to DO something with it. He was motivated literally by what would be most likely to get him laid and almost caused mass death and destruction trying to improve the size of his member. I'm sure some people would find this funny, but to me it's cringey "man" energy in some of the worst ways and was personally repulsive and unendearing. I ended up liking the epilogue that jumped from character to character better than most of the rest of the story that followed only Gerome.
Honestly, there's more critiquing I could do, but I've touched, at least, on most of the problems I had with this one. A lot of it really needed more editing or a re-write or two and some polish to top it all off. I'm not sure that would have fixed everything, but it would have helped, and those that share the author's sense of humor would have enjoyed it, as a whole, more. That being said, I'm sure there's still an audience out there for this. Those that read for the action, don't look too closely at things, and who like this type of main character. While I didn't really like the story that much altogether, reading it wasn't a bad experience either. The author has something and just needs to work on it some more, in my humble opinion. All in all, I'm not mad I read The Demon of Elderstay, but I don't think this author is suited to me as a reader, so don't plan on picking up more books by her.
This story felt like I was watching a game of DND unfold, which isn't in itself, a bad thing, but when characters are thrown together, don't mesh or even like each other the entire story, have no real chance to bond, and make decisions based on their alignment (good, neutral, evil, etc.) rather than on what's smart, it can be a bad thing. Worse, it felt like the plot was decided by a dungeon master trying to craft a tropey but "fun" tale and keep things interesting with monsters and mysteries thrown in between rests. The story was PREDICTABLE to the point I rolled my eyes a couple of times when the characters didn't see what was coming. In between that were small plot holes or things that happened that the purpose/reasoning behind were just never explained.
Besides all that, while the writing itself wasn't bad or unenjoyable to read, it dearly needed polish. The author would get caught on a word and use it repeatedly for a span, such as "incandescent" or "mosaic." There were also a lot of nitpicky things that were odd or awkward in phrasing that, had it been rarer, I would have shrugged off, but it happened SEVERAL times (such as "the champion plunged his helmet over his head"–plunged over?–or "his lips twisted beneath his bushy beard"–do you mean moustache?). It wasn't a terrible writing style, and I could get pulled into the story when I sat down to read it, but I think it needed more work.
Then there's Gerome, the main character. Some of this part is going to be a personal preference problem, but at the end of the day, I just didn't warm much to Gerome. I liked him a BIT more in the middle, but he lost me again as the story wore on. He felt like a "man" in a negative way. His humor almost never landed, and while that definitely has the potential to be a *me* problem more than a *book* problem, I absolutely found myself cringing more than once at his thoughts or commentary. He was also the type of person who has talent but not because he wanted to DO something with it. He was motivated literally by what would be most likely to get him laid and almost caused mass death and destruction trying to improve the size of his member. I'm sure some people would find this funny, but to me it's cringey "man" energy in some of the worst ways and was personally repulsive and unendearing. I ended up liking the epilogue that jumped from character to character better than most of the rest of the story that followed only Gerome.
Honestly, there's more critiquing I could do, but I've touched, at least, on most of the problems I had with this one. A lot of it really needed more editing or a re-write or two and some polish to top it all off. I'm not sure that would have fixed everything, but it would have helped, and those that share the author's sense of humor would have enjoyed it, as a whole, more. That being said, I'm sure there's still an audience out there for this. Those that read for the action, don't look too closely at things, and who like this type of main character. While I didn't really like the story that much altogether, reading it wasn't a bad experience either. The author has something and just needs to work on it some more, in my humble opinion. All in all, I'm not mad I read The Demon of Elderstay, but I don't think this author is suited to me as a reader, so don't plan on picking up more books by her.