Dreamland Review Archive

The Shadow of Gloom (DS)

The Shadow of Gloom by Aiden Beltram

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read your book. Please, keep in mind that my reading of your story is by necessity a subjective opinion. Your story is beautiful and important to you more than any other story you could have been telling. How I perceived it is very much a matter of my preferences

I have read 13 chapters of your story. I actually would have read more, but chapter 14 came with the second trigger warning, and I got spooked.

Your book is tagged as adventure and dark fantasy, so I looked first and foremost at how much the story stimulated my imagination and how important your main character had become to me; how much I wanted to figure out what's going to happen to them, the setting that told me that 'it could possibly happen this way', and if I would be able to remember your story a few months from now. In addition, I looked for the gritty feel.

The combo of the tags you used and the title left me divided, because unrequited love and lgbt were a huge draw, but the trigger warnings and the title were a turn off. However, I truly enjoyed your writing in chapter 1, so I went for it.

I rarely comment on covers, but I found the cover for book 2 imminently more appealing than for your book 1 & I would have loved book 1's cover to match that vivacity.

The blurb, in my view, doesn't do your story justice. 'GoT meets magic chaos' tagline tells me that it could be any fantasy book, and the rest adds up to an impression that it's an adventure isekai.

While I understand that you draw a lot of inspiration from the famous show, I would encourage you to look for a tagline that captures the spirit of your book more precisely and with a greater degree of individuality. Your story is well worth it.

August, his potentially unrequited love and anything else that might have sold me on the actual story is not included. Your blurb sells me a list of names. If you have time and willingness, something like BootcampMentors' blurb workshop might be a good start to help people fall in love with August and his story at the first glance.

To the same end, I would suggest following Martin's preferences and moving the settings notes to the back of the book & using concept art as illustrations vs delaying the entry into chapter 1 till the 4th instalment of the story.

Once the story opens up, I found myself enthralled by your smooth writing style. You said to not talk about your characters, but I thought that both August and Gloom were charming and the main selling point for me. I would have wanted more difference in character voices between them, because I had to check the POV titles once in a while to see which man was narrating. The vibe of ready sensuality was plenty of fun. A couple of side characters, like Saint and Leuthar, also felt memorable.

The thirteen chapters I have read are 25% of the book, and didn't sense a consistent ramp up of the main plot, the growing problem. It was more like an extended intro, then stakes increased from chapter 10 onward. I didn't mind that structure, because going with the flow was pleasant. I think when you edit, you might see the opportunities to clip out some repetitive bits in the first 10-11 chapters, like August being in disbelief that this is an alternative verse.

Gloom's pov was lots of fun with the lore trickling in at a good pace and the magical stuff being both interesting and a bit familiar from video games and stuff. Then, when Vale started to pull Augustus in, that's when the stakes went up/hook happened for me.

I am not going to lie, like with the blurb, I felt overwhelmed by the names when it came to the other components of the setting. A bit slower introduction of the world staples might help the entry. I don't know if that was what you meant when you said the book was heavy, but I just decided basically that it is Icewind Dale and a number of characters are travelling from point A to point B. I also gathered that mages are their own separate entity, sort of like in Dragon Age, the Origins, where you can start as a Dwarf or as a Mage.

As I was closing your book after chapter 13, I wished that the triggering content wasn't there to stop me from reading further, but judging by the chapter 10's content that had the trigger I felt that I would be uncomfortable reading it. For me, the darkness of the Vale, its ability to kill the wyrms and infect/poison would have been enough for a dark fantasy label and easier to stomach.

Good luck with developing your story and hope these notes are helpful.