Reviews and recommendation

William Mary Devils and The Genesis

By lightmage1

I owe you apologies, Lightmage. Since you hadn't commented on the "rules" section but sent me a private message, I completely forgot about this review for weeks.

But here I am. Since you waited so much, I tried to be as useful and detailed as I could possibly be. Considering you gave me a fantasy saga tagged "epic", I had a lot of materials to work with.

Genesis is a procedure that had been carried out for more years than a human mind can perceive, a method used by Gods to create a new timeline. But something went wrong with Genesis and an ex-noble from a small village, William, is haunted by dreams of the dreadful Genesis. Investigating, he will eventually find the truth.

POSITIVE NOTES

1. Book cover

Honestly... just brilliant. It's the first time I nominate a cover, but I loved the composition, the style, and the colors. Did you do it yourself?

2. Worldbuilding

Even though I feel there might be too much backstory (see neutral notes), your worldbuilding is excellent.

I can physically see Eva and the capital town, it reminds me a lot of Rome.

3. Dialogues

I can hear each character's voice, tone, and level of instruction through your dialogues. It's clearly visible the work behind each one of them.

NEUTRAL NOTES

1. Title

I know it's kind of a big point for a neutral point... but I do not understand your title.

Is William Mary Devils a person?

In that case, the title would make sense, but the name is so weird it's hard to understand it's a name. William is a perfectly fine first name. Mary is a feminine second name. Sure, some unlucky people in past times had a feminine second name, but it's an odd choice.

Devils is the surname?

Basically: you chose a weird second name and a weird surname, therefore, there is nothing to point out it is a formal name. If, for example, he was called "William John Devils" it would still be weird (the weirdest part is the surname) but the suspect of it being a name would be there. Were he to be called "William Mary Johnson" it would be a little weird, but completely understandable as a name.

At the moment, William Mary Devils look like a lot of nouns pressed together.

Using it in your title alongside "The Genesis", makes a bad impression.

2. Too much

I asked you in private whether this book was a stand-alone or part of a series. You told me it was the first of a series, which makes sense with your worldbuilding.

But if so, the introduction of William is very confusing.

Of course, you know him and there is a prologue book, but if you don't nominate it, readers won't know. Either introduce him properly again in this book or nominate the prologue book in your blurb.

Last thing: in a fantasy novel, a strong history is a good thing.

But don't insert it all in one time and, most of all, not in the blurb.

By the time the poor reader understood the entire backstory, their mind is exhausted.

Try to shorten Genesis into 3-4 lines (I know it's hard) and then introduce properly Willian and what he's gonna do. Maybe add the name too, so we can understand the title.

NEGATIVE NOTES

1. Grammar

Since English is not your first language, just like in my case, I completely understand this.

The fact is: your blurb, as well as your chapters, is full of very bad grammatical mistakes.

Example: "The genesis was begun"

Could be: "They started the genesis" or "The genesis had begun"

Example: your last sentence: When a noble from a small village on the outskirts of the kingdom is haunted by the dreams of genesis every night( . ) He sets....

That period should be a ","

Example: "When a ex-noble..." should be "aN ex-noble".

I'm honestly sorry for writing this because I 100% get how frustrating it is to have your grammar pointed out when it's not your first language.

The problem is: you set your own bar.

You decided to suicide, writing a fantasy trilogy, but I respect your decision. The readers, though, won't. Only your first book requires almost six hours of reading. Deciding to invest such time in a read requires a lot of trust in the writer's skills. Grammatical mistakes are a giant red flag and might scare readers away.

On a positive note: try downloading Grammarly. It's free and solved most of my problems.

2. Periods

It's weird but in some cases, you have WAY too many short sentences, that sometimes don't sound too good. At the same time, I can't advise you to try using longer periods because in other cases you experiment with long sentences and that is to be worked on as well.

I'll make examples for both:

"Most of the shops and stalls were closing. The always busy town was closing. The air had a warm breeze in it."

Lists tend to be a little cold. If this was a movie, imagine it as a lot of one-second shots. It's cool for action scenes and fights not for such a harmonious little town like this.

On the other hand:

"Eva, one of the biggest yet not known building in the busy capital town, was standing still, hiding under shadow of the Royal house of Lydia."

Basically, your "base sentence" or "root sentence" is: Eva was standing still.

The other two are sub-co-ordinates. But you have to imagine it as a tree: if your root is small, you can't add such big branches. The reader's attention will focus on the sub-co-ordinates (which offer more information) and forget what the sentence was about.

Yes, readers can be dumb.

Considering that the second sentence (hiding under shadow of the Royal house of Lydia) has an extra verb, you could join into the root and modify the period like this:

"Eva, one of the biggest yet not known buildings in the busy capital town, was standing still under the shadow of the Royal house of Lydia."

Last thing: you should add "the" before "shadow"

IN GENERAL:

Was I mocking you in the beginning? When I said I had a lot of materials to work on? 

Honestly, I wrote it that way on purpose, because I sometimes enjoy torturing my readers a little...

But I wasn't mocking you. Right now, to be honest, the read is a little hard. The flow and the grammatical mistake discourage a read in one sitting. 

But your mind seems to have a never-ending pit of fantasy that shows itself in your worldbuilding. Download Grammarly, polish your book, and keep writing and re-writing because your world is worth it.