Rookywriters Book Reviews

No. 11 Ember Chasers

Introduction

¤Book title and author - Ember Chasers by awesomeSTG
Genre - Fantasy

¤ First impression - Summary... Each paragraph started with a different theme...

- A stroll through a magical forest...

- Unfortunately Vorare has been like this...

- Strange tales waft around their world...

- An organization of killers chase after their heels...

Finally...

- In a place where fire is neither deaf nor mute...

All this is too much to contain in a summary.

¤ Weakness - Long chapters with little intriguing scenes that neither convey emotions nor push the story forward.

¤ Improvement - Write about intriguing actions that will push the story forward.

The book description needs to point at the most important parts of the story, which I think it's about Asagai and emberchase, or other relevant stuff in the story.

¤ Strengths - Good writing style. Good diction. Beautiful world building for a fantasy book.

Body

¤ Opening - The first part opened up well into a little history to the story, about the boy and a fire monster, I guess.

¤ Conflict - Fire fire fire... But the question is what exactly is the main character, Asagai chasing?

¤ Plot - Plotting of the story is good. Chapters one, two and three showed Asagai's struggles to overcome something in particular. In chapter four and five he suddenly meets a man, Emberchase who I thought is the bad guy.

And that is where the plot of the story began to take a different direction.

The sudden relationship between Asagai and Emberchase is really questionable, because there is no previous information connectimg the two.

¤ Setting - The descriptions of the background was written professionally. Although the place Vorare and its people were lacking as the story only centered on Asagai.

The people of Vorare are mostly referred to as thieves. Is this a general occupation for both men, women and children?

There was little or no time settings in some chapters. There is mention of dusk and nightfall but the scenes doesn't fully show the relationship between the characters and the weather conditions around them.

¤ Characterization - Obviously, Asagai is the main character, it is not clear what his personality is, what his strengths and weaknesses are, his daily routine as a boy, his hopes and dreams or friends.

¤ Dialogue - Dialogue is good for both the characters, Asagai and emberchase only if Asagai reasons his age. From his conversation, more about his personality should be seen but it's lacking.

¤ Point of View - The story is written from third person pov which suits the story.

¤ Show versus tell - There's a lot more showing going on in some scenes which can be related easily if the writer just told us about them and move on with the story.

Example in chapter seven there are some not too relevant scenes that wasn't necessary and didn't need heavy description.

¤ Format of the text - Paragraphing is done well. Chapters are long, because more time and words is spent on describing, for example, how I walked from my room to the kitchen, when I should just say, I walked to the kitchen...

Explaining the whole process of getting out of bed, dropping my legs to the floor, wear a shirt, go to the bathroom, come out again, then open the door, walk casually down, I reach the kitchen look around, then step over to fridge and all, it seems the whole scene is in slow motion.

The story gets boring at some point. While editing check for scenes like that, scenes you can just tell what is happening and cut the excesses out. This helps minimise long chapters and move the story forward.

¤ Grammar and spelling - I must say you have a good command of English. Well written sentences. Good diction.

¤ Style - Writing style is definitely strong and gripping.

Conclusion

Comment - Ember chasers as a story involves the element of fire which is quite an intriguing topic. The title and the antagonist name is  giving off some feels, maybe because the protagonist is Asagai and all that. But if I had such a story I would name it something simpler and more relatable to the main character. I would only read Ember chasers because I will be expecting to see the main character being badass and chasing flames.

But it's great though. It's your book.

Thanks for letting me evaluate your book.

Any comments or questions about any confusion just PM me or hit the comments.

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