Tom Mock

Father of Constructs | Oak King Holly King | The Burning Fire Rises | The Afterlife Experiment |
A medieval fae-world knight transported to the 19th century mortal realm MM romance caught my attention, and an opening with a girl locked in an asylum with her living shadow, Dread, absolutely blew me away!
(from Covers with Cassidy)

162. Aaron Renfroe, Father of Constructs

I’m on shaky ground with this next LitRPG, mostly because it isn’t an isekai, it isn’t a game world … but it also is?

There’s extra-textual stuff that is straight out of the pages of a ttrpg with conditions and levels that our MC is experiencing, but those exist in the narrative frame? In world they’re not gamified?

Our prologue, big boss defeated also talk like a raid group of adventurers instead of like real-life fantasy adventurers. It’s all a bit disorienting for me, but setting that aside …

Our prologue is set something like 100 years before chapter one. The characters are adventurers who are going to defeat the world boss, but those characters exists without any context.

They have names, they have clothes, they have weapons, but who are they? Just adventurers, I guess. Like at the start of Frieren, they’re going to defeat the big bad.

But then we flash forward to an old guy in the desert. He doesn’t seem to know anything about classes or leveling. There’s an interested detail about recycled magic running trains, but I don’t really know what that means.

I don’t know how all of this stuff is related to the prologue. We get some expositional dialogue from another old guy at a well that sort of establishes some context, but the story is all stuff our MC already knows, making this device a bit strained for me.

Taking ch1 on its own, there’s a lot of interesting details and a good focus on the experience of a protagonist, and an unusual one at that – he’s old and sick, suffering from some sickness caused by recycled magic (environmentally).

Ch1 ultimately isn’t doing much, I think, except for establishing Now in contrast with the world of the prologue. But that prologue world isn’t something we really see anything of except for a magical train and powerful adventures.

Our MC doesn’t really want anything, and nothing really stands in his way of getting it. There does seem to be an inciting incident in chapter 1 that changes things for him, but, on top of my other confusions, this feels inactive to me. It drags.

This may just be playing with a lot of LitRPG conventions that I am not at all knowledgeable about. It hasn’t worked for me tho. I pass.

163. Sebastian Nothwell, Oak King Holly King

This is a well-paced, active, descriptive 3rd person close opening that grounds the reader in the world more through inference than exposition. Very little is explained beyond the immediate circumstances.

This makes the opening feel as though it is told very much from the perspective of a narrator within the world relaying the story to someone who ought to know all too well what they’re talking about.

It’s to good effect, too. Perhaps there are some minor details I could have been given more context to, specifically when it comes to our MCs actions, but nonetheless it makes the opening quick and impactful.

Our fighting knight MC seems as good as doomed. There’s some good magical details. A feast is described, but there’s just enough that is fantastical about the feast to earn its place in the narrative by adding to the setting.

Where will our MC find what he needs to defeat the king? In the mortal world, it seems! Cut to England in the 19th century.

This promises to be a MM romance, and so this tourney feels like the cold open for the drama to come.

It’s created a sense of urgency for its MC. He wants something very badly, and he’ll have to travel far to get it. It might have been nice to know why the Holly King is so dangerous, and what kind of thing our MC thinks will help him prevail.

What, if anything, could be in the mortal realm that will aid him? Is it easy to get to the mortal realm? Has he been before? Is it dangerous for him in any way? Is there any risk, or is this merely an inconvenience?

Without these details, there’s no sense of stakes or anticipation other than the at-some-point-in-the-future fight he’s been roped into with the King.

Nonetheless, the prose and lavish, whimsical sense of setting had carried the day for me in this opening, and its moving the story along at a brisk enough pace. I’m interested to know what happens in England for our MC. I’m in.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59603077-oak-king-holly-king

164) Jeff Walker, The Burning Fire Rises

Urban fantasy horror with a special duo at the center! A playful tone at first, and a prologue with a dark happening, but my interest waned.

It isn’t the story so much as the writing. The prose isn’t bad or lacking in description or in focus. But it feels unnatural, a little overwritten, a little wordy. Forced.

At first I thought this was written in a dry, somewhat stiff British tone – like a Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett – and it was being played for humor. It didn’t quite come off, tho.

Because it isn’t quite humorous, the lack of declarative precision and concise storytelling made the opening drag for me. It’s MC overstays her welcome. My interest drifts.

What happens is horrible and eerie, but it is unimpactful. The storytelling is roundabout and a bit repetitive. Sometimes authors affect a writing style in a prologue that does not carry over into the main narrative, but I find more of the same in chapter 1.

It’s that style that has caused my interest to fade little by little. I can stop reading easily and I don’t feel compelled to continue.

This is definitely a genre I enjoy. I’m intrigued by the happening, but it isn’t pleasing enough for me to read and I have so so many more books. Maybe if I gave it a few chapters, but I don’t have the time for this silly openings project of mine. I pass.

165) Sam Weiss, The Afterlife Experiment

I don’t tend to make much of opening lines in these assessments because I try to look at the whole of the work (or at least the tiny part I’m examining), and because a few good lines don’t make an opening.

I’ve read plenty of openings that start with a real attention grabber, only to prove to have little to do with how they start. But, in any case, this does have very good, direct, and expressive opening lines.

It begins with a theme of control and lackthereof – of the inevitability of loss of control, and defiance of that inevitability. Also, madness. That’s why I wanted to highlight these lines. They don’t just sound good or grab the reader, they’re about something.

The prose throughout this opening has a wonderfully expressive, natural quality and a steady rhythm that makes it infinitely readable. The voice of our MC comes through well in the 3rd person close narration.

I feel I could happily keep reading regardless of what happens next. Thankfully, what happens is marvelous and unsettling. It is terrifically active and strange, and it is these things immediately.

The tension of the opening scene tightens and tightens until it suddenly snaps, and the story and, perhaps, reality, flies in all directions. I can’t say anything for certain except that it’s captivating, especially the cat.

This opening is full of desperation as we watch a lonely, not quite helpless girl try to find her way to freedom and safety. Both seem impossible, especially when everywhere she goes, there’s Dread, her shadow.

I’m reminded of Alice in Wonderland, though through a glass darkly. I can’t guess what’s going to happen next on this incredible journey. I’m uncertain exactly exactly what has already happened – what it means – how it came about – what’s real and what’s delusion …

The one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that I want to keep reading to find out. It’s terrific. I’m wow’d. This is pitch perfect, fantastical, mysterious, it’s everything I could want. I’m in!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/208882694-the-afterlife-experiment

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