%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Review #4154981 |
 | The First Journey  [13+] The first journey of an interdimensional drifter. First in a possible series  |
| (3.5)  Welcome to WDC from "Newbie Welcome Wagon" !  First Impressions: The story had a dreamlike quality with the unusual way of communicating and the fact that the narrator seemed to know where he was going and got there almost instantly despite being aware that he had travelled a long way. There also seemed to be some random occurrences, like the sudden snow, that reminded me of a dream, and the opening line, I do not know how I got there and the phrase at the end, the light of day in the realm of reality would also work quite well with that theory. But judging by the title and the brief description, this was more than something that just happened in his sleep – although I suppose the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The readers didn't learn much about the narrator but the story wasn't really so much about him although he did have an unexpected part to play during the battle. You described the woman quite well at the beginning and it was easy to picture her. At the same time, it seemed clear from the details that there was more to her than you let the readers know at that point. There was a lot going on in this tale and some things didn't seem directly related to the main story, like the depression that suddenly hit the characters and the way the narrator helped them overcome it. While there is nothing wrong with including things that don't further the plot if they help to flesh out the characters or adds details regarding the background etc, I wasn't sure if this was actually the case here, or if I missed the purpose of that passage.  Suggestions: This was certainly not a story a reader could just glance at; it took some concentration to follow the language and the details of the intense battle. At first it was easy enough to understand but later, during the fight between the witch and the doctor, the action seemed a bit convoluted at times. I was in two minds about the descriptions. On the one hand, there were some real gems, for example the descriptions of the buildings as gray as the reaper's unhallowed robes (although I would imagine them to be black but grey works too.) In other places, the details were almost a bit much, like here, a sinister looking ashen-wooded gabled mansion with decrepit iron gates and a festering lawn It wasn’t so much the words that made me stumble there but the fact that it took me a moment to visualise what you tried to show me, meaning that I had to pause and then get back to the story. You don’t really want anything that distracts the readers from the flow of a story because it would be so easy for them to gloss over sentences like this one and find themselves unable to figure out what’s going on.  Final Thoughts: Don't be discouraged by my comments; I'm only one reader and others might see it differently and have no difficulties with the language you used here. It certainly was an intriguing tale and I wondered where you might pick up the story if you continued it. After the battle and the final good bye, I was curious if this was the last we had seen of the doctor, if he had actually been defeated. Would the woman return in the next chapter, or perhaps the doctor? Or would the narrator end up in a totally different dimension with different characters and battles to fight? I think it's worth continuing this tale because this seems like a unique idea.   My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 09/13/2015 @ 4:17pm EDT