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The Siloteri: Renegades (The Storyteller - Chapter 3) - @KCSSHD

The Siloteri: Renegades (The Storyteller - Chapter 3) by KCSSHD

Reviewed by AmyMarieZ

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Overview: The Siloteri: Renegades is a science fiction story about Catalyst, an accomplished empire with seemingly unlimited wealth and highly developed technology. As time passes, corruption and civil war find their way into the empire, leaving the main character Falcon caught in the middle to help determine the future of the once-great empire.

Structure: While the story is written in the third person limited point of view, focused on the main character Falcon, the manner of the narration tends almost to third omniscient. While this style might seem out of place or odd in most stories, it fits extremely well in this story. The technology the characters possess allow them to feel, or even see, the thoughts and feelings of other characters. The narration mimicking the technology adds depth to the story as a whole!

The story begins with a part titled "The Storyteller". This part is a brief narrative from the first-person point of view of a member of an almost god-like race of beings that played a part in creating humans. The narrator explains how he is recanting the story to come, in hopes that humans can learn from it and better themselves and their society.

From there, the story continues with a prologue showing the character Falcon reliving his memory of a terrorist attack at a train station only a few hours earlier. The story moves into chapter one with Falcon coming out of the induced memory and back into the real world. With the structure and part titles, chapter one feels like it should take place much longer after the prologue than it actually does. It seems like it could be days, maybe even years, when in reality it is only a few hours later in the same day. While this becomes apparent after reading further into chapter 1, it is slightly confusing at first. One consideration could be renumbering the prologue to just be "chapter 1". The part titled "The Storyteller" could simply be left as is or retitled "Prologue". Another consideration could be establishing the time frame of the prologue and chapter 1 earlier on.

Grammar: Overall, the grammar in The Siloteri: Renegades is nearly perfect. There are one or two typos throughout the five parts read for this review, but they are minor and do not at all detract from the reading experience. The only recurring oddity with the grammar is occasional tense shifts. Throughout the chapters, general thoughts or remarks within the narration are sometimes written in the present tense, while the story is written in the past tense. Although sometimes tense shifts like this can make sense to indicate the present telling of the story verses the past events, in many locations the tense shifts do not make sense and would be smoother if switched to the past tense to match the rest of the narration.

Pace: The balance of dialog, description, and action give the scenes the feel as though they are occurring in real time, making them easy to visualize. There are only a few exceptions. For example, a large explosion occurs in the train station at the end of the first chapter. The descriptions and use of long sentences slow the pace of the action at this point of the story. Drawing out the scene creates an interesting effect where the explosion feels like it is occurring in slow motion, so in many ways the slow pace here actually adds to the story rather than detracting. However, a few short, more quickly paced sentences during this event might help rev up the intensity.

In contrast, a scene that felt slightly rushed was in chapter two after the second bombing. The descriptions of the bombing itself were well paced and vividly described! The inclusion of just the right amount of gore during this scene also increased the engagement. However, the scene showing the characters moving inside after the bombing ended seemed a bit rushed, making it hard to visualize the movements. The pacing here could have been improved by including a bit more description of character actions and perhaps a few lines of dialog. Another option could be cutting the scene sooner and using a scene break to skip the transition entirely.