Open Shop: Reviews, Editing, Research

WindSpoken

Author: AuthorClarke.

Genre: Fantasy.

Chapters Reviewed: Seven.

Overall Score: 68/100.

This review was done in association with Rebel Town Reviews (Rebel_Town).

Cover, Title, and Blurb:

-- Cover: So this is a bold cover. If I were to see it in a bookstore, I'd probably pick it up and judge whether I wanted to read it or not. There are a couple issues-- it's hard to read the "cover by" and subtitle lines. I wish we could see a little less lightning and ground, a little more Greek temple... to be honest, it was difficult to tell what it was on desktop version, but when I originally checked on mobile version, I was only able to figure it out because of your tags. But like I said, I'd ultimately give it a go based on cover only.

-- Title: I mean... no complaints here. It fits.

-- Blurb: Only a couple gripes here. I don't think "overwhemingly" is necessary and "as fragile as the breeze" seems a bit odd, but other than that, it's solid and it works well. Nice job!

Score: 4.5/5.

Grammar:

Aside from a few clearly-unintentional errors, you're fine here. So full marks. Couple spanner sentences here and there, but that's more to do with flow than grammar.

Score: 15/15.

Plot and Overall Entertainment:

Chapter 1: I'm liking the start. So far, I get a pretty decent sense of world: there's the Tower, which defines everything from jobs to city layout, there's a council, there's some sort of mysterious force going on that messes with the clouds, and there are (at the very least) myths of dragons. Aren seems sort of a quiet child, observant but a bit of a dreamer. I wish I could've seen more of his thoughts on the Tower itself-- it's a central part of life, but I don't necessarily get a sense of trepidation or fear when things start going wrong. It says he sticks next to his mother and that he's desperate for an answer, but... there's not a ton of emotion from him. The issue with the clouds is bad to a degree that he hasn't experienced before, so his choosing to simply rest seems a little odd. It'd be one thing if he felt fear and was just really good at bottling it up-- pretty believable, actually, considering his parents' positions-- but that's not coming off for me. If your book were not part of a review, I'd still continue on to the second chapter.

Chapter 2: All right, so we're getting the ball rolling here. The sky has direct links to the speakers, regardless of the cause of those links, so something like the death of a speaker will cause irregularities. I'm interested to see what will happen with Aren now, what it is to be a speaker, but that interest would only go so far on its own. There are some details (shared in Additional Notes) that are pulling me out of the story and some information that seems to kind of be filler. So Aren's subtly going against what he's supposed to do by observing the people around him rather than the sky. Where's this going? The slight defiance and the choice to watch people are interesting, but why does he choose to do this? What's he gleaning by looking at these people? Especially since Aren seems initially passive, content to watch rather than do, it's vital that you establish why he does it and what he gains from it. This bit and most of the small details can be fixed decently quickly to give the story more of a solid, uninterrupted course.