J's Reviews [closed to catch up]

#20: The Last Philospher

First Impressions

The cover is an interesting design but for me as a reader I find it rather difficult to see what the book is about. The image used is rather confusing and to me looks a little bit like a superhero with their cape caught in the breeze. I don't think the cover will harm its chances of being read by someone but I don't think it really does a lot for the book. My advice is to seek out a better cover and one that does the book justice.

Chapter One

It is nice to see we have a clear indication of the genre here. It's rather obvious that it is a science fiction/fantasy novel, which is good. No confusion for chapter after chapter as to what genre this is. It's clear and straightforward. This is science fiction. Now I am going to be honest, I haven't read that many works of this genre before so I will try and give my best opinion on the book.

As I read the first chapter I can see that the introduction sentences, although decently written, lack the fluidity I would like to see. The sentence a displaced black hole was spinning out of control... to me as a reader would read a lot smoother if it were a displaced black hold spun out of control, see how the less amount of words used makes for a much stronger sentence. Reading through the rest of the opening few scenes I can see there are other sentences where the flow could be improved. There's also some noticeable tense issues that need a quick fix.

Personally I feel that although the chapter is a nice length, if surprisingly short for a book of this genre, I can't tell from this one chapter which direction the book is going.

Like I said earlier, I haven't read many science fiction novels in my time, but although I can't give my opinion based on what I have read so far, I will read the next chapter.

Chapter Two

The second chapter's introduction to me sounds a little bit disjointed. The sentence shooting pain into his back and down his legs, feels as if it either needs rewording or another shorter sentence added on to it in order to complete it. Perhaps changing it to pain shot into his back and down his legs as he...

Now it's very rare that I will comment on characters' names. It's one of those things, writers can and will name characters what they want for whatever reason they want to and after whoever they want to, as long as it doesn't bother the reader or affect the book's readability, I won't mention it. Unfortunately there are some names, both character and place names that are difficult to pronounce and I have to say this chap here who's name is Lyeasrakardsul is rather a difficult one. I am not sure if many of your readers will be able to pronounce a name as long as that and to be honest I am having to guess how I think it could be pronounced.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is Leah-rakard-sul. Personally I don't have a problem with the length of his name, but I am just thinking of your readers who may struggle. Have you thought of possibly shortening it to 'Rak' or 'Rakard' or 'Sul'?
As I read through this chapter I could see some parts of this book where scenes seemed to be told instead of shown. The characters' pain for instance. If it's as bad as you said it is then by really getting into your characters head you could show you readers just how bad that pain is. We know it's shooting and we know he's in pain, but how does it feel? If you were him how would you describe it?

The tense issues I found in the previous chapter I can also see in this one as well and there seems to be a slight problem with the formatting. Where I think there should be a new paragraph, the space between them doesn't seem to be there. I have seen this before and I believe it is a Wattpad problem that doesn't keep the same formatting when you pasted it into your Wattpad book from Microsoft Word. I often use google docs to write things on and then copy it into Wattpad and it doesn't seem to cause the same problem, but it's something I have heard of before.
Unfortunately I can see several names here that are making the book rather difficult to read and I am going to stop reading at the end of the second chapter.

Conclusion

There are some small issues within this book, some of the sentences don't flow as well as I would have liked but I'm afraid the main problem I found with this book was the characters names which I felt were difficult to pronounce. However, the book wasn't badly written. I don't think the fact I am not used to reading books of this genre, really helped me to form a strong opinion of it.

Advice

I think it might help you to gain other people's opinions on the book, especially on the names, by joining a book club or writing community. At the end of the day I am just one person and it's hard to know what to do with things such as characters' names and things from just one person's opinion. A book club or writing community would help you with gaining more feedback. There are loads on Wattpad and although a lot of them do ask members to participate in assignments and things, not all of them do.