- #1
This novel had a decent start, the first ten chapters or so, and then quickly went downhill from there. To be brief, it's basically a soulless uplift novel, like the stuff you'd find on althistory or spacebattles though worse. The info dumps aren't even the problem with this novel, although they do get way too long at times, it's the complete lack of any character interactions, relationship development, or general character development that feels remotely meaningful. If this novel spent more time letting us get to know its main cast of characters, the info dumps wouldn't feel like such a slog. Even the main characters friendship with the hero, one of the foundations of the story, is rarely portrayed or expanded upon, they basically just say they are best friends without giving us any real reason to be convinced of it. Additionally, while the novel seems to try to avoid the main character having Wikipedia in his head like many uplift novels, it doesn't really succeed too well at it. I also dropped the novel before the romance really started, but what I saw of it wasn't inspiring. It felt like I was getting wacked on top of the head with a hammer by the author saying, "Wow aren't the MC and this girl who doesn't have much relevancy to the main story really cute together haha."Thats not to say its completely bereft of any positive points. For one, the battle scenes are fairly well written, I enjoyed reading about the strategizing, even if a lot of it is overly convenient/convoluted. I also thought the protagonist was decent, and generally a strong point of the story, even if he was bogged down by the previously mentioned flaws. If you really enjoy kingdom building/uplift fics you might enjoy this, though even that's not a guarantee because the uplift is pretty subdued. Otherwise, it's pretty forgettable and I can't really recommend it.
