So I’m nearly done with a round of prose revisions on my novel and was getting ready to query when I got hit with another wave of self-doubt.
I’m looking for some readers to read through the whole thing fresh. I’m way too close to fully know if what I’m worried about is actually a problem, as are a lot of my critique partners.
Name: Pulse Saga
Word count: 101k
Genre: Fantasy, science-fiction, post-apocalyptic, young adult
What?: Looking for someone to read it all the way through as if you were reading for pleasure. Not looking for in-line comments (not that I don’t want those but the purpose of this request is to see how a fresh reader would look at it. End of chapter notes are good, though.)
Comparable media: Took inspiration from 90s JRPGs, anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gundam, has some feel of stuff like Fire Emblem. Probably My Hero Academia (but only if you don’t think it’s cringe.)
Do you like mixes of magic and technology? Super powered kids fighting biomechanical monsters? Dark sorcerers? Young people trying to make sense of a dangerous world and questioning their up upbringing and authority figures?
If that’s something you might be interested in, DM me. I can send you a back-of-the-book summary if you want one but don’t want to post it publicly.
Slowly Rewriting my rambling journal entry of the Far in the Future post apocalyptic world dream I had. Trying to stay as faithful to the dream as possible, cutting out some nonsense.
Like suddenly turning into a monster hunter game as a Highschool student suddenly gains a great sword and fights off a monster, I took that out, but the lawn chair that falling asleep into takes you to the future (some how???) keeping that in because it’s necessary and also Shawn can act as an audience surrogate since he comes from around our time.
Prologue
On a late summer day, in a familiar time period, a gym class of students were walking out to the High School Football Field. It was an average noon gym class, on an unassuming day. The class was directed by their instructor to cross the pavement to the field. One of the students, a young man named Shawn, was tagging behind the group. He was dressed as the rest of the class in a green and white gym uniform.
Most of the Highschool boys ran excitedly towards the field under the watch of their teacher, Like puppies released from a play pen. Shawn followed behind them but noticed a lawn chair on a hill by the field. Cheap and flimsy looking, the classic red and white striped plastic chair looked as if it was brand new. It wasn’t there yesterday, but he came to the conclusion that the gym teacher bought it for when he watched the class run laps. Still, the chair seemed to demand attention, whether it was the chair or the unnatural hill beneath it, he didn’t know.
Instinctively, Shawn jogged alongside the same classmate he does every other day.
“Hey Teo.” Shawn said, anticipating a small tirade.
“You weren’t at the game last night! Where were you?” Teo began, glancing back towards his friend as they kept pace with the class. “We lost the game and dropped down a rank, you better have a good reason for flaking!” His voice was irritated but still held the fondness of a friend who couldn’t stay mad.
“Yeah sorry about that.” Shawn reached to scratch his head before stopping himself. “My mom needed help with something in the garden, you know how it is.”
His friend's face softened and he sighed as they turned a corner on the track. “Yeah I know,”
After the last student finished the warm up laps, the game practice began. Throughout the game Shawn glanced back at the chair, not once did he see the coach sit. Well if he wasn’t going to sit there, then Shawn would rest there himself. He preferred basketball anyways.
Towards the end of the gym period he grew tired of football and walked up the hill to the lawn chair. The class was starting to wind down and the coach didn’t notice him slip away. The chair was still there, and looked like a perfect spot to rest. As soon as he laid in the chair and got comfortable he immediately fell asleep.
It's always so disappointing when sci fi and fantasy books call their languages "Basic" or "Common". No language is apolitical or universal: if they're all calling one language Basic, who made it that way? Why is THIS dialect "Common" and all the others are Special/Magical/Incomprehensible??? Show me even a hint of the politics, or give your language a real name