✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 『 I n f o 』 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Book: The Last Philosopher

Author: NickfEast

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 『 R e v i e w 』 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Title (2/5): Within the chapters I read, I wasn't able to discern the title's connection to the story. I'm assuming it is referencing Herschel but so far he is not the last philosopher, unless you mean "last" differently. It is an intriguing title, I just believe it would do the story more justice if it was explained earlier on.

Cover (5/5): The cover catches my eye and I like the darker colors that are used. It's clean, simple, and clear that the person pictured is the philosopher being mentioned in the title. Perhaps it's Herschel?

Summary (9/10): The summary is a good length and makes me interested to read more. The last sentence especially hooks me in! The only recommendation I have is to mention that Empris/Zenon are located on Huom, otherwise the second and third paragraphs seem completely unrelated.

Plot (10/15): The concept for the story is really interesting and you've got a good talent for world-building! Because there was so much new information in such a short amount of time, there were a few parts where I got confused. Was the chapter with Vidanto supposed to be a flashback or a flashforward? I didn't recognize any of the names or places in the following chapters so I'm unsure how that chapter fits into the plot. I liked the different settings that the story explored between Herschel escaping a prison made for philosophers and Lyeasrakardsul having nightmares at his school for sorcerers. One thing I'd advise is to show more than tell. It's difficult when you need to describe a new world to an audience, but you don't need to explain everything right away. There were quite a few times where the chapters seemed to ramble and break off from the main plot to explain something so it was confusing to keep track of what was happening and I often had to re-read over some parts to remember. Otherwise, I like how you incorporated humor into the story because it made it more interesting and entertaining to read along.

Characters (7/10): I like the contrast between Herschel and Lyeasrakardsul's personalities in that Herschel feels the need to be outwardly kind and considerate whereas Lyeasrakardsul is secretly nice on the inside, but on the outside he is brackish and curmudgeonly. It makes me curious to see how they'll interact when they come together in the story. Like with the plot, I'd advise you to show more than tell. It's nice to get information about new characters so that we can understand how they operate, but it doesn't need to all be revealed right away. There were a few times with Herschel and Lyeasrakardsul where you basically repeated one of their characteristics but phrased it differently, so the chapter became repetitive and it detracted from the plot. Readers are able to understand Herschel's and Lyeasrakardsul's characteristics right away so you don't need to continue to expand on them in the same chapter. Leave some information for later chapters when the plot starts to slow down a little. As for Richard, it's an interesting concept to have an outside character looking in, but aside from the first chapter, he doesn't seem to serve much importance to the story other than foreshadowing. Perhaps he comes back later though.

Organization (2/5): The chapters are pretty clean and I only saw a handful of spelling/grammar errors. The only thing that was a little confusing was how you titled the chapters. The first chapter has "chapter" and a number in it, but the rest are just titles until you get down farther and there are numbers in parentheses that don't seem to be in numerological order. I think it would help readers to understand where they are in the story better if you used consistency in the chapter titles. Personally, I also think chapter numbers help, but that's just a suggestion. I also wanted to point out that you only capitalized the first word and names within your chapter titles but usually all words (except conjunctions, prepositions, and articles) should be capitalized within a title. That's more of a nit-picking thing, though. The other thing I noticed was that a couple of the chapters are just quotes. It looks like you use them as dividers for when you switch perspectives but because their titles look the same as the other chapter titles it leads readers to believe that there are more chapters than there actually are. I'd recommend either using the quotes at the beginning of a chapter, or changing the title of those chapters to "Part 1", "Part 2", etc.

Overall (35/50): Your story reminds me of if the author of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams, wrote his own take on "Lord of the Rings", and it's great! You've got some great writing skills and I really like how you added maps and pictures to help establish your world. My biggest recommendations are to clear up the confusion around the chapter with Vidanto, change some of your chapter titles to make them more consistent, and to use more showing than telling when explaining the setting and characters. Great job otherwise though and I'm excited to see where the story goes!

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧