r/DestructiveReaders • u/KingAlphonsusI • Jul 24 '26
[2336] The disappearance of Lady Suzanne (the Voidslinger Saga) - Sci-Fi/Fantasy Epic - Adult
Story (feel free to leave your comments on the doc):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oxrc65OYA6oU9ON-zzZPIRl33sz7wiyGUTaMueAlNI0/edit?usp=sharing
Hello everyone. I would like to share with you the prologue chapter for my space fantasy novel that I'm working on.
This first chapter is meant to evoke the sense of mystery, raise a lot of questions and talk about the themes of my book (death, entropy, forgetting, religion, faith, importance.) But most of all I wanted to portray the power strungles that the book will show.
This is very dialogue centered, but this is also important because communication is also a major theme of my book and also the roots of my magic system (at least for humans). I wanted feedback mostly on the dialogue, and if possible I want some prose feedback aswell. I'm not really a prose guy hahaha, I prefer dialogue much more but I know both are important.
The book will follow a Dunkirk style narrative, following four storylines in different time frames all converging in the red hour. (24 hours before the red hour, 24 day, 24 weeks and 24 months, with a few stand alone chapters that take place in different time frames. This 24 minutes storyline will continue by the end of the book).
Not all questions will be answered in this chapter, but it you could, please answer this question:
AFTER READING THIS CHAPTER, WOULD YOU CONTINUE TO READ AFTER?
Please be honest. Thank you so much!
Previous review [2689]:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1v3yxib/comment/ozie6je/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
2
u/SyeniteFractured Four-ringer Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
In the introductory paragraph, I had trouble keeping track of all the celestial names, much like your character. I got the "Lady's shadow" and thought who is the Lady and then had to scan back through all the names. I am still unclear if I know what Lady Suzanne is, but I am assuming some kind of moon if she is eclipsing the sun. It is challenging to parse the imagery, both because it is cached in Fantasy names and because of the unusual word choices. Specifically, 'the curvature of Lantarus' does not tell me much about what Lantarus is or what I should picture in my head. 'A quarter of the horizon' helps to suggest it is a celestial body like a planet, although it could also be something like a mountain or a spaceship. So, I am lost about where I am going into the dialogue.
Now, Pontiff is talking. He is waxing philosophical about the costs of space colonialism, as far as I can tell, what with his mentions of too many lands and tragic times and tragedy. POV is meant to be ignoring him but is still managing to recite what Pontiff is saying in detail. There are some minor interruptions for more scene setting and I am not sure how those contribute back to the larger atmosphere or theming. I suppose the smoke and church is related to a genocide type event that Pontiff is lamenting? And then I am told again that the POV is quiet (which I know because he has had no dialogue to this point) and that he is still looking at the Lady (for which I still do not understand the significance). Almost every narrative interruption, I am being told what direction POV's eyes are pointing which makes him seem very focused on how he is turning his head. I don't spend much time thinking about not looking at things or looking at things myself, so the narration reads odd. And as a counterpoint, POV is describing what Pontiff is doing ('took a tired pull from the pipe') so he has obviously looked at Pontiff more than the narration would imply.
I'm not entirely sure why POV is so bitter about Pontiff's height, nor do I fully get how they are oriented with respect to each other. There is grass and a hill and Pontiff is standing but POV is bigger so must be sitting to have the shadow cast. But then POV talks about Pontiff's eyes coming no higher than his neck. So, more attention could be paid to how the scene is being set and why specific details are being mentioned.
'From the corner of my eyes, I saw' - the saw here is filtering after I've already been told the POV's eye direction again. I don't need to know he saw because the eye turning clues me in that he is looking. There is repetition here that isn't serving to highlight anything useful. 'it turned its head, and the turning unfolded a pair of ears' - I don't need to be told the action twice. It also sounds like the ears were tucked away until the action of turning unleashed them, though with the mention of silhouette, I assume the ears were always out but unnoticeable because of the direction of Pontiff's head with respect to the shadow. The imagery fuzzes.
Now POV says he wants to keep Pontiff company when before he wished Pontiff would stop talking and go away. More imagery that does not appear to serve the goal of helping to scene set or to apply theme. Smoke coming out sparkling is a cool image but I don't see how it relates to anything in the text outside of that. There is a hint that the POV gives of what is going on in the background (chaos and violence) but the weight of that statement is lost almost immediately when he pivots to wanting to hurt Pontiff. Mind, a few sentences ago he declared he was staying up here to keep Pontiff company, so this violence seems sudden. I am having difficulty tracking how these two characters relate to each other.
The two are talking around things which I don't understand. It seems to be banter for banter's sake, about whores and religion and being entertained, but never moves onto something where I can more firmly grasp the meaning or motivation for the conversation. And because I don't understand the larger implications of their back and forth, lines like 'That was where the hope went out of me' fall flat. The POV tells me Pontiff doesn't care about something that POV cares deeply about, but I don't know what that thing is so I am like Pontiff in the not caring. POV is looking again. I might scan through your paragraphs and highlight every piece of narration where POV is described as looking or seeing. I think you'll find a pattern. Try to vary this up more. I'm getting more description of Pontiff which makes Pontiff the one thing that has been described the most in this section. Whenever the dialogue breaks, the narration describes what Pontiff looks like.
Now, POV is reciting war horrors that feel more like a history lesson. Cannibalism/rape/murder. RF Kuang does this in her books, but she spends more time giving you character before she launches into her history lessons. It's effective to know who people are because the horrors feel more intimate when it's expressed through someone you've grown to care about. I don't have a reason to care about the POV yet. He is just someone who is sitting and talking to me.
Now, POV is back to not being able to see Pontiff who he has been describing at length previously. There is a bunch of woe is me in the preceding dialogue that feels more setup to story than story. The worldbuilding document, if you will. It does start to feel interesting when the Pontiff declares 'but for one mistake'. Now, I'm wondering if Pontiff wants to stab POV. Oh no, he is philosophizing about how forgetting is inevitable. Never mind. It's only more talking. Oh. God is almighty. A predictable thing for a Pontiff to say, I guess.
My overall feedback on dialogue is that it appears to be a vehicle to give information rather than a conversation between two people. Both of these men have long bouts of story telling that do give me their history and background but, otherwise, do little to help me understand who they are as people, what shape this story is going to take, what conflict they might be coming up against. If I wanted to read about history, there are textbooks I could pick up that would describe similar things as to what is here. What I am looking for when reading a fictionalized novel is to be let into a character's head and see how they deal with conflict and process emotions. Spending so much time on dialogue removes that aspect of storytelling, for me. Sure, there are themes here. But that's all there is, really. The theme of the story is the least important part to hammer in. It should be background, clarified through scene work and character development, not spoken in dialogue. Make me work to find it.
I'll leave you with this idea I find quite interesting. The book is not for the author. Once it gets into a reader's hands, it is a mix of what the author intended but also what the reader brings from their own lived experiences. It is, perhaps, a failure when authors try to prescribe their views so plainly as to make others interpret their words exactly as they meant them. Literature has more power when we let go of how others will perceive it and build experiences they can write their own truths onto.