Path of the Seer Review

[wittdooley]

Our lovely eldargal has written a very nice review for Path of the Seer, which she kindly has contributed to the Queen City Guard site. Her review certainly has my interest piqued!

Enjoy:

Path of the Seer Review (http://queencityguard.com/index.php/2011/09/19/guest-review-path-of-the-seer-gav-thorpe/)

And BTW, sorry for the lapse in posts! Been super busy at work. I'll have some nice Ogre Kingdoms reviews forthcoming, as well as a new diary entry by the Wargame Wife.

[eldargal]

It was my first book review so any constructive criticism would be welcomed.:)

[Gotthammer]

From a detail perspective I think you covered enough ground to show interest in the book without it becoming too spoilery. The use of specific examples, albeit vague, such as the revelations about Eldar society worked in nicely.

For a mechanical standpoint yor writing needs a fair bit of work. For instance:


The plot runs parallel to that of Path of the Warrior chronologically, where PotW opens with the Striking Scorpions assaulting a human mansion, PotS opens with the same assault but from the perspective of the Dire Avengers. Of which Thirianna is a member. The story continues with her becoming a warlock in order to control her fate better and follows the same format of PotW with periods of training, learning and reflection interspersed with an assault on an Imperium of Man facility, the defense of an Exodite world and ultimately the defence of Alaitoc from an Imperial invasion force spearheaded by the Sons of Orar Space Marines. I feel Mr Thorpe paced PotS well, the lulls between the action sections are much more engaging than in PotW. Though this may have something to do with them not being filled with Korlandril’s whining.

The bolded bit is all one sentance, and far too long. I'd have written it like this:


Running parallel chronologically to Path of the Warrior, the story similarly opens on the assault on a human mansion. However this time it is told from Thirianna's perspective as a Dire Avenger. As with Path of the Warrior, the story continues the character path of training learning and reflection interspersed with battles against the Imperium. However this book follows Thirianna on the path of the Seer, taken after [stuff hapens] and she feels the need to take more control over her destiny.
Path of the Seer is paced well, with the lulls between the action scenes very engaging (moreso than in Path of the Warrior).

Another thing I noticed is that you use a lot of the same words to start sentances:

I, I, I, Thirianna, The, Of, The, I, Though, There, The, Then, The, It, The, The, I, When, When, The, This, But, In, It

Not necessarlily a bad thing, but when combined with the generally dry feel of the text it came off very bullet-pointy. By that I mean it was informative, but didn't seem to have much punch or personality to it. Aside from the comment about Banshees near the end I wouldn't have known it was an Eldargal write-up. For instance on BoLS you can spot a Brent article by the writing, or even my own reviews (http://collegiatitanica.blogspot.com/search/label/Review) have a certain 'style' to them.
I think you should save the neutral analysis for the short version - keep that informative and to the point - but if you write longer write like you do here - fun, overly wordy, and a bit cheeky. See your repeated not-reviews/teardowns in the GW/40k comparison thread. They're much more fun to read :D

[eldargal]

Yes, I'm afraid I neglected to proof read it as much as I should have. I actually tried to keep the Eldargalesqueness to a minimum, as I wanted to focus on the book rather than have it turns into an 'Eldargal says...' style of article. Someone on Warseer complimented it for being concise and to the point, which is what I was going for.

I might be writing a review of Atlas Infernal in a few days, so I'll consider beingmore Eldargaly for that.:)