Sails Above Forgotten Worlds

[AndersonsBiographer]

The only "honorable" way to become wealthy, it has been said, is by inheritance. The only honest way to do so, then, is by robbery. For what is inherited wealth if not, more often than not, the accumulated booty of pirate or bandit ancestors who got lucky?

https://literotica.com/s/sails-above-forgotten-worlds-ch-01

"Medieval Space Fantasy"

Eh. Well, Renaissance Wormhole Sci-Fi didn't sound as good.

 

[TheRedChamber]

What are you looked for here? General feedback of the 'liked it/didn't like it' type or a more detailed critique?

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

What are you looked for here? General feedback of the 'liked it/didn't like it' type or a more detailed critique?

General feedback is fine. I'm also fine with critiques, questions, comments, suggestions, etc.

In chapter 2, I'll probably touch on a few questions that might arise like how sailors can breath in portage, why the boards don't warp to disastrous proportions on a ship out of water, and why the use of gunpowder is somewhat limited on worlds with high levels of wild magic.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Ok then, here goes...

Firstly, it's always difficult reviewing the first chapter of any 'epic fantasy' work. Inevitably the writer has only just started the task of setting out their world and either there will be unanswered questions or the author will have dumped so much information already that the reader is exhausted. This one definitely had more of the former about it. Generally, it should be right up my wheelhouse - swashbuckling pirates and enchanting sorceresses. Sounds good. That said, as a reader, I'm still trying to put the pieces together. Some points...

- I found your prose quite dense. With fantasy, there's a tendency to write flowery and that's fine up to a point. You've got a lot of nautical terms in there and, even though I don't know what half of them mean, I'm reassured that you seem to and that I'm in good hands. However, a lot of your sentences just seem to have a little bit too much going on in them. You tend to double up words when a single word would do 'roaming and ravaging', 'aged and obsolescent', 'pirate or bandit', 'stones and boulders', 'mines and quarries', 'dungeons and stockades'. Other times you triple up - 'pikes and swords and axes', 'chatted and joked and laughed'. The result is you end up with many sentences that just run on a little bit longer than they could do. For example:

"As you wish, my lord..." she said easily, neither resisting nor yet surrendering as hands went under her robes and fingers peeled away the chemise to acquaint themselves with the swell of a breast and the tip of a nipple.

Could easily be.

"As you wish, my lord..." she said, not resisting as his hands went under her robes and aquinted themselves with the swell of her breasts.

That's not to say you don't want extra heightening detail every so often, but it was so constant that it stood out to me personally.

- There's quite a lot going on in this chapter. You basically have two introductions on top of each other - the first one about the history of portals and then another one about the disappearance of the Dread Pirate. Both of these are a good length, they're 'dumping info' to a certain degree but are kept relatively brisk and don't contain unnecessary information (my grumble above about your prose notwithstanding). But then a lot of your scenes skip around quite quickly - the captain is on an island with his wizardess, then he's away in a distant port, then they're sailing again. The MC is doing lots of stuff, but I didn't really get a sense of character yet - this is important because Dread Pirate certainly sounds like a wrong'un and he's definitely up to something, but I'm still trying to work out if he's supposed to be the good guy, the anti-hero or the flat out villan and I don't have a lot to work with.

- Similarly, there's not a lot of dramatic tension created in this episode. He's leaving her but we don't know either of them and neither of them seem particularly put out by it, he is vaguely worried about if the plan they have will work, but it does seem to be going swell atm (whatever it is). There's a puzzle to be put together by the reader at an intellectual level, but I didn't feel excited by or invested in the characters or story quite yet. The chapter kind of trickles to an ending rather than give the reader something to predict or look forward specifically in part two.

 

[ElectricBlue]

For example:
- extract didn't copy through -
Could easily be.
- and again -

I'm going to counter that niggle. I prefer the OP's text as more poetic, yet nuanced and subtle. The more lyrical prose works for me - it's what I'd write - and seems to match the theme of the story (which I've not read, but it's a space opera, yeah? With pirates. That's got to be colourful, surely?). Your alternative is more prosaic, more plain biscuit, not cake.

It's a stylistic thing, absolutely: like Coleridge not Wordsworth, but both are still poets.

 

[AlinaX]

I love the title.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I'm going to counter that niggle. I prefer the OP's text as more poetic, yet nuanced and subtle. The more lyrical prose works for me - it's what I'd write - and seems to match the theme of the story (which I've not read, but it's a space opera, yeah? With pirates. That's got to be colourful, surely?). Your alternative is more prosaic, more plain biscuit, not cake.

It's a stylistic thing, absolutely: like Coleridge not Wordsworth, but both are still poets.

Style is always going to be a matter of taste and I agree that individually that sentence is fine especially as part of the fairly short erotic section. My point (and again merely IMHO) is that there is a tendency to place words with very similar meanings together in the same sentence - the example sentence has (not) resisting and surrendering, hands and fingers, robe and chemise and breast and nipple. If you actually read the story, you'll find that kind of repetition all through it. It may not bother you, but it did me.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Style is always going to be a matter of taste and I agree that individually that sentence is fine especially as part of the fairly short erotic section. My point (and again merely IMHO) is that there is a tendency to place words with very similar meanings together in the same sentence - the example sentence has (not) resisting and surrendering, hands and fingers, robe and chemise and breast and nipple. If you actually read the story, you'll find that kind of repetition all through it. It may not bother you, but it did me.

It's not repetition though. A breast is not a nipple, resisting and surrendering are not the same, a robe and chemise are two separate garments. The technique is adding an additional layer over the telling, as I read those samples.

You and I are expressing preferences, but that might not be a critique. Again, it's a subtlety, but the words do have different meanings.

I reckon there's a valid case for "over-writing", just as there is for brevity - but you would end up with two quite different moods, quite different stories. It's like the difference between colour and black and white movies - they're similar, but they have a different effect. Neither is inherently "better".

 

[TheRedChamber]

It's not repetition though. A breast is not a nipple, resisting and surrendering are not the same, a robe and chemise are two separate garments. The technique is adding an additional layer over the telling, as I read those samples.

You and I are expressing preferences, but that might not be a critique. Again, it's a subtlety, but the words do have different meanings.

Yes, it's a preference and a technique. I think, again if you read the chapter in its entirety, the comment that 'you're using this technique a lot, for better or for worse' is a valid observation.

I reckon there's a valid case for "over-writing", just as there is for brevity - but you would end up with two quite different moods, quite different stories. It's like the difference between colour and black and white movies - they're similar, but they have a different effect. Neither is inherently "better".

I'm moving into pedant territory here, but, while even today there may be times when it is suitable artistic choice for a movie to be shot in black and white, I think given its almost ubiquitous adoption 'colour movies are "better"' is a reasonable statement.

(And I say this as someone show spent an hour yesterday researching 1960s 'stag' movies for a story I'm currently writing. Porn is both fundamentally the same and has gotten so much better in the last sixty years).

 

[StillStunned]

I hate to say it, because I wanted to enjoy the story, but I agree with @TheRedChamber here. I read most of the first page, but I found the style interfering with the story. I think it's fine to draw on the full richness of the language in planetary romance, but I'd have eased into it a bit. As a reader I was trying to figure out the scene shifts while struggling with the prose.

I'd have preferred either fewer descriptive words or shorter sentences, just for ease of reading - at least until the reader has been drawn into the story and the characters.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I am thinking of reading the story and giving my thoughts but... what if I end up agreeing with EB? Would I become... a fanboy too?

 

[ElectricBlue]

I am thinking of reading the story and giving my thoughts but... what if I end up agreeing with EB? Would I become... a fanboy too?

Having commented above that I didn't mind the OP's prose over @TheRedChamber's alternative, I thought I should give the whole thing a go.

It's safe to say the whole piece is dense, over-written purple prose; it's almost semi-archaic in its use of language. It's conjuring up exactly what it is, a great big thick, treacley space opera with a most unlikely premise. Wooden ships going through portals in space?

Of course it's over the top, but to quibble that it goes too far over the top with its prose is to complain that Star Wars has too many spaceships.

That's surely the point of the language, this semi-medieval world with space pirates? It's like seeing the Bayeaux Tapestry with a sign to Area 51. That makes perfectly logical sense - if you accept the idea - which I didn't.

I can't fault the OP's dedication to his cause, though. I was greatly amused by the author's thread in the AH where he was seeking ideas how to address the problem of his ship starting to dry out when out of the water, then leaking a bit when it got to wherever the hell it was going. A whole bunch of people took the problem quite seriously, so I have no doubt there'll be a bunch of readers lap up the style.

I couldn't finish it though, but not because of the style. It was all a fun description of the boat, but I had no sense of character at all. It was like seeing the most fantastic stage setting, but with no-one on it. Give me characters to care about.

The thing that grated more was the dialogue punctuation.

It's not:

"No matter." he said.

It's:

"No matter," he said.

Sigh.

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

Ok then, here goes...

Firstly, it's always difficult reviewing the first chapter of any 'epic fantasy' work. Inevitably the writer has only just started the task of setting out their world and either there will be unanswered questions or the author will have dumped so much information already that the reader is exhausted. This one definitely had more of the former about it. Generally, it should be right up my wheelhouse - swashbuckling pirates and enchanting sorceresses. Sounds good. That said, as a reader, I'm still trying to put the pieces together. Some points...

- I found your prose quite dense. With fantasy, there's a tendency to write flowery and that's fine up to a point. You've got a lot of nautical terms in there and, even though I don't know what half of them mean, I'm reassured that you seem to and that I'm in good hands. However, a lot of your sentences just seem to have a little bit too much going on in them. You tend to double up words when a single word would do 'roaming and ravaging', 'aged and obsolescent', 'pirate or bandit', 'stones and boulders', 'mines and quarries', 'dungeons and stockades'. Other times you triple up - 'pikes and swords and axes', 'chatted and joked and laughed'. The result is you end up with many sentences that just run on a little bit longer than they could do. For example:

"Aged" and "obsolescent" aren't necessarily the same thing, though. Technological progress in our world was slow enough (and implied to be even slower in this one) that a 35-year old carrack in our world wouldn't necessarily be seen as obsolete, though few ever lasted that long. But circa 1545 or so, ship design was already trending smaller and sleaker, with less emphasis on boarding actions and more on gunnery. Still a bit early for galleons, but the trend was moving that way. Good book about Age of Sail ship design.

Roaming and ravaging certainly isn't the same thing. Mines and quarries aren't the same thing. Pirates and bandits aren't quite identical. Dungeons and stockades are different forms of architecture, the latter typically only being erected on a temporary basis.

Stones and boulders I'll give you, though there is a slight difference in that a "boulder" is typically a stone too heavy to be moved, and the fact that floatsone boulders can be lifted (with effort) just demonstrations how strange and possibly magical the material must seem to humans at this technological level. Floatstone, of course, is pumice; flowstone is concrete.

"Pikes and swords and axes" is a simple way of describing the kind of weapons in use in this universe. Yes, it is the gunpowder age, has been for centuries, but most men still fight with cold steel and will continue to do so for centuries to come. Being fantasy, I'm not restricting myself to any particular era or tech level, but as a general rule I'm trying to keep it somewhere between 1400 and 1700.

"Chatted and joked and laughed," yeah, that probably is a bit much, though I'm trying to hint that these two will play a role later in the narrative.

- There's quite a lot going on in this chapter. You basically have two introductions on top of each other - the first one about the history of portals and then another one about the disappearance of the Dread Pirate. Both of these are a good length, they're 'dumping info' to a certain degree but are kept relatively brisk and don't contain unnecessary information (my grumble above about your prose notwithstanding). But then a lot of your scenes skip around quite quickly - the captain is on an island with his wizardess, then he's away in a distant port, then they're sailing again. The MC is doing lots of stuff, but I didn't really get a sense of character yet - this is important because Dread Pirate certainly sounds like a wrong'un and he's definitely up to something, but I'm still trying to work out if he's supposed to be the good guy, the anti-hero or the flat out villan and I don't have a lot to work with.

- Similarly, there's not a lot of dramatic tension created in this episode. He's leaving her but we don't know either of them and neither of them seem particularly put out by it, he is vaguely worried about if the plan they have will work, but it does seem to be going swell atm (whatever it is). There's a puzzle to be put together by the reader at an intellectual level, but I didn't feel excited by or invested in the characters or story quite yet. The chapter kind of trickles to an ending rather than give the reader something to predict or look forward specifically in part two.

The original version was almost three times longer than this, with even more info-dumping and various unimportant social interactions between minor members of the crew. I shuffled about half of that to further chapters, deleted about half of the rest, and I've got to agree that I didn't do the greatest job of hiding the scars. Might have to do some more work on that.

As to whether he's the good guy, the anti-hero or the flat out villain... I'm sure Bingeman/Bellfont himself doesn't know the answer to that, and I'm honestly not sure if I do either.

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

It's not:

-excerpt-

It's:

-excerpt-

Sigh.

And... that's what you get when you use TTS software to review your work.

 

[StillStunned]

By the way, my comment above was meant in the spirit of constructive feedback, I wasn't piling on the criticism. I love the premise of your story. I just wish you'd made the writing a bit more accessible early on.

How is it performing?

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

By the way, my comment above was meant in the spirit of constructive feedback, I wasn't piling on the criticism. I love the premise of your story. I just wish you'd made the writing a bit more accessible early on.

How is it performing?

Ah, you're fine.

I have a general idea of where I want to take it and how I want it to develop. I have an idea for a few other stories as well, and I may put it to a vote as to which ones I should devote my most effort towards.

 

[TheRedChamber]

"Aged" and "obsolescent" aren't necessarily the same thing, though. Technological progress in our world was slow enough (and implied to be even slower in this one) that a 35-year old carrack in our world wouldn't necessarily be seen as obsolete, though few ever lasted that long. But circa 1545 or so, ship design was already trending smaller and sleaker, with less emphasis on boarding actions and more on gunnery. Still a bit early for galleons, but the trend was moving that way. Good book about Age of Sail ship design.

Roaming and ravaging certainly isn't the same thing. Mines and quarries aren't the same thing. Pirates and bandits aren't quite identical. Dungeons and stockades are different forms of architecture, the latter typically only being erected on a temporary basis.

It's not that the words have the exact same meaning, it's that generally you could have gotten away with using only one of them in most sentences. You established that the carrack was 35-years old so 'obsolescent' on its own would have done the job. Anyway, I've made my point with this.

 

[AG31]

"Aged" and "obsolescent" aren't necessarily the same thing, though.

I sure hope not!!!!

 

[Otto26]

Okay. I found the first two bits of expository narrative boring. In the first chapter of a larger work you're obviously setting the scene and establishing characters so there's going to be a reward for the reader's patience later which we're not yet getting. I became more interested once you introduced characters and had them interact. I would suggest starting with that and introducing the historical aspects later in the story through dialog or in-character exposition. I *think* you were trying to orient the reader but, honestly, I found it disorienting. I'd rather understand a small portion right away, knowing that there are parts I don't understand, and then come to the greater understanding later. All of which is just my opinion.

I've got no problem with your prose. It's thick but it produces a very distinct voice to the story that is somewhat reminiscent of the 18th Century. Will everyone like it? No. And I found your dialog pretty smooth.

I've got no problem with people writing stories with sex rather than stroker smut but I'll suggest that the first sexual encounter could benefit from some additional description to hook more readers.

It's an interesting setting and I haven't seen enough of it to determine if I like it. I would suggest adding the second chapter to the first in order to draw readers in more deeply without having to click on to a second installment. In a series story that first hit has really got to pull in as many readers as possible.

Good luck.

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

Okay. I found the first two bits of expository narrative boring. In the first chapter of a larger work you're obviously setting the scene and establishing characters so there's going to be a reward for the reader's patience later which we're not yet getting. I became more interested once you introduced characters and had them interact. I would suggest starting with that and introducing the historical aspects later in the story through dialog or in-character exposition. I *think* you were trying to orient the reader but, honestly, I found it disorienting. I'd rather understand a small portion right away, knowing that there are parts I don't understand, and then come to the greater understanding later. All of which is just my opinion.

I've got no problem with your prose. It's thick but it produces a very distinct voice to the story that is somewhat reminiscent of the 18th Century. Will everyone like it? No. And I found your dialog pretty smooth.

I've got no problem with people writing stories with sex rather than stroker smut but I'll suggest that the first sexual encounter could benefit from some additional description to hook more readers.

It's an interesting setting and I haven't seen enough of it to determine if I like it. I would suggest adding the second chapter to the first in order to draw readers in more deeply without having to click on to a second installment. In a series story that first hit has really got to pull in as many readers as possible.

Good luck.

Good advice, and I will consider it. But, honestly, I tend to lose struggle through anything that goes on for more than three or four pages. It's the big reason I haven't finished anything by @ja99 even though a lot of what he writes sounds right up my ally.