Critiquing in Blue

The Golden Throne (Request and Fanmade)

The Golden Throne: Review

This is a review of The Golden Throne, by Vespin . It should be rather obvious, but if it isn't then there will be spoilers. So, if you haven't read the book, go read it now so you can read this. Additionally, since the book is in three parts I will assess part by part, because I believe it does not do the book justice to not talk about each part individually. That being said, when the book is finished and/or I've read all the completed parts I will post a conclusion with my general thoughts. Since I will be most likely finishing the review before the book is finished, I will post a current version for the current place I'm at, and write a final version for when it's finished. Without further ado, let us begin.

Part I

This section of The Golden Throne, was an excellent masterpiece. It was very gripping for the most part, and most definitely had an element of suspense to it. The prologue was genius and a great hook into the story. It was great just having it in the back of the reader's mind as a little forewarning of what was going on. Most certainly, it was short, quick, and enough that there was a small dab of poison and excitement just to get the reader started.

However, after that things slowed down a bit, in my opinion. It was certainly appreciable that Hilbert was given an adequate first chapter. There was a dab of humor and perfect length of goodbye. Short and sweet, perfectly fine. The real issue was on the ship where I believe that chapters 2 and 3 really dragged on past each other. Certainly, the weren't very long, but it would probably be more effective if they were combined into one.

After chapters 2 and 3, things got exciting again. There was a great representation of the confusion with just a hint of clarity. Personally, the Alex Silph thing was a bit pointless unless there's actually a purpose for him as a character later. He could really be any kid, unless there's actually a point at the end where his father is potentially involved.

After that though, it was really good. The part that he stumbles throughout the lengths of the desert is good, and his struggle to find water is also good. It was very entertaining. I also like his discovery of Ris'dra up until the point he's having the conversation with the dead guy. That was confusing, but not in the good way. I didn't really understand how it worked and how he could see the guy without actually finding the dead body first. I suppose maybe you meant his ghost, I'm not really sure actually.

From there, I really liked the section with the bloodbath. It was the second time I got the hints of what really makes the story entertaining. It has what I like to think of as the feral quality. Something that I really appreciated about part I especially was that there was this constant reminder of something primal. I'm not sure if you meant it to be a motif, but the natural bloodlust of the people, although sickening, had me hooked. Typically, I'm very against random violence, I remember that tainted my thoughts of Saving You when I read it; however, I feel like it was very calculated and cool, which really made it good.

The rest until Eburo's Dusk and when Hilbert signed up for the fight was good. There was one plot hole that you might want to fix, which is Ripley's expressions and actions to things. In Eburo's Dusk you describe her as freezing in response to the explosion. Although Hilbert doesn't know it, freezing is a natural reaction to a stimulus the body doesn't know how to react to. If she really did plan for her father to die, she needs to have a little more movement, and a little less freezing. Also, when she thrashes in Hilbert's arms, I'm not sure if that's supposed to be acting or not, but it doesn't really make much sense. I figure that if she had planned it, she would really keep a cooler head than she does, so I would change that.

The rest though, was pretty much perfect. Point of view changes were delivered adequately in third person and in separate chapters. I really liked the cliffhanger on the end of the first part. I felt the suspense very well, so good job. For the most part, there are only minor mistakes which mostly have to do with verb tense and formatting. Those were left as comments though as promised. The only thing I would fix is the plot hole.