The Song Binder

Disclaimer: to the author, take everything in this review with a grain of salt. I’m not a professional writer and only somewhat of a seasoned reviewer. To the readers, this review will contain lots of spoilers, so I suggest you read the storygame first.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

There are a lot of ‘greats’ in the description, potentially foreshadowing a theme of achieving greatness or perishing in the attempt. As for me, I just hope this storygame will be ‘great’. Jokes aside, it has a well-written description which introduces the main conflict and some of the actors involved in it. This seems like a classic good vs evil story. There are some unexplained fantasy terms such as ‘The War of Harmony’, ‘Elichen’ and ‘the Stone Mark’ which might point towards extensive worldbuilding.

Onto the first page. I like the vast, vivid descriptions where Argel watches over the land from above, looking at the different landscapes and locations. It feels cinematic; I picture a camera zooming into each place, one at a time, showing snapshots of each from a bird’s eye view. It employs a good mix of verb-based and noun-based sentences; there's lots of concrete imagery grounded in specific details; the careful choice of diction connotes a different sort of ‘personality’ for the main locations.

Yet, a critique is that it slows pacing and is somewhat of an infodump. Is it imperative that readers know about each and every place from the beginning of the story? It would be much better were this to be interspersed throughout the narrative, which may mean letting the protagonist focus on just one or two locations and restructuring the rest to later in the story when they actually enter that setting. This also prevents readers from forgetting important details—when they're all delivered at once, it may be harder to keep track of the names and corresponding descriptions.

Then, the focus zooms in on the tower. It is portrayed as a “place where bad dreams came upon the ill winds, and the haunted voices of dark and twisted beings could be heard”. This gives the sense of such information being imparted through whispered rumors, of which no one can be certain of the truth, though it's evident there is something dark and ominous lurking there. It is revealed that the protagonist has been there, only to state that the truth is worse. This, coupled with the rich and immersive descriptions, is a great way of setting up the stakes and foreshadowing the severity of this future conflict.

In another paragraph, there are even more lands and tribes. Maybe I'm just reading this late at night, and it's more of a criticism of my memory than the story, but it's starting to get hard to keep track of everything. It doesn't help that most have names starting with s. There's a brief lapse to present tense but I only catched it when glancing at that paragraph a second time.

Argel’s backstory makes him uniquely suited to be the first character introduced in this story. He faced the Gabanoks and their beast Izlaroth years ago, in the same conflict that left the world in its current ruinous, collapsed state. The Wall of Harmony broke (great symbolism in the name). The first page ends with him pierced by a sword. This leaves readers intrigued to click to the next page.

WRITING STYLE

I'm conflicted about my thoughts on the writing style. On one hand, I love how descriptively everything is written. The prose is beautifully constructed, immersing readers in the scene, incorporating sensory details like snapshots of each scene. This story is a perfect example of ‘showing’ rather than ‘telling. Moreover, there's a cadence and rhythm to the words. One part was the lines of ‘some defenders fell’ and ‘a great many fell’ with descriptions interspersed around these. It also sets up a structure of cause and effect; everything flows very well.

However, one could also say there is too much emphasis on description. This slows pacing. Even the supposedly suspenseful scenes seem more like war paintings—frozen in time, broad brushstrokes detailing a fine image, though lacking a sense of urgency. This reminds me of writing advice I once heard that helped me resolve some issues with my own work: writing is like a window pane. Of course, it's nice to have a beautiful window pane, but it shouldn't distract from the view (which in this case is the story). As much as I love the way everything is described, at times it borders on purple prose.

There were a few typos and grammatical errors which a quick proofread could fix.

Where the writing excels is setting description. One example is Islernis. So many details are provided, from the winding passages in the cliffs of stone to the great trees where lookouts are stationed. I wonder if the author uses pictures of actual places or if this is all somehow visualized by a very powerful imagination. Either way, this city feels so real, from its defensive layout to its nature-shaped environment.

The same with the Elich. While the description went on for slightly longer than might have been ideal, it made sense, given how many times they were mentioned before they were actually seen by the protagonists.

Even more impressive was the description of the city itself, interwoven with plot to ensure the pacing doesn't slow down. I love how it described the massive tunnels, unusually sturdy cliffs and great supplies (the word ‘great’ is used many times but I prefer to think its a recurring motif rather than a crutch word), only for there to be the line, “And while so filled and so great, it felt yet so empty.” This detail—that they had few defenders or were short on numbers—seemed like it would be important later on.

CHARACTERS & PLOT

The second page introduces the reader to Norvander, the lost prince of Sovander. It uses third person omniscient pov so his thoughts and feelings are described. This sets up the worldbuilding: the ‘good folk’ tend to stay away from the Free People who use what they consider to be evil magic. The dynamics established here foreshadowed the conflict between him and Beria, who annoyed him with everything she did.

Speaking of worldbuilding, the number of places and people and fantasy terms being used makes this seem like a very well thought out world. It was a bit disorienting at first—like being thrown in the middle of a fantasy novel, with different terms and settings, but the narrative became more focused as it went on.

Beria has quite a distinctive character voice. It's somewhat reminiscent of old English with phrases like ‘naught’ and ‘have heart’, maybe even Shakespearean. Just like the narrative, she has a poetic way of speaking, e.g. “We are of the humanity, but dwell outside it. In dark dimmery that does not spoil the eyes, and soft songs and quiet ways.” She is portrayed as one with nature: she says initially doesn't use a torch as their environment ‘does not like [light]’ and her laugh is equated to stones rumbling in a stream.

A link error: choosing whether to proceed with or without light leads to the same page.

I liked the part where the protagonists had to answer a riddle by the troll under the bridge. It's a common fairytale convention. The riddle was also well known, though with its own twist given the writing style. It is interesting how all the answers sort of make sense. Based on how they got past it, the page with The Gates of Islernis starts with a different paragraph and might include a mention of horses.

Soon, the protagonists are welcomed into the city and rested, then set out in a carriage. They ride past the inner ring of the city. Maybe a suggestion would be to focus a bit more on plot throughout the story. Thus far, it seems like most of what has happened involves description rather than action. Readers know a lot more about what the world looks like than the main characters or their mission, which forms the anchor and emotional attachment aspect of any story.

This story, just like a number of contest entries I’ve read, has the problem of abruptly ending just when it was about to begin. And I was getting invested! There was a good inciting incident (whether or not Norvander would answer the call and venture past the point of no return), but it is here that the story is cut short. Still, I liked the mention of Argel and how he was Luniza's husband. It makes the prologue more relevant and gives the sense that he didn't die in vain.

To the author, if this story is completed, it'll be nice to see it in its entirety. Maybe I'd even write another textwall review.

A good read with decent writing and a quite immersive world that ended a little suddenly. A good read overall.

Enjoyable read and well written story. The world felt big and immersive and I Wish there was more of it to explore.

Nice work!

I Enjoyed this story but it could have been longer.

The writing is very excellent and vivid. The story is meaningful and packed of exposition. The characters are interesting. It could definitely could become an epic with more time and writing. Besides the classic goblin-under-the-bridge-telling-riddles, I feel like this story is more high fantasy than fairytale, but I won’t hold it against it. And like a lot of high fantasy, this story suffers from key-smash character names which are difficult to remember as well as heavy exposition at the beginning, which would work so much better if the story was simply longer and elaborated.

I rather liked it, the ideas for the world (creatures, food, people) were imaginative and certainly have a good amount of potential, but it was sadly a little short. Also, I think that there was perhaps too much exposition at the start.