Blade of the Avatar: Prologue Feedback

I agree. Seeing "sown" spelled "sewn" on the very first page was disheartening. But at least it's early stages where these issues can be corrected if the authors are listening.

 

I noticed this too, but chalked it up to a minor pronoun confusion; it seems like it was meant that he tempered it; but reads like they all tempered it with the use of the book. Either could really work.

Again, another I did not catch. Thanks, ehewlett; I've added it to the original post.

@Firelotus has written to me that she will pass on the feedback. I told her that we all know they wanted to get this in our hands ASAP and that people have been clamoring for it. It's understandable with such a shortened week some things would slip through the cracks.

A portion of my job is reviewing text and spotting errors, but as you've seen, I don't always catch 'em all.

 

I found that we could download it at the bottom of our user account page on the SotA homepage. No need to have to look through forums to find the download.

I enjoyed it very much.

 

It's amazing to me that people can notice this stuff. I just see a page as a big jumble of letters which I try to make sense of in my head. I couldn't tell if my own name were misspelled without the help of the red underlines. It would take me hours to read anything if I had to focus on one word at a time.

 

If you're trying to keep a complete list you could also add...
on page 4:
"He extended his hand, a touched the surface..." should be and.
"...he heard himself said." should be say.

 

It's surprisingly difficult to catch every typo in a document if relying on auto correction software. The extract we saw was basically a preview anyway so a few grammatical issues are fairly normal in these things.

Regarding feedback, I quite liked the prologue and look forward to seeing the first chapter! Well done Tracey & Richard

 

It wasn't a "preview." It was a released prologue. It shouldn't be that bad. If that's what we have in store for the rest of the novel, it's going to make for a tough read.

There is a reason books usually have editors. Authors might be great with story but that doesn't mean they are always great at typing, spelling or grammar.

 

We've become far to critical lately if we are going to nitpic over a few minor mispellings. I mispell more words on average in one of my posts then that whole prologue. I thought it was great. I caught only one error, but no big deal.

 

Did you read it, or this post? Or is your self-admitted shortcoming at spelling affecting your ability to read?

 

I wouldn't worry about the errors you all noted. I'm sure they will fix them as you have suggested.

That aside, I enjoyed the story so far and can't wait to read more installments. Great work Lord British and Tracy Hickman.

 

I don't think I'm worried about them being fixed. I think I'm worried that they were in there at that frequency in the first place.

 

I noticed there was a place called Rhun which also appears in LOTR. Not really a "problem" just depends what view you want to take about not using lore from another universe.

 

Don't confuse Rhun with Rhûn, or Le Rhun.

 

Hmm... I've been posting my corrections to the Dev+ forum thread. I'll copy/paste my corrections here instead (at least one of these the OP caught):

pg. 2; 6th paragraph:

"Everywhere else into the distance the grass was brown in the cold winter air but around the Fall were a variety of plants and animals and even what the young man had thought were both plans AND animals weaving and reweaving themselves into strange and woudrous forms only to shift again into new shapes both chaotic and ordered at the same time."

I'm assuming this was supposed to be the word "plants".

That all-caps "AND" was bothering me as well. I would have written that particular sentence as:

"Everywhere else into the distance the grass was brown in the cold winter air but around the Fall were a variety of plants and animals and even what the young man had thought to be plant and animal hybrids were weaving and reweaving themselves into strange and woudrous forms only to shift again into new shapes both chaotic and ordered at the same time" (I'm assuming "plant and animal hybrids" is what the authors were trying to say, hence the "plants AND animals").

Yes, as another poster mentioned, it's a rather long ( I'd say unwieldy) sentence.

pg 4, last line:

"Mewing and wailing of and for themselves."

Perhaps the better word should be "mewling" since mewl would be a more apt to use than mew (unless we're talking about Kilrathi which would be interesting to say the least).

That's all I've been able to catch on my own. These errors make this prologue seem rushed. I am pretty sure fans don't want rushed work but rather quality work regarding SotA. Was that not the whole point of self-publishing the game?

 

Eh... I'm perfectly aware that it is spelt Rhûn in LOTR. Pronunciation may be different but spelling is too close not to consider it being a copy. I don't suspect it is a copy but rather an unfortunate coincidence (given that they are aiming not to have any direct overlap with LOTR etc). To remove all uncertainty it could be simply renamed.

 

I just had another read of Blade of the Avatar, I think its BRILLIANT. Tracy and Richard are truly coming up with a phenomenal story. And the artwork provided by Denis Loubet is, to me, astonishing as always.

 

When I saw the Denis Loubet artwork, I was like a kid on Christmas day. Can't wait for the rest of the book.

 

Yeah that was totally awesome.