Dreamland Review Archive

Poison among Shadows (DS)

Poison Among Shadows by ZianDutt

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read your book. Please, keep in mind that my reading of your story is by necessity a subjective opinion. Your story is beautiful and important to you more than any other story you could have been telling. How I perceived it is very much a matter of my preferences

I read 9 chapters of your story available at this time.

Your book is tagged as adventure, high fantasy and dark fantasy, so I looked first and foremost at how much the story stimulated my imagination and how important your main character had become to me; how much I wanted to figure out what's going to happen to them, the setting that told me that 'it could possibly happen this way', and if I would be able to remember your story a few months from now. In addition, I looked for the gritty feel of dark fantasy.

The title of the book tells me it's a dark fantasy. I think it might be the third book that includes taints and/or shadows in its title that I am reviewing. However, you have a really intriguing setting, so I feel that it would be great if both the title highlighted the period and originality. Your blurb reflected your writing style, but for me its vagueness was a turn off. Your tag 'imperialism' gave me my first hint that your fantasy had matured past the Middle Ages, as the word gets a bit lost in the blurb. My suggestion is to keep jotting ideas as you wrote the book to find a title and the blurb that sell the book better to anyone looking for a fantasy with an exciting setting.

The setting was front and center, as I started the story. And it's a great setting. It has the conflict and the debate, it touches on many emotions that are relevant to our times. I think it is a wonderful idea. I also see a lot of research or prior knowledge invested in creating it.

However, the first chapter also creates a bit of a textbook feel to me. There are a couple of things I would suggest looking at to ease the immersion into the story and hit me with the great hook you have at the end of the first chapter.

First is looking at in-setting words vs diction balance. Try to decide which in-setting words you want to keep to give the story its uniqueness (clothes and food, for example), and which ones have an English equivalent that will make the reading smoother (for example, a winged fox already forms a great image). For diction, keeping the more complex words that are just absolutely essential and using simpler equivalents where they are equally precise might be something to look at. This could give your story less educational vibe and more entertaining one.

The second idea for chapter 1 is to leave out the details that speed-bump my following Zehreen and bonding with her as the main character.

Chapter 2 has a great character drama, with the argument between the mortal opponents taking place, and Zehreen realizing the depth of her predicament.

The conflict escalates further, with Vamika providing evidence of just how existential the conflict is for all involved. I find that at this point, all the characters, including Zehreen are overshadowed by Vamika who comes across as a competent operator.

By chapter 3 Zehreen is not clicking as familiar/automatically calling for connection so she is not guaranteed my empathy. She is a reactive character up till this point, while Vamika drives the plot. The episode with a hat helps to make Zehreen more likable, small personal touches like that would be very welcome to make her more real.

By the beginning of chapter 4, Zehreen's life had ultimately changed, and she is shook. There maybe a hint of her trying to live up to her mother's fame and failing (in her mind)? If so, it is a great personal challenge for her to overcome in order to eventually advance the adventure plot.

I really enjoyed the deadline she faced along with her syndicate and how it falls apart around her in the subsequent chapters. Her protections are being stripped one by one, leaving her character open to a huge growth. What she will be seeking is the main question I am asking myself by the end of chapter 5.

For me, the most interesting parts of these 2 chapters as well as 6, is establishing of Zehreen and Nayan/Atharv as both allies and friends. For example, there is a cute episode in the middle of tense scenes where Nayan grabs a pastry from Atharv, and it is perfect to help with bringing in a bit of human relationships to the still very lore intense narrative. 

Nayan splashing water with hydrokinesis but saying her lie detection ability is far stronger, is another great moment. In my view, it is the best intro of lore so far. It is entertaining, visual and memorable. I would absolutely vote for keeping lore intro to moments like that and trim the long sections at the beginning of the chapters.

In chapters 7-8, Zehreen starts to rebuild after the collapse of her previous status-quo and maybe meets a potential love interest, which would be cool, because it would hint at the Act 2 starting.

It's hard for me to judge the necessity of chapter 9, but I felt I didn't learn anything potentially new from it, or saw either Vamika or Zehreen in a new light. However, since it's early in the book, it might be a seed for a later subplot, so I would reserve my judgment.

In the end of nine chapters, I felt that I enjoyed the pacing of the plot, loved the main villain (or villain at that point of the book), and didn't yet pick up anything that made Zehreen as memorable as the setting. I feel that rebalancing the amount of lore vs plot and character focus a little bit could make the story easier to dig in.

Good luck with developing your story and hope these notes are helpful.