The Happiness Awards 2024 [OPEN]

⚔️ R1 - Fantasy/Adventure/Action⚔️

A special mention to these below users for participating in this year's The Happiness Awards 2024!

Your entries were just as great but this is a contest after all!

Please don't feel discouraged for having not placed this round. It just means your story may need a little more editing but each individual story still holds merit.

There is always next year! We encourage you guys to return!

⚔️ A New Life In A New World by megatrix123  (Fantasy)

Review by KitZimmerman:

Title/Cover: 8/10

Despite its length, the title succeeds in providing a sense of what the book is going to be about, and I think the decision not to use any words from the "reincarnation" word family was a wise one due to the current popularity surrounding reincarnation/isekai tropes, as there's nothing worse than following a trend just to have one's work lost in a sea of content (which is bound to happen regardless).

At first glance, the beautiful artwork hints at what I thought was going to be an isekai or migration story with fantasy adventure elements, but more on that in a moment.

While the artwork itself stands on its own, the title's font and framed borders also get their time in the sun (pun intended—I know, I'm terrible—but I mean it!).

If anything, the font could be brighter to really pop, which I don't think would detract from the gorgeous landscape or sunrise/sunset.

Blurb: 3/10

Where the title and cover left me hopeful, I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed by the blurb, which read as if it were the opening lines to the work itself. Clunky syntax also dashed my hopes, as it seemed to indicate what the rest of the book might entail.

For example, this sentence reads like an old woman crossing the road missed hitting the protagonist: "I ended up getting hit by a truck instead of her."

My expectations were at least pleasantly subverted when I realized my previous assumptions of the book being an isekai or migration story, though I would have also welcomed either.

Chapter One: 1/10

It is extremely important to note that a place from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth (Khazad-dûm) was plagiarized, which made me question if elements had been taken from other works and flew under my radar.

While its true that many single words and places can't be copyrighted, not so in this case. Since this isn't fan fiction, I found no excuse for this.

The opening lines in the first chapter confirmed my earlier suspicions that the blurb was essentially a revised excerpt, but what I wanted more than a revised blurb was a polished final draft.