I've been reading free stuff on Webnovel for a couple of months now, but never thought to make an account until I read this. I had to review it. I came upon this totally by random and it quickly went from "okay this is kinda neat" to "why can't I stop reading, do I hate myself?"
Anyways I guess I should start with the basic premise. To sum it up this story is told in the first person by what is, as far as I can tell, basically an immortal wizard/druid raised by coyotes. He's done something horrible (possibly destroyed the world?) and the whole book is a collection of short stories talking about his past, who he is and why he thinks the way he does.
Doesn't sound too unique on paper, I get it, you see these kinds of books a dime a dozen here. But what sets it apart is...well, this isn't really about the fantasy. The protagonist views the world and himself through a jaded lens and the story really reflects that, emphasizes it even. And the writing is probably better than like 90% of the stuff I've seen on this website.
The author makes great use of metaphor and analogy to make the MCs thoughts and feelings, while sometimes barbaric and outlandish, highlight how scummy people and life can be. After the first two chapters your basically thrown into a series of mostly unrelated, self-contained stories featuring a new cast of characters that help to serve develop the MCs philosophy. And even though you don't really see these characters outside their story (aside from the protagonist) the time spent with them really makes them feel real...which is all the more tragic, mostly, and leads me to my next point.
The story is dark. If the book cover wasn't obvious enough, things get real twisted real fast. Most of the chapters end horribly, but in a good way. It works to build on the tragedy of the writing and get the themes and messages across, but very rarely do things end well in this book. This also kinda helps to make the protag feel more grounded. You get the sense that he's this borderline god-like being, but in reality he displays a sense of fear and powerlessness as he contemplates the mistakes he's made and people he's lost.
I know I'm not really doing a good job selling this but...I just gotta say it's very unique. I'd call it fantasy-meets-philosophy in the best possible way. Each chapter made me think a little bit more about myself and what it means to be human. For example, my favorite (that's been uploaded so far) chapter "The Miss" made me think about "what does mercy REALLY mean?"
All in all, what I can say is the writing is really good and the story is by far one of the more unique ones I've read online. If you're looking for something totally different from your typical fantasy novel, give this a spin. I'm pretty excited to see where this one goes and how it all ties into the overarching narrative.
Pros:
-Great writing quality
-Unique, if hard to understand, protagonist
-Thought provoking stories
-Great use of vocabulary
Cons:
-Subject matter gets very mature (Not necessarily a con, but some of the events in the story even made ME feel uncomfortable)
-Difficult to understand beginning
-Chapters can be fairly long
