Thread:Sakaros/@comment-29301-20180903145046/@comment-29301-20190425135259

So, Ascension.

I hadn't thought that Alecto would have much character development after Abattoir (back when I for some reason thought Danse Macabre was going to be one of the last installments in this series), so it is an achievement that you've figured out a way to continue her arc. Such as here, where you manage to humanize her somewhat by showing how her experiences have led her to develop restraint and a desire for actual loyalty, and no doubt this is Tirien rubbing off on her just a little bit (not that I've stopped rooting for her to suffer a grisly death by the end). We have a believable cast of secondaries, as usual (though I sometimes can't fathom why you choose such kooky species for them), and the actual saber fight toward the end was well-timed.

But for all that, I have to admit that it wasn't until maybe halfway into the story that I got seriously interested in what was going on. For instance, the Fourteen-Year-Old Sith Guy - I never found him that interesting a character. In fact, after we were first introduced to him, I thought you were gonna kill him off early on. It's only a first impression, though, and I'm open to him becoming more interesting later.

You keep taking mid-tier villains and killing them off-screen - first it was Eviar Seldec, now it's Darth Saleej - and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. On one hand it feels sort of like a letdown to introduce these villains (particularly Eviar, who tangled with the series' main hero personally) and then dispose of them without us being able to see it. On the other hand, though, it does maintain an aspect of realism. After all, it's a big galaxy, and we're dealing with a lot of characters (more than in the Star Wars movies, certainly), so it's just a statistical necessity that Tirien and Narasi can't deal with every baddy all the time. So that works.

I shall speak of the top-dog villains as well, since it seems to me pertinent. I really hope you've got some interesting things in mind for the Council of Five, because between the reader hearing about them basically since the beginning of the series, and them never appearing until now, and even now them being basically anonymous, I feel like you're hyping the shit out of them. And hyping them up is fine, but at the moment they're striking me as too mysterious for their own good. Far as top-dog villains go, it's Valin Aresh by far who I'm more interested in seeing more of in this series - he's hyped and mysterious too, but we've seen just enough of him and what he's up to to have a real impression of his personality. Not so with the Council of Five, yet.

As always, looking forward to whatever's next.