The Light Bearer
By TheSheepMaster

Reviewed by Rinnaul

Something of an art piece this time. I just wanted something short after working through a pair of 20ks and a 40k in the past couple weeks.

An brief introspective piece from an immortal at the verge of death. A bit meandering, and it doesn’t really commit enough to one direction over another. But if the premise intrigues you, there’s not really anything to cause offense, either.

In parts the story is poetic, feeling like some kind of extended free verse. In others, the prose becomes much more casual and grounded. The two make for a strange blend, and I can’t help but feel it would be better if it opted entirely for one or the other.

The repetition of certain words and ideas are clearly meant to give a sense of cohesion and illustrate the themes of the work, but while that does at times lend it that aforementioned poetic quality, there’s no sense of greater purpose.

The whole of the story consists of the dying thoughts of a supposed-immortal. There’s a great deal of self-loathing and loss involved, and we could perhaps have done with less musing on the light and how little time she had left, and spent more time on those themes. It turns around to thoughts of hope and compassion towards the end, but the other emotions almost overwhelm that.

A third-person omniscient view focused solely on Celestia, and the view never changes as there are no other characters for it to change to. Though sometimes it’s hard to tell where Celestia’s thoughts stop and the narrative begins, but that actually feels kind of appropriate to the story.

As an introspection piece from a dying character, there really isn’t much to describe in the first place. It’s dark, so there’s that. What we do have is a lot of emotional atmosphere, but I’ll cover that in Mood.

The flow was good for the most part, taking on a nearly poetic tone and reading smoothly. However, at times, the language lost that tone and the shift felt a bit out of place.

A somber reflection on the futility of clinging to life and the delusion of self-worth while still appreciating the impact had on others and the love they shared with you. It’s a dying character trying to come to peace with herself and, apparently, succeeding. The story succeeds as well for the most part, but I still feel we spent too much time dithering on about light, dark, and time - time which would have been better spent further exploring the emotions in play here.

Score: A

Didn’t see anything to correct. If I overlooked something, it probably wasn’t anything major.

Not much I can say on a story that’s so short and has no real glaring problems. My only real suggestions are to try and aim your tone at either being fully poetic, or fully prose; spend less time on extended metaphors about failing health and more time on the emotions you’re trying to evoke; and if you’re aiming for repetition as a rhetorical device, try to make it a bit more consistent to better tie the structure together.

Enjoyable

Some flaws, but nothing that really hurts the story. And enough good to put it into the positive, but not much that really stands out, either.

2880611

Thank you for reviewing this; I really enjoyed reading the review. I feel that I could have done so much more with this story, and should have, probably. I will take the thoughts you stated here into account when I work on future projects.