There is something very wrong with the dialog in Hercules West‘s first Dragon Conqueror novel. Although it starts out well enough, after the protagonist transfers to the new world it begins to cycle through three styles; normal, robotically wooden, and ‘porno transcription’. That wasn’t what got me to drop it a little over a quarter of the way through though. No, it was how after the protagonist asked if the country they were in was powerful for the third time everyone responded as if the topic had never come up before.
Ended up dropping Brian J. Nordon‘s first Quest Academy: Silvers novel a little over a quarter of the way in as well. Neither the dialog nor writing style was the problem however… at least not past the train segment which contains paragraphs that read like they’re missing a sentence or two. The issue here is that the author appears to have wanted the protagonist to have a ‘learning moment’ and implemented it in the most unbelievably ham-fisted manner possible.
He didn’t know enchanted items drained essence despite working in an auction house? The in-depth rune primer he bought didn’t mention the runes’ essence draw? He spontaneously lost the ability to gauge his own essence reserves? This perfectly enchanted shirt with beyond-expert runecrafting is actually proof that his power is totally not perfect at all? Just incredibly painful contortions that do not bode well for future developments.