Brent Stinebaker
patreon
State of Godclads, Critiques, and Upcoming Project
🕑 Added 2024-02-10 19:56:26 +0000 UTCGreetings,
As the Hidden Empire volume of Godclads begins, we will be expanding the cast, crew, and way the story is told. Avo's point of view will be kept, but as he increasingly a memetic plague rather than a person, we're going to start getting "third-second point of views" as he mantles parts of himself in various minds and people and guides them away (or into danger).
This means that the insight into the city is going to broaden in a sort of single protagonist + epic fantasy cast style expansion. So if you have favorite characters and jumping povs while also liking the story to be centered around Avo, you might just get your cake and eat it too.
With the coming chapters, there will also be a new progression element I call: [INFECTION]
Effectively, it is how much of the city has been affected by the Burning Dreamer, or how much of his spread has been repelled.
Not many stories where the most heroic individual is a metaphysical mind-infecting thoughtplague, but we go wild here in Godclads. Just think of this progression fantasy as gaining some RTS and Stellaris/XCOM aspects to it.
I also recommend the story Blood Music if you want to see some wild high concept sci fi.
On this note, I would like to invite some critiques or criticisms about Godclads and what could be improved. Looking back at the past few volumes, there are parts of the story that aren't as tight. The pacing is a bit jank in places. Part of this comes with writing while tired sometimes and also producing content daily, so I'm trying to improve my methods and apply more detail and character work with how things progress.
Feel free to let me know what you want to see more of. What you liked. What you didn't. All feedback is welcome.
Finally, I'm finally solidifying elements for my second series, so if you see a non-godclads/main chapter entry, you might be in for something else. I'd like to describe as an counter System Apocalypse running on a conceptual cultivation/Disco Elysium skill system, so stay tuned for that.
In the meantime, I'm going to try and fix my fried brain. More stuff to come.
Comments
Alberto Sanchez
I think the epigraphs do for really great worldbuilding and/or foreshadowing, but I personally think that some of them can get a bit overly long. I can't remember the exact chapters, but some of the ones involving jaus, zein, veylis and the agnosi come to mind. An especially long one at an infortune moment in the story can really break the pacing of the story if you are reading chapters back-to-back instead of a daily schedule. It is a great way of delivering additional lore to the reader without bloating the story, and I'm not saying that you should absolutely keep them short no matter what, but I'd try to be a bit more cognisant of how they impact the overall flow of the story for the reader, and where longer epigraphs could potentially fit. Also, I love this story and it is one of the greatest stories I have read in a long time across many aspects of a story, but I think you should seriously consider recruiting a few beta-readers with well developed english skills. Your vocabulary is great, and so is your style, but there are a LOT of missing words/incorrect words/repeating words mistakes in this story, drastically more than most I'd consider "good" and some of them even slipped through into the release of Book 1, though drastically less than on RR or Patreon. Having a proofreader as an intermediary step before release on either platform would probably not even require any additional reviee on your part changes and therefore not cost you any extra time, while drastically reducing the amount of immersion breaking moments in the story.
Terry
I really enjoy godclads, but I believe that sometimes the fights can be too much. For example Avo x Reva, Abrel and others- the fight is multiple chapters long with radically changing environments and other dynamics . Keeping track of what exactly is happening and where a who is still standing becomes really hard and as it is long fight I become easily lost in it. For me, much more enjoyable was the fight with Zein. Dynamic, changing, but it was easier to keep track of and it was more satisfying as it concluded in less chapters.
luxrus
If possible, can you explain more of what the heavens do in fights? Their heavens and skillsets have changed so much, so quickly, that its hard to follow with minimal description. I actually do not know what parts of the cadre are capable of
Brent Stinebaker
Elaboration: it is not going to be like POV bloat. Every POV that you will see will be tied to Avo. It's spreading, because he's spreading, because the cadre is spreading. Effectively, he's sockpuppeting people.
Austin Caudill
Just gonna put out that I really hate when books start adding in multiple POVs when it was long established to be a single POV novel. I love godclads, it's my favorite book right now but I'd beg you to minimize the additional POVs. Nothing makes me lose interest in a story quicker than having a less interesting/less invested POV added in that feels like a chore I have to read before I can get back to the good stuff.
