Well damn. I spent the first two-thirds of this thinking that what I’d have to say about it is that I have a big soft spot for a workmanlike fairy-tale inflected adventure novel, especially one with a reluctant protagonist who’s only doing something out of desperation, and even if they slip a little over the line into “look at all my fantasy names.” But then it really got its hooks into me. And that ending… huh. Nice.
You are Madelaine of Roshorn, a struggling weaver in a small farming village repeatedly “curse-struck by roving Saltcast,” trying and failing to keep yourself, your disabled husband and two young children from slowly starving to death. In desperation, you sneak off to enter the Kingthrall caves, expecting to die but hoping against hope to find some knowledge you can escape with and bring back so the king and his armies can stop these incursions (and hopefully claim some small part of the reward to keep your family alive).
Instead you find a whole underground society of magical creatures, with their own schisms and wars, and… well, it goes from there.
OK. OK. This is very much more an interactive novel than an adventure game. It’s mostly pages of reading, lightly sprinkled with choices. And as far as I can see it’s one long gauntlet structure: there are some one-click deaths (and then you use SugarCube’s built-in history buttons to back up and continue the story), there is some light stat tracking and later callbacks – did you free this creature, did you take a wound here, did you gain the favor of the Saltcast there – but mostly the story rolls on unheeding. I mean, you go in expecting to die, you don’t have a lot of control here, it’s that kind of story, it works well. Just roll with it.
You’ve read fairy tales, you mostly know which choices to make anyway. Free the trapped creature, don’t listen to the siren song. Sometimes you actually do want to cut your losses and move on rather than take a wound, maybe. But aside from the immediate deaths, I think these choices are mostly a matter of roleplaying rather than blocking the story. Which version of this character do you want to be? Pick whichever you like. And you always have the back button if you change your mind, though I mostly stuck with my first instincts.
Anyway. This took me about an hour and twenty, I mostly thought the writing was at the upper end of decent amateur rather than polished professional, but it kept me engaged and moving along, and then really pulled out the stops for the third section. I think this is gonna do like a more grown-up (and darker? not quite Joan Aiken or Lemony Snicket dark, but George MacDonald-ish?) version of how The Princess of Vestria did two years ago, just quietly do pretty well. Not perfect, not gonna set the world on fire, but a cracking good yarn that took me by surprise and had me more than a bit sentimental at the end.
Definitely recommend this one if you have the time and inclination for a slightly-florid 70k-word adventure novel with a choice every page or three.
