“a work of high fantasy, its tone and pacing very much suggesting the influence of fantasy RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons…briskly paced and action-packed..a punchy fantasy adventure. Starting a work with the dark lord triumphant is a nice hook to further draw readers into the series. The characters are clearly presented and their magical abilities are clearly defined…Those looking for a fun, quick read will be drawn to your work”
-professional editor Jonathan Oliver
“Ryn is likeable and relatable…The way he responds to the loss of his parents is believable and evokes an emotional response from the reader…The premise of this novel is very promising. The characterisation of Ryn is my favourite part, and the writing is stylistically consistent.”
-Slush reader at David Fickling Books
BansheeSerenade wrote:
Hey Faenon! I stumbled across your review of Celes Chere's FFVI novelisation while trying to decide if I should give it a go last night. I have no idea what possessed me to do it since usually self-published stuff is... well, you typically get what you pay for... but for whatever reason, I decided to check out SotJ and from the very first chapter I was hooked. I just could not stop reading, I think I started somewhere around 9pm and didn't get to sleep until around 5am because I just had to know what happened next. I'm very grateful that I was fortuitous enough to find the first book when I did as you'd just posted the last chapter! With a bit of fine tuning, I could absolutely see this published as a YA fantasy series. The world and characters you've created are so vibrant.
Faenon replied:
Hi @BansheeSerenade! Wow; thanks so much for your message, for the positive review and for your patronage. I'm so glad you enjoyed Saga of the Jewels Book One: The Fire Ruby (he's found the first draft posted on fanfiction.net, for anyone else reading this response). Thank you for the kind words about publication--I do plan to edit SotJ and indie-publish it as a YA fantasy on Kindle (I think it is probably un-publishable by a traditional publishing house, given it is so heavily reliant on Final Fantasy and gaming tropes).
LordLavak wrote:
Saga of the Jewels is really good.
Jenny Homan wrote:
I'm recommending Saga of the Jewels to my readers. I’m a sucker for a good story.
Stephen wrote:
What a cliffhanger! I found the series gripping and enjoyed reading each chapter. Vish's character was probably my favourite - I'm hoping some of the nuances of the others might be explored in the next season - hoping some of their internal battles might come to the surface like they do for Vish and Ryn. Great work Luke.
Luke replied:
Thanks a lot, Stephen! And thanks for reading it--I'm really glad you've enjoyed it. Other characters' internal battles definitely come through in Season Two, which I've finished the first draft of. Now I just need to work out when/how to post that. It might be a while... Thanks again!
GH wrote:
Hi Luke
I’ve loved your book! Quite gripping!
Well done. Do you have a growing fan club? You write so well!
Luke replied:
Haha! Thanks, Gordon! What a lovely message to receive. So glad you are enjoying it.
Actually, yes, I do have a fan club! It can be found at the following link, though there is absolutely zero obligation to join: http://patreon.com/luketarassenko
FF wrote:
Not bad, not bad at all. I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical at first, but you've executed a fairly crazy idea very skillfully so far. Overall, a strong start to what could be a very strong story.
Luke replied:
Thanks for the compliments, FF. Glad you are enjoying it and I hope you keep reading!
WF wrote:
I don't see many webnovels good enough to stick with for the long haul.
Luke replied:
Thanks for the comment, WF! It looks like you are going to be a permanent party member—glad you’re along for the ride!
GN wrote:
I’m enjoying this so far. Good characters and world building. […] Really good story. […] This story captures that Final Fantasy quality perfectly. Kiddy but also grim. The characters are great too, they have very simplistic yet loving personalities. This webnovel is severely underrated and needs more favorites/follows. I look forward to seeing how this story will unfold.
Luke replied:
Thanks so much for the positive review, GN! It’s always super encouraging and motivating to receive a favourable review, so thank you!
TC wrote:
Hi Luke. Full disclosure: I am only at the end of Episode 6, so very glad of a chance to catch up on this. I'm enjoying the saga a lot, although I was definitely surprised at discovering there are twelve jewels scattered across the world (suggesting this might be a longer ride than I thought).
I can see the influence of the Final Fantasy games in this, but that's not a limitation: your world building unfolds gradually and in sync with the core narrative, so it's rarely if ever felt like information overload.
My only concern is about the level of setup here, if there are twelve jewels to be found - each of these installments has centred around introducing a new character, and if that continues then I wonder whether you'll keep sufficient momentum in the core narrative. It's not felt like a problem so far but with a swelling cast of characters, I start wondering about payoff and whether you can bring this all together in a satisfying fashion.
But I have faith in you based on what I've read so far!
Luke replied:
Thanks so much TC; really helpful! I was just logging on to post the first comment (if there's another thing I've learned as a teacher, it's that if you want others to share then you have to be prepared to share yourself!) but you've beaten me to it, so I will write in reply to yours.
I think Saga of the Jewels is pretty good. Obviously it's not high literature or anything, but it has been a lot of fun to write, so I hope it's fun to read too. Here's the story of how it came about, which will respond to some of your points, TC:
In Summer 2020 I had just finished my creative writing mentorship with The Literary Consultancy, having been doing that and working part-time, and I was aware that I was going back into a very intense full-time teaching job at a private school so I was going to be losing a lot of my writing time.
Then, in addition to that, while I had got lots of extremely positive feedback on the novel I had written for the mentorship (which, incidentally, I am going to be indie-publishing this December—watch this space), and although I had *almost* managed to snag one agent with it, ultimately I failed to land a literary agent at that time.
So I thought 'Sod it, I'm just going to write something purely for fun, for myself, in what little time I can carve out from now on. I'm going to write something just for me, in response to what I've been reading lately (millions-word long 'web novels') and in my favourite comfort-food genre. I'm going to write a videogame-influenced million-word young-adult fantasy novel.'
So that is what I started doing. I wrote in my car in the car park for 30 minutes before school started, so my colleagues wouldn't interrupt me. When I realised I could do the same thing in the library, I wrote there. I wrote in cafes on Saturday mornings. I wrote in the holidays.
Then in Summer of this year we moved back to Oxford and I switched back to working part-time and looking after [our daughter] part-time as Jo was beginning a six-day-a-week full-time job. Suddenly some writing time came back, and I thought, 'Oh wow! Some more writing time has come back! Now I can work on something more seriously again!' But I found that I had grown attached to SOTJ, so I decided to just carry on with it, and start sharing it with people, and to indie-publish it on Kindle as I finish each installment (guessing that it is probably un-publishable by the traditional route). Like I say, I had been reading a lot of these online 'web novels' around this time--where the form involves writing these massive, sprawling narratives in episodic serials which sometimes pick up fan Patreon support, and I thought I would have a go at one of those.
And that's how came to be. So, extremely perceptive of you, TC: this, if I finish it, is going to be looooong. In a few episodes' time from where you are now, the cast list will stabilise (for the moment), but there are still twelve Jewels in total to find. The idea is an ongoing serial, rather than a single, highly polished, tight novel. Each Jewel will have its own 'season' (book), so if I manage to finish it then it should clock in at around a million words.
The first draft document is currently at 140,000 words, so who knows, I may just manage it!
And well spotted on the videogame references. The first place I started posting the first draft of SOTJ was actually FanFiction.net, under the 'Final Fantasy I-VI fanfiction' section, as it's heavily inspired by them. The idea is basically for it to be like a novelisation of an original Final Fantasy game that doesn't actually exist. But hopefully the videogame references are unobtrusive enough that they don't get in the way for people who don't know about them, and at the same time clear enough that those who can enjoy them do!
Anyway, thanks for reading. What does anyone else think? Are you enjoying it? Hating it? What's good? What's not so good? What would you like to see more of? Less of?”
Test replied:
Testing if it possible to post a reply here without having a substack account. If you are reading this, it is!
Luke replied:
Thanks, Test! I’d love to hear more feedback from anyone who wants to share it, no matter how little or much of SOTJ you have read / listened to. As much as positive feedback, I am also interested in constructive criticism. You don’t need to create a substack account or sign up to anything to comment, only to enter your email address.
Join the conversation by clicking on this sentence!
(Please note that some of the comments in this post came from websites other than substack or were sent by email.)