Member assessment:
(9 votes) —
Recommended by Donna Sirianni, Drew Daniels, Gavin Williams, Jim Zoetewey, Sonja Nitschke, and 3 other members.
Alisiyad
A complete novel.
Twenty-year-olds Liseli Luenford and Russell Markson are living mundane, disappointing, lonely lives in a small midwestern town; working jobs better suited for high school students. Both want something more from life, though what exactly they cannot name, or even begin to achieve
Liseli finds solace in the Mill, a building on the edge of town, long abandoned and all but forgotten. Russ comforts himself with thoughts of Liseli.
One day both of their dreams seem to come true, when together they stumble into a strange otherworld hidden in the doorway of the old Mill. But dark secrets and mysteries from the past haunt the land of Alisiya, and dreams turn to nightmares as the two become entangled in a feud that has spanned decades. In order to survive they must change who they are—to each other, to themselves, and to the worlds.
Alisiyad
— contains some graphic sex, graphic violence, and harsh language —
Tags: adventure angst complete novels fantasy online novels past tense romance third person
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Editorial Reviews
Much Love
When you strip away the details, every story is about one thing. Some stories are about war, or mystery, or friendship. A lot of stories are about love.
"Alisiyad" is one of those. But it does it so well that it reinvents the love story. Liseli and Russ start out as two awkward young adults who don’t get along, and events (and their hearts) conspire to thrust them together, strengthening their relationship through adversity and triumph, peril and tragedy.
Sarah Suleski’s skill with writing emotions is unparalleled. Period. Everything Russ or Liseli experiences comes across as natural, motivated, and realistic, despite the fantasy elements of the story. The feelings between them are so poignant that I often find the presence of other characters distracting.
The cast of characters comes across as superfluous, as they are playing roles in a fantasy story. To a certain extent, it works for the plot: Russ and Liseli are ordinary kids dropped into an extraordinary situation. The only other character with real weight is Alisiyad herself, the villain of the piece, who is truly narcissistic and vicious. It takes a rich, textured love to defeat an evil like that.
And there are few writers who can write rich, textured emotion like Sarah Suleski.
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A Stepping Stone Into A New World
Alisiyad is/was one of my favorite webnovels from the start, to the point of me borrowing the site design and layout for my own novel.
The story is about two ordinary people thrust into an extraordinary circumstance. It starts out simple enough with two people who are outwardly contemptuous with one another while (at least one of them) secretly longs to simply be around the other.
The prose is beautifully written. I generally have a bad habit of rewriting other author’s sentences in my head to make it flow better in my mind, but I rarely had to do that with Alisiyad as Sarah was extremely quick to fix the errors that were pointed out to her.
I will admit that there are parts that seemed as if they should have been drawn out longer, but its more of an afterthought because I can tell you that while reading Alisiyad, I was constantly chomping at the bit for more, frequently finding myself disappointed at the lack of a "Next" link.
The supporting cast can seem a bit blurry at times, though this may have to do with the fact that Russ and Liseli are more concerned with getting themselves out of their predicament.
The author herself openly engages her readers in conversation, responding to most if not all of the comments that are left.
I don’t really know what else to say about this story except that I believe it to be a Web-Novel landmark.
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Other Worlds
Alisiyad is a story, first and foremost, about people. Our protagonists have stumbled into another world and they are trying to get home. It’s not easy creating a world different from our own, but Sarah does it well, successfully including bits of history and myth without overshadowing the plot.
As Liseli and Russ travel through Alisiyad, they encounter experiences along the way that are sometimes good and sometimes grim. Sarah doesn’t flinch from the darker aspects of Alisiyad, but instead faces them head on — at times, it is truly perilous and unsettling. But, in the midst of their journey, Liseli and Russ grow realistically and beautifully.
The writing is good — Sarah flows smoothly between Russ’s and Liseli’s points of view. The secondary characters are strong and three dimensional, adding to the story instead of just supporting the plot.
When the story ended, I wanted more.
The site design is easy to read and to navigate, which is always a plus.
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A riveting story
I was hooked on this story immediately. The characters are instantly relatable and the situations they’re in I know can hit home to so many people, especially the burgeoning relationship between the two main characters. This isn’t a heavy fantasy piece so if you’re looking for flaming swords and sorcerers, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I would say this is a mild, or light, fantasy, where there is magic about the world Liseli and Russ come across but it’s subtle and part of everyday life, something that’s kept in the background that isn’t necessarily central to the plot. It’s more about the characters and their situations than what they can do with otherworldly powers.
The world that’s been created is no doubt dynamic and Sarah’s obviously spent a large amount of time building it up. The effort that’s gone into the world building is something that I’d like to see every fantasy author command because the stories would be all the better for it.
The interactions of the characters can be, at times, intense and I found some of them, especially between Liseli and Russ, rather annoying but I wouldn’t go so far as to say I didn’t like them. They definitely had their endearing moments but there were certainly times when I just wanted to smack them both. That can certainly factor into the talent of the author, to evoke such strong emotions about characters. And her consistency with every single one of them is magnificent and unfaltering. Liseli remains true to herself throughout the entire story, as does Russ although we watch them grow along the way.
Not much to complain about on the technical side. There’s a bit of head-hopping in the beginning but that dwindles as the novel goes on. A very positive sign for the growth of the author as a writer. Her writing gets stronger as the story goes on and it’s always amazing to see writing transform for the better as it does here.
This is another "don’t miss" novel. You’d be sorely missing an excellent story if you were to bypass this work. It’s a piece like this that other web novelists should strive to emulate. The level of professionalism and the drive for perfection in her work is evident and she has the readership to prove that she’s obviously doing something right.
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Most Helpful Member Reviews
To think I almost stopped!
I’ve been reading this story off and on for a little while. (time constraints and energy and what not). I started reading and then stopped for a while, to be honest I couldn’t get into it too much and I’m not exactly sure why I couldn’t. Perhaps it’s the whole "instant gratification" type of attitude that so many web serials have that almost pushed me away from the story. Sure, things happen in the first chapters, but it didn’t stand out to me. I kept reading because of all the fuss made over it, but I honestly couldn’t see it.
Then . . . something wonderful happened while I was procrastinating for a math exam . . . I found it. I finally saw what everyone else saw and I’m glad I stuck around.
The characters are endearing in their conquest. They don’t have to be remarkable, they are flawed and driven by emotions. They are real. Most people are "unremarkable" and I think that is the appeal of these characters. They are ordinary people dropped into an extraordinary situation. They don’t need to be vampires or animal eared demon type creatures, they can just be "unremarkable". (I hope this makes since, it’s about 4 in the morning and it sounds right to me.) The author lets the characters be themselves, flaws and all and its refreshing to see that they aren’t one dimensional.
My only beef with the story is that the chapters are broken in parts. I felt like I’ve been reading forever and I’m only half way there. This is just a personal preference and has nothing to do with the writing. I’d give a 4.5 to this story . . .
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