Assessment:
Overall rating (6 votes)
Recommended by 4 members.
Children of the First
A serialized novel, updating twice weekly.
Children of the First is an ongoing serial story about Shawn, a Dragonblood student at Raekos University. Shawn has a rebellious streak and he’s more than a little sarcastic, which tends to get him into trouble from time to time. Race is a big issue in the story, especially as Shawn comes to realize how little he knows about other cultures. The only thing he knows less about is his own magical ability, but he is learning.
Children of the First
— contains some harsh language —
Tags: college fantasy first person online novels past tense
Links: review feed
sort order: current favourites member favourites all-time best newest first a - z
Readers who liked this also liked:
Editorial Reviews
A fun little romp.
Children of the First is (to date, at Chapter 9) a fun little romp through the openings days of a young man’s college experience in a world of magic and racial divides. The story follows Sha’anyr NacRae’vyr (mercifully referred to as Shawn in the bulk of the text), his roommate, and some friends from his dorm, as they meet, deal with parents and some casual racism, enjoy some pot, and play sports. The writing is clean and straight-forward, and is often laugh-out-loud funny.
The story is set at a "magic" university, in a magic world of portals and spells and artifacts, with a cast of humanoid creatures (Shawn is dragonish; his roommate is lizardish; his friends down the hall are monkeyish; his coach is catish). There’s lots of technology (even the internet), but it is mostly based on magic (when it is explained at all). There’s racism, but it runs at about the same level you’d find at Hogwarts. These features combine to make the world feel — in some ways — like a magical Star Trek universe. But, fortunately, Children of the First manages to rise above that setting by focussing on the characters, not the setting, and giving them real personalities, a bit of snark, and a love of fun.
Children of the First doesn’t have a lot of depth. I did enjoy hanging out with Shawn and his friends, but that’s what I was doing: hanging out. Nothing feels very urgent, or very important, and I’m sad to say that if I forgot to catch a few updates — or a few dozen — I wouldn’t feel very worried about it. That said, delivered to my RSS reader, I’d probably enjoy a chapter each week. There are a few rough spots in the text (there’re a lot of hard-to-read names, but mostly only in the peripheries; and Chapter 2 needlessly spends time on backstory and mythology that would be better kept for a bonus story or an appendix), but, overall, you’ll find it a pleasant read.
If you’d like reading about the antics of some nice college freshmen, presented in a nice, light read with the occassional good laugh, Children of the First is worth a look.
Help us improve! Register or log in to rate this review.
Is this review inaccurate or abusive? Report it!
Most Helpful Member Reviews
Fantasy Magical College (For lack of a better title)
First of all, I must start off with a disclaimer. I also write a story about a fantasy college as well. Our stories are only similar in premise and really not much else.
Summary: The story is about Shawn, a dragonblood from a prestige background, and his first year at a magical college. He encounters new friends, new species of magical creatures, and learns more about himself in the process.
Likes: I was pleasantly surprised by this particular story. To be honest, I didn’t think I would like a story about reptilian humanoids. I read a lot of fantasy magical college stories and this is one of the better ones. It wasn’t filled to the brim with sex and violence, the characters were likable, and the story is pretty interesting so far. I’m curious to see if the author and the story will go deeper with this issue of racism. Many fantasy college stories deal with this issue of racism. Also the author hints at some conflict dealing with Shawn’s background, his mother being a priestess who technically wasn’t supposed to have children. I’m curious to see what the author is going to do with these themes.
Dislikes: I was a little confused about the world the author created. There is some information about the different races, but they seemed to be in odd locations and places. I can understand a character spacing out and thinking about other things, but it’s a bit odd when a whole history is present in the middle of a conversation. Not that I didn’t enjoy the history,but it would probably make a better bonus story.
Overall: All in all, this is worth reading. It’s entertaining and a fun read. The prose is easily read, not overblown with description and fancy language. This is one of the better magic college fantasy stories out there.
Help us improve! Register or log in to rate this review.
Is this review inaccurate or abusive? Report it!
Doesn’t Fizz
God help me, I tried to like Children of the First. It’s not without virtues. The prose is alright, spelling errors are few and far-between, and the story tries to set itself apart from the indistinct mass of college fantasy by tackling a non-human cast and racism as its major issues. The problem is that much of it falls flat, with a lot of tell and very little show.
I’m happy to admit up front that I despise college fantasy. I could go on and on about why, and how it fills me with despair that it’s managed to create its own little subgenre, but that’s not the point of this review. I’m also keeping my prejudices out of my assessment of this story. Children of the First makes a genuine attempt to pull away from the dross and deserves credit for that. It just doesn’t quite make it.
Take the racism angle. From the start of the story it’s stressed that there are a lot of tensions between the uncomfortably large number of races in the setting. However, we are simply told that these deep-rooted hatreds and sensitivities exist without any sort of context; we’re not shown why these feuds exist, or how they came to be, what caused them to last this long or how they have affected the separate cultures beyond a lot of posturing and casual violence. There seems to be no explanation for why all the races are allowed to mix freely in this college despite all these free-floating tensions.
The characters are . . . difficult. They’re not inaccessible by nature, and may even be likeable to some, but underneath the racial differences and the ridiculous names — which are replete with random apostrophes and capital letters — they act like utterly generic (human) teenagers. All the characters, even the adults, talk and act like humans with a few unusual words added in here and there.
Even the main protagonist, through whose eyes we are supposed to be seeing the whole story, suffers from this. In fact he managed to put me off the story within two chapters. Sha’anyr NacRae’vyr, as he is named, is a shining example of 21st-century virtues in a world that’s entirely unsuited to them. Despite having a childhood steeped in ancient culture and tradition, none of that seems to have rubbed off on Shawn and his upbringing is quickly put down in favour of feelgood teenage rebellion and racial harmony. There’s nothing for him to learn, no opportunities to overcome years of biased education or to see through people’s differences, because he already does all that right from the get-go. He always pursues the morally correct course of action according to modern Western values and doesn’t seem to have any real flaws to his name.
I can see Children of the First being enjoyable if you’re looking for a quick escape from reality and don’t ask too much out of it. I just couldn’t find any satisfaction in it.
Help us improve! Register or log in to rate this review.
Is this review inaccurate or abusive? Report it!
There’s a dragon in the driveway — oh wait that’s my roomate.
Wow. No reader reviews yet? I am proud to be the first.
Children of the First is not exactly a slow read. The update rate recently is a little bit slow, which means that I burn through them a bit rapidly, but I think that’s a testament to the fact that it’s something that I’m happy to get through.
First person and emotional. This story is an introduction to an extremely strange and new type of college life where a form of classism/racism is rampant especially when combined with the proliferation of magic in the world. At first it has hints and suggestions of a coming-of-age story the way that a lot of college fiction works out, but slowly it builds on a foundation of making friends and influencing people as the characters mount.
I especially liked the amusing student bias written into the story from the viewpoint character about classes and professors and the college bureaucracy that simply exacerbates the whole experience. Taking classes myself, I can empathize.
Perhaps the stories read so quickly because it’s a social drama that makes me feel like I’m with friends. It’s a little bit of a fantasy voyeurism storytelling in the beginning, but I guess that’s just the thing I needed at the time to keep reading.
There are currently only sixteen chapters and it’s a good point to jump into the story and carry along for those who haven’t come yet.
Help us improve! Register or log in to rate this review.
Is this review inaccurate or abusive? Report it!