As some one non-indigenous to the worlds of High Fantasy, I generally find myself instinctively shying away from any narrative which mentions a "Quest," particularly in the first ten pages, and especially if it involves some kind of Demonic Overlord.

In the past this aversion has been a bit of a cripple, causing me to shy away from some otherwise fine reading material. "Lord of the Rings," for example, took a good long run-up. I still haven’t quite plucked up the resolve to go anywhere near Narnia. And I very nearly passed over the world of "Eikasia," which would have been entirely my loss.

"Eikasia" is good. In fact, it’s very good. The writer clearly has considerable talent- she works the language well, and although the prose occasionally harks toward the grandiose, it never strays too far for too long. 

An interesting example of the lingual tightrope chanced by the writer is the main characters’ habit of explaining long words to one another. At first this was cute characterization, it started to become tiresome . . . and then the author saved it by turning it into a significant motif. It takes a skilled hand to achieve this instead of coming across as, say, vapidly obsessed with one’s own vocabulary.

(As an aside, there are a couple of moments when the author does repeat herself a little too often- for instance, she seems very, very concerned that the reader be aware of one character’s status as an "auburn woman." It’s really a minor quibble, though, and probably a side-effect of writing in installments).

Splitting the narrative between a first person protagonist and her third person ally proves an interesting and effective way to go, and the website’s efficient design allows you to sort through the different strands of story with ease. The two main characters themselves seem quite well fleshed out, and there are shades of progression early on- particularly for viewpoint character Nyx, who soon suffers a fascinating . . . development . . . which allows the author to experiment effectively with fonts and spacing.

Of course, nothing’s perfect, and Eikasia is still a relatively young story. In parts it feels a bit like a road-movie transposed into a fantasy setting. While the primary duo make a vivid impression, most of the ancillary characters seem to fit altogether too well into the bigoted-and/or-violent-Local archetype. One the other hand, at least one side-character has managed to come across as instantly interesting despite having only a couple of innocuously placed lines and a prudent drop of potentially Chekov-ican poems, which bodes well for the future.

All in all, Eikasia is a good start from a talented pen. If the story fulfills its early promise, then it will be well worth keeping track of- even if it means braving a Quest . . . 

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