Deep Sea Embers

Amazing webnovel. I am always looking to read about something new; something that I have not experienced before, something that feels alien, foreign, and unfamiliar. This is that.

But it does not only offer creative ideas; its atmospheric horror is excellent. Never have I read a book that gave me so many chills, not because of jumpscares, but because the environment in which the events take place is itself so unheimlich.

The characters are also all unique. I put the book down numerous times and started reading it again after a prolonged time (not because the novel was bad, but because I had to wait for new chapters to come out), and whenever I jumped back in, I had no problem recognizing any character. Every one is different, not only in appearance and what they are, but also in their motivations, attitudes, and behavior, and together they build a nice harmony.

Another thing this novel does great is the mystery, keeping you always on edge and wanting to learn more. Even though in the end of the novel the big mysteries are revealed, it still feels like the world is full of mysteries and untold stories. There are so many characters and events where you feel like a whole book could be written about them. The world feels large and expansive, not only in breadth but also in depth, making you want to know more. But not in an unsatisfying way; rather, in a very good way.

I could write much more, but I want to end with this: there are many webnovels that have a good story and good characters and are creative, but novels that have all three are few and far between. And as the cherry on top, this novel offers not just pure entertainment but also thematic elements that make you think.

Just to name one: only in a fallen world so full of decay and rot, where the world itself is dying, can the many characters shine so brightly; one after another trying to delay the world’s inevitable demise, and in this struggle revealing so much meaning. There is the phrase “the indomitable spirit of humans,” but this is not entirely accurate for this book, since many of the characters are not human but belong to different races or types of beings. So it may be more adequate to say that this novel really shows the “indomitable spirit of all beings”, the everlasting struggle of being versus non-being.