I really want to like this series. I really do. There are just a lot of things that take me out of the world of the story and back to the real world because the issues are too jarring.
First, I'll start with the positives. This story has a lot of interesting concepts in it and an entertaining way of putting them forth or playing them out. I like that they don't stick with a single character as the main that is being developed while everyone else sits stagnant as a 1-dimensional tag-a-long. The development of the "side characters" makes them feel real and not just tossed in to make the main character look good.
Now to the negatives, which there are an unfortunately large number of. The lack of editing, proof-reading, spell check (almechist?), grammar check, story consistency (something costing 5 silver early and 1,000 gold later?), and logical progression (especially later in the book: sudden skips and regressions of time and characters) just throws all of the positives right out the window.
The spelling and grammar are things that should be easily taken care of as the story is being written. Even the most basic of free word-processing programs available offer those functions and they are defaulted as being turned on. Similarly, proof-reading your own work to make sure that you aren't restating the same thing 3-4 times in a single paragraph is a very simple process that any writer should do naturally.
The consistency and logical progression of the story are a bit trickier, though should be easy as long as you lay out a backbone to your story rather than just writing in stream of consciousness format. If you do write SoC, then all the more reason that you need to have spell check, grammar check, and proof-reading. You can't have a character say they gained 2 levels in something when they are now 6 levels lower than they were 10 pages earlier, or have a character run off for an important confrontation and then just vanish, or have a cost that is set by the Ten Realms just suddenly change mid-story for no reason, or have massively important items just be gone with no explanation.
A constant barrage of errors and confusion just take the reader right out of the story and lost. The series could be so good if the author has somebody just go through and read through everything a time or two in order to make sure everything fits and flows properly. Whether it be adding in an explanation to something that is confusing, take out a section that is superfluous, or simply make sure that all of the information is consistent throughout the story.
Hopefully the next book in the series will get better. As I said, there is a lot of potential, but if these errors continue (or get worse) then I will have to stop reading it entirely.
