Very solid critiques, approved. Thanks for being here. :)

#STORY
I found this prologue to be well-paced, alluding to a depth of world and character. For a SCIFI you risk dropping names that only confuse the reader and damage the flow of the prose. This didn't happen much here. You executed it well. The times it did happen, however, do worsen the prose. But really this is NOTHING in comparison to other scifi like Hyperion or just about every other entirely fictitious world but, you say it is the prologue to a big book, so I would keep it in mind as it may work here but then it'd just be tedious. 

For example, the name Viper thrown at us was jarring ‐ I can understand city names, but for character names, especially numerous times, we don't have any idea of their significance to the story so we are very likely to just forget. But Viper is mentioned more than once so it's not THAT bad. Viper is hinted as being the leader of a group, so we can guess that he has some importance. 

>Garren was dead certain about the world and his place in it until 

# SETTING

You gave enough information about your world for me to understand, basically, where Garren is, why, and the major forces at work that led him there. My understanding is he's part of a small team of people from West Ossia, intent on retribution for crimes against his home country/state perpetrated by Asolaar. He's come to the Domstag with his team to blow it up: what appears to be a largely symbolic gesture seeing as no other living person appears.

West Ossia and Asolaar are largely faceless things to me, but I'm convinced enough by what you've said that West Ossia is where my sympathy should lie.

I don't have a good idea of what the inside of the Domstag looks like until we get to the central assembly hall. Up to that point, I pretty much just have a vague blueprint of an entryway-type room, and then somewhere nearby, the assembly hall, which is described in greater detail.

The stopping power of the sight of the hall was unconvincing to me. I know what the hall looks like

Damn, that was great! 

Here's a TL:DR of my points, if it's too much.

Great world-building, in a short amount of time.

Interesting point of view, so much character in so little time.

Great visualisation of the situation Ossia's in.

An overuse of commas.

Anyways, time to go more in depth with those points. First off, the **best** thing about this was by far the worldbuilding. You only used 794 words, and managed to set up an interesting world, interesting character, and (seemingly) kill the character off in a literal flash.

I could see this becoming a twenty book series with consistent quality and a few spinoffs, if I'm being honest. While fantasy is not my cup of tea, I still thoroughly enjoyed this, which was an outcome I didn't expect.

I thought that the small bit of the world we got to see in this was more interesting than nearly every other fantasy story I have ever read. It was fleshed out, explained masterfully, and didn't give away too much information, leaving room for 

The fact that you put the genre and description as "Speculative fiction" makes me suspect that story is neither sci-fi or fantasy, but both. (Or you read one of those books from writers that write both, where they insist the two are not different). The title being "Domstag" obviously makes me suspect this building is very important. While its central location indicates it could be a palace or center of government, the name makes me think it's a prison or a place people are tortured. Some Googling indicates its germanic or danish, or something like that, but the word has no clear meaning.

I've been told if something or someone is mentioned in the first sentence, the book is about that thing or person. 

Second sentence including the word "universe" indicates multiple systems and thus advanced technology. The term "multiverse" or something like that would indicate a more fantasy setting or importance to the building.  

>with a ferociously religious fervour unparalleled in his peers. 



Thank you all for some great criticisms! I’ve revamped the prologue and I feel so much better about the general direction of the story now.

Hey all, this is my first ever time putting my writing into this sub! This work is tilted to be the first part of a prologue for a big and yet to be titled work in progress. You should be able to access it [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YFDP6tHypSuzPf8W2pMkwTsI7TpiOoUu7CYeECNhF_U/edit?usp=sharing).

As it's the prologue, there would be very little supplied context. However, I'm intending to add maps to the WIP so I feel at liberty to clear up the following: There's two continents involved in the story. One is the size of Europe and its largest and most central country is called Asolaar. In the centre of its capital city is a large building called the Domstag. The other continent is called West Ossia.

My deficiencies in writing often lie in me being too weird with writing or adding too little exposition so I'm keen to know, how clear is it what's going on, and how can I add clarity if it's needed?

Here's the critiques I've submitted:

[\[1117\] Dr. Lightning](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/s4yw69/1117_dr_lightning/hsweuoq/?utm_source=reddit&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3)

[\[708\] A Kind of Kindred: Prologue](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/rze4h9/708_a_kind_of_kindred_prologue/hs7uev9/?context=3)

[794] Prologue for speculative fiction WIP