James Nicoll Reviews

Walkingnorth’s 2022 Seven Days in Silverglen is a new secondary-world fantasy webtoon. (Note: I still don’t really understand the distinction between a webcomic and a webtoon.)

Tess lives in a world seemingly like the modern world. Appearances are deceiving. Tess’ world is fantasy world, filled with many folk known to us only from legend. Some, like the dryads, are popular. Others, like gorgons, are dismissed as ​“monsters.” This social quirk has personal implications for Tess, whose painful shyness is complicated by the fact she is a gorgon.

Consequently Tess has some interesting coping mechanisms.

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Aerial Magic is an on-going secondary universe fantasy webtoon by Walkingnorth. I reviewed their Always Human here. Chapter one covers the first twenty-five episodes. 

Wisteria Kemp is determined to earn her way into the Aerial Guild, the professional association that regulates aerial magic. The conventional path to membership (at least in modern times) is through university. Having learned the hard way that she is ill-suited for the classroom, Wisteria chooses a more traditional course: an apprenticeship. 

Wisteria sends out four hundred applications for an apprentice position. She gets a single positive response, from Master Cecily Moon. Wisteria is invited to work at Moon’s broomstick repair shop in the vast metropolis of Vecrum. 

Convinced failure is assured, Wisteria takes with her only her avian familiar Puppy and a small supply of clothing. 

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Walkingnorth’s Always Human is a hard-SF-romance webtoon.

Intrigued by the oddly modless woman whose path she keeps crossing at the local transport station, VR environment designer Sunati sees the stranger’s hayfever attack as a chance to introduce herself. The offer of an appropriate mod (biomanipulating nanotech) does not go as Sunati envisioned. Instead of gratitude, the offer provokes tears.

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