The???
Having read the prologue of both your novels, I have come to offer you a few considerations. Please, do understand, if I am excessively harsh, it is only the opinion of this uncultured reader.
Both novels have the same narrative approach to the plot: you deliver a story to us without any reasons as to why we should care for it. I did not understand at all why should I sympathise with a dying actor's last moments of life. Especially when this actor seems to have gone to the stage to deliver a theatrical last performance of his death. As for the city one, I was slightly interested but then, you begin to throw at your reader characters that are for some reason there.
Your characters do not seem to have personality from the start, instead, being used as a ploy to say "look, I have people who will guide my story", which made me instead wonder that the main character was instead, the catastrophe. Which would actually be interesting, but a cursory reading of your first chapter in this case made me realise that no, they were to be the guides of the plot.
Also, you deliver your story in the way you would expect to find in a theatre piece. Where people have already heard in advance what the story is about, what the main plot is about, what they should be expecting of it. It is not a fault of the type of narrator that you chose, however, before someone goes and further says "first-person" narrator. Those are indeed easier to sympathise with, but it is not because I am not inside the character's mind that I can not form rapport with them. And this word, rapport, is exactly what you fail to make people feel for your characters.
You deliver dry lines of their description. In the case of "Realms of God", you are describing the death of an actor while on stage. I guess if I was an actor I might have felt the pain of their approaching death and the urge to be standing on the stage. But the way you have written, that does not interest this chick, not in the least.
Also, I have noticed a flagrant incongruence between your text and your images: the actor should have black hair! I remember reading your story before you actually added those images. I think you had done a better job of keeping consistent without them. Do mind what kind of images you generate with an A.I. next time. Readers will notice this kind of thing...
As
@Evil-Empire has said, you also make some real strange leaps in your narrative. In the space of a single paragraph, an archaeologist uncovers, deciphers and is suddenly aware of future events, whereas previously, you had been quite wordy to describe the space of what the reader had assumed to be sequential events. This repeats itself in your other novel. Where your lead is almost keeling over due to pain and agony, he suddenly seems to have a normal conversation with who knows who, and walks safely away.
To sum it up, if you let me say it, your stories are desperately lacking in motive. Why should I, the reader, care about your stories? You presented to me some real great work of English, there were some mistakes here and there, nothing really serious though, but as a story, it would not convince me to keep reading you any further.
Your motives are shallow. A future world catastrophe? But you do not captivate your readers with reasons of why they should be worried about this world that is not theirs! The death of an Actor? So what? The way he was going to the other side was proving to be more interesting than the way he readily replied to the hand that saved him! Actually, it all seemed more like an intricate play to me, considering how fast the actor was able to recover from what should have been chest pain enough to kill him!
Well, I do hope this huge wall of text is of some use to you. As for me? I probably never was your intended target at all! I'm just a chick who is waiting on the sidelines looking for food.
Have a good day, Proud Author.
