Thanks for the sample chapters! I liked it. If there had been more, I would have kept reading, so as a hook, these chapters worked for me.
But...you asked for criticism. I'll be focusing on the negatives, so this'll sound a lot worse than it is.
I didn't get into Midius's character at all. I don't understand the reasons for most of what he does, and his character feels inconsistent to me, somehow. For example, he was going on in the first chapter about how gullible and stupid people are, but later on he gets stage fright, has a tough time telling stories to anyone, and it turns out he's never even
tried to lie to people before, he just practiced in front of Hoid. Also, I take it I'm
supposed to be worried that Theus is going to kill Midius, but Midius decided to let himself be captured (the fact that he caught the first spear suggests that he could have fought off the guards if he wanted to), and didn't even try to escape (depending on how realistic his illusions are, I can think of several possible escape plans). So either Midius has a death wish, or he knew that Theus wouldn't kill him (which implies he's working with Naysho, since if it weren't for Naysho, Midius
would have had him killed -- not a spoiler since this is almost certainly wrong), or he had some kind of protection that would have kept him from dying even if Jend had tried to kill him. So, my feeling is that Midius should have clearer motives from the beginning of the story.
Also, Midius's first chapter-and-a-half feels like filler, like you didn't have anything important for Midius to do, but just wanted to break up Theus's parts. I especially disliked the first chapter. Hoid is annoying and patronizing. I hope this isn't one of those books where there'd be no plot of Hoid had just told Midius what he needed to know at the beginning, because those suck. And if you took out Hoid's babbling, you could cover everything in this chapter in about three paragraphs. Less, if you started the book later, and had just Midius
remember Hoid's death.
The beginning of Midius's second chapter isn't as bad. I liked the feel of the Fain; it reminds me in a good way of the toxic jungle from
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds. But it's not like Midius hasn't seen it before, so there's no reason for him to spend so much time just staring at the scenery. And he doesn't do anything else but stare at scenery in that scene.
You described the Fain as "alien"
twice. The second time, I started wondering if you were doing on purpose, and actually meant to imply that it had extraterrestrial origins.
Naysho's city is sometimes spelled "Rens" and sometimes "Renz", but you probably already knew that.
After Theus lets Midius go, he has a sort of argument with Naysho. He figures he's in Naysho's debt because Naysho sent for an Aetherlin. But that's retarded. If the Aetherlin solves Partinel's problems,
then Theus will be in Naysho's debt, but until then, Naysho wants the Aetherlin in the city and Theus doesn't, so it's really Naysho who's in Theus's debt. For example, Theus ought to be able to control Naysho by threatening to change his mind and turn the Aetherlin out of the city, and then telling the king of Rens that he did it because Naysho thought having the Aetherlin around gave him the right to be too obnoxious (thus destroying Naysho's career). Naysho would know that Theus probably wouldn't carry out that threat, but he'd also know that Theus didn't really want the Aetherlin around, so he
might.
Yunmi was awesome when she showed up, but seemed too businesslike in her viewpoint section. I wanted her cheerfulness
not to be an act, darn it.
Glimmer is going to get really annoying really fast if it keeps...speaking with...ellipses every...other word....
