Path to Power (ARC Copy Review) (Part 3 - Show vs. Tell, Theme, and the Beta-Read)
Hello, all. Welcome to the conclusion of the ARC copy review for Path to Power, the re-release of The Queen of Vorn.
This final part will explore the continued issue of imbalanced Show vs. Tell in this book, as well as discussing the changes to the theme. We’ll then wrap up with a brief discussion of what Path to Power actually changes from the version of the book I beta-read in July.
If you want either the high-level review or the analysis of Goodwin’s other changes, please see Parts 1 and 2, respectively. Also, just a reminder, I was provided this ARC copy for free by the author for the purposes for preparing a review.
Let’s get right into it.
STATS
Title: Path to Power
Series: The Stolen Throne Trilogy (Book 1)
Author(s): Charlotte Goodwin
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: February 20th, 2026 (Scheduled)
Publisher: Self-published to Amazon
Rating: 3/10
SPOILERS
As stated in Part 1, there is little point in me warning you about spoilers, as this book is, in every way that spoilers would matter, the same book as The Queen of Vorn. If you want a review where I work around spoilers with any manner of delicacy, please see my review of the unpublished book. Here, I don’t need heavy spoilers for this discussion. Mild spoilers will be unmarked, though I will do my best to keep the opening paragraph of each section as spoiler-free as possible.
IMBALANCE OF SHOW VS. TELL
I wish I could say that Goodwin’s changes do something to help with this issue - with the constant resetting of the narrative, with the vast amount of information that we need to simply accept as true without it being demonstrated, with the scenes we don’t get to see - but that is not the case. If anything, the issue is worse now.
Genocide
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first. Without the Lila and Grinthy POV chapters, we are Shown nothing to actually demonstrate a genocide of the goblins is even taking place. Two scenes of Zark watching videos and commenting upon them does not count. If anything, as someone who read the original scenes that Zark is now watching on TV, I can say that this change is itself a perfect example of why Show Don’t Tell became such a well-worn adage. Zark watching these videos is just Telling us information with a lot of extra words. She might as well be listening to some other character telling her the story via dialgoue.
Explaining Contrivances
In all versions of the book (thus far), Arndal collects rocks to turn into gemstones. The collecting of these rocks is set up as a mystery. Then, rather than Showing us the scene of Arndal explaining his actions to Tom and Emma, Goodwin has Zark explain that Arndal explained it during a scene of dialogue with her colleague. We are Told of a scene we should have been Shown.
Goodwin’s attempts to patch up contrivances all follow this example. She doesn’t Show us any new scenes. She doesn’t even Show us relevant setup in a scene that already exists. She simply Told us about the contrivance via added lines of description or internal monologue and called it a day.
THEME
The Statement
In the original version of The Queen of Vorn, after thoroughly demonstrating that goblins were irredeemable monsters, Goodwin had her protagonist describe goblins in language that the German National Sociality party once used for the victims of their genocide.
She had no love for goblins, what little she’d seen of them made her despise them. But she hated rats back on Earth, and she’d never have wished to wipe them out. All creatures had their place and a right to exist.
Now, I’ve done my best to keep this blog focused on the literary application of commentary or themes, rather than the commentary or themes themselves. Thus, regardless of the real-world applicability of this statement, the main issue was what it meant for the narrative. The entire driving force behind The Queen of Vorn, the reason why Emma and Tom were brough to Dunia and why the inevitable upheaval and death that would follow any effort to overthrow Lila was justified, is that genocide was bad. For the story to them demonstrate that it was actually necessary, and for the main character to then use such language, therefore made the whole story seem pointless. Why stop the genocide if the goblins really are this horrific? Sure, maybe Lila will move on to targeting other races, but only she and her sons knew for certain that was the plan. Everyone else was guessing.
In this version of the story, things start on a slightly stronger footing. Goodwin keeps the goblins monstrous, but now it’s made clear from the start that Lila will eventually transition to targeting the elves and dwarves. The Zargons are thinking ahead to those future genocides. This plays out in the thematic statement that Emma delivers in place of comparing goblins to rats.
Emma had no love for goblins; what little she’d seen of them made her despite them. But she knew that for now they were Queen Lila’s focus, and while enough of them still lived, they would be the target of her hate, not the elves the dwarves.
So … genocide is only bad what it targets people who aren’t horrible? We need undesirables to live so we can’t move on to killing the people who actually matter?
That’s quite a take, but the take itself is not what we are here to discuss. What we instead need to ask is whether the narrative holds up in this new theme.
In short: yes, but not well.
Wholly Monstrous
Outside of that scene of Zark watching Grinthy watch her family be executed, nothing in this narrative frames the goblins as anything other than monsters who will kill humans, elves, and dwarves if they are not killed first. We’re no longer exposed to the depths of their depravity, but what we do see is enough to understand that humanity may really not have another choice expect to kill every goblin they encounter. That part, at least, is internally consistent. What’s more, since the narrative no longer tries to argue against killing goblins, instead focusing on the people who might be killed after the goblins are gone, seeing the goblins do horrible things no longer undermines the idea that Emma and Tom are in the right to oppose Lila.
The Slippery Slope
The issue here loops back to the issue of the genocide itself feeling hollow now that we don’t have Queen Lila’s POV and don’t have anything to replace it.
We really only have the Zargons’ claim that Lila will go after the elves and dwarves. What is this based on? No idea. We’re never told what. We simply need to accept that this is true. Even that doesn’t really work, though, because we’ve seen Lila work with dwarves (in Zark’s opening chapter, when she replays the day she saved Emma) and see that Eskalith isn’t treated with any particular contempt by the human soldiers in the second half of the book. We are Shown that it’s really only the goblins that everyone hates.
Without the Lila chapters, Goodwin needed to Show us evidence that there was an actual threat to the elves and dwarves. For as botched as the message in the last book was, at least we were shown that goblins being slaughtered as we were told it was a bad thing. Here, there’s no contradictions, but there’s also no substance. Do we really need to be grateful that there are goblins to be slaughtered when there’s no evidence that something worse might come later?
Final Thoughts on the Theme
“Genocide Bad” should not be this hard to write. I’m baffled Goodwin has messed this up twice.
Still, this failure is not as severe as the previous one. Emma and Tom are here to stop a threat. The issue is not that all the evidence says that they shouldn’t stop the threat, but rather that the threat itself isn’t established. This theme does work in principle. A story with a hollow theme is still a step above one that implodes by proving the anti-theme. That’s enough to bump this story from the self-devouring depths of a 2/10 to the bad but still coherent baseline of a 3/10.
THE BETA-READ
Now that Goodwin has released an ARC copy - which is supposed to be final, save for a few copy edits - I feel comfortable discussing the beta-read version I provided her feedback for in July.
Out of the changes we’ve discussed here, nearly all were already in the beta-read version. The only additional changes that I could identify since that version (released roughly 4 months ago before this ARC copy) were:
The half-measures to try to explain contrivances
The scene where Zark watches Grinthy’s family be killed on TV (which was added back in after all Grinthy chapters were removed)
Minor tweaks for clarity, such as the ones we covered while discussing the sample chapter
The rewording of the theme statement
When I beta-read for Goodwin, I was impressed by how much she changed before even asking for feedback, cutting whole POVs and starting the book in a more plot-focussed note. I thought she’d sat down, reflected upon what didn’t work, and made changes accordingly. I thought she was showing the beta-readers the first stage in a brand-new, well-edited version of the story, as well as signaling that she was prepared to take the changes even farther.
Now, I’m just disappointed. It’s like she went into the beta-read thinking that the new version was already gold. Either she ignored absolutely everyone who had meaningful feedback, or none of the other beta-readers cared enough to provide her with meaningful criticism or recommendations. Given the multiple times her chosen Twitter engagement bait has been about how good a writer she thinks she is or bringing up bad feedback or reviews to seek the valdidation to ignore them, I doubt it was the latter.
And, to be clear (especially for Goodwin, who I know pops in here from time to time) - I don’t care that most of my own recommendations were ignored. (I’d say “all”, but I did give Goodwin a pretty lengthy dissection of why her original theme statement didn’t work, so there’s a non-zero chance that she at least listened to that.) What I’m so disappointed by is the fact she made almost no changes at all, and of the few she did, she couldn’t even be bothered to made the additional edits needed for those changes to cohesively mesh with the narrative.
If Goodwin had put actual effort into rewriting this book, regardless of what those rewrites were, that would have been admirable. It would have demonstrated her dedication as an author. What she sent to her ARC readers just demonstrates a lack of care for the work being produced.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON PATH TO POWER
When I concluded back in Part 6 of the original review that Goodwin cares more about being perceived as a Writer than she does about telling stories, I had no idea she would be this accommodating in supporting that conclusion.
If Goodwin gave the slightest of shits about her readers, she would have put more effort into revising this book for the re-release. At bare minimum, she would have polished the text to cancel out the damage inflicted by ripping several chapters out. The fact she is rushing out this hatchet job tells me that she just wants to get to the part where we validate and praise her. Any entertainment we derive from her work is secondary to her - which is not a great look, since we are paying her to entertain us with her writing.
So I have to ask: is there any point in me reading the rest of the series?
Now, to be clear, Goodwin did state in the notes to her ARC team that everyone who received the ARC of Path to Power would also receive ARCs of the remaining two books in the trilogy. Assuming she doesn’t remove me from the list upon realizing what I’ve said about Path to Power, I will be getting free copies of those later books, with the expectation that I review them. You can expect some sort of review for each book if this ends up being the case.
Let’s assume Goodwin does take me off the ARC team, though. I’m no longer getting these books for free, nor am I in any way obligated to review them. If that happens, should I bother buying them and reviewing them once they come out?
As a reader, why should I expect the rest of the Stolen Throne Trilogy to be any better than this? Why should I expect the Offspring Trilogy, which was written earlier in Goodwin’s journey as a writer, to have received any meaningful edits to make it more polished than this?
As a writer and a reviewer, is there really any merit in continuing to highlight Goodwin’s deficiencies as a writer and her behavior towards her audience? Her flaws are pretty consistent, so what more can I say about them? Should I go on just to keep Goodwin honest? The woman wants us to put her feelings over the quality of the book (a fact she spelled out in her comment on my analysis of her lying about 1-star reviews, where her reaction to being called out for playing the victim was to talk about how her feelings were hurt by my giving her book a bad review). She’s not going to grow as a writer or a person just because I’m calling out her bullshit.
If you, my audience, makes it clear that you really like my reviews of Goodwin’s work and want to read my thoughts on the rest of the series, I’m more than happy to do that for you all. I just don’t feel any compulsion to read onwards for myself. Goodwin isn’t worth my time. She’s not worth your time. She’s certainly not worth our money. Were it not for my past promises to do this comparative analysis, I wouldn’t have written as much as I have about this lazy excuse for a re-release.
Maybe Goodwin will redeem herself as a writer in future books. I do still want that for her. However, I’m done offering her second chances. There are plenty of indie authors out there who haven’t yet blown their first chance. I’d rather see if any of them are worth reading.
Thank you all for joining me. Please remember to subscribe and share if you enjoyed this review. Take care, everyone, and have a good week.
