Alpha Readers Forum Feedback on my first 10 scenes

This was something I was concerned about from the start. The genre is the Epic Fantasy niche and the beginning is cliche of the style. I did try to do many things that do not follow the same troupes, so I kind of hoped it would make up for that generic slant. Tele is (as I hoped was gathered from these chapters) around 22. She's lived as a fugitive her whole life so she's gathered some skills and characteristics that would be expected of that (introvert, very skilled at combat and thievery) while also maintaining a "do-good" attitude. She's obviously inexperienced in dealing with normal situations as she has had an abnormal childhood. She also holds a near photographic memory.

Navid is around 22 as well. He's a Seer but doesn't have a good hold on his abilities. This is a bit odd for a Seer of his age and he's highly incompetent compared to Tele (He can't cook, he pretty much is useless in battle, he looses an extremely valuable book). On the flip side, if he can get to the point of using his Seer's ability, Seers are VERY competent in certain areas.

My other primary viewpoint character is Prince Gabriel (age 17). He's kind of angsty and probably has the most unique voice out of them all. His story hasn't started yet but I am considering starting it a bit early because he is a little more interesting.

I also intended this to be more Early Adult rather than YA. I would consider scaling it to a more YA feel if and agent or editor felt it was more appropriate. Which it may be considering it has coming of age elements and deals with Characters primarily between the ages of 15 and 25.

This is something I also had been concerned with. 

I don't think that the way I'm doing it has been done before... I could be wrong, but I wanted to take an interesting spin on the idea... I'm not entirely sure how to make a good pitch with this but here's how the prophecy and the magic system works.

- First, there are Prophets but there is no written prophecy. Prophecies are like instinct. There aren't prophecies that assure that anything will, unavoidably, happen or anything written for anyone to decipher and mistake what the prophecy actually means.... unless, of course, a prophet wants to mislead someone who doesn't understand how it works...... Prophecy is a foresight game and prophets can use it to slowly pull strings to their agendas - A statistical game. However, Prophets mostly have large scale views of the world. Their abilities are strongest when looking at long term projections dealing with the averaging on many stochastic elements. The world naturally balances itself to have 7 prophets. Part of the plot is about what happens when most of those prophets are whipped out and new ones have to replace them without the guidance of the former hierarchy. 

- Seers are a separate form of prophet. They are only effective on small-scale, short-term eventualities. They kind of have a Jedi feel to them where it gives them a huge advantage in battle because they can (provided they maintain control) predict sudden enemy moves. Because of this, Seers are dangerous in combat.

- The 3rd magic form is that of a Wizard. There is one 1 Wizard in the world. This is also naturally balancing. Part of the bigger plot has to do with what happens when there are 2 and the havoc it creates. Wizards affect the present (prophets - the future on large scale, seers - the near future on small scale, the seed - stores the past), but their power is in the form of raw energy. When tapped, it must be focused in order to be effective to complete tasks. This is where the Covenant comes into play. The Covenant was commissioned by a Wizard to learn about the world (they're basically like scientists). Magic has to have a "program" to focus the energy. This is a spell form written/drawn in a book (or really, on anything) by a wizard with his own blood. However, without the knowledge and vision to write an effective "program" the raw magic isn't very useful (ie. raw electricity isn't useful unless guided by a proper circuit).

- The Seed is an entity that deals with the past.......... ;)

So, as I said... I'm not exactly sure how to properly pitch this... Any ideas to either make it better or more unique? Is there a definable hook factor?

Good point. I'll see what I can do on this. Many of my names are based on Indian names as India is fascinating to me. I can definitely do better in this arena.

Apart from personally disliking reading novels in first person (in general unless the voice is really really good), I'm not sure I can pull it off due to having 3 primary viewpoint characters and 3 other viewpoint one off viewpoints planned.

This is really good to know. I was concerned that the pace was too slow... but now I think it has more to due with the other issues you pointed out (there isn't a definable hook form the start, Tele feeling one-dimensional, etc.)