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26
26
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
Again some good narrative, but at the expense of suspension of disbelief.

Going back to Ray after we've already seen the Blue Man's death feels out of place. I don't think there's anything seriously wrong with the narrative, but I would rearrange to put it in order. The flashback is jarring.

Why is hygiene a problem? Modern people don't forget to wash their hands just because something bad has happened. Modern plumbing doesn't disappear overnight and Britain is perfectly capable of making soap. I don't buy the total breakdown of modern society. If anything, I would expect William to want to preserve and use it to take over the rest of the world.

Are we really back to horse and cart so quickly? OK fuel might be short, but again - what happened to North Sea oil? Even if the rigs aren't there, the moderns know where the oil is and have manufacturing facilities. What about electric cars?

I don't buy the Scottish defenses. The wall, sure, but the Scots have more and better soldiery and armaments than a handful of makeshift weapons and a couple of old lorries. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_... Air superiority has been the telling factor in all warfare since WWI. William has no pilots, even if he's managed to win some aricraft, the moderns have Typhoons and Tornados, not to mention Cessnas and perhaps the odd restored Spitfire, Hurricane and Sopwith Camel. Even with fuel scarce, it would be sensible to reserve some for the invasion of Scotland.

Where are all the people? Why are Gordy and Freefall having to shift cars off the road? Why hasn't someone else done it already? Even allowing that the Normans are better fighters, a hundred unarmed civilians could easily take down an armed and armoured knight. There would be losses certainly - but sheer weight of numbers counts.

It's readable and interesting, but I just don't buy it.
27
27
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
This story again has a good narrative core. Personally, I'm good with character and scene description, but I struggle with story arc narrative. You clearly have a strong sense of story.

The writing style improves as it goes along, I think. It's a little stilted at first - a bit rushed perhaps - but hits its stride before long. Definitely has potential.

That said, I didn't like this as much as the New Orleans story. It broke my suspension of disbelief too often. The premise obviously is fantastic, but it's not that that troubles me. It's the details.

If modern Britain were cut off, the internet wouldn't fail as you describe. It would still work, you just wouldn't be able to get international sites. Even some of those will be mirrored on-shore. The internet might even survive better than TV.

The ferry was a good choice of subject - what happens at the edges of a phenomenon like this is interesting. But I don't buy the whole scenario. If you were captain of that ferry and saw Dublin as a pallisaded village, which isn't returning radio hails, wouldn't you turn back? Also, an Irish Sea ferry would look to the vikings like a floating fortress. Even "fearless" vikings would think twice about attacking a steel castle churning up the sea with waves, so rapidly does it pass. And the noise!

Big boats don't stop suddenly unless they hit something very big and hard. Hitting a wooden longship wouldn't do it - the ferry would splinter it into matchsticks and barely slow down. The largest viking longship known to modern archaeology was 37m long. The Irish sea ferries are 25m wide, over 160m long, several storeys tall and weigh over 17,000 tonnes, empty. A modern fishing boat would be a formidable warship in 1066, let alone a ferry. The vikings might even be swamped by the wake alone.

I don't know where you're going with the God on the Mountain and VM the Nazi. VM being ready to hand over nukes to William the Conk immediately on arrival felt unnecessary to me, but perhaps that will make more sense when more of the story arc is filled in.

Even given that though, I don't buy the over-run of Britain by nuclear-armed Normans so easily. I think you underestimate the number and quality of Britain's armed forces and the resolve of any population when faced with invasion. It would take more than one small nuke on the south coast to convince modern generals to hand over control of modern Britain to a medieval tyrant.

You then also have to contend with a civilian population armed not only with rabbiting guns and sporting bows, but with cars, trucks, road rollers, lawn mowers, angle-grinders, gas-fired barbecues, heavy metal music, chemistry text-books and the remains of the WWW, instantaneous communications and web-cams everywhere. I think this is potentially the most interesting part of the story - how modern people use technology considered benign these days to defend themselves against medieval aggressors.

You've glossed over a lot. Gordy goes from "the internet's down" to cowering in the remains of a Nandos without any real sense of what's happened in between. I think the story would benefit from filling in a lot of gaps.

I also think you need to be a bit careful about ascribing actions and dialogue to real high-profile people. It's one thing to write dialogue for "the Prime Minister" and quite another to write it for "King Charles" or "Theresa May". But if you're going down that route... what about the modern King William after his father falls? William and Harry both served in the armed forces and aren't likely to take William the Conquerer lying down.

I wonder whether modern technology would disappear quite as quickly as it appears to in the story too. I guess one key question is whether the North Sea oil rigs came too. What is Britain self-sufficient in, and what does she need to import? In particular, what's the food situation? She has nuclear power generation for a start, so that doesn't go away.

It's a great premise, but I think it needs more research and a bit more thought about the what ifs. I sense that you're trying to get to a more fantastical story later on, but I think you're missing an opportunity for some great story-telling in the early stages.
28
28
Review of The Morning After  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Mood effectively set, I'd say.

The only issue I had with this piece was that some of the tense construction early on struck me as a little odd. Not wrong - just odd. The two instances that hit me hardest were:

"I didn't know anyone in Texas" - "Didn't" or "don't"? "Didn't" may be the only correct answer, but "don't" feels more natural to me, somehow.

"The bus had come to a stop." - "Had come" or just "came"? Not wrong, just feels odd to me. "Had come" pushes it into a different tense than the rest of the narrative. I'm not sure that's what you were going for.

Some of the funeral statements feel similarly just a little off somehow. Play with the tenses and see if it feels better.

That may just be me - or Anglo-Kiwi linguistic sensibilities, vs. American.

Other than that, it read more-or-less flawlessly to me. Nice work.
29
29
Review of Ava  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
I quite like this, but it feels a bit disjointed to me.

I get a reasonably good impression of the setting and scenes, but I'm not sure whether that's good writing or just my familiarity with the genre. There's enough there to work with at least. The relationships and the meaning behind the dug-over patch and Macy's stories come across clearly.

Some of the descriptives feel a little overdone to me. Dusk's "graphite pencil" and "fractals" from the sun finishing its "daily journey" in particular felt a bit off to me. I think it suffers a bit from telling rather than showing, too. Rather than living the experiences through Ava's senses, we're told about them by her guardian angel. It's more like a camp-fire story than an immersive experience. We're told about Macy's stories, the gangs and the ghost towns, but we don't hear them, see them, or even remember them, first hand.

I don't get a clear impression of Ava's age. Anywhere between 7 and 12? That's quite a range and it in the context of the ending it's significant information.

Some of the action doesn't ring true to me either. Dad sweeping up a hungry German Shepherd that doesn't know him? After months fending for itself, the dog would rip his face off if he made a move like that! And putting it in the back of the car with Ava? Not a good survival option. Unless the dog was clearly acting submissive - but we don't see that.

And then once they're settled in their new home, I can buy Ava being comfortable enough to explore around the house after a while, but going into town... by herself... at night... after the stories she's been told? I don't buy it. Not after she screamed for her parents on meeting Kadie for the first time. Her established character is too timid to take such a risk.

The grammar and sentence structure looks fine to me. The tense changes (consistently) for the final section. It looks like that's deliberate, and it's not unreasonable, but I'm not convinced that it's the best choice.

Finally, the ending doesn't quite work for me. I understand that you're deliberately leaving the ending open, but the cliffhanger just doesn't grip me - I was waiting for the punchline to drive it home, but it never came. I think I would have ended with the man clearly seeing Ava, perhaps locking eyes with her, and Kadie growling. That would set up the conflict and Kadie's role as potential saviour. The ending as it stands leaves more potential endings available, but loses a lot of its impact, I think. The only reason we have to believe Kadie might be useful is the tag-line - nothing in the story itself sets her up as a protector.

*Star* Brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
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Review of Angel of Death  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Nice one, bumblegrum.

I like the twist, not just for the twist, but for the complete change in tone. Sepulchrally? Seriously bodacious verbiage! But from that to, "Oh damn..." - trippy!

Watch the dots - you have two at the end of the first sentence. One, three, or even arguably four would be okay, but not two. I suspect reflexive full-stop syndrome. I catch myself doing it all the time on re-re-re-edits.

I would consider "vanished" instead of "disappeared" for the enhanced suddenness too, but YMMV.

All in all, very cool.

*Star* Another "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E] review. *Star*
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31
Review of Hatred  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
This is good.

I really like the story content, although there are a few things about the delivery that don't quite work for me.

I would use "granted" rather than "gave". To "give life" sounds like an actual change in state of being to me, whereas "grant" is more clearly about the legal recognition. I'd look at using "granting" rather than "and granted" too and see if I could save a word or two without using two "ing"s. I'd be tempted to use "fell" rather than "dropped" too, but that's purely a style preference.

I would replace "up and" with a comma. "Down the aisle of law" just sounds wordy to me. "From (or through) the courtroom" or "toward the (courtroom) exit/door" would save words. "The raised voices of bigots" sounds a little stiff too. I think I would go for more charged language: "indignant ranting" perhaps, or "hateful rhetoric"?

I like the reverberating shot, but would replace "comma-and" with a full-stop/period. Those changes would give you a few more words to play with to give the ending (death? murder? mechanicide?) more punch.

Ironically, in this case I find myself echoing some of the things the judges said to me about my most recent entry. However, while they advocated what I saw as fatal damage to atmosphere in the interests of plot, I am advocating for trimming a bit of filler in the interests of atmosphere. It seems to me that your story, like mine, is complete in terms of plot.

As always, take what you can use an discard the rest.

*Star* Another "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E] review. *Star*
32
32
Review of King Tut  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Very clever.

It seemed at first to be just a cheeky throwaway joke, but then it dawned on me that perhaps it was a bit more than that. Is it just a joke, or is it a time-travel tale... and if the latter who is the time traveller - the pharaoh? His mummy? The priest?

Or maybe it's just a joke.

One point to tweak: Honorifics are generally capitalised, so "Mighty Pharaoh" or at least "Pharaoh", and "Your Majesty" should be capped.

*Star* Brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
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Review of The Ride  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
I see what you mean. It lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.

I think perhaps you're stealing your own thunder. The magic of the ride is the punchline, and you give it away right up front. As it stands, it's a steady-state story - there's no build to a climax - we already know it was magical from the beginning.

Perhaps a better way to play it would be to start with the rough side of being pulled out of one school into another and the difficulties in making those first friends. Play it up more before you give way to finding new friends. Play up the fights, the boredom and the misery. Start with the negative and then (apparently grudgingly) start to admit the good parts. Through high school you can tip it the other way - it's mostly good times now, but there's still boredom and tests and that awful moment getting caught helping the friend cheat. Then when you get to the end and you're weeping over leaving school, that's when you spring the magic. In the final analysis, the good times outweighed the bad.

I would leave the "it's a true story" until the end too, along with "the little girl was me".

Other than that, it's well written. You might put a handful of extra details in to bring scenes to life, but on the other hand that might not work in the context of the story. It's more of a sketch than a series of detailed scenes.

I hope some of that's of use. Good luck finding the spark.

*Star* This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
34
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Review of BFF's  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Clever. I love the twist.

The dialogue mostly makes sense although it's a little strained at the beginning. With multiple characters and no extra-dialogue cues, it's inevitable that you'll have to use names, but in a couple of instances it's a little clunky. The twist allows you a bit more leeway on both of those counts, but it might be worth having another go at getting it to sound really natural.

It needs a good proof-read. There are several punctuation and capitalisation issues and couple of spelling errors too. Watch your apostrophes, capitalisation after commas (is it a new sentence, or not?), text spelling and capital 'I's.

The story is a real winner though. It needs quite a bit of scrubbing and polishing, but it's a diamond in the rough - well worth the effort.

*Star* This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
35
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Review of I'm Still Me  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Thanks for sharing.

It's all very well reading about Aspergers from a medical perspective, but to read about it from someone who knows it through direct experience is a different thing entirely.

It's hard to get a handle on the impact of your condition from this piece. Your life-experience seems entirely ordinary to me - but then maybe that's the point. It's clear that you feel you've struggled more than most through high school, and I don't doubt it, but I don't think it comes through clearly in what way things were difficult for you.

It may be, I suppose, that you don't really understand why things have been difficult for you. My understanding is that Aspergers means that you may have difficulty reading social cues - or at least responding to them "appropriately". I can understand how that might mean you got picked on without ever really understanding why. It's hard enough for "normal" people to understand why bullies do what they do.

I guess the main thing I take from this is that you seem to be suggesting that you are able to pay attention to more than one information stream at once. Where most of us struggle to listen to a conversation and read at the same time, that's standard operating procedure for you? In some ways that sounds like a gift, but it clearly makes your brain work in ways that we can't comprehend, and must make ours similarly incomprehensible to you. Perhaps one of those streams in some way takes the place of the "social sense" that is, as I understand it, different in people with Aspergers.

I don't know whether any of that helps you with the content of your piece, but clearly it's thought-provoking, which must be a good thing.

In terms of the craft of writing, it's good. The only thing I would suggest is that you might think about how to make the ending stronger. I don't think there's anything wrong with the content of it, but it just doesn't quite feel like an ending, somehow. It doesn't so much end as just stop, if that makes sense? It may be that it just needs something like, "Will I get there? Only time will tell." to cap it off.

Again, thanks for sharing. Whatever insight readers are able to take from this is bound to make life easier for people with Aspergers and for "normal" people who interact with people with Aspergers. Best of luck with your goals.

*Star* This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
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Review of Night Sky  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
*Star* Be careful what you wish for.*Star* Hard vacuum is no place to be.*Star*

*Star* This is a nice little slice of imagery.*Star* I do appreciate the wonder of the night sky and of Earth from space.*Star*

*Star* It's very light though.*Star* There's value in weightlessness, but I felt a little let down on expanse and grandeur.*Star*

*Star* You may be interested to know that next Saturday is the peak of one of the best meteor showers of the year.*Star* Bright streaks, up to one a minute by Saturday, but building and waning over the next two weeks.*Star*

*Star* Happy star-gazing.*Star*

*Star* This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
37
37
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
As a brief opinion piece this is good.

I like that you have been able to argue for your position in a respectful way.

In that spirit, I'd like to point out that there is a flaw in your argument.

I agree that people who put nativity scenes on their lawns have that right and shouldn't be harrassed over it. But currency, the pledge of allegiance and so on... those are examples of the state imposing religion on its citizens. That's wrong.

You don't see it that way, because it's your religion being imposed. But imagine how you would feel if you were the same - still a citizen, native born, to native born Christian parents... but the state religion was Islam. What if instead of the pledge of allegiance, it was morning prayer, with the mats and the bowing and so on? What if instead of "In God We Trust" it was "Glory and praise be to Allah"? What if you were the one who had to put up with your religion being the unwelcome minority amongst the horde of muslims? In short, imagine you were a native-born Christian citizen in Iraq, or Iran, or Afghanistan.

You're only just beginning to feel what it's like to have your religion questioned. The people who are just now beginning to find their voice - to criticise the use of state power to impose your religion on them - have had to live with this all their lives - for generations.

State power should never, ever, ever, be used to impose any aspect of any religion on anyone. That means no religious statements on cash, no religious oaths required to serve in the legislature, or as President, no religious rituals in state schools (especially if schooling is compulsory), no laws which impose religious (rather than moral or ethical, and yes it's a grey area) standards of behaviour.

One nation under God? Whose God? Why yours? If not yours, whose would you accept? If you wouldn't accept any other, then why should people of other religions, or no religion, accept yours?

Well done on constructing a considered and respectful piece of writing. I hope you'll take the above and consider some more.

*Star* This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
38
38
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Rubbish.

Not entirely rubbish. The first part actually does make sense. If there is something beyond the natural cause and effect universe, then science can't delve into that space by drawing conclusions based on cause and effect. In fact it goes further than that. Science draws many of its conclusions on the basis that the laws of physics are consistent throughout the universe. Some of those conclusions may be false if the rules change over vast distances of space or time.

It is, as you say, impossible to empirically prove the absence of God. It is, in fact, impossible to prove a great many negative statements. In fact, there is another flaw in your friend's logic. To determine that God does not exist, God must not only be provable, but the experiment which would prove his existence must have been performed. It is possible that such an experiment could be performed, but has not yet been done yet, logically speaking at least.

So far so good.

But then it all falls apart.

You cannot use cause and effect to discredit reason and logic. It doesn't matter why we know that logic is sound, the simple fact is that it is. The premises used in logical propositions may not be known with the certainty many ascribe to them, but the logic is none-the-less sound. It is not logic, but empiricism which is questionable. Questioning logic is madness. Literally.

Thought is not supernatural. There is enough empirical evidence that thought follows directly from brain-states for this to be beyond reasonable doubt. Not certain perhaps, but established to the extent that you have to be unreasoning to doubt it. An inability to imagine how brain-states can produce mental states is not evidence of God. That was Descartes' great error too.

Ultimately, if you choose to believe that God exists outside of nature, there's nothing to stop you. But it makes about as much sense as believing in undead vampires, fairies and unicorns. In fact those make more sense than God, since they are all much more similar to things we do observe in the universe than God. If God interferes in the natural universe, then his meddling will be visible as variations from cause and effect. None have been observed beyond the quantum level, and even those are largely predictable in terms of probability. That doesn't prove that it doesn't happen, but neither does our not seeing it prove that there isn't a Queen Anne china tea cup orbiting the Sun directly opposite the orbit of the Earth. If he doesn't meddle, then he is irrelevant, even if he does exist.

If you want logical certainty about the non-existence of God, you'll never find it. But I am as certain that God does not exist, in any meaningful sense, as I am that the sun will come up tomorrow. That is inductive reason.

Rather than challenge atheists to prove God's non-existence, you would do better to ask yourself what makes this primitive fairy-tale the slightest bit plausible in this modern age? If you had never heard of God before today, would you take the story any more seriously than tales of leprechauns, succubi or lightning-blot throwing Olympians?

It's a well-written piece, but the logic is (as is invariably the case with defences of God) horribly flawed.

*Star* This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
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Review of A Wasted Life  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Welcome to WdC!

I rather like this.

It starts strongly. The first two stanzas have an easy way about them that suggests they were the initial inspiration.

The latter part of the poem isn't quite so comfortable, I think. The easy rhyme becomes a little more forced. The third and fourth in particular feel a little off - too may "oo"s, I think? It might be worth considering whether they could be improved by not rhyming the third line, as in two and five.

In all the message is a good one, and it hangs together reasonably well. I doubt it'll have the poetry buffs raving, given the simple bouncy meter to it, but as popcorn poetry it's not bad at all. Personally, I much prefer something with strong meter that gets to the point over "challenging" poetry.

*Star* This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
40
40
Review of Vividity  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
Welcome to WdC!

This is a nice piece. Vivid descriptions, erotic without being sleazy, and the technical basics are right too.

The only thing I can think of that might improve it is a bit of work on pacing. More paragraphing is probably in order and you might want to try playing with sentence length to try to get it to feel like it's building toward a peak.

Well done!

*Star* This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
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Review of Interlude  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
I found you through the newbie list, so welcome to WdC!

This is a pretty good start. You've arrived with your basic spelling and grammar under control, which is far from being a given around here. The character, action and imagery are well written too.

The story feels a little under-done though. Finding a file on a messy desk just doesn't seem like enough to make a whole story, even for the "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge"  [13+]. Now if she had found something in the file that meant she could rush out to make an arrest...

You've got 300 words to play with in the Flash. If you're using less than 200, you could probably use another hundred words to improve the story. There aren't many stories than can't be improved by getting closer to the 300.

On the other hand if you're keen on writing very short pieces, you could try "Invalid Item"  .

It's a good start, both for a 300-word flash, and for your WdC career. It's a cliche around here which I usually avoid, but for a newbie with obvious potential, I think it's appropriate: Write on!

*Star* This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
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Review of The Garden  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
This isn't a bad story, but ultimately I don't buy it.

I like the premise, although the timelines feel a bit messed up. The Earth is dying. Fine. The rate we're going, we probably don't have 800 years before we've messed the planet up beyond repair, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of optimism to start us off. Terraforming should take longer than ten years, but I suppose that's necessary for the story you want to tell. I can live with that.

Gene-modded geniuses are a bit of a stretch and a two-person team for such a big project even moreso, but I can let that slide.

The problems are all with the science:

"...the slow de-pressurisation of Earth’s atmosphere..." It's highly unlikely that Earth's atmosphere would "slowly de-pressurise". The planet's gravity is too strong for that. The physics simply doesn't work. The atmosphere might be stripped away by an increase in solar activity, although that strikes me as highly unlikely too. The sun has cycles of activity, but it's in mid-lfe and has stable patterns so the scale of the cycles isn't likely to change for millions of years. Perhaps a wandering dark planet is about to blunder through the solar system, tearing away atmospheres and disrupting orbits. That I could buy. It also might have unpredictable effects on the Oort cloud and Kuiper belt objects - flinging comets around that could bring the end of civilisation, if not the world, sooner than anticipated.

When the end comes, things won't "float gracefully in the empty atmosphere". Gravity won't be gone. Gravity is a direct consequence of mass. Unless the planet is broken up into small pieces, things will still fall. Any cataclysm powerful enough to break up the planet isn't going to leave enough of the communications centre for Adam to see anything. The atmosphere can be stripped away, but it's not lack of atmosphere that makes things float in space, it's the lack of gravity (or, more technically, the fact that everything is falling at the same rate).

The point of course, is that if you're going to write science fiction, it's important to get the science right. Science fantasy and space opera can get away with changing the rules, but even then there are limits. This piece reads more like moderately-hard science fiction, so the science has to be right, or at least in the ballpark of right.

Which brings me to the punchline. If Adam and Eve have been genetically altered and will be able to survive on their new home whether or not the atmospherics work, why does it matter that she's pregnant? Surely the baby will carry the same genetic mods as its parents, and will therefore be fine, regardless? Perhaps they weren't modified genetically, but surgically?

Anyway, the general thrust of the story works. It's a fairly predictable twist but that's okay. The writing itself is fine, with the exception of a couple of their/they're errors, I think. All it really needs is for the science to make sense.

*Star* This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E]. *Star*
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Review of Irony in 55 Words  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.0)
Not a bad idea for a short-shot, but the execution needs a bit of work.

You've written the whole story as a single run-on sentence. 55 words isn't many, but chunking your story into sentences would help you control the pacing and impact of those words. It's also bad form to cram several ideas into one sentence.

Try rewriting it so that you emphasise the pain and despair in the first sentence, resolute desperation in the second, then surprise at the text message and ironic realisation in a third.

At the same time you might think about how it's apparent to our hapless hero that his girl has left him and taken all his money (when she hasn't), and what office she's asking to be picked up (or "collected" perhaps, to save a word if you need to) from.

It needs work, but it's a good base to work on.

This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E].
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44
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Short and sweet. I like it.

The images and message are nicely expressed.

I struggle a little to get the "yellow" and "pink" lines to flow nicely. I think I'd be tempted to make each long line a syllable shorter, dropping "bright", "was" and the second "a", respectively. I'd also maybe put "rotting" before "rose".

But then poetry's not my forte.

This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E].
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Review of Liar  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
I was being carried along by this but felt a bit let down by the ending.

Technically, I don't see any significant issues. The double-dash is unusual, but a valid stylistic choice, I think. Her "once friend" should probably be her "former friend" but even that's arguable.

The story works for the most part and is well crafted as far as setting, character, relationships and situation are concerned. It's the resolution that leaves me feeling a little disappointed.

I just can't buy "Liar" as the scream from the betrayer/betrayed-friend-and-rival when her soul-mate has just plunged (presumably) to his icy death. "Bitch", "Murderer", "Oh my God, you psychopath", "Holy f***, what have you done?", "Get the Fire Department, I'll deal with you later". Those I could believe. The lie, though crucial, is not the most important thing right now.

I understand that "liar" was part of the prompt and that's probably what inspired the story in the first place. Inspiration having struck though, I think you could have told this story with the word still in there, and given Jenny a more realistic line to end on.

Despite that though, it's genuinely good work. Well done.

This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E].
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Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (2.0)
It's a bit of a mess, I'm afraid.

It looks to me like you're struggling to find a comfortable style. There are parts of this which are reminiscent of a Sherlock Holmes story in the turn of phrase and perhaps the narrator-protagonist's thought processes. You mention the Great Detective, so perhaps that was intentional. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense in the context of the story. The setting is modern - perhaps even science-fantasy. The old-fashioned formal phrasing doesn't fit. The main characters are high-school students, but their dialogue is completely out of keeping with who they are.

I think rather than trying to write a relatively long piece, the discipline of a limited word count might help you to focus your attention on telling a story, rather than wandering off track. I suggest you try rewriting this piece in 500 words. Concentrate on getting across the important points of setting, character, situation and resolution. Make sure your story has a coherent beginning, middle and end.

A good story isn't built on clever phrasing and affected dialogue. In good writing the words get out of the way and let the story tell itself. Don't try to write like a writer, just write it down - in language you're comfortable with.

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Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
At first I thought this piece needed to be paragraphed. Now I'm not so sure. I'm still tempted to think it could use a bit more chunking, but there's something somehow appropriate about the tumble of repetitive, yet developing thoughts.

The first section is very strong, chunked or not. In fact, I'm not entirely sure it wouldn't be stronger on its own, with the "I can't run away because I haven't got Rumble" bit tweaked as the ending.

The latter two sections had me feeling a little let down. I feel a little like Jerry did at the beginning - like he's betraying his friend. But maybe that's the point. In any case, I think Jerry's conversion isn't handled quite right. He gives in to the puppy a bit too quickly. Or perhaps it's just that the sentiments are out of order.

Overall, a very strong piece. Well done.

This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E].
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Review of The Dancing King  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
I'm not a big fan of poetry, so please take this with a grain of salt.

The concept of this poem is cute. I like cute. I found the structure a bit uncomfortable, but perhaps that's just me.

Some of the rhyme feels a little forced. The simplicity of the language suits the cute, for the most part, but the way it interacts with the rhyme suggests to me that perhaps you were struggling to squeeze it into the structure you've chosen.

I didn't like the left-right stanza. Too many rights. There are a lot of other 'ight words (and 'ite words) you could use there, even if you wanted to stick to using the same rhyme throughout.

Overall, I liked the concept, but found it uncomfortable to read. I wanted to like it more than I did.

This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E].
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Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
I'm afraid this doesn't have the ring of truth for me.

The world description is a bit thin. Humanity beat itself up, I get that. The Nezaur came and bailed them out, I get that. There's a lot of inter-species geo-poleconomy summed up in half a sentence. I don't think it's quite enough.

I also think that the scene-setting should probably come before the knock at the door. Spend a bit more time introducing Joel and Daniele too, and be a bit more subtle about describing their circumstances and how that compares with others and with the recent past.

Winston's part in the story, and Doc's, kind of make sense. But the motives of the Kezaur don't work for me. If they're benign, why mind-wipe Doc? Okay, I can see them blotting out the Big Secret, but why the complete personality transplant? And what's so special about this little clique that they are being let in on the Big Secret and offered a way off this doomed rock? Is everyone else getting a knock at the door too?

What do the Kezaur look like anyway? We learn that they are humanoid at the end, but are they essentially human? Little green men? Blue aliens with Shrek ears and tails?

How does Winston make the jump from "we're making batteries for export", to "we're supplying a war"? Couldn't it just be that their civilisation needs more batteries? The jump to "they're leaving" is more believable, but still a bit of a stretch.

I don't buy the, "oops, they're early," schtick either. Space is really, really, to the power of really, really, big. It takes a long time to cross it and unless there's some sort of deus ex machina surprise-drive or "you didn't know we had cloaking devices did you" in your universe, if the Kezaur know the bad-guys are coming, they should be able to predict when they'll arrive more accurately than, "Oops, did I say hours? I meant minutes." It's easily fixed though - just explain that the perimeter net missed an advance guard or something.

I get that the bad guys aren't humanoid and that they eat people, but it might help to have a bit more description of them. Maybe. Perhaps the unspoken horror is better here.

On the technical front, you have tense confusion all over the place - in one sentence it's present tense (something happens) and then it's past (something happened) and then we're back to present again. I would stick to past. It'll be easier, given that much of the dialogue is past tense too. It's also more common, and easier to read for some reason. Other than that it's not too bad, except for a run-on sentence in the final paragraph.

I suspect that you had an interesting world in your mind when you wrote this story. It just hasn't come through particularly well to me.

This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E].
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Review of UNENDING HOPE  
Review by Stumpy
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.0)
I'm not a great fan of poetry so please take this with a grain of salt.

I don't get it. It doesn't move me at all.

The good news is that you have the basics under control. There is structure, you can spell and the words fit together in a way that makes sense. Except "loothing". "Loothing" is meaningless to me (although Google does seem to know something about it - a neologism perhaps?). But that's by the by.

I also don't have any particular beef against the individual images. The main problem for me is that the early lines in each stanza aren't paid out in the final line in the way that I suspect you intend, in a way that works for me. In other words, I don't see how raiding and panting relate to each other in the context of the poem, much less the waves, rain and sun. Unless it's a panty raid?

I can see that there is an attempt at a unifying theme and some kind of progression, but it isn't clear to me what it is - even after reading the by-line. As I said, poetry is rather out of my comfort zone, so perhaps I'm just missing things that poetry fans would see. From my perspective though, this feels a bit like poetry for poetry's sake, rather than a piece with a clear message.

Finally, I'm not convinced by the use of words ending in -eth. It's an obsolete form, that doesn't appear to add anything to the poem, and may even be robbing it of currency.

I'm sorry I can't be more positive, but I hope you can find something in this that will help you write better - not by my standards, but by yours.

This review brought to you by a member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  [E].
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