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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/vladilyich
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10 Public Reviews Given
31 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
1
1
Review by Ben W. Gardner
Rated: E | (5.0)
I see that you wrote this in 2002, but I sincerely hope that you are trying with Writer's Digest, CNET, and other paying markets to bring this to the forefront.

With the coming of the electronic age has also come the ease of plagiarism and "borrowing" a well-written article for mass distribution.

As a person who has been involved in IT for 43 years (from the days when I asked "who the hell would ever want to store one-million keystrokes?" and now has a terabyte of storage attached to his "personal" computer), I can easily tell you that anything I post is _meant_ to be stolen. Anything that I don't want appropriated, never hits the web until it's in print (and the check has cleared).

Between Amazon allowing full searches of the books that it "sells" and Google recording search keystrokes by IP address of the requester, we are in an age where not just privacy, but technically copyrighted material is available to any fourth-grader that wants to use it.

This was brought home to me several years ago when I discovered a physics lecture I had given in the '70s used in a sixth-grade term paper...the notes of my student had been pulled by an elementary student...without attribution. I didn't want money, just the credit.

You have not just thought this out well, but written it in unscathing terms so that it might make an impact on a lot of people researching via the web. Please try to get this into more general distribution.
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Review by Ben W. Gardner
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
The only thing preventing a 5 are a couple of small errors, otherwise it's definitely 4.99!

Your grasp of descriptive narrative is superb, to say the least. Romance in any form (even though your off-world setting qualifies it as SF) is normally not my genre at all. However, this was a pleasure to read and to imagine the possibilities of a series, if not a full-blown novel.

Flowing her turn-around, she smiled brilliantly at the man who had stopped her.
I know what you mean (after reading the line several times), but it seems to be rather awkward phrasing.

He had three women around him, all disinterested in his words. And [in] him.

he took her to his suite, ‘to console her’ [Single quotes are only used as an offset when within a direct (doiuble) quote. You need doiuble quotes here.]

“This is a dangerous place to be, [semicolon] we need to get out of here.”

I know adding italics on writing.com is a pain, but you have several places where she's actually expressing a thought (Nice General) that should be italicized.

After reading yours, I'm rather discouraged about having a chance in the contest.
3
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Review of Item Statistics  
Review by Ben W. Gardner
Rated: ASR | (5.0)
OUTSTANDING! I really have been wondering about this feature and haven't tried it. However, as having been a professional demographer and amateur statistician and actuary, I really appreciate aggregate statistics like this.

I most definitely will take advantage of this analysis in the future to see if I'm hitting my target market with the writing I do (and I'll definitely get my rear in gear and start promoting my work on the forum!).

Thanks for the definitive explanation of the extended statistics.

Ben
4
4
Review by Ben W. Gardner
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
Gangster Space Aliens (WIP)
ID #866400

Summary Comments:
Not bad at all. It has some promise if you're willing to extend it out some and add more descriptive back-story.

Since you've written it more as a screenplay than a novella, you might consider getting some software to format it into that form. It would actually read better that way.

Plot:

It's different…to keep with the tongue-in-cheek vein of the piece, I'd change the title to either "Gangsta Space Aliens", or even better, "Gangsta Aliens get a Bad Rap" 

Characterization:

I could pick up on the individual characters very easily, even with the odd speech patterns. You did a good job with this.

Dialogue:

A lot of it is off. You might try reading it aloud to see if you can make it flow a bit more naturally.

Mechanics:

There's at least one chapter missing between one and two. A little more back-story would be helpful.

Logic:

Something like this doesn't need to be.

Nitpicks:

Note: My comments are offset in square brackets.

CHAPTER 1
FORBIDDEN TERRAMASSIAN TEXT

From the lunar ["lunar" is redundant here – that a generic term for moon which use identify in a couple of more words] surface of its orbiting moon [all moons orbit…it's what they do] , Shaka Laka Boom, except for the green glow of its oceans and blue clouds, Terramass could easily be mistaken for Earth. [This is a long sentence, made more confusing by the number of subordinate clauses. I'd give serious consideration to breaking it up into something like this:
When viewed from the surface of its single moon, Shaka Laka Boom might easily be mistaken for Earth, except for the green glow of its oceans and the prominent blue clouds. ]

It has many satellites placed in orbit by life-forms [no hyphen] other than humans. The orbitors [orbiters] have various race car [racecar is usually one word, but in this case I'd change it to "racing" to be "…various racing emblems painted on them."] paintings on them. The number 88 UPS race car [delete use of racecare here since you already identified it] team's emblem is painted on one satellite in particular as we zoom in from outer space.

On the planet's surface, we find a well groomed [hyphenated] neighborhood [comma needed here] as if a parallel universe of Earth exists. The exception? A hover craft school bus full of students approaches then coasts in front of the local high school with yellow lights flashing, never stopping. Instead, multiple doors open on both sides of the bus as students flood the air via personal, government issued jet-packs. All except one student. [consider dropping "student" here]

"Victoor! Victoor!" the bus driver checks her rearview mirror as she attempts to wake a sleeping student [one of my personal hot buttons is the overuse of words in close proximity. This is the third "student" in a couple of sentences. Consider using a pronoun like "boy", or whatever…]. "Victoor Cump, you wake up this instance or you'll miss your vector, Victoor."

"Aaw snap, om late." he murmered [murmured] as he tugged at the door. "Dangit, stupid hall monitor."

"That's Thoonat Pomonak to you, Pmuc.[I'm assuming the "pmuck" is a derogatory expletive, in which case it shouldn't be capitalized.] Now, where is your swipe hall pass?"

The two aeriel aces swooped through the passageways at blinding speeds. Loose papers fluttered and trash cans tipped over as they raced through. [Change this to more active voice: "Loose papers fluttering and trash cans tipping as they race through."]
[Seriously consider making all of the action in the next section present tense instead of past. It will read much better.]

Ten years later...a sonic boom is heard from a distance as a shooting star streaks through Earth's upper atmosphere over Los Angeles at the stroke of midnight. Or...so it seems. [Great opener! This is what I'd like to see in the first section.]

Inside of ["of" not needed here] the bridge of a space ship are ten aliens, all of whom are seated and manage multi-colored control panels that control the ship.

Although sitting, all look to be about 6 foot 5. Their faces are flat with snake-like green eyes. Various tattoo's [no apostrophe, it's not possessive] decorate the tips of their double noses.

Each alien sports black dreadlocks. The leader and pilot sports [consider dropping this "sports" and replace with just "are"] blonde. Everyone's ears are covered.

A dark-blue back pack [one word, backpack] rides high behind their heads, likened to the padding of an NFL Line-Backer, and runs halfway down their backs.

"Sire, we've reached our destination," said the hulking, Green-skinned leader, who's race is known as Terramassians. [Consider "…green-skinned leader of the Terramassians."]

He then walked over to individually inspect [even though it's now considered okay, I still have problems with split infinitives] his horde of warriors from head to toe. As he looked over the last one, he clearly heard two of his subordinates near the navigation panel snickering Sir Los Les's last two words that were yelled over the intercom.

The two hulking warriors stood up, lost their smirks and saluted the Captain in unison and then yelled, […lost their smirks, saluted the Captain in unison, and then yelled,] "Yes Captain." They remained standing with their right fists against their chests as the Captain paced back and forth in front of them. They dared not move.

The Captain paced slowly towards the front of the bridge, and looked down upon the lit up [maybe something more descriptive like "brightly lit"] acreage of Los Angeles.

"Yes, Sire." He faced the navigators [apostrophe needed – possessive] station. "You, here, now," referring to the injured navigator. "It's almost time to engage the locals here, Lieutenant Commander Cump."

Sire Los Les stood about 6 foot 7, and muscular. His facial features are the same as everyone elses.[apostrophe needed] His dread-locks, tied in a pony tail. He had a battle scar going down his right cheek, and two on his right forearm. Still wearing his nighty, a logo in the center of his chest read, 'Where's The Beef'.

Panning down from a clear blue sky is a side shot of the majestic, Songshan Shaolin Temple, located on the western slope of the Songshan in China, where Shaolin martial arts originated. There are many manicured trees and shrubberies [shrubberies] surrounding the monastery. The sound of hundreds of Shaolin Monks practicing Kung-Fu can be heard coming from behind its walls.

"Creatures, you have chosen your fate. Your visit to this Holy Shrine is unwelcomed. ["unwelcome"]" The voice said from behind.

The horde quickly dispersed, as they did not wish to face anything else that Buddha had to show to them. LC helped his firstmate [two words, "first mate"] up to his feet.

As the alien craft soars towards the US at sonic speeds, all three Conflagration Stations are filled with crew members who's attention is focused on big HDTV screens. All [are now] aware that the life forms on this planet are worthy opponents who fight well, without the use of fatal weapons. Sire Los Les wore a lime green 1970's suit, matching pimp cape, wide brim hat complete with wide white stripe and tall yellow feather. His afro wig was half covered by the hat. The crew members seemed used to his nostalgic episodes.
...
"Plan 'B' lookin' goooood." Captain Pomonak was having a Kodak moment. [Love that sentence! Excellent close.]

SMACK WALLOP!! Tay Tay popped Ice Slap with opened palms. His irritating laugh at others embarrasement [two "ss"] often ended with this same result.

"As you request." The music to the crumpled car continued to play, so LC did what came natural, he snapped his fingers to the beat as he did The Robot. [This sentence is quite confusing.]

Critter: Ben Gardner
5
5
Review of Spirit's Tale  
Review by Ben W. Gardner
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
I'm normally not into fantasy, but this one particularly caught my attention.

You've got some trememdoius potential here. I really like where it's going and creates a good beginning for a longer story.Yoiu've got a good ear for detail and description, but some of your sentences just miss the mark. I'd have normally given a higher rating, but, frankly, I'm anal-retentive on punctuation and structure and there are several places where I'm distracted by the syntax from the story.

If you'd like a line-by-line critique, just e-mail me and I'd be more than happy to give you more than I can right here because I'd like to see you expand it further.

As I said, a great potential.
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