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2,292 Public Reviews Given
2,292 Total Reviews Given
Review Style
I try to be honest and positive. My Christian faith is an important background factor. I hate rating low but have a system that determines how I grade.
 
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#2259390 by LightinMind
I'm good at...
More interested in the content of what you write than the style. Theological, political, historical, scientific, or experiential, or indeed anything that paints a vision of the future. A good grammar checker will tell you about spelling and commas.
Favorite Genres
Not entirely sure as I like most stuff. I prefer something with a soul rather than purely secular. But I like Sci-Fi, anything Christian, and also 'What-if' type speculations with plausible plots.
Least Favorite Genres
Anything that fails to look for a way out of the darkness. You can be dark, just don't wallow in it. Generally, I try to steer clear of Fantasy, and most Dark or Horror stories just make me laugh or grimace due to their ignorance of the dark side.
Favorite Item Types
I have really liked some of the heartwarming dramas I have read here particularly personal stories. Thought-provoking poems or stories are cool also though I am no expert on poetical forms.
Least Favorite Item Types
Anything that is just an affirmation of the dark side. I hate empty words. I always look for human intelligence. I try and avoid Fantasy and Horror where there is no metaphorical resonance or connection with real-world truth.
I will not review...
I mainly review at random and just see what grabs my attention. I will usually skip stuff I do not like unless it gets me riled or if it is interesting for other reasons.
Public Reviews
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51
51
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hello, MF . This is a review of "The Secrets Nobody Tells You About Love"  by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A self-help guide to loving. The focus seems to be on a romantic relationship rather than the other forms of love. The account speaks of ways in which love relationships can be improved by authentic communication, owning mistakes, respecting differences, balancing other commitments, compliments, and understanding the beloved - their needs and wants.

Various things can undermine our capacity for loving including stress and anxiety. The author speaks of the phases of love - the movement from full sensual addiction, to a time when the feelings are less passionate.

We are vulnerable to the one we love- they can make or break us, but the feeling of love is a shared struggle and we can work through heartbreaks and arguments. But even if love fails then it lets go only because that is what the other person needs. If you tried your best to love against the odds then there is no shame in letting go when you have to. But it should not sabotage the possibility of future connection and make us avoidant of loving.

We need to be honest with the problems our partners provoke in us. It is often a matter of commitment and energy to overcome these issues. A person who loves someone else knows when to back off a little. There is an element of teaching by example in loving. Sometimes people never learn to love properly but can learn this in a committed relationship. Love is not just a feeling. We need to continually the reasons we love, study the details of each other's lives, spend quality time together, and balance intimacy and attraction, silliness and seriousness.

We need to be honest with ourselves also. Are we scared of being alone? Are we forcing love on another person? What kinds of disappointment do we have in ourselves?

Can we love our partner at their worst and still feel comfortable with them?

*Quill*Commentary

Hi Matthias, thanks for asking me to review these reflections on love. You focused on romantic love rather than familiar or religious forms of love. It might have been good to distinguish your account of love from these alternatives at the start.

I found your structure a little chaotic. For example, love can be an overwhelming sensual and erotic addiction as you described or a decision to honor a promise and to devote oneself to loving the other. It can also be a way of thinking that we subscribe to wholeheartedly and continually refresh with new reflections on its meaning. A husband loves his wife with his body and his actions, with his thoughts and his words, and with the decisions he continually makes to be faithful to his promises. These different focuses on feelings, thoughts and will are not together purely selfish or selfless but feelings can be erotically selfish or giving, thoughts are either true or false, relevant or irrelevant, helpful or unhelpful and acts of will require the selfless ability to sacrifice oneself for a partner for the sake of that loving commitment. These are really different modes of loving which complement each other in a relationship, but which I felt were blurred together in your account.

In some ways, this read a little like a list and obviously, some items in the list contradict the others because love is complicated like that. So you talked about being committed and walking away as if they were both about love for example. Maybe you were talking about longer-term relationships rather than marriage here, I was never into the serial monogamy culture and my wife is genuinely the only true love of my life who united my body, mind, and will into a committed relationship to her.

Maybe the reason for this acceptance of failure is that this account of love misses a religious context or framework. You speak as if marriage were only a commitment of one person to another. I made my vows in a church and it is to God that I account for how I treat my wife. I do not have the option of walking away except in the circumstance of adultery without repentance. Since the commitment is inviolable my wife and I have to work out our issues. The element of will is required in a committed relationship if promises are to be honored until death us do part.

With that said about the inviolability of the commitment, I found a lot of your comments helpful and every relationship is always a work in progress, mine is no different in that respect. You might benefit from reading the "five love languages" and the biblical account of marriage from the New Testament in Ephesians 5 for example. Your own account was colored by your own unspoken experiences rather than an appeal to authorities whether religious, scientific, or psychological.

Thanks for asking me to read this.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

- }}Matthias Fiore in the first line and the last. You bookmark an account of love with your own name and curly brackets appear throughout the text.

On occasions, this felt a little like English was not your first language, then at other times you sounded like a native. Some sentences did not really make sense or included strange word choices.

e.g.

There are many ways you can love someone and not get confused with certain terms. - There are many ways you can love someone without getting confused by certain terms.

Do not just give up on your partner when it's been the start, give them time and patience, alongside effort

Try running a grammar checker like quillbot.com over the text in American or British English to see what I mean.


Thanks for sharing.

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52
52
Review of Love Lost  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hello, strlcuckoo . This is a review of "Love Lost"  by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The lover mourns a lost love. A memory is recalled as a peak moment that passed too quickly. The solution does not allow the lover to forget and move on so he lingers in the past wondering what if?...


*Quill*Commentary

At work today I closed down a project which was built with much effort and of which I was immensely proud. My eyes lingered on my creation and my thoughts dallied there. However, its time has come and we now have better ways to do the same thing. So having archived it I shut it down and clicked delete.

Life and love are not like that especially when the perception is that the quality of experience at that peak moment will never again be duplicated in this lifetime. We have all lingered in our memories, even embellished and improved on the reality of the past so that they become a sort of happy place and perfect work of art where we can hang out in harder times.

I guess the psychologist would ask how long it was healthy to stay there. The theologian would question the lover's faith in the resurrection and the more glorious and joyous future yet to come. But maybe the best question is what the beloved would say. Would she want the lover hanging out with her ghost for all eternity or prepping for a reunion in the heavenly realms and getting on with what is left of life?

Regardless such memories and powerful feelings make for good poetry and I enjoyed this one.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

After 21 reviews I think the structure is probably quite finalized. The rhyming structure worked very well. You have an irregular syllable count for each stanza. Maybe harmonizing these counts would improve the flow of the words


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


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53
53
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, debmiller1 . This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* "Hacking the North Pole"  was selected by personal choice for this time around. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A ransomware attack on the North Pole in the lead-up to Christmas leaves Santa worried about his present runs that Christmas. He remembers when Oleg, the hacker was a little boy but now he appears to be behaving badly. Lacking Euros but flush with gold they decide to pay Oleg off, but will he ever have enough?...


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

Cute concept and completely heartless of Oleg to almost sabotage Christmas like that! Computerized production lines run by elves and making stuff out of seawater was also a cool idea. I guess you have to have a happy ending in a Christmas story and the transformation of Oleg from greed to giving was nice and fits the real message of Christmas.

I liked the story which was entertaining and amusing. My favorite bit was the polar bears stepping in to pull Santa's slay run of gold bars to Oleg

*Quill*Mechanical issues

Nothing major to say about this.


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


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54
54
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, STUFF . This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* "Chapter 01 - The Crime"  was selected by personal choice for this time around. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

An interesting account of how a female with numerous aliases pulled off a hack of a company's data without any coding at all. She used the unwitting help of receptionists, HR, and specialists from the IT department to get hold of sensitive company information.


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

The hacker was quite convincing. She was a consummate liar and a good actress who was able to play on people's emotions to get data.

You wrote this 16 years ago but I would not be surprised if someone pulled off a similar result today. She started with just a name from a guy she met in the bar. The IT guy was a sucker for a pretty voice and then a mild promise of intimacy. The HR guy was formal and anal but could be made compliant by hints of superiority in the hierarchy. Kenneth, the mark, was too busy to make the proper inquiries. A collection of tricks were used with some luck to achieve a theft.

I found some aspects of this very unconvincing like that an IT guy would accept the sharing of passwords which breaks every rule in the book. Most IT guys have admin access and id impersonation is generally forbidden by the rules. Also for many logins you also need multifactor authentication. Also copying entire directories should have raised alarm bells. Unless that is she really was that hot!

The dialog was compelling and sounded plausible stylistically. Thanks for the entertaining read.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

It might be an idea to use blank lines between paragraphs for presentation purposes.


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


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55
55
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hello, percy goodfellow . This is a Raid Review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* "Taking Hackers out of the Security Loop"  was selected by personal choice for this time around. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The author has a solution to the problem of hacking. Put all sensitive government information offline in a secured server room.


*Quill*Commentary

This solution is already applied in one sense as archiving data removes it from the networks and makes it inaccessible from the web.

There are a host of other ways that data can be made secure with access control lists, device checking and registration, multifactor authentication, context-sensitive filters that only allow access from secured sites, design features that control access to the field level...

The main problem with all this security including your solution is that a lot of hacking is performed by the inside man who has access to the secure server room and knows how to circumnavigate the protocols.

Recent famous hacks that could get around your system include: administrators loading printouts into worker bags that were not checked thoroughly and could not be traced digitally. People with photographic memories duplicate the content that they read. People stealing stuff digitally and then wiping or altering the surveillance logs and video feeds or faking meltdowns that eliminated the evidence trail - being admins. Watch out for the cleaner, the fireman, and the admin.

But the biggest problem is that data is useless if it cannot be retrieved and used. Hence the US military has literally millions of people who can access sensitive information of various levels. If you use it it will be vulnerable but you need to have safeguards in place for the people who will be hurt by that information release.

I was not sure if your article really addressed the concerns here.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Did not really check this but looked ok.


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


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56
56
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, SSingletary . This is a Raid Review focused on reviewer's portfolios from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* "Immorality of Hacking"  was selected by personal choice for this time around. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Hacking is wrong. It is about exploiting computer code for private advantage. Hacking is almost always an immoral activity akin to abortion or murder.

*Quill*Commentary

This piece is in effect the assertion of an opinion and may not be fully aware of what hacking is in practice.

There are black-hat and white-hat hackers. Black-hat hackers destroy things or exploit people and have no authority for their actions. Ransomware attacks demanding payment to unlock oil or water pipelines would be an example of evil hacking. Your focus was heavily on the evil of the action because you did not understand what hackers do and you do not understand their motives.

The common definition is: act of compromising digital devices and networks through unauthorized access to an account or computer system

So you steal stuff or you read stuff without authority when you hack.

Quite regularly I will scrape web pages and gain insights from them programmatically without the owner's consent for business purposes. When these are public domain e.g. Wikipedia or company websites there are no legal or indeed moral grounds for complaint here as the owner is assumed to have given their consent by posting. If the data is made public and we can read it manually then there is no difference if I read and collate it automatically instead.

The problems with scraping come with GDPR laws and data protection of consumer laws. If I scrape websites and social media to form profiles of individuals I might do so with information they have freely posted online in the public domain, but I am still accountable for how I use that information. If I use it to defame or extract advantage from that person I have crossed the lines. Facebook regularly does this and makes a lot of money using such publically posted information, which we have consented to allow them to use - it sells it in fact to companies. What is the difference between bypassing the program and using the program to do the same thing you are prohibiting hackers from? If I steal transaction or personal info I have crossed the line. You focus on the kind of hacking that gains unauthorized access but if the motives are the same with those who have authority the definition breaks down.

There are exceptions when national security risks or criminal activity is detected then hacking is righteous, with appropriate authorization. Operatives hack terrorists or criminals to prevent them from committing acts of terror or crimes. There is nothing wrong with that.

The moral ambiguity comes with 'ethical hackers' whose ideological conviction is that all knowledge should be public access and that secrets themselves are wrong or at least some kinds of secrets. In a transparent world we will all behave better is the view. These are motivated not by money but by curiosity and ideological zeal. They will expose people using child pornography, child abusers, those committing adultery, or expressing evil opinions in their private sphere by hacking them. But the outcome is the prevention of a crime or terror attack. I see a resonance with the Christian conviction here that God sees all and nothing that is hidden will not come to light. But I do not trust hackers with my sins nor do I consent to the cost or humiliation of their publication. God, I trust to deal with me justly and mercifully. A hacker is not someone I trust. Still, if we acted knowing that potentially everything we do could be on camera that would probably alter our behavior for the better.

So basically I do not think it is as clear cut as you make out.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

8th street - 8th Street (its a title)


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


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57
57
Review of to Gusha  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hello, Rhyssa . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "to Gusha"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Young men dream of hunting and killing dragons and aliens to rescue a princess with whom they then settle down. This poem relates the dream from the female side. Two women, one who gets her wounded warrior and the other who is still ribbing dragons.


*Quill*Commentary

This is my own reading of what you wrote, as it read to me, feel free to disagree with me.

Many guys in my generation have had this dream for most of childhood and young adulthood. Kill the monster, get the girl.

It was interesting to hear it from a woman's perspective. On reflection now this dream seems to me to be a product of the fears of the Cold War and the warrior culture that men inhabited at that time and also of romanticism which is the secular version of love conquers all. Though maybe the warrior culture never really fades away. The dragon always changes form, sometimes Nazi, sometimes Soviet, sometimes Islamist, and now perhaps Chinese but the warriors are always needed to save civilization from the fire of the dragon's breath.

However, it seems the dream breaks down in the poet's mind. She sees the woman who took in that wounded war hero as somehow to have given up. She cozied up to the dragon, who was sometimes a prince, enjoying the barbed to and fro of angry conversations but she never really let the prince in, nor understood that he was not the dragon but rather the one who saved her from it.

The vision of victory is crocheting doilies and an end to an exciting adventure and so the choice to chase dragons seems the better one though it ends with the poet alone.

This poem messes with the fabric of dreams in the modern age and the price is loneliness. It misinterprets the nature of the victory which is never truly won even inside a functioning marriage and always needs fighting for. There will always until the Kingdom comes, be dragons, warriors and princesses. Sometimes it is just better to play out the parts.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Nothing major was found.


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


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58
58
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hello, Ms.Lin I found "Freedom an Foreknowledge"  when searching for articles on Augustine. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Is the sovereignty of God over all things incompatible with human free will? If God foreknows all our actions how can we be free?

*Quill*Commentary

This grabbed my attention because I was in a discussion on Molinism and the concept of middle knowledge this morning. The problem with Molinism is one of grounding. If no one creates a thing then it does not exist, so counterfactuals are not real, only estimated and considered in the range of possibilities that God allows to achieve his purpose without contradicting human freedom.

In an age that reduces mankind to its animalistic nature, the transcendence necessary for freedom has been lost. At the same time, people have never talked so much about individual freedoms and how important they are. The essential ground for our freedom is that we image God. So our agency is real just as His agency is real. A consideration of scope eliminates any tension here between man's freedom and God's sovereignty. Before Augustine Isaiah was prophesying that God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts and the scope of his knowledge, wisdom, and creativity is infinite and perfect while ours is flawed and finite. We are free but not in the same way that God is. He is perfectly capable of navigating His way through the range of possibilities that our choices could take to achieve His purpose and He can of course envisage all ends.

Your conclusion was that control should not be confused with knowledge. I thought this was a solution but a little simplistic as the real difference is the relative levels of knowledge and control that characterize the Divine and the human.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Spaced paragraphs would have made the text more readable. Perhaps putting quotes in italics would have helped distinguish them from your own thoughts.

You might want to run this through a grammar checker like Grammarly or quillbot.com as there were a lot of issues also.


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


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59
59
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Hello, Sierraric I found "Armageddon's Messenger"  when searching for articles on Arab Terrorism. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Lieutenant Ben Anderson spies a crashed Black Hawk helicopter and the approaching Al Quaeda threatening its crew. He and another special forces soldier Helmsy insert and try and hold the enemy off until reinforcements can arrive. The war continues in this land of minefields and drought in pursuit of a Prophet holed up in a remote place. But does the Prophet have a secret biological weapon to kill the advancing Americans with?


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

This was fast-paced with lots of action and had the swashbuckling quality that heroes are made of. The grammar and spelling need work. I did not know that US forces were vaccinated against small pox. I am also but my kids are not, it is no longer a requirement. It was an important point that the actual victims of the Prophet's hate would be his own people.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

You might want to run this through grammar checkers like Grammarly or quillbot.com. There are a lot of issues with the text. For example from the first paragraph.

Below the brown free forms of the rocks and bushes lining the dry riverbed the contrasted sharply with the geometrical shape and the olive color of the crashed helicopter.

Black Hawks have a minimum price of $15m and more likely $40m.

Al Quaeda - not El Quaeda


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" 


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60
60
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
Hello, writerofnoir I found "Schlachtet die Unschuldigen"  when searching for articles on the Holocaust. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The title literally translated means "Butcher the Innocent." This is an account of one man's memory of the Buchenwald KZ labor camp near Weimar. Henrick Steinbaum remembers his son Erich...


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

German labor shortages during the war were in part compensated for by forced labor camps like this one near Frankfurt. Workers were literally worked to death and discipline was harsh. This story brings out this experience and remarkably describes a man who survived as a witness to the horrible events that occurred there.

There were some beautiful though sad descriptions here including this awesome opening paragraph:

The coarse and twisted barbed wire was crusted with rust from the passage of time. Reeds of grass, that had died long ago, snaked upward through the barbed wire and around the pylons supporting the wire. Their tips begged to scrape against the steel gray of the April sky.

This was a real hook.

The Rabbi points at an innocent boy being hanged for a crime he did not commit by barbarians wearing swastikas and says there is God. Such a shame he could not make the jump to Christ on the cross doing exactly the same for Jews and Gentiles alike. But the survivor and the only witness to events does not see what the Rabbi is pointing at and instead asks "Where is God?" Many of those who survived and many of those who died did not need to ask that question as even in such a pit of hell they knew that God was with them.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

You shifted the point of view around in this from Erich to Heinrich to Major Hermann Freid and this confused me.


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


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61
61
Review of Another Chance  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
Hello, BrokenPen . This is a review of "Another Chance"  by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The aliens have come to a united Earth. President Dent has some difficult decisions to make. But what can he do and what extra options does the Kairos project and Captain Moon give him?...


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

This was a kind of Groundhog Day with space aliens combined with War of the Worlds or better V. The aliens land and appear benevolent, they have a massive technical superiority and the Earth needs to find a way to avert the inevitable. The Kairos project allows a reset of options but everything has failed so far.

Regarding the overall concept, I am quite skeptical about two main premises of the story:

1) The existence of aliens is quite fanciful right now as we have zero proof of their existence and the lack of Dyson Spheres out there, lack of any life off-world, the dearth of space signals, and the scientific impossibility of abiogenesis all point against that.

2) The possibility of time travel, back in time. There is nothing in the laws of physics that seems to allow for this bar parallel universes running at different paces and some kind of possibility of skipping from one to the other. There is also a vague theory about quantum entanglement through time allowing time portals but both theories seem improbable in practice.

 
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Two Rivers Crossing  (13+)
When time streams cross in the multiverse
#2289193 by LightinMind


President Dent is a man with many troubles, ruling the Earth is probably no fun when you are elected and therefore accountable to a myriad of different voices and lobby groups. Probably easier if you do not care what the people think and the state of their lives. General Zundat, Administrator Ling, and Captain Moon are less-rounded characters.

The alien strategy makes a lot of sense. First, they come in peace but take the opportunity to scan actual capabilities in the meantime. Then when they are clear about their absolute supremacy they attack.

The whole Kairos project reminded me of the film Independence Day and the secret lab in Area 51 that was hidden away, even from the president of the USA. It gives them an infinite number of chances to defeat the aliens. They will probably have a whole army of Captain Moons by the time they get it right though. They have not tried viruses yet whether digital or biological.

The population of Australia is not ten million but was 26.8 million in 2023

Overall this was a very creative and well-written story.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Titles and capitalization are a theme here too e.g. "said the General" should be "said the general" as it is not a title in this case.

The president put his hands on his head BUT decided to run for President of Earth is OK.


Thanks for sharing.

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62
62
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (2.0)
Hello, CobraSpy I found {item:} when searching for articles on Israel. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A Mexican on holiday in Lebanon is surprised by war and forced to flee. He blames the Israelis for interrupting his holiday plans for the sake of their wars against Hamas and Hezbollah. This is also an anti-Bush tirade disputing the motives for the USA being in Iraq at the time.


*Quill*Commentary

This essay is quite topical, though I am reading it sixteen years after you wrote it. At the time you wrote Hamas had just gained control of the Gaza district and as with today, Hezbollah was the dominant terrorist organization in Lebanon.

You are annoyed that your holiday got disrupted by the Israeli's apparently clumsy and inaccurate use of power in Lebanon. Today people accuse them of the same things as they try and clean out the Gaza strip of the Hamas organization. You suggest that Israel started the downward spiral of events by "kidnapping" members of Hamas and that Bush had dubious motives for going into Iraq.

As with any political rant, there is always going to be someone who disagrees with you and I am one of them.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are terrorist organizations, and proxies sponsored by Iran, formed with the intent of throwing the Jews into the sea and destroying all hope of a Jewish homeland. Instead, they want to see a Palestinian homeland allied to Iran. Recently Hamas kidnapped and murdered women and children in its latest attack on Israel. The Jews with their memories of the holocaust and millennia of persecution just want to survive and a chance to live in peace. But their iron dome is continually shooting down rockets fired from North and South entertaining the locals with a bizarre fireworks display with the added risk of flying shrapnel.

The UN solution to the conflict is the Two State Solution but Arafat doomed that when he walked away from the table decades ago and the Palestinians chose extremism over the path of peace. Despite decades of violence against Israel the Arabs and Palestinians have been on the losing side of every conflict. This cannot be won by terrorism and yet that is the path they choose. The recent conflict seems to have been motivated by a desire to sabotage Israeli-Arab rapprochement and works to the advantage of Iran over its main rival Saudia Arabia in the region. Now the only solution to Palestinian pain seems to be to let them find work and new lives elsewhere in the Arab world, but that path is blocked by the surrounding Arab nations who like to wield these people as a bargaining chip against Israel and have enough problems with overpopulation and economic failure as it is.

Now it may seem that Israeli tactics also seem like a blunt instrument and to miss their targets too often but what can even the best military do against an enemy that uses its own people as human shields and places command centers under hospitals? When the terrorists strike the pattern is that their own people pay the price of that but they simply do not care and the pattern just keeps on repeating.

Your analysis of Iraq was also ideological and confused. Sadam was responsible for the deaths of 1.5 million people in his oppression and wars. Getting rid of him for whatever reason was hardly something to apologize for. The civil conflict in Iraq is driven by a centuries-old feud between Sunni and Shia and has little to do with Americans being there. People died because Iraqis were determined to kill Iraqis. Now the Americans have gone and the place is denuded of Christians, persecuted by extremists and the place is governed by a Shia regime more sympathetic to Iran. Bush was naive in believing he could purify such a poisoned well and should have just left the place after removing Sadam, but hindsight is always 20-20.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

Since you wrote this grammar checking tools have improved a lot. I recommend you run it through Grammarly or quillbot.com as this had a lot of errors.


Thanks for sharing.

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Review of Bent  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hello, WriterAngel . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I saw "Bent"  on the list of Sci-Fi Contest entries for last month. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A Private Investigator with hi-tech implants robs a muscular Orc for the sake of a beautiful Elf woman. Seems straightforward until...


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

Congratulations on your victory in this contest.

The world you paint here has Elves and Orcs, Cyborgs, and tiny cubes made up of elements not on the periodic table, so a work of fantasy with some serious technological themes and a multi-culti metropolitan vibe also.

The key characters are the PI, the Elf woman, and the Orc-Boy. The PI is a sucker for a pretty face and figure and motivated by his bank balance. The Elf woman seems to come from money, knows how this new world works and the hidden value of its more obscure treasures. She is manipulative, clever, and clearly works on keeping her looks. The Orc-Boy is all muscle and fight and one wonders how he came into possession of a quantum-safe in the first place and indeed the tech in the story.

The treasure in the story is a mysterious cube that can be ingested and which appears to render all the metal enhancements to the PI redundant. You are suitably vague on the details to make it both seem possible without explaining how.

I liked the story which was engaging and well written. I guess the theme of manipulation, conflict and life and death risk-taking appeals even despite the fanciful world-building here.

You bookmark the story with a great first line and end line.

I should have known better.

Damn it.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Nothing major was found.


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


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Review of A Dark Illusion  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
Hello, BrokenPen . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I saw {item:} on the list of Sci-Fi Contest entries for the last months. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

Lord of the Rings fan fiction meets serious sci-fi in this epic adventure of elven wars against goblins with wizards, dark lords and spacemen all in the mix.

*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

The first line here was a real hook implying a sense of adventure and purpose.

The white sails ballooned with the ceaseless wind, driving the three wooden ships creaking and rocking towards the distant dark shore.

I liked watching The Rings of Power recently on Amazon and this reminded me of that until the twist at the end. Prince Elbron struck me as a kind of Neville Chamberlain-type appeaser naively looking for peace from the evil, Hitler-like, Dark Lord. Andloc sounded uncannily like Gandalf.

The story is quite topical as I have to preach on the parable of the sheep and goats on Sunday and the Palestinian, Israeli conflict tends to label the other side as goblins (or monsters). Here Elbron is the peacemaker looking for a way to reconcile the two warring parties and bring peace. But how can he do that when he does not understand the real reasons for the conflict that comes from an outer space demand for mineral resources by actual human beings, with space-faring capabilities and capitalist instincts, who manipulate the combatants like useful idiots for their higher, though utterly selfish cause?

People in the media paint the Israel-Palestine conflict as a human tragedy when in fact it is older and more serious than that and cannot be ended by those without a regard for the history of the holocaust and Jewish-Muslim rivalry.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

“Put that stupid sword away,!” chided the bearded man. “I am no enemy. I am Andloc.”

You capitalize non-specific roles or places like prince, wizard and fort but not specific designations like Elven bowmen.


Thanks for sharing.

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Review of Not your problem  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Hello, Kåre Enga in Udon Thani . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Not your problem"  via the entry list for the WDC contest. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The author's gay and the only problem he and his partner have is people like you getting in the way of their relationship.


*Quill*Commentary

You are clearly a talented writer and have written many fine pieces.

Was this really a poem of self-reflection, a hard look at faults that you have and putting them into a proper perspective, as per the contest? To suggest your whole life revolves around the single theme of being homosexual seems false. Your poem implies, perhaps dishonestly that you do not care what others think but you make a lot of noise asserting that, so maybe not. Self-reflection is not just about examining how you might have offended others, or they you, even if 'others' is in fact filtered down to the man you are with right now. In fact, offense and fault are completely different. People can get offended over nothing or everything and that might bear no relation to actual fault. Or is the statement here that there is no fault (sin) only what we choose to do, that therefore my business is my own and everybody else's opinion does not matter? In this case, the poem reeks of moral relativism and is therefore self-sabotaging.

People may well be happy to leave you alone to get on with your life, but your poem is an opinion expressed in a community, a gay pride march through other people's thoughts, and as such it receives a reaction, like it or not, offensive to you or not. You cannot expect everyone to love you when you tell them that their opinions do not matter. Yet when they stick their nose in your business you accuse them of having noses bigger than their hearts even though it was you who raised your business to their attention in the first place.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

Nothing major to say here.


Thanks for sharing.

2023 Quill Nominee

 
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#2259390 by LightinMind


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Review of Flawed  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, Amethyst Angel (House Mormont) . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Flawed"  via the entry list for the WDC contest. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The man has a temper, he knows the messes he creates and he is tormented by demons that attack his worth.
But he still knows hope is out there, still trusts that love is the way. He is trying to do good for others and lives in the love of God.


*Quill*Commentary

In terms of content, this was one of my favorites in the contest not least because it was not as self-absorbed as the Taylor Swift premise demanded. You are someone who sees others, sees the pains you have inflicted, and is dealing with the guilt, remorse, and shame those memories evoke. Other people and God are in the self-analysis here so the hope of redemption and of change seems more realistic. You have a heart for the right things expressed here, for hope and for love and for the good.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Irregular rhyming scheme.


Thanks for sharing.

2023 Quill Nominee

 
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#2259390 by LightinMind


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Review of Blame Game  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hello, scriptboy . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Blame Game"  via the entry list for the WDC contest. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

It is always the other guy's fault. The author plays the Blame Game to perfection.


*Quill*Commentary

This sounded familiar, I know the type. Especially the kind of person who is on a moral crusade to expose all your faults and with whom conversations always sound like a court case waiting to happen.

But the why is more interesting than the fact of this. Is the person wounded, insecure, dishonest, self-obsessed, deluded and living in a fantasy world where they can do no wrong or just terrified of owning the guilt, shame and remorse they feel inside? Or are they closet sociopaths lacking all emotional intelligence and unable to read the impacts that they have on other's lives? Or are they godless souls unable to accept that God sees all and holds us all to account? Maybe this poem is an honest first step into a murkier and more painful process or maybe plausible deniability requires no deeper reflection.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Irregular rhyming scheme.


Thanks for sharing.

2023 Quill Nominee

 
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#2259390 by LightinMind


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Review of This is Me  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hello, Sumojo . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "This is Me"  via the entry list for the WDC contest. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A woman who strives to be kind; fights the encroaching greyness of the aging process; wears a stronger self-image to hide how she truly feels about staying too long at parties and about how she truly feels about herself. Is she judgmental, prickly, impatient? Or is she a truly nice lady who still lights up when others affirm her and tell her about what she adds to the lives of those she cares about? Maybe she is all of this and more and too complex for a 33-line poem.


*Quill*Commentary

This sounded ruthlessly honest and makes you sound more interesting as a person if anything. I could connect to the greyness theme. I had my first grey hair at 27 and the process has been slow but inevitable ever since. My rationalization is that I am becoming blonder with age and have never hidden my growing signs of wisdom. But there is always someone who wants to make a thing of it with stupid comments like, "Wow you're going grey!"

You have other people woven into your poem in a way that many of the winners of this contest did not. Ironically I think that makes you a more balanced person with a more balanced perspective on reality as human beings are social animals and the psychological self-analysis trend is almost narcissistic in its individualism by contrast. People like Taylor Swift always seem slightly unhinged to me but I guess that helps her to connect to a mad world. What you do not express here is any faith or trust in higher things. Trusting in the resurrection and eternal life helps with the aging process!

I could also connect with the party girl stanza, I hate staying too long at parties and especially when everyone gets drunk. I do not drink myself and would prefer a good book or to go for a run to be honest. This made you look like a serious person with a life who was not just living for the moment.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Nothing major to say here.


Thanks for sharing.

2023 Quill Nominee

 
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#2259390 by LightinMind


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Review of Can't Break Free  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hello, intuey of House Lannister . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Can't Break Free"  via the entry list for the WDC contest. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A de-throned queen and matriarch cannot wake from the nightmare she is in. Once she could not wait to dream but now she feels caged, alone, older, robbed, unhinged, and slightly insane.


*Quill*Commentary

Congratulations on placing third in this contest. Your entry echoed the personality of Taylor Swift quite well. The poem reads like something major happened that robbed you of your family, your dreams and maybe even your sanity. It describes the feelings that follow very well. Since the contest was really only about describing your current state rather than prescribing paths out of it I understand why you placed so well. Perspective is altered by the way we filter our experiences and situate them in grander meta-narratives such as those of community and faith. But this perspective like that of Taylor Swift was yours alone and inward in its preoccupation.

I have stood on the precipice over which it appears you were pushed many times and heard the stories of innumerable people that had been so pushed and so I have often tried to work out how I would cope with the fall also. A great many things have prepared me for this event should it occur also not least the experience of emigration away from family and friends. It seems to me that bitterness, anger and resentment against the one who pushed you is often your own worst enemy, that a lack of hope is actually a failure of faith, and that if we truly trusted God we could be content in all circumstances. But that is not to underestimate the power and devastation of being ripped out of a familiar context and plunged into one where you are alone in a strange new world. It is simply to state that it is not real to say that a person is ever alone and completely unhinged from all that is pure, true, right, and loving and that the grounds for despair are often overestimated. Freedom is just a prayer for redemption which has already been answered if you want to hear God's voice.

Some of your descriptions were really good. I liked this line:

I'm a dethroned queen on a hanger.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Nothing major to say here.


Thanks for sharing.

2023 Quill Nominee

 
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#2259390 by LightinMind


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Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: ASR | (3.5)
Hello, Graham Muad'dib . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "The Forbidden Library"  via the entry list for the WDC contest. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

In a fantastical, barely inhabited world of villages isolated in the wild, Gerhard Adelberg dreams of the lost Sonnenberg Empire and wonders if he can reclaim its secrets. He embarks on a quest into the wild, mocked by ignorant villagers who aspire for nothing beyond their normal routines. His quest involves a choice, a rotten fig and a mysterious man dressed in red called Max von Teufel. But will Max make the right choice?...


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

This was a funny choice of German names. Buchwald = book forest; Holzdorf = wooden village; Sonnenberg = sun mountain; Max von Teufel - Max the aristocratic devil; Gerhard Adelberg - Gerhard eagle mountain. The story could have been set in the old Schwarzwald of ancient German lore and be a sort of alternate Grimm fairy tale.

You wove in a bunch of philosophical themes into the storyline and I guess the rotten fig equates with the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

My main objection to this story is the implied relationship of knowledge with forbidden fruit and with the slithering serpent of Eden. Prometheus gives fire to mankind and is punished by the gods for the progress that follows. The juxtaposition of the vulgar, ignorant villagers from the wooden village with the exciting Max the devil. The premise here is that it is evil that grants the painful way to enlightenment. This seems to be a sort of deluded atheistic version of history, reacting to the restrictive bounds of medieval scholastic explanations. But it was Christians who founded the universities and developed the new ways of thinking that drove the scientific progress of the last four hundred years. Christian Isaac Newton was not eating forbidden fruit but rather reading God's Book of Nature. Christian Descartes revolutionized the way we think about how to think.

You have in effect created a multi-layered children's story here that communicates a lie about what knowledge is. It was entertaining and clever but you spoke for the dark side on this one.

*Quill*Mechanical issues

Nothing major to say on this.


Thanks for sharing.

2023 Quill Nominee

 
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#2259390 by LightinMind


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Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hello, Beholden This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "The Library Finder"  via the entry list for the WDC contest. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

After the Cloud fell knowledge was lost and there were only a few libraries that still contained the wisdom and accumulated learning of humanity. But where are these? Can Aurelius, an old man of seventy, sniff these out? The quest involves a trip to the city now overgrown and dangerous, filled with wild animals. Can Aurelius and his hunter companion Reno find what they are looking for?...


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

Congratulations on your victory.

It seems we shared an apocalyptic worldview for this story in the competition.

From the description, it sounds like they found the New York Public Library. This story combined the Wizard of Oz with Reno and Aurelius on a quest to get wisdom from the central city with an apocalyptic disaster movie where the New York Public Library is a haven of sanity and atheists cling to Guttenberg bibles to prevent lesser mortals from burning them for warmth. Except there are no people hiding out in the library, they would have been eaten long ago by the wild animals that dominate the streets and nobody knows what a Gutenberg bible is. The ending was a surprise and a little fatalistic. Is it not better to live in hope than to allow the future to be shaped by the fears of yesterday?

The major flaw in the story is Reno and Olivia. The whole story you were saying they and then in the last few paragraphs just he meaning Aurelius. The decision not to tell about the library would have to be agreed upon by all of them. That they split up in this dangerous place is counter-intuitive given what was previously said and is not stated in the text.

My favorite line here:

there’s more to it than just smell. There’s an atmosphere, a luring whisper in the wind, that clings to the learning of long ago

In an illiterate age, people would probably describe the finder's ability in these almost magical terms.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

You write in the original King's English.

First sentence:
“What makes you think you might be able to find a Library?” - the Library would be capitalized but a library would not. This is repeated throughout the text. Similarly, you would say a god but the God, or by itself God. You do this with lots of words in the text as if the post-apocalyptic generation had forgotten basic rules of grammar and made roles and general types of places into specific nouns.

what had moved him to answer the Institute’s call for a Library Finder.


Thanks for sharing.

2023 Quill Nominee

 
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#2259390 by LightinMind


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Review of Thank You  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, the last cicada . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Thank You"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The word thank you is set in a mysterious blank white space and labeled as a response item. What are we to make of this?


*Quill*Commentary

This is my own reading of what you wrote, as it read to me, feel free to disagree with me.

I looked for hidden subtexts, written in white text. I checked the date and what happened at that time. There was a shooting star in China during the Perseid Meteor Shower and a stage collapsed at a concert in Indiana. Or was it the birth date of someone or indeed the death date of someone whose life deserved a thank you? Maybe it was a prayer of thanks that only God could read the meaning of. Maybe the words are a code of some sort. But I have no Rosetta stone to decipher their hidden meaning.

Or maybe you were just saying thank you, it's personal and a simple accident that I have randomly been cast upon this shore to read these words written in the sands of time. Of course, there is much to be thankful for and so as I leave I shall say only thank you for your precise message.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Two words without grammatical errors, well done *Wink* But a little short and needed fleshing out a little.


Thanks for sharing.

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Review of Momento  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (5.0)
Hello, 🌕 HuntersMoon . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received {item:} via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

A lost photo, now found, evokes bitter-sweet romantic memories.

*Quill*Commentary

This is my own reading of what you wrote, as it read to me, feel free to disagree with me.

In the digital age, my kids keep all their photos on phones and in the cloud. When their phone breaks they download it again. Children have a setting on WhatsApp that allows only single viewings of photos or videos by the people they share them with. They tell me that it is a security measure because people misuse photos all the time these days. My son recently lined us all up and told us to do happy faces or sad ones but we were never altogether happy or sad. Then he created a photo where we were all happy in the same photo and it looked entirely genuine. Deep fakes, photo misuse and the ease with which they can be taken and shared have apparently terrified an entire generation of young people. There are now rules about taking people's photos and storing their images. GDPR and fears about spies have grown to irrational proportions.

It was in that context that I read your poem, not about a photo neatly filed in an album of some sort, but carelessly tossed and evoking romantic memory. We have boxes of such photos in the cellar but recently we have not been adding as many to those boxes. It seems a big risk to have everything in the cloud and locked in personal accounts, the kinds of random rememberings your poem celebrates seem more distant now.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

You defined Le Sizain Hétérométrique as a romantic form of poetry, six lines long, with a definite rhyme scheme and syllable count. It sounded cooler in French than broken down into English rules. You followed the rules precisely.


Thanks for sharing.

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Review of Going On  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hello, Words Whirling 'Round . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Going On"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The poet mourns the loss of the letter E forbidden by the contest rules. The reviewer is not bound by the same requirement.


*Quill*Commentary

This is my own reading of what you wrote, as it read to me, feel free to disagree with me.

It seems the loss of the letter E has not prevented you from writing an interesting poem describing the loss, its importance, and your determination to carry on nonetheless. You build up an analogous world of words and suddenly we are all aware that we can survive albeit not fully thrive in a world without this crucial vowel. The fifth letter of the alphabet is used in some of our most common pronouns like the, he, she, me, we and they. The letter appears in 11% of all words in the English language and its exclusion bans you from traveling to nine countries that begin with the letter and many more that contain it. I guess also you can only travel outside Europe, America and Oceania. But hey Antarctica is still possible


*Quill*Mechanical issues

Five sentences in five stanzas over 15 lines with no other tonal, rhyming, or rhythm requirements


Thanks for sharing.

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Review of Strawberry Dance  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hello, Soup . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Strawberry Dance"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

*Quill*Reader Experience

The childhood romance is rekindled by older and wiser souls, reconnecting, healing and overcoming old hurts.


*Quill*Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

This is my own reading of what you wrote, as it read to me, feel free to disagree with me.

The characters here are unnamed and can be referred to as he and she. The story is told from his perspective. She is a more developed character than he who really only speaks about her.

She has scarlet hair, fair skin, music in her movements with an overflowing joy to her heart and soul. She clearly likes him and has shared her most special place with him. She likes strawberries, her favorite color is a special shade of green. She loves him but wants a proper commitment from him this time as he let her down before.

He was a fool to let her go and is now the wiser for it. He is a little corny but absolutely besotted with her. He likes carrots.

The context is a dreamy meadow in sunshine, rather than rain like last time, on the crest of a hill. a field of wildflowers and bees.

You described the lovers as a little shallow in their childlike phase but now as adults able to appreciate each other. More is concealed than is revealed here though and his impressions of her are still mainly sensual perceptions remembered not renewed and merely accentuated by time. What has actually changed in the interaction between these two? How have the experiences between now and then led them to this point? Was it disappointment, failure in work or romance, was it the experience of going away for a time? This still reads as being a little ethereal and dreamy rather than authentic.

The female character is alive and the reader can sing along to her music but the male character is like she said a little corny and he remains quite shallow in his perceptions of her.


*Quill*Mechanical issues

She couldn't help but dance about as she led me up a crest of a hill to her favorite spot

She looked beautiful then, but now- Now, she was ethereal. now...Now (Convention is usually three dots or a longer line — for these kinds of dramatic pauses)

She started to book it up the hill and I followed suit. - book? Find another word.

She was dancing about in the field of wildflowers.

I called it her strawberry dance cause she always did it when she ate strawberries, it was - I called it her strawberry dance 'cause she always did it when she ate strawberries. It was

I'm sorry I mislead you - I'm sorry I misled you


Thanks for sharing.

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#2259390 by LightinMind


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