218 Reviews

[Tdyans at work]

The Pirate Writer
I'm afraid that I found myself confused through much of my reading of this first part, and I'm not sure if it's because I didn't read the previous series or simply because of how this one was written. I can gather most of the facts together, but some things seem rather difficult to comprehend because of how quickly and sparsely events are summarized in the diary entry. The transition from that diary entry to the action was particular confusing. Though it was kind of a nice twist that the reader is expecting based on the diary entry that the writer has escaped with her friend, only to find out that actually they were foiled, it's not something that makes much sense in hindsight. If her escape was stopped, she would not have started off the diary entry with such excitement and overuse of the word "amazed/amazing". There would have been more solemnity/sadness in her tone. I believe the twist could have still been pulled off, but while also making it believable by just adding in some hints and altering the tone a bit so that readers might not guess right away that things didn't turn out right, but could still look back after learning it and say, "Oh yes, that's makes sense."

On the subject of the author's note, of course it needed to be there, but I don't think it needed to be that long and rambling at all. Author's notes should really only impart the necessary information and then move aside to let the actual story take over. Anything more than that becomes a little annoying and off-putting to me.

Since I see it in your reply to another review, I assume it wasn't a typo as I first thought, but the phrase is "at first" not "out first."

The tense and point of view stay fairly consistent throughout, which can be challenging. There were a few moments, though, where you slipped into present tense or third person point of view (with the narrator referring to herself as "her" instead of "me" or "I".)

I don't think there was anything to indicate what type of Neopet the narrator was (though indicating that when writing in first person can also be challenging), though I wasn't really bothered by it since the picture gave me a pretty good idea (though I could be assuming wrong, and of course, you can't rely on pictures to tell your story).

In a lot of places, the writing didn't seem to flow very well. Some examples of particularly clunky sentences:

Captain Woodbeak said through the locked, wooden door. He unlocked it and opened it.

There's a lot of unnecessary stuff in here. The first "locked" can be taken out, because the fact that he unlocks it in the next sentence tells us that it was locked in the first place. For that matter, I could argue that the "wooden" can be removed as well; it's not that important of a detail, and one that readers can probably fill in on their own.

Having this sword was my favorite possession on the pirate ship, and I couldn't live without it

Here you've made "having this sword" the subject of the sentence, and "having" can't be a "possession." The "Having" should not be there.

Shocked from not doing my job, my eyes turned back onto the water, straining them to see anything

Here you waver on what the subject of the sentence is. "Shocked" would indicate that the narrator is the subject, but then in the second clause, the subject becomes "my eyes." Are the eyes shocked? Then in the third clause, the subject switches back to the narrator, since the eyes are the object ("them"). You have to choose one subject and stay consistent all the way through the sentence. "Shocked from not doing my job, I turned my eyes back onto the water, straining to see anything" would be an acceptable edit (you could leave the "them" in if you wanted to, but it's not really necessary and the sentence flows better without it).

Basically, I think this story just could have used some more careful and thorough editing to make it really shine. Go over your first draft sentence by sentence and think, "Does this make sense? Is it perfectly clear to someone who doesn't know the story already what is going on? Are all of the details necessary? Are there enough details that someone can picture what is going on? Etc." Reading your story aloud will also help greatly with checking on how it flows. The groundwork is laid with an interesting plot and characters, which should make for a fun adventure story, but it needs more help from the writing itself to make it really come alive.

[Nut]

Article Reviews

[glow=blue,2,300]Yet MORE Happy Home Hunting[/glow]
I believe that this is my favorite article in the Happy Home Hunting series. I think the reason I liked it so much was because the writers’ personalities come across very clearly here, more so than in previous stages of the program. I especially liked the whole Lost Desert sequence.

Hate to dampen your parade... but if this isn't a good place for beach Cybunnies.

There’s just a small grammatical error here: the word “if” is not needed in the sentence.
I might have preferred it if there was more time devoted to each place. I realize that you’re on a “schedule” and don’t want to make the article so long that readers lose interest, but the article is fairly short already and covers quite a few lands. It seems that one land gets most of the attention during the article (in this case, the Lost Desert), and the others get just a few wisecracks. It would be fun to see a real debate go on over an area. I felt that much more could have been done with the Haunted Woods, being a place of such ill repute. While Fox’s blatant pessimism about the woods was funny, I would have liked to see more. Meepits weren’t even mentioned… *sniff* (Of course you don’t have to talk about the more cliché aspects of the woods like Meepits, but I still thought that the land had much more potential.)
All in all, though, this article was very humorous and original. I enjoy seeing the owners’ characters focused on. Good work!

[glow=blue,2,300]An Inconspicuous Guide: How to Write Well[/glow]
This is a nicely done guide to basic writing skills, which I am sure could help many new writers. Some older writers might find some information in this guide useful as well; I myself am guilty of adopting the seemingly modern practice of ignoring the existence of the word “whom” and simply using “who” in every scenario because it sounds less formal and easier to read, nevermind that it’s grammatically incorrect. The examples and explanations would be good help for uncertain writers.
However, this is not a guide designed to help writers who already know the basics to improve their writing style. It is a handy reference for those who aren’t sure about the foundation rules of grammar. The title is rather misleading; people who look at it will probably read it expecting the former and will get the latter.
I must wonder at the wisdom of having your pet narrate the guide. It isn’t firmly established at the beginning that your pet is the narrator. When I read the first sentence, I assumed that you called yourself Inconspicuous. For much of the guide, it isn’t obvious that a pet is talking. Only towards the end, with references to the presence of a “pugnacious owner”, does the reader have a basis for assuming that a pet wrote the guide, and even then it isn’t openly stated. You could easily have narrated the guide yourself without having to change anything of importance.
I was a little surprised by the bank of commonly misspelled words at the end of the guide, but I was glad it was there. Your choices for the words in bold seemed a bit random, though. I would have preferred that “Their/they’re/there” had gotten a bold reference, as well as “Its/it’s”, since I frequently see those mixed up with each other. “Its/it’s”, in fact, deserves a longer explanation because it is a rare exception to basic grammar rules. I also would have liked to see “Your/you’re” in there while you were at it, since I see those confused quite often as well.

It's spelled with two 's'(es?), not one.

Please do not put question marks in parenthesis like that. You are writing a guide; you are supposed to be the all-knowing authority over the reader. Putting question marks in your sentences only makes you look amateurish, as well as degrading the worth of what you are saying. It makes the reader doubt you. If you don’t know if what you’re writing is correct, why should we trust you? Next time you are unsure of a pluralization, look it up and print what you know is true.
All in all, though, this was a very nice and useful guide to basic grammar. Congratulations for making it to the top of the page!

[glow=blue,2,300]Grooming the Easy Way[/glow]
Let me just say right now that guides to things you cannot actually do in Neopia are not my style. That said, it was still nice and well-researched for such an article. Although I wholeheartedly agree with the moral you stuck in at the end of the piece, it seemed rather out-of-place to me considering that you had just spent a few paragraphs talking about how to use makeup (which is certainly a superficial route to beauty). I don’t mean to be harsh, but… well, the whole article sounded rather like a long advertisement for the Grooming Parlor told by a shiny-eyed person with a constant fake grin. Some humor would have helped to keep the reader’s interest. Still, you obviously put effort into finding the names of these various beauty products and incorporating them into the article. Nice work.

[glow=blue,2,300]The Loyal Bank Skeith[/glow]
I don’t know if the writer of this article comes to the NTWF, but I’ve seen her at my guild, so I will review this piece.
This was a very nice and thoughtful article, much more original than most interview articles. The Bank Skeith came across as a friendly and kind person, and his character was formed around very creative ideas. I thought it dived into the interview a bit quickly; after all, why would the Bank Skeith decide to sit down with some random person who asked him a question? Nevertheless, it was a warm and friendly article that portrayed the Bank Skeith in a refreshingly different light than most.

[Tashni]

Wow, Tdyans, you give thorough reviews! If you've got the time, could you please review "Orbulon Has Landed"?

[Scar]

r said:

scarven said:

Thanks for the review Yuka. I was rather worried about pacing at first but seems fine right now. Oh, and I can get a little 'descriptive' so

Is that story yours, Scar? Oh I'll go and reveiw it then, sorry I forgot about you. Check back in a bit and there will be a reveiw for you under the short story section shortly.

And sorry if I just seemed nitpicky blub, it really was a great reveiw.

Just don't kill yourself reviewing it

[Nut]

Here I am again with my late-week reviews. I see that the Previews thread has started today as planned. I’ll still be haunting this thread and giving reviews all the way up to the release of next week’s issue, though.

Short Story Reviews

[glow=blue,2,300]Orbulon Has Landed[/glow]
This comic story is pretty funny with its own brand of dry humor. There’s enough funny moments scattered throughout that the reader is almost certainly going to grin somewhere along the way.

Most importantly, would he land in that round thing of lava?

I thought this was funny, and it was quite early in the story. In my opinion, the level of humor was steady throughout the story, though perhaps more subtle at the beginning.

As he approached the ruins, he saw several signs warning of giant, vicious Slugawoos. The signs got bigger and more warnful as he went on.

According to my dictionary, “warnful” isn’t a word. With that out of the way, I thought the sequence with the signs was funny, but it was a bit too short for full effect. Maybe you could have described each sign in turn rather than just the last couple, not just the wording on them but also their size and whatever else about them that makes them intimidating. (Maybe one is written in red letters, one has pointy carved edges, ect.)

Nar couldn't help but wonder if he'd been bitten by the bad luck faerie.

Faeries… bite? o_0 Interesting idea… *now thinks of the Tooth Faerie in a new light*
My biggest complaint with this story is the exaggeratedly choppy writing style. It is possible to have a humorous story and still have strong characters, but I didn’t get much of a sense of the personalities of Orbulon or Nar. The story consists almost entirely of “telling” and not “showing”, and sentence fragments are scattered everywhere. I realize that this is intentional, but I doubt it would have hurt the story’s humor to make the reader’s ride through a bit less jarring. Many sentences begin with “So”, “And”, or “But” or in the middle of what should be one sentence, and while doing this sometimes is okay, there were several places where the writing would have been smoother without it. The plot was sort of all over the place, with so many things happening in succession that it’s a bit difficult to concentrate. Yet, throughout the story, the consistent humor keeps the reader grinning. ^^ For a first comic story, or even a comic story period, I thought it was a highly successful production. I doubt I’d have been able to write something even close to it, and you managed to keep the humor going all the way to the end. Good work!

[glow=blue,2,300]Rain[/glow]
I loved this story. Maybe I’m biased towards rain, but I felt almost like I was out in the rain myself during the beginning long descriptions of the weather. Childish as the writing style may be, I felt that it was suited to the story because Raine is a young Eyrie. It was a beautiful story, and Raine is a great character. Her innocent, wondering qualities are so perfectly clear to the reader.
I was starting to wonder what the meaning of the story was intended to be during the description of the rain, though. It continues for a long time, for what I think would be a couple of pages or thereabouts, and while it is endearing and magically written, the reader begins to wonder whether there is anything more to the story. Of course there is, but the sudden visit to the Rainbow Pool doesn’t seem to connect with the first part of the story as smoothly as it should. I liked the way you describe the Rainbow Pool as seeming fake in comparison to real rain; I never thought about it that way before. Raine’s innocent wish to be painted rain is a sweet little touch to the story, but it seemed to make her final decision all the more jarring. Her choice of color was ironic, to say the least, almost to the point of being hard to believe. It can be attributed to her childish attitude, however; she does not understand the effects of the colors, she sees only the patterns, and doesn’t think of the meaning behind the words associated with them. Perhaps she has never seen real fire, much as she had not seen rain before the beginning of the story. Raine’s finely developed character helps push the idea of her being painted Fire just within the range of believability.
As soon as she chose Fire as her color, though, I knew what was going to happen. It came as no surprise when the water burned Raine. The descriptions of the rain hitting her flaming fur made me feel as if I was out in the rain in her position, though, and I congratulate you on making the story seem very real in that way.
The solution to the story, an umbrella, was so simple and yet unexpected. I had been expecting Raine’s owner to immediately pull out a basic green paint brush and change her back to her old color. At the story’s end, I felt both happy and sad for Raine. I was completely satisfied with the story despite its open ending. Beautiful character, lovely descriptions, and a wonderful story! ^^

[glow=blue,2,300]The Portrait of Importance[/glow]
This story had a very promising setup, with an original storyline and a good character in the form of Grace. Her conversations with Piera, Christine and Morgan seemed quite natural. You’re very good at writing about characters’ interactions. ^^ The ending of the story made it even more unusual. I had expected Grace to draw a picture of her family or friends, but the bowl of jellybeans was definitely a unique idea.
However, I have seen other stories by you that were more cleanly rounded than this one. Jacques was a good character though he only appears briefly, and I would have liked to know some more details about him—such as what species he was. I can assume that he is a Wocky, but this is never confirmed.
I did notice a small error towards the end of the story:

"Wow. Mr. Thomas really liked your drawing," Christine, a starry Uni, noted, sitting alongside of me.

Since the story is told in third person, “me” should be replaced with an equivalent of “her”.
The ending, though sweet, was so unexpected that it seemed almost random. Nothing mentioned earlier in the story gave any clue as to what Grace was going to draw, and I think that the reader should have had at least a slight idea of why she chose that subject. My first reaction when I “saw” her drawing was “Huh?” but it quickly changed to “Aw, how nice,” when you started describing why she decided to draw the bowl of jellybeans. I liked the teacher’s note, and Christine’s perfectly casual reaction fit in well. All in all, this was a very nice story, though it could have used some extra explanation. Good work! ^^

[Tashni]

nut said:

Here I am again with my late-week reviews.

Oh, don't worry. I haven't posted my reviews yet, either. (They're coming people, I promise!)

[glow=blue,2,300]Orbulon Has Landed[/glow]
This comic story is pretty funny with its own brand of dry humor. There’s enough funny moments scattered throughout that the reader is almost certainly going to grin somewhere along the way.

Most importantly, would he land in that round thing of lava?

I thought this was funny, and it was quite early in the story. In my opinion, the level of humor was steady throughout the story, though perhaps more subtle at the beginning.

Ah, thank you for that. I was worried that the beginning dragged. (I actually did a last-minute cut of a longer opening with "humor" that I decided was less than funny. There were lots of blobs.)

As he approached the ruins, he saw several signs warning of giant, vicious Slugawoos. The signs got bigger and more warnful as he went on.

According to my dictionary, “warnful” isn’t a word. With that out of the way, I thought the sequence with the signs was funny, but it was a bit too short for full effect. Maybe you could have described each sign in turn rather than just the last couple, not just the wording on them but also their size and whatever else about them that makes them intimidating. (Maybe one is written in red letters, one has pointy carved edges, ect.)

Indeed, "warnful" is not a word. This whole story was an experiment for me, and I wanted to see if I could get away with an imaginary word. ;D I'll take that as a no. You're also right in that I should have made the signs scene more detailed. I shall keep that in mind in the future.

Nar couldn't help but wonder if he'd been bitten by the bad luck faerie.

Faeries… bite? o_0 Interesting idea… *now thinks of the Tooth Faerie in a new light*

I wondered over this too. In the end, I couldn't resist.

My biggest complaint with this story is the exaggeratedly choppy writing style. It is possible to have a humorous story and still have strong characters, but I didn’t get much of a sense of the personalities of Orbulon or Nar. The story consists almost entirely of “telling” and not “showing”, and sentence fragments are scattered everywhere. I realize that this is intentional, but I doubt it would have hurt the story’s humor to make the reader’s ride through a bit less jarring.

Point taken. I will do my best to make more of a plot in the sequel. My problem with developing Orbulon's character is that he doesn't really have one other than obliviousness. He is completely unaware of the consequences of his actions, his surroundings, and people around him. He is determined, though. Other than that, he's not much. Again, in the sequel, there will be a "real" character with dialogue and meaningful actions.

Many sentences begin with “So”, “And”, or “But” or in the middle of what should be one sentence, and while doing this sometimes is okay, there were several places where the writing would have been smoother without it. The plot was sort of all over the place, with so many things happening in succession that it’s a bit difficult to concentrate.

I was trying to give the idea that a person is telling the story by using such words, but I get the idea I used those words TOO much. Sorry! That's all I can say. (Learning experience!!)

Yet, throughout the story, the consistent humor keeps the reader grinning. ^^ For a first comic story, or even a comic story period, I thought it was a highly successful production. I doubt I’d have been able to write something even close to it, and you managed to keep the humor going all the way to the end. Good work!

Aw, thank you! I hear all sorts of legitimate problems with the story, but I'm glad to know it was still funny. That makes me feel good. Thank you SO much for your in-depth review, Nut! I will definitely refer to your notes in the future.

[Czenko]

Tdyans, that review you did was so long, I didn't bother quoting it. Anyway, thanks for being so thorough. I see what you mean throughout the whole thing, and I have a lot of work to do I see. Thanks

[MarillTachiquin]

ghostkomori said:

Starry Stuff

:3 I haven't seen a Starry Stuff comic in a while. Good to see them back.

My first problem is the size. This comic's so teeny, it's a bit hard to read the text, and hard to see what's going on in the comic itself, especially since it's a hand colored comic (as opposed to computer coloring). It should be twice this size. ;D But then, I suppose the problem would be filesize, I imagine... I guess that's the problem with those hand colored ones. They have lots and lots of colors in them, because even a solid chunk of coloring could have hundreds of variations of the same blue... I wonder if you might have been able to lower the quality level of your pic. Some art editing programs have that option. Maybe a bit lower quality would have been a fair tradeoff to image size. But I ramble.

Jokewise, this is a pretty cute comic. The punchline was unexpected, which is very good. I was dreading a typical plushie pet joke, and the punchbag punchline (lol) was great. I think the dialogue in the last panel could have been reorganized a bit. The keyword for the punchline is punching bag, and that should be placed as close to the end of the sentence as possible, for maximum effect. Also, I think her sentence is a tad wordy. Of course, these are just little picky things. I think the longer text in the other dialogue bubbles work fine, they add depth to the story and the characters. It's great build-up for future comics, so even new readers can begin to get a feel for the characters.

Along the same thought, I like the second panel immensely. It gives him a lot of character and personality, but it's not so busy to distract from his dialogue. I love the movement, it's conveyed rather well in his ears and his little skaterboy stance. A little sidenote: his skateboard looks like it's backwards. The flatter part should be in the back, I think. The first panel is also great with the character establishment. Heehee... knitting. :3 The last panel is great too for that poor plushie's expression. Makes ya' just want to hug him. Looks like he'd punch you if you did. X3

I like the use of colors for your dialogue. They aren't too bright or annoying, which can often be the problem. I think the dialogue bubbles should have thinner lines, though. Those dialogue lines are as thick as the panel lines, which makes it look a tad odd. Also, the text is pushed a little bit too close to the edges of the bubble, like the owner's bubble and Nekomi's. Oh, and one more little gripe. The text in the second panel is organized strangely. The word 'lot' gets a line completely to itself? It looks a bit odd. You might have needed to reword the sentence so the lines of text look more even, or you might have been able to shrink the text by one font size. The text shrinking would only be possible, though, if you made the comic bigger. :3

All in all, though, it's a really cute comic and it has some really good and creative art. ;D

wow! biggest review my comic had had ever! thanks a lot!! I'll follow some of your recomendation

And I have good news: future Starry Stuff comics will be bigger and clear at last!! at last I could understand Photoshop and I can resize my pics to 470 px (yes!! I know that's easy, but I couldn't did that until now, laugh if you want! ) so they would be very clear.. but sadly, some of my comics are already edited in a small size, so I will publish a big one and then a little one.

and to those fo you who didn't understand the joke - I simply tried to think of the most unlikely place to be gone for months to.

that goes for me

[Tashni]

Here are the reviews I've done so far. More to come!

The Amber Coral Gem
I love the descriptions of the underwater home in the beginning! It's very pretty. You also quickly give the reader a good idea of what Ribbon is like--curious and yet timid at the same time. You also didn't do too much description, which is a very common problem. My biggest problem with your story is that you often used casual, almost comic phrases and words that break the tension. Here are a few examples:

Terrified, Ribbon tried to stop herself from falling, but once you were falling it was quite hard to stop.

When writing suspense, you don't want to write anything that distracts. This does. Another, even more serious example is this:

He slashed at Ribbon, but the Hissi dodged him just in time, though at a price; she stumbled forward and dropped the gem.

Action requires fast-paced writing. This "though at a price thing" cuts into the action, bringing it to a halt. You need something more like this: "He slashed at Ribbon and she dodged, but stumbled and dropped the gem." (Note: I am by no means a good action writer. This is just an example/suggestion.)

a chunky lightning bolt whizzed out of the sky

This is the first time I've seen a lightning bolt refered to as "chunky." While I know what you were trying to do, the word "chunky" instantly puts in my mind a fat person. It's a word I wouldn't have used here.

More in these two paragraphs:

Ribbon leaped into the air and caught the gem in her mouth as it fell, BUT AT A GREAT PRICE; the flames surrounded her, glaring malevolently and spitting venomous sparks. Whimpering, Ribbon fell back, AS THE HEAT WAS TOO MUCH FOR HER. Just then, she felt herself being lifted in the claws of something big and furry; the pirate Kougra.
The Kougra leaped over the flames, hopping on to the railing. THEN, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, she jumped into the raging waves below.

I give you all of these examples just so you know what I'm talking about. As you look at it, you can see that although you are writing action scenes, your wording is less than action-packed.

Now for just a few minor things:

Ribbon ventured a little closer to the glowing object, and as she drew near, she saw her long, snake-like body reflected in the object's glassy surface, swishing gently in the shallow water.

It is unclear what "swishing gently" is describing. Grammatically, it is describing the object's glassy surface, although I assume you meant it to describe Ribbon.

"I think it's one of them scurvy Hissies."

"Scurvy" is not a word used to describe someone. It is an illness brought on by a vitamin C deficiency.

Kasha's character struck me as a plot device and nothing more. Her reasons for helping Ribbon were very thin. You could have made her far more believable by giving her more of a reason for mutiny. For instance, she could know the gem's powers and not want it in the hands of the pirates.

Overall, I really enjoyed the beginning. But after you got into the action, your word choices and sentence structures kill what are otherwise good action scenes.

Quill's Travelogue: the Maiden of Evercopse Hill
I love the idea of this story. Quillian's relationship with Danny is funny, and his observations are vital to the story. It was an elegant setting, I really felt and saw a town in the grip of fall. Lynaris was also an interesting character, and I'm a softy for stereo-type breaking.

Regarding your opening comment, it's the only interesting part of the story for the first 3 pages, while at the same time spoiling what could have been an interesting mystery. If I were you, I would have cut to the scene where you see Lynaris dancing more quickly. Not immediately, mind you. Your beginning is beautiful and really sets the stage in both setting and character.

Half-way through it, I'm wondering what happened to the Werelupe. At this point I strongly question why we've gone through what is essentially 3 pages of description, beautiful though it may be. I would suggest quick but poignant descriptions, particularly for people, not itemized lists of their wardrobes. But, certain pieces of clothing ARE important to the story, like Lynaris' charm for example. In fact, because you went into so much description of everything else, the importance of Lynaris' charm was lost at that point. If you had singled that out as the featured part of her clothing, it would have made for nice foreshadowing. Your descriptions are all beautiful, but there's too much too often. (I also beg of you to cut down on the tone descriptions during dialogue. More often than not, tone is implied by words, anyway.)

Overall, it was a unique story with a beautiful setting and descriptions, but it was under-plotted and slightly over-described.

NOTE: After reading Snorkle's review of your story, I am in complete agreement with her review. Considering this was a literary piece, it was lacking in character development, despite the beauty of the writing itself.

Rain

Heavy rain was falling, and far away the thunder rumbled like a hungry Symol's stomach.

You had a great beginning going, very dark and bleak. Then you made the Symol reference. It's a cute furry cartoonish character. That completely broke the mood for me.

You quickly and effectively outline Raine's character by her speech, and without telling! And your descriptions of rain are beautiful and flowing, I particularly liked how you wrote about the bridge changing in the rain. It was all lovely.

One thing I thought odd was that Raine had never heard of pets getting painted before. You said she was older at this point, and painting is one of the basics of Neopia.

Overall, this was a sweet, feeling story, and I enjoyed Raine's simple and sweet character. The only real problem was a lack of a planned rising action, climax and resolution setup. You had most of the elements, with her turning fire, but it wasn't executed in an exciting or suspenseful manner. It just sort of happened. Some kind of foreshadowing might have been helpful. Keep up the good character work, though!

[Tdyans at work]

Orbulon Has Landed
I liked your opening line. It was short and simple, set the tone well, and caught my interest.

As for the humor, I felt like the situations in the story were funny, but the way that they were written about sometimes wasn't, if that makes any sense. There were points where the plot and writing came together well to create some good humorous moments. I liked the mind-reading signs and the jetsam hitting the squid with a pan. I enjoyed the cute characterization that you gave us through the repetition of Orbulon's desire to just find a place with crumbs and good napping spots. I liked how you tied different threads of the story together at various points. These moments shined, but the story itself did not shine consistently for me. There were other moments where I felt I should have been laughing, but was not. And unfortunately, I don't think I can give much advice on how to write those scenes that fell a bit flat differently to achieve the desired effect. Humorous fiction is a challenge that I haven't been brave enough to take on myself.

As I said, I liked the characterization of Orbulon that was conveyed in the way that he thought and looked at the world. There were a couple of moments where you clashed with that characterization, though:

Orbulon grew uncomfortably hot from friction with the atmosphere

Now if this was told from the point of view of the narrator, it might be fine, but it's in the middle of a paragraph that is staying pretty close to Orbulon's thoughts and feelings throughout. So this sentence comes across as pretty jarring. With the simple-minded character that you've introduced us to, an analysis like this of why he's growing uncomfortably hot just doesn't fit at all.

As he got on the creature's back he saw a sign that called it the "Maraquan Chomby Rides to New Maraqua," but he couldn't read and so didn't know what this meant.

This sentence was just a little odd. If he can't read, then he wouldn't just not know what the words meant, he wouldn't know that they were words at all. Basically, it's another problem where in the middle of a section where we're pretty much inside Orbulon's mind, you introduce some information from outside of his mind and the effect is jarring.

I also found the story a bit lacking at times in some essential description and scene-setting. I don't expect a humorous story to have the same vivid and lush description that I might expect from something more serious, but you do still need to help your readers to visualize what's going on. When the Krawk visits the Ruins of Maraqua, I found myself rather confused. Though visiting the ruins would seem to indicate that he was underwater, there was no indication that he was until several paragraphs in. Until that point, it sounded like he was just strolling around on dry land, and even after that, there was nothing to really remind the reader of the type of environment that he was in, which is important since it's such a different environment than normal. How did he breathe underwater? How did he move around? What was it like as compared to what he was used to? Like I said, I wouldn't expect a mountain of description of the setting in a humorous story because it's peripheral to the humor, but I still felt like I needed more than there was, and it probably could have been incorporated into the humor. The cliff at the base of the mountain was another thing that had me confused-- I had no idea how to picture what you were talking about there.

I also felt the transitions were a bit difficult to follow at times, perhaps partly because of this lack in setting description. I was confused when you said that the krawk was going to explore his new home (Mystery Island) and then all of a sudden he was down exploring the Ruins instead. Another point where you lost me is when you transitioned to the krawk at the fishing hole. The last time we saw him was when he was being chased by the Slugawoo, and though we know the Slugawoo was stopped, we don't know what he did after that point, so finding him again just kind of strolling around with no mention of what was going on before catches us a bit off guard.

Technically, there were no big problems with the writing. I do feel like it could have been polished a bit more here and there, and sometimes commas were put where they shouldn't have been or left out of where they should have been, which can disrupt the reading flow a bit, but I have nothing major to comment on.

[Tdyans at work]

tashni said:

"Scurvy" is not a word used to describe someone. It is an illness brought on by a vitamin C deficiency.

Scurvy -- (1) A deficiency disease which often afflicted sailors; it was caused by lack of vitamin C. (2) A derogatory adjective suitable for use in a loud voice, as in "Ye scurvy dogs!"

[Scar]

Ghostchasers
by tamia_silverwing (Tamia)

I’ve been monitoring the series and having just finished most of my final papers I finally got down to finishing this review. Anyhoo, enough of me and on with the review, skipping typos or grammar errors.

First off, I’d like to commend Tamia and say that her series was really interesting! Just the right blend of action and intrigue to liven up the story, which, by the way, flowed rather nicely from the first part onwards. I have to comment that each part was rather short but, my preference for long stories notwithstanding, each part was perfectly balanced IMHO with the cliffhangers nicely

One thing I have to point out is that the plot seemed rather rushed with considerable parts of the story left hanging in favour of the action elements. The details of Cosmo’s master plan, his philosophy; little things like that. And the combat sequences were quite confusing with a lot of things going on at a time. I also think that Kiyoshi’s actions, especially under pressure were rather unrealistic, especially the way he seems to know the right thing to do at the right time. A minor point, considering that he does stumble once in a while with his judgment.

Nevertheless, the main selling point that drew me in was the characters themselves. Though I don’t really like Kiyoshi’s stiff demeanour he still emerges as the unwitting hero you portray him as. The other characters too contribute greatly to the story and I especially like it how Tamia managed to detail their various strengths, weaknesses, quirks and motivations. Suffice to say, Tamia’s efforts in character detail gets a thumbs up. Another thing that got my attention was the ‘owner-pet’ philosophy which I must admit was really ingenious if rather short on details.

Overall, I’d say Tamia has done a great job with the Ghostchaser series (her first by the way). Her writing style is commendable and even if the descriptions are a little curt they’re still above par. Keep up the good work and I hope to be seeing more of your work in the NT.

[Scar]

Oh and thanks for the reviews Snorkles and Tashni. Yeah, I admit I was rather rushed and after all the editing to make it fit 4000 words I must have messed up a lot along the way. Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

[Tdyans]

I'll take a couple more requests if anyone else wants to face the reviews of DOOM. You have been warned.

[Scar]

tdyans said:

I'll take a couple more requests if anyone else wants to face the reviews of DOOM. You have been warned.

Hit me, I can take it. I want to get the next one right.