Hey, Gale.

For once this isn't a WYRM review but a review for the Lodestar competition.

The premise/story idea immediately gave me a sense that this was going to some sort of weird SF-fairy tale blend, and your title very much indicates the same thing, which is pretty awesome, IMO, the title giving a sense of tone. And your story opening stays consistent with the fairytale tone while also making it clear that this is a SF story, which is also great. This is off to a good start.

"I'd have to be somewhere else for Q-T to send back." - Huh? He signed up for a teleportation experiment without knowing the meaning of teleportation? This seems rather silly. The story has had a slightly comedic tone until know, but I didn't read it as comedy as such, this weird situation didn't seem to fit.

"And the man left too fast, for any questions about the expression, teleportation." - This really seems like something he should at least have asked someone about before signing up for the mission.

"Back, Tiny. You've done your job." - It doesn't really seem like the dog proves anything. I mean, the MC has no evidence that the dog has actually been teleported. If the dog turns out to be important to the story later on, I can see why it's introduced here, but at the moment it reads a bit like filler material, slowing the story down without adding anything.

"Alarmed, Preston started searching..." - Normally, I'd say that telling the characters emotions and having a distant narrator, like here, doesn't do anything good for a story, but since you went with the fairytale-like tone right from the start, I actually don't think this is the case. Fairytales are often written this way, so I think it helps creating a a consistent tone throughout the story.

"If you can't hear us on your head-set, use the phone, it sends a clear Q signal" - The second comma should be a period. You have an independent clause on either side.

"reflection less" - I guess this was supposed to be one word.

"You said my suit would light up, but it didn't." - This is nice. Until now all the conflict derived from the MC's anxiety, but this puts some external pressure on him as well.

"You could have told me about that." - Yeah... Generally, I have difficulty believing that he wouldn't get a proper briefing (again, if it was more clearly shown that tone was meant to be absurd/comedy, then believability wouldn't have been an issue).

"The roughness under his boot turned out be be small, colorful tiles laid in a pattern of soft pastel flowers, and leaves." - I enjoyed the setting descriptions in this section of the story. They were brief yet had specific details which were easy to picture.

"This doesn't seem to be a Quantum target destination." - Huh? How does he reach this conclusion? He has no idea what he's doing, and the scientists said they didn't know where he was going either.

"Maybe it's a Quantum code." - Huh? What is Quantum code?

"Maybe this is all part of an elaborate Quantum joke?" - "Quantum" seems to be tagged on words/concepts in several places where it doesn't as such make sense, like "Quantum joke" here and "Quantum code" mentioned above. Without "Quantum" these sentences would make a lot more sense. As is, I'm left confused as to whether the MC thinks there is some sort of entity/god/organisation playing tricks on him or if he simply doesn't understand what quantum and teleportation means.

"None of this made any sense to Preston. "I do not understand. Could you explain?"" - Despite the fairytale tone, here's an instant where the telling could be turned into showing without losing any tonal consistency. So instead of telling us that it didn't make sense to Preston, you could show us how his face grimaces or how he tries to scratch the back of his head (forgetting the helmet). Also, the dialogue says exactly the same thing as we have just been told, which is somewhat jarring.

I like the addition of a curse. It adds to the overall fairytale feel of the story.

"Maybe my Quantum connection is in there?" - Huh? His what? I have no idea what he's talking about here.

"The floor under his feet had more tiles and similar flower designs, but a layer of thick dust covered everything." - Again, solid descriptions neatly showing the difference between this side of the barrier and where the MC first landed.

"expecting she might be cold. The warm skin surprised him." - Here's another example of where the telling of the MC's emotions doesn't seem necessary and doesn't seem to add that fairytale tone/style. We learn that the MC expects her skin to be cold, so we don't have to be told that he's surprised when it turns out to be warm. Simply being told that her skin was warm would do, and we would assume he's surprised.

"He thought, The curse that put her..." - This isn't the only place, but generally when the MC's thoughts are clearly distinctive by being written in Italics and being told in the first person, I don't think we need the "he thought".

"Her low, throaty voice, when she did speak" - Nice detail. In the fairytales they always seem to omit how one would sound after waking after a years' long sleep.

"The man had aged terribly." - Nice little twist.

"we have a Prime Minister and a Parliment now. Everyone's much happier." - This made me smile.


Overall

I don't why I noticed the tone so much in the story, but for some reason I did. And I think tone was both a strength and weakness of the story at the same time. You introduced the fairytale-like tone in an SF story, which I thought was pretty cool, and you did it not just in the opening paragraph but already in the title. Also, you were consistent with that tone all the way through, so this is a big plus in my book. On the other hand, the MC's anxiety and lack of knowledge about teleportation came of as comedic to me, but very little else in the story seemed to indicate comedy (except maybe everyone's dismissals of the MC's questions), so I couldn't quite wrap my mind around what kind of story this was meant to be. I mean, non-comedy stories can definitely have jokes, but the MC's anxiety/lack of knowledge was a pretty constant and central element to the story, so it wasn't just the odd jokes here and there.

As to how you used the premised, I mostly noticed how you omitted the "From there they try to discover how and why he was transported to her kingdom." part. Part of me would've liked to read the mystery story of how that man ended up next to the princess, but on the other hand I also liked that you chose to stick with the fairytale format of the story instead, which you were nicely consistent about right to the very end.

I did have a few believability issues with parts of the story, mainly the opening and ending. The MC not knowing anything about what teleportation is despite having accepted the mission threw me out of the story. In the end, it was mainly that the relationship between princes and the MC didn't really have any build-up before they decided to live together. On the other hand, the ending might well fit with a typical fairytale structure, and the most important element is probably the happy ever after.

There were a bit much telling rather than showing, but again that's typical for fairytales. When you did show the setting details, though, it was expertly done, making the setting clear and easy to picture.


My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .