This has been one of the best stories I have read so far. I'm not a romance person, so it helped that there wasn't too much in this story. The only quibble I had was with some of the dialogue, it didn't match the time or place. In one instance Agaqameria used the word 'Yeah'. I don't think any greek of old worth their salt used modern day slang. But the story was excellent. Midway through the chapter I was asking myself where was this story headed. By the end, I realized why you chose the beginning you did. You set it up perfectly. You have an unhappy woman, who may tempt the Fates and is looking to break out. Along comes this slave and now the story gets interesting. Will there be a twist? (I'm expecting her to get in all this trouble, but the Fates say she will have a happy ending - Oh, how can this be?) I'm not sure what your intention with this is but it has started well. Keep up the good work.
This one was near perfect. So much action!! I was literally on the edge of my seat for most of this chapter. Everyone was using their powers in some weird amazing way. It was like a mage fight John Woo-style or something! In my mind I was picturing the government facility in the desert from Independence Day. Our two protagonists come bursting out, only to come under the heavy barrage of lightning and bullets from the dark side of the force, er ... magic, I mean. I haven't read chapter 3 yet, but I'm hoping is it just as action packed as this one. Now on to the nitty gritty.
I still have issue with the Sourceror title, (see my review of chapter 1). There were some typos here and there. Examples below:
Michael walked up to Jonathan, gently prized his titanium blade out of his grasp, along with his gun, and joined the others.
Should read: Michael walked up to Jonathan, gently pried the titanium blade out of his grasp, along with his gun, and joined the others.
Another fishy line was: He flew at Jonathan, blades whirling in a complicated dance of amateur swordsmanship.
Perhaps you could use a different word than complicated. It makes the sentence sound like an oxymoron. He sword skill allows him to do complicated manuevers yet he still is labeled as amateur? That doesn't make sense.
Other than those points, I found this chapter to be GREAT! Looking forward to the next.
This will probably be one of the hardest reviews that I have ever done. The off the wall subject matter of aliens looking to counsel a rap idolized planet, were just extreme enough to keep my attention. Your certainly do have a wild and vivid imagination. I believe it was your intention to put humor into this story and you were able to add some off-colour jokes to it.
That brings me to the second issue with your story, the stereotyping. I'm not going to analyze you or your intentions, I will just make a few suggestions. If you are black, then I hope you enjoy writing about blacks like this. If you are of another race, here is a little insight. I'm black and live in Harlem, so I definitely know what it is like. I was born in chicago and know what the ghetto is like. Unfortunately, not all of us have corny nicknames. I will admit that I know several people with unique sounding names, but they don't all run in the same group. Also while some people, with limited education, tend to speak 'ebonically', most blacks do not. Even those who enjoy rap, have a much higher vocabulary than what you used. While doing some research on how to improve the quality of my own writing, I came across this tidbit of advice:
It is important to remember that, although dialogue represents speech, it is not real speech. ... be very careful not to exaggerate dialect or non-standard speech (just the flavor of the way a person speaks is good; don't try to recreate their accent in phonetic spelling)... - Writing Fiction:A beginners Guide from about.com
Hopefully, you can improve upon the innate quality of work you have in you portfolio. I especially hope this is the case before some other black activist has the chance to read over you unique and albeit excentric prose. Best wishes on all your writing endeavors.
I don't normally read to many of your how to manuals, since I'm so busy reviewing all of the other great stuff you have made it possible to see on the site. The daily review awards are a great idea. Since I have started, I have tried to make sure I do atleast 3 reviews a day. It was a nice surprise on the first day to get the gift points. I'm still a newbie, less than a month, but it is sort of exciting to log on and see the number rising. Here's to hoping you can keep this going. Have some of my points, it will be a long time before I can use them.
You are so lucky, I wrote this review once before (3500+ characters). If I didn't enjoy the story so much, you would not have even seen this review. So here I go all over again.
First let me tell you who I am, again. I'm an avid video gamers who loves all things fantasy, wizards and witches, bards and barbarian. I love a good rpg, from pen and paper D&D to Icewind Dale on my PC. That said, you can now decide whether or not you feel it's important to even consider what I say.
First of all, GREAT JOB! You are doing something I haven't been able to do in all my years of GMing and storytelling, I haven't been able to accomplish what you have done. Tell a compelling fantasy tale! It was easy for me to visualize what was happening and I honestly wanted to keep reading as opposed to just skipping to the bottom to write the review.
My critiques fall into 2 categories; things that should be reviewed and/or redone by you and things that I felt could be improved but were really just my personal preference.
Things to be reviewed-
Is someone narrating this story or are you telling events as they happen? I ask this because at some points, it seemed like statement made were by a narrator's view and then other times you were relating events as they happened. An example is when the group enters the forest. You say that it one of the horsemen addresses someone who appears to be leader. Appears to whom? The horseman would know who his leader was, while a narrator could only guess by who appears to take the lead.
You descriptions, while great, are packed into too few sentences. An example is the very first line. It could be broken into two sentences, one to show what is in the valley below and another to showcase the action going on in the valley below. I had to reread it twice to make sure I got all the import of what you were trying to convey. It sort of put a pause on the story, as opposed to letting it flow nicely.
The story had some holes in it. What happened with the nymph in the forest? Odin just walks away? No fighting involved? She just lets him leave? The other horsemen, if they are under her spell, why does she have to take Odin to a secluded spot? If her shriek breaks the spell, why do they just sit around and wait instead of going to help their leader? Is Odin a leader or just some low-level lackey? If he is a leader, why is the gatesman of desponia so familiar in speaking to him? Is the gatesman someone important?
Things that are just my preference -
USE MORE OF YOUR IMAGINATION! You have a great imagination, why not use it to get rid of some of the generic parts? How many barbarian types are named 'Odin' in stories? Only about 95%. Use the internet to get some new names (I do because I'm terrible with inventing names).
Just because you have a medieval setting doesn't mean you have to write in medieval terms. Example:
The women of the Council were shape-shifters by(instead of 'in their') nature and could take on any form they choose.
Again, these were just my preferences. All 95% of Odin barbarians were in published works and only 5% different. Obviously, there seems to be a leaning to be closer to mainstream than be different. Also it could have been your intention to write in a medieval terms.
Well, that's my review. I look forward to reading the next chapter. Hopefully one day I can also look forward to recieving a published autographed copy in the mail. :) You are one of my new favorites.
Sincerely,
Blacklion
PS - Sorry, I can't add the gift points. I tried to do it before and it erased my earlier review.
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