>>Monokeras You're nice :)

Well dang, I wasn't able to scrape together a story for this round. Oh well, I'll still be sure to take a peek at what everybody else has made.

‘Half-frozen precipitation still falls’ I’m not sure why this bugs me, but it does. Passive voice? Too wordy?
‘this unit’ Interesting character perspective.

Quibble with massive. Also, a nannybot surviving rockets? Ah, good. The next sentence goes there

Agreed with OP nannybot. Or the security bot is perhaps not as mighty as it thinks it is. Have we an unreliable narrator?

The ‘too small to open doors, but too big to fit under them’ bit was (unintentionally?) amusing.

The Janitron’s quest was confusing in one respect; I never got an objective sense of its ability to clean, so I couldn’t evaluate its statements and understand its mental state. I mean, I get that cleaning a junkyard could be a Sisyphean task, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t nuances. Was the stretch of path it had been working to clean a dirt path?

Even in a junkyard some things would presumably be cleanable, and there’s a difference between having too-high standards, just plain being broken, or trying to wash a mud puddle.

I’m presuming the guard bot initially accompanies him due to the ‘assistance’ part of its programming.

Huh. Apparently the missiles do work. Makes me wonder about the nannybot.

The world outside is interesting, but it feels like we only get impressions of it. Are there people?

Interesting conclusion; we finally get some clarity on the Janitron’s ability and circumstances.

I’ll admit I’m surprised a robot would make a warm hearth analogy


The stakes weren't high, but I found this to be a pleasant little story overall. Personalities were one of the high points of the story for me. The guard bot in particular had an enjoyable voice. On the other hand, I didn’t really get much of a sense of place. The body language wesn’t bad, but outside of that, details seemed rather sparse.

This is genuinely excellent, albeit very heavy. The level of detail and specificity completely works and never feels awkward or inaccurate. I don't think there's anything I would change--top of my slate, thus far.

Boy, this is another thing that seems fine, even generally well-written, but absolutely not for me.

There's so much detail here, but... Very little happens. And not just in the sense that this is a slice of life. I mean the first hint we have of what conflict/theme you're interested in comes... 1700 words into the story? This story's hook isn't just dull or buried a little. It's melted away in the core of the earth. By the time I feel like I'm supposed to be getting important things, my eyes are skimming the paragraphs. It doesn't help as well that the perspective is floating pretty freely from concrete things that Peter's doing, to his reflections, to exposition about his past, leaving me unanchored into the scenes.

I felt very disappointed here: the author clearly has skill, but they also seem unconcerned that they are (inadvertently) wasting my time.

This is pretty alright!

I think the ambiguity of text doesn't quite pull as much weight as you would like it to, when it comes to the abominations. I get that they're supposed to be indescribable, but I didn't understand quite how horrible or aberrant until much later on in the story. As such, the main character fleeing seemed just patently callous, rather than understandable. And his emotional turnaround also seemed to come a little too fast. Finally, the actual plot of the story is fairly rote; I was never particularly surprised, outside of the appearance of the parents, and even that was built up so much that I expected it to be... more.

But you've got a good core here, and you accomplish the goals of the story in a consistent manner. I appreciate that! If you did some work on either the pacing & details of the parents arriving/flight afterwards, a lot more might fall into place.

The author here has a surplus of imagination and a flair for gritty description. It's unfortunate that the result is pretty incomprehensible.

I'm sure the major observation is not unexpected: this isn't a story. It's maybe the first chapter of a story (or honestly, a better second chapter; I don't think there's any particularly graceful transition for the reader into the amount of sci-fantasy jargon that this story is loaded with). But even beyond that, there's a lot of characters and a lot of action but everyone's motives are completely opaque. I can't get a foothold anywhere. The middle scene with Barr is particularly egregious. Even for a character that the author might be wanting the audience to hate, I don't think you want me hating them in this kind of way (I.E. nails on a chalkboard, please just have them fall down a hole and never return).

I realize I'm being quite harsh here, particularly since there's a strong sense of style and a generally solid (if inconsistent) tone. But even in the context of a larger story, I think you need to reconsider how to structure your plot and introduce your characters in ways that are relatable, or at least tolerable. In the span of 5,000 words, I should ideally have a sense of what's going on, what the stakes are, who the actors are. Instead this is just a succession of vividly shocking but empty moments.

I liked this one. You did a really great job weaving in the backstory with every sentence until by the end I felt like I understood everything that was happening.

A nice, solid, slice-of-life piece. Good job.

Heh. 'Story version of a fun D&D campaign' usually signals 'not particularly interesting' to me.

Fortunately, this story rose above that. I don't know that I was ever hit with a big 'wow' moment, but I appreciated the sense of purpose, clear stakes, deliberate construction of characters, etc. There's an arc, there's a challenge that's overcome, connected with growth/change in a relationship between the major figures, it's nice! I think you could have done a little more with the lord and his appreciative people - I really liked that element, and it was the one part of the 'job' that was otherwise kind of perfunctory.

As one potential suggestion: why have the ghost be so transparent (no pun intended) and thoroughly described in exposition? I think you could have the potential to develop the theme of honor and responsibility to your people better. What if the ghost's nature is only revealed as it arrives, more directly causing the Lord to reckon with the past of his ancestors, and reevaluate his rigidity of honor? As it is, the ghost is literally a 'boss' who's there to show up and then get defeated after a tough battle. Granted, I don't know if you can do any of this without compromising the clarity and effectiveness of your central story. That's always the hard thing.

As it is, this is still pretty highly ranked for me, as it coheres better than much of the others I've read thusfar.

A robot Hanar and a roomba team up! They fight crime have an adventure!

I liked the personality of the robots, and I especially liked how all of Janitron's italic dialogue was in morse code. It gave a nice R2-D2 vibe every time I thought about how he was talking.

Fun piece! I liked it!

This was a nice slice-of-life story.

It's the day in the life of an old farmer. I think you captured that mood and that life quite spectacularly.

This story isn't from a genre that usually grabs me, but I think people that like this sort of thing would enjoy it.


----
(Side rambling that's pretty much unrelated featuring me trying to figure out my stance on the entire genre of realistic fiction)
This is my first original fiction round so it's interesting reading all these non-pony stories. However, I'm running into a weird personal problem where I find realistic fictional humans... not that interesting. For some reason if this was a nonfiction round I think I would be more interested in stories like this, because then at the end there'd be an actual person to talk about and appreciate.

I guess I've just been spoiled by podcasts like The Moth and Lore. If something is going to be normal, I'd like it to be a true story. Because there are just so many fascinating stories that are true that deserve to be told.

But then again, fiction is just as worthy to be told as non-fiction. (Please don't let someone on the internet tell you what not to write!)

And while I say that I don't like realistic fiction, I do have a counter-example that I did like: The Fault in Our Stars. I think it was because it told the story in a very intriguing way. It was a representative story that encompassed a lot of aspects of problems cancer patients face. And shed some light into that problem.

But didn't this story also shed some light into a problem? That the nature of modern agriculture is changing, and probably for the worse? Then again, that really wasn't the focus of the story, so maybe that's why it didn't really excite me?

Okay, I didn't have an opinion when I started writing, but I think I have one now. Except in rare circumstances, I don't usually like realistic fiction. So I am biased. Sorry about that. But at least I know what my bias is now.

Hi everybody!

So… I threw myself under the bus into the writeoff ring for the first time since summer 2015. You can blame/thank Horizon for that. Reviews will follow…

This was a fun one. It feels like a children’s story, and I mean that as a compliment; kids stories are hard to pull off. I do think it moves a little fast, though. Some more verbiage about their journey from the junk yard to civilization, on the busy streets, and in the repair shop would help. Did anyone look at them? What was the repair shop worker like?

The main character’s voice was difficult to grasp. It’s clearly a robot but then it uses phrases like that one about church bells. It feels inconsistent, but I can’t be sure.

Thick phonetic dialogue, ‘ah’ in particular, is one of my pet peeves. It did help differentiate the character voices though, so I’ll give you that.

I had a hard time visualizing the beginning. Is this character an actual skeleton or just bone-thin? What is the other speaker? Wait, scales? I would’ve liked a clearer visual sooner, as well as stated character names. I know asking for names upfront might sound petty, but as I read I’m mentally reassigning the speaker titles from he/she to Obs/Arial to Obsidan/Arial, which is mental energy that isn’t being spent on deep-diving into the world you’re creating, and what we get to see of it is pretty interesting.

The character sentiment here is sweet despite its mundane roots, and makes excellent use of the prompt in my opinion. I do wish there was a more worldbuilding here, especially in light of the odd pair of characters you’ve chosen.

I love this one! I really like the idea, the execution, everything. I'm completely biased because I'm a sucker for future fiction, but man, I liked this one.

So, the climax of this story seems to be the bit where he pulls the trigger.

That's all well and good.

However, I don't really like the path it takes to get there. The elements that lead up to that climax seem to be, to me, 1 - thematics about religion, 2 - backstory about his buddy and the bomb, and 3 - geopolitical history.

Currently, as best I can tell, you're introducing these in basically the opposite order I've listed them. You start with setting the scene, and quickly move into the geopolitics. That's... eh, I dunno, a bit dry perhaps? Then the bit with his buddy and the bomb come in, and we have some idea what his motivations/feelings are, and after that, there's the bit about religion and what, which is kinda used to wrap things up.

I think, at the very least, you need to mix things up a bit more. The bits on religion seem like the dominant thematics here, and as such, I'd suggest you bring them in ASAP. Likewise, the bit with is buddy (and I don't really like that name; it seemed feminine at best and deliberately weird at worst - sorry, not really a big deal) could be introduced sooner, so we have some idea about his mindset, and a hint at the conflict that's going to be at the core of the story. It would also strengthen the structure a bit, I think, because as-is, most of the conflict happens in the last 2/3, since the first third is mostly geopolotical musing, and there's no real hint of conflict until the line about 'I still had something to do here' drops.

I think doing that will make this more engaging in the opening, by making the conflict more immediate, and more powerful in the closing, by making the theme cover more than 1/2-1/3 of the story.

Or maybe that wasn't the theme you wanted to focus on? This story seems almost over-thematic; I can see at least three, maybe four. Religion, dust, time, cycles of violence.

The dust motif, though interesting, never really seemed to crystallize into something useful. Perhaps a 'dust to dust' line would have made it work - or maybe that was in there and I missed it?

I liked the 'unexploded ordinance' tying back into the 'country as a bomb' thing, but I also think it could handle being more explicit. Maybe it could tie into his own sudden burst of anger as well? Draw a clearer 'circle of violence' thing?

There are also a few paragraphs that don't really seem to get enough use. The bit about shooting a deer - I'm not sure what you're aiming for with that. Was it simply a nod to the prompt? Could you tie cold into bombs, and snow into dust, and him being a child into bombs on children and the boy at the end of this scope? The bit about time feels like it ought to be more important than it is, and I'd suggest cutting it unless you've got a clear vision for working it into your themes.

My impression of this is 'scattered'; there's a good story in here, and a round of editing will make it pretty great. As-is, though, I think it could use a bit more focus.

Not sure about what I read here, but it's certainly something. I think.

This is a pretty good character piece, for the most part.

However, the intro doesn't really seem to fit with the rest of it, tonally; there's this aside about the story of the monster, and then it moves into narrating Audrey, but... I'm not sure the aside is useful, or that you're gaining much from using a different focus for that first paragraph. I'd suggest telling the whole thing from Audrey's point of view.

[EDIT] Sorry, I had one more point that I forgot to put in here (I read this last night and did the review this morning) in paragraphs 3/4, you use the word 'it' a whole bunch, and several times it's not really clear to me what you're referring to. Or, well, I can tell, but I think it would be better with a clearer structure. [/EDIT]

So I guess she grabbed the bracelet? That's clever, but I'm really not sure why she thought it would work. Something about 'research', but... I'd have liked to see it reflected in the story, so it wasn't quite so out-of-left-field.

The ice on your pond has to be magical, because there's no way it would be frozen enough to walk on from just a cold snap. I suppose Audrey might not know that, but yeah. IIRC, it should be five inches thick before it'll support someone, and that takes weeks of below-freezing temps.

I hope she remembered to buy naptha, too; last time I bought a zippo, it came unfilled. :P I eventually stopped carrying it (I don't smoke, I just like lighting things on fire) and all the fuel would evaporate in my pocket before I got a chance to use it.

I feel like the grades thing could bear being a larger part of the story; if the character has an internal issue they're struggling with at the same time as an external issue, that can be very compelling.

That one character's literally 'scumbag Steve', huh?

And they all lived lesbian ever after.

All in all, pretty decent, if not super compelling.

>>Fahrenheit
You’re welcome :)

LitRPG? Well, that's not bad, really. Still, I tend to feel like these tropes are kinda... low impact? I dunno. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think making up a fantasy world with a bit more flavor to it is that hard, and I'm not sure the generic setting adds much to the story.

Honestly, I feel like paladins would be in high demand in any sort of 'real DnD' setting, simply because they're lawful. It's a pain to roleplay them, but in a world where your life depends on being able to work with the people around you, finding ones who are reliable and consistent seems like something worth doing. And if paladins are anything, it's predictable; that's the point of the whole 'code of honor' thing, right? Well, that's not really here nor there, I guess - kinda an aside.

There was some awkward phrasing in here: 'snapped her leg' had me thinking it was broken, and the bit where Yseult pulls out Flame Eater had me reading it three times and still unsure I knew what was going on. Ruhia knows the sword's name, but not the enchantments? And then later it seems like Ruhia has the sword, and passes it to Yseult? This could use some clarification, I think.

I'm not really sure how I feel about all the action in here. On the one hand, it's all fairly economical; I never really found myself bored with it. OTOH, I'm not really sure it was doing everything I think it should be doing, either. The way this story is written, it feels like both characters need to have some sort of emotional realization. Ruhia has... something, I guess, although I'm not entirely sure what it is or if it's very permanent. It mostly seemed like her shame overcame her, and she saved Yseult because it was a convenient and low-risk way to abate that. As for Yseult, though, she doesn't really seem to have a personal realization? I'm not sure how I feel about that, since in many ways she's also shown as conflicted and what, and she's the one who does most of the actual fighting.

I'm also unsure about the opening scene. That one character is never really used again, so I don't think starting with such a strong focus on him is a good idea... actually, I think you could almost cut that first scene entirely, since it doesn't really tell us a whole lot, except that Ruhia is somewhat disliked, but if a bit more weight was put on her contradictions then the 'reveal' with Yseult accusing her of being a leecher gets some added impact, and it all balances out.

The POV switching was done fairly well, though, and as an adventure story the plot is definitely serviceable. This isn't at all bad, but I'm struggling to pick up the character arcs cleanly, and it doesn't seem thematic enough to get along without that. You've got some good ideas and characters here, I just think they need to be developed a bit more.

I feel like this story falls just short at the finish line. I had to think about it a long time and talk with someone else briefly to really feel certain about the ending, which I don't think is the author's intention.

What actually happened is something along these lines, right?: Ezekiel cast the list with all his grudges for the tomb. Then his sons fought over the privilege to keep it polished (and weren't necessarily nice people themselves) but in essence polished the words right off the slab. Finally, the grandkids, who had begun to work together and be reasonable human beings, realized what had happened, but also realized that it was better to leave those things gone. And now it serves as an object lesson for the family.

It's a difficult thing to present this backstory in an incremental way while remaining compelling, but I think you're just slightly too subtle for me in sections of that. Not everything seems to be pulling in the same direction thematically as well - in particular the reference to the father struck me as really distracting. He's a rich guy trying to bring an oil well to a poor, developing country to 'help the people,' but is blown up by 'criminals'? That seems... really complicated, if not outright problematic, and immediately caused me to start seeing the main characters' implicit acceptance of such a simple narrative to indicate a certain kind of privilege or obliviousness that the rest of the moral is trying to undercut. It just feels a little too complicated to all fit in.

I think you've got some interesting thoughts here, and a compelling central device as a parable, but this if anything suffers from being too long, with a lot of scene-setting and less important elements that muddy the main thrust of the message.

First of all, there are some tidy bits remaining here and there that seem to suggest the author hadn’t the chance, or the time, or both, to clean up their work. Case in point: “I particularly gaudily decorated drake in gaudy jewels caught my eyes.” or “homo sapien” instead of “Homo Sapiens”.

Now to the story.

• This story tastes like a chapter of a greater one. While it has an arc, with a beginning and an end, it lacks a conclusion. It stops exactly where someone would expect a chapter of a book to end, at a cliffhanger, or a break in the narration. So, it’s fine if you plan to carry it on, but as it stands, the final lines are unsatisfactory. Besides, we never really get to know why the mercenaries besiege the library. Who sent them?

• The worldbuilding is rushed and sketchy – as the city you describe. A few lines at the beginning are almost all we’re given to gnaw on. That’s rather skimpy, and we sourly lack greater insight into the world you set your story to better understand it.

• Speaking of which, the rare glimpses we get are rather meh. What you paint here is a common “cyberpunk”-like decor, with a mix of technology and magic, but you fail to demonstrate how this world of yours has any originality over those we’re already familiar with. Your world lacks character. It is, instead, a general background, plain and almost dull. I agree you populate it with plenty of strange beasts, but that is not enough to make it stand out. Even your characters, e.g. the “chairman”, with his hissy fits, looks a bit cliché.

• The prose is somewhat grating. Adapted to the narrator, but the choice of the first person PoV makes it a bit repetitive.

• Link to the prompt is nil, except for the title – and it’s lucky I know Latin.

In all, fair work, but still needs work and polishing to shine.

So I begin reading, and soon I realize I need to re-read every sentence several times to understand what it means. This is very bad.

It's an impressive beast, Hiemsurb. Run by pigs, tended by sheep, and herded by rabid dogs at war with shadowy wolves.

I understand Hiemsurb is a city, but it's not clear until the third sentence, and even then it's vague. As for the second sentence, it's kind of confusing; at first I took it literally, and thought this would be an anthropomorphic animal story.

Its ever snow-covered cobblestone streets veins of iron

This part reads like a random sequence of words. (And how can "cobblestone" streets be "veins of iron"? Or maybe there's a missing comma before "veins", but then "streets" doesn't fit the rest of the list.)

The splattered gore of my friends and enemies alike are the exclamation points, periods, and question marks that litter the city, all to be swept into the rivers of Hiemsurb's molten blood, feeding the embers that keeps the frost and dark from claiming the last bastion of civilization in a dead world.

Ouch. You're trying to cram way too many disparate metaphors into one run-on sentence, and it shows. First we have the imagery of "splattered gore" which later becomes "molten blood" (uh, as opposed to solidified blood?) that "feeds the embers" (I somehow don't think blood makes for good fuel...) Though, reading on, you mention the

The entire sentence doesn't seem to make much sense anyway. We can assume the narrator hasn't got much love for the city guard -- he even starts off mentioning the "splattered gore of my friends", suggesting that he feels resentment -- but then he begins speaking with near-reverence how this will help protect "the last bastion of civilization".

We kill to satisfy other's wallets, and then we give them liquor to help them forget about it.

I think you mean they kill to satisfy their own wallets? I understand that other people pay them for committing murders, not the other way around. And it's unclear who do they "give the liquor" later (the wallets?!)


OK, thankfully after the introduction the narration becomes more palatable.
Still, the entire story left me more confused than anything, mainly because the uncohesive mess of a setting distracted me from the story. I think you have way too many sapient species, and there's no real rhyme or reason to their lineup - there's Cthulhu-like squidmen, kelpies, gray apes, scaled horned men, mermen, and maybe more that I can't remember right now. The mention of tentacled "Carcosans" gave me some hope for references to classic weird literature, but no such luck.

More brief notes:

I spotted the cyan heap that was Irk’ra, slowly crawling towards Dapper on the sidewalk. Not far from her was an orange mess that was no doubt Contrain. She was so mangled that it was almost impossible to tell said mess had once been a living, breathing being. (...) Of the four of us, it had to be her and only her who survived.

This confused me, because the way this is written, it reads like the guy is talking about Contrain when he says it was "her and only her who survived."

I relinquished what little food was left in me from the jail of my gullet

Protip, the "gullet" is the esophagus, not the stomach.

I had similar issues with figuring out the ending also. I eventually came to more or less what Ferd Threstle described, but it took me a decent amount of time to realize that the list had been completely polished off of the original slab (I actually wasn't entirely sure if it was even feasible for that to happen, I was going to do some quick google checks to make sure that was viable before Ferd raised the possibility).

If that is the intended reading, I think it needs to be explicitly stated in the text. Not catching on to that makes it difficult to parse what I'm supposed to be realizing. When I initially read this, I'd thought that Ezekiel had purposefully left the slab blank and that the setup about him being bitter and obsessed with enemies was a misdirect. Then, the repeated mentions of Christin's reflection had me thinking that another possibility was that the only real enemy to look out for was yourself, or something like that.

The last few lines didn't work for me either... no one says that "You can't take it with you" is false, do they? This is another one that tripped me up, I'm not sure if it's just a typo or that I'm missing something again.

The other thing that really jumped out at me is Christin's muted reaction to finding out why he's being sent to military school (I'm assuming that he's too young to know that the rest of the siblings did the same thing). Finding out that it's another hoop he has to jump through instead of something his mother chose to punish him with for unknown reasons seems like it should have more of a response. Even if he is a sullen teenager, I'd expect at least some kind of internal thoughts about it, especially since it was brought up as something that was bothering him earlier.

I'm getting a bit of a late start on my reading, and I want to start going through the stories that don't have any reviews yet. This one had zero reviews when I started, but since I've finished it I might as well give my reaction before moving on to the doe-eyed orphan entries.

Like >>Chinchillax, I think this holds together pretty well. The things that leap out at me (both positively and negatively) are small things, which suggests that this did a pretty solid job keeping me engaged. My favorite individual moment was the bizarre description of Santa Claus, which packed a lot of implications about cultural drift into a very short space. The thing I'd most like to see fixed is that for most of the story I thought their entire society lived underground (especially with the bare "Shelter" in the opening being very easy to interpret as "fallout shelter"); I assumed for most of my reading that this was drawing from the long tradition of nuclear postapocalyptic wastelands. This led me to get somewhat confused about the climate control measures and especially the farming. And while that did effectively disguise the twist (the real reason the world was that way), it felt kinda cheap. I'm not sure, honestly, that the twist made for an effective stinger, because it made this feel a little more like a political gotcha — if it had worked that reveal in earlier and more naturally it would have felt to me less like a distraction from the core drama of the story.

YMMV on that, though. Definitely get some second opinions.

It's always hard to know how to rate stories at the beginning of my slate, so I may bump this up a tier later. But the bottom line is that this holds together very well and I don't have any major critiques, which is generally a good sign that it'll stick around near the top of my ballot.

Tier: Strong

At first, from the very beginning paragraphs I suddenly wondered if this was going to be SunsetShimmerxTwilightSparkle shipping but twisted around and genderbent to file the serial numbers off. And I was kind of really into that?

I think your symbolic names works; the floating perspective totally doesn't. I think you need to more carefully consider how you're doing that, because it just comes off as super confused and confusing until the point where the narrator explicitly says they've been trying to get into Jack's head. I also find both of them to be a little too toxic; I feel like there needs to be a better way to get at why they wind up getting close, and maybe more extension of that friendship so it feels meaningful. And part of that... the very ending felt particularly problematic and overdramatic - in part because I don't think the friendship got filled out enough, and the relationship with Ruby did either. It needs to feel like a really, really, really big betrayal to justify that level of immediate intensification.

But, uh: the subtext here is that Sol is gay for Jack, right? Like that's the only thing that really makes sense and makes this compelling to me. (As an aside, I think the paragraph about winning at the very end detracts from this understanding, but... hm.)

I don't know quite what to say. I think in some ways this is a total mess, but it also captured my attention in a huge way, even though I distinctly hated parts as I went (possibly the ending most of all). Yet the fact that you are in fact generating emotion indicates you're doing something right.

Is snow really that cold? I think you're really overstating the pain and terror from catching a snowflake, or else it's something way different than any other snowflake I've ever seen.

I'll disagree with CiG: I found the ending to work somewhat better but the interaction with the farmers to be a little stilted in a way that didn't seem to accomplish much for me. (The last line in particular though does kill it)

The problem for me is there's a lot of setup here though that doesn't actually seem to meaningfully pay off. The cloak is great... but what's the point? I don't really feel like I know the point of any of this at all, other than a look at humans adapted to living on a weird planet. And did the only living to be 30 actually come into play anywhere other than the exposition at the end? It doesn't necessarily strike me that a society of this sort in a harsh environment would have people living for ages even on Earth.

Rimis himself basically meanders through a day; if there was more going on, if he had some kind of compelling problem or stakes (perhaps if he really cared about the Dragon Cloak and was struggling to properly mend it), the turn to winter at the end might actually mean something - make it more clear that things are changing in a big way that's really going to make a difference and prevent him from accomplishing his goals, perhaps. I think that's what this story is missing.

I kept feeling like this was taking place in a more modern setting than it actually does, but I think this is maybe more my fault than the author's. Still, particular parts (throwing a ball for the dog, sneaking him cookies under the table, owner's wife petting the neighbor's dog) feel a little anachronistic. In this context, unless the owner is rich (and if he's drowning a sack of kittens to not feed them, he's not; also what?? why not just let them run wild and eat the many presumable rats), it doesn't make sense for the dog to not have some functional purpose. A sense of that would be nice. Why not have the dog having helped hunt with his owner before? Or herding sheep (that he now wants to just eat)? All of the actual objects and window-dressing are medieval-ish, but the way the people interact with the dogs feels distinctly modern.

But you have a nice story arc that establishes information, builds upon it, and successfully pays off at the end. The central conceit is rather clever, too, once that's made clear. (Though the section discussing the 'Ersatzwolf' nameis maybe sliiightly too subtle - I didn't get the point until a reread) I think it would only take a marginal amount of rewording to improve this significantly, preventing me or readers like me from getting pulled out of the flow.

I like the main idea of this, being conditioned to get away from anything negative by AI crafted entertainment is definitely unsettling. The future of automation in general is an interesting topic, and some of the things that Weber took for granted (the transportation system, and naming "Translators, accountants, lawyers, doctors" as victims of automation instead of the usual suspects) helped to establish where exactly we are in that timeline and what means to people like him.

But it was a bit odd to me that the one thing Weber really expressed concern over was whether or not AI could be good at story telling and human interaction. He doesn't seem to mind all that much that AI are better than he is at his own job. I think he's that way because of the conditioning, but if that's the case than why does he care about his books being written by AI at all? It might have helped to get into more detail about how the books made him feel, and why he valued those feelings. Finding out that an AI caused you to feel that way would be more upsetting than finding out an AI is responsible for extreme technical skill.

I also didn't really buy just how little Weber knew about his own world. It's not as if there's a global conspiracy to keep what they're talking about hidden, everything they talked about seemed like it would be common knowledge. Weber mentions that he was focused on his business, but even then it seems like he knows less about the state of AI than he should (did he not handle any cases relating to AI?).

This is super heavy-handed and yet I don't even know that I get any point at the end. AIs are bad, I guess?

There's nothing here that rises to challenge me or engage me. There's no sense of real world, no recognition of deeper implications of the rise of AI - the lack of need for lawyers is probably less because they can do the job and more because there's no more reason to have a legal system, I'd guess. Certainly the fact that there's universal basic income means politics is very very different from anything we've known. And god, why would anyone want to be a bureaucrat, when they could just not, and take money, and do whatever they want (including melting their brain I guess).

And on that crucial note, the device of 'perfect' books that practically hypnotize you feels incredibly shallow and alien. I suspect that I'm supposed to feel sad or regretful but it all feels so patently unrealistic that I almost find it funny instead? The protagonist certainly never seems to care. I wish this had been about Lacy instead; clearly there are people out there still writing books and going about their business being interesting characters. It definitely isn't the main character.

This is less of a story and more like the very very early stages of a thought experiment, with all the sophistication of your friend at the bar turning to say 'hey, what if computers could write books.' Clearly the author can write just fine, but this story seems like a spectacular misfire that grates against all of my sensibilities.

I had the absolute hardest time centering myself in this story. I kept rereading the beginning trying to figure things out, but the context hints threw me in all sorts of directions. Pickpockets, "merciless hagglers, the pleas of rag-wearing vagrants, and the shoves of over-privileged gentry," knives and revolvers to hold up an elaborate art auction - that all makes me think something Victorian. But mixed in you have electricity and modern conveniences. And then later there's monoculars and flash bombs and special contacts. And the candle fighting section and robes and all speaks to some kind of exotic or supernatural piece. I'm seriously lost in all this - even after reading the whole thing I only have the vaguest sense of your setting.

Don't be coy, particularly up front. Start with Jimmy reflecting on the job, make that clear that he's here for this sort of thing from the start, not buried in the middle of the story. Sometimes a little exposition is what a reader needs, particularly when you're basically doing exposition anyways, just scattered throughout. I do appreciate that you're much better in laying the groundwork for Jimmy wanting to leave, planting the seeds of Roy's callousness throughout. The end is by far the most effective element of the whole piece, and by that point I would totally be interested in where we're going from here. But then again, I don't really get any sense of what it is exactly that he's leaving either.

This could either be a reasonably sharp minific, extensively cutting and focusing on that kind of poignant end. Or it could be a nice start to something bigger, also with extensive cutting and rearranging some things so it's more comprehensible. In between the two, it unfortunately struggles.

I hate Christmas, I thought, as the bones of the baby deer snap in my jaws.

This is your monthly reminder, dear fellow Writeoffians, to triple-check the stuffing out of your opening lines. Shifting tenses in your first sentence is not good. And first impressions are so, so important to how your readers approach your story.

I might be an outlier because I'm a former copy editor, but I think I'm still a useful illustration of that. If my first impression of a story is a textual error or a narrative stumble, I snap almost instinctively into "work mode", a quiet dread settling into my bones as my inner editor brandishes his red pen. If I've started tearing your story apart before the end of the first paragraph, I'm not gonna get engaged and I'm not gonna enjoy my reading. If I'm not enjoying my reading, your story drifts down my slate.

The first scene was a little weird because some of the things we're being told — being happy at children receiving gifts — seem like they're in direct conflict with the other things — a monster living in a cave and hunting … um … things out in the wilderness, I guess? (If the men have herds, why are they out hunting in the winter? That's the point of herds, to replace hunting, especially in the lean times.) This is not necessarily a bad thing, by the way; that sort of tension can generate interest. But because I'm already off-balance by the opening, and I'm trying to puzzle out what you're doing with this crazy fantasy setting in which sentient carnivorous cave-dragons live symbiotically alongside humanity, that uncertainty is just another push while I'm already staggering in search of a foundation.

… Oh. Second scene: and the narrator is a former pet, presumably a dog uplifted in intelligence (and size) by some mad science or strange magic. That works in hindsight. Still grumpy about the opening though.

Like that man, crazy and frothing at the mouth, smelling like another dog.

Biting me because I barked at him, instead of baring his teeth like anyone else would.

… uh … what happened here? Did the narrator-dog get bitten by a rabid human? Is this suddenly a zombie apocalypse?

Anyway, the story fortunately settles down as it goes. I was able to sink into it a little more. Though as a style note, I do have to say that the paragraphs here feel way too short on average. A single sentence being given a paragraph of its own puts a lot of emphasis on it. When almost every sentence is its own paragraph, everything feels emphasized. It's sort of the structural equivalent of trying to read through a story that's all in bold text.

The scene starting "It's still cold, and there's still snow…" seems a little bit gratuitous in hammering on the prompt. On one hand, subtlety in a Writeoff is dangerous, and making darn skippy sure that you're focusing on winter can feel like playing it safe. On the other, half of your story so far (and the entire first scene) has been about the narrator dealing with winter; going into internal monologue about it just feels like overkill.

And now, instead of using my fake blankie, I decided to get out of my cave for some stupid reason, right when it's coldest and the air bites the most.

To look at the moon.

… Oh, right. This is a *werewolf* story. :facehoof:

The ending feels a little odd too (Owner comes out and pets him for a while, and then takes out a knife when this literally house-sized dog already looks like an arrow pincushion? And where are the archers throughout this? Did the narrator eat them?), but I think I can see what this is aiming for. Unfortunately, it feels a little off-kilter throughout; I went for more of a livereading-style reaction so that you could see the snags I was hitting, in hopes that helps with editing. With a smoother opening and some polish on plot and exposition pacing, I think this would read very differently in a second draft. I don't think it would take much work to get there, either.

Tier: Almost There

I have to say I'm not a fan of the title. It's certainly descriptive, but it's super-wordy without giving me any sense of what I'm diving into.

This was a good read. It's steeped in fantasy and D&D tropes, but I do think they were used well and (better still) were accessible. I think you could get away with fewer POV switches. You used them well, but they do slow down the story, and that's especially troublesome in the middle of the big battle.

Also, I would've liked to see something of their journey to the job, that's the one part of the story that felt like it was over way too fast.

Finally, I'm not really a fan of the repetition of the final scene. Yes it hearkens back to the first one with aplomb, but in a story this short that just makes it a slog. If the story were ten or twenty thousand words longer then I think it'd be fine as is. At its current length, I'd much rather have a more unique description of the location and characters involved.

There are also a handful of typographical errors, but from the strength of the writing here I'm confident you'll knock those out with one more editing pass.

Nice work!

Hmm. This reads very sitcom-y to me, with people being fairly unrealistic jerks (this sort of behavior is usually somewhat self-correcting IRL, because it's simply unsustainable,) and that... well, I don't really enjoy this sort of humor much. For some reason, people being awful and nasty to each other doesn't really make me laugh?

There were some genuinely clever bits in here, with the callback to setting his cell alarm and things like that; I actually think this is fairly well done for what it is. However, I just don't like this sort of story.

I'm probably outside your target audience; I hope you get a better reception from others.

This is a rather good story, however it suffers from a drawback you unfortunately had no control over: CiG already wrote about US Army in Afghanistan some time ago, more or less upon the same subject, and while this story is certainly competently written, it sort of repeats the same tropes, especially the dust.

This is clearly not Cold’s. First because he declared he wouldn’t write about Afghanistan any more. Second, because some elements of prose therein are too rough to be his.

Now I don't imply in any manner that your story is inferior to CiG’s, just that… it doesn’t have the same punch as a pristine take on the subject. Especially since the atmosphere here seems somehow remote and even unreal. There is no clear threat to act against, no real action. Some of the considerations, like the general rambling about history or women condition in Muslim countries (by the way, I’m not sure it was that bad. Afghanistan is culturally linked to Iran, if I don’t run offbase Pashtun language is IndoEuropean as is Farsi, and Iranians, though being Muslims, never had a reputation for treating women harshly – the assumption that Islam = women abuse is a bit gross and typically post-modern. But all I tell here is somehow a wild surmise.) could clearly also take place in a bar anywhere else in the world. That contribites to add to the lack of intensity: there is no stake, just two people being bored, so bored one of them decides to kill a
boy to add a little spice to his experience. At least, that’s my personal takeaway.

So yeah, nice slice of life, competently written but for some sparse passages, but lacks tension. That would be a minor gripe in a “commoner” Slice of Life, but in a soldier story, we expect at least some skirmish, unless you want specifically to point out the vacuity of military life, like Dino Buzzati did so well in his Tartarus’s desert.

>>Monokeras

(by the way, I’m not sure it was that bad. Afghanistan is culturally linked to Iran, if I don’t run offbase Pashtun language is IndoEuropean as is Farsi, and Iranians, though being Muslims, never had a reputation for treating women harshly – the assumption that Islam = women abuse is a bit gross and typically post-modern. But all I tell here is somehow a wild surmise.)

Wow.

>>Cold in Gardez
What you mean Cold? Yeah, I frankly admit I’ve not been in Afghanistan myself.
Correct me if I’m wrong! :)

Well, that was not bad. I rather appreciated it, but oddly enough for the same reason the others found it meh: because the characters are so cardboard-cut. How so? Because I was precisely anticipating each of their future actions, and my reading tuned into a sort of game of hit and miss. Like: “Will they do that?… Yeah!”

Of course, I don’t have much to say on the content of the story. The plot’s nice and jaunty, albeit it is in a way unrealistic two such people could even be housemates. To your credit, the contrast between the two characters creates a funny clash, but yeah, that’s about all there’s here and you’ve gone teeny-weeny overboard. But admittedly, in its own way, it sounds like a farce – maybe you could’ve dispensed with the last line. A happy end wasn’t necessary, even if it’s as cliché as your characters themselves.

I think it's going to float around the middle of my slate.

Good setup with the misfit duo. I liked the inclusion of a demihuman, and their personalities felt distinct.

A little tell-y in places, for instance the second half of this sentence: ‘Lour Polin’s breathing slowed as he listened, anger giving way to embarrassment.’ It would be better to describe him flushing at her words or some such, rather than explicitly stating his feelings.

I definitely enjoyed their exchange after leaving the lord. It showcased Yseult’s thoroughness while raising some interesting questions about both her and Ruiha.

I noticed a few grammar flubs, but nothing untoward for a writeoff entry; a quick editing pass would suffice.

Overall, I enjoyed reading it. The plot was solid; it had an arc, and the characters felt realized. Its biggest disadvantage was that nothing really felt groundbreaking. You left hints of a conflicted past for Ruiha and Yseult’s difficulties as a Kin paladin were touched on, but not really resolved. Still, what’s there is a good story and it feels like it just needs a little bit of spice.

The second sentence felt like a non-sequiter to the first; I would’ve liked some sort of bridge.

Right off the bat, the voicing seems solid.

‘explosion in a red paint factory’ – good description

Someone finally snapping and retaliating after picking on them daily for a year makes them an asshole? If you’re trying to paint an unreliable narrator, you’re doing it well.

I liked the accident: that was an interesting scene to explore, even if getting a fight in the middle of it seems dumb.

The mountain analogy was thought provoking and enjoyable, even if a little long winded.

Shared interests and the gradual progression of their reacquaintance felt natural.

Ruby is an interesting twist. And yeah, Sol sleeping with her is more asshole-ish.

A few places where the perspective seems to shift for no apparent reason: ‘he sincerely thought that Jack was making a mistake’
Things really escalate there; some pretty messed up decision making at work.

Okay, interesting twist at the end, in that the writer is Sol and not Jack. I guess the perspective shift earlier was intentional, then? It cleverly reframes the introduction, as well.

The incident in the ending scene was powerful, but then the ambiguity robbed it of some of its punch. I don’t know that we know enough about Jack to go out on the metaphorical limb to the extent that Sol did.

Crisp prose, good characterization and abundant conflict. This was an interesting ride, even if I’m left muddled at the end.

>>Cold in Gardez

Wow.

Wow.

Man, I was super confused about the ending as well, and I think I see what's going on. It's this part, right here:

It wasn’t until they were quite old and their own grandchildren started to work together, making friends with each other and helping one another out before they realized something was wrong. They traveled here together, because they did not trust each other individually, and saw what you see now.

The start of the paragraph has 'they' being the first generation. But then it brings in the grandchildren, before using 'they' again, which had me thinking 'they' was the grandchildren now, who had come together and gone to the tomb. But that's not right; 'they' means the first generation all the way through.

So, like, first generation polishes a bunch and fights.
Second generation fights and polishes, polishing it right off.
Third generation sees the mirror and starts cooperating.
First generation realizes something has changed, discovers the mirror, and realizes friendship is magic, tweaks the trust foundation, yadda yadda.

Read like this, it makes a fair amount of sense to me, although it also makes me wonder why no-one in the second generation caught on? Why whoever polished out the last of the words never brought it to someone's attention?

That's not really my biggest gripe with this story, though it's a fairly large one. What really got to me here was that I could never pin down why the characters were feeling the way they did. The MC is angsting about something in the car, but when he actually gets talking with his mom, I can't tell what he was mad about or why; he seems to be pretty much over it, whatever it was, and it doesn't seem to affect things, which... makes me wonder why it was brought up in the first place.

Secondly, the mother. She has this great object lesson, but she seems all conflicted? Why was she so wishy-washy about telling him things, about bringing him here, about explaining why he's in military school? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

The conceit is, I think, clever, and with a bit more justification might have seemed more powerful to me. However, I'm not sure I really grok your character motivations on the level I'd like to in order to find them compelling and interesting. Which is too bad, because I do think they have the potential to be very good characters.

Interesting and nuanced, but a bit too confused to really hit home.

At 7,500 words circa, I thought I would wade through it, hah :)
Good news is no, I didn’t: it reads fairly easily, the plot is fine, and the characters are okay.

Well, the story is full of impossible things, like Hat pointed out the ice that grows over ten centimetres thick during a single night. I would also bring out the fact that nobody else seems to notice Mina during all the time the story spans. And the extension cord trick was really hilarious; no one noticed? For realsies? Come on!

We never get to know why she’s haunting that pond. Unless I read badly. But that detracted a bit from the story.

Of course, the trope of the good monster you come to root for (think about Thorax) is a good trick to snare the reader into your story. Your own version is likeable, but lacks a bit of depth. Yeah, that’s normal, she lives in a pond. :P And your student is a bit two-dimensional also. She never has doubts, or whatever. And gosh, yeah, they spend a lot of time together on that bench. What the heck are they talking about?

In all, this sounds almost like a fairy tale. She reformed her, they fell in love and lived happily ever after.

So yeah, pretty nicely written, does not raise philosophical questions that’ll keep turning round and round in your mind.

There’s one thing you (purposefully, I suppose, though you’re rather explicit at times) eluded: how the hell are they going to have sex? :P

(Upper half of my slate)

Wow, this guy comes off as a real misanthrope to me. He doesn't seem to like a single thing or person, and basically the entire story is a litany of complaints except for his food.

I mean, it kinda almost works for me because of that? Since at the end, he finally seems to be enjoying something that's changing, and it's the snow, and that's kinda great. The thing is, I'm really not sure what the snow means to him, so I have a hard time extracting the moral of the story.

Is it because snow covers up all the man-made things, and the world is 'better' that way? (Kill the humans! Destroy civilization!)

Is it because it's a callback to his childhood, when everything was bright and rosy and wonderful because reasons? (Everything's better in hindsight, even if it sucked then?)

Is it because the bikers are going to go skidding off the cliff and fall to their doom more often? (GET OFF MY LAWN!)

I dunno, and I wish I did, because I think I'd like this story more because of it.

Um, there are some other issues as well. The meaning of 'plonk' is clear enough from context, but it's a very odd word to me; apparently british/australian slang?

There's a bit at the beginning where the POV seems to change to the dog's, and I'm not really sure why. That kinda bothered me.

There are some slightly awkward word choices - the room being 'almost desert' instead of 'almost deserted'. I know 'desert' is used like that for 'desert islands', but otherwise 'desert' basically means those sandy places. Stuff like this; a whip-round with a good proofreader ought to catch most of it.

How is his cow having a calf in autumn? Doesn't that usually happen in the spring? Also, I thought milk doesn't come until after calving, and not all year, either... so I dunno, is this one cow just really late, or are the rest of his cows early, or what's going on with that?

I want this story to be something I like - a crusty old man having a good day despite himself. However, I'm not really sure that's what it is. There's definitely skill on display, but I wish it came to a stronger conclusion.

>>Not_A_Hat
Wow!
Glimmer

Hold on.

Waitaminute.

This... is Stainless Steel Rat fanfiction, isn't it?

In the spirit of egalitarianism, here's a review for the currently least-reviewed fic.

I liked a lot of this. You get into the story fairly quickly, and you do some fun things with it. On the whole, the prose is effective and clear, even if I'm not entirely sure what he's doing wearing a coat in bed before he gets dressed?

I think what's holding this story back is the way the conflict is structured throughout it. It seems to me like you've got two (EDIT sorry three I can't count :P ) things that hold us in the story; the discovery aspect of what's going on with Sarah, which accounts for the hook and the first third or so, and the 'parents are eldrich abominations what do' aspect which is the second third-ish, and the broken foot/freezing in the snow which is after that to the end of the story.

The thing is, the discover aspect mostly peters out once the parents show up, and the fear of the parents mostly resolves itself right after it appears, as he runs. And by the time he's lying in the snow at the bottom of the ravine, the ending seems like it's fairly obvious; if they hadn't shown up to help him by that time, I'd have been shocked.

As such, while this is nice, I feel like it's also kinda... light? Uncompelling? It's not pushing any really hard or strong problems for the characters. Or, rather, although any of these conflicts (what is Sarah, does he trust Sarah, will Sarah and her parents save him) could be compelling and interesting, they're all set up and dealt with quickly and efficiently, and none of them really hit hard enough or stick around long enough to grasp me in a way that leaves a real impression.

This is good work, but kinda choppy and jerky.

I'm always up for shenanigans, and this story more or less delivered.

Alan's story line worked well for me, especially the bedroom scene. The ringtone was perfect, unexpected callbacks like that are great.

Alan's punchline being that good made more disappointed in Sam's than I normally would have been. The moment he lies about playing sax you know how it's going to end, and even though the execution is good it still felt like a bit of a let down when compared to Alan's preceding scene.

That first paragraph is very hard to get through. Even after reading it a few times, whenever I try again I still stumble as I go. It gets easier to follow after that but I was initially put off because of it.

This definitely feels like more of a Chapter One than a short story. I probably would have kept reading if there were more here, but as a standalone piece all of the loose threads don't work. Not that I think resolution is necessarily a requirement, but as it is we've only got a bunch of introductions into something larger we don't get to see.

We're getting several different races along with mentions of both weapons and magic. A lot of that had to fall under "just go with it" so I could keep up with the story. But I had a problem figuring out exactly how significant Carcosans are. At first the word is only used to describe the highly desired weapon, so I got the impression that it was some kind of long gone, highly advanced race. And then it's revealed that Barr is a Carcosan and thought that maybe a few are still around, and that's why he's able to stay in power even though he's insane. And then the two assassins are Carcosans as well, so it's just another race.

A lot of the focus is put on the new weapon. I'd thought it was a setup to suggest that the weapon could disrupt the fragile balance of the city, and then Maltese considers the ramifications and dismisses them. He's more concerned about the new police tech, but that felt much less important. The priorities seem switched, the thing we focused on for most of the story isn't that important to the setting and the thing that comes in close to the end is. Unless Maltese is completely mistaken of course, but the reader has to trust his perspective on things until we learn more about the world.

Several times the logic and/or construction tripped me up, for example right at the beginning was the (paraphrased)‘he could only sulk for so long, even with sunglasses to cut the glare’ bit. This didn’t work for me, because in my experience ‘even with’ would describe something that made the situation worse, but it described something that made it better.

Initially, he came across as rather sympathetic, having lost his father and with the whole ‘be strong, man of the house’ bit, but then it got harder to empathize with him once you find out he has a big ‘ol trust fund waiting. Is a visit to grandpappy’s tomb really such an ordeal for that kind of reward? It comes across more as teenage petulance, in that context. It’s also hard to see how his mom would need him to take care of him.

Occasionally wordy, the one that jumped out at me was: ‘the total number of resents received over the year fewer than any of his siblings’

It starts out slow, but gradually picks up speed. Characterization and description were serviceable. I was intrigued as more details of the past were revealed and this mysterious list came to prominence. And then it’s revealed, and I didn’t really get the meaning.

This story was a mixed bag for me. For the most part it was well constructed and engaging as the details were revealed. There were a few grammatical hitches; some that threw me more than other stories I’ve read, but far from a deal breaker. I think the real meat of the story was the philosophical message, The main hurdle I think it needs to overcome is clarifying it, because, unfortunately, I didn’t get it.

After reading some of the comments, the consensus seems to be that the list got polished out. I probably wouldn’t have guessed it, as that seems like some awfully aggressive polishing. Still, an interesting interpretation.

Story Title: The Monster At Crook Pond
Genre: Monstergirl Romance

... Can we say that's a genre now? It certainly seems to be one around Writeoff-land. I'm pretty sure every short-story round recently has had at least one, from different authors no less.

This was one of the two longest stories in the competition, but engaging despite its length. The two main characters felt like they had some pretty solid chemistry. That made up for a lot, including rougher character work around the edges (Audrey's parents are kind of non-entities storywise, and Steve is pretty much a walking stereotype of over-the-top awful for the brief time we see him) and some elements feeling underdeveloped (Audrey's brilliant research skills all taking place offscreen). Not nearly enough is made of the significance of the bracelet before it's suddenly an integral plot point at the climax of the story; it's more underexplained here than Belly of the Least's werewolf angle, but the rest of the story fit together well enough that I can still enjoy this even with its climax coming out of left field.

A large part of that is that you've got me rooting for both characters, which sounds like arbitrary praise about the sort of characters you chose to write about but was pretty central to my story engagement. I think Mina's rules and her concealed ethics were a really solid choice here, author; not only did they provide an intriguing plot reveal, but they also made her into a fundamentally good person, and we want to see things turn out alright for good people. That conflict between her needs and her choices is a powerful one. I would have loved to see more about what in her history led her to behave that way, but I don't know that I can penalize this for its lack.

All that said, I agree with above commenters that some of the premise here is a little silly. It bugged me a little that Mina was apparently some sort of warmth-sucking ice spirit but that when warmer days came around she just sort of vanished without consequence; it bugged me more that Mina apparently was the ghost of a girl who died in the pond, because the idea of that turning her into a cold spirit is awfully thematically dubious. The bits about ice thickness seemed kind of arbitrary, especially since if she had control over it, why would she be so much at the mercy of the weather? More exposition from Audrey researching Mina might have helped this, especially if we saw legends which explained how the rules worked.

On the whole, enjoyable reading.

Tier: Strong

One thing I'd like to state, the punchline is very predictable. First you focus a lot of attention on how the narrator has found this new totally awesome books series, and later he scoffs at the very idea of AIs writing books. The moment he says: "No one would read a book written by an AI—we’d be able to tell immediately," any moderately savvy reader will see the ending a mile away.

Agree with the previous reviews: this story's primary weakness seems to be a conflict between what it is and what it wants to be. There is a remarkable amount of worldbuilding at play, and combined with the rapidfire cast of characters (and a plot that seems to be more complex than mere weapon acquisition) the end result is an experience similar to using an iPhone to navigate websites unformatted for mobile browsing.

That being said, I hope you'll consider it worth your while to give this story a wordcount large enough for it to really breathe. I found myself struggling along, trying to unwind the action from the grammar, and then I'd see something like this:

Each gem could have easily disguised a killer explosive... How many people nowadays were walking around with Carcosan jewelry, and how many of those gems could have been secretly enchanted to go off at someone else’s command?

--and I stop in my tracks and marvel at how much you could do with vengeful, exploding jewelry. This story is positively dripping with imagination.

Super-Minor Nitpick: It's possible that Barr may be psychotic, but referring to him as a psychopath within the narration is incorrect. You've portrayed him as experiencing intense emotional disregulation (bouncing from giddy to sad and back again in the span of seconds), and one of the underlying factors of psychopathy is an inability to fully experience emotions. (Unless... Barr is trying to manipulate people by faking his emotions?)

The beginning of the story needs reworking--the narration there consists mainly of monotonous run-on sentences, some of which can make a reader's eyes glaze over, such as this one which I had to re-read a few times:

Just as her companion had said that the flesh she had been leaning against grew warm and the snow that had already accumulated around and atop them in a sizable pile began melting at a rapid rate.

A couple of commas, splitting some of the sentences, and removing unnecessary details would go a long way towards fixing the rougher parts.

Arial's dialect gets a bit annoying at times, as well as unrealistic ("'lright"?--it seems very awkward to actually say out loud; "bunch'oh"? "interetin'"?) I can't even tell if some of these are typos, or deliberate choices. Sorry if these are actual bits of dialect that people use.

When he spoke piles of snow slid off the pine needles they had been perched atop.

This confused me at first, since I thought "they" referred to Arial and the Dragon. o_O Anyway, the last five words are unnecessary here (if the snow slid off the needles, of course it was on top of the needles first). Also, you can't really perch "piles" of snow on top of tiny "needles".

I thought this was a strong and interesting start to a story. The world building was good, assuming my thought about a Stainless Steel Rat-esque world holds true. The candle thing was cool. Jimmy's character comes across strongly. The action was satisfying. The whole criminal-with-a-heart-of-gold thing going on here suspends my disbelief.

The setting description at the very beginning was kind of unclear, and unfortunately the story stops right at an interesting moment instead of truly wrapping things up. Plus, I still think this is Stainless Steel Rat fanfiction. But that's not a bad thing. The clarity and lack of real resolution bring this down a bit for me, but overall I was very happy with what was here.

Finished that. Will leave a review tomorrow on edit, I’m done in right now.

>>CoffeeMinion
As a Stainless Steel Rat fan (and author of The Iridescent Iron Rat in a previous Writeoff) I can pretty definitively confirm that this is not SSR fanfic. While the main character is named Jimmy [SSR = James DiGriz] and there's a few scraps of dialogue which call him a "rat":

1) The Rat is a committed pacifist and would not plan a job to kill.
2) The Rat typically works alone. When we first meet him he's well into his career; there's a later story which explores his origins but this is absolutely nothing like it (nor is there a "Roy" anywhere in the series to my recollection, much less as his mentor).
3) While the setting of SSR does have some psionic elements, the series is very solidly sci-fi, and the candle magic here doesn't fit even a little within it.

Just noting this to tell readers to judge it on its own merits rather than as a derivative.

And while I'm here, a brief review.

Agreed with >>Ferd Threstle that the opening is rather disorienting. In fact, after reading through the whole story I really don't have a good sense as to the setting. There are a number of sci-fi elements, but a very distinctly magical feel to the candles (what with leaves and rat skulls and such). Jimmy is using a revolver, and watches TV, which implies a modern setting. But if this is urban fantasy, why is he name-checking holograms? Why does the beginning make a point of him living under the natural light of the sun and stars? I like that you're willing to stray beyond a generic "sci fi" or "urban fantasy" or "fantasy" setting here, and show us a setting that doesn't fit cleanly in any one category, but to do so, you *have* to do more to show us how those clashing elements reconcile.

And while I do like the candle dueling, I'm left with questions, mostly about the young woman. Her turnaround from defiance to actively participating in the duel is sudden, dramatic, and insufficiently explained. All I can get out of the story is that the guard apparently hit her; if that was all it took to get her engaged in the duel, how was she so defiant in the first place? And why is she so resistant to dueling? There don't seem to be any consequences for either winning or losing (or refusing to play, beyond getting punched); she's getting sold either way, it just changes the price. All the scenarios I can come up with either give her no reason to play or no reason to balk. If there's something going on like "losing candle duels eats a piece of your soul", it's entirely non-obvious in the story.

I think this is winding up for more engaging material beyond the current ending, but the story as-is feels incomplete/prologue-y, and I have to judge it based on only the material as presented.

I'd focus in editing on straightening out your material, bringing the setting and characterization out a little more strongly and consistently. This builds in some interesting hooks as it goes, and would be a solid foundation for something larger, but it would help to find a solid hook from the very beginning (it wasn't really until the candle mages appeared that this kicked into gear) and to communicate to us better the world in your head.

Tier: Almost There

>>horizon
Ah, I fear it's been a few too many years since I've actually read any SSR. I specifically remember that there was an origin story, but I figured any differences from canon were par for the course in fanfiction (aayyyy, right?!).

I'll acknowledge that the handful of surface similarities don't hold up well upon further scrutiny, but man, I tell you, it was like I could feel the author winking every time the word "rat" came up.

This story is hard to review, in part because it's not really a story; it's purpose-built metafiction that's designed to bring a smile to fellow Writeoff participants. I have no objection to such a thing existing, and I felt it accomplished its goals. Nevertheless, it doesn't have a lot of story going on, per se.

Still, for doing what it set out to do, and doing it with style, I can't ding this too much.

I rate this 666 goffik skulls out of 10.

Georg’s first Round Micro Reviews for the new stories on my slate That Winter Feeling Scores are letter grades for Plot, Technical Work, and Characterization mushed together, with an E for stories I find particularly Enjoyable. Ranked by how I like them, not necessarily how perfect they are on the score. (and posted all at once, from top to bottom so they line up on the chat.) Also, posted on Thursday, because I can’t seem to do these any earlier.

Enjoyed - The Monster At Crook Pond — A+ — Entrancing. Sucks you right in. (literally) My suspension of disbelief kicked in at the beginning when ‘ghost story’ began and stayed perfectly there throughout the whole thing. Smooth, flowing, and cold. We have a finalist here.

Enjoyed - Marjah — A+ — You would think a story about a couple of army guys in a HESCO strongpoint just talking to each other wouldn’t be interesting. You’d be wrong. Heart-tugging and accurate. The bit about the goats destroying the country is unfortunately correct. They eat the vegetation right down to and including the roots, leaving nothing but dry ground blowing in the wind.

Enjoyed - The Flame, The Fox, and the Frozen Blade — A+ — One of those ‘I like it because of the plot’ stories, although RPG’ish stories normally get a little more flack, despite the Dragonlance series having gone through a few million printings. The characters are well separated, the scenes blocked out (although it could use a little more fleshing out), and the action flows in logical sequence. The weakness here is in the ‘show not tell’ lecture we tend to press so hard. For example: The ‘rail’ spoken of seems to be a railroad, but that seems to be a little off-tech for swords and sorcery (Obvious exception: Lord Darcy Investigates, a fascinating series).

Guard and Assist — B+ — It really didn’t catch fire and drag me in, but it’s an interesting concept. Maintaining one’s stiff upper mandible when living in a junkyard is quite an accomplishment, as well as an epic journey out into the great unknown, and a reveal of a new purpose. Not a bad story, just a little confusing. I do like ‘this unit’ as a character.

Everybody’s Fool — B — At first glance, this is a mess. Ok, it’s like that on the second glance too. After about six or so, it begins to make sense. Of course, it helps if you take a shot every time you read through it. It takes a certain skill to write this disconnected. I suspect taking a shot every time you write a paragraph contributes. Let it be perfectly clear, I did not write this. I *can’t* write like this. I have a liver. I mean a life.

Hiemsurb — B- — The beginning is crippled up by far to many offhand references to post-apocalyptic war and the fallout (figurative) to really get ‘into’ the story. The characters seem to take actions at random, and that makes the whole flow jerky. I found myself constantly asking “Who is that?” and “Why did they do that?” as well as the frustrating “What just happened?” Admittedly it’s well written, just confusing as heck

The Saxophonist — C — It’s a bad sign when I start skipping forward. The characters are separated by characteristics, and the scenes broken by scenery, but it all blurred together until I started hitting page-down. I’m sure there was a plot in here.

The plot is fairly simple, but effective. The idea of a paladin fox, while foxes are supposed to be devious beasts, is a nice touch and added depth to your character. The other one is a bit bland, though. But they play reasonably well off each other, if not in a very elaborate way.

World building is fine enough, with as usual everything beginning in an inn.

Weak points are the prose, which is rather rough (though admittedly such stories do not require an English MD) and the combat scene – where stakes are low; we know from the start they’ll win, and the ice trap where they have to fight their innermost fears is somewhat cliché.

In all, it’s pleasant to read, but it’s like an AD&D campaign: they meet, they fight, they go home. Don’t expect any sort of extra flavour.

(middle slate)

Wow. Everyone is already hibernating? :P

So yeah, the grandchildren of the sons wiped the names out. And those names were the names of the guy’s sons (their grandfathers).

So when the guy’s sons came in after the slab was polished, they still saw them in the mirror, as it was legit they did (they were themselves their best enemies). But then when they died in turn, the whole shebang was ditched but for the ritual, so that the lesson would not be forgotten.

Clever.

So the takeaway is: fuck old coots, even if they are rich and your ancestors. If I were the guy, I wouldn't have accepted two years in military school.

The story itself is a bit telly, and info dumpy, but you had little leeway. It is also very American specific. We don’t get that sort of crazy estate conditions here in Europe; well, fact is, we may, but I’m unaware of.

Finally, the story is not very prompt related except for the vague Christmas decor you hastily plant.

Wrapping up, interesting take on the legacy of an old shyster. And despite my gripes, I’m still ranking it high.

---

Slate done!

This felt a bit meandering, the food prep and routine lasted a bit too long for me, especially during the beginning. But that might be the point, it's being told from a perspective that values that routine and that's reflected throughout.

The exchange with the driver was good. Grumbling about stifling regulations immediately after that disturbing milking scene felt... honest might be the word? The focus stays on how those regulations effect the people who have to follow them while not neglecting why they're also a good idea in the first place.

This story wasn't necessarily for me. Despite that I can still see where Peter's coming from, and his feelings about getting squeezed out as times change definitely get through. The story managed to get that perspective across, even to the sort of person who's a bit foreign to it.

>>Monokeras
I came here to sleep and read My Immortal parodies, and I'm all out of My Immortal parodies.

Rimis the Ancient woke up, stared at the roof of his yurt, and began to get up. He threw off his blanket, a dense patchwork of wolverine pelts that was just beginning to smell, then rolled until his knees were braced against the ground. It took him a little while to stand, and he stumbled once or twice, but he was standing straight before too long. Rimis smiled, and began to take slow, deliberate steps toward the great chest that held his clothes.

As always, I have opinions on first impressions. This opening paragraph is way too ponderous. At a time when you most need to be giving the reader something punchy to hook them into the story, we get four sentences of an old man slowly getting out of bed. Variations on his slowness are described multiple times in a row. You use "began to"/"beginning to" three times — which even aside from the repetition is questionable writing to begin with — and more nitpickily, I question the idea of a pelt blanket "just beginning to smell". Pelts are tanned (or cured, one of the two) before being used in that sort of context; while that can introduce smells of its own, AFAIK they don't "start to" stink over time, as they would if the flesh were rotting.

Rimis had no idea why the Dragon Cloak of Nybere was so coveted. Throughout his entire life, he had never heard the word ‘dragon’ used in any other context than to refer to the cloak. He always assumed that it meant ‘smells like old bear’.

On the other hand, seeing this in paragraph three made me much happier. This subverts the generic-feeling low fantasy and shows some stylistic teeth.

Continued reactions while reading:

metal clasp

Wait what? How are fur-wearing boomerang-throwing nomadic hunters working metal?

"Better that we answer such questions as asked by the young, so that they learn and their young can ask different questions …"

In the time it took him to say that, he could have just answered Rimis' question. Just sayin'.

True, he still did not know why the world was changing, but he had learned on that day that he did not need to know.

This feels like BS to me. He got mocked by some farmers for trying to learn things because he's old, and his response is to agree and endorse ignorance? Is the story moralizing at me that old people shouldn't learn?

That seems like a nitpicky complaint, but it's actually the core of the entire scene. You introduce the question of why the world has changed, tell us that there are people in the setting who know the answer, and then very pointedly refuse to give it to us, the readers. Charitably, this could be viewed as worldbuilding commentary on this society's culture — but your story isn't about those farmers but about Rimis, making Rimis' reaction central here, and choosing to embrace deliberate ignorance about the thing that keeps him alive day to day is not how human beings work.

(Ones that stay alive, anyway.)

This would have been a lot more compelling if he pressed for answers (maybe pointing out, as I did, that they could have answered him in the time it took to argue with him), and then they offered to sell him the knowledge and he refused. Then the readers still don't get to learn how your world works, but in exchange you're making a statement about what is worth sacrificing for knowledge. Hell, have them offer to trade the secret for his ratty old brown cloak (which can't even be fixed because of the lack of brown animals, so they're doing him a favor taking it off of his hands) — that ties the scene back into your focal plot point.

Having thought of that, I really want to know what Rimis' reaction would be to the offer, and why.

Rimis fell back in shock, and he screamed in pain and terror as he clutched his hand to his chest.

I'm sorry, this just doesn't work. There's the reason >>Ferd Threstle noted, which similarly broke me out of the scene … but the logic problems pile up on top of that:
1) The entirety of the storm is a single snowflake falling?
2) For his whole life it's been freezing, so this implies that he's lived decades without ever seeing precipitation. How does anything live under those conditions? (How agriculture works in a land of eternal frost is a different fridge logic problem, noted here in passing.)
3) If there's no snow then there is no evolutionary reason why the animals around him would start turning white

And yeah, that ending isn't doing you any favors.

This shows some definite promise (I too liked the cloak discussion), but the rest just doesn't feel like it's coalescing yet. That's no dig on you as an author; the Writeoffs are a tight deadline and it's hard to fully bake a story in the time allotted. Further drafts will really smooth this out.

Tier: Needs Work

Hey folks — we're coming up on the end of prelims (assuming that we have enough entries for a finalist round), and there's still stories with only two reviews. I can't fix that, because I've already read half of 'em. Anyone feel like stepping up and giving these authors some feedback?

5. Winter Weather Advisory
10. Cold
14. Belly of the Least
16. The Collision of Seasons

Yay, everyone's up to three!

There's also still a handful of stories with reviews from only three people:

5. Winter Weather Advisory
6. Like the Old World
14. Belly of the Least
16. The Collision of Seasons
2. The Job
8. Prologue to Winter
10. Cold
12. Competing Against Immortals

Think we can get everyone up to four reviews in the next day and a half?

All in all, this was a fairly decent story. I liked how it wasn't too in-your-face about how the climate had changed in the beginning, and the idea of kids having to experience Christmas for history lessons was an interesting twist on the winter mythos. I also enjoyed how things like carbon dioxide were hard to find and had to be distributed evenly in this future. It was very reminiscent of the Ray Bradbury story "All Summer in a Day", which dealt with Venusians having a brief period where the sun shone through the thick atmosphere.

That being said, the story felt somewhat crowded. There were a lot of kid characters, and it sometimes became difficult to distinguish between them. On top of that, only one of them (Jenna) really has much of an arc (wanting to make Christmas forever), making the rest of them feel somewhat superfluous. The entire third also felt a bit too long, taking lots of wordspace to essentially repeat how crappy of a world this was when it had already been implied by the beginning. It would've been more effective if it had kept to the same subtlety instead of spelling it all out, or maybe showing more of the kids' interactions within the Christmas exhibit during the middle part.

A decent story that just needs some editing on the ending and characters.

Agreed with >>JudgeDeadd, though I'll go further: it's not just that he scoffs at AI authors, it's that the subject just keeps coming up, and he just keeps repeating the same denial over and over again. (Six times, in fact, plus a short explanation of his position which arguably is #7 but at least moves beyond simple naysaying.) With such heavy signaling there's only one place the story can go. Forget Chekov's gun, you've got Chekov's howitzer.

(Today's trivia: A howitzer isn't named after a person, like I first thought — it's a Czech loan-word — and thus the term isn't capitalized.)

AI pushing humans out of jobs is an interesting topic, to be certain, and I wish I could say that it grabbed me, but … I'm already pretty familiar with the idea of artificial intelligence outstripping human capabilities, and already a supporter of Universal Basic Income for that reason among others, and I guess this just didn't feel to me like it was presenting the topic in a way that engaged beyond the basics?

I do appreciate that you at least took AI job displacement to its logical conclusion, framing it with UBI. That's going to be the big social story of artificial intelligence, for certain, and pretty much the only way I've heard of to avoid economic apocalypse. Heck, within possibly a decade we're looking at self-driving vehicles, and, well … So this is a shockwave that will ripple through our society sooner rather than later, and a premise worth writing about. Just, none of this is new to me. So this could just be a target audience mismatch here.

But even if other readers find your core conflict more compelling, you need to fix that repeated denial-hammering. Even three of the same blunt denial gets tedious and makes your protagonist look willfully dumb, but at least there you get to frame your structure around The Rule of Three; six is beyond overkill. And your protagonist's blanket denials really hamper your ability to dig more deeply into the interesting corners of the topic — because it just keeps coming back to him sticking his fingers in his ears and saying "nuh-uh", then once you've brought your reader around to Dr. Grant's side, she has nothing new to say, just preaching to the choir.

Tier: Almost There

I think I like this story more for what it's trying to do than what it actually accomplishes. I like the idea of a werewolf that's slowly gaining more sentience of its human side and reflecting on how it's life was changed because of the event. The scenes where it feels bad for eating so many people were especially effective, and I liked how the sentences are fragmented, like it's a beast that's slowly gaining sentience and trying to piece together its sins. Again, a good idea and well-executed in places.

The problem is that the story doesn't entirely seem consistent. I thought for a while that the character was a dog that simply escaped and was living in the woods; however, it reveals that it's actually a werewolf...that was bit by a human, not another werewolf. It's rather confusing on the whole, and kind of distracts from the overall feeling of the piece. I also thought the sentence fragmentation, while effective in some parts, was irritating in others. The ending in particular irked me; if the dog's supposedly growing more intelligent, wouldn't the thoughts be more strung together? There needs to be development in the style as the story goes on, not keeping it stagnant throughout the entire piece.

An interesting idea, but a flawed execution.

I was immediately invested in the idea of a bunch of kids about to experience something familiar to us and rare to them. Going to second libertydude here, I was reminded of All Summer in a Day reading this, definitely in a good way,

The world building was delivered well, we got a lot of tidbits about the new society in a natural way. It demanded active attention, but was almost never difficult to follow or hard to understand. There were a couple of small exceptions, like the explanation of the snow as "rain that falls from the sky" (Do the children have a conception of rain, but not as something that falls from the sky?). The other one being Mary's "I'm glad they fixed it" response. I think she's talking about climate change preventing snow here? It's a little jarring because she's being positive a situation the reader sees as a negative, but thinking about it the new climate is just another Tuesday for her. So that one may be a feature and not a bug, but both were minor stumbles for me as I was reading the story.

The two conversations at the end felt similar, to the point where I'm not sure why it was split up that way in the first place. Both characters the narrator is talking with seem to feel more or less the same way about the history lesson, even if Bob is actively helping. Merge everything into one conversation with Bob and some of the same ground doesn't have to be retreated in both of the originals.

Brief review since this has six already: This more or less held together well, though I felt like it took its time getting there. Agree with the discussion of the ending's problems. The fact that the family legacy is so secret may cause some pacing problems on a rewrite; I think fixing the polished-bronze thing may require adding some foreshadowing/exposition which your premise doesn't allow. The better alternative may be to aggressively trim the story's first half.

Christin regarded his lawyer mother rather skeptically. “I thought you said ninety-nine percent of lawyers gave the rest of them their bad reputation?”

“What do you call one dead lawyer in a grave?” asked his mother. “A good start."

To quote some sages upthread: Wow. :trixieshiftleft:

Tier: Almost There

I think the idea of this story is strong. Two characters who are genuinely unlikable and associate with one another, despite their clear issues with the other, trying to passive-aggressively one-up each other in a game that is being played only some of the time. It's actually kind of risky making the characters this unlikable, but I thought it gave the story an interesting angle, since both characters have a grayness to them that makes it hard to fully relate to.

The issue is the execution. The constantly floating perspective was quite confusing, especially when it was characters referring to themselves in the third person. This made it hard to tell who was talking and what was actually going on. I also thought that there were a few parts that were rather superfluous to the story, like the strange metaphor about winter and spring in the middle of the story. I get it was trying to illustrate the conflict, but it was shoved in at such an awkward way that it felt like it was just there to match the winter theme of the prompt.

A good situation, but not enough to make it work entirely.

Out of all the fics I've read for this round, this is one of the most creative. I like the idea of this bizarre underworld where people can bid on people who "candle duel" with their spirit animals (or whatever those are), and that this manipulation of magic runs deep within this society. I also liked how the ending has Jimmy realizing that Roy is no better than the slavers he helped the woman escape from, and deciding that he'll abandon him if he finds her. It's a big bit of development, and a full 180 from the glorification of Roy he'd been doing in the beginning of the story.

With that in mind, I have to agree with the others that the opening was a bit confusing. The lack of details made it somewhat hard to figure out what was going on. Also, the "monocular" was hard to figure out until about halfway through. Finally, the idea of candle-dueling, while interesting, doesn't seem to be as big of a deal as the characters make it to be. While I enjoyed it, I have to admit that the concept doesn't really make it clear what the consequences of such powers are. Can it affect something other than other avatars? Is it a sign of high-control magic? It's an interesting concept, but not enough is told about it to make it really clear why it's worth stealing.

A creative situation that just needs a bit more clarity.

I thought the opening to this story was very intriguing. The whole idea of a hunter that has to maintain a failing coat was an interesting concept, as was the idea that he was the hunter largely being overrun by a farming society. It tied into the idea of him slowly descending from the supposed virtues of his forefathers, and the fear that he was somehow a failure amidst all of this.

The story really stumbles towards the latter parts. For starters, the snow reaction makes no sense to me. Isn't the whole idea that the world is already cold? If that's the case, it would reason that the cold would also bring snow far quicker than the supposed 30 years the ending implies would happen. Also, why would a man who's lived in the cold react so harshly to one speck of snow? Living in the cold all his life should've numbed him to such a thing. Finally, that ending section is just way too overexplanatory. The story functioned fine as a vague sort of parable; in fact, its vagueness was one of its greatest strengths, making it seem like this story could be happening anywhere at anytime. That ending, however, tried to hard to provide an explanation for these occurrences, instead of letting it occur without any narrative weigh-down. Sometimes background helps, but here it distracts instead. What you leave out of a story is just as important as what you put in, and this part definitely needs to be left out.

A story with a good start, but not quite able to maintain the momentum.

I think what really makes this story is the setting. The whole idea of a computer-run society that was conquered by the machines not through violence but convenience was an interesting concept. I also liked how machines have become so big that people just accept them, even in the government that seems to be regulating them.

That being said, the story's ending is extremely predictable. I wouldn't mind this if the journey there was done in an interesting way, but it just seems to be the usual "AI is bad and humans who use it are sheep" moral that a lot of sci-fi boils down to. On top of that, the characters aren't done uniquely; the main character is just the typical dummy who buys into the machines, while Lacy is the profound individual who stands up against them. One is right and the other wrong, with no in-between. Wouldn't it be far more interesting if the main character was actually right about some parts and Lacy somewhat short-sighted? For instance, she goes on about how replacing doctors has caused unintentional psychological effects. Fair enough, but Weber could point out that if a robotic brain is as fast as they are in this world, them being surgeons is actually far better. The human error that could accidentally nick an artery or become unsteady would be eliminated, and deaths in surgery would go down dramatically. Through this, Lacy would have a deeper shade of character, making her individuality against the machines more tainted by anger and jealousy than simply just 'being right'. But this isn't the case, so the story largely suffers because of the black and white shades it tries to paint in a world that doesn't really fit that perspective.

A good setting, but hindered by a plot not strong enough to support it.

>>horizon
I decided to chip in for some of those, since they were on my ballot. Even though I didn't do a story, it's still nice to give some feedback to stories that may need it.

Just a few quick points since this has half a dozen reviews already:

“I’m not a druid. Nor am I ranger. Nor am I a thief.” Her ears twitched as she continued, “I am a paladin. Yseult Valorheart.”

Careful, I think you left some scratches when you were filing off the D&D serial numbers.

“Lord Poulin’s great grandfather was… not a good man,” she said, sighing and pulling her furs even tighter around her. “He slew his brother, the first Lord Poulin, to take this land, and was in turn slain for his crimes. The land was restored to the main family line but, after the war, it was deprived of its lord once more. It was then that Lord Poulin was found and granted the lands.”

Don't do this. You've got the phrase "Lord Poulin" referring to three completely different individuals, with no disambiguation except context. Give them distinct names.

It's still possible to figure out which Poulin is which, but it breaks readers out of the story when they have to stop and figure it out (as I did), and your goal as an author is to get in the way of the reader's enjoyment as little as possible.

Similarly, you've got Sault and Yseult. If you're making names up to begin with, have them as easily distinguishable as possible. Your cast is fairly small and Yseult is a very distinctive character, so I think you can get away with it here, but it also feels like a potential missed opportunity to give Yseult an exotic Kin-like name. (And if part of her background is that she's trying to blend in as human as much as possible, maybe to have a throwaway line in which someone remarks "That's not a Kin name" and she gives them an acid look and says "I guess I'm not a Kin, then".)

My main objection is that this feels incomplete in the character department; we never do get an explanation of Yseult's background (not to mention the first thing out of her mouth to Poulin is a lie, since they're there to take a job), and it would have been great to see Ruiha's background explored in equal depth. I do see solid arcs for them, and what exposition we get is worked in well. I suspect that you ran out of time, author, because that final scene feels absolutely slapdash (the other big problem), and a post-mission discussion probably could have wrapped a lot of that up. Unfortunate, but that's how the Writeoff deadline goes. Would be easy enough to patch in later.

This isn't going to be at the top of my slate, but what's here feels solid enough even as it has room for improvement.

Tier: Strong

Largely agreed with above reviews; I just want to note one line that slammed me to a halt:

Instantly, our eyes fell on the library. At least, that’s what everyone called it. In truth, it was more of a temple or palace. It was the single largest building in all of Hiemsurb, and it would have been larger yet had it not been partially destroyed during the war. It covered what must have been at least a five-mile radius and stood almost ten stories tall.

There's a team of five people attacking a building that is literally ten miles across?!?

That means the building — not the city around it, just the building — covers more land area than Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA. Las Cruces has a population of 100,000 people. Five people with sidearms are literally laying siege to a city.

Mostly, I'm with >>Fahrenheit though.

Tier: Needs Work

I'd just like to come back and note that — like with the maze in the sandwich round — I feel obligated by the purpose of the Writeoffs to score this at the bottom of my slate. While it legitimately made me laugh, this is at heart a trainwreck, and I can't in good conscience say it's better writing than any of the serious entries.

But that judgment about scoring should not detract from the cleverness nor effort here. Thank you for spicing up the Writeoffs with some on-topic and amusing silliness!

As others have said, this needs some work. I don't see it as a chapter one of a larger story, more like chapters two through four compacted together. The opening is way too fast, considering how much the reader needs to take in simply to grok what the characters look like, let alone how they act and speak. A lot happens in a short span of words, but the paragraph structure alone is somewhat monolithic even when the action is getting hot.

My advice would be to revise the structure, carefully expand the descriptions (without resorting to info-dumping), and take a hard look at the pacing. By the time that bomb goes off I want to actually be able to picture the characters.

There's lots of good stuff in here, but a lot of polishing is going to be required to make it shine. And that's okay! This was written over a weekend, not a month or a year. My favorite college lit teacher wasn't too enamored with NaNoWriMo simply because she didn't want to read 70,000 words that somebody pounded out in a measly 30 days. Good writing, especially with a complex setting and cast as seen here, takes time.

Story Title: Winter Weather Advisory
Genre: Monstergirl Romance

Seriously, maybe we ought to just make that a prompt one of these rounds.

I pulled on the coat. The relief was immediate, and I sighed in content. Getting out from under the covers seemed possible now.

... So the narrator is putting on a coat while still in bed?

(Did they go to sleep dressed with everything else, or are they doing this flasher style?)

It was just as well, the path I was on was beginning to narrow, a steep decline on either side of me.

Someone picked an inconvenient route back to the car.

Nitpicks aside, this was pretty engaging! I like the whimsy we see here in the story having Cthulhoid ice-beasts. The prose occasionally left me hanging -- like with the above; or with the story seeming to shift between "the narrator has no basis for understanding what's going on" and "everyone knows magic exists and the abominations are common enough to be called Eldritch-Americans" depending on the needs of the plot and/or jokes -- but the overall arc is pleasant and the characters sympathetic, especially the parents.

The biggest issue here is its heavy leaning on character Idiot Balling, though to your credit, you keep realizing that the characters are being idiots and at least lampshading it in hindsight, which helps. For example, they are both utterly moronic about the first contact scene, and that sets up them apologizing to each other later on. But Sara's choices turn it into a sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-it author choice. Does she trust him enough to have him meet her parents, or not? Why would she even arrange it if she didn't? But if she does, why didn't she give him at least some basic context? Even on smaller levels that bugged me: his aforementioned off-and-on cluefulness about her magical nature and his straight-up acceptance of magic and his eagerness for the ritual throw his reaction to it into sharp relief.

Sara had said that they would be trapped inside the circle for a little while. But knowing her, that could mean anything from three minutes to fifteen. There was no way of knowing how much of a head start I would have, no way of knowing how fast they could move-

And I realize it's reasonable to be spooked by eldritch abominations, but now that he's got some time for logic, he's completely glossing over "Hi mom! Hi dad!" here. (He does reassert his trust shortly thereafter, but it's for other reasons.)

Basically, while all of the weird logical flaws are at least reasonably lampshaded, you can only lampshade so much before it strains credulity anyway.

Against that, the fact that these people are all ultimately good people to each other helps my mood quite a lot. Like with this round's other monstergirl romance, the crucial point here is selling us that these characters should be together, and even if the characters are idiots half the time I feel that this does. That means your core here is a fundamentally working story, all my complaints aside.

Tier: Strong

This is certainly a gritty adventure piece. You've got a solidly realized setting, a quirky cast of characters, and a good arc going through right up until the story ends super abruptly.

One of the biggest takeaways here is that it feels like you ran out of time. There really isn't a complete story arc, and there are a lot of technical issues/typos throughout. That said, they just feel like problems born of the time restriction and easily fixable in a second draft. I also don't think you gain much from the 3rd person interference.

The start of the story is a bit rough, primarily because I lose track of the characters as only two really feel defined before they are deleted. It's a LOT of new information to swallow at once, and it goes quickly.

The setting is really neat, but I do feel there are some problems in there, the main one being the sort of... underground nature of the crime group? This seems like a city where the criminals are just short of in-charge.

It's the start of an interesting story! You just gotta end it.

It's a sweet little story about dealing with the weird idiosyncrasies of your partner, painted over with a thick layer of weird. Not a bad choice by any means, and definitely a hook with the right audiences. There is just a smooth flow from initiation of conflict through resolution.

You should tie the start of the narration into the same paragraph as the dialogue,. As written, readers will naturally assume the non-accented one is Arial because of the line beat sets it up that the skeleton acts after the last line of dialogue.

Some of the things you do with the characters is odd: primarily doing oddly unnatural things with them (e.g. Ari's eyesocket movements).

Honestly not a lot to say here. I'm a big fan of shorts that are just short character arcs. I do think the fantasy baggage actually detracts a little bit here. While it's neat and gives a unique twist, it asks questions that draw focus away from the actual core of the story. I'd try to pull it back just a bit to really let the character interaction shine while the weird is just flavor.

I have trouble quantifying why the central relationship here didn't click for me. Maybe it's that guard-bot was surprisingly eager to leave his post, and that his overall ooh-shiny attitude made him feel kind of like an unreliable narrator IMO, but without enough background detail on the world to let me clearly see how his views might differ from the world around him. Maybe it's that the Roomba is kind of all-take and no-give in the relationship. I dunno.

I thought this was a good, solid story overall, but I would hope to see that relationship strengthened in subsequent drafts.

And even though I'm dumping on this a bit, it's probably going to be pretty high on my slate, due to the overall execution.

Well holy crapples, it's a strong, relationship-driven story that works both as urban fantasy and as part of an overall romantic arc. I guess I can't dispute the idiot balling >>horizon noted, nor can I find a lot to pick on otherwise, but this left me a satisfied customer.

Wow. This is dark and ambitious as hell. Maybe a bit maudlin, but I love it.

10/10, please turn the characters into ponies so I can fave it on FimFiction.

EDIT: only semi-serious. Artistic integrity trumps half-baked ramblings.

This was a compelling read, even though its perspective issues are ultimately something I can't get past. I feel like some mild tweaking could make this a lot more understandable. I can't deny it was well done, though.

The best aspect of this story is the amount of creativity in making this world. There's enough unique races, and making it be on an alien-sort of "Dishonored" planet was an intriguing decision. I also liked the idea of the main character being a mercenary and that this violent lifestyle is just an everyday occurrence for him. It's not an original perspective, but it was definitely entertaining. I also liked the psycho mayor, who swings so easily between happiness and anger that he was quite a bit of fun to observe.

That being said, a lot of the other reviewers are right when they say that there were plenty of parts in this story that were too incomprehensible. While I wasn't as confused as others, I have to admit that there were plenty of places where I had trouble figuring out what was going on. The opening scene, for instance, goes on for several paragraphs before revealing it was in a carriage. I'd thought they were in a bar due to the lackadaisical way they were speaking, but all of sudden it was revealed it was a carriage this whole time (even though there wasn't really any details to firmly suggest that). Another issue is that the ending is far too abrupt. It feels like the story just stopped instead of really ending at a character transition or final revelation. This makes the story feel incomplete, which really makes all of the world immersion seem rather wasted (after all, why get enveloped in a world that won't even provide a satisfactory conclusion?). Maybe it was because of the word count restrictions, but the story definitely needs a better ending.

A very creative setting, but an incomplete story that doesn't feel entirely finished, either with its ending or its plot.

Welcome to the top of my slate, author. How's the weather up there? Don't mind the "CIG was here" scratched into the back of the armchair.
This was great overall, and I'm sure you don't need gushing praise from the likes of me. Instead let me point out the one thing I found amiss:
The opening sentiment about the treatment of women feels out of place. It's in the very beginning, before the veracity of the narrator really comes into question. I'm not saying the statements made are true or false, but they gain a certain taint from the narrator's obviously affected state of mind. What's more, the narrator never comes back to this idea. Dust, religion, and violence are reiterated beautifully, but the idea that this kid might grow up to abuse his wife doesn't enter into the picture again. Hence my feeling that it's out of place.