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Reminiscent of Starship Troopers
The main trouble with A.L.F WARZ is the pacing. I’ve already read 7 entries and I still don’t know why I should continue reading further. The characters are just names, and nothing appears to be at stake. Since they are soldiers in a war, there is a lot of fighting, and not much else. Despite the action, there is no impetus to read further. True, this is exacerbated by the fact that there isn’t a link to the beginning that I could find, and, once the beginning is found, the Newer Post doesn’t work.
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Wobble
The Lifting of the Veil feels very slow because the the characters are "explained" with references to their past and internal thoughts that don’t really create conflict or drive the plot forward. In other words, the beginning just doesn’t provide a lot of impetus to continue reading. This is especially problematic because LotV has a lot of characters, all of which have their introductory chapters and internal musings/setting explained.
The many characters also made it rather difficult to get into the story, especially since each character had a "turn" and, even if something actiony happened, it wouldn’t be resolved until it was the character’s turn. This structure made it very difficult for me to immerse myself into the story.
It was also difficult to suspend my belief at some points in the story. The relatively new-on-the-scene president is elected because the citizens are voting out incumbents in droves. I know this is a story and not the real US of A (and that this is probably my Pol Sci class rearing its dry and boring head), but that just wouldn’t/doesn’t happen. It really isn’t a major point of the story, but it just really bugged me. Also, when the impending doom comes extremely nigh, the government decides not to notify its citizens. This is unbelievable to me, and I don’t feel much sympathy for a president who would not lead the country in such a time of crisis.
The writing is neither bad nor outstanding, but it becomes especially vivid and intense when the crisis strikes. At times the prose is dry and very technical, which sometimes becomes tedious. There are also some past to present tense changes which are rather off putting.
If apocalyptic fiction is the water that floats your boat, you’ll probably enjoy this story.
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The Madden Of Superheroics
This story is told in blog format, and, true-to-blog format, the author tends to regularly go off on tangents. Sometimes these tangents begin in the middle of a sentence, which is where things get problematic. I found myself wondering what the point was of several different sub-sections of the story, which isn’t good for reader continuity.
Another problem with this story is the liberal use of the ever-controversial hyperlinks through-out the blog. I found myself feeling as though I had to click on the hyperlinks to understand the references (or else why would the author put them in there), but once I did, I got so distracted by the other sites that it threw me right out of the story.
The over-all concept of the story is an interesting one — instead of telling the average superhero story, the author attempts to tell the story of an average-Joe living in a super-powered world. The problem with this, of course, is keeping things interesting. So far, my favorite parts of the story where were the narrator is recounting a recent super-powered, televised fight. As such, it works wonderfully — sort of like a football commentator whose words are sometimes more interesting than the game itself. But the rest of the story has me wondering what the point is, and when things’ll get interesting.
The humor in the piece had me laughing out loud occasionally, and, in it’s best moments, I was hooked. Unfortunately, neither of those things last long.
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Solid literary fiction
Ride With Madness—to date, at six chapters—is some very solidly-written literary fiction. The word that keeps coming to mind while I write this is "immaculate". With the exception of the opening few scenes, every word seems right—there’s nothing out of place.
The story begins when Helen, the taken-for-granted wife of a self-involved corporate climber, finds Carla, a young woman with a shady past, going into labour at a bus stop. Helen really doesn’t want to get involved, if the truth be told—she’s not that keen on spending time with the underclasses, and she needs to get home in time to make Malcolm dinner, or there’ll be a fight—but, at Carla’s plea, she puts her doubts aside and drives Carla to the hospital in her BMW. Unbeknownst to either of them, they are being watched and photographed as they drive off, by someone who cares a little too much about one of them.
Ride With Madness is the study of four (and maybe five) characters: Helen and her husband Malcolm, and Carla and her husband Addison (and possibly the stalker from the opening scene—but I won’t talk about him any more). Each character is very different from the others—in terms of background, wants, and personality—but each character is deeply flawed. Helen is timid, and afraid of everything. She hates her life, but is terrified of unsettling it. Malcolm is shallow, self-involved, and controlling. He’s a boy playing a man—and a small man, at that. Addison is a preacher who sees the world in terms of Good and Evil—for him, there is no middle ground, no room for humanity, not even within himself. And yet, he’s desperate for the adoration of his congregation. He does everything for them—to the point of neglecting his new wife and young baby—but, deep down, he does it all only because he needs what he gets in return. He married Carla to "save" her—from her past, from her situation—but, even there, he gets far more from the arrangement than he gives. In his better moments, he even realizes it. Finally, Carla is probably the most stable of the set, yet she is running from some form of violence or abuse in her past. Her child is not Addison’s—she was already three months pregnant when he met her. Addison believes her former life was one of forced prostitution, but at this point, we can’t be sure.
In the end, Ride With Madness stands or falls on its characterization—the plot is slow-moving, and, to be honest, very little actually happens. Fortunately, the characterization is solid—there is lots of vivid, subtle detail in evidence. However, there is an odd distance to the narrative—it talks about the characters, but it keeps them forever at arms’ length. The details it describes are intimate and personal, but it does it without intimacy, without feeling. And without a strong plot, this "distance" only serves to further dull any sense of urgency. The result is a read that isn’t very compelling.
As a side note, have a look at my second previous paragraph. See how I’ve described the men in more detail than the women? It’s not an accident. As much as the story appears to be mostly about Helen and Carla, the men are . . . less ambiguously painted. There’s little redeeming about any of them, and that’s a problem. Against such foils, the female characters seem weak, unable or unwilling to stand apart from these men—men who barely deserve the label. It would be one thing if the women stayed with them out of love, but there is very little love in evidence, here. In fact, if there is love conveyed in the writing (excluding Carla’s love for her newborn daughter, of course), it is that growing in Helen for Carla. It seems an odd bias in the narrative, as it doesn’t seem to serve the story’s aims—or, at least, what I can see of them so far.
Overall, I feel ambivalent about Ride With Madness. It is, as I said, exceptionally well-written—sentence-by-sentence, I really can’t fault it. But, despite that—and despite the strong character focus of the narrative (that I would usually like)—I’m just not sure I care about what happens to anybody in the story. And for a story that stands or falls on its characterization, that can’t be a good thing.
That all said, if you like quality literary fiction—if you like to immerse yourself in a few characters and really get to know them—give it a try and let me know what you think. I’m curious to find out if I’m just a troglodyte.
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