The length of the critique directly coincides with how hard I had to work to find a weak spot in your story's armor; if it feels like I'm yelling at you and being unfair, that means I liked it (except for Kangaroo unfortunately, where I'm being mean and unfair because sometimes I'm just mean and unfair -- but I'll apologize to you personally later; I'm not being fair on Crusader and people should pretty much ignore me on this particular account). 

[hider=entry 1]I didn't like the way it's broken up. Each entry is so short that you leave no time or space to gather any momentum; it turned me off right away. However. As I got into it more, I found that what you've actually *written* is very good -- it's a particular style, maybe, and maybe not everyone likes that, but this has the feeling of your typical Samurai film. It's got that pace, it's got that mood.... and I mean, obviously, don't drop out of school just yet to live out your life writing samurai flicks but, I can see this story in that context, and it's a good fit. Next time, work on the pace (I'm not exaggerating -- the story doesn't flow until the blood does). Doing so will give you a better chance to put your characters on display -- I didn't feel like I really got to see anybody.[/hider]

[hider=entry 2 -- Crusader Secret]Anybody who knows me has an expectation for how I'm going to react to this, and I won't say they're wrong. I'm sure no offense was meant, but gut reactions do tend to color things, and my gut reaction is still kinda defensive..... I'm not sure I can be objective or helpful, so instead I'll be brief: the entry felt too one-sided and cheap to be really compelling. You don't have to agree, like I said this one is less of a critique and more of a personal reaction. It felt a little bit like going to a protest, holding up a sign that reads 'BAD THINGS ARE BAD.' Okay, I mean..... yes? You're right, I guess? I feel like you probably did a fair amount of research for the entry, but I don't feel like you presented any of it in a challenging or constructive way. Maybe that is a critique. Idunno. You can pretty much ignore this one, sorry, I don't have much to say about it.[/hider]

[hider=entry 3 -- Diadochi]The delivery was unique and very effective. Splitting up the story into different accusations and musings [i]really[/i] paid off, The narrative *did* plod from time to time, but that's allowed (and in fact encouraged, in cases like this where it's appropriate to the story). When I rack my brain for ways to make this better, I think the first and best answer is 'Some sort of formatting change.' If there were an easier way to differentiate between the flashbacks and the current havoc, that'd be good -- of course that's not an easy thing to do in a contest. 'Crusader' actually managed okay, with the use of bolding, but I can certainly see why you wouldn't wanna do that. Maybe inserting a foil, and telling the story as a conversation? Idunno. Not an easy nut to crack. Since I have to say something negative to really be helpful, I'm gonna exaggerate and say this next part a little more strongly than you deserve -- Greek religion, in this story, felt like a writer's cop-out for character development (I TOLD YOU IT WAS GONNA BE TOO HARSH). What I mean is, Lysimachus could've drawn some pretty erotic suspicions for plenty of other reasons -- laying a wreath on a fairy-tale is far from the best you can do. Alexander's death, too -- I mean he's speaking *to an actual priest* at the time, so I get it, really, but I'm trying to be mean here. There are other, deeper, more meaningful ways to go about suggesting Alexander's ultimate pride, or Lysimachus' vibes, or the Persian's totally-out-matched-ness. All of that is said in the hopes that maybe by being unreasonable I can turn out to be helpful; great job, easy vote, congratulations on the well-deserved win. This is an entry without weaknesses.[/hider]

[hider=entry 4 -- the Pendulum]Glad to see we got a poem! These are hard to write and dangerous, because a minor fault gets amplified by the entry's short-ness. You're not immune to that, but I applaud you for trying anyway! So then. The first thing I'll note is that the structure is smartly repetitive, in keeping with what I interpret as the point of the poem. It's a refrain, we keep doing it to our own peril, and sooner or later we're all on the wrong end of the swing. Rhyming was a part of that structure, and rhyming is hard (especially with short lines like this -- I almost always give myself eight or more beats of windup before I try to end on a rhyme, and even then, I'm a wretched slant-rhymer). That makes you work a little too hard to fit the words to the form, and sometimes your poem paid the price -- 'Power was it that he seeked,' would be my pick for 'worst culprit.' I mean that's bad. I can see you working hard, and I know how tough it can be, I think it's great that you're doing it -- but we can't have that! Alright so forget I said anything bad for a minute -- this was an [i]effective poem[/i], and we really don't see enough of those (mostly because I'm usually the one submitting the poetry, and it's usually bad). The choices in structure added a lot, even if they demanded an unfair amount of work to fully deliver. My overall impression was very positive.[/hider]

[hider=entry 5 -- My Dark Savior]The first thing I wanted to accomplish when I wrote this was to fully assume the perspective of this fantastic little Indian camel-herder. I'm not sure if I fully succeeded, but I feel like I got pretty close -- I can't help but read it in his accent -- and overall I'm happy with his presentation. He feels like a character with challenges and development, and you can almost believe he's the one telling the story, not me. Next, I wanted to express some of the subtler facets of war, and on that note I think I hit a home run. Certainly war is violent and fatal, but it's so much more than that -- sometimes it's kind of funny, sometimes it's depressing, sometimes it's nothing at all. Sometimes it's *spectacular*, and Tamerlane's victory at Delhi was certainly one of those moments -- what you read here is what happened, near as we know, and it's just one example out of hundreds of Timur's command genius. He was actually much more distant, not a 'lead from the front' type, but I had to get him to the front, or our Tamil would never have understood. Last, I spent a lot of effort trying to really, really isolate our little Tamil. In the whole story he only knows the names of two characters -- Mirzha Raheem, a cruel prince, and Timur the Lame, a cruel general. I never gave him a friend and I rarely gave him someone to talk to, because I wanted the readers to feel isolated as well. You might expect that while marching to war, but I wanted you to feel it when he returned home as well -- even there, he's as alone as he was in a trench, caught between poison elephants and burning camels. For weak points, I think my narrator spent perhaps too much time on tangents -- he told entirely too many stories, and some of them lost their weight because I was too busy moving on to the next one. Sure, he had a lot to tell, but I rushed a bit and I didn't give him the punch or polish he needed. The ending was clumsy and I don't have a good excuse for it -- I was really eager to turn the tables of history on my 'savior,' Tamerlane, and I neglected my narrator a bit just to get those closing italics down on paper. The title is stupid -- it didn't occur to me that I needed a title until I was mostly finished, and I'd just written that as a line, so I figured 'what the hell' and threw it up there, and in ten minutes I didn't think of anything better. Similarly the beginning was sorta haphazard, and I didn't give myself any time to improve it, so haphazard it remains. Thanks to anyone who stuck with me through the whole thing -- you're patient and appreciated, and if you gave me feedback than you're my best friend for at least a day.[/hider]

[hider=entry 6 -- History Guardian]It's chipper and light-hearted, and a little contrived but that's okay. Actually you went further into character than most people this month -- so what if you were having fun doing it? I thought the disorganized time-jumpy narrative was a pretty clever approach -- confusing, a bit, but hey, it's a confusing subject. None of that bothered me. I think the romantic aspect was sorta shoehorned in, and it's a little hard to take it seriously ("That's right.... we're lovers." When did this happen? OKAY BAD QUESTION, time travel, just... huh?). Anyway the whole thing was playful and fun and I think that's just fine and dandy, and I really don't want to ruin it by going into some quasi-deep self-serving analysis, so I guess just a tip of the hat and a 'keep it up.' Writing is [i]supposed[/i] to be fun. Enjoy it![/hider]