I have opinions everyone! [@rosenrot] [hider=Flesh & Steel] The world was amazing, but the story is lacking when it comes to good descriptions. There's just too much to understand, and little of it is explained to the reader. An example of this is how you make it a point to tell us that Adelaide is a human, but say nothing of the other races at the council meeting. Due to the prompt, I has assumed that they were all robots, until a few fleshy details came into play. It is very difficult for a reader to grasp what the laws of your world are. It's nothing like our own, and you have fantasy elements, different races(?), technology and magic working side by side, and other things a reader can't understand without a guiding hand. There was enough that you could easily stretch the story out to ten-thousand words and still not fully explain everything. The relationship between all the characters was interesting, but I was unable to really care about any of them. You made it a point to paint Adelaide as an irredeemable bitch, who's willing to fuck, kill, and lie her way into power. The Dol'Vrah as a whole felt like nothing more than a circle of tyrannical rulers with no one being better than the others. [/hider] [@Brokenpromise] [hider=Evolution MK II] Wait, this is my entry! [/hider] [@Calle] [hider=The Sun Rises and the World has Changed] There were a few spots where words were missing, and other words were “misspelled.” I'm aware that words are spelled differently in different parts of the world. So this doesn't feel worthwhile going over with you. There were very few errors of this nature regardless. I did like how the metal age was introduced, and it was interesting how it wasn't a purely metal menace but rather armored dwarves. I wish we got to know more about what the driving force behind the dwarves however. Unfortunately the story focused most of it's time on Mikhal's friends and their connections, which didn't contribute anything of value to the main story for the most part. Side stories aren't bad if you desire more character development, but we never discovered why the dwarves decided to attack, or how they acquired their steam tech. There was even a chance to convey some of this to the reader when they actually captured a dwarf. Even if we ignore those missing details, a lot of stuff just felt very dry, despite the story having 12K words. [quote] When it was dark enough he decided to take his chances and sneak through the camp. He managed to get a few metres in when one of the dwarves noticed him. With a sigh he rose his hands and surrendered. At least he’d get where he wanted to be, but escaping would be a lot harder now. [/quote] This could have been an intense scene that kept the reader on the edge of their seat. But there is no suspense. It is simply told and over with in four sentences. It feels mundane and flat. In the future, I would recommend plotting the course of your story so that you can decide what scenes are most important. From there, you can decide assign a “word budget” to scenes or remove unimportant ones. As an example, you used 1K words to get Mikhal a horse from the point where he decided he'd need one. [/hider] [@PlatinumSkink] [hider=Mischief in the Machines] I can appreciate an attempt to throw the reader into the thick of the story, but the opening felt rushed. A better start probably would have been jumping to the faeries flying inside the robot and then remarking on that information through dialog or narration. There were also an excessive amount of commas during certain passages. Take this one for example. [quote=Second paragraph] ‘C’mon!’ Inga shouted as she drifted in front of him, drifting through this tiny tube of cooling fluid intake with her pink wings fluttering. Rochus frowned a little, annoyed that she had called him as if he wasn’t already intending on following, but nonetheless followed after. Behind them, Signy followed with doubt in her eyes, but still intending to help them out. [/quote] Most of the sentences in here could benefit from replacing a comma with a period and rephrasing the newly created sentence. It's not wholly incorrect, it's just the information could be made more clear if it came across like so. [quote] ‘C’mon!’ Inga shouted as she drifted in front of Rochus. Her pink wings fluttered as she drifted through a cooling fluid intake tube. Rochus frowned in response. He was annoyed that she had called him as if he wasn’t already following her. He followed after her regardless. Behind him, Signy followed with doubt in her eyes. Despite the look on her face, she intended to help them regardless of what hardship they faced. [/quote] This is not the only way to do it, and I don't even think it's the best way. But you can see how ajusting the order of the information makes the scene easier to follow. That was really my most pressing concerns grammatically speaking. The faeries were interesting characters to contend with the menacing, non-magical machines. I did enjoy reading about their childish antics and you did give them each different personalities. The arms race between the mythical creatures and the robots that were trying to fairy proof themselves was also an interesting plot point. I was a bit thrown off by the inclusion of other mythical races and why they hadn't been wiped out by such severe radiation poisoning. I also thought it was a bit weird that the robots had these central servers that nobody thought about attacking until they discovered how to do soul magic. Not your best work, but an entertaining read. Great name for the story, by the way. [/hider] [@Silver] [hider=Batten Vally] The writing was very solid. However, you wrote in first person instead of second person for a single sentence. I also feel this point of view would have been stronger if you never revealed the character's name and sex, or found a way to do so much sooner. But these were very minor. you know what you're doing. I liked the story. You were able to build up a large number of characters and a setting using very few words. I felt like I knew Mary before her body was discovered, and Clover was very well defined both through her dialog and “your” mental notes about her. The twist was a bit predictable though. Good read. [/hider] [@Exit] [hider=S u n d a y] The writing is perfect, which is what I would expect from a short entry and you. Fine work. I've seen all dialog style stories and this is definitely one of the better uses of the format. There was a perfect balance of saying just enough to establish a story, with the right details left to the reader to create their own conclusions. If I had to point something out, it would be that the story is purely an event and doesn't really feature strong character personalities. But I realize that's more my preference as a reader than a fault in the story itself. Good read, thanks for sharing. [/hider] [@vocab] [hider=The Program] There were a few typos here and an unneeded comma there, but nothing too major considering the length of the piece. I found the world building to be very well done. Even when the story seemed to repeat itself, it was done in a way that was interesting to read. The lore was rich, and the news articles were an interesting way to tackle information that might have disrupted the flow. I was expecting a little more out of the ending though. The story was just a means to show us how the program functioned. There was no resolution, or even the suggestion that there would be a resolution. Thanks for sharing. [/hider] [hider=My vote] [center][colour=2E2C2D]Batten Vally by Silver gets my vote. What can I say? I'm a sucker for characters.[/colour][/center] [hider=Goes] [center][colour=2E2C2D]I also enjoyed Sunday and the Program as close seconds.[/colour][/center] [hider=To] [center]Highlight between the hiders, you missed it![/center] [/hider] [/hider] [/hider]