The Stuttering Bard of York by Rundy Purdy

The Stuttering Bard of York  by Rundy Purdy

This was a refreshing story for me, an action parody that seems to be mimicking the intentionally hilarious live action family hero series from nineteen nineties television. Right down to the characters with comically exaggerated characteristics and a corny portrayal of the world, whilst taking it all completely seriously. If you want to take the story as parody, you can, but you can also take it as a serious adventure. It's corny without being stupid, and serious without being dark.

Each of the characters have exaggerated characteristics which is actually for me a good thing. I actually love exaggerated personalities, since that generally means the story is going to revolve around fleshing out those personalities more than usual. This story does not disappoint on that end and actually the story is very much character driven. For a while, I thought this story might be another 11!

I wanted to give this story a high score, and just about did while reading the first half. However as the story went on, something seemed wrong with its formula. Our main protagonist have exaggerated characteristics not only for personality, but for fighting abilities, which is generally all the explanation we get for how they get out of huge scrapes and... Well often that really isn't a sufficient explanation. One character being abnormally strong due to strenuous work on the farm rather than harsh training, can make sense, but it doesn't explain how said person can battle and overcome opponents with actual combat training, especially when the author insists on having groups of ten to maybe even fifty men attack him at once. Maybe his excess strength can explain success over one or even multiple opponents, but eventually the author completely loses believability. This not only effects believability, but as I stated, the story takes its world seriously, thus when our heroes go into battle, there is supposed to be a chance they can die. However in this story the main characters plow through opponents like three twelve year old's fighting a group of kindergarteners. In the end, in most battles in the story, it just doesn't feel like there is any threat.

I loved the characters, but the lack of a feeling that there was any danger and a lack of believability or explanations for just how our characters are so tough, really did wear the final score. 8.25 with one bonus point, bringing the story’s final score to a 9.25 out of a possible 12. Generally I advise an author seriously think revision if they can’t make over 9 points and well, I think this story could sell on the strength of its characters, but yes, the fact that the conflict lacks a feeling of real danger is something the author should think about fixing. Also upon reflection, there is a major tonal shift in the story. I would recommend some work.

As to the objectionable rating, there actually was a large amount of gore towards the later parts of the story, so -2 there. For violence there is plenty of “righteous killing” bad guys constantly dropping like flies, so -2 there as well. Really that’s only a -4 out of a possible -25. Upon thought the story doesn’t strike me as much more damaging for a child to read than watching the old Beast Wars cartoon. Just keep in mind, after a while, things do start to heat up.      

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The Stuttering Bard of York is a wonderfully cheesy adventure done in the style of mid to late nineties action stories. You can laugh to your heart’s content at the silliness of it all, or you can take the adventure seriously, it’s up to you. It’s a good fun adventure and can appeal to many tastes. Give it a shot, it’s sure to brighten your day.

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And with the author plug out of the way, here are the details of how the score was decided:

Warning: Spoilers may be ahead.

Spelling/Grammar

Score: ¾

Actually this story was pretty well proof read, especially in the first few chapters. And this wasn’t really due to “authonomy syndrome”, it was consistently pretty good. However every few chapters I did see a mistake and eventually I realized I would have to leave some kind of mark. A few more proof reads and I’m certain the author will catch most of his mistakes, he seems better at this than most authors I’ve read on the site.

Interesting Plot

Score: 1

The story of the Stuttering Bard, like I said in the promo, is one that really allows the reader to decide how seriously he takes it. Far from a Monty Python sketch but more corny than your traditional Hollywood thriller, and its confident with both. Set in a fantasy world, where exactly our characters are is never really spelled out. Instead we learn about the world as the characters journey through it. This could be earth or it could be another world. It’s a fantasy story and one of the elements this story pulls off well that many other fantasy stories tend to lose sight of, is well, fantasy. After all, who says a fantasy story has to abide by the rules we’re use to? Our characters are normal people who are able to turn the tide just by sheer determination and surprise everyone with just how effective they are. In short, it’s a fantasy like what we dream up at work when we’re bored. It’s dreamed up to be fun, and of course, it can be fun whatever your definition of fun is.

Good Direction

Score: ½

While this story does flow nicely from a to b to c, and the tone is both light hearted and take itself seriously there are still a few problems with direction.

The first apparent problem is one the reader will probably miss and keep going, but still, I would be remiss not to mention it. After Ben leaves his home town there is a huge shift in tone. Really in York, the story was beginning to feel like 8-bit Theater or Abbott and Costello. The characters were pretty dumb and this was likely meant to be an exaggeration of small community style dwellings. It did well enough for this, but the reader has no clue that the rest of their world is not like this until Ben leaves for his journey, and we see a world of people who really are a lot smarter and more put together than the people from York. It’s not insulting as they’re also a few shades less friendly and it seems they’re actually worse off for it. The problem is, it‘s a pretty dynamic change. Even Ben eventually starts seeming too smart for the people of York as he speaks as though their barter system made sense, when in reality it was made up on the spot without anyone having a clue what was worth what or why. In York dozens of different societal models were parodied, like communism, socialism, capitalism and intelligentsia. However for the rest of the book, most of the jokes are character centered and the world around them seems to know where it’s going for better or worse. I feel that the rest of the world should have silly things about it as well, but maybe if the author feels he can’t keep that kind of tone up for the whole book without turning it into too much of a parody, he should reduce the number of jokes in the beginning.

Another big issue is Ben and his eggs. Ben constantly guards a small sack of eggs he traded his horse for, so his horse could be kept while he was on his rough journey. Normally Ben protects the eggs like they’re more important than life itself, just because of how much he misses his horse Ned. However whenever even the slightest expense comes along, even when someone else is paying the bill and Ben has been told repeatedly that the eggs aren’t worth anything, Ben continues to offer them as payment. It feels like the author can’t make up his mind if he wants to make fun of Ben’s attachment to the eggs, or make jokes about the differences between a barter and currency based system. What’s worse, spoiler warning, we never actually find out if Ben gets Ned back. Actually the story ends with the issue being ignored like it never really mattered.

Finally, the biggest issue and the one I discussed in the opening. This story has dozens of battles between our heroes and goblins, bad guys, wild animals, monsters and wizards. The problem is that two thirds of their battles are with upwards of ten creatures at a time, all likely more skilled than then our heroes, and the bad guys not only fail to beat them, but essentially get bulldozed. Their enemies, for reasons never really explored, don’t stand a chance. This makes huge battle scenes feel like just filler as our heroes are never in any real danger. The main cast rarely gets injured unless they’re fighting super monsters and again, baring fights with said monsters, injuries are generally pretty superficial. Our heroes end up killing three or four bad guys a minute and not a single one is able to go more than one round against them. The ironic thing is, this is actually slightly realistic. Most lethal confrontations last seconds, not minutes, and the only way to survive against multiple opponents is to plow through them as fast as possible. However also in reality, if you can do that against multiple opponents, you are probably way out of their league. To establish danger with stylized violence, battles have to last, and not just between our heroes and hordes, but between our heroes and single enemies. This give us a sense that they’re having trouble, and when the big super monsters show up, instead of feeling like they’re the only credible threat in the whole story, we’re actually intimidated, wondering if after all their previous troubles, our heroes will even make it out of this. Also, perhaps the number of bad guys should be reduced in each fight. Twenty or so goblins and men attack our heroes and are slaughtered our heroes only receiving minor cuts as a result. Our heroes then face three grave hounds and are almost killed but just one. Really that says more about the previous opponents than the hounds.

Author Interest

Score: 1

The author of this story is fairly active on authonomy. Again I haven’t seen any advertisements as I approached him, but I can still see a willingness to put effort into making people notice his work. The corrections I’ve seen from him are methodical on my work, and his responses to my own remarks were thoughtful and quick.

Believable Main Characters

Score: ½

This is another area where the poorly constructed fight scenes really hurt the narrative. This time it’s to a point that can’t be ignored and I feel some enjoyment for the story is sacrificed. Like I said, this is a story that can be taken seriously as it’s played straight faced. This is true accept when the characters fight. The characters act and talk like the fights are scary to them and even quite a work out, but they’re still plowing through the bad guys with record speed. What’s worse is that there is fundamentally no explanation for how they’re able to do this. Ben is strong, Ernie is useless and Jess has moderate training. But this doesn’t explain their success, in fact if that’s all they have, it just makes the story less believable, even by its own standards. The characters are interesting and funny, but in the end, they feel like some strange kind of creatures, not humans.

 

Likable Main Characters

Score: 2

The mark of a good character is that I can still like him or her immensely, despite any and all flaws in storytelling. This is like good character design in drawing, no matter who bad the drawing, you can generally still tell who bugs bunny is. Ben is silly and adjusted to a simple life and people, where Jess is used to a life of plenty. There is never an attempt to shame either party for thinking their problems are a big deal and in reality they are big problems or goofy ones, just like everyone has in the real world. All three leads are funny at the same time as having strong convictions about the world, and whether those convictions work or not is up to you, as everything is made fun of equally. The bonus point goes to just how goofy and even dumb the characters are, without making me think less of them for it. Ernie is an annoying back up character, but I was actually able to enjoy the jokes surrounding him, and root for his character when he actually did stand up for himself despite his overzealous self-proclaimed pacifism.

Likable Side Characters

Score: ½ 

This is another place where frequent battles with hordes of nameless foes pulls the story down. We see twenty or thirty people get killed, barely hear a word from them and no one even mentions burying them. It’s like they were all just cannon fodder. This was not true in Ben’s hometown, where each character was fleshed out and was a caricature of a different societal or philosophical view point, but after we leave the town, characters seem to move in and out of the story, generally without having stories of their own. Even Rimmah, the main bad guy, has no real back story. Why is he evil, what does he really want, how did he get into a position of prestige, how did he get his powers etc, etc, none of these questions are really answered by the time the story is finished. The only bad character that gets a little development is Dougyal who is really just an oversized henchmen for the main boss.  The author really needs to work on developing characters quickly, even when they don’t have much “camera time”. True, not every goblin to get flayed by our heroes needs to be an ex-philosopher from far off lands with a tragic back story, but at least a few to them should have personalities that shine through during the short time we read about them.

Good Scene Descriptions

Score: 1

The descriptions in this story are pretty good and keep with the goofy tone. Each new environment seems to have a personality of its own, which true to form, is generally exaggerated to a near comedic extent. Not too little not too much and it keeps things fun.

Targeting

Score: 1

This seems to be geared towards the light hearted fantasy lover, especially with all the tropes that can be seen reflecting other books or even TV shows in the same category. Perhaps the author’s weakness with fight scenes reflects how those productions often are with side characters. I think members of this audience will generally be pleasantly surprised by what they read.

Broad Appeal

Score: 1

Unlike many fantasy stories, this one doesn’t require an advanced understanding of an intricate world in order to be enjoyed. There’s a basic premise that just accepts that magic exists and runs with it. It may be too corny for some, but for most this will be an enjoyable romp, for the goofy and the adventurous.

The Master Mage Trilogy: Awakening Story by Z. Z. Ali

The Master Mage Trilogy: Awakening Story by Z. Z. Ali

This has to be one of the best, if not the best story on Authonomy I've read so far actually earning a full 11.75! I was so impressed that the only changes I found needing to be made were aesthetic in nature, rather than straight mistakes.

The pros of this story are many. Well described beautiful worlds, fleshed out characters, good action, far reaching mythology, mystery... I could go on for a while. The problems rested in a few grammar errors and a few times where in my view the author took things too far in one direction or another, however I realized why he may have gone those directions.

The final score came out to about 11.75 out of a possible 12 with two bonus points. This is the highest score I have ever given to a story and would probably have gotten a higher score than my own stories could have received. That's right, this story seemed better to me than my own, which is generally hard to get a writer to fully admit.

The objectionable material in this story was perhaps more than my standard fare, though I attribute that to the author establishing high stakes and intense action. For blood a -4 and this is because of several scenes in the demon realm, where whole walls ran with blood. Really there were no drawn out torture scenes or anything of the like, but a general creepy and gory atmosphere was pervasive while the characters traveled through their world's version of hell. Another -3 for the killing of both good and bad characters alike. Finally a -1 for a general atmosphere of horror. -8 out of -25. I'm not sure if this is meant to be a horror story, probably more action fantasy, and the gore is mostly superficial, but just to be clear, this probably isn't for the kiddies.

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Awakening is a story that takes place in a world of magic and demons filled with mystery and intrigue. While many social issues are brought up, the author actually maintains as perspective that the line between good and evil is pretty thin, which isn't easy to do in a story that includes demons, God and prophesied heroes. The action is intense and pays off very well in the end along with great mystery and suspense. A must read for fantasy lovers!

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And with the author plug out of the way, here are the details of how the score was decided:

Warning: Spoilers may be ahead.

Spelling/Grammar

Score: ¾

Here's where I had a slight issue with the writer. Oh yes, for most of the story it was actually difficult to find grammar errors, but a few popped up here and there. The main issue I had was that chapter lengths were all over the place and there didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason for it. One chapter would be five pages and the next would be forty. Best I could tell the author was trying to use chapters to place the events of the story into sections, such as, the training of the hero, the first battle, the onset of a major plague, etc. However many of these sections could easily have been two chapters long without causing any interruptions in the story's flow. This would probably be an easy fix, but I might still get on it soon.

Interesting Plot

Score: 1

The worlds created for this story were very well put together. Clearly this story is one in a series, not only from the title, but from the way the story is written. This is the “introduction” book it seems. The book is devoted to exploring the worlds of the Master Mages, both mortal and demonic. It even explores social and religious development, but all without jumping out of a good storyline. Many major questions are raised, and clearly meant to be answered later on, such as, “what exactly are the Master Mages?”.

The driving force of the plot was the battle against a demonic enemy and finding the seven prophesied heroes that would fight it. The humans and demons were both very well described, particular emphasis on the main characters, noting even subtle changes in appearances. Despite some of the story being predictable in nature I never quite knew what was around the next corner.

Good Direction

Score: 1

The direction of this story was very good from start to finish. Events played out much like a video game would if one had a decent plot, right down to the boss battles. That being said, I have a few changes that I would make, all of them rather superficial, but nonetheless considerable.

First, the author seems to like the idea of the narrow escape far too much. When battling the first master demon (the first boss essentially) the characters had to escape the gate world he was residing in. This involved narrowly escaping the room they fought in, before it collapsed, then running through the building as it collapsed behind them. Then they narrowly getting out of the building just before it collapses. Then they rush down the mountain barely dodging debris, getting away just before it erupted. Then they narrowly get out of the gate world before the whole thing crumbles sending them through the gate in a glorious explosion. Sorry, but, yes, this sets up later on why they have to go into the demon world in order to escape the collapsing of a second gate, as they have not time to get back to their own world with two characters injured but it's still excessive. Especially considering when the author has this happen again and the gate world collapses behind them just after they enter the demon world too, meaning they somehow did not save time traveling a shorter distance. The truth is the author should have had the characters run out of the demon castle and perhaps as they're moments away from exiting, turn back and see the world collapsing. This would create a sense that this wasn't happening simply to facilitate a ridiculous series of escapes, but really was the natural consequence of killing a master demon. Then when the main characters jump into the demon world rather then trying to hobble all the way back to the gate to their world, we will still realize why they did it. Again, the gate world did not need to collapse right after they left to the demon world, that just made things look even sillier. (Actually it was just the room that collapsed after them, so I suppose the destruction time was the same relative time.) Narrow escapes are only one form of action and repeating them over and over is like having far too many glorious mega explosions. The reader eventually loses any sense of dread or astonishment and starts to think the story is being funny. There's nothing wrong with a little campyness, but I don't think that was the goal of this story.

Second, the story eventually explored a religion that had formed in the human world and survived when a city was taken to the demon world. The followers of this religion had successfully predicted their own fate, had incredible power for mere humans and even had the great staffs of the mages suddenly appear in their city. The city of this religion, apparently once the dominate religion of the human world, was once the greatest of all cities in the world. In the end it seemed that this religion was supposed to be right, so when it was revealed what the religion said the master mages were, naturally I assumed it to be right there as well. Later on though their theories were called into question on the mages themselves. Again, there was no saying for sure they were wrong. This all felt kinda weird. If doubting the religion was something the reader was intended to do, why not make it only seem right on the surface and have other elements that were doubtful? Yes, the religion mirrored Christianity in many respects, but no, allowing clear doubts would not seem offensive to me, all religions, even my own, make dubious claims. Really I could see the author getting away with this, after all the religion is learned about in a town full of devotees, so of course it was colored favorably by those explaining it. This one is up in the air, but I might make things a little less certain.

Third, there was a short training of the main character which is when she first started to understand and embrace her powers. While these training scenes are okay, they were cut a little short for my liking and summarized a little too much. The author showed at first several battles, but glossed over how the training went when Garent started using her new found power. The second training scene only shows one fight, leaving us to guess the mode of training from there. I would say a few more drills would have been interesting to see. However the author could argue that too many drills would have been rather boring. Still two or three probably would have been fine and at least ONE after her first discovery of her abilities.

Author Interest

Score: 1

I think the author directly advertises his book, but I'm not sure, after all I approached him not the other way around. He's certainly involved in Authonomy, posting comments all the time and communicating with other members, so I can say he's definitely trying to get noticed.

Believable Main Characters

Score: 1

Most of the characters in this story had personalities that were simple, but not to the extent that I couldn't believe they could exist. This was facilitated by the author giving them back stories and allowing them to react to situations naturally. I will note that the character of Vasaya almost lost me. Her back story is never really explained and she is seen constantly crying. While her character proves useful, we never really get to know her. It seems possible she could have good reason to behave the way she does, but it does eventually seem excessive. I really do think the author should vary her reactions to situations a little more.

Likable Main Characters

Score: 2

Again, most of the characters were very well explored, which made me like and care about them a lot. Especially the explorations of Garnet's psychi was insteresting. Normally when writers try to delve into psychological bonds or battles, even on TV, things become confusing. However I really was able to follow what was going on when the author explored her mind. I also loved Grelle, who was probably the opposite of what you might expect the wind master to be, a real smart aleck with an insatiable appetite for violence. Even Thev proved interesting in that while his body mirrored what one would expect for a commander of the earth element, the author didn't choose to cast him as emotionless or constantly angry, as is typical in stories like this. Rather he was caring and patient with a real sense of honor. The only character I really couldn't get into, was Vasaya. Again, her story really wasn't explored very much. The author gives glimpses of reasons for her constant mourning, which kept me from hating the character as her behavior became more of a mystery than an annoyance at times. Also the character of Vasaya does not ultimately become useless.

Likable Side Characters

Score: 2

I would like to give a bonus point here for Aros or Old Mag, who were great side characters with implied stories of their own. However neither really caught my attention in a special way. Still the characters besides the main characters, all seemed to have stories and lives of their own that clearly were going on before our heroes stepped in, and would continue afterward. Of particular note were the demons, who all had personalities that were very well explored.

The demons is where I decided to give the bonus point. They were powerful and sneak, rather than powerful and obvious. This despite having VERY great power. Their power, evil and trickery was usually established in a few paragraphs or pages, without the demons becoming main characters. I've never seen demons done this well. Really, it's hard to pull off characters that are by definition one dimensional entities of pure evil and continue to make them scary once you get a look them in a story. But the descriptions of the creatures and their behavior helped keep the eeriness about them even when you saw them for what they were. They were awesome!

Good Scene Descriptions

Score: 1

The world, environments, creatures, weapons... everything was beautifully described in this story, probably helped by the author using a pretty decent vocabulary without seeming like a kid saying “look what words I know!”. I especially loved how the demons were set up, each unique and completely alien. (Though perhaps the author could stop pointing this out by using the word “alien”. Superficial problem maybe, but after a while he was pointing out the obvious with that word.)

Targeting

Score: 1

This is a great story, feeling as grand and expansive as Lord of the Rings in some instances. The author creates a great fantasy world for the readers and I can see fantasy lovers having debates about the ins and outs of it for a long time to come if it gets published. This is often the most important thing in fantasy and sci-fi, giving the reader something to explore that they haven't seen before. True, sometimes its just about a simple adventure (or my story, Finders, is a near failure), but the grand whole new world is there this time and waiting to be explored.

Broad Appeal

Score: 1

This is a fantasy story, but it doesn't assume you know the rules of the universe as many fantasy stories do. While younger readers should probably look elsewhere, this would be pretty entertaining for just about any adult reader of fiction.

Decision to back or not:

This story impacted me pretty well which is probably already obvious from the review. I still stand behind the other books on my shelf, but with it's addition I have a pretty solid five book line up. It will be hard to figure out which one to drop the next time I find a really good story.

In Transit: Aethunium – A Steampunk Story

In Transit review:

Note: An “In Transit” review is a story I feel is still “on its way”. This simply means a production isn’t complete or is in need of a rewrite. It also means I’m likely to revisit the story if it gets a rewrite.

Aethunium – A Steampunk Story by Kirk Haggerty

This story is actually pretty impressive in some areas, and lacking in others. It has what I might start calling “Authonomy Syndrome”, which isn’t a bad reflection on the writer so much as it is a reflection on the problem of using authonomy to workshop a story. The first four or five chapters of this story have virtually no spelling or grammar errors, and certainly no direct plot holes. However after that, the normal number of grammar errors can be found and there are a few problems with direction. This reflects the pattern of most trade reads on authonomy. It has become popular to only read and correct the first four or five chapters of a story and then move on in order to read as many stories as possible on authonomy. This ultimately means stories will be very polished in the beginning, but not many people will read to the end, regardless of whether they like the book. Not sure what to recommend to get past this, besides going to a real book workshop, such as http://critters.com that allows writers to exchange and read their works one chapter at a time. The disadvantage of workshops is that they’re for helping to create a story, not publish it, as people come to authonomy for. For this story, I would still definitely recommend such a work shop.

This story has two major problems besides a grammar or spelling mistake here or there. Hook, and direction.

The concept of a hook is to have something about your story that readers will remember and come back to. This can take the form of a writing style, a unique atmosphere or characters that feel real or are easy to fall in love with. While the characters, story and plot are all good enough in their own right, I never could identify anything in the story that I would remember no matter how many other stories I read. There are a variety of ways for a story to get stuck in your head, from rhyming schemes to evoking a powerful emotion, or just having a good variety of themes, like a book of different stories. I just didn’t find anything for this category, which will hurt this story come publishing time.

The problem in the story’s direction came later on, after the well corrected first four or five chapters. At around chapter six or seven I started to notice characters were doing things for reasons that weren’t explained and having roles that didn’t make sense. Even the ending was so overly happy it made me wonder if the author was considering parody. (It would have worked great for that purpose and I actually said so in my comments in all seriousness, not to be insulting.)

As it stands, this story is very well written, but kinda has a feeling like an English major wrote it. Especially in the first few chapters there are very few direct mistakes of any kind. However it would be better having three or four grammar mistakes per page if the author would work to make things more unique. It might even have an easier time with publishing with grammar errors if something stuck with the reader even after three more books were read. The score came out to an 8.75 out of a possible 12 with no bonus points. A very high score for an in transit story, but I still have to recommend a fair amount of work before going straight to a publisher.

To the objectionable material, -1 for very little blood, -2 for only bad guys ever getting killed and -1 for some sexual themes. Over all this is about a -3 out of a possible -25. I don’t know how interested young children would be in this story, as its more grown up in style, but there wouldn’t be any reason to forbid them from reading it if they got the notion.

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In a world where steam and gears replace electricity and gas, time travel is about to be discovered, for better or for worse. This is a very well put together story with interesting characters and a well thought out world. Appropriate for all ages, but geared towards adults this one is basically a good romp through the crazy world that is the pop culture trend of steam punk.

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And with the author plug out of the way, here are the details of how the score was decided:

Warning: Spoilers may be ahead.

Spelling/Grammar

Score: ¾

As I already said, this books is extremely well-polished in the first few chapters, however it has a few grammar and word usage errors in the latter chapters. Nothing suggest the author could not eventually pick up on these problems himself, so I won’t waste his (as I hope he is reading this) and my time explaining those errors.

Interesting Plot

Score: 1

The setting for this story was very well imagined if a bit cliché for the Steam Punk Sub-genre. Blips and old fashioned flying cars populate the sky and horse drawn carriages along with some vehicles populate the ground. Essentially it’s a realization of the theory that if technology had simply built on the foundation steam had already been laying rather than moved on to start over with gas and electricity, it might have moved a good deal faster. Anyone can debate this theory, but the story doesn’t seek to detail how this would work, simply subbing in a mystical blue mineral that pretty much is meant to fill in all the holes that steam and gears might not have been able to work in.

While the plot isn’t bad, it does have a weakness in that the story doesn’t really do much to explain the mechanics of this phenomenally different technological layout for society. It’s simply meant to be accepted that any problems that steam, air and gears had rising beyond a few blimps and steam boats in our world, were compensated for in this world with the blue mineral. This in itself could have been interesting. If the blue mineral were used for other purposes as well, such as being used as a weapon or something else, that would have showed a completely new idea inside an old one.

I will note that about half way through the story the author does use a mechanized quadraped battle ship with zeppelin transport, but he suggests this is unusual for his world. Actually the idea of merging mecha and steam punk would have stuck in anyone’s mind. Imagine steam punk mech warriors duking it out with early navy ships and zeppelins. I get that the author probably wanted to be loyal to the steam punk universe as imagined by its fans, but being too loyal kinda holds him back.

Good Direction

Score: ½

This is where a good number of the story’s problems take root. At first the biggest problem was not really going for any unique themes or characters, but eventually events began to occur that didn’t make sense in universe.

As an example when the mechanized battle ship zeppelin showed up, the person who commissioned it is not one we have any reason to believe had the resources to build it. In fact nothing of that level of technological advancement had been mentioned in the story before. The creation was treated as something commissioned on a whim and basically piloted by mercenaries. This seems very unlikely in a world set in 1900 with 1900 equivalent technology and the characters act impressed but not very much given the disparity between the technology of the entire planet, and one man. Perhaps the story could have set up that the antagonist had been experimenting with technology that could have put him ahead, and it was hinted that he had used electricity, but this explanation felt very rushed and almost shoe horned.

The main character himself even felt forced into situations after a while, because he was never shown to have unique skills that people would consider when placing him. For example he is arrested as a spy, but then put right back out into combat by the people who arrested him. He is then allowed to use a time space teleportation device he did not invent that only hours earlier he used against the country that arrested him. The device’s operation in story was very simple, so why they couldn’t have just asked him how to use the device and had someone else use it is not explained. Nor is he given any expertise in any field that might have cleared up the reasoning in using him. He only uses the device for a short time, which means his experience wasn’t that valuable either.

Even for this story, which isn’t particularly violent or dark, the ending is overly happy to the point of self-parody. All characters get the most ideal ending possible, and some major plot points are introduced without need. For instance an assassin had been pursuing the main character for the entire story, and had not been dealt with by the end. In the last chapter he was finally killed in an overly drawn out encounter and also turned out to have a double that turned out to be the main character from a possible future where he failed to stop the main villain. Yes, that was all introduced and resolved in a few paragraphs and was very rushed. (Not to mention that the story didn’t even bring up the idea of paradox, -what would have happened if the main character’s alternate self had succeeded in eliminating his own past life?-.)

Finally, this story really didn’t handle the theme of time travel very well. It never established what the rules were for time travel, or even stated that theories about it were uncertain. It simply proceeded as if the characters knew all of its implications and it didn’t matter that the reader did not.

Author Interest

Score: 1

This story is actually placed at 110 despite its problems and I say this is no doubt in no small part due to how much the author is advertising it. He is definitely throwing his weight behind the product and I believe it reasonable to assume he will work on fixing any errors as quickly as possible.

Believable Main Characters

Score: 1

While the premise of the story was science fiction, and there were plot holes that revolved around the main characters, the characters themselves always remained believable. Their reactions were normally consistent and they grew progressively as individuals, not being overtly goofy or incredibly intelligent or dumb.

Likable Main Characters

Score: 1

Being believable in this case did not end up making the characters boring. Their emotions and feelings still drove the story for the most part and I really did find myself hoping things would work out for them. I do feel that working harder with the Baron, the main antagonist, might have been to the writer’s benefit. The antagonist eventually turns out to be of the variety who can put together incredibly advanced machines in a short amount of time. This is usually a trait used with parody villains but the Baron is played too straight for this to be implied. The characters were all good, but as it stands, none of them really stuck out.

Likable Side Characters

Score: ½

This is another problem area. Save for the main character’s four year old daughter, side characters in this story come in, fill a role and leave. It doesn’t really feel like the writer was endeavoring to make us care about them or what happened to them which made them feel empty.

Good Scene Descriptions

Score: 1

Actually despite not being technically explained very well, the scenes in the story themselves were very well explained and set up. I was at many times able to envision myself in this alternate timeline. Even the mechanized dreadnaught, though poorly explained, was very well described.

Targeting

Score: 1

Though I might say to its detriment, this story is very loyal to the steam punk sub-genre. It keeps with the themes of semi advanced technology for the age, yet not fantastic all the same, keeping things “reasonable”. Steam punk enthusiast will be pleased.

Broad Appeal

Score: 1

There is no reason those outside steam punk lovers will be upset with this production. It doesn’t talk over anyone’s head or have any objectionable material. In fact the characters and plot are very fun in it of themselves. Any reader could be seen enjoying themselves with this book.

(New category)

Decision to back or not:

Truth is, recently I’ve been reading a few books that felt very good themselves, but seemed to be lacking unique qualities that will make them stand out in my mind over time. This story is the best of them in that with the introduction of mecha into steam punk, clumsy as it was, it will stick with me. I would highly suggest the writer work on other themes that will stand out in people’s minds as unique, or perhaps build more on the mecha concept. Right now his backing with me is kinda on shaky ground.