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Printed from https://writing.com/main/profile/reviews/doublecat
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41 Public Reviews Given
41 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
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Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
*Web1*                                                *Web2*
*Cat* A DoubleCat Review *Cat2*
*Web3*                                                *Web4*


Hi, John! I haven't reviewed you before to my knowledge, but I see that you've submitted another entry for the monthly horror contest in February as well. I hope to get to that one also, but since I'm going to make a serious attempt to enter my own, I might wait until after the contest ends before reviewing that one. Stay tuned and good luck!

Story Summary *Parrot*

A virus appears on the scene that elevates humankind to 'Limitless' levels of intelligence. We come to find that the virus was created by aliens who like chomping on the noggins of the exceptionally intelligent, which, let's face it, in our current state as people in this day and age, we are not. An interesting concept that sort of reminded me of that The Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man. Not a bad thing to be compared to in my opinion.

General Impressions *Toilet**Gold*

This was an awesome story that I thoroughly enjoyed as someone who loves horror, eats up science fiction (oh, gosh, no pun intended) like I'm at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and who goes crazy when I find something combining my two favorite genres. I really liked how this was written. You're an excellent writer, and I can hardly fault the prose. That said, my general impressions are going to be primarily negative because I think this could be really great, and I'd rather you take time to improve it (but of course you're entitled to disregard everything I saw as you wish) than bask in the glory of all the praise I could offer up here.

I thought the writing was great, but the further I got along in the story, the more I started to think it was overprocessed a little. I then realized this guy who's writing it is supposed to be super smart, so it would be a little bit out of character if he talked like, well, me for instance. Or anyone who talked remotely similar.

I didn't really expect quite the same twist you came up with to say the least, and when I found out the aliens were trying to give the humans some mental flavor to make them more desirable for consumption, I thought that seemed a little outlandish. The aliens are an advanced civilization, sure, and even with the human's heightened intelligence, how much more formidable could they be? It felt like elevating the apes. They might not be at a particularly advanced level of development, but it just seems dangerous and ill advised.

Later on it's revealed the aliens only need the brainwaves of people and not to actually consume them? If the aliens are as intelligent as humans or even smarter, you would think they would have been able to come to the conclusion the humans came to almost instantaneously and without prompting. And yet it takes the humans explaining to them how it could all be done without having to send sacrificial humans for consumption in order to ensure the continued amplified intelligence of the human race.

That said, it was still a great story. It just felt a bit anticlimactic. Not every story has to end in big explosions or war-torn battlegrounds with the last survivors maimed and fighting to the last, but I'm not sure it worked here. It just sort of fizzled out. I was hoping for some kind of clever, dark twist at the end that never came.

Once again, the writing was great, and it made for a smooth, easy read. The aliens were interesting, and I wanted to learn more about them. Since this is for a horror contest, I would have liked to have been a little more freaked out by them, and to have seen a better resolution to the conflict than, "Oh, that's a good idea. Why didn't we think of that?" Why didn't you think of that indeed.

Ideas / Originality *Recycle**Idea*

The simplest way I could explain the plot is: Aliens coming to earth to dine on humans after making them tastier. The humans offer a better solution.

Aliens coming to earth to eat people isn't a new concept, but the smarts raising in order to do so might have been. Never heard of that one before. A fun premise that I think somehow could be reworked into something not just really good but even spectacular.

Characters *Mask3**Mask4*


We get to hear how all of these events transpire from a rather unaffected narrator that doesn't experience much development beyond cognitive advancement. There isn't much characterization in the story.

Writing Style *Tophat**CowboyHat*


Excellent, efficient, very eloquent and true to the character's intelligence.

Organization / Structure *RainbowL**Books3**Books4**Books1**RainbowR*

Told in a relatively linear fashion, as if being expressed as a recorded account in a history book. Starts with the cause of the intelligence increasing worldwide, then the alien race that causes the virus, their reasons, and then a resolution is offered.

Points of Confusion *SnailR**SnailB*


Everything was pretty clear cut and easy to understand. Your character was smart enough to know how to explain the happenings in a way that was easy to pick up on, even for a dummy like me

Grammar *Geek**Whistle*


Hmm, possibly perfect. I'm not sure I picked up on any errors. Noice!

Final thoughts *Grave**Skull*

This is a fantastic entry that leans a little more on the sci-fi side of the sci-fi horror genre. And that's alright. We all have our preferences, and someone who reads your story might wish it had even less horror to it, but i would have preferred the dial turned up on the scares.

Once again, the writing was excellent, the concept was very interesting, and I think you'll do well with this one. I won't say whether or not it's my favorite from the contest so far, but I guess I can fess up to it being one of my favorites. Great work, best of luck, and I hope to come across more of your work in the future
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Review of The Lighthouse  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Ooh, twist at the end. I did not see that coming! I'll keep this review short to fall in line with the length of the story. Otherwise, I may be at risk of outrunning this one's word count if I keep the review as long and indulgent as most of the ones I do *Whistle*

Well, it was short and sweet. I really like the concept. It was neat and very fun. I would go so far as to say clever even. I liked the letters showing up waterlogged and the messages from long-lost captains at sea. Messages with nothing more than instructions on how to deal with the aftermath of something or to possibly prevent something from happening, but they played out more like omens. If only the MC could figure them out before the incident the letters were sent to help with.

I've read enough horror stories from the contest you entered that didn't end up very horror-y that I thought maybe this was going somewhere not as bad for the MC. But then that last letter came, and if previous failed attempts to deduce the details of what exactly the letters were referring to before the incident presented itself were any indication, the MC really should have made sure about his life insurance.

Cool story and well done, especially for how low the wordcount is. I don't think I've reviewed your work before, although you're name is familiar, so that might be a lapse in my memory from the hour of the night. In either case, I hope to read more and wish you luck with the contest! Fantastic work. I would have loved it if it was longer as well, but the length really works for how you've told it
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Review of A New World Order  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Hey, Jim, I'm going through the Horror Contest and reviewing the entries for the fun of it. I know this one doesn't qualify because of length, but I was just too curious to see the kind of story you wrote that couldn't fit into the word count limits. I've struggled with that a bunch of times and know firsthand the frustrations of having a story that feels like it needs all of it's constituent parts as it currently is to be told properly but not having it at the required length.

There's a lot of story here, and I can see why it ended up being too long to get you there. The amount of story in this could have made a movie. Or, you know, a book.

I think it's a credit to your storytelling that I was able to get through this in one sitting without it feeling like you were actually writing that long of a story. Yes, it is a lot of story, but it just breezed by. You had me lured by the plot. Two luminaries in the broadcasting world joining forces to do something pretty ill advised in my opinion. History had already shown us why this could be a bad idea, and yet both were willing to go along with the plan.

Well, it turns out there was more to this plot, and it all came down to a secret zombie scheme to overthrow the world. It sounds pretty wild. It occurred to me that the story might have been played for laughs just a little bit. Or at least it might not have been meant to be taken entirely seriously. I found some humor in it, for better or worse, and once I viewed it with that lens, I actually found the overall story more enjoyable.

I'll give you an excerpt as an example of what I thought was pure comedy genius:

"As Jeff lay there gasping to breathe, he looked at Frank. With one of his last breaths he said, “Frank… Jeff stopped to take a breath, pain evident in all he did. “This was all made up.” Again, Jeff stopped, blood seeping from his lips as he violently coughed. “Like the Welles broadcast in 1938.” Having said that, Jeff fell back on the pavement. He shuddered a couple of times, his body twitching each time before his chest stopped its painful rise and fall. Frank looked at him, his mind trying to process Jeff’s last words.

Welles? He tried to think, tried to understand who Welles could be. It wasn’t until the light breeze blew Jeff’s coat open, exposing Jeff’s copy of the original broadcast that he realized who Welles was."

It's possible this might not have been played for laughs, but I can at least tell from the tone of the writing that this was meant to be a fun little story. Sometimes what's meant to be fun can get other people to giggle, and that's how it struck me. If I'm at all off base, that's all the fault lies with me and my inability to interpret this for how it was meant to be taken. I also have been known to laugh at the most inappropriate times, which hasn't exactly set me in high favor with previous employers. . .

In this specific example, there was just something about this guy getting shot several times in the chest and using his last words simply to say what he did and the breeze blowing his jacket open to reveal what he was talking about to his friends. I wish I had the words to articulate why I found it so funny, but I thought it was brilliant.

The plot also was pretty fun. I wondered if there might have been something hiding beneath the scenes and a secret reason for the broadcast. Otherwise, I didn't really see the motivation for doing it. And you tied an unlikely but usable idea as to why the broadcast was being done. To hide a zombie revolt.

This story was such an easy read, and it was just ridiculous enough but not too ridiculous. It might be my favorite story from the contest thus far to be honest.

I'm sorry this one was disqualified, but I hope to see your entries in the future! I really liked the plot, and in general I just enjoy the way you write. You have a great skill for conveying information in an easily digestible manner and for keeping the reader engaged. I don't think you can teach that, and it's certainly a talent to be proud of. Great work
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Review of The New Place  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
"It was a dark and stormy night."

Starting your story with that when the prompt to follow is 'New' was a CHOICE. That cracked me up.

You legitimately had something pretty creepy going on with this one at a certain point. You start with Etta jumping at shadows, but then around the time she heads to the bathroom and her reflection seems to precede her movements by just a fraction of a second to the stretched-out hallway and the TV beginning to have a mind of its own, it really did creep me out a bit. It made me anxious too. But it wasn't anxious from the fear of something scary coming as much as it was that I was anxious to see how it all connected. I really wanted to see what was causing this. My head was trying to piece together all of the things happening to come to some kind of horror world logic that explained it. I wasn't expecting it to be a hodge-podge of random creepy occurrences without a defining central cause, but it sort of did seem that way at the end. That to me was a little disappointing because I wanted to see what it had all come from and why, but it's never really explained.

For a moment, I sided with Etta's interpretation. It was all in her head, and she was going a little crazy believing a voice was calling out, that someone was knocking on the door. That lights were turning on and off on their own. I convinced myself of that all the way until the end when the husband gets back. He finds Etta behind an elm, and he also begins to be haunted by voices. Something causes him to turn around after hearing his name and his wife's name, and we never get to learn what's going on before the story ends.

Of the stories I've read for January's contest thus far—and I've started from the oldest going to the newest—this was probably the scariest one I've read. Many of the others were about scary things but not necessarily trying to actually be scary. I think this one succeeded in that to a degree, and horror that manages to churn up just a little bit of fear will always be my favorite variety. Unfortunately, not many stories seem to go for that, so I get left out in the cold most of the time, but I still find plenty to enjoy in almost every variety of horror anyways. Still, it was good to see some actual spookiness.

By the end of your story, there was still a bit of ambiguity. Was the house haunted? Is it possible Etta actually did imagine everything? Is it possible Greg never really did show up?

Hard to say for sure, but I'm going to assume some entity is truly after them both. Etta is clearly at her wit's end and seeming fit for a strait jacket, which doesn't help with the impression that she's telling the truth.

My biggest gripe about this one is that you don't really get to know what's going on or why. Is the house haunted? Is there something malevolent at play at all, or is it all in Etta's head? Sometimes ambiguity is good, but I still think the possibility of a supernatural force should be rooted in something. Hearing the house was haunted at some point, or finding something that would anchor that possibility to some evidence would be nice. As it stands, it's just a woman being creeped out by her new house and a new environment. In a sense, I think it can work on its own without any of that because a new environment can be creepy and seem to have its own malevolent personality.

Just some thoughts. Overall, I really liked this. You managed to take the mundane situation of being alone in a new house to a scary place, and I really appreciated that. I don't have much else to say except I wish you the best of luck with the contest! And thanks for the scare!
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Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (5.0)
We're just past the time of year when playing musical chairs with all of the fickle resolutionists hogging machines they don't even know how to use seems to be coming to an end at my gym, and lo and behold I find your story of a guy who's gone and enjoyed all the great food a little too much and thinks it's time to do something about it on New Years.

The timing is interesting, but you did write this in January, so I shouldn't be too surprised. Barry Biggins. The name just killed me. I assume it was intentional, and it made for a pretty funny opening when I saw it. But it's not all as lighthearted as it might seem from the start. Barry is on a journey to pursue physical perfection, a standard that is impossible to achieve and a standard that is often set with little objective consideration. In your story, Barry takes hardly a care about what the signs show and only sees the steps his watch tell him to take. He's got to hit that 10,000 every day, even if it leaves him an emaciated husk hanging on to the last of his lifeforce, slumped and bleeding on the floor of his own home.

I loved the lightheartedness of the story, even as it got toward the end and we began to 'see' Barry heading in a bad direction. The tone was consistent, and it worked well.

It seems to me there are far more people who run into health issues from overindulgence and a sedentary lifestyle, but you've chosen to take a different look at things and write a cautionary tale for the overenthused fitness fanatics going the extreme route to their detriment. I've heard of world-class athletes dying of heart attacks while running, supposed health gurus making their diets so drastic that it becomes fatal. There is definitely some authority behind the message it seems you're presenting here. There's definitely a fine line or at least a need for moderation, but I still think I'll continue to err on the side of fitness over fatness.

This was good stuff! I'm sorry to hear you've written a story that's largely centered around one of the banned items. I think you would have had a sporting chance. A great read, but one that I think could use just a little tidying up. The occasional minor errors, possibly some run-on sentences and stuff like that, but nothing that distracted from a great story. Fantastic work. You're a great writer. Well, according to me anyway, which doesn't really mean much. But all the same, I hope to come across your next horror story soon.
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Review of The Voice Inside  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (5.0)
I came across this from the horror newsletter you authored. It's pretty good! I can't really fault it too much. It evokes a bit of a familiar sense of a story or maybe even several I've heard before, but it's enough of its own thing, that's for sure. A voice in a person's head telling them to do bad things is not unheard of, but you had an interesting way of telling it that I really appreciated. It seems to have a telepathic chokehold on the MC, and he abides by its every whim, much of which ends in evil deeds and fire. From his parent's home, to the poor cat, to his aunt's home, and finally to himself. Although burning himself wasn't the voice's request, of course.

Am I to understand that the voice at the end headhopped from the MC to his aunt? That's interesting, but I guess she seems inconsequential in the story for you to have written it in this way: ". . . I had glimpsed something more startling and far more terrifying than just my death." I see you submitted this for a contest or two, so this was probably a quick write, but I think some development on his aunt and their connection would have been nice so the MC talking about his aunt being essentially possessed was that much more devastating. She's barely mentioned in the story, and it would have been nice if there was something like the MC saying she was the only one who believed he was still a good kid even after her sister died in that fire, etc. Just a thought. And if I misunderstood the Aunt Lucy bit at the end, just ignore me. Just a thought I had, but it's sort of interesting to think that the voice might not have been able to headhop at all and would have died with the MC. Who knows what the capabilities are of the voice, and perhaps in an act of defiance or retaliation for the MC killing both of them, it decided to gift him with a false premonition of the aunt being controlled next.

I liked this entity and the idea of how it's always been with the MC. It refers to itself as having been born with the MC, but somehow it's not stuck with the MC if it's to be believed. When can it leave? Can it leave? Or is it simply unleashed when the MC is dying or dead? It seemed to have passed on from the MC long enough for the MC to realize (sorry, I keep using MC, I just realized: Main Character is what I mean) that his Aunt is next. If the entity is able to leave whenever it wants to, you would think it might choose someone who's in a better position to do more damage. Someone with a lot of means and the ability to enact egregious acts with near impunity.

The entity was very interesting, and there are a lot of unanswered questions that make it all the more spooky. I like that you didn't reveal too much about it, and kept it sort of mysterious and unknowable.

Great little short story. I liked how much you got done in such a short word count. A complete story that was a pleasure to read. I might just have to scope out the rest of your portfolio and see what other interesting reads I can find. Very nice!
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Review of The last Remnant  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Just read this. I enjoyed it. In parts, I thought it had excellent prose. In others, I thought it was striving a little too hard for fanciful writing that sacrificed precision for the sake of something more ornate. Overall, the prose was impressive, but it seemed to get a little less polished once you hit the mark in this where you stop double spacing your paragraphs, which leads me to believe you had this written out somewhere else and copied it over and that point where the double spacing stops, that may be the point where you completed a major edit and just haven't gone all the way through with that yet. All in all, this was a very interesting read. I liked the way you described the surroundings at the start, and you snuck in just a little bit of worldbuilding to give the reader an idea of the state of magic in this universe. There is the reappearance of forbidden magics, the absence of dragons until now (?), a castle overlooking a town that I'm just now realizing you might not have described in much detail beyond some poetic language about leaves, laughter, shadows, and the gleam of amber light caught on those tumbling leaves in an array of three dramatic colors, which I find interesting. But I guess the castle is what's really important in this.

Getting into spoiler territory, but I don't think there are many who read my reviews anyways, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Essentially what we have here is a castle and village/town/city under siege by a dragon and then we come to find a sorcerer of some sort has gotten within the castle as it's being periodically blown to bits along with the surrounding locality. Could the sorcerer have been there all along? Did he manage to gain access due to some hidden passageway that every fantastical castle seems to have, or did the damage to the castle somehow give him access? It's not really addressed. We just know he's there. Given his ability to summon otherworldly bloodlusted abominations practically from thin air, I guess I could assume he might have used something like that to get inside too.

At first, he doesn't make much of a hurry out of carrying out his mission. Instead, he decides to perform a sidequest by entering the Hall of Lineage and literally defacing a stretch of portraits like a scorned high schooler taking a marker to his bullies in a yearbook. Something about this took the wind out of the sails when it came to taking him seriously for me. In part because it seemed too frivolous for a serious player, and also because I wasn't sure if the entire castle was about to be leveled anyway when all was said and done. He then makes his way toward the throne room where the BloodSworn (I really think it should just be Bloodsworn) have barricaded the doors and where the king, queen, and the prince are cowering. His powers come into play here to summon a beast that busts through the makeshift defense, and the monster is instructed to kill everyone. The cloaked guy, Dominion, proceeds to tell it not to kill everyone and reveals himself as the king's long-lost son.

So far, there is no given reason for why he'd want to attack his family or their kingdom, but he wants revenge apparently after dying in battle if I caught that correctly. There's a lot of unanswered questions and questions that want to be answered, which I think is a good thing. There's not much tension here. Somehow I don't feel dread for the royal family, but I did feel anticipation for the door to finally be brought down or breached, but it seemed to take a while to get there. When it finally did, you dropped that surprise that would have been a lot more surprising if you chose a different chapter title, but I still think you pulled it off effectively. It's a good start.

Regarding prose, I mentioned some of it was imprecise. By this I mean it gave me the impression it sounded good but leaned into the attempt at elegance, profundity, etc., without accurately capturing what you intended to describe on the flipside of that. It rarely happened. Most of the prose made perfect sense, but it happened more than once, so I thought I'd mention it. In the first few paragraphs it caught me immediately that you used the word 'like' maybe five or six times. You do well with it, though, but it might be a little too repetitive. Among those, I really appreciated this line: "Tonight, firelight gleamed from windows set high in its walls, flickering like stars trapped in stone."

You leaned into some single-paragraph usage for dramatic effect. At times I didn't like that. I took it as too salient, pointing to itself as if to say, "You see this? This is really epic or significant." There's no rule you can't do that, right? That just comes down to style, which is subjective. Still, I wonder if most people might subjectively believe it could be improved if it was toned down a bit. The last thing I have to say is that I came across the name King Koric Armada, and I thought it was a silly-sounding name, which was weird to find since none of the other names struck me that way. But then I arrived at the name Dominion Armada——respectfully, an absurd name—and I knew I had to recommend a possible reconsideration. But it's yours. If you like it, keep it, and you are as you know fully at liberty to continue on without any changes to character's names.

Yeah, overall pretty great writing. An interesting story, and better prose than I find on WdC the majority of the times I log in. At first, it really struck me as not far off at all from what I could expect to find in a novel. Whatever criticism I gave was just to make sure I gave you something. It took nitpicking and getting a bit granular to arrive at much to offer there, so that's all to say I think you've done a great job, and I hope you continue.
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Review of The Homeless Man  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (5.0)
I don't know if this story is supposed to be taken seriously or not. I'm just not really sure what to think about this story. Generous of you to buy the guy a house. I might have to start cosplaying as a homeless guy if this is all true.
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Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Hi Whiskerfacebythefireplace!

I'll pretty much read anything unless it's too sexy or gory (despite being a horror lover, emphasis on the lover, I guess), and got connected to your story through the Read & Review button, so I guess you're about to be victimized.

A story about getting drunk after receiving a rejection letter from a university that had treated you like yesterday's garbage. Not cool, friend. This sounds like a job for . . . booze. And your husband who I'm not sure happens to be your husband at this point in the time in the story, but considering it was your first date with him, I'd say PROBABLY not. Should be obvious really, but it might not be a bad idea to give his name and start calling him that in case anyone out there who happens upon this is just as easily mixed up as I am at . . . an insomnia-driven 1:04 am in the morning here in Utah.

This was good stuff. It was told in a very conversational tone. The way it came across was a lot like how a story would if someone was sitting down and telling it to you during a casual chat. My biggest gripe, dear Whiskerfacebythefireplace (is Whiskerface a cat?!), is how the story just ends. You're at the last sentence, and you know what happens next must be interesting because this is your first date with a man who eventually becomes your husband, you're getting hammered chugging margaritas like your bladder's a black hole, and you even have the nerve to tell us the night was epic. And then it just ends. Hook me on a story just to drop it off the cliff! We need details. Not joking, I'd love to hear the rest if there's a continuation. Well, I guess I'd better check that out. Thanks for sharing. I was entertained. As story's go, it surely had a beginning, middle, and, well, it did end, but rather abruptly like I said. Shame
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Review of Optimized  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (5.0)
Well, I wanted to hear about Butters!

This was a pleasant and easy read. As the writer, it's probably obvious to you what the message is that you're trying to convey, but to me, I'm uncertain what it is. Your description of the story must be a dead giveaway, but I'm blind to it somehow. A somewhat wayward child is undergoing stern instruction along with his fellow classmates aboard a space vessel. The authoritarian establishment of this space community that one can infer will be traveling among the stars for years to come is evident, and Isaac stands out from that as unconcerned and lighthearted while his peers try to help him keep in line. It feels as though he represents how most children from our day and age and world of eating things that poop would behave in this environment if they weren't properly acclimated to it. I sense that Isaac's instructor is giving him some bad marks, and you use him, essentially what we'd expect from a young guy in this day and age, to provide a contrast to the society. The other children behave with militaristic compliance and no sign of a misstep while Isaac seems to wander whichever way the wind takes him, at the mercy of his impulses. Progress, and the exceptionalism it employs to ensure it continues for an advanced, space-faring civilization, requires strict tutelage and order along with adherence to a strict code of conduct. Under the guise of conformity and decorum are buried emotions and sentiments. Isaac manages to elicit somewhat of a misty eye from his instructor by calling upon a memory of her floof being cared for by his sister. She seems to want to indulge this a little further by asking Isaac if he'd like to hear more about Butters after all, but he promptly shuts this down in a manner that only a child could employ without coming across as rude. His blunt response was a pretty funny way to end it. I wish Isaac well and hope he'll fit in fine without getting himself into too much trouble despite the ship's apparent aversion to shenanigans and wayward behavior.

I like how much you get across without exposition. There's a lot the reader can infer, and we gain an understanding of the world-- sorry -- universe building you've done. It's also written pretty well. Nothing too fancy with the prose, but everything advances at an appropriate pace, and you communicate what you want very effectively. You don't spend too much time in any one area, and I'd say that according to my own perception, the pacing is perfect. It was an interesting read with a great message, and it was pleasantly surprising to find humor in it.

Great work. Can't really recommend much if anything to improve. Maybe if I read it several times and gave it a good soul search. For now, I'm gonna say it's exceptionally done and just be pleased it left me with such an impression.
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Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (5.0)
Hi tophatfiddle, I came upon this by hitting the random review button. It's been over a year since I've done a review here, so please bear with me.

I can't tell if this is the start of a series or just a singular piece of writing that may not have ever taken off and been completed, but it's obviously part of a larger story whether it's been told the whole way through or not. I'm intrigued by it, though. If I weren't reading so much already and staring down a ponderously large and ever-growing TBR list, I'd probably read more on this if I could find it. Ah, what the heck? I might just do that anyway assuming more there is more yo this.

Your image selected for the story sort of has a raypunk aesthetic, I think, but I wasn't picking up on much of that motif in the story. There is a spaceship, though, or at least some kind of flying craft, but by its brief description it's neither saucer-shaped or hollowed by the emblematic portholes someone like me who has limited exposure to the subgenre might envision. I just know that it's piloted by a mysterious man with mysterious implants connected to his spinal cord, and that he hasn't respinded to questioning.

Could he be an alien altered to appear like us (still waiting on that DNA test), or is he an actual human flying an experimental wayward craft, or possibly even a time traveler? Or something else altogether? Who knows how creative this writer may be?

You set this up by having a general briefing some troops on their mission to Africa where they are to join and assist the CIA who are awaiting their assistance. It's unclear which authority will have ultimate oversight, but it's clear a lot of cooperation is expected. You establish that the CIA may be a little uneasy working with these guys, but somehow they're in over their heads. Not a lot of info is given about the nature of the mission. I assume the troops will be briefed in greater detail upon arrival.

Later, actually at the very end, we learn of the captive and the failed attempts to glean any information from him and the craft he crashed.

This sets up the interesting start to your story. Stakes don't seem especially high just yet, but there is the feeling that we are on the cusp of a greater development that may have serious implications.

The writing on this is pretty good. You use a very no-nonsense style, which is appropriate for the goings on and who and what is involved. I like the military speak. Having neither served nor spent much time reading military stuff, it passed muster for me on sounding legitimate. Things move along quickly, I think you've structured this well to convey information to the reader, and it's largely done so organically. Also, I could spot very few errors. It's clean work. Toward the beginning there might have been an 'on' that should have been an 'in' or vice versa, but very few instances of things like this stuck out. I might have been too engrossed to catch more, but I'm confident this is relatively free of much in the way of distracting goofs.

It's just the start of a story that may or may not have a preceding chapter, and so it's hard to judge too much about the ideas and overall content or premise, but we have an interesting enough hook and a quality of writing that shouldn't dissuade anyone drawn in to the story.

I'm interested to read more, and I appreciate the effort you spent in creating this and allowing me to review. I may try to track down what comes next
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Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Things seem to be getting better and better. You've certainly raised the stakes in general. I like the way the story feels. With the probation officer, the dialogue, how everything seems to play out, it definitely feels like a story from a different age.

Story progression is great, pacing continues to be good, but it still feels like much of what is being relayed has a very distant psychic distance that you more often see in summary or when establishing the initial story world. I've read plenty of books that do something pretty similar, but I keep thinking you're going to scope in for some reason, but it just keeps up with the same kind of distant narrative. Nothing wrong with how you're doing it, though. I think the last time I saw it done like this was in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Chronicles series, and he kept it up through and through from what I remember reading. I'm not sure what that type of narration is termed as. I'm still learning too. Or at least let's hope.

So everything's looking really good. The only thing I have to say is that I'm concerned about this heist. We haven't even started really talking about it yet, let alone planned it (although maybe gramps already has), and then there is the actual execution of the heist. All of which I'm very excited to see, by the way. Hopefully we get to it with enough room to fit it all in.

So I accidentally read the title of your last chapter in your port, which spoiled a lot, I think, and now I believe I understand why you're spending so much time with the story where it's at. Specifically with Nolan facing consequences and getting a taste for the punishment that goes with the crime. I'm still excited to see how you pull it off and the heist itself.

Great work
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Review of Cat  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (5.0)
Admittedly, I don't know much about poetry, and as I'm sure you have recently seen for yourself, I'm not particularly good at poetry either, but I'll give it a shot if the occasion demands it. At one point I specifically noted on my bio not to request that I review poetry. But I still know good poetry when I see it. Speaking of bios and ports, I happened to see that you've updated yours a bit, and you mentioned your own recent poetry, so here I am.

There are a few reasons why I like this, and some of those come down to coincidence. There's the obvious, my handle and presumable love for cats. There is my recent contest for which I was honored to have you participate wherein I mentioned haiku (and not including them), and of course it being a Halloween-themed contest, we have another coincidence with those little pumpkins in the background of your selected cover photo.

A bit early for Halloween, don't you think, Beholden? Kidding, kidding.

What I like about this is how well you capture the cat. The cat of course being a fluff-covered liquid that assumes the shape of nearly any reasonably sized lesser boxes or spaces it may try to occupy. Undeterred is right. I loved your use of the second line for a couple reasons that I think sort of lose their effectiveness when articulated kind of like how it goes when you have to explain the punchline of a joke. The whole thing works as a whole very well, and I'm truly charmed.

This is probably my favorite of all the haiku I've read on WdC
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Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
I'm enjoying the story progression so far. Everything is sort of whizzing by and there's not a lot of in-the-moment narration. I think it works well since you're covering a lot of ground quickly rather than steeping the reader in stagnant scenes that don't really go anywhere. So again I like the pacing. An argument could be made about establishing the MC's 'normal world' and spending more time there, but I think you're getting to the more interesting stuff sooner, and I'm really enjoying that approach for this story.

You end on another cliffhanger, but this one has much higher stakes. Any number of things could happen, and I feel very drawn to see what's in store. Not just with this predicament, but with how Nolan gets to this eventual heist.

Regarding the prose, I think it still flows well. There aren't really any hang ups. Maybe little parts here and there I think you'd catch on your own with revision. This is still pretty clean. The one change I think would make this better would be to format this so each paragraph has an extra space.

Overall, it's coming along nicely. I'm excited to see where it goes. I think it's even better than the last one.
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Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Well, Timothy, I think this is a pretty good start. You took the story right through the introductory phase and dropped in the inciting incident, or what I believe to be the inciting incident, pretty quickly. The writing is easy to get through, and you don't spend much time on any one point in particular. It moves along at a good rate without feeling rushed. We get a feel for the character, his day in and day out, and we learn about the down-on-his-luck theme that has jagged its way through his life up until this point.

You've gone with a mystery box approach here while including little details about some of the important parts of what could lay ahead. To me, it mostly works, but it sort of doesn't at the same time. This kid has gone all this way on his singular day off to meet a strange woman, then to gain access to a storage unit where he finds a letter. Only he doesn't bother to read the letter in full for the first chapter and scans it over instead. It's not that I think he'll never read it, but all the same that might have gotten a little raised eyebrow out of me, and it felt like you were trying to drop in some enticing details without inclusion of the actual letter here by way of a sort of cliffhanger. Still, Nolan is a 15-year-old kid. It wouldn't be too farfetched for him to not want to read a wall of text. As the narrator, he also mentioned he found his grandpa to be a little boring despite his checkered past, but he also says this letter is nothing like the others he received during his grandpa's time in prison.

All in all, though, I thought this was pretty good. While it flows well, it could flow a little better in one or two places, but there's certainly nowhere that this is bad by any means. We know a heist is involved. Diamonds, art, etc. This could be a fun story. I think all signs point to that being the case, and I may very well be coming back for more. I'm something of a crime writer myself among other genres. It's good to see another someone on WdC taking a crack at the genre as well. Solid work.

Thank you for allowing your work to be reviewed.
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Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
You're a great storyteller. I'm not a writer of non-fiction, although I've thought that someday I'd want to look back at my own journaling one day, but I haven't started that yet. I probably should.

I really like what you've done here. It could have been some story with a monumental act of kindness (I probably read a disproportionate amount of fiction), but this is more subtle, less earthshattering, and I think it's all the better for it.

I think of people who find themselves in situations where they are stuck with the dilemma of either doing nothing, which might be an egregious choice, or acting and helping another person, which would be the more moral decision, of course. Most people, I like to think—me being more like the you at the end of the story than the one at the beginning—would do the good thing. We can applaud people when we see them make that choice, and often times we do. Especially if that good deed involved saving someone's live or something profound, but I've often thought good deeds like this come with a choice of doing nothing and living with that terrible choice, or deciding to act. Maybe those heroes you occasionally hear about on the news only chose not to make the terrible choice.

With a smaller, more down-to-earth act like what you described when your customer foot the bill for the other party, that to me is an example of unencumbered kindness. You're right, though, about a lot of things. I see a lot of people bustling to get ahead and without any care for how they're impacting others. This was a great story that shows that it doesn't always go that way.

Thank you for sharing this. I hope selfless acts from others continue to surprise you frequently, and that you're on the receiving end of it more often than not as well
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Review of Epistolary Dreams  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Interesting read. You never reveal just what the subject of the picture happened to be, but you left me curious. So my interpretation of this without stretching too far beyond what I can say from what you lay out plainly is that the main character is able to manifest her art in some other dimension. Her art has the potential to cause pain, and a recurring dream revealing this to her finally leaves a lasting enough impression that she decides not to go through with the completion of her art project. This spares the lives, souls, or condition of some off scene characters that exist in another world. I liked the vagueness of this. It's interesting how you can read a story that doesn't go into details about some of the more interesting aspects and how your mind still manages to draw up a picture. For me, I had a vague idea of the world that isn't described, the art, and maybe that final bit of art your character never completed. I don't think you really touched on any of this much, and I think that was a good decision.

This reminded me a little bit of the Will Ferrell movie 'Stranger than Fiction.' I'm sure you'd rather hear of a comparison to a book with a similar plot, but off the top of my head, I can't think of any.

I liked the way you finished this off. Though I'm not sure exactly how to interpret it. Playing it safe, your main character decides to cease pursuing her art. She regrets it, and wonders if it was all just a dream. No one comes forth to relate a similar experience that would corroborate what she's gone through, so she's left to wonder if it was pointless to stop. The meaning I took from this was a simple one. A person can either use their gifts for bad or good. If a person doesn't use their gift for good, or won't use their gift for good, it's better they don't use it at all. To me, that seemed like a flawed theme. I get that your character must be inherently good or she'd have continued with her artwork heedless of any harm it may have caused. But she didn't, and by the end of the story, she still badly misses her old hobby. Which begs the question, why couldn't she just make art that didn't depict terrible, world-ending subjects? Not her style? Would it take the fun out of it for her? Maybe.

Another possible theme—and this one seems unlikely—is that she may have been using the whole thing as an excuse to stop pursuing her passion the moment it became challenging. Suppose there is no alternative world that she's able to manipulate at her every whim and digital paint stroke. That would leave the occurrence of her dream as little more than a stress-induced reaction to encountering difficulty with her art for the first time. The recurring dream, then, would have been nothing more than an excuse to quit rather than persevere.

Anyway, for what it's worth this got me thinking. The story was good. It's something you could easily explore a little more if you wished to. You could definitely expand it.

I'll talk about your prose a little bit. Sorry, I don't like signposting either, but I felt I needed some kind of preamble before I jumped to this topic. Your prose was inconsistent in quality by my estimate. It went from flowing really well to being somewhat cliché (using overly familiar means of expression) to almost inspired. Really all over the place. One thing you did well through and through was maintaining a good sense of rhythm and pacing. I mean specifically with regard to rhythm in your prose and pacing with regards to your storytelling, although I guess they can be related. Back to your prose, there were moments where it seemed like you really landed on something that could have made this shine even more if you'd been able to sustain it. Other times I saw where you tried to reach for that same level and just missed the mark. All of my writing is usually in the mediocre category, so at least you've have moments of brilliance.

And the story itself was a fun read. You left tension, and you built it up well. The ending made sense, but was a little unsatisfactory. I'd have preferred to see the MC go on with art, and I'd have preferred to see some greater stakes established. There were stakes involved, so it's not total bereft of stakes. An entire world or alternate universe hung in the balance of your character's decision to continue or to forego art, but we never saw this world or got any notion of it aside from its predicament. But what was at stake for her if she quit? The adulation of her adoring fans? Maybe it's enough. This is just a short story, after all.

Either way, I like what I read, so please keep at it. Don't leave your art behind like your character did. Consider hers a cautionary tale, but not of dreams better left unfulfilled, but of the potential regret for dreams left by the wayside out of an irrational fear of failure
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Review of Beneficence  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Hello, I came across your story after using the random review feature. I don't rate poetry because I don't write poetry or really enjoy it, so it took getting through a bevy of poems before I found this. All I wanted was to find a good short story.

As I'm writing this, I'm seeing that this was written back in 2009. If you've been writing consistently since then, I imagine your storytelling and prose have likely seen significant changes. That makes much of what I can offer irrelevant, but I'll review all the same.

The story starts out with a woman who is depicted as old. You mention she's 40. While not young, I guess I don't see it as an age I've thought of as being an elderly age despite the over-the-hill attribution. Maybe it's actors like Brad Pitt who show up in movies like Troy dishing out a beating with the best of them that have disrupted my perception. I'm under 40 myself, but I keep looking ahead at that milestone with more and more acceptance by the day. I'd consider myself lucky to reach 40, actually, rather than disappointed. Not that I'm ill or in a dangerous profession or living a crazy lifestyle or anything. Just, you know, you never know what could happen.

Anyway, it almost seems unfair for me to point out any defaults in Beneficence. It's old enough that you've probably moved on from it in a number of ways, but I'll still offer some gentle criticisms. For the most part, I have good things to say.

This is written well. The prose has a nice flow to it. You begin by immediately drawing the reader in by assuring empathy for the main character. We learn of her loss, first of her husband, and then of her son. Since she's an old lady, she's never considered remarrying and remains alone. We see that the wound is fresh. Six years has a surprisingly short feel to it in the face of unrelenting grief. As Vision said, "What is grief if not love persevering." You mention how her husband insisted that those who are fortunate do what they can for the less fortunate as a matter of duty. This principle is what led him to his demise, and to her widowhood.

Later, your main character is tricked into giving up her soul to reunite with her son. Only there's a catch to it just as you see with many Faustian bargains or be-careful-what-you-wish-for cautionary tales. Fortunately, we have about as literal of a Deus Ex Machina as you're going to get when the archangel Michael intervenes. I particularly liked how you used the idea of the seven deadly sins as prerequisites to the sealing of any kind of immortal pact with the devil. Since Alastor failed to meet this criteria, Michael ordered Alastor to undo it all, and your main character returned to life as normal with no recollection of any of this aside from a fading sense of malaise. She'll probably get a dog.

I've always liked stories about devils or demons and angels. A fun story, and one that was mostly very well told.

The style has somewhat of a reliance upon conventions used almost to the point of cliché. The prose at times borders on purple, but mostly manages to skirt it gracefully. In the end, the story had little point to it, but to exist as a conflict between some of the most archetypal forces of good and evil. The conflict was brief, but interesting. A story based in a world of this making would be fully enjoyable to read.

My biggest concern with the story is that by the end of it, I'm left wondering what the point of it all was. As far as your main character, all she gets out of it the idea of getting a dog, but I think that was already present, so maybe not. Oh, and that she didn't go to hell. That's something. Still, it's interesting to think what may be going on "behind the scenes" of our world, and just how much we're oblivious to, and I think that this story of yours will almost definitely bring that question to the minds of your readers. You captured an imaginative instance of this and if nothing else, it was a pleasure to read. Good work. I'd be interested to see what you've been up to since this time
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Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (2.5)
Since I did the random review thing, I wound up on this story in the middle of everything. I haven't read a single bit of this until I landed right on this page.

My biggest issue with your story or this chapter is that there is absolutely no urgency to any of this. You would want to have a story that has a pressing need of some sort, and since I'm reviewing this largely out of context, I may be missing something. I realize not every scene should be explosive and intense. You need to have ups and downs. I entirely believe that, too, but it's just that every scene should accomplish something. I got sort of a slice of life experience out of this, and this wasn't really enthralling stuff.

It starts off with a diaper change. Not exactly a hook.

Next, they go shopping.

Finally, Marie is fed.

It's not until the very last couple of sentences that any tension is introduced:

"Marie was thinking about trying to secretly find out what Callie is hiding"

As a standalone piece, this doesn't really stand alone. Maybe I should have started from the beginning. Not to die on this hill too much with my stance about almost no conflict being a problem, but the story should have something in almost every scene. Technically, you could say that you have three scenes here. I don't know why you included some of what you did. The part with the poopy diaper, feeding Marie, etc., it's just not the kind of thing that exemplifies my idea or maybe anyone's idea of storytelling. It's good that you put something in here that alludes to some kind of mystery. It's just that it might have been a little too little, too late.

This certainly isn't bad. It's just that I think there is some room for improvement.
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Review of Jackie Runs Away  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
I found this by using the random review button. Many parts of this are well told. I can practically hear the preacher's voice by the time I got to the end. That means you must have done something right.

I don't usually go for the family drama or religious stories, unless you include certain kinds of horror as religious.

The story started out a bit confusing. There might have been more errors than I could ignore, and that might have contributed. Further along, things picked up, then they died down, and the resolution came about by no action on Lucas's part. His daughter just came back. She said something about not deserving to have his granddaughter in his life, and then the next minute it's all happiness and acceptance. It seemed like something was left out.

It was well written in a lot of parts. You also did great in representing that close-minded attitude of many who are devout in their faith.

This could benefit from a once over. The writing again does show skill, but some of the sentences could have been reconstructed for clarity. It took me a while to get who the deceased mother and the daughter were for instance.

Anyway, this shows a lot of potential, and I think it demonstrated the skill of a pretty good writer
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Review of Oubliette  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (5.0)
What's probably the most commendable aspect of this story is how you used such a limited premise and evoked so much emotion, namely helplessness, despair, resignation, the conflict between preservation and unnecessarily extending the throes of eventual starvation, and then capped it off with the main character's eventually failing grip on his sanity. A lot done with a minimal, possibly non-existent plot.

Here is the premise: a man is thrown into a hole in the ground.

Inherently there is not much here that inspires a great deal of possibility from a shallow mind like mine. You really went for it, though, and created something both artful and painfully grueling. It was both a misery to read and a joy. It went on too long and yet not long enough. What matters is that you fulfilled the completion of a story while staying under a certain word count, and it felt fully fleshed out under those constraints.

I'll probably come back to this more than once to see how it was done. A simple idea executed to near perfection. I only spotted one or two things I'd change in the whole thing, and if I pointed them out, you might not agree anyway. Easily written at a publishable quality in my opinion. It took me a while to find this, but I'm glad I did.

Grimdark without any of the fantasy or speculative elements. Masterful work.
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Review of There and Gone  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
I found this very short story by the Read and Review feature. I don't really do poems, writing, reading, or reviewing, but the random review button didn't seem to want to take that into consideration. I got six poems in a row before I landed on this guy.

You ought to put this one under Western, I think. How short was this? 300 words? It must have been for something specific.

What I liked about it: it certainly had that Western feel to it. I didn't have to get very far along at all before I sensed this. Sure, the mention of holsters, hats, and horses made it easy, but I think I was clued in by the way this was written just as well as the more salient clues. I really liked the style and flavor of this, if you get what I mean.

So what do we have here? A story of revenge. A story about what might be an undeserving outlaw on the lam, and the man who hung his father just as he aims to hang his son, our main character. It's assumed that the MC has a better lay of the land, clearly, as he's posted himself up some place where Calhoun will confront him and in doing so be laid to waste by the elements. Almost a Deus ex Machina except that Gus's salvation came about by his own planning, so I guess that spares your resolution from that kind of attribution.

Good stuff. Maybe too short for my tastes. I say that not because I have a problem with shorter pieces, but because this left me wanting to read more.
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Review of The Agreement  Open in new Window.
Review by DoubleCat Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (5.0)
You did a lot with the space you were given. The funny thing is, going in I was going to say this seemed like a story with a bit of a talking heads problem, but that impression dissolved once I caught on to how low the word count is. It's tough to get a story out in that kind of economy of words, so as I was reading this, I was thinking you really had to conserve what you had. Later on, though, it made more sense, and for a different reason.

So that little twist, I didn't expect that. You managed to veil some of the unexpected behind conventions that come with such a short read. Way to use what you've got available to you effectively.

Well, thank you for the entertaining read. I thought of M. Night Shyamalan and how he kind of writes these stories with almost no substance and that are really there just to uphold the trick at the end, and I always thought that was cheap, meretricious maybe. It's a lot more fitting with a shorter piece of work. You executed this really well, and I enjoyed the dialogue. You did especially well on the dialogue.

It looks like this was for a contest. Chances are you'll do well in the next one, I hope. Good luck to you. No suggestions for improvement, unfortunately
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