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2,325 Public Reviews Given
2,325 Total Reviews Given
Review Style
I try to be honest and positive. My Christian faith is an important background factor. I hate rating low but have a system that determines how I grade.
 
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My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing  (E)
How do I assess people's work when reviewing?
#2259390 by LightinMind
I'm good at...
More interested in the content of what you write than the style. Theological, political, historical, scientific, or experiential, or indeed anything that paints a vision of the future. A good grammar checker will tell you about spelling and commas.
Favorite Genres
Not entirely sure as I like most stuff. I prefer something with a soul rather than purely secular. But I like Sci-Fi, anything Christian, and also 'What-if' type speculations with plausible plots.
Least Favorite Genres
Anything that fails to look for a way out of the darkness. You can be dark, just don't wallow in it. Generally, I try to steer clear of Fantasy, and most Dark or Horror stories just make me laugh or grimace due to their ignorance of the dark side.
Favorite Item Types
I have really liked some of the heartwarming dramas I have read here particularly personal stories. Thought-provoking poems or stories are cool also though I am no expert on poetical forms.
Least Favorite Item Types
Anything that is just an affirmation of the dark side. I hate empty words. I always look for human intelligence. I try and avoid Fantasy and Horror where there is no metaphorical resonance or connection with real-world truth.
I will not review...
I mainly review at random and just see what grabs my attention. I will usually skip stuff I do not like unless it gets me riled or if it is interesting for other reasons.
Public Reviews
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801
801
Review of Balance  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, Beholden . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Balance"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

A new take on the Counter-Earth (Antichthon) hypothesis started by the pre-Socratic Philosopher Philolaus, developed by Aristotle and captured in the 1969 film Journey to the Far Side of the Sun.

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

In your story, the search begins in the pub pontifications of Jim Fulbright and Bill Withers and spills over into academia and then into NASA action plans. We engage with this other culture that is the same level of development though speaking a different language. The choice of Hal a diplomat and Angela a language expert and Eddy the pilot, meet Tiggy a local language expert and discover that a mirror image expedition has been sent to the Earth also by Earth 2.0. The two planets seem destined to create a new Federation of Planets.

Scientifically there are ways to disprove the existence of this planet e.g. perturbation and the STEREO space probes should have picked it up also. The pull of other solar system bodies would destabilize its orbit and the calculations of various satellite trajectories if real and so it could not stay hidden forever.

Theologically and philosophically the existence of such a planet populated by human beings and a mirror image level of development would raise very difficult questions as they are unmentioned in any earth religion. If the people were perfect and sinless it could be the Eden out of which mankind was thrown but otherwise it would just not fit. The connections between the humanity on both planets would also overthrow theories of evolution as such time sychronised parallel development to exactly the same level of evolution would be statistically impossible unless directed or arranged or unless creationism was true of both planets.

This was well written but did not engage with the deeper issues that such a discovery would raise.

Mechanical issues

None I noticed.


Thanks for sharing.

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802
802
Review of The Genie  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (5.0)
Hello, Norman . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "The Genie"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

A strange old bottle is washed up on the beach. What hidden secrets does it hold and how can they be revealed?

Commentary

Very amusing and well-written poem. The bottle might contain a genie, a secret message, or...Your ending was unexpected and hilarious.

I discovered my first bottle in my garden. It might have been 100 years old which was surprising since our garden was part of a farm before it was housing. So maybe it was someone's secret stash of alcohol from 100 years before buried at the corner of a field in a tiny copse. I also found a pearl-handled knife which I carried for many years before it was stolen in Athens while I was working in a hotel there. I wonder where that knife is now. On reflection, such finds are pregnant with mystery. When I see such bottles on a beach I must admit I imagine some drunk having hurled them there just weeks before. But an ancient bottle always escapes those stereotypes.

Mechanical issues

You kept the a-c rhyming scheme.


Thanks for sharing.

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803
803
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, The Puppet Master . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* We both entered the Lighthouse Short Story competiton. Your entry "Dousing the Flames"  got second place. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

A man who suffers OCD, with covid like symptoms, is obsessed with the idea he might have covid despite two tests to the contrary. He develops faith-based strategies to cope with these fears which he shares for the benefit of other OCD sufferers.

Commentary

Congratulations on your award. I enjoyed reading your story.

I do not have any experience of OCD but it seems from your story that it exaggerates fears in an obsessive-compulsive manner that is hard to escape. This appears to alter one's perception of reality so that you do not see things as they are but rather as your fears dictate. The bible verse your mum gave you and your faith seems to have helped you cope and develop strategies to deal with your fears. You mention distractions like playing the piano or the God-Box which will no doubt help others in a similar situation.

Mechanical issues

None


Thanks for sharing.

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804
804
Review of My Window To Life  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hello, Quihadi . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I noticed "Invalid Item"  because we both entered the Lighthouse short story competition which you won. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

After a bike accident, the author was hospitalized with serious and life-changing injuries. An angel strengthened him in that time. At 15 he gave his life to Christ and 15 years later was totally healed.

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

Well, praise God for your healing and for your testimony *Smile* You describe this as a journey punctuated by significant events. It was a journey in which you learned to trust God and figure out things in your own life and then ultimately experience His healing power. I was interested in how the medical professionals underestimated your capacity to survive and ultimately also to return to a normal human existence. Maybe statistically they were correct to do so but they failed to see how the exception often defies the odds and instead describes a world filled with God's grace and mercy.

I love the bible verse choice and it is so true: "I can do all thing through Him who strengthens me."

Your story resonated with me as I had a headlong collision with an oncoming car that took a corner too fast. I was hurled some 12 meters through the air landing unconscious on the street. I remember briefly waking up to see some concerned people looking at me before I passed out again. Then I woke in a hospital with people stitching my head. I walked away with no further complications but the event marked a major turning point in my life, a test of and ultimately a vindication of faith.

I felt that you spent a lot more time on the most painful part of the story and not so much on the ways in which your life was transformed by it. Also, the actual healing was done in just a sentence but that was the crucial part of your testimony showing how God led you through to the other side.


Mechanical issues

Maybe when referring to God use capitalization e.g. he should be He


Thanks for sharing.

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805
805
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (5.0)
Hello, wdwilcox. This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Liza Has A Loose Tooth"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

Liza has a loose tooth until she bumps heads with her best friend. Now she covers up her smile from the teacher, cannot whistle so well but can spit further than the boys.


Commentary

What no tooth fairy!

Loved the poem which reminded me of various incidents with my own kids. Once just before Buckingham Palace on the Mall, having carried my daughter around London for several hours I let her down to run a little. She ran 50 meters fell over and broke her tooth. We still joke that the queen has the missing piece of the milk tooth.

Was a little mystified by the spitting reference and you had me contorting my mouth and face wondering how to spit through the gap of a missing tooth.


Mechanical issues

None


Thanks for sharing.

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806
806
Review of Too Early  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hello, warriormom. This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Too Early"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

Elijah is dying. He has done some bad unnamed things in the past for which he is sorry. He is praying for forgiveness. His sister Tessa sits with him in the hospital and does not want him to die. But if he does then she wants him to take on a role for her in heaven when he gets there.

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

Elijah is the bad boy on his death bed seeking redemption now and sorry for his sins. The description sounds like Aids so possibly he slept around without protection.

Tessa is a loving sister with a warm connection with her brother. She wants her brother to become her Guardian angel when he arrives in heaven and does not like the idea of losing him.

The characters reminded me of that poem describing what boys and girls are made of. Girls being made of sugar and spice and all that is nice and boys of frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails.

A death bed scene is a good place to explore the interactions between brother and sister revealing how they really feel, with a hug no one else would give.

I do believe in Guardian angels but whether or not God would assign a dead relative to that role depends on a variety of factors and whether they are suited to the role. Is the existing Guardian Angel who seems to have done his job well protecting Tessa now to be fired and replaced with an apprentice angel?

Mechanical issues

I did some not good things. - I did some not-so-good things.


Thanks for sharing.

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807
807
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hello, Sumojo . This is a review from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" ! *Smile* I received "Four horses of the Apocalypse "  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

This is a poem about the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, though apparently, the author considers the horses to be the real focus of this sign of the end. According to the poem, these are sent as a judgment on mankind, delivering God's anger.

Commentary

So you are describing the first four Seal Judgments of Revelation 6 associated with the "Wrath of the Lamb". This is one of a series of judgment packages that God deploys in the last moments of this age in order to shake the nations into repentance. This is the last chance of the people of this planet to be saved and acknowledge God and the judgments are meant to destroy any sense of complacency they may still have.

The four horsemen are traditionally named War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death though I think the actual passage content seems to suggest Conquest, Strife, Inequality, and Death. In the passage, the colors of the horses reflect their rider's characters. A white horse is the sort of thing a Caesar or a great general would ride into battle. A red horse reflects the anger and division of hot blood and strife. A black horse reflects the evil of a system that exploits and starves the poor so that luxuries can be produced for the rich. The final horse is pale like the face of one dying. These horsemen are given power only over a quarter of the earth and cause havoc by the sword, famine, plague, and the wild beasts of the earth. There is no basis for the view that these horses fly.

To be perfectly honest I do not think you captured the power, impact, and diversity of destructive methods that these horsemen represent in your poem. The Kings of the earth will be terrified by such events and seek to hide under the very mountains from them but your poem was not terrifying, nor true to the biblical description and did not shake me to the core.

Mechanical issues

You did 8668 in the first stanza and then 8688 for the last three. But you did keep the rhyming structure.


Thanks for sharing.

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808
808
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | N/A (Review only item.)
Hello, Pat ~ Rejoice always! This is a review from LightinMind ! *Smile* I received "Creating Your Own Review Template"  via the random 'read & review' button. I have the following comments to offer.

Reader Experience

This outlines how to create a review template giving helpful hints and ML.


Commentary

I only discovered the review tool after about 800 reviews and I am now reading your article after 928 reviews. Well better late than never, there was some good stuff in this. I often wondered why people followed the same structure across the site but often did not populate the paragraphs with anything useful. I guess they were blindly following your structure. Anyway, I have now incorporated some of your stuff with all the other advice I have been given and this is my first usage of the stored template "Personal Random." Thanks for the advice.

Mechanical issues

None


Thanks for sharing.

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809
809
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and stayed to save the planet.

Reader Experience

We messed up the earth, we will pay for that, can we turn this around?

Commentary

This is not the best poem I have ever read by you even if the theme of it is a positive and worthwhile one. But yes I agree we have been poor stewards of the planet and it is time to turn the situation around.

The last stanza did not make sense to me:

Let us work as a team
In our isolation

Why isolation, how does that work with a team?

Mechanical issues

You started with a rhyming schema you did not keep in the fourth stanza.


Thanks for sharing.

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810
810
Review of seeking a myth  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and stayed for instruction on female mysteries.

Reader Experience

This could be about a blood-red moon or alternatively about the lifecycle of the female menstruation cycle - which starts in childhood and ends at a mature age. Or maybe and most probably both.


Commentary

It is entirely possible that I read this wrong but it seems to me to combine the tidal forces and cycles of the moon with the cyclical experience of the female period. If so I find it quite ingenious. Also, the words you had to include and exclude seemed to make this a bit of a challenge and you did all this without mentioning common lunar themes.


Mechanical issues

None found.


Thanks for sharing.

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811
811
Review of Wicked Witch  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and stayed to hear about the wicked witch.

Reader Experience

A cannibalistic, murderous, evil witch parasitic on all that is good in this world.


Commentary

This is all about the witch. She does not get her comeuppance in this poem. It reads like a warning, not an instruction manual about how to push old ladies, in houses made of sweets into the fire. She survives only to spoil and ruin, leaving a trail of decomposing bodies in her wake.

So what telltale signs give her away? A smile that seems fake, a taker not a giver, spewing hatred and ignorant of love, spreading despair not joy.

This was a little dark for my tastes and seemed in a way to affirm the witches' powers and the value of human sacrifice in preserving her miserable existence.

The description does not really match the poem as there is no account of your escape here.


Mechanical issues

There was a b-d rhyming structure which you kept through the stanzas


Thanks for sharing.

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812
812
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and stayed for the birdsong.

Reader Experience

A nightingale proclaims his enjoyment of the rose, night and day.

Commentary

Birds and pets often seem to model a purity lacking in the human world. Their colors and their music provide a pretty scene and we read them as worshippers and lovers and all that is sugar and spice. But then I watch my cat carry such a bird in its mouth or swallow a mouse whole and I wonder at the extent to which we project our own impressions onto the creatures we love.

There is something perfect about a nightingale's song and a rose in full bloom. Something that makes us think of the Divine and his Design. But the magic of true faith is inside ourselves and in Him and it reaches higher than these creatures and these plants will ever grow.

That said who does not like a poem about nightingales and roses, it is the sort of image that brightens up life and prepares us for the day.


Mechanical issues

The stanzas seemed a little arbitrary as there was no rhyming schema.

Thanks for sharing.

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813
813
Review of Failed Experiment  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and was hooked by the idea of a talking dog.

Reader Experience

John has "wasted" a lot of company money developing a talking dog called Buddy. George his boss is not happy. John takes Buddy home to live with him and his wife.

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

So John is the talented inventor here, Buddy is his dog, George the boss and Laurie is John's wife. That is a lot of characters for 295 words.

I thought this was hilarious and especially the last line outlining Laurie's reaction to having man's best friend tell her what to do all the time.

The idea itself is probably implausible. Dogs do not have the hardware to support thinking and communication processes on the level of a human being. But assuming it were possible I loved the moaning about the food and the sense of alienation from the dumb brute community of non verbally enabled dogs.

John is portrayed here as being as out of touch with the market place as he is with his wife. But I think a talking dog might actually work for a security role, as a baby sitter. Probably best to keep them out of the bedroom though as their running commentary might get annoying.

All sorts of legal questions are raised by the presence of human level intelligence in an animal. What then would be its status before the law, would it have rights, could it vote own property etc.


Mechanical issues

You might want to lose the title from the main body of text. Or if you keep it put it in bold or something.


Thanks for sharing.

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814
814
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: ASR | (5.0)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and loved it.

Reader Experience

Nighttime in suburbia is not picture perfect. Rather a caregiver listens from dusk to dawn for the sounds of demented relatives roaming the house and rises to care for them when they hear screams or weeping.


Commentary

Dementia and indeed mental health issues generally amongst the elderly residents of suburbia are a significant problem and those who care for them are the unsung heroes of our times. As people live longer and in the extreme isolation associated with the current Pandemic this is a growing issue. Here you articulate the feelings, the responsibility, the sleeplessness and concern of the caregiver very well.


Mechanical issues

None found


Thanks for sharing.

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815
815
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Saw this on the read a newbie list and thought it looked interesting.

Reader Experience

The author enters a gallery which includes some great works of art to find the characters in the paintings are having a bit of a party. He is searching for a ring for Miranda his fiancée, which is in safe keeping with Martin, the man in black smoking a pipe.


Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

You combine works of art from various galleries all over the world: Louvre, National Gallery, Musee d'Orsay and some like the more recent works of Luo Li Rong which might not be on display in any gallery yet. It was a creative idea to have these characters come alive and have a party. I guess it is quite a safe place to keep a ring. But since you had already proposed to Miranda why was she not wearing the ring. Maybe in your culture there is only the wedding ring not an engagement ring also?

I liked the idea that the two versions of Van Gogh, one with an ear the other not might argue a lot and that Martin and Mona Lisa had a tempestuous relationship.

I was a little puzzled by the feeling of emptiness after you left the gallery. Maybe that was because the magic was all behind you back in the gallery, yet appeared to have faded into silence now. But if you were going to your fiancée with her ring then emptiness did not seem appropriate.


Mechanical issues

The following seemed wrong to me.

she directs me to the rooms in the back, but not before congratulating me - maybe thanking me works better here

Van Gogh winks at me complicit - Van Gogh winks at me in a complicit manner


Thanks for sharing.

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816
816
Review of Fairy or Angel?  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and stayed for an interesting differentiation between fairy and angel.

Reader Experience

The fairy promises beauty, wealth and fame. The angel offers love peace and happiness. The author chooses the latter.


Commentary

Interesting contrast in the mentalities of the two creatures. The one playing to our desires and the other giving what we really need. The one giving gifts with expiry dates and the other gifts that last forever. The one giving things that would never really satiate the craving in a soul and the other fully satisfying.

I suppose one could add that fairies do not exist and angels do. That a demon would offer a person much the same as this 'fairy'. That angels are sent for a purpose while demons destroy without purpose using our own desires against us.


Mechanical issues

You use different rhyming schemes for the two stanzas which spoilt the rhythm a little

Stanza 1: a-b, c-f, d-e
Stanza 2: a-b, c-d, e-f

Thanks for sharing.

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817
817
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and stayed for an intriguing story.

Reader Experience

A man, a crow and a racoon share a moment by Clipping Mountain.


Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

Dirk is gardening and carries his clippings to the woods where he and his neighbors dump their clippings. There he meets an intelligent crow that saves another animal trapped under a branch in the Clippings Mountain. He is rewarded with a buck eye with the outer casing removed. Something that would have required a cooperative effort between racoon and crow.

My experience of crows is very different. They are loud aggressive birds that fly in gangs and seem quite selfish to me. So it is a shock to hear a story of one being benevolent.

I did not know what a Buckeye was, is that something that any American would understand? Not sure anyone would know what that was outside the USA. I read up on it and it seems it is something like a Conker that I would associate with a Horse Chestnut Tree. So maybe Ohio Buckeye?

If this is a true story it is quite remarkable really but even if not it was very well written and had me hooked from beginning to end.


Mechanical issues

Found only one:

After a shot trek of about one hundred yards = After a short trek of about one hundred yards


Thanks for sharing.

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818
818
Review of Unchain me  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and stayed for a love poem.

Reader Experience

The guy is in love but wishes he was not. His love is torment, chains, wicked, and a tangled web and he wants to be set free. But he sees no way out.


Commentary

I guess you are addressing this poem to the person you love. But you talk to her like she is to blame for what you feel. That she has a choice to make to set you free of these feelings. You feel entrapped by this love like the fly is by the spider, like the prisoner is in chains. This love is wicked and something you long to leave behind. This is a feeling that kills rather than an energizing emotion that brings life. This is an emotion forced upon you.

So all of this leads me to the inevitable question - is this really love at all?


Mechanical issues

Was not sure about your use of capitals. Like "Tangled web". Some places needed a full stop or comma just to make clear which idea belonged in which section like with this line

No wish to die
Do I have

Thanks for sharing.

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819
819
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and it looked interesting

Reader Experience

Prayer should be between you and God. Don't make a show out of it hypocrite!

Commentary

I do miss those large hall worship services with all those beautiful people looking holy and singing like angels together. The first time I ever went to one I found it terrifying. The sheer power of the praise was quite overwhelming. It encouraged me to think of God as awesome. But I guess a lot of people spend more time looking at each other and enjoying the music as entertainment than actually worshipping God. You wrote this 6 years before the Pandemic closed down most of these large-scale events, some such gatherings in South Korea even generated some of the first covid outbursts. Many Christians were confused by this. After all was not God glorified by the mighty noise and shout these events produced. I guess as with all things there is a balance to be struck between being together in the presence of God and the quality of that private connection that needs no one but God. After a year of isolation and with the church having switched to Zoom for much of that time the church has had a forced opportunity for the kind of private time with God that this passage describes as true prayer. I sometimes wonder if that this was not one of the reasons God permitted the pandemic. Maybe He just got fed up with a kind of worship that blackhearted hypocrites treated like pop concerts. So after a year of opportunity for self-reflection, a meditation on the scriptures, and private prayer we have all had an opportunity to rediscover the heart of prayer.

The desire to parade one's holiness and look more spiritual than your neighbour is nothing new. The Pharisees modelled a perfect example of this two millennia ago.

Times of pain, isolation, imprisonment for one faith and indeed persecution test our private commitments. There is nothing wrong with singing Gods praise together but after a year of isolation perhaps we should understand that God is also in the silence and that He is in those private moments we spend before Him. He sees our hearts and hears our souls voice. Personally, I feel like I have wasted much of this opportunity. I could have prayed more and spent more time reading scripture. I wonder when I am back in that crowd of smiling faces again singing loudly if I will miss the wasted opportunity of the private silence I could have spent far more time with God in.


Mechanical issues

It was not that long and half of it was a cut and pasted quote.


Thanks for sharing.

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820
820
Review of The Light  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and liked the theme.

Reader Experience

The Light blinds but helps us see, is all we need, guides us through the dark and makes the world a better place. May the Light abide with me.


Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

I loved the message of this poem.

In John 14:6 Jesus calls Himself the Light. There is a religious flavor to this poem and it almost reads like a prayer to me as well as a series of observations. Yes it can blind us, but with just a glimmer it can show us a path on a dark night. The contrast between a dark world and a world filled with Light is clear and we would prefer to live in the Light. The last line indicates a faith that the Light will always remain with you.

The repetition of the observations using different sets of words to describe the same thing reinforces the sentiment being expressed here.

It is not clear how the mere fact that the Light shows you a path and lights a dark world implies that it will never leave you. There is something extra alluded to here that the poem does not adequately explain. Put yourself 20 feet under ground and perpetual darkness is a strong probability. But as sure as day follows night you are convinced that the Light will abide with you. This is an assertion of faith without a celebration of the Object of your faith or an explanation of why you can trust it/Him to always show up for you.

Mechanical issues

The structure is an ad hoc free verse and is content driven with each stanza repeating a theme. However the last two stanzas blur together in this respect repeating the same theme.


Thanks for sharing.

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821
821
Review of The Takers  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.0)
You asked me to review this.

Reader Experience

Though born of earth we are like a plague to her. We take and we destroy. But a day of reckoning is fast approaching when we shall pay for our sins against the planet. Our species will end but then the world will recover and life will breathe again here.


Commentary

So the earth is the protagonist and we, the polluters and the destroyers, are the antagonist. This poem reads like something that 'Extinction Rebellion' might write except you leave the date of our demise more vague than they do. But you do not seek to stir us from our lethargy on this issue, this is not a call to action so much as an announcement of our inevitable demise. You allude to a time of atonement but it is a passing reference and no hope is given it will actually happen.

The political ideology critiqued here is a form of rapacious Capitalism which takes and takes without regard for human or environmental costs.

The theology here is Pantheistic with a bit of Gaia worship thrown in. Man's future has been determined by his sins against the planet. The focus of this piece is not on mankind or God but rather it is a celebration of the resilience of the planet that will survive even us.

You date the negative impact of man on the planet over thousands of years. But until the industrial revolution with the use of fossil fuels I am not sure this is really true. Before then the rise and fall of the seasons and natures own cycles were the determining factors. Man has yet to match catastrophes on the scale of global ice ages, asteroid strikes and major volcanic eruptions.

The ability of the planet to recover after we are gone is not in dispute. Chernobyl in the Ukraine is a good example where a quarantine zone has been in existence since the meltdown of the reactors there in 1986. There nature is thriving in the fenced off radioactive space. Though the numbers of nuclear power plants and serious toxic chemical plants that are still in need of proper decommissioning must be a worry even for the planet.

In Europe and the USA reforestation has been occurring for about a century now and in Europe especially strenuous efforts have been made to clean up our act. Green parties and agendas do well in elections here. In the USA the new president is in favor of Green policies and of shifting America off its dependency on fossil fuels. The talk is all about electric cars, windmills and recycling. Even China and India who are trending as the worst polluters on the planet are doing a lot already with alternative green technologies and making many of the right noises. So is our demise inevitable? Unregulated capitalism has suffered major setbacks for a generation in Europe and also recently with the defeat of Trump in the USA. I remember being told as a child not to swim in the Thames in England because the waters were toxic. But now fish swim in those waters. The great London smogs that killed so many are long gone also. The mountains of the Schwarzwald in Germany are no longer denuded of trees.

Mankind is a resilient species able even to live in space or on other worlds. It is not a foregone conclusion to believe that the planet will survive us rather than we the planet. After all we seem to be thriving already in its ruins. Obviously all the Abrahamic religions disagree on your vision of the future also.

So I think I mainly disagree with the sentiment of this poem even though I take its warnings very seriously. We do need to be better stewards of the planet.

I liked this line except for the 'but'.

The date of our extinction, is not set in stone
But our time is coming, a time to atone

BUT I would rewrite it:

The date of our extinction, is not set in stone
The time has come, when we must atone

But that wrecks the general direction of the rest of the poem which rejoices in the inevitable demise of mankind and in the planets brand new start.


Mechanical issues

Most of the poem has a rhyming convention, but it is not consistent all the way through with lines 1, 4,9 & 10 breaking the pattern.


Thanks for sharing.

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822
822
Review of Sebastian  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button.
<Why should people listen to you, what is the hook here?>

Reader Experience

Sebastian, a macaque monkey from Morocco was hitched up to a computer where his brain became the focus of an AI. When the monkey died, Sebastian the AI disappeared also. But then strange things start happening on wall street, in a town of cyborg superhumans somewhere unknown and finally with a spaceship.

Commentary: Content, Characters and Plot

So Sebastian the monkey now super virtual monkey AI evolves into the kind of being that can play Wall Street, build a Borg-like Collective in the desert, and capture spaceships for trips to Mars.

Found this all very well written and entertaining. Loved the requests he makes in the last paragraph.

A monkeys brain does not have the kind of frontal lobes required for abstract accountancy on wall street, cybernetics or breaking into NASA spaceships but it is an interesting idea that an AI might be built around the instinctual infrastructure and hardware of a monkeys brain finally to the point where it no longer required the physical monkey and could strike out on its own across the vast expanses of the Internet.

As a story this is fabulous. As a concept, I doubt this is possible and it seems to feed off widespread fears that exist at present about the capabilities of AIs and the ways in which they might develop personalities. But hey that is also often where the best stories are born.


Mechanical issues

Just a few minor things:

He's on Earth's orbit = He's in Earth's orbit

With all due respect for Anna Karenina and Bach... = With all due respect to Anna Karenina and Bach...

Thanks for sharing.

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823
823
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (5.0)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and it seems to speak to the heart of the reviewing process.

Reader Experience

Written as a ballad it describes a bitter 'Queen of Style' whose commentaries on others were mainly cut and pasted venom with acidic effects on designers egos. But such negativity started to wear at her soul and effected a transformation that was perhaps a fitting judgment on such a horrible woman. Those who are similarly acidic and negative with their thoughts about others as in this cautionary tale should beware.

Commentary

We have all had horrible reviews, well at least I have, maybe you have always been a star? This ballad spoke to me about the reviewing task even though it may well have been a commentary on the fashion industry. It was amusing to see cloth and paper as interchangeable themes in the last stanzas where she is forced to eat her own reviews. The reviewing task is meant to be a gift not a Wer-Moth chewing on the authors parchment paper. Some people should never review others as they bring their own anger and self hatred into the task and just spew that negativity all over the stories they read like unwanted vomit. Others really should not have their works open for review as they are really not willing to listen to any constructive criticisms about them and react with all the insecurities, anger and bitterness that they carry inside themselves to fair advice.

Anyway it is hard to find negative stuff to say about something when you actually like it and this piece falls in that category for me.


Mechanical issues

Hah this is HuntersMoon, are you kidding?


Thanks for sharing.

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824
824
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
I found this article looking in the religious genre and it looked interesting.

Reader Experience

Despite the widespread saturation of our culture with the theory of evolution, the author does not think the evidence supports the theory. The human cell did not emerge by chance from inanimate matter. We are missing transitory examples of fossils that would demonstrate evolution in motion. The second law of thermodynamics dictates that entropy and disintegration characterize the universe rather than the emergence of the more complex out of the simple, Gradualism is less probable than sudden catastrophes and rapid development. If evolution works via natural selection and survival of the fittest then we should have evolved as quadrupeds rather than bipeds. Evolution never happened.

Commentary

Fascinating article but I found myself agreeing with your central themes while rejecting many of your arguments.

I have spent a lot of time arguing with atheists about the big three tenants of modern science: Big Bang, Abiogenesis, and MacroEvolution. You titled this "The myth of Evolution" but then spent the first few paragraphs talking about Abiogenesis rather than Evolution. Abiogenesis, from the big three, is the easiest to trash as there is absolutely no evidence that it has ever occurred, no prospect of its duplication and so no real tests whereby the theory can be verified or falsified. A really powerful work on this is Meyers: 'Signature in the Cell'. But chemical evolution is distinguishable as a theory from macro-evolution. The former refers to the possibility that life emerged from inorganic material and the latter describes a process where simple forms of biological life evolved into more complex forms tracing that development via common ancestry. When a Christian describes abiogenesis as evolution then an atheist professor will just think you are ignorant of basic science and quoting someone else.

It is simply not true to say that evolution in the sense of adaptation of a species does not occur. There were not 23 types of sparrow on the Ark and yet there are today. Evolution is observable in that sense in timespans of several thousand years. The line that creationists actually draw with atheistic evolution is on kind to kind evolution. The sparrow does not evolve into an eagle not share a common ancestor. But within a kind of creature whether of land, sea, or air, a considerable degree of differentiation can occur as any dog breeder will tell you. The modern scientific definition of species is considerably narrower than that of the biblical understanding of kind and so we can observe interspecies evolution without actually betraying the view that God created creatures in their different kinds with a considerable ability to adapt. So while there is evidence of considerable change the notion of macro-level evolutionary changes is nonsense.

The second law of thermodynamics does not really reference biological processes and is misapplied as an argument against evolution. Evolutionary developments beyond the parameters of a core genome are almost always harmful regressions that ruin the possibility of life rather than enhance it, so evolution needs very long timespans to be possible. Disputing radiometric dating is a crucial component of any argument here. Without the timespans, evolution cannot happen. Organisms seem to share a lot of core programming and respond in similar ways to catastrophe and changes in circumstances, these adaptations, which can be read in the biological record, are often referred to as commonalities demonstrating shared ancestries, but could of course just easily refer to a shared design. A Creationist will need to be able to account for them in terms of their accelerated time scales or perhaps even with the actual mechanisms of creation. A really good book I read on this recently was 'Darwin's Doubt'.

So overall I think this article encourages Creationists to look for reassurances from science that are not actually there. The big probabilistic theoretical models of Big Bang, Abiogenesis, Macroevolution are consistent and make sense of vast amounts of evidence but cannot be proven and therefore held to with a high degree of certainty. They, like the Ptolemaic system, may yet be overthrown by new discoveries but for now, remain the most powerful explanations available.

Having argued for years about this my current position is that I feel no need to defend a more literal reading of scripture by adopting the language of a scientific community that no longer feels the need to prove what it says by actual repeatable experiments, whose conclusions can be neither falsified nor verified. I remain convinced that hard science which can be demonstrated by real and repeatable experiments and calculations remains something that should set limits to truth claims. But those who have gone beyond this to speculate to the extent that the Colossus of Modern science does I cannot follow. I am dismayed when 'creation scientists' make similar unprovable claims or are bad echoes of experiments that actually say the opposite. Since I do no longer believe this to be a proper scientific discussion and especially about Abiogenesis where the theory is plain wrong I tend to just believe what God has said, interpreted to the best of my ability. God is a supernatural Being who created the universe and who has performed innumerable miracles since is perfectly capable of creating a universe in 6 days or patiently and deliberately over billions of years. Either He comes out looking amazing. So I just tend to trust Him for the answers. I believe mainstream science has started to commentate about stuff out of scope of the true range of the scientific methodology and that this overextension has undermined its well-earned position in Western society with the obvious benefits that has brought all of us. It needs to stick to stuff it can confirm and not speculate with so much unwarranted certainty and confidence. Too many people in the Christian church are now adopting an antiScience position when they should be just tempering the range at which the tool of science operates. We have no reason to fear truth but not everything that scientists can be demonstrated to be true. Some things are better understood with revealed knowledge. some with science and some with historical or personal understanding.


Mechanical issues

I was focused on the content. But I am sure one of the 114 other reviewers picked up those kinds of things.


Thanks for sharing.

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825
825
Review of Fire.  
Review by LightinMind
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Received this via the random 'read & review' button and was intrigued.

Reader Experience

You are ice, you are fire, you are a universe that never ends, you are a feather that floats, with green eyes and red hair. Your voice is like the wind. You will fly with your sword.


Commentary

There are some good lines here but the images do not fit together and some are not logical possibilities. You cannot be both fire and ice. The sea is more gray-green-blue than sapphire. You have the stubborn solidity of your soul, then an unstoppable fire then a soft gentle floating picture of a feather falling. I found the images jumped around too much and the continuity was lost. The overall effect is godlike and fantastical but messy and awkward also.

Mechanical issues

The selection, structure and sequencing of the content were the big issues here.


Thanks for sharing.

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