Discussion -- 75 Word Challenge -- APRIL

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

James Coote: This reminds me a lot of the movie Waterworld. It's interesting to see you took the flood route, in the age of zombies and desert terra-forming. Quite a refreshing change.


Grizzgreen: Aha! I knew it! We're pawns in a chess game! But in all seriousness, this is another interesting twist to the genre, and what better motivation for one's job than the promise of power? And personally...my money's on the white rider, twenty to one.


Anthus: Religious tone to this, I can't imagine if this is meant to be Biblical God, or some ancient deity long forgotten. It says that we learn from our mistakes, but the way you set your story up, the reader knows better.


MemoryTale: So close, yet so far. It sounds as if the narrator could have used just a few more yards, just an ounce more endurance, but lacked and expired. I can only imagine the looks on the faces of the survivors when the narrator went down.


mosaix: Assuming the race on the receiving end are humans, well...let's just say that the narrator is lacking the wisdom to see what a big favor the alien is doing for the humans. Yeah, it might be a war setting, but in the long run, crops and clothing are far more important the guns and bullets. And it's best not to look a gift horse in the mouth, as well...


Teresa: Somehow, TE, in a way, this reminds me of a twisted version of WALL-E, just near the end there. Otherwise it does seem to be a general run-of-the-mill post-apocalyptic setting, and yet you decided to go down the softer of the two roads, it seems; the band of brothers scenario. Though the main character seemed more suitable to being put down, I liked how you allowed him to be helped and welcomed by others. And with the hope of new life at the end, it has a lot better, lighter feeling than the genre usually has.

 

[hopewrites]

someone remind me to tell the funny story that goes with my last line this month. It's not epically funny, but funny enough that I cant in good conscious tell it before the voting.
*gets note pad and new glass of cream soda before plunging back into commentating mod...* because I dont want to face the laundry of unpacking just yet.

 

[hopewrites]

Alchemist: the vagueness of the threat in this world leaves you more room to deal with the emotional repercussions of living in it, which do give it that post-apocalyptic feel without giving away how the world got apocalized. For some reason I picture Tommy as an adorable three-year-old with overly large blue eyes that are more full of trust than they are of tears, which gives me pause over the significance of the ratio of bullets to people in your story. For me the absentee setting takes on the form of ambiguous starvation, with childish hope running rampant in a family trying to pull through.

Glitch: I adore the commentators side view you have established here, others have said before me that it has more impact because the girls are innocently unaware of the danger that is removed for them, or that someone’s humanity is being restored to them by their innocently being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I agree. But for me the real beauty of this story is in the second to last line. The wistful hope I imagine infecting that smile, the longing in the voice that impels the hand to move. To me it is a beautiful reminder that oft times, what is meant to be a punishment, is really the incentive for the ‘crime’

Luiglin: what I imagine is the diary entry of some threatening comet that has just been epically demolished by heroic nobodys sent to save the world from its apocalyptic fate. Board of its usual trajectory it had elected to take a vacation to some inviting little world, but this omnipotent comet seems to know that its demise only makes it radio active stardust ready to coalesce into a new sun that can devour worlds of its own creation. A baleful sun that prefers to torment then destroy its children.

High Eight: reading this gave me the most terrific shutter! A whole alien race!? That’s catastrophic in its self! And the damage they must be wreaking over galaxies and universes… I tremble to think. The crashing and failing that redecimate the already decimated population when they with draw… Fantastic illustration of what false hope truly looks like.

Warren Paul: what a fun ride, first taking us in a predicable direction, then snapping back only to shout “Just Kidding! I wasn’t kidding hahaha” right at the end. And I must add that the title of the book he was reading when he fell asleep definitely leads me to wonder if he isn’t in much the same state as his wife. Which adds a layer to the dream sequence, was he dreaming about a time when he wasn’t a zombie but his dear wife was and the nightmare was really about how horrible it would be to NOT be a zombie any more??? *pondering face*

Perpetual Motion: Bleak. I feel this captures the ‘nothingness’ feel that so often pervades peoples ideals of what a world falling apart around them must be. Again, I cant agree with it, and can only add that it was well written.

(starts to feel the perpetuals have it out for her eternal optimism… dismisses thought)

Storm Feather: I am ready to admit my bias in favor your title, but I didn’t let it influence my love of the story that followed. I am impressed with everything you managed to cram into the little verse at the beginning. Prophecy, hope, despair, and a dieing world waiting for a reason to keep on hoping for better things. The emotional wells you have tapped into in me probably make more of it than you intended to write, but I have always loved when anything I read is able to do that. It leaves me with a feeling of accomplishment, to find what wasn’t there, recognize why it is, and let the story transcend its origins is an entertainment all of its own.
Thank you for reminding me what it feels like to give birth to the world, when all other hope has died and the corpse of it morbidly clung to. Only a blood-red dawn can challenge that feeling in ominous happiness, and you combined them both into one longed for moment.

Hex: with beautiful artistry you paint a dead and dreary world, a place once teeming with live now silent and void, and I could weep for its loneliness. Then with the painful slowness of spring you stretch out the impossible forgotten hope of life and its return to dominance. Slower paced than your normal style and I have to say something about it because it shows a tentative and beautiful flowering of description which I almost love more than the story itself.

RJ Dando: never. Good use of italics really punches the emotional hits home. Firm clear narrative voice which makes your closing line all the more plaintive. Rereads add the pained sarcasm that must be held in the embers of dieing hope at that remembered promise.

Allmywires: vivid imagery both physical and emotional. Loved the use of physical descriptions to clearly delineate the emotional context of the scene. Poignant snapshot of a persons emotional ability to hold onto a moment when everything about it has been changed or destroyed. As the audience we can be sure that he never would have intended her to stay through what ever horrors love failed to preserve her from, and that it is love that holds her captive to a moment completely irretrievable makes it all the sadder.

Choccoweeble: clearly an inner-monolog, hitting several parts of the grieving process in quick succession. What isn’t clear is if this person caused the death of the person they are mourning, and keeping that in question helps it along for me. If so how will they extract their vengeance? Will it be directed and the sociopolitical cause rather than the immediate cause of death? Or has she merely happened upon him in the street on her furtive way to/from her safe house and the vengeance she has planed is on the more immediate cause? I prefer the first, if only because it heightens her grief, and sends her out to do something that will actually catalyst some real change, where as the vigilante hunting of some petty thief doesn’t strike me as climactic enough.

 

[Warren_Paul]

Warren Paul: what a fun ride, first taking us in a predicable direction, then snapping back only to shout “Just Kidding! I wasn’t kidding hahaha” right at the end. And I must add that the title of the book he was reading when he fell asleep definitely leads me to wonder if he isn’t in much the same state as his wife. Which adds a layer to the dream sequence, was he dreaming about a time when he wasn’t a zombie but his dear wife was and the nightmare was really about how horrible it would be to NOT be a zombie any more??? *pondering face*

Thanks for the great review, Hope. I'm very happy here.

Glad you enjoyed it and that it made you think and consider the different points of the story.

 

[r_j_dando]

RJ Dando: never. Good use of italics really punches the emotional hits home. Firm clear narrative voice which makes your closing line all the more plaintive. Rereads add the pained sarcasm that must be held in the embers of dieing hope at that remembered promise.

Gosh, thank you, Hope! What a lovely review - glad it came across well.

 

[juelz4sure]

This month is going to be real tight great entries thus far!

 

[Hex]

Thank you very much, springs and hope, for the lovely reviews

 

[alchemist]

Thanks very much, hope. "Bullets to people ratio" , which was exactly the thought I was aiming for.

 

[allmywires]

Allmywires: vivid imagery both physical and emotional. Loved the use of physical descriptions to clearly delineate the emotional context of the scene. Poignant snapshot of a persons emotional ability to hold onto a moment when everything about it has been changed or destroyed. As the audience we can be sure that he never would have intended her to stay through what ever horrors love failed to preserve her from, and that it is love that holds her captive to a moment completely irretrievable makes it all the sadder..

ta muchly hopewrites, you captured everything I wanted to say in this with much better words than I would have

 

[Christopher Lee]

Grizzgreen: Aha! I knew it! We're pawns in a chess game! But in all seriousness, this is another interesting twist to the genre, and what better motivation for one's job than the promise of power? And personally...my money's on the white rider, twenty to one.

Thanks, Karn, for the wonderful review!

 

[stormcrow]

Springs - thank you for your positive review... I was tempted to continue the fairy theme, but this turned out better!

 

[Vertigo]

Well I'm posted. Really struggled to think of something for this one. And I apologise for using the translation device to 'economise' on words

 

[Luiglin]

@hopewrites ... rofl the critiques are getting weirder in their interpretations. Thanks though, made me chuckle. Shows that it should never have been my 75 entry

 

[Bowler1]

Springs - thank you for the review, you must have spent a great deal of time getting all that together. I thought your comments on mine was on the money.

Deciding who to vote for is going to be near impossible....

 

[Jo Zebedee]

ANTHUS: Lots of newbies this month, and their work is all of incredibly hight stndard, this is one oc them. A lovely fantasy and sci fi take on the theme, with magic causing the problems the first time and the suspicion that we know exactly where technology and the apes are going to. An excellent first entry

MEMORY TALE: Well done for finding the time! The sacrifice is one we can all understand and the staccato nature of the last sentence is very moving, and evocative.

MOSAIX: Teach a man to fish... there's an element of helping oneself in this, and a bigger element of the simpler life, without access to the killing technology can only be a good thing.

TERESA EDGERTON: A new green shoot in the desert of ruin. A lovely, complete story, told as a microcosm.

JUELZ4SURE: One of the few poetry entries this month. Beautiful imagery of the angel in the ashes.

AZZAGORN: Cormac McCarthy meets Swindon, it made me smile, and well captured, too.

KITTINGJEAN: Another newbie! I liked this, in every catastrophe there's a business opportunity. As Messrs Trump and Sugar might say; "You're hired!"

VERTIGO: A lot fitted into 75 words here, and a whole consideration about where a break down of communication can go. The words of the alien add pathos.

JONNYJET: Oh dear, we think we're quids in, and then it all goes wrong. Darkly humourous.

LEISHA: Beautiful imagery to capture what is in essence, a simple tale, and make it incredibly moving.

DR GORAKK: Another newbie, are we heading for a new record? I couldn't quite decide if it was reality or a dream, but either way it was beautifully imagined. When they walk to the figure, I'm left fearing it might be their doom -the title seems to indicate so - but hoping it might, just might be their salvation.

 

[hopewrites]

@hopewrites ... rofl the critiques are getting weirder in their interpretations. Thanks though, made me chuckle. Shows that it should never have been my 75 entry

well at least people are entertained by it, if not in the way you wanted.
i wonder if the inverter of the mary-go-round ever felt the same way?

 

[juelz4sure]

JUELZ4SURE: One of the few poetry entries this month. Beautiful imagery of the angel in the ashes.

Thanks for the review Springs, I think I enjoy the reviews just as much at the stories... It's good to know someones reading our stories and giving feed back, thanks again.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Thanks, springs and Karn.

We are up to 50 stories already, and it's only the 10th! It looks like it's going to be a very good month.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Thanks, springs and Karn.

We are up to 50 stories already, and it's only the 10th! It looks like it's going to be a very good month.

I think we usually say this, but now is around the time it tends to wind down some each month.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes, we typically have a big surge at the beginning, but this, I believe, is an exceptional number of stories so early in the month.

After the first ten days or so, the stories only trickle in. But with almost two weeks to go, even a trickle (plus the usual last minute entries) should obviously take us well over 50.