Jump to content

Reading Excuses 20150323 Rdpulfer A Troll's Story L


rdpulfer

Recommended Posts

Overall, this was enjoyable.  It's satisfying to see a jerk get his come-uppance.

 

It was a little bit predictable.  Maybe I've just read a lot of fairy-related stories, but I picked out who "R. Goodfellow" was the first time I saw the name.  The biggest question I had was Sonny's motives.  We find him defacing a celebrity's site, and he goes after a little old lady for little more than her name was higher in the news that day.  I'm not saying he wouldn't do those things, but I didn't get enough feeling for his character.

 

 

Here are the notes I made as I read through the story:

 

pg 3: You tell us Sonny is going after celebrities, but why?  he doesn't seem to have a good reason for going after an elderly woman.

 

pg 5: "Emotions and questions flooded through Sonny’s head until he felt a pounding migraine between his ears."

--I don't think I've ever gotten a migrane from having questions before...

 

pg 7: "It was a couple hours before Sonny returned to the computer. He had been replaying the events in his head over and over again"

--why?  what was he doing in all that time?  Thinking about what just happened wouldn't take hours.

Then he uses the computer to load a USB stick with the virus.  I thought the screen melted?

 

pg 8: "stared" instead of "starred"

 

pg 12: "His feet wouldn't move. He dug his fingernails deep into his legs. With sharp grunt he 

 

realizing he still had feeling in his legs."

--this seemed like an extreme reaction

 

pg 12: "shadow grazing "

--I assume "shadow gazing?"

 

pg 13: "diary"

--dairy

 

pg 16: Before, the chat text was in mixed case, but now it's in all caps.  I liked the mixed case better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I enjoyed this story. It was well written, I thought, tidy language with an interesting premise that was easy to accept. I liked the outcome, and not being entirely sure who I wanted to root for throughout. Good stuff. Detailed comments below. My biggest issue was that the conclusion felt a little flat, not quite as much of a crescendo as it could be.

I do like the Rat Pack vs. Brat Pack line.

I think 'tenant' should be 'tenet'.

Is it 'the Queens' not just 'Queens', presuming it's a reference to the borough of NY.

You talk about Faerie Farm defeating Sonny in the trending rankings, but there are 8 then 9 other sites above them both.

I think 'was' should be italicised for stress in 'The site was made by someone's grandmother' comment.

Removing Faerie Farm only gets Sonny up to number 10 if he's lucky. I'm not overly impressed with his reasoning. He could target any of the top 9/10 if he chose, in fact why not hack them all? Would that not be more effective?

Ellis would have 'few' options.

Why did he use his own name in the letter he sent?

I was about to comment about Blue Screen dating the story, but the actually blue liquid was surprising, very effective, lol.

His computer has just been wrecked, how does he type the letter, etc.? Even if he can resurrect the system, his monitor is mush, there ain't a mention of him going to another system, you say he returns to his computer.

Love the reveal of the worm, but there is a lot of repetition of words, like envelope, for example.

The phrase his mind deep in thought is a bit clumsy. What else would he think with?

I do like Robin's tread lightly 'speech', quietly threatening, with a definite sense of authority.

Not sure what's meant by 'poser security'.

Staff and patronS alike, and we know he's at the library so the end of the phrase sounds awkward, I think.

I don't follow how there's any explanation of where his missing socks are.

Cleared the space between THEM...

I would drop NON-FICTION from tech description of the section, slows down the flow and not necessary, I think.

The phrase 'he could find' is repeated twice in the same paragraph, and there's an additional 'he could' on top of that.

I like the way that Sonny (there are some typos on his name' Sony, for example) turns the tables on Robin with research, knowledge is power, etc. but Sonny is not a sympathetic character, so I'm intrigued as to where this is going to end up.

Like the 'I hate that play' line.

I found the climax a little underplayed somehow. I felt things skipped on very suddenly to Sonny giving himself up, like I didn't quite get the impression that he'd been put through the ringer sufficiently.

This said, that conclusion is poetic, more so considering his reaction to being there and feeling safer with the he iron around, a nice ironic (sorry!) touch.

The final line, I felt, was just a little obvious coming in the para before, but still well done to close out that way, which felt right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Forgot to mention something before.  Don't computers have a lot of iron (or steel) in them?

There's often the president that magic and tech don't mix.  I like that here the fair folk are using computers, but maybe they need some sort of protection or barrier to do so?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Forgot to mention something before.  Don't computers have a lot of iron (or steel) in them?

There's often the president that magic and tech don't mix.  I like that here the fair folk are using computers, but maybe they need some sort of protection or barrier to do so?

That's an interesting idea, but I think that might be over-complicating things a bit. Besides, I think the fair folk are okay so long as they aren't touch pure iron, like the bars in a cell or the shelves in a library. I think they are okay touching a keyboard. But thanks for the observation all the same. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Computers have a lot of plastic, silicon, copper, and whatever's in solder. Some of the smaller components could potentially have iron/steel, but the main culprit for those metals would be the pc case, which can vary drastically in what they're made with.

 

I read the story, I'll try get to giving some feedback in the next few days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...