Asmodemon

I’ll answer your questions first. Are everyone’s actions believable? The behavior of intruders I can buy. People get hurt and die in home invasions. The cop making a sloppy mistake and dropping his gun? Sloppy, but I guess that can happen. The protagonist doing what he does? Well, only if he’s a psychopath, because killing an intruder is one thing, killing a cop who killed your mom in the spur of the moment I can get. Killing a second intruder twenty years later sets a nasty trend, but to want to so callously kill a woman because she’d seen him do it really cements this guy as a psycho. Do you normally read slasher fiction? No, I don’t. Occasionally I’ll read a thriller or horror novel, since I don’t want to always read books in my favourite genres, Science Fiction and Fantasy. Is it unnecessarily violent or bloody? It’s a slasher story, so I’d say no. The mother’s death: The mother’s dead because she had to die for the story, but the way it happens is really unbelievable. First a cop has to let slip his drawn gun, then he has to grab it just so the trigger gets pulled, and it has to be aimed at the mother. I think the odds of something like that happening are very small, but that doesn’t mean it can’t or hasn’t happened. But because the odds are so small it really feels more like an authorial decision rather than something that came about naturally. Cop killer or just psycho: Either the protagonist aimed and fired his own gun at the police (which was on the ground a moment ago), or he hoped his mother got shot? At this point either is an option. And neither really speaks well for the protagonist. Liquefying a body: Liquefying a body by bludgeoning it with a bat? I can see the remains described as a bloody pulp, but I’ve never seen it described as liquefied. It’s really hard to liquefy bones for instance. 1866: What’s so special about that date? Why did the law stop being useful there? The only thing I can think of is that ‘That night’ from the prologue happened in 1866. So if it’s twenty years later now, that makes the year 1886? Am I reading that right? Given that there are washing machines it’s probably not 1886. Cops: They came by rather quick. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes since the woman saw him through the window. Were they already in the area? Also, they have no warrant, nothing except one eye-witness report of a man with blood on him in the days before Halloween…would they really try to knock down the door? Lucifer: Felt a bit convenient, but then again, if you want to make deals with people as the devil you’d have to provide convenient solutions. Conclusion: Interested to see where it goes. The presence of Lucifer probably makes this a supernatural horror? That could be fun. Not sure about a psycho protagonist, but I’m going to wait and see where you go with this.

I really liked this short story. I was wondering where it was going and what was up with the scenes in different tenses. I suspected that there were two timelines going on, but that one is actually a dream is pretty awesome. I even got a little choked up at the ending there – strong stuff, well done. Pacing: I agree that the story started off slow and doesn’t really pick up until the dream orbs are explained. Maybe you can cut back a little on the start to get to that scene a bit faster, but I don’t think you should cut too much. This doesn’t feel like a story that is meant to be fast, it’s more like a gentle flowing river. Then: Nitpick maybe, but you use ‘then’ twice in one sentence on page 2 (I was my plate…then my father…then walk through). I’m not a big fan of the word ‘then’. Nameless characters: Having everyone nameless in the story worked for me. It makes it feel a lot more personal, since you can more easily see yourself in what’s going on. Diana: Not quite sure about this character. I think she’s probably the protagonist’s girlfriend (in the past shown in the dreams) and when he thinks about the dream later it’s clear she’s a love lost, but the reference to her doesn’t really do much in the story for me, since the whole piece is a father-son thing. Thinking about it I think I have doubts about her role in the story because she is the only named character in the piece. The first person viewpoint protagonist doesn’t have a name. The grandpa, the father, the son, none of them has a name either, so I found it a bit jarring to suddenly get a name here. It makes it seem like she is special to the story, but for that her role is too small and it’s clearly the father-son aspect that drives the story, and not a lost love. If I may make a suggestion, you could try making her nameless too. That would be more in line with the rest of the story.

I liked chapter 39. Some action, some display of power (Rewer has some great power there, very dangerous), and a quick aftermath and escalation. A little one sided though, the gunmen might as well have been dummies for all they did. Chapter 40 worked for me too, to show more of what’s going on with Renfield and how much what he did for Dracula actually upsets him. Not sure where the delusions came from though, that came a bit out of left field. The thing I didn’t care for was the attempted rape scene, but not because of rape, but because the bad guy is being an idiot. The last chapter was another Irving chapter and I still can’t stand those I’m afraid, though this was better than the last one. The last part cut off abruptly, I was expecting a more gentle stop. And some other points: Rewer’s power: This has the potential to be truly overpowered, if he can shrivel heads because of a few dead skin cells, he could wipe out vampires and other undead in a flash. If he knew hunters were coming he could do the same as well, because there is no way there aren’t always a few dead skin cells on a person. Idiot rapist: This ex-hunter, I forgot his name, is an idiot. He’s still in the enemy stronghold, his teammates are all dead, the council is incapacitated but not dead (why didn’t he take the time to do that?) and he has no idea if there are reinforcements lurking around. So instead of hightailing it out of there with Stephanie he tries to rape her right there instead of taking her to a safe house where he can do it safely. That is truly stupid. And yet another example of an incompetent bad guy – I think I’ve called attention to that before. Irving: The other incompetent bad guy. On the phone again, performing damage control for his own mistakes. I feel he should know it’s too soon to call Harker his trump card. At best he’s a wild card right now, whom he might use to get Stephanie without the rest of Westenra becoming aware of it, since Harker’s afraid he’ll lose Stephanie if the company finds out she’s crazy. But if Harker and Stephanie talk it’s over for Irving, and that’s a huge risk. Headshot: Stephanie is the only one in Westenra who can make a headshot, with a bullet between the eyes, at close range? This does not bode well for the organization. Also, big assumption there on Harker’s part to assume it’s Stephanie who did it – she’s not the only one who can use a gun in the world after all. And what is ballistics going to show? I think it was pretty clear that Stephanie was running around without her own weapons. Hangar: Harker is too sure that she’s going to be at the hangar, even though they had no communication and she’s been gone for a while now. For all he knows she already used the place as a hideout and is now on the move again. And for Stephanie it would not be a good idea to use places anyone on her team might know about.

I’ll echo what the others have already said, these chapters could do with some editing. The latter part wasn’t that clear and the start was awkward in that the way everyone talks to each other is banter, quips and sarcasm. There is good potential here to raise the tension, as hunters find them but Stephanie doesn’t want to go with them. For her especially as that’s a nice emotional conundrum. Does she shoot the humans to protect the monsters? Some specific points I had: Irving: A hell no, not another chapter of Irving on the phone. And oh look, just like I thought Irving’s psycho washout is going to be a problem for him. And he tries to fix it by employing more washouts. I’m still not liking Irving at all. Tailed: The supreme council of all the monsters didn’t notice someone tailing them to their hideout? They just pissed off half a dozen vampires, they should at least suspect one might be following them to report their location to her master. Dysfunctional: Every time these characters talk to each other they are verbally trying to murder each other. This is the most dysfunctional group I’ve ever seen and I wonder how the council has stayed together for so long. Bannister especially sounds like a child throwing a temper tantrum every time he’s in a scene. To me, it gets old. And arguing while an attack force is moving in on them is not smart. Renfield’s hearing: Why is Renfield able to hear troops coming up the stairs that are, presumably, outside the apartment? And he can hear them working their guns. Either his hearing is supernatural or this is happening right next to them. Armory or escape: Hunters come up the stairs and Evelyn opens a secret passage. A passage that leads to a room. With suitcases. With guns in them. I get that Evelyn would have something prepared. As she says you get attacked by peasants with pitchforks long enough and you start to prepare, but it feels like an easy way out of a sticky situation. Tunnel: Wasn’t the apartment on one of the upper floors of the building? Weren’t the hunters coming up the stairs? I’m missing the part where the secret room high in the building has a passage that is a tunnel underneath the building. It’s also not a very secret tunnel if amateur hunters can just breach it like that. I do like that they escape is foiled, but considering that the escape is foiled, and the escape tunnel appears just like a hallway with rooms (like the building itself?) you don’t need an escape tunnel. You could have just as easily have had the fight and escape in the building itself. With the added bonus of civilians getting in the crossfire. Bannister in the open: How did this gunman get a gun pointed at Bannister’s head. The last I read about him Bannister was in the passage, pressing his back against the wall. And Evelyn had moved past him to fire electricity into the room, and from what I read both Stephanie and Renfield were in front as well. Overall the last part was a bit confusing to read, as I had no idea what was going on (who’s shooting whom) or where everyone was in relation to everyone else.

Ah, the plot thickens in this one. I liked Sophie and her teasing that Dracula hasn’t been in charge for a long time. Poor Renfield, he really had the short end of the stick serving Dracula. After that though everyone seems to quip and jibe with each other, which stretches my suspension of disbelief somewhat. I was also hoping for a display of power: half a dozen vampires versus a mummy, bride of Frankenstein, a werewolf, a hunter and Dracula’s prime servant. That would have been cool. Instead a tree got set on fire. Fire: A good log doesn’t burn that easily from a lighter. Unless that lighter was somehow magic. I don’t think it was though. Distance: While reading about the confrontation between Sophie and Stephanie and Renfield I kept wondering where the others were. Last chapter they weren’t that far behind at all, so in my mind they should’ve been there from the start. Vampires: Don’t seem so tough. Council monsters: Don’t feel like monsters, they come across more as bickering children. Loose lips: Sophie is very loose-lipped in this one. She lets slip there is a new boss in town, she lets slip that the scroll isn’t necessary for scholomance, she also lets slip that she knows about scholomance. If she knows about it, I wonder why she and the other vampires haven’t tried a deal with the devil themselves. Scroll: Renfield just reaching into the mouth of the dragon and grabs the scroll just like that? That’s how it came across to me. Then I picture daytime, kids playing in the park, messing with the dragon. Someone reaching into the mouth of the dragon while the vampires can’t babysit it and, oh look, what’s this? A scroll? Talking in quips: The last chapter is having all the ‘good guys’ standing around and quipping to each other while deciding what to do with the scroll. I like banter now and then, but the last couple chapters it feels like everyone is talking in jibes.

Overall the tension is dropping from the story. So far I’m still liking the POV’s of Stephanie and, to a lesser degree, Renfield, but the Irving chapters revolve around him being on the phone with one harebrained scheme after the other. As a villain he’s not really working for me, as he’s not really a villain, he’s an underling for the Buyer (who might be a villain) and not a good one at that. Some other points: Renfield’s tattoo: How could they only now have found out what it meant? Dracula is the Big Bad in their circles, surely someone would know what his crest looked like? And why do they need to find out what it meant, shouldn’t Renfield have known it was his master’s crest tattooed on his arm? Stephanie’s atheism: Not to stomp all over Stephanie’s atheism, as I find it refreshing to read about an atheist protagonist fighting the supernatural, but she’s fighting monsters like vampires, werewolves, Hyde, mummies, and who knows else. All of them supernatural beings. Yet she draws so vehemently a line at the existence of a god or a devil? Ghost town after five: They hunt monsters. Monsters come out at night. Why would the office be deserted when the sun goes down? I’d expect teams on standby to send out when needed, I’d expect technicians and an Ops center to start getting into gear. When hunting monsters it’s the daytime that should have less people active. Maybe if someone found a nest of vampires they could torch it with a clean-up team during the day, but otherwise I’d expect sleep schedules to be reversed to match the monsters. Irving déjà vu: Didn’t we have a similar chapter with Irving last time? This Irving chapter felt kind of superfluous and as the only bad guy we see on stage, as POV character, I’m still not really buying it. The sense I have of Irving is that he is in over his head. He made a stupid deal to save his wife and now he’s covering mistakes with more mistakes. I don’t think he can use Harker, but he’s welcome to try. Larping: Stephanie larping. I like this. Dragon: If the purpose of the dragon is to hide the scroll, having vampire bodyguards might not be the best idea in the world. I also found the last scenes in the park a bit confusing.

Not much more to add than what the others have already said. Just a couple small points. Language: The language is still rough, starting right at the start of chapter 26 with ‘her heart facing’. And I think Stephanie jerked ‘upright’ and not ‘outright’. The second sentence of chapter 27 is even worse. Books: Stephanie has just come out of her vision, she’s surrounded by her enemies in their base, and she notices that some books on the shelves are obscure works she had never heard of? From the spines of the books alone? How would she know which works are obscure? There are a lot of books in the world and it doesn’t seem like she had much of an interest in them before. Ellipses: Lots of ellipses in this chapter. Not a big fan of them myself. And with the spacing between them they are very prominent. Evie: Lots of sarcasm and flippant behavior, which doesn’t seem that smart being in the enemy base. Maybe it’s because only Evelyn is around her, but there is a very big switch to how she addressed Evelyn in the previous part, before she had her vision. Mental illness: I was a bit surprised that Stephanie hadn’t looked into mental illnesses seeing as how her female relatives all suffered from it. And in all likelihood so would she at some point. Then she should have probably known how odd it was that only the women suffer from a hereditary mental disorder.

I don’t have much more to say that Mandamon, so I won’t echo what he’s already said. My biggest gripe happens in chapter 25, when Rewer is telling Renfield a lot about Dracula. While this does feel like an info-dump that’s not the problem I have with it. The problem is that he’s telling Renfield things the prime servant of Dracula should already know, if not from his own experiences with the count then from his family’s history. How can he wonder if Dracula was a knight? Why does Renfield ask Rewer if he thinks Dracula is was a student of the devil? If anyone should know the history (at least the known history) of Dracula it’s Renfield and not some mummy.

Chapter 20: Good setup of further trouble down the road with parties of ex-hunters being brought in the fray. These people have the knowledge and skill to do what needs to be done and can operate off the Westenra books. I also like that you show that not everyone makes it as a hunter and what happens to some of them. Chapter 21: This read as a basic ‘what’s going to happen next’ chapter with the setup of having to go to the council. Interesting show of Bannister’s power in human form. That’s something to remember. Chapter 22: The start of this chapter was a bit confusing time wise, since I don’t think that she’s been there for more than a day, yet the first sentence starts with ‘every morning’. Thinking a little more on it I think you probably mean that life hasn’t gone well for her the last couple days and she’s referring to that rather than captivity by Renfield. Still confusing though. Banter: I enjoyed the banter between Stephanie and Renfield. Irving: I’m liking this guy less and less, and that’s fine since right now he’s the actual antagonist. He had a good idea using former hunters to find Stephanie and get her away from Renfield and get her under his control. Bad idea to use the crazy ones though. That last guy is going to be a problem. My prediction right now: the crazy one is going to find Stephanie, tries to mess with her, Renfield is going to save her and they bond over the encounter. I hope you won’t go down that road, since it’s a bit of a cliché (and I don’t want to be right about this). Council of Others: I’m having a hard time believing that someone as high up in Westenra, and as a Van Hellsing, would know nothing of a monster council. I suppose the council is that good at keeping hidden for so long…with nary a rumor spreading, with no one ever defecting for amnesty, or someone dropping names, or someone threatening a hunter with retribution from the council. Bi-polar Renfield: I can’t get a handle on this guy. In chapter 21 he’s all weak and subservient to Bannister, like he’s really afraid of the guy, even tied up. Then in chapter 22 he badmouths Bannister right to his face.

I enjoyed the story, but while it started out strong it petered out at the end. Hallucinations: The hallucinations worked pretty well, starting with the bugs and then with Ched. It was pretty clear to me that Ched was a hallucination, but that’s fine, I liked how that turned out. Made sense that Portsef would seek out his shanty house to hide in, since apparently he’d done that before, even if the poison was messing with his head so he’d kind of forgotten (until he saw the memorial) that Ched was already dead. Accents: I’m not usually one for accents being written out like this, but it works for me here. Good job. Traversal: Not too sure about this particular piece of magic. It actually makes his whole flight from the authorities pointless. There’s no reason, at least as far as I can see, why Portsef would wait to Traverse away until he was in Ched’s hideout. He could have done that before and save himself the trouble. To me this ending is a bit of a letdown.

I don’t have much to add to what’s already been said above. What I’ve noticed most though is a gross level of incompetence in the characters so far. It’s stretching my suspension of disbelief as far as it can go. Sean: Okay, there is no way he doesn’t know that Andy is incapable of leading a team to get Stephanie back. Even if he did get Hyde. This is so incompetent it borders on ridiculous. And there are no other team leads available? There is only one field team in the whole of the organization? With a threat like Dracula looming before them Sean is going to send one team that isn’t even at full strength with an untested leader? Does he want his company to fail? Renfield and Stephanie: Dracula hates the Van Helsings. He apparently goes through a lot of effort to torment the family by turning the women into vampires, so he’d keep eyes on them. As his number one henchman Renfield should be in the loop – I still find it hard to believe he has no idea who she is, not even vaguely. Bannister: Cutting it awfully close. That doesn’t seem smart at all. Even if Stephanie hadn’t tried her escape there is no way Bannister and Renfield had enough time to properly secure him. I had higher hopes for the werewolf. And Renfield dropping the gun while under attack from a werewolf is stupid too – sure he’d get in trouble with the council if he or Stephanie killed Bannister, but that’s a moot point if Bannister kills him. Tied hands: Really? He tied up the hands of the hunter trying to kill him by tying them in front? Where she can still use them? I’m starting to wonder why Dracula kept this guy around. I’m also wondering how it’s possible Renfield got the drop on Dracula. What’s her name: Again, really? She just introduced herself to him and he was all like ‘oh rust’. This isn’t some poor schmuck he can just forget the name of. She’s a Van Helsing. Mortal enemy. I know I’m bad with names, but even I don’t forget someone’s name ten seconds after being told. Especially in a one-on-one situation.

I also don’t have much to comment on with these chapters, they are reasonably straightforward with the confrontation between Renfield and Stephanie. Too many POVs ruins the mystery: Sometimes it feels like you have too many POV’s in this story. Or rather, too many POVs on too many sides. You have Stephanie (hunter side), Renfield (monster side) and Irving (traitor/buyer’s side). I like having the perspectives of Stephanie and Renfield, but it’s Irving’s perspective that for me lessens the impact of the story. Every time Stephanie comes across a mystery we, as the reader, get the answer to that in the next chapter with Irving’s perspective. Some examples: Stephanie has visions and she’s worried she’s going mad like her mother. What’s going on? Why did her mother go insane, and why is Stephanie having those visions? Then Irving comes along to reveal he’s manipulating her to have those visions. Mystery gone. Jack Seward is killed and Stephanie is confronted with the question of who’d done it, since she was the last one with him before blacking out and by that point he was still alive. So who did it? Did she do it? Stephanie doesn’t know and neither does the reader (at that point), so that’s a tantalizing question and a good reason to keep reading to find out. But then, next chapter, Irving comes along, to reveal that the Buyer killed Jack Seward. Mystery gone. Red riding hood: Nice conversation. I liked this a lot. Renfield doesn’t know who Stephanie is: Is it the hoodie that hides her visage from him, which seems odd for a simple hoodie. Or does he genuinely not know who she is? He treats her like just another hunter. As the right-hand man of Dracula, and after constantly being hunted by hunters, I’d expect Renfield to at least be aware of who the key players are in the hunter organization. Given the hatred Stephanie has towards Renfield I expected them to have crossed paths before – yet he doesn’t recognize her or her voice. Strong while in perspective: There is a noticeable power shift in the fight. When we’re in Renfield’s perspective he is the stronger one, and it seems like Stephanie doesn’t have a chance. Then in the next chapter the perspective shifts to Stephanie and all of a sudden Renfield doesn’t stand a chance. To me it makes the fight less believable, since it seems hero immunity kicks in the moment we’re in that character’s perspective. Armored hoodie: Is it in some way armored? Because it seems to offer a lot of protection for a regular hoodie. Also, if the hoodie obscures much of Stephanie’s face from Renfield, it would also obscure a lot of her sight. If Renfield has had military training he’d know to take advantage of that. Likewise, why’s she got the hoodie up since it limits her vision as much as it hides her face – does she even need to hide her face during the confrontation? Aroused by blood: Being aroused doesn’t mean being entranced, or spellbound to the detriment of all else around him. Even if the sight is arousing to him he’s in a fight. Of course he’d ignore the blood. It’s also seems like quite a stretch to refer to blood as his kryptonite, especially since he can just ignore it (unlike Superman, who can’t ignore kryptonite). Stephanie has this information from a file. I really thought they’d met before, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that they never did. The previous chapters really hint at the fact that they did meet once. Why else the hatred for Renfield? If it’s because he works for Dracula and she as a Van Helsing who hates Dracula that seems like too little a reason for the hatred she’s shown. Long fight: Fight is a blow by blow and not that interesting. Compare it to the other chapters and this fight is disproportionately long.

Well, to be brutally honest (and I don’t want to sound harsh, but I think it might come across as such), I didn’t enjoy this chapter any more than I did the last. And that’s because of a couple reasons. Accent: Yes, it’s still annoying to me. And that’s not going to change, since I hate accents being written out like this. Now, your mileage may vary of course, but that’s how I feel. Past overwhelms the present: There is still a lot of talk about the past and the importance of the past in the first pages of the chapter, but I’m not invested yet in the characters to care. We get yet another name-drop, Katinov. Why should I care that he left the mage-core? Why should I care he thought he had a better plan? And, most of all, why should I care that he has returned? At this point he can enter the stage in chapter 6 and kill everyone and it won’t matter, since I still don’t have a reason to care about any of them. Thankfully the info-dumping is only the first couple pages in this chapter. Unfortunately it’s still half a chapter. Bridge between chapters: I had to look back to chapter three to remember that they were turning back at the end of it. For a moment I couldn’t figure out how the small party suddenly got big again and went from wilderness to slamming on tables. Now, reading this as one sitting would help with that, but another reason I didn’t remember is that I skimmed most of the previous submission because of all the info-dumps. Action: Yes, something happens, and that’s very good. It does mirror the attack in chapter three though when Theavis and the others are attacked. Theavis is being led around by other characters. He doesn’t do anything himself. That is a real liability in getting enjoyment out of the story. If you replace Theavis with, say, a ring of power the bad guys really want you’ll still have essentially the same story. Theavis at this point is less a character and more of a McGuffin. Your main character doesn’t have agency. The other characters do, so maybe one of them should be the main character? POV: Especially in the beginning I’m not sure about whose point of view we’re seeing the scene from. There is nothing there that specifically ties it to Theavis. Magnus: The reference to Magnus was a little confusing, I first thought Magnus was a mage who polymorphed himself into a column. But it’s actually the place they’re all in and not a person. Terminology: For me there are too many new names and terms to remember. Mage Core, Pelegra, Tenglorian, Tenous, Katinov, fatforgs, etc. Reason for the attack: You introduce a bad guy by the name of Katinov and a few paragraphs later his forces apparently attack. Now this may contradict what I’ve said about too much information, but this attack needs more context and setting up to make sense.

I concur with pretty much everything Mandamon has to say. In addition, I do have the following points I want to bring up. Worthless in the near future: The crate of money is not worthless in the near future, it already is. The way I read it there are only five hundred, one thousand and five thousand dollar bills left. And those can't be used anymore. Safe house: Interesting bit about Lee Harvey Oswald working for Dracula, but it’s spending a lot of words on a chapter where nothing really happens. If you removed chapter seven and have Stephanie find him as you have in chapter eight you won’t miss anything. Stephanie can find the obsolete weapons and money if you want to remark on it. She already remarks about the Brides of Dracula, so you don’t need the Sophie flashback either – and if you do need it, I’m sure you can tie it in with another chapter centering on Renfield. Sophie/Sophia: While it is interesting to see Renfield’s modus operandi when he served Dracula I’m not buying Sophie going with Renfield. A seamless approach is not nervous fidgeting and babbling – either it appears that he lacks confidence which is not really attractive or he’d come across as sketchy. Also, you change her name from Sophie to Sophia halfway through. Is that because you made a mistake or because Sophie turned into a vampire and that prompts a name change? If the latter, you really need to set that up better. Bible: For some reason when Renfield starts reading the bible I assumed he started reading at the beginning. So the combination of him being halfway through Leviticus and ‘falling asleep with a few moments of opening the Bible’ kind of threw me off. Aside from that Leviticus is pretty long, reading to halfway if you start with that chapter doesn’t take a few moments. Irving: We already know he’s a traitor due to a previous chapter and while it is good that Stephanie is finding out things I feel like it’s a bit soon. There’s not much time between it being revealed through Irving’s perspective to the reader and Stephanie finding it out here. The realization that her doctor is lying to her about the visions could’ve sparked similar questions(to what she’d be wondering about) in the reader, but the reader already knowns, so the moment is kind of wasted. Also, a little nitpicky, Irving’s slip up by revealing more than Stephanie told him is a bit of a cliché: “I never told you that”. Trust: Stephanie brings up a valid concern, that Irving knows more than he should. I was surprised that there was no sign in Jason that he believed her. Jason doesn’t trust Stephanie much, does he? Combine that with him laughing when she nearly fell down the stairs last time and this is the most dysfunctional relationship I’ve read in a while. Not sure if that’s what you want to go for here. Crying: Didn’t buy it, Stephanie seems tough as nails, so based on prior experience this seems out of character. She’s a Van Helsing and keeps making a point that she has a name to live up to. Crying because some weird rust is happening to her doesn’t feel like something she would do. Apparently it isn’t strange since it didn’t set of any red flags in Irving or Jason. Trust part 2: Jason put his hands up, he really didn’t trust her not to shoot him. And she had no qualms about hitting him in the head. She thinks she’s sorry, but for someone who didn’t hesitate to bludgeon the man she loves with a pistol on the back of the head, hard enough to known him out, ignoring the high chance of causing a head injury, I don’t think she’s all that sorry. Again, this relationship is dysfunctional. Stephanie and Renfield: Finally, these two people meet! I’ve been looking forward to that for a while now. Looking forward to seeing where you take this.

Shrike was already quite thorough, I don’t have much to add to it. Tea: Your main character drags himself out from underneath the dead body of his friend/acquaintance and moves to a camp while everyone around him is dead. And when he is there he makes tea. Is that really a priority at that point? Gryphons: It’s jarring that you start with a ‘second’ gryphon before showing the first. It takes three paragraphs before it becomes clear to me that your main character killed one griffin (the first) and that the second one is still alive. I suggest you start this section with the dead gryphon and the arrow of the crossbow that killed it, before moving on to the second gryphon. Poncho: ‘The poncho I made from a polar bear pelt blanket’. When did he make this? Dams: I don’t think I understand enough of your magic system yet to make sense of building dams in an internal world and then tearing them down to access magic, or to create a flow of magic. There is nothing to dam when he’s constructing them, then when the dams are there all of sudden there is a magic flow behind them. Feels weird.

I’m having a hard time actually reading this chapter for two reasons. One is purely technical, as I couldn’t open the document on my phone and I usually do the first pass of a story on my phone while commuting on the train (as I barely have time afterward to do a write-up). Neither this submission nor the last could be opened on my phone, which is not a problem I have with the other submissions. I don’t know why yours is different, maybe the .doc version is too old. The other reason is that I’m just not drawn into it. There is a lot of exposition going on and little else. My eyes started to skim over stuff since at this point in the story I really don’t care about geoglomites, Trellites, Brock, the birth of mountain ranges, etc. Theavis: He doesn’t do anything except being carried around or cowering when they are under attack. And at no point do I actually feel like any of them are in danger either, so in terms of excitement the wolf battle doesn’t do it for me. That leaves a passive character, lectures on the world, and an annoying fog that takes away any assertiveness Theavis might have had. McTuggard: I hate it when accents are written out like this, it becomes annoying very fast and after a couple of lines of accented dialogue I have to say I’ve reached that point. You may want to reconsider writing his accent. Relvaris: His chapter was even worse than Theavis’ chapter. In the words of Relvaris, “You're lecturing again.” No one wants to read a lecture, especially this early in the story. I’m not invested in the characters, world or plot yet, so all this gratuitous background information just rolls on past me. Take away the info dump and all you have is two characters walking around. Jokee: Concerning your question on the word jokee, the jokees are the people on which a joke was played. Since you brought it up, I’m not a fan of the word. Concluding thought: The characters need to start doing something and I really need a reason to care about them doing it. The passivity of the POV characters in combination with large info-dumps is really this story’s undoing at this point.

I’ve been out of critiquing for a while, let’s see if I still know how. This is the first chapter of your story that I’ve read, though I am going through the backlog since I like the premise. My first impression is that this feels like a Monster Hunter International type of book, and I quite enjoy that. Language: The language usage is cleaner throughout this chapter than the prologue and chapters one and two, since in those chapters you often had sentences that switched tracks halfway or had parts missing entirely. That made this a lot easier to read, so good job on that. Though the second part did feel like it had some crucial words missing, as Shrike pointed out. Elsa: I like the Disney reference, but Stephanie is complaining that it’s very, very, hot. Obviously the glass building is acting like a greenhouse, so the comparison with an ice fortress is jarring. And really, they can’t afford air-conditioning? Clothing: I don’t get why Stephanie is still wearing her body armor in the office, nor why she didn’t change after (or before) coming in. Apparently this is somehow normal, since you make a point of having Stephanie rue the fact that she can’t wear comfortable clothing like the people in Ops and has to wear body armor (I really hope this is only for missions, but I didn’t get that impression so you may want to clarify that a bit). Security: Are they attacked in their offices a lot, for her to have concealed weapons in her desk? I get that as a monster hunter (and as a female Van Helsing which apparently makes her a target of choice for uber-vampire Dracula) she’d be paranoid about being attacked unawares. She’d have something stored away. But that natural paranoia is offset by the fact that she has no idea which drawer holds what. That seems very dangerous and reckless and defeats the purpose of being prepared. Sean: Sean seems like a very confident man up to the point where Stephanie confronts him with the option that vampire hunting was no longer their focus. It doesn’t seem natural, and makes me think he’s mind-controlled (by a vampire? By Dracula?) and gets flustered because talking about vampires creates a conflict between the mind-control and his own mind. If that’s what you’re going for, good. If not, you may want to lay some more groundwork for this insecurity. Callous Jason: If the woman you love almost falls down the stairs struggling to hold your laughter, as a first response, doesn’t seem very loving. Kids: The pressure Stephanie feels to have kids, and the quote ‘But she did have to have them now?’ Comes out of nowhere for me, where was this ever an issue that she had to have children now or ever? Yes she’s a female Van Helsing, but what does that have to do with contributing to the Van Helsing legacy? Are all the males in the family sterile, or are there no pure blood Van Helsings left except for her? Is she the only one who can keep the line going? That seems unlikely given Sean, her father and her brother. The key thing here for me is that her desire to have kids and the conflict between that wish and her job feels like a cliché. Just about every woman in fiction who has a dangerous job/life gets this as a character conflict.

The story was pretty enjoyable, but the pay-off at the end could be better. I’ll go into the big points that I have with it. Time period: Through the piece I kept seeing the setting as a sort of Regency with magic, even though in the first part you mention that they have cars – implying a more modern place. The rest, the manor, the maids, the master of the house feels older to me. It also doesn’t help that you don’t really describe what the people are wearing, so I have to fill in the blanks and those blanks are filled with Regency clothing. Speech: Interesting that Tal mentioned the speech marks: “Instead of making them talk without quote-marks, could you use apostrophes? Like the Brits tend to, you know. It would be helpful.” When I first read the piece I did it on my phone, and the quotation marks around speech weren’t there – which made the read a little annoying. Seems I’m not the only one with this problem. I haven’t seen it before with other submissions either. Weird, since on my PC the quotation marks are there… Confrontation: The confrontation with his father felt a bit lacking to me. It started off good, with his father as a figure of authority, but as James laid out all his cards his father deflated pretty quickly. The thing about James’ mother really brings the old man down, which may have been a little overkill. It felt a little like just another excuse on why he couldn’t free Elyse, where his father doesn’t really need any excuses. It’s harsh, but his father was right the first time, what is one girl’s life in light of all the family will lose, not just now but in the future as well? It’s not like Elyse is dead if they don’t break the focus. She’s alive, she can make new memories, she just can’t remember her life from before. The fact that she appears less ‘alive’ and more demure than her old self can be taken as collateral damage and aside from James no one knows the real side of her anyway. Breaking the focus will ‘kill’ the mother and ruin the entire family. The father’s responsibility is to the family. Maybe he should have stood by those ideals a little more strongly throughout the argument. Climax: The climax of the whole piece also feels lacklustre and it’s not like I didn’t see it coming that James would lose his focus. As soon as the book said that ‘a’ focus, and not ‘the’ focus, had to break I knew this was coming. It’s not a bad way to end it, save for the fact that it’s too easy. James doesn’t care about his focus, he never thought to learn his father’s magic and up to that point he didn’t even think he had a focus or that he could learn his father’s magic. He only cares about Elyse. It’s an easy choice for him, whereas if it was actually a sacrifice for him I think that would make the story stronger. Focus destruction confusion: What I infer from the magic explanation and the ending is that James broke his focus, freeing Elyse. I don’t know if the other fans broke, but that is a moot point since his father still has his focus and can make more for the clients who lost their fans. What matters is what happens to James’ mother, since the whole point of the father not destroying his focus was to keep her alive. But if all the items get destroyed his mother’s ring should also have been destroyed. Did this happen or not? If not, how did destroying James’ focus only destroy one of the fans and not everything else? If yes, than the mother is dead. Why did his father suggest this course of action then? He should’ve just refused James altogether and leave things as they were. I think you need to clarify that part of the magic and the ending a bit more.

I’ve got to echo what the others have already said, this chapter felt mostly superfluous. The only thing this chapter shows, by having Covelle and Dyllis go back, is that Benam killed the attackers and that the guard is arresting him. That seemed the likely outcome last chapter, so actually seeing it through Covelle’s perspective is unnecessary. The reason Covelle and Dyllis came back inside the tavern at the end of the last chapter was because there were men in the alley (two by my recollection). These men are conspicuously absent in this chapter – they don’t appear when Covelle and Dyllis get back into the tavern through the kitchen and they don’t appear when Covelle and Dyllis leave through that kitchen for the second time a few moments later. I’m also not quite sold on Covelle’s interest in Dyllis. So far she seems more trouble than she’s worth. She also seems more passive than she ought to be. Consider that she has some proficiency with her craft, that means she’s done this for a while in a place where casting is, apparently, a bad thing. I’d like to know why this is bad thing soon too. Being this passive it seems she either wouldn’t have practised casting due to the stigma(and thus wouldn’t be in this predicament) or she’d be dead/captured already. I’m not impressed by the kingsmen either – trained soldiers failing to capture such a passive girl and getting killed by one former kingsman.

All right, this is the continuous Covelle section I thought he really needed at this point. He’s the character I had least of a feel for coming to this point. Getting into her perspective for a longer time is a good thing. Some action happened and that’s good too – I now wonder if this caster is the same character as the caster in the memory section last chapter. Looking forward to see where you’re taking this. Covelle’s character: On the one hand he’s very confident about his abilities, but on the other he’s really flighty and afraid this chapter. He is distrustful and hides himself behind disguises to keep from being noticed, yet he is the first one to involve himself by speaking to the thugs chasing the caster. It’s hard to get a feel for what he’s really like, since he does contradicting things. Conflict: The conflict in this chapter felt kind of random, it seems purely by chance that the caster comes into the tavern and it’s only because the characters are there that they get involved. It doesn’t have anything to do with what they’ve got going on in their lives. Covelle choses to involve himself more deeply (making it his conflict), but Ahma and Benam have no beef in this, so they still need something of their own to do. They’d leave it with the city guard and keep going with their lives. Let’s stay calm: I didn’t think this was something for Covelle to say. The way I see him is as the guy who walks around in disguises to keep from being noticed. In my opinion he wouldn’t draw attention to himself like that – he’d wait it out and see what happens before making a move. Urging people to stay calm seems more like something Benam would say. After reading more of the section with Covelle it’s more clear that he doesn’t like to act unless he can benefit from it – the first instinct he has is to get out of that place. Very sensible. He doesn’t think about helping the girl until she shows she is a caster and might be useful/valuable to him. So he wouldn’t just say that everyone should stay calm. Clarification – good: The additional sentence where Benam re-enters the tavern and talks to the youth helps to make clear that this is the second tavern Benam entered and not a third one. Good job. Clarification – bad: The start of Covelle’s section didn’t make it clear whether this starts at the end of the last Benam section (at the second tavern) or if it overlaps part of Benam’s section (at the first tavern, Ahma’s tavern). That’s the same problem I had at the end of your previous submission. Barmaid: The way she acts and fights to help the caster girl reads like this is Ahma. But I thought she was in the first tavern of the previous chapter and this is the second tavern? So what’s she doing there? If it’s not her then barmaids in this city seem pretty much the same – that lessens Ahma’s character. Or am I reading this entirely wrong, did Benam leave Ahma’s tavern, take a walk and come back to Ahma’s tavern with the youths buying him drinks? If that’s the case I didn’t get that at all.

I did like the story, there were some fun parts in it, but on the whole I missed tension, surprise and non-cliché characters. I’m partial to the damsel in distress turning things around – and Arri did that with a vengeance – so I liked her character. The other characters not so much, they’re there to fill archetype roles (the obnoxious ineffectual knight, the king who doesn’t listen). The plot itself also follows a pretty straight road. The twist at the end isn’t really a twist. A couple other points: Stilted speech: Some of the speech in the story didn’t feel natural, and that’s mostly from the dragons. This one for example read pretty stilted to me: “I am correct in the presumption that you are the pitiful being with the audacity to not only abduct my firstborn male scion, but to demand my presence to… negotiate his return.” Maid and butler: It’s only briefly but whenever I see words like “As I have told you before” or words to those effect I cringe. In this case, since the knight does appear clueless, I can forgive her telling him things they both already know, but I did have that cringe reaction. Ending: I liked it, though it didn’t come as a surprise. Don’t know what you could do though to add a bit of surprise to it though. Theo’s dragon name: Like Jagabond Theo’s dragon name didn’t work as well as his matron’s did. I think it would work better with the ‘The’ at the start. Devastation’s death: It felt too easy for Arri to kill her, even if the princess was protected from the flames we’re still talking about a pretty massive dragon here. I can’t imagine Arri keeping her grip on the dragon’s tongue while Devastation swung her around. It’s a tongue. And then she can hold on with one hand while lunging forward with the other. Even so close the dragon’s pretty big and even with a long sword she’d have a hard time piercing through the mouth and into the brain.

Oh yes, that scene works a lot better as a chapter start. I enjoyed the scenes with Ahma and Benam as it fleshed out their normal lives, but in the coming chapters I’d like to see a conflict for them to deal with to move the story along. So far the two of them are just running their normal lives. Covelle seems to be up to something, following Benam around, but the reasons for it are unclear. What is he after? The scene with Covelle also worked less well for me, maybe because it was short and I found that what was happening was confusing. Multiple POVs per chapter: This is mostly a style preference, as I both prefer to have one POV per chapter when I write and when I read. It makes it easier to bond with the characters if you’re with them for longer periods of time. That’s what I liked about this chapter, it felt that Ahma and Benam got more screen-time. Covelle on the other hand appeared as an afterthought and for a cheap (in my opinion) cliff-hanger ending. Confusing last scene: I found the last scene confusing in terms of chronology. I think that’s because there are too many inns in this chapter. The one that Ahma works in, the one Benam met the young fellows in and then he goes to a third one? In and out, in and out. The chronology of the scene shift wasn’t clear – I think Benam went into a third inn, Covelle followed him and then some thugs show up. Is that correct? Or is this the second inn with the young fellows and Covelle followed him there, placing the start of this scene at the start of Benam’s scene chronologically?

I concur with the others, this is a nice and concise short story, even though Arthurian retellings aren’t really my thing. I’ve seen retellings from Mordred’s perspective as well, either as a villain or a hero, so that’s not as interesting to me anymore. But maybe that’s just me though and despite that I liked what I read, even though there wasn’t much tension and the climax was lacking. While reading I expected and hoped for more than I got at the ending. Arthur: I like your portrayal of Arthur and the burden of Excalibur. Mordred: A problem I have with Mordred is that I can’t really picture him. He is knighted, so he should know how to fight. He is also learned. He should be a competent person, yet, these things don’t really come across to me in this story. I don’t know how to picture him, I keep seeing a child or at the oldest a teenager seeking attention from his father. Yet he is knighted and should therefore be older than twenty, unless he’s some sort of prodigy … Lady of the Lake: The appearance of the lady of the lake doesn’t strike me as the mystical and grand thing it should be and that jarred me a bit. You have Mordred state from his perspective that he is in awe, but he doesn’t act like it. When she appears the first words she speaks are so ordinary, as if she’s just out for a stroll and happens to find Mordred where he is not expected to be. Caradoc: Caradoc appears to be leading Arthur along just fine, balancing the king’s visions and erratic behaviour enough that it seems he is nearly in control of the kingdom. For a while I thought he was sort of an antagonist, running the kingdom in Arthur’s name and being the ruler behind the throne. His sudden shift in behaviour in wanting to take the sword from Arthur and healing his mind – if that’s really what he wanted, though with the way the story ended it seemed he did – came too sudden. Especially the bid about working with Mordred. This is a dangerous move, why would he risk himself by allying himself with someone who hasn’t had the chance to prove himself? Caradoc also isn’t surprised to see the lady of the lake, which is strange since she shouldn’t be gallivanting with everyone who sits near her shores. First paragraph confusion: You confused me when you stated that “Caradoc was there in his father place.” This is how the first paragraph, before the POV character is introduced as Mordred, came across to me: The POV character watches his father at the round table. It is implied that his father wears the crown. He then sees Caradoc and it is stated that Caradoc is there in place of his ailing father… so who did he just watch if Caradoc is there in place of his father? When Caradoc speaks with the king I thought I must have been mistaken in my thought that the POV character is the king’s son. Yet on comes the next paragraph where it’s stated that the POV character is indeed the king’s son and that the king is there. The ending: The others already covered this. It feels disjointed from the rest of the story. I’d rather have seen the actual scene where Caradoc is struck down.

I like the story so far and I’d like to read more and see where you are taking the setting and the characters. What I'm hoping for in the coming parts is to see what makes this setting special and I want to get to know these characters better. What I hope not to see is even more character POVs. Setting: So far the setting feels like a pretty straightforward fantasy fare with inns, smugglers and swords and a hint of magic (if the prologue and the cursive interlude are any indication). So far it’s not that memorable, but I think you’re going more for a character piece than a setting piece with this novella. I do like how the names you’ve thrown out so far fit together. Oh, and nice map. Characters: Every POV character so far does have something I like about them as a first impression, but they’re introduced so quickly and then we move to the next scene with a new POV, that I never get more than that first impression. It makes me worry that there are too many characters, too quickly, especially since you said this is a novella: in about 2200 words I count four POV’s: Ahma, Covelle, the unnamed woman in the cursive interlude, and Bedam. Conflicts: Every character on introduction starts with a problem. That’s a good way to draw in the reader, but then you also solve the problem right away. Ahma has a man on fire in her tavern, but she douses the flame. Patrons start a problem, but other patrons throw the trouble-makers out. Covelle is worried about the smuggled goods going through customs and then the goods go through customs. The unknown woman worries about her magic and has her worries assuaged. Benam is old and isn’t the fighter he used to be, then he gets in a fight, but with the help of a friend he beats that fight down. Every problem is solved right away. It made things feel anti-climactic.