First round judgment - Bibliophile vs. Piratecat
Maldur
Bibliophile
A modern mystery story, greek gods in norway, strange tales and death.
Piratecat
A fairy tale, A real fairy tale, there is even damning choices and a lesson in there and such.
Judgment : Piratecat
arwink
Bibliophile - Mysteries
Initially, allow me to swoon for a moment. The first piece I read for
Ceramic DM, and it gets to the task in 2nd person narration. While this
is considered a confronting choice in the literary world, I have a
personal fondness for being placed in a story like this, so I started
warming to Bibliophile's story right away. That it sets up a subtle tone
of mystery and hints at something greater to come only adds to my
excitement. Bibliophile's control of the stories tone and language, at
least initially, is a great attention grabber and shows a great mastery of
the slow build.
Although the mastery of language remains solid throughout the story, the
mood of the story does become a little haphazard as events continue.
There's a lovely build up of tension initially, with the meeting between
the storyteller and the audience role we’re being forced into, but as the
blind storytellers tale continues the tension seems to evaporate. The
mysteries of the postcard seem to quickly passed over after setting up the
blind storytellers hunger for greatness, and the story takes liberties
with the audiences knowledge - assuming we're familiar with the myth of
Prometheus and understand the potential importance of the find. While
this may be a fairly safe assumption on a board full of gamers, it isn't
necessarily true of the outside world. The same happens on the climb
itself - with the danger and grandeur of the scenery washed over in favor
of getting to the summit as soon as possible. While I appreciate the
polar-bear metaphor, I can help but wish that this had been played out a
little longer in order to keep the tension and hunger for the stories
pay-off taut. It’s a risky balance that needs to be struck, especially
for a story this long that is destined for an electronic reading, but I do
think the length and detail may be necessary.
Piratecat - A Fable of Ash
Piratecat's story opens with a paragraph that contains only two short
sentences, but the amount of information he manages to pack into them is
admirable. We have an instant set-up of the locations, the characters,
and most importantly the conflict that goes on to drive the story, and
it’s all done with an elegant simplicity that hooks the reader in an
instant. It manages to trade on our knowledge of myth in order to build
meaning, but does so without automatically invalidating the story due to
the reader picking the mythic references and predicting the ending.
Bravo.
The story builds wonderfully from there, taking us through a fair-tale
journey that is filled with both a child-like wonder and an adult sense of
mystery. Like it’s introduction the body of the story plays with the
elements of myth and fairytale, but does with an awareness and light touch
that leaves you feeling like you’ve uncovered a path you've walked long
ago in your childhood. Piratecat’s language is perfect for the genre he’s
chosen to work within, and he has several turns of phrase that are a joy
to read.
Best of all, Piratecat returns us to the tradition of the melancholic
ending to the tale - giving as a story whose conclusion is satisfying
despite its undertone of sorrow.
Arwink's Judgment
It's never fun to pick between two stories when they're both of such a
high caliber, particularly when you'd love to see both contestants work in
future rounds of the competition. In the end, however, I give the round
to Piratecat for two reasons. The first is that there is no sense of
words being wasted in his piece - it's lean without feeling empty and it
has a control over its pace and mood that gives it a slight edge over the
lagging moments in Bibliophile's story. The second is in the use of the
pictures - while my focus as a judge has traditionally been on the quality
of the stories, I can't help but be impressed by the way Piratecat has
integrated such a diverse range of pictures into a cohesive fairytale
without giving us the feeling that he’s struggling to include them.
Bibliophile's use of pictures is inherently creative, but in many ways you
can see the necessity of including them driving the story forward. If
Piratecat hadn't tagged the pictures in his piece, the sole inclusion I
would have noticed was the padlock at the end - everything else blended
seamlessly into the tale.
Judgment : Piratecat
mythago
Why couldn't one of you have written a crummy story? WHY, OH WHY?!
Both genre pieces and both escaping the trap of being hoary and imitative. I believe that Piratecat did a slightly better job of this; it's a fairy tale, but you couldn't predict the end.
Bibliophile almost got dinged for the "picture as a picture" thing, by using the photograph of the women as a postcard. Turning this into a strange artifact with mysterious writing offset it a little. I liked the overall balanced use of the pictures, and using the second-person narration as a bracket, with the main tale being a story within a story, worked nicely. Excellent use of mood.
Piratecat's entry was a very interesting approach; I think it suffered a bit from the 'read aloud' meter, but of course fairy tales were oral long before they were written. The story also escapes from what could be predictability--the sisters reconcile, they are sadder but wiser. I thought the use of the pictures could have been a bit more balanced; the lock is almost an afterthought. And I was disappointed that a lot of elements got dropped. ("One of them is pregnant? Okay, what happened with that? Both the sisters had husbands, so shouldn't the other one...") Part of that is the length issue, but still.
Judgement: Bibliophile
Piratecat claws his way to a 2-1 win! Congratulations, both of you!