BSF said:
I have the durned thing posted! It was quite a struggle to deal with the Muses this time.
...
(The rest cut for saving space)
Hey! Yangnome!
Why didn't I get tickets up there with the muses? They would be much better company than the (tiny) crowd down here...
And then some comments on the stories. Good work all of you, I enjoyed the stories. More comments in the sblock.
[sblock]OK, this is the first time I try some "real" commenting, but for once I have time for it, so I'll try.
Match 1:
Aris Dragonborn, I really like that you submitted the little you managed to get done. And it is a promising start. I agree with Berandor that a quick sketch of what you would have done with the pictures would be nice.
Miles Pilitus, will win this one by default, I guess. I found the story a bitt jarring to read with what feels like strange grammar. I'm no native English speaker, but I feel a proofreading of the grammar would do a lot of good. The story also feels like a recounting of events more than what I feel is a story. I cannot find a goal for the narrator nor any really interresting conflict. Hopefully you get some more of that for the next story.
Match 2:
Graywolf-ELM, this is a nice story, and a strong contender I thought when I read it. I like the nice way of showing the seductive/manipulative nature of the princess (succubus?) and the nice twist in the end, but I feel the pictures used as illustrating the entertinment is a bit too obviously the pictures dictating the story. I think a little more work on showing that the entertainment is a natural/integral part of the society the princess is visiting would lift this story from a good CGM entry to a brilliant one. And unfortunately for you that is needed when meeting Mythago.
Mythago. OK, I'll admit beeing almost a fanboy of your CGM stories, but this was brilliant. I would love to find this shortstory published in a magazine. The pace is nice, and I like the plot of someone makeing money by giving people something they want that destroys them and getting his comeupance in the end. The only negative point I can find is the use of picture 3. It is not so much that it is a bad use as that its use is drowned by picture 4 coming so quickly after it.
Match 3.
Gabriel, this is a very good first entry. I generally like the picture use and specially the riot squad one. The story uses "looking back" (cannot for my life remember the correct term for this) and I feel it steals a little bit of the tension. It builds some tension as well since I "must" wait before the current timeline advances, but I feel in this case it reduces more than it gains. This results in a feeling of too little resistance for the main character. But all in all a good story.
Berandor, you can do better than this. Not that it is bad at all, but you are capable of brilliand and this is only very good. Amusingly the picture of the riot squad is your best use also, I think. The structure of this story is very nice (maybe a bit too obvious since I manage to identify it
) with the same scene in the start and the end and the repeating "There are three kinds of..." I'm not quite sure what is wrong with the story, but it just feels a bit less interresting than I expected. It might be too high expectations, of course.
Match 4.
This should be "match of the round" and BSF an Piratecat didn't disappoint.
Piratecat, not your best prose ever, but still good. I really liked how you got the picture of the rare disease people to be a worshipping ritual for the frog-god. The story flows nicely but in contrast to many of the very best stories this is more like a 1001 farietale: a very short story around with fables/farietales inside. The farietale is sort of mellow-good but not very tense, and the story around it isn't quite tense enuogh to remove the feeling. Not sure how it could be changed, and the mellow-good feeling is nice
BSF, were-toads? Somethimes you have ideas that just strikes out of the blue. A nice story with a hero with some resistance that fails in the end, and it even feels somewhat fair that the pretty witch wins
Nice picture use, except the bulldozer, I feel. Not really sure how to comment more. It is nice, slick and good, but I just don't feel it is brilliant. I have no idea why.
So I feel this was the best match this round, so far, but Mythago still has the best story
[/sblock]
Then I'll just have to wait for the rest of the stories and see if I have time to comment on them as well.
Håkon
(hmm, after trying to formulate comments I'm very glad I don't have to write stories...)