Reviews for Peregrine Phase 1

Reviews For: Peregrine Phase 1 - Reviews: Page 1 of 2

Solemn Coyote 2007-02-11 ch 2,	This is a review for chapter one. I’ll review everything else via the manuscript, ‘cause these are going to be excessively long. 1) “It’s a very odd world we live in, isn’t it? They call me plenty of names. Mutt. Mudling. Natural. Three nouns. Three offenses.” Nice intro. It sets the tone, establishes voice, and throws in a bit of culture. However, it might be a little stronger if you clipped “it’s a very…plenty of names” 2) “Slowly, her eyes drifted” Word repetition on ‘eyes’. Maybe ‘they’. 3) “a mane she hadn’t dare cut back in many years” ‘dared to’ 4) “And he’ll be right back on the razorboard course” Nothing major, but ‘razorboard’ feels a little cliché. There’s a lot of sci-fi that imagines skateboarding getting progressively more eXtreme, and I dunno that I agree. Throughout history, it’s been the simplest sports (like soccer) that have stuck around. So, maybe ‘razorboard’ to ‘skateboard’? 5) “It’s one of those things you hafta pick back up, or he’ll never get on a board again.” I think the reader would understand if you changed the second “he’ll” to “you’ll”. It would de-awkardify the sentence slightly. 6) “A moment later, the sun broke past one of the Type B’s, striking her harshly in the face.” I like how absolutely normal that sounds. Good world-building. 7) “her sunglasses paling just slightly without the assaulting sun.” ‘assaulting’ feels just slightly off, connotation-wise. Maybe just ‘glaring’ would do the trick. 8) “She leaned against the wall, watching the reflection of her tail playing around the backs of her legs.” That’s a pretty huge character detail, and it just kinda sidles into the text. I’m not sure whether this is good or bad. 9) “There isn’t much use sticking around my apartment with my roommate asleep until all hours.” Scratch the ‘until’. 10) “Feels like everyone’s just cutting everyone else’s throats with the slander and the lawsuits and it’s just nuts” I’d put a period after ‘lawsuits’ and remove the ‘and’. Otherwise, not a bad injection of social critique. 11) Burgess’ sentences are a little bit clipped. While they make sense in an informal setting, it feels a little weird to have a professor speaking in phrases. I dunno. Your call, here. 12) “So do you always come this way in the morning” Comma after ‘so’. 13) “You seem like a very quick-witted kid, and in spite of being a bit shy, I think you’ve got a lot of good ideas in that head of yours.” That ‘and in spite of being a bit shy’ feels like it’s been forcefully slipped in. Maybe ‘you seem like a quick-witted kid--maybe a little bit shy--and I think you’ve got a lot of good ideas in that head’ 14) “They took advantage of the law” Unclear subject. ‘they’ to ‘immigration’. 15) “The advent of mobile drives were nice.” was 16) “According to her, woman’s studies wasn’t quite so easy with a militant feminist crusading around spewing about how men were unnecessary and problematic.” That feels a little heavy-handed, but I can’t come up with a rewrite. 17) “Elsewhere on her screen, the news ticker was bumbling by” Nice. It’s a very human thing to personify new bits of technology. 18) “Her fingers scampered over the flat keyboard, the heat-sensitive pads translating the dance into useable text.” Nice line, but I dunno if you could have heat-sensitive keys. I mean, the body throws off a lot of ambient heat. Hitting a key might cause all it’s neighbors to trigger, too. I think pressure-sensitive might be better. 19) “a world where variables ruled over constants in perpetual tyranny” Nice 20) “Which left her merely waiting for the next homework assignment.” Scratch the ‘merely’ 21) “After the file loaded onto local memory, a face came into view, flawless and beautiful, smiling for a brief moment before the anchor’s simulated mood changed.” Nice 22) “Sighing, she turned back to her homework.” She shrugs that off really, crazy quickly. You might want to change that a little bit. 23) “Kaitlyn was happy with this class. It wasn’t unruly or distrustful,” Those aren’t two traits I associate with classes. Students maybe. 24) “On his command, the screen behind him, glowing faintly with photon-warping energy, illuminated, displaying six figures in scientifically neutral poses, a representation of all races, to scale, so the Galaxii stood miniscule next to a towering Equilli drone.” Split this up a bit. It’s incredibly run-on. 25) You might wanna be careful with the lesson here. A lot of authors make all the characters in their stories, except for the bad ones, free of racial prejudice. While it makes the plot a little bit easier, it’s also a touch less realistic. Everyone has their petty grudges and hatreds, and in a society all those little grudges tend to follow similar trends. I don’t know if you’ve mentioned yet whether earth is Republic or Empire or neutral, but I figure a lot of the students in the classroom are gonna have the biases of whatever side they’re from. Not just the bad ones. 26) Once again, the class is an excellent device for world-building. 27) “If tomorrow an alien civilization showed up bent on the destruction of the entire genus,” Is that foreshadowing I smell? 28) “Truth is, Felisans are not nice critters to get in a fist fight with,” Though, I imagine their fists would be fairly weak. It’s hard to punch with sharp things hidden under your skin. I wonder if anyone’s developed race specific martial arts? 29) “she dropped her weight a little, sinking her toe claws into the rug.” Nice. Too many half-cat races only have hand-claws. 30) “She had a young, mostly rumor-based knowledge” ‘understanding’, maybe? 31) “They’re mostly Halfbreed, nomadic (which is where their name comes from)” Kinda weird having parenthesis in a conversation, but I like the device. It’s much easier than saying that it’s in an aside. 32) ““Would it?” she asked, her ears cocking.” Um…two million enforcers. Unless they have the combat abilities of storm-troopers, that’s gonna take some force. 33) “Erin snickered, kicking her orange flip-flops off and perching delicately on her stool. A programmer working on her math and logic requirement” I’d put a colon after ‘stool’ 34) “All right all ya stumblin’ weak-bodied excuses for mechanics.” Comma after ‘right’ 35) “Most of them were corvette and galleon class, solid, fast, dependable.” Colon after ‘class’ 36) “and stowaway smells from thousands of places.” Nice 37) “One of them uttered a mere “Evening, Katie,”” ‘mere’ to ‘simple’ 38) “She swiped a few glass bottles off the shelves behind her and quickly mixed up a curious mix” second ‘mix’ to ‘blend’ 39) “God do I rely on you to keep my blood flowing,” comma after ‘God’ 40) The dialogue between Kate and Avalon is really good, at least as far as it deals with their past. It flows well, it’s properly emotional, and it’s got the right amount of slang and abbreviation. 41) Lovely description of space. Both realistic and poetic. 42) The scene with Kate and Avalon is a lot less shojo-ai this time around. Good. 43) “She cried because Avalon cried, and Avalon cried because she did. There was no beating it.” Excellent line. 44) Good chapter ending. Reviews will continue in manuscript-form, because this was way too long.
LuNa7ic 2006-11-04 ch 30,	Been reading this and other stories for some time now, so I decided to sign up. I love the story, keep it coming :D
Casey Drake 2006-10-28 ch 30,	...Wow... Awesome. Over and out, :) CD
Casey Drake 2006-10-11 ch 24,	...Quick question. Why do I get the feeling that one of the main Peregrine religions is Islam? Otherwise, nothing major to comment on, criticism-wise. I'm enjoying watching Kaitlyn turn into Angel... :) CD
Casey Drake 2006-10-09 ch 22,	...is Mauri Katie's--um, i mean Angel's--clone or something? And I know she's a double agent, but for Levesque and whom? This is really interesting. The subplots... Crap and crap, i just realized who they're torturing... crap. and crap. :) CD
Casey Drake 2006-10-09 ch 15,	heh. coulda sworn she's already cut her hair off... heh, then again, it's been a while, if she has. :) CD
Casey Drake 2006-10-02 ch 12,	This is for the new bit including the next chapter. Heh, I like the bit with the bow... and it makes the Berserker bit more shocking, in a "How would she know how to USE those weapons?" kind of way. And the tension with the getting badly shot so even Quicksilver can't heal it... Nice. A couple of minor typos here and there but nothin' major. :D CD
Instant Ninja 2006-10-01 ch 13,	...very nice...it feels smooth and finished.
Casey Drake 2006-09-07 ch 19,	ok. gotcha.
Instant Ninja 2006-07-31 ch 1,	...oh, and I officially love Tinbit. Everyone else too...but especially Tinbit.
Instant Ninja 2006-07-31 ch 18,	...oh. ...oh, my. This is amazing. ...glomps...
Casey Drake 2006-06-11 ch 18,	applause DANG this was a rocking bit. I enjoyed the fast-paced action and the characters... and it was real. There WERE casualties, and not just of Kleenex charries. It took me a bit to get used to the Kaitlyn-Angel/Sara-Tundra namechange, but it works. I LOVE Tinbit. All... eleven? Twelve? of Tinbit. XD Rocking story. Over and out, XD CD
Solemn Coyote 2006-04-30 ch 1,	Just adding this story to my favorite's list. Consider that a review in itself.
erinshadow 2006-04-30 ch 14,	It says you're editing in your profile, so I'll hold off on reviewing until I see that go away, so I don't say things that will be immediately rendered irrelevant but revision... that was cool alliteration. Anyway, keep it up!
Chiaroscuro 2006-03-24 ch 1,	Alright. This should give Drake a little reviewing competition. I'm going to organize this one into individual points, because it looks to be too long to string together the usual way. 1) Excellent world-building. It keeps its own steady pace, without going off into a tangent or glossing over anything interesting. The setting builds itself behind Kaitlyn as she moves through the rise: a technique I wish I could use in my own writing. 2) There are a few places where the words flow awkwardly. This is okay, since I'm sure one of the more nit-picky reviewers will pick up on them. Try running this script by the Grammar Hawk and see what she picks up on. 3) Professor Burgess' conversation with Kaitlyn sounds a bit off. Nothing major, but I'd reccommend tinkering with the line “It’s nice to see that someone’s still nice to people these days. Feels like everyone’s just cutting everyone else’s throats with the slander and the lawsuits and it’s just nuts.” It runs on a bit at the end, and it seems a little disorganized for hte thoughts of a college professor. I realize he is supposed to be breaking the norm a little, but thought I should point it out anyways. 4) "The computer lab seemed to have been a warehouse in a past life" That's one of those rare gems that are always studded throughout your writing. Keep it. 5) Minor edit: "The advent of mobile drives were nice" should be "The advent of mobile drives was nice". 6) "silly problems that were so far from her." Maybe 'silly' isn't the word you want here. It's a little too dismissive. 7) The news flash at the end of Kaitlyn's math lecture was nicely done. It added some essential world details, and it demonstrated just how disconnected from the rest of the galaxy Kaitlyn is. 8) "time better spent dealing with their half-** excuses and lazy posteriors in her way." I dunno. 'Posterior' just seems a bit out of place here, like Motzart at a Dropkick Murphys concert. "These ones seemed intrinsically motivated enough to learn from this vault of information standing there." Also sounds a bit off, given the context. You might want to trim the word size down a little. 9)"If tomorrow an alien civilization showed up bent on the destruction of the entire genus, Human and Halfbreed would cease to be a consideration, on the most part." Distant forshadowing, what? 10)"She had a young, mostly rumor-based knowledge, but she had a feeling that she was about to learn much, much more about how they worked." Quick fix: 'understanding' in place of 'knowledge". 11)“Right on time,” she smirked. “The normal?” I think 'the usual' is typical for this type of situation. Synonyms aren't always an improvement. 12)You might need to establish Kaitlyn and Avalon as sisters a bit earlier. I've read previous drafts, so I'm not surprised, but their conversation could sound a bit odd to anyone who doesn't know this. 13) Well done, for a first chapter. Make sure you mention the Anachronism again, since that might confuse people. Excellent detail though. Alright. Chapter one read and reviewed. Chiaroscuro signing off.

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