Reviews for The Puppet's Contract

Reviews For: The Puppet's Contract

Shanowanwarrior 2007-11-29 ch 2,	fasinating character his motives are clouded but you see enough to get you wrapped up in his memtallity
EnigmaInk 2007-08-10 ch 2,	I'm enjoying the names, 'Elgrid', 'Kagura Shijima', etc. Properly sinister vibe. Arcturia is not at all suspicious of a fourteen year old policeman? Ah, difficult to kill rebels you can't find. Dry cleaning, party invites, smuggled WMDs: all in a days work for an unpaid intern. The destroying thing is Kagura's power? It's a little unclear where all this fits into the timeline established in chapter one. And then another jump of fourteen years? You've thrown out a lot of characters pretty fast, I hope they get a chance to develop more in the future. Overall the chapter is well done, it's just the pacing that could use a little work. Looking forward to seeing more. E
EnigmaInk 2007-08-09 ch 1,	Anything that starts with revenge against Zoz has me on board 100%. In a cheerful loving way. I like that you started out describing a secondary character (Richard) instead of the speaker describing himself, it's interesting. It would've been good if the main character's name had been mentioned at some earlier point, but it's not a big thing. Soo, the slums are bad then? An excellent point, but perhaps doesn't need to be reiterated quite this often. Smiling: a viable substitue for electricity :-) "People say that plants do better when they’re spoken to. The cries of despair, cursing, and gunshots that made up my slum’s noisy atmosphere couldn’t have possibly fostered any kind of tangled weed, much less a delicate flower." ~I adore this! I'm not really sure if you'd call it a simile or a metaphor or what exactly, but it's brilliant. There are a couple of little things that are confusing, like the world's greatest political leader doing nothing to help his clearly disturbed son, or the art schools and recycling plants still operating until the described conditions, and then there's the fact that anyone who wants them can have mutant powers if they don't take their meds, but overall I really can't get to critical because your writing is amazing. Everything goes by very quickly (you must have covered at least ten years), so some more dialogue might be nice, but you manage to pull off the fast pace nicely. Chapter one feels epic in and of itself, so I can only imagine what else you have planned. E
Zozma 2007-07-08 ch 2,	Still dauntingly long. I may have to review over the course of a week, which probably translates to about a month. We'll see. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't leave such long, outrageously awesome reviews. "repulsive slums." Where's my co-credit, damnit! "The Faithless was only one man, the fearful Kagura Shijima." Wait, I thought Kagura's buddies were part of the Faithless, too. And he doesn't actually for for Elgrid, does he? Your sentence structure and choice of words are excellent, top notch, but I still think you try to squeeze too much into one paragraph. Maybe split them up a little, or omit unneeded sentences. "But for all his knowledge of the human logic, he was powerless to make any sort of change." You stop being powerless the moment you can convert oxygen into solid matter, Marsy :P An autograph? Seriously? No one asks for fascit dictator's autographs. And why did the jerkface follow through with the meeting if he was just gonna be an ** in the firstplace? I'm sure a lot of Kagura's charisma can't be translated without an audible tone, but his seemingly impeccable persuasive prowess seems mostly "tell" rather than "show." Zenrich is in full position of power with Kagura being no real threat to him, so why does he endure all this abuse? Heh heh, Zerich has no ettiquete at all, does he? "A harsh sarcasm was obvious in Kagura’s tone." See, this is what I mean. Thus far Kagura has provided no evidence of competence beyond being armed in the right place at the right time, which Zerich doesn't care about to begin with, and the capacity to put a bunch of newspaper articles together. Again, I'm sure the tone in his voice or some nondescript gesture or posture make all the difference, but you have to point these things out. I don't see why a man whose as impatient and uncompromising as you describe Zerich to be would tolerate so much negativity. You gave Zerich a wayburd in this version? Adreneline manipulation is neat, a clever way to give someone super strength and invulnerability without actually giving them super strength and invulberalbility. See, threats make sense. You don't need to be very persuasive when you can kill someone on whim. "Okay guy who tried to kill me, we could work together, but I still don't trust you." "Dude WTF seriously!?!?" Just yanking your chain, Marsy :P. Yay! Kagura+Brian BFF! Kagura's transition into humanity with the help of Brian is heart warming. And deep, especially when you consider it would have never come to fruition without Kagura jepordizing Brian's life. Uck. Brian's abduction happened a lil too quickly and abruptly. For example, we got to spend a lot of time with Mitsuda's adopted daughter and enjoy the effect she had on him, so we could appreciate her dissapearance. With Brian, we get little time at all to analyze their relatiomship before he's gone. Yay Mara and Sora. I like how Sora's sort of acting as Kagura's conscience. Nice touch. "“I think he’s out spying on one of the executives of the nearby power plant.”" That ought to be the type of thing you know, Kagura :P "cerulean" cerulwhat? Very nice touch having Kagura being Richard's murderer. The scene was excellently done. Zerich's brief show of humanity at the end was equally befitting. I wonder if Kagura ever kicks himself for abandoning the role of his father's son that would eventually lead to a position of power? Or, equally likely, assassination, I suppose. I think Kagura's conversation with Zerich should have lasted longer. Just food for thought. I appreciate the irony of having a dilapidated military compound named after a blooming paradise. Yay for troubled father-daughter relationships. Where's Zerich's wife in all of this mess? Is Mara commonly a boy's name? I don't think I've ever heard of it before. Then again, "Zozma" shouldn't be talking. Well, I'm done. That wasn't so long, and it only took me a day. Nice work, Marsy.
Dust Cloud 2007-06-14 ch 1,	You should be very lucky that I like you as a person, because with any other random author I would run away screaming from a chapter this long. I'm sure it will be good, though. xD Richard is...hitting on the "I" character here? I see the beginning of a new line of shippers! You gotta feel kind of bad for him, though. Interesting explanation of the Wayburd gene, too. Erm...why did Kagura's father leave his son alone in his room with a whole array of knives and needles? Just wondering... So he just adopts the kid. xD Amelia died? Ugh...that's depressing... Ooh, they can make gardens now. This will prove to be useful. ^_^ It was then that I realized that the five of us, perhaps barring Niklas, who neither spoke nor celebrated at his sister’s engagement party, were a family. Oh great, another family. THIS isn't gonna last. “Well, it sucked,” he cheerfully responded. “They didn’t have a TV there.” lol And Forneus took over...and then Zerich took over...and, oh, look, everyone's going to die agan. And...it concludes morbidly. Well then...now I'm depressed. Thanks. :D
Hsün Chi'en 2007-05-23 ch 1,	Well, Alex, I do like your basic story, but I have a few issues with your timing. When Amelia died, I feel as that needs to hang in the air, having the character gain powers only weakens the importance that the death should have. Perhaps it would be best to move to another part of the story then.
sarah 2007-04-05 ch 1,	...Richard is no longer eaten. Already knowing the characters, i strongly like (for lack of better wording) the insight and background given to them! I dont care for this chapter as teh beginning of a story though...
Zozma 2007-03-31 ch 1,	here's lots of words here, about three thousand more than my average chapter, thank you very much, and much less spacing. I'll try to get this done whenever I can't promise that I'll make it all in one night, or that it will even be a full review because of fictionpress' tendency to pre-postreviews, but I'll do my best. "More often than not I ended up with his turkey stuck between my teeth for the rest of the day." WO! . . . Sorry. Overall, the opening is very easy-going, The wording is fairly natural, but some parts seem forced. I generally feel that way about all internet text, probably due to the lackluster format. It sorta reminds me of the first Lord of the Rings movie where everything's pretty happy but you know a good deal of crap is about to fall. You ought to split your paragraphs up more. It makes reading a lot easier and the overall piece less formidable looking. Poor Mitsuda. He's in the wrong business for skinny armed guys. Bio-engineer is a rather strange aspiration for a child, but I've heard stranger things. After CSI became popular a large eprcentage of my friends fancied themselves as forensic scientists, and bio-engineer isn't much more odd. "I’ll never forget the day I woke up to a particularly alarming paper. My former classmate, Kensei Shiro, the very smartest of us to graduate that year, had hung himself." And Richard Corey, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head. "Kensei’s suicide didn’t warrant the front page, of course. That was reserved for the basketball scores from the previous night’s game." A clever bit of social commentary on both mankind's priorities and apathy. Well done. "his smile lit up the room, rather making up for the lack of a functional electricity system." Cute. Ah, the abusive father. The starting point of any worthwhile hero or villain. Just goes to show how little thought dad's put in raising their kids. If you want them to grow up miserable and ambitionless, just be nice to them. See, you can't bombard your readers with information like that. Foreign names are hard to remember, even moreso when you introduce them all at once. Keep the information simple and slow, we don't need to learn everything in one go. Ease the reader into the world. So you decided to turn your evil corporation into a country? Less Shinra-esque, I have to admit. "Sorry folks, the golden age of our people is over. Meet your ruthless dictator, some creepy emo kid you've never heard of!" He probably didn't get the brightest reception. At least they didn't make him take over when he was eleven. Poor emo kid. Power hungry jerkwad doesn't seem to be doing so hot, either. Very nice work describing the lack of greenery in the slums. Very descriptive. Mitsuda's gonna take some time to learn his old man compassion, I see. Aw geeze, an art school? Way to shoot for a poor profession in an impoversed world, little girl. Mitsuda's reaction is very realistic, though, considering the circumstances. Also, I thought they had nothing to complaina about back then, but that's all Mitsuda seems to be doing :P. Mitsuda and Amelia's growing relationship is very touching. I thought they lived in an apartment . . ? I'm guessing the plants are a prelude to Mistuda's plant-o-morphing powery thing? He's living in poverty and starvation every day and he doesn't feel that his life has been impacted by his leader's actions? Mitsuda's a very forgiving person, me thinks. Well, *. Poor Amelia's school. And, inevitably, poor Amelia. Thought so. Poor Amelia. Aww, I was hoping Mitsuda would be able to make some money from not using his medication. No such luck, I guess, if it's mandatory. I don't think even Gama would make you pay for mandatory drugs. But why exactly did people discover the powers it gave recently? Wouldn't you think, if it was a global event that millions of people suffered from for years, that one of them would have gotten the powers? Mitsuda's sickness from the Wayburd is an interesting idea, but I think you didn't elaborate on it enough. His symptoms and everything, I mean. I think there's plenty of potential material and even more Mitsuda-related suffering you could have milked out of that :P. I'm not sure how Mitsuda's powers can be used in any traditionally offensive sense, but you said you did have some things planned out. I think it's neat that your main character has a less cliche power; all heroes seem to have the same super strength thing going for them, but you gave Mitsuda something far more original. Nikkas is a jackass. Personally, I absolutely hate guests of all kinds, but when you are* the guest it's a bit rude to treat your proprietor like he owes you something. What a prick. Half-Snake makes a lot more sense than half-squid, yeah. Half-squids wouldn't have many interesting abilities, I think. I thought Addler was a kid? I guess you meant "kid" as in "younger than Mitsuda," or a teenager. A little boy dressed as a janitor would be a little suspicious, I think. "Okay, we have to split up. Tree-guy, powerless jerk, and freaky snake kid, you walk this highly dangerous and guarded route home. Me and my loving brother will take the bus. Tootles!" Mitsuda's reverence for life is highly realistic, but it's a concept you really have to analyze. In Paloni's "Rider" series, the main character, Eragon, constantly feels remorse over his enemys' deaths even after taking hundreds of lives. That's a little unrealistic, I think, since all evidence seems to point to people invariably becoming numb to death after taking so many lives. It all depends on the character, I think, and what you want him to become. I remember a Kat. Where do I remember a Kat? Poor Richard. It's funny how his power never got revealed. I guess his disease didn't have that kind of potential? Or maybe he never had it. Done! Started last Saturday and it took me a week of light reading and one d ay of of frantic catching up to finish off the whole thing. Nicely written. Very desperate atmosphere. I enjoyed it thoroughly. My chapters aren't this long.

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