Reviews for More Than Meets the Eye

Reviews For: More Than Meets the Eye

Bek 2007-12-13 ch 22,	I think i love you? This is a truly interesting way to write... I like that you decided not to officially name the knight... it wouldn't have suited the story at all... As for the description of the characters, would you like to know how i see them? Our boy is small and scrawny, with messy dark hair that hangs over his face and shoulders, and his eyes are as dark as the shadows he listens to... The girl is very pretty, on the verge of being truly beautiful, with long blond hair and bright blue eyes... The singer is blond, very handsome, and holds himself with a dignity and pride no one else in the party does. His eyes are green, with snake like pupils. Our knight has light brown hair, neatly combed and cut, and merry blue eyes that are quick to focus on his surroundings. Well, anyway, thats what I think of them... I hope you update soon! Your doing truly wonderful work!
Out of the Orange 2007-10-28 ch 21,	(I'm usually too lazy to review, sorry, but I read all your updates religiously. So I hope you continue to update.) ...So! This was pretty awesome, as always. You know, normally for FP stories I feel that brevity of chapters is a good thing since I've a flea-like attention span, but I enjoy your writing so much that I often find myself wishing the chapters were longer. Not that I don't savor every one regardless, of course. The interesting thing about your stories is that there never seems to be a clear romance defined, at least for the main protagonist. And while I'm totally a fan of good romance, I really like that about your stories because it gives them a different feel from most of the other ones I normally find on this site.
J. A. Kossler 2007-07-23 ch 1,	Some of the prose is a little clunky, and words could be minced. / The boy loved music, although he had a voice like a sickly donkey and his fingers always stumbled when he tried to play any instrument and he could neither read nor write music (or anything else, for that matter). / That is one long opening sentence. LOL. Anyways, if I were editing this piece, I would turn it into this: / The boy loved music, despite the fact he had a voice like a sickly donkey. His fingers always stumbled over the instrument, and he couldn't read nor write. But it didn't stop him from loving it. / I think the problem is you're trying to jam too much information into one sentence. If it's conveying more than one point and sounding clunky (try to say it out loud, sometimes that helps) that's a good indication of needing to separate the portions. Good luck with your story! --JAK (Please review my story, too! :D)
Quaviver 2007-07-12 ch 16,	(a warning: sun-munching SPOILERS again, oh people who read the reviews before the story) Oh dear. That's a lot of surprises. I certainly hadn't seen any of /those/ coming. :o A dragon now! I admit I was looking for something more humanoid, one of the fantasy races with an affinity for manipulation: maybe an unseelie prince or some other such thing. But a dragon /does/ make sense. It certainly explains the clawed baby. I think you've lost me there with the girl, though. Granted, the boy could have no knowledge of what she truly feels like -- or really have any sort of intuitive empathy for her condition (since she-girl, him-boy, y'know) -- but still, she feels terribly closed off to me. Not distant. The singer is distant, but he's also hot and vital and arrogant and flawed and vulnerable. The girl just seems... inhuman. At first, she was alright enough, being loyal, talented, and brave, if a bit naive. But after the birth, she completely changed. I suppose it must be justified. After all, what girl wouldn't go crazy-mean if something with claws crawled out of her? But the horror of her experience and her feelings of betrayal were so filtered through the singer's regret, the boy's confusion, that I feel /her/ voice was somehow lost. The boy's PoV focus never lingered on her subtle emotions, on her tender moments, (the way it did with the singer) and so her accusations during the narrative seemed a trifle hysterical, and her behavior in the most recent chapters just looked petty and spiteful to me. Since it's you writing, I trust that her character and her powers would get a little more attention later on. Right now, though, I view her with distaste. If that /was/ your intention, then I must say “Well done!” Leaving that whole rant on the girl, I must say the story is going strong. Most stories would lose their aura of mystery and intrigue after such revelations as you've put in in these chapters, but yours still has that peculiar, dark shine. Unlikable or not, the girl certainly is pulling the story along, and the boy and the singer just become more and more intriguing by the chapter. (Merrill interests me too, the poor guy. He seems to be really in way over his head.) Also, by now I've demonstrated how you've got characters one could truly like, and characters one could positively, absolutely dislike. And that, I think, is the mark of real talent. Everything I've loved about this story is still there, and I'm definitely sticking around for more.
Quaviver 2007-07-10 ch 10,	(to people who read reviews before the story: this review contains SPOILERS so massive, they could swallow the sun) This singer reminds me uncommonly of Shandar, in that they're both terribly charismatic and capable of being terribly nasty. Heavens, do I /like/ that! (Oh yes. I have shamefully read Dog without reviewing the later chapters, Bad Quavi!) He has a number of great lines too, like the one at the end of Chapter 9 -- that was awfully funny. But here's a little nitpick: I was a bit thrown by the transition between 9 and 10. I'd have thought something more would have come out of the singer spitting into the midwife's face than a hostile silence between them. I suppose it could have been the midwife who alerted the girl's brother to the singer's presence in the inn, but this wasn't clear. But I do like the singer. He's so complex, and not just in the generic bad-but-pretty way that so many people call complex nowadays. I like how he worries over the girl, how his voice cracks during his song, and how this was all put forth in a narrative voice that usually presents him so distantly and worshipfully. Aside from that, I find it fascinating how you've carefully foreshadowed the singer's powers. It was only a hint in the first few chapters, then it grew taller, put out more leaves (the innkeeper), until it finally bloomed in our heads what this singer was really capable of (the mob). That, I think, is infinitely superior to just saying straight out at the beginning: “So-and-so was a magician and he had leet magicky powers of controlling people by singing!1!” I think I've mentioned that characteristic of your writing before, but it's worth mentioning again. I was just so pleasantly surprised, and so overcome by the feeling of “Oh, that makes so much sense!” when the boy noticed how he suddenly started thinking more clearly when the singer wasn't singing. It was a very nice touch, anyway. Since we were more or less in the boy's PoV, it never occurred to me that he might be being controlled as thoroughly as any of the others. And the boy is starting to interest me too, really. As Out of the Orange said, it seems like he's shaping up to be a more important character than what you might have intended him to be, when you started writing him. The music in his head seems to be hinting towards something too. Does he have the same powers as the singer? Would he finally make his own music one day? Would he and the singer be at odds in the later chapters? Watch the typos, though. In Chapter 7 alone, you had “wehn” for “when” and “luke” for “like” and “justince” for “justice”. Nothing wrong with a few typos, but they /do/ provide something to criticize, and FP tells me I must give a “well rounded critique”. Um. And since I've only gotten to Chapter 10 so far and must run, I think I'll leave it at that. I'll read and review the more recent chapters later, cross my heart. Thanks for the review back, by the way! You're the first person who has ever done that for me, I think. So whee!
Out of the Orange 2007-07-07 ch 14,	is reviewing obediently This story is really picking up! It started off slowly - well, but slowly (though that isn't necessarily a bad thing). At first I took your word for it and didn't really care all too much about the boy, since he did seem awfully unimportant, but despite what you say he DOES seem to be playing a rather large and intriguing role right now; at least, it seems like he will at some point. I'm not sure if you intended that or not, but it's working out very nicely indeed. Normally I would say something all niggly-nitpicky in a probably misguided attempt to be helpful, but your writing style is fantastic - simple, straightforward, not and not too dense, but with this incredibly nifty pull to it - the narration really fits in well with the point of view of whatever particular character's POV you happen to be writing from (and I realize the boy is the only character whose point of view has been explored so far; I'm saying this with Dog in mind as well).
RoseMcCann 2007-07-05 ch 12,	Very good.
Inarra Lake 2007-07-02 ch 10,	This writing is incredible! I love the way it's told through the point of view of the boy, his character is being developed as the singer's is. We get the idea there is something sinister about him, and I can only hope the boy figures it out. I really wish he could sing, I can't wait for the next part! I'm faving
Quaviver 2007-06-28 ch 4,	You seem to have the habit of leaving your main characters with debatable names. It makes for awkward moments, in most stories, but in your work that problem is pretty moot. I mean, when you say "he" or "the boy" or "the singer" it's usually clear what you mean. And of course it fits the dark-fairytale mood of this story quite well. I like how you introduced the /strangeness/ of this stranger too, working from the fact that he did not age, to the final result of his union with the girl. Though everything had that air of what I must call "whimsicality" for the lack of a better word, there's a certain logic to how everything progresses. What I particularly like about your work, though, is the originality of emotion. I'm not sure if it's just me, but I always feel as if--instead of drawing emotion from a "universal" pool and just adding tweaks to them--you take a real instance of emotion and elevate it into something universal. Something the reader could recognize with a pang and realize that "I've felt this way before."
Out of the Orange 2007-03-29 ch 1,	Oo. Sounds nifty; can't wait to see where this goes. FP is annoying me to no end because I KNOW you've posted another chapter but it refuses to show it. Argh.

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