Happy Halloween! Will it be trick or treat? Let's start with this guessing game.

1. Peter Rabbit, of course.

2. I would guess Russia, or Poland.

3. Apocalypse? Steampunk? Cyberpunk? Sci-fi?

4. Will come soon~

To start, I love the idea of this story. I'm a bit of a sucker for twisted fairy tales, and this was original yet it retained most of its fairy tale innocence.

Also, I love how you related it with the real story of Peter Rabbit. Losing the blue jacket, Peter's adventurousness, the rabbit mud whiskers... all those little details really brought the story to life and made me laugh to myself like I was savvy to an inside joke.

Hmm, criticism... perhaps exaggerate Peter's fear a little more. You know, pounding heart, sweaty palms and all that. You started on it with the tears, but I think more in the beginning would really grip the reader at the start.

Great use of creativity in this story! It was definitely very fun to read.

Hi, I'm back from getting distracted with a 400-page story and a 1200-page educative book I will eventually finish, but not any time soon! X-)

I utterly can't identify the base story from this; I figure I don't have a missing piece of shared background culture. To me, it read like a wild dream, and if the original is anything like this its author was probably enjoying some of the better mushrooms. ;) But I may have been spoilered by an earlier review on this anyway. (I vaguely recognize the name, but I doubt I'm familiar with the story.)

Based on the mention of Warsaw and Kraków, I'd figure you're in a large country with a red-and-white flag. A guy called "Piotr Rabinski" could be anywhere in Eastern Europe, really.

I'd call the theme cyberpunk (we're just getting nerdy enough here that I can't come up with a suitable euphemism). It looks so, uh, bladerunner-postapocalyptic on the inside that it could be a dystopia, but the laser-rakes and suchlike totally look like they were put there for a purpose. You don't need no laser rakes for dystopia.

I liked the trippy bits the best - like the recursive stalking that sounds like it has to have some kind of deep political or otherwise sensitive satire hidden inside it. It also sounds like a tip for the original story though, it just didn't catch on me.

Atmosphere-wise I liked the fleeing a lot - partly because it reminded me of some really fun crazy dreams I've had, mostly based on running away in some strange environment and getting caught and running again.

On a random note: wow, the word "bucolic" should be an attribute of a particularly nasty plague. Can I leave another complaint about the English language that it should be more consistent with the meanings of near-homonyms? X-) I was also a bit confused about the use of "idyllic farmland blue skies" - "uhh, isn't farmland usually green?" ;D

My absolute favourite word in this fic was "galumphingly". How did you ever get that past the guardian dragon?

Minor nitpick: add comma between "gunfire" and "darkened" to complete the side-comment-section of that sentence.

Thanks for the story and the attached mystery!

Ooh, this was great! :D Peter Rabbit with a twist! Okay, I liked the ending in particular. It was very chilling, especially after the simplicity of the rest of the story. Well, simplicity isn't the right word... it's told like a fairy tale, with a lot of telling and not as much showing. I love the contrast this makes with the dark imagery.

One critique: I noticed a few places where the word choice was a bit awkward. Here, for example:

"Piotr slithered under the city gates; his face agog at the panoply of supplies. He collected machine guns and grenades, trip wires and switch blades, coal and kerosene into his wheelbarrow, and left it just inside the city gates."

The repetition of 'city gates' is a bit distracting to me, especially since they appear literally right above each other on my screen. You might want to rephrase slightly. :)

"Hearing this, the guard, who had been looking for him amongst the piles of rubble, rotated his head 270 in Piotr's direction."

This comes down to personal preference, but I think using degrees is just a bit too... technical, perhaps, for this kind of story. It does convey the precision, but I would've used something a bit more natural, like 'a three-quarter turn'.

All in all, I really enjoyed this. I'm going to guess that the genre is Steampunk? :)

I really liked it! Sorry I forgot to send a review last night... anyway, I am a big fan of Piotr Rabinski, and no, I'm sorry, but I don't know what children's book it is based off of. The best answer I got was Hugo Cabraro.