This... is absolutely... amazing. Spectacular. Such an original writing style, and the characters... oh my goodness the CHARACTERS. And the setting. And... GAH! THIS IS INCREDIBLE. It is just not credible. It's that great. I am definitely going to be following this, and hopefully my reviews will become more helpful and coherent next time. Just so you know, I am now going to force my girlfriend to read this. I must share this with everyone I know. Thank you so much for taking the time to write and post this!

I liked the chapter. I had trouble with the first paragraph. I didn't really know what was going on. The constant swearing was kind of unimpressive, but after that the story got much better.

The narrator is kind of an ass in a fun way. The narration and the diologue is smooth and punchy. A lot of it is really funny.

You're clearly setting up a larger story. You've introduced interesting characters and teased at a complicated world. I'm genuinely curous what happens next.

Again, the one thing I think you need to work on is the opening.

Really good job. Thanks for sharing!

review return

Gir!

Right away, just to get it out of the way - meh, on an atheistic point I don't like the length of this chapter for a first chapter on FictionPress. If it was in a novel, that'd be fine I wouldn't notice, but for the FP purpose, especially for reviewing, not so much. But that's all I'll say about that!

Narrative voice in this is excellent. Molly was unexpected. I wasn't sure how things would pan out and they panned out very well for him (narrative-wise, anyway). He uh, really fulfills the role of a twink, lol, with the "Molly" name and the feminine features and how small he is, but I got the sense he was bisexual. Which, name of the club - that's a famous french transexual isn't it? So I liked the sexuality at play here in this first chapter as well, that seems to be a big part of even Molly's life, just negotiating that kind of thing too. The fun quips back and forth were great, the dialogue was unique. I especially liked when he was getting "interrogated" by Grunt A and B, lol. The French line was good, among others.

The setting was very interesting. I like how you integrated the hints about it slow. This story seems to be full of little goodies and contextual clues for those who can get them - Soma, again, being an interesting choice for the name of a place since it's the drug in Brave New World.

I got the sense that Soma, or at least where Molly is hanging out, is very sex-obsessed, perhaps with the description of the "broken sex machine" named Annabel, haha. I also thought you did a great job pacing into the transition scene where Molly is looking into the Quarry. We get some good description there about the differences between the two districts, and I like how you handled the description of the transparent glass or well, high tech barrier. It dropped some good hints that make the reader want to continue reading.

It's very interesting to me that Molly infects himself. He's a bit unreliable and unpredictable and impulsive so I'm not 100% sure what his motivations were with that bit - I mean, now he's going to die. So that's well, interesting, lol. Or at least, there's hints that he probably will die. Unless perhaps I did miss something along the way.

But I liked the transition from the Grunt A Grunt B focused scenes into the Dead Boy focused scenes (split by the description of the transparent wall). That seems like somewhere in there you'd be able to split this into two chapters since they have such different character focuses. But again - interested to see what might happen with this Dead Boy from beyond the wall and how they'll stick together. I liked the unexpected moment where he came back for Molly, that was great. Overall a great start!

I love the opening two lines, definitely humorous enough to make someone want to continue reading. And, satisfyingly, that's something that continues throughout the piece. Molly's voice is fucking funny.

I'm intrigued by the world you've weaved here, especially when you were describing the scenery here: "I race past a gaggle of people sucking smoke balloons, a machine chanting that 'McRoaches makes you faster, stronger, wiser, better', and a sex booth that has been broken for the past year."

Overall, it was an enjoyable chapter, and I'll be sure to continue reading!

The first three sentences were a great way to open the story. They hinted there would be some amount of comic relief, and, well, they really did a great job introducing Molly, haha. Your narration is perfectly matching the bizarre, interesting nature of your character, and the descriptative parts fill in the gaps in-between the fun, naturally-flowing dialogues.

A very strong start indeed! Nicely done.

I think the strongest aspect of this story, and what I enjoyed the most, is definitely Molly's voice. It's hilarious, and I really like his sarcastic quips and similes. He makes something as serious as getting the shit kicked out of him in an alleyway funny. It's great for his characterization, too, because you get a chance to pop in some specific details about him, like how he looks at that one skull while he makes tea. There were a few lines I really wanted to copy/paste in here, but FP is an asshole and won't let me copy/paste anymore...and I didn't want to stop reading long enough to do the work around. But yeah, you have some really clever and witty remarks in here that definitely take skill to think up, and I really appreciate that. I think my two favorite humors are toilet humor and sarcasm, which this thing is chock-full of. Regardless of what was going on during the story, the voice itself was more than enough to keep my attention.

Your pacing is also done really well, too. I particularly liked how while Molly was being chased by Grunt A and B, he paused to think about babies and other things about the city. I think it helped the chase scene not become repetitive, as well as helped build on the setting. I also like how you don't dump all the setting off on us at once, but you more develop it through the character's interactions with it, especially the glass wall that separates them from the Quarry.

Your dialogue is also really funny and realistic, as well as organic to the situation. I really like how Molly talks to Dead Boy - Molly is such a sarcastic ass, haha.

There was one thing I wasn't too sure about...Molly mentions something about castrated people being unable to have sex, but I'm pretty sure if you're castrated you can still have sex you just lose a lot of your sex drive. Molly might not know this himself, but just thought I'd point it out.

I'm also curious as to why Molly's so willing to kiss Dead Boy if Dead Boy is infected with that white plague stuff. You develop a lot of interesting questions in this first chapter, so I'm excited to see where you go with them. Considering how fucked up Molly seems to be, what with him collecting peoples plague marks and shit and framing them on his wall, I'm not at all surprised that he wouldn't freak out while being around Dead Boy. That remark about how people with white plague's muscles turn into bones is really freaky, too.

That's another thing you do really well: deliver unique descriptions. You don't bog the narration down with generic shit, like eyes or hair color (which can get really boring), but you focus on other things, like how thick the Grunt's necks are. Or the tattoo on Dead Boy's skin. Nice stuff.

Hi from The Review Game (nice profile pic btw).
Great opening line and the follow up description of 'manly things' is funny too. Your descriptions are great, you have a real knack of capturing an image and playing with words - keeping the white whites white made me smile.

I like how you get about halfway through the chapter throwing in little details about the world- McRoaches, sex booths and so on then suddenly the big detail about the Quarry and the whole world expands. The introduction of Dead Boy was cool because it raises a few questions about what Molly's collection is for and what exactly Dead Boy is and why Molly helps him. The interplay between them is sweet, sort of reminded me of Lenny and George in Of Mice and Men.

I couldn't find anything to criticise here in terms of grammar or structure, other than that I'd spell freeby as 'freebie' Your language is inventive (not enough people use twat as an insult) and the way Molly describes people reminds me of Spider Jerusalem from the Transmetropolitan comics which is cool.

Molly seems to be a very pragmatic character that is thrust into a compelling but not too fleshed out world. First of all there's the name, and with no real context (that I remember) on why the male lead is named Molly it comes across as kind of forced. His feminine looks and mannerism aren't well defined either, as you mention him having a close "female friend" and yet he's making out with dead boys, so I'm going to assume he's bi. I enjoyed his pugnacious attitude and his escape from the goons though, and his witty sarcasm won me over in the end

I thought the setting could be better with some expansion on the society and shat type of world they're living in. You mention the quarantine zone and white death but never really delve into there specifics, which would help if you're trying to really bring this gritty sci fi dystopia to life.

Whoo! That was cool! XD

I have no idea what's going on here, but I think I want to find out. Looking forward to see where you go with this!