Story Reviews
Reviews by richardshagrin
About richardshagrin:
Old (mid 70s), male, widower, so tired I am retired. Which is why I want to give free advice to my fellow SOL readers. Since I can't write a story anyone would want to read, I am trying to "pay it forward" by writing reviews.
Remember, "Free Advice, Free Advice, It costs you nothing and its worth the price." If you are an author and offended by one of my reviews, consider the source. What do I know about writing? My last English class was more than 50 years ago. Those that can, do. Those that can't, criticize.
Reviewing suggestions (commandments?) for reviewers, I have neglected to indicate what kinds of stories I like. Lots of different kinds, Lots of different authors, mostly longer stories with endings that satisfy me as a reader. So unfinished stories or ones that say they are finished but don't really end, they just stop, probably won't be reviewed by me. Unless it is so good I have to tell people about it so they will enjoy it too.
As an example of an unsatisfactory ending: "The last man on Earth sat in a room. There was a knock on the door."
Unless that story was by rache, then I might review it. There are exceptions to nearly every rule. Sometimes the interest comes from not getting what you expect. There is football cheer like that. "Rah, Rah, Ree, Kick 'em in the knee. Rah, Rah, Ras, Kick 'em in the other knee." (For those that need extremely simple explanations, "other knee" was supposed to be "Ass.")
If more examples are needed, which I doubt, consider "Rooty toot toot, Rooty toot toot, We are the boys from the Institute, we don't smoke and we don't chew, and we don't go with the girls that do." The entertainment value, to the extent there is any, is the thought that there are girls that smoke and chew. Probably tobacco. I doubt I can support my theory, but I first heard this verse (?) in Hampton, Virginia, and I assumed the Institute was Hampton Institute, a college for what at that time were colored people.
As an afterthought, I tend to avoid Vampire and Zombie stories. They tend to break the cable on the 50 ton crane I use to suspend disbelief.
P: Plot | Q: Technical Qualities | A: Appeal to Reviewer
