- Big congrats to the first time entrants - you can hold your heads high. One day you can explain how and why you came to the forum with the intent of conquering all. And the reason had better not be the same one as Y'ttar's. I'm saying this because understanding how we promote good content like this will keep our forum fresh and growing.
- I will say it every time even if TDF wants to one up me - votes are a bad way of recognising good writing. My perspective is that half of the voters liked mine enough to put it in their top third,
which makes victory quite hollow, especially given that I must share it with the two undead things.
- Slanputin - I didn't pick you on first read. TDF spilled the beans before I started trying to work out who was who.
Now to phase 3 for me.
I’ll write more about what was in my mind as I wrote harvest with my usual author commentary in my short story collection thread. Which means I will be using this space to write about what ever the heck was going through your heads as you read it. I’ll start with my own review.
Harvest This is the story that got me thinking that we need an index of methods of voicebox-less lizards communicating two way with other races. We coldbloods are unique in not having the apparatus to form words. All of the other main races are humanoids or so magic that it doesn’t matter. Eyes on the Sun ignored the communication barrier with elves, but I know Jao doesn’t share a language with the Apisi. The Pirates had a skink interpreter. Fireblade had the Skaven speaking broken skinkish. In the Coward and Serpent’s Brew, the LM didn’t bother even trying. The Bounty just went for it in shared tongue, but it wasn’t the worst liberty it took. Paranoia used the medium of stick-men. A memory? had the lizard able to understand human tongue, but not speak it and this is what happened in Harvest except with a goldy magic thing so they could talk back. I'm going to call it the McGuffphone.
OK, the McGuffphone and the means of communication weren't McGuffins, they were the major plot point (if we can just ignore the slaughter of innocents for a moment.) The second read through shows how the author used the thing as a tool to keep the Seraphon plans obscure. Nasty, tricksy author.
I love that the Seraphon are asked to give themselves names and… not a single apostrophe. Did the Slann who sent them even remember their names? Do they only identify with their assigned role?
I love the relateable character voices among the humans.
I hate that annoying kid and feel inner conflict about the fact that a village full of innocents had to die to shut him up. Now that I stop to think about it, it is actually quite a nasty story. Not Serpent’s Brew nasty but… actually, there is no practical difference between the two.
Part of my false trail laying was to write a long review (“Bob’s self reviews are always short”) Like usual I was honest, and generally I would pick out the things about the story that annoyed me (because I couldn’t fix them). This time I mostly explored the communication mechanic. When I came back and looked at it again in the context of the whole comp (particularly
A Memory?) I was tickled by the namelessness of the Seraphon – which was pure laziness at the time of writing. For the record, I hated that kid.
Harvest
A review by Antoine de Bleurgh, Bretonnian squire
In Bretonnia we have a saying: "The honourable knight finds the grail in the place where it was left." It means that often the best course of action is the simplest and most predictable. The same goes for stories: Harvest is a superb example of how a direct and simple, if tongue-in-cheek, approach to constructing a story can be enormously satisfying.
It's also the first of a number of first-person stories in this competition, the traditional medium for anti-heroics. In this instance it is perfectly deployed, revealing exactly the right amount about the protagonist's pride to set us up for the predictable but definitely still glorious fall. Character has had difficult life; character has chip on shoulder. Character allows self to be driven by arrogance and ambition; character gets comeuppance. It's been done a million times, but as long as it's done well, a guy like me with simple tastes will never not enjoy it. Plus there's the added satisfaction that both the protagonist and the antagonists (the lizards) are anti-heroes, believing they're doing the right thing more or less but not caring about anyone else. Nihilism is often the best spice for good drama (but don't tell my knight I said that!)
TDF has accused me of being a simpleton before. (actually he said my last story was clear, but that is very similar). Most of my 2nd and 3rd draft rewritings are to get things clear (geography, motivation, communication) and a lot of the repetition that bugged other readers (Scalenex) was because the story is linear and each interaction with a new character needs to follow a formula dictated by the rat kid’s relationship with them or the dictates of the plot (eg - he was meant to be on watch tower duty – why?).
TDF mentioned a time honoured formula – it just happened, honest. I didn’t have much of a plan beyond “write a really unpleasant character – that should meet the dictates of the theme”. TDF predicted the downfall based on an assumption that I had a plan. Boy, was he wrong.
Harvest: The author created an annoying punk kid, a classic anti-hero trope. It looked like he was going to save his village despite himself. Then it leads to a dramatic twist ending. The ending was foreshadowed heavily. The main character’s name was Ash. The wording from the Seraphon for peventing the Daemons from killing the villagers was very specific. The foreshadowing was done well. It didn’t spoil the ending, it built up anticipation for it.
This piece ran long and needed a fairly hefty haircut. The author established the kid as a smartass punk with his own first person narrative, again and again. His fellow villagers showed that they treated him like a smartass punk kid again and again. At a certain point repetition becomes unnecessary. That was compounded by the fact that the character was made to be annoying by design. A moderate amount of smart assery on the part of a teenaged anti-hero is endearing but once you cross the point of overdoing it, you can’t walk it back. When the end came I was happy the Seraphon where going to shut him up. This is the only piece where I was rooting against the protagonist and I was even rooting for the Skaven in “Paranoia.”
Scalenex got it from the point of view that the kid was a rat. It seems he didn’t get it that actually the reader wasn’t meant to identify with and like him. I wrote him to be a throw away – I wanted to kill him without feeling remorse. In the process, I found writing him to be an unpleasant experience. At least Scalenex and I were seeing eye to eye by the end - will somebody please kill that rotten kid?
Worth pointing out now, all of the humans were named after trees – Ash, little brother Rowan, Old Alder, Blacksmith Birch. The boy’s names came after the basic story structure was written and hence the “are you a seer?” thing was a late, lucky find. Then the others got tree names to smoke screen the hint about their final fate. The tree name thing made me speculate about which one of the mortal realms the farm was on, but not to the extent of doing research or anything.
Scalenex predicted the ending based on clues in the story.
8. The Harvest
I like rooting for an underdog. I like it even more when that underdog gains some power, gets cocky and that new power turns around to bite him. Some kind of poetic justice! Or maybe not.
The best part is that if he, or even we as the audience had read between the lines, we may not have trusted the Seraphon so easily!
-“We will prevent the daemon harvest. It is better if mortals are calm and in one place to allow us to do what we must. This is easier if there is a speaker.”-
Quite chilling on the second read through. Preventing the Chaos Daemons from harvesting by ensuring there is nothing to harvest. Scorched earth tactics were always my favourite!
No Bowser, no! You
weren’t meant to root for this underdog. I made him as sneaky, untrustworthy, spiteful and mean as I could in 2500 words.
As it happened,
Seraphon Legend by Bowser himself was the biggest influence on the idea for the story – star lizards whose motivations are guessed at based on incomplete and contradictory “knowledge”.
Twist? What twist. Bowser had no freakin’ idea what was going on.
Snow saga / Harvest
Seraphons viewed as saviors from the stars...
In Snow Saga humans were waiting for them, and they didn't arrived.
In Harvest they weren't waited for, and yet they arrived.
In both cases, the final result was the same. Humans shouldn't trust memories of cold-blooded killers from outer space.
Snow Saga is not a saga, is a really short story, and that's a strong point. Once S. King wrote that short stories are like a stolen kiss in the night., and this one was also full of sharpened teeth.
The Harvest shows TWO anti-heroes, and while the main protagonist is really annoying, the Seraphons are a touch of class. A great story, with the "ash" joke that's really a little gem in perspective. The "translator" is masterful. What could I say? the scorched earth tactic usually is applied on your own land, and at least requires a sacrifes from you, but to use it on designated victims, is really a new level.
One of these stories took one of my votes.
Thanks Killer Angel, I liked your thematically paired reviews. It reminded me of Warden winning the Art Comp and me coming nowhere because mine was the second-best space frog.
You said my seraphon were a touch of class. I thought I ran a risk by not physically describing them at all. I did try to differentiate them by their actions, relationships and attitudes, and I hope someone spotted the kroxigors trying to stand the crushed oat shoots back up again after they were ordered out of the field.
Thank you for acknowledging the McGuffphone. Without it I don’t think I could have built the ambiguity needed to conceal the plot twist – the lizards could have said exactly the same words in English or whatever but why believe them? I got Ash to say they couldn’t lie through him because of the psychic link, and I even wrote a section showing him testing this (I think he was gong to get Alder to try to lie through him) but it broke the pacing and didn’t add enough to be useful. Take it on faith that you can’t lie with the collar – otherwise the story falls over.
Killer Angel is acting cool about whether he was caught by the twist or not.
Harvest:
Round of applause for the internal narration of this story we're transported inside the head of the main character from the very first line. The writing has a real undertone of humour that adds an extra dimension to the story and the character telling it.
The scene is set for an underdog in the face of the star lizards. I'm a little disappointed by the main character talking to the lizardmen when they are distracted for two reasons (although I am torn as this is fitting with his character) firstly he's an idiot for drawing attention to himself, his strategy as he self proclaimed positively focused on staying alive. Secondly it reminded me of a cinematic sequence you might expect from a blundering inadvertently arrogant hollywood hero (anti-hero). I feel the scene is important though as it ventures and interesting solution to the language barrier between two races. I was disappointed that when asked what he called himself the seraphon responded "Starpriest" I just feel like this would have been a nice time to introduce a lizardmen sounding name rather than a troop type (Just my opinion please don't shoot me).
When the collar is revealed to the other villagers they assume it is stolen this is a nice touch as it would be a realistic assumption that something seemingly of value would not belong to Ash.
I have to be honest when I say that I really can't get over Ash calling the lizardmen "buddies" all the time, for me this just let the speech of the story down.
The issue of anti-hero is tackled really well in this fable we are lead to believe that the underdog is going to save all his villagers by complying with the Lizardmen only to find out that they are being corralled like cattle at the end. The idea is a really good one though It would seem more fitting for the Lizardmen to over run a village without the ruse of impending demons, Perhaps the starpriest is the anti-hero for this reason - being able to trick ash in an unconventional way.
I hope the author doesn't feel I have been too critical of this story - It has many shining parts worthy of the Old Ones - I am critical because I care - the foundation idea and much more of this story is superb.
This wasn't one I voted for though it's definitely one to keep an eye on. Fortunately for the author, the forum (at time of writing) is right behind the story and rightly so it's in no means a bad story it just fell short for my own personal opinion.
Thanks Slannta. I’m not sure if that puts me on the nice list or not, but I’ll keep trying.
You weren’t the only one who mentioned underlying humour. My initial response was to go “wait, how did that get in there?” because I found this a dark and unpleasant thing to write. But yes, the young character actually has a redeeming quality which is a quick wit, hence some of his observations being humorous.
It is often the case that things folk comment unfavourably about my writings are actually plot points which I have put a lot of thought into – what this probably means is that they are tricky bits where I need to make a choice, or hammer a point that may not make sense at the time, or that I am trying to preach some grand thematic message. That is to say
screw you guys I never read your critiques anyway these things do stick out to me as well
, and it is easy for me to justify why it had to happen my way, suckers.
Hence and therefore I acknowledge the bits that people choke on, and usually I am at a loss how to make them go down smoother. Since you brought it up – I needed to quickly get the concepts out that Ash had been grabbed by the neck, Alpha was in trouble for damaging his voice, he was useless to the seraphon if he had no voice, when they realised he had a voice their attitude to him changed, and they had this thing they could make him talk with. All this by showing, not telling and in 400 words. I took a shortcut with him speaking at a really dumb time. A possible enhancement would have been to have him think “I will stay alive by NOT cussing, for once in my life.” – instead of simply being quiet. I think I’ll use that for the director’s cut.
Are you saying you got a problem with my Seraphon buddies? My deliberate choice was to use completely impossible patterns of speech for the context (a fantasy realm). Reason one was because I wanted to hide my hand, having recently been told that all my characters
sound awesome sound like me. Reason two was that I wanted the whole set up to be crystal clear to human readers – a small farming community with low levels of education but not a lack of general wisdom and in a realm where refugees were taken in just because life was valued, even if the orphan kids said “buddy” a lot.
There are phrases in there which can only have meaning in the context of 20th century American culture. I came that close to writing “it was completely out of left field” more than once. I think I managed to stop myself from writing “OK”. Hence I am startled that “buddies” was the worst thing for you. It took me three severe edits a week apart to completely expunge my usual style of writing dialogue, and I am sure there are still things which are more “classic fantasy” than I would have meant to leave in.
Which is all irrelevant. Did anyone guess I wrote it?
Just to get a bit philosophical. AoS is the future of WHFB. That doesn’t mean it isn’t also the future of post-apocalyptic baseball loving 20th century America. The realms drift through space and good ol’ society scratches the soil which buries the skeletal remains of Yankee Stadium. There are cultural echoes in the words that the future humans use when they speak to their
buddies pals.
As for the twist... Slannta, there was no ruse. Daemons were coming. I don’t know if it was going to be in an hour or in a century but, by internal story logic, Starpriest couldn’t have lied about it. For me the scarier part was Ash’s knowledge of the savagery of daemons being based on stories of whole towns being burned to the ground with no survivors. It’s possible that the entire realm is slated for scorched earth according to the Slann’s agenda.
Which makes you completely correct. The Seraphon are
no one’s buddies.
Story Eight: I couldn’t help but read this entry like it was an old Goosebumps book (a very good one at that.) I haven’t seen first person past tense for quite a while and I feel that the author has pulled it off very nicely.
The narrative is consistent and remains interesting throughout, again I think the pacing is just right for this piece. Slow enough for the build-up of tension but quick enough that it doesn’t get bogged down in details.
Ermagherd! I herv nerver rerd a Gersebermps berk! But I will take that as praise, even if it is from a dirty rat.
First person. Another deliberate choice from me trying to hide my authorship. I was going to say that I never write first person / past tense, but actually a lot of dialogue ends up that way. (General – “Scout, report.” Scout – “Yes sir. I got up this morning and discovered I was a dirty rat. It made me wonder if the cheese I had eaten last night was okay. It was green, furry and softly glowing...”)
The first person thing allows a much closer view of the character’s perceptions – which also means it is easier to manipulate the reader’s perceptions. In this case, the character’s assumptions about seraphon were wrong.
If you want to see me mess up, then wait till I try to write something in present tense. I tentatively reach for the keyboard, feeling the hollows of the familiar glyphs under the tips of my claws. No inspiration flows. No inspiration continues to flow. “This will probably be no different to the usual process,” I think to myself with a sigh of relief.
The Harvest
Creepy! But I like what is going on here. I like a combination of the reverence for the serephon and the desire for fame/authority is what drives the central character. I think the author (my cryptic guess is that he is an oldblooded ghost) has captured the theme the best. It was also a twist that I didn't see coming, although in retrospect was obvious - which are the best kind of story twists. I have yet again voted for a story in the "Age of Copyright" universe, that is how good it was.
And I have once again written a story in the Age of Copyright. This can’t be a coincidence. I am constantly bugged by how much easier it is for me to write short stories in AoS, which is probably because there is a lot of meaning that hasn’t been explored yet. But I couldn’t write a longer piece there because I don’t have a sense of which direction history is heading, therefore any individual’s actions have no meaning in the broader context of the universe.
I’m glad the twist had an impact on you and made you reinterpret what you thought you knew – that was the intent of a lot of elaborate setting up and carefully crafted dialogue.
Thanks again to the critiquers, readers, voters and of course authors who provide so much impetus and inspiration, and thanks especially to Scalenex who has given so much more than an almost winning entry.
Now for the cryptic guesses:
Served at blood temperature – correct but so cryptic I forgot what this meant. Slanputin wrote serpent’s brew. He is English. They serve warm brews. Get it? Me neither.
The goats we have need to be beaten out – this was a red herring – I was pretending to guess that Oldblood Itzahuan had written
the Harvest, and that there were goats in the burning barn.
Graymar is toasty – Wrong – Graymaris is a god used by Discomute (and Scalenex) and the toasty was from
watching things burn. I could claim that I meant Scalenex but that would be a lie. After the reveal I can see his fingerprints all over it, but beforehand I had no idea that he had even entered.
The castle keep is in another province- wrong – I had Bowser as the author of
The Coward, because he writes a good dwarf.
That’s not how orbs work, son – correct but I did a proof read, so I’m not that clever – Tlacnatai (sounds a bit like “that’s not how” a bit.) wrote Eyes on the Sun. The orbs were meant to be eyes. Maybe. I can’t remember what I was thinking.
Gatekeeper of the dread – wrong – I picked Warden (the guardian) as the author of the King of Lustria (the Dread).
Now, sag! – Correct – I spotted Essmir’s well concealed hand in
Snow Saga. “Now Sag” is how you would spell the title if you left bits out. That would never happen on L-O. The Old Ones don’t make mistakes.
Draw and quarter the mutineer! – Wrong – I picked TDF as the author of
the Bounty (hence the mutiny). So Bowser, what the hell good is the memory of a memory if you remember it silly?
Only three correct guesses. I should go back to my day job of tormenting Crowsfoot.
