This was okay!! I am having trouble getting started thinking about it

I don't regret having spent $1.50 and an hour or two with it but it also wasn't super memorable

Much as I do like novellas and short stories there was a lot that could/should have been filled out to address its shortfalls I feel

Quill was the kind of fucko I find pretty easy to read about

I found the antagonist distressingly one-dimensional lmao

Also I pinged vikarmic on this already but I could pre-emptively Feel his disappointment at the lack of depth given to the technomanccy

what! do you think! we are here for!!

your feeling is correct

this was light and sweet and had no particular depth, which is like, okay for a $1.50 airport read

definitely disappointed by the lack of enemy necromancy though, they advertised it and didn't deliver

making a shadowrun cyberzombie doesn't count

hahaha

I think reading this alongside of Simon Feximal I was a little bit like WHIPLASH

(no spoilers for Feximal tho)

Just like. Oh the different levels of style and depth you can add to writing, whew

yeah this was definitely...not that....

it was a fun and cute read! I definitely wanted more from it tho

and yes the antagonist was very cut and dry

I liked Quill's character arc tbh

It was pretty standard like

Fwippy selfish nerd learns it feels nice to help people

He seemed pretty indignant about it

But it's a trope for a reason haha

yes!! I liked Hunter's too, just because I also like big soft buffs and learning to be people/selfish tropes

I read this on my lunch today! It was cute and fun. Very bite-sized entertainment.

The only thing that disturbed my suspension of disbelief is that he'd beg his stodgy boss FWB for help but not his parents he has a great relationship with, after starving and being threatened with guns

I was thrown out by that comparison but. Other than That, no other real problems.

Irresponsible slacker meets beefcake with a heart of gold is Good.

whups idk how I totally missed this, but yeah I agree with this plurk that it was very fluffy and clearly like. skimming a ton of details but also I wasn't expecting a lot given the length and price tag

there was a lot of stuff that felt like it was just slapped in for tropey empty calorie funtimes which I'm not against but also it just felt kind of loose and a little unpolished in that way

like I'm not gonna go write home about this, it's not groundbreaking in any way, I felt the urge to pick it apart in way too many places but overall it was enjoyable

shibaface: I felt like it was a lil bit crying out for a good editor

yeaaah, definitely

especially towards the end I feel like the rising action just wound up weirdly aborted in several places that made it hard for me to really feel like the stakes were very high?

like the threat dissipated and reappeared with weird narrative beats wrt the confrontation with the necromancer lady

so like oh Quill has time to repair the gate, but whups she's back with a cyber suit! but he tangles her up and has time to repair his ship, but oh no now she's back! left it all with this sort of jerky start and stop feeling

I admit I kinda eyerolled a little at Junior too, since it was weirdly a little too convenient how he befriended this bone sucking horror monster, which meant the narls in general didn't feel like much of a threat

idk like I said, it was fun, but it could have been tightened up a lot

and yeah especially wedged between Feximal and Winterglass it's very different

Yea for sure haha

I'm actually really enjoying the variety of different stuff but sometimes it means like

Remembering where the bar is very different

haha right

this lowered the bar

ia about the narrative stakes, the moment he was like?? cybersuit? WINDS ARMS TOGETHER I could turn her into a newt, it was like... why is there any tension after this

there can't be another sequcence where she's grabbed onto the ship because he could just rip her arms off and use that to patch up the rest

honestly now that you mention that I'm surprised that wasn't what he did

but yeah it seemed like every whiff of conflict just got snuffed so instantly that there was nothing to the story other than vaguely misfit guy frees buff amnesiac from captivity

I'm also a little disappointed that for a story of its length there was no boning

insert joke here about the book being anti-climatic

jhgfhjk

whomp whomp

well played