Me and Archimage are going to work on reviewing your stories. I will review some and Archimage will review some. Then, we will also review the latest stories and hopefully it will turn out all right. Since I am not that much of a comedian when it comes to reviewing things, I will leave the comedic reviews to my friend Archimage. Today, due to the first reviews section, I will review Archimages stories. The reviews work as follows:

 

 

 

0: Crap

 

1-2: Terrible

 

3-4: Not worth the read

 

5-6: All right

 

7-8: Great

 

9-10: Amazing

 

 

 

I will base reviews on a couple things, Archimage can explain how he does his reviews when he shows up, but here is how I will base them:

 

 

 

-How fun they are

 

-Originality

 

-Is it something worth reading more of?

 

 

 

There are other factors such as being able to read it and understand it but thats beside the point. I hope we get the chance to review every story in the library. This will probably be a good guide for people who are looking for a good read. I will go into all stories with an open mind and I will review it telling you exactly why I gave the story that score.

 

 

 

Since Archimage is my partner, I will review his stories first. If you have a problem with a review and want to know why I gave it the score it got, please PM me. I read anything so I do not stand with a specific genre or writing style. It just depends how good it is. Please support me and Archimage. Archimage, like I said will do comedic reviews, so that we balance each other out.

 

 

 

Time to go read some stories!

Archi no offence but...

 

Archimage a comedian? Wow I HAVE been gone a long time. :P

 

 

 

In other news,

 

Im thinking about rewriting Draggneth. Anyone intreseted in reading it? And Archi... Dont bite this time lol (jking)

 

Oh wait I shouldn't say that... Hes mod trainee now... HE CAN EDIT MY POSTS!!! Never mind Archi O:)

Blue Jay, Archi is funnier than me...His news shows were brilliant.

Yea they were actually... o.O I WAS BLIND!

 

(Archi please no wise cracks about that)

Review:

 

 

 

Aura Wars

 

by: Archimage A

 

Topic: Archimage tales 8+

 

 

 

Aura Wars is quite interesting. But, I found it to...hard to follow?

 

 

 

It had a good premise but was hard to follow. The story jumped from one character to another with absolutely no signs to tell you, which I found somewhat confusing. The storyline itself was good. I liked the whole mysterious castle thing and all the kills were fairly brutal, but it just was not what I thought the story would be.The characters seemed to be everywhere at once and it was just to hard to follow a story where the characters are everywhere and you do not use astericks or anything to break it up and alert the reader that another character is going to take over the story for the moment. I'm sorry Archimage, but maybe next story?

 

 

 

8 out of 10

 

 

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

 

 

Story: A tale from the library

 

By: Archimage A

 

Topic: Archimage tales 8+

 

 

 

A great story. This was funny in its own way.

 

 

 

All the people from the library ( minus me, Blue Jay, ozzy) were in it. It was humorous...but why does it seem from experience, that Archimage is obsessed with spoons? Is he prejudiced against forks or something? Like I said it was humorous in its own way but it probably would not appeal to newer people to the library. Most of the people I had not heard of but just because of that I cannot jump up and say it was terrible.

 

 

 

It was a good short story that does deserve a read. I do want to see Archimage make an updated version. Maybe have Blue Jay and Powerent have a relationship...

 

 

 

10 out of 10

 

 

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

 

 

Story: Death Impending

 

Author: Archimage A

 

Topic Archimage Tales 8+

 

 

 

I could not even read this one... if anyone can read it please tell me what it says...because either my eyesites bad, or the stories color is just not a good red against a black background.

 

 

 

USE A DARKER RED!!!

 

 

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

 

 

Story: Release

 

Author: Archimage A

 

Topic: Archimage Tales 8+

 

 

 

Very, Very interesting.

 

 

 

It seemed really dark to me. I loved it. This has to be my favorite Archimage story in the reviews so far. It is in letter form, and is fairly long but it is worth the read. And for some reason this one has a bear in it. So Archimage has to be obsessed with bears and spoons because they seem to show up in a lot of the stories he writes.

 

 

 

10 out of 10

 

 

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

 

 

Story: Letter of a daymare

 

Author: Archimage A

 

Topic: Archimage Tales 8+

 

 

 

Holy crap...Amazing!

 

 

 

That has got to be one of the best short stories I have ever read on the internet. That story was very sad as well. It seemed funny that a bear would show up out of nowhere and step on the person though... But it is still worthy of a ten. It is amazing. Take the five minutes to read this tale. Amazing job.

 

 

 

10 out of 10

 

 

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

 

 

Story: Love ship

 

By: Archimage A

 

Topic: Archimage Tales 8+

 

 

 

A love story that is well written.

 

 

 

I generally don't like much romance type stories. This was a wonderful example of the kind I like. Well written again, though Dam is should be spelled Damn I believe...unless Dam is the English way to spell it.

 

 

 

9 out of 10

 

 

 

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LAST BUT NOT LEAST

 

 

 

Story: Blue Jay Chronicles

 

By: Archimage A

 

Topic: Archimage Tales 8+

 

 

 

=D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

 

 

 

Thats all I can say. It was a well written master piece that even included my name in the first chapter! This is the story you should read. Out of all of Archimages stories, I thought this one was the best.

 

 

 

10 out of 10

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

OVERALL RATING FOR ARCHIMAGE TALES 8+

 

 

 

With a wide assortment of fantastic stories and great poems this is the perfect read for anyone with two or three hours to spare.Archimages writing style is unique. I have never read a story with a style like Archimages. As his friend, I can say his stories are great. As a fellow writer in the forum, I would say he is one of the top writers, if not the top writer. Its between him and Xewleer. He is great at creating an atmosphere and is amazing at creating a storyline. His poems are good (though he says he hates writing poems). I would say that this was worth the read and if anything, you should read one of them. Some of them leave you thinking. I am not giving him a good review because he is my friend, but because these kind of stories are the kind you would see in really good books. I'd suggest his stories to all fantasy lovers and all people who have been with the forum for about half a year, because some of his stuff includes characters and events that happened within that half year. I am looking forward to seeing what he can come up with next and have to say that if he continues to write the way he does, he may land himself a writing career.

 

 

 

Overall Rating

 

9.5 out of 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More reviews soon! Please support this topic... next I think I will review Stratagem.

THE BLUE JAY CHRONICLES 2:

 

 

 

http://www.freewebs.com/ratchet573/index.htm

 

 

 

Warning...inappropriate content not suitable for children

How is rubbish worse than terrible?

 

 

 

And no offence, but these reviews are a lot less quality than the ones Sephiroth King and Xewleer used to do. Maybe more detail?

How is rubbish worse than terrible?

 

 

 

And no offence, but these reviews are a lot less quality than the ones Sephiroth King and Xewleer used to do. Maybe more detail?

 

 

 

O.K...more detail it is.

I have to agree and that is why Ratchet is going to be alot more review-y and much less opinionated.

 

 

 

Besides that I will probably be more focused on the older, page 7 sort of stories. Those Gems in the rough that deserve recognition.

 

 

 

Ilamster...I have to ask for your patients with all of this. We can't just magically become good reviewers over night, we have to look at our feedback and then judge whether we can improve or whether we have reached our potential.

 

It does honestly take time to develop skills, look at my own....well forum skills and reputation. If you asked some from way back when I first joined what they thought of me they would have said an unreserved NOOB!!!!

 

Some could argue that hasn't changed and those(too me at least) are the people's who's opinion matters, why do they think that I am a Noob and how can I improve it?

 

 

 

So there, I have reviewed your 3 line post. :roll: What do you think?

If I did an opinionated post, it would be a whole page long, and would end up correcting every detail of the story that was wrong...I am working on it, this is my first review and like Archi said, you can't get reviewing skills over night. It's just the beginning and their are still like a couple hundred stories to read.

Oh wow Ratchet... Thank you very much... I didn't realize that I was so esteemed... (Blushes in a a manly way)

 

 

 

Much better than when SK and I did the reviews... We lost vision.

 

 

 

PASSION! PASSION for your work! That's the key! Gah ha ha ha!

 

 

 

Anyway, I'm off to my school's Homecoming (Prom, just without dancing... baptist school) and I'll come back energized! Your words have given me strength! Thank you very much!

 

 

 

(Vanishes into the mists most cooly putting on his sports coat!)

More reviews soon! Please support this topic... next I think I will review Stratagem.

 

 

 

Woot.

 

 

 

Maybe it will give me the motivation to WRITE MORE. I've seriously let it fall off the wagon. . .

How is rubbish worse than terrible?

 

 

 

And no offence, but these reviews are a lot less quality than the ones Sephiroth King and Xewleer used to do. Maybe more detail?

 

 

 

 

 

And then Xewleer comes and says that me and Archi's review is... better than his and sephs? Thanks Xewleer. Your words have given me hope and I'm gonna keep the reviews going.

The thing is, if you are still developing your reviewing skills, then you shouldn't suddenly review seven stories.

Ok and virtually on the second page we have my first review. :roll:

 

Quick bit of info on my rating system before we begin, I don't go with the marks out of 10 scheme because I would put most things down as around about 9(great but improvable), instead I use a three tier system of: Interest, Plausability and Effect.

 

Stories that are interesting because they are are built on the unlikely would have a high first and last value but a low middle value.

 

Stories that were solid but boring would have a low first value but high values in the other two.

 

Stories that were interesting and possible but written in Leet would get high in the first two and low in the last one.

 

Of course the high-low is entirely dependant on how you interpret the words. If you think that something that rambles about is good then that is a high value, if you like straight-forward stories then you would think it was a low value. And so and and so forth.

 

As I said before I we both need to gain the skill in reviewing before we can give completely great reviews but there you are and I am ramberling so enjoy...or critise.

 

 

 

Ok then this is a review of a story, the third most distant story/poem in the library.

 

I am having a fairly hard time because I am not adressing this to the actual author so its rather differcult to draw on experiance.

 

 

 

Knights of Law, By Cloaked Shadow

 

Last posted April of 2007

 

First posted July 2004

 

http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=12200

 

 

 

Ok this is quire an interesting story. It is basically about a Law Enforcement duo, one is your run of the mill knight, the main character, and the other is a mage who acts as his link to the outside world, as a means of explaining Pm's.

 

 

 

Now then the story is actually very short by our standards and ins't exactly brimming with correct grammer. That said though it is interesting because it explains why things work without going into great detail.

 

I was pretending to be a merchant. I had leather armor on, with boots and leg greaves to match.

 

Instantly you get a sterotyped image of a Runescape player in full leather, that sort of image allows you to connect with the character.

 

Of course this merchant is no merchant at all, instead he is the Police Officer as I said earlier. Under this armour he carries dual dart-bolt bows which are fed from his backpack, which in turn is supplied by the mage who is named Zaff.

 

 

 

I would truely love to see this story carried on because it has what so many of today's stories lack...Structure. It is clear cut and doesn't need major improvement on what already exists, just spell checking.

 

 

 

I rate this story an:

 

Enthralled

 

Explained

 

Precise

Story: Stratagem

 

Author: Nom Anor

 

Topic: Stratagem

 

 

 

I thought this was a very good piece of science fiction. It is about a gang of kids who decide to go inside what they presume to be an abandoned secret government type place like Area 51. They get captured and put inside the building and there are still some things lurking in the building...

 

 

 

I thought it was a good story that did not bore you to death. The chapters were very short, and always ended with a cliffhanger that left you waiting for the next chapter. It was neat how one chapter led to the other and there were no gaps the reader had to fill in. Nom did an excellent job of creating an eerie atmosphere and the story seemed like a futuristic resident evil.

 

 

 

The story had a main character who could use mind control, and do things with his mind, which at first seemed kind of stupid, but the ways he used it in the story made up for it.

 

 

 

Nom also did a great job of describing. He has the biggest vocabulary of anyone I have ever seen on the library and has a lot of college words in there. It does not mean it is an adult story though. The story is fairly bloody, but the action scenes are short, and never go into huge gory details.

 

 

 

I found the cyborg aspect to remind me of Issac Asimov's book, I Robot, but other than that, all of the creatures seemed to be original. The characters were not bland, the story progressed at a good rate, and it was a well developed read.

 

 

 

9.8 out of 10

Next up...Xewleer and Confused Flames

W00t! Tell me! The other people (you don't know) haven't given me opinions on them...

You haven't updated for a week. Is this still alive?

Yes, I have just been extremely busy. It will get updated once all the new people stop the major immigration...its nuts! And a lot of the stuff is not even up to the standards of this library...Once things settle down I will continue. A lot of people have not been on lately, probably because of this huge set of new people.

whoops...

 

 

 

I am currently waiting patiently for Confused Flames review.