[rune]

My full story as now been put on the site, I have written anything much recently as I am wondering what kind of story to write next.

[Erebus]

Hi Rune,

I shall have a look when I have a mo...for anyone else who'd like to read the final installment, you can find it HERE (http://www.sffworld.com/authors/c/croft_tracey/fiction/seducerofsouls58ch1.html).

[rune]

Thanks for your support, it is really appreciated. http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

[nicba]

Hello Rune

It's a long time since we heard anything from you. I'm glad the final chapters of your story has finally been put online. It took some time for me to remember were I left off last I read it.

I read the last four chapters (5, 6, 7 and 8) yesterday and will try to give my opinion on them below. I hope I remember everything correctly. It was a bit large a clumb of text, so I probably will not go very much in details with each chapter.

BEWARE SPOILERS BELOW!

OK, first the general things. There was a lot I really liked in your story, for example your characterisation of Geran and Ann, your easy-flowing prose and the way you write dialogue. But there were also a couple of things I thought could have been better.

As I said I really liked the characterisation of Geran and Ann. The interplay between them was written very well, IMHO. In fact my symphaties almost began to slide from Ann to Geran when I observed what appeared (to the reader) as his ernest attempt to win Ann's love. And Ann just "played along" in order to delay until her freinds arrived.

The matter reached it's climax with the love scene. It wasn't exactly rape, as Ann wasn't fully against it herself. But not completely "fair play" either. At this point I found Geran to have developed interestingly from the dark monster Draken and into a person on his own, Geran. He wasn't simply the cardboard evil anymore. The scene was not enough to completely chrush my beginning symphaties for Geran.

But then Ann's friends showed up and it seemed to me as if you threw the previous character development pretty much out of the window. Geran reverted back to his evil-monster-role. That was a big shame, I thought. It seemed to me a bit as if the characters had been allowed to develop more or less on their own for a time, and then you by chapter seven you suddenly saw that the tale was about to deviate from your pre-planned direction and you kind of forced it into the intended ending.

I think the battle scene could have been a lot more interesting with more emotional play from Geran's side. Jealosy at Serge when he arrived, hate at the one who would take his future queen from him.

And when Ann finally takes sides and fights against Geran, I think it would be great with an emotional reaction from him. Maybe he is really in love with her and let her kill him in the end. Or maybe he takes an "If I can't have her, no-one ever will!"-stand and really do his best to kill them all.

Aside from this, and yet related, there was your portrayal of the rescue party: Han, Serge and Cull. I honestly found it a bit dissapointing. Han, Cull, and to a lesser degree also Serge, were rather weak characters in these chapters (compared to the foregoing) in my opinion.

Both Han and Cull were, as far as I understood, rather strong mages/witches. But still they died off extremely quickly. Now, I'm not neccessarily against killing off important characters. That seems almost to be a trend, with GRRM and all http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif. But I thought you could have provided them with a little more of a fight before they died, a little more drama. As it is, it seemed to me almost as if they were reduced to mere plot-devices to get Ann angry enough to let loose her powers. That's a shame with otherwise strong characters, build up in the previous chapters.

Shortly put, I'm sorry to say that I thought that chapter seven was a bit of a disappointment compared to the rest of the tale.

In return, however, I really liked your last chapter, chapter 8. Your ending was both emotional, with the grave of Han, and "releasing" with the final laugh between Ann and Serge. Very good job there, IMHO.

Also I thought you managed to convey the nature of Ann's power and her fear of releasing it very well throughout the story. Ann's reactions and feelings were well described the whole time.