[Salsa Dip]

PLEASE DO NOT VOTE IN BOTH THREADS!

The stories for this month's flash fiction contest (theme: Torrential) are posted here in order of entry. Please take some time to read all the stories and vote for your favourite (only vote once).

If you have the time to offer your reasons for why you voted for a story, or even to offer some friendly critiquing, that would be appreciated by all.

The polls stay open until the voting stops, I suppose. Please advertise this thread to all and sundry and let's get a big turn out :)

(I go on holiday for a week next Saturday, so if necessary I will hand the keys over to someone and they can declare the winner in my absence).

Good luck to all!

[MrWall]

There is not an end date?

Though to be fair with this amount of stories it is probably going to be a couple of days before I will have found the time to read all of them so I can see why

Good luck everyone

and let this be a lesson to you (or more accurately me), handing your story in last means that you are stuck last behind a dozen quality entries... learn to be more prompt!

[Fung Koo]

Mémoire dans la pluie de clairs de lune by Richard Ridyard

Response: I like this, but... If there's a downpour of rain, apocalyptic in nature, in a future threatened by global warming, how is it that there is moonlight to be seen? That's where I get lost on the internal logic. I get the duality in the juxtaposition of the memories of sunlight before, and the moonlight after. But the moonlight after rings false, and the whole piece suffers. The writing itself is good, and I think the first person works (since I can't imagine it in third person as a memoire). Part of this may just be me being bitchy -- I often react negatively to "problème du jour" fiction.

Suggestion: Get rid of the moonlight!?! But I know you want the Claire de Lune in there... so perhaps simply reframing the story so that it takes place during an interruption in the rain fall? Then the reflection and the moonlight both make a bit more sense.

Amber Waves by Rob Gardin

Response: This is a nice little scene. The dialogue is good and believable. The central conceit is both intelligent and funny. I find it odd to think that a biological catastrophe of this sort wouldn't largely be public knowledge, though, or at least have been pre-researched by the interviewer. Kudos on a non-obvious torrent! A great bit of relevant and insightful SF, but a bit lacking in the overall story department.

Suggestion: Try it as a play, and add stage direction. This bit needs some plot to compliment the worldbuilding.

Torrential by Edward Vitasek

Response: I had to read this one a few times, which was both fun and annoying. In the end, I can't decide whether the draw to figure out what's going on is a bigger plus than the confusion produced on each reread. In the end, I'm left thinking that the main character is a river spirit being put through a flood by a rain spirit, right? Or is that totally obvious to everyone on the first read and I'm just dense? If it is what I think it is, then I think it's excellently rendered. The perspective is faultless.

Suggestion: Gotta be something that can make the character's nature of existence slightly less... foreign. Something talismanic in the text to link the reader's human perception to the river's perception? Maybe something as innocuous as a reference to something floating along with the river...

Anomaly by Tarramoc Lurrec

Response: Neat take on the Ark. The story is a bit sparse, though. I think the idea is to get across that this is a natural phenomenon, but I feel a lingering suspicion that it's not. I'm not entirely sure what the aim is, though, because the setting and story surrounding the dissemination of information itself doesn't convey much,

Suggestion: Again, this one needs some stronger characterization. The idea is there, but the characters aren't.

Torrential by Sean Regan -- My Vote

Response: This one is the winner for me. Totally unexpected. It's a slice-of-life story you might see anywhere else, but (and perhaps this is just the context of being posted on an SFF site, and in the context of the other stories) there is an underlying sense of mystery. I'm not quite sure how that mystery was achieved -- I feel like this is a picture of the world that would be submerged in another Great Flood, yet it asks us to consider both the good and bad of humanity. Innocence juxtaposed with world-weariness. The prose is excellent -- each sentence seems to be precisely the right length, with precisely the right cadence. The characters -- even the dog -- are imagined with total clarity. This is a triumph of story and idea working together. I'm truly impressed.

Suggestion: That was the kicker -- I've got no suggestions that I can imagine being helpful, which is why this story gets my vote. My only concern is that outside of context, the mystery might disappear a bit. If so, then my interpretation of the subtext of the story was off. But that would be my problem, not the story's.

Death and rebirth by Federico Patané

Response: Not bad, but suffers from being another installment in the "...and that's when I became a vampire" story. There's not much that is overly original here, so unfortunately it just kinda blends in. Even the name Victor -- does it get anymore classically vampiric that that!?!? The prose itself is done well (giving a grain of salt knowing that the author is using English as a second language).

Suggestion: You really gotta do something unexpected with this kind of story.

Holding back the tide by Nick J Foster

Response: A nice fantasy story. Solid writing through out, and the depiction of the battle itself translates easily to the imagination. It's got readable names, and good internal consistency. While I know a lot of what's happening, the story doesn't engender a lot of sympathy for the soldiers' plight. Especially the main character. The climax is his death, yet I don't really know anything about him, so his death occurs rather dispassionately.

Suggestion: Again, beef up the characterization. Regale us with a tale from Elran's days as a merchant? Why he got drafted into this battle in the first place, maybe?

[Gkarlives]

Memoire dans la pluie de clairs de lune - This story was not to my liking. Maybe just a cultural thing but the style was confusing to me. To much abstraction for me to piece together what was happening. Again, it just may be me.

Torrential by Edward Vitasek - Another story I found confusing for me. Too unconventional in style. I could not follow the dialogue.

Anomoly - I liked this one, but I felt it was just a fairly straight forward take on the theme. The pacing and characterization were very good though.

Torrential by Sean Reagan - A good story with good writing and characterization, I just did not feel the theme strongly enough.

Death and Rebirth - Unfortunately for me, you have to come up with an extremely unique story line for me to find much interest in a vampire story.

Holding Back the Tide - I liked this story, but it was way to big a concept to fit into flash fiction. It was like getting a taste of ice cream that was out of stock.

As for my story Amber Waves - I admit I had to take liberties with the non knowledge of the interviewer to hide the punch line, but I looked at it as a situation where several hundred years have passed. Some history has been white washed and the interviewer was young and maybe unresearched. I was hoping that would be enough suspend disbelief.

[SuperFede]

....Continued from thread A

Memoire dans la pluie de clairs de lune: Didn't quite liked this one. Not that it is bad, but just didn't feel drawn to it. Can't really explain what is wrong with it.

Amber waves: Very nice idea. Not so good putting it all together, though. I didn't quite liked the timeline nor the solution to the problem. It made me hungry anyway.... : o )

Torrential (Eduard Vitasek): I am not sure about this one. Looks nice but i got confused as to where the story was heading. I found it confusing.

Anomaly: It's good. But just that. Had the idea in my head for while trying to make sense of it and now I believe that i have understood the point. However, when i first read it, i felt it was incomplete. I was left there wondering what was next.

Torrential (sean Regan): Very very nice. VERY emotional. Really really liked it.

Death and rebirth: I really should not comment on my own story, but acording to the reviews that are already our there i believe that i made a mistake focusin too much on the "Torrential" during the writing rather than the story itself. Even though the book i am writing does have a twist what i wrote here is a straight forward scene to use torrential in many ways, first as the blood pouing into his mouth, then the torrent of the senses, and finaly the torrent of feelings. I did not seek for a twist or anything like that.

Holding back the tide: I liked this one. I think it could have been taken a little
further making the fighting at the end a little more violent and descriptive, but then again, that's just me.


Let me say that i narrowed my decision to three: "Speculation", "Laudamun" and "torrential" (by Sean Reagan) and had a hard time making up my mind to choose only one.

I shall use my vote when i make up my mind but i wanted to post this before anything slipped my mind.

[MrBF1V3]

As I said, these are just my opinions.

7valentine
Mémoire dans la pluie de clairs de lune
I never thought a rainstorm could have so much meaning. Well played.

Gkarlives
Amber Waves
Something about too much of a good thing. Good story, and my nominee for the best title.

Dawnstorm
Torrential
Theif turned half elemental. Now to go back and scare some of those witless people...

Taramoc
Anomaly
A new take on a very old story. I enjoyed it.

TheGhost
Torrential
family discourd at the start of a thunderstorm. A great mood piece.

SuperFede
Death and rebirth
A vampire is born. There was nothing unexpected in the telling of it, but that is offset with some really good description.

MrWall
Holding back the tide
The defense of a wall told from the POV of one of the hapless soldiers.

Good job everyone.

B5

[Hereford Eye]

Torrential has the best description in the contest: A Texan with an opinion. That works on so many levels I haven't finished counting yet.

[Holbrook]

This is just my opinion, please don’t take anything personally.

Mémoire dans la pluie de clairs de lune by Richard Ridyard

Strangely, for a flash fiction I found this wordy and a little repetitive. The story seemed to be chasing its own tail. Also, the tense wobbles a bit from past to present.

Amber Waves by Rob Garbin.

Interesting idea, but far too much packed in, would be better as a short story of about 5000 words. It felt like a potted history, the type you get under a museum exhibit.

Torrential by Edward Vitasek

POV was not constant, or rather there was a drop of 2nd among the 1st, and it drew me out of the story.

Anomaly by Taramoc Lurrec

Interesting take on Noah… Short, sharp, no waste of words, exactly what flash fiction is.

Torrential by Sean Regan.

A good story, neat with all the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed - yet - it was a scene-setting piece, the first page of a novel, introducing you to the characters and the world they lived in. It left me very dissatisfied, as I felt the real story of Sophie had not really begun.

Death and rebirth by Federico Patané

A standard vampire story, well written but nothing that made it special.

Holding back the tide by Nick J Foster.

A standard fantasy story, not badly written, but again I felt it had been shoehorned into the flash fiction format, better as a longer short story.

[NilsDesperandum]

I'll run through them in order:

Mémoire dans la... by Richard Ridyard - No doubt that this is well written (versed may be more correct) but I kind of lost direction and couldn't comprehend what the ending actually meant.

Amber Waves by Rob Gardin - Good idea and frighteningly realistic (this could really happen). I actually really like the title!

Torrential by Edward Vitasek - I'm afraid I really struggled with this one. I wasn't sure exactly what I was reading or where it was going, but maybe it's just me.

Anomaly by Tarramoc Lurrec - Enjoyed this, although I felt the ending was a bit abrupt. Would benefit from a little more charachterisation. Presume the algae colony is an ark analogy.

Torrential by Sean Regan - Again, very well written, but it didn't hook me. Probably just because I'm looking for SFF genre stuff.

Death and rebirth by Federico Patané - people have implied that this is unoriginal, but I like the writing and thought it was a really good utilisation of the theme.

Holding back the... by Nick J Foster - definately readable and again a good take on Torrential, although it didn't draw me in and I didn't mind too much when they all died (oops, sorry - didn't intend to be mean!)

I'll have a ponder (whilst Salsa suns himself) and cast my vote soon. :D

ND

[NilsDesperandum]

After much deliberation I have plumped for Scott's Children of the Rime (from Thread A). :D

ND