May-June Short Story Voting

[MLSawyer]

Here are your frightful stories for the month.

Eating Private Simms - Slaad

Barc's Butcher- tmso

Sowing the Seeds of Hate - AZimmer23

We Have Been Rip Van Winkled! - D. R. Stevenson

Myopia - D-Doc

The Foreboding Presage - Slynt

last but not least

Fractured Pulse - Caedus

For the voting, I'm asking all to give a score of 1-5 and if you haven't done so already, please leave a comment as I always found that helpful.

Voting will close on the 30th of June 12 Midnight GMT standard time so that the winner can be announced on the 1st and the new comp can begin!

Please post your votes in this thread and if you've already made comments in the story thread, no need to post them here. You are excluded from rating your own story

(Hope I've done all this right )

[tmso]

Are we excluded from rating our own story? Also, rate here in a post on this thread or rate the story thread? Or both?

[tmso]

Hey Michelle,

I believe we have a late entry:
http://sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34676

Caedus, did you want to petition the czar for your submission?

[tmso]

Five Stars for Eating Private Simms - Slaad

Four Stars for Sowing the Seeds of Hate - AZimmer23

Three Stars for We Have Been Rip Van Winkled! - D. R. Stevenson

Three Stars for Myopia - D-Doc

Four Stars for The Foreboding Presage - Slynt

Three Stars for Fractured Pulse - Caedus

Dang, that was hard. But there it is. For my own...TWO STARS!

[norm]

I've really meant to get around to reading all of these but I've just been busy busy busy. I might still read/comment on each of them after the voting is done.

[norm]

Well, I read them all! I'll try to comment on each story tomorrow, but for now here's my rating for each. There were a lot of interesting and unique stories, but many of them had a few rough spots.

The Foreboding Presage - Slynt: 4

Sowing the Seeds of Hate - AZimmer23: 4

Eating Private Simms - Slaad: 3

Barc's Butcher- tmso: 3

We Have Been Rip Van Winkled! - D. R. Stevenson: 2

Myopia - D-Doc: 2

Fractured Pulse - Caedus: 1

I hate to give ratings without explaining why I ranked each story as I did, but comments and critique will have to wait until tomorrow. Each story had redeeming qualities, some were just rougher than others.

[MLSawyer]

I'm sure it's still the 30th somewhere in the world so I'll count the votes tomorrow in the hope that those who submitted will also put their votes in (it's only fair)

4 Stars for Eating Private Simms - Slaad (yum yum)

3 Stars for Sowing the Seeds of Hate - AZimmer23 (good writing, but not enough fear for me)

3 Stars for We Have Been Rip Van Winkled! - D. R. Stevenson (had the potential for great fear, but struggled a little with the pov changes)

4 Stars for Myopia - D-Doc (poor Orc)

5 Stars for The Foreboding Presage - Slynt (best ending)

4 Stars for Fractured Pulse - Caedus (a crazy guy, but there didn't seem to be much fear involved... but I could be wrong)

5 Stars for Barc's Butcher - tsmo (Liked the fear)

[MLSawyer]

Okay, so far we haven't had everyone who entered, vote. So, we're going to move the voting to finish by the 10th. The next short story contest can run from 10th of July to the 1st of September with voting to begin in September.

So I'll give a little boot to the butt to those who haven't voted and we'll see how we go

[Caedus]

Eating Private Simms: ***** (Enjoyed this a lot. Was sorry to see that dime piece Keaton go out like that Revive her for another story!).

We Have Been Rip Van Winkled!: **** (Liked the premise, looking forward to reading more sci fi stuff from you).

I'll read the rest when I have time

[Slynt]

As a bit of a dreamer type I was suddenly made aware that I was going on a holiday so I have been offline for a while. Now I shall read and rate

[Slynt]

And the votes from the Dutch-Norwegian jury are in. I read your stories quickly and left a quick comment, but that's better than not adding input at all, right?

"Eating Private Simms": 3 stars
"Barc's Butcher": 3.5 stars
"Sowing the Seeds of Hate": 4 stars
"We Have Been Rip van Winkled!": 2.5 stars
"Myopia": 3 stars
"Fractured Pulse": 2.5 stars

...just ignore the .5 for tallying the scores, I just wanted to show that I feel several of these stories hover between scores rather than being close to a whole number. Also I feel like such a turd giving low scores. So I'll give my own story - that would be "The Foreboding Presage" - 1 star.

[tmso]

Also I feel like such a turd giving low scores.

You are not a turd for being honest! Please, everyone, be honest. When reviewing or rating a book on Amazon or where-ever, do you think of the author's feelings?

No. You rate the book/story based on how you perceived it. As budding authors, we need to learn from that kind of honest feedback so that we'll get better (at writing, hopefully, and at taking those punches!).

With that said, always remember to remind the author what you thought they did right. Ratings and constructive criticisms are helpful, but sometimes knowing what you are doing right can lead one in the right direction, too.

With that said, I understand we are all busy so whatever you can offer is humbly accepted with many thanks.

[D-Doc]

Here are my ratings-

Eating Private Simms- 3

Barc's Butcher- 4

Sowing The Seeds Of Hate- 4

The Foreboding Presage- 3.5

We Have Been Rip Van Winkled- 3

Fractured Pulse- 3

I'll add some insight about my scores after work.

[MLSawyer]

Okay, so unless someone votes last minute, I have the below totals. (Note, Caedus, your votes have not yet been counted as you've only read two stories... you still have a chance but the hours are ticking away)

Private Sims (Slaad) – 5 + 3 + 4 + 3 + 3 = 18

Sowing the Seeds of Hate (AZimmer23)- 4 + 4 + 3 + 4 + 4 = 19

We have been rip van wrinkled (D. R. Stevenson) – 3 + 2 + 3 + 2.5 + 3 = 13.5

Myopia (D-Doc) – 3 + 2 + 4 + 3 = 12

The Foreboding Presage (Slynt) – 4 + 4 + 5 + 3.5 = 16.5

Fractured Pulse (Caedus) – 3 + 1 + 4 + 2.5 + 3 = 13.5

Barc’s butcher (Tmso) – 3 + 5 + 3.5 + 4 = 15.5

We also haven't had votes from Slaad, AZimmer and D. R. Stevenson - when you don't vote, those who have voted get one less score... not sure what to do here as it's not covered in the rules (never thought it would be so complicated)... suggestions anyone?

[tmso]

I think we have a winner, no? Sowing the Seeds of Hate?

Congrats?