Muse's Success - Latest Reviews

"Great stories." gordread reviewed Special People

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:19:44 +0000

I found Special People almost by accident, and I am glad that I did.

There certainly has been a lack of good ‘super powered’ fiction in the past years. I like the idea of normal people going about their daily business, but with special abilities.

I don’t think that you will be able to avoid the comparison to George RR Martin’s Aces series, which started out well written, but quickly turned to ‘pulp’.

Tim’s stories are well written, and though it is still early in the story, his work so far has certainly left me wanting to read more.

I have really enjoyed reading the story so far, and am looking forward to the ongoing updates.

I encourage anyone interested in reading ‘super’ fiction to take a look at Special People.

Gordon

"An original and exciting mix of Greek and Japanese culture" Arianahime reviewed Greek Ninja

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:08:00 +0000

The thing that initially drew me to "Greek Ninja" was the title. I was interested in seeing how a story entilted like that would work out and I must say, although it wasn’t what I was expecting to read, I was more than pleasantly surprised.

Thrilling and well-described fight scenes, suspense, funny moments and the use of Greek and Japanese -even Latin at one point!- are some of the best elements. Mythology is a key to the story, and being one of my favorite themes, I was very pleased, especially with the appearance of mythological creatures rather than just bearing mentions to the gods.

All the characters are unique, each with their own -often hilarious- quirks. The protagonist’s character development though, was among the most impressive. Sasha started out with an unlikable -in my opinion- personality, however as the story progressed, she became someone I could admire. The friendship between her and the recruited members of "her group", although awkward at first, was a sweet theme, and her interaction with the male lead, Daichi was…. baffling. Seriously, I couldn’t tell what their deal was!

The fact the setting changed between Greece and Japan made the story more refreshing and gave insight into the lives of two completely different nations. The portrayal of people from different countries and the general multinational feel of the story, which is particularly intense in the first chapter, have the same effect and provide a view of life from a more European perspective.

The first chapter took its time to get the main plot, and yes, it was a bit slow for my taste, although I did enjoy the way everyday life at Ariadnio was portrayed and getting to know the background of the main characters. Reading through that and getting onto the rest of the chapters, the story takes off, gradually becoming more and more interesting and soon enough, impossible to let go of.
My favorite arc was by far the third one, where most of the important events take place. How I saw it was that the first two arcs were the build-up to the main story, which is the third arc to me. From the twelve chapters, it takes over the six, and basically contains the essence of "Greek Ninja", so I consider it to be "the real story".

All in all, I found "Greek Ninja" to be a great read, especially since it so elegantly combined almost all my favorite themes (was thrilled to find a story that did that!) . It’s a must for anyone interested in greek mythology and culture, ninjas, and generally, action. The fact the lead is a female and is strong, not once being shown to be incompetent or anything less than a human being, as is often seen happen in the adventure genre with female characters, is certaintly a favorable feature. Finally, an adventure with a character I can relate to!

"(Gradual) Awakenings" Seraph reviewed Awakenings

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 11:48:04 +0000

Awakenings is a work of post-apocalyptic fiction set in a small Michigan university campus. It deals with survival and the relationships and tensions between the survivors, but with an added supernatural twist - the survivors may have all survived for a reason, one some among them have felt for some time and others are just beginning to become aware of.

It’s primarily a character story - largely focussed on dialogue scenes and internal monolgues and it’s pretty slow to build and dip into its more fantastical elements. This is both a strength and a weakness. Many characters are introduced very early on, but you quickly get to know them thanks to this way of telling the story, however it can be frustrating that you aren’t getting to see some of the concepts that many of them are talking about right from the start. This could have been a technique used to build tension - are these things real, or are they delusional? - but the main characters think and feel their way around these concepts with such confidence that the reader is never left in doubt, even if some of the other leads are.

The characters are generally well-written and likable and if you stick with the story in spite of some occasionally frustrating use of language you’ll grow quite fond of them and be interested in their plight, but be prepared to take it for the long haul - this is not a story for those seeking instant gratification. If you can cope with that then you may find it to be a rewarding read in the long term.

You’ll like it if you like relationship-heavy, soft fantasy.

You won’t if you like ‘perfect’ prose and plenty of action.

Worth a look.

"A new take on traditional imperial inspiration" Erin_Klitzke reviewed A Frequent Traveller's Guide to Jovan

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 19:23:34 +0000

I am fascinated by and love studying the Romans, especially from the late Republic and early Imperial eras, then toward the fall of the empire (mostly 5th century). Part of what drew me to the Traveller’s Guide was the very clear Imperial inspiration for Jovan. If you have even a passing knowledge of the history of the Roman Empire, or European history as a larger whole, your mind is awake and brimming with the possibilities of what the adventures undertaken by the imperial Uncles might lead to. Names like Gallica harken back to the troubles faced by Rome consistently in Gaul and makes you sit up a little straighter and lean forward, waiting to see what their travels are going to reveal about their world and the state of the empire.

Reading the first entry, I came to like both of the brothers very much. As Aden’s already observed, the descriptions are very vivid and full of personification—a fortress hunches and broods over the town below and the like.

Very fun stuff so far and I think I’m in for the long haul—and looking forward to seeing where the story takes the brothers next.

"A Surreal Comedy of Manners" kpbstevens reviewed Railroad Train to Heaven

Fri, 27 May 2011 17:22:55 +0000

DAN LEO’S ‘RAILROAD TRAIN TO HEAVEN’

The day is coming when genre categorizations will collapse around our ears. No one would shove a copy of The Master and Margarita into the fantasy section of a Barnes and Nobles, although it has many things in common with the glossy books that you would find there - talking cats, the devil, levitation. But Bulgakov’s masterpiece is given the honor of being considered surrealistic social satire instead of fantasy. The same could be said for Dan Leo’s Railroad Train to Heaven. I realize that by making this comparison I am entering into the whimsical game that Mr. Leo plays at the start of every episode. He gives us an overblown imaginary quote from Harold Bloom, taken from the pages of the most unlikely magazines possible.

“Little did we oh-so-earnest literati of the latter half of the twentieth century know that a former brakeman for the Reading Railroad by the name of Arnold Schnabel was calmly composing, in complete obscurity, that massive memoir which we now recognize as the great American epic.”—Harold Bloom, in Better Homes and Gardens.

This is a joke with intent, a little party game that sets the tone for Railroad Train to Heaven as a whole. The work is presented as the autobiography of one Arnold Schnabel, a man of long errands and gordian social entanglements. Arnold is recovering from a nervous breakdown, which may account for his penchant for visiting heaven, entering into contests with the devil, and allowing time to work at a radically different pace than it normally does. The story is set, at least terrestrially, in Cape May, N.J., in the summer of 1963.

I came to Railroad Train to Heaven very late in the game. I’ve been reading it for about two months now, and haven’t gone back to the beginning. Reading it has been my first major involvement with internet serial fiction, and I wanted my engagement with it to be different from my engagement with short stories or novels. A nice little episode delivered to me every week, which I can read with pleasure without thinking that I really should undertake the Herculean labor of becoming a completist. The average post is 2,000 words, which means that, after two-hundred and fifty-one episodes, Railroad Train to Heaven is nearly as long as War and Peace.

Fortunately, Arnold Schnabel’s narration doesn’t require much back story to be enjoyable. This is a minor miracle in itself. As Arnold wanders around Cape May, he runs into multiple characters whom, I assume, he and the reader have met before. But Dan Leo’s individual descriptions of these characters are so precise and compelling that they never get lost in the welter of personalities. This is a particular strength in the writer of internet-based serial fiction. A scrupulous attention to detail and the ability to describe clearly will get you far and help you avoid the besetting sin of any fiction, that of annoying the reader.

Internet-based serial fiction, whether it’s blog fiction or Podiobooks or anything else, is as much about the author’s personality as it is about the story. When I sit down at my computer every week and contemplate opening up Railroad Train to Heaven I have only one real question for myself. Do I want to spend time with Dan Leo? I’m not worrying about what’s happened to Arnold, since I know that he will still be meandering from place to place without any major complications (his story arc, while not being static, is only slightly convex). It is the way in which Dan Leo tells his story - the pithiness of the language, the flow of the dialog, the underlying humor - which brings me back for more.

I realize that, in the course of this review, I’ve compared Leo with two Russians. Like the great Russians, Leo is writing about a particular society, and his intent is simply to describe it. None of his characters seem to suffer from social isolation or post-modern confusion. They all co-exist happily with each other in a cocktail-laced mid-sixties style bonhomie. Railroad Train to Heaven is, essentially, a comedy of manners, one that is generous to the reader in a way that is, simply, mannerly.

"Very engaging and endearing" Erin_Klitzke reviewed The Legion of Nothing

Fri, 27 May 2011 16:52:57 +0000

When I started reading Legion of Nothing, I read it for almost six hours straight. It was that engaging. The narrator, Nick, is endearing and as a reader I found myself feeling sorry for him even as I cheered him on—no one likes to have their destiny picked for them, and to be a "normal" teenager stuck following in your grandfather’s footsteps as a super hero? Not an enviable task when you think about it.

Zoetewey brings a verisimilitude to superhero stories that’s rarely shown through humor rather than tragedy—Nick is no Batman or Superman, no Ironman or mutant, but he and his friends have to deal with the weighty concerns of keeping their secrets and protecting their families. His characters handle what’s laid before them with the resilience of youth and the inventiveness of those who haven’t been told "No, you can’t do it that way."

Very fun story so far.

"Lots of Surprises in this Awesome Life" scifichick7 reviewed The Surprising Life and Death of Diggory Franklin

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:07:54 +0000

"The Surprising Life and Death of Diggory Franklin" lives up to its name.

The title character is the son and heir to a rich investor who rivals Warren Buffet and Bill Gates in wealth, but he refuses to be spoiled. He works his way up the corporate ladder on his own as a lawyer, resisting his family’s attempts to promote him out of nepotism.

While his life might have been interesting or dull on its own, it’s never really a choice for Diggory—we meet him the same day he meets Calla Wiley, a graduate student in physics. The first time they meet, Calla kisses him passionately and warns him to stay away, at the risk of his own life. He meets her again, just minutes later, and she seems to have no memory of their first encounter.

What Diggory doesn’t know yet is that Calla will be inventing a time machine, and blames herself for his future death. And that surprise is just one of many over the course of this epic serial.

The story is divided into convenient "Books," each one with its own principle conflicts and plot, but each contributing to the overall structure of the story. And "structure" is the key word, as every character and plot development has a bigger role to play, with ramifications stretching over time itself.

"Book One: Not your Average Love Songs" starts out the most normal. Diggory has to go about his daily routine while wondering why he’s drawn to Calla, and what her secret must be. He suspects that she has bipolar disorder or some other mental flaw that causes her personality changes. He isn’t convinced of her time travel until the very end, setting the stage for even more mysteries in "Book Two: An Irregular Action Hero."

The impressive thing about this story is the way it builds. Any one chapter might have humorous dialogue or interesting action, and mysterious cliffhangers. But they build to interesting arcs for each individual Book, so that they each stand out as unique while contributing to the overall tapestry. Events that seemed small at first have greater signficance later, as characters take on bigger roles in Diggory’s life, and the stakes are raised as he progresses towards his predicted demise.

Without giving away too much about the surprising plot, let me just say that there’s a figure behind the scenes that seems to be manipulating events for a mysterious purpose that involves all of human history.

"S. Harry Zade's funny/sad odyssey." kpbstevens reviewed The Narrative Imperative

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:38:48 +0000

As an experiment in character creation, Keith Wilson’s "The Narrative Imperative" is often very funny and insightful. The story purports to be a blog written by a suicidal psychiatric assignment officer named Harry Zade. Harry has been abandoned by his wife and children and doesn’t have much sense of purpose left. As he says, "a long life is valued only by those with a life to live, or those who have not paid much attention to it and value life by habit." Harry’s occupation leads him to pay too much attention to life, and his insights into his patient’s struggles is one of the story’s strengths. It’s also the element that gives the story its pathos. Harry has all the theories about life that he needs - as a psychiatrist, he’s something of an expert on the human condition. Yet none of that expertise seems to help him at all. Despite his knowledge and his wisdom he is still overweight and desperately lonely. He can analyze all the scars of his own childhood, but that doesn’t make them go away.

Wilson has a good ear for dialog and Harry’s insights into his patients lives are always fascinating and well written. There is also a very sly sense of humor operating behind this narrative, as evidenced in Harry and Cheryl’s Christmas Eve phone conversation. Certain of Harry’s posts act as small and beautiful essays on human nature, especially the recent post entitled "Joy." One of the strengths of that particular post is the description of Cleveland’s West Market, which gives it a narrative richness that is sometimes missing from the rest of the work.

Which leads me to some of the difficulties that come from using a blog form to tell a larger story. For one, it’s hard to follow a blog sequentially, and there are times when Harry himself abandons a straight chronological narrative to dip back into memory. This usually doesn’t work. The post entitled Momma’s Boy is a case in point. In the post, Harry talks about his past, and there are some very interesting bits about mother/child relationships and the behavior of domineering mothers. But the post centers around a Christmas scene that isn’t drawn very sharply. We know its Christmas and that there are relatives around, but we’re not quite sure who they are, or what they look like, or what their separate import in Harry’s life might be. The post tries to present us with a big set piece, but the rest of the narrative works against big set pieces, since its filtered to such a high degree through Harry’s current consciousness. It’s as if Momma’s Boy is attempting a different literary form, one that jars with the rest of the blog posts.

"The Narrative Imperative" is a good and sometimes enthralling read. In places it calls out for the services of a good editor, someone who could cut away some of the narrative’s convolutions and make some of the sentences stronger. But these difficulties pale next to the interest I take in Harry as a character.

"Fabulous At Being Itself" METraylor reviewed Captive Prince

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:57:47 +0000

Captive Prince is one of the best executions of the royal-warrior-becomes-sex-slave trope I have ever encountered. It’s good at what it does, and it doesn’t try to be anything it’s not: It’s really, really well-done homoerotic slavefic. There have been exactly 1.639 sex scenes, and I am still reading. It’s not about the sex. It’s all about the sexual tension. Which is exquisite.

The two main characters are more archetypes than real people, but they’re archetypes that resonate, archetypes that can be related to. The sexual tension is almost agonizingly subtle, and more effective than most graphic sex scenes. The author deftly uses minimalist world-building of a Greek/Mediterranean and European flavor, and there’s just enough pragmatic detail to be reasonably realistic and make me willingly suspend my disbelief for everything else. The Mediterranean culture mirror is also a refreshing change from the typically firmly European cast of alternate historical worlds.

The writing is smooth, rolling, and most chapters are quite polished. This was a completely unexpected gem.

"Entertaining Characters" morgan_ofriel reviewed Bonds and Blood

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 21:21:15 +0000

Bonds and Blood opens up on the main characters surveying potential juniors (apprentices to higher level, though not necessarily older, vampire hunters), badgering one another, and worrying about who they will be assigned to train. As far as I’ve seen, the hunters are part of some sort of hierarchical order that trains men (or, at least, only men have been shown) to hunt vampires. The world appears to be slightly different from our own, though I can’t be sure since there wasn’t much shown of the larger world outside of a club, the order’s facilities, and an apartment. There’s also a definite anime feel to this series, right down to silver hair on a young vampire.

There’s nothing particularly unique about the opening, but the characters themselves were animated and lively enough to draw me in. They remain so through-out the nine available pieces, and are admittedly a large part of why I continued reading.

Fun is probably the best word to describe Bonds and Blood. Even during dramatic scenes, there’s always a hint of playfulness, of light-hearted humor that livens things up and keeps the tone from getting too heavy. While the main cast isn’t notably three-dimensional, they are amusing, and their intricate relationships and power dynamics make even some of their ho-hum interactions a joy to read.

While all of the cast is entertaining in their own way, I have to say that Saire is my favorite. We open on things from his point of view, and I connected with his awkwardness right off the bat. Of the rest of the characters, Hazel and Manelin also intrigue me, though neither of them have been shown much.

Technically, there are several spelling and grammar errors per part, though it doesn’t detract from the flow of the story. The language also gets repetitive in places. Another problem, at least initially, was that Sirrie and Saire have such similar names. It was confusing at first, especially since they’re both main characters, the later having been trained under the former. After awhile it became easier to parse them out, but only because they weren’t often speaking to one another.

The series hasn’t been updated since April, and no hiatus notice has been placed up. It is a carefree and relaxing diversion to read, so I hope it hasn’t been abandoned. After all, I’d really like to know more about the characters, their history, and their world.