All Comments on 'A Soldier's Due'

To be honest i expected a lower ranking. Any thoughts on the story and its visceral nature?

I must have a thing for "visceral" or I would not have read this without your comment asking for feedback.

You likely know the score is comparatively lower because of the content and its dark tone compared to the theme and context of the site, but it's actually high enough to indicate that those who did read it felt it well-written all the same (even with some possible, knee-jerk 1'ers in there for bringing them down harder than a sack of lead), and as usual, the Sci-Fi readership is being pretty kind (a score approaching 4.0 and no raging reviews; they may not have something they feel is nice to say so aren't saying anything).

Really, thank goodness for your disclaimer at the beginning. ;)

Category here is tricky. It's not really Sci-Fi/Fantasy at all as it stands (unless you plan a much broader theme that takes this grieving, broken, and guilt-ridden protagonist to another world). This is a modern horror piece set in our own world, though in my opinion, a very good one. I can also tell you that putting it in the Horror category would have given it the same, if not lower, score because of the lack of any eroticism (combined with a fear of what you would have done had there been any sex involved). Non-Erotic could have been safer, though the readership would be smaller than Sci-Fi, I think.

I'm going to pretend I'm not on an erotica site, because otherwise I'm confused whether there will be more to this story (no clear indication) and how this fits on Lit (i.e. what was the author's motivation for releasing it right here, right now).

So instead: the story itself. Very good job giving us reason to care about the family before the bad shit happened; this is what most horror films are missing nowadays. You give us reason not to want anything bad to happen to them, which makes the sense of foreboding and tension stronger and the detail all that much more hard-hitting. It's extremely good balancing the visceral and the emotional; the reader got the imagery needed to justify the actions and emotions of the protagonist, and you both have a grasp of and can convey the complexity (as I understand it) of common threads of how the male military mind might work during a crisis.

The dialogue of the villains is actually intriguing, there are questions left unanswered and places to go; horrible as they are, they seem like real boogeymen with enough to go on for a vengeance story later on (believe it or not, some vengeance stories don't quite manage that...the villain is cardboard cut-out). And you make me want vengeance on behalf of the protagonist, but he can't have it without learning more of what these creatures are and just what one of them created (these aren't the sparkling kind of vampire, obviously ;) Thank goodness.). I also see where the description of the story comes into play and that the man he was does indeed die right there (tragic for him being a good person; now we're not sure what he'll become).

The story very good for what it is, definitely in the top 10% of horror stories I've read (and I like horror stories), and could be the gripping start of a good horror novel. The placement of it on this particular website is baffling because you don't give much indication what you intend to do with it or where it connects at all to sex/eroticism (and with the visceral details...I am actually glad there are no sexual overtones to those). It is heavy, though, and most of your audience doesn't *usually* come here to be weighed down with grief. I wouldn't mind hearing some of your thoughts on your own story regarding this. :)