All Comments on 'Hunting Peace'

After reading 9 of the 27 pages, i had to stop. Too long with nothing going on.

Finding the camp/resort took away from the story. It was just to convenient to be believable.

Good story, will there be any others in this universe, to tie into it?

VERY long for a single published story but incredibly worth the reading. And thanks for the huge writing effort. Great plot and location development. Excellent characters, both main and secondary.. Good back stories as well, both for the people and the place. Well-done!

@ruddygore, thank you, I appreciate that perception. It's not random that they find it; Mr. Brass (explained later) arranged far more than just buying things, he was manipulating things behind the scenes. Still, I don't foreshadow that very well, I was aiming for 'wow, they're lucky' only to find out it wasn't luck later. They should recognize the luck factor better, more than, 'who were these people' questions. Structurally, if it seems lucky, they need to see that, you're right.

Re: 'nothing going on', I see the point that setting up the next action took too long for you, apologies. I could be more succinct, I'll work on that for future stories.

Wow, as a guy who reads pretty fast (I think it took me a few hours to read the whole thing) I couldn't disagree more with the comment that said it was too long. It could be 10x longer and I'd read the whole thing.

I was telling my wife about this story and one thing that really struck me was how good a job the author did not giving into the whole Kevin is the king of his harem idea. That's a school boy fantasy. Instead, there was tension, first two wives is weird (to me at least) and they had to work out a system for that. Then add 101 new women? How do you work that out? I felt it was approached as if this were real life, not some stroker story, and I thought the author did a great job. Kudos! Good read and I'll go see what else they've written.

A long build up and a relatively quick conclusion. I could happily have read another 27 pages. I love post-apocalyptic type stories, coping in this situation. They were extraordinarily lucky to have all that gifted equipment, but a reasonable hypothesis as a story. I enjoyed the story a lot - well done, and thank you.

Whew - made it to the end! The start was thrown together with too many gaps to completely buy into the emotional plot line. The situational plot line was fine and I understood it, no problem. Extremely fine detail on what the characters were doing to build a survivalist camp was fun to read, although the continuing revelations about the house and compound were a little over the top. The marriage to Liz when he really had a relationship with Amy was a bit confusing, but I guess that was forced upon him to gain entry to Canada for her. Still, his sudden emotional commitment to Liz wasn't believable. Fun and entertaining read, but quite a few holes in the storyline either not answered or discussed. Agree with others - you took 25 pages to get to the meat of the plot lines, then tied everything up in under 2? WTH? Overall good effort - 4.3*

A piddling correction. They might be liters in the USA but they are litres in Canada. Litre is the French spelling and is also used in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Metrics are SO much easier.....

While you might like to leave the creation of the village as a mystery to Kevin, it is a bit of a puzzle. The events leading up to the fatal accident that wiped out the Tollesfrud family and details on why they were buried where they were seem to be the basis of quite a large tale.

Another thing that looking at satellite photography of Newfoundland is the number of island's in Michikamau Lake provides potential to do something other than fishing with those boats. And there are so many small lakes there is a lake for each of those boats in the village collection.

Looking to the future what is life story of some of Kevin's children? Do they go out into the world and do great things or are they bound into the small village they were raised in with a single patriarch? Do they look on Kevin with hatred because his parenting was spread too thin or do his daughters want to become another of Kevin's concubines and live the life of their mothers? Do the sons want to replace their father or just release their mothers from his clutches?

It would appear to be a small universe to spin off many side stories.

Addressing the previous comment from Anonymous, 'While you" para "looking to...", as the author, the vision I tried to give of the village is that, like any small town, it exists to live off the fertility of the land and the infrastructure built to support it. People move in, people move away. As the kids grow, they'll move away, maybe if there's a reason (like a relaxation or fishing campground), people will visit and to support that there's residents, young people moving back in. The Kevin character is a patriarch, sure, but he's not depicted as power-obsessed. He's in love with his wives.

--> With the advent of Starlink and other satellite comms tech, you can live ANYWHERE and do a lot of tech work. Inexpensive living is land prices plus shipping crap to you prices, and electric vehicles make transport costs FAR cheaper. So, yes, I think humans will spread out more, and as global warming increases, remote northern locations will be more attractive than previously desirable desert ones. But, there's my bias as an author talking. Everyone's entitled to their opinion of 'the best place', I respect yours and have mine, happily for both of us. Thank you for the comments, Anon, and previous Anon, I'll try to spell it litres in the future.

Nice concept and story development. I agree it seemed too perfect of a situation with all the stuff the came across.

If I read it right, the four men were there a few years prior to the pandemic. If that was Mr. Brass setting up a failsafe location in case of a world event seems a little out there also.

The comment about Canada and politics seems off too as the FalseDeau leadership seems to be taking more and more rights away from Canadians. Like not allowing news to be obtained from the internet/social media.

It did end quite quickly compared to the pages of descriptive imagery for the life at camp.

It would have been nice to have had a line about burying the dead up on the hill or an open area overlooking the lake and camp was developed for a cemetery.

@Fseries, thank you for your kind words!!

I left the situation of how the camp came to be and how they were manipulated into going to that exact spot as ambiguous because that's how life is sometimes. Mysteries happen. Mr. Brass had contacts amongst the Very Very richest of people in Chicago and New York (capital markets / trading firms interchange employees and move them around, it's a small world of high-power tech people). Thus it's reasonable both that some rich acquaintance of Mr. Brass didn't pass on the info of how/why they bought / arranged for the place, yeah, that's actually reasonably real-life IMHO. Point made, though, the mystery could have been resolved. It was a choice on my part, I remember making it, to setup that what we knew and didn't, as a definite thing with a mystery that remained. What can I say, the creative impulse drives me odd places sometimes and I don't argue.

Re: ending quickly, most of the complications were in the startup and discovery, the creation of a life together and the odd nature of how the people would fit togther. Once those threads had knitted reasonably, that seemed like the place to make the story tie up and resolve.

As for the cemetary - you're very correct! I could have made a clear set of comments about burying those who passed away in the process of taming the wildnerness 'near' Churchill Falls, and founding of the town of Tollefsrud. Every town needs a good cemetary, and those that gave their lives trying to make a safe life for themselves and their loved ones - especially by dying in childbirth, a noble thing to attempt - they deserve a good resting place. I agree.

Thank you again for reading to the end, and commenting with a considered thought. It makes a big difference to me as an author to know my works are appreciated (since, frankly, any financial gain as an author, anywhere, is solidly in the elevens of cents a year, lol). Be well, and I hope the next work of mine you read (if you do), gives you as much or more enjoyment!

This was a pretty fun read. I appreciated the mystery of the camp prehistory and its unfolding setup. If you enjoy writing in this world, A story on the original Tollefsrud setup and operation could be fun. A quibble though, given Mr. Brass and his over compensating purchasing, there is no way he would not have provided satellite dish and sat-phones. The encampment could have had strict usage guidelines for safety. The wrap up and epilogue was okay but not up to most of your story telling. Given how thin the relationship with Liz was, I think Kelly or someone would capture his heart and evolve to consort level. But that is a different story. You wrote about a thrupple that was dedicated and conservative. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to more of your stories.

I really enjoyed this. It's a bit similar to Jarhead, which I now see is a later work. Hunting Peace works better for me as a story arc because it reaches an end to the plot. Jarhead was frustrating with the mysterious setting introduced and barely developed--I felt it had to go further. I needed you to tell me more about the secret (government) organization working identify and de-fang existential threats. I applied my usual "If that were true, what else *must* be true?" test and I think it failed. At a minimum I think you need to show how they found this problem and convinced the government to spend piles of money on it. I'm thinking that they built a desktop version of the device and now there's an interesting crater somewhere. I think you are quite good, and perhaps holding yourself back with self-indulgence. I decided to allow some self-indulgence to happen and I think that improved my latest MS, but it can't become too magical because of a realistic setting. There are too many magical happenings in Hunting Peace. Maybe there should be more emotional work, too. Interpersonal things get solved very quickly. Humans spend months not speaking to each other, though I don't know if that happens in tight-knit communities. Keep writing. I'll keep reading and I'll work my way through your others.

well written story. the use of the EV made it lack credibility. they have proven to be an epic failure for long distance driving towing and cold weather. this story had elements of all 3 problem areas for EV's.

@greenbeardlk, thank you for commenting! I'm amused that an aspect of a story on literotica in general might 'lack credibility', as this seems to be a site-wide problem (lol). I doubt I can convince you of anything regarding EV's, so let's just say that there's different opinions in the world, ever better tech by the year, and maybe over time we'll figure things out better. Thanks again for reading, I hope you enjoyed the rest of it since lol the focus of hte story wasn't the truck... at least, as the author, I didn't intend that it'd be. Peace.