All Comments on 'Victim's Ball'

Another great read from MSTarot. I kept thinking of Halloween. 5*

I'm not sure I get it all, but this is a great story.

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Consider this story as you would an Abstract painting. It means whatever you see into it. Whether you see beauty or horror, hope or despair, love or hate. Is all within your psyche. And every person will have their own, personal opinion.

I think it was Ravel's "Boléro", supposedly at the premiere of the piece a woman in the audience was alleged to have jump to her feet and screamed that the composer was "mad!" The story continues that afterwards, when Ravel was informed of the what the woman had yelled that he replied "That she then understood the piece."

Klein bottle of a story

I think that's a fair comment, given that you set up the story in a very real, current, and non-fantasy setting. Using the tired lame plot device of two lovers failing, refusing, too stupid to acknowledge their love. Add the jealous fuck factor near the end, with the alpha-male asshole scene, and you have a predictable often copied LW romance/drama story. But then the fantastical orgy dance, with the concluding magical disappearance of an old friend into a historic painting, with her French only speaking sister, yet her own French was poor, just made the whole story too disjointed and disconnected to enjoy. That may be entirely my fault, since I don't do abstract art. But you started this story out in a very real and concrete setting, then morphed it into this macabre orgy and death ending, including magical apparitions and images. I just found myself trying to make sense of what in the end, is nonsense.

Glad the dense fool and the jealous fool finally connected. They will learn soon enough that love and fantasy make for an exciting romance, but they better learn to communicate in this very real and mundane world if they want to live, together, happily ever after. Good luck to you and them.

The writing genre type it was written for is called Magical Realism.

A writing style that blends the real world settings with fantastic elements. Wikipedia has a wonderful listing on it filled with examples. The healing magic of John Coffey in "The Green mile" is such a story though. "Like Water for Chocolates" is another example of this genre.

It's in novella because of it's length and the fact it didn't "fit" any other category well.

With Victim's ball the fantastic element is the hotel itself slipping back in time, due to the ghostly "energies" that slowly congregated there because of the party. The musician's appearing, in period clothes. Collette unable to speak English. Her holding her neck, when she saw the Nation's Razor" Then many of the "people" at the dance doing the same when the guillotine was hit by Jason. The overly crowded dance floor yet people still had room. The layers of music, generations of it, overlapping to inhuman levels of sound and certainly the appearance of the Eiffel tower.

Built in 1889 it is way out of the time of the original Victim's balls. But played a pronominal part to show that time was malleable in this story line.

All ghosts, or time slips were little clues I hid for readers to puzzle over, something else indicative of Magical Realizm. Ambiguities in definition

Like most of my stories I'm playing with words here to see what works and what doesn't. The worst thing you can do it take life seriously. It, as the story shows, can end suddenly and simple pleasure are the only thing worth anything in this mess we call life. Sorry you didn't enjoy this story, go read another one. I have more on the way.

MST

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

'The Masque of the Red Death'. I just knew something horrible like this was coming at the end. Excellent writing. Five stars.

Interesting, erotic, creepy. Nicely done.

Your story set in a French Revolution/modern day ball is chilling and reminiscent of the final scene of "The Shining" with love and the death of the villain et al .

A real "tour de force". Well done I say again well done.

Did Cass set this *whole* thing up? not just the party but a ceremony to let herself be elsewhere? that's an entirely new level of spook & strangeness - the point was made that she wanted to live, and that needs a head attached. I also get the feeling I'm missing something about Jason's demise, but sometimes that's simply it being written to suggest some symbolism when there is none. I was an Eng. Lit student with ADD too bad to treat fully, I have a *really* patchy set of reading skills.

I want Maggie, so badly.

-RD

I liked the story, thank you. However the quality of the French sentences was at times lacking.