All Comments on 'The Rivals Ch. 05: Orgy of Death'

I love it. This is masterfully written. There is no lull in the story, nothing is omited or unnecessary elaborate. The suspense and the peaks are perfectly spaced.

The way you throw the reader into the story from the first sentence and give explanations and details as you go is perfect. It grasps the attention and never let's it go.

I wouldn't mind seeing this story revisited sometime. Perhaps Sligh returns home with his new wife to claim the title of his house and perhaps experienced a visit from a certain Terana? (threesome?)

You finished well and you finish the tail strongly! It pleases me to say that you saved the best for last.

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What I appreciated most was how you examined and turned over each and every one of their doubts about each other in their separate minds - - and had them review each other's actions - - so it was obvious they finally realized what they had. Now really, in a way they shouldn't have been so surprised, and I guess if I were to say if there's one way the story could have been improved even more, it would have been to take more of these doubts that you put in just one chapter and break it up over all five equally; this way, you would have been slowly adding even more to the story and to the suspense. Certainly, I don't know if anyone would say using the mellix demon was too convenient or repetitive, but I would say the obvious: that basically it appeared 3 times in the story? Now perhaps using it for the ending seemed the easiest solution, so to have it appear in the story twice would have made sense, because for them to see it at first as in chapter 1... it made perfect sense that it would kind of wrap up the story too, given the fact that you had the female lead recognize the same symbol on the box. Now the obvious thing that remains after all this is the princess/sorceress escaped, meaning that theoretically you have somebody to effectively challenge the rivals in some future installment if you choose. I don't think that was something you wrote by mistake; also, we are left with the fact that his family could actually come back in the future and create many spoilers for this couple's happiness. We also don't know the disposition of the loot that they stole, because whatever he had is half hers and whatever she stole was half his; this also leaves perhaps some interesting haggling left over to sort that out equitably.

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As I began with, I say you wrote this final installment well; none of the devices you used could really be said to be overused; you provide an easy out--although a believable one - - to both of our main characters, so that they can kill Nemez, yet live to tell the tale. I will say that using the Shadow guard proved interesting and unexpected, although the story didn't provide any reason for it being there, as before it was having the female lead kill a demon because it stole someone else's soul. So if I were going to say there were some weakness in the story, I would name that as maybe some type of omission that could have been addressed. However I enjoyed how you concluded this, and because of that and how well you wrote it on the balance, I rate it a 5.

Hi Still Stunned. This is going to sound a bit like Comentarista82, (C82) but bear with me.

Firstly, I must say that I enjoyed C82’s comments as he added some elements of knowledge that I didn’t have.

Secondly, I have only just read The Rivals because I have (I think) read almost all of your other stories and they have been an inspiration to my humble works. Grovel Grovel 😉

What has inspired me to put fingers to keyboard was C82’s comment about the melix turning up three times, when twice would have been enough. But I can see why you needed it. To explain, I would (briefly) list my three plot points that I have seen, use and abused.

1. Plot Premise. For example set in 1800, aliens on a ship would naturally be foreigners on something that travels on water. Set in 2800, non-Earthlings on a space-ship. On this site I have noticed premise problems about Football Players and College vs University and State vs Insurance healthcare etc…

2. Plot Plant (yes pun) commonly known as Chekhov’s Gun. Something mentioned earlier that becomes critical later. Here there is the melix, the shadow guards and the shadow. We needed to know about the melix, introduced early, but I think the second one was needed so we knew they were not super rare / extinct. Shadow guards, similarly. The shadow, briefly mentioned on page 4 “she noticed a shadow that was darker than it should be”. This was the shadow guard’s portal on page 5. Of course Shadow Guard’s would be hunting down melix in the same way that the melix consumes their souls.

3. Plot Patch. When suddenly the author reveals a fact known only to themselves, (or hidden in confusion) such that the ship in the 1800’s was in fact a space-ship, and only revealed when the hero enters the control room and finds his pistol is a blaster. I don’t think it’s clever, or fair on the reader, even to play an April Fool’s Joke. By the way, Avilia explaining how she got Farflier was not a Plot Patch as it wasn’t plot critical, just a bit of dressing detail.

I have views on Time Travel, as in how you can only change your own future and not anything you know about in your past. However, you can go back in chronological time and do something to change your future (c.f. Bill and Ted when they need a distraction and decide that they will go back in time and set up a tape recording, which they then hear. All their future timelines.)

Wow! Very exciting finale! The build-up of compassion and love (though never explicitely mentioned) between Avilia and Sligh (two very likable characters) made this series a captivating read. Really good sexy and yet romantic fantasy.

Great finish

Enjoyed this final chapter. The twists and character interactions were great, the sex too. Liked the callback with the demon in particular. Thx for the tale.

I'm not at all a fan of sword and sorcery, and this ws still an excellent series. I really enjoyed it.