NEO HYPER Book Club #8 (5th June - 24th June)

[Daniel]

Welcome to the Omniverse Book Club! Here, we put up a new completed topic every fortnight to read and review. By participating you'll earn a bonus 300 OM (subject to change) and you'll be able to suggest a topic of your own for the next fortnight. Aside from the helpful feedback, subjects of the book club will receive a Great or Exemplary bonus for their storyline if they qualify. :omni:

Yes I know the dates aren't 14 days, but I'm getting this back on the sunday - sunday time frame.

RULES

OOC Rules of Conduct apply.

We encourage helpful, well-considered feedback with both positive and negative comments. Try to remember that not everyone is confident about their writing, and negative feedback can be highly discouraging.

Review Writing Guidelines

Reviews must be a minimum of 150 words and should include your opinion on whether the participating member(s) deserve a bonus or not, and if yes, then 'Great' or 'Exemplary', according to the Bonus Rewards Guidelines. Please don't consider this an arbitrary number to fill; this just filters out those reviews that were clearly made with no effort.

Topics may include writing from multiple members. Please try to give everyone included a decent review and individual grade.

Try to go into detail about what you liked and didn't like about an RP. Try to keep it objective and positive: it's absolutely not okay to just tear down someone else's work without saying anything good about it. The more detail the better, and the more effort you put into your reviews the more likely we are to choose one of your topics to review, as thanks for your help to other members.

Please do not skim. If we suspect people are skimming topics, we may have to be more stringent on requirements, which makes it harder on staff to enforce, and more difficult for you to write your review. If we suspect particular members are skimming, we may bar them from future participation in the book club. This is free OM, so it's in everyone's best interest to keep it that way.

As far as grading goes, please be non-partisan. If you think your friend's topic truly merits Exemplary, awesome. But if we notice people constantly doing this and we consistently disagree with the gradings, we'll weigh your opinion far less than those who tend to give accurate gradings consistent with the Bonus Rewards Guidelines.

REWARDS

Book Club rewards will be awarded at the end of each fortnight, although it might take a while to get updated. Until you see a post in this topic saying "It was updated", it's safe to say you weren't missed or forgotten; we just haven't gotten around to it yet. No need to remind us.

We will give the reward to the account you posted on, unless you request otherwise.

Those trying to become judges should note that Book Club reviews do count towards your total.

Book Club threads will run for two weeks. They will end on Sunday at 17:59pm AEST (Australian Eastern Standard Time), which is 7:59am GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) Sunday Morning. The next Book Club thread should be up by 6pm AEST (8am GMT)

Submissions

If you are submitting a thread for the Book Club review/grading please use this form after your review of the current thread. You're welcome, and encouraged to submit any completed topics or multi-topic storylines of your own that have yet to be graded and exceed 4000 words.

Code:

[url=http://omniverse-rpg.com/showthread.php?tid=0]Link to topic - name[/url]
Total character count including spaces (excluding bbcode, images, etcetera), please make sure this is per character, not as a whole:
Total word count (excluding bbcode, images, etcetera) please make sure this is per character, not as a whole:
Quest or Personal Storyline?
Participating characters (please list):

And finally ....

THIS FORTNIGHT'S STORY

This fortnight we have a thread... that is all. I welcome Gildarts writing as their NPC Christa! to the stage! Summon, Or She Dies

[Shantotto]

ok so I am going to start this off by saying this is the very first Gildarts thread I have read so i am using this as a baseline for the writer.

So i learned who Gildarts was through the people of NB ive been told sammy is a professional level writer, and after reading this thread i have to agree, Everything about this thread is amazing, from the very first post all the way till Christa meets the stone anglesand becomes one with them. The action is always there, the dark atmosphere is superior to anything dark ive read on the OV to date. The tables turn against christa time and time again

My one single small concern is on post #7 a formatting change in text. and to me its not a big deal but to some they might veiw it as a flaw.

Sammy you are delightfully cruel to Christa, and i love every single second of it.



I cant think of a more enjoyable read so far in the book club, and i have been proud to read this. Assuming Sam meets the criteria for Exemplary I definetly reccomend she receive it, this is a short story unto itself and once ive enjoyed

i cant wait to read more from Sam

[Yu Kanda]

The reason i put this thread up for book club is because i had to read it several times because a follow up is planned. While i was reading it several things popped out which made my ow writing better. I am not looking for grammatical errors or spelling mistakes. This is about character building.

After the secondary saga Christa evolved into one of the most versatile and in depth NPC’s of the site. Her backstory has been fleshed out so well and this thread is a perfect example of how you do it.

Look at captain McGee, a small character who you immediately feel a connection with from the first line. That isn’t an easy thing to do. Writing dialogue in a way that immediately says so much about the character you feel like you know him already.

The journey you painted on the boat was beautifully done. Giving the reader a sense of time that passes on. I mean, you feel like they take forever travelling, making the journey this eventful makes the phrase : the end goal isn't important, it's the journey that matters, really come to justice.

Seeing as we need to give some critique there was one part that bothered me slightly:

“I’ll make you pay in blood,” the prime spat, “You -------- ---------- --------”


Why would you censor yourself like this? It really dropped the flow of the story. If the character uses swear words, go for it. This breaks the immersion for me personally. I understand its a choice for everyone personally, but i just don’t like it.

And then there is your crown piece...the big finale of the thread and your antagonist. The last time i read a bad guy of this caliber i was reading Alex’s top man book club story (damn you alex….this still hurts.)

Behemoth, what a character. The way he tortures Christa in an unconventional way is just brilliantly executed. Brainwashing, mental abuse, i love it.


“This game isn’t fun anymore,” Katia spoke in a monotone.

“I know sweetie, I came here to take you home,” Christa said, hesitant to reach out to her.

Now that part...that was both heartbreaking and chilling at the same time. Katia has endured so much….and having her say that sentence just…*sighs* Why can't they just have a happy ending?!

The last post… where she reaches out to a stranger for help as a last desperate attempt to survive gets the reader pumped. You know a new character will be involved and the plot will continue. Can't wait to see what will happen to Christa and Behemot.

[Daniel]

I'm leaving this open for another week so people can do it.

[Wyatt the Swift]

Sammy your posts are always good so thus I have no usefull comments to help you out with further storylines. However I can tell you what I think you did well.

You have a knack for memorable characters in your storyline. Everyone has a personality and makes an imprint. The captain in your story wasn't in it for long, however, he made a major contribution which enhanced the story greatfully. Also you have a knack for describing scenes. I know for a lot of writers the mind fuck with Behemoth would have been a difficult task that didn't confuse the readers, however, your flow made it easy to read and easy to follow. The interactions with your characters always build upon their relationship and there is no wasted words. The comments always build either to the story element, personal relationships, or some other humorous commentary. Behemoth also proved to be an interesting antagonist to your story. He seemed multidimensional and at one point, he and your sister reminded me of Slade and Terra from Teen Titans. He has motivations and depth and character and isn't 'generic bad guy".

Also as an aside, I wouldn't even have imagined that this was a secondary. You write her so in depth that I would think that she would be one of your primes that you had commited to if I hadn't seen that it had been on the Gildarts account. Overall kickass and keep posting.

[Sasuke Uchiha]

Phantoms in the Vasty Deep? Check yes for a bad ass first post! Who the f*ck is this guy? and what is gonna happen next? This is exactly what you want from a first post.


Not much here, save for some general advancing of the plot, but hey it's done well and we've finally made the beach. Woot.


I like how last post she was like, "I'd hate to summon someone and cause them pain" and this post she was like, "Oh well, fuck you, you're just scrap metal anyway." Lols, dumb robot.  We also got some real plot development as its revealed this is a kidnapping story. Oh snap. --Super cynical robot. BuzzKillington-O-Matic. Impromptu sex scene turns creepy. Yikes. A lot going on in here and it doesn't feel crammed at all. Kudos on that.


I felt for her when the house was burnt down and I appreciated the robot/news-clippings-obituary mechanic used here. Nicely done. Foreboding phone call and using a cast of characters. Check. Enter the captain! Love your description of him. That’s one thing I really appreciate about your work, you give vivid imagery. OMG, Captain McGee’s dialogue was the cherry on top of this post. Loved it!


Captain McGee adds a whimsical tone to this story that is super fun. I would have loved to taken Sasuke through this adventure!- Oh no, not Cap’ McGee! Man, I  understand kill your darlings, but that came efast. I wasn't ready haha


Not much here, just one of those setting transitions posts ya gotta get through. I liked the military experience bit in the beginning though and whooooo scuba diving!


TENSION BUILDING POST. Nicely done. Here we go, action starts next post!


BEHEMOTH!!! Oh snap. Hype.


Well, this is interesting, I did not see this coming. Behemoth is a creepy villain and I enjoyed how he turned the tables here. Wait, now he’s bargaining for a summon? This badguys deep.


Words cut deep. I feel for Chirsta.


WOW! Not gonna lie, I fell for the dream fight. You got me.


This guy is such a creep. It’s no wonder this Npc won the award. I’m eager to see how he has been a ‘mentor’


The finale is tragic ad kicks you right in the feels, but overall, worth the read. I loved this story and would give it the highest marks!

[Daniel]

Closing this Book Club, OM will be given out shortly.

OM Has been given out by Wyatt

Shantotto -300
Atelos-300
Yu Kanda -300
Sasuke-300