My first thought was that this would make an excellent radio show/pod fic. It is 90% dialogue, yet clues are still passed around without the need of overwhelming quantity of information as in some detective novels.
At first I thought the scarcity of information and the presentation that makes us know only what Looker knows would prevent the reader from searching and deducing alongside the detective, as I'm more used to the kind where a bunch of information was thrown to the reader's face and we have to search in that pile with the characters and make our own hypothesis and only know at the reveal if our guesses are right. This story here doesn't have the search part because the reader only knows what Looker knows, yet managed to keep the possibility to let the reader deduce alongside Looker and wait for the reveal. And like a good noir, the story doesn't end at the reveal like an armchair detective story, but treat us a whole page of action. Good job. That was good execution.
Surge is less arrogant and hard than I thought. Here he is almost boyish. Doesn't matter, characters change personality all the time when in different canon. Plus Looker got more serious, so it was a nice balance to make Surge less serious.
I do have to complain about the style a little. Sometimes it feels too cliche and spoonfeeding. Just parts though, not the whole text. And not enough different stimuli. In a noir I expect to smell cigarette and alcohol, blood and dust, feel the rain falling on my body and the chill that slowly licks my skin, taste the blood in the mouth when beaten and etc. etc. This fic did have moments like these, like the battle against the arbok in part 6, but still could do with more.
I find it interesting that instead of having a beautiful dame following the detective like most noir, it's Surge filling in that job and instead act as some kind of buddy cop. Good variation.
I made a mess out of the comment again. Anyway, good job working on a relatively obscure NPC and make it work. I gave the imaginary cakes away already, so have some imaginary donuts.
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Date: 2011-11-07 04:18 pm (UTC)At first I thought the scarcity of information and the presentation that makes us know only what Looker knows would prevent the reader from searching and deducing alongside the detective, as I'm more used to the kind where a bunch of information was thrown to the reader's face and we have to search in that pile with the characters and make our own hypothesis and only know at the reveal if our guesses are right. This story here doesn't have the search part because the reader only knows what Looker knows, yet managed to keep the possibility to let the reader deduce alongside Looker and wait for the reveal. And like a good noir, the story doesn't end at the reveal like an armchair detective story, but treat us a whole page of action. Good job. That was good execution.
Surge is less arrogant and hard than I thought. Here he is almost boyish. Doesn't matter, characters change personality all the time when in different canon. Plus Looker got more serious, so it was a nice balance to make Surge less serious.
I do have to complain about the style a little. Sometimes it feels too cliche and spoonfeeding. Just parts though, not the whole text. And not enough different stimuli. In a noir I expect to smell cigarette and alcohol, blood and dust, feel the rain falling on my body and the chill that slowly licks my skin, taste the blood in the mouth when beaten and etc. etc. This fic did have moments like these, like the battle against the arbok in part 6, but still could do with more.
I find it interesting that instead of having a beautiful dame following the detective like most noir, it's Surge filling in that job and instead act as some kind of buddy cop. Good variation.
I made a mess out of the comment again. Anyway, good job working on a relatively obscure NPC and make it work. I gave the imaginary cakes away already, so have some imaginary donuts.