Mike > Recent Status Updates

This is really good, and feels thoroughly researched (the author started out as a nonfiction writer). Which makes it all the more odd that a family of aristocrats gets an impossible combination of styles: the father is a Sir, so probably a baronet, but the son is the Honourable and the daughter is Lady, indicating that the father must be an earl (the only rank where the daughters are Lady but the sons are not Lord).

I've bounced off this once before. It's a complex world, wordily described (which takes some of the zing out of the action scenes, at least so far). Let's see if I can get through it on a second attempt.

Obviously scanned from the 1993 print book; there are some clear OCR errors, like "docks" for "clocks".

Whisky is retconned to brandy, and the map doesn't match up in distances to the narrative, but there are few other flaws to find. The odd extra comma between adjectives, or, a couple of times, between adjective and noun. One misplaced apostrophe.

I think I may have guessed the murderer and how they did it, though not why. Let's see if I'm right.

Not completely missing the past perfect tense, just doesn't have it as often as it should. And a couple of common vocab errors. Otherwise, not badly edited. It's what could turn out to be an awkward mix of cosy and dystopian; we'll see.

Clearly set in the Harry Potter universe, without authorization (I assume), and risking an easily avoided lawyer's letter.

Multiple chapters should begin with the word "the," but oddly do not.

And the archivist has a big flashing neon sign above his head that says "Enemies to Lovers."

Well edited so far, but with one glaring exception: excess commas between adjectives. I counted 40 in the first 10% of the book. Most authors slip in a few, but this is just dire. "Single," for instance, never needs a comma after it.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to stick with the codependent emotional disaster zone that is the protagonist. She's still refusing the call, and totally surrounded by people who don't listen to her, which she treats as normal. It's heavy going.

Well, Grey Mask was disappointing. Multiple plot-essential coincidences, three Convenient Eavesdrops, villain both discovered and foiled without direct input from Miss Silver (though she was some use), and obvious cribbing from earlier writers. If The Case is Closed doesn't markedly improve on the first book, I'm out.

Margot may be the silliest young woman in English literature. Which is quite a record.

This is reminding me very much of The Black Star (1910). Criminal conspiracy, led by a masked figure, ordinary people manipulated into being part of it, known by numbers.

This is one of those books which convey the impression that London is a small village with a population of about two dozen people, based on how frequently the characters cross paths by pure random chance. And we've already had two Convenient Eavesdrops. Otherwise, it's well written, but those are two of my least favorite things.

Everyone is Very! Dramatically! Regretting their Life Choices!

There are three kinds of novellas. Over-padded short stories; underdeveloped novels; and stories that naturally fit exactly into that length. The third kind are rarest. Not sure which one this is yet.

Its main editing fault so far is "let's eat Grandma".

The cruelty of the prolog nearly put me off, but we shall see how it progresses. Reasonably well written, just needs more (and more correct) past perfect tense.

I haven't yet encountered any hilarity or wittiness to speak of, or much coziness, but it's OK.

This is exactly the swashbuckling adventure story that I expected, and it's great. I can totally see Douglas Fairbanks playing the role. Zorro is a prototype superhero: mask, milquetoast secret identity (it's utterly obvious), playing two sides of a love triangle in his two personas, vigilante, melodramatic, thrilling escapes from deadly foes.

His mask, unlike the films, covers his mouth.

The problem with this one for me is that instead of a carefully-worked-out premise driving the plot, the worldbuilding is distorted into whatever it has to be for the plot to happen, even when that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And somehow I'm not as emotionally engaged as I think I'm supposed to be either.

Premise, typical of the time (1918): A wealthy American in his mid-30s who has "never looked twice at a woman" falls instantly in love with a woman he meets when embarking from England to return to New York, and by the time they have crossed the Atlantic she has agreed to marry him. The honeymoon... goes badly. Not (at least as far as I have reached) for the reasons you might think, but because of external factors.

This is short, but so far good. Liam is a decent guy, which is not always the case with LitRPG MCs, and while there are some very basic errors (dialog tags punctuated as separate sentences, no comma before term of address, a few vocabulary glitches and some sloppy typing), by the standards of the genre it's not bad at all.

I strongly suspect this will be too dark for me. But giving it a go anyway.

I will be astonished if this doesn't get my "plot-relies-on-coincidence" tag, and it will probably get "thin-romance" as well. (The MC has fallen instantly in love with a woman he knows nothing about, and she has given him a task which I am 100% confident is a con job on her part, and if she isn't tied up with the mysterious murder that he witnessed by complete coincidence at the start of the book, I'll be amazed.)

Why is it that authors of superhero novels so rarely have a good grasp of basic mechanics, like tense?

It's a decent story so far, but I do miss the past perfect tense - frequently.

Reminding me of Sir Hereward and Mr Fitz. Not really noblebright, but not grimdark; noblegrimy? Sword & sorcery world, in which things often go badly, indeed tragically; morally grey protagonist; but she draws the line at permitting the death of innocents if she can prevent it. And she's wryly funny.

So far, well edited except for some vocabulary issues (discrete/discreet and a couple of others) and a dangling modifier.

All the usual mechanical issues; could be worse, should be better. Simplistically told. Not gripping me too hard, and I may well drop it.

Terrific so far. Jane is exactly the kind of determined, brave, capable young woman that I love to read about; fools hate her, because they can tell she's not suffering them gladly; and the setup is brilliant, with Jane, broke and homeless, deciding to impersonate her cousin in a dangerous situation that could lead to her murder if she slips up, because at least she'll get meals and a roof over her head.

I've only just begun to possibly have an inkling of the solution to the mystery at 70%. This is a good thing.

Partway through the first story; the narrative is all over the place, and the narratorial voice is being very, very racist.

The plot doesn't make a lick of sense, and is driven by coincidence, accident, poor planning and the malicious acts of rivals.