Date: January 20 2019 5:33 AM Title: Iennu
Really lovely work. I almost don’t really have anything else to say, really. It’s surprising to see a good, short, character-driven PG gentle/fantasy show up here, and very pleasant.
Author's Response:
Thank you so much for the review. It means a lot to get feedback from someone much more experienced. I've been slowly reading through "Julia" and really like it.
Date: January 19 2019 1:59 PM Title: Iennu
This is really excellent writing. You did a great job world building with lots of little touches that paint a picture of this interstellar society. And you make the reader care about and empathize with the characters. I've felt the kind of futility and frustration that they're going through. It's really sad that Kostas was finally picked up by the object of his affection and never even knew it. I was hoping these two lonely people would become friends by the end of this but I guess that's not to be. In any case, great story!
Author's Response:
Thanks very much for the review!
I started to feel conflicted about the ending as I was writing, and I did consider trying to change it to something less bleak, but I concluded I couldn't make a happy ending work. It would have been a complete departure from the original inspirations, for one thing. A minor idea that I considered, but discarded, was to drop more hints that his dream of being carried at the end was a real memory and not a dream. For example having him notice some minor detail about her appearance, like eye color, being different from previous dreams. I decided that would be too blatant, but I'm wondering whether that was the right call; I was too focused on how many hints I was leaving for the reader and wasn't thinking about leaving hints for the character.