I really like this. The scenario seems simplistic at first but the writing is good enough to make it compelling to read.

Looking at the reviews is interesting too. I'm not well-versed in moe so maybe a true yandere is different, but characters of Melanie's type in movies or books usually have a mix of malice, allure, and pathos, so that the protagonist and the audience are conflicted between attraction or sympathy on the one hand and fear and revulsion on the other. A lot of the appeal comes from that tension.

In this story, though, Melanie is written as unattractive (not once is Adrian or anyone else even slightly drawn to her) and as an unsympathetic bully (except for a few moments like at the mall).

This isn't a criticism, since I'm sure that's exactly the way you intended to write her. It's just speculation about why some people might dislike this while still liking other things with just as much darkness and depravity in them.

This is great stuff. I like how you've been able to make a scenario where just about anything can happen while still keeping it focused on relatable characters, so that it feels grounded. Also how most of the chapters have included hints or foreshadowing that there are other shoes yet to drop, which is important to keep it from getting stale. (I didn't care for the gym class chapter as much as the others, partly because the scenario wasn't really my thing and also because it lacked that feeling of unfolding mystery.)

The off-handed mention that she's held the Earth in her hands "a few times" is a nice demonstration that sometimes telling is more effective than showing.

Glad to see this return. Really good chapter.

Thanks for posting this. I read it on DA and wanted to leave positive feedback, but since I don't have a DA account I couldn't.

This is really well done. The main character and the world she lives in are fleshed out so that they don't revolve entirely around the size issue. It makes the size difference more affecting when it's put in context with other things going on. And the prose is consistently good; there are spots where it could use more proofreading but it never becomes distracting.

Finally, I especially appreciated this because I found it remarkably similar to a story I've been trying to write a long time…

Wow. What a wonderful surprise to see a followup to Maze; even though the original has been around a long time, I first read it just a couple months ago and it left a strong impression.

I'll write some thoughts on Maze first. What I really enjoyed about it was the titular maze and Molly and Mike's (M&M's?) cooperation in getting through it. There are a few stories out there featuring large and small people having to work together to get through some kind of deadly obstacle course like this, but Maze does it better than any other I've read. It helps a lot that they are already comrades who are used to working together instead of strangers, and that there's a larger context where they're grounded and on the run. I liked the tossing scene, and I see that made its way into the follow-up, too. I also liked when she's tied up and he has to cut her free.

I also liked how Molly's scale was given out indirectly at the beginning. If I remember right, the first indication was a sentence that matter-of-factly gave the caliber of her handgun, and it was a figure you'd expect to see on an artillery piece or a battleship deck gun.

What I liked less was what came later. Molly's rampage on the bad-guy aliens felt too contrived and out-of-character, and wasn't really the kind of destruction I like. It was also hard to take the bad guys seriously since they were given no background (was the name "Dabesi" created by taking an anagram of "baddies" and subtracting one 'd'?) and were slaughtered so easily.

The ending with the portal felt drawn-out and confusing. There was a lot of description of the spatial layout, but I never really understood it. I had a similar problem with the space elevator construction site in the follow-up.

On to Hollowed Ground. I liked almost everything about it. In particular, everything Molly does in the flashbacks is great (picking at a tree "like it was a daisy", unexpectedly picking Mike up from the bottom of the ravine, etc). The amount of exposition seemed just right to me, and the pacing felt just right, too. The scenes all had enough room to breath, but also none of them overstayed their welcome.

I liked the illustrations, too. In particular the one of Rihanna in the old city was great.

I will say I was a bit disappointed by the ending. The sudden revelation that Mike has such one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable value that he can get anything he wants out of the government(s), plus a faction of independent AIs personally loyal to him, feels like a cop-out. And I would have liked to have seen Molly's point of view at the end; the ending leaves her ultimate feelings about Rihanna and Mike's past (and how much about it she learns or doesn't) unclear.

Thanks for the review! I do have a couple of other ideas outlined, but I'm not sure when I'll fully write them out.

Nice. Reminds me of a twist on Larry Niven's short story "Passerby" (or something like that), where a titanic golden man rescues a human spaceship in distress. Whether you had that in mind or it's a coincidence, I appreciate it. Always great to read something that goes for building cosmic terror (as an aside for anyone unfamiliar, the story I mentioned is very much cosmic terror also despite being superficially a "gentle" scenario -- the terror is in the implications about humanity's place in the universe).

Author's Response:

Why thank you! I enjoy going for that angle personally when it comes to cosmic since I mean, the scales are so vast that such a being would be a cosmic terror after all. I'm not familiar with the story, but I looked it up and found that it was part of the collection. I'll add it to my read list, thanks!