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"Gym Games" by Paul Potiki (antipodean shenanigans)
8, 9, 6/9
(Unretrievable)
"Gym Games" by Paul Potiki (guanolad@deepsouth.co.nz). Review by Sven the Elder (Sven@brass-neck.demon.co.uk). Since there is a dearth of story codes supplied, I'll insert them for the incipient readership. Following Uther's most excellent FAQ the title should, I believe, read: Gym Games (Mfffff ws), that at least would have allowed me to be a little less squicked than I was. Which will give away the fact that the story is a tad low on appeal to this reviewer. However - there has of late been an interesting discussion on assd of the merits and anti-merits of reviewing. In the last CR Celeste herself made some of her own views clear. As I have recently turned down the request to review several stories, I felt that I ought to at least try to be objective with this one. BTW the stories I gently refused were well outside my personal limits and I wrote a reasoned response as to why I did not wish to tackle them - not that that matters at all to review readers. I have in past reviews chatted gently about stories that we read on these ng's, and how I enjoy most of them, even if they don't particularly 'ring my bells'. My personal preference is for stories that you can believe in, be part of, if you like. Stories that weave tales, involve us in a little bit of the action. Stories that we might *want* to be part of. Gym Games troubles me. The scene is set, and set well in a school gym. We learn a little about the teacher, why he has to take the class in the normal PE teachers absence. Then the stragglers arrive and a rebellious lot they are to. Punishment is needed, but what to do? At this point further description would spoil the story, but I will say that if this were to happen in RL the teacher would be escorted from the premises so fast he would appear to be levitating. In my school days in the fifties and sixties (Bugger there goes any pretense of keeping *my* age discreet!) we had a teacher who 'interfered' with a male pupil - yes it *was* an English public school. The alleged incident occurred on a Saturday night, neither Master or Pupil was there on the Sunday morning. The dismissed Master left before dawn, the Pupil's parent drove through the night and removed him before breakfast. We never saw or heard about either of them again. Now there would be the most God Almighty court case as well. I note that the author has an e-mail address in New Zealand; I suspect that it would be little different there. So there we are then, now how to mark this tale of antipodean shenanigans? Well the story is technically acceptable. My spell checker, with the a.s.s. asbestos dictionary loaded, passed all without comment - Oh BTW a 'perq' is spelt 'perk' - but, well, who's counting for just one error. Grammar and construction caused me no grief, so as nothing was other than as it should be, with no exceptional bits to raise above - we go for an eight in this section. For plot and character I have to say that the scene and build-up were well set; it may have been a long time since I was in a school gymnasium, but this brought back memories. The characters of the main protagonists were well drawn and were good character sketches. A nine for this section then. *Now* we come to the contentious one, how did *I* like and rate the story. As it went I enjoyed it; yes squicked a bit by the ending, but that is neither the first nor will it be the last time on this ng place the last mark? Billy(G) set a precedent recently by putting two marks for this section, one for his own appreciation and one as to how he *suspected* people who liked the genre *might* view it. Although it is outside of Celeste's methods I think I might well continue that thought. My own appeal was low, being generous at six - I did quite enjoy it up towards that ending. For a watersports lover the story has, I believe, most all that they might want and would make a nine. Ratings for "Gym Games" Technical quality: 8 Plot & character: 9 Sven (appeal to reviewer): 6 / 9 |