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"The Stranger" by Ruthless (chaos & rape) 10, 9, 10
"The Stranger" by Ruthless (Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca). Guest review by Fiddler. One should probably start this review by noting that the story is not for the squeamish. The man Fitz and the boy Starling are managing to survive in a city involved in a complex and unexplained conflict. The city is shelled intermittently by some regular military but also patrolled by an irregular, and trigger-happy, "Militia." The story starts as the two of them are searching for plunder after the last shelling. They find Barbara unconscious and drag her back to their lair. Fitz strips and rapes her, serendipitously awaking her from unconsciousness as he does so. The story gets harsher from there. The background of the story seemed grittily realistic as I read it, although one could blow it apart if one didn't want to suspend disbelief. The behavior of the characters seems consistent with the chaos of their surroundings. I wouldn't like to live in Ruthless's mind, much less his fictional city; but he conveys the feel of it quite well. Reviewer's warning: I read this story on Dejanews; what I read had a gap of one quoted sentence. If this is in the story as actual posted, rather than being an artifact of the reading method, reduce the Athena score by one point. Ratings for "The Stranger" Athena (technical quality): 10 Venus (plot & character): 9 Fiddler (appeal to this reviewer): 10 |