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"Crazy Tomas" By Hawk Richards (slice of sex life).
Dragon: 9,8,8
"Crazy Tomas" By Hawk Richards (hawkrich@ix.netcom.com). Reviewed by Crimson Dragon (dcrimson@yahoo.com) --- I'm torn about this story. In some ways I liked it, and in others I was left frustrated. Crazy Tomas is a bum, we've all seen them, and this story appears to be a quick glimpse into his life, complete with watching people on the street, bumping into a prostitute, and the subsequent actions that one might expect from such an encounter. I think that the author was trying to focus on Tomas and subtly expand upon his character. Tomas came across as realistic, while the rest of the city came across as more surreal. At least it did to me. Hawk does do a good job of creating imagery and atmosphere. I am guessing that this was the intent of the author - seeing the city through the eyes of Crazy Tomas. However, I was left a little frustrated, wanting to know more about his surroundings. For instance, his encounter with the prostitute was precipitated by him chasing, kindly I think, a grief stricken woman. The woman is described beautifully from a physical standpoint (and I don't mean 36-24-36), but we never do find out why the woman was crying, nor why Tomas was truly after her. We are left to guess and I suppose that it is realistic. The woman would hardly stop for the bum no matter how kind his intentions, especially if grief-stricken, but *I* still wanted to know why she was crying. It struck me as a waste to set that up and then not use it. A view settled a little more clearly inside his head about his motivations would have been nice. It kind of nagged at me, and distracted me a little from the rest of the story. There were a few other small details that I wanted expanded, like how he had enough money for the prostitute, why he wanted a prostitute in the first place and perhaps why he was out on the street. Given the intent, focus and short length of the story, I can live with not knowing. It didn't detract from the story that much. Hawk's physical descriptions of the people are full, though I wanted a better look at how the characters were driven. The writing is clean and readable. I was hooked early. I only noticed a couple of small mistakes in the English. But overall they were minor. It looks like a sentence was rewritten into a different view during proof-reading leaving a "she her" where there ought to have only been a "her". That one distracted me. A few other sentences had dropped words. And I believe that there is a difference between "scaring" and "scarring". Taken together, it wasn't enough to take more than a point off for. The small errors didn't distract me too much. At least it *was* proofed. It wouldn't take much work to bring the technical mark up to a 10. The sex wasn't remarkable, but it didn't have to be. It wasn't really overdone, and was appropriate for the encounter. Overall, I wanted to see a touch more character insight and detail. Perhaps a few more small details to explain some elements of the plot would have been nice. The prose was solid and well written, and interesting. Overall, I liked this story. If the characterisation was more solid, I would have gladly given this story higher appeal and character marks. I'm going to guess at what Celeste may have given this story. The appeal rating is entirely my own. Ratings for "Crazy Tomas": Athena (technical quality): 9 Venus (plot & character): 8 Crimson (appeal to reviewer): 8 |