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A review by aix83
Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists by Adrian Collins
2.0
This short was the first story in the Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists collection. But the protags are presented as the bad guys although it's an informed attribute. They're said to be demons and kind of go around with scorpions on their bodies but they don't do anything evil. Evil is when you do evil, not when you're a bit unshaved and your shoes don't match. It's also not when you walk around thinking "uh, I'm so evil, look at me how evil I am", which is the vibe you get from the MC in the opening.
Whatever, maybe it just shouldn't have been in that collection.
The dialogue is talking heads interspersed with descriptions of the magic in action but no character grounding. It's also plotless, just a slice of life story set in this alternate earth with magic. It wasn't immersive and I didn't root for the characters, it was hard to tell them apart because they didn't do anything special. The story is either an excerpt from a book or a character study.
The magic system looked kind of interesting but the story didn't do anything cool with it and so it didn't save it.
Merged review:
A lot of pretty generic worldbuilding, a lot of description of things that look blandly nice but fail to pique interest, and not a lot of action, unless you count fight scenes thrown in for excitement as action - they are action, but they're not plot. I think it's supposed to be a major plot reveal that the character is looking for her dog but it's anticlimactic. Also the character hugs the dog "to her breasts" at the end of the story, which reeks of het male writer. Many writers don't seem to understand what a short story is. This was a long, slogging slice of life without much going on.
Whatever, maybe it just shouldn't have been in that collection.
The dialogue is talking heads interspersed with descriptions of the magic in action but no character grounding. It's also plotless, just a slice of life story set in this alternate earth with magic. It wasn't immersive and I didn't root for the characters, it was hard to tell them apart because they didn't do anything special. The story is either an excerpt from a book or a character study.
The magic system looked kind of interesting but the story didn't do anything cool with it and so it didn't save it.
Merged review:
A lot of pretty generic worldbuilding, a lot of description of things that look blandly nice but fail to pique interest, and not a lot of action, unless you count fight scenes thrown in for excitement as action - they are action, but they're not plot. I think it's supposed to be a major plot reveal that the character is looking for her dog but it's anticlimactic. Also the character hugs the dog "to her breasts" at the end of the story, which reeks of het male writer. Many writers don't seem to understand what a short story is. This was a long, slogging slice of life without much going on.