Contest April-May 2022 Short Story Contest Voting and Reading Thread

With a little under two weeks to go there is a close top three going on!

Grrr, Imrahil

 

Review time. Spoilers ahead so read the stories first and then come back to this.

Story 1 Late to Mature: This one almost reminds me of a Don Bluth animated film. Thalluk voiced by Dom Delouise, Varrun voiced by someone surly yet classy, maybe Malcolm McDowell, or Jeremy Irons. We don't know what they look like at first, but they have very distinct personalities and voices. Then we cut to the classroom, and the professor has a bit of short fuse, especially when being interrupted by the ever curious Lit'Qui. We switch between these two story lines until they converge unconventionally. This story has great comedic timing, and a very satisfying arc. Author Prediction: @thedarkfourth watched Don Bluth Films and then wrote this.

Story 2 The World of Skink Chief McBragg: Spine of Sotek Mountain:
The characters are based off an old cartoon, but this doesn't stop it from feeling fresh. It starts out with a great joke, and somehow gets better and funnier from there. Not only is it a great parody, it's a great story. A gripping adventure, that may or may not be completely made up by commander... er Chief McBragg. Absolutely incredible.
Author prediction: @thedarkfourth watched some old cartoons and wrote this one.

Story 3 Faded Gods: If I had to guess an author, I would say someone broke out the ouija board and summoned the ghost of H.P. Lovecraft to write this, then trimmed it down to an appropriate size. Amazingly well written. We can feel the insanity growing within Heissman. We get the chills as we watch the story of the Universe unfold until Sotek is revealed. One of the best short horror stories I have read.
Author prediction: @thedarkfourth read some Lovecraft and wrote this one.

Story 4 The New One:
Wait, did the fluff get fixed to make the transition to AOS make a bit more sense, and give a plausible alternative to what Lustriapedia refers to as

Interesting take on the disappearance of the Old ones and the Emergence of the Chaos Gods. The transformation of the old ones is like something out of "Princess Mononoke" when the boar god becomes a demon. Also I do enjoy the fact that @NIGHTBRINGER voted for an AOS story. That's a win as far as I can tell!
Author prediction: @thedarkfourth watched Princess Mononoke and wrote this one.

Story 5 The Hooded One:
For this review, let's turn to a Famed Blood Bowl Player from the Chaos Dwarf Team the Hellish Cow-Boys, Ikkred Fire-Hat. Absolutely a Chaos Dwarf and not a Rat disguised in a fake beard and large hat.

"When I stole-borrowed the 7th season playbook from the Hellpittsburg Squealers... not that I was a player who got run out of town for betting-gambling on the other team and throwing the game-match, and had to disguise myself to get out alive. I have always been a beardy-squat. Anyways, when I stole that playbook, they had some inspirational speech-talk about the Doom of Kavzar. It was eerily similar-near to this story. It was still extremely chilling-unsettling as the Doom of Kavzar. One of my favorites in the whole competition.

Why did I do that? Seriously though, amazing, and I did get the same chills as when I first read the Doom of Kavzar. A brilliant story, sequel, and homage.

The author is clearly @thedarkfourth after reading the 7th edition Skaven army book.

Story 6 The Messenger:
This one has some of the best lines in the entire contest. The tone of the beginning has a bit of comedy as the skinks are fainting and dying on the spot at the arrival of the old one. I immediately got this image just in skink form:

But then it gets real, as the old ones have altered the plan. Pray they do not alter them further. This gets the slann motivated to take action against the old ones in a brilliant twist. Honestly amazing story.
Author prediction: @thedarkfourth after watching The Empire Strikes Back.

Story 7 The Voyage:
Here we have a bold choice to bring the Lizardmen into the 41st millennium. The suspense here is incredible. The timing of this story is so on point you could cut yourself with it. This should be the start of an entire series honestly. Space Lizards versus Necrons? Absolutely brilliant. I would read every bit of it. I feel like there's a game or movie inspiration that I am missing, but I am going to go out on a limb and say the author is @thedarkfourth after watching the Lovely Bones.

Anyways the real review is these are all amazing and I would have liked to vote for all of them. Except the one I wrote. Which is clearly none of them.

 

No problem!
For additional clarity my votes went to 5 and 7. That was a hard fought battle. Sincerely one of the most difficult times I had voting for a contest.

 

Thanks mate, very nice review. Loved reading all of them.

Grrr, Imrahil

 

I can't believe you guessed which one was mine!

 

I knew it all along! You have at least 7 very distinctive writing styles

 

Oh wow...

This is going to be a close one!

 

Wow it will be indeed.
Very interesting!

Grrr, Imrahil

 

With 4 more voters we could have 6- 5s and a 4. As it stands this is still incredibly close.

 

Really good to see so many votes and what a nail-biter it is.
Some more reviews anybody?

Grrr, Imrahil

 

Just two stories in the lead right now! Exciting final couple of days it will be.

Grrr, Imrahil

 

Is my math correct? We have 15 voters so far?

 

15 voters is correct, with 1 person only voting for 1 instead of 2. If only there had been one more mention of Hashut!