[FFML] [C&C] "Lonely Souls"

[The Eternal Lost Lurker]

First off, I apologise to Fred Herriot for what I am about to say. It is
going to be blunt, and painful, but it is the truth.

Several years ago, when I first began reading this, I enjoyed it up to a
point, though the character bloat and the extended galactic politics were
always sticky points for me, detracting from the enjoyment of the story.

Several years later, several years wiser, and with more experience as a
reader and writer under my belt...

I realise what a massive clusterfuck train wreck this thing really is.

First of all, you have the entire ensemble cast from three different series
involved in this thing to some degree. That creates a titanic amount of
character bloat.

This is further complicated by the original author-created characters
imported from Fred's other UY fics (with no explanation for the unfamiliar
reader as to who the hell these people even ARE), as well as a massive pile
of characters created exclusive to THIS story. After a fashion, it becomes
completely impossible to keep the cast of millions in this story straight.

Now, on to the plot itself:

All the extended galactic politics, the
Ataru's-grandmother-was-a-whatever-she-was and Negako stuff, all of
this...it's an extremely complex and contrived way to facilitate the core
plot of the story. I really think it could've been done without all the
contrivances, and the whole galactic-politics mess of sideplots and asides
is just...really not necessary. It doesn't add anything to the story, it
detracts from it. Badly. Like I said, back when I was actually actively
reading this some years back, I stopped around part 10 or so because the
character bloat and incomprehensible alien story arcs made it impossible to
continue reading. Now, with several years more cynicism and critical reading
skill under my belt, the entire series is just...

I'm sorry, it's just really, really painful to try to slog through.

I will continue reading the drafts that have been posted to the FFML, purely
for the sake of pointing out technical errors. But I'm sorry to say that
this story is just...bad.

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This is a test of the Emergency Ass Dance System.
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The Eternal Lost Lurker
www.lurkerdrome.com