Hmmm - PPC Posting Board

If you can stomach the Inheritance Cycle... by Voyd on 2013-08-03 21:24:00 UTC Reply

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8278587/1/When-the-World-Forgets

Does this look like a Sue? It's a fell-into-the-book story, apparently takes place 30 years after the conclusion of Inheritance.

A few things I've noticed in the first chapter:

1) Bad SPaG. Right in the first sentence: "Sometimes I forget about the power is possess."

2) We seem to be forgetting that Vroengard is IRRADIATED. Has been for a century, probably always will be.

2a) Eragon isn't training the new Riders on Vroengard anyway. He left Alagaësia and will never return.

3) The first-person narrator is unfamiliar with the canon. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

4) The narrator is also amnesiac, and can't remember her name. Also, slight case of speshul naming, since Eragon wouldn't name anyone Skye. He'd probably call her whatever the Ancient Language word for "sky" is, if I'm following the logic used.

4.5) Not really a bad thing or good thing, but I notice a lot of parrot exposition going on here. Metal Gear?

5) Eragon can't see the future. Only Angela can.

So, we've got canon inaccuracy, but SPaG, forgetting that a large island is lethal just to be on, a possible Sue, and a Dragon Rider because obviously that's where this was going.

Hmmm by Elcalion on 2013-08-04 00:03:00 UTC Reply

I just read the first chapter. There's some undoubtedly-bad writing there (the sentence fragments, they burn!) and a few breaks with canon (Vroengard etc) but my overall impression (admittedly from one chapter) is that it's perhaps not bad enough to be PPC-worthy.

Remember that we aim to only spork fics that are undisputedly-bad, and that when picking a fic to be sporked you should be thinking "will this be funny if I spork it?".

This is especially timely with the discussion down the Board sparked by Polite Dissent - the fact that a fic has some inaccuracies or deviates from canon does not automatically mean the PPC comes in and smacks it down. We take on fics that are undisputedly bad, and which will be amusing when sporked.

Just having bad SPaG, or a few breaks of canon, or being a girl-falls-into-Alagaesia story is not really enough to justify going to the effort of sporking it, IMHO - a mediocre fic that is just generally bad but not amusingly bad is unlikely to be an entertaining PPC mission.

Elcalion, kinda-ashamed to admit he's read the entire Inheritance Cycle.

My thoughts exactly. by Lenore Snow on 2013-08-04 15:51:00 UTC Reply

There are canon breaks, most definitely, and pretty major ones at that. There are technical errors here and there. The MC is bland, and the plot is cliché. But I don't think it qualifies as badfic. I read about three chapters in, and while thoroughly mediocre, it's definitely not spork-worthy, and I've written worse things in past years. :D
This seems like the writing of an improving author, not a true Suethor or badfic writer. I agree with Elcalion; I don't think this is PPC material.

-- Len, completely unashamed to have read the entire Inheritance Cycle.