Book Critiques: Fallout: Hair Trigger · 8:30am Jan 10th, 2014
Book- Fallout: Hair Trigger
Author- Hawkshadow
Genres- Dark, Crossover, Adventure, Human
Demographic: Mature
First off, let it be known that I have never played any games from the "Fallout" series. That being said, I cannot remark upon the accuracy (or lack thereof) regarding the usage of the multitude of weapons and equipment utilized in this fic. However, I have noticed that stars, (*) have been placed next to several of these devices. As a reader, I have no way of discerning what this means. I believe it may have something to do with their involvement with modified content, or mods, (which he explicitly mentions beforehand) but that is merely an assumption. Please clarify the reason for this. However, I am familiar enough with the landscape and premise of the games to understand what is going on clearly enough to understand the pre-Equestria sections of your fic.
The story itself starts off with the protagonist, aptly named Sterling Blade, reminiscing about several conflicts he has had with the mutated creatures that now litter the Mojave Desert. The situations are clearly defined as predicaments of indescribable danger, doing much good work to bolster the claims of the armor and weaponry being quite a tier higher than your average military garb. A complete understanding of the weaponry is not necessary to comprehend the situations that they are relevant to, as a short and somewhat intentionally vague descriptions are provided for each item. On the flip side, it can be challenging at times to understand the nuances of these devices, as the reading is obviously geared toward someone with an understanding of the series, and often times I am left struggling to imagine what these items even look like. The character himself is also a point of extreme confusion, as he is only glossed through vaguely before he gets right to kicking ass with his superhuman mech suit.
Something else that I am not particularly fond of, is that the character's name is already selected in the style of MLP. Though it can be attributed to artistic license, It should at least be acknowledged that his name is highly unusual, especially for a human.
The way that he is transported to Equestria is so far unknown, but there are spikes in radiation that his equipment detects, and I must admit, this adds a rather scientific dynamic to the situation. Hopefully the process is elaborated on later. Why he was transported is yet to be revealed, though in the meantime, he has a pretty epic battle with a manticore, which results in both parties being injured, but Sterling taking the win. Multicolored blood has been splattered everywhere, and Sterling is mortally wounded, left off attempting to treat himself after being pierced in the chest with the manticore's giant stinger.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders witness the brutal scene of bloodshed and death, yet seem unfazed as they stare into Sterlings eye's as he loses consciousness.
The characters from the show seem to be portrayed accurately, though they have only recieved a few lines of dialogue each, but once again, I am not sure how the three fillies handled the profuse amount of blood and guts that had been spilled from the manticore moments earlier. The protagonist himself has so far experienced very little developement, and as a result, I'm unsure how he will react to Equestria, considering he... Well, jumped dimensions.
I know I can't be too picky as far as developement, considering there is, as of right now, only one chapter, but I have faith that Hawkshadow will update the story recently.
Now it is time for a score!
My score: 78/100
Public score: N/A. (One will be awarded once users post their ratings of the stories in the comment section of this review)
For those planning on reading the story,
Here is the Link
First I'd like to say thank you for taking the time to do this Critique. Now you wanted some clarifications and I'll give you those clarifications. The stars * next to certain devices do indeed indicate their relation to mods, a few other points of note is that I took a bit of Artistic License in describing how certain things worked as they were never given true indepth descriptions of how they actually work.
Sterling Blade's name, I'm honestly surprised you're only the second person to mention that it was in the naming style of the show(the first being my prereader and editor Keyan88) which was done intentionally. While it might be unusual there are a good few unusual names for humans throughout the Fallout game series(a couple of examples would be Three Dog and Sunny Smiles from Fallout 3 and New Vegas respectively)
There will be a good bit of rectification in chapter 1 regarding the CMC's reaction to, or lack there of, the blood and guts.
I'm truly surprised that you gave the story a 78/100, I thought it would get a lower grade than that.
Anyway, once again thank you for the critique, hope to do it again sometime(hopefully when I'm a few more chapters in). With your permission I'd like to post a copy of this critique(or a link to it) on the Fallout: Hair Trigger facebook page.
Until next time,
Hawkshadow
1703294
Absolutely! It was a pleasure to read the story, and regarding permission to post the review, by all means, yes. You don't have to put a link in the page, but I certainly would appreciate it! I'm quite interested to see where this story goes, but in the meantime, I will try to study up on my general knowledge of the Fallout series.
Happy Writing!
-Delta
1705060 hehe, you to.