HazMat Contest Reviews #6: Non-Linear Ball · 1:07pm Oct 2nd, 2015
This was really the most complicated story to review, in all honesty. It was mentioned in the contest results that there was some debate surrounding this story, and a lot of that was due to the fact that this was the hardest story for me to sit through, but also the story I appreciated the most. It's quite a difficult thing to attempt something as ambitious as this story and not at least garner a nod of approval from me, especially considering one of the qualities I value most is ambition.
The story is complex in what it's trying to get across. It includes ideas on how a time-travelling ball might work, as well as seeing it go wrong, include paradoxes and all other manner of time-travel related shenanigans.
On the other hand, each segment didn't really follow into the next... not directly, at least. It was a story that demanded tremendous effort to piece together, especially near the beginning. Where other stories almost encouraged the reader to check out the following chapter, this one nearly dissuaded. This was made worse by the somewhat straightforward and quickly paced writing, which, had it been slower, might have helped me along a bit.
That's not to say it's not rewarding for reading through: I rather enjoyed the ending and the set-up was certainly enjoyable. The intellectual challenge of getting time-travel to work was fun and intriguing. Twilight was portrayed well and her newest friend was an interesting concept to explore (especially when you get to the end). Given time and effort, this is one of the more rewarding stories in the contest, which is why it achieved second place.
It also achieved second place because I feel that all that ambition and all those ideas could have been made more accessible to everyone, which I think it'd have needed to have truly worked. It's a flawed and ambitious project that many people can enjoy, but that many more won't sink the effort into enjoying. Which is why it's very hard to recommend this story whilst acknowledging the problems we had with it.
I'm going to try nonetheless: give the story a read, and do your best to piece together the puzzle.
