Comments on Gonzalo Hermenegildo by Charlie Fish
- Re: the ending. Came across as a summary, but I see I'm the only person to have problems with this piece, so I would take anything I've said lightly, and as just my opinion! I would have liked to have seen how this fucker died, watched him suffer, learn of the torment he went through, as a payback for the torment he bestowed on others. A bit of justice really. Either that or I just enjoy horrific scenes in story telling!
- This is a hell of a story. I'm really impressed with this. I really can't think of anything else to say. I liked how this read, smooth and easy.
- It was a bit 'telly' for me, didn't really have any emotion as such from the mother's POV, I was told how she felt, not shown. The bits about Herman Wotsit I tended to scan read, lost interest in those, but the bits about the mother I read properly. Not really my thing, so I'm not really the best person to have read this. No niggles presentation wise, which is always a bonus! Good writing style, just the theme isn't for me. P.S the horror of the oil thing didn't really come across to me either. I would have liked to have been horrified about that situation, whereas I just sort of thought, 'Oh shame...' which for me, is quite a harsh thing to think when so many people died. Usually this kind of thing would have left me in tears. Emotion! Emotion! That's what it's lacking!
- This was a great work of creativity.
- I've been trying to come up with an in-depth crit of this piece, but I am failing to find the words. Mostly I just want to know how true this story is. I looked up the name Gonzalo Hermenegildo and a bunch of stuff came up, but it was either in Spanish or it didn't seem to be about anything from this story. If this was all made up then this was a great story. If this was more in the way of a research paper, it was still good. Overall this was interesting and captivating. I did feel the mother's pain and anxiety, but I think I could have felt them more. That's just a matter of taste, though. It becomes a trade off between length and detail.
- Author's comment: I wrote this story in response to a challenge on an online writers' forum. The challenge was to write a story about "The Worst Person in the World". The coup really happened - its leader's real name was Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero Molina. And, tragically, the Toxic Oil Syndrome epidemic really happened. However there is no evidence to suggest that it was caused intentionally, hence why I changed the names of the characters involved for the sake of the story - I did not want to implicate Lt Col Tejero as the cause of the TOS epidemic (in fact it is extremely unlikely that there is any connection at all between the two events).
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