Title: The Hill of Swords
Author: gabriel blessing
Rating: M
Genre: Fantasy
Pairing: None yet
Chapters: 23
Words: 356,642
Updated: November 17, 2010
Published: July 18, 2010
Status: Complete
Summary: When Louise Valliere performed her summons for her familiar, she certainly didn't expect for it to be a human! Strangely enough, the boy she summoned, Emiya Shirou, didn't expect to get summoned so soon. He hadn't even died yet!
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6154638/1/The_Hill_of_Swords

A pretty awesome new story, with a surprisingly fast update rate, that features Shirou instead Saito. There's less of the slapstic comedy, which is always a plus.

Shirou though is quite overpowersd compared to other characters, what with the Tracing of NP, plus the runes. But more importance has been given to character interaction which might be changing now with the war in recent chapters.

Personally I rate this story 5/5 so I recommend everyone to give it a try.


Checked by Minion, Nov. 25, 2012

 

Interesting, I've never read (or watched?) familiar of zero before but despite that found myself interested in the story and characters. I also rather enjoyed Shirou's character, it reminded me of HK47 with all the offers to assassinate people.

 

Honestly, this is one of those storys that you're probably going to hate the more you actually know about the game.

There are a number of things that are bothersome, but the most important is what they do to Shirou, and the authors lack of understanding of Fate/Stay Nights Universe and Magic System.

Which is, for example, why I hate it.

You'll probably enjoy the story if you know nothing of the game, though.

1/5

 

Ryuugi is right, although my biggest issue is I can figure out if this is suppose to be UBW Shirou or an Archer from some off-shoot of the Fate route.

2/5 Decent idea, but not the best execution... could be much worse though.

 

Like Ryuugi and Chaos said, the more you know about Fate, the more you'll dislike this story.

1/5

 

[WIP] The Hill of Swords - M

Critic~
I stumbled upon this little gem whilst browsing through the favorites of some author that I cant recall and was pleasantly surprised. I read the whole thing in one sitting.

Knowing absolutely nothing about Familiar of Zero, I'm not exactly sure if the author is just following the same storyline except with Shirou in it instead of the supposed protagonist yet I was able to follow the flow of the story smoothly. The new storyline (or Familiar of Zero's storyline?) was a refreshing change from all the other same crap I've read in recent memory.

The story itself was able to capture Shirou accurately (in my opinion especially when the author explained what version and maturity (?) of Shirou we're dealing with here) and a tad-bit overpowered. Shirou is Shirou though, who wouldn't want him overpowered? I'm still a bit confused on what route our protagonist originated from since I got inkling of both Fate and UBW, but i guess the Author has some liberties he can use....

Another thing to point out is that the author was able to explain adequately (and a bit more) about the theoretical aspect of the magic that both worlds posses. I also loved the ending on each chapter, It's just awesome.

As for grammar and style, I haven't noticed blaring errors (but i wasn't really looking for them anyway) and the fic is written in first-person.

Overall, I would rate it probably at about 3.5 - 4 out of 5. Its a good light humorous fic.

P.S. The Lurker comes out of the shadow! (me)

 

Merged with existing thread.

 

I think some of you are being too critical of this story. It's one of the three Fate/stay night crossovers that are actually readable (the other two being on this site). Now I have to admit that I have no knowledge/experience with the anime or visual novel at all. However I think it's pretty good for what it is; the flow of the work makes it easy enough to read and I don't find any errors jarring enough to disturb my enjoyment.

Maybe if I knew more about the Universe I would find some elements entirely incongruous, but to me, it's fanfiction and a crossover, so I think you guys should cut it some slack in that regard.

TL;DR
I liked it. 4/5

 

For all of my initial dislikes about this story, the last few chapters have actually been really good. I'm enjoying the character development and I'm actually really enjoying this stories version of the Zero no Tsukaima characters.

At the moment a solid 4/5 maybe even leaning towards a 4.5/5 if the next few chapters continue to be as entertaining as the last few.

 

Eh, he seems to fit it relatively well with the other nasuverse stuff. Given that Nasu's modus operandi seems to be "Here are the rules. They only exist to show how awesome every character is for not following them", I honestly don't care that much.

If we're to assume Nasu's magic rules hold everywhere, familiar of Zero's world seems like it's overall experienced less of the worldly degeneration than Fate's, since it still has dragons and pegasi and shit, so anything is easily explainable. That and the "different planets have different magic system/physics".

Of course, now that he's given a bit more info on Shirou's route, it's a little more well seated. Wish it'd diverge a little more from the stations of the canon (on the one hand, Shirou probably shouldn't have died, but on the other hand he did a whole lot more stuff), but it looks like more alterations are coming up as the fic progresses.

Disappointed a little that he didn't include classic formations such as "If X can be said to Y, then Z can be said to {something completely unrelated}", and "on a completely different level".

4.5/5

 

The story is meshing better with canon Shirou better as time goes on. Its still not perfect, but its not a deal breaker imo.

4/5

 

Depends. Feels kinda like UBW combined with a bit of Heaven's Feel. Ultimate Blade Feel!

 

I'm a fan of Gabriel Blessing's written works: most notably, his (I'm really going to get ridiculed for this!) Kim Possible crossovers, 'Ruinous' and the one with the Native American Skin Walker.

Mainly because they're dark in tone.

 

Holy shit. Gabriel Blessing is writing again. I thought he stopped a decade ago. I've still got all of his old fics archived as txt and occasionally pull them out to re-read them. He was never the best technical writer, but his characters, pacing, and plot really stood out from the pack.

It's time for me to check out his new work.

 

I have to say this is awesome. There are some, little grammatical errors but plot, characters and the story itself just blows your mind away.

Definitely 4/5.

 

I love this fic.

Shut up. It works fine.

5/5.

 

I really like this story, I give it a 4/5

 

I lol'd. Quick and utter dismissal.

 

This piece has the markings of many horrible stories - an obnoxious tone (constant usage of "Curse you damn root!" why do i keep reading that in Dr. Robotnick's voice?) and overly dramatic and marty stu Shirou (who is a hugely flawed character, yet in this he's "perfect gentlman with a dark past"). It's readable, and enjoyable enough, but suffers enough from these flaws to bring it down to 3/5.

The setting is also less-than-stellar. I've watched ZnT and it's very difficult to enjoy (it goes from being mildly interesting to one cliche after the other). Louise is not a likable character, though Gabe seems to have salvaged her, I guess.

What irks me the most though - this guy still doesn't know how to properly use you're and your, and he's written ten stories now?