Title: He Had No Finger
Author: Gleam
Rating: M
Genre: Horror/Supernatural
Pairing: None
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,253
Updated: February 2, 2009
Published: November 3, 2008
Status: Complete
Summary: The Ninetails cannot be contained. But it will take a human sacrifice, all the same.
Link: linky

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Let's just say that the story is extremely disturbing. I'm not talking weird shit disturbing... I'm talking Lovecraft/Edgar Allen Poe level disturbing.

I just finished reading this story, and I am thoroughly creeped out. I can't decide on what kind of rating to give for this story... Half of my mind wants to give it ∞/5 because I'm a massive sucker for dark stories. The other half wants to give it 0/5 and then submit myself into a psychotherapy session just to make sure that I came out sane. It's that disturbing.


Checked by Minion, August 20, 2013

 

It's a pretty old fic in the Naruto community. The last couple chapters smack of too much effort at making it creepy. Hindsight makes me give it a 3/5, but for a first-time reader shotgunning it I'd call it a 4. Or those are the numbers I would give, but I seem to be having a spot of trouble with the board at the moment.

 

Eh. Overall, I felt disappointed after reading this story.

While the first two chapters of this story flowed very well, I found the later chapters to be sort of lacking. The detached style of writing that the author uses is both a blessing and a curse: it functions as an interesting hook and helps immerse the reader in the narrative, but it's tiring to read and it bogs the reader down the more it is used.

Maybe it was because I was sort of distracted while I was reading this story, but I found the writing and descriptions kind of confusing (difficult to visualize), especially in the last few chapters. The sixth chapter was particularly bad in this respect; I had to reread it multiple times to actually understand what happened (a fact not helped by the lack of section breaks). For the life of me, I could not picture this Naruto in my head.

3/5

Spoiler

And seriously, why did it seem like none of the characters in the story have the common sense to see that Naruto would flip out and kill everyone or at least flip out and kill a whole bunch of people? I mean, Naruto showed that he would kill and hurt people as soon as they let him have a bit of freedom, regardless of his intent or not.

 

The author has a great feel for words. I loved many of the descriptions, like the cloak of faces or whatever the hell that thing is that manifests around Naruto and his form being monochrome.

4/5. I wish it were more coherent, but it's a unique story in a fandom filled with hundreds of thousands of stories written by class talent.

 

Agreed, this is one of the best horror stories I've read in a long time (coincidentally I was just searching for this - even posted a story search for it >_>). The author has a way of building the atmosphere that kept me on edge the whole time and even if his grammar could use a bit of work, it was enough to immerse me almost completely.

4/5

 

I read this some time ago, and I did enjoy the story. Its relatively unique, and wonder of wonders it actually is scary, while at the same time drawing the reader in.

Later chapters struggled to recapture the feeling of cosmic horror that I experienced early on, and while I still really liked it, it wasn't as effective as it could've been. It definitely does warrant a 3.5/5, but not really more.

 

Yeah, I don't think this is particularly great at being a story, really. It's incoherent; a mess of muddled descriptions that often don't work all that well and lends the whole story a feel of being somewhat melodramatic and pointless.

As there's no solid perspective there's no foundation for the reader to actually be immersed in and follow; I've long since tuned out all the random descriptions and scenes that make little sense and are never explained - or sometimes never particularly important. There's no real story to be had here. I got the impression that the writer was just writing down whatever they felt like with no structure or goal in mind.

But despite this, I suppose it captures an atmosphere well enough. The writing was a little too clumsy to carry it well, though.

3/5

 

I rather enjoyed this! A solid 4/5 for me. The end doesn't capture the potential of the beginning, but it's a great and lovely way to spend thirty minutes.

The author has an amazing way with words.