I finally had a look at it over holidays. What kept me from reading for the longest time was the title. It just sounds ... not very awesome. Reminds me of Skittles at most (and that's from here, where Skittles aren't even really common).

Being completely honest: It keeps me interested enough to read it, the AU part is technically great, with all the little details and the work you put into it, but the entire thing somehow feels not mindblowingly awesome like you would expect. Perhaps it's not my taste, though it really should be ... Well. Two things stood out in a negative way for me:


First, 'whilst' really aggravates me. You cut down on it, but in the first chapters I felt like hurting something. Especially when it was used in direct speech >_> Dunno, usually I'm not that sensitive, but if I'd have had the means, I'd have done a search and substitute here

And then, the Skitterleap -- I have to say, I don't totally see its use. Perhaps that will be more apparent later, but so far you added a flaw to the Portkeys and then invented the Skitterleap to remedy the problem you just created (you probably did it the other way round, but that's how it looks like the way it's presented). The whole thing seems a bit artificial.

Or in other words, I don't think I've seen the Skitterleap used in any way that couldn't have simply worked with Portkeys. Enchanting a disk? Create a Portkey. Need terminals for fix locations? Regulate the use of Portkeys and have them work from terminals only. Something like that. Why make it more complicated?


All in all, I think a 4/5, for having more ideas and being more original in a paragraph than the average FF-author can hope to scrape together in their entire fic.

 

Been long overdue, but I finally got around to reading the prologue. And damn but you write Dumbledore perfectly. Well done.


EDIT: 3,946th post.

 

Finally got around to reading this. I honestly can't decide what to rate it. Let me type out a review and go from there.

I'm going to be different and say that I like the title. It makes me curious about what's going to go on. Also I think I was drawing comparisons to Quantum Leap without consciously realizing it, so I was half expecting an AU when we went into it.

I think what put me off reading this for so long was the summary. I had the impression that it was going to be about some random ass officer instead of Harry Potter and have a bigger focus on Grindelwald (as he's the only one named in the summary you have in the original post on this thread).

I liked the prologue -- Dumbledore is very well written. I might have liked it better if he hadn't just been introduced in time to die, but that's probably because I liked reading about him.

I don't much like the characters. Clearly there is something involving Lily's death that might have driven Harry closer to the Empire's ideals than those of his father, so his character development does make some sense.

But even for a kid who was raised in war and trained to fight and kill at, I think, 15... he's a bit too callous in his disregard for life for my tastes. He doesn't want to murder people, but it doesn't seem to bother him. Likewise he didn't give the enchanter they got killed (after he'd helped them) a second thought.

I don't mean to say that I want him to angst about this crap -- I don't. That gets old faster than anything else and this is a war and he is a soldier. I just can't seem to get into reading about him.

On another note, maybe I just missed a lot of plot that I would have picked up on had I read more carefully, but what the hell was going on in the big picture there? I'm going to over-simplify, but...

Does the order consider Grindelwald to be a bad guy? If so, does that therefore make Harry one of the bad guys? I'm pretty sure they do, but other than Krum (who was with the Black Hand) no one ever seems to say they have issue with him.

But if Grindelwald is a good guy, then Dumbledore was a bad guy, right? That can't be accurate. Plus he said in the prologue someone was gonna kick his ass later. Harry was wanted for treason, but he started working for Riddle's SS before that was fixed? So that was just OK then?

What is the motivation for the fighting being done by the Black Hand? Do they want territory? Are they mad about something? Hermione is a spy for the order, and is spying on the Empire? But the Order appears to have a lot more high ranking members of the Empire in it or affiliated with it. Why are they spying on the Empire in the first place? I'm guessing they were on Dumbledore's side, but from what I saw the muggles aren't being discriminated against too much here, so what's their problem? My impression was that the order was supposed to be the good guys and the Empire the bad ones, or is the Empire neither and only the Black Hand is bad?

I feel like I think I know who is supposed to be what, but only because of the names I recognize. Not because it's been shown to me in the story, I guess. *shrug* It's weird.

Granted I skipped some (not all) of the italicized bits at the starts of chapters, but I had the impression it was discussing mostly history and not current problems. So if all that was answered there, then I apologize.

I just couldn't find myself getting as interested as I'd have liked to.

The skitterleap itself is great so long as the 'world' or whatever they travel through when they use it gets used later on. Otherwise it doesn't seem to serve a purpose you couldn't have explained away with canon.

I liked the addition of the whatever that screwing with Alexi's dead body and the reaction to the rosary. I know that you had magic in your story, and it was interesting and epic, but most of the story didn't feel very magical. I know you reasoned it out well, by implying that magic can be tracked so obviously muggle weapons are a good alternative, but even so.

Anyway, yeah. Typing all of that got my thoughts in order some, so I'm going to go with a 4/5 for the thread. It might be more like a 3.5 for me personally, but I can't decide and half points are irrelevant.

I look forward to seeing where the sequel goes.