I received the notice yesterday at 9:05 am. The date line goes the wrong way to make it an Aussie or Chinese 1 April posting.

 

Oh God, this chapter was probably the most I've ever struggled in reading so few words.

I agree with what has been said so far by everyone, and that song was so cringeworthy it was painful. Also, no matter what anyone says, Hermione should not be a Ravenclaw, and that nonsense about photographic memory reeks of Sueism too. 2/5

 

It's also hard to imagine how such an apparently intelligent person can fail to see the difference between intelligence and memory (his defence of super!Hermione being that she had good memory recall in canon).

 

QFT.

Learning 100 digits of Pi by heart without having an eidetic memory (Hermione tells Harry she has to read stuff five times to feel she is prepared to be tested on it) is not intelligence but dedication and hard work. Stupid and misplaced dedication too, as the author specifically mentions: the extra digits are useless for physics.

 

Yeah, I hope to god it was an April Fools prank. Timing is about right, for aus. And the author is an aussie. I also didn't get an email, but I have no idea how that could possibly be related to this travesty.

 

That is 11AM on March 31st, in Sydney.

I hope the song and dance routine was a joke or an experiment to see whether the feedback correlates to the quality in a meaningful way.

 

Somebody get Harry some Prozac, a bong hit, something! I don't mind the silly song so much, but the back and forth with this story is starting to harsh my mellow.

 

I don't get it... I was actually liking this, and then the author had to go and stab himself in the face.

This new chapter is just... painful. I was hoping it was an April Fools joke, and the author still has time to redact it I suppose, but I will never forget the pain my eyes felt when reading this chapter.

-le sigh-

 

This story is frustrating. If the author just concentrated on the parody part of rationalist/scientific-Harry actually thinking through the implications of stuff that he comes across in the wizarding world, it could be awesome. He could have made that last chapter about Harry meeting the ghosts and a rational reaction to that. (= going "WTF??????? OMG!!!!")
You could have similar scenes about Harry finding out about Nicolas Flamel and the Philosophers Stone or hearing about Felix Felicitas.

I would even accept that abuse-of-power storyline about Draco, with Harry trying to drag the wizarding world into the light.

But having a fucking songfic episode? WTF? I guess it could be funny if you went to a wizarding school and something like this actually happened, but it certainly wasn't funny to read about it. It was just painful.

He also doesn't have to try and teach all this stuff about logic and biases and rationality by proxy through this story. He has promoted his favorite site enough so everyone can look it up. (Although I'm just barely able to grok some of the posts there. I don't know what the reader of the average fanfiction.net story would make of that.)
You can try to teach something through a story or you can tell a good story. You can't do both.

 

WTF is this shit. I thought this fic was on an upward trend after Chapter 7. I am extremely disappointed. I completely agree with everything Ayreon said.

Actually, I could probably stomach most of this, but Hermione is just too much for me. She needs to be toned down, fast.

 

I left him with something of a angry review, mostly in response to this remark:

 

I hope to god someone is pointing him towards this thread, if this dude actually listens to us, and doesn't throw a hissy fit, he could still make up for it. Of course, it would involve either getting rid of that chapter, or never speaking of it or doing anything like it, again.

In fact, I think he does follow this thread, if you are... Please don't decide that we're all ignorant retards because we hate your story, read what Taure said, this shits all been done before, you're simply coming the closest to having potential, and it would be amazing to see a story done right. This is constructive criticism, don't take offense and let your anger decide what you do next.

Use that 'rational scientific thinking' of yours.

 

An earlier A/N had a reference to the tenor of the criticism he's receieved on the story on DLP. He's since removed that text, however. I suspect he lurks and reads.

 

I believe the context of what he said was something like...

"At chapter 5 this story went viral, at chapter 6 I had my first offer for marriage, at chapter 7 DLP wasn't quite as harsh. This is what I will say in the future to describe their standards."

Or something along those lines...

 

It's odd. I can't find it now, but I could have sworn I read a rant at the beginning of the `Positive Bias' chapter that went something like: ``When asked later about this fic, I'll say that chapter X was when it went viral. The next chapter is when the fic started getting positive reviews at DLP (you should see these guys, they'd give the Philosophers Stone a harsh review).'' Maybe I saw it elsewhere, but I'm almost certain...

So, I'm pretty sure Less Wrong is reading this.

At first I was really excited about this story. I'm a Feynman fan and have read several of the books that were mentioned. Harry's behaviour was fairly consistant with some prodigies I know, so I didn't mind that too much. There were some cliches (the shopping trip, the trunk, the sleeping problem, et cetera) but it was still good.

The chapter with Hermionie rubbed me the wrong way (prove your smart!!!! -- this sort of interaction isn't natural, people are more indirect than that. See signalling theory.), but the real problem is this ghost-buster song. It reminds me too much of the endless prank-war HP redo fics. Perhaps Less Wrong won't do this, but it still makes me nervous.

In the long run, the author has a few options:
(a) Harry suceeds at explaining magic
(b) He fails
(c) He's still trying.
(d) Somewhere in between.

People seem to be assuming (a). It would be really hard to pull off. Less Wrong would have to come up with a convincing answer and then have them develop it. This is especially difficult given that Less Wrong isn't down playing potential problems like reality-bending pop. This option basically requires Less Wrong to have studied physics, epistemology, metaphysics, higher math and who knows what else.

(b) could be amsuing if written well, but seems contrary to the tendencies we've observed of Less Wrong.

(c) would be rather unsatisfying.

(d) as (c) leaning towards (a) or (b) seems most likely, but runs in to the comments I had for them to some extent.

 

As a reader of the lesswrong.com blog who just discovered the both fanfic in question and this review thread, let me assure you that, if "Less Wrong" the fanfic author is who I think he is, then he has, indeed, studied physics, epistemology, metaphysics, higher math, and a whole lot of other things as well. If anyone can pull it off, he can. Just check out his other fiction!

 

Even if he is that smart, it doesn't mean he can't have a massive ego and ruin his story.

 

I probably missed it, but would you care to share how you came to the conclusion that the author is this Yudkowsky guy? Are you he or has something posted in some blog to lead you to this conclusion?

As SmileOfTheKill noted, one can have a diverse technical background, but still be a crappy fiction writer. The set of skills associated with being a talented writer of fiction is not a subset of "physics, epistemology, metaphysics, higher math, and a whole lot of other things as well" unless, trivially, those "other things" include being a talented writer of fiction.

 

This. I've got a friend who is very much like this, but at least, he is smart enough to realize he can't write fiction at all.

In all honesty, I think he is somewhat valid in saying that we are harsh on fanfiction stories around here, but I fail to see how that is a bad thing. If anything you should be honored that some people took time to read your story and put some thought into how it could be improved. It tells you that you are on the right path at least.

 

I suspected Yudkowsky because he runs lesswrong.com (which is linked to in the profile of the "Less Wrong" author profile on fanfiction.net) and the fic reads a lot like his other work. And, as it turns out, he eventually admitted to having wrote it, shortly after I made my post.

And he is a good writer. A full list of his other fiction is here, but I'd suggest just looking at this one if you want to see that he can write. It's good, it's not overly long, and it isn't insane.