It is definitely far from the canon Harry Potter universe, but I still like it and read every chapter. I think the most obvious reason for this is the lack of similar stories out there. This one is written quite well and far better than most and I must admit that I really like the theme. That said, what has been stated in the last few posts rings true in my ears.

There isn't much magic left in the story, it is more like psuedo-tech-magic than anything else, which is cool in itself, but not enough for it to stay with the traditional HP theme.

I really like Sci-fi, and we get so few HP sci-fi crossover stories that I read almost every single one of them, unless they are exceptionally crappy. This one is in the top tier I would say.

4/5

 

I gave up on this somewhere when he returned to the UK. The story universe the guy created made no sense to me and I couldn't stand Harry's character. After some time I've started to wonder what drives the writer and these are usually the signs to get out of Dodge.

 

So this updated again. I've largely been skimming the last few chapters because (as others have said) the story is largely a lot of OCs messing around in a world that only vaguely resembles the HP world, but this latest chapter was somewhat promising. Harry seems set to become more involved and the end of the chapter was pretty cool, though a cliffhanger at that.

Fingers crossed that Harry becomes much more involved from here on out, because I'm getting sick of reading about generic!soldier Ford and his fucking elite whatever squad killing random Germans/French.

 

Me too, which I think is why I took it off my Alert List.

 

I gave up a while back. This should just be an original work, not a HP fanfiction.

 

Gave up on it like a year ago. Started with great premises before it began to crumble down under its own weight. Way to many generic character who are doing generic things and few to none Harry centric action, who has nothing to do with Harry but by name.

 

Pretty much what he said. Became boring after a while. Got tired of not reading about Harry. Honestly did not care about the other characters in the fic.

 

Updated. A pretty short chapter, but it has Harry kicking ass.

 

Spoiler

Kinda disappointing that he's just a distraction and the main action is elsewhere though...

 

There's been a new update. Focus is on the main cast, which is good. Lack of Voldemort is a bit disappointing. It looks like we've finally left the OC super-soldiers behind us, at least for now. I have a feeling they will resurface in the next arc, but hopefully there won't be entire fucking chapters dedicated to their heroically generic soldiering.

On the whole, not a bad update, but it's more of a filler/bridging chapter to the finale of the current war.

 

Filler chapter it might have been, but it was still a million times better because it was about Harry rather than the super soldiers like you said. Even if I think it's stupid that Harry hasn't killed Jaeger by now, I am enjoying this story so much more with Harry being a more active participant in the war.

 

I want to see which, if any, will die in the next chapter. I think Elicia's time is fast approaching, but I'm not sure if it's there just yet.

 

This actually updated. Wow. I just randomly checked and there it was.

Spoilers for the update follow.

Spoiler

It's... disappointing.

It's not a giant update, like the timeskip chapters were. Author explains why this took so long and I have to say, for a revival update, it didn't impress me.

For once, it's far too expository. All the backstory it provides feels hamfisted when it's all given at once, just to "flesh out" an antagonist just before his death.

It looks like a justification for why Harry hasn't incinerated Jaeger much earlier. Imo it instead cheapens the character who, until now, was kind of a mystery man.

Erwin Jaeger had the strongest characterization in his introduction scene, attacking the super soldier OCs, followed by a pithy "we are Jaegers". His backstory here destroys that myth of a skilled warrior, instead making him into a prisoner who stumbled into becoming the feared mage killer. Just ugh.

Harry's and Elicia's introspection scenes kind of fail, especially Harry's, with the whole "Josefina is my daughter" thing coming out of the blue, with not a hint of it anywhere since the Anglo-Spanish war. Elicia's was just bland, like her entire character. Marquis consistently tries and fails to make her feel less like a robot with her scientist angle, but it doesn't work for me.

And finally, Marquis shoots himself in the foot by effectively retconning the previous chapter. I fully expected Josefina to be dead and maybe Elicia too, given the year-long cliffhanger, but it turns out that Harry arrives just in time with the cavalry, Elicia is fine, Harry's inconsequential five-day stay at a hospital post-battle is, well, inconsequential (not even on morale, with the monarch getting his ass kicked even in victory) and is therefore just a timeskip device that's rather clumsy and finally, Josefina is still alive and tell me she's not going to get Deux Ex style prosthetics, making her more badass despite losing, literally, an arm and a leg. It's adorable in a way, reading Harry's mental monologue about Josefina being crippled and how people will look down on her.

Marquis could have done something interesting and impactful with Josefina dying, but as is, he tries to eat the cake (Harry thinks she's dead and flies into a battle rage) and still have it (surprise! she lives!), which, keeping in mind the author's note under the last chapter, explaining how eventually something had to go wrong (like Northern Sun losing their superspy assassin) makes for an even weaker chapter.

And on top of all that, I feel like the quality of the prose is... just average. Could be the product of the editor's disease. Chapter may have been great at some point, but the author kept fiddling with it until it got worse. Marquis has never been the most skilled in that aspect, it's not what drew me to his stuff (his ideas did), but has written good stuff before, though this impression is probably magnified by the disappointing content of the chapter.

blergh/5, try again

 

I share Scott's opinion, but to a much more muted degree. He's right in what he said, but it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it does him.

Spoiler

I'm glad Josefina survived, for one. Even if killing her would perhaps be more fitting

Yeah it was a short chapter, but I can excuse how shaky and short it was based on the fact that it was Marquis shaking off the metaphorical rust and getting back into the swing of things.

 

Marquis watches too much anime, or at least lets it influence his story too much. One of his previous stories ended with HP going full Naruto style combat, and this one looks like its going the same way.

I was especially peeved by the line that basically inferred how Josefina is now less of a person because of her crippling injuries.

 

Wasn't the whole idea of Jaegers being lethal to mages based around staying hidden, striking from the shadows and staying mobile?

That's the only way I could accept a muggle killing fully trained wizards. 'Battle mages' at that.

Instead we get this farce of a 'duel'. Why does Jaeger last a full five seconds against Harry? Oh wait, he inexplicably decided to fight him with muggle means for some reason. Okay.

Meh. It was interesting while the premise that the Jaegers were unseen, quick and lethal. Now's it's just ridiculous.

 

What I said, just dressed in different words.

And Harry wasn't even fighting typical muggle style. He was using magic to enhance his strikes. There's a moment where he uses a Banishing Charm or something strikingly like it to push Jaeger away a dozen feet.

This used to make more sense before Harry discovered the wizarding world. Given his lack of formal magical education I could see him not knowing there's actually a spell that will slow an enemy down to slug-in-tar speed (Impedimenta), even if he somehow knew Fiendfyre, while getting his education from two Hogwarts graduates, but okay. Now, it's much harder to handwave. I was like, alright, that's sorta cool when they fought for the first time because that was Harry showing off, but now it's serious and he can't turn this squib into a scorchmark on the floor with a flick of the wrist? Comeoooon.

But I'm not reading this for HP elements anymore. Marquis has never had a good grasp of the HP feel. I want to see how the larger plotline progresses, which is why this chapter, like all that have a smaller scale (by which I mean focus on characters instead of the whole war thing) tend to be weaker than when he writes about the geopolitical stuff.