Title: Anomalous Effect
Author: Transwarrior666
Rating:M
Genre: Scifi
Status: WIP
Fandom: Mass Effect/STALKER Crossover
Pairings: n/a
Link: FF.net Spacebattles

I'm not sure how to explain this story with any elegance...

Basically the Zone expands and consumes all of Earth. Humanity reaches space and the Zone follows them. Through warfare with the Monolith and a desire not to spread the plague that follows them, humanity has gone into a sort of exile. They're myth on par with the Protheans to most of the galaxy when the Reapers return to very AU galaxy.

The story has that air of mystery about it, like there is something hidden around every corner. I also like how the story is told from many varying perspectives; it's strange at times but it works.

4.5/5 from me.

 

The premise seemed interesting, but the delivery just simply doesn't, well, deliver.

One of minor quibbles I have with this is how often the author decides to remind the readers that 46 000 years have passed since the events of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and how old the Doctor, Strelok and other people of the "Old Timer" group are. Okay, I get it, they're really old, could he maybe stop bringing that up in every second paragraph or so in the Doctor chapter?

What does intrigue me about the story is what

Spoiler

Cerberus has been up to. Yeah, he tells they basically became something non-human in order to get away from the Noospheric thing and the Zone influence and Monolith and so on, but what exactly did they become? Really hope he doesn't fuck up that part.

Also, the bit with the Quarians? Yeah, just didn't make sense. I could understand why they'd stop fiddling with anything resembling AI research or Geth-like stuff, but slowly regressing into backward primitives and abandoning all their technology, one by one - it just doesn't make sense, nor does it read well. It seems very ill-fitting, for some reason.

Anyway, the author needs an editor, his writing isn't quite all technically sound.

I'll be generous and give this a 3/5 if only for the novelty of the setting, but if he disappoints or just plain doesn't improve in future chapters, I'll probably lower that rating by a one.

 

What he said.

The premise makes me want to like it, but the writing leaves a lot to be desired.

The historical "catchup" parts at the beginning have these maddening tense switches.

And when he's writing "in the moment" and having people talk and interact with each other, it's just... not even sure what the right adjective is. Shallow? Juvenile? Unnatural?

There is a way to get the reader to feel something about characters, and that isn't it.

Waaaaaay too much show vs. tell in the "in the present" sections.

3/5 feels really generous. I did want to like it, though.

 

Shallow and juvenile are good phrases to describe the behavior of some characters.

Especially the immortal Stalkers, who apparently haven't changed an iota from what they were like 46k years ago. Which just doesn't seem likely. I mean, yes, you can be acting juvenile at times, but keeping up with that for all those thousands upon thousands of years without any deviation in the pattern of behaviors?

For all that humanity, such as it is in this fanficiton, is supposed to be some kind of precursor species, or an analogue to a Lovecraftian-tier species for every other sentient species in the galaxy, they're simply not. That's the part that bothers me a lot. The author talks about all these great changes that transpired with humanity, but at the end of the day, they're apparently exactly the same as they were before they evolved into this new existence.

 

It's a not-so-novel idea about Humanity gaining Asimov's Gaia-like powers but ultimately failed to deliver.

2.5