Title: All Good Things
Author: Zephros
Rating: T
DLP Category: The Alternates
Pairing: n/a
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,982
Updated: July 15, 2011
Published: June 10, 2011
Status: Abandoned
Summary: Bereft in a new world, one seemingly absent of a known danger, he must make a new life; haunted by both his past and by familiar faces acting in strange new ways. Yet, there is a lesson he must learn. That all good things come with sacrifice.

Pretty interesting story so far. Harry basically gets placed into alternate Harry's mind and has eke out existence in an alternate world. Author just finished Year 1.


Checked by Minion, January 11, 2013

 

You fucked up C&P. That said, you probably posted this too early. While the last chapter was really good, we don't have enough of an idea of the plot and direction that the story is taking to rate it properly. I'd have waited for at least part of year 2...

Anyways, I'd probably rate a 4/5.

 

The author, I think, is trying too hard, being too verbose. Hence, the prose appear to be rather forced.

Portrayal of Harry in this story is much better than many AU stories. For example, this story shows how an adult would be bored and annoyed by firsties. But he could be made more proactive. It seems he is content to wait until the bad-guy showed up. Not particularly something a war veteran would do.

Lily & James are too accepting of what happened to their son. More baffling is the verdict of Harry's shrink. I still don't understand why he's not diagnosed with Schizophrenia or MPD.

The duel Between Voldemort and Flamel is well done with reasonable amount of details. I'm looking forward to more battle scenes since it looks like things are going sour soon.

Overall: 3/5.

 

I really liked it. I thought that the writing was well done, and there doesn't seem to be one obvious point of divergence, but I don't really care for the overdone "Now I'm more powerful BUT WAIT here's an even MORE powerful enemy!!!" plotline. The bad guy seems to be too powerful, and I don't really see a reason for it at this point. I hope the author's not going for the "You messed with the laws of reality now here's a super-soldier-thingy for you to fight!!" angle. I'm really tired of the universe-as-conscious-entity storyline.

Also, the enemy is called Lord Voldemort, but doesn't appear to in any way (or for any reason) BE Lord Voldemort. What's up with that???

3.5/5 right now. Good enough to stick with it, imo.

 

This is really, really dry. Technically well-written but doesn't really have anything that draws you in. And I love alternate dimension/time travelling stories.

 

I'm enjoying two things about this story:

1. How separate Harry remains from his peers. Most of these fics have him, wrongly IMO, seamlessly integrated with children with no issues.

2. This is a proper AU. It still keeps some of the same canon beats but a lot of things are different enough to make it a fresh read.

That said, I agree with T3t. The story needs to develop some more before it can be properly rated.

 

I reviewed it on FF.net and Zephros replied via PM.
Apparently Harry's parents' generation were still of the same age as their canon counterparts, and Orion (Sirius' son, fifth year Slytherin) was born during Sirius' sixth/seventh year summer.

(1) I thought he came to this world via the Veil, as in, at the end of 5th year? Correct me if I was wrong.
(2) Lack of noticeable bad-guy = no apparent target.
(3) No Schizophrenia or MPD in Magical World I guess :facepalm

 

I don't think the method of arrival was alluded to in this story,

The bad guy has been made apparent to Harry, in the form of the un-killable assassin in the Forbidden Forest.

It is apparent that magical people get diseases of mind (The original Harry was afflicted with one, remember?). So, Schizophrenia or MPD CAN exist in the author's version of Magical world. May be author simply forgot about this.

 

(1) I quote from chapter 1 of the story:

(2) Perhaps I didn't explain it properly. The creature was like the troll in Harry's first year; it showed an attack but not who the mastermind was.

 

In Zephros' old deleted story, Voldemort had created the regenerating crow scythe beast, the shadow assassin, and some indomitable knight thing. Since two of them have made an appearance (one visibly working with Voldemort) I think it's safe to say the three of them are under his command.

As for Voldemort himself, I think it's likely that Riddle is using a Time Turner to give himself the spare time to go about being evil and all. It appears that nothing like the First War happened here, and Voldemort has instead chosen to build up his powerbase in secret for much longer.

I really hope this doesn't turn into a crippled!Harry story, but I'm definitely fearing something like that being the results of the chapter.

 

Plotting and ideas are interesting, but the prose is weirdly flat and Zephros has no clue how to maintain a character's voice and no ear for dialogue.

2.5/5

 

I rated it a 3/5.

The prologue was brilliant, I absolutely loved it. The writer obviously spent a lot of time refining and rewriting that bitch till it was sparkling.

But, unfortunately, it looks like Zephros decided that regular updates are more important than quality and it really shows. The prologue was C2 material. The rest was Recycling Bin material. I almost gave up on it but kept going and read all five chapters hoping for some improvement.

We are getting some signs of an original plot with the Reaper etc but it's come too late for it to really be top notch material.

Overall, Zephros is obviously capable of some fantastic writing but he needs to pull his socks up. If the updates are good enough nobody gives a shit that they come once a month or even once every six.

Dude, seriously, you could do way better if you really really really took your time on those chapters.

If the quality stays the same as it is then it shouldn't go in the library.

 

Basically this, and Zephros himself (herself?) has noted this very problem in chapter 4:s A/N.

 

4.5/5 IMO, I like this story, and it's waaaaaaay better than any fic thats come out recently. I wish he hadn't discontinued RE though, since that was a lot more original.

Some stuff is a bit flat but Zeph has shown himself willing to recognize his failings and work to remedy them.

 

Mechanically well written, but not intriguing, not interesting, not captivating. As I said, its mechanically well written, as though for a writing assignment or something. Its like the author wasn't that interested in it either.

3/5