Title: Dead Man Walking
Author: Kitty Smith
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure/Humor
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,082
Updated: Apr 1,02015
Published: Apr 22, 2014
Status: WIP
Library Category: Humor?
Pairing: Harry P., G. Ollivander (not romantically)
Summary: Harry's lived a long life. A good life. He's ready to go, but like all bureaucracies, Death's a little behind on their paperwork. He'll be fine in a temporary storage track, right? AU Epilogue-compliant WARNINGS: ineffective suicide(s), light gore, swearing, off-kilter humor, sort of dark!Harry, sort of time travel.
Link: Link

If you know "Lily Potter and the Art of Being Sisyphus", you might recognise this story as being similar. Less mysterious, less god-like Harry. Still weird and confused. Funny.
The plot is not really clear yet: It seems to be more of a crazy idea for a one-shot that somehow keeps going. But the writing is very solid.

4/5, because the story is a fun read already. When/if it gets longer, my rating might even go up.

 

I love crackfics although humor is rather subjective so YMMV but this fic made me laugh even more than "Lily Potter and the Art of Being Sisyphus".
While there are some similarities between the two Lily in Sisyphus seems to be case of Blue and Orange Morality & mentality,while Harry in Dead Man is certifiably, brain damaged,lacking of common sense Insane for ex. this is scene from ollivander's wand shop while Harry stays there as "Olly" buddy/helper

I suck completely when it comes to judging more technical aspects of writing so I leave that for other reviewers but it isn't really bad from what I can tell
4/5 from me

 

Kinda sorta funny at times. Definitely not Library quality. 2/5

 

This isn't very good. If I wasn't told this is supposed to be crack up front I wouldn't be able to tell. It reads more like one of the dime a dozen 'Old Harry goes into the past/alt dimension and proceeds to act like a 13 year old' fics.

He tries to kill himself a bunch of time but that isn't really played out in a humorous manner. Instead we are just told he does and are supposed to laugh at it.

Than again I did just skim the first three chapters.

 

This isn't a good story, and yet it's a great story. Great, in a terrible way. We're all intimately familiar with the concept of guilty pleasure fics, and this qualifies - and yet doesn't. In guilty pleasure stories I'm groaning at myself for enjoying the story. In this, I'm groaning at the story and yet enjoying it. I can't come close to explaining this weird clash of patently awful and somehow amusing, except that YMMV.

The first chapter wasn't good at all, but from there it picks up and settles into something of a slapstick routine of Batshit!Harry's life. The boy has an addiction to killing himself and a habit of making terrible calls, which ought to - and is - pretty bad. And yet somehow enjoyable. Somehow the situations are so absurd they actually do hit the mark on funny.

Something surprisingly quite solid in this story are Harry's best friends. The first is quite literally just some random bloke he picked up off the street and traumatised by being crazy, and yet his character is endearing and their interactions somehow very human. The second is Ollivander, who is nearly as crazy as Harry. It makes complete sense that they're best friends.

So I think my overall stance on this story is that I'm confused as to why I'm enjoying it so much, and I am. I can only conclude that this is the Voldemort of stories - it does terrible things. Terrible, yes... but great.

3/5

 

Palindrome hits the nail on the head.

With guilty pleasure fics, you think "yeah this is bad, but I'm enjoying it". With this, all you feel is a sense of shame and confusion, like when you're aroused around someone you don't know.

3/5.

 

I enjoyed it. The story isn't great but the characters work reasonable well and still want to know what happens next. The prose quite good too.

4/5

 

One general premise is similar to 'Lily Potter ...' - but it lacks almost everything else of that story. Lily starts as an innocent child with a shrewd view of the world, who is exploring her world and eventually following some goals. Harry is a century old soul, 'parked' in a different universe, waiting for the time he will be reunited with his dead family.

This story isn't bad, but it's definitely not as good. It lacks depth and detail. This author doesn't manage to capture the general atmosphere and the mood of the characters even nearly as well as Carnivorous Muffin. Here we don't have any character development, and Harry, focussed on his sucide as he is, doesn't progress at all. That might change now that he has entered Hogwarts, but the author has to put in more flesh to really make it good.

It still captured and held my attention - thus for me it is at least average.

3/5