Updated as of 2/14/2011. Story has now reached 150k words ; the author has mentioned that the next chapter will be begin the arc of Harry's rise to power.

If you haven't read the fic, I suggest you give it a try. Perhaps I liked it so much because it catered to my tastes - ruthless!Harry, military!Harry, political machinations, no awfully written genre savvy characters.

Review I left at ff.net, vague spoilers:

Spoiler

Fucking hell, I loved this. Are you an avid reader of fanfiction? If so, then you'd be familiar with the feeling of searching for a fic to read for two weeks and finding nothing but CRAP (or abandoned semi-crap). This was such a pleasant, refreshing surprise.

My only gripe with the story is, that, parts of it are simply unbelievable. Shit happens and it comes out of nowhere. Revelation after revelation comes, and just as you think that you got a grip on everything that's going on, BAM something completely unexpected happens. That's not a necessarily bad (or good) thing. It just seems like a clusterfuck of cohesion. And the biggest loss, I find, is the discrepancy of Harry's character. We get just a teeny, tiny bit of how his character is fleshed out, how he begins and grows and mutates throughout the years. Sometimes as I read, Harry felt like a different person in every new appearance. Was that intentional?

If you had taken the time to flesh everything out, from characterization, to the happenings in the Wizardring world, to Harry's plans, to stuff going on in the military and VOLDEMORT (which you've ignored almost completely so far) this would have been an unquestionable M-A-S-T-E-R-P-I-E-C-E.

Also it would have probably spun 500,000 words.

As it stands, 4.5/5 for a bloody fucking excellent effort.Also update soon etc.

 

Wow, why the fuck was this not on my alerts list, considering I submitted it here? :facepalm

Thanks for posting, Socialist. This is going to be a monster of an update to get through, considering I'll have to reread at least the previous chapter in order to get a grasp of what's going on. I'll edit this post later with my thoughts on the latest chapter.

 

New chapter up for a few days now, for anyone that doesn't have this on alerts.

Nice to see that Harry does make some mistakes, such as when he fails at preempting the ambush and not noticing all seven bombardment zones.

 

This is one of the stories I have some real trouble believing the background scenario he paints. It makes no freaking sense for some huge war by the UK in spain with no bleep by any other european power. Gibraltar's strategic situation is completely different to the Falklands.

Something really rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's just me but I really get the impression the political/society belief system of the writer bleeds into his stories which at least gives me the creeps.

 

The whole war with Spain is rather unbelievable. It completely ignores all the ways that the world is different today to how it was in the early 1900s. It's an old European war in the modern age and it just doesn't fit. No major economic consequences, no mention of weapons of mass destruction, no international interference or even diplomatic problems (e.g. UN interference).

I've been following this, and the whole thing is just a bit off. All the large scale conflict just seems to be a sandbox the author is using to show how awesome Harry is and have him ascend to power. Nations, groups of people and leaders don't act realistically. They're just cardboard cut outs for Harry to knock down.

And Harry himself isn't really very worthy of our sympathy. What reason do we have to desire Harry's success? There really isn't much special about him at all. His one characteristic that has led to his success is his ability with magic - but even there he's a bit of a one trick pony. He seems to have zero ability with more subtle or practical magic or knowledge of magical theory. All he can do is make things go bang on large scales. Not exactly the kind of magical ability one respects. The ability to create is far more impressive than the ability to destroy. Further, he has plunged Britain into anarchy and civil war for his own benefit, and seeks nothing but his own advancement. He isn't committed to any ideal other than himself in power. He's advanced up the ranks undeservedly - his success stems from his magical advantage and political manoeuvring, not any special strategic talent or leadership ability.

His ability to bend the whole political institution to his plans with the help of just one MP and one Lord is rather unbelievable.

As I mentioned before, the wizarding world doesn't really work for the story either. The reveal of the wizarding world plotline rather clashes with the war in Europe plotline.

While I'll likely still read the story, I think there would need to be major changes for me to rate it above 3/5:

1. The Muggle situation needs to take place in a AU of the real world. I know that this is an AU already, but it needs to be a much more significant AU. Britain needs to be a lot stronger - both militarily and economically - than in real life for a conquest of Spain to be anywhere near believable. Firstly because Spain is no military slouch, so Britain needs to be stronger to have such an overwhelming victory. Secondly, Britain needs to be much more powerful in order to still scare other European nations (and indeed non-European nations) away from interfering, even when already embroiled in one war against a developed nation. To be able to pull this kind of operation off, a nation would have to be in the same kind of economic and military league as the USA. So there needs to be a severe AU.

The only thing I can think of to meet this need would be if Britain had kept some of its overseas possessions. In particular, an AU India which was more developed/industrialised/educated is needed. Only that would provide the kind of population base and wealth for Britain to reach superpower status. Without this AU India, it would still be rather unbelievable. Ask yourself: could an alliance of Britain, Canada, Austrialia, South Africa, Singapore and Hong Kong pull off what Britain has done in this story? I don't think so, and that's pretty much every significant power of the Commonwealth, minus India. (Sure, such an alliance could beat Spain militarily. But it wouldn't be able to do so without the USA, China, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Israel saying "WTF are you doing?").

But that brings its own consequences - namely, this AU India would quickly outshine Britain, and there would be political consequences for that. The political centre of the empire may remain in London for historical reasons, but you can bet that Indians are going to have a significant stake - if not a majority - in parliament. Taxation and representation and all that. I guess you could say that in 1947 Gandhi negotiated some kind of integration deal rather than independence, turning the Commonwealth into some kind of federal empire.

These are just ideas. I'm just saying: modern Britain is incapable of doing half of what has occurred in this story. If you want Britain to do this, you need to significantly up Britain's power. You also need to say that nuclear weapons were never invented and come up with an AU end to WW2 (perhaps whatever AU end this is would lead to there being no UN, which explains its absence). The deterrent of nuclear weapons is too significant for any war like this to happen in modern times. Even though Spain doesn't have nukes, there are plenty of interested parties that do.

Of course, if you do all this to make Britain more realistically able to pull of such great events, then one wonders why Harry should come to power in the first place, as clearly the current government is doing pretty well for itself. That brings us to point 2:

2. Harry needs to be more likeable. We need to be able to get behind him. As it is there's no reason for us to support him. This needs to come in two parts: A. He must have a morally justifiable aim that we can support. B. He must be more competent. There are plenty of morally justifiable aims out there for Harry to use. Perhaps the current government is corrupt. Perhaps Britain still enjoys an unfair position of prominence within the British empire ("first among equals") and Harry wishes to transform the Empire into a true federal format. Maybe Harry is a republican. Maybe Harry is a meritocrat. Maybe all of these reasons together. But he needs a reason other than "I want to rule the world". As it is, Harry is the bad guy. With regards to competence, you need to show Harry as possessing greater political and strategic savvy, greater understanding of magic beyond his ability to make things explode, and turn him into someone of greater intellectual depth in general. Giving him a BA from Oxford isn't enough. Look at the Founding Fathers of America. As well as being competent militarily and politically, many of them were great thinkers of their day. If the people are to follow Harry on such a transformational undertaking, he needs to be an outstanding individual. As it is he's just a brute with a few tricks.

3. The magical world needs to be made more AU. The fantastical nature of HP society and magic just doesn't fit with the gritty feel of the war story you have going on. I think the numbers of wizards needs to be reduced to more along the lines of Dresden Files, though perhaps not that extreme - maybe 100-200 wizards in the country, and almost no wizarding society completely separated from Muggle. I think the flavour of the magic system needs to change too, to make it a bit more serious-feeling. Again, a magic system more like The Dresden Files (though without the menagerie of supernatural creatures) would suit the atmosphere and events of the fic much better. Dresden magic has limits that HP magic doesn't possess that make it non-broken in a fic like this (why hasn't Harry just used the Imperius on all his Muggle opponents, for example?), but also Dresden magic is capable of grand feats like the ones that Harry is performing (big explosions) which HP magic doesn't typically do.

Do I expect you to re-write the entire fic to be in line with these suggestions? No. Not when you're already as far as you are. But I think the story would have been better had this been the case.

 

Seriously, Taure. I would much rather read an AU like the one you describe. In fact, imagine a magical "nuke" equivalent that ended WWII. Some invention of Dumbledore. It could be offensive of defensive. If you wanted to go all Dark Lord Dumbledore, it could be some sort of ward scheme that completely isolates an offending country. Or it could completely protect the British Empire from reprisal.

 

I find it strange that no powerful wizard has tried to subdue Harry. Where are they hiding and why?

 

New chapter, Neville is a boss and Harry is a tool.

 

New chapter again. Harry is boring. Fleshes out an end to WW2.

 

The whole energy generation issue is well timed, given the discussion of Harry Potter and the Steampunk revolution in WBA.

 

Finally the Potter's are reintroduced, I don't think we've seen them since the first chapter, and to think they're that involved with Harry's little quest. I got the impression that they were in exile somewhere and were neutral at best to Harry's ambition and what he was doing to Europe.

 

Just read the whole thing, and I am sort of impressed. It seems very similar to Tyrant, a novelisation of the life story of Dionysius I of Syracuse - "I need some power to do stuff. Oh no, people above me are stopping me from achieving my goals. I must become stronger to achieve them. Oh no! The king! Oh no, France! etc etc"

The lack of magic is annoying. As people have pointed out, this could be any sort of AU, even just plain historical, with Harry just being awesome!cool!vanilla-mortal instead of whatever. Also, the term 'mage'. This reeks of Political Correctness - the author not wanting to use either 'wizard' or 'witch' to differentiate between the sexes, and so just getting a new word. But that's a minor annoyance at best.

Also, magic has been outed. And it seems that this only really has any importance in the UK. We have no mention of any other country doing anything about this.

Massive amounts of OCs don't really bother me. They're better fleshed out than the majority, and aren't just hermione/ron with different coloured hair.

3.5/5
Better than most stuff on ff.net, and an interesting read. But gains nothing much from being set in the Potterverse, which sometimes seems to actually detract from the story.

 

No mention at all aside from the many mentions of the insurrections and general unrest Harry has stirred up in pretty much every country in Europe via his many agents so as to draw their attention away from Britain. Unless you were talking about Africa, Asia and the Americas? We don't know shit about what happends there, but we do know what's happening in Europe.

 

Compared to all the details we see about other things, yeah - we see nothing much of it.

 

What, you'd rather the author insert snippets about some randoms from another country holding a debate about magic?

 

Well, Im rather pissed. The author posted another chapter and I clicked on it. Turns out it was an author's note on If Harry should have a harem or not.
WTF?

 

So you get two full length chapters in two weeks after a 6 month wait and you're complaining that you didn't get three?

 

No, not complaining about getting chapters, but more of how this story may be turning. I've never read a story that could pull a harem off, and stories usually takes a turn for the worse. I hope he can make it work, and he seems to have a pretty good idea for how it can work. I posted my last comment immediately after seeing a bolded Harem.

Truly reading it however and I see he's using it more to increase political drama rather than add smut. So I have hope.

 

I suspect the same. He won;t do a smut scene. He had plenty of opportunity to do so in is last series and refrained, to say nothing of this series.

That being said, I voted harem, simply because I think the more intrigue the better.

 

You don't need a harem for intrigue.