Great chapter, and the Harry/Fleur interaction was very nicely done. However, there are still some mistakes the betas missed, and I found the Skeeter article was really badly written (tone, structure and everything; maybe that was the point though...). Also the Luna moment was a bit wtf, although it was rather funny.

This story is getting really good, so you might as well finish it.

 

I have quietly lurked on this fic for the two years it's been being published, I don't think I have once reviewed it except for the stereotypical FF.net "Moar please".

This is certainly my most favored of your fanfiction and in my opinion your best as well. The caustic Sorting Hat has to be up there with Fat Todd the dementor for my all time favourite HP characters.

Your new chapter is excellent, finally getting some Harry/Fleur action going is probably what made me post at last. The fluff was perhaps just a little too sweet for my current mood but if I re-read it later I'll imagine I'll enjoy it very much.

The Luna moment felt a little strained (as in you were trying to hard for the gag) and the Rita Skeeter article just doesn't seem like something she'd write, insufficiently catty.

Good luck to you with the published work. Any plans on printing outside the United States? I'm not particularly inclined to pay $10 for the book and then twice that for the shipping.

[Edit] Missed Oephyx's post saying similar things, sorry.

 

Jim, nothing to say except that I loved this latest chapter, especially the latter part with the Hogwarts ghosts vs. the Geist.

Will the ghosts have a part to play in the future? Seeing as how the Bloody Baron is an ancestor of the Potter family, how would the Slytherins react to that? Also, what is to be done about Peeves? There's more than meets the eye about him.

I do have a question/request:

Could you give a quick summary/outline of the basic idea behind your eventual Harry Potter/new Battlestar Galactica crossover? I'm interested in seeing how exactly you would pull it off.

And also, the HP/Narcissa fic. What's the idea behind that one? I'm interested.

And I must go with the general flow on this one and say to finish TLIL first and then wrap up TML. The momentum is there and you have top take it and run with it to it's conclusion.

 

Damn, I barely finished reading this chapter and I already can’t wait to see what comes next. I didn’t really get Harry’s final thoughts op Peeves. Did he mean that Peeves is dangerous and because no one but the Baron can keep him in line it would be too dangerous to keep him around the children when the Baron will have moved on? That’s a really nice subplot.

 

Finally got my Geist Vs Baron fight you foreshadowed so long ago. So for that I thank you. 5/5:awesome

 

Words cannot describe the awesomeness of the Bloody Baron and the other Hogwarts ghosts going medieval on the Geist's ass. :awesome

Seriously lulzy, the characterisation of the Sorting Hat is utterly brilliant and makes me laugh everytime. Without a doubt one of the best fics I've ever written.

Oh, and finish TLIL first.

 

Jim might not appreciate you taking the credit, unless he's also trolling as someone other than himself...

Jim,
The chapter was a lot of fun, even if I felt it was a bit rushed in spite of being 20 pages long. That's likely because Rita's article took up a good chunk. I'd agree with whoever noted that it was very unlike any article you'd normally see from Rita, but I'd probably chalk that up to her seeing the writing on the wall with how well HJ is doing, as well as her likely thinking that she'll attract more flies with honey, etc.

Sure, the MILF thing seemed a little forced, but it was funny so I think it was worth it. It's refreshing to see your take on Luna in this story after such a different interaction with her and Harry in Bungle and TML. The same goes for your Neville in this story; I like the arc or subplot you have with him, HJ and Augusta and Neville's parents.

As for the Geist, I just finished Grave Peril (Dresden Files book 3), and the Baron in his armor reminds me a lot of Michael, the Knight of the Cross in Butcher's novel. No real correlation, but reading the two so close together made the connection for me.

I imagine that HJ's knee will not be fully healed before the next day's Task, and HJ may not do as well as others, and his lead will dwindle. That's just more tension for the final Task or whatever finally decides the Tournament, so great work on adding more layers of conflict.

Someone said the Durmstrang students will be glad HJ did in their Geist, but I don't think it'll play out that way. Sure, many might be secretly glad it's not kicking their asses at their school, but that whole "school pride" thing will have many gunning for whoever did in "their" geist, and Karkaroff will stoke those fires for certain. It's that whole, "I can say my sister is ugly but I'll kick your ass if you say it."

As for TLIL or TML, I don't care which you finish first. I kinda like the back and forth, update one, update the other, but it does look like you have momentum for TLIL, and that's hard to argue with. The fact that you can write one story so well, let alone two, is amazing to me. As someone who actually likes the H/Hr pairing, I can't express how much I look forward to it being fleshed out by a more-than-comptetent writer. So much H/Hr is absolute crap that I've stopped reading almost all of them. I also think we can count on a kick-ass Harry/Narcissa, especially if you have Harry rubbing Draco's face in it or at least allowing him to be publicly humiliated by it.

I look forward to reading whatever you post next, and thanks for converting your original work to Kindle. As soon as it's available, I'll be buying it.

 

I don't know about this. I mean they can regrow all of the bones of the arm in one night, and they are as good as new so I doubt the knee will be an issue. It isn't like he got it from an attack directly from the geist. I mean it was only from the things the geist was throwing at him with basic levitation. He should be out of the hospital wing with a leg working as good as new in a few hours max.

It would be a nice idea to have yet another handicap of some sort, but I think at this point it gets a little tiring. I mean cheating is obviously expected, but I don't think the last few challenges will represent a huge problem for him. I do expect that Voldemort may do something in the last challenge, but with Jim, it is hard to tell if it will be the same as in the books or if he will go a completely different route all together. I just hope Harry is the outright winner. There are way too many GOF remakes where Harry shares the title with someone else.

Also, I plan to eventually buy your book, Jim. It may take me a month or two to get around to actually doing it due to my hectic schedule I don't have time to read a book, and I know that is what I'll do instead of working on the projects I have due over the next month. I'm way behind as is, and I have a tendency to read fanfiction when I should be working on those projects as is.

 

Whether the ratings on the topic page show my votes or the average rating, I don't know, but I think my vote gave this fix 5 stars, lol.

Annoying womanizing tendancies aside (I thought their personality was supposed to be a bled of Harry/James?), this is a really enjoyable fic.

Nothing is rushed, and yet the plot doesn't move along too slowly either.

The hat's humour gets a little old after a while, I suppose. The initial 'shock value' of his crude jokes wore off a long time ago for me, though I still find it an enjoyable character nonetheless.

The reason I rated this fic a '5' though is Harry's expert use and mastery of transfiguration. I always found it to be the most 'fascinating' and 'enjoyable' of magics to read about, and I find myself frustrated that it isn't used in fanfiction more often. It must be something about the unlimited posibilities and cool factor of creating little armies to do your bidding.

The way he went about 'finalising' (for lack of a better word) the Harry/Fleur was good too. Not too sappy and unbelievable, and somewhat sweet.

I definitely like this fic better than TML.

 

I love both TML and TLIHL but I have got to admit that I like Lie the best, your HJ is cooler than Ambassador Potter and the ship (H/F) is one of my favorites so I will join the rest and wish that you ride the momentum you have on Lie.

And as for your H/Hr I hope to see it soon, as it has been said it will be quite refreshing to see a superb author have a go at my favorite ship.

 

Sorry, I meant read, dammit
Just wasn't my day.

 

Kindle version of HHH submitted to Amazon. It says it will be "live" in 12-72 hours. Download price $7 of which Amazon gets 65 percent. I'm trying to keep a profit margin of at least $2.25 per unit sold. I shaved a few bucks off the cover price because folks who've bought a Kindle have already shelled out a few hundred bucks.

The e-book will be released at the latest on April 1st. Download price will be $3. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to use Smashwords, Lulu, or a service directly from Paypal to distribute it. Any of you e-book readers out there have particular favorites? If paperback sales piddle off to nothing, I'll consider it sooner. Mainly, I want to make certain that those buying the book have a chance to receive it before I open it up to the ease of e-books. At that point my collection essentially becomes shareware with only the honesty system keeping people from redistributing it, but at that point if they can't find it in their hearts to cough up $3 for some decent entertainment, well to hell with them.

 

I didn't realize Amazon kept so much of the price for themselves. Or is that about the normal percentage for publishers, whether it's paper or electronic? Anyway, that's about the normal price for a Kindle-formatted book. I think most of the Dresden Files books are between $5 and $7, although Small Favor is nearly $14 (I haven't finished the fourth book yet, so I don't need to worry about #10 yet). The Golden Compass was $7.50. My wife was the one who first wanted the Kindle, but I've been the one using it so far. I like it, and it's hard to argue with the convenience of having tons of books at your fingertips, but there's something to be said for having a thick tome in your hands and the feeling of entering a new world when you open that book.

Anyway, I might buy the real-paper book just to show my wife that not all fanfiction writers are talentless housewives touting Mormon propoganda. Wait, I think I got fanfiction mixed up with Stephenie Myers for a second there. [To be fair, I haven't read her books, but Stephen King's opinion killed any inclination I might have had to read them.]

Jim,
You mentioned earlier that you doubt you'll have Fleur pregnant in the sequel to TLIL, since it's been almost a running gag in TML, with Lauren, Hermione and perhaps Baba Yaga. Are you pretty much admitting that Hermione *is* pregnant in that fic? Damn, I suspected that might be the case, but was hoping against it, since I think she's been used as a semi-willing pawn by Dumbledore in that story to the point I feel more sorry for her than still angry about the love potion betrayal in Bungle.

The Hermione you've written in TLIL has a really good balance of loyalty, naivete (not sure how to get that spelled right without the apostrophe-like thing) and good humor that makes her endearing. That sort of characterization is what will make your planned Harry/Hermione story work. Banter between friends is poorly done in most of the fan fiction I've found, and JKR relied too much on hit or miss one-liners in canon. I don't know if I've said this before, but I always figured you were pretty dead-set against Harry/Hermione, probably from my reading of Bungle, but especially from the first few chapters of TML, where Harry verbally eviscerates her for her role in Dumbledore's machinations. Great stuff.

Love your work, Jim.

 

It shows that it's live in the Kindle section. Amazon has already discounted my price of $7 to $5.60. Their initial high percentage allows them to mark it down and sell it for less. I'll have to see how much I'm getting per sale at the discounted rate.

Kindle version link - no idea how long it takes for it to appear on the main book page.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001U3Y94Y

Honestly, I like H/Hr as a ship. It makes more sense to me than H/G. It's just everyone writes H/G and H/Hr. I wanted to be different. I could have easily made TFtCD H/G instead of H/Susan, but I didn't feel like being someone else writing a H/G fic. Honestly, I originally planned for that story to be H/Marietta Edgecombe, but Susan made more sense, so I went with her.

The point of Hermione in TML is that she's been an unwitting dupe all along. One of those road to hell paved with good intentions things.

 

Ha, awesome dedication.

The format looks like it's correct, and the table of contents links are working fine.

 

Now that's more like it, I don't care what system you use so long as I can get a hold of a copy that doesn't ship from the US. I'd use a pre-existing system, they may take a small cut but it cuts down on the work for you. Of course if you're prepared to do the work and if it's selling well then it might be better value for you to do it yourself.

I'm not web-savvy but an option might be rather than posting it as an e-book, have a website with a one-off paid membership. Then you post the fic on there as read-only and that might get around the whole downloading and sharing thing. That's also quite useful for later on as well if you publish more stuff, the site is already there and all you need to do is make people upgrade their accounts (at a cost) if they want to see later published work.

There are then however extra costs involved, such as website design, administration and server fees but there are lots of people around DLP who could probably give you advice about that. Financially I don't know what the cut existing services take but I assume it's less than the cost for you to publish a single work and maintain a website as larger services have the benefit of economies of scale and experience. On the other hand if this is but the first bud in a flowering literary career perhaps it might be worth it rather than having to rely on a service every time. At what point it becomes financially viable I don't know as I have no idea of the costs involved, that's for you a calculator and a cost/benefit analysis to decide.

I may be wrong but I think that LT2000 is or was a web designer and/or an IT tech consultant, people such as he could offer you more sound adbice.

As I said I'm not experienced in such things, just thought I'd throw the idea out there for ya.

 

I haven't finished the preview chapters at the back, but HHH is fantastic (I'll post a review when I do). My only regret is that Lieutenant Armchair isn't longer and that Supervillain isn't a full novel.

 

I liked the latest update. The scene with the ghosts was particularly cool.

My nitpick is that I thought the Twins scene sucked. The little battle between them and Harry has been going on for like a dozen chapters or more. Then it basically ends in a paragraph saying "Harry obliviates them but gives them a crapload of money, the end". I was hoping for something more satisfying, perhaps involving brutal public humiliation. Instead they get the money to start their shop and effectively get away with bullying people. I guess there's still future chapters for them to get crushed by the Hat-golem.

 

Dirk diggory is correct. Twins got off waaaay too easy.

 

Thanks for the comments. I'm actually considering doing Lt. Armchair as a novel. Supervillain - I'll definitely do more stories in that universe, but they may not necessarily be about Mechani-Cal.