I wouldn't go beyond 2, it's far too incoherent with huge logic and character problems. I think the writer doesn't really plan beyond the scope of the current chapter.

 

3/5. The later chapters really start making the story though, and considering that part 2 started a few chapters ago, I'm looking forward to the rest of this. As someone else said, after everything goes to shit post!Hogwarts, Harry comes into his own. Pick it up again if you haven't gotten to Voldemort making his broadcast.

Rating might go up later.

 

I found the story pretty interesting. The author's writing is a little unpolished in places, and he's pretty bad at romance, but I enjoyed reading this.

It starts off pretty light hearted, but gets quite dark in the later chapters. There's a pretty big unnecessary plot device others have complained about, but at least it adds some backstory. It definitely could have been handled better.

Anyways, I enjoyed the concept and found it to be a refreshing fic. I've been wanting to read a Neville boy-who-lived story, and this is a pretty good one. Not perfect, but it deserves a second shot from some of you guys now that its further along.

4/5

 

Updated again, I pretty much agree with everything rand said.This the first story I've read with Neville as the BWL that doesn't totally fail.

4/5

 

If this was two fics, part one and part two, part two would be definite Library material. Unfortunately, it's got this malignant tumor in part one attached to it, so the recycle Bin seems a good spot for it.
Part one: 2/5
Part two: 5/5
Overall: 3/5

 

I heartily enjoyed reading through the whole thing. Of course, as stated already, Part One is not quite as good as Part Two; it's a standard Hogwarts rewrite up until the point of divergence and the raising of the tower. From there it is far better.

The Harry/Hermione is not the best written in the fandom, but little hints of it here and there don't really take away from the story. If nothing else, it's a believable transition, and there is enough other content that it doesn't really matter.

The most interesting thing about this story is the relationship between Neville, Ron and Hermione; Neville is characterized particularly well, and is given the brooding, self-deprecating but undeniably heroic character traits that Harry became known for in the books. Harry's point of view during the early chapters, explaining that he wasn't on the very best of terms with Ron and Neville but admired Hermione, made sense in a lot of ways. Of course, we had to deal with a lot of angst over his relationship with her, but in a 200,000 word novel length fic, I'd expect some kind of romantic angst along the way.

I look forward to reading the next few chapters as it seems to be drawing towards a particularly interesting finale.

In short, I think it's a travesty that this story isn't in the actual library. The rating is high enough, and to be honest, it's at least as good as anything WIP that we have in there.

4.5/5

 

Having read the first six chapters it's easy to see why this isn't in the Library.

At what chapter does this start to become good? I'm wondering how much further I have to go before I get to the "tower raising" or "part 2" that Averis and Xenks mentioned.

 

A roundabout number would be Chapter 20... It actually gets pretty good once they introduce students getting called to war. I'd suggest you skim through for a while until you reach the truly intriguing stuff, but then again, I read the whole thing and enjoyed it.

In short, it's pretty fucking dope, bro.

 

I'm reading ch 20 now. Ch 19 ended with a massive cliffhanger [Harry bursts through a window to confront Voldemort], and then in Ch 20 the author's taken us on a flashback back to 1981 instead of resolving the cliffhanger. Super annoying. I'm not saying that it's necessarily bad writing, or that the flashback might not be important, just that the author's dicking with the audience.

The flashback pissed me off enough to reply to your post and write what I think about this fic so far.

The plot started picking up with the final scene of ch 9 when Ginny gets a letter. [Does this fic have the best depiction of Ginny ever? This is the first story I've read since coming to DLP where I've actually been in favour of a Harry/Ginny relationship] The writing in general got better a couple of chapters after that. I can really see the author's skills improving as he's writing, but he still fumbles a lot, notably with spelling and consistency.

Kwan Li took the British wizarding characters to Disney World in the USA [of all places] for no reason other than as a background setting for some character development. That was bizarre. Thankfully it was only a brief part of one chapter. Many of the fifth year students were using disillusionment spells to make themselves invisible during that TF2/Ender's Game battle simulation, but then they all promptly forgot the skill in the next chapter when they're hiding from the Death Eaters. I've never noticed Kwan Li to use assure, ensure, or insure correctly. It seems that every time he needed to use one of those words he just guessed, and always guessed wrong.

Despite these problems which all persist past the Ch 9 improvement point, this story has become much better. The chapters have been increasing from 2/5 to 3/5, and now they've reached 4/5, and I've still got another 13 chapters to read.

Due to the weak start, I don't think this deserves to be in the Library without throwing out the early chapters first - they really were quite awful and I'd just feel mean if I pointed out their myriad flaws now considering how much the author's improved since. We'd be better off waiting for his next story and seeing if that's Library material.

Kwan Li could do with a Beta or two to help keep the plot internally consistent and to stomp on all of those grammar bugs.

---------- Post automerged 14th Jan 2011 at 01:44 ---------- Previous post was 13th Jan 2011 at 03:07 ----------

I've finished reading Ch 33, and now I'm waiting for the next update.

The quality of writing keeps on rising. In Ch 24 the author experimented by telling most of the story from the point of view of a muggle soldier who was seconded to Harry's unit as a muggle liaison. Strangely enough, it works. It's good to see the author pushing his boundaries.

There is a strong morality theme threaded through these chapters regarding Harry's unit's actions during the war, and remarkably the author does not pussy out. Harry is content to order the execution of prisoners of war, and Hermione is horrified by it. The author isn't dictating through the characters that any one side of this argument is correct, he's just allowing it to play out. Not even the characters are fully convinced of their respective positions, and moral flexibility is demonstrated on both sides of it. Amazing.

That said, the flaws I've mentioned before are still there. It's a damn shame that Kwan Li isn't posting drafts in WbA for us to roast before he publishes them.

I understand why Averis thinks that this deserves to be in the Library, and I am so goddamn close to agreeing with him. My memories of the awful, early chapters have been completely obliterated by the later, awesome chapters. I don't even know who that person complaining about them was.

It gets a 4/5 from me overall. Could have been higher.

 

Boring ... 1/5, 1 for trying

 

LOL. What chapter did you get up to?

 

As stated before the first chapters does not do the fic justice. If only the author would take the time to rewrite them, I believe that the fic could be earn it's spot in the library.

As it is, I give it a 2.5/5 with an option to go up a point if the start is changed. First impressions are everything after all, and many people will never read the fic out of the boring crap we head in the begining.

 

Rewriting it would be a trap.

The plot and characters are dreadful, but they're also the foundations for the later, awesome chapters. If the author started fixing the early chapters, then he'd be changing things that the later chapters rely on, and have to go and fix any inconsistencies. It'd be a painful, awkward, back and forth process.

Also, he'd be wasting energy re-treading old ground when he could be writing new stuff; and, for what? To gain DLP's kudos? I'd reckon that increasing his writing skills and getting new material out there is more important than getting a fic moved from DLP's Recycle Bin to its Library.

Seeing such an obvious and marked upward progression in writing skills contained within one fic is kind of beautiful in its own right. It gives the fic a fairly unique value. 'Course it makes it a shit read to begin with, but we can't have everything.

 

I didn't think the beginning was shit until it had gotten to the shift, so I think y'all are being a bit too harsh. In fact I still don't think it's shit - just obviously not as good as the second half.

 

I wouldn't have made it past the first few chapters if I hadn't read the reviews that said the fic got much, much better.

The grammar, the dialogue, the characterisation, the god-awful romance, and the even worse plot were only offset by some interesting ideas for the HP world, and a Ginny Weasely who was actually good to read.

I didn't notice the plot start to improve until Ch 9/10, and the rest began improving not too long after. I'm definitely glad that I trusted Averis and Xenks' opinions about that. The fic gets awesome and I've have really missed out if I'd ditched it.

In my defense, most fanfic authors don't improve at anything like the rate that Kwan Li did.

 

yeah, I honestly thought that the start was good, it caught my attention, but then chapters 5-10 were a bit iffy. after that, it was great until the "19 weeks later" part. From there, it just seemed... meh. The PoV change really threw me, before then we were just following Harry's PoV, he got the super powerup, and had the anticipation going well.

Then its just completely ignored, and all we really know is that he kills Death Eaters...

I actually stopped reading arond chapter 29 or 30. Where voldemort killed thorn. The dude he started off characterizing wellwith, and then just completely ignored pretty.

 

Now I know this fic is good.

 

Ya that was kind of bugging me as well though from the last update it looks like that is going to be addressed in the next chapter.