Vlad wrote -- It is sad to see less than one review per 1000 downloads, but I can understand it given the audience.
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One also has to be careful what one wishes for.

I've been kind of lamenting (occasionally in public here, but mostly to myself) the lack of reviews; up until a day or two ago I was running about 1 review for every 8,000 clicks. Five reviews out of 42,000 clicks on 3 stories, one of them multi-part.

Thanks to Jinn's new program, I noticed in my e-mail this morning that somebody had reviewed one of my stories (Jade Pavilion I) -- only its second review --.

I was quite elated -- that story hadn't been reviewed since its first few days of publication about four months ago-- and hurriedly click-click-clicked to access the review, wondering breathlessly if the reviewer enjoyed the setting, the characterization, or just, perhaps, the "thrill scenes" (Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.)

A few clicks later I opened the review to find a big fat 4. :-)

"I had a hard time getting past the first couple of paragraphs. To {sic} much bouncing from one subject to another. Hard to keep focused on the story line. Couldn't finish it because it was boring."

And I had been 'this' close to a Pulitzer. lol


My incipient paranoia - which is never far from the surface - made me wonder if Marcus might not have been right a few weeks ago. Perhaps it might not be a good idea to write and review under the same name; I had dished out a number of low scores of my own. Was this retaliation from a disappointed author? (operating under another name, of course)

Or was it just an honest reaction from someone who had some(hopefully momentary) difficulty spelling (or in fairness, perhaps typing) three-letter words and is not enamoured with that most intricate and complicated literary concept, the flashback? Alas, I shall probably never know.


Curiously, I happened to 'mention' regretfully to one person who is known to frequent this den of iniquity that I had gotten a bummer review; perhaps not so coincidentally a personage calling himself 'seeJeffgo' became a new member later in the day and wrote a nice review of that same story (which, remember, hadn't been reviewed in months).

"Jeff" - if you're the person I 'spoke' to about the lousy review -- thank you for trying to cheer me up, but you didn't need to do that.

And if you're not the person I 'spoke' to, thanks for cheering me up!

Which once again is testimony to the consoling power of a nice review or an e-mail to us ink-stained wretches.

Thanks to all who've taken the time to read the stories, even those 'who couldn't finish because it was boring';

And a special thanks to those who've gone to the trouble of reviewing them or dropping me a line.

Boccaccio