Draxon's Review Corner Presents
A Holiday Review
Of
Tiger Claw, Parts 2 and 3
By MadamHydra

Those of you that read my review of chapter one of Tiger Claw probably
reeled from the sub-par scores I gave it on most catagories.  As I am
quickly discovering, this story is indeed getting meatier as it proceeds,
and is scoring higher marks.  Part one was a rather chatic introduction to
the storyline, and as I predicted the next two chapters smoothed things out
considerably.

Storyline: 8
	Tiger Claw is no longer lacking in interesting plot devices.  Most of parts
2 and 3 are taken up by character interaction concerning Ranma's darker
inner self, and the percieved, coordinated attack that seems to be taking
place.  Ebon, who seems to be behind the attacks and manipulation, makes an
appearance to engage Ranma in combat, and I must commend MadamHydra on her
handling of that scene.  I found that I liked this 'Villian of the Week'
much, much better than I did Yonoko, probably because he takes the
initiative and is willing to tell Ranma how it is, "Hey, I'm here, and
you're gonna fight me."

Drama: 7
	As was anticipated, the character interaction that didn't have much of a
chance to take place in chapter one found its way here to beef up the story.
There is a lot of very heated argument among the Tendos and Ranma's parents
concerning the way people are handling and reacting to the vicious battle
that ensued in chapter one, and that kind of "real" friction added greatly.
Also, everyone is having their own personalized reactions to the events in
chapter one, and the emotional feel was greatly enhanced over chapter one.

Originality:7
	The story is becoming fuller as plot devices are brought to the forefront,
and as such I am now able to say that a good deal of thought was put into
creating them.  The increasing depth of character interaction in chapters
two and three is the primary source of the ratings increase across the
entire review.

(Realism and Humor have been cut from this review.)

Characterizations:8
	The characters themselves are roughly the same now as they were in chapter
one, and MadamHydra is no more correct or wrong now than she was before, but
the depth of the character interaction does serve to make them a lot fuller
than they originally were.  The lack of powerful character interaction in
chapter one was what gave me an 'off' feel, but now that time has been
allocated to character dialog and development that 'off' feeling has
subsided.

Grammar:8
	There are a few minor errors in your grammatical composition, nothing
serious though.  I would recommend deleting the spaces between your
paragraphs, as it would decrease the number of times your readers would have
to tap the page down key, and make the double spaces single spaces.  There
was a lot of empty space on most of the pages.

Descriptions:7
As I have nothing ground breaking to say either negative or positive, I
digress.

Overall:8
 The story is steadily improving, and the character dialog that took up most
of chapters two and three has neatly mended the monotony that I felt while
reading the first chapter.  This story thus proves that the meat of a plot
can lie outside of the so-called 'plot points' or fight scenes.  I am set to
begin reading the rest of the story on Christmas Day (Did I mention this is
my gift to the FFML?  C&C is always the perfect gift) and depending on how
much time I have available I may be able to finish the remaining three
chapters.

Post Notes:  I need to apologize to Matt Johnston, as his Music Box Angel
was supposed to be next on my list of fanfics to review.  It was a spot
decision between a series I felt comfortable with and keeping my reviewing
queue intact that led me to place Tiger Claw ahead of Music Box Angel.  Thus
far every fanfic I have reviewed since my return has been a series I have
seen little or nothing of, and it was getting to me.  I took a spot look at
M.B.A. and have decided NOT to exclude it from a review, as I seem to have
alluded to earlier.  I would also like to point out that I need more fanfic
submissions.  I have three obligations past Tiger Claw and it should not
take me very long at all to get through them, as both my free time and
willingness to spend that time on reviewing have increased.

Once again, a reminder that I need fanfics sent to me with the subject [DRC]
[Series] Title for reviewing.  I am about to go bug Libby into emailing me
her story, even though it is readily available on the web.  The reason for
this is simple archiving.  I want all of the stories I have reviewed to be
readily available inside of my email program.  Also, my preferred method of
receiving the story itself has changed recently.  I now prefer file
attachments to having the text in the actual email, as I intend to
eventually offer an email on demand of the fanfics I have reviewed to people
requesting them, and forwarding file attachments is easier than forwarding
text.

This leads to another quick note:  If you don't want me sending your fanfic
around to anyone requesting it you need to tell me when you submit it, and I
will forward requests to you for consideration.

Submit some more titles, and enjoy the reviews.  I would also like to
encourage you to pick up this fanfic from MadamHydra's website at
http://www.geocities.com/~madamhydra/

	Tell her what you think.

Draxonx@bellsouth.net

My webpage is under construction and is soon to go public.