Hi, Lurker!

Well, I read your latest fic, and I wanted to give you some opinions on it. 
As always, your mileage may vary with usage, and I don't want to come off 
sounding critical. There's nothing wrong with this fic as far as grammar and 
spelling and all that goes, so I had very little to nitpick. In fact, there 
was only one thing in the whole story that bothered me, and unfortunately it 
was sort of a big one.

My main problem with the story was a pervasive one - and please, keep in 
mind that I *did* like the story. It just seemed a little... dry. There's a 
pretty good story in there, but it's presented in a very straightforward, 
stipped-down manner. Very little description, almost no prose, just a blank 
"she was bored. She read the book. Her brothers played catch outside" kind 
of presentation.

This is supposed to be a sentai series, and if there is one thing that makes 
a sentai series entertaining, it's the pace. Sentai stories are stories in 
which things are always *happening*, however cliched some of those things 
may be. It's like an action movie: there is always a car chase, or an 
ambush, or a sight gag, or *something* in every scene that keeps the 
audience interested. Heck, the only time someone isn't in imminent danger 
during a Power Rangers episode is when Bulk and Skull are doing something 
amusingly stupid.

Nobody in this fic does anything amusingly stupid. In fact, for about the 
first half of the chapter, nobody in this fic seems to be doing anything, 
period. The only person we know enough about to care for is Lamia, and she 
spends the first half of the chapter doing her math homework in blissful 
ignorance. Her brothers are not only nameless, but faceless: you tell us 
they are there, but they never get described. Her boyfriend Alex recieves 
nothing but a first name, and has all the natural charisma of Mr. Anonymous. 
I'm still not even sure why he was there at all.

My point is, you have a good story that unfortunately seems to start well 
after the rest of the chapter has already begun. I would suggest having the 
Archons arrive at the very start of the fic, as their entrance was very 
well-written and really managed to catch my interest. As the villains of the 
story, they are going to be the main movers of the plot, so without them in 
the picture the rest of the chapter sort of feels like it is waiting for 
them to arrive. Once they are there, you can show the mysterious figures in 
their shadowy bunker making vague references to "the prophecy" and such. The 
scene with Lamia and her brothers might read better if you wrote from the 
perspective of the agent - spying on them to make sure Lamia is the right 
person to be the Red Ranger, maybe? It might make his sudden appearance 
later seem less abrupt if you foreshadowed it a little. Have her get the 
watch at the same time the faceless cannon fodder are spreading through the 
city; that way you can speed up the pace a little (giving her ample time to 
read her instruction booklet and grab a nap does very little to make her 
seem in danger). Toss in that nice fight scene with the new PowerRed (which 
I thought was incredibly well done, and very gripping), and then segue into 
the cliffhanger ending you already set up, with people looking for the other 
Rangers. All in all, I think it would help with the pacing and make the 
story go by much faster.

Once again, I really liked the story. The only thing against it is that it 
is an original fic, and thus it needs to catch the readers' attention a lot 
faster than it did. If it had been by anybody else, I might not have read 
far enough to realise how neat a story it was. I know that you can write 
strong beginnings that catch the readers' imagination - your Detective 
Conan/Bleach crossover is a fine example. Shuffle your scenes around a 
little, like I suggested, and I think this fic could be just as strong as 
that one. As it stands, it is a well-written fic that moves a little too 
slowly to really maintain my interest.

Then again, that's just one person's opinion. As always, you can take it or 
leave it as you wish. Pacing is a tricky thing, and I'm hardly one to 
complain when a chapter is slow without seeming like a bit of a hypocrite. 
It could be that I was the only one who was bothered by this, and I would 
hardly let it keep me from reading another chapter. If nothing else, it 
always is cool to see some more sentai on the list. Makes me want to start 
work on that Gatchaman continuation fic I had in mind a while ago... ^_^

I hope this helped a little. Later!

-Morgan Hudson



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