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Comment by ronnoch | Hacker News Reader

Just to clarify, you're judging this story after only 3 chapters? Because if you want to get an accurate impression of the story, you should push past chapter 5 at least. The tone of the story evolves considerably, and you might find you like it after all. (Though to quote the author, "If you still don't like it after Chapter 10, give up.")

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Yes: I set it aside very early on.

I'm quite certain the story will change & evolve. However, I'm rather sceptical that the writing quality will.

Part of why I gave it up so early is purely on me: I am a sucker for a page-turner -- once a plot picks up a certain amount of steam, I have a near-compulsion to finish. This is the case even if, upon reflection, I don't like the writing, characters, events, etc...

Nothing less fun than coming out of a reading binge at 3am on a work night reading a book you didn't like!

edit: Random sampling in future chapters reveals great heapings of soliloquy and dialectic. I don't feel too bad about setting it down.

> Nothing less fun than coming out of a reading binge at 3am on a work night reading a book you didn't like!

Oh this has happened to me far far too many times...

If it helps, MoR's plot is fairly episodic and doesn't start to pick up steam until about chapter 16

I'd add an "I loved it" but honestly, I liked a lot of the things you disliked, so YMWPV.

I agree though, the writing is sub-par. It somehow sounds far too american to quite fit into the Harry Potter canon, in my opinion.

Since the author wasn't interested in trying to fit into canon, that doesn't seem to be a fair basis for dismissing his/her writing.

However, there are plenty of others (standard IMO disclaimer applies). ;)

(As a very quick & somewhat quantitative example, look at how many words the author spent on the contrasting views & strained relationship of Ma Potter & Pa Potter WRT magic in the first chapter, vs. the approximately zero words spent on that same topic in the second chapter when magic is demonstrated directly for them.)

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