trismugistus's profile

trismugistus avatar
AGE: 31
LOC: United Kingdom
GEN: Male
LAST LOGIN: May 16

I hate writing these sorts of things as they always seem so… artificial.  I mean, do I start with an attempt at a gag?  Humour is a very subjective thing.  Do I start with “Hi, I’m Mark, and I want to be a writer”?  Not only is it cliche, but also this site is all about being a writer – why are any of us here?

Okay, well, difficult intro’s out of the way, I’ll give you some of the facts :).

Name: Mark Sunderland
User name: trismugistus (or trigs, for short).  You’ll find me all over the place :).
Age: 30-ish
Location: Farnham, England
Hobbies: Anime, Manga, Desktop Walling, Reading, Writing, old school Thrash Metal

What else is there?  Oh yeah, reason for being here – well, I have been uploading short stories to various fo…

(more)

Item Stats
Reviewer Stats
Items
Sci Fi & Fantasy / Chthonia Chapter 1
Version 1
5 Reviews   4 Comments
Chapter 1. The star-craft thundered through the portal, exhaust gases from its vast engines buffeting the thin atmosphere of the toroidal habitat ring like a hurricane; ionised particles creating storms or aurora borealis in the magnetic shielding. If there had been anyone left alive on the ring looking up through that atmosphere, it would have been a spectacular site. But there was no one left here to appreciate it. There had been no one here for more than one hundred and thirty years. No on...
Short Story / Mind over Matter
Version 1
8 Reviews   15 Comments
The fat man laughed. “I bet that makes it worthwhile, eh?” He said. How had everything gotten so far? Surely this wasn’t it? This is what it was all worth? Something wasn’t right. I closed the case and looked up at him. “It’s not enough,” I said “I want more.” He looked at me. He didn’t seem surprised. “Well now, I thought you’d say that. So what if I was to tell you that the police are on their way here? That somebody has tipped them off that Jake Friar has been spotted in the area. You know...
Ratings & Rankings
Sci Fi & Fantasy / Unforeseen Circumstances
Version 1
9 Reviews   18 Comments
Commander Vog placed his spectacles on the desk, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s what?” He asked the underling. The underling gulped nervously. “Er, it’s not ... not worked, sir.” He stammered. Vog replaced his glasses and took a deep breath. “How do you mean?” “Well, something a bit odd’s happened, sir.” Vog glared at the underling. He knew it wasn’t his fault, but he needed to glare at somebody, and this guy just happened to be there. The underling backed slowly ou...
Ratings & Rankings
Short Story / Who are you?
Version 1
11 Reviews   11 Comments
“Who are you? What do you want?” the man screamed in my face. Simple questions, but ones that are not so easy to answer. As is the custom with such things, I guess I should start at the beginning. And the beginning of this tale starts with extraordinary violence. I hadn’t ever wanted for much. Just a nice job, working to help people, a nice house in the country, filled with the sounds of happy children and lastly a wife to love with all my heart. And I guess two out of three isn’t bad without...
Ratings & Rankings
Crime, Thrillers & Mystery / Hale
Version 1
9 Reviews   11 Comments
Hale slid the blade between the man's ribs, feeling the soft tension of his lungs as they first resisted, and then, with a sickening squelch, burst open. Air escaped, blowing bubbles into the blood that ran down the blade and onto her hand. The man struggled, and she instinctively applied more force to the hand that covered his mouth, pulling his head back towards hers, bringing his ear level with her mouth. He tried to scream, but it was a futile effort, what little air was left in his lungs...
Ratings & Rankings
Reviews
I must admit, I found it a bit confusing. It almost seemed like there were pieces missing. I'll go though the bits I got confused by. When he picks up the cloth "by all four corners" it isn't at all clear that the glowing thing is now in the cloth. If you lay a cloth down flat and then pick it up at the corners, you wouldn't have anything in it - you'd need to grasp whatever you've laid the cloth down on and pick it up like that. Also, does he then crumple it up? Fold it up? How big is the cl...
Short Story / Quantum Nothing
I like the fundamental idea of the story, and it's quite a good mechanism to have the dead scientist telling the story, but overall I must admit this didn't feel well enough fleshed out to me. I appreciate it's a short story, but it just seemed to skip over things too quickly. Also, as part of this there's a lack of suspense and intrigue that the central idea almost demands. If the narrator is dead, then I would say it needs tension and build up before we get to the why and wherefore of the d...
Flash Fiction / Conversations
Locked
Non-fiction / Consumption
It's a little difficult to review - if it's half-way between poetry and a short story, then you're crossing two areas where different rules apply. Since I have no real understanding of poetry I can only review it as a short story. As a short story your main problem is the use of overly-complex and flowery language. This makes it difficult for the reader to read and understand what it is your conveying. Also both your sentences and paragraphs tend to run on too long, making things even more di...
Short Story / The Gun
Bit of a tough one to review, as, in terms of the story it's pretty much there, I believe. You also don't have any problems of telling instead of showing and the narrative voice is pretty consistent throughout. Your only real problems are to do with the odd dropped word / grammar / typo type errors. I could expand on those in additional comments if you wanted, but I'm sure you catch them in a redraft. There are a few things I could suggest as possible alternatives of doing things. Not sure an...
100.0% Review Quality (2 Votes)
Favorites