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Hello Rosey. I promised you a review and so here I am!

The thing that drew me to this piece was the whole subject matter - I am absolutely facinated by ancient history. I'm actually torn between the civilisations of South America and Egypt - I'm not sure which intruiges and excites me more. I've been studying the Mayan's and the Inca's for a few years now: I can read a little Ancinet Mayan and I know a few phrases. So now you know (after a long rambly rant...) why I was so interested to read your piece. Now, I'll get into an actual review.

Right: This story was Okay. For me, just OK. You had a difficult random theme and, within your limits, you did pretty good, I suppose.

I have to agree with Yoda: It's Damien this, and Damien that. It's all about Damien. I feel that the story would've been more welcoming and drawing if you had widened out a little, as if giving poor Damien time to breathe whilst describing the scenery, the tour guide ect.

For me, your prose is a little dull, as if you haven't put any effort into making it emotive and captivating. Aswell, the first paragraph bored me. It was too wordy and you used 'built' too many times. It didn't read smoothly.

On the plus side, your historical information was all correct! And, I liked your repetition: 'the Mayan's planed this'. I'm sorry: I haven't really any more to say. I apologise if all that sounded a bit harsh - I was just being honest! I hope it helped a little!

Anyways, bye!
~ Alia

Hi Rosey,

Here's a review for you.

I have very mixed feelings about this piece. I think the idea is very clever. Your characterization of Damian is also strong. The setting is mysterious and interesting as well. i really like these aspects.

Nevertheless, I feel that the storytelling can use a lot of work. Firstly and most importantly, what I feel is lacking in your story is the character interactions that might make it easy to read. The tour-guide is a non-character. That leaves a single yes-character in the story: Damien. This forces you to resort to a very telly prose, something that I think ways your story down intensely. You spend all of your time trying to explain his mental journey through Mayan history, and describing a whole bunch of scenery. This burdens your story and places baggage onto it that shouldn't need to be there.

I think that your attention to detail has led you to lose focus of the larger picture. What the story is really about. A large part of the explanation about the symbols could simply be pruned from the picture, and it would be nice to see a little character conflict. Your story relies on its twist to make it work, but the twist is at the end. We need the journey to mean something as well. Give us a little tension there as well. That can't really hurt.

Finally, there are several things that you might want to elaborate on. What the reset is, what the cycle is, and what the mechanism of the whirlpools has to do with the world's existence. Also, what you mean by the time stolen from death thing, could do with a lot of elaboration. And one last thing, how they might have sacrificed themselves to reset the calendar cycle.

I hope this helps.
Yoda

Reserving a review spot!

This was a really interesting story, I liked it. There are a few places where you're missing some punctuation. Also, in the first paragraph you used the word "built" three times. Try and find some synonyms for that rather than using the same word more than once. The last paragraph was a little confusing; you should find a way to make it clearer. Other than that, great story.