Feeding the Inferno

A soldier looks back at his life in the midst of combat.

Reviews

[Phillip J Clayton]

pure brutality! M/ i can relate to alot of this story, rage is often blinding, and you become some one else an dnot aware fo the consiquences that follow, but i hav eben there an d my hands have been in blood before, but i must admit it felt f*****g good returning favors, but it hurts when the feeling leaves... you held on so long an dnwo you are empty and have no idea what to do...but wicked story though, and i felt the rage and emotions big time.

cheers!

[Sean Allen]

Well, I'm back. I printed this out so I could go and read it sitting next to my wife while she watched whatever it is she watches on television. Then I looked at some of the reviews and realized that I hadn't ever met Stacilynn so I went over to say hello to her.

I liked the way you intermingled the two stories with a short real time paragraph and then a flashback to a much longer piece from your childhood. The writing is quite readable even if the fight scenes were quite graphic. The teenage love scene with Lena was quite nice... every day huh? I was never that lucky.

There were just a couple of typo's left...
...We stoppy by my home... Adon was holding his bleading hear... and one I can't find now having picked up a pen to mark the second one. I reread half of the story and didn't see it the next time.

Donn

[Bill Hancock]

Please bear with me as this story writes itself. I hope to have it finished very soon.

[Staci Brown]

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I read this yesterday, but had to walk away... Your words were just so brutal and violent... The youth part reminded me of myself actually... The constant berating and bullying which I held back until one day when an inferno of rage erupted deep within me and the poor b*****d I attacked (1st day of 9th grade) got way more than he had bargained for. No one was expecting the 'sissy f****t" to come out swinging and connecting! That guy never said a word to me ever again. Sure enough though, a few weeks later some other tough who felt the need to start with me, took me out in 3 punches. Dazed on my knees I found myself standing up and calling him back..., a couple more punches laid me out. lol He kicked my a*s big time! lol For some reason he left me alone after that though, thankfully. I had 3 more fights after that in my senior year, more rage that had erupted in me, plus I had been on steroids by that time, so that was a scary mix... inner rage and steroids... Thankfully I was able to put all that behind me when I decided to live my life the way I felt inside.

So when I read this cameo of parts of your life it brought back a lot of memories.

As for your time on the battlefield..., my heart goes out to you and all who have witnessed that kind of conflict. I can't begin to even imagine..., but your words brought me a little closer...

Well written. Stark and brutal realities of war...

Thank you for serving!

Faerie Blessings!
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[Creepy Swine Guy]

Disclaimer - Look! This crit doesn't come from a book critic or an editor or even a guy who ever got an "A" in English. So if my crit isn't as glowing as you would hope, you would be well within your rights (and probably correct) in saying "What the heck does that snook know? He's no expert." I can occasionally be helpful by finding typos for you or that one sentence that doesn't read quite right. But please take my crit for what it is ... just one guys opinion.


Spelling & Grammar Nitpicks:

"Maybe it started when I was a kid living with my divorce mother back in the early 70's."
Did you mean "divorced"?
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"But, I knew that I was going to hurt on of them soon and ..."
Looks like you might have meant "hurt one of the"
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"I'm starting to see some of the stupid ones silhoutted against the night sky ..."
You mis-spelled "silhoutted" ... it should be ... "silhouetted"
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"The screaming of my wouded buddies is feeding it."
Typo here ... should be "wounded"
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"We did have a set of Encylopedia Brittanica though and I looked it up."
Should be "Encyclopedia Britannica" same error with "encyclopedias" next line down.
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"A few days later and we're up to our a*s in world of hurt."
Did you mean ... "... in a world of hurt."
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Plot:

You take a bit of time explaining the source of the rage that drives the soldier. At first, it feels a tad cumbersome, but as you read on, you understand that it was absoloutely essential to the story. I wonder if some tinkering with the opening sentence might make the reader understand why this is important, as well as creating a bit more of a "hook" to grab the reader. What if you added this sentence in front of what is now the opening sentence ...


"What horrible things combine to create the rage that now consumes my soul? How did I get to this place and why am I not losing my bladder control and begging God to be anywhere but here?

Just an idea.

Style:

The story is raw, gritty and disdurbing. It had me very interested and I had no problem staying with it to the end (probably a man thing). I don't see a hell of a lot of description here. Granted, the story is set at night and perhaps in war there is no description, maybe there's no time. I wonder what you smell, gunpowder? diesel fuel? by products of killed soldiers? Might add something, might be too wordy. Your call.

The one addition I would most heartily endorse is this ... would the protagonist wonder if the "fire" he felt would ever fully subside and allow him to live in a peaceful environment again? Might be an excellent question to be a part of the closing.

[Glenn King]

Sorry about Bobby. We all owe him.

[Bill Hancock]

Ok, so it was 10% fiction. Bobby was killed in Iraq in 2005 anyway. He should have gotten out with me in 1994.

[Glenn King]

Genre - fiction err uhh is it? Maybe some names details, location are fiction but I detect more than fiction here. In any case it is a rivetting tale. What was that about relying on some invisible force? What was the force that drove our soldier on? Who was that force visible to but him? Why is he still alive and not the others? Quick wit to some degree but that can't be all. Dumb luck? Perhaps. And then again you don't see the force that says, "I am and I want to live." What we see is a man. We don't see what animates him or what motivates him. We may see reflections of these things in his eyes or in his actions. If all he believs in is himself the world must be a lonely place but certainly he believed in Bobby there by his side.

[Blue Bard]

I read this with amazement. It is raw and has some misspellings, but it is workable as a story. The boy and the man, the same rage, the same need for control. I think this character is very strong. I would love to see his transition back out of violence. Can he do it? What will he become? I'm on the edge of my seat with this one.