Hello everyone, I really need to start doing these reviews again, so to start with, here is a review as a little gift for RacefanX, to his story “Eyes of the Beholder”
Fan Fiction Review
Title: Eyes of the Beholder
Rating: 9/10
This fanfic started life as a joke. Racefan one day posted a trailer on the forum which he said wasn’t going to go anywhere but after popular demand, it came to be.
Now one thing I like to point out is, almost all the other fics or stories I have seen Race do are normally in script format, which as an effect sometimes lures away people wanting to read it. However for this one he went for it and used proper narrative writing to which I found was truly well done. When he made a description of something, even when it comes to stores that go by a car window, the brand of car they’re in, the noise of the TV in the background or even what brand of food they are eating, he put it into MAJOR detail. Everything was described and it shows he didn’t just throw his pen up and just shot straight into the action. He built everything up and overall it became very enjoyable to read.
Another note I like to point out is that he uses almost everyone’s characters. Even characters belonging to members who joined before he started the fanfic. It’s enjoyable to read how someone does your character, and for RacefanX it seems quite obvious that he put as much research as he can on the characters before writing about them to which makes them come out exactly how I would picture them.
Another thing about most fanfics is that normally the author has their characters to be the central character all the time but, like most of his fics, Racefan didn’t glorify his own characters but instead he actually made Doc, my own character, the main one along with Clayton, Lucky, Sylvia, Patch, Cadpig, Nuke and a few of his own doing a lot of things. It only goes to show that Disney didn’t know what they were thinking when they said the reason they cut the main pups from ten (All Dalmatian) to four (One of which who isn’t even Dalmatian) was that they feared it would flood the show with too many main characters, as it is clearly shown here that even though more than 20 peoples characters did something; they still would have been able to pull it off brilliantly.
So more onto the story, the story starts off with Epsilon being adopted from the pound by a little girl before turning that girl into a dog. Now on the character of Epsilon; whenever I try to think of him in my mind, I always seem to picture, Alvin the Boarder Collie from the Sabrina Animated Episode “Planet of the Dogs”, possibly because they’re the same breed, however it shows that Epsilon is evil to the core, but the way he portrays it is so calm and unemotional makes him only a more menacing villain, he doesn’t go and get over the top with an evil laugh (in fact at one point he tries it but says it was Over the Top for him) So I’d give my thumbs up to him any day.
We then cut to the farm with my character; Doc and his tin dog “K-4.5” (Pun Intended) where they discuss on “Doctor Who” (obviously) Jelly Babies (See the Who reference again) and then getting the dog repaired. The scene is played out so fine and calm that it is good to represent the calm before the storm.
Meanwhile, Epsilon has made it to the farm where he meets Trey-Vores character; Roxy. Now like I said; the characters are played out brilliantly and so accurate to how you would see them, however, not only that but Racefan even likes to make references to other fanfics too (In this case; he refers to my Christmas fic “Yours Dearly” where she says Roger brought her a licence) so it shows that the author has done quite a lot of reading of fanfics for inspiration which is welcome anytime and good for continuity so it isn’t like that typical fanfic where it can be set anywhere in the timeline.
So we cut back to pups watching “Al Gores Inconvenient Truth” where the pups begin to worry about the environment however Doc actually think its more the work of Doctor Who Monsters. Now as soon as I read that, I knew that this was going to be an environmental story, but unlike most environmental media (E.G. “Captain Planet” or “Ferngully: The Last Rain Forest”) this story doesn’t force it into your face, it gets mentioned and you can see that’s the point of the story, but it only acts as the base of the story and an even better adventure is awaiting on top of all of that.
Epsilon then introduces himself and claims that he has powers that can fix the environment. Doc however doesn’t think things are right and arranges a meeting with Epsilon at the park later.
Doc then meets with Patriot where we learn a lot not only about Patriot, but as well as what happened at the end of my first fanfiction “Bark Of War/Final Game” As Sirius is mentioned, a possible mention of the “Atized” Satellites and also what became of Henry Nosax after the events of the story. This scene was also very enjoyable to read. It gave the humorous side to life and relationships as well as two geeks talking about what they know however they don’t know what each other is on about. Possibly one of the highlights of the fic.
Doc then goes to the park with K-4.5 where Epsilon reveals his plan to turn everyone on Earth into a dog and control them. Now during this scene I noticed one plot hole. Epsilon said that he can only control dogs minds, however when he turns the kid into a puppy, he says he altered the memory of the boys brother so he wouldn’t notice what has happened the boy, how is that possible when the brother isn’t even a dog yet? You mean Epsilon can’t control minds of humans but can alter their memory? If that was the case, why couldn’t he have altered everyone’s memories so that they think he has always been ruler of the planet? I’m sure Race can be able to explain that, he normally can.
Doc then rushes back to the farm, his tin dog trailing behind when they get separated and Doc hits a tree (that had to be one of the funniest bits of the fic, funny yet simple, what could be better?) he then meets U (a parody of Q from James Bond) and asks him to fix the sonic screwdriver to work like the real one, however later it is shown that is wasn’t quite as how Doc hoped it would be, in fact I was surprised about that too, I guess that was the gag, making you think the Sonic would actually work like the real one only to be completely different, I tip my hat to Race for that false sense of security.
Meanwhile K-4.5 gets stuck and it’s up to Wizzer & Dipstick to get him out, now I find that Wizzer & Dipstick may be the comedy duo you get in most comedies, like you got the dumb one who doesn’t fully understand what is going on, while you got the smart one who needs to help the dumb one understand (a prime example being George & Lennie from Robert Steinbeck’s Classic “Of Mice and Men”) I always seem to love those types of pairings.
Epsilons plan then is revealed when Doc and K-4.5 get back together and so Epsilon brainwashes some of the pups and a big battle scene commences, while some of it was cool it was also quite humorous like how Kendra & Malinda match each other being twins and knock each other out, or how Cadpig makes the kicking scream in the air only to get knocked out while doing it, Its sort of similar to real life, it may seem epic and cool with nothing to laugh at, while there are still some elements which can raise a smirk.
Epsilon then escapes in a car and (How did I guess this was coming in a Racefan fic?) an epic car chase happens. Doc uses Patriots new monster truck to chase Epsilon, now one thing I don’t get is, Patriot claims that he was working on the monster truck ever since he arrived on the farm, they question I have is; “How On Earth Is He Able To Hide A Giant Monster Truck Inside A Garage And No Body Has Discovered This Or Even Bat An Eyelid!?”
Another thing I noticed too is that more Doctor Who references are made; Like how they go to “Totters Lane” (Also known to have the Junk Yard which was the first location anyone ever saw on Doctor Who) or the old Troughton place (To which has the same name as the second actor to play The Doctor) these were cleverly done and even though a good Who fan would notice this, it doesn’t distract you from the plot.
The pups then get to the satellite dish that Epsilon plans to use for his domination however Doc then confronts him on the catwalk to which Doc gets knocked off and is left dangling for dear life (as you can see paying homage to Tom Bakers last proper story “Logopolis”)
Doc then falls and is seriously injured, now at first usually when Race uses Doc in a fic, he normally has Doc regenerate when seriously injured, so I was expecting to see a regeneration, but thankfully, Race took reality into account and didn’t follow the bloopers so Doc is still his normal self (besides, name any normal person who wants to be rid of David Tennant?)
Doc then survives the fall and then destroys the satellite dish with a missile on the screwdriver, stopping Epsilon while at the same time; the alien collie falls to his believed doom in the rubble.
But at the farm, the story ends of a happy note where they sum up on how it’s wrong taking peoples weaknesses and expose them for your own ends before Doc decides he wants to watch Jon Pertwees last proper story “Planet of the Spiders” which gets a laugh.
However meanwhile the wreckage of the dish is being searched (with my characters news reporter; Michael Swen reporting) and it seems that they found a live Border Collie in the wreckage. So Epsilon is still alive and it leaves open possibilities for the future to see him again, which I find will be good.
Overall I enjoyed this story. It was funny & creative, The characters were done spot on, it gave items to which would be enjoyed by everyone and the message to look after the environment was subtle and not forced in our faces.
However the one thing that I find I found a bit of a downside was that there were some elements which made it more of an audio description of a TV show, like mentioning how the camera pans across or the use of the opening titles, I suppose Race did this on purpose for humour sake, however sometimes it may not have needed. But that’s how Race likes writing and I respect that.
So, all together, Do you like talented writing? Do you like good description? Do you like Sci-Fi? Do you like Monster Trucks? Do you like real honest personalities in characters? Do you like the environment? Do you like seeing your characters doing something in someone else’s story?
If you answered yes to at least one of those. I would recommend “Eyes of the Beholder” to anyone any day.
It’s a Very good story and I love it.
This is a Babclayman Review
See ya