OT: Somebody's critique of my story

[Starhawk]

Okay so I let someone (names won't be mentioned here because it's rude) read my story to give me a review just for kicks and here's what they said!

Okay (my name) I'm going to try and be polite here but I'm not going to tell you something is good just to spare your feelings.
Here are some points I want to make about your story that I spotted and disliked right off the bat:

1. Your "Icaran Empire" is a cheap carbon copy of the Star Trek "Terran Empire" and anyone who's an ST fan will likely point this out right away....I'm just waiting for a Kirk to come in to play "KHAAAAAAAN!"

2. What the hell is with this "Religious Zeal" your people seem to have? If anything an Imperial culture would be more agnostic or down right atheist because religion tends to be for ignorant people who don't understand science, which obviously your Icarans do.

3. "Icaran" does that honestly sound like a name a human culture would give themselves? Where does it coem from? It hints to no cultural or historical background and is just wierd sounding I mean let it roll of your tounge a few times "Ic-ar-an" heh change it.

4. Your characters contradict your Empire, they are all relatively good people yet they are at the same time bloodthirsty conquerers? Figure out which way you want to go and go there don't keep pulling it around like that either make them "Bloodthirsty conquerers' or make them "good guys" don't have it both ways.

5. Ross and Lin, come on "my name" why did you throw a stupid romance into the story "oooh Lin I've known you since we were fifteen oooh I love you...
"Oh Ross take me"
That's just dull drudgery that authors constantly throw in to fill bad stories with some interest if I were you I'd have avoided the romance totally.

6. Your guys seem invincible I mean they've only suffered a handful of casualties compared to what they inflicted on others, yet you constantly portray it as them struggling to win the war....get over it they are winning easily and you seem to point to that time and again!

7. Conquered worlds would hardly be pascified so easily I mean that's like saying if Canada rolled in and invaded the USA we would just switch sides, stop portraying your guys as godly heroes that everyone loves if your also going for the blood thirsty conquerers that everyone's afraid of.

8. Your Praetor/Nobility thing makes no sense, what is it a monarchy or a Despotism? the two are mutually exclusive you can't have the "Praetor as the Ruler of mankind and all of nobility" and yet have the Nobles it just makes no sense.

9. OMG broadsides that's just friggin BORING! and LAME there is a reason Star Trek and Star Wars have ships zooming about all over the place, people don't want to see a few massive warships just line up and fire into one another or go broadside to broadside they want to see big ships fly about firing guns all over the place!

10. Why are all your warships Dreadnought and Bigger? I mean I know that you are using the old "ship of the line" strategy which would render the smaller ships useless but let's face it again space battles involving only big ships are boring as hell.....throw in space fighters and small ships for entertainment value.

11. Yawn....periods of peace aren't worth wrighting about when your looking at it from your "Bloodthirsty" conquerer point of view throw in the riots and [censored] that you mention offhandedly.

12. SS OMFG don't tell me you threw in SS and have them as disciplined good "Policemen" man if you throw in anything with the name SS have them be freakin SKULL breakers and kill people or something.

13. Stormtroopers LOL I hope they can hit something for a change of pace eh? And I do hope you got rid of that lame white armor lol.

14. If your going for an epic scale don't stick to 400-500 ships have a 400 or 500 ship FLEET! that's right make your navy thousands or even tens of thousands of ships like every other sci-fi does because the more ships you've got the more bang for your battle so to speak!

15. What is up with the 18th century way of naming infantry units? I mean 1st Icara, 1st Kyra, 1st Brandenburg for when and where they were raised? What is up with that don't you think most interstellar Empires would prefer training multi-planetary infantry units?

16. What's with the Psuedo chinese feel man? the Icarans struck me as European/American in origin do you honestly think they would have such a "multi-cultural" feel when it comes only to Asians? What about black people or the mideast why don't you have any India culture thrown in? For example, you should probobly pick are you going for an asian feel or a European feel to your Empire because the two don't mix well in a story it seems mish mashed.

17. Uh I don't mean to be rude here but your characters don't sound like very intelligent people, I mean not one but three Admirals that I can count led their fleet's into pretty obvious Ambushes and suffered heavy losses because of it.
Not to mention their overal quality of speech seems to be slightly eight graderish.

18. Dropping the shields to fire guns? That makes no sense man you could just alter the shield's harmonics to allow your own weapons through yet keep the enemy weapons out, I mean I know this is why you explain the broadside tactic but it's just not beleivable.

19. DECADES in space going from warship to starbase to warship again? Do you honestly think anyone would live that way.....it's just dumb.

20. What the hell is up with Lin's name? Yu Lin, what does her whole family just like naming their kids Yu! is that like George Forman with all his kidss named George or Georgenia! For [censored]'s shake she's a woman take off the Yu.....(rolleyes)

21. What is up with your ship names I mean "Tyrant, Oppressor, Conquerer, Cyclops, Deadeye" yeah that's gonna make your conquered subjects feel safe (rolleyes).
Names like "Venture, Protector, Defender" would be better for the propoganda standpoint.

22. Credits, Crowns? Pick one I got confused when your mentioning the cost of a superdreadnought in that one chapter.

23. I was happy to see Fowler go to tell you the truth she bugged the crap out of me and whined almost endlessly.....though now it seesm you have Babcock taking up her whining career.

Sorry if I offended you at all but that's just my opinion and I think it will be the opinion of a lot of the smarter sci-fi readers above the 8th grade reading level....though for kids it might make a good light read.
Once you improve the people and overall universe I'd read it but for now I just have to say don't send me any of the updates because I just want to slap your Icarans upside their heads and shake them till they explain what the hell is going on.

That hurt but now that you've seen someone else bring up those points is there anything about them that is true, I figure you guys will be a lot more constructive about it then he was and it may help me out because as it stands I kind of lost the whole zeal and excitement about writing a book in the near future because I read my stories again and am worried that he's right.