Disqualified

"Your writing style is rather captivating and made the story an enjoyable read. I get the sense that you have a good understanding of Native American culture and the nuances between tribes. Knowing nothing of the subject matter myself, the details you provided were very interesting and engaging and added a wealth of realism to the story (even when I don’t really know if it checks out factually). That being said, sometimes I felt the insight into the culture overpowered the story. In the beginning especially, when everything done, said, or seen seemed to warrant an explanation of what it was or what it meant according to Native American tradition. Unfortunately the dialogue later on when you stop using quotation marks to indicate ‘spoken’ words, is confusing, because nothing distinguishes the lines of dialogue from the thoughts of the narrator. I understand it to be a stylistic choice, but it doesn’t benefit the story. I suggest finding a way to separate the 'spoken' words from the rest of the text in some way. I enjoyed “The Chermasu”, but as an entry to a science fiction writing contest it cannot be taken seriously. It would be more at place in the supernatural/fantasy genre. This story does not include science or any of the subthemes of science fiction, instead the fantastical element of it (the transformation into a wolf) relies on a ceremony that has no scientific merit, and doesn’t pretend it does. It is fully spiritual and close to magic. Interestingly, as a more cynical reader, I would even argue that her wolf-transformation was nothing but a hallucination she had whilst in a trance-like state induced by the ceremony. In which case this story is about a young Hopi woman, living in our everyday world, serving an old man lunch and undergoing a traditional ritual that causes her to have a strange dream which is only of significance in terms of its thematics and symbolism. You must realize this is not a scifi story, you yourself labeled it as 'Fantasy/Drama'. If uploaded to a contest of the appropriate genre I would give higher marks, but since it is uploaded as a scifi story, my rating has to take into consideration that it fails as a scifi story. I was actually looking forward to seeing you incorporate the Native American culture into a science fiction narrative, so as a scifi-fan, looking for/expecting a scifi story, I'm very disappointed."