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Elegant and beautiful prose poetry, January 7, 2016For me, Chandler Groover might be one of the best prose stylists in IF today. And Fuwa Bansaku is no exception, illustrating another tool in the author's already formidable toolbag.
Fuwa Bansaku, a telling of how the titular samurai undertakes a quest from his emperor to investigate a haunted temple, and paying homage to traditional Japanese poetic form and structure, is a lovely piece of work. Mechanically, it is simple. Advance, return and examine provide all the entry commands needed to advance the story and uncover additional player commands that deliver the back story. And this works extremely well. It is an entirely accessible piece of parser IF.
In what it aspires to, it achieves. It is an elegant, clever and innovative work of literary fiction. I urge everyone to spend the time to engage with it.
(Spoiler - click to show)If I have a criticism, it is that I would have liked the second half of the story to have bifurcated. Could I have made a choice that would have altered the ending?
Unlike a previous reviewer, I believe that the parser format, and the requirement to actually type a command, interacting with the text physically gives weight, and forces the player to focus on the prose. In a link format, where the eye is draw to the options before the prose is fully internalised, this story would have suffered. This prose needs to be savoured.
Much kudos to Sub-Q also for bringing works like this to a wider audience. More, please.