Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

(A Change in Energy has no cover, so that's a cover from a SG:U comic book.)

As DNF reviews are usually short, I'm not going to use the template for them.

DNF #1: A Change in Energy by kvikindi.

This story is a "remix" of my book #1 of the year (Force Over Distance, reviewed here). For those not in fanfic circles, a remix is when one author takes another author's fanfic and changes something and rewrites it. Anything can change: The setting, the timeframe, a background character could become the main character, whatever. Original story is set in Paris? New story is set on the Titanic! Original story had Bob as a cop and Joe as a robber? Now Joe is the cop! So I was really interested to see what kvikindi would do with this wonderful story.

Boggling, the answer is almost nothing. I read to about 20% (1.2-2 book's worth), and I endlessly kept repeating to myself "What is the point of this?".

The original story is set on a ship with a crew of about 20 people tops. The POV went back and forth between two characters. What did the author change in rewriting? Made the POV just one of those two characters. With such a small group of people in such a limited space, it made zero difference.

I swear kvikindi must have gone through the original story and said "Okay, chapter 16 has 134 paragraphs. In paragraph 1... *writes the exact same thing as the original story*, in paragraph two... *writes the exact same thing as the original story*".

I'm just so confused. Why would you write 400,000+ words that are basically just rewriting another story in your own words? But every single beat of the story was exactly the same? Even the most minor plot details were the same.

The author wrote a "DVD commentary" for the story, and in it she said that she made a lot of changes. Like the main character was now a gay man in the closet (I never, ever, ever in a million years would have guessed that based on the story alone).

Plus the biggest sin of fanfics: Unlike the original story, sadly I never once heard the characters' voices in this one.

I'm just so confused and sad. I wanted to love this story, but what was the point? I might as well go read the original one again.

DNF #2: Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies. To be fair, I didn't give this book much of a chance. The writing style just didn't click with me, plus per reviews it's just Watership Down retold with deer instead of rabbits. DNF early on.