Four Color Noir by  P.F. White is pure Pulp;

a fun romp through a video game noir animal si-fi adventure. Phew!

I really enjoyed this comic book style short story. By letting the light-hearted

fantasy flow, and going with the old fashion ‘good-guy vs. bad-guy’, I had a good

time. But I found the story had a terribly sad plot trick twist at the end, where Lucy

turns on our hero, the Gorilla, and that left me wanting to see the Gorilla get his

revenge. Perhaps, in the next installment?

The author, ‘P.F.’, keeps the pace lively by not balancing it too much. He rightly

combines some soft tempo with swifter action. I was never bored. There was a

good deal of varied description throughout the story, although not thick with

detail. I love these two:  “I give him another two freight-train hooks to the gut and

the guard crumples to the street.” and “The tenement building is slowly dying. Sad

grey-plaster melts on the walls exposing red-electricity wires and howling blue air-

ducts.”

Overall, the author seemed to put more emphasis on the hero’s conflicts

and action. The characters never came across as real, but that is just fine in this

style of writing. If they appeared too real it would hurt the style and feel of the

story. The point of view was excellent and consistent.

The one thing I would suggest is that, in my opinion, the story would improve

greatly if there were some cuts made on the telling side and some more showing

and dialogue were added.

But, in the end,

“love and money is all that matters.” --P.F. White

Grunt, grunt.

 Since I often forget things I want to say by the time I get to the end and start writing a critique, I have opened the critique window so I can critique while I read. So let's just jump in ....shall we?

The critiques may be all over the place as far as the type of thing I am critiquing by doing it as I read. So, pelase bare with me...

He runs off yelping curses but glad to be alive.

 

I am not positive, but I think there should be a comma before but. I say this because I naturally paused after yelping curses both when reading silently and out loud to myself.  But that can be checked.

Till then he's a useful fink, so I let em live. Don't mean I gotta like it o' course.

Some dicks go fer finesse and subtlety in there work.

"Till" should be 'Til because it's slang and "there" should be their. There is slang abound here, but you don't seem to use the contractive ' ~ also I noticed when you are slanging him you use "em" instead of  'im. Usually "em" is reserved for plural and "im" for singular.  Is this on purpose? Is it supposed to be a different inflection? Just curious.

 grav thrusters

 

Is this gravity thrusters? ( I assume so, but some might not automatically get that).

Most folks let an eight hundred pound Gorilla do what he wants.

 

This is twice on the same page.  I don't think it's needed here and feels more forced than the other reference. I would ditch this in favor of  something like "most folks don't mind me much" or "pay me much mind" kind of thing.

Outside the night-sky is a beautiful shade of bright crimson. Below it the city's skyline of jagged black boxes blink on and off with irregular yellow lights. A blue half moon glows like a street lamp above it all. I love this town and let no one tell yeh different. In spite of the job, in spite of the criminals, I could never leave this place. It's home. Lucy understands that. She complains sometimes, but she understands.

You could almost put this first, but it is probably choice thing not necessarily a must thing. I think I would have a better grasp starting out with this description first.

Lucy but Guess I had her figured wrong.

 

Guess shouldn't be capitalized.

With all that said, I didn't think I would like this story after the first page. Amazingly, I was really intrigued. I ended up liking it quite a lot. It was moving enough, the description right on the mark, and the character was likeable.  I agree with the other critiquer that there should be more actual action and less telling to keep the reader actively involved.

Write on!