Reviews

Rebirth

You enjoy putting your readers on the rack, giving them moments of release – more and more complex release – and then, at the end, pouring freezing water on them by reminding them that the outcome will not be safe, that for every new layer of self-knowledge there are deeper and deeper layers of pain.

[Mirna Cicioni: Letter to the author, November 2002]

Unlike a great deal of online authors, you've taken some incredibly deep themes, psychologically and emotionally speaking, and woven them into characters that, by all accounts, the reader should have no sympathy for. [They] are not characters I would have ever expected to find myself empathizing with – but before I knew it, I found myself wrapped up in [The Eternal Dungeon's characters], and their struggles to become more than what nature made them. You deserve a great deal of kudos for that alone – and then you topped it off by setting them in well-thought-out, detailed worlds that left me enthralled. The entire 'Eternal Dungeon' premise and its connections to psychiatry is, by itself, incredibly intriguing – I've found myself pondering the intricacies of that connection for hours, and coming up with new ideas each time.

[Hope of Dawn: Letter to the author, January 2003]

It's a bit hard to express my feelings of the story. I had trouble with the cruelty in the beginning. I'm not used to the constant dark atmosphere in the story, I usually read a lot 'happier' stories. But I guess, in the end, that it was a happy story but within a cruel world. . . .

I also liked the way you build up the story. You dole out explanations afterwards, not at the moment itself. So the reader is always thinking for himself, formulating hypotheses, almost shuddering and sobbing because we don't know what will happen. . . .

I want to thank you profoundly for writing [The Eternal Dungeon] and showing it to the public. I've never written anything like this before and was never affected by a story like this before. Thank you for writing and making me think and feel.

[sileas: Letters to the author, November 2002 and January 2003]

And this had been such a productive day at work. I was getting so much done.

Must . . . not . . . read cracktacular . . . story. (gasp, pant) Must delay . . . gratification. (gnashing teeth) Must . . . work. Must . . . Oh, to hell with work!

[Kadymae: Letter to the author, January 2003]

I have been very remiss in not sending you feedback sooner on this compelling, thought-provoking series. . . . I rejoice every time a new story appears in [the series]. No matter how grim and dark some of the scenarios, I read the whole story, knowing that you are not simply writing "darkfic" in the hope of revolting the reader. I am sometimes horrified but often moved to tears by the depths of the relationship between the men. The series has given me occasion to think about issues of violence, punishment, the place of fantasy in a relationship, the importance of self-knowledge, and more.

[Merri-Todd Webster: Letter to the author, January 2003]

The Eternal Dungeon series makes me weak at the knees.

[Glass Houses: Brief recommendation, March 2006]

Rebirth 1: The Breaking

A marvellous, heart-rending story. A magnificent mythos you've created here – the kind that sticks in your mind long after you've finished reading.

[Nigel Puerasch, Letter to the author, January 2004]

I've been obsessively rereading "The Breaking" from the "Eternal Dungeon" series since you posted the link, and envying your knack for . . .

. . . ascetic sweetness? Monastic tenderness? Restrained catharsis?

Something like that.

[Maculategiraffe, Comment to the author, August 2008]

Other recommendations:

Recommendation of "The Breaking" at try_this_fic. (Includes major spoilers.)

"The Breaking" at del.icio.us.

Reviews of Other Works

Reviews of Dusk Peterson's Writings.

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This text, or a variation on it, was originally published at duskpeterson.com as part of the series The Eternal Dungeon. Copyright © 2002-2009 Dusk Peterson. Some rights reserved. The text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0). You may freely print, post, e-mail, share, or otherwise distribute the text for noncommercial purposes, provided that you include this paragraph. The author's policies on derivative works and fan works are available online (duskpeterson.com/copyright.htm).