Title: The Valley of the Kings Massacre
Author: DisobedienceWriter
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure/Supernatural
DLP Category: Independent
Pairing: None
Words: 13,177
Published: May 26, 2010
Status: Complete, Oneshot
Summary: An adult Harry finds his destiny as an independent curse breaker in Egypt.
Link: Story

It seems DisobedienceWriter has come back after nearly a year of absence. This is another oneshot, set around 25 years and onward after DH, where a disillusioned Harry has partially separated himself from the Wizarding World and pursues his passions in Egypt, eventually discovering there are seven Valleys of the Kings, not two. It's canon-but-not-epilogue compliant, but there aren't really many elements of canon included.

This story has far fewer flaws than many of his others - whatever he was doing while he was away, DW got better. It still wraps up a bit too neatly, and the ending is probably the weakest part of the story, but I quite enjoyed everything else. It isn't action packed, though it does have it's moments. It's mainly about the exploration of tombs, horcruxs, and the rediscovery of ancient magics.

I'd give it a 4/5. I know most of you are wary about DisobedienceWriter, but this one is definitely a cut above the rest.


Checked by Minion, July 28, 2016

 

I quite agree with him. I read this when I noticed the author alert in my e-mail earlier today. I was going to post it here, but he already beat me to it. I also give this a 4/5. I found it very enjoyable. It has a lot of good detail, decent characterization, and seems to be pretty realistic.

 

I found it bland. Writing was good and all, but it felt like a full novel was told in a chapter and with very little attachment from the author. He still hasn't lost that dry way of simply presenting a sequence of events rather than actually telling a story. So this felt closer to a documentary actually.

Still, 3/5 for the presentation.

 

I really liked this, sure there were some parts that were bland but all in all a good read.

I give it a 4/5

 

Pretty decent, the end felt like a bit of a cop out to me though.

Then again anytime Harry buy's into a prophecy it seems like a copout to me...


overall not bad, kept my attention, but never really got my heart racing. CurseBreaker!Harry is getting more and more of the limelight so that in it's self no longer merits any points.

There were a couple of cliche' as well, though the only one that really bugged me was BlackWidow!Tracy. I don't even mind the concept, but from the sound of it she was going through a husband every two to three months which is ridiculous.

Good overall read I suppose, but it was missing it's spark somehow. 3.5/5

 

I broadly like DisobedienceWriter's stuff, and I agree this is better than most of his stuff. 4/5.

 

(I had this in "almost recommended" until I saw that I'd missed the thread here).

A novelette by DisobedienceWriter centering on Harry's life post-Hogwarts as an Egyptian curse breaker. It's competently written in its mechanics, with only a few grammatical errors that I could spot, but maps into what I've come to expect from DisobedienceWriter: an interesting story premise, yet wooden characters, sparse descriptive prose and dialogue, and little chance for a reader to become immersed in the tale.

As a one-shot exploring the concepts presented, it probably could have been half the length and lost little of substance.

Spoiler

Certain scenes, such as where he reintroduces Hermione, are there just to take a cheap shot at a couple characters; others, like the retcon of the HP universe at the end in the form of newspaper articles, are dry and extraneous.

Or, in the hands of another author, the ideas could have spawned an engaging, novel-length story with organic characters and a litany of events that read less like a plot outline and more like a story proper.

In all, it's a time-waster that won't make you gouge your eyes, but won't leave you moved either. It's a decent take on the whole curse breaking thing with a few clever ideas I expect we'll see copycatted by other authors. (Though he gives props to jbern in the A/N, it's really nothing at all like Bungle/TML).

I'd rate it on the low side of 3/5--readable, but probably not Library-worthy.

 

Am I the only one who felt the ending almost felt like it was tacked on from another idea entirely?

Harry spends most of the story making it very clear in his own head what he thinks of the Egyptian priests in particular and people who make horcruxes in general (they're scum)...then he decides at the end to do a complete 180 for some reason. Whaaat?

EDIT: Might as well officially rate this thing. 2/5 for being grammatically correct but basically incoherent.

 

^ This.

That being said, the premise is interesting, and the writing was quite solid. The problem is, I've found more engaging stories being told on the Discovery Channel.

The ending also threw me for a loop; like Nemo mentions, Harry spends most of the story being quite obviously against the darker magics in the tombs, feeling horrified at the amount of Horcruxes in the last one (which is another point of contention; I mean, 365 Horcruxes?!), and then suddenly decides to make his own--out of a friend, to boot.

Overall, a 3.5/5.

 

I liked it. I'm just a little disappointed that being the "Master of Death" didn't come into play, at all.

4/5

 

I found this fic to be both amusing and interesting.
It gets 4/5 from me

 

Solid 3/5 material.

It's good for a read - but at no point while reading the story did I get excited about where it's going. The grammar and spelling was excellent - but I've read stories that had barely passable grammar where I at least wanted to know what was going to happen next. Still though - it was kind of neat reading about Harry going Tomb Raiding.

 

Anybody got a glass of water? Seriously, that story was written about as dryly as the desert it was set in.

I'll wholeheartedly agree that the premise was cool, and as others have said, could have been really something in the hands of an actual storyteller, but no; what we got was noun-verb-blah-blah-snore and even though I finished it, I can't imagine ever going back for seconds.

Anyhow, I still liked the concept, but cringed when

Spoiler

the magical core was mentioned towards the end.

3.5/5 --> 4/5 for the concept (barring the slightly cheesy and out-of-nowhere ending) and 3/5 for the technically-good but mind-numbingly boring way it read like a shopping list.

 

I tend to agree - solid for the most part, iffy at times, boring ending.

 

Shitty. Never felt like there was any tension or conflict. Didn't even make it to the apparently shitty ending. The writing was bland and unpolished.

2/5

 

I found that 90% of the story dragged significantly. He focused on a lot of the nitty gritty detail - the kind of stuff he should have glossed over - and completely ignored the really interesting stuff (basically, all the stuff hinted at before and after the one-shot!). There were also several moments where he inserted something that felt so out-of-place that it broke immersion (e.g. Hermione topless in her garden).

2/5

 

I really like the author's take on a post-DH without the epilogue story. Although, I think that the author might have convinced Tracey Davis with Mrs. Zabini ( she also was a gold digger). I liked the storyline, but I think that it would have been a better read if Harry didn't succeed in defending himself and his team from the horcrux-ancient Egyptian-priest monsters, or maybe if he got hurt. I am glad that the story ended the way it did, with Hermione stopping working with him after learning of deaths caused by him and Tracey turning on him. In the beginning I thought that it was going to end up with Harry having an affair with the married Hermione, its good that it didn't happen.

4.5/5---only 4.5 because it was really long, I usually prefer a larger number of shorter chapters than all these page breaks..the page breaks make the story seem never ending.

 

Good, but an editor was needed. The part of the story detailing each section of Harry's book was unnecessary and a detriment.

3 stars (and arguably 4 stars if left out).

 

A difficult story to rate... The idea and magic of the story had a lot of potential, one that kept me hooked throughout the story, however the execution was poor. The characters were extremely dry, and lacked any sense of intrigue.

Harry however was even more strange, though the ending could be attributed to the "GIANT" time skips between the sections. Many things could have happened to make him change his mind, the escaped priests could have taught him their knowledge and such.

Sadly, it wasn't shown and this is purely speculative and confusing so another -1 for execution. All in all a solid 3/5. Hopefully the idea would be worked more open by someone, as I am quite interested in it.

 

There were plenty of great ideas throughout the story but in my opinion the story paled in comparison to some of the previous stories by the same author. The actions by Harry in the ending didn't feel like they fit the character that the author had been building during the story. 3/5