A Comment/Review on HypnoticHarlequin’s “Extracts From the Westriver Gazette””

Today, I read a few more stories recently posted at the EMCSA. I enjoyed a couple but in this post, I want to focus on only one, namely HypnoticHarlequin’s Extracts From the Westriver Gazette.

As usual in these commentaries of mine, let me start with the synopsis chosen for it which is the following:

Ada Anderson is new in town. And what better way to introduce herself than to write to the local paper?

Okay, from those two sentences alone, one can’t really get a grasp of what the story will entail at all but it’s still enough to stir one’s curiosity and so I listened to that voice in my head and went for it. I soon discovered to be written in an epistolary format through and through which makes absolute sense but it can also be difficult to pull off correctly. I speak from experience from previous experiments of mine as well as from reading all the literature classics that made the genre so compelling especially in centuries goe by. Still, this is a modern story, one with plenty of intriguing ideas.

So… having just arrived at a new town – the eponymous Westriver – Ada Anderson finds herself dismayed at the state of affairs and writes a series of letters to the paper’s editors voicing her opinions and concerns. Because she’s an outsider and the town is used to being run in a certain way, her criticisms aren’t that well received. Ada is treated with scorn, receives threats of various order, etc. Because of the letter format of the tale, most of these events take place “off-screen”, i.e., we only hear about them through Ada’s passing commentaries. Seeing she’s the sole narrator of the piece, we really have no choice but to believe that the things she describes in each letter did indeed take place which is certainly a clever way to make us empathize with the character.

After a few weeks, things start to change. Ada gets her own radio show, a column of her own in the paper she had once criticized, and people start to warm up to her quite substantially. This escalates into her running for Mayor, winning the election, and then becoming Empress, I kid you not. This happens in the span of eight months so it’s a gradual takeover and not something that magically takes place overnight and I definitely enjoyed the build-up to it.

As the story progresses, we get hints as to what’s really happening. I was able to pick up on those fairly quickly because as you can see by my site, I’ve read and written my fair share of these tales already ;-), although I missed the obvious twist until it’s explained in the final epistole which is no longer a mere letter to the newspaper editor but an official Command from Empress Ada.

You see, the real “kick” of this piece and the reason why I liked it more than I liked other stories I’ve read recently was the fact that there is an underlying meta-narrative going on in the form of hidden suggestions that make themselves known after a while. As I was reading the tale for the first time, I did notice some odd phrasic constructions here and there but I attributed them to the fact they were being used to simulate the letter effect and nothing more. It turns out I was wrong and while I don’t feel the entire sentence structure reads smoothly all the way through, more than 90% of the time it certainly does, and that’s quite commendable as it gives the whole shebang a brand new meaning. I did end up reading the tale it two more times to soak in everything going on there and I appreciate the extra layer of effort even more so because I’m “guilty” of often including hidden meanings in my own tales.

Now, it may feel like I’ve spoiled everything for you already but trust me, I didn’t. You won’t really understand the practical genius of this setup until you read it for yourself. This is a clever piece of erotic mind control fiction, one that’s even better due to the fact that it’s a femdom one. I also happen to like the name Ada not only because of its palindromic nature, but also because I’ve become a Resident Evil fan a few years back thanks to a certain character called Ada Wong and her red dress. 😉 If you’re a fan too, you know what I mean. In the end of this epistolary adventure, Ada Anderson proves to be a cunning hypnotic bitch so kudos to her for ensnaring everyone and coming out victorious. If I’m ever in the need of a fictional town to settle in, I’ll definitely remember Westriver because she’s there.

A special thanks to HypnoticHarlequin for such a riveting experience and once again my thanks to everyone that takes some of their time to read these spellbinding observations. In the days to come, I’ll make an additional post about another piece I’ve read that I’ve also enjoyed although to a different degree. I hope you’ll look forward to that, too.

Until then.

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