Bungle in the Jungle
Five Minutes to Live
By JBern
Reviews
Ezra'eil posted a comment on Thursday 30th April 2009 1:43pm for Five Minutes to Live
Damn, I really love this chapter, and the whole story really... I decided to come back and read, and found something, isn't it Hoggy Warty Hogwarts? Not Hoggy Hogwarts? Meh, anywho good chapter, and I shall be back in the next to comment...
Lathena posted a comment on Friday 23rd January 2009 6:48am for Five Minutes to Live
I would like to file a complaint. Due to the realism, convincing plot, and excellent character development in your stories, I'm having issues reading other authors fanfictions without gagging at the sugar content or shaking my head in disbelief at the plotholes and weak characters. As such I'm forced to reread your stories (and some of the other authors on this site as well). Obviously, since you have no control over other people, you should have written more stories. Please correct this. ;-)
fyrecat posted a comment on Wednesday 24th December 2008 11:06am for Five Minutes to Live
Cool! I like it! HP meets Indiana Jones indeed!
Interesting experiment with 2nd person. I'm quite enjoying it.
I love the whole 'whast's going on in harry's/your head?' angle. This is really fun!
Already I see a HUGE improvement in the technical aspect of your writing skills over "Coming Darkness"! There were only 2 or 3 spelling / typo errors.
Well done!
JBern replied:
Holy crap! You've reviewed this one too! I'm in trouble...
King Darius posted a comment on Wednesday 18th June 2008 6:54am for Five Minutes to Live
its... different, thats for sure.
JBern replied:
That is very true.~Jim
Jack-A-Roe posted a comment on Wednesday 4th June 2008 10:22am for Five Minutes to Live
Is it just me or did anyone else have Johnny Cash's 25 Minutes To Go going through their head during this chapter....
"Well they're building a gallows outside my cell
I've got 25 minutes to go And the whole town's
waitin' just to hear me yell I've got 24 minutes
to go Well they gave me some beans for my last
meal I've got 23 minutes to go But nobody asked me
how I feel I've got 22 minutes to go Well I sent
for the governor and the whole dern bunch with 21
minutes to go And I sent for the mayor but he's
out to lunch I've got 20 more minutes to go Then
the sheriff said boy I gonna watch you die got 19
minutes to go So I laughed in his face and I spit
in his eye got 18 minutes to go Now hear comes the
preacher for to save my soul with 13 minutes to go......"
JBern replied:
Ah, the man in black. He wasn't my inspiration for this story, but it's an interesting song.~Jim
protonius12 posted a comment on Thursday 21st February 2008 8:34pm for Five Minutes to Live
I never leave reviews, but your fist chapter was the best first chapter i've ever read !
JBern replied:
Thank you for taking time to review. I hope you will be inspired to leave more reviews along the way. There's a whole lot of action, adventure and humor in front of you.~Jim
TxA_GunFighter posted a comment on Monday 7th January 2008 4:49pm for Five Minutes to Live
Very interesting start.
gunny
JBern replied:
Thanks.~Jim
11dan88 posted a comment on Sunday 11th November 2007 6:51pm for Five Minutes to Live
Harry’s got a gun. Harry’s got a gun. Whole lot of inferi come.
LOL LOVE IT!
Great story, as is the sequel ... hell all of your stories are. Keep em coming.
JBern replied:
Glad you liked it and I hope the rest of the story impresses you.~Jim
Rebel Goddess posted a comment on Wednesday 7th March 2007 5:45am for Five Minutes to Live
I'm slightly confused about how Harry has ended up where he is but I love what he's doing there. Superb first chapter.
JBern replied:
After you read chapter 17 go back and reread chapter 1. It'll make a whole heck of a lot more sense then.~Jim
MonkeyAxman1302 posted a comment on Thursday 11th January 2007 9:20am for Five Minutes to Live
Oh My God!!! Awesome chapter! I've read To Fight the Coming Darkness and thought that great but this has to be one of the funniest and cleverest opening chapters I've ever read. Bravissimo!
The fact that you quickly and systematically disect Harry's life thus far and do with such wit and sarcasm is trully brilliant. I'd like to pick up on lines I love but there would just be FAR to many. The line about the shotgun was great and the stuff about the trolls and Crabble and Goyle! lol!
Really liked the idea of Spellchaining! Liked the still subtle stuff about Harry being Bloody powerful!
I'm so glad there is so much more to read I look forward to it, and beg that you make sure you keep writing this and thanks for writing it in the first place!
Monkey
JBern replied:
And here I thought you've read this already. In that case sharpen your Ax, because you are in for a treat. You picked the right time to get into it as I just posted chapter 17 which finally gets you back to the action in chapter 1. Enjoy. Let me know what you think.~Jim
ichtys posted a comment on Wednesday 10th January 2007 9:32am for Five Minutes to Live
Hi Jim.
Re-reading this chapter for I-don't-know-how-many-times, I only just noticed the relation between the chapter title and Harry's "final" words.Five Minutes to live.
and"Five more minutes — just give me five more minutes."
I know Harry is talking about being left alone to sleep for a little longer, but I just got a WOW experience re-reading the chapter, that the reader could interpret it as Harry is asking for just five more minutes to live.
Very well done.
Another thing I was wondering about is the comment about Harry only being on one date, and that was a disaster. I assume you mean the date with Cho in OotP, but what about his dates with Amy? Shouldn't they count for something?
Oh well, It is still a brilliant first chapter of a great story.
Regards Ichtys.
JBern replied:
Thanks. Glad you caught the true meaning of chapter 1's title. For the rest, I am going to copy and paste my response to Quizzer about the potential plotholes in chapter 1 written last March when I was only going to spend 9-10 chapters instead of 16 to get Harry back to chapter 1.
I'll take the potential plot holes one by one.
Dating - Harry considers his only true date to be him going out with Cho. With Amy he went clubbing with her and her sisters. Or they met up in private and screwed each other silly. It was group dating intermixed with sexual rendezvous. Same goes for Karina. Chico or someone else was always around excecpt when they were doing the horizontal bop.
The "girl you were smitten with" comment - Originally, Karina was closer to Harry's age along the lines of 20-21. It was only later that I changed her to be roughly 10 years older than Harry. I'll probably change it to be female instead of girl.
Friends - It was meant to be Luna, but I changed my mind along the way, when I decided that Harry and Luna's friendship needed some strife. As Fleur's character has evolved (when she first shows up in Brazil - in the original plans she never came there. I'm glad I made that change! The story would be much less without her.), she became the friend back in England and yes she can be a hell raiser if she wants to be. She knows that Bill is informing the Order that he has had Harry the whole summer. She knows the whole story from the doping with love potions to the wording of the prophecy. How much she intends to do about it is something I shall ponder.
Glad you took the time to comment. I hope my answers are satisfactory.~Jim
dboris posted a comment on Monday 8th January 2007 7:41am for Five Minutes to Live
Hmm everything seems to be much cleared in this chapter now that I re-readed it.
Though, I wonder why they didn't think to take an enchanted and magically enhanced Chainsaw?
Also, this reminds me of Dead Rising (on XBOX 360). Great game where you have to destroy thousands of zombies with chainsaws, katanas, guns, etc.
JBern replied:
Lots and lots of Inferi. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5000 in that place. I am guessing that the actual usage of a chainsaw might not live up to the hype. (Having used one to chop up roughly 80 foot of Virginia Pine that fell in my and my neighbors yard.) If it makes you feel better the trolls had enchanted spiky clubs with 50% more spiky things.
Glad you could reread and appreciate chapter 1. ~Jim
a_wanderer posted a comment on Monday 8th January 2007 6:48am for Five Minutes to Live
When you released the new chapter I came back to read the first one. The writing sytle is one thing which caught my attention.
I'm having fun reading hope you are having as much fun writing.
NTP
JBern replied:
Thanks very much. I am glad you could go back and appreciate chapter 1 on another level now that you have all the missing info. Next update in 2 weeks.~Jim
Quizer posted a comment on Monday 8th January 2007 6:42am for Five Minutes to Live
Alright, I'll try to analyze the statements in this chapter again with the rest of the story in mind. You want this to make the most sense if one came from the currently last chapter of the story.
- 'You’ve been on exactly one date':
Does nothing Harry has done with Karina or Amy constitute a date? I don't remember every scene, but I thought I'd bring this up. Not having read the story, this is obviously the date with Cho.
- 'You had another girl that you were quite smitten with early in the summer, but we will cover that disaster momentarily':
I thought this meant Ginny, but you said at the end of the last chapter it means Karina. However, Karina is better referred to as a woman, not a girl. Unless you want to be deliberately obstruse here, you might want to consider changing that.
- 'Friends! That was it! You’ve still managed to keep a couple even through all this. One of them is right here with you now. The other is back in London, hopefully still raising hell':
Having not read the entire story this sounds like Luna, since she is the obvious choice considering the pairing. Having read the story, this still sounds like Luna, but you said it was Fleur. But does Fleur really raise hell? If yes, in what respect? Has this really always been Fleur, or did you only decide that somewhere along the way?
- 'You left some hair behind — wonder if they took you up on that?':
This sentence doesn't make any sense at all when first reading it, but coming back here after the last chapter, this goes a long way in integrating this 'flash-forward' chapter properly. Good job!
- Luna is not mentioned anywhere in this chapter if you discount the reference(s) that you say aren't her after all. What's up with that? Even though Harry got closure of sorts writing that last journal entry, I'd expect there still to be at least a stray thought directed at her at some point.
That is all that I can think of right now. Together, these things (except #4) do give the impression that either you did not fully account for everything that was yet to happen, or you tried to present references to both a first-time reader and someone who already looped around and did not fully succeed with getting both at once. Anyway, I'm looking forward to your reply, as well as the next chapter.
Quizer
JBern replied:
I'll take the potential plot holes one by one.
Dating - Harry considers his only true date to be him going out with Cho. With Amy he went clubbing with her and her sisters. Or they met up in private and screwed each other silly. It was group dating intermixed with sexual rendezvous.
The girl comment - Originally, Karina was closer to Harry's age along the lines of 20-21. It was only later that I changed her to be roughly 10 years older than Harry. I'll probably change it to be female instead of girl.
Friends - It was meant to be Luna, but I changed my mind along the way, when I decided that Harry and Luna's friendship needed some strife. As Fleur's character has evolved (when she first shows up in Brazil - in the original plans she never came there. I'm glad I made that change! The story would be much less without her.), she became the friend back in England and yes she can be a hell raiser if she wants to be. She knows that Bill is informing the Order that he has had Harry the whole summer. She knows the whole story from the doping with love potions to the wording of the prophecy. How much she intends to do about it is something I shall ponder.
Glad you took the time to comment. I hope my answers are satisfactory.~Jim
koppe posted a comment on Saturday 6th January 2007 2:36am for Five Minutes to Live
Great start.
Intense and actionfilled -- and with a bit of angst, mystery, betrayel and flashbacks to boot... doesn't get much better than that!
I hope we'll get more details about how Ron, Hermione and Ginny(?) -- and others -- betrayed him... and I hope they'll eventually reconcile (to some degree at least).
I must admit I hope Harry will use spell-chaining against Malfoy -- or maybe Sanpe or Lucius -- at school and showing once and for all who's best... that'll use it againt Voldemort is probably somewhat of a given.
Keep up the good work.
-Koppe
JBern replied:
Thank you. Chapter 17 finally gets us back to chapter 1. It will be out midweek. Actually, spellchaining is most effective when you are outnumbered and need a high rate of fire. In a complex duel between two opponents rate of fire might give way to using powerful spells.~Jim
Jason9 posted a comment on Monday 25th December 2006 4:21pm for Five Minutes to Live
Just a quick heads-up, and I really hate to nitpick, but making a shotgun lighter will make it kick more, not less. If you want the physical proof (as in mathmatics) I'll be happy to provide it. Other than that, I tried not to read this story for as long as possible because of the whole 2nd person thing, but love your other story so much, I finally caved, and now I'm hooked on this one. Keep up the great work, and feel free to ask me questions about the physics of the real world. I'm no genius, but I do have an engineering degree.
JBern replied:
Very true, but the cushioning charm is there to handle the increased kick. The lightening charm is to allow Harry to better handle the weight of the shotgun. You gotta love magic.
Glad you broke down and gave the story a try. Hope you have an enjoyable Holiday season.~Jim
duke_bonez posted a comment on Wednesday 6th December 2006 11:47am for Five Minutes to Live
Ooops, I keep thinking that our intrepid heroes would know what they would be facing in the City of the Damned, but the only one who's seen it since the Dark Lord decided to redecorate is a gibbering madman (i'm still kind of surprised that no one seems to have bothered to interogate him) and they wouldn't necessarilly know that its an inferi horde. Though they could probably make a pretty accurate guess, hmmm.
JBern replied:
Well they do have a good idea about the undead being there. The city is sometimes calle the City of the Damned, the City of the Dead and the Lost City. The one survivor of the earlier mission was actually 'interviewed' but Harry doesn't know that. It was by Thundercloud.
Thanks for the reveiw.~Jim
duke_bonez posted a comment on Tuesday 5th December 2006 6:34am for Five Minutes to Live
on the topic of goblins w/modified 9mm pistols....
i've thought too much about it - yeah i can't see a technological way of making it effective against inferi but if you take the time and effort a simple ward could do it (provided you could make it small enough - though if it fits on glasses i don't see why a bullet wouldn't be big enough). say just a single use ward that holds energy and isn't very stable - call it a capacitor rune. charge it up and watch it go boom in an explosion of purple light when the rune lines are deformed upon impact. just have to pick a particularly unstable rune. not very cost effective given how many of bullets you can go through but maybe you can draw a charging rune on the ammo box or something and then all you have to worry about is carving the tiny capacitor runes on bullets - what fun.
- hurry up and finish off the cliff hangers so i can stop thinking baout this random stuff. =].
~nick
JBern replied:
Well sadly Goblins are much good in a fight against Inferi. If they didn't need the small animal form to get to the bank, they probably could use goblins who worg into bears. The kick from more powerful weapons would knock them over without cushioning charms. One more chapter to go before we get back to chapter 1. Next chapter in 2-3 weeks.~Jim
Rictor posted a comment on Tuesday 21st November 2006 6:52pm for Five Minutes to Live
i like the premise of the story, and the first chapter, but the use of the second person perspective became too confusing for me about 2 paragraphs into the second chapter. now i understand you don't want to chage it right now, but i was wondering if you might be willing to go back and rewrite the story in first, or third person after you finished the whole thing. i understand if you decide not to as it is your choice,but i think it would be much easier to read, and such an interesting story should be read by all.
JBern replied:
More than likely, the answer is no. I like the use of second person in this. Some have said, that it wouldn't lose anything if I used first person. I actually disagree. I think that second person only adds to the quirky charm of this story. Most say they get used to the style by the third or fourth chapter, so it may not be for everyone. The ones who do read it, seem to appreciate it more.~Jim
Keeroo92 posted a comment on Tuesday 15th February 2011 9:33pm for Five Minutes to Live