OK, you know what? I'm going to stop hedging around with this now. These things are actually really bad, with only occasional glimmers of competence showing through the crap. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, as even officially-sanctioned fanfic is not overwhelmingly likely to be of professional quality, but egad. Surely they could at least sift out a better class of dreck. Perhaps not, though; Flint-as-editor is not what I would call a choice likely to lead to good writing. I mean, yes, he is the original creator of the world, and as such is the obvious candidate to serve as gatekeeper thereto, but while his stories are generally pretty good, his writing is workmanlike at best and cringeworthy at worst, and so upon reflection it is not beyond reason to presume that he might not have a great eye for good writing. And the ideas of these stories, to be fair, are generally pretty neat. It's the execution that is so often - and so sadly - lacking.
It's a little unfortunate that the Gazettes seem to suck so much. I said before that I recommended them only for completists, true, but the thing is, I am a completist. I'm going to be faced with the choice between continuing to read them and running the risk of stepping in a literary cow pat in order to get to encounter all the stories in this (really remarkably compelling) world, or forgoing the risk and reward alike. I'm honestly not sure which way I'll end up choosing.
