Defeating the Martians by An Earthian - Balaclava, Mathematician, Laboratory - Short, Action, Adventure

I enjoyed this, it's amusing, gets the criteria in and is a nice quick read.

My niggles are that it's a bit convenient, e.g. they decide not to backup their data... and the theme is very light for me.

But there's a sort of charm to it and the way that it's written that I found very engaging.

Good job.

A niggle to start:
The Room not (a room) imho.
Parenthetical: (INTO PHONE)
Should be formatted under the character's name:
PHILIP
  (into phone)
Ooh, typo on the title page but you were likely rushing to deadline.

Thank you, Mother. Cap the m when you can replace Mother with a name e.g. Thank you, Martha. Okay, you'll be happy to know I'll stop the small stuff now. :)

Is that meant to be Phillip's line at the end?
Either way I liked it.

Cole and Grumpy are great characters.
Theme, hmm, I might call it something else outside of this challenge, but yep.  And the elements were there.
Good job.

Don't forget to check your title in the rewrite.

this was fun. Very entertaining. The parrot could help guess him in, but looks like you want us to believe he's so different to what he really is that they won't suspect him. That's my gripe though.

The theme is in I say - the way I understood it, it's Earthians against Martians. Is that why Cole says that at the end? The rest is seemingly in there too.

I struggled with this. For me, the writing didn't flow that well and was somewhat confusing. Very expositional. You really didn't have to explain balaclava (unless you wanted to be sure readers knew he wasn't wearing a delicious middle eastern dessert on his head. MMM...baklava!).

Dang it, I'm going to read it again.

Yeah, no. Theme, too, is very lacking. Intent is there but it just doesn't work for me. Good luck, writer.

This was super cute and very well written. You definitely nailed the genre. I think there's a decent sized hole in that those entry cards record who the card holder is when used.

Great characters. I was expecting a Greek pastry...not a mask. Lol. Then realized it wasn't spelled the same. Good thing I wasn't assigned that variable. Lolol

So theme...evil cloning just to beat the martians. Got it.

Very enjoyable story. Nice job, writer.

Needs a SUPER please if its in the future and Earth is at war with Mars!

Reads more like a comedy actually, a slapstick one at that. Pretty cool way to use the variables so good job there. I did start to skim a bit when Cole was in  the labs causing chaos but it ended nicely.  Good job.

Comes across like Spy Kids (which I haven't seen, but sounds like it would!)Energetically written and entertaining all around. What was the green liquid in the squirt gun?

In reality the description of a boy with a canary would easily point to Cole as the culprit. His parents may not know about he costume, but the other is kind of a giveaway. Other than that, it was a good family adventure.

That was utterly bonkers and fun.

A lot of typos and the action was written in a clunky, robotic fashion which made it hard to read. Nothing a re-write wouldn't sort out and I'm sure the time factor (or lack of) played a big factor.

Winning at all costs? Hmmm, maybe, but he was just doing his dad a favour but I'll let it slide as it was so creative.

-Mark

As I was reading this, I'm thinking: Is this the work of a genius that my feeble mind can't grasp, or is this the work of someone sitting in his mom's basement, wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and scarlet lipstick, that only types because the voice inside the pudding cup tells him to?

Ok, ok... kidding. This is nuts.  Funny in a bizarre kind of way. I love your imagination.  You've got a good one. However, this was just okay for me. Good luck with it. :)-ghostiegirl.

Lot's to like and some things that just don't add up for me but it was a quirky tale and decently written.

Well done.