A guy, a cat, a bird, and a turtle

[hawaiian mage]

That's good shit there. Impressed me for it being on the internet and all... I'm not personally sure if I would want to read an entire book with this premisis. Like, the writting isn't bad at all but the it was sort of wearing on my by the end. (that might have just been the scenery though, actually... trying to concentrate while in a bright sunny place isn't my forte. If that's the case it might be fine for someone else.)

So any way, here's the part where I nitpick without restraint.

drabslag. You slugfunnel!... what the scrat

Reading the sentance that had these words almost turned me off from reading the rest. It just seems entirely obvious they were made up, and from where I stand it didn't seem like much thought went into them. I mean, slugfunnel? Holy christ. You might as well just say "You skitleeboo!" or "What the poom!?" Make the curses more believable, or just use normal ones. Don't be afriad to use both made up and normal ones either, that might be an interesting effect.

Another voice replies, this one sounding slightly nasal and, instantly, like a real wiseguy

The use of the word "wiseguy" to describe him was way to much of a short cut, and it makes the character seem more fabricated to label him like that. Say he sounded sarcastic or witty, but don't say "wiseguy."

And five or six feet in front of Ben, standing knee-deep in the grass, are a crow, a cat and a brown turtle, eyeing him with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness.

Who's knee deep in the grass? The animals or ben? I couldn't really tell. And after that I suddenly had the nagging thought of "How big are these animals?" I assumed they were the size of their flip-side equivilents, but at times I couldn't tell. Maybe make that clear somehow.

Ben can’t help but think of ET with a smaller head and a body less like a space penis

Admittedly, saying ET looked like a space penis was funny, but it's just a random culture reference put in for almost no reason. Maybe that's the way Ben pictures it, but the description still relies upon the assumption the reader knows who ET is. I would cut out this sentance with someing more general about just aliens. (Or, alternativly, use this type of reference more often, creating a more targetted audience and making it apparent that this is just the way Ben thinks.)

“Look. Man. It’s really quite simple. You have stories where you’re from, right? Tales, books, myths, legends?” “Yes.” “OK. And you have those about people going to other worlds? Flipping over, as you will?” “Yeah. Yeah, we do. Lots. Wizard of Oz. Alice in Wonderland.”

The dialogue around here seems somewhat contrived. Like another writing short cut. Jynx somehow knows we have stories about people going to other worlds. Everywhere else in the story he doesn't know shit about Ben or his world. Asking about stories was just to effective a strategy to be used by a believable character. Also, the way Ben responds is counterintuitive to the momentum he's built of disbelief. The exchange of ideas happens too fast and effectivly here, and threw off my reading a bit.

Besides all that this seems like a damn decent story.

I had a question though. Did you come up with the idea of magic being normal and technology being a lost art yourself, or was that part of the "inspired by" you mentioned at the beggining? I ask becuase I came up with the same idea and was sort of working out a videogame RPG premises that had that same ironic twist. I thought I was being innovative and completely original with that one... once again however, I realize that originality died out around the 18th century and since then it's all remakes.