August 6th. Primordial Lights - Aminar

[Aminar]

Well have at me. I feel like I might have lost direction here. In addition I'm cutting the invisibility scene for something else as I cut the ability to do that. It didn't fit.

Oh and thanks for all the great advice. I've edited almost everything I've submitted so far now. The advice has been GREAT! The new stuff is a huge improvement.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Aminar

[Asmodemon]

Another enjoyable set of chapters. There are some rough patches here and there , where I didn’t really understand what you were trying to say, as well as some things I noticed before (character openness), but on the whole I liked what I read.

Too forthcoming: Your characters are still very forthcoming with how their powers work. On the first page you have the Grumr explain how to scale a cliff with magic, how he did it before and how he can’t do it right now. Why would he reveal his current weakness to Keth, whom might still become his target? If we needed to know this maybe we should have been in the Grumr’s perspective and have him think it while telling the others that he could scale the cliff alone, but that he’d have to leave them behind.

And later in the Grumr’s perspective you have him think about all the things Keth revealed about himself.

These reveals feel more for the reader’s benefit than the characters.

Iraisa’s home: When Iraisa says “How did my home become an island?” it confused me. I thought she was from a completely different world/dimension. Now, maybe that dimension mirrors the world she is in now, but if her home is not an island, then how does she recognize said island, with its towering cliffs? Did I miss something?

Keth’s initiative: I really liked that Keth took the initiative suggesting to use his summoning to enhance his vision.

Confusing sentences: “Before Heinrich had so much as time to yell to Keth that he couldn’t turn around the kid was summoning.” Huh? “The web seemed to adhere to the walls despite their apparent indestructibility”. How does indestructibility made something less adhesive?

Regeneration: The Grumr says Iraisa’s been healing her arm. I take this to mean that she’s regenerating, which, given her rather lacklustre approach to losing her arm. How does the Grumr know?

Change in Iraisa: The Grumr wonders what changed the girl so suddenly. I don’t see a difference and, since they really just met, how can he be sure she’s different?

[Aminar]

Its funny how much I agree with you. Part of the reasons this scene is due for a large rewrite. And I've made The Grumr's mental battle clearer earlier... But again, excellent points.

[JamesW]

Stream of thought review again. "And it made the city lots of money in bribes." The sentence felt awkward, "Lots of money" just felt like a phrase that didn't fit with how the Grumr thought about things.

I like that we get some background on the sizes of summons, as well as the fact that the girl seems inordinately powerful. It makes her a more compelling character. I also like the talk about the Foci, and the need to prepare. I feel that people with differing magic systems makes for a great technique for explaining the system to the readers.

Hearing Keth refer to Dex as a "Soldier spirit" put a lot of his attitudes into perspective. I got a great feeling for who Dex was as a character just from those lines. Perhaps it would fit in earlier (but if it already has then I must've missed it).

I really like the Shadow Imp and it's power, but it seemed to detract a bit from the power that the Cheshires seemed to have. I liked the thought of some nigh unkillable phase shifters, but now we seem to have just gone and replaced them with a little Imp that he can use. If he has any conflicts with the cheshires later, I now fully expect him to be in little or no danger, since we have already learned that his imp can just jump into their throats and murder them with impunity.

I was also confused by Iraisa's Home comment, I thought (like asmo) that she was from another dimension with a ton of dinosaurs and such.

The Archaic military hand speak was a very nice touch, I enjoyed that one immensely. If the Grumr could have taken a moment to be like "He started waving his hands, some form of patter, but wait, was that, wow, some really out of date handspeak, but understandable" might make it flow a bit smoother.

I'm wondering how Keth recovered his vision so quickly after having been nearly blinded. If he's seeing a different spectrum of light and all of a sudden he gets big flashes of light, that might have lingering effects beyond the immediate ones. I'm thinking of Mat from Eye of the World, with the lightning and the eyesight, and he was seeing the visible spectrum. At the very least I expect the Imp to suffer some of the consequences of the blinding light, but that might just be something I misunderstood.

[Aminar]

Stream of thought review again. "And it made the city lots of money in bribes." The sentence felt awkward, "Lots of money" just felt like a phrase that didn't fit with how the Grumr thought about things.

I like that we get some background on the sizes of summons, as well as the fact that the girl seems inordinately powerful. It makes her a more compelling character. I also like the talk about the Foci, and the need to prepare. I feel that people with differing magic systems makes for a great technique for explaining the system to the readers.

Hearing Keth refer to Dex as a "Soldier spirit" put a lot of his attitudes into perspective. I got a great feeling for who Dex was as a character just from those lines. Perhaps it would fit in earlier (but if it already has then I must've missed it).

I really like the Shadow Imp and it's power, but it seemed to detract a bit from the power that the Cheshires seemed to have. I liked the thought of some nigh unkillable phase shifters, but now we seem to have just gone and replaced them with a little Imp that he can use. If he has any conflicts with the cheshires later, I now fully expect him to be in little or no danger, since we have already learned that his imp can just jump into their throats and murder them with impunity.

I was also confused by Iraisa's Home comment, I thought (like asmo) that she was from another dimension with a ton of dinosaurs and such.

The Archaic military hand speak was a very nice touch, I enjoyed that one immensely. If the Grumr could have taken a moment to be like "He started waving his hands, some form of patter, but wait, was that, wow, some really out of date handspeak, but understandable" might make it flow a bit smoother.

I'm wondering how Keth recovered his vision so quickly after having been nearly blinded. If he's seeing a different spectrum of light and all of a sudden he gets big flashes of light, that might have lingering effects beyond the immediate ones. I'm thinking of Mat from Eye of the World, with the lightning and the eyesight, and he was seeing the visible spectrum. At the very least I expect the Imp to suffer some of the consequences of the blinding light, but that might just be something I misunderstood.

Did I have the imp kill a cheshire. Crap... It shouldn't have done that unless the Cheshire was really careless.

The bit about Iraisa's home needs to get cut. While Aldriu was built by the Hamara millenia ago her in her home dimension the city was A: on the coast not an Island and B: Has since become a crumbled ruin several times. That's one of those things to fix for continuity as I edit.

[JamesW]

I don't think the imp killed the cheshire, the imp sat in the cheshires throat and was capable of killing the cheshire before he could finish his phase to the other dimension.

[Aminar]

Ok. Most Cheshires don't have a throat to cut most of the time. It's hiding in their other dimension. Fire is still the way to go.

[cjhuitt]

A quick review from me, as I catch up. I think the others covered most of my issues, so I'll just summarize a bit.

Large scale, I like the story concepts and settings overall. It continues to be fun to see what is happening.

Medium scale, I share some concerns I think I expressed in the last section about how it is moving, and I think in these chapters things end up seeming kind of haphazard. The biggest example of this is Keth at the end of one chapter saying he couldn't run out on the other two since he owed The Grumr his life, and then the next chapter opens with him trying desperately to get transport off the island, which for all appearances is him abandoning the others. I imagine a good chunk of this is due to the writing process, and will hopefully be resolved with a good edit.

Small scale, I continue to need to stop and reread sentences to figure out exactly what is being said. It's early in the process, but bear in mind you'll need to find and fix those places before widespread circulation of the story, because many people won't put up with the confusion to get to the story being told.