20170508 - The Seeds of Dissolution - Ch11 - Mandamon - 5907

[Mandamon]

Hello all,
Ch 11 this week. Sorry for being very long! Feel free to cut off at 5000 words if you want. Ramifications of the attack, and more unrest develops! This chapter also contains one of my favorite scenes...

Previously:
Ch1: Sam gets very cold, loses his aunt, and gets sucked through a hole.
Ch2: Sam has a big freakout at the new world he's in, meets a strange alien.
Ch3: Origon learns more about Sam.
Ch4: Sam, on magic meds, sees the Imperium with Origon and Rilan. They dodge a protest against the maji and ride a tram to the Spire of the Maji.
Ch5: Sam discovers how big the universe is and how far he is from home.
Ch6: Origon argues with the Council about the Drains, and gets Sam as an apprentice.
Ch7: Rilan also gets an apprentice, Sam learns about magic and girls, and politics loom.
Ch8: Rilan is in a session of the Assembly where a faction of one species is attempting to withdraw. Sam has his first lunch in the Nether with friends
Ch9: The Assembly debates about the secession, the Aridori, and the Drains. Sam learns about the Aridori and his new friends.
Ch10: Origon learns about another Drain, and Sam gets comfortable in the Nether, only to be attacked by a mob while out with his new friends

Looking for:
-Nothing in particular...
 

[rdpulfer]

- Sam doesn't seem any worse for the wear here, which is a little odd. I would think this experience would shake him up a bit more.

- Okay, so I see later he is shaken up, but I still think he needs to be shown a little more obviously affected. The world-building is nice, but the effect of this experience on Sam is what I was most interested in.

- I like Origon's crack about finding dirt outside for Mhalro to look out.

- I like Sam playing around with the Symphony. I'm curious if this is the right way to deal with his anxiety or not but I'm interested nevertheless. 

- And lastly I really like the suspense and intrigue build-up with Rilan! 

[Robinski]

Comments.

• “elephant-head knocker” – Do they have elephants in the Net? Seems very Earth-like.
• “broke from the sub-music of that melody” – maybe it’s a specific term in the Net, but it seems to me there would be a better musical (sounding) term for this, like a harmony to the main melody, or maybe a background rhythm, or counterpoint.
• “to bridge from one credenza of his brain to another” – I think auto-correct has been at work here , did you mean ‘cadenza’?
• “It is no bother, councilor—” En began” – confused here. Sam seems to assent, but En protests – but her words could be taken as ‘I don’t mind…’, whereas I think what she means is ‘I’d rather not…’; I don’t think En’s emotion is entirely clear.
• “bog grubs at lunch had been nearly dead” – lol; nice background colour.
• “on wooden blocks discolored by years of use”
• “on a long neck” – this sounds like he has multiple necks to choose from.
• “The philosophy department” – What did Ori teach? Natural philosophy (physics) is very different from philosophy – which is what M implies.
• “the danger posed by the Drains” – I'm confused why Ori would take this length of time before consulting a (physical/natural) scientist about the drains. Surely, that would be one of the first places that he would go.
• “Will they make me choose?” – I don’t see how this follows in his train of thought.
• “Then the one string multiplied” – if he’s only hearing one string, it can’t be a chord, which is made up of multiple notes. He would need to be hearing multiple strings to hear a chord.
• “only of the sixty-six speakers”
• “Servants had called the Small Assembly to formalize their secession” – this still bothers me. It feels like the UK staying in the European Union, but the City of Manchester wanting to secede; it just couldn’t happen, because Manchester is a smaller part of the whole, and cannot act unilaterally at a national level.
• “Others will try, after this” – Why?
• “We’ve been at the Dome”
• “The Dome. Now, Councilor” – Why would he not tell her? Seems a bit like author intervention. It’s good tension, certainly, but doesn’t seem entirely justified.
• “Jhina had probably stayed behind” – I don’t remember who this is.
• “a male and a wari Lobath” – don’t know what this means.
• “…Servants had shown it possible. Possible the Effature was trying to create a stopgap” – ‘possibly’? Or a semi-colon, but it’s not part of the same thought, it seems.
• “White only she could see flowed down her arm as she blocked the measures connecting muscle to ligaments and ligaments to bone with notes from her song” – confusing wording.
• “she wove the counterpoint to the Lobath’s mind, forming a duet with her notes” – confused here.
• “the compulsion to do what Ril told her” – suggested for clarity.
• “She knelt by the former leader, still quietly trembling” – sounds like Ril is trembling.
• “Have your friends get you to a doctor”

It’s a good strong bombshell at the end, and I like how the tension and conflict growths through the chapter. A few details above. Also, it is quite long, but not unreasonably so. It certainly marks a shift in the overall narrative towards more open conflict and aggression.

Nice work.

<R>

[Mandamon]

Great comments as usual, thanks @rdpulfer and @Robinski!

On 5/9/2017 at 0:06 PM, Robinski said:

this still bothers me. It feels like the UK staying in the European Union, but the City of Manchester wanting to secede; it just couldn’t happen, because Manchester is a smaller part of the whole, and cannot act unilaterally at a national level.

Good point. I'll need to clarify or change this somehow. I was thinking this is more like France exiting the UN or something. The Servants are one faction of their species. The whole species is part of the Assembly, but there are still separate nations and factions per world.

On 5/9/2017 at 0:06 PM, Robinski said:

“a male and a wari Lobath” – don’t know what this means

Wari is the third Lobath gender. I mentioned a few chapters back but could probably use a reminder.

This is definitely the first tipping point to the larger tension in the story. And on that note (ha) I'll most likely finish up this draft of the book in the next few days. Looks like 33 chapters and an epilogue! Most likely going to stop posting here, and do a call for beta readers among some of the writer groups I'm in. Thanks again for all the help getting these starting chapters fleshed out!