Reading Excuses - 8.22.16 Heir - Ch 13 Heir - Spieles - (light D)

[spieles]

So we left off in the last chapter with Oz deciding to infiltrate the Rex and Pascal passing her Brides tryouts with flying colors. 

Notes:

It is no longer Siegfried Aerworks but Siegfried Anan as the head of the major oxygen company. 

I'm most curious about your reaction to the scene where he explains "the repairs" and if it works.

Thanks!

Edited August 22, 2016 by spieles

[kais]

Sent you LBLs and my thoughts, but just wanted to reiterate that I LOVE Brick, and I found this an enjoyable chapter.

[Hobbit]

This chapter was all kinds of fun.  I like the AI, and I like the promise of more interpersonal relationship stuff.  I want to see Oz make repairs with Channing and maybe eventually with Dion (or instead find a justifiable reason to kick him).  I thought the reveals piled nicely, even considering that I knew almost nothing about what Eleanor was supposed to be doing before reading this chapter - only that she’d been captured.  I didn’t understand everything about how the cities are supposed to come together, or where they want to move things.  But I still thought it was a cool idea and I figure I’ll pick up the details as I go.  Not getting it didn’t jar me out of the story.

A few specifics:

The first two paragraphs: Eeeeeewwwww this is creepy.  I really squirmed as I read this.  I'm glad I started last week and not this week!

"But I meant it when I said... ...wrap my hands over hers.  This is such a sweet moment.

Channing Avidan walks in the door.  Yay!  I got super excited.  I really want them to be friends!

Girls. They mess up they shouldn’t, you know?  Are you missing a word in this sentence?

I don't want to believe it's Dion Krieger’s voice...  Boo, I don't like this guy.  

THE TRADE MISSION IS A RUSE. ... Or not so secret.  Hahaha, I like this AI. 

THE DARIEN CITY... .  Yay!  This is very exciting.  I like secrets!

YOUR WORK IS AT MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY WHEN ROMANTIC COMEDY IS PLAYING.  This made me LOL.

YOU SHOULD DRINK TEA NOW. HYDRATION IS POOR.  Hahaha

I WILL GUIDE YOUR BREATHING IN A PRELIMINARY EXERCISE.  Hahahaha

“What was in that tea?”  I like Brick still, but now I'm a little scared of it.

 

[rdpulfer]

- The opening line is really, really chilling, but it seems a bit weird we don't actually see Pascal get her tattoos . . . it just says "where it was over". I kinda wanted to see more of that ceremony - it seemed so twisted, it seemed frustrating to cut away.

- Channing’s brow hikes. “Oh, good luck.”

I nod, even though nothing about this feels lucky. - This doesn't really work, since being "lucky" and wishing someone "good luck" are two ultimately different things.

- Brick is awesome.

- As I said I think last week, I really like this world, and I think the characters are generally working. It just needs some strengthening here and there. 

[spieles]

On 8/22/2016 at 6:54 PM, kaisa said:

Sent you LBLs and my thoughts, but just wanted to reiterate that I LOVE Brick, and I found this an enjoyable chapter.

Oh good. I was actually quite worried about this chapter - but maybe it's a nice rest before the storm that starts in the next chapter.

[spieles]

On 8/24/2016 at 1:38 PM, Hobbit said:

This chapter was all kinds of fun.  I like the AI, and I like the promise of more interpersonal relationship stuff.  I want to see Oz make repairs with Channing and maybe eventually with Dion (or instead find a justifiable reason to kick him).  I thought the reveals piled nicely, even considering that I knew almost nothing about what Eleanor was supposed to be doing before reading this chapter - only that she’d been captured.  I didn’t understand everything about how the cities are supposed to come together, or where they want to move things.  But I still thought it was a cool idea and I figure I’ll pick up the details as I go.  Not getting it didn’t jar me out of the story.

A few specifics:

The first two paragraphs: Eeeeeewwwww this is creepy.  I really squirmed as I read this.  I'm glad I started last week and not this week!

"But I meant it when I said... ...wrap my hands over hers.  This is such a sweet moment.

Channing Avidan walks in the door.  Yay!  I got super excited.  I really want them to be friends!

Girls. They mess up they shouldn’t, you know?  Are you missing a word in this sentence?

I don't want to believe it's Dion Krieger’s voice...  Boo, I don't like this guy.  

THE TRADE MISSION IS A RUSE. ... Or not so secret.  Hahaha, I like this AI. 

THE DARIEN CITY... .  Yay!  This is very exciting.  I like secrets!

YOUR WORK IS AT MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY WHEN ROMANTIC COMEDY IS PLAYING.  This made me LOL.

YOU SHOULD DRINK TEA NOW. HYDRATION IS POOR.  Hahaha

I WILL GUIDE YOUR BREATHING IN A PRELIMINARY EXERCISE.  Hahahaha

“What was in that tea?”  I like Brick still, but now I'm a little scared of it.

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read. Brick is totally scary in a wonderful way. And I'm totally still playing with Channing's character - I'm thinking he and Oz in this latest revision will be almost-friends (before making it all the way to friends). 

[spieles]

8 hours ago, rdpulfer said:

- The opening line is really, really chilling, but it seems a bit weird we don't actually see Pascal get her tattoos . . . it just says "where it was over". I kinda wanted to see more of that ceremony - it seemed so twisted, it seemed frustrating to cut away.

- Channing’s brow hikes. “Oh, good luck.”

I nod, even though nothing about this feels lucky. - This doesn't really work, since being "lucky" and wishing someone "good luck" are two ultimately different things.

- Brick is awesome.

- As I said I think last week, I really like this world, and I think the characters are generally working. It just needs some strengthening here and there. 

Hrm. That's a good point about Pascal getting her tattoo. 

And yes, as for strengthening, I have a whole other revision planned (for the later chapters really) to kind of streamline and beef up the storyline. Lord, revisions are annoying, LOL. Thank you so much for taking the time to read.

[rdpulfer]

14 hours ago, spieles said:

Hrm. That's a good point about Pascal getting her tattoo. 

And yes, as for strengthening, I have a whole other revision planned (for the later chapters really) to kind of streamline and beef up the storyline. Lord, revisions are annoying, LOL. Thank you so much for taking the time to read.

No problem - and I totally agree - revisions are annoying. 

[Mandamon]

Quick reply:

I also thought it was strange you didn't show what or where Pascal got her tattoo

pg 4: you have "Bruce" instead of "Brick"

The floating city idea is really cool.  

I'm interested to see where Channing, Dion, and Oz's relationship gets to.  Brick provides a good foil to them.

Overall, the chapter has interesting points, but not a whole lot happens.  I see how it progresses the story, but it's a lot of sequel, and not a lot of scene.  As you say, it's a rest before the storm, and I'm also not reading it right after the last one, so my perceptions might be different if I had done that.  Looking forward to what's next!

[Robinski]

MRK’s ABCD, yaddah, yaddah, (A) = Awesome; (B) = Boring; (C) = Confusing; and (D) = Disbelief (-inducing), plus (G) Grammar/typo. And then there’s (S) – ‘S’ is a new category. ‘S’ is for sad.

Details below, but I'm bringing the elephant in the room up front. I should mention that I am a Civil Engineer these past 30 years, so there is stuff in here that is red rag to bull. Sorry!

(DDDDDDDDDD) – “The city lifts up? It hovers like a magnetar” – No, you’ve lost me. My belief has suffered a possibly fatal suspension failure. (One) For one thing, I don’t have an idea of how big the city is, but put that to one side, because it doesn’t really influence the problem. The magnetar rail is a single rail, like a train line? That’s my image of it. How can it possibly generate a field wide enough, and strong enough at the extremities of the field, to life an entire city? (Two) The city’s underworks cannot be sufficiently rigid to prevent a structure of that size deflecting even if it’s only by very small degrees. Magnified over significant heights, those small deflections translate into potentially significant shifts in the centre of gravity of a given structure. In itself, those effects may not be catastrophic, but then there’s (Three) Inertia – how are you going to exert a big enough force to start the city moving, and (Four) Conservation of Momentum. How are you going to stop it when it gets there without the whole lot toppling over? (Five) Two guys are going to repair a city’s foundations so that it can be moved? Sorry, but that’s ridiculous. I need to see this. (Six) I feel there is no satisfactory explanation of why moving the city is necessary. This is absolutely fundamental to the reader remaining on board, I think.

(S) – I felt like I was reading an interesting story full of young people involved in intriguing personal relationships, challenged by a war that looks impossible to win, but with the promise of some kind of breakthrough at a genetic level that might reveal a solution or a weapon. Now, I feel like I might be in a Michael Bay film, full a big weightless things that I don’t care about.

(B/D/S) – You promised us a hunt for Eleanor. This moving city stuff comes out of nowhere. It’s not a promise that was made before and feels like breaking the other promises that were made about the Rex, the ‘disease’ and Eleanor, like it's going to dominate the story/plot from on.

I'm going to keep reading, because I'm engaged with several of the characters, but I'm now significantly troubled about where the story is going.

<R>

---------------------------------------------

(A) – Great first line – which is something we maybe don’t talk about so much on here, but should.

(D) – I find the marriage metaphor a bit of a stretch. I'm trying to decide if it’s the metaphor itself or the way it’s delivered by Kreiger. Unsure.

(A) – “It seems she forgot, too” – lol.

(B/C/D) – “Hey, Fara!” One of the Brides waves at Pascal” – I'm going to keep hammering on this. I think one of your m/cs having two Christian names is confusing, doubly so because ‘Fara’ is used so rarely, but using it more often would confound the confusion in a different way. Another factor in all of this is the way that Oz thinks of her by her surname, which is very impersonal considering how close they obviously are.

(G) – “Girls’ night?”

(C) – “You need me more than they do” – Why? Is this because you intend to address the horribly impersonal way that they dealt with Calgary’s ‘change’ in that earlier scene when they were sparring? Even so, there’s been no particular sign that Oz is distressed. If Fara/Pascal sees it, she’s more perceptive than me as a reader, which is possible, of course.

(G) – “I only think she only deigned to even look at me to piss off her stepmom” – awkward wording.

(A) – I like Channing’s assessment of the situation, if this is Hayden’s mo, it fits nicely with her behaviour to date.

(G) – “They mess up they shouldn’t” – huh?

(A) – “I nod, even though nothing about this feels lucky” – This sort of line is the real strength of Oz’s voice, I think. There’s a glorious fatalistic cynicism about him that I like. Something similar is probably going to come through fairly strongly in Quirk, I think, except with a slontzey edge, I hope.

(C) – “your basic task is to repair Brick’s sensors. They’ve been left derelict these past several years” – does this mean his sensors exterior to the city? I ask because it seems apparent that brick has all sorts of sensors within the city. I think it’s unclear what they are repairing.

(A) – “YOUR WORK IS AT MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY WHEN ROMANTIC COMEDY IS PLAYING” – rofl.

(A) – “The problem is that “empty” is so much more appealing”

(A) – “The two trolleys close in, as if to herd me”

(B) – “Trains circulate the perimeter” – No way your train lines survive the deflections that surely must be involved in lifting the city, not by conventional standards of permanent way technology anyway.