ecohansen

You know the drill. All criticisms greatly appreciated. Sorry again for the lateness.

Granted. It's Sunday forever now. All of the religious groups that maintain a Sunday sabbath can never work again without violating their faith. Millions of faithful die of starvation, and whole faiths and ethnic groups disappear from the face of the world. You are responsible for the worst genocide in human history. The name "Hitler" is almost forgotten: from now on, it is "Argel" that is synonymous with unreasoning evil. All of that is just a logical consequence of your boon. Your bane is that you now sneeze whenever you see a bunny. I wish that for a time-travel vacation in which I can scuba-dive with the pre-Cambrian Ediacarans.

My first thoughts were Amelie or Miss Rumphius, but both were only mildly cranky at the start instead of fully misanthropic. I doubt this one's right either, but how about Jean d'Arc? She wasn't snarky, but she was misanthropic, and she was commanded to help her country by invisible angels.

Yep, Zea, your post maize me chuckle.

they both need fixing(s). grammar pedantry is like eating fried squirrel brains with ketchup.

Corn. Barbara McClintock, transposons, and corn Well, either that or mosaicism.

In this map, the region to the east of the Unclaimed Hills is a beigey brown-green that doesn't look very verdant at all. But it should be a temperate rainforest like the American Pacific Northwest: we have storm systems coming off the ocean and going over a narrow strip of low ground before being forced upwards by mountains. As the clouds rise, they should drop their rain, making Dawn's Shadow a temperate rainforest (google "rain shadow" if my explanation wasn't clear). Even small mountains and large hills can cause this effect: look at the regions of high rainfall in North Carolina and West Virginia. My only guess is that the storms are SO violent that vegetation can't take hold at Dawn's Shadow, but I'd like to see if anyone else has suggestions I haven't thought of. Similarly, what about the great desert around Azir? There are green regions at the same latitude, so it's not solely a latitude effect like 30 degrees north on Earth. Maybe the mountains to the north of the desert funnel Storm systems northward, leaving the Azir region with relatively little rainfall. The geometry doesn't seem quite right for that, though...

I'll claim the last slot for the 18th, unless someone with priority wants it. I won't have finished revising "A Meal", but I'm nearly done with a humorous historical fantasy-adventure that I might try out on y'all.

Robinski, Thank you so very much for the thorough review and advice. All of it was very helpful, and will help hugely with the revision. Thanks also for the compliments: I spent a lot of time cutting and revising yesterday, and I'd gotten to the point where I was only seeing things that didn't work, so it was very encouraging to hear that some things did work. I agree that the societal questions are much more important than the personal ones, but it's hard to write about them directly without being even preachier than I was. I tried to write a story about smaller personal morality problems, with a world in the background that had solved many of our more pressing problems but still had a long way to go, and hope that the description would lead the readers to think about the nitty-gritty details of how a better world would actually be organized. "Pseudoscorpion" is the actual name of an group of critters that currently exist, and whose mating habits are some of my favorite things in the word. I hadn't considered that the 'pseudo-' bit would make people think they were bots, but I definitely see the problem now. Hmm. Some pseudoscorpions are also called "book scorpions", but not the species I was writing about. They also have the name "Chelonethid", but I hate to throw even more obscure greco-latin terminology into the story. But that's probably the best option. Duff is the layer of broken-down leaves that you find in between intact leaves and the mineral soil in a forest. I see now, though, that Google only wants to talk about "designated ugly fat friends". Huh. I'll probably just cut. Katy is not trying to change her home system, she's just miserable in it, and now she can't go to the appalachian old-growth where she'd be happier. I'll definitely edit to avoid implications that she wants to alter the Mississippi system. Your other comments gave great guidance t my scissors, and bodies will be hitting the cutting-room floor presently.

Kaisa and Krystalynn, erm, the stuff with the unicorn that you are having trouble with is, ah, (blush) sex stuff. Unicorns can only be approached by virgins--what happens to nonvirgins is disputed, but it's clear that the two speakers need to find a virgin to get past the unicorn. That section worked fairly well for me when I was reading it, but it might have just been my dirty mind

Thanks kaisa. That was immensely helpful feedback.

The story was very well-told, and the tone was consistent throughout. There was more action than I personally prefer in a first chapter, but to each their own. Line Quibbles: "All I want is cake and my dad." A simultaneously well-crafted and confusing line that kept me from focusing on the rest of the first paragraph. If the dad is already there, then why does the narrator "want" him? If the dad is already there, does that mean the cake is also already there? Ah, the cake is the cupcake in paragraph 2. So that must mean that the narrator "wants" cake, despite already having it, because a cupcake is a poor substitute for a cake. By extension, does that mean that the father is a poor substitute for a dad? --this is what I was thinking during the first paragraph, instead of being immersed in the story. On the other hand, the tension between being able to afford maids and silver but not candles worked very well for me, drawing me into the world and making me curious. "He's just a little boy" We only learn the narrator's gender on page 2. Since parties and daffodils are stereotypically feminine, I was imagining a girl. "poseurs" Again, this induced a time-out while I thought "what group are they posing as, and why aren't they genuine? Since they're wearing leather, I'm guessing they're posing as either punks or greasers. They seem pretty genuine, though--hard to imagine spoiled suburban kids posing as punks in this postapocalyptic wasteland." "The cold punch of the wind burns up my sinuses" Why does it burn if he's wearing a gas mask? And burns up sounds pretty devastatingly final. Once I learned on page 7 that he doesn't need the mask, I flipped back to see if maybe he'd turned the mask off for this part. Maybe the mask magnified the sound of his breathing that was mentioned a few lines before? But you never said he turned the mask off,and after he loses his mask he has trouble breathing, implying that he actually was using it before. "crickets flute" To me, crickets are not particularly flute-like. "Sony" a personal name with the same spelling as a brand name is a bit jarring (I'm one to talk, after naming a protagonist 'joebob') "Breathing at a lower oxygen level always takessome adjustment." I'm sure we'll learn more about what happened to the atmosphere later, but so far you've implied that two different things have both happened. First, something caustic was added to the air to make it 'burn' when breathed. Second, oxygen levels were reduced. Just checking that you intended for BOTH of these things to be implied. "his voice is a half-gargle as he proclaims, “He lives!”" To me, the Rex' death here seems pretty noble: ignoring his own death-pains to shout out vital information to any other Rex that might be near. I'm not sure if you intended it that way... In general, the narrator has assured us of the Rex' insanity and we've seen evidence that they do bad things off-screen, but when we actually see them acting they are within the bounds that could be expected from normal human gangsters or soldiers in a postapocalyptic warzone. They still seem pretty human, and can even be identified with in places like this one. pg 11: "the soldier's" Which soldier? The recently-dead Rex soldier? "On toe pointe" While I wouldn't want to mess with a real ballerina, the image of battle-ballerinas came across as more goofy than terrifying. I imagined them crossing the field with the tiny mincing steps of toe-pointe. Maybe something like "Balletically leaping to toe pointe, they..." would give more of the intended image. "We can give you a ride" The paragraph-long sentence that followed this seemed a bit clunky. Overall, a good story well-told, and I'm definitely looking forward to the next instalment.

Overall, it worked well. I enjoyed it as pure dialogue, and wouldn't change it. You differentiated the voices very well, and I was never in any doubt about who was speaking. I really enjoyed the line "His wife is a siren. She will require a sign language interpreter." One problem with the plot overall: if the house already has (and presumably uses) a silver service for 200, wouldn't they be used to dealing with these sorts of problems? Line quibbles: "four hundred years ago, that was the Drovian Marches, and Windshadow was the duke of it.." Consider Lord Windshadow. I left the story for fifteen seconds, thinking: "well, if it was that long ago, it can't be this Windshadow, so it must be House Windshadow that held the hereditary title." And then, a couple lines later, I learn that it actually was this Windshadow. adding a "lord" up front would help prevent the confusion. "The quicksand" A bit unclear what was going on here. Was the gardener repairing the quicksand to make it quicksand-ier, so that it could once again properly put guests' feet wrong? "Have Geoffrey do it. We'll get some use out of that centaur's absurd tuition fees, and it will keep him away from the bar and the girls." Since centaurs are known for both tutelage and carousing and libido, I assumed that Geoffrey was "that centaur." Since this came immediately after the siren sign-language joke, I assumed that this was another joke along the same lines. When it became clear that Geoffrey was the son rather than the centaur, the joke disappeared, and I was sad. If it was a meta-joke intended to point out that the son was even more drunken and libidinous than a centaur, I didn't catch it at first, so it could use some polishing. Gnargle or Gnarlge? You use both spellings. Vampire dining-ware: You suggest pewter and horn-and-ivory. Pewter often contains silver, and "horn" seems uncomfortably stake-like. Either play this up to emphasize the difficulty of the problem, or use even more innocuous materials--maybe tin and ceramic. 'Cathyan' food--I'm not sure if this was a typo or intentional, but I'd either go fully familiar or fully exotic, instead of just removing one letter: either "Cathayan food" or "Xi'aung food".

Eisenheim and Kaisa The editor sent some succinct but specific guidelines for the rewrite. No time limit on the rewrite itself, but i thought i'd reply fairly promptly with an email outlining the directions I'd like to take the revised story. Robinski That would be hugely helpful. There were many, many passages in your last story that i was insanely jealous of.

Thank you very much, Kristalynn. It's definitely not a good sign when my answer to "what is the story about" is a massive vague paragraph. I'll let the proposal sit for the night and the story sit for a couple of days, and then take the trash compactor to both of them and see what comes out.

Deep apologies for cross-posting and double-posting--new information and all, y'know. So I submitted the (substantially revised) story on Thursday night and heard back today: yay fast response times! I wasn't in the 2% that is accepted outright, but I was in the 5% that gets a rewrite request. I'd love any comments anyone might have on my rewrite proposal before I submit it in the wee hours Tuesday morning. Specifically, I'd love to hear if you think I'm proposing revising it in the ways you'd want to see it revised. Here's what the editor said: Here's my idea for the rewrite. I know I'm asking you to comment on a proposed rewrite of a draft you've not seen, but I'd deeply appreciate any wisdom you cared to offer.

It looks like a great project, Eisenheim! So. I submitted my story from last week to Metaphorosis on Thursday night--there were of course substantial edits between monday and Thursday, and all y'all's suggestions and edits were hugely helpful. I heard back this morning--Metaphorosis' response time is one of the things that attracted me to it. I wasn't in the 2% that is accepted outright, but I was in the 5% that is allowed to submit a rewrite to be reconsidered. So yay-ish, I guess. I'm about to post the editor's analysis and my re-write proposal on my thread. I'll submit the proposal late Monday night--if anyone has one minute to glance at the proposal and see if it agrees with your thoughts on how the story needs to change, I'd be eternally, eternally grateful.

Good luck!

Thanks, rd! Can't wait to hear more!

Wow. I'm an idiot.

So you are an emotional allomancer, and I'm wearing an aluminum hat. That means that you can't affect the parts of my brain that are involved in emotion. But could you still affect the adrenal gland at the base of my neck and give me an adrenaline rush?

Two more possibilities: Stand on Zanzibar and A Canticle for Leibowitz. They're both fun, and you need to put some thought into figuring out complicated plots in complex universes. But there's nothing as systematically solvable as the steel alphabet. I've not gotten around to it myself, but I've heard that you can put a lot of intellectual energy into figuring out the Elder Speech in Sapkowski's Witcher series. People like to play up Suzette Haden Elgin's Native Tongue, but I didn't find much to sink my teeth into. A...book. It has very clever things happening around the edges of a very stupid philosophical debate.

Do pick the story back up at some point--there's a whole lotta good in it.

Sonnet 147 all the way! "My love is as a fever, longing still/ For that which longer nurseth the disease/ Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill/ Th'uncertain sickly appetites to please." My highschool English teacher taught that one with strange passion. Turns out she was in the middle of a torrid love affair in which she was schtupping an assistant coach under the football bleachers. Plus, Captain Picard does a mean rendition of its opening lines.

(Note: for some reason my apostrophe key isnt working this morning, so in this post Ill seem like an idiot who doesnt know how to use apostrophes ) I think part of the reason for the negative reaction to the dream-reveal is genre shock. Readers thought they were reading a story about trying to act rightly in a world in which a mysterious god sets difficult and morally ambiguous tasks for unknown reasons, and no one knows if they are punished or rewarded in the end. That is an attention-grabbing subject in an attention-grabbing setting. And then, we learn that we were actually reading a love story, and none of the questions we were committed to matter. The love story aspect needs to be strengthened if you want the reader to be more committed to it than to the other aspects of the story. The prostitute-falling-in-love is an old story, and Im sure it actually happens from time to time in human history. And the trope itself is not anti-feminist: it was used by Shen Fu, one of the earliest proponents of womens rights in modern China. But yeah, sex has got to be a pretty complicated issue for a prostitute. For the first few nights, just have them sleep in each others arms with no hanky panky: a full nights sleep in the arms of someone who cares about you would probably be pretty special for a prostitute. Have her cry, and have him console her. Have him cry, and have her console him. Let them spend more time laughing at each others jokes. Consider having him invite her to his room rather than commanding her presence. If its important for him to order her to his room in order to show how much war has messed him up, then lampshade that. Have a scene where Harth becomes frustrated and fed up with all the ethical and metaphysical questions posed by his setting. That way, the reader will be releived when the setting turns out not to actually exist. They will conclude: ”Ah, the only question that really matters is ”How Should I Love”. Deep.” Alternatively, actually resolve some of those questions. let us know for sure what happens when someone disappears. Let us learn why someone winds up on one side or the other of the conflct. Let us know why God set it all up this way. That way, Harth actually learns lessons about them, instead of just engaging with them, and then disengaging from them without arriving at conclusions. As it is, it feels like the setting still has a lot of story to tell, and the reader is frustrated that that story is cut short just because what seemed like a lovestory sub-plot had reached its conclusion.