kais

Up for next week as well, please!

Good on you for persisting! Overall I'm in agreement with @Mandamon. Better than the first time by far, but a lot of extra words and wandering. Starting on page four or so would make this snap better, which is definitely what you want in a cold open chapter. Nice work. Keep it up! As I go - what is 'half a falling man's cry'?? - woah, adjective heavy again. Suggest a self-imposed limit. One per sentence. - some spelling and grammar errors throughout as well. Spell check should help - page five: I have fighting fatigue. This battle doesn't seem to have a purpose other than training, and as such I am not invested in the characters, so the battle doesn't much matter to me right now - page 5: write out your numbers, don't use numerals - Are you intending to write in 3rd omniscient?

I spent a little over a month in Australia a few years ago and loved it. Which part are you going to? (Also, I second 'Silk's Road')

We love our jargon, but most of it is completely unnecessary. Unless the paper is directly in your field, jargon is so specific that it's best to just skip. You can get the main ideas without the complex words. Basically we just like to sound smart, even if no one else gets it.

Seconding @industrialistDragon. Welcome to RE! But please read the pinned rules post and sub via the email forum, using the correct content tags. See you next week?

Oh goody, I like Rey! Overall A good concept for a short, and I love Rey. I thought the piece fell flat though, in several places. Some thoughts on that below. I'd love to read it again once it gets a bit more punch! As I go - probably need better names than just 'first' and 'second' father - the paragraph that begins with 'Rey leaned forward' seems out of place, flow wise, and maybe a little infodumpy - LOL at the rodent problem - majus rats FTW - end of page four: I think the majus talking to Rey here lacks a bit of punch. The conclusion seems to come too easily. Unsure what to suggest. It just...falls a bit flat for something that should be our try-fail - same thoughts on the end. Nothing is technically wrong, but it falls flat. Maybe he needs to work a bit harder to succeed? It might be that I don't have enough musical background to understand what he is doing, or that I'd like the short to tie in more to the base story. Unsure what to suggest, but punch, I think, is needed. Maybe tie some shady Cult of Form dealings in? Have him discover something?

Better late than never, eh? Overall I'm confused. Unsure what the conflict is and who these people are. The blurb at the bottom of the second file helped a little, but the whole thing was still murky. Character development I liked early on, and the battle was done well enough, I just don't know why it was done. I'd love to see more banter between our lead and the 'love interest', especially if it gives her some personality. Good start! I agree And also this. Sums up my issues with the piece perfectly. As I go - page one is a might adjective heavy - I greatly enjoyed the description of Charenne - LOL with the mage line, too - page three: so I like the characters, but am unsure what the plot is at this point - page four: the paragraph with where our MC has had sex with Charenne is a little much. - page seven: professional curiosity - the wand was laminated? Shellaced? Why did the fibers 'delaminate'? - page eight: still not sure what the battle is about

SH = self harm Three more little interludes that are just meant to give worldbuilding without info dumping in the narrative. My hope for them is that they are engaging and build character and world, not much else.

Glad to see you submitting again! Sorry I'm a bit behind. Overall I'm left confused. I don't actually know what happened so that this company somehow lost three years. Were they abducted? I agree with this statement completely. I like the idea, but it wanders and leaves me scratching my head. Unlike the others, the jargon didn't bother me, as I just skipped it (I'm used to doing this when reading science stuff anyway). I think the story has a decent foundation, just needs cleaning and toning. As I go - fair few typos in page one alone. Might want to read this thing aloud to yourself to help with cleanup - page two is pretty heavy on dialogue tags. You don't need them every time someone talks, especially if there are only two people - is there a reason this is jumping from first person to third? - page four: I'm confused at this point. Are they in Afghanistan or California? Are they fighting aliens or something else? - page eight: So. Confused. Did I miss the hook/plot train? What is going on? - page eight: flower petals don't last three years. Three months, maybe, but they're well decayed at three years

Since there appears to be plenty of space, and I'm back stateside, I'd like to sub, too. Also, I promise to catch up on missed crits.

Cover!!

*whispers into the dark* covercovercovercovercovercover (ASD has its cover and it is amazing)

The one for magic mushrooms said 'come dance with me'!!

I'm at a fungal conference and saw this shirt. Some of you may remember a scene from ATD in which a phallus fungus with a veil smacks the veil around in anger? Yes? Well, here you go. (the caption reads: here comes the bride)

I'm heading to my yearly trip to Sorpsi...er, the Amazon. I'll crit as I can but will likely fall behind until I return in a few weeks. Take care, all!

Overall Better! Still a lot of wandering at the start. I didn't get interested until about page 13, as the information to that point seemed to wander and lack purpose other than setup for events and characters I have not yet connected with. This seems to be a common theme in your writing. It might be a good exercise to go through and cut everything down to just dialogue and important internal monologue, then start adding the filler back in as needed. 'Trim the fat', as it were. I also agree with @Mandamon and @industrialistDragon dragon in terms of content and pacing. It's getting better, but edits are a long road. Keep on it! As I go - page five and I'm still waiting for some semblance of an arc starting, or some hook. The chapter doesn't appear to have actually started yet - page ten: so many names. I can't keep them straight since I haven't connected with any of the characters yet - ah, page 13 starts the chapter arc it seems

Or don't explain it at all, and toy with everyone's biases!!

Overall Nice piece! I had very little to comment on, other than that the last two pages could probably be cut and it would still be a strong work. I agree with this. I'd like more showing in this area This was a bit of an issue for me as well. The writing was strong, but killing your one female character and having her death advance reader empathy and plot for a male is pretty textbook fridging. This wasn't as bad as some that have come our way, but alas, we must now reset our counter. But really, this was a very strong submission. I enjoyed it! As I go - the love of music in an android makes me think immediately of Ancillary Justice - I'm kind of surprised it didn't just end on page 18

Pssst! I get to see the cover for ASD sometime next week! EEEEE!

Overall This is definitely better! I think it just needs a bit of expansion near the end now, and it will work. I see everyone else has caught on the same thing. The interaction between the two is much better now, and doesn't ping the same warning bells as the last submission. Nice clean up! Going to sub it somewhere? As I go - that first sentence is pretty adjective heavy - the paragraph that starts with 'the sun had dispelled' is confusing. I think it tries to add too much to a short story - page three: so he's married to her now, but how did that come to pass. We have the backstory paragraph, which is good, but I'm unsure how his uncle's mercy ended up with them married? It sounds more like she was just a housekeeper? - I'd like to see them struggle through how to make it work a bit more. The end comes too quickly and easily, and giving up sight is a big deal that should need some warming up to. Same with hearing

Yup! Sadly, no. As M rants on later, a princess is from a kingdom. Here we have a queendom, so we have a different word. Thank you so much for these, especially the kid phrasing. It helped a lot! Right? Where is everyone?? Yup, sorry, Typo decided not to, and am trying to change it throughout Argh, you're right. I'll clean it up. Thank you, as always!!

Wow, board is dead this week. Glad to see you around though, @M.Puddles! Overall There's good stuff in here, it's just consumed by a lot of wandering. I think this chapter needs a 'trim the fat' pass, cutting out at least half of the pages you submitted. I don't know enough yet about any of these characters, or the world, to care about them, and I didn't get really interested in the story here until about page 16. At that point I was interested, and would have happily read the next chapter. So, overall, heading in the right direction. Just needs some trimming. As I go - the firs page is pretty adjective heavy, leaning almost to purple - page two: thoughts usually go in italics, just FYI - page three: I guess that is what happens when you take part in more parades than battles. Without italics, it reads as a first person POV slip up instead of a thought, and that is very jarring - same at the bottom of page three. You change tense, which you do in thoughts, but we don't know it is a thought, so it comes off as a tense fail - page five: it's getting harder and harder not to skim, as nothing is really happening and all we are getting is description - page eight: the vicar always using the name 'Paladar' gets pretty repetitive - I think you could start this chapter from the top of page 16, and it wouldn't lose anything, and it would gain a great deal of flow and tension. 16 is where I start to get interested, and invested, in the story

No, but jealous of anyone who is. I'd love to meet up with you!

I've got a giveaway going on right now, if anyone is interested. Leave a review for AFD (the first book I ever subbed through here) on Amazon or Goodreads, let me know you did so, and you'll be entered into a drawing to win an enamel pin of the Pledge. Leave a review on both, get two entries! So, you know, if you've got a copy laying around and haven't read it yet, or remember enough from it being on here that you want to review, have at it! (closes on Friday)

Pick apart as much as you care to. Everything is open to edits. Please abbreviate all character names. THANK YOU!