industrialistDragon

I had some trouble with this section. I'd forgotten entirely that it had been through here before and was reading it like all of it was new material. In that respect, it unfortunately felt very slow and repetitive to me. I agree with @Asmodemon with regards to ch6 and the timing issues in ch5. I agree with @Mandamon regarding the pacing of ch5 and the driving scene. I found the scenes in the car very slow and overly specific to the point where I just gave up trying to follow anything. The repetitiveness comes from the feeling like we are being yet again introduced to the town, and to a lesser extent the characters. As I go. I don't think the muscle soreness needs to be capitalized. The acronym gets capitalized because it's an acronym, but when it's spelled out, I think it's just all lower case, since it's not really a formal name of something, it's just a description of symptoms.... So... like... these first four pages really feel like they need to be in chapter 1, and I think it's more tone and focus than plot. There's a sentence about it being snowy in Canada, and it's not bad, but I feel like that was something to include in the introductions and not here when we're trying to get to the meat of the plot? I am also confused by "self-drive cars. " maybe something along the lines of "manual control" would be clearer? non-automatous? I also agree that the driving scenes are confusing and don't feel particularly necessary to the mystery or effective at establishing the character of the town. They also run on for quite a while. I like the phone conversation because that's Mo taking initiative. It's also one of the few things in this chapter that isn't a description of a car ride of one sort or another. I thought a couple chapters back Q turned down a missing person case specifically because he didn't empathize with missing person cases? And now he's saying he takes them because he empathizes? "“How would you know, Dad" I'm confused why this is so cutting? Weren't he and M bantering about "if I was your parent" at a diner scene earlier? Didn't they already take the case, like, twice, a couple chapters ago? I'm really confused. "more in pictures than anything else" wasn't rather a lot of stuff burning or exploding by the end of the last book? Also, didn't the art-guy have a fireplace at the beginning of this one? I've lost all semblance of the ability to keep any of these "x days earlier/later" headings straight. They just fill me with dismay at this point. M feels like a cartoon villain, complete with shadowy overboss, and i'm completely uninterested in him or his actions, nor am I interested in the apparently immanent collapse of the company they work for.

I really enjoyed this chapter! I like how it feels like the story knows where it is going and it feels like it is making progress towards that goal, even this early on in the story. One place I did feel like things got a bit muddy, though, is the scene around the manure pile. Like the others, I found it uncharacteristically ambiguous, and wondered at the purpose of the scene. She then goes on to act alone that night/early morning, so why is L introduced there again? I like him a bit better in this incarnation, at least, and I prefer her tepid and a bit calculated responses to the squicky romance from before. Does it have to be romantic love or coldheartedness though? That distinct either/or? I got the impression that while she does genuinely care for him, she didn't reciprocate his romantic feelings. But because she cares for him, she doesn't want him to be unhappy or sad, so she keeps trying on the romantic feelings to see if they "fit" or "work." It'd certainly be easier if they did, and would avoid a lot of sadness and conflict, and avoiding conflict at all costs is something some people, women particularly, are trained to do. I think that's why I'm more sympathetic to her stringing him along -- I can totally see where she's coming from. Granted, she's being pretty heavy-handed about it, and none of that precludes a certain ruthless desire to maintain a close ally inside a town that is actively hostile towards her, especially when the romantic feelings make said ally more likely to take her side in otherwise risky behavior. Both of these things can be true at the same time. While the scene is confusing, I think calling it a con is making her out to be more sinister and heartless than is actually happening. Again, it is possible to care about someone without wanting to bone them AND still be straight. The mere fact she is wishy-washy about having romantic feelings for a childhood friend does not automatically mean she must be asexual. Are you maybe thinking of the previous version, that had a much more straightforward (if disquieting) romance? I've been working off the assumption that this is a rewrite of that...

Now that the boat ride is gone, I think I'd like a little description of the canoe. Not much of one, this is a much better chapter without the long ride, but a bit of an idea about the boats would probably help. or, maybe that's just because we spent so long defining it before. I like the fruit vendor interaction better than the boat one, but S leaves it abruptly, and the tag-less dialogue at the beginning had me a bit confused. S just gets distracted, starts going on about other vendors when we've seen none, walks away and, while that's probably realistic, it's not particularly good for the narrative, I feel. S so far has been serious and reasonably focused, and this just seems flighty and shallow, out of character. Also S might need a more direct or obvious mis-gendering to run from, because this looks to me like panicking at having a regular conversation and not panicking from gender-related anxiety. While not as bad as last chapter, the logic skips around a bit, and I think that might be due to the edits you've done to streamline things. It's much better this way, don't get me wrong! S is much better 17 than 25 or whatever. Much, much better. But I think it needs a pass to sand down the edges between where cuts were made, to make everything a bit smoother. Interlude is still interlude-y. There're a couple line-level logic inconsistencies, but otherwise it's okay.

Was T a POV character before? It's a bit of WRS that I can't remember, but also I think it's a bit of POV overload, too. We had the overboss lady, the middle-boss lady, and the scientist, right? And T is the... scientist? So, she wasn't a POV last chapter? I'm really confused why we need four (if we're counting the shadowy politics guy?) POVs in the B-plot of this M&Q story. It is still M&Q's story, right? Have you ever thought about doing the story in some kind of omniscient format? It's not done as often nowadays, but having an omniscient narrative would allow all of the various POVs that seem to be happening here... I'm not sure I quite believe the strength of her reaction, or really, the consequences. If the company is okay with same-sex relationships, why would they fire anyone for having a same-sex relationship? If this is the sexually-liberated future, why would anyone's career or standing or research be in jeopardy for having a same-sex relationship? Or maybe I just don't care about T. She seems nice enough, but I'm wondering why I need to be in her head for this, or, conversely, if she's the important one, why I needed all the others last chapter. "This was her problem." -- er, how is evidence of an affair NOT a problem for all the participants, like, minimum? "She had to trust him" -- Well, no, she doesn't. The alternative, an alternative, one of many, would be to go public herself before he could and admit it, and then bring him up on claims of blackmail and coercion. All of the bad-publicity reasoning would work there for him, too (plus blackmail and coercion is, y'know, actually criminally illegal in a way that an affair is not. He even gave her the evidence!). Sure she might have to go through some of the "so you've been publicly shamed" rehab steps, but from her reactions, it seems like marriage counseling and some kind of future PR life coach are small prices to pay for getting out of whatever he has over her. This is so much coercion, extortion... practically duress with the way she keeps talking about suicide... I just don't care enough about T or her circumstances to really believe she'd do all this with one short convo and a sex tape. As is becoming very clear with modern politics, one sex scandal does not automatic career annihilation make. Especially when you add in the extortion surrounding this... Overall, I'm not sold on this chapter. I agree with @Mandamon that the slip and fall was a little too much. I'm also unclear why she thinks going along with her own murder is her only option, and then why she tries to hide what she's doing. From the flip side of things, I don't understand why M, if he clearly knew he had this kind of ironclad hold on someone, didn't A) use it earlier, and B ) use it much more often. He could have just as easily co-opted an IT-guy or one of the androids (since it's demonstrated he has control of them) to do what he had T do (push a button), and now he's down a highly-placed asset. M feels almost like a cartoon villain at this point.

The telling, definitely yes; the lack of personality, definitely yes; the specifics.... "Awesome Crystal Beetle Drill" -- cute, but I don't know any real kids who do this that aren't directly quoting a shonen anime... "How do they reach high shelves?" -- again, a bit twee. Surely she's seen by this point how people cope with being different sizes? ". Mom said we had to ration them," -- how old is this child that she barely understands the need to ration food? Surely a kid who idolized their parent as much as she does will have read up on how to survive a camping trip. I feel like she'd be more likely to be pointing out all the ways the shortcuts experienced adults do differ from best practices she's read about than be amazed they have to take supplies to go camping. "what Mom called " -- hero worship is fine, but apparently her mom is the only one who knows anything? again, this is just feels like an adult assuming this is what kids do. Kids are sponges for cool random factoids. they absorb them from the air, practically, and sometimes they're hardpressed to tell you where they heard it. friends, other adults, some rando on the street, schoolbooks, TV, radio, other family members, everywhere... "and I didn’t want to make a bad impression" -- this section actually works. "approximately as big as a house" -- this feels like an outside observation, if she is an E. If she's an E, wouldn't another E just be... normal? regular? right-sized? Plus, she's already demonstrated with the stairs remark she can't understand how other-sized people work, so why is she making a comparison to something outside her experience? "and fumbled at the knot " why can't she do this? The mom thought she could and was almost perfunctory about telling her to. This fumbling and running feels like generic kid energy, and not like someone who would be very likely to have read about ballooning knots or whatever, if she idolizes mom enough to know the type of balloon mom uses to travel in. "We’re really moving! I’m on an adventure with Mom!" -- this feels way more like the start of the novel than all the build up to this point. "people who didn’t like us" -- this is what you tell, like, a toddler. The simplistic language she uses and accepts as satisfactory explanations from the adults around her is partially what's making her seem generic. Kids pick up on when you're holding back info. I know I sure as heck did. "How much longer? We’ve been rising for hooooours" really? ... Really. "I thought they were part of the basket" -- again, somewhat straining credulity for a decently-aged child with as much hero worship as she has NOT noticing fuel tanks. Kids notice dang near everything. All the things adults notice and don't pay attention to anymore 'cause we've seen them for forever. It's been my experience that what kids lack is not missing that there is a hole, but more the ability to differentiate between a hole that is merely wear to a nonstructural joint no need to notice, and ZOMG A HOLE THAT IS GOING TO TEAR EVERYTHING APART COME LOOK COME LOOK IT'S REALLY COOL ARE WE ALL GOING TO DIE (and also the reverse. Since that hole was unimportant, I just ignored this one too. what's the big difference?) the bathroom bit is also a bit twee, but probably more kid-appropriate. "But it’s so far away" -- again, how does she not know at least the basics of how distance works? and also what @mrwizard70 mentioned about mom being the protagonist. N isn't really doing anything. She's just there being a fangirl and getting in the way. She's barely even reacting to what's going on around her.

Talking about the "cloud layer" is giving me a real minecraft vibe. Is the cloud layer 127 measurement units from the bottom? :3 I would say, honestly, that this feels a little simplistic for a MG child. It's also an awful lot of telling, despite how energetic and enthusiastic the protagonist sounds. It also feels a bit explain-y to me. Like, why is she thinking all this basic stuff to herself? While MG books in general have scaled back vocabulary, sentence structure, and some less complex character motivations, this by no means makes them simplistic stories, or precludes them from having complex plots.This has the makings of a decent kid's adventure, but I think right now you're giving young readers too little credit. Honestly not that much. She's certainly energetic, but she reads like an adult's idea of an archetypal kid, and not a child in her own right. Also, she strikes me as closer to a 7-year-old than a 9-year-old or any older. i would say, it needs to be more hers, and less gee-whiz-golly generic kid. Either way, right now, since the primary thing differentiating her from a boy is the pronouns used in the text. You could trade her out for Ash Ketchum or any other kid-protagonist and not really notice a change. I could, probably, but I read MG and YA for fun pretty regularly. As-is right now and based only on one chapter, I think you'd be pushing it for adult enjoyment. Error: Insufficient data. Never read any Verne, still a noob on your universe. Sorry.

And hey, if it comes to it, you can always use a random generator to give you seed ideas. There're about a million of them out on the Web, and I go through fads with one or the other. Right now, this one is my favorite. It's D&D-themed, ridiculous, and very, very profane, but the more you look at its prompts the better they seem. Otherwise, this one (also D&D) seems decent enough. The things the generators come up with aren't really finished novel or story characters on their own, but generators can give you a bit of a boost if you're drawing a complete blank.

I am! Definitely interested in any kinds of deals I can get, too. In reality though, it's going to be contingent on my finances, which, thanks to the gig economy, are not very stable over time. So I don't know what 2019 will look like for me, yet.

There is, very suddenly, a lot going on in this section! I would really have loved to have all of this information -- the powers, the prince (and why he's "murderous"), the dragons, all of it -- much earlier in the story. Right now, it's interesting, but I feel like I've been cold-cocked with an entirely different story than the one I had been reading up until this submission. I like this story better than the previous one, but I'm still suffering from quite a bit of whiplash. Mostly, I am just left with an incredible number of questions: Why does A suddenly have magic powers? Why does A have to keep her powers secret? If this is such a small town that 2 weird looking guys will be talked about for generations, how are the townsfolk not, like, watching their every move? How can A (or A's parents) not know they were coming to see her? How do these two people know she has powers? Shouldn't a real wall-of-fire be causing real grass fires? Why isn't everything in ashes around her after that display? Where are her parents? Shouldn't they notice giant walls of flames, even if they miss the screaming? Isn't A a minor, or at least, barely and adult? Why is she being kidnapped by people we're supposed to care about? When was she talking to the horse? How can a horse be "too loyal?" Why is a prince of the realm out on his own with only one bodyguard? Why is a prince of the realm called "murderous" by one of his subjects? Why is a price of the realm, who can be identified by his magic, using his magic so flagrantly? Why is a fire-mage igniting grass in a forest without taking any kind of precautions? Shouldn't he know that that's like a massive forest fire risk? How have things gotten so dire that a prince of the realm has to kidnap an innocent girl to talk to a figure from folktales, one they're mostly-certain doesn't exist? Why have things gotten so dire, and yet apparently A has no knowledge of any of it? Wait, they're the enemy? How did no one know this? But then why is the prince "rebellious?" Is this a civil war? What is going on? Why aren't they in disguises? Why, if this is an infiltration, are the two men behaving in a way that is sure to make them noticed? By kidnapping a girl and throwing around magic willy-nilly, they've basically guaranteed the entire town will comes after them, it seems like. Moreover, if their looks are so distinctive, how did no one in the town notice that they resembled the town's enemies? Shouldn't that make the town suspicious? Even without imaging media, descriptions get around, and I'd expect the townsfolk to at least know the general "look" of their enemies, if nothing specific enough to ID the prince as the prince. ... I would have a better grasp of things that are happening right now, if the previous two chapters had worked in some of these concepts straight from the beginning. Some of these questions are answered in the later half of the submission, however I feel like they are mostly just stated as facts and not incorporated into the story. This has the makings of an interesting story, but getting hit with what feels like 3 chapters' worth of plot points in under six pages of text has left me dizzy and out of sorts.

Oh, I really enjoyed this! I feel for W and the way the elders crushed her dreams. The main thing that stuck out to me in this section was the way that the elder's reasoning for why W was fey and untrustworthy confused me. I don't have a problem with them seeing her as dangerous, but I feel like their logic needed to be stated a bit clearer or more plainly for me to understand what was going on. I pieced it together later, but I feel like the scene would have had more impact if I'd been able to follow what they were saying better at the time. Looking forward to reading the next part of this!

Journey up the Cliffs of Light Journey up the infinite cliffs of light Vertical peregrination of the phosphorescent escarpment hmm.. .

Is that a bad thing? Like, for reals, I'm not sure. I mean, technically, "The Fifth Season" is an in-world word, as is 'ancillary' in "Ancillary Justice," 'kushiel' in "Kushiel's Dart" (sorry, I just finished reading "The High Couch of Silistra" ('high couch' and 'silistra' both being in-world words btw) and it gets a lot of comparison to the Kushiel series (despite the fact you could fit like eight Silistras into one Kushiel book) so it's fresh in my mind), 'murderbot' in "Murderbot Diaries," the fourth book in my beloved Kencyrath series is called "To Ride a Rathorn" and that's not only an in-world idiom for an impossible task, but 'rathorn' is an in-world animal... Not all books do that, of course, but a decent number of them do. I'd have to go digging a bit for middle grade comps (I don't have ready access to mg like I used to), but I know they're out there. Otherwise... Ascending the wall of light Ascent to the roof of nowhere The Impossible expedition Finding the world's roof Finding the top of everything (fair warning though, kids seeing a book about the roof of the Nether might end up thinking it's about Minecraft, since the Nether is a place in that game and has a roof that, while supposedly impassable, is fairly easy to glitch through.)

Then maybe he's not the protagonist of your story? Of all the characters, the captain/leader was the most interesting to me, and he's already situated in the army. Maybe try writing something from his perspective?

Frankly, I think you would get more out of betas commenting on the whole thing than continuing here, at least at this stage of the writing.

this absolutely works as an arc as-is, however if you wanted to tie it up a little bit more, having So make the decision regarding stay-or-go to town would do it, I think. There is a bit of a logic jump and jumble around searching for moms = never be an alchemist. I think this might be partially because filial obligations aren't as high a priority in Western cultures as they are elsewhere in the world. I have a fair idea what you're basing some of this on, so maybe playing up the importance of So's obligations to moms would help sort some of it out for a Western audience. And/Or maybe make more of a straight line between "comes into town looking like a slasher movie refugee" and "will definitely be arrested, detained and thoroughly interrogated for days by royal inquisitors, likely until moms decides to reappear, whenever THAT will be (but it will def be after the fair)." From a Western standpoint, this line of reasoning is a good reason to ditch moms entirely, but So uses it as (at least part of ) a reason *to* search for her. It makes sense from a certain perspective, but I think it needs to be spelled out a little bit more clearly, however you decide to do it.

I... just don't have a lot to say about these, sorry. Like @kais, I think that this story is suffering from the small word limit and weeklong breaks between sections, and that it would benefit from a beta read all together or in larger sections. Unfortunately, I don't feel a lot of tension or desire to know why these people were killed or why K was attacked. My thoughts when reading it tend to be in the vein of "well I started it, so I should finish it." Partially, it's lack of empathy with Ma, and a lack of a real grasp on why things are so dire for all of the players. It's also trying to remember which names go with what species, who's who and all that across the week of downtime. Part of the balancing act with mysteries is making the solution something the reader feels like they could have figured out for themselves without either making the solution too obvious, or too random. Unfortunately, for me, this feels very random right now. Again, I think part of it is that I haven't read any of the other works in this universe, so I am likely missing key background, and that there is a gap between submissions wherein I forget just about everything. But also, right now, facts just seem to pop up when they are needed and I don't feel like they are growing or building from what I've read before. I enjoy pieces of the sections I read each week -- the interactions with the religious couple were very good! -- but I feel like the shape of the ongoing mystery lacks cohesion, and the pursuit of a solution lacks tension.

I didn't notice much of a problem with the dialogue. Yes, it is mostly action sentences taking the weight of identifying the speaker, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that. If it bothers you, then my suggestions from your last submission, to add dialogue tags and try to put them in different locations in the spoken text, would also be my suggestions for a solution here as well. For the rest of it I had a difficult time getting into this story. Story-wise, I agree with @kais, and I found it very much like a great many things I have seen before. When stories play as closely to genre tropes as this one does, the interest comes from seeing how the author takes those tropes and archetypes and makes something new out of something familiar. How does the author differentiate their characters and plot from all the others using the same archetypes? How is the author turning the work from just another Trope X tale into something uniquely their own? Martha Wells is one of my current favorite authors and her latest novella series, Murderbot Diaries, is is using the "sentient robot gains control of itself and kills everyone" trope in unique ways that I love. I've linked to an excerpt of the first chapter there because in the first couple paragraphs it manages to establish personality, motivation, trope, and unique trope iteration in a great, engaging way. She is writing in first person, which lends itself to the kind of casual tone the novella has, but even absent that, I think it's a good example of what is meant by suggestions to make a character have personality, or be unique, or to "have a hook." From a technical standpoint, I noticed number of spelling and grammar errors, and a fair amount of homophones as well. For a first draft this isn't uncommon, so I'm not going to comment on them beyond this. They do however affect my ability to lose myself in the work a bit. I can tell you have a real passion for military-style stories, and your familiarity with the subject matter really shines through! I, personally, need more human elements in a work to become caught up in it, however. The world looks interesting, and I enjoy both political- and military-style adventures, but I'm just not engaging much with it yet.

Just a few formatting quibbles here, because I wanted to start on your submission but I am having to work on formatting it for readability instead: A link is not the same as an attached file. My email program flags googleDocs links as malicious (and I know it's not the only one) and I have to spend time convincing it otherwise. If you're writing in gDocs (I do too!), then you want to make sure you use the File->Download As option to save your piece as a .docx, .doc, .rtf, or .pdf for this list. If you go the .docx or .doc route, you'll then want to open it in some other writing program (I use openOffice but there are a fair number of better ones out there if you don't want to buy in to Microsoft's monopoly) and make sure it looks right. gDocs can do some formatting weirdness when it exports so it's a good idea to open the files it makes and scan them for oddities regardless of format. Attached files are attached for a reason. Attached files can be downloaded to a variety of devices and do not require a constant internet connection to read. Many people in this group do not have constant access to a wifi or an internet connection and/or read submissions on a variety of devices and in many locations throughout the day. If you want to include a gDocs link that is fine, but please also include an attached file as well. Please double space your submission. A) it's in the guidelines, B ) for people like me who have trouble reading on the screen double spacing (or even 1.5 spacing!) is massively helpful, and C) it's a good habit to get into if you ever intend to submit work to a publisher. If you're not sure how to double space your work, here are some how-to guides that should help: MSWord: From support.office.com and from a different site ; WordPad: From WikiHow ; GoogleDocs: From support.google.com and from WikiHow ; Apple (* -- I don't actually have a mac so I can't verify these instructions. They look right though) from support.apple.com ; Adobe inDesign: (* -- again, I don't have inDesign, so I'm mostly guessing. Seems decent, though) from forums.adobe.com .

Friendly neighborhood defender-of-YA here! YA has come a long, LONG way since publishers decided to make it a separate marketing category in order to sell more product. YA novels, especially those aimed at the upper end of the age range (which can stretch into the early 20s, and the line between an upper-age YA and an "adult" novel is less a well-demarcated border than a large, blurry asteroid field where novels switch designations on a whim) can and do cover complicated, charged topics such as sexuality, gender, race relations, and politics. To say nothing of violence, profanity, and sex! It's all there, no worries. If you're interested in looking up some newer YA titles, I just so happen to have a couple lists! YA with sex scenes: 7 Of The Most Blush-Worthy Sex Scenes In YA Literature , YA about sexuality: YA Novels That Explore Sexuality and Sexual Identity YA novels with gore/violence: Gruesomely Irresistable YA Books , 6 Awesome Diverse YA Thrillers To Read Right Now , (and you can probably add anything by Darren Shan, even though he's not on those lists) YA novels about politically-charged topics: 9 Great Young Adult Novels For Politically Engaged Readers , 7 YA Reads That Will Sweep You Up in Politics , 5 YA Must-Reads for Politically Aware Teens Even just a cursory read through a new releases list ( like this ) will show a wide range of mature subjects and levels of gore. And then there are the YA classics like Speak, Monster, Crank, and even ones like The Outsiders if you want to go back that far. I wouldn't worry about So and Ma having their teeth blunted for a switch to YA. They'll fit in just fine as they are.

It's not as common, no, but people marry their high school sweethearts all the time and some of them even work out, too! (I know of a few in my brother's circles of friends who have done just that.) So I don't really think longevity would be a reality-breaker for most people. Plus, as you say, everyone think's its going to be forever even when it's not!

Um, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but if you think 17-year-olds aren't having awkward sex and struggling with their sexual identities, you're a little out of touch with kids... like.. in general... >_>; But 19 is fine to me. I was just saying that you have a couple years' worth of elasticity in the way So reads to me if you needed it.

I was engaged with this section! And I like this hero worship/puppy crush much better than the odd, possibly skeevy romance in here previously. I thought W's motivations were fine, on the whole. "but raising the alarm might be a little too much" -- -- --" He’d lived through too many attacks and lost too many friends " -- Since it was in this one, I can answer your question from last week here. (Apparently I just thought really hard about replying but never really did. That's some prime brain fog there and I apologize!) These two quotes are what I am seeing as clashing with each other. W is thinking about how it's not a big deal, and she doesn't want to alert the town, then she right away blurts out a fact (the footprint) to someone whom she apparently knows is going to do the exact thing she was just saying was overkill when he hears it. Like, if she knew the old man had seen "too many battles" to be rational, why tell him at all? If she didn't really want the bell rung, why did she tell someone whose only response would be to do that very thing? Yay the lady hunter is back!

So makes a more believable 19 than 25, but I think you could move the age back as far as 17 and still have it ring true, as long as you also move the guilding age back at the same time, to keep the same large gap between So and a normal apprentice. I don't think it would work as well with So any younger than 17, though. Also think the "appropriate" apprentice age needs to be mentioned early on, so we know how unusual an aspiring-apprentice So is right from the start. I think the arc is fine and the ending point is great. One thing, though, the combustability of the fumes might need to be mentioned earlier, and the lack of lights in the house. Just in passing, so we-the-readers know they're there. With the truncated action, this seems to come up more abruptly than in previous versions. Remember, we don't know what bone oil is or how it works, and I wouldn't rely on just the word "solvent" alone to convey to the average person the strength and properties of it. People hear "solvent" and they're as likely to think of dishwasher soap or nailpolish remover as they are the woodworking stuff that has a real danger of spontaneous combustion.

Well, apparently I forgot to post my reactions to the last set but they basically boiled down to what everybody else said, plus a couple lines that sort-of contradicted each other (it's been a very brain-foggy week, sorry). I'd've liked to hear more about M's tragic accident earlier, had it worked in better previously, especially as it provides a key plot point in this section and a Mcguffin in the last one. The tidbits about his past pop up a bit too conveniently for me, even though they are by far the best part of M's character so far. In this section M's most relatable and unique he's seemed to me thus far, and it's still not a ton. I think if i'd had more time with his background I'd feel a little more for him now that it matters. I didn't have that many pacing issues that seemed unusual to me. "the combination we called an Archaeologist" -- G is listed as a Watcher in the chapter start blurb, unless it's a different G...? ", when they were able to provide labor unhindered by hunger, or sleep, or lack of strength" -- so the machines will take the jobs of the hardworking servant class? Is he planning on putting all those highly-trained butlers out of work? It's a good thing M isn't running for office anywhere! The security system hack struck me as either an extra info tidbit that was lingered over a bit too long, or a larger point that hadn't been incorporated yet. It seemed a little superfluous, but not overly so for an early draft. It feels like this (potential) reveal about K comes out of nowhere. Did she have a larger part in the skipped sections? Because I feel like she was barely more than a named background character from what I've read so far here, and I don't have more than a sketchy outline of her personality. It feels awfully convenient the way she exactly matches the personality of the killer and G & M are only now realizing it.

Overall -- I can definitely see an improvement over the first version of this section, but I feel like this is the real chapter 1 of the book, and the other two are prologues or even just vignettes -- they don't feel connected to this part at all. Maybe if this chapter was next to the first Q&M chapter it would help? I don't know. It makes me wonder if the first two chapters are really necessary, whereas I might be more willing to make connections between corporate shenanigans and the (to me, right now) uninteresting local case if I'd had two chapters to get reattached to M&Q? I don't know. Either way, my feelings on finishing this part is "well, why did I read those first two anyway, if this is what it's actually about," even though I know from later that they're connected (well, i don't know if art-theft-guy comes back, but the corporate stuff and the local mystery are related, from foreknowledge) As I go: Third time header in a row and even with the space of a week i'm getting confused. Is this later from the ch1 heading, or later from the ch2 heading (which would be a different end-point than ch1) or some other later that's a combination of the two? "delicately ripped " -- can one be delicate and ripped at the same time? Is that like rough smoothness? Toned, maybe? Fit? The diner section is reading a bit better, but I think it could be slimmed up a bit more. The android has his lip color mentioned twice in about half a page, and M's hair is described in first-encounter detail twice in the same span of words. There are other duplications or near-duplications like that throughout this section and they are striking me as a bit redundant. I do agree with @Mandamon that the section is reading a bit long and infoish, too. It's better than it was, but keep at it! I'm still way more interested in the museum job they pass up than the local job, and aslo still a bit confused why they pass it up. It doesn't feel like Q to pass up high society, intrigue, and beautiful women just because "it wouldn't be good for M." At this point he's stated numerous times he resents being stuck with her, and the positive things he's said about her don't preculde taking the museum job and, like, stashing M in a safehouse somewhere while he's out enjoying himself. For a spacefaring culture, and for the way he talks casually about taking jobs on the moon and Mars, "on earth" could still be considered pretty darn local. "if you kept a civil tongue in your head" -- this is a whole lot better than the previous version! But still kinda cringey to me.... "So, we’ll be taking it then?” -- Didn't they decide several pages ago to take it? And that's why they're still hanging around in town? I'm confused It's a good line to end on, but the punch of it has been taken away by the scene prior with the list of jobs. Random thought -- can they just take both? Like, take the perfect museum job, then decide to pick up the ulta-local one on their way out of town since it's obvs going to be a quick, easy one that absolutely won't interfere with their travel plans at all (maybe M should be point on it it's so easy! (ha-ha ) )? I mean, especially after that call, having Q decide to stick it to his ex-dad and have to rationalize it later to M out loud seems more in-character than passing up the high life of fine art and politics just for some nebulous concept of "might be dangerous for The Children"