Mandamon

Thanks @Snakenaps! That's some quick reading! Yeah, I was trying to be all experimental with how they knock, but I think it's just confusing. More chiding. Cool. This seems to be a universally liked section! I actually have an unpublished short story about this, which may get released as bonus content for the kickstater! Meaning the roofs were above the plants. And yes, it rains in in the Nether! More like transitional housing. I can make this clearer. Just wait! Lol. You have divined correctly. Heh...good point. *blinks* I hadn't even thought of that. Doh. Thanks.

Thanks @Snakenaps! Glad you're enjoying it. Really. I actually had to add in a few days to the original rewrite because there was too much happening each day. Ah, good catch. I can add this in. They're similar ages, but just because of the species makeup and how things progressed here, they have less advanced tech. Cool! Let me know what you think as we get farther into the book. I'm sort of afraid I dropped some of this, and I want to make sure I keep it up. I'm hoping to explore this in the (eventual) 4th and 5th book! Heh. Exactly!

Thanks so much for reading again, @Snakenaps! These are great reactions, and help target where I can fine-tune things. I LOLed at this. Definitely, and no, I don't think many friends.

Overall: This was a good wrapup, but I'll echo @Sarah B that I had completely forgotten about the android, so bringing him up along with the replacement was not as powerful as it could be. In addition, I'm not sure why the pilot was the focus in the last chapter. She was only in one or two chapters near the beginning, wasn't she? I'd rather have had more time with Q&M building a relationship before M goes off. I still had this vague sense of unease the whole first half, waiting for something else to happen with N. I guess that's going to be left for a later story, and hopefully the changes the couple chapters before this will clear it up. Thanks for sharing this whole thing with us! It's been a great journey! Notes while reading: pg 3: "Perhaps Q would never know. Perhaps." --hmm...I either want some sign of what happened here, or a bigger try/fail with killing N. This still seems unfinished to me. pg 3: "she contributed to the… project" --ick. pg 3: "I’ve run from it for five years." --I think we've covered it in the previous chapter, but I think there needs to be a lot more setup to show what exactly Q ran from, and how N is older than 5. pg 4: "A news broadcast on a national network had included his name, present location, place of residence, and a reference to life after death." --huh? I really had to go back and read 3 or 4 times to catch all this, and I still don't remember where Q lives. I guess it's probably a warning, but I don't know if I would have caught all that even if it was about me. pg 4: "So, it seemed he had achieved his goal." --thaaaats jumping to conclusions a bit. pg 4: “Hey, turn that frown upside-down, honey,” --uh, would E ever say this, even joking? pg 5: "The FBI had kept Eighty" oh yeah...I sort of forgot about him. pg 7: “The sheriff in absentia,” M added, “not the acting sheriff.” --Is K on leave? Why is he there, then? pg 10: “It’s a Tiger Moth,” --I'm not sure what this is or why it's better than the previous plane. pg 10: “My designation is" --So are they going to go through an android per book? pg 12: "No, they talked openly about how they felt about being laid so low physically," --I feel like this would be a better resolution than showing that they paid back a side character from twn chapters ago. pg 15: good roundup at the end, and I like the last line!

Thanks @Sarah B! By popular demand, I will work on adding more creepiness! Haven't covered that before and I hadn't even thought about it! So far the dissolving has only taken a few seconds, so there wasn't time, but now I may have to include that somewhere...

Thanks to @industrialistDragon, @shatteredsmooth, and @kais! Glad this seems to be moving better, except of course for lacking emotion. I'll be adding a lot more of that in with Man the next edit. All good comments. I was going more for the "tired old man" who is seeing his labors fall apart, but I've gone too far away from caring for the people as well. Will address this. Glad this is working as well. Adding more content and breaking up the chapters into two parts seems to be helping. Yes, I think this is where I can really lean into M's emotions.

Thanks @industrialistDragon! I've addressed this a lot more in the last book, but I can put in another sentence or so here. Yep. Will add more emotion.

Chapter 5, which was the second half of Man's first chapter. Once again I've marked it as (V) for violence. I've tried to put some more emotion in this half. Let me know what you think! Previously: S/E/I arrive in the other facet with their news of the Elg. The Eff and court are there, E has problems with trust, and E/I learn about their folks. The Eff faints shortly thereafter. E battles the voices inside her as they travel to the Ari, and attacks S. In the Ari enclave, I struggles with his image, we learn of the Ari, and E and I use each other's houses for the first time. M arrives with the society to the Imp and is attacked by Elg. People die and Man finds himself with more and more responsibility as they attempt to figure out what's going on.

No worries--you got there!

6 names with Man: Jh, Scin, Fres, Hath, and Jo.

Looking forward to it!

I'd like to submit Monday the 30th with chapter 5!

Thanks as always, @Robinski! The LBLs are very helpful. You've got it! Love the diagram. Maybe I should get one done up for the cast of characters section. To make it even more complex, the Eff sits with the other speakers in a circle for the appearance of equality. And yes, no accreditation. I'm imagining that book is like a high school textbook or something. Yay! This pinged in my brain when I reread it too. I'll see if I can clear it up. Check. Good. By the way, I have a sketch from the artist for an interior illustration, and it is delightfully creepy. Awesome. I should practice more on killing characters off ;-) Lol. I was going for the instant of relaxing before things get worse. 6 members of the Council. The Eff counts as #67! Really. Yep, this seems consistent with what others have said. I'll punch up the end of chapter. Thanks!

Thanks @killersquid and @shatteredsmooth! Noted. Seems to be unanimous. There was a lot of new writing in this chapter, which is where I usually fall down on emotion, so I'm going to blame that... Thank you! Glad it's coming across. I've harped on them for a couple books now, so it's sort of a running thing. However you do have a point that they should at least be trying. I can try to show them being a bit more proactive. Glad someone brought this up! They spoke at the end of the last book, but didn't here before, so this is new. I did want it to be a question in the reader's mind as to what they are doing, so that seems to be coming across.

Thanks @shatteredsmooth! Glad I's voice is working now. Glad to hear it. There's a few quibbles still, but from the feedback everything sounds like it's working better. I think this got missed with all the cutting and pasting I did. I'll check it.

Thanks for the LBLs, @Robinski! Very helpful. At least in the US, "ward" can also be used as a district, so it's not as much a tautology. However, it's also sort of a hostel, so I change the name of this anyway. Dangit. Yes. This seems to tie with comments on the first chapter that S is not reacting enough. I'll keep that arc in line as I edit. Glad this is working better. Thanks for all the great feedback to get it there!

Thanks @Sarah B! In a sense, yes, but he also needs some more emotion. This goes directly into the next chapter, so hopefully it will be clearer next week? Let me know if not.

This is good wrap-up, but I'm left waiting for the other shoe to drop. After last chapter, I was almost certain there was going to another boss fight "in his final form!" as an electronic entity. There's also the big question of Q's various criminal charges, now K is injured/dead. Are these things tie-ins to the next book? If not, I'm thinking we may need a little more closure from those two plot threads to really tie things up. And this just struck me: we never see TOM through the whole book, and I suspect the calls from him were from N as well. That means we never are actually in contact with the main villain. Especially with DM being killed off-screen, I want a little more Victory! and Punch the Bad Guy to cap things off. Maybe even just a (real) call from TOM, now that N is currently indisposed. Notes while reading: pg 2: "then put on her back" --patted her on the back? pg 2: "unable (No, be honest, unwilling)" --Is this talking about in the past, or just now? pg 3: "Medics in bio-suits" --When did they get here? How? I didn't think it had been that long between Moth shooting and now. pg 3: "Her dark blue crime scene garb." --not a complete sentence. pg 3: "wouldn’t have survived this" --except T might have helped in genetic experimentation on a human? I doubt she's going to be a free woman for long. pg 4: "but he’d never known N" --This seems to jive with what I remembered, that Q really didn't have anything to do with his son and didn't even really know he existed. This makes it hard for me to see him as taking any blame for this. It's all on TOM. pg 4: "alpha Thing in a galactic internet" --very much want an answer to this... pg 7: I like the quote at the end!

Thanks @kais! I added a LOT more in with fighting. So much so I had to split this into two chapters! *sigh* as usual. I think (hope) there's a little more in the next chapter, but I can go back and pump this one up too. Definitely some guilt there.

Generally agree with the others on this one. Overall, I think this chapter has a lot of potential, but right now it's choppy, and maybe things aren't revealed in the correct order? N's motivations are very unclear until the very last page, which makes it hard to empathize with Q and his responses. Q and J's relationship was also never very certain, and I don't know how much Q was actually an absent father and how much this whole thing was out of his hands. I didn't note anything down on D's death while reading, though it did give me pause. Mainly that he was such a sort of random addition from the start I wasn't quite ever sure what to make of him. Notes while reading: pg 3: “It’s all your fault.” --I get that N is distressed, but how did Q do any of this? Wasn't N taken from him, or he didn't know about him until later? He certainly didn't know about whatever genetic manipulation was performed. Blaming him rather than TOM seem inconsistent with how smart N is. pg 3: "stood stalk still" -> stock pg 3: “You say her name. Say it!” --again, Q doesn't have a problem saying J's name (as I remember) so this doesn't have the impact I want from it. pg 3: "He had What the… thing want?" --wanted? pg 4: "Easier than breeding one illegally." --I'm guessing human clones are illegal then, but with this level of genetic manipulation for all the creatures, I don't see why TOM would really care if it was illegal. Changing his own grandson is vile, and as easy as it would be to just make a clone of N (or several) and practice on that instead, I don't see why TOM would go to this effort... pg 4: “And you can scare the father away,” --Didn't we learn in the last book that J had N through artificially insemination or something like that, or am I misremembering? I feel like we knew that Q literally had nothing to do with N being born. pg 5: "as he continued to die" --some more visceral emotion here (and yes, I know this is me saying this...) pg 5: "to feel the electricity, to touch the digital world around me." --ok, that's cool. pg 5: "would leaking from his ears" --leak pg 6: "They brought him here," --and was he human then? Did E know about the manipulations? That's a big point in how guilty she is in all this. pg 6: "How could I know I was knee deep" --so she did know about the genetic manipulation? If that's so, all my sympathy for E goes out the window. She's at fault, not Q. pg 6: "both my creators" --ehhh...still not completely on board with this. pg 7: "the lovely T has not been entirely honest" --I guess this means E didn't know. Also, ick. pg 7: "its animal smell" --at this point Q has waffled several times between it/he and N/monster. As he is, ahem, demonstrably male, I feel Q could settle on a pronoun. pg 7: "I am my own code, the key to the future, the new paradigm.” --So...now i"m conflicted on N's motivations. He seems to be pretty proud of what he can do, and doesn't seem to be overly uncomfortable with his form. What exactly is he angry about? That his body was changed? That he was given powers? That he was locked up? pg 8: "N had engineered..." --This almost reads as an infodump, in that it's just a list of the things that happened. Can we have more of Q's reaction to them instead? pg 8: “The simple truth is that you are going to die now.” --annnnd now he's gone into mustache-twirling territory. He's been monologueing... pg 9: "The disorientation was powerful" --from what? pg 11: "That’s all I really want...The silence, the darkness." --Would be good to have some indication of this before, if this is his motivation. pg 11: "but can I talk him down? That’s all I've got at this point, and it’s on me." --I feel like this works against the tension. You've got a powerful enemy talking and waving his arms around, but not really acting on his power. I'm sure he could easily kill everyone in the room if he wanted (which is his stated intention), but he's just standing there talking. pg 12: "I had hope until my parents tore themselves apart,” --I guess I'm misremembering? Q and J had a kid and then divorced? pg 12: "Hope leached out of him" --again, more visceral. Does he sag? His feet feel heavy? He wants to just lay down? pg 12: "to put an end to me" --that's the opposite of "you are going to die now.” Which is it? pg 12: "my birth in a vat" --also confused now as to what the situation between Q and J was. How old is N? pg 13: "who was stalk still" --stock (x2 for this chapter) pg 14: “Subdue me, huh?” "You failed the test, Father," --very confused as to what N actually wants. pg 17: “don’t shoot!...It’s what he wants.” --At this point, why not just shoot? pg 18: Ok, I get N's motivation better now--evidently he's going to become digital somehow, but his flesh has to die to do that and TOM wouldn't let that happen. It was pretty confusing to get to this point, though.

To add a (very short) addendum to @Robinski's (very long and well thought-out) post: I usually have at least 30-40% of the thing I'm writing done before I submit something here. That way I can submit something I wrote a while ago so I'm not as attached to it. Then, I keep writing while fielding brief comments on the critiques I get. I usually don't apply any of the feedback until I'm completely through the book (or whatever I'm writing). That way, the critiques have a time to settle in my mind and I can ponder any particularly harsh (but usually accurate) feedback so my subconscious figures out how to apply it. One other important note, which Robinksi mentioned, but I'll reiterate: You do NOT have to apply all feedback you get. A lot of times readers will see the symptom of what is wrong, but not the cause. Only you know the full story, so it may only take a sentence change here and there to adjust an entire character's outlook, for example.

SUB 15 Chapter 4, which is the first half of the original Man intro chapter. There's a lot more action and I'm giving it a (V) for violence, though it's not too gory. Hopefully this clarifies where M and the Society are, and how this is connected to the end of the previous book. Let me know what you think! Previously: S/E/I arrive in the other facet with their news of the Elg. The Eff and court are there, E has problems with trust, and E/I learn about their folks. The Eff faints shortly thereafter. E battles the voices inside her as they travel to the Ari, and attacks S. In the Ari enclave, I struggles with his image, we learn of the Ari, and E and I use each other's houses for the first time.

Thanks @killersquid! Still very useful I might try to play around with that. Maybe these Ari use "my other" as a shorthand. It does come into play later. I'll make sure to keep this in mind when I get back to that part. @industrialistDragon, I have already reduced the tensions in the second book, so it's possible your reading is colored by remembering an older version. Still, I'll ponder the options you give. This will probably be a adjustment for next edit, in any case. Thanks!

Planning to submit new and improved chapter 4, featuring Man & the Society next week!

Thanks @industrialistDragon! Sounds like most everything's working. To your biggest point:I'm not quite sure what to do about it. To sum up. The species was basically fighting a civil war, so decided to fence themselves off while they "fixed" it. They did so. Now their community is pretty insular because of that history, but they can freely interact with the rest of the beings there when they want. There are interspecies tensions between them and the others, but I've also had that in the background of all the other books. Homeworlds in the other facet are largely populated by their own species. Travelers might be looked down on or treated with distrust. It's a background theme, but not one I intend to make prominent in this book. They largely exist as-is, and everyone's fine with it. I'd love to hear other opinions on if I need to work on this more, or change the narrative if it's problematic.