Trizee

I'd like to submit this Monday too, if possible.

Am currently reading Sailing to Sarantium and absolutely loving it! All the characters are instantly likeable, the prose has a sort of whimsical feel to it and the world feels very real (maybe that's because its based off the Byzantine period).

So what do you guys think of FRAGMENTS? I personally thought it was awesome, and much better than PARTIALS. The things revealed were fascinating, though enough mysteries were left over for me to wish book three were already out. Also, the characer development was exquisite and the action was cool. In short, one great book!

Tell me what you think!

I'd like to submit this coming Monday please.

Hi, and welcome to Reading Excuses! Just a few things... In the first scene, with the eggs, it seemed pretty strange to me that the girl just threw a carton of eggs at Emily. I mean either she's totally wacko, or she was much more upset than you made her out to be. Another problem I had with this piece is the way people reacted to strange things. They pretty much take it in stride. I mean, no one is particularly worried when the eggs all break, or when Emily walks into the house saying she thinks she got a concussion (any normal mother I know would totally freak out), and I would expect Oliver at least to get pretty excited when he sees a glass levitate, even if Emily is too worried to tell anyone about it... And by the way, Aztecs are technically from Central America.. Otherwise it was great, and I'm looking forward to the next installment.

Here's a science fiction short story I've written. Tell me what you think!

I'd like to submit this monday too if possible.

Hi, welcome to Reading Excuses! (I haven't read any Lovecraftian stuff, so anything I say may be mistaken as a result) As for your story, my mahor problem was that it all felt too rushed. You didn't linger long enough on any one scene for me to connenct to Saidy or feel any tension for her. You seemed to be writing a summary of events that happened- which makes sense because that's what Saidy's doing, but the result is that I breeezed through the stroy without caring much what happened. There were two other things that bothered me about the story: 1) Saidy professes tp have no feelings for her brother- cries when she sees his corpse- then gets upset that she didn't get any money in the will, showing no feelings for her brother- and then is upset about his death again. Is it just me, or does it seem like she keeps changing her mind? 2) If James doesn't want Saidy to investigate the monster world- why does he tell her about it in the first place?

First off, I enjoyed reading your story- I think it was crisp and tight- I disagree with Asmodemon about the plot length. Also, I didn't see the twist coming, but then- I almost never antiscipate these sort of things, so I'm not much of an indication. There are some other things that bothered me that the other reviewers didn't mention: Passive prose: You wrpte your stpry very passsively, which is something that I fel takes away from the tension and excitement of the story. For example, you wrote: "While he had spoken, we'd come closer." If you could change that to something like "We came closer while he spoke," it would make it seem to flow better and feel more like it's hapenning now. Also, in the fight with the Priestess, after she drains Chima's life force, she seems suddenly weaker instead of stronger- she has to dodge Ixtli's red flames (which you say are weaker than blue ones) instead of blocking them like she should be able too. Other than that, this was a great story that I enjoyed a lot!

I feel obliged to add Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series.

It was the Tor. I'm about 650 pages in and it's awesome! Edit: I finished... that was simply superb! I only have a few things that bothered me about the book (which I won't mention now), but otherwise- a great ending to a great series! And the ending also left me asking a lot of questions... which I can't wait to discuss with you guys come January 8th!

So, I just finished reading Against All Things Ending, the ninth and penultimate novel of Stephen R. Donaldson's chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I think this books are the ones I most appreciated for there beauty more than anything else, and am excitedly awaiting the last book. So, did you guys read it? Like it?

That's right- I just picked up a copy of A Memory of Light at the Steimetsky bookstore in Azrieli mall, Tel-Aviv, Israel. It was ridiculously expensive (160 shekels- the equivalent of a bout 40$), but its two weeks before official realease date! I've never had the expereience of making such a discovery, and I'm all to glad that it happened with this book! :P

Sorry this is a bit late... I'll begin by saying that I agree that your prose is very good and clear, making your story an easy read. Also, the setting you have created is interesting, and I do think that to tell this story in its fullest, you probably need to expand it into a novel. However, if you don't want to do that, then there are some things I think you can do to make this stand better as a short story of its own, mostly cut out the things that don't seem to have any relevance to the story's plot: the Elemantal flying machines and the letters from his father. But I do think that this is really deservant of a full novel, or at least a novellette/novella so that we can fully appreciate how much Maia's betrayal broke Hirundo's heart. If you give us more time for the realtionship to get built, we'll understand better what Maia meant to Hirundo. As to Maia's betrayal and her umbrella actually being a weapon, I can say that it was kind of given away when you said Nomura wanted to tkae away her umbrella- the first thing I thought when reading that was that the umbrella was some secret weapon. Another small thing is that when Maia whispers "Sorry, Kenshin" I'm fairly certain that it's the first time we hear Hirundo's first name, so that I wasn't sure who she was referruing to when she said this. Otherwise, this is a great story and I look forward to seeing more from you!

Welcome to Reading Excuses! Forst off, understand that I enjoyed reading your work- the prose was nice and quick and made for an enjoyable read. Now for some critique... As to the general setting, it is painfully obvious that your world is based off ancient Greece. They have Greek sounding names, fight in a phalanx, live in city states that are all part of some overarching country... Also, Sarkis is clearly Sparta- they enslave helots, they're known as feirce fighters and cruel people people etc. And Thereos is clearly Athens- they're Sarkis's rivals, they have a sort of democracy, they have a strong fleet... It isn't a bad thing to base your setting off an ancient culture, but when it's so obvious it pulls you out of the story and makes you keep looking for the ways it's similar to said culture. Now for some more secific things: The fight with the muscular barbarian- I was rather confused here- the barbarian hits Lysandros's shield with a wooden sword and shards of obsidian go flying? And then after he's stabbed he raises his sword to strile again- isn't his sword shattered. Call to retreat- I find it unlikely that Lysandros's yell to retreat would pass quickly enough through 2000 men for them to retreat in an prderly fashion. You might want to have him blow a horn or something... A King's Death- Because of your book's tital, I foresaw Lysandros's death from the moment you called him a king- you might want to change what your book is called unless his death wasn't meant to be surprising. That's all I can think of for now, and though it may seem a bit harsh- we challenge each others' work like this all the time- so don't worry about it and keep writing. (I'm only saying this because I became convinced I was a terrible writer after my frst critique before I read through some other critiques and realized everybody was critiqued terribly)

Well after a long tike without being able to find time to write, I've finally finished chapter 5. Hopefully it came out good despite the long wait- now go and prove that it didn't!

Great, thanks! By the way, how come Stroniax never submitted?

After such a long time with no submissions, I would like to submit this Monday.

The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan The three books of Stephen R. Donaldson's Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, which were incredible. I don't think I've ever read an author who has such beautiful prose, the deepest characters I've ever read, and an interesring plot to boot. The Emperor's soul, which absolutely amazing, though I'm not sure it needed the action scene at the end. The Robots of Dawn and Robots and Empire by Isaac Asimov The first two Alcaraz books- I find the plot interesting and the whole way of addressing literature very funny. Debt of Bones by Terry Goodkind and The Grinning Man by Orson Scott Card from Legends II And I'm now reading The Stars, Like Dust by Asimov

No, but normal people can very easily become monsters or commit monstrous acts when they are on the wrong side, that's what happened with many of the Germans. You might want to think of this in your story (have Xeness seem like a kind and good person and then suddenly have her do something totally evil, though some people might think that feels that is too much out of character- myself included, but it is rather relastic, so it is an option.)

About the protagonists coming from the evil side... If you want Ethen to be your good guy, you should probably establiish right away that he's good. Having him use blood magic and relishing its power doesn't exactly make hm feel good to me- his character is likable enough, but his actions make me affiliate him with the bad guys- Liethen would be the more obvious choice for the good guy because of his aversions to blood magic. Xeness- If you want her to be the antagonist, you might want her thoughts be a bit more evilish- worrying about your children isn't exactly something I connect with being bad. The other witches all seemed a lot more evil to me. One other thig- how come Liethen knows more about bloodmagic than Ethen does (Ethen asks him where to cut him) if Ethne is the one with the magical abilities?

OK, just a few things... Prologue- This prologue seemed sort of David Eddings style- omniscient story teller giving us the history that forms the backround to the book. Thing is you didn't stay in omniscient but rather switched to Kirrin's POV. The switch was fine, but switching back seemed kind of off- putting to me: why zoom in if you're just going to zoom out again. Also, the fact that Kirrin's part was action packed and tense and had a sort of doomsday feel made it seem like the ending of the book, especially with the bad guy being defeated and stuff. If you can make their defeat more ominous without usong the "we shall return", that would make a much better hook for me. Otherwise, you write very well and I really got into the story- keep writing!

Thanks for all this! As for making Beloken the viewpoint charaacter, it's an idea, but my plan was to have someone who seems to have it all, and then take it away from him(later chapters). I can understand why there seems to be a lack of conflict in the chapter, and I'll try and think of what to do about that. Maybe if I make the theological debate more intense, or have some people who resist Bezalel...

Firts of all, it is Hoid's POV. The epiloge is from Wit's Pov, and Wit identifies himself as Hoid when he meets Kaladin: That's from pg. 801 of the hardcover WOK. I also know that Talenel's weapon is an honorblade, but Hoid clearly doesn't, as he calls it a Shardblade- as you said, they look similair.