JamesW

Yeah, I think the myths about the dragons would have survived in some form, but even the legends of voidbringers are inaccurate to the point of being forgotten or dismissed by most. I'm just thinking of things on their world that could melt stone, . Dragons, or creatures that resemble them could fill in that role, I just haven't seen anything remotely near the magic/technology level required to melt stone being present in Roshar. We have Fabrials, Shardblades/Plate, Surgebinding, Soulcasting, but none of these seem anywhere near capable of melting stone. Cutting through, manipulating or changing yes, but simply burning things seems more, primal I suppose.

Yay, a RAFO. So they're somewhat important, or at least it'll be explained. Rampant speculation time I suppose! What about if the KR were all Human, is there any confirmation that they are or aren't all humans? I'm liking the idea that the dragons made up one of the orders.

Dragon or not, I'll maintain that they are crabdragons, and the result of pupating greatshells.

Well I was seeing the jaw of the creatures and a single claw holding the orb things, It looks also (to me) that the bottom part could be a tail instead of a leg. It does look like they have tails similar to a shrimp or something. I was looking at it and saw dragons and it seemed like something brandon would do, surprise us with crabs turning into dragons. And is it confirmed anywhere then all of the orders of the knights radiant were human? What if the dragons were part of the KR and they abandoned Roshar, travelling through shadesmar (much like Hoid) and moving to the Dragonsteel world. That is a completely unfounded theory but it would be cool. Greatshells pupate into dragons, using their gemhearts full of stormlight to travel through shadesmar to another world. If any creature (other then Hoid who could be a dragon and still support this) could use shadesmar to travel across planets, i would suspect that the coolest would be a dragon with a gemheart. JW

So I haven't read through everything posted here, but I couldn't find a good thread that discussed the "dragons" on the inside cover. The link to the image I'm referring to is here. I've seen it pointed out a few times, but most people are interested in the symbols combining to form the orders of the KR, and the faces on the border representing the Heralds, but what about the dragons? I can't be sure, but it looks like the claws are holding one of the Ideals, but those claws look somewhat crustacean in origin, maybe this relates to the great shells? The prelude mentions the Dustbringers, could those be dragons? The quote: We also don't know what Greatshells pupate into, although there has been speculation, some say Thunderclasts, but what about how other creature's pupation works (I'm thinking caterpillars to butterflies, and going from a land creature to one that flies). What if a Greatshell pupates into a dragon, or dragon-like creature? Also the gemhearts are used in soulcasting, which we know can turn one substance from one into the other. Could it be that the greatshells rise from the chasms, expose their gemheart to stormlight (thereby infusing them), and utilizing Shadesmar to change their body from one substance to another? (This might support the Thunderclast theory, since their limbs are "granite" but greatshells aren't made of stone. Very rampant speculation on my part, and probably a repeat from some other thread, but I can't be the only one who thinks the background image looks like a pair of dragons with claws that happen to look like crustacean claws. (It even looks like there is a tail for each 'dragon' JW

I appreciate the waffle, I shall now enjoy it's delicious, golden, flakey goodness. ... Delicious, my screen needs to be cleaned though, got syrup on it and stuff. I'll have to find some way to sooth that future Robot Kandra and get him calmed down...

I actually enjoyed this immensely, some pros and cons: Pros: --Very quick, witty flow to the dialogue, the character felt very much like he was printing this out as he relived the memory, it was a good feeling, and gave it a very interesting feeling --I got a good feeling for the emotions of the character --I was very quickly reminded of Douglass Adams, not a bad thing at all, but it felt very similar I didn't find the use of adjectives distracting but on a re-read I noticed some that felt superfluous. Some of them could probably be dropped, and some of the description/history of the prison could probably be dropped and still attain the same feeling. If some of those details became more relevant to the story then explaining them might be beneficial, but some of the history sounds exactly like it was geared towards the reader. Cons: It almost felt too much like Hitchhikers, It might be that I've only read that book once, and it was a long while ago, but that was at the forefront of my mind when I was reading it, so that might be an incorrect feeling/assumption. Some of the description felt like it was just "Hey, look at this cool setting I thought up" which (don't get me wrong is awesome) slowed down the pacing of the story for me. You might have been able to get the same amount of description into the story, just throw it in as afterthoughts of the character. Some of that might help to keep the pacing and quick witty feeling of the narrative the same, and help avoid slowing down the story. (I think page 9 is the description that I'm thinking of, but it felt like there were more instances of that) Overall I really enjoyed the story, great job! P.S. As an aside, and a single silly thing, I just recently finished my third round to the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, the penultimate novel is titled: Dust of Dreams, so that threw me just a little bit given the similarities of the titles. JW

irc.freenode.net That's the one that worked for me, be sure you have multiple ID names setup in case yours is taken, it won't let you join otherwise. The app that I use on android is AndChat

Haha yeah I check back all the time too lol. I just meant waiting around as in not writing until getting feedback. I do like the idea of two sections of Reading Excuses, but I feel like short and long fiction writers benefit from the system as it is currently. Maybe a larger change could be implemented but that isn't a change I think everyone wants. This would be somewhere between alpha readers and writing groups. Works in progress and completed works could be posted for the group, so you could easily submit the completed story or the chapters as you work on them. The feedback is appreciated though, it was a thought to try is all, maybe it'll work maybe it won't. JW

This group wasn't going to be a replacement for the hard deadlines, just another medium for people to post their material in. If someone wants to have their work accessible to others for broader feedback that's the hope. I know the schedule helps a great deal, but knowing that someone could read it provides a different sort of motivation. I can just toss a chapter up there when I finish it, and then move on. If someone reads it and catches a big error then they can point it out, but in the meantime I can just continue on with writing instead of waiting on feedback from the next week. I'm sure people don't just wait around for feedback, but it could also let us still have some reviews of our work even we don't submit to the group for a week or two. Oh and I like the idea of two reading excuses groups, but that would require other setup/polling with regards to the matter and who would be willing to change the structure of the group. JW

I have a folder set up on dropbox, it'll be a shared folder, among the 5 of us who wish to do this. There is also a chat channel created by Sad Dragon for Reading excuses and writing excuses, at webchat.freenode.net there are two channels, #readingexcuses and #writingexcuses. If there is another who wants to try this out, feel free to post and I'll invite you, hopefully we have everyone active and willing to work together on this. Also I need PM's with emails from Aminar and Jack. JW

That seems like a cool idea, I don't have know anything about that but it might work well. If you want to set a channel up that would be good. If you want to post in the other thread that I started the information that might be good. JW

That's what I was thinking Aminar, just having the books available for some is enough. I for one can't spend all of my time writing, so reading other peoples work might be a good break activity (Significantly better then checking Facebook or my email for the fifteenth time) . And @Tsd, I agree there might be drawbacks, but just being able to put it up for review might help a lot. If ive been talking with Aminar (for example our conversation about the magic in my submission thread) a great deal about a topic, or I want his opinion because I know he wants to try and break the magic system, I could ask him his thoughts on a particular passage or exchange and find out if he feels like something is out of place, or could just provide a different perspective and maybe catch something I missed.

I have one. Ill set it up later today.

Note from Silk: This thread is out of date. Please see the pinned Alpha Readers Thread instead. Hello all, I'm posting this in response to some comments made in another thread about the submission schedule and the desire for some people to get responses to a larger volume of work then can be passed through the weekly submissions thread. Keep in mind, this is in no way an attempt to compromise, or stop the weekly submissions, and anyone who wants to do this shouldn't feel that this is a replacement for that avenue of feedback. Here's the basic proposal (Subject to change): For some people who are working on a first draft (or revision draft) of a novel would benefit greatly from broad feedback on the themes and topics presented therein. Comments on story/character arcs, plot, or other major points are what we are going for in this. My suggestion for the medium of this is to have the group using dropbox, a free program that allows very efficient and easy file sharing among a group of people. There would be a folder shared with the group, and a section for each individual's work. Their folder would be a location to save their chapters (in either .doc of .pdf since those are almost universally readable) and a text file, perhaps titled "Chapter X feedback" or "Overall feedback." The advantage of dropbox is that every person can open these files, namely the text files, and edit their comments in. It would be a simple matter to read a chapter, then open the file and add in something like "There isn't enough conflict" or "Character X is acting strangely" or "The dialogue is stilted here." The new file gets updated on everyone's computer, and everyone can see the comments. Short, broad feedback is what we're looking for, just because it wouldn't detract from their own works as much. Sometimes all you need is a fresh set of eyes looking at your work to see a broad problem that you might have missed. I think starting with a small group, maybe 3-5 people who want to do this, people can use this thread if they are interested, or if they have suggestions, its a very early group idea so someone will undoubtedly have some comments. Group so far: JamesW Guenhwyvar Mandamon Aminar If interested, post here and PM me your email so I can refer you to dropbox and add you to the group.

So I'm a fan of the dropbox idea, I'll start a thread and see who is interested. I'm working on my first draft of my first novel so quicker, more broad feedback would be something I'm interested in. The writing quality, and specifics (Like I would get in the weekly submissions group) might be less beneficial then the "Hey this is boring" or "Hey this chapter doesn't say anything" which I could easily get from a short critique. I'd say we work with a group of maybe 3-5 people, I think thats a fairly reasonable number. That way people aren't needing to read an excess of material, and you still have a good chance that one of the four others will read and send a short critique of your work. I'll see who is interested in another thread, I'll Include Jack just because it was his comment and interest that sparked this. Mandamon you sound interested as well, but let me know if you want to, just post in the other thread. JW

The first thing I notice is early, the use of Politician and Lawyer, I was thinking it was a typo. Maybe, "Politics. Law. Those were the two fields the monks…." the rest of it will still flow, just a slight tense change. I'm with Mandamon on this one, with regards to the story starting to enter an infodump segment. I was tossed out of the story with the reference to I.D.T. and was going backwards trying to see where I missed the reference. So I'm going to reference the podcast here, and call the little girl in a blue dress a gorilla in the phone booth, at least to me. At this point I was thrown out of the story, yeah she served for a pretty funny joke, but why is there a little girl with bodyguards? Okay so I continued and now I see it wasn't an idle reference, but the break between finding out the girl's name, and her importance had a lot of exposition. Just a thought but it might throw your readers out of the story. I'll admit to reading through that section faster hoping to find out about the girl. I felt satisfied that the conspicuous character didn't just disappear, but I was tossed out of the story, thinking she had been dismissed. I got to the end of the chapter and enjoyed it greatly. The premise of her befriending him and his reaction, where he just says, well, I guess she's a friend, and I can use her for my own ego really worked for me. It felt very in character and exactly how someone in his situation would react. I missed the first chapter, but I don't think I missed much, this felt like it could have been a good first chapter. I got enough of a feel for their world, and the system just from their conversation, so I felt that a great deal of the exposition could be cut/moved to later. If they are going to leave this planet, then the descriptions and backstory of the place seem somewhat unnecessary. Or even have Roman open up a bit to Oti, and have him explain some of his backstory through dialogue. If she's a nobleborn, then he'd have an excuse to tell her about a lot of the exposition that he is doing, if she's trying to learn about life on the streets, that might be a good way to tell the reader at the same time. JW

Well, I'm fairly new here, but what if the number of people submitting was lessened, but the length of the submissions increased? Maybe instead of 5k words you shoot for 15k. That would be a bit more then a minor change in how the submissions are completed, but it would probably detract from more people submitting material. What about a group on dropbox (One of my personal favorite tools) where you can just save a chapter in there anytime you finish it, and the group, if they have free time, or are willing to can read it, and just post up a thought or two? Maybe get an entire group who want to do something like this, just save their chapters to a group file, and post their short critiques about it? You could even have a notepad or text file in the folder that people can edit and fill in their thoughts about a specific chapter. (I suggest this because it's probably easier then setting up private forums using some alternate site) Nothing like a full critique, but if the chapter's were available it might only take 2-3 readers to notice "Hey this is an issue, maybe you should look into changing X" Just a couple of thoughts, I'm a huge fan of dropbox and it helps a great deal with file sharing, especially for something like this. JW

Main Board, closed Chessboard 1 (Open) This is the first one opened, it is lined with green velvet, made of Cedar, black walnut, and maple. Chess Pieces (Black) Chess Pieces (White) These are the close ups of the pieces that prompted me to build this chessboard. Chessboard 2 Chessboard 3 The second two boards aren't nearly as interesting as the first, one is a simple box with the board being the lid, the second was made and is the worst of a set of three, the other two were gifts. Oh and here is the other chess set I use these boards for: Green Chess Pieces (Bad guys) Amber Chess Pieces (Good guys)

I'm going to have to use multiple posts, since I only have a max upload size of 500k, I'll put the pics inside of spoilers, just to avoid making the post gigantic. I suppose the chess pieces help with the look a bit, sorry of the image quality is bad, they're from a phone. Edit again: I can't seem to be able to post more then the single file, the attachments thing is limiting me, going to attempt to get the rest of the pictures into the thread. James

Well, I do suppose I like chocolate. And I'm glad to be here! Also, dhalagirl, Chessboard pics coming soon!

I'm going to be guilty of thread necro on this one, because I wanted to post about Malazan but not start a new thread. I'm curious, for anyone who has re-read the series (A crime I'm guilty of committing at least twice), what was your favorite "Ah HAH" moment, what did you catch the second time around that you missed the first? Mine would probably have to be Spoiler tag just in case, there are so many clues in the books that you don't catch the first time around, its scary.

Oh there is an entire class of people dedicated to that. The Purifiers and the Daughters (Daughters of Malcora, the mistress of death). Purifiers are medicine men/diagnosticians/herbalists. They work in pairs serving different provinces as healers (Of non wielders of commoners). The purifier diagnoses if an injured warrior has become too close to death, and if they have they give them a drug, it paralyzes their movement but encourages speech. The drug produces a feeling of bliss, but one that frees their tongue (Think alcohol making people more honest, but making them desire to speak the truth) Which is where the other one comes in, the Daughter. They are regarded by society as messengers between the dying and the mistress of death. Their religion teaches that when you are dying you should confess anything you feel guilty for in life, and go to Death's realm in peace. If you can't confess (read: dies violently and suddenly) you have a chance to confess but confession while alive is preferred. Once you confess the Daughter kills you, death is preferable to madness. You could send fodder at other houses, ala salvatore, but then you risk your own blades, and even if you give out a whole ton of new blades you are vulnerable to any one of the many other houses, and just like in Homeland you need to be assured of victory. It is possible, but the emperor discourages this. Their house has significantly more blades (I have the math somewhere) but they would rather avoid open civil war because they need constant strength in case that war begins again. And I was playing on the guilt thing, there is a character who was severely wounded, but before he got his blade. He's now worried about going mad, so thats his own paranoia, and might or might not be what is happening. The paranoia about going mad is a form of madness in itself, but since the madness manifests from death's aspect being present in the blade the character (probably) won't go mad, but nobody knows, and he is keeping the whole "I was severely injured" thing a secret, though there are some who know...

I appreciate it, I want my system to be stress tested as much as possible, and all questions help to this extent. John would create a blade with his firstborn, him and Georgina , in essence his blade become's "Used up" and can't produce another. He could have a child with Edna, but this would mean Georgina has died or for some other reason they can't be wed anymore. Society doesn't support/condone separations or annulling a marriage in any but the most extreme circumstances, like death. John and Edna can have baby Sally, if Georgina has already died. Sally is still a firstborn, and Edna still has the power within her blade to pass on. If John and Edna, both had a baby, who was firstborn to both of them, they would both use up their blade's power to procure for their firstborn a blade, which would be much stronger then other blades with only a single parent wielding a blade, because the newborn blade would inherit the shared experiences of two different bloodlines, and (assuming both parents trained for the year prior to the forging) a greater share of fresh experiences for the blade. The result would be a single blade, but a stronger one. So it would be a calculated move that would diminish the overall strength of a house (instead of forging 2 new blades you get a single one, at maybe 150% normal effect. In essence a weaker house without many blades, could offer their firstborn to marry another firstborn of a more powerful house. The lesser house becomes adopted into the larger, gaining protection, alliances, etc, but doesn't diminish the number of blades of the first house. If the firstborn dies, first child who comes of age is the one who the magic deems elegible to forge a blade. This could indeed encourage fratricide except for the other element of the blades. The weapons themselves enhance your abilities, so if you train with it, the blades enhance that, so the more adept you are, the stronger it makes you. One of the "quirks" or should I say limitations on the magic system (And this is for the fratricide problem) is that the blades are flawed in a major way. Because they impart in the wielder abilities and skills which help them avoid death, coming to near to death is a problem. If for example a warrior takes a severe wound, the medics (or purifiers, as they are called) are brought in to see how serious the wound was. If the individual is injured and becomes to near to death, the aspect of death takes root in the blade itself. The two forces war with one another, the desire to avoid death from the blade, and the aspect/goddess of death, which almost claimed the warrior and is now present in the blade itself. The two opposing wills clash with another, eventually driving the warrior to madness. The same thing happens with guilt regarding fratricide, the result is the wielder spiraling into an eventually suicidal depression. Oh and if a wielder dies before using his blade to create another, the weapon's heritage passes to the nearest relative (The closest sibling, with the same consequences for fratricide). If the person has no siblings the blade becomes inert, losing the blood heritage held within it, but it becomes a neutral blade. They can be given out as rewards, or as prizes, or picked up from fallen wielders. (This last aspect is the most likely to change) He only calls for the firstborn because they are the ones with the blades, and he needs them to have military experience because of the conflict against the other people. The emperor is sovereign over the world as they know it, but there is a group of people who resist his rule. I think I rules dumped most everything there, phew.

Well I'm glad the story worked for you, I wasn't basing the prologue on Diablo 2 (Which I have played) but I was hoping for something that gave an epic feeling. I wanted the prologue titled "The End of Magic" and the beginning of the story to have the man killing the god, which ended magic as they knew it in their world. The Firstborns are forced to serve in the military by the emperor. There is a conflict with another group of people (The Denat I think I called them, but not in the story yet) and the emperor calls the houses to fight for him/her (Emperor/Empress depending on the generation). Technical magic stuff here, some will change and most will clear up soon, probably sooner then expected with the rewrite of the beginning to be a (hopefully more solid) and interesting introduction. I dunno if that helped clear things up, or was just me rambling, I'm 2500 words into writing today so my mind is getting a bit addled. If you want to PM me your email I can send you what was my tentative chapter 3, but will be rewritten as a prologue, you get to see the blades in action then.