akoebel

Better a late review than none. Sorry for the delay. Looks like Asmodemon covered the topic at length. I'll second what he said. The most disappointing for me was the battle depiction (I'll set aside the fact that I didn't believe a young boy would be in that battle). I wanted the scene to be strong, with strong emotional cues, but all I read was flat. I mean, when Cornwell describes a battle, you can actually smell the sweat (and urine, also). Here, I got nothing. Basically, you're describing the motions of combat, but not the actual sensations nor the character's feelings. Were the villagers fighting a battle uphill (you say that they go down when retreating) and actually attacking? This is a very weak tactical position to do this, especially against greater numbers. Even with the wolves helping, they shouldn't have been able to win that easily. As Asmodemon, I was very upset by Tommy's fighting skills. The boy should wet his pants and run the other way (I know I would). Instead, he kills a man with his spear (which he conveniently forgets to take with him after), and goes to fight two grown armed men with only his fists. Not even a scratch. Not a bruise even. Even for a trained fighters, this borders on the unbelievable, but for a little boy? Finally, the chapter ending sort of threw me off. I feel like I've just hit a big reset button, like the 3 chapters I read have been for nothing. I'll see what happens in the next chapter, but having invested so much time in this story line, just to be woken up by mom is a big turn down.

Yes, very nice work, especially the last sentence. A couple of things jumped to my face as I read: * "she pressed a red button" : This is from Akari's POV. She's done this thing lots of times before, so she knows what the button is for. It shouldn't be "a red button" to her. At least, it should be "the red button", but more probably, she would refer to it by its function ("extraction button" or whatever). * "as she stepped into the elevator, a frown creased her forehead" : this comes from nowhere. One moment, she's thinking about her money, and the next, she's thinking about Kyle and how frustrated she is to have to take him with her. If he's bothering her that much, she should think about this constantly from the beginning of the scene. Aside from that, I worry a little that the part about money is a big info dump, and one I'm not sure we need.

Now, that was an interesting chapter. Funny that Hubay thought about Men in Black, for me, I imagined Sanctuary. Now that you've mentioned it, the piece is totally Men in Black. My main point here is about the characters motivations: * Seiku selects Kyle to rescue his cousin. Given what we saw of the place where Jimbo is, Kyle seems ill-equiped to go rescue him (even with crystal fingers). As I didn't believe this, I started to question Seiku's motivations. What does she really want him to do, since she's obviously hiding a number of things. In contrast, she seems too open about her organization : "Yes, we control multiple countries, didn't you know?" She is showing off her power for no result : calling on the Governor (or even a ranking FBI agent) should have been enough. Right now, Kyle knows too much about her operations. * Kyle isn't really motivated to save his cousin ("Sure, I'll save the guy"). In fact, aside from his physical sensations, I got very little feeling from the guy; it's like he doesn't care. I would freak out if I ever found out that some of my fingers had turned to crystal, but he only notices it and does as he's told. A couple of things I liked : * The handwriting : I have terrible handwriting myself, so I can certainly empathize with him * He checks the girl out : that was very manly of him; very believable. Oh, and did you rename Kyle? There is a mention of Lukke on page 2 where I think it should be Kyle.

I'll echo everyone here : great epigraph, but the fall went for too long. Now, I was a little surprised to see a Jimbo chapter here. I figured the story would center on Kyle, somewhat. My main issue with the piece (aside from the total description of two instances of the character falling) is that I think you lost Jimbo's voice here. His voice was great in the previous chapter, and here, I only see a glimpse of the same character near the end. It's almost like the voice only comes into play when he's speaking, but not when he is thinking.

I don't have much to say about this chapter. You're answering some questions here, but I feel like you've done it only for the reader's benefit. If Jhuz can't remember what Grishka is saying, what is the point of saying anything? The backstory about Hex's introduction to his brotherhood was nice to read. It also gave us much insight on Hex's character. It felt a little off that Jhuz would only look at the sky. Bird-metsi are easy to spot when flying, so a flying person should spend much more time looking at the ground where 99% of the action is supposed to be. Hex was right to point this out. For Duko's character, the encounter felt a little rushed, especially if he's going to be a viewpoint character. The whole scene left me wanting more; for now Duko is just a big question. The last paragraph certainly didn't help (it felt a little too dramatic for me).

My, what an opening! I really liked your epigraph. It provided everything I'm looking for in a hook : I'm intrigued by the story, and you gave it an epic spin. I also really liked the short snappy scenes. You managed each transition well. It helps you to give a big boost on pacing. For the characters, I empathized much more with Kyle than Jimbo (which is convenient, since Jimbo disappears from the scene). I hope to see more of him in the future. You've hinted that he has abilities in Criminology, so I'm expecting him to make use of those abilities. Akari felt all right, but is not as relatable as Kyle, which does make sense I guess. As the others said, you manage to establish each character very quickly and they have a distinctive voice. In particular, Jimbo's use of language felt much like one a convict would use. Now, I agree with the others that the pacing is ultra-fast for an opening. We'll get to see how the other chapters go, but I worry that they will feel dull in comparison. Just beware that you have made a lot of promises here : keeping them all is going to be difficult.

It was nice to see Black Rose again (Yippee, she's a POV character!), but the whole piece only makes me feel one thing : confusion. Ok, I'm less confused at the end than I was at the beginning, but you set a mean learning curve here. I suppose this mirrors the confusion the character is feeling, but this might unsettle a number of readers. Aside from that, I like where you're going. I'm very curious about how your 3 POV characters are going to interact. Just one comment about the chapters heading. They are looking like they're the same at first glance, but you are actually saying different things in there (some look like chapter titles "a time to fish", while others just give the date). I was expecting a little more uniformity across chapters.

As the others mentioned, after leaving Rosalin in a new situation, you're introducing a new character. It feels like someone just put a needle in my balloon : all the tension is suddenly gone. Aside from that, it's a nice chapter. I liked the world building here (particularly some expressions like 'high hour' and 'compass gates'. These pull me in your city really well). I also liked the concept of a city piled on top of another. It certainly is a nice setting for some interesting chase scenes. The character itself was relatable. I would have liked to see a little more anxiety in him (after all, he's not been hunting birds for long, and the wording made it look like it was business as usual), but I liked him. I certainly see why he would follow someone who can potentially lead him to some clues about his father. One last note : you have a tendency to put words that sound alike close to one another, which makes for weird sentences. I don't find that many (about one per chapter, usually near the beginning), but it's enough to pull me out of the story. Maybe this is something to look for while editing.

Another great chapter. Let me tell you this : you have a gift for pacing. This chapter feels like a blending of the 3 preceding chapters, which I suppose tells us you got the mix just right to tell us a story about someone with multiple personalities. Nice use of internal voice; I always knew who was talking. Amaryllis is definitely a very interesting character with very believable reactions, given what we know of her condition. Now, a couple of things bothered me. First, Amaryllis recognizes Rozen/Rosalin as Rosen. Rosalin herself sees herself with Rosen. Then, at the end of the chapter, the group of men definitely see a woman, not a man. I went back to read that section, but could find no clue that anything happened (so she didn't switch bodies at some point). Maybe there is something I missed there. Second, the group of men at the end seem to sprout from the earth. Some part of me feels a little cheated that this happens right at the end of the chapter. I feel like you're trying to force me to turn pages. I'm willing to do that for now, but I hope this doesn't happen too often; this could get frustrating very fast.

I was more than a little afraid when I read the beginning of this chapter, as I believed I was in for another slow character exposition piece, but that soon changed. The whole gave a very interesting chapter, and for once, I was glad to be this late in my critiques, so I could get to read the next chapter at once. Very well done. We're beginning to see why you ordered the chapters the way you did. I worry that this choice will hurt the way your book is perceived. It's a bold solution you've taken. If you don't mind changing things around a little, I think that reincorporating parts of chapter 1 in chapter 3 would have worked better for me. Yes, you would have to explain much more there (and you would loose the nice banter of chapter 1), but I think it would be much less disturbing for the reader. As things are, I feel like the story begins a little too early. For the chapter itself, it went well. I had some trouble with the part where Rosalin is hit by Rosen. I thought for some reason that she was immobilized, so when she started doing things, I was kind of lost and had to go back to that section to understand what was happening. One small thing : the way she describes Rosen as a giant and her mentioning he is "several yards tall". The phrasing itself is confusing, and if I limit myself to 2 yards (6 feet, or 1.8 meters), Rosen is a tall man, but by no means a giant, unless men are very short where she lives. So, what does she mean? 2.5 yards ? 3?

For me, the first scene didn't work. I mean, it was fine on its own, but sandwiched between the last chapter and the following scene, it feels out of place. I even wonder what does this scene bring to the story. Maybe it's because in this scene, Albione doesn't seem to be thinking about his pending exile. The next parts fit much better his mood. The first paragraph of scene #2 is a little passive (he's the one delivering the letter, so why say that the letter is being delivered?), but things start to pick up. I also wondered about his reaction to the city crowds. Doesn't he get to go to some other parts of the city from time to time? We know he leaves the temple occasionally (When he goes to his manor, or to a restaurant for instance). He should be more used to walk around the city. Albione also shows some of his typical naivete here ("if people don't work, what do they eat?). I'm wondering about a temple that keeps his own priests so out of touch, especially considering the fact that they provide healing to the poor from time to time. As the others said, the wealth of the two churchs was a bit too much, especially if peasant do not look to be that religious. Even with guards, the temples should have been stripped bare if people can't feed themselves in the villages around. The griffin part was nice, even if I didn't understand where the beast was coming from. Of course, the spell doesn't work, but that was expected. The one part that bothers me is my own lack of emotion at the end of the chapter. I'm not that sympathetic to the character for one thing, and having him being injured here at this part of the book felt hollow. Of course, I know he's going to be all right (it's only chapter 10), so I couldn't buy the "I'm dying" part. All that I thought was "This Albione is reacting like a baby." Just one note to finish. I don't know if you have drawn a map or something, but walking at a good pace, you can cover up to 20 miles per day (and that's pushing). So, I estimate that your 3 days walk means that the monastery is between 30 and 50 miles away from the city. I just thought I'd mention that in case you need to know the actual distance.

I also kept all my emails, but I've been here for a much smaller amount of time than Silk :-) For my backup, I write directly my files to a DropBox share, so I have multiple physical copies of everything. I believe Mary-Robinette uses it as well. I know some people have reported possible trouble while using Scrivener over DropBox, but as I'm only accessing the files from one location at a time, I had no problems here.

What bothered me the most in this chapter was the apparent lack of connection with the previous one. I understand that you need to introduce different characters, but the world itself seemed to bear little ressemblance with the one of the Prologue and Chapter 1 (aside from the fields of roses). Feels like I was reading a different book entirely. The trouble is that Chapter 1 had some action in it and connected well with the prologue, while here, we have a peaceful character introduction. I could have accepted that in chapter 1 (I'm used to action in a prologue leading to gentle character exposition in chapter 1), but here, I got action in chapter 1, and I'm thrown in an entirely different setting. I'll have to read the next chapter to see how that develops. Aside from that, it was a nice read .

I very much agree with Hubay's comments. The piece was very enjoyable to read, but it screams for a continuation. It felt so much that way that I said to myself "I thought this would be a short story! This looks like a chapter 1 to me." So, if you have ideas to continue this, you got yourself a wonderful start here. The flashback didn't bother me that much. At least, it didn't pull me out. What bothered me a little was the philosophy behind the whole story. It felt a tad too moralist for my taste : killing = bad seems a little too black and white to me. Doesn't it depend on the manner of the killing? Are some killings less offensive than others? Now, maybe I'm in a minority here : I tend to dislike moralization as a whole. Let not that detract you from the facts : this was a pretty good piece with an imaginative setting.

I got to try that one! Looks like dumping the boring work on some other people is definitely a way to go.

I'm re-creating this topic since we can't access the one you created at TWG. Note that I haven't read the previous comments on this chapter. I liked this chapter, mostly because it showed different viewpoints. I loved seeing Rook-Sha and Pate in action and see how Albione is important to their plans. Only a couple of remarks here : * In the first paragraph, Rook-Sha is caressing a pillow on one hand and tapping her finger on the other hand. The two didn't seem to indicate a similar state of mind, as tapping her finger would indicate impatience and fondling a pillow anything but impatience. * The fact that Albione forgets his prayer beads seemed more like a plot device than anything else. I could only see the writer's hand at work here pushing his character into another path. I think this stems from the passive nature of the main character : you can feel that nothing will happen if you leave him to his own devices.

Thanks for the comments Hubay. Point taken about Ciera's tantrum. For the escape, she doesn't actually thinks about doing it. And mentioning her sister would never cross her mind : she would not dare to ask Listeria anything.

Since the original topic is now lost in the TWG archives, I'm recreating a post. I don't know what the others said about this chapter, since I always read comments after reading the submission, so I'm not biased by other comments while I'm reading. Sorry if all I'm saying has been told ten times before. The 31 pages read at a reasonably good pace and are interesting all along. My main issue is about Darkclaw's emotional flashes where you're telling too much. The last one is a particularly good example : you're telling us that he feels anger, but you don't show it. I would have loved you to describe his emotions so we could know exactly what he was feeling. That would have been neat. My minor complaints will be few : * The Snevan talking is VERY hard to read. It came to a point where I wanted them to just shut up because their speech slowed down my reading too much, which was kinda frustrating. * It doesn't make sense for the Alliance to attack a world that hasn't entered the war when they already lost several systems to an unknown enemy. They need to increase their mobilisation, gather more intelligence, and maybe attempt to retake what they have lost. Opening a new war front is not the sane thing to do, even if you suspect that the one you're attacking will join your opposition. Even if you're succesful, you're spreading yourself thin, and as such are much more vulnerable. * The Alliance attack was foiled a little too easily : all it took was a few isolated ships destroyed for them to turn tail. I would have loved a little more space-fighting. Someone described one day capital ships space fighting as the equivalent of a boxing match where you pummel your opponent and get multiple hits yourself until one of you is too weakened and makes a mistake which sends him to the floor. This alliance attack felt like a KO punch ten seconds after the beginning of the match : your viewers (readers in your case) can't be satisfied with so little action. Aside from that, nice chapter!

Yes, the bit with the wife was funny. I wish it had lasted a little longer. My main complaint here will echo Asmodemon's : your character seems devoid of emotions altogether. He should be worried about how to go back to his world, but he isn't. He should be frightened to go into the wolves lair (even after the warning ht got from the girl he met there), He should be frightened by his wife, and so on. All I sensed was a mild curiosity, as if he was walking in a dream and felt that nothing was real. While I'm on the subject, his motivations to visit the wolves den seemed small. One instant, he's walking in the village, hiding behind his eating, and the next, he's like "let's see my old friend the wolf leader", and he's off. One question about the wolves relationship with the humans : in chapter 1, you hinted that humans and wolves did live together. If so, why is it not safe for a human to go visit his friends wolves? One last thing : the early parts of the chapter felt slow to read. Some sentences there felt very awkward.

If the previous weeks are any indication, looking at my backlog, I'd say that five are enough.

It was nice to finally see more of the Chell. This was a chapter I had been waiting to see for a long time. Now, I'm not sure I quite understood each Chell faction's motivations. The bad Chell for instance say that they want the humans to fend for themselves, but they keep tipping the balance towards chaos, which kind of negates the non interference premise. You were worried that we got too many exposition here : this is not a bad thing to have in a reveal chapter, but as Asmodemon said, the Chell's motivations for explaining all their plans simply didn't work. I understand that they think they can babble before the humans, since they won't remember a thing, but would they really talked to one another like that if they had been alone? I liked the introduction of the gods. The Chell look after the humans, the gods look after the Chell. That was neat. Now, I would have liked some foreshadowing of the gods existence (and Hex's belief that he's working for a god isn't enough, as he doesn't talk like his god really exists). It was actually nice to see that humans have a little bit of free will even when under a Chell's compulsion. As the commands seem to be only verbal, that leaves much room for individual interpretation, which Grishka uses well. I hope to see more things like that in the next chapters.

The chapter was interesting, especially in the later part. I loved Amaryllis and her banter with Rosen (does everyone here have a flower name? If so, is Rosen related to Black Rose?). Now, I found the beginning a little unsettling. The first lines give an impression of cold and calm, as if the character was only fighting against bad weather. Then, we see him with opposing soldiers. From the atmosphere in the first lines, there is no way I'm going to understand that this guy is actually fighting people, so when you start to describe the soldiers, I'm thrown out of the story. After that, the fighting sequence is nice, even if I keep asking myself why a character who can bounce quarrels off his skin does his fighting in such a traditional way. The guy is essentially a big rock, so why does he even care about the soldiers? He should be able to move pretty much where he wants to go without them interfering (remember the big rock ball in Indiana Jones?) The sequence with Orchid lacked some presence from the woman. She just puts off the light and starts throwing knives, which could be nice, but why so few? Her opponent is blind and she can pierce his armor, so why not go happy and send a flurry of blades at him? I liked the fact that we have a connection with the prologue (which I loved), and that there is some sort of struggle going on around Black Rose. I think you have a nice opening here. You definitely interested me in reading more.

Cool idea Fireflyz! Yes, I saw your post right before TWG went down. I'll post here if I decide to go visit Chicago next year.

I'm glad to see the troubles with TWG were solved this fast. I got worried for a time. Thanks to Chaos and all the people who helped him do the transition. Now, to the original topic : Here is The Fifth Compendium, Chapter 9! The situation : Destra, throws herself into the river to prevent Lorn and his men from taking away the book she's carrying. Ciera, a librarian, discovers the book while doing inventory and finds an old friend, Onmk, in the process. Lorn discovers that the book is still hidden in a library he can't enter. Onmk tries to help Ciera perform her library's inventory. Lorn finds a way into the library. He finds Ciera inside with the Compendium and gets her to accept translating the Compendium for him. Chapter 8 : Ciera is a prisoner inside Lorn's house When I first wrote the novel, I heavily researched cryptography (actually broke my own cipher). As a result, two chapters did rely heavily on criptography stuff, including this one. In the next rewrite, I ended up removing much of the code breaking information. Pretty much all that remains is what you'll read in this part. Tell me if this is still too technical. As always, comments will be greatly appreciated.