Robinski

Detailed comments below, but a fair few of my comments on previous submissions remain valid (from my pov). Dev and Pen’s section retain a more whimsical and adventurous tone which sets it apart from the others which, for me, have a more generic fantasy tone that doesn’t really stand out all the much from similar stories, whereas Pen’s section does for me. I get that the different threads set the scale wider, but I think you have a ‘boy’s own’ adventure yarn with Pen and Dev on their own which is stronger than what you have with the other two threads included. That said, it’s your story!! So, to continue on that basis, it’s good to see some cross over between the threads, but I wasn’t convinced about the relevance of Dev’s involvement in the assassin’s scheme, to me it felt shoe-horned in for plot reasons. As for the king’s thread, I think it is comfortably the inferior of the three. Comments on Pen and Dev apart, Lianye and Dev’s thread is very active and dynamic in this submission, whereas the king’s thread does not, for me, deliver enough plotting and subterfuge, but rather seems a fairly prosaic way of setting out necessary information on the wider political situation, without really engaging the reader (me anyway). I'm certainly interested to read more, but I fear that the boy’s adventure yarn of exploration, both of the mysterious new aerland and the mysteries of the fairer sex, is going to be diluted by more generic fantasy fare. I guess this is quite negative criticism, but I don’t want to leave that as the prevailing tone of my comments. I am enjoying the story, and could totally accept the whole as you envisage it and go with that, but to summarise ( A ) Pen and Dev = enjoyable and entertaining; ( B )* Lianye and Ren = interesting, but could be more exciting and engaging with rewriting; ( C ) the king > really needs punched up several notches, for my part. Good work, keep it coming! ----------------------------------------------------------------- “bestowing an ethereal ambiance to on the meeting” – I think. I'm not clear on the meaning of ‘tevretor’. If he’s a messenger or an envoy, why not just say so? I guess it’s an element of setting, but it seems a bit redundant. Also, he’s not very humble in his tone towards the king, but there’s nothing wrong with that. The balance of their exchange seems to clearly show the king in a diminished position, with the Neren’tev having a significant influence. I take it from the context that they are a religious body. I like the chess metaphor, but I thought it was a little confused. If a game of chess is still young, there are numerous alternative strategies, so the king’s perception that he has a last desperate option doesn’t sit exactly with the chess analogy, it seems to me. Once again, Dev and Pen’s section comes over fresher, more novel, than that king’s dealings. They overall scenario works well enough winding through both, but in the end, the king’s dealings with envoys and rebellion is a very common fantasy trope and for that reason I don’t think it engages as well as Pen and Dev’s burgeoning adventures and the mystery of the aerland. I think Lianye’s strand suffers in a similar way in comparison to the Pen and Dev thread, because of the familiarity of its plotting-against-the-king trope. It seemed to take a long time for the grenades to go off. Maybe that’s the deal with the old-fashioned kind, I'm no expert, but I would have thought the fuse could be shortened. If the time span is accurate, they don’t seem to make very good assassin’s weapons. Did the one in the bar not go off more quickly? A detail, I suppose, but it made me think. “She gritted her teeth.” “He slid the body off of himself his chest/back” I found reaching for the absent pistol a second time rather dense. I know Ren’s been shaken, but really. One second Ren is crossing the common room toward the hallway, then he’s in the room, time seems to lurch at that point. I like his repetition of “third door on the left”. I struggled at first to put Dev’s original description of his appointed task with his involvement in the action, I had to go back a reread it. I guess Kaeve is the informant, but Dev’s presence seems pointless. I don’t understand what relevance there is in appearances, when Dev has kept himself hidden, unless it’s ensuring that Taelmera is not noticed, but now Kaeve has seen her. All a bit puzzling to me. You capitalised ‘Sing’, but not ‘sang’ when she chooses her second song. Personally, I don’t mind the rather breathless cutting between character perspectives in this paragraph. I’ll be interested to see what the others make of it. I have a problem with your tenses in places. I don’t think one can put abandoning grammar down to style. For instance, “Shards of glass tore deep as he dove through the window” – this passage comes after he is already out by the stables, but it’s in present tense, so sounds completely out of order. Surely it must be “Shards of glass had torn deep when he dove through the window”. “nearest hospital” – In this level of civilisation, I find it hard to imagine that there is more than one hospital in a city – unless we’re talking in terms of the size of a modern city with million(s) of inhabitants, which seems unlikely. They must be really stupid if they thought there was any chance of more ale. This reaction did not ring true to me. Just because they are bystanders to the story, they don’t need to be stupid. Why would Ren think that Lianye was one of them? I saw no basis for him thinking that. The ‘speechless’ comment does not seem to make sense, since the very next line is him speaking. Can’t the King’s Arms follow the trail of blood as well? Ren is dopey, so might not think this, but wouldn’t Lianye seeing as she was the one who used the technique? Then again, I guess they don’t know he’s injured. Okay, I’ll buy it. I think the Ren and Lianye sections could do with a good edit. There are a few typos, but I felt that the flow was a bit rough in places. I like the arc of it, but I think it could do with some polish, to the prose, but also to some of the character reactions and other details, just my humble opinion. * The autotext on this forum engine is rubbish, if I want a ( I'll choose it!! Bloody programmers.

If possible, I would like a slot on Monday.

I very much enjoyed this chapter. There is a good background in the form of Willow’s prosaic daily life, interspersed with her thoughts of more significant things like the wound and the giant, but also room for girlish thoughts of love. I find her trials in terms of getting on with people and the pressure they put on her for various reasons convincing, as is her desire to explore her newfound power and the mysterious forest. There’s something intimate about the reader’s access to Willow’s feelings, and her doubts about the unknown wound and the burgeoning power within her feels like a very personal thing to be privy to. Good work, I'm keen to read more. Keep those submissions coming! (Detailed comments below.) ------------------------------------------------ I was surprised that her shoes had buckles. I suppose they have a smithy, but with the level of technology and manufacturing that I had implied, I must have presumed (subconsciously) that their shoes would be stitched and laced. “round house” – one word, I think. “mistress Jena” – Mistress should be capitalised as it’s the title of a specific person, as should Master Jerris. Why would she get little help from Jena, just because she missed one lesson? Maybe I'm forgetting something from the previous submission, but most teachers would not give up on a pupil after one transgression like that. I know this because my father was a teacher. Also, Willow’s interpretation of Jena’s reaction (i.e. Jena not liking her) seems naive to me. I liked the quip about Michael never having missed a lesson, and that you didn’t draw any more attention to it by having Willow notice it. Letting the reader pick up some things themselves, makes them feel more involved / immersed. I would say Willow “passed behind the temple” – ‘passed at the back’ sounds like she passed water behind the temple, or something – I think. “There no one eye shot” makes no sense. The whole exchange with David was very awkward, I thought. It should be awkward between them, but not in the writing, which was what I felt. It seemed shoehorned in – rather out of context. Have we met David before? Did we know about Willow’s aspirations towards Lewis before? I can’t remember, and that might be hurting my perception of this section, but if neither of those men / boys have appeared before, then I think “Clara was standing” – To me, stood is incorrect grammatically, but if it’s a North Americanism, it still sounds wrong. It’s a conflation of tenses. Who is Clara speaking to when Willow arrives? “was to remove herself from them” Also, not sure emotions is the right word, more a case of “the village’s prejudices”? “He had not judged or feared her” – not ‘nor’ I think, also tense issue. “she would never be at home here” I like Willow’s thought process as she considers what she did to the giant, or rather how she did it. As I said before, I didn’t get the sense in her scene with the beetle that she was healing it. I very much enjoy the fact that Willow has so much work to do, and doesn’t have time to pursue her own interests. It’s a practical aspect of your story rarely reflected in other tales. It seems to me it’s quite common for characters to swan off in pursuit of their dreams without consequences, or for the action to take place as part of their occupation (e.g. magician, soldier, etc.) – so this dynamic is refreshing. I imagine a good many readers would identify and sympathise with Willow’s position! “West Steppes” or “west steppes” – if it’s a name then all caps, or say “western part of the Steppes” if the area is not formally divided into East Steppes and West Steppes. I like the exchange between Myra and Willow, but a part of it seems to get lost. Myra says she knows someone who’d be happy to see Willow, but it’s not Lewis. So who is it? Myra doesn’t complete the thought, going off on a tangent when Willow mentions Lewis – that’s fine, but it left me feeling unsatisfied about that point. I’ll make a comment here that I’ve made before. There are so many different characters, and their names are common English names, so it’s very hard to keep them all straight. Mentioning a name that the reader is not meant to remember is all very well, but the reader does not know that at the time. I would try to drop or amalgamate some of the minor characters. “Willow helped her to floor the ground” – They are outside, aren’t they? I think ‘floor’ is only correct if it’s the floor of a forest, because it refers to the forest almost as a building, an enclosure, otherwise, I think it should be ‘ground’. I think the idea of healing Myra comes to Willow very slowly. Only minutes before (it seemed) she was thinking about practicing. I think healing should occur to her almost immediately Myra cuts herself. I wasn’t keen on the (almost) mixed metaphors of the stone and the sapling. Personally, I would drop the sapling reference and let the reader concentrate on the stone – since it’s central to the magic. “It wanted to flow” How does the air make itself known? I struggled with that concept. I like seeing Willow trying to judge the flow of healing, very good, and Myra reaction is well done too, although I think it probably is the most profound thing in the world!! I love Willow’s prevarication. I can’t work in mess either – I so identify with that. You don’t capitalise fey or drake, so why capitalise giant? “a bulb of sadness”- ??? “forest evened out” – maybe levelled out? You talk about the boars gathering around the giant (not capitalise!). This instantly assumes that the giant is there, whereas up to now she has been in doubt. It seems like there is no moment of transition from her wondering to a demonstration of his presence. “Any more and she...” – two words in this context, I think. I wasn’t keen on the word ‘substance’ for the thing flooding out of her, it’s a rather underwhelming term, not very dramatic.

Somebody vote me down for taking up a slot and then not submitting. Sorry guys, I'm drowning in work at the moment.

Top man, thank you!

I'd like to submit on Monday please, but will drop myself out if you get another two, as I don't really have time to edit my submission!

Welcome back, Lerroy! Good to read you. Hope your exams went well.

@RDPulfer: Thank you for the comments, they are very welcome and much appreciated. I really do appreciate you two, my loyal critics - I will press ahead, your positivity is a great boost each week! @Mandamon: Thank you, I can always trust you to call me on things - too much thinking, it's always been my problem ; o ) I think I would cut back on Rutland's thinking or generate some kind of action through it, since Judith's is more justified by the context, I think. Good point on the wine - I'll call him on that, perhaps in retrospect. Glad there were things that worked for yous* in this chapter - more next week - slots permitting. (Glaswegian: the plural of 'you'.)

Hi there, Here is Chapter 7 of The Mathematical Bridge. The last submission encompassed the scene introducing Tarquin and showing his fatal rendezvous with a young couple in Paris. Now we return to Cambridge, where Blacklake has met with Judith, who has gained an opportunity for him to exhibit in her place of work. Meanwhile, Sabine has arrived in Cambridge, and Tarquin has said he is coming there. Blacklake knows from bitter past experience that they pose a real threat to him, but more so to Judith. With this submission, we are half way through the story. I’d like to keep submitting. What do you think? There don’t seem to be a lot of people commenting at this point, so the alternative is that I put the rest of the story up on the Alpha Readers’ thread for anyone who wants to read the rest. Thoughts? Cheers, Robinski

Well, most of us are grown-ups, I'm sure we'll be able to sort it out amicably between us. In fact, given how self-flaming-depricating we all are, you'll probably end up with no-one submitting on Monday! (I blame that pesky Mantle of Lowest Priority - it was obviously woven by some dark lord or other.) ...and hope that your 'do' goes well!!

You are certainly nowhere near being what you said.

Ouch, that hours-cutting thing is nasty. In the UK it's basically formalised. We have what is called a Zero Hours Contract. In other words an employer can give you a job but, legally, is not required to give you any shifts!! Needless to say, some groups are working to have this abolished. I spend a lot of my time writing technical reports, letters, emails, etc., so it can be a struggle to sit down at the keyboard again when I get home, but hey-ho, the challenges of being a writer, right?

Ha-ha, all noted. I was probably being a bit harsh. I myself use the term kingsman in my current project (Math Bridge is not my current project, I should say) - which is hardly original, and there are many pubs in the UK called The King's Arms, which I always took to mean coat of arms. I guess it comes down to the fact that the brain is always looking for connections to other things, that's its job, right? Also every story has common elements at a basic level, but it's the elements particular to that story, names, magic, plot, etc., that invite comparison to other stories and their names, magic, plot, etc. All this rumination is very interesting, but actually, I spent about two seconds thinking about the similarity then read on - so it probably wasn't worth me commenting about it in the first place! Thanks for the story though - character background is always interesting ;o)

What do you do 9-5, if you don't mind my blatant curiosity? I'm always intrigued to hear about people who write for a living, or for who it's a major part of what they do.

Hey, I might be wrong on the 'my lord' thing. I might have heard it before. I always think it diminishes the king to use a title that you would also use to any other lord. 'in for a gold' sounds better to me. As for the GoT thing, gotta say it wasn't especially a positive comment!! King's Arm - Hand of the King. It felt to me like you'd borrowed the concept, but that is probably unfair. It's difficult to come up with things in particular areas when someone has created such a strong 'brand' (if you will) for right-hand men. My point was that I don't think it's good when reading to get a strong flash of recollection of some other work. I made the same comment to Majestic Fox about his Tarispire, which immediately made me think of Tanelorn. All that said, the phrase "Golly, that just butters my head" is going straight into my next story.

Hey, that's my Mantle of Lowest Priority! I stole that personally from Foxy (or was it Soupy?). Anyway, I reclaim the Mantle of Lowest Priority, now slightly soiled, and don it with slightly less pride than when I stole it originally. I then request a slot on Monday before taking the Mantle of Lowest Priority to the dry-cleaners.

Pretentious is as pretentious does. (p.s. - you had me at Lovecraftian)

I continue to enjoy your writing and your story. There’s something about Willow as a character that is engaging, maybe her curiosity and that, classically, she is set apart from the society that she lives in by her origin. I felt in the first section that there were a few too many names to cope with. That is not so much the case here, and I'm starting to get a hang of them, I just feel that maybe you don’t need to throw so many at the reader in the first chapter. Your magic is pretty much undefined, which is a perfectly valid choice of course. I actually find it quite refreshing since so many magic systems these days follow a Sandersonian model, being heavily defined by rules and laws. There are quite a few typos and missing words, but that’s editing. You paragraphs can be quite long as well, which can be off-putting for some readers (wall of print syndrome). Still, I find your style comfortable to read, and it does pull the reader along nicely. Detailed comments below. Looking forward to next submission. (p.s. - Night soil, lol, I've always loved that euphemism, it's sh*t!) ------------------------------------- “stalked forward deeper into the shadows” presumably. “peered out from a thicket of ivy” – also, can ivy be in a thicket? “light was still bleeding freely” I didn’t get a sense that she had brought the beetle back to life. What is her basis for thinking that? I thought that effect was something intrinsic to the beetle. I like the tone of this opening scene of the submission, there is a nice emotional level to it. I did feel a bit underwhelmed by Willow’s use of her power, like it wasn’t astonishing enough, that she wasn’t sufficiently amazed by it. “It’s as if they don’t want me to read them” – nice line. (Quite a few typos – I haven’t attempted to note them all.) Did you mean “Is this not what you wanted? To help protect the village...” I thought it a bit strange that Willow was not more panicked by the glowing mark on her chest. Imagine if you found something like that yourself. I know we’re all different, and her frame of reference includes actual magic, still, I thought she would have done more than just shrug (almost) and go to sleep. I think maybe if I’d had more of a sense that she was fighting fatigue and was dragged into sleep, but I didn’t get so much of that. It did pop into my head that your lost city of Tarispire corresponds phonetically quite closely with Michael Moorcock’s considerably better known ‘lost’ city of Tanelorn. Maybe it’s not a big deal, but it was the first thing I thought of.

I'll answer those valuable points using the pg.a number references (Google Docs is so much easier...). pg.1 - Fair comment, it's largely uncertain. I did flag it for my benefit in the writing, but have maybe drifted around date-wide. (For one thing, I'm quite sure that the Boulevard President Wilson was called something else at the time I have mind!) It's a big point for the edit - check date and edit for consistency - especially because so many of the references are so specific. pg.3 - The Paris thing is pure coincidence, I wrote this originally for Nano 2012! Fair point about the others, but you've been in Blacklake's POV for 92 pages by the point that Tarquin appears, so I hope it will be something of a relief. pg.4 - Good point. I wanted the French to add something different, but if it's just a turn-off then I'll need to reconsider. pg.7 - Yes, it's deliberate. There were a handful of thoughts in Tarquin's POV, but I removed them after I made the comment and forgot to remove it. pg.10- Blood, yes, careless omission on my part - that's not consistent with the overall. pg.12 - I need to embellish the cousin's death - agreed. pg.12 - Need more description of the 'process', I agree. The story is too often enigmatic (or just plain obscure) when it needs to be clearer. This is a general fault with the Blacklake stories (novel). I'll probably bring all the strands together in a single book or two, and that is one of the main problems that I have, the lack of clarity or rather willful obscurity. Thanks for the great comments, Mandamon. Tarquin does seem to be getting the thumbs up as a character, which is important. So, something for build upon, which I'm encouraged by.

Ha-ha, I see that Mandamon has picked up the Health & Safety angle. The only thing that we maybe don't entirely agree on is the 'goodman' thing. I rather like it - maybe a tad over-formal, but that's me to a 'T'. The one thing I would say about that is I expect it to come from Dev, whereas I think Pen drops a couple of 'goodman's in there. That was a bit disorienting. I would tend to stuck with Dev, and it being a foible of his.

Detailed comments below, but I found this an interesting start, and an intriguing premise. There isn’t really enough to get one’s teeth into of course, but I would certainly read more of this. There are one or two beats that I thought were a bit off, and I comment on these below, but otherwise, good set-up. Like the title too, sounds like a name, but I also get the sense of it as presumably meaning ‘beyond life’. Good job. Oh, and btw, I agree with.......... Valthyr! (but I agree with Mandamon too, as almost always.) ------------------------------------- “One... or two or many more.” I'm thinking. I felt there was something off about the phrase “gravity slid my head free”. Wait, what? The fall can’t knock him unconscious when his head’s already been severed! Maybe that’s something to do with some magical conceit of the story but, as a reader, this early on I'm still trying to make it fit my reality, so this sounded wrong.

Detailed comments below, but I continue to enjoy your writing and your story. One thing stood out quite clearly for me in this submission however, and that was that I am enjoying Pen and Dev’s story more than Lianye and Rend. The youngsters in the educational setting, with their focus on girls, mischief and the new aerland feels fresher than the other thread, which I am beginning to feel is the lesser in almost all aspects. Dev and Pen have humour, the excitement of new romance, the rather swashbuckling angle of trying to get passage to this mysterious new aerland. Lianye and Rend’s thread is centred around for more common and almost derivative genre threads of underdog rebellion and overthrowing what is presumably an unjust and ultimately evil / bad / nasty monarchy. Maybe I’ve got that last bit wrong, but I stand by my overall comment. Of the two POV’s, Pen’s is fresh and interesting, whereas I think Lianye’s needs some work to pep it up. Looking forward to the next submission. -------------------------------- Should the king not be addressed as your majesty, rather than ‘my lord’? It sounded odd to me. I see that later, Taelmera calls him ‘highness’. “the steady drone of his father’s dreams made manifest” is a nice line. “and yet I doubt” sounded like an unfinished thought to me. Suggest maybe “I have doubts”? With “king kissed his own ring, touching it to the backs of their heads” I had a feeling of going a bit too far to find a novel form of obeisance. When I pictured this, I felt that it was a rather comical image. You mention Lianye being warmed by the midday sun, but she is in an alley and therefore shaded, presumably. “tossed the crust over his shoulder” strikes me as a modern thing. Can they afford to waste food in this society? I know that some food has practical consideration in its design, like Cornish pasties eaten by miners, where the thick curved edge was, I think, designed to be a handle for dirty fingers and thrown away afterwards (I stand to be corrected), but this is bread. I suppose there’s nothing to prevent Rendevere having a foible, but it struck me as being a bit off. In the saying “In for a copper, in for a pound” – what is a pound? Is it a unit of currency, as in the British pound? It rang a bit odd to my ear, perhaps because of my familiarity with the original saying. I was a bit nonplussed by the complete lack of reaction from Rend to Lianye’s announcement that she was going to overthrow the king. Thing this is, we don’t seem to know enough about any of their backgrounds or status to understand if this is right or wrong, good or bad, etc. No problems with Pen and Dev's section - highly entertaining and I enjoyed their encounter with the King Arm, which is so Game of Thrones, by the way, and I'm not even joking.

Well thank you very much RD, much appreciated. Good point on the opening - there is definitely some extraneous detail in there. Thanks again!

Thank you advising on the updates that you have made, I found that interesting. The scene that you describe between Colter and the Priest sounds interesting, and certainly diverts from the 'total warfare' scenario of the first submission. Detailed comments below, but I enjoyed this section. I think you do a pretty good job of conveying the terrible conditions he is in. The last paragraph cuts off very suddenly though. Is that the end of the chapter? If so, I think you would be better butting those explanations earlier on, so that you can end on a more dramatic note. If it's not the end of the chapter - I would have submitted more, as we don't really get much progress in this quite short section. You've pulled me back from the edge and I'm reassured it's not all 40K style mega fighting. I'm interested to see where this goes now. You have a nice set-up, and I think you do the grand scale pretty well in you setup. Your style is easy to rood too, it pulled me through, although there were some phrasing issues. Good job. ----------------------- I suggest 'winds would howl THROUGH the room.' I'm no sailor, or space captain, but I wonder if you should refer to the front of the ship as the prow? I don't know. Or maybe refer to forward and aft, which is another nautical parlance. Just a thought. There's something awkward about the phrasing of him slamming into the panel. Something awkward in this phrasing 'Every dark drop that fell from him took away the last bits of his strength'. I think it will be drops of perspiration, not precipitation, which is rain, or snow or sleet, etc. I suppose it might be condensation, if the water is coming from else other than Myr. If it really is precipitation, I think you need to describe how it's getting into the sell, as it must be coming from above somewhere (i.e. the sky!). 'drug-induced' should be hyphenated, I believe. The phrasing of the last paragraph is a little odd, I thought. Also, I take it that he is not actually a hitman, but employs hitmen? This slight lack of clarity is part of the confusion, I think. Locking him out of the memory?

Thank you for reading my latest submission from The Mathematical Bridge, which is the culmination of Chapter 6 ‘Bad Pennies’. Previously, after meeting Judith to look at her pictures, then following her out of fear for her safety (but not finding her), Rutland had his first encounter for a long time with the Sabine creature. This submission is in a different POV. There are some obvious challenges in here, which I presume will provoke a reaction. I very much look forward to hearing your comments, which will be much appreciated. Cheers, Robinski