Robinski

Lol - never thought it for a second. Good plan.

You jet-setter, you! You'll need a holiday after that. I am just so pleased to be back from Canada and over my jet lag after not sleeping for about 31 hours....

Yay, welcome back. You missed..... absolutely nothing!* (* Since you've read my and Mandamon's submissions anyway)

Many thanks for the comments, Mandamon. --confusing: are the androids in suits or not? - They are, but they don't have or need helmets, I'll try and tidy up. --because of lack of atmosphere? turning up the volume won't help - Good point; deleted. --And what was the nickname for Ma? Might be WRS. - Bandy legs; although Moth only thinks it here, she did say it in front of Mary earlier. I'll bet on WRS and see how my next complete beta read goes. -- There's a lot of movement, but not much happening... - Take your point. There's been mixed reaction to this section. I might need a bigger sample :o) --really? Does he even care at this point? - Perhaps not. --what handholds? - Just as in placed in the rock to grip. Super comments once more. Much appreciated - thank you! R

My feeling exactly!

Thanks for the comments, RD, much appreciated. I've worked on punching up the fight with Barta's men - good point, spot on. Also reviewed the tags. I'll consider trimming in the next full edit. Thanks again for reading. One more post to come!! ** I'll flag now to you and @Mandamon that the last one is 6,300 words - is that going to be okay? I guess if there are no other subs it's still a light week

It does look like it, doesn't it?

Hey, Any comments much appreciated. R

Travelling back from Canada yesterday and today, and, frankly too shattered to remember to submit a request for Monday. I feel like I'm not going to be edged out though, since it's dead as a doornail around here! I've got two subs left, so would like to put them up this week and next, please

Hey, thanks for reading Mandamon - comments greatly appreciated. Great stuff - thank you. Some good edits there ands a couple of things to mull over. Very helpful, as ever.

Hey RD, thanks for reading - comments much appreciated. I'm glad there is a sense of building and you're feeling the action to some extent. Note what you say about the marriage stuff and take your point on that. Only two more subs to go. Starting to get nervous about how well the story delivers on promises Thanks so much for reading

Comments. “elephant-head knocker” – Do they have elephants in the Net? Seems very Earth-like. “broke from the sub-music of that melody” – maybe it’s a specific term in the Net, but it seems to me there would be a better musical (sounding) term for this, like a harmony to the main melody, or maybe a background rhythm, or counterpoint. “to bridge from one credenza of his brain to another” – I think auto-correct has been at work here , did you mean ‘cadenza’? “It is no bother, councilor—” En began” – confused here. Sam seems to assent, but En protests – but her words could be taken as ‘I don’t mind…’, whereas I think what she means is ‘I’d rather not…’; I don’t think En’s emotion is entirely clear. “bog grubs at lunch had been nearly dead” – lol; nice background colour. “on wooden blocks discolored by years of use” “on a long neck” – this sounds like he has multiple necks to choose from. “The philosophy department” – What did Ori teach? Natural philosophy (physics) is very different from philosophy – which is what M implies. “the danger posed by the Drains” – I'm confused why Ori would take this length of time before consulting a (physical/natural) scientist about the drains. Surely, that would be one of the first places that he would go. “Will they make me choose?” – I don’t see how this follows in his train of thought. “Then the one string multiplied” – if he’s only hearing one string, it can’t be a chord, which is made up of multiple notes. He would need to be hearing multiple strings to hear a chord. “only of the sixty-six speakers” “Servants had called the Small Assembly to formalize their secession” – this still bothers me. It feels like the UK staying in the European Union, but the City of Manchester wanting to secede; it just couldn’t happen, because Manchester is a smaller part of the whole, and cannot act unilaterally at a national level. “Others will try, after this” – Why? “We’ve been at the Dome” “The Dome. Now, Councilor” – Why would he not tell her? Seems a bit like author intervention. It’s good tension, certainly, but doesn’t seem entirely justified. “Jhina had probably stayed behind” – I don’t remember who this is. “a male and a wari Lobath” – don’t know what this means. “…Servants had shown it possible. Possible the Effature was trying to create a stopgap” – ‘possibly’? Or a semi-colon, but it’s not part of the same thought, it seems. “White only she could see flowed down her arm as she blocked the measures connecting muscle to ligaments and ligaments to bone with notes from her song” – confusing wording. “she wove the counterpoint to the Lobath’s mind, forming a duet with her notes” – confused here. “the compulsion to do what Ril told her” – suggested for clarity. “She knelt by the former leader, still quietly trembling” – sounds like Ril is trembling. “Have your friends get you to a doctor” It’s a good strong bombshell at the end, and I like how the tension and conflict growths through the chapter. A few details above. Also, it is quite long, but not unreasonably so. It certainly marks a shift in the overall narrative towards more open conflict and aggression. Nice work. <R>

Here's the latest section, only two more to go after this. As usual, any comment that you care to make are gratefully accepted. <R>

Me too please, if there's a spot. That's May, right?

Hmm, I see your point. I guess you could use the old 'non-binary' approach of avoiding the term and referring to 'his friend', 'En's brother', 'X's apprentice'. I don't think 'man' is any better than 'young man' in Sam's POV. Does Sam think of himself as a man? Then the question becomes what is the correct term? Adolescent? Nobody Valls themselves that. Teenager? Hmm... Guy? Yeah - that's not bad. In college, I'm not sure I thought about it at all, but just thought in terms of names. Tricky one.

Hey RD, thanks so much for reading. It's one of my own favourites, possibly most favourite in the story - always makes me chuckle to myself I've inserted the following: "Quirk glanced at Moth as she planted herself, arms crossed, in the first row of the banked seats. She looked like she wanted to beat him to death with the first thing she could lift." I will try an alternative to punch that up a bit. Thanks for that. Comments much appreciated <R>

Hey Mandamon, thanks for commenting - very helpful, as always. Yeah, I've totally got 'clarification' in big letters in my edit notes for Round 2. There are good practical/logical reasons for this, I feel, but they do not necessarily help the story. A young girl in a potentially dangerous, unfamiliar situation, used to doing what she's told by adults (although not necessarily agreeing with it). But, I take your point. Potentially, I could give M a side plot for a chapter. It would stretch the word count, but that's hardly a huge issue, since I'm at 71,000 in total, so hardly mammoth. I've made a pass at correcting this. I've changed that to one. I've have edited - "That’s thick enough to be a week" Deleted - cheap shot. I'v embellished a bit to highlight Q feeling the stressed and aching and generally fed up. Yeah - I've got this flagged for a tidy-up / rejig in Round 2. I was aiming for this to be a (cool) reveal, but maybe need more hints earlier in relation to what C might be planning. Have adjusted. His patting of the Merrion, in his mind, is associated with the moment he left his wife. There's more background to this, which is not revealed in this story. It still needs to hang together as the various references in this story of course, so I'm glad you're picking me up on it, as appropriate! Edited - 'but their vehicle turned east.' - It's a split up of the convoy and C is going the wrong way. Unclear, yes. Might need mother editing than this. Thank you so much for those comments. Some good changes even before I get into the deeper stuff. Much appreciated <R>

I'd try just coming right out and have L think that very thing. With something as cold as that, I think you could just come out and 'tell' it.

Hey, good to see you back on here. Some comments for your consideration “prime heir to House Laux” – as the name of the house, should be capitalised. “The kilometric” – Not sure what this means. As in size? Bit unclear. “alight with esoteric energy” – Bit confused. So, we don’t know what kind of energy powers the ship? Is this the word you meant? Then you describe light sails, so we do know. These seems contradictory. “What had identified Innogen as the fleet’s first and most important target, however, were two things” – grammar. Compare ‘Two things had identified Inn…’ “a human-made satellite” “Unknown biological growths, like translucent veins inlaid in the dark masses of trees had started glowing with a bright blue light” – Unsure of the POV – doesn’t seem that mysterious when it’s explained like this. “They launched the very same evening,” – Same evening as what? “It was almost unnaturally violent” “forever lost to the shrill of the wind” – Shrill what of the wind, sound? Also, I'm confused. Is the ship open now? Otherwise, they would not be able to hear the wind, surely, over the engines. “The old bastard was right. This is how I die” – There is some very effective description of the mechanics of what’s happening, but I'm not really invested in it, because I feel nothing for the character. I don’t know him, or anyone else on the shuttle, so if they all get pounded to a pulp, I haven’t lost any investment. Similarly, I have little or no emotional investment in their mission to the planet. This line is really the first personal note four pages in. I must say, as a character-centred reader, it’s the first thing to catch my interest and make me ask a question about who the old bastard is. “the bright red canvas of the pilots’ chutes? deployed” - ? “But Something across the compartment” – Don’t know what that’s there for. “the small crowd gathering behind him” – Don’t buy this. You’ve set up that there are other injured people on the shuttle and others are helping them; why would everyone stop to watch this guy with one more injured person? “They wrapped her in a blanked blanket” “When he saw the surgeon pull the shrapnel out and seal the artery” – You’ve kind of lost me here too. I’m prepared to accept that advanced technology could make an injury like this more treatable and survivable, but I'm not seeing anything fancy in the way of med tech being applied. I’m no medic, but I was really surprised they moved her with that injury, then the doc just pulls out the metal?!! I just not convinced by this. There’s no need for it to be her femoral artery. A quirk search led me to this > http://www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=3130182 Another point – fridging, maybe not by strict definition, but the first female character you have is there with the purpose of being weak so that the hero can swoop in and save her life. It could be said that, broadly, there’s an equal chance that this character could have been male – but they weren’t. For me, this facet of the scene is not immediately objectionable, but it’s a warning sign for me to watch out for how female characters are treated in / served by the story. “I’d hoped it was your ship that got hit on the way in” – I like a bit of gallows humour, but I don’t see any humour in this character, so this came over creepy to me. “square, moustache-adorned face” – mentioned one of these before, need the hyphen to make this a compound adjective instead of noun+verb. “but it’s not the ship missing” – don’t get this line. “You really should thank them” – so far, I'm not engaged with L as a character. His thoughts are of glory and self-preservation. The scene with him saving the woman’s life, for me, was not only unconvincing, but felt contrived to show him as capable and ‘caring’. The narrative described other people rushing to help the injured, but L didn’t do that. He only responded when he heard the woman moaning, i.e. his first thought was not to go help the injured, at least that is how it seemed to me. “I can’t find anyone on personal comms right now” – sort of see what you mean, but Var did speak to him on comms. This sounds a bit like he can’t talk to anyone on comms – which he can. “wide semi-circle and their floodlights revealed heavy machinery being rolled out into the mud” – While, I'm not doing all that well with the character(s), I do find your description effective. I get a good sense of setting and the chaos and upheaval of the landing. “amazed at the amount number of people” “he would’ve looked almost glorious if he hadn’t been as wide as he was tall” – Hmm, so a fat guy can’t look glorious? Napoleon? Again, we get a reinforcement of how important glory is to L, which is not the most noble motivation for a character, especially a scientific one – although maybe he’s going to get his world view changed. “through authority of position rather than appearance” – meh, some body image issues arising. So, only buff guys are impressive commanders? “He made a mental note to ask someone about it” – what kind of scientist is he? Not a chemist or a geologist apparently, or he would have more cogent thoughts about the mud and would not have to ask someone else. “I’d rather fleet command didn’t take my head over that” – why would they, is L also a security officer? Surely, as a scientist, he’s not responsible for the doctor’s security and wellbeing. “used as a pedestal for his bulk” – it’s still a pedestal, regardless of the doctor’s bulk. Seems like an unnecessary bulk comment. In summary, I get a good sense of the conditions, the description is effective, including that of the landing and the chaotic situation on the ground. That’s all good. I’m not convinced about L as a character. I don’t really like him or identify with him, so far, and I'm not really interested in his perspective, which comes over as macho and not very scientific. What I mean is he lacks the natural curiosity I would expect from any scientist in landing on a world that is new to them. Take the mud for example, there’s inquiry in the way he thinks about it. Oh, that’s weird, need to ask someone else. I’m an engineer, but I feel I have a natural curiosity about things that will lead me to looking up, poking around, testing things (e.g. literally poking with a stick or my toe) to see how they move and behave. Interested to read more and see how this pans out some more. <R>

Comments! “A number of animals have immigrated to the Neth” – I feel that sentient beings immigrate, i.e. using freewill, but animals don’t, they are introduced or brought by sentient beings. “Domesticated animals live there” – again, this sounds like the animals do it from choice, which they don’t. “was bare when it was discovered, so and new species always look to fill out niches in the ecological web” – ‘barren’? Also, just because the Ne was barren, doesn’t mean that this rule for new species follows everywhere. “If they were had been Kir children” – imho. “Maybe if he shook them he would get more out of them” – lol. “patted the brother on his the shoulder” – or it sounds like the patters shoulder, imho. “raised a hand, and white and olive green sparks began to swirl around it” – This seems very presumptuous for Ril, seems a bit out of character, remembering how she carefully discussed with Sam what treatment she could offer, and only had his permission before acting. “hitting into the doorway with a grunt” – suggest ‘bumping’, ‘hitting’ sounds on purpose. “always too quick to offer to use her song for her patients” – going to my point above, quirk to offer, yes, but not to act without permission, surely. “they’re all bodged up about it” – lol, although I thought bodge was more like ‘botch’, actively making a mess of something. “He insisted. Waiting galled him.” – I had to read that twice, suggest clarifying maybe. “You can let them rest a couple…” – seems half way between saying ‘a couple of days’ and just saying ‘let them rest’ – I think either would be clearer than this. “His thoughts screamed that they would get tired of him quickly’ – what’s the basis for this? I don’t get it. I don’t see how this follows from his existing phobia. “Every trip was presented something new to see” – but the trip is not the thing to see. “the dark-haired young man” – I think this makes a big difference in reader perception of age. “One of these times, they’re going to tell me to stop, to go away.” – I'm concerned we’re going from one neurosis to another, it’s getting a bit tiresome. Having a weak protagonist is something of a risk, it could make other characters, whose POVs we are not in, more interesting and appealing. “Are they looking for something” “Arid patrols” – to me, this sounds like the patrols are made up of Ari, as a Stormtrooper patrol would search for rebels. “Them citizen’s citizens been getting uneasy” “Listen,” he said” – I do like this. Sam gets a chance to be capable, hurrah! “When the shorter man came up again” – this makes Ins sound 20+. I have assumed they are the same sort of age and experience level. Would you refer to Ens. as a woman? “Wisps of green spiraled down his legs and into the ground” – suggest. “They’re only children” – See, everyone perceives them as youngsters, and yet the narrative refers to Ins. as a ‘man’. “I am not certain she knows how” – How to teach Ens, right, not how to heal? A bit confusing. “to pry loose stones out of a nearby wall” “Ye really donna ken” – If you're going full Scots, this would be ‘dinnae’ (for don’t), in the same way as ‘cannae’ (for can’t). “hoping for a hand form from Ens, or Ins” Good strong chapter for me, with some plot development, the action of the mob, and also some progress in Sam’s relationships. I think that chapters that combine different elements are the most effective, especially when progress is maintained. Nice little drop of Sam catching a snatch of the symphony. I enjoy the introduction of a bigger role for Ins since I read the story first time around. That’s becoming really quite effective. The only real bugbear I had in this chapter was the reference of Ins as a ‘man’, which seems off to me, and gives me an impression I don’t want. Once at least I had no idea who was being referred to! Nice work. <R>

Hello All, Attached is the 13th and latest instalment of The Mandroid Murder. Running slightly over the 5,000 words - sorry about that. Nothing special if you have time to read, just the usual stuff. There are some ongoing issues which I need to resolve in the next edit, but I don't mind if you mention them again, Whatever strikes you as worthy of comment is fine by me. Best, Robinski

Ahhh.

Is there not a 1st April next year then? Wait - that's not a May fool joke, is it?

Ah, hmm. I wonder how well that comes across as a thread through the story. I'm not sure I've had enough to flag these two as being part of an underclass going into the visit. I think you could easily say something like 'the patron chewed up one rat, turned to shred another, pounced on a third' - racking up the numbers without racking up the word count. Hmm, that would be a problem for me with the overall act of the story, I think... Would it? I guess if I had the sense that this sort of thing was a mischief crime, like graffiti, or throwing eggs at a window; the sort of thing the police would not have the resources to follow up, but I'm not sure I've got that sense about Dhe summoning, unless it's WRS on my part. I felt it was like 'her desk for totally empty, apart from a huge pile of stuff in the corner' - i.e. it wasn't empty at all. The first part of the sentence being designed to mislead the reader. It just didn't quite land for me as a 'quip'.

Arrgghh. It's being on holiday, it's bl**dy marvellous - no idea what day it is. Or month, apparently...