Timewaster's Guide Archive

Alrighty, I guess I'll be first. I'll go out on a limb and say I thought it was decent, but (and you knew it was coming)...

The first thing that got to me was the very beginning. It just wasn't very gripping. This is a big problem for me as I suddenly start feeling like it's 10 times longer if I'm not hooked pretty quick. Doesn't stop me from reading it (I'm a glutton for punishment), but I start skimming. Mouse... just doesn't do anything in that first chunk. I would almost start with the suspense of examining the thought-to-be station by the "engineers", then move to Mouse... or just cut that first part entirely. It doesn't seem to serve much purpose to the overall story.

And yes, build up the suspense. They're examining the decrepit station that's completely dark (at least on page 2... more on that later), and they're behaving like there might still be a threat (which you noted was a little pointless), but they're talking like it's a walk in the park. So you have this real potential to step it up a notch and put me on the edge of my chair, but right now I'm left thinking "Why do I care?" I don't get any back story on the reason the station's toast until page 25. Now, I know you don't want to give away all the secrets (and that's good), it'd be nice to at least know that the station went dark unexpectedly. But I'd also like to know why exactly it took 4 years to send someone. You mention something about political conflict, but not why it would matter to sending rescue.

About the dark... you have some continuity issues. Lights that aren't on, and then are, Mouse's opinion of Elisa, etc.

The middle of the story I enjoyed a lot more. Things were happening, people were dying, discoveries were being made... in general, the story was progressing, and I got a  better feel for the characters.

The end... well, I like how you ended it a lot (and I would keep that the end), but I would also like to know what happened to the others on the station. There's no closure on that front. Do they all die? Does Erik get trapped when the other survivors from the expedition leave? It's like you only ended half the book, and I was slightly depressed by that. You end Erik's chapter with "Well, that completes one part of the mission."  Well what about the other part(s)? Show me!

In all, I liked it. I'll send you some more line-level edits when I manage to finish them. 27 pages is a lot to go through with a fine-toothed comb. I got about 6 pages in before I changed to just reading.

That's it?! LTU, you disappoint me. I thought I could always count on you for a scathing review chock full of how tortuous you found it, complaining that you couldn't get to the spoons to gouge out your eyes fast enough.

But this... you liked it? Sheesh. Now I'm going to feel bad being all critical and mean on your submissions. That's your real plan, isn't it? Drat.

On a side note, feeling like fantasy is *exactly* what I'm going for. The reason it's actually sci-fi is because I needed a bigger "world". I need vast economies, great distances, huge overreaching governments... I just don't feel like I could accomplish it with a single planet, and I didn't want to go into planar travel.

It'll be a lot more sci-fi once he's not stuck on/in a prison world, but I'm going to try to keep it with a bit of fantasy setting.

And Delving is an interesting beast... you'll see that in chapter 1. If I can get more free time to actually write. *grumble*

You love me like a witch loves the huge mole on the end of her nose. It's necessary for the persona, but it still hurts like hell.

I also missed your initial submission (stupid work), so I'll do both here as well. Guess it's a good thing you attached your rewritten chapter 1.

Okay, I'm going to agree with most of what Ryos said about the beginning, but I'm going to do it in my snarky way. So here's exactly what I was thinking as I read it:

The air is shaking? What kind of phenomenon... oh, it's a clock's bell. And she thinks she's late for something, but she's not. (Cliche)
Holy description, Batman! Well, no problem with that... oh geez, more description... (scroll scroll scroll) No, I'm reviewing this, can't skip parts. (scroll back). Okay, so I can see everything around her, but nothing's *happening*. Now when is the heist going to start?

And yes, I knew it was a heist from the beginning, but only because your title gave it away. However, unless you want to bore your readers to tears for the first 3 pages, cut most of the description. I get the feeling that some of the reason it's there is to establish scene, and it also does a good job of showing how meticulous to detail she is, but almost all of it is pointless because it never plays any role. We don't need to see what's making Mia bored enough to doze off to know how it feels; most of us have been bored before (like most of my college classes).

As for the chimney, it isn't happening. Given the technical level of your society, I'd imagine they would have figured out how to use dampers, which you are not getting past. Flues are also usually smaller than a person. Also, rain caps are common in more modern chimneys, which would make it practically impossible to get out of. So, unless your fireplace is about 10' wide (that's about how big the entrance would need to be for a flue big enough for a human to fit through) and there's no damper at all, she's just not getting out that way. The chimney on my house has 3 flues, each of which I can barely fit my hand down.

As for the split POVs... well, I'm not a particular fan of breaking it apart that much, but I can see how it could work, because it keeps the two scenes very temporally aligned.  Except that it doesn't. You have the scene with the negotiation interspersed with the robbery, but the robbery took place 45 minutes before the negotiations... which really makes it seem weird at the end. Now if they were happening at the same time, I think that would be *really* cool. Have Mia walk in and dissolve her Silence right after he asks, and give him the shard. "Here you go, job's done. Quick enough for you?" Awesome.

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On to chapter 2. This is definitely building character and world, and I don't really have a problem with that. We have to learn about the characters somehow, right? I'm going do disagree with Ryos a little bit: smallclothes did not originate from WOT. The term's been around in the real world since 1759, according to Webster. People understand what you mean with it, and it's a lot older than the word underwear. The nature of common rooms was the nature of common rooms. There's no reason to make them different just to be unique. It'll just stand out as weird to most people who *expect* that a common room of a tavern/inn is like that. It's not like Robert Jordan didn't get his ideas from somewhere, too... a lot of the time, it was based on real-life.

Hyperbole is a bigger issue, though. Don't overact your characters. You have something real good here, and I don't think comic relief in boys falling in fountains is necessary. If you want him wet, have him staring at her and not paying attention, and trip into the fountain instead (for example). That's at least more natural of someone staring at an oddity.

Speaking of which, why are the Dronari gawked at? You never really explain why. You mention their skin, hair, and height as being somewhat un-normal, but there's got to be more than that. Were they beaten in a war and driven off? Are they generally slaves of some sort? Or do they have something more unnatural about them than different hair and being taller? I just feel like I'm missing something there.

So, I think it's pretty good. I like the steampunk-ish atmosphere (I hope you're going for that), and the magic system seems simple to grasp, although I will start to nitpick on how it works if I don't see some deeper explanations in the next couple chapters. Given that you're using magic to solve problems, you'd better have some hard and fast rules on its limitations, or I'll wonder why your character doesn't start doing overpowered things with it. Keep up the good work.

Some people (and I speak from experience, here) did not get to experience that unbridled passion of youth... however, I can at least *understand* it. I have not read most of the rest of this story, so I can't comment on previous chapters with them, but to me, it seems "alright". Love at first sight is a common (and stupid, generally) thing, but humans prove time and time again that we're plenty capable of stupid things.

Now, one feeling I kinda got from the beginning of the chapter was that Kajsa wanted him for a little more than the horizontal boogy. "...and then you'll be mine." I believe was the quote (or thereabouts). That signifies a more controlling relationship, instead of "...and then we can be together". The thought that crept into my mind immediately (since I haven't read previous encounters) is that she was a demon of some sort, and they had a contract. "I'll help you now, but later, your soul is mine!"

I'd actually pointed out that very same fact that I wouldn't expect Jalean to wait six years to put Jin on the chopping block either (I don't blame you for missing it--my walls of text sometimes drone on and on and on...).

My guess is that Burm hasn't been sold because he's more useful there as a trainer/thug than in someone else's house. She's making money on him by having a good trainer. Or maybe he gives sexual favors....

I'd imagine so... I suppose that's what you get when you start giving tough love to Chaotic things and then tell very cynical/sarcastic people like me on forums about it.

So when do we get the long, unbiased  story? I'm pretty sure Chaos is embellishing things a bit.