First, I apologize for resurrecting this - but then again, it is a sticky thread, so doesn't that make it fair game? In any case, after reading all 46 pages and taking notes on versions 3.5 and 4.2, I couldn't resist sharing my thoughts, for what they're worth.
1. I agree with many that BioChroma is not an ideal term, for the reasons discussed. A couple other terms also struck me as incongruous:
- "Monk" is generally a male term, at least in our world; it seems almost as bizarre to me to have female "monks" as if you had male "nuns". I might suggest a more gender-neutral term, such as "devoted".
- "Mercenaries," in our world, are soldiers hired by a foreign army, engaging in combat on behalf of a nation not their own. I don't think of hired muscle such as Denth & his crew as mercenaries, because they are not really soldiers engaging in combat between nations; they are individual toughs/assasins/bodyguards hired by individual people for all kinds of purposes - not necessarily warfare. I do understand that "mercenary" connotes the sense of loyalty to money rather than anything/anyone else; however, I don't believe it describes what they DO for that money very accurately.
2. My votes on a few issues previously discussed:
- I too guessed that Lightsong was Arsteel, until the timing of his death/return didn't match.
- I too thought Vasher had mind-control powers, not only from when he made the child forget her captivity, but later in chapter 57, when Denth says, "I can't forget," Vasher says, "I can make you. I know the Commands."
- I too was astonished to discover that Returned can be injured or killed, other than by self-sacrifice. In chapter 5, Llarimar tells Lightsong, "Your body is immune to all toxins." (This seems to contradict the fact that Denth poisoned Lemks - although maybe this is because Lemks was not Returned.) Also, in the Ars Arcanum, it states that the Fifth Heightening grants functional immortality. Also, in chapter 15 Lightsong says, "They can't execute me. I'm a god." Of course, from the way the story comes out we know that "functional immortality" must refer to immunity from disease and aging, but the way the story unfolds it seems misleading; the reader is shocked along with Lightsong to discover he can be injured and Blushweaver can be killed. (On the other hand, there is a slight hint in chapter 47, where Lightsong thinks, "Leaving [Command Phrases] in the hands of a single god was to risk losing the Phrase through assassination." I didn't catch this hint in my first reading, but it is there.)
- I too felt the Lightsong ->investigative accountant twist fell a bit flat. It didn't seem to me that someone trained to audit books would naturally go about investigating murders and questioning witnesses.
- I too felt like there wouldn't be enough Breaths to go around - even with the change from one-a-day to one-a-week. Not only does Hallandren need a large population, but the Court of the Gods needs a very large budget to reimburse all those people. I get the impression a single Breath is worth about $10,000? If so, the purchase of Breaths alone, for the Returned and the God King, would be around $14 million a year. When you add in salaries for perhaps 3000 priests and servants (I'm trying to be conservative here - we know that each Returned had at least 100), plus the upkeep of all the extravagant palaces, this system gets very very expensive. Either this religion collects a lot of offerings (which are never mentioned), or the taxes are quite high, or the population is much larger than I'd been led to believe. In any case, it might deserve to be mentioned.
3. A few picky notes on apparent inconsistencies:
- In the prologue, Vasher says "Thank you" to the Awakened straw man. Later (ch 49) he apologizes to Awakened objects. Other places, we don't see him saying anything at all as he retrieves his Breaths.
- If Vahr was a Pahn Kahl, and was arrested for inciting rebellion, then why were the people of Hallandren so unsuspicious of people from Pahn Kahl? Wouldn't Vahr's actions have clued them in to the Pahn Kahl people's desire to overthrow them?
- Why were Bluefingers' fingers blue? Didn't their script use all colors of ink? Then again, perhaps his work as a scribe would not generally involve the more formal Artisan's Script. Maybe this is a non-issue.
- In chapter 19, the new house Denth finds is "fenced on either side with large palm trees, obscuring the view should someone try to spy from the neighboring buildings." As one who grew up in the tropics, this seemed strange to me. All the palm trees I've seen are bare trunks with only the tops bushy - large palm trees might screen 3rd floor windows, but not lower ones. I would suggest mango trees, instead; they can be very large, too, and would provide much better cover. Or at least have some smaller palm trees interspersed with the large ones.
- Chapter 21: "Vasher looked up, shocked but not really surprised." What exactly does that mean? How can he be shocked if he's not surprised? I think of shock as simply a stronger form of surprise. "Startled but not really surprised" might work better.
- In chapter 22, Vivenna thinks, "Snakes might be common in the jungle, but that doesn't mean people are excited about seeing them." I would have expected her to come up with a metaphor from the mountains or highlands, not from the jungle.
- Chapter 26: "Bloody wounds upon bloody uniforms upon bloody skin." How are the wounds upon the uniforms? The other way around would make more sense: "Bloody uniforms upon bloody wounds upon bloody skin."
- In chapter 32, Siri had "rarely even seen any Awakeners in the Court. Even when she did, she didn't really care. The monks had spoken against such things, but, well, she had paid about as much attention to them as she had her tutors." This seems strange to me. At the beginning, Siri had certainly been bothered by the presence of Awakeners, at least she was horrified to realize that the doctor examining her was one, and that he had touched her. So it's clearly an Idris sensibility that she has lost or outgrown. This might be plausible with her character development, except that she has NOT lost or outgrown her Idris modesty, as shown soon after this scene, when Bluefingers again surprises her in her bath.
- In chapter 35, why doesn't Vasher imprison Vivenna more carefully? That is, gag her more securely, use chains instead of ropes, and other usual anti-Awakener precautions? He knows she holds a lot of Breaths; he doesn't know that she is either unable or unwilling to use them. It would make sense for him to be more careful.
- In chapter 36, how does Susebron chew and swallow, especially such large mouthfuls, with no tongue? This isn't my area of expertise, but it seems to me that the tongue is a very useful organ for moving food around in the mouth, positioning it properly for the teeth to grind it, then pushing it towards the throat. How does Susebron manage these things without it?
- In chapter 49, is Vivenna practicing with cloth or with ribbon (to fetch her cup)? I don't think of those as synonyms.
- In chapter 50, Siri "allowed herself to be led back to her rooms." I had understood that she didn't have "rooms", but that the whole palace was open to her use.
- In chapter 54, Llarimar says, "When we found you dead...I knelt above your body." Wasn't Lightsong lost at sea, drowned in a storm? How did they find his body? I guess maybe it washed up on shore...
- In chapter 55, how do the Pahn Kahl change the Lifeless commands so quickly? It took Lightsong several hours, and that was only for a fourth of them. Perhaps the Pahn Kahl divided up the work, that would explain it.
OK, that's all the constructive criticism I've got at the moment - obviously, feel free to consider or ignore whichever bits you wish. Thanks for this opportunity to express opinions about a work in progress. My enjoyment of the story was much increased by the possibility that I might, in some small way, influence its final form.
