This is the first chapter of a collaboration between Chris Willmore and
myself.  We've been at work pretty hard on it, and would be interested in
any commentary you might have.

Oooh ooooh ooh!

Fanfiction by authors I like!

You'd have to kill me to stop me from giving C&C on this.

Now, where did I put my scissors?  ^_^

     Twice four monks had prostrated themselves a prudent distance
from the edge of the water and formed the petals of a blossom with
their robes.  A heavy bronze column was the pistil, immersed in the
centre of the pool and carved with twin lotus flowers and arcane
knots.  At the ninth place stood their Emperor, and at his side the
mechanism of the unnatural bloom's pollination - a tiny monkey, beady
eyes heavy-lidded in half-sleep.

The imagery here doesn't work for me.  It sort of sounds like they formed a
9-pointed star around the column, yet the "twice" bit implies that 4 monks
had done this in series.

     The column began to move.  There was no rumble, no disturbance of
the pool, just a clean upwards movement of the pillar followed by a
perfectly geometric sideways displacement of the column from the
pool's centre to the soil just beyond the water's edge.  It landed
with a muted thump and spilled not a drop beyond its own
circumference.

"geometric" was unnecessary, and in fact ruined the flow for me. I'd say
"perfect sideways movement".

'...the lotus grows up from the darkness of the mud to the surface of
the water, opening its blossom only after it has raised itself beyond
the surface, and remaining unsullied from both earth and water.'

            -Lama Anagarika Govinda, 'Tibetan Mysticism'

Nice touch.

     The old woman bowed her head and flashed a toothless smile.

     "So sorry, dear."

     "S'okay," Ranma muttered as she wrung her shirt out over the
pavement.  "Happens all the time."

Cliche.  Effective change in tone, but cliche.


Hmm....
Time for some major snippage.  The rest of this more or less worked for me.

Quick notes:

Happosai: Cute style here.  I'd personally take a look at making it a bit
more...hmm...unstable.  If this is train of thought, it should have a few
more sidetracks, IMO.

Tarou: Que?  Did I miss something here?  Since when did Tarou start taking
lessons at Big Evil Nasty school?

Ukyou's disappearance: AHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahaha!  VERY nicely done.


Nice dramatic foreboding buildup at the end.

All in all, an excellent start.  I'll be sure to continue reading.

--
Christopher Angel, B.Sc.(CS), B.E. (EE)
cja124@mail.usask.ca