Hi,
WOW, thanks for the C&C.
My comments @@
<SNIP>
earthenware
No spaces between the periods of an ellipsis.
(Alexandria... and the
roof)
@@My wife is the English major. Unfortunately she's
been too busy to proof my stuff lately.
OTOH, checking with her MLA handbook it's proper to
put a space between the periods. Other sources say
differently. However I think it shows up better with
the spaces so I use them. ^_*
<SNIP>
and his vineyards were richly manured
with their
blood. The spoils of those he'd murdered fed him
like a king
and clothed him more sumptiously than the Emperor
of Heaven
himself. Costly silks draped his walls and plates
of gold
replaced more plebeian ware, assuring that his
food, while
rich in appearance, was always cold.
"Manure" is a very specific form of fertilizer.
It isn't blood...
unless, perhaps, you have hemorrhoids! I suggest
saying 'and the soil of
his vineyards was enriched with their blood'.
@@
Main Entry: 1ma�nure
Pronunciation: m&-'nur, -'nyur
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): ma�nured; ma�nur�ing
Etymology: Middle English manouren, from
Middle French manouvrer, literally, to do
work by hand, from Latin manu operare
Date: 15th century
1 obsolete : CULTIVATE
2 : to enrich (land) by the application
of
manure
- ma�nur�er noun
Main Entry: 2manure
Function: noun
Date: 1549
: material that fertilizes land;
especially :
refuse of stables and barnyards
consisting of livestock excreta with or
without litter
- ma�nu�ri�al /-'n(y)ur-E-&l/ adjective
The qualifier is "especially" not "exclusively".
Therefore "manured" can very properly mean enriching
the land, in this case, enriching the land with blood.
It is _not_ exclusively enrichment with "excreta".
<SNIP>
"I find it hard to believe anyone is _that_
brave."
Zhang replied to the child's unspoken thoughts as
he watched
emerald fire pulse in the heart of the star-stone.
He's telepathic?
@@Could be, due to the influence of the stone. However
any good "magician" or "shaman" is an expert at
reading expressions, body language. Kinesthetic
interviewing techniques are based on reading a persons
blink-rate, tone of voice, body language, etc.
Crawling slowly through grass close cropped
by herds
of goats she listened to the whirr of insects and
smelled the
rich soil that she bruised in passing. <SNIP>
If the grass has been 'close-cropped by herds of
goats', then it would
be too short to offer any concealment. Imagine an
armed and armored warrior
trying to crawl across your front lawn, and that
should give you the right
image. Herbivores tend to eat grass down almost to
the root level. In many
countries, families let their sheep or goats into
the house yards for
exactly that reason. That way, they don't have to
mow the lawn (or pull
weeds) themselves.
@@I did imagine it. Concealment or camouflage is a
matter of light and perspective. I've had a 150LB
Irish Wolfhound vanish on a mowed lawn because his
coat matched the light and shadows. I'd also recommend
"The War Magician" (don't have the ISBN handy) and
"The Ultimate Sniper" ISBN:: 0-87364-704 for some
indications on some amazing things that can be done in
the way of sneaking up or hiding. I didn't say it
would be easy, but it is possible. It's a matter of
choosing your position of advance to take advantage of
light, shadow and terrain. You don't have to hide
_behind_ a clump of grass if, at a distance or from a
particular angle, you (the attacker) look like a piece
of ground. I learned that the hard way at The American
Pistol Institute how easy it is to miss seeing a "bad
guy" and this was in a wadi, no grass at all. Just
bare dirt. :(
I got "killed" several times. VERY embarrassing.
It's amazing how close you can be to someone under
those conditions and just not see them.
<SNIP>
horse bow (horse-bow would be a mixture of horse
and bow, not a bow used
from horseback!)
@@Oooops. ^_*
<SNIP>
. . .nothing. Not a single bird, no fish, no
growing thing. Not
even the worms of the earth remained alive.
In its wake... nothing.
@@Formatting problems. Some show up correctly, some do
not. :(
Seven days it had taken her. Seven days
without food,
drink or sleep. Yet she felt as if she'd just
begun. She'd been
terrified that any inattention to her task would
be taken as a
lack of faith by Kwannon and her son would die. As
she had
told the monk, she had no skills as an artesian,
certainly no
skills in working metal. Yet the icon of
Kwannon-who-
answers-a-single-prayer had appeared with
surprising ease.
Indeed it had seemed not so much that she was
making the icon
as that she was uncovering something that already
existed
within the metal.
Seven days without drinking anything? One can
fast for (possibly)
several weeks before becoming delirious and
eventually dying, but
dehydration can kill in a much shorter time,
depending on the temperature.
A person can die of dehydration as quickly as three
days if they are
sweating heavily.
@@Survival w/o water ranges from 59F, 17 days to
89.6F, 3days. That's survival. W/O water you run into
trouble within 48 hours. Normally.
Of course,she wasn't an artisan either and managed to
make a statue from a lump of metal w/o training. ^_^
Amazing what that little green fire can do, isn't it.
( I guess I was a little too subtle.)
This was a little "what the heck" section to jar the
reader into thinking about the statue and prime them
for "Things to come" when the statue starts affecting
other people.
<SNIP>
that, oneesan." 'Sama' is way too formal, and
you don't need to
capitalize 'onee' any more than you would 'sister'.
The way you wrote it,
if translated into English, could be phrased this
way: "Let me help you with
that, milady Sister."
@@Hmmm, I'll have to check on that. I thought I'd seen
or rather heard it used in anime before in a similar
manner. I'll ask the Japanese girl in the ESL class my
wife teaches. (I would have done it earlier but she's
been out sick)
<SNIP>
The Master of All Evil's eyes gleamed in the
moonlight as he stared at Akane. Licking his lips
he moved
closer. This would be even better than the time he
hit her
shiatsu sleep-spot, or when he used the dream
incense, or that
time at the hot-springs , or . . .
This change in continuity is deliberate, right?
In the original story
line, he did those things to Ranma.
@@Sleep spot, Akane: VIZ vol. 6, p66
Hot Springs, Akane: VIZ vol. 9, p 177, 178
Dream Incense:: This one I did from memory.
An on line translation. Happosai used an incense that
turned Akane into an unbeatable fighter while asleep.
(he was, I think, trying to put Ranma to sleep for the
summer to take advantage of him) Nabiki sold them a
cure that worked, but turned out to be a coil of
insect repellant incense. I could be mistaken on that
one. I'll have to look on-line and see if I can find
it again.
**Her shinai! Gratefully her hands closed
around the
smooth familiar shape----**
A bokken would be more appropriate. Shinai are
made of a length of
bamboo that is split into four strips for most of
its length. Shinai are
designed to be flexible, so that when it hits, it
doesn't do any real harm.
It just stings like crazy, like being whipped with a
willow switch. Bokken,
on the other hand, are solid pieces of wood, and are
very capable of
breaking bones.
In a severe beating, it's more likely the shinai
would break before
ribs, arm, or leg bones would.
@@Well, a lot depends on how the shinai is
constructed. Some are of heavier bamboo or even of
other types of wood. And the wrappings vary. I've read
of cases of serious injury resulting from the shinai.
However this wasn't a real shinai any more than it was
a real spider. She was in a dream state and saw Happi
as a spider. The "shinai" was a creation of her mind
using the green fire. And I believe she would have
chosen a shinai based on her use of it in the manga.
(eg. VIZ vol. 2, p10,11 & 42)
"Nihao Airen!"
Nihao, airen!
"MY----," Damn, she was going to have to
order that
new hydraulic upgrade from Spatula Monthly.
"FIANCEE!!!"
Fiance. She knows that Ranma is a boy. Fiancee
is the female version
of the word.
@@I know. For some reason the terminal "e" drops off
when i cut and paste from ASCII into my e-mail
program. I forgot to do a universal search and
replace.
<SNIP>
Ja mata,
LarryF
http://lwf58.tripod.com
@@Thanks again for reading. And all the C&C.
I'm going to concentrate on finishing the story. Then
make revisions. ^_*
=====
"When I get a little money, I buy books;
And, if any is left, I buy food and clothes."-Erasmus
"A man is a small thing, and the night is large
and full of wonders." -Lord Dunsany
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