In a message dated 4/23/02 2:19:48 AM Eastern Daylight Time, whonk@xinu.nu
writes:
Chapter 1: A Long Desired Return
A nit pick: it's nice to have 'Chapter #' in the Subject if it's going to
be a continuing series. This is far more self contained than many people's
chapters, though. Thank you. ;-)
To be quite honest I forgot to do so when I posted the story. I'll make sure
to mark it so when I revise the chapter.
She slipped under the covers, checking the clock on her nightstand
to make sure the alarm was set then switched off her lamp.
I'd suggest: "...checked the clock..." and "...was set, then switched..."
Noted.
She folded her
hands below her breast, closed her eyes and with practiced ease fell
instantly to sleep.
Kasumi had a mamectomy?! ;-)
(Winces) I'll see about fixing that.
I believe one usually "goes to sleep", but "falls asleep".
This I'll take into consideration.
... yet queerly alien in a way that
if asked to explain she would be hard pressed to describe.
I'd reverse it to read: "...in a way that she would be hard pressed to
describe if asked." The number of read ahead tokens required to parse it
exceeded my buffer. :-)
I'll take it into consideration.
A sash of fine purple silk wound about her waist, tied in a knot at her
right hip; a saber sheathed a fine leather scabbard was thrust into it by
her left hip.
Her scabbard is sheathed in a saber? Interesting role reversal. :-)
"...sheathed by a fine leather scabbard..."
ARRRRGH!!! I CAN'T believe I missed that. I miss having pre-readers.
A large satchel hung from a baldric slung across her chest.
Okay, if you're going to use a word like 'baldric', I'm going to have to
look it and point out that a baldric is "an often ornamented belt worn over
one shoulder to support a sword or bugle", not a satchel. :-)
No offense, but I think your being a bit pedantic here. I don't see
why a baldric couldn't hold a satchel, and it sounds better than 'shoulder
belt'. I could use harness, I guess.
She raised her hands - covered in gloves of kidskin - and took off the
hat on her head.
I'd suggest making "took off the hat on her head" just "took off her hat".
Noted.
Its broad brim was folded up slightly on one side, and a
shimmering blue-green peacock's feather adorned the band that wrapped the
base of itscrown.
Missing space: "its crown."
Noted.
She first dreamed of this
realm not long after her mother's death and since that first fateful
vision she explored and wandered its length and breadth almost nightly.
"She had first dreamed..."
"...she had explored..."
I'd suggest "almost every night" rather than "almost nightly".
I'll take it into consideration.
Here she was not Kasumi Tendo, the meek, primly proper, staunchly
traditional daughter of Soun Tendo, but instead was Kasumi the Wayfarer,
swordswoman, mendicant adventurer, bold, insouciant, resourceful.
"...instead she was..."
Mendicant meaning beggar or a member of a religious order who eschewed
property? :-) (Sorry, I looked it up, so I had to ask.)
Ummm... I swore it was a synonym for wanderer. I guess I
misremembered.
But after Akane's safe return and her
improving relationship with Ranma the fears and anxieties eventually
dissipated; peace had returned to Kasumi's house, her exile was over.
"...anxieties had eventually dissipated..."
Strange creatures roamed its twisting
trails, many of which craved human flesh.
Get back! It's a man eating trail! :-)
Heh.
In hunched roughly up rises, poured rapidly down
"It hunched..."
Noted.
As she walked along
the trail she saw many of the forest's denizens going about their simple
business- birds, squirrels, a few times a deer foraging in the underbrush
or in clearings.
The occasional Elder God...
Heh, not quite yet.
small, fine hairs on the back of neck rose as a premonitory chill danced
"...back of her neck..."
Noted.
She could feel radiating from it the intensity of its
anthropophagus cravings.
On baldric and mendicant I was just kidding, but anthropophagus? That one
broke suspension of disbelief for me. I suggest "...intensity of its
hunger."
I went into Vancian mode here. I'll consider changing it, but
personally I like the sentence as it stands right now.
It
held out its hands to its sides as if in friendly welcome and spoke, its
voice a resonant baritone.
Perhaps "It held its hands out to either side..."?
Yeah, that would sound better.
"Ah, I recognize you now," the deodand crooned. "Kasumi the Wayfarer.
You are as beautiful, as... delectable... as the stories said. You have
strayed quite far from your usual haunts, I think."
I don't know which would be more technically correct, but "as the stories
say" instead of "said" would preserve tense in the sentence. Or "said you
are."
Hmmmm.... my grammar is mostly instinctual, but Word didn't flag it.
I'll take it into consideration.
On the far horizon the sun was
lethargically sinking behind the sharp, distant peaks of the Magnatz
You used lethargically earlier also.
I'll double check it tomorrow.
The ending felt a bit abrupt, but I assume that's because it's a chapter 1.
I agree with you there, but as you said, its the first chapter. I
needed to establish the dream-realm and Kasumi's place in it.
The dream realm Kasumi adventures in is an unsubtle amalgamation of
H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands and Jack Vance's Dying Earth.
I've read several of Lovecraft's Dreamlands stories, but haven't read any
Jack Vance. You do a great job with that kind of double jointed sentence
structure that Lovecraft used. But even with the deodand attacker, it
doesn't have that under current of menace that I get from Lovecraft. I
assume it was deliberate. A nice read, thanks for sharing it.
Jack Vance is worth seeking out. His Dying Earth novels are some of
the most beautiful and darkly humorous fantasies you can read. Any Border's
or Barnes and Noble should have copies of Tales of the Dying Earth (an
omnibus of all four Dying Earth books) in their SF/Fantasy section.
Jim
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Glad you liked the story.
Jeremy Harper
Sic pereant omnes inimici tui, Domine
Thus perish all your enemies O Lord
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