Hello. I've heard of you, Mr. Kyle Emmerson, though I have yet to read a fic of
yours. That's about to change, though. Yosh. Ikuze!

...Since I'm putting this digressive and off-topic message up with the C&C, I
suppose it's okay and not really spam. (takes a deep breath) I'm looking for a
Ranma/Rurouni Kenshin fic that isn't Rurouni Ranma called  "Champion of the
Era." To people who has a copy of this fic, just send it to this address or to
my gmail addy (chester.castaneda@gmail.com)

Copy-Pasted Disclaimer: I reserve the right to be totally wrong, to misquote
facts and to make errors in judgment. I also C&C as I read, so what I said at
one point can easily be retracted on the next, depending on how the story
progresses. I don't claim to be the authority on fanfiction writing... Hell, I
see C&Cing as a learning experience. Agree? Disagree? Corrections on my
corrections? I'll thank you for it. Ignore all my comments in applying to your
fic? You have the right to do so. Take it with a grain of salt, use what you
can use and ignore the rest. ^_^

It also occurs to me that my lexicon may not be at par with yours, so any
unfamiliar word I ask about isn't necessarily a correction but just general
ignorance on my part (as pointed out by a certain Thomas Michael Edwards). As
such, it'd be appreciated if you'd have the patience to clear up some of my
questions on those particular instances. Thanks.

First order of business: There's problem with your formatting. It may be the
result of double formatting (you formatted your fic on your word processor,
afterwards your mail client formatted it again), but I'm not quite sure if the
problem is only seen in my end or if it can be replicated to other mail
clients. All I can say is that your formatting sucks from my end. Look into
that if you would so choose.

On the date of the anti-christ's alleged birth, Boomer FT <boomer_ft@shaw.ca>
wrote:

Boomer FT: Can you dig it, SUCKA!

Sorry, couldn't resist. :P

The Deadman's Relic

By Kyle Emmerson

Note: It really helps if you have at least a general understanding of
The World of
Bas-Lag. I suggest you pick up these great books today and start
reading! However,
in the event that you're lazy and cheap, I'm going to try to write this
in such a
way that everything is understood properly.

I did the in-between thing and read the Wikipedia article on it.
 

Prologue: The Tar Ferry


   The ferry shifts, pitches and yaws, as it fights against the current
of the
River Tar. The Ferryman, some loudmouthed Cactacae is talking to me, but
I ignore

Ah. First person in fic. In present tense. Quaint. Been a while since I've read
first-person fic.

him. The bright red flowers 

Suggest: bright-red flowers (compound descriptors should be hyphenated)

the city I
was honour-bound to enter.

G-reat. First person, present tense narrative with _Commonwealth_ rules. Now
this should be fun... Ain't that right, MacSpon-san? :P
 

   This is a Dead City. I see evidence of it everywhere. In the sludge
of the
Gross Tar, where the river turns to toxic chymicals. I saw it in the
khepri slums,
in the ghettoes. I see what I left behind. The people of this city are
dead... They
just aren't aware of it.

The insights that this person is giving out to the reader reminds me, for good
or for ill, of a goth's diary. Scrap that, of a goth's livejournal entry.
Double the angst at no extra cost. Not really criticism per se (though it walks
like a duck and quacks like a duck); these are just my initial takes on it, and
'goth's livejournal entry' is the first thing that popped up in my mind. The
good news is that its poetic (though not in any way Milton-like), and it cuts
straight to the point without being too ambiguous or ham-fisted.

   But, oh, this city has it's beauties. 

(tilts head) Unless Mr. Mieville has his own personal grammatical rules in his
works, methinks "it's" should be "its".

No, this city hasn't changed. I look towards the ribs that jut out

of the
ground and seem to encase the city from thousands of feet above.

Nice descriptive prose right there.
 

   What creature left behind those remains? And what could have killed a
gargantuan of that magnitude?

Hmmm... So are you incurring 'poetic license' when you use 'gargantuan' as a
noun, or did you miss a word? Or perhaps I'm merely mistaken and 'gargantuan'
_can_ be actually used as a honest-to-goodness noun?

   I know the stories, the theories... Some say it's an avanc, beached
up from
long ago. Avancs... Some people will believe anything. But the truth is,
attempts
at excavating the ribs, 

(sweatdrops) To hell with descriptive prose, he was serious when he was
describing 'ribs'!

   These Cactacae have forgotten themselves. They are a shamed breed.

Hmmm. Interesting. Though I must note that when I first read this, I was
confused with whether you're employing personification in this instance or
these Cactacae really do exist as living creatures in the world of Bas-Lag (A
Wikipedia later helped me fix my misconception).
 

   The ferry battles its way upriver, and I must sigh. I had never
wanted to

see the city; To be in the shadow of those wicked ribs ever again. But

Hmmm. Major formatting problem there. Please connect 'wanted to' with 'see the
city;'. There's a whole line space in between them.

here I
stand, minutes away from the city. And only my honour is stake. I must

(tilts head) Suggest: And only my honour is at stake.

   I don't know how long I'll be in the City, but I know I will not
stay. Not
here. Not in this place of haunted memorials. This place of corrupted
lives and
pointless deaths. This place of the broken and despondent and empty.

And here's another round of excellent, drama-filled descriptive prose in the
speaker's monologue.
 

   But I will carry out my duty, whatever that duty may be... and I
will move
on. This I know. This city holds nothing of me save ghosts.

Hmmm. When he says 'This city holds nothing _of_ me save ghosts,' does he mean
that the city holds his 'ghosts'? If you instead mean 'This city holds nothing
_for_ me save ghosts', then I'd suggest revising it that way; otherwise, that
makes for a very interesting--albeit confusing, vague, and nonsensical--plot
point.

   Where I will go is yet to be seen. Perhaps I will return south, to
Myrshock
or Cobsea. Perhaps I will continue on to Shankell. Yes, Shankell was a
good city.

(blinks) So he has a cacti fetish, or what? 

Boomer FT: Cactus Jack? BANG-BANG!

...Okay, enough of the wrestling jokes. :)

On the edge of the Cymek Desert, and home to many Cactacae. The battles were
amazing. I remember standing, captivated by the fights. The way the
gladiators
moved. Their quickness, their precision... Their ferocity.

Ah. So he likes Cactus City 'coz he's a fight fan. Good for him. 

   But as the North bank looms ever closer, I am snapped from my
reverie. The
Great City of New Crobuzon stands before me, with it's humans and

it's --> its

xenians. Cactacae
and Khepri and Vodyanoi and Wyrmen A motley assembly of sentients, all

I think you're missing a punctuation mark after 'Wyrmen'.

   I can see now the people of the dock. Human and Khepri and Cactacae. All
looking for a way out. I wish them luck. I see two of the humans
ushering a limp
khepri, her headlegs 

Homer: Mmmm... headlegs.

   But that is the curse of this city. This curse that out shadows even

Suggest: out-shadows 

my own
curse, earned with the death of a man at the edge of the Cacotopic
Stain. 

And so the speaker (Ranma) still has a curse. Some things never change...

   As the ferry slows and bumps into the dock, its impact absorbed by the
rubber panels, I step of the ferry. My last thought entering the city
flows over
and over in my mind...

   Find Soun Tendo...

Ah sou.

End of Prologue

Author's Note: Okay, so here it is. The beginnings of my return to
ficdom. I've had
this idea burning over and over in my mind, and I believe I can pull it
off. This,
the prologue, is obviously a monologue from Ranma's POV in the story.

So it is. News to me.

You'll find
this is a very different Ranma, who grew up in a very different world.

And some of the best fics in fandom go with that very formula. Is this one of
those fics? Maybe, but it's too early to tell from the get-go. From my
experience, though, 'a very different Ranma' doesn't usually give me much of
the 'Ranma 1/2' feel to a fic, ultimately alienating me as a reader. But that
doesn't make those fic any less well-written (or any more crappily-written,
whichever the case may be).

But his
spirit will remain the same. As with all the characters introduced.
However, not to
worry. There will be more monologue "Chapters", but the majority of this
fic is
going to be in third person narrative. :P

The phrase 'There will be more monologue "Chapters"' kind of had me worried
there, even with the promise of mostly using 'third person narrative' tagged at
the end. ^_^; Not that there's anything wrong with first person fics... Heaven
knows I'm a sucker for introspective fics, and you can't get any more
introspective than first-person fics... but dude, monologues! :P Need I cite
the oft-quoted monologues on monologuing in 'The Incredibles' animated film to
show you the general attitude people have towards monologues? ^^; Seriously,
though, I think I just need to get used to it; last fic I ever read involving
monologues was way back in the late nineties, the one TimeRunner wrote...

Come to think about it, that's about the time you disappeared, right? Y2K. Heh.
So here we are, presented with a fic of a bygone era.... ;)

As always, C&C greatly appreciated, 

Homer Simpson: Those words don't really mean anything, Lisa! It's like
'ramalamadingdong' or 'give peace a chance'!"

Heh. Oh, don't mind me. Self-referential humor on several fics who don't really
take seriously the 'C&C greatly appreciated' tag once they get, um, shall we
say less than favorable C+C.

I'm looking forward to seeing if

there's any
interest in this. Also, This Prologue is FINAL, 

Well, if you can fix the formatting, you can make it all the more, er, FINALER.


but I still am looking for

prereaders for future instalments. 

(cough) installments.

Don't mind me again. I autocorrect even up until the author notes; just call me
obsessive-compulsive.

Let me know. (Whether you know the

World of
Bas-Lag or not.)

Good luck on the prereaders thing; they're just, um, super. 

Okay, on to my general comments on the prologue: _My_ main concern as a reader
is the usual concern FFML readers have over fics of this nature. "Does this fic
offer an interesting story? Plot? Is the writing good? Is there enough Ranma
there to make me care?" :P Seeing that this is the FFML, the main bait you have
for people to get to read this fic is, obviously, Ranma 1/2 content. I daresay
that this isn't an opinion anymore, but a widely accepted fact. As such, I do
have some concerns by the way the Bas-Lag content has nearly overrun the Ranma
1/2 content judging by the prologue; perhaps it may be a hasty assessment in my
part, but seeing that Nerima, Japan, Asia, and Earth has been replaced by the
world of Bas-Lag, complete with all its strange creatures and races, it may not
be so hasty. 

Despite my Wikipedia briefing, these unfamiliar names easily glazed by my eyes
and
escaped my notice. So far, these "new-named" races mean nothing to me. If this
were to read as original fiction, new readers who have just hopped in and gave
your fic a try (i.e., me) can easily get lost with all the 'faceless'
unfamiliars in this chapter. Yeah, your effort in making them apparent is
noteworthy, particularly how you emphasized the specifics of the places and
races of Bas-Lag (apparently, these two things in general are the main
components of the universe). Nevertheless, this all begs the question, "Where
does the Ranma parts come in?" Just noting, since even if the emphasis falls
more on the Bas-Lag parts than the Ranma parts, there are certainly more
avenues in making this story all the more palatable and readable to even the
most ignorant of Bas-Lag or the most avid lover/nitpicker of Ranma 1/2 canon.

My secondary concern: I particularly noticed that the speaker (Ranma, to my
surprise... was expecting Ryoga with all the inner angst he had) had a tendency
to meander towards each and every last subject under the Bas-Lag sun. This
leads me to three considerations. Number one: it's natural for people to
meander in their thoughts, and capturing it in prose can pepper up your prose
(as illustrated in 'Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man' by James Joyce).
Number two: there are still instances when meandering prose leads to just that;
meandering prose. It makes the plot drag, it bores the reader to death, and the
question 'What's in it for the reader (if the author so chooses to make his
narrative make so many digressions)?' may have unsatisfactory answers. Number
three: if this is merely being consistent to the Bas-Lag universe's style of
prose, what the heck. People have been constantly complaining about cliche;
well, here's something new. Enjoy.
 

Peace out, all.

Kyle "Boomer" Emmerson
06/06/06

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