The Whisper (Chapter 1 of Sleight Of Hand) (7000 words)
Alaric
This is the first chapter of Sleight Of Hand. I just put it through a second
edit, so I thought I'd share it. It's long, so I'm not looking for any great
time spent with it - general like it/hate it/shorten it/bin it would be fine -
also because it doesn't stand as big on the schedule as The Books Of Revelation.
Final point - it's deliberately slow, romantic, and has a very light fantasy
base, so if any of those things don't appeal, then fine. Skip the durned thing.
Happy 2002.
Alaric.
SLEIGHT OF HAND
Chapter 1 - THE WHISPER
Copyright Alaric Paul McDermott 2002
Early in the morning, Kane walked to the top of the rise and surveyed his
fields. The flood had bulged like a sad tear across the lowest points, where
he’d intended in a week or two to start unearthing his vegetables. Higher up,
the waters had retreated, but the damage to his corn lines was substantial.
He heaved a great sigh. This wouldn’t destroy him, but it would set him back.
The trip to Hall Fair was now out of the question, and he would need to rely on
his animals to get him any kind of profit for his year’s work.
Kane was a pragmatist, and his diagnosis was instant. When the labourers
arrived, he would set them to salvaging what they could. Disasters, he had
learned, were things to be faced, not dwelt upon.
He returned to the house for his breakfast. Neither his wife nor his daughter
had waved at the sun yet, so he had to prepare the meal himself, and while he
was at it, he laid out something for them. When he’d eaten, he went to wake the
house, knowing that if he didn’t, there would be an angry struggle to get
Amarinth to school in time.
His wife stretched, mumbled unhappily at the disturbance. He had to shake her
twice.
“We have problems,” he said.
Resentfully, she opened her eyes. “You always have problems,” she judged, acid
already in her tone.
Well, he thought, maybe I do. Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s the sort of man I
am.
She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her hair was in disarray,
but she looked attractive to him in the dawn shadows. On another day, he might
have been tempted to take half an hour with her. If he could have roused her
interest, of course, which was never a thing of which he could be confident.
She stared at him, bleary eyed. Already, he read impatience in her. He tried to
work out why that might be. A familiar tightness concentrated in his shoulders.
He didn’t want another difficult day.
“So tell me,” she suggested eventually, as though pressing a question she’d
already asked.
“The river’s burst its banks,” he said. “It isn’t as bad as it could have been,
but we’ll lose a lot."
Instantly, she lost interest. He wasn’t surprised by that. He knew that she
believed the farm to be his business alone, and also that he complained about it
too much. That he made way too much of the sort of problems that other people
took in their stride.
“It’s happened before,” she pointed out. “You always say it’s bad.”
He thought that unfair. He didn’t recall an instance when he had overstated
their difficulties. But he had learned, for the most part, to let such things
pass. “This time it is,” he assured her, impliedly accepting that he needed to
make a distinction between this time and all the unremembered other times. “The
potatoes won’t be salvageable. And we can forget most of the corn.”
“We’ll get by,” she said, and her look dismissed him.
He went back out into the fields to greet his workers. Most of them were
nervous, but when he assured them of the safety of their jobs, they went to work
with a will, building drainage culverts. Kane, too, laid in ferociously, wanting
his people to to understand that he too could not afford for the business to go
under. He thought that such commitment earned him respect. He thought that his
people liked him. And, for reasons that he could never clearly understood, he
wanted the men to like him. When he was compelled to deny a worker continuing
employment, he would fret on it for days, hoping that the others would forgive,
hoping too that the man and his family would find other ways to support
themselves.
Lisabel could never understand this. She called it his “dwelling time.” In her
view, the only important thing was family, and others could look after
themselves. It was, to Kane, an understandable view, because she had not had any
helpful pushes in her life. But he was unable to escape his conscience, and he
intended, unless it became impossible. Lisabel would argue, but his main thought
now was to protect everyone from the effects of the disaster.
A substantial area of land, set aside for vegetables, was not underwater, and it
was a priority to protect it. Although the rains had ceased, the sky still
threatened. Kane therefore instructed the construction of a broad ditch. The job
was a big one, and it was after the sun had passed its zenith that he was
satisfied and set off back to the house for his meal.
Lisabel had not made it. He wasn’t surprised or angry. Some days she was active,
and others not. His time was limited, so he prepared bread and soup for both of
them, took hers to her.
She was rocking in the doorway, on the old chair which she’d taken from her
mother’s house as a keepsake.
She was unenthusiastic about the food, but she took it. He sat on the wooden
steps which led into the front yard.
For a time she said nothing, and he didn’t launch a conversation himself. He
sensed that it was a time to be wary, and his internal barometer was rarely
wrong. He expected that before the day was out, she would construct a source of
trouble. It would be for him to dance away from it, make it a shower rather than
a storm.
She spoke, and he felt the first stirring of foul weather. “You’ll be in the
village tonight, then?”
He didn’t look at her until he had fully considered his response, until he’d
analysed the risks of it. Her tone had been cool, but with Lisabel, cool was
usually a prelude to heat. And he recognised the ground as old fighting ground.
“I’ll work until darkness forbids,” he said, hoping that the promise would
mollify. “And then, yes, as usual, I shall visit the village.”
“And return in your cups, as usual?” Her eyes narrowed, daring him to deny
something she saw as obvious.
This would escalate, now. There was nothing Kane could do to prevent it. And the
difficulty was that his time was limited, because he had to return to the
fields. The most difficult lesson he had learned with Lisabel was never to leave
things unresolved. If he did, he would suffer perhaps a full week of torment.
“I drink very little, really,” he said. “Most men…”
“Most men have no sense of responsibility,” she interrupted. “Or I should say
that most of the men you know have no sense of responsibility. You’ll stagger
through the doorway, as usual. And in the morning, you’ll be carrying a muzzy
head, and I’ll get no sense from you.”
“I’ll not be late this time,” he promised, an all but useless sop.
“And today, of all days,” she said, “when we stare disaster in the face.”
It was valueless, he knew, to draw her attention to the fact that she had denied
the seriousness of the flooding mere hours before. He would, as far as she was
concerned, simply be “twisting things.”
Her stance was impossible to undermine, because he didn’t understand it. Meeting
his friends was something he had always done, and whilst it was true that they
could not, because of Amarinth, socialise jointly as they used to, he had never
prevented her from taking nights to herself. Unfortunately, she seemed incapable
of doing so. She had only one friend that he knew of, and she sought no more. He
found it hard to judge himself responsible for her self-inflicted isolation.
“There is nothing I can do on the farm,” he reasoned, “after nightfall.”
“You can stop spending money.”
It was a hard one to fight. In difficult times, it did make sense to set
unnecessary pleasures aside. But he was a hard working man, and he needed
release.
“I’ll think about it,” he promised. “I’ll take less wine.”
Lisabel grunted her disbelief, and descended into a sulk. He expected that sulk
to be short-lived, so he took the unexpected chance that it granted him and
returned to the flood.
*******
The afternoon was long and arduous, and less successful than the morning had
been. By the time dusk crept across Kane’s face, it was clear that even without
further rain it would be three or four days before he could properly assess the
damage.
He returned home depressed. Lisabel was busy with Amarinth in the bedroom, and
he could hear the harsh lilting of a disagreement. The sounds didn’t disturb
him, because they were familiar. Amarinth was now seven turns old, and was not
always willing to accede to pressure on her behaviour. He had not yet taken time
to explain that it was always wise to appear to bow down to her mother. That
might ease the tension, but he was always tired, and the times he had alone with
Amarinth were too precious to waste on anything other than fun.
He washed, then prepared a meal, which the family ate together. Amarinth was
uncommunicative, and Lisabel was tight in body, mind and soul. Conversation was
desultory and difficult, centring mainly around Amarinth’s unwillingness to
devote enough of her time to homework.
Afterwards, he had an hour with his pipe on the steps, whilst Amarinth played
upstairs and Lisabel read in the kitchen. Then he changed into his white woollen
shirt and a cleaner pair of trousers, which he located in the washing pile, and
bade his family a good evening. Lisabel let him go. He could see that she was
unhappy, but he knew that nothing he could do, even the sacrifice of remaining
home, would help overmuch. Amarinth dismissed him with a hug.
On the road into the village, he fell into step with Eonsas, a fellow farmer and
a fellow employee of the Fifth Corporation. Eonsas watched holdings that stood
back from the river, and had suffered less. He was sympathetic to Kane’s plight
and offered some labourers, whose services Kane gladly accepted.
Eonsas was a big man, in at least his fiftieth turn, still strong but developing
a pronounced limp on his left side. He was easy company, and a legendary seller
of jokes. Had Kane been less aware of potential ruin, he would have purchased
one. The need was there for it, because he needed cheering, and there was no
feeling quite like taking the circle to deliver a joke to company.
Eonsas nattered on as they walked, but Kane only half-concentrated. He was
burrowing into the maze in which he so often lost himself these days. He was
trying to decide what to do about Lisabel.
*******
There had been times when it had been fine. When she had seemed to care. But
they had been few and far between, and relatively short lived.
Jammar had been such a time. Before the war, he had taken a job there, as one of
the administrators of the Protector’s estate. It had been possible then for
Omalfans to work in Uava, and vice versa, and Kane had been ambitious. At the
time, he had been in training for land management under the corporation, and he
was held back, not offered the status or the reward which reflected his labours.
Old, fat men clung on to the positions he coveted.
He proposed the move to Lisabel, and she supported it. Then, she had an eye for
adventure. Within three months, they had been on the move.
A month after arrival, Lisabel discovered that she was pregnant. Kane was very
pleased, and they forged into the future, as a couple, with confidence. Their
social life, in a place where foreigners banded together against traditional
Uavan prejudice, was full and wild, and they gathered commitment towards one
another as a gift for the coming child. It was even possible for Kane to forget
that Uava had been one of two choices he had considered in the hope of turning
his life around.
Leaving Lisabel had been the other.
It all went wrong because of the xenophobia they faced on a daily basis. The
pregnancy was complicated, and in the last week dangerous. There came a time
when Lisabel was in such pain that Kane was forced to call out assistance,
rather than risk a home birth. Friends with experience had naturally gathered to
help, but they too had been nervous. All present concluded that an experienced
medician was necessary.
Medicians in Uava operated under a tight guild system, and were bound by no
oaths. Payment in advance was a precondition of treatment. Which left Kane with
a problem, because the payment was substantial. Whilst he could certainly afford
it, it had been a Lazy Day, and the farm office, where his account was kept, was
closed. He was forced to borrow from friends, and this took time. All the while,
the medician sat in Kane’s house and waited, ignoring Lisabel’s moans of pain.
Even when paid, he worked grudgingly. It had never been possible to accurately
pin down a moment of carelessness, but Kane had the clear view that the man had
wanted to be out of the company of Omalfans as soon as possible.
The child was outed, and was healthy. Things seemed satisfactory. The medician
left. But within an hour, the problems started. Lisabel complained of sharp
pains, and the medician was immediately summoned back.
At first, he refused to treat, arguing that Lisabel’s poor condition was a
separate and distinct matter from the birth, even though it might have been a
consequence of it. Separate and distinct payment was therefore required. Kane
argued negligence, but this only made matters worse. The medician lectured Kane
on the superiority of Uavan medicine, acknowledged internationally. He had made
no errors. Rather, it was clear that Lisabel had a condition of which he had not
been aware, a problem which, had he been advised of it, would have been factored
into his considerations and catered for. It was not reasonable to expect him to
treat without charge a difficulty that was not of his making.
Kane was counselled by his friends to restrain his anger. He compromised,
promising payment within a month but implying intention to take the matter to
the courts if help was not provided. Whilst such a legal action would certainly
fail, Kane gambled that no medician would want it on his record. He was right,
at least in the case of this man. Some treatment was provided. And in the end,
no payment was made, because by the time the call for it would have fallen due,
Kane and Lisabel were back in Omalfa.
Lisabel had suffered pain for two weeks in Uava, and it had only been the visit
of the son of one of Kane’s closest acquaintances, a Jarvian trader, which
resolved what was becoming a frightening problem. The young man was in training
as a surgery provider, and recognised the trouble immediately.
“It’s just the sewing,” he told Kane. “Sewing’s an art. This man has sewn flesh
to skin. But I can’t help you. I don’t have the surgical tools. And it would be
illegal.”
The condition was not life threatening, but Kane addressed it urgently,
summoning the medician again. The man hadn’t found himself able to acknowledge
such a basic error, but the flush in his cheeks told Kane all that he needed to
know.
Kane, too, was not particularly well. The strain of holding down a difficult and
demanding job, looking after his new baby and administering to his wife had
attracted shingles, and he walked bent in a bow, like some old soldier, avoiding
as best he could the searing pain of stretched skin.
He spoke with Lisabel, and it was clear to both of them that there was only one
solution. They would have to go home, and hope that he could secure employment.
Only by doing so would they obtain adequate medical treatment.
Professionally, it seemed a disastrous move. Kane hadn’t been with the Protector
long enough to claim a referencet. The best he could hope for was a job similar
to his old one.
He’d left his village with such high hopes, and ringing declarations. There
would be a level of shame at admitting that he hadn’t fulfilled them.
Fortunately, things went much better than he’d hoped. His skills had been
missed, and the crop yield for the turn in which he’d been absent was poor. He
was offered a much better position, and an income which came close to matching
that which he’d enjoyed in Uava. The medical problems were dealt with before a
week had passed, and there seemed, in his family and friends, real pleasure to
have him back with them.
Nonetheless, he’d always regretted the move. Uava had been intended as a
stepping stone to better things, and to excitement and unpredictability. His age
had been right for it. And that would never be the case again.
From the unpredictable, then, to the painfully predictable. Back into the same
house. Back into similar routines, domestic and social. Within a month, it was
as though nothing of substance had ever changed.
Except, of course, that they now had a daughter. And Kane had found a great deal
of solace there.
For a long time, though, it seemed that Lisabel had not. On the outside, her
devotion to Amarinth was entire, but it also appeared, to Kane at least, rather
forced. In addition, she became short tempered with him, and he came to believe
that Uava had been a great loss to her too. For a time, perhaps, she had broken
away from a slow, uneventful life. The future had no longer been written in
stone. Her village no longer had a hold on her.
*******
Eonsas was telling him some tale about the war, but Kane hadn’t picked up much
of it. He was interested in what was happening on the lines, of course, because
it had potential for affecting him directly at some point in the future, but in
his experience tales of the war were usually just that. Tales.
Nobody really knew what was happening. Nobody believed the reports from the
Corporations, with their jingoistic, unflagging optimism. And nobody believed
those who, like Eonsas, claimed to have information of great disasters, told to
them by travelling men. The lines were after all a very long way away, far
inside Uava, and no new news reached that distance. Probably no true news did
either.
He bade farewell to Eonsas on the outskirts of town, because Eonsas visited a
quieter bar. Kane liked music and dancing. It was a matter of taking something,
however small, out of life, of creating a separate and distinct corner where he
didn’t have to be himself unless he wanted to be.
He heard the raucous shouts and the rhythmic twist of the dance accompaniment as
he turned into the alley, and he quickened his pace. Now he wasn’t thinking
about the war, and he wasn’t thinking about Lisabel. He was thinking about
letting himself go. About rewarding himself for a hard day in the fields. About…
…About Morweena.
To his shame, he was thinking about Morweena. Hoping that she would be there.
Hoping that he could be close to her again, although naturally only in the sense
that the word “close” implied proximity. He was hoping that he would see her
smile again.
He dismissed that last desire before it made any sense to him. It was a
defensive reflex, and he knew it. But it was a safe and successful one.
*******
He entered the bar, ordered a pull of springwine, then found a seat. Within a
few minutes, a couple of his friends had joined him. He discussed the flood with
them, a little desultorily, and they noticed, commenting that he seemed less
lively than usual. He argued that he was tired, because his difficulties with
Lisabel were none of their concern. But he was sinking into a bad mood, and he
knew that the wine would make it worse.
Then his mood improved. In an instant.
Morweena was in the room. He hadn’t noticed her previously, because she’d been
screened by the queue for drinks, and that had only recently moderated.
Kane felt the edges of his anxiety start to soften. There was no logic to the
response, since her presence offered him no obvious boon. She would not counsel
him, or sympathise with him. Indeed, it was unlikely that the fates would
conspire to allow him even to speak with her, and if they did then there would
be nothing of value said.
There had been some exchanges in the past, but they had been brief – the sort of
exchanges men and women, in different groups but regularly in the same drinking
establishment, tend to have. There might have been an off colour joke or two.
There might have been a brief exchange of personal information. He specifically
recalled an occasion when she’d complimented him on his dancing. Pretty
startling skills, she’d observed, for a man with such a high profile profession.
And, whilst he was indeed proud of those skills, whilst he’d practiced and honed
them down recent years as a way of standing out from the crowd, he’d naturally
taken the self-effacing route. “I’m no better a dancer than most,” he told her.
“And I’m not in a high profile profession. I’m just a farmer.”
“Most people round here,” she said, “are not farmers. They work for farmers. Be
honest. It isn’t a usual thing to see the likes of you down in the village
bars.”
This was a point of honour for him, and he was glad she’d noted it. “I’ve always
come to the village bars,” he said. “My friends are here. I mix with the people
I’ve known all my life, not those who supposedly share a lifestyle with me. I
had an education some of my friends didn’t have. And I had a lot of luck that
some of my friends didn’t have. That doesn’t make me any better, or any worse,
than they are. It’s just life, and the hand you’re dealt.”
“You know,” she replied, seeming to mean it, “you’re an unusual man.”
“No,” he said. “I’m just a man.” But inwardly, he’d glowed at the compliment.
She went back to her group then, a gaggle of giggling middle-aged women who’d
all had far too much to drink. He watched her, noted that she stood out from
them. He registered her wide blue eyes, and the wilfulness and honesty that
jigged in them. And it had come to him that she attracted him because of her
alertness. She was perhaps the most alert and alive person he had ever met.
Now, he watched her again. And a thought struck him, for the first time. The
thought that he was comparing her to his wife. And that he had done so before.
He consciously stayed with it. It seemed a useful road to pursue, because it
might lead him to some glimmer of understanding as to why things were so wrong
between he and Lisabel.
But then, just as consciously, he pushed it aside, because something about
Morweena had disturbed him.
In most respects, she was just as attractive as always. Her raven black hair was
full and lustrous, reflecting the unpredictable writhings of the candle flames.
She wore a rose-dyed sacking dress, exquisitely worked under the needle so that
it graced her slight figure, presented the curves as clues. She was laughing
with her friends as she always did, her voice low and pleasing, like the call of
water.
So what was it? What troubling thing had caught his attention?
And then he realised.
She was unhappy. He had in the past studied her eyes and the set of her mouth so
carefully, that now, despite the outward signs, he was able to interpret
disappointment and lack of heart.
For the rest of the evening, this bothered him. He glanced at her often, and saw
that the burden did not ease. Of course, there was nothing he could do about
that. They were acquaintances, no more. But oddly, he wanted to do something
about it. And even more oddly, he believed that given the chance, he could do
something about it.
He drank. As much as he always did, if not a little more. His head became
unreliable and full of plans. And he danced, more wildly than usual, exhibiting
his technique in the small straw circle, twisting and turning in a frenzy. He
was a peacock, checking occasionally to see if she was watching him. Encouraged
when she was. Disappointed when she wasn’t.
She, however, did not dance, which was unusual. Whilst clearly not so much of an
exhibitionist as he, she had never been shy. She would usually perform at least
twice a night, asking the fiddler to take up some lilting, woodsy melody to
which she could sway and dip and turn.
Towards the end of the evening, when the keeper was preparing to seal the wine
casks, the truth reached his ears. One of his friends, Calmum, a senior hand at
the slaughteryard, had spent some time in the company of a couple of Morweena’s
friends, and joined Kane at the waste pit to deliver the gossip.
“She’s cast him gone,” the red-faced man announced. “Did you hear?”
Kane liked Calmum, and he liked Calmum’s gossip. This wasn’t a very informative
start, though. “Who’s casting,” he asked, “and who’s cast?”
“Oh, Kane,” Calmum said, “there are times you are slower than morning in
winter."
Kane grinned, played the game. “Humour a man with no eyes and no ears.”
Calmum raised his palms in a gesture of surrender. “Morweena, of course,” he
said. “The girl you have dog eyes ever.”
“I have dog eyes over no woman,” Kane huffed, but only to make Calmum laugh.
“Women should be locked in kitchens or bedrooms and be allowed out only on their
master’s business.”
Calmum grinned. “I shall take it you have no interest, then?”
“Only the interest a man normally has in the gossip of his village,” Kane
replied. “But yes, that is substantial. So Morweena and Galgak were… well….”
“Yes, you dim toad,” Calmum confirmed, rapping the knuckles of his right hand
lightly on Kane’s skull. “Yes. But were is the word in question here. Were. As
in are no longer. The road is a clear one, my friend, and I think she’d be
delighted if you walked it.”
“I’m a married man, Calmum,” Kane said.
“True.” By now Calmum had finished emptying springwine and had started to button
up his trousers. “But you are not a happily married man. And you are not an old
man. Changes can be made, my friend.”
“The changes I need should be made at home,” Kane said. He wasn't irritated,
because he’d often shared his frustrations with Calmum, and Calmum was a good
man who’d experienced his own troubles with life partners. But he was firm.
Calmum nodded. “I understand. Sometimes, though, it’s too late to mend things. I
know that, to my cost.”
“Even if Lisabel has hurt me,” Kane said, “Amarinth has not.”
“Sometimes children can be hurt more by their mothers and fathers staying
together when they wish otherwise,” Calmum replied.
It was an unusually consistent argument that the big man was putting forward,
and Kane paid it due respect. “I thank you for your concern, my friend,” he
said, “but as you well know, matters like these are complex. I think that to
look for a new life now would be reckless. The farm has to come first.”
Calmum lightened the mood with a grin. “I was merely thinking of your helpless
companion down there,” he said, nodding downward as Kane concluded the reason
for his visit to the waste pit.
“I try to keep my companion under control,” Kane replied in the same spirit.
Then he added, more thoughtfully, “Though to be honest, Calmum, I’m not certain
that my interest in Morweena is centred there.”
“You have her moral welfare at heart,” Calmum suggested.
“No, I like her,” Kane said. “As a person. A goat like you couldn’t possibly
understand such things.”
“I could like her that way too,” Calmum said. “But only afterwards.”
Kane chuckled, and followed the other man back into the bar.
He wasn’t scheduled to dance again that night, and didn’t seek a spot, because
proceedings would soon be drawing to a close. He purchased another drink, and
positioned himself by the wall, at a point where he could glance in Morweena’s
direction from time to time without being too obvious.
It took him a moment or two to realise that she was now alone. No admirers, no
friends. This startled him, made him stare at her rather longer than he’d
intended. As a result, he caught her attention.
She smiled. And indicated with her eyes that he should come and spend a moment
with her.
He lurched forward, as though drawn by a string around his waist.
*******
He stood before her, unwarrantedly nervous, unwarrantedly excited. She studied
him for a moment, then said, “It’s unusual for you to be alone, Kane.”
“You too,” he replied.
“Well, sometimes people need to be with their thoughts,” she said. “But I’ve had
enough of that now.”
He knew that he was expected to read some meaning into the comment. A line was
being floated to him. But his unsophisticated mind couldn't quite grasp it.
Nonetheless, he felt welcome enough to sit down by her without being invited.
Which was most unlike him. He knew that, and he read that she knew it too,
because she looked up, clearly surprised. There was still a smile on her face,
though, and he read no discomfort in it.
“I heard about Galgak,” he said, as though to justify his physical closeness.
“And I’m sorry. It must be a harsh time for you.”
“Harsh enough,” she replied, and the smile spread to her eyes, causing a
familiar wrinkling of the lines surrounding them and a softening of the lines
elsewhere. He was glad to see some ease return to her, because he was not too
straightforward a man to fail to understood that it was possible for a person to
lose happiness forever. He wasn’t comfortably attuned to emotional things, but
he understood empathically that Morweena was.
He was surprised, though, to be the source of the return of that happiness, and
her reaction to his attention made his chest feel a little tight. There was an
unusual heat, too, in his cheeks and neck.
These sensations, he realised, had not ambushed him for many years.
“I don’t suppose,” he said, “that I ever knew for certain that you were paired
up. I had my suspicions, of course. But it was never my meat to chew. But
anyway, that's beside the point. The point is that I know these things cause
pain. And I offer myself as a good listener. I’ve renown in that area.”
She touched his hand. It was an innocent enough gesture, a gesture of thanks,
but the skin of his knuckles prickled, as though caressed by the sun after a
length of cold. “Why, thank you, Kane,” she replied. “Your concern is welcome.
Truly.”
The hand was slowly withdrawn. He had a mad impulse to reach for it with his
own, to encourage it back, but restrained himself. He did, however, lean a
little closer to her on the bench. He was not seeking familiarity, because
thoughts of that nature, of other women, of sexual escapade, visited only his
dreams. He was more conscious than most men of his place in the world, and of
his responsibilities in it. Rather he leaned closer because she seemed to
magnetise him. In some unfathomable manner, she disturbed his centre of gravity.
“Did you live together?,” he asked. “No answer needed if I press.”
She shook her head. “I’ve nothing to hide. We were common knowledge, Galgak and
I. Not given one another by the ceremony, admittedly, but we lived as life
partners these last two years. Things, though, were never as I wished. He wasn’t
the one I wished. But he was someone. At a difficult time.”
Kane caught a line of her perfume. Citrus, with a hint of rose. Light enough to
make his head spin. “But you’ve cast him gone,” he said, merely to hold up his
end of the conversation while he recovered his balance.
She laughed at the old fashioned term. Her face was animated now, angles
illuminated by flame or darkened by shadow. Kane thought her the most beautiful
woman he had ever seen.
“We both had children,” she said. “I have duty to mine. He did not. But he
expected me to have duty to his. A boy, with no respect for me or God."
“Not controllable,” Kane presumed.
“Not an influence I wanted in my home,” she said. “I tried over a time to make
the boy understand. When that failed, I tried to make Galgak understand. But
Galgak and his two brothers viewed the boy as woman’s work. And the boy viewed
me as foe. Well, certainly not as mother. I had to escape it.”
“There’s no such thing as woman’s work,” Kane said. And he meant it, but for a
moment an unwholesomely bitter thought skittered through his mind. The thought
was that in his house, there was only Kane’s work.
“Few men would agree,” Morweena said.
“You told me once that I was an unusual man,” he reminded her, hoping that she
would confirm that well remembered compliment. He was confused and
disorientated, less easy with her than he had been on previous occasions where
the talk had been less personal and briefer, and a compliment would help.
She obliged him. “Kane,” she said, “you are most definitely an unusual man. You
have a natural respect for others, and that is a rare quality.”
Wrong-footed despite getting exactly what he'd hoped for, Kane took the exchange
to safer ground. “I know that certain times are difficult, Morweena,” he said.
“Remember that I’m harmless, and that I have an ear.”
“Two, I hope,” she teased.
He nodded, smiling. “Two indeed. Though one is a little weaker than the other.”
“I may take your offer,” she said after a pause. “I have little faith in my
friends to fairly consider my interests. And I do have to make some choices now.
As to my way forward from here. But this is not the ideal place for talk. And
sadly, there is no other.”
Kane considered. He was not the type to offer a service and fail to find a way
to perform it. And he did have faith in his counselling, untrained and homespun
though it was. “Two nights from now,” he said, “I visit another bar. Do you know
Calmum?”
“The fat one,” she said, then giggled, hiding her mouth behind her hand as
though the insult had escaped without conscious control. Kane found the gesture
erotic, though it was surely not intended to be. Momentarily, it made his mouth
go dry.
But then he found focus. Sex was not, could not be, should not be his business
with a woman of honour and substance. Her poise and inner light were qualities
to be enjoyed by more sophisticated men, and by unmarried men.
“Yes, the fat one,” he confirmed. “Who would permit the description,
incidentally, so you need not be embarrassed. In any event, Calmum and I visit
the bar on the East Road. But he has other friends there, and could find an
occupation for himself. It would be no trouble for him if I spent the night
talking with you. The bar, though. None of your friends here frequent it. But is
there anyone you know who does? Anyone who might be likely to interrupt us?”
“No,” she replied. “But that evening may be difficult. Is there a way that I can
contact you?”
He weighed options. Whilst the meeting was in innocent vein, it would not be
well for Morweena to contact the house. Lisabel would certainly not worry about
his securing a mistress, believing his attractiveness to the opposite sex had
long since deserted him, but she would be concerned about how the meeting would
appear to others. Reputation was a major issue for her. So she would prevent it.
Kane would be unable to get a message to Morweena, and Morweena would turn up at
the bar alone. Out of the question, then. Kane understood the power of fate, and
the inevitability of consequence. He would not lightly invite either into his
life.
An idea came to him. “Leave a message with Calmum,” he suggested. “He works in
the village, and I’ll see him on the morning of the day we hope to meet. Will
you know by then?”
“I’ll know by tomorrow,” Morweena said. “And I will try to get there. Be assured
of it.”
Kane nodded, satisfied. “And perhaps,” he said, “if I can at all ease your
heart, then next week I may see you dance again.”
“I am not a dancer,” she replied, her eyes finding his with such sudden
intensity that he pulled back a little.
The dryness was in Kane’s mouth again. Through it, he said, “Your dancing
entrances me. Not just me. Others too.”
It was only when the words had escaped him that he recognised how much they gave
away. To himself, and to her, he had acknowledged that his interest in her might
be less pure than he had claimed. This shook him, but Morweena’s reply shook him
more. “I am glad only,” she told him, “that it entrances you.”
He looked down at his feet, disturbed, uncertain, a little scared. Even for a
man like him, it was hard not to interpret interest out of them. A woman simply
did not speak to a man thus, unless she wished to draw him to her. He had no
clue as to how to react. The silence lengthened.
In the end, it was Morweena who broke it. “You do that often, Kane,” she said.
“I do notice such things.”
“Do what?” He studied imaginary patterns in the straw beneath his feet.
“Lower your head,” she said. “As though you are not a man of merit. As though
you have no pride.”
He looked up. She was studying him carefully. More carefully than Lisabel had
ever done. More carefully than any woman had ever done.
“I do not have pride,” he admitted. He felt the unfamiliar prick of tears in the
corners of his eyes. Momentarily, it seemed that some great emotional crisis was
about to surge, and that he would not be able to control it. Momentarily, and
for the first time in his life, he was not within his own control.
Morweena leaned forward. He thought that she intended to take his hand again,
but she did not.
“How could a man such as you possibly lack pride?,” she asked.
“It’s complicated,” he told her. “Not a thing for now.”
She frowned, clearly unhappy with the conclusion, but she let the matter rest,
probably because one of her friends had returned and was standing slightly to
the left, two drinks in her hand, observing. Kane was simultaneously
disappointed and relieved. He stood, offering the friend his seat. It had been
hers to begin with in any event.
Morweena was forced to slide a little, because the woman was broad in the beam.
In truth, Kane thought, she was broad everywhere. He didn’t know her by name,
but had seen her around the village from time to time, a presence alternately
lively and brooding.
Morweena cured his ignorance, introducing the friend as Jule, a neighbour. Kane
bowed, then made polite conversation for a minute or two with the woman,
learning in the process that she was a seller of life policies to people who
could not afford to insure with the Corporation. This was a job she had taken
after her husband had left her.
Kane quickly developed the view that Jule’s stream of revelation would continue
forever if unstemmed. She did not strike, on first acquaintance, as a very
private person. So he finished his drink, waited for a gap in the flow, then
indicated that he would have to leave.
He turned back towards Morweena, who seemed amused at his plight. Her amusement
amused him. In turn she recognised that, and the warmth between them was
instantly restored.
He knew that he needed to be more careful now, for the sake of her honour and to
protect his own. Jule could and would listen to every word he and Morweena might
exchange. So he contented himself with summary. “As agreed?” he asked.
Morweena nodded firmly. “As agreed.”
“Then,” Kane said, “if you ladies will excuse me, I shall bid you the night
past. Work tomorrow. I wish it could be avoided, but cannot.”
Farewells were exchanged. Kane stole a last, lingering glance at Morweena as he
backed away, trying to fix her in his mind. Then he turned and, without a word
to his friends, left the building.
It was only when he was in the open air that he realised how early it was, and
he had to find another bar in which to drink the rest of his usual quota.
*******
The new bar was quiet. And Kane’s mind was quiet too. He found it difficult to
focus on Morweena, and easy now that he was away from her to dismiss the thought
that she might want something from him other than wisdom. But in a small place
at the back of that mind the possibilities bubbled and fermented, intoxicating
him, centring his dreams, focussing his plans. He knew that he was being a fool.
But he suspected also that until events proved him so, he would wear the cap and
jingle the bell.
And at the very least, he had a secret. Something of his own.
Something that Lisabel could not trample underfoot.
Fraser
Like it. Like it a lot, actually. Certainly my favorite out of the two you
are working on, which is a little puzzling to me because I usually far
prefer the harder-edged stories to the 'slow, romantic' stuff.
I think the difference is that you've played to your strengths here. The
whole feel of the piece was far more relaxed, far less 'forced' than Theatre
of the Obscene seemed to me. I don't want to come off like an armchair
shrink, but I got the feeling that you identified far more with Kane than
you did with Charles Crosse, and that sincerity came through in the writing.
Also, you focused far more on inter-personal relationships in this one - an
area where you show a very good eye for the little, telling details. Great
scenes between Kane and Lisabel, even better between him and Morwena. The
characters come across clearly and credibly, and that's half the battle for
the reader's engagement won.
I also liked the way you introduced the fantasy element. I haven't read much
fantasy, but I've always preferred it when information about the society is
given in a natural, unhurried way - as if it's perfectly unremarkable,
which of course it is to the characters - rather than explained in detail
right at the beginning of the book.
My only suggestions/criticisms would be that you could use a lighter touch
in showing the problems between Lisabel and Kane. I'd received the message
that she was a domineering, selfish type a long time before you stopped
telling me. The guy deserves a sainthood! And (I have to say this, you know
<g>) a little wordy in places, a little sentimental (for my taste) in
others - but you can get away with that a lot easier in a story like this.
Overall, great stuff. I'd really like to read more of this. Hurry up.
Fraser
(I've probably made unfair comparisons between this and 'Theatre of the
Obscene', having only read one chapter of the latter, but I can only judge
by what I've seen)
Alaric <nos...@newsranger.com> wrote in message
news:BmFY7.558$cD4...@www.newsranger.com...
Alaric
Revelation, but I've always been a bit dubious about it. I enjoy writing it,
but it demands a slow pace, and I have to confess I'm nervous of the
criticism that I've spent 7,000 words describing a wet farm and a meeting in
a pub. I think Barry (rightly) may point out that it shows some of my worst
faults. But I also think it has a pleasant beat to it.
My reluctance to devote great swathes of time to this has always been based
on the pace. Could it conceivably interest a publisher? Particularly as it
never turns into standard fantasy fare. No goblins, wizards, giants. It's
just people living in a world which is slightly off kilter. There is one
very unusual element, but that won't appear for a long time yet. So I was
concerned about market, and readers falling asleep. Many more responses like
yours, though, and I'll be switching my attention.
> I don't want to come off like an armchair shrink, but I got the feeling
that you identified far more with Kane than
you did with Charles Crosse, and that sincerity came through in the writing.
Maybe I do. Alright, yes, I do. I wrote Charles for the first time twenty
years ago. He was closer to me then.
> Also, you focused far more on inter-personal relationships in this one -
an area where you show a very good eye for the little, telling details.
Thank you.
> Great scenes between Kane and Lisabel, even better between him and
Morwena. The characters come across clearly and credibly, and that's half
the battle for the reader's engagement won.
My idea for this (well, more than an idea - chapters 2 and 3 are in first
edit - sounds good, doesn't it, until I tell you they've been in first edit
for over a year) is that the characters are king and queen, and the plot is
moved by them not the other way around. Chapers alternate between the three
(later four) key people. Morweena has the POV in chapter 2, Lisabel in 3. I
thought with longish chapters it's good to see these people from various
points of view.
>
> I also liked the way you introduced the fantasy element. I haven't read
much
> fantasy, but I've always preferred it when information about the society
is
> given in a natural, unhurried way - as if it's perfectly unremarkable,
> which of course it is to the characters - rather than explained in detail
> right at the beginning of the book.
As I say, I don't want to drag this off into Lord Of The Rings territory,
but I do suspect that limits its potential for making me some pennies.
>
> My only suggestions/criticisms would be that you could use a lighter touch
> in showing the problems between Lisabel and Kane. I'd received the message
> that she was a domineering, selfish type a long time before you stopped
> telling me. The guy deserves a sainthood!
Yes. Certainly in the Eonsas conversation.
And (I have to say this, you know
> <g>) a little wordy in places
Never. Moi?
, a little sentimental (for my taste) in
> others
It's the Rick Leblanc effect.
- but you can get away with that a lot easier in a story like this.
>
> Overall, great stuff. I'd really like to read more of this. Hurry up.
Thank you, my friend, for coming back so quickly and with some encouragement
I certainly wasn't banking on.
Fraser
Alaric <alar...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:a0vra4$3bc$1...@paris.btinternet.com...
> Fraser, thank you very much. As you can probably tell, this is newer than
> Revelation, but I've always been a bit dubious about it. I enjoy writing
it,
> but it demands a slow pace, and I have to confess I'm nervous of the
> criticism that I've spent 7,000 words describing a wet farm and a meeting
in
> a pub. I think Barry (rightly) may point out that it shows some of my
worst
> faults. But I also think it has a pleasant beat to it.
Honestly, I hardly noticed that it was 7000 words . I'd bought into the
characters and the story, so I was quite happy to go with the length and the
pace.
>
> My reluctance to devote great swathes of time to this has always been
based
> on the pace. Could it conceivably interest a publisher? Particularly as it
> never turns into standard fantasy fare. No goblins, wizards, giants. It's
> just people living in a world which is slightly off kilter. There is one
> very unusual element, but that won't appear for a long time yet. So I was
> concerned about market, and readers falling asleep. Many more responses
like
> yours, though, and I'll be switching my attention.
>
I know nada about the world of publishing, Al, but it seems there's a huge
market for 'soft-fantasy' works. Also, I think you're worrying to much about
the pace - if it works, it works. I would imagine that if a publisher enjoys
the characters and the plot, pace is something that could be worked on
during the 'real' pre-publication editing stage. But what do I know? I don't
know nuffink about art, but I know wot I like!
> > Great scenes between Kane and Lisabel, even better between him and
> Morwena. The characters come across clearly and credibly, and that's half
> the battle for the reader's engagement won.
>
> My idea for this (well, more than an idea - chapters 2 and 3 are in first
> edit - sounds good, doesn't it, until I tell you they've been in first
edit
> for over a year) is that the characters are king and queen, and the plot
is
> moved by them not the other way around. Chapers alternate between the
three
> (later four) key people. Morweena has the POV in chapter 2, Lisabel in 3.
I
> thought with longish chapters it's good to see these people from various
> points of view.
This is as it should be. A definition I read somewhere said that plot is
characters in action, and I thought that made a lot of sense. A Thomsonism:
boring people doing interesting things is still boring. Interesting people
doing boring things can still be interesting.
> As I say, I don't want to drag this off into Lord Of The Rings territory,
> but I do suspect that limits its potential for making me some pennies.
Too early to tell, but I think if the setting you've chosen plays an
integral, essential part of the novel then you should stick with it. If it
doesn't, then you may as well have set it in Olde Englande. LOTR is
unreadable crap to some people, a masterpiece to others - I'd say you should
go with your gut feeling. A suggestion : Have you tried submitting, say, the
first three Chapters to agents or publishers? It's clear that you have
reservations as to the commercial potential of the book, and I guess that
would be the quickest way to either confirm or deny your doubts. Scary, but
effective!
> Thank you, my friend, for coming back so quickly and with some
encouragement
> I certainly wasn't banking on.
>
My pleasure. Still just one man's opinion, but I really did like it.
George
Please excuse top-posting:
By George Chew.
I think I'll stop studying John le Carre and concentrate on Alaric.
Nicely done piece; enjoyed it. As the first chapter of your
novel-in-progress it leaves a sort of cliff-hanger effect.
G
Alaric wrote
> Barb mentioned she was working on more than one novel. Er... so am I.
>
> This is the first chapter of Sleight Of Hand. I just put it through a
second
> edit, so I thought I'd share it.
Anopheles
"Alaric" wrote:
> SLEIGHT OF HAND
> Chapter 1 - THE WHISPER
> Copyright Alaric Paul McDermott 2002
> Early in the morning, Kane walked to the top of the rise and surveyed his
> fields. The flood had bulged like a sad tear across the lowest points,
where
> he’d intended in a week or two to start unearthing his vegetables.
Harvesting?
> his people to ***(to)*** understand that he too could not afford for the
business to go
> under. He thought that such commitment earned him respect. He thought that
his
> people liked him. And, for reasons that he could never clearly understood,
he
> wanted the men to like him. When he was compelled to deny a worker
continuing
> employment, he would fret on it for days, hoping that the others would
forgive,
> hoping too that the man and his family would find other ways to support
> themselves.
After a good start, you begin to get wordy again but not significantly. .
This for example:
When he was compelled to deny a worker continuing employment, he would fret
on it for days, hoping that the others would forgive, hoping too that the
man and his family would find other ways to support themselves.
could be...
When he needed to put a worker off, he would fret on it for days, hoping the
others would forgive, hoping the man could find other ways to support his
family.
> Lisabel could never understand this. She called it his “dwelling time.” In
her
> view, the only important thing was family, and others could look after
> themselves. It was, to Kane, an understandable view, because she had not
had any
> helpful pushes in her life.
"pushes"? Does this mean "helping hands"?
>But he was unable to escape his conscience, and he
> intended, unless it became impossible.
Try again. Something missing.
>Lisabel would argue, but his main thought
> now was to protect everyone from the effects of the disaster.
>
> A substantial area of land, set aside for vegetables, was not underwater,
and it
> was a priority to protect it.
When you talk about land one can assume it is for growing vegetables (in
this instance) so why state it? It works without it.
>Although the rains had ceased, the sky still
> threatened.
He would know that the rain had ceased but not the rains.
>Kane therefore instructed the construction of a broad ditch.
He's not a barrister, Councillor. Try another word.
>The job
> was a big one, and it was after the sun had passed its zenith that he was
> satisfied and set off back to the house for his meal.
>
> Lisabel had not made it. He wasn’t surprised or angry. Some days she was
active,
> and others not. His time was limited, so he prepared bread and soup for
both of
> them, took hers to her.
>
> She was rocking in the doorway, on the old chair which she’d taken from
her
> mother’s house as a keepsake.
>
> She was unenthusiastic about the food, but she took it. He sat on the
wooden
> steps which led into the front yard.
>
> For a time she said nothing, and he didn’t launch a conversation himself.
He
> sensed that it was a time to be wary, and his internal barometer was
rarely
> wrong. He expected that before the day was out, she would construct a
source of
> trouble. It would be for him to dance away from it, make it a shower
rather than
> a storm.
Now you're cooking.
> She spoke, and he felt the first stirring of foul weather. “You’ll be in
the
> village tonight, then?”
>
> He didn’t look at her until he had fully considered his response, until he
’d
> analysed the risks of it. Her tone had been cool, but with Lisabel, cool
was
> usually a prelude to heat. And he recognised the ground as old fighting
ground.
>
> “I’ll work until darkness forbids,” he said, hoping that the promise would
> mollify. “And then, yes, as usual, I shall visit the village.”
He sounds like a 16th century preacher. "until darkness forbids"? Is that
how you talk to your wife, man? No wonder you can't sleep.
> “And return in your cups, as usual?” Her eyes narrowed, daring him to deny
> something she saw as obvious.
Now, they're both at it. Is this set in modern times? Am I missing
something?
I know "whilst" is a favourite of yours but the rest of the world has moved
onto "while". Use it a few times and you'll get the feel of it's modernity.
> “There is nothing I can do on the farm,” he reasoned, “after nightfall.”
>
> “You can stop spending money.”
>
> It was a hard one to fight. In difficult times, it did make sense to set
> unnecessary pleasures aside. But he was a hard working man, and he needed
> release.
>
> “I’ll think about it,” he promised. “I’ll take less wine.”
>
> Lisabel grunted her disbelief, and descended into a sulk. He expected that
sulk
> to be short-lived, so he took the unexpected chance that it granted him
and
> returned to the flood.
>
> *******
>
> The afternoon was long and arduous, and less successful than the morning
had
> been. By the time dusk crept across Kane’s face, it was clear that even
without
> further rain it would be three or four days before he could properly
assess the
> damage.
Why? He's an experienced farmer and should be able to make an instant
assessment. Are the vegies recoverable or not? If the spuds are lying in
water for a few days, I would say not. And, I know you're trying it on for
effect but dusk doesn't creep "across" a face, it simply intensifies the
darkness.
> He returned home depressed. Lisabel was busy with Amarinth in the bedroom,
and
> he could hear the harsh lilting of a disagreement.
"harsh lilting"? Come on, Alaric. You know that's an impossible match.
They're almost opposites.
" a legendary seller of jokes"? Do you mean teller?
> Eonsas nattered on as they walked, but Kane only half-concentrated. He was
> burrowing into the maze in which he so often lost himself these days. He
was
> trying to decide what to do about Lisabel.
>
OK. Pause here. I think a problem with this -- and your work in general --
is that you use too much narrative and not enough direct conversation. I
believe you involve the reader far more with conversation than with
narrative. Without it, your characters can remain aloof and out of touch. So
does the writer IMHO. You seem aloof and remote because of this technique
and language you chose to use. It is not bad writing. Far from it. But it
does not reach across and grab the reader by the googlies. You tend to speak
"above" and not "to" the average reader. I'm sure you will find readers who
will delight in your use of prose but it will be far fewer than those you
might capture otherwise. By writing as most people speak, the words tend to
disappear and only the images remain. Any variation from that and the reader
is instantly jerked back.
> *******
>
> There had been times when it had been fine. When she had seemed to care.
But
> they had been few and far between, and relatively short lived.
>
> Jammar had been such a time. Before the war, he had taken a job there, as
one of
> the administrators of the Protector’s estate. It had been possible then
for
> Omalfans to work in Uava, and vice versa, and Kane had been ambitious.
Where?
> long enough to claim a *********(referencet). The best he could hope for
Springwine? Is this a local thing? Or spring wine? Or Spring wine?
The call of water? I know what you mean but it needs to be expressed better
otherwise it might be construed that she needs a toilet stop.
over?
> “I have dog eyes over no woman,” Kane huffed, but only to make Calmum
laugh.
> “Women should be locked in kitchens or bedrooms and be allowed out only on
their
> master’s business.”
>
> Calmum grinned. “I shall take it you have no interest, then?”
>
> “Only the interest a man normally has in the gossip of his village,” Kane
> replied. “But yes, that is substantial. So Morweena and Galgak were…
well….”
>
> “Yes, you dim toad,” Calmum confirmed, rapping the knuckles of his right
hand
> lightly on Kane’s skull. “Yes. But were is the word in question here.
Were. As
> in are no longer. The road is a clear one, my friend, and I think she’d be
> delighted if you walked it.”
>
> “I’m a married man, Calmum,” Kane said.
>
> “True.” By now Calmum had finished emptying springwine and had started to
button
> up his trousers.
So it is 19th century, right? No zippers? This is the very first real clue.
Halleluiah! Here comes the conversations and immediately we learn more about
the characters and it becomes more interesting.
Unsophisticated? He's not coming across as such. Of course, that leaves me
open to a killer punch.
> Nonetheless, he felt welcome enough to sit down by her without being
invited.
> Which was most unlike him. He knew that, and he read that she knew it too,
> because she looked up, clearly surprised. There was still a smile on her
face,
> though, and he read no discomfort in it.
>
> “I heard about Galgak,” he said, as though to justify his physical
closeness.
> “And I’m sorry. It must be a harsh time for you.”
>
> “Harsh enough,” she replied, and the smile spread to her eyes, causing a
> familiar wrinkling of the lines surrounding them and a softening of the
lines
> elsewhere. He was glad to see some ease return to her, because he was not
too
> straightforward a man to fail to understood that it was possible for a
person to
> lose happiness forever. He wasn’t comfortably attuned to emotional things,
but
> he understood empathically that Morweena was.
>
> He was surprised, though, to be the source of the return of that
happiness, and
> her reaction to his attention made his chest feel a little tight.
His chest? His CHEST? You need lessons, mate.
>There was an
> unusual heat, too, in his cheeks and neck.
Definitely a course.
>
> These sensations, he realised, had not ambushed him for many years.
>
> “I don’t suppose,” he said, “that I ever knew for certain that you were
paired
> up. I had my suspicions, of course. But it was never my meat to chew. But
> anyway, that's beside the point. The point is that I know these things
cause
> pain. And I offer myself as a good listener. I’ve renown in that area.”
Drop the last sentence.
> She touched his hand. It was an innocent enough gesture, a gesture of
thanks,
> but the skin of his knuckles prickled, as though caressed by the sun after
a
> length of cold.
A decidedly strange reaction. I'm more used to skin prickling from cold
whereas the touch of warmth makes the skin relax. I believe you have it the
wrong way around.
“Why, thank you, Kane,” she replied. “Your concern is
welcome.
> Truly.”
>
> The hand was slowly withdrawn. He had a mad impulse to reach for it with
his
> own, to encourage it back, but restrained himself. He did, however, lean a
> little closer to her on the bench. He was not seeking familiarity, because
> thoughts of that nature, of other women, of sexual escapade, visited only
his
> dreams. He was more conscious than most men of his place in the world, and
of
> his responsibilities in it. Rather he leaned closer because she seemed to
> magnetise him. In some unfathomable manner, she disturbed his centre of
gravity.
Look! We know what's going to happen. Stop all this moralising and
explaining.
> “Did you live together?,” he asked. “No answer needed if I press.”
>
> She shook her head. “I’ve nothing to hide. We were common knowledge,
Galgak and
> I. Not given one another by the ceremony, admittedly, but we lived as life
> partners these last two years. Things, though, were never as I wished. He
wasn’t
> the one I wished. But he was someone. At a difficult time.”
>
> Kane caught a line of her perfume. Citrus, with a hint of rose. Light
enough to
> make his head spin. “But you’ve cast him gone,” he said, merely to hold up
his
> end of the conversation while he recovered his balance.
This "cast him gone" is a local expression, I take it. Sounds good.
I cannot guess where this is heading or what can sustain it as a novel but I
certainly do strongly recommend what I usually do to your work. Alaric, it's
good, it's always good, you have the talent but that reserve of yours, that
thick layer of gentlemanly conservativeness, is holding you at arm's length
away from the story. So much of that verbosity that the narrator has in
explanations could be transferred to the characters by dropped words or
gestures and that would help develop the characters more and cut down the
Alaric wordiness. It is wordy, mate. It also seems as if you're using Jane
Austen as a spirit guide. It is impossible for a reader to deduce the period
it is set in but your writing style suggests some time ago. If it is old,
then you should have said it up front or given a clue. Even if it is olde
worlde, the narrator does not have to sound like it. As I have said
previously, you need prose that is either so poetic you win over all the
literary types or a style that is transparent because it mimics the common
tongue.
God, I hate this job. I want to deliver some good news to you for once. Give
me the opportunity. Either sack me or please me. Please!
Anopheles
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.306 / Virus Database: 166 - Release Date: 4/12/01
Alaric
And you'll note that I said there you'd hate it for the right reasons. Which you
do.
The only thing I'd fence with you on is the period. I make the light fantasy
element clear in the lead-in. This is a world off-kilter from our own where
dancing is the great skill in the local hostelries and yes, jokes are bought and
sold. Some of the odd phrasing in speech (darkness forbids, cast him gone) is
intended to reflect that. It's also deliberately very slow. I think pace is a
curse in today's fiction.
Other than that, I agree with your points and as always, I truly thank you for
the work you've put in here. You're a patient man. The nits are invaluable.
Alaric
>
>
>Please excuse top-posting:
>By George Chew.
>I think I'll stop studying John le Carre and concentrate on Alaric.
>Nicely done piece; enjoyed it. As the first chapter of your
>novel-in-progress it leaves a sort of cliff-hanger effect.
George, I don't know what to say. I can't think of a higher compliment. Thank
you.
You can do me one favour. What's top-posting. I once got accused of it and never
understood it.
Anopheles
"Alaric" wrote:
> Hi, Barry. I knew you'd hate this one. I predicted that in my reply to
Fraser.
> And you'll note that I said there you'd hate it for the right reasons.
Which you
> do.
Where did I say I hated it? I only inferred by my suggestions that it could
be better.
> The only thing I'd fence with you on is the period. I make the light
fantasy
> element clear in the lead-in.
You do? Where did you do this?
>This is a world off-kilter from our own where
> dancing is the great skill in the local hostelries and yes, jokes are
bought and
> sold. Some of the odd phrasing in speech (darkness forbids, cast him gone)
is
> intended to reflect that. It's also deliberately very slow. I think pace
is a
> curse in today's fiction.
I won't disagree on your last point but am I alone in missing out on your
other points? Did all the other readers understand your hints? I wonder. I
am exceptional dense at times so it is possible. To me it was a quaint
little English environment where any abberation is possible. Normalsville.
I think you need to clear that up, sir.
> Other than that, I agree with your points and as always, I truly thank you
for
> the work you've put in here. You're a patient man. The nits are
invaluable.
My pleasure, mate. I am far in your debt when it comes to help here.
Rick LeBlanc
> SLEIGHT OF HAND
> Chapter 1 - THE WHISPER
Hi Alaric. Just a general impression:
You know, I really like this story, and I think you know why. I agree, there
is some room for snipping, but basically I read straight through a found
myself wanting more.
I especially liked the rich images and the emotions you bring out in your
characters. It really feels like you're close to this and it's some of the
best of yours' I've read.
Keep it coming.
Rick
> Early in the morning,
Opus
Frosts my weenie when you have to scroll for four miles down a page, just to see a
ONE WORD REPLY to fourteen pages of quoted material. C'mon peoples, shape up and
snip some bandwidth, will ya? (;>
O
Alaric
"Anopheles" <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in message
news:a135ep$nsguk$1...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de...
> > The only thing I'd fence with you on is the period. I make the light
> fantasy
> > element clear in the lead-in.
>
> You do? Where did you do this?
Oh. Sorry. Not in the story itself. In the introduction to it. I'm
visualising this million-selling book, you see, with this cool fantasy
landscape on the cover....
Alaric
haveanonfictionnewsgroupunlesswesayso.tossers on a rail for top posting.
"Opus" <opus...@bloomcounty.com> wrote in message
news:3C3554A7...@home.net...
Alaric
> You know, I really like this story, and I think you know why.
Your footprints were ahead of me on this turf, I have to admit.
> It really feels like you're close to this and it's some of the
> best of yours' I've read.
There's an element of allegory, for sure, but I ain't admitting which bits.
> Keep it coming.
I'm certainly working up Chapter 2.
Thanks again, Rick.
Archer070
I have a new policy. I read until I want to put the book down. Then I tell the
writer what it was, in Stephen King's phrase, that was "so put-downable." I
think that's the genuine and only test we all have to pass. It also means less
work for the critic.
>Early in the morning, Kane walked to the top of the rise and surveyed his
>fields. The flood had bulged like a sad tear across the lowest points, where
>he’d intended in a week or two to start unearthing his vegetables. Higher
up,
>the waters had retreated, but the damage to his corn lines was substantial.
And here is where I put the book down. As Don Corleone says, though, you're a
man a respect, so I must give you my reasons.
When I pick up a book--say, strolling through Borders--I need to be charmed
immediately, as within one second or so. This passage does neither. But it
could. The cheapest appeal to my senses would do the trick. Kindly pardon my
rudeness in rewriting you:
"The sun was just high enough to irritate. Its brightness and heat forced Kane
to squint. Soon there would be flies, buzzing and swarming in the mud flats
left by the raging river."
Okay, no Pulitzer there--two prepositional phrases dangling heavily at the end,
for instance. But I'd keep reading that, because it has brightness, heat,
sounds, and smells.
That's the way we experience the world--through our senses. If you want a
reader's attention, you've got to let experience your world the same way. You
can't do that by saying "he walked and surveyed."
(The chapter in "Bonfire of the Vanities" in which Tom Wolfe describes Sherman
McCoy's sleepless tossing and turning in bed is a sensational example of this.
I think Wolfe is underrated).
I'd write more, but I am in the middle of some (yech) research.
Alaric
"Archer070" <arch...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020104142108...@mb-fz.aol.com...
> Hi, Alaric.
>
> I have a new policy. I read until I want to put the book down. Then I
tell the
> writer what it was, in Stephen King's phrase, that was "so put-downable."
I
> think that's the genuine and only test we all have to pass. It also means
less
> work for the critic.
Ah, but Tabitha just made a cup of tea then picked it up again. No, okay.
It's good feedback. Reader in the bookshop. Why not? Although I usually give
a book a coupla pages, and on AFO I try to struggle (or skate, dependent on
quality) through the lot. Hey, horses for courses.
>
> "The sun was just high enough to irritate. Its brightness and heat forced
Kane
> to squint. Soon there would be flies, buzzing and swarming in the mud
flats
> left by the raging river."
Mmm. Maybe. I'm looking for a rather gentler tone. Get the message though.
>
> (The chapter in "Bonfire of the Vanities" in which Tom Wolfe describes
Sherman
> McCoy's sleepless tossing and turning in bed is a sensational example of
this.
> I think Wolfe is underrated).
Definitely with you there. BOTV is in my all time greats.
Anopheles
Ah so, desuka!
What else are you hiding from us?
Uncle John
I've read your chapter here, and now by retrospect of the entire piece
thus far, I find myself asking what difference it would make whether
this story were set in the present or in the ancient Druid past,
like, oh, e.g. around the time of the Norse invasions of Britain?
It's a Romance you're writing, so I ask, what use is the fantasy
setting?
I thought it was off to a fine start in the description of the rocky
relationship between the protagonist and his wife; some of the
psychological subtleties were intriguing--even despite what is always
for me the aggravation of references to arcane cultural inventions,
the fantasy creations of various ethnicities, all the stuff of the
surrounding realm of fantasy. Those things, for me are always
puzzlements, or as I say, "aggravations" insofar as, in typical style
of writing in this genre, these elements are tossed on to the page
with no definition, as the reader is expected to carry these analomies
and mysteries, these undefined wars, and ethnic units of undescribed
peoples, these unknown place names, cultural inventions in mind until
such a time as the author deems it convenient or necessary to leave
the reader in the dark no longer. I really don't like that.
Okay, so now you know why I have so little patience with the entire
genre of fantasy writing, per se: it is because I have the sort of
mind that has little tolerance in the way of affording space in my
cerebral circuits for such things as will never on this earth do me
the least benefit in the way of paying for the mental space its all
been given--and slowly but surely the stress of giving place to these
singularities slowly eats away at my patience and therefore my
attention--because its mental work that I'm just not inclined to do,
as I see no permanent reward for doing it.. On the other hand, say
you had set for yourself the task of getting down to the library, or
on to the Web to begin researching on the subject of Britain's Druid
past, to the purpose of uncovering every possible cultural artifact
you could find and collecting all that as the bricks and mortar for
the foundation of which your novel would be built.
Okay, now what do you have? Here you have a domain in which your
talent for engaging a capacity for fantasy can be put to a far more
powerful use, and what is that but the utterly and literally
*fantastic* possibility of reconstructing an ancient past, solving a
mystery of ages; conjuring from the codes of your own British genetic
record the wave-length of an untapped ancient consciousness, in a tale
that leaps forth like a filmy wraith by catalysis from the artifacts
you collect, mentally record, which render a scent, an aroma, a form,
an idea of that life, those people, their culture and time, way back
then. Well! Does that seem fantastic? Fine. That's what we're
talking about, isn't it.
Now, if while I read your story, I have the assurance that I am
reading about real places and real folk, real cultures, then while I
am indulging your fantasy about Moweena, I am also learning wonderful
things about the actual clothing she would have worn, the ornaments
she really would have had in her hair and about her neck, something
about the musical instruments that really would have been used to make
Kane dance.
Now, as to your plot: it was my experience that so soon as I learned
that there was a woman that Kane was interested in at the "bar" my
sympathy for his wife being left at home began to come into being, as
also a decided displeasure was being felt with respect to Kane's
hypocrisy, to hear him talking about how there is "no such thing as
women's work.?" Get the picture? I mean here's this guy flirting with
some broad in a bar while his wife sits at home with the kid tending
the homefire, and this schmuck has the nerve to talk about "no such
thing as women's work", pandering this decadent feminist pap, to
sweet-talk this dame in a bar who is not his wife, no less?
Okay, so now the question is decidedly one of the narrator's capacity
for objectivity which I'm not finding as he romanticizes rather than
satirizes the moral position of his protagonist at this turn of the
plot. A reader is rightly thinking, "No wonder the schmuck's wife's
got it in for him, what wife wouldn't?" The point is that the
romanticizing of his dalliance with Moweena begins to appear as an
authorial indulgence for sake of his own titillation (and perhaps that
of some readers)--not that there's anything wrong with arousing the
erotic/romantic interests of both author and reader; quite to the
contrary, but in fact you lost that interest in me, and now I must ask
why.
It was not Heroic. It cannot be Romantic if it is not heroic. Think of
Wuthering Heights, of Ethan Frome, of My Cousin Rachael. There must
be little question in the reader's mind about Kane's romance with
Moweena being justified by surrounding events in the tale, and that's
what's missing; those surrounding events which will lend the necessary
epic proportion to what you create as a milieu within which such a
romance might come to flower.
A novel is a lot of work, fun work when it means the creation of an
entire world, especially a world that would be for people like me,
anthropologically and historically interesting. I know there are fans
and many of them, for the Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings sort of
thing, but I am not among them. I have said it before, and I'll say
it again: writers who learn a love for research and learning, do the
world a far better service than those who do not.
Pedantic as that may seem, I don't think it makes me hypocrite,
certainly not with my novel which has recently gone on hold in order
to do further research, and not as respects my new project with the
"Diary of a Girl Friday", a project for which the groundwork was done
long ago on the scene in Hollywood where I lived directly across the
street from the building that is the model for the setting of the
estate sale at the commencement of the work, and this is not to
mention the many hours spent pouring over piles of books taken from
the Hollywood Branch of the Los Angeles County Library, the countless
reels of classic film viewed, and last but not least, my undying
obsession, in the form of an Eternal Fantasy Romance with Veronica
Lake. Oh, well, like, either a man is a man and he's in love with
Veronica Lake or I don't know what. In any case, I've been madly in
love with Veronica Lake ever since I was 13 and first saw her with
Frederick March in "I Married a Witch", one memorable New Years Eve in
1957. Oh, God! What an ecstasy for the first time to see that hair,
that face, hear that voice from that mouth with its little girl pout,
to see the way she moved; it made me feel as though I were high as
high can be on the finest French champagne.
But then, I already know I needn't sell Alaric McDermott on the value
of being in a fantasy of romance with Veronica Lake, and its not as if
I would clip his wings to keep him from flying too close to the sun or
anything . . .
--
Uncle John long_go...@nobodyfeelsanypain.com
John's Joint:: http://jpdavid.freewebspace.com/
On-Line Novel, *Amador Green*, MP3's and Usenet Archive
"Sometimes it is not you who must change, but the world around you."
-- Dotty McHugh, a Ziegfeld Girl.
George
Alaric wrote
, George says...
> >
> >
> >Please excuse top-posting:
> >By George Chew.
> You can do me one favour. What's top-posting. I once got accused of it and
never
> understood it.
>
To maintain the chronology of e-mails one should add new comments/postings
at the bottom of text received. Top posting suggest writing new comments at
the top thereby throwing a wobbler for the purists.
Happy New year each.
George Chew
Alaric
> I've read your chapter here, and now by retrospect of the entire piece
> thus far, I find myself asking what difference it would make whether
> this story were set in the present or in the ancient Druid past,
> like, oh, e.g. around the time of the Norse invasions of Britain?
You're right, of course, and righter about this one than most, as I don't
intend to use the traditional fantasy elements here. No dragons. No giants.
No convenient magic. But I've always had a fascination for fantasy that
sticks to fair ground rules - Animal Farm's an example - I can't reach that
target of course - or maybe Stephen Donaldson's Covenant trilogy. Can you
deliver a message by placing the world slightly askew? And I like
transplanting. In the world of this story, people entertain one another by
dancing - an ancient form of karaoke. I love to play with things like that.
> Those things, for me are always
> puzzlements, or as I say, "aggravations" insofar as, in typical style
> of writing in this genre, these elements are tossed on to the page
> with no definition, as the reader is expected to carry these analomies
> and mysteries, these undefined wars, and ethnic units of undescribed
> peoples, these unknown place names, cultural inventions in mind until
> such a time as the author deems it convenient or necessary to leave
> the reader in the dark no longer. I really don't like that.
Again, you're right. I try to explain things as they pop up. Maybe I missed
a few.
>
> Now, as to your plot: it was my experience that so soon as I learned
> that there was a woman that Kane was interested in at the "bar" my
> sympathy for his wife being left at home began to come into being, as
> also a decided displeasure was being felt with respect to Kane's
> hypocrisy, to hear him talking about how there is "no such thing as
> women's work.?" Get the picture? I mean here's this guy flirting with
> some broad in a bar while his wife sits at home with the kid tending
> the homefire, and this schmuck has the nerve to talk about "no such
> thing as women's work", pandering this decadent feminist pap, to
> sweet-talk this dame in a bar who is not his wife, no less?
Oh, yes. Absolutely. I'm not going for sympathy for Kane here. His wandering
eye when he has a child at home is no credit to him. He should confront his
problems. He's a weak man. Indeed, the story isn't going to be told entirely
from his perspective. Morweena now takes over, followed in chapter 3 by
Kane's wife. There are no innocents here. Three fallible people.
>
The point is that the
> romanticizing of his dalliance with Moweena begins to appear as an
> authorial indulgence for sake of his own titillation (and perhaps that
> of some readers)--not that there's anything wrong with arousing the
> erotic/romantic interests of both author and reader; quite to the
> contrary, but in fact you lost that interest in me, and now I must ask
> why.
>
> It was not Heroic. It cannot be Romantic if it is not heroic. Think of
> Wuthering Heights, of Ethan Frome, of My Cousin Rachael. There must
> be little question in the reader's mind about Kane's romance with
> Moweena being justified by surrounding events in the tale, and that's
> what's missing; those surrounding events which will lend the necessary
> epic proportion to what you create as a milieu within which such a
> romance might come to flower.
They're coming, as the war approaches. But yes, maybe a more substantial
element of them should be here already.
>
> A novel is a lot of work, fun work when it means the creation of an
> entire world, especially a world that would be for people like me,
> anthropologically and historically interesting. I know there are fans
> and many of them, for the Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings sort of
> thing, but I am not among them. I have said it before, and I'll say
> it again: writers who learn a love for research and learning, do the
> world a far better service than those who do not.
I respect that view. But I do love fantasy. It forms a part of my reading
material. But good fantasy has a point to make about the real world.
John, thanks again. These comments were very thought provoking.
.
Alaric
"George" <georg...@eidosnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:yQzZ7.14044$Si6.3...@monolith.news.easynet.net...
Thanks, George. Yes, I suppose there's sense to that. I'm a terror, then. I
snip everything but the bit I'm replying to.
I'm glad you enjoyed this so far. I am working on chapter 2, but it'll be a
week or two.
Opus
> snip everything but the bit I'm replying to.
>
what you're replying to. It reduces confusion, and saves bandwidth and
keeps the group average for disappearing/expiring posts waaaaaaay down.
You're fine, A. I wish more people would snip all of it, except for the
very thing they're replying to. But, I suppose it's just easier to set
your mail reader one automatic way, or to simply hit "Quote" before
sending so you don't have to think about it.
O
Opus
Somehow, when the cat was taking a stroll on my keys last night, he
unmarked this one for reading and I missed it for review, so heres I
am. Excited about it, actually.
> Early in the morning, Kane walked to the top of the rise and surveyed his
> fields. The flood had bulged like a sad tear across the lowest points, where
> he’d intended in a week or two to start unearthing his vegetables. Higher up,
> the waters had retreated, but the damage to his corn lines was substantial.
>
> He heaved a great sigh. This wouldn’t destroy him, but it would set him back.
> The trip to Hall Fair was now out of the question, and he would need to rely on
> his animals to get him any kind of profit for his year’s work.
>
Short, succinct, and to the point. Lord, this brings back memories.
Was raised on a beef/dairy farm and how well I remember relying on the
livestock's weight to fat ratio for money to get us new school clothes
for fall.
Funny story, then I'll return to my reading. I decided one fall to
raise a calf on my own, then sell him the following year. I was
promised that if I took sole care of him, I could have the sole
profits. He was a Brown Swiss, so his markings were extremely gorgeous;
he was brown all over, with darker shadings on his face. I named him
Barney, and he was as tame as my cat. Almost a pet, really.
Well, the time came just after he was born, to castrate him. Yes, me,
Ms. Actress, castrated a calf. (I'm common people, really...) The
process required you to put a band on his numnuts that would restrict
blood flow and cause them to gently, er, fall off eventually. Once the
band was on, you had to squirt the area with Iodine to prevent
infection, and my mother failed to remind me how much it might hurt the
calf.
Now, I am NOT blonde, have never been, and have no intentions of being.
I'm fine with my red hair and dark roots, thankyouverymuch. However, I
can't explain how or why it happens, but there are moments in my life
when a blonde spirit just takes full possession of my mind, and I become
a very lovable ditz; easily forgiven because I'm so cute... This day
was one of them.
I gripped the bottle warily, and backed Barney into a corner so he
couldn't fun. Holding his tail up to gain access to the area, I began
squirting the maroon substance onto the area. All went well, until he
actually felt it. Suddenly, I was five feet across the stall, rubbing
my face. I had forgotten to stand to the SIDE of him whilst attempting
this operation, and instead, was directly behind him where he easily
jutted his left hind foot and kicked me squarely in the jaw, which threw
me back onto the adjacent fence. I expected bruising, and surprisingly,
there were none, but I had a whopper of a headache for days. But my
god, I'll never forget it. Can almost remember what I was wearing, it's
so painted on my memory.
But, back to our story.
> and while he
> was at it,
>
Seems weak. I'd re-write.
> impliedly
>
Hunh?
> “We’ll get by,” she said, and her look dismissed him.
>
Bitch troll.
> people to to understand
>
Just one, dear.
> And, for reasons that he could never clearly understood,
>
I'd remove "could".
> His time was limited, so he prepared bread and soup for both of
> them, took hers to her.
>
Semi-colon after "them?"
> She was rocking in the doorway, on the old chair which she’d taken from her
> mother’s house as a keepsake.
>
> She was unenthusiastic about the food, but she took it. He sat on the wooden
> steps which led into the front yard.
>
Same paragraph?
> It would be for him to dance away from it,
>
Remove the last "it".
> And he recognised the ground as old fighting ground.
>
How about, "And he recognised this as old fighting ground." The
repetition of ground just doesn't work for me.
I was jolted when you said Kane was thinking about Morweena. Actually,
he wasn't. He was reflecting on the birth of their child, and the move
back to wherever you said they went back to. So this didn't make much
sense to me. Perhaps reworking that would make for a smoother
transition.
> I’ve renown in that area.
>
I think you mean, "I'm".
Well, I like this story. Not one of your flashier ones, but still has
merit. I say burn the bitch Lisabel. Nice twist might be to not
concentrate so much on the affair, but to concentrate more on Lisabel's
reaction to it, and how it will humble her; make her appreciate what
she's got.
I like the dialogue; you're very good at making it seem plausible and
natural.
I don't like Morweena. She seems needy, which makes Kane seem sleazy
for preying on it. But isn't that the way most affairs are anyway?
They seem to be filling some need for both partners.
Anyway, I'd like to see how this ends, but I'm not married to it.
Nice work, nonetheless.
Opus
Alaric
Oh, thanks as always for the nits, particularly the thinking point (I'd
wholly missed that) and very particularly:-
> > And, for reasons that he could never clearly understood,
> >
> I'd remove "could".
Duh!
and for the story, which is better than the one you're criticising
but
Why wise?
1. Lisabel's reaction to it, and how it will humble her;
2. I don't like Morweena. She seems needy
3. Which makes Kane seem sleazy for preying on it.
That's exactly how I see the characters. Three very imperfect folks. The
fascinating thing about reaction to this (encouraging, actually) is people
taking sides, and different sides. Some say poor Kane. Some say evil
Morweena - some like her. John had sympathy for Lisabel, which is quite
prescient. But you have MY reading of the characters just right.
But isn't that the way most affairs are anyway?
Yes. Definitely. IMHO.
Opus
>
> 1. Lisabel's reaction to it, and how it will humble her;
>
> 2. I don't like Morweena. She seems needy
>
> 3. Which makes Kane seem sleazy for preying on it.
>
> That's exactly how I see the characters. Three very imperfect folks. The
> fascinating thing about reaction to this (encouraging, actually) is people
> taking sides, and different sides. Some say poor Kane. Some say evil
> Morweena - some like her. John had sympathy for Lisabel, which is quite
> prescient. But you have MY reading of the characters just right.
>
I love it when that happens too. To me, it means you've drawn them
clearly enough to be plausible.
Good stuff. Will there be a continuation?
O
Alaric
> Good stuff. Will there be a continuation?
Coupla weeks. From Morweena's point of view.
Anopheles
"Alaric" wrote:
>
> "George" <georg...@eidosnet.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:yQzZ7.14044$Si6.3...@monolith.news.easynet.net...
> >
> > Alaric wrote
> > , George says...
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >Please excuse top-posting:
> > > >By George Chew.
> > Snipped
> > > You can do me one favour. What's top-posting. I once got accused of it
> and
> > never
> > > understood it.
> > >
> > Meant every word of my comments Aleric.
> > To maintain the chronology of e-mails one should add new
comments/postings
> > at the bottom of text received. Top posting suggest writing new comments
> at
> > the top thereby throwing a wobbler for the purists.
> > Happy New year each.
> > George Chew
>
> Thanks, George. Yes, I suppose there's sense to that. I'm a terror, then.
I
> snip everything but the bit I'm replying to.
Of course, the other capital offence you commit when you do this is to often
lose who you are replying to from the top. You tend to wipe the slate clean
to give your self room. Protocol demands you bottom post and leave the top
in a state that shows who you are replying to. I don't know how much longer
we can put up with these crimes, mate.
Usenet Police Department
Anopheles
"Uncle John" wrote:
> Despite the rather extreme prejudice I still hold for fantasy writing,
> I've read your chapter here, and now by retrospect of the entire piece
> thus far, I find myself asking what difference it would make whether
> this story were set in the present or in the ancient Druid past,
> like, oh, e.g. around the time of the Norse invasions of Britain?
> It's a Romance you're writing, so I ask, what use is the fantasy
> setting?
You've given some good and thoughtful advice in this post, Jervis, and I
tend to agree with a lot you suggest. One point though, the Norse didn't
come until well after the Druids. It was in Anglo-Saxon times.
Happy New Year, mate.
hannah savanah at the pianah
>From: Opus Op...@birdwoman.net
>Date: 05/01/2002 05:48 GMT Standard Time
I include the text in tot--why??????????
Vecause when I scroll down in the AOL <REPLY> screen the post whizzes by so
fast that not even Buzz Aldrin could click fast enough to stop it
jez rite
howsomever - I post my reply at the top so no one has to scroll to ingest my
praise or ire.
That's it--that's the last I want to hear about this.
nada pero nada pero nada mas
basta por hoy
carlito
(eso es)
>Message-id: <3C373C41...@home.net>
hannah savanah at the pianah
kill him but i guess thass just citified sentiment
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/telecomms/myhomepage/place.html
Alaric
> Of course, the other capital offence you commit when you do this is to
often
> lose who you are replying to from the top. You tend to wipe the slate
clean
> to give your self room. Protocol demands you bottom post and leave the top
> in a state that shows who you are replying to. I don't know how much
longer
> we can put up with these crimes, mate.
I object, m'lud.
I do a review as an entirely separate post. But anything else, I always
leave "Anopheles says."
Is that a children's game?
Oh, no. Sorry. Simple Simon.
<g>
Alaric
Flowers have petals to avoid the crocodile's tail.
Can I have one of what he's on?
What the %^$£ are you talking about?
"hannah savanah at the pianah" <carl...@aol.comeondown> wrote in message
news:20020105170754...@mb-bg.aol.com...
Anopheles
"Alaric" wrote:
>
> "Anopheles" <hi...@jeack.com.au> wrote in message
> news:a17suh$opiq3$1...@ID-34438.news.dfncis.de...
> > Of course, the other capital offence you commit when you do this is to
> often
> > lose who you are replying to from the top. You tend to wipe the slate
> clean
> > to give your self room. Protocol demands you bottom post and leave the
top
> > in a state that shows who you are replying to. I don't know how much
> longer
> > we can put up with these crimes, mate.
>
> I object, m'lud.
Of course!
> I do a review as an entirely separate post. But anything else, I always
> leave "Anopheles says."
Isn't that confusing to the others you reply yo?
> Is that a children's game?
Um!
> Oh, no. Sorry. Simple Simon.
Me bruffer.
Anopheles
Opus
> at the bottom of text received.
>
From our own FAQ:
> When you post a "reply" message the message blank you are offered
> usually will quote the message you are answering in its entirety.
>
(I will add that this is an easily adjusted option in the settings of
your own browser.)
> Please be sure to cut out any portion of that message that you don't
> need to make your point, particularly in a critique. For example, you
> may want simply to make a few comments that will amount to a short
> paragraph or two; in that case, cut out all but the name of the poster
> and the name of the story, write your paragraph of comments, and send.
> Without this cutting, your message may be extremely long for no reason,
> and that can be hard on people who download that message.
>
(Especially since a large part of people in Europe have to pay for their
download time by the minute.)
> If you are
> making a line-by-line criticism, obviously you will need to quote a
> great deal of the story; even so, you can easily cut out those portions
> on which you have no comments.
>
Just found this, and decided to share since there has been so much flap
about it.
Opus
Alaric
hannah savanah at the pianah
have agreed five years ago or so and had written so often (last 16 years have
been mainly a telecoms writer/editor/publisher)
However, in the UK, many ISPs now provide unlimited access. As an alternative
some, such as www.one.tel.com offer 24/7 at 1.445 cents per minutes (including
17.5 percent VAT which some people get back when they file their quarterly
return.
Elsewhere in Europe, tariffs have been coming down steadily, post
liberalisation.
and . . . . finally . . . .I sympathise with download problems when one is
downloading 50 paintings at 300K to 600K each at
alt.binaries,artpics and the like .. . however,
that's hardly the case with wee text messages.
The main problem in alt.fiction.original is running out of messages before one
runs out of untiredness.
Ok there's younguns in here. However, they're the prime users of short message
service (SMS) text messages at 15 cents a pop (the UK is moving more than one
billion texts/year.
So . . . that's an old wives tale - don't know if there be any old wives in
here but if so they may wish to confirm it
carl
(cheaper by the minute)
>Subject: Re: The Whisper (Chapter 1 of Sleight Of Hand) (7000 words)
>From: Opus opus...@bloomcounty.com
>Date: 06/01/2002 09:39 GMT Standard Time
>Message-id: <3C381B11...@home.net>
Fraser
Opus <opus...@bloomcounty.com> wrote in message
news:3C381B11...@home.net...
> (Especially since a large part of people in Europe have to pay for their
> download time by the minute.)
Not only Europe. In S.A. you have to pay full rate per minute for a dial-up
connection as well. I envy my sister (N.Carolina) with her free local
calls...she's always bugging me to get a webcam so we can natter, but it'd
probably work out cheaper for me to fly over and visit her!
Must say I agree with you, Opus. If you haven't added anything new within
the body of the original text, then why bother including the whole
(sometimes lengthy) message with your reply?
Fraser
hannah savanah at the pianah
>Date: 06/01/2002 11:13 GMT Standard Time
>Message-id: <a1apuj$pchuh$1...@ID-116198.news.dfncis.de>
I didn't know you were in SA. Hasn't Telekom been bringing down the rates
regularly?
Fraser
hannah savanah at the pianah <carl...@aol.comeondown> wrote in message
> I didn't know you were in SA. Hasn't Telekom been bringing down the rates
> regularly?
>
The monopolistic, money-grubbing Luddite bastards just hiked the rates by 27
%... all that for a 28k drum and two twigs to bang it with!
Rumour has it that there will be deregulation and free competition soon -
they're doomed then. Mmmmuuuhhhaaaahahahahaha!
Fraser
hannah savanah at the pianah
>From: "Fraser" fra...@hotmail.com
>Message-id: <a1bobl$pfm67$1...@ID-116198.news.dfncis.de>
Wow--lots of members here from Suid Afrika. I've been following Telekom's
fortunes since about 1994, for a book on African telecoms for Financial Times
media/telecoms (1997) and as a correspondent for Comms Africa.
last year mobile connections in South Africa passed parity with fixed line
connections. Go MTN and Vodacom and the . . .uh . . . third operator which has
arrived at long last--is it Cell C???
>
>Fraser
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Fraser
hannah savanah at the pianah <carl...@aol.comeondown> wrote in message
news:20020107042915...@mb-cp.aol.com...
> Wow--lots of members here from Suid Afrika. I've been following Telekom's
> fortunes since about 1994, for a book on African telecoms for Financial
Times
> media/telecoms (1997) and as a correspondent for Comms Africa.
Hmm, I dunno about that - I thought I was the lone 'japie' in AFO at the
moment.
>
> last year mobile connections in South Africa passed parity with fixed line
> connections. Go MTN and Vodacom and the . . .uh . . . third operator which
has
> arrived at long last--is it Cell C???
>
Yep,Cell C. The cell-phone revolution really took off at home (by any
standards, I would think, not just African standards). A natural consequence
of an outdated, over-priced and inadequate land-line infrastructure. The
mobile operators must have seen the opportunity, and they've made a killing.
Good for them. Telkom, to me, is a hangover from the old days that needs to
be taken care of as quickly as possible. (but you probably know more about
the whole story than I do, judging by your credentials - mine's just a
disgruntled consumer's viewpoint)
Fraser
hannah savanah at the pianah
>From: "Fraser" fra...@hotmail.com
>Message-id: <a1bqvi$pi4e4$1...@ID-116198.news.dfncis.de>
>
>
>
>hannah savanah at the pianah <carl...@aol.comeondown> wrote in message
>news:20020107042915...@mb-cp.aol.com...
>
>> Wow--lots of members here from Suid Afrika. I've been following Telekom's
>> fortunes since about 1994, for a book on African telecoms for Financial
>Times
>> media/telecoms (1997) and as a correspondent for Comms Africa.
>
>Hmm, I dunno about that - I thought I was the lone 'japie' in AFO at the
>moment.
your disgruntled consumer point of view is perfectly valid--with modern
technology and the kind of liberalisation that has gone on in some other
developing countries--south africa could have a first class and cheap landline
system--in the major connurbations--getting it to the outliers is a different
story.
It was the advent of prepay that really made the difference to the SA mobile
market and I see internet users are growing fast too
when I first reported circa 1998, Africa only had about one million users--now
I think it's heading for 5 million.
I better get off the circuit here since this is not really fiction related.
regards
carl
>
>>
>> last year mobile connections in South Africa passed parity with fixed line
>> connections. Go MTN and Vodacom and the . . .uh . . . third operator which
>has
>> arrived at long last--is it Cell C???
>>
>
>Yep,Cell C. The cell-phone revolution really took off at home (by any
>standards, I would think, not just African standards). A natural consequence
>of an outdated, over-priced and inadequate land-line infrastructure. The
>mobile operators must have seen the opportunity, and they've made a killing.
>Good for them. Telkom, to me, is a hangover from the old days that needs to
>be taken care of as quickly as possible. (but you probably know more about
>the whole story than I do, judging by your credentials - mine's just a
>disgruntled consumer's viewpoint)
>
>Fraser