feedback, such as it is

[Vinton, Jay (NIH/CIT) [C]]

Hi Dolores,

I just finished reading chapter 50 of poison chance, ooops, gamble.

I continue to find it fascinating to follow the intertwinings of your waking life, dream life, and writing.

I do have trouble at times following the action and implications and assumptions of the stories, as a certain amount is left unstated, for the reader to figure out, or not, or come to understand at a later point. But then, that's the way life is also.

And it is a little disturbing to find my heroes doing 'bad' things at times. But again, that's life.

One or two chapters a week, going forward, whatever works best for the writer.

Deep dreams,

[Dolores J. Nurss]

Thank you! It's a tricky balance between spelling things out and letting
the reader figure it out. At different times I've had feedback both ways.
I will see if I can tip it more towards clarity in the future. And believe
me, it disturbs me too when my heroes do bad things!

[Sunrise Citly]

A slightly longer review, as promised.

Jake and Deirdre: The link between these two surprised me greatly.
However, I do understand that Jake had to heal somehow. The Randy-Jake-
Deirdre thing is unresolved, and I'm curious as to how it'll work out,
specially for Jake, who is having the harder time of it.

Deirdre: This girl worries me. You are right - the others shouldn't
have denied her the facts about Jesse's death. I think she's the one
most traumatized by the whole ordeal, physically and otherwise. The
veils... Truth and Lies. True lies. Dare I ask what he did to her?
Maybe I know a little about that... Yes, it's tempting to hide from
certain things, and yet we all must face them at some moment. But
tearing down a veil is difficult - how much more so a solidly built
wall like Deirdre now has?

Randy: I like Randy. I like the particular blend of dark humor and
religion he shows us in #48. While I can't claim to have his sort of
faith his humor sounded just a little bit like mine. I like that he's
with Jake - Jake needs love to thrive, much like Uncle Nibs. And I
love his phrase, "You take pity on me, Lord, and I'll take pity on
you". So unexpected, and yet I felt like saying, "Yes, that's it,
exactly. That could work".

Don and Lisa: I like them on their own. Don, the sea-loving lost
prince of Neyth (I wonder how that will come in in later stories).
Merrill's best friend, always behind him - like I'm with Sandra, even
when I'd love to swat her sometimes.
Lisa, with her firey personality (I have my own, little lioness that I
am) and unapologetic un-femininity. Always the dependable one - unlike
me.
But Don and Lisa together... It gets complicated, after the Black
Clams come it. I can only see things from my own perspective, and I
doubt things could work out if I were in Lisa's place. I forecast a
fair amout of trouble ahead, with a small ray of hope somewhere in
there.

A few random notes:
1- In rereading, I noticed you have a bit of overflowing italics in
#28 and #27.
2- As I reread of Archives' choice of romantic music, guess what
popped up on Jango? And upon Merrill's meeting Zanne, the beat becomes
a bit more seductive...
3- I hadn't noticed their first meal of kasha, chestnuts, lentils and
spinach. Sounds interesting, and delicious. I really wish I had a
refrigerator - it's practically impossible to keep things like
spinach, though the rest I think I could manage.

I don't really find it as disturbing to see the heroes doing 'bad'
things as others might. Imperfect heroes - I like that idea, being
less than perfect myself, knowing that at times I too find myself
being 'bad'. Sometimes we get things right, others wrong (just like
Fireheart Friendclan). But that's life, isn't it?
I remember what you wrote in the Introduction: even those with high
values have great defects, even the worst villians have redeemable,
even admirable qualities. I can live with all because I find it
realistic. Remember when I told you about "The Princess who beleived
in fairytales", which someone recommended to me, and how I found it
annoyingly bland and sweet, prefering "The Adventures of Frodo
Gardner" because he did struggle in order to learn and grow? The Tales
of the Tilian follow the same track, only much, much better.

Currently, I am reading a biography of Karl Terzaghi - a civil
engineer and father of soil mechanics. He did wonderful things for
civil engineering; he was absolutely brilliant. And yet he forced the
mother of his first child to give the baby away in spite of her
misgivings; he wrote an (unpublished) essay dangerously close to Nazi
ideas against the Jewish people; and his second child, a daughter,
grew up to be a Nazi. He worked for the Fuehrer himself.
And yet, I find myself learning from this person, not just about soil
mechanics (a subject I mean to study as soon as possible) but in terms
of his dedication, in spite of a constant lack of recognition; his
curiosity and desire for knowledge; the social skills that allowed him
to advance his research and made him welcome in a wide range of
circles. Learning so much, in fact, that I'm debating between copying
a lot of text or just buying a copy of the book so I can reread at my
pleasure, even scribble in a note or two.

My diagnosis for the Poison Gamble: a seductive beginning for the rest
of the series. Rather than "The End", it should read "The Beginning"
to be truly accurate. Very well done. And if this is the simple stuff,
I can't begin to imagine the richness of upcoming tales I am more than
hungry for.

[Dolores J. Nurss]

Thank you for the detailed review! And thank you especially for catching
the italic glitches--that makes a HUGE difference! I'm glad the characters
come through clearly; sometimes I worry if I'm getting them across. I know
them so well that I fear not communicating things that I take for granted.
As for the bond between Deirdre and Jake, I only learn a little at a time
about it, myself. I will say this much, that things did not go the way
*somebody* planned it to go, and this is a good thing. But you will learn
more about that in "The Outlaw God".

(In rereading, I have revised my assessment--some chapters at the beginning
of The Outlaw God do go a bit slowly--lots of intro stuff to hastily fill in
for anybody who missed the first book. But it will pick up soon enough.)

The synchronicities with the music do intrigue me! I write to random music,
and it often amazes me how well it meshes.

Yes, human beings are such complicated creatures! I've never liked
black-and-white portrayals of heroes and villains, although sometimes my
characters go too far for my comfort. And dreams can play tricks on me. I
swore I'd never create a bad guy whose motive seemed to be merely that he
likes being bad--and then I wound up dreaming up The Outlaw God! But that
villain does have some rather complicated motives underneath the veneer of
frank evil, and he's not as 100% as he'd like to think.

Regarding the engineer, it's sad that such a genius of physical material
could nevertheless be so poisoned by the madness of his time. I have always
said that art distills the best of the artist, and I suppose one could say
that of science, too. Ah well, let the better part survive him and the
worse molder in the grave!

[Sunrise Citly]

> Regarding the engineer, it's sad that such a genius of physical material
> could nevertheless be so poisoned by the madness of his time.  I have always
> said that art distills the best of the artist, and I suppose one could say
> that of science, too.  Ah well, let the better part survive him and the
> worse molder in the grave!

Curiously enough, the subtitle of the book is "The Engineer as
Artist".
At the time I reviewed The Poison Gamble, I wasn't done reading about
Terzaghi. The good news is, he eventually came around and realized
that he didn't really dislike the Jews that much, since he had several
as close friends and collaborators on his work in soil mechanics. As a
matter of fact, one of his works was burned because the co-author was
a Jew - I have a feeling that helped open his eyes.
He managed to escape from Germany by doing consulting work in London,
and from there he moved to the United States. He broke all ties with
the Nazis, including his daughter Vera (and on pretty bad terms too,
as she was in charge of a large portion of the female version of
Hitler Youth), and confided to his sister that he could not abide the
unbelievably mindless Nazi regime with their brutality against Jews,
and that WWII was likely to be lost by Germany.
People change, not always for worse. Thank goodness!

[Sunrise Citly]

By the way - the introduction to Outlaw God is the same as the
introduction to Poison Gamble, with only "The Cave Party" added as
subtitle. You might want to check that.

[Dolores J. Nurss]

I am so glad to hear this! Nobody knows where someone else's tale might
end.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sunrise Citly
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 2:59 PM
To: Writings of Dolores J. Nurss discussion group
Subject: Re: (Til) feedback, such as it is

[Dolores J. Nurss]

WHAT??? And I just learned today that the intro was majorly messed up to
the Poison Gamble, too!

Okay. Got it fixed. Apparently the reason my first correction didn't seem
to upload was that I accidentally uploaded it to the wrong section, and
overwrote the wrong intro. Now you can read it.

Sorry I haven't been able to post the first chapter of "The Outlaw God" yet.
My WordPerfect crashed. David might be able to fix it soon, in which case I
will rectify this as promptly as possible.

In the meantime, how do you like my table of contents for the story? I did
some experimentation on the background, to not just be straight-up black,
nor too regular a pattern, but to suggest depth, dim shadows in which
anything might move.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sunrise Citly
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 3:00 PM
To: Writings of Dolores J. Nurss discussion group
Subject: Re: (Til) feedback, such as it is