for Monster Without3/6/2007 c3 
20Sir Bradford
Yet again the marvelous qlmmb fails not to produce another fine masterpiece of text. Please keep going.
At your service until my dying breath,
Faelorn Exordius
20Sir BradfordYet again the marvelous qlmmb fails not to produce another fine masterpiece of text. Please keep going.
At your service until my dying breath,
Faelorn Exordius
12/19/2006 c1 1Aizuke
Wow, you really have something awesome going on here. Not to mention, Minotaurs. Rock.
I noticed you use a lot of 'passive' verbs. You know, 'had' 'was' 'sh/c/would'. It's hard, but maybe try to use more active verbs?
Maybe it's partially personal preference, but in a way, the passive and active words relate to how the story comes off. The more passive verbs you use, the less active everything seems. Don't switch entirely, that's not a good idea either and pretty much impossible, but when you can, it's usually more engaging to have an active verb.
Also, we read an entire chapter, but so far, Rem is just a name to me. I got to know the Minotaur and her personality a bit through Rem's obversations, but the only thing I really got to know about him is that he got sick of the war. I don't know if you did this intentionally or not, but I'd love to get in Rem's head a bit. He's the first human who met a Minotaur and might get away alive! :O
Don't get the wrong idea out of this. The first chapter is great, with so much potentional, and you bet I'll be reading the rest during Christmas break. I hope it's just as good as this one :D
1AizukeWow, you really have something awesome going on here. Not to mention, Minotaurs. Rock.
I noticed you use a lot of 'passive' verbs. You know, 'had' 'was' 'sh/c/would'. It's hard, but maybe try to use more active verbs?
Maybe it's partially personal preference, but in a way, the passive and active words relate to how the story comes off. The more passive verbs you use, the less active everything seems. Don't switch entirely, that's not a good idea either and pretty much impossible, but when you can, it's usually more engaging to have an active verb.
Also, we read an entire chapter, but so far, Rem is just a name to me. I got to know the Minotaur and her personality a bit through Rem's obversations, but the only thing I really got to know about him is that he got sick of the war. I don't know if you did this intentionally or not, but I'd love to get in Rem's head a bit. He's the first human who met a Minotaur and might get away alive! :O
Don't get the wrong idea out of this. The first chapter is great, with so much potentional, and you bet I'll be reading the rest during Christmas break. I hope it's just as good as this one :D
12/11/2006 c1 1marjorievonnordeck
Hi there,
I thought I might as well come by and check out what you have here... I really like this, your discriptions of the areia especially. I under stand much more of the way Rem thinks now. :) I hope you do continue this, I'd be very intrested to read more.
~Marjorie
1marjorievonnordeckHi there,
I thought I might as well come by and check out what you have here... I really like this, your discriptions of the areia especially. I under stand much more of the way Rem thinks now. :) I hope you do continue this, I'd be very intrested to read more.
~Marjorie
11/15/2006 c2 12Lccorp2
Nicely done, sir/madam/it/whatever, lol.
-I must still disagree somewhat with you on the issue of nonconbatants, but fine. Have it your way, it's your story. I think the most recent account would be of troops stationed in Iraq, some of their interviews have been really interesting.
And oh, I'm in the navy. Just haven't been through an actual war, admittedly.
-Please be assured that I cannot read your mind. Since there are no explanations in the story as of yet in the first chapter, I am simply writing out my thoughts as I go along. If you have them in future chapters, fine. So be it. Can't read everything in one go, considering the number of online and offline works that fill my spare time. :P
Perhaps I will make mistakes, or perhaps there will be things that are explained later. I'm not psychic. Feel free to disagree. but I'll tell you this: I don't give "HOMG UR KEWL OMG WRITEMORE AND REVIEW ME PLZ!" reviews.
Thank you, and good day. I'll get back sometime, and we'll speak again. The PMs don't seem to be working, so I'm using this method.
12Lccorp2Nicely done, sir/madam/it/whatever, lol.
-I must still disagree somewhat with you on the issue of nonconbatants, but fine. Have it your way, it's your story. I think the most recent account would be of troops stationed in Iraq, some of their interviews have been really interesting.
And oh, I'm in the navy. Just haven't been through an actual war, admittedly.
-Please be assured that I cannot read your mind. Since there are no explanations in the story as of yet in the first chapter, I am simply writing out my thoughts as I go along. If you have them in future chapters, fine. So be it. Can't read everything in one go, considering the number of online and offline works that fill my spare time. :P
Perhaps I will make mistakes, or perhaps there will be things that are explained later. I'm not psychic. Feel free to disagree. but I'll tell you this: I don't give "HOMG UR KEWL OMG WRITEMORE AND REVIEW ME PLZ!" reviews.
Thank you, and good day. I'll get back sometime, and we'll speak again. The PMs don't seem to be working, so I'm using this method.
11/15/2006 c1 5Qlmmb2086
Ok, "Eldarath" I'll bite.
-For your first comment, there's something you should know about Rem at this point in the story: He's a moron. You are supposed to notice the stupid things he thinks and does. He becomes less moronic later, but it takes a while.
-The point of where he is going is that he has just recently left. It's a roundabout way of eventually getting to inhabited lands, but until he's out of the range of where he would be recognized he intends to stay in lands where nobody lives. At this point, he doesn't think anybody inhabits the aria he is in, be it human, Minotaur, or otherwise.
-"On the one hand this was definitely no warrior of the enemy, and therefore it was a noncombatant and not to be harmed."
You boggle at this. Therefore you are no soldier. Deal. There are several conflicting factors at this point. His training would make the Minotaur a noncombatant but his experience would make it a target. The third, and deciding factor, is the fact that he's "had it up to here" with the war and doesn't want to start a fight to begin with. The reason why this is hasn't been explained yet. And yes, the fact that she is female is an important factor as well. Not because he’s a sexist bastard either; the differences in the appearance of the two genders is enough to dilute the instinctive reaction he has towards their warriors.
-I agree with you on the "somehow" point. I'll look into fixing it; I didn't like the way that sounded to begin with. He can tell, to a certain extent, what she is thinking because he’s seen Minotaur under stress up close and personal. I need a better way to explain that.
-I'm already way ahead of you on the language thing. I don't know if you've bothered to look into the language issues in the later chapters, but every human word does not have a direct equivalent, and the language structure is much different as well. Some concepts take several words to express in one language but only one in the other. In the Minotaur language, simple nouns have direct translations to “human” (because there's no feasible way for them not to), but not much else is the same. Prepositions are often compounded with pronouns, nouns precede adjectives, and verbs have plurals, for example.
But that's only beginning. As Rem finds out, even simple gestures are misleading and misinterpreted, some of which are VERY different in their meanings between the two languages.
-As for the "difference in culture" thing, there's a reason they are closer than you'd expect, and war is not the only contact the two races have had with each other. You are not supposed to know this by reading only the first chapter.
-To your whole "anatomy of speech thing," both are humanoid and share similar, but not all, vocal capabilities. There is no other way to write the story, so I invoke the almighty "suspension of disbelief." This is NOT a historical fiction. It's fantasy.
5Qlmmb2086Ok, "Eldarath" I'll bite.
-For your first comment, there's something you should know about Rem at this point in the story: He's a moron. You are supposed to notice the stupid things he thinks and does. He becomes less moronic later, but it takes a while.
-The point of where he is going is that he has just recently left. It's a roundabout way of eventually getting to inhabited lands, but until he's out of the range of where he would be recognized he intends to stay in lands where nobody lives. At this point, he doesn't think anybody inhabits the aria he is in, be it human, Minotaur, or otherwise.
-"On the one hand this was definitely no warrior of the enemy, and therefore it was a noncombatant and not to be harmed."
You boggle at this. Therefore you are no soldier. Deal. There are several conflicting factors at this point. His training would make the Minotaur a noncombatant but his experience would make it a target. The third, and deciding factor, is the fact that he's "had it up to here" with the war and doesn't want to start a fight to begin with. The reason why this is hasn't been explained yet. And yes, the fact that she is female is an important factor as well. Not because he’s a sexist bastard either; the differences in the appearance of the two genders is enough to dilute the instinctive reaction he has towards their warriors.
-I agree with you on the "somehow" point. I'll look into fixing it; I didn't like the way that sounded to begin with. He can tell, to a certain extent, what she is thinking because he’s seen Minotaur under stress up close and personal. I need a better way to explain that.
-I'm already way ahead of you on the language thing. I don't know if you've bothered to look into the language issues in the later chapters, but every human word does not have a direct equivalent, and the language structure is much different as well. Some concepts take several words to express in one language but only one in the other. In the Minotaur language, simple nouns have direct translations to “human” (because there's no feasible way for them not to), but not much else is the same. Prepositions are often compounded with pronouns, nouns precede adjectives, and verbs have plurals, for example.
But that's only beginning. As Rem finds out, even simple gestures are misleading and misinterpreted, some of which are VERY different in their meanings between the two languages.
-As for the "difference in culture" thing, there's a reason they are closer than you'd expect, and war is not the only contact the two races have had with each other. You are not supposed to know this by reading only the first chapter.
-To your whole "anatomy of speech thing," both are humanoid and share similar, but not all, vocal capabilities. There is no other way to write the story, so I invoke the almighty "suspension of disbelief." This is NOT a historical fiction. It's fantasy.
11/15/2006 c1 12Lccorp2
Harr.
Eldarath:
*Garrottes*
-"He had lived on the march before, and was confident he would be able to find or create his own shelter and forage for food when the need arose."
Are you sure of this? Presuambly, he's going into minotaur lands, which humans normally don't go into. That alone poses quite a few problems, the different wildlife being one small example. Yellow-spotted mushrooms that grow in kingdom A may look similar to the deadly poisonous yellow-spotted mushrooms in kingdom B. Trial and error can be fatal.
A deserter's ultimate objective is often to abscond into INHABITED lands where no one knows them, not become Robinson Crusoe. Soldiers on the march are often at least fed something; an army that willingly travels without food is idiotic.
That's why I really get irritated at so many teenage runaways, they always seem to find generic "edible plants". Pah. No, they didn't find them, the author intervened and put them there.
-"On the one hand this was definitely no warrior of the enemy, and therefore it was a noncombatant and not to be harmed."
I boggle at this. This is almost as bad as Metis' code of conduct: completely irrational given the person holding it. Surely you expect me to believe that an experienced soldier would actually bother with this, after seeing so many die to minotaurs, going through so many dirty tricks played by both sides in war (if you want real historical examples of these, I'll be glad to provide them. And don't tell me everyone OMG FIGHTS WITH HONOUR, because guess what: in a battle between life and death, no one cares. Have you ever seen people FIGHTING? They bite, kick, pummel, bash, gouge, ANYTHING to gain an advantage over the other.), especially without some form the the geneva convention.
I could believe a young, naive soldier could think this. Asking a grizzled war veteran who's supposedly seen much of war? NO. I'm not buying this for a second.
I don't believe that someone who's fought minotaur all his life, seen their rage, heard stories cooked up to demonise them, thought nothing but evil of them could just suddenly have a change of heart because this one was a female. Did he? Oh no, the author made him do it, otherwise there wouldn't be a story.
I'm sorry for the term I use here. If you don't like it, feel free to voice it out. It's an 'idiot plot', where the characters have to behave like idiots to make the plot go along. I've discontinued 2 stories just because they were headed towards idiot plots.
Phew.
-"But somehow he knew that she was afraid, and didn’t want to hurt him."
"somehow" is a word you should avoid at all costs. It implies author contrivance again. At least show us the damn reasoning, and if it's "inuition" that can be damned. I'ts a slippery slope, later, "somehow" he knws there's a trap, "somehow" he knows she loves him, "somehow" he knows the sky's falling.
Without ever bothering to explain why, anyways. SOMEHOW.
-And we come to the prickly issue of language. I don't want to tire you out, so I'll make this my last point for the day.
Consider English, German and French. All are descended from Latin, that's why they're called the "romance" languages.
Why do minotaur seem to have the same meanings for gestures and analogues for words that humans have? Consider this for a moment. The above three languages are related, yet they can still be exceedingly different quite a few ways.
Why then, should two different cultures that presuably have had no contact except war (I'm not sure if this is recent history) share such things?
First, consider the biology. You haven't gone into extreme high detail on them, so I'll just assume the descriptions you use are variations on the one protrayed in greek mythology. given that, would they even have vocal chords similar to a human's? Could they even pronounce syllables that Rem recognizes, or vice versa? My dragons speak in squwaks, creels, roars growls, rubles and the such, but everything's translated into english for the reader's benefit. The Common Language of Arkon historically took about five hundred Rounds to iron out, given all the peoples who were supposed to speak it, and there were massive arguments started over what form it should take. Even in "present day" Arkon, there are still local variants of Common,and some races prefer to converse with each other in their mother tongue.
Secondly, there's the linguistic barrier. Assuming that EVERY WORD OF HUMAN HAS AN ANALOGUE, some things still wouldn't get through. Words that have both literal and figurative meanings, for example. Or idioms. Non-native speakers of chinese have trouble with the myriad of idioms used in the language-for example "Hua she tian zhu" which literally translates into "draw snake add feet". What it MEANS is to add something that is unecessary. What will Rem do when confronted with such things of the minotaur? The striking resemblance of gestures is also odd-for example, throwing weapons down need not be a gesture of peace; looking at it from another veiwpoint, it could be a deadly insult, implying one does not need weapons to defeat said person. How about words differing with gestures? Perhaps phrase x said with a flick of the tail means "Good day to you.", but without said flick might mean "I would like to kill you and rape your daughter." or somesuch.
You get my point?
Given the separateness of the cultures, the difference in biology, the...you get my point...it is highly astonishing that such cultures could be so similar in the way that communicate with each other, that there are so many similarities.
Or could it just be authorial contrivance?
12Lccorp2Harr.
Eldarath:
*Garrottes*
-"He had lived on the march before, and was confident he would be able to find or create his own shelter and forage for food when the need arose."
Are you sure of this? Presuambly, he's going into minotaur lands, which humans normally don't go into. That alone poses quite a few problems, the different wildlife being one small example. Yellow-spotted mushrooms that grow in kingdom A may look similar to the deadly poisonous yellow-spotted mushrooms in kingdom B. Trial and error can be fatal.
A deserter's ultimate objective is often to abscond into INHABITED lands where no one knows them, not become Robinson Crusoe. Soldiers on the march are often at least fed something; an army that willingly travels without food is idiotic.
That's why I really get irritated at so many teenage runaways, they always seem to find generic "edible plants". Pah. No, they didn't find them, the author intervened and put them there.
-"On the one hand this was definitely no warrior of the enemy, and therefore it was a noncombatant and not to be harmed."
I boggle at this. This is almost as bad as Metis' code of conduct: completely irrational given the person holding it. Surely you expect me to believe that an experienced soldier would actually bother with this, after seeing so many die to minotaurs, going through so many dirty tricks played by both sides in war (if you want real historical examples of these, I'll be glad to provide them. And don't tell me everyone OMG FIGHTS WITH HONOUR, because guess what: in a battle between life and death, no one cares. Have you ever seen people FIGHTING? They bite, kick, pummel, bash, gouge, ANYTHING to gain an advantage over the other.), especially without some form the the geneva convention.
I could believe a young, naive soldier could think this. Asking a grizzled war veteran who's supposedly seen much of war? NO. I'm not buying this for a second.
I don't believe that someone who's fought minotaur all his life, seen their rage, heard stories cooked up to demonise them, thought nothing but evil of them could just suddenly have a change of heart because this one was a female. Did he? Oh no, the author made him do it, otherwise there wouldn't be a story.
I'm sorry for the term I use here. If you don't like it, feel free to voice it out. It's an 'idiot plot', where the characters have to behave like idiots to make the plot go along. I've discontinued 2 stories just because they were headed towards idiot plots.
Phew.
-"But somehow he knew that she was afraid, and didn’t want to hurt him."
"somehow" is a word you should avoid at all costs. It implies author contrivance again. At least show us the damn reasoning, and if it's "inuition" that can be damned. I'ts a slippery slope, later, "somehow" he knws there's a trap, "somehow" he knows she loves him, "somehow" he knows the sky's falling.
Without ever bothering to explain why, anyways. SOMEHOW.
-And we come to the prickly issue of language. I don't want to tire you out, so I'll make this my last point for the day.
Consider English, German and French. All are descended from Latin, that's why they're called the "romance" languages.
Why do minotaur seem to have the same meanings for gestures and analogues for words that humans have? Consider this for a moment. The above three languages are related, yet they can still be exceedingly different quite a few ways.
Why then, should two different cultures that presuably have had no contact except war (I'm not sure if this is recent history) share such things?
First, consider the biology. You haven't gone into extreme high detail on them, so I'll just assume the descriptions you use are variations on the one protrayed in greek mythology. given that, would they even have vocal chords similar to a human's? Could they even pronounce syllables that Rem recognizes, or vice versa? My dragons speak in squwaks, creels, roars growls, rubles and the such, but everything's translated into english for the reader's benefit. The Common Language of Arkon historically took about five hundred Rounds to iron out, given all the peoples who were supposed to speak it, and there were massive arguments started over what form it should take. Even in "present day" Arkon, there are still local variants of Common,and some races prefer to converse with each other in their mother tongue.
Secondly, there's the linguistic barrier. Assuming that EVERY WORD OF HUMAN HAS AN ANALOGUE, some things still wouldn't get through. Words that have both literal and figurative meanings, for example. Or idioms. Non-native speakers of chinese have trouble with the myriad of idioms used in the language-for example "Hua she tian zhu" which literally translates into "draw snake add feet". What it MEANS is to add something that is unecessary. What will Rem do when confronted with such things of the minotaur? The striking resemblance of gestures is also odd-for example, throwing weapons down need not be a gesture of peace; looking at it from another veiwpoint, it could be a deadly insult, implying one does not need weapons to defeat said person. How about words differing with gestures? Perhaps phrase x said with a flick of the tail means "Good day to you.", but without said flick might mean "I would like to kill you and rape your daughter." or somesuch.
You get my point?
Given the separateness of the cultures, the difference in biology, the...you get my point...it is highly astonishing that such cultures could be so similar in the way that communicate with each other, that there are so many similarities.
Or could it just be authorial contrivance?
11/7/2006 c1 10Rosemarine
after reading all you had to say on forums, I decided to check out your writings.
The chapter is very good, intriguing, and somehow fresh. Although you might want to go back and fix some things like 'he carried a sword on his left hip, and on his left a dagger?'
10Rosemarineafter reading all you had to say on forums, I decided to check out your writings.
The chapter is very good, intriguing, and somehow fresh. Although you might want to go back and fix some things like 'he carried a sword on his left hip, and on his left a dagger?'
11/6/2006 c2 20Sir Bradford
Excellent chapter, and especially well written description of the forge, I could see it through my mind's eye. I did find one possible spelling error, second line. Dieing? It just doesn't seem right to me. Anyway, keep going, this story is easily as good as The Hatchling, and I eagerly await the next installment.
At your humble service until my last breath,
Faelorn Exordius
20Sir BradfordExcellent chapter, and especially well written description of the forge, I could see it through my mind's eye. I did find one possible spelling error, second line. Dieing? It just doesn't seem right to me. Anyway, keep going, this story is easily as good as The Hatchling, and I eagerly await the next installment.
At your humble service until my last breath,
Faelorn Exordius
10/30/2006 c1 slayer777
This is excellent. I did find a few spelling errors, but nothing that really got in the way. I also enjoy the idea of a female minotaur. That concepr never really appeared to me before. Definitely keep going with this one, its got me waiting for the next installment.
-Faelorn Exordius
This is excellent. I did find a few spelling errors, but nothing that really got in the way. I also enjoy the idea of a female minotaur. That concepr never really appeared to me before. Definitely keep going with this one, its got me waiting for the next installment.
-Faelorn Exordius