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Fleur Du Mal -> RE: Elven Robot Taisen (Any idea of a better name?) - C&C thread (5/18/2009 12:22:13)
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Hello,
I have some comments, opinions, and such to present thee about chapter 2; hopefully, at least a few of them are useful... I'll just go in the order I came across these thoughts.
(btw, I saw you still seem to have those yellow questionmarks included in the story-linkage. Do they have some particular use?)
1)quote:
Kurogane's voice echoed concernedly from the other end of the corridor, his tone struck an obviously still astonished Einherjar Ritter as yet another addition to said surprise. That tone was far too concerned and curious even for the considerate and scrupulous soldier Kuro was, telling the Global Union captain that the classified information would not remain classified for much longer, at least to Kurogane. The commissioned officer sighed, as if trying to release the chunk of disbelief stuck in his throat for the last half an hour, while returning the concern back to his friend.
Imo, there's a little bit too much of repeating the word 'concerned.' I'd suggest removing the first one with '-ly' since your description of the tone is illustrating enough later in the sentence.
This might be nitpicking, lol, but near the end of the paragraph, I don't think you need the word 'back' as 'return' implicitly takes that into account.
2)quote:
“I still can't believe the Liberators have found themselves some Mechvalries myself,” Kurogane said, looking highly tense.
This solely my personal preference, but I'd wish to read how Kurogane's tense-state showed itself. Were his muscles so in spasms that one could count the tendons of each, for example? (Yeah, that's overdoing it, but just to illustrate my point.) The thing is, if you say that he looked highly tense, it doesn't describe that much, imo. It doesn't /show/ his state. You could as well go with:
"Kurogane said, highly tensed."
3)quote:
Einherjar twitched a little, trying to bring himself to terms with the nonsense that his friend had just touched back.
'Touched back nonsense?' I'm afraid I don't quite get this sentence. Could it benefit from some rewording?
4)quote:
His boss was clueless himself at best, to be fair - from the Colonel's puzzled voice back then, it was implied that there was no way he could explain the matter without quoting senseless technobabbles as spoken by the resident scientists.
Any particular reason you need the passive voice here? I think it just adds unneccessary words in the sentence, complicating it. May I suggest a little simplifying:
'- the Colonel's puzzled words had implied that there was no way he could explain....'
5)quote:
Einherjar asked back, pulling himself together to return to his carefree attitude flawlessly.
Imho, this sentence would flow better if you'd move the adverb nearer to the verb it's tied to:
'Einherjar asked back, flawlessly pulling himself together to return to his carefree attitude.'
Furthermore, since the questions he's going to ask comes only /after/ this sentence, I'd suggest further reorganisation:
'Flawlessly pulling himself together to return to his carefree attitude, Einherjar asked, “With that aside, what do you think about these mysteries?” '
Your call, of course!
6)quote:
The giant's DNA structure was nothing we have ever seen before, or so I was told.
Beware of the nitpicker =P: 'structure' or 'sequence'?
Were the coded genes different, the bases in the nucleotides different or were the proteins associated with the DNA different?
Ah, well, just hit me, it's speech, so...I guess it doesn't matter.
7)quote:
“I'm not really into those boring high fantasy, but those overgrown ears are a quintessential tell-tale sign of the elves in most of these works.
Me suspects from the plural nature of the word 'those' that there's a word missing: 'into those boring high fantasy novels/books.'
or
'into that boring high fantasy'
8)quote:
Needless to say that gesture halted the conversation for a good couple of dozens of seconds.
This truly nitpicking, but the gesture doesn't really halt the conversation, but the same emotion and revelation that causes the facepalm also freezes the conversation. So, if and only if you want to, you could refine that a little. My suggestion would be:
'Needless to say, that gesture visualized the silencing of the conversation for a good couple of dozens of seconds.'
Might need some reworking as well, lol.
Scene 2...
9)quote:
when the rampaging fist of a Mountain Giant of the Dark Lord’s armies crushed the wounded elven knight,
I believe that should be 'the' is the Giant has been mentioned before.
10)quote:
All over Silverlush, the massage was rolling in at full swing, as houses were set ablaze,
Just a typo: 'massacre'
11)quote:
Faegard was speaking his mind is this issue.
Another typo? 'in'
12)quote:
The cracking flame of the burning city, the screams of people being slaughtered, the savage roars of the infamous dragons, the barbaric laughter of the goblin rabbles, not to mention the half-sadistic, half-idiotic growls the Mountain Giant gave out every so often when he was in its sight … every of those sounds combining with one another, forming the pandemonic orchestra of carnage and destruction that would please no one except Death himself.
First of all, I love how you have used the soundscape for presenting Faegard's traumatic memories instead of just the common visualizations. Suits the character, since he does have quite a hearing capability.
Secondly, not 100% sure, but should there be 'one' in 'every one of those sounds?'
Thirdly, a stylistic suggestion based on sound only: 'choir of carnage' Imho, it rolls out slightly better than 'orchestra of carnage.' Not that there's anything wrong with that original wording, either.
13)quote:
His paralyzed limbs were betraying him – what should have been a violent struggle to break free of whatever holding him back turned out to be a little better than lifting and turning his hands and feet.
Not sure of the tense there. Should it be 'whatever was holding him back' or 'whatever held him back?'
Probably the former.
14)quote:
The struggle itself didn’t last long, however. Faegard’s pains set back as quickly as it could, nullifying any ounce of the downed prince’s attempt.
Since 'pains' is in plural, shouldn't 'it' be 'they?'
15)quote:
As much as Faegard felt relieved that eh had made it after all, the bruises, cuts, and mind-scrambling headache were still there.
Just a typo: 'he'
16)quote:
Yet, this time, curiosity got the better of Faegard after all, as the prince chose to listen on.
These three expressions
'yet'
'this time'
&
'after all'
are all pointing pretty much at the same thing, imo. So, I'd suggest cutting some of them away, since you don't need them all. 'after all' would be the most obvious choice, imo, in fact, mere 'Yet' in the beginning could take care of the whole thing alone.
17)quote:
His tone had been slightly watered down this time, showing that he had somewhat calmed down, at which point Faegard sighed of relief again. Just about time Faegard needed some explanation, the way the loud voice was addressing the matter was not cutting him any slack, namely, half of the vocabulary he used, Faegard didn’t know.
Not sure if you really need to repeat 'Faegard' all this time, but that's again me preferring minimal number of stating the names. =P
Maybe you could replace the second one with 'he' or 'the elf' ?
18)quote:
The final shocks in the fight against the Mountain Giant must have left his physical body in a less than adequate state,
This is just me, but whenever I read 'physical body' I start to think about mechanical energy, inertia, and other physics-related matters. May I suggest another word, like 'physical frame' or deleting the word 'physical' altogether, and go with the word 'body' only?
Your call, of course, not all your readers are geeks like me. =P
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