knotme

Best chapter yet. 24 wouldn't have the budget for this, and we would be seeing way too much of one or two overpriced actors, playing maybe McGrath and POTUS. In this kind of story, the written word rules!

If not for our author's propensities to let protagonists triumph in the end, I would be worried for Paddy and Troy. Our heroes' secrets are leaking and enemies accumulate. I think Matthiew can handle Tom, but Levi could be bad news. The sooner Troy puts the fear of god into Levi, the better. Paddy's not going to do it.

Totally agree with nostalgic; giving Luke an easy time would be criminal. A most satisfying chapter. I like how an ingredients bomb can go off and clean up nicely! (A compost pot helps.) [Hint to editor: global search on "twin" ]

The fine was levied 11 months ago, so the recent spate of Internet stories in the last couple of days is suspicious and perhaps political (enough about that ). Here's what I found out by poking around: Both USA and Canadian food guidelines are insipid, vague, inoffensive, subject to interpretation, and apply to daily intake. A Manitoba agency decided to apply them to specific school meals. Then one small day-care facility decided to get literal and impose fines for violations, although I'm not sure how many fines were collected. Mrs. Bartkiw pointed out that potatoes can substitute for grains and did not pay the fine. The day care must have taken some heat, because by the time Manitoba pointed out that their regs do not authorize fines, the facility had instituted a hot lunch program that they can manage to their literal hearts' content. Cia's comment gets to an issue that rings my bell: Can we let silly examples like this scare off public policy? Where I live, most kids living too close to school to be bussed are driven to school, but I observe that many of the walkers are chubby. If these kids don't slim down, enough of them will contract Type-II Diabetes to bring down our state's health care system. These kids are expected to get fatter after growth spurts. Super sized drinks and multiple starches (e.g., rice and macaroni salad) are engrained in our culture. Any laws, rules, or regs to combat this serious problem are going to result in absurdities, because public policy cannot discriminate. Go easy on thin kids? Unfair to fat kids! Let or encourage athletes to eat more? Unfair to the other kids! Maybe the best we can do is try to make reasonable public policies and let citizens deal with exceptions case by case, as in this case. Keep your sense of humor. As one Canadian wrote, "Grains? Hey, give 'em a beer."

Case:Black is a disaster in slow motion. Mist fell in chapter 11 at 0730CST on July 16. Today's action takes place the next day, at 0200 and 0230CST. I'm not complaining about the slow pace. If we got the entire store in one shot, I wouldn't be able to pace myself, and I'd miss most of it, and it would be over before I knew it. We're on track to cover 24 hours in about a month. I'm losing track of whose where doing what, and don't know where to look to refresh my memory. Small story chunks worsen my problem, but I have an idea to turn that into a benefit. Story-wide online searching would be great, but no way am I going to suggest that to the site techs; they have more than enough on their plates. How about this: replace default chapter titles with place and time. So for example, the title of chapter 37 could be "July 17 0200, Southaven; July 17 0230, enroute to Mexico City". (CST assumed.) Most chapters depict only one scene, so no semicolon needed. Yeah, the TOC would then be ugly, like a table exported to CSV format, because that's sorta what it is, but it would help me. Wanna try it going forward? I'm wearing my body armor. Let me have it.

"False brightness pinged through Troy’s voice like the bizarre harmonics of a plastic bell" struck me. Most plastic bells thunk tonelessly and harmlessly, but some actually ring: awww, it's so bad. I can feel Paddy cringe.

Kei and Alex (especially) are well drawn, fleshed out, and easy for me to identify with, but empathy sometimes comes at a cost, and I find myself pulling away. The light at the end of the tunnel seems to be dimming. Maybe the rehab center would be better, except for the dick-head parents, but that looks like only a minor factor in the overall gloomy trend of more and more effort over more and more time with poorer and poorer prospects.

If this scheme goes bad, good people we've met are going to die. Millions of good unmet, nameless people are dying off stage. Like charity, compassion begins at home. Were I in this mess, I would favor family, coworkers, friends and neighbors. As a reader, safe and sound in my Aeron, it feels right to invest in those we know. So today I cheer for McGrath.

I had related best to Konstantin, Carlos, and Lily. It hurt to lose two of them, and to lose Konstantin soon would be tough. As fond as I am of Shay and Mira, they are so much larger than life, so amazing, that they seem to me more idealized protagonists than real flesh and blood. Without them, I would fear for the entire structure you've created, so they must continue, but I don't crave their presence on stage right now. Does that make any sense? To follow up on my over-the-top "glorious struggle" comment in a review of "Unto the Breach", I was referring mostly to concepts in Hidden Sunlight so foreign as to defy language. None of that so far in the sequel, that I've noticed, but you've kept me active. Now I know for example that a nimbus of light is like a fuzzy, blurry halo (right?), and that Yakutsk boasts some of most extreme weather of any city on earth.

Any ill-advised notion that Stellar is not devoted to writing would be crushed by the obvious effort put into this topic. Essential reading. I'm glad I didn't attempt a story review before reading here. I had been wrong about a lot. For instance, I had guessed that "Mira" implied androgeny. I shall go through as requested and Like most chapters. I didn't enjoy all of them, so I must review them before Liking. I should do anyway before attempting a story review. As I recall, some chapters arrived after along waits and didn't advance plot lines enough to suit me. That complaint may go away on review. Vocabulary, external references, and metaphors keep me an active reader, and I ended up appreciating most of them. Apologies for the forward reference: When I say in my review of the first chapter of the sequel that I struggled with Hidden Sunlight, I refer mainly to unspeakably alien and exotic ideas being communicated. ("Glorious struggle" I said, in retrospect over the top, but I can't edit, so it stays.) I try to fully understand fiction unless I receive a clear signal from the author that vagueness is intentional and any clarification I dream up will be my own. When in doubt, I strive to clarify, and I struggled with Hidden Sunlight in places. I hope to return to this post, edit it, and try out some of the story review, because here I can edit (I see than others can--I haven't tried yet), while reviews are cast in stone. For now, let me simply say "me, too", to much of what is written by other readers.

Hidden Sunlight was a glorious struggle to read; I can't imagine the struggle to write it. Now, book two, my dictionary and DuckDuckGo pages already quite busy. May you proceed at a sustainable pace, our carping notwithstanding. I'm full of anticipation.

I am dazzled by the variety of quality responses to this prompt challenge. Each newest is my favorite.

Maybe your best chapter yet, with Miracle pulling a Norma Desmond* (but one way out of madness). My take (what's yours?) on this story supports theocrats, who believe that only those grounded in god can avoid the slippery slope of moral relativism. I'm a humanist, trying to build a moral life without religion. As for Jaemin, he kills gratuitously, so he rots in hell! * Sunset Boulevard 1950

Silly me, with the rose-colored glasses. I'd thought the sign in front of the Utah Data Center was photoshopped. Even if big data and the feds spy on us, why rub it in our faces so crudely? Nope, seems real. They're proud of that motto.

Damn! The ride would have been killer.

Yeah, stories that end prematurely and then suggest you buy the book are a bit like too-small bits of free porn. For me, the satisfying length of a denoument depends on the genre: Whodunits, close to nothing. Thrillers (Cassini Mission, Luxorian Fugitive) build high pressure and then naturally deflate quickly; don't want to hang around too long. Complex, emotion-laden stories with several subplots need more time. Finally, if the denoument seems short in comparison to the body, perhaps the body is too long? Seven-to-eight chapters building, then twenty-to-thirty chapters maintaining (repeating? ugh) may be too much bulk. For me, anyway. I like motion and change. Regarding the degree of resolution, I agree with several earlier posts.

I'm kinda with Bay (from Bad Stereotypes): my reluctance to let gayness define me leads me to avoid this whole question most of the time. Fortunately (for me), I live where cultures of all stripes are all mashed up, and therefore less defining and limiting.

Martha may be stereotypical, but I agree with her on at least one thing: Miracle is embroiled in a high-school soap opera. I ached when he told Cody that he expects high school to be the pinnacle of life, and that if his current acquaintances didn't remember him 10 years hence, his life will have been wasted. Adults have so failed him.

Pedal to the metal without overthinking the direction or even if there is a road. Luke's skin has thickened and toughened by now, but I fear damage to others. Jamison seems resilient as hell, and Jeremy so fragile. Can't wait to learn more about that.

Totally agree with Lisa. A suidice pact, or mutual murder, would be a great benefit to the world.

Very effective. Although I had not read the prompt, you foreshadowed the death; the Mother's cried was only confirmation. I was most touched by Tag's choice of burial items. I'm sure he was choosing his favorites--he would have also buried the birthday videocast if he could--but to me his choices signal the abrupt end of his relationship with his father. You ask in the forum if the piece is over the top? Well, it's easier to smoothly work in all the required words in a longer piece, giving you a bit of an unfair advantage over two-paragraph responses, but we readers win.

Damn Miracle, you're already out of control. Can't you see it?

Nice technical details! I'm not skilled to evaluate them, but they add to the story.

Earlier, I'd asked whether this plague might burn itself out. I guess the guys in charge have decided no, not without extreme help.

Only when I began to review this piece did I realize that there are only pronouns, so I'll refer to narrator and other, N & O. Love demands names (O you, you, wherefore art thou, you? Only in the Brooks version), but names are also key to empathy at any stage of a relationship. I think N & O knew each others' names but chose not to use them, connoting bleakness and hopelessness. Great decision by the author! In N's stew of thoughts and emotions, conviction, hope, and confidence are swamped by other ingredients. The morning after, in a hurry, is not the best time for that conversation, but N could not face the possibility of awkwardness at an earlier time. So, more than friends? No, for now at least. Would O have been more hopeful at a more propitious time? Who knows? I personally don't think N totally misunderstood O, who cannot be expected to be blunt and forthright here. A fan of Faulkner and Hemingway, I stumbled over the verbiage here and there, but the message still hit home.