C James

Yes... I was thinking that! :wacko:

Hrmmm... My "Blame Shadowgod" campaign seems to be faltering...

Agreed that it does, and it's one of the things I bitterly oppose. I think I'd have reacted the same to any cheating character. Infidelity is infidelity in my book, and I agree with the Shadowy one that if Joe had strayed, he'd have come off as damaged goods, just as Julie has. Jonathon... Hrmmm. I have mixed feelings there. If Cody led him to beleive it's a monogamous relationship (and Jonathon did seem to have that impression) then that is a negative for Cody, though IMHO mitigated by his psychological issues a little, and a little more by Jonathon being kind of negative himself). I think I may have expressed some concerns regarding Cody's reputation in this regard to His Shadowyness early in the story. Now here's an interesting conundrum; now that Julie has cheated, what if Joe strays? IMHO, turnabout is fair play, BUT, what if Joe strays without knowing that Julie has? In effect, he's done the exact same thing as she did IMHO if he does that. Hrmmm... A wandering mind? Sorry, I don't think that can compare with wandering, errrm, other parts. HOWEVER, was that wandering mind a factor in the breakup? Seems to me it is, though subconscious. Regarding Julie, one thing that made her look good IMHO (or at least, less bad) was that she felt guilt. Cody indeed never called Jacob (until much later, anyway). Cody basically let Jacob take the fallout from the "incident", so Jacob IMHO has by far the lessor burden of responsibility and blame here. Cody, while he did the right thing and didn't sell Jacob out to the PI, also didn't tell Jacob that a PI was poking around. That has long puzzled me, but perhaps it's explained by lingering resentment, at some level, towards Jacob? It isn't surprising that each of them seem to have their own "versions" of what actually happened. Indeed, IMHO it would be surprising if they didn't.

I totally agree with the points in this thread. Thank you Kevin for raising this issue. The reason many of us (myself included) post our work is that we like to see reader response and interact with readers. If you read a story, give the author a comment, or a post in their thread. That's not much to ask for the many hours the author and their editors and betas spend working on it, and in most cases reader feedback is the only pay they will ever receive. No one is asking you to read stories you don't want to, just to send the author a comment or a post if you do become a reader. For a long time I was very active in giving feedback, and I still do whenever I read a story; I just don't read that much anymore due to having a lot to do online and off. However, I will mention one other aspect of this; if an author is complaining about not getting feedback, and that author is reading stories and not giving feedback themselves, they ought to take a look in the minor while they complain. (please note; I'm not referring to anyone in particular, nor do I have anyone in mind (or even know of anyone to whom it currently applies), just stating a situation that, if it occurs, is hypocritical in the extreme). CJ

That's a good point!! OK, first, here's the paragraph that IMHO best sums up the situation;

Who? Me? a tease? OK, I did some editing on Chapter 43... Just to one sentence, which now reads;

Poor Helen... She takes a bullet for Eric and she's still derided. BTW, the "c**t" remark concerns me; from what I understand, some may see that as similar to a racial epithet. It's also one of our filtered words on the forums, so please, don't use it here. Thanks. Okay, hrmmm, good points about Dimitri's assault; I should have been clearer. I just re-read that part and muttered "oh, Crap!" I remembered to say that the lone outside deputy was not visible from inside THE house, but I neglected to say that his post was not clearly visible from the Biker's location (the Jacobs Ranch, a few hundred yards to the south). It says he was sitting on a log beside (so at the side of) the house, and was the front faces the road (to the east, per the text) he could either be on the north or south side. I thought i had said "north" at some point, but I didn't. It would be the most sensible location; it would cover the area blocked to the biker observers yet also cover the driveway. However, I SHOULD have specified it. I hate to change posted text for anything other than typos, but I'm considering doing so in this case. My apologies for the ommision; that was sloppy on my part. Unless anyone comes up with a good reason not to, I'll make a change to the posted text and make it clear that the exterior deputy is on the north side of the house. (I took pains to specify, more than once, that the Jacobs ranch is to the south, for that very reason, and here I go and goof up the thing I was doing that for. Duh!) The Biker's response time was due to the distance. A couple hundred yards (per the text) means Dimitri was right; if his plan had worked, he'd have had time to get out. His plan was high-risk, but workable *IF* nothing went wrong (but it did). Dimitri's attack was a classic asymmetric strategy; rely on assumptions to get to the target, bypassing permiter defenses instead of going force-on-force. As for the Air Force, did they goof? Yep! They made bad assumptions. They assumed that the threat was over after the first attack because, firstly, the attacker was dead, and secondly, the reason for the attack was gone; the information had been transfered. Did they overlook the glaring fact that a second attacker might be out there and not know the attack was futile? Yes, they did. That might seem like an outrageous mistake, but it isn't. It;s called operational chaos. During an emergency, things like that happen all the time. For example, the two F-16's scrambled out of Langley on 9-11 headed over a hundred miles out to sea instead of heading for Washington (or guarding the naval facilities at Hampton roads) because no one thought to give them a heading after takeoff? Well, it actually happened! There are countless examples of such mistakes (by no means limited to the US military, or any military for that matter). Things like that happen in an operational environment all the time. I had them goof mainly because, in real life, both the good guys and the bad guys make mistakes. Dimitri and The Scar have made some, and so has the military, and so has Instinct. Also, bear in mind; the Air Force already has what it needs from Instinct, so they are no longer a national security asset. Under those circumstances, I think arranging for a protective detail plus the fact that they were protected by a small army made sense. The only other option would be to sequester them on a military base somewhere. (and having civilians on a military base during a DEFCON 1 would be problematic in and of itself). The normal option would be to stick them in the Federal Witness Protection program, but Instinct's fame precludes that option. And now I can finally explain why Chapter 19 had an, errr, somewhat tense ending. (The reported death). Think about it.... had it not, would the Shadow's rock-climbing ability have been as well remembered? I needed something to drum home a few things, their rock-climbing being one. There was another long-term thing too, but that you haven't seen it yet. CJ

Why is it that everywhere I look on GA, there is either a goat being carved up, roasted, or some other horrific demise? (as if being hooked up with Martha wasn't bad enough... makes the oven seem not so bad, no?) ROFL!! This was funny! Crazy, but funny.

You are of course quite right on the spelling, it is the O.K. Corral. (Bondwriter is my Zeta-reader extraordinaire!) However, Tombstone is definitely in Arizona. I've been there many times. Ed Schifelin gave it its name, and unfortunately it's rather touristy today, but there's still a lot of interesting history, especially in the surrounding area. Hrmmm, speaking of which, I wonder of the O.K. Corral has anything to do with the etymology of the word "Okay". Oops, no.... a quick check says not because the term was in common usage before the famous gunfight, so that idea is out. LoL.

My personal preference is very much for "okay" because that's the word while "OK" is an abbreviation. There are, of course, as Graeme, mentioned, special circumstances. For example, if the characters are discussing a famous gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona, it would not do to have them say "The Okay Corral".

Ahh! But, look at it this way: LTMP is a very long story; 44 chapters so far (It has 47 and an epilogue total). Now, how many chapters ended with, ah, tense endings? Chapter 19 (The reported death while climbing) Chapter 37 (Fire in the Sky, ending in the crippled plane with inbound missiles) and now Chapter 43, with Brandon's dilema regarding whether or not to shoot Eric. That's three, out of 44. That's well under 10%. So, CJ

We've got to focus on Cody!!! In 6, he's looking at the CYCLE TRADER! Unless that for tricycles, we have a HUGE risk!!! This alone is a MAJOR CLIFFHANGER! Oh, and BTW, I see JAcob is still riding! Shadowgod is EEVIL! After LiS 26 he knows that any mention of the two-wheelers will be an instant cliffhanger!

Would I ever do such a thing as that? To answer your question; in my stories, yes, that's the definition I use. Oh? You want a one-word cliffhanger? There's only one: Shadowgod. Both Wildone and Benji got at least some aspects right! I suppose I should mention the clues in those four paragraphs... Eric's blood trickling; if he'd just taken a full-on, point-blank shotgun blast, it would do a lot more than trickle. Brandon dropped the Shotgun in part due to the shock of thinking he had actually killed Eric. (From Dimitri and Chase's POV, it would look like a kill). Chase's elbowing did indeed save Brandon from a bullet in the head. Eric dropped his shotgun within easy reach; hoping for a shot at Dimitri, but he never had the opportunity. Give that they had no time to think, I think they did ok. BTW, the clue to Jon's level of injuries; the bullet hitting him, while seated, caused him to spin out of the chair; that pretty much limits it to a shoulder strike. However, that would only really work if his chair was a little off-angle anyway, and it wouldn t be much of a spin; unlike in the movies, getting shot does not send you flying. The force is actually the equivalent of the kick the shooter feels when firing. For a gun with a heavy kick like a shotgun or a .45, it's enough to send you staggering, not flying. For a smaller weapon like a 22 or a round from an AK 47 (7.62 NAto Standard round), not so much. BTW, yes, the AK, a Soviet weapon, fires NATO ammo. The Sovs were clever in that regard; they designed most of their equipment to be NATO compatible, right down to bomb attach points and aircraft servicing carts. The reason was strategically sound; if they were invading Western Europe, they wanted to be able to use seized ammo and maintenence equipment to the greatest degree possible. BTW, you don't know how hard it is for me to resist the urge to fill LTMP with bits of technical info like that, LoL.

ACCCK! Now, now, no leaking!! You've been adding cliffhangers to LTMP again, haven't you? See the trouble you cause? Shame on you for stirring up all this BBQ frenzy!!! Hmmm!!! I seriously would like to know the actual answer; I've googled a bit, and so far I seen nothing to preclude a one-sentence paragraph. If there was though, how would I write scenes like those four paragraphs? Sorry, Only shadowgod can do things like that, and speaking of Shadowgod, he has a major, though very sad, announcement to make today... There ya go, that's a shadowgod cliffhanger!!! BTW, cliffhangers can be even shorter than a sentence. They can even be one single word.

Well, ummm, we don't know for sure that anyone (well, except for Toowoomba and its environs, and Gunter, and the police, etc, ) has been blown to hell yet... However, we DO know what is happening in San Francisco... Poor Cody!

I think Steph's guesses are good, but I'll go with... we find out what the other guys have dubbed Aaron.

What have you resolved? Aww, Mike.. Look at the definition above.. See the highlighted bits? The dilemma brandon faced at the end of 43 was not the chapter end, there was a paragraph after it about Paraguay. Also, the four paragraphs I posted don't count; they are the beginning of the chapter, not the end. BTW, here is my definition of Cliffhanger Awwww... But Your Shadowyness, I did offer to have Eric take Cody along, but you declined...

AACKK!!! Now, now, let's not be hasty!!! If you BBQ me, I can't post Ch 44 and you'll never know what happened!! AAAAACCCKKK!!! E Tu Echidna?!?!!? Oh no! Not the spines! Not the spines!!!! I think I'll go hide now...

I can say that the paragraphs I posted are the exact first four in LTMP 44. No changes, no alterations. This is the true start of 44. I will also add that there are no dream sequences in LTMP. Cutting the throat will kill without involving the lungs, if enough majoe arteries or veins are cut (remember the pilot in chapter 37? he died from a partially cut coritid artery.) But, the posted text, while it does say that his throat is being cut, does not say how much, yet. We don't yet know if it is fatal or not. All I can say is; the clues are in those four paragraphs. Chase's arms are pinned to his sides, making the elbowing difficult.

I'm so glad that you decided to write about "honor" killings and the systematic abuse that often accompanies that mindset. This is a subject that gets far too little attention. Women have to suffer this kind of abuse in many places, it's sadly far from rare. It's also by no means limited to the Kurds; they aren't even the most notorious practitioners of it. In many cases, the abusive treatment seen for the daughter is the normal state of affairs in many Islamic countries; Women are treated as chattel, with few rights of their own. Saudi Arabia is one such place where women are routinely kept in such abusive isolation, for their entire lives. That, like "honor killings", is barbaric, and I'm saddened that there is not more outcry against it. I have r-read your story, with an eye to the location. I think you made the right decision, you made it Western, but ambiguous. I think that is a perfect fit in this case. Very well done.

Thank you Kevin!!! :worship: See? I keep telling y'all, It's all Shadowgod's fault...

Thanks!!! Thanks!! The Viking colony in Newfoundland is very interesting IMHO... The survived for ten years, but Greenland, though doing well, was too small to support a major colonization effort. The colony lasted for ten years, but they packed up and returned to Greenland due to constant fighting with the Indians. There is archaeological evidence that some Viking expeditions reached much further, such as norse artifacts amongst Indian archaeological sites throughout the Northeast of North America. This isn't definitive; the goods could have been acquired in trade and taken via Indian trade routes throughout the area, but there is little evidence of trade between the Norse colonies and the Indians, so my guess would be that these artifacts were traded or taken during exploration expeditions. CJ

Ack! BTW, I can't be the Master of Evil.. that's Shadowgod's title. The title of the next chapter is "El Vohzd". Dimitri calls The Scar "Vohzd" as an honorific; it's Russian for "Boss" but it was also what Stalin was often called by his inner circle. "El" is Spanish for "the". So, in "El Vohzd" we have a Spanish-Russian mix for "The Boss". CJ

ACK!! Now, now, all I can say is, read those four paragraphs closely... BTW, these four paragraphs were originally at the end of Ch 43. This should dispel the rumor that I try for cliffhangers? As for a sentence being a paragraph, that's an interesting point! I may well be wrong, by my thought was that a paragraph deals with one point or idea. In this case, I'm alternating between Brandon and Dimitri, so I had to break it as paragraphs. BTW, 44 will post in about 24 hours...