MastaMak

It's commendable that you acknowledge work which is AI generated. I see no reason not to use AI but consider it important that it be acknowledged. One sees so much AI slop on social media that its fairly easy to,identify its source but when well done, as your story was, its not so easy to,pick.

Interesting. My grandson, a Chemical Engineer writes code for Excel spreadsheets & he recommended Claude AI as a good one so i obtained it and had it Write me a number of spreadsheets of varying complexity. Im fairly experienced with Excel myself & was amazed at how quickly & accurately Claude prepared a quite involved spreadsheet based on the parameters i stipulated.

Interesting. Its the religious fanaticism which is evil & not the somewhat befuddled adherents thereto. We don't have the same organisations in Australia but we're not completely free of religious fanaticism either. One of the reasons I became a committed athiest despite growing up in a very religious background was my experiences in PNG. I spent many years in Papua New Guinea as a young Patrol Officer living in village communities & saw the influence of "christian" missionaries on their culture. Unfortunately there is something about Pacific Islands cultures (and there's great similarity between them) which makes then very accepting of the culture dominated by Christian beliefs.

Im not American and wonder whether elements of that Brotherhood society persist to this day. The evilmof religious fanaticism never fails to disgust me. Good story well told nonetheless.

Another great story developing. It will be interesting to see to what extent the South African and Australian education systems mesh at such a critical time for the twins. In my 5 years of high school (I'm an old bugger and it my day we had 5 high school years & not 6 as is now the case). I attended 4 different State schools in 3 different Australian states so the matter of different school curricula is something of which I have personal experience.

Wonderfully written and with great sensitivity. I've enjoyed all your stories and this one iscshaping up very well. Bit of a tear server nonetheless.

Great story. I've had a lot of adventures in several Pacific countries. Love the people and Philip's proclivities fit well with my past experiences.

Really pleased to see this story continue.

The episode with Max in the park brings back fond memories for me at a similar age in the 1960's but in one of the Pacific Islands. So human nature doesn't change much over time. In the 1960's though it was something generally not acknowledged and kept very much secret.

Very interesting story developing & so well written. I'm imimpressed with the apparent understanding of the likely dynamics of the time. Must have taken a lot of research & not a little imagination. My maternal grandfather went to sea at age 12 in 1899 sailing in a 3 masted barque carrying wool & wheat between UK & Australia, sailing round Cape Horn in conditions which just have been trying. I can only imagine the experiences he myst have endured though he never mentioned them as far as I know. This developing stary begins to hint at what some of those might have been.

"place I want to place the bride is just down is just down" "Bridge " I think. Sorry to be a pedantic old bastard but "bride" just doesn't work.

That accommodation seems luxurious when I compare it to my experience when i went to boarding school at 12 in Alicec prings in 1954. It wasn't a real boarding school as we attended the state high school and boarded in a facility provided by the United Church (of John Flynn fame- the instigator of the Australian Flying Doctor service.) Fun times & im looking forward to Kwokkas development of the story. Im sure it will be as good as his other works which I've found well written & captivating.

I really enjoy your writing and there's no exception in this interesting beginning - a story I can see parallels to a degree in my own life at the same age as these boys in the late 1950's in Australia

We brought up our 2 kids living in a development of 43 towers each of 30 storeys in HK and never had any problem with apartment living. The kids made good use of communal play areas without danger & my son learned some really descriptive Cantonese swearing.

Well, that’s a first ~ a visitor (Addams) got out of JP’s condo without getting fucked !