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The Crooked House
Yea 67%  67%  [ 4 ]
Nay 17%  17%  [ 1 ]
Not As Is 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Abstain 17%  17%  [ 1 ]
Total votes : 6
Total voters : 6
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 6:15 pm 
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The Crooked House, by Tevish Szat

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 11:26 pm 
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Slowly working my way through the Adrisar stories.

Overall, I'm a fan. Again, very atmospheric, and I'm predisposed to like it because the house reminds me of a great Call of Cthulhu one-shot I once ran. What can I say - I'm a sucker for non-right angles.

I also like that the House of Yso's mistrust of outsiders winds up being vindicated in a very perverse way.

I had a little difficulty accepting that the Yso children were so ambivalent about their family ideology. I could see them being zealots in the mold of their father, or actively rebelling against him, but what I read as their lack of strong opinion one way or the other felt a little off.

Also, I'm not sure I understand Ellia's motives fully - whether this is just an opportunistic move for her, or whether she specifically has a vendetta against the House of Yso. Her name would seem to imply the former, but the latter also seems plausible.

There were also some spots where I tripped over the language. A couple quick hits:

Spoiler

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 4:54 pm 
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Yeah, definitely move Lovecraftian style/language, which again, I really enjoy.

I am not a big fan of the beginning, your self-described "Lorax" opening. In another story, I would have liked it, but this story is, in my mind, too heavy for that. The only thing it really does for you is provide the likely pronunciation for "Yso," which honestly is not all that necessary. Now, maybe if you turned it into a short poem and used it for an epigraph, then it might work, but as it is, it doesn't work for me.

On a similar note, the repetition of "house" really caught my attention. "The crooked house of the House of Yso."

Orcish brought up most of the typos/language things I wanted to, except for one. The segment: “The only insight as to why was that it’s builder, who a bitter old man from his youth onward,” reads awkwardly to me.

So all in all, quite good. Mostly, I'm just concerned about the opening. I'll probably vote Yea on it anyway, because I think it's a good piece despite it, but I'm going to hold off voting for a little bit while I think about it.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:11 pm 
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Typos and other problems


All the rhymes in the story stick out like a sore thumb to me, like the two in this one:
Quote:
On the second full day of the paragon’s stay, Louis Yso began to suspect what his daughter knew and his son was doing. He dragged his son away from some enrapturing tale and issued the rules of the crooked house and the House of Yso – though bastards had been sired in the past, in these dark days when the House of Yso numbered three, such a thing was not to be.

As such, I'm voting for Not As Is on the stipulation of removing the rhymes, most egregiously the Dr. Seuss-esque opening line. It definitely does you no favors and, in fact, set up a situation where I was expecting more rhymes the entire time I was reading.

---------------------------

Now, while the transition from purely 3rd person [poetic] descriptive to actual spoken dialogue hit me like a ton of bricks, I think it really works where it's at -- rather than flip-flopping between the highly-stylized description and the dialogue, it only comes at the very end, where you want it to hit your audience the hardest. Sadly, the hint you dropped at the top of the thread meant I was not surprised by whom the Paragon turned out to be, but aside from that I think you built up the reveal more than sufficiently.

Now, as our resident Librarian did, I tripped over the phrasing several times, but I believe that's more from my unfamiliarity with the stylings of Poe and Lovecraft than any real fault of the writing itself. All the Adrisar stories were stylized fantastically well, and I think it speaks highly of your writing talent (even if I didn't particularly like Skin Deep).

spoiler

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 10:02 am 
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@ Tevish - I've been sleeping on this story for a few days, and I still feel like I'm perched awkwardly between Yea and Not As Is. I like the thrust of the story, and I like the characters, but I think it would help to read it again after some editing. The language is stylized enough that, when I stumble over some of the rougher patches, it really takes me out of the flow, and so I'm having a harder time than I expected getting a solid feel for the piece.

I know that you're not short of things on your plate, but I was wondering if you were planning to do an edit on this?

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 12:07 pm 
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I was at least meaning to follow up on Lord Luna's NAI today or tomorrow and fix the lines that happened to rhyme (as well as the typos.)

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 12:12 pm 
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You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 11, 2014 7:12 pm 
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I'm not sure about this one. It's the first thing I read from the Adrisar stories that were posted and maybe it fits beautifully into the larger narrative, but as a stand-alone it didn't quite work for me.

Maybe it's the style (I've never read either Seuss, Lovecraft or Poe), but it's awkward to read for me.

My main objection would be that most of story is exposition. It's 25 paragraphs long, but stuff only really happens in six paragraphs. The rest is just tone-setting and atmosphere and for a big part that works, but there's too much of it.

My first idea was to vote NAI, because I like the premise and I have a feeling this story will be important later down the line, but it would need a complete rewrite for me to really like it. For that reason, I'm going with a reluctant Nay.

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 11, 2014 7:57 pm 
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All the rhymes in the story stick out like a sore thumb to me, like the two in this one:
Quote:
On the second full day of the paragon’s stay, Louis Yso began to suspect what his daughter knew and his son was doing. He dragged his son away from some enrapturing tale and issued the rules of the crooked house and the House of Yso – though bastards had been sired in the past, in these dark days when the House of Yso numbered three, such a thing was not to be.

As such, I'm voting for Not As Is on the stipulation of removing the rhymes, most egregiously the Dr. Seuss-esque opening line. It definitely does you no favors and, in fact, set up a situation where I was expecting more rhymes the entire time I was reading.


The opening paragraph (the Lorax open) has been changed.

"In one particular county of the Highlands, itself of no particular distinction, there squatted a solitary manor separated from all its neighbors by a narrow foot-bridge that crossed the gap between the pillar upon which it was constructed and the larger plateau where the rest of the town went about its business. The locals spoke very little of that structure and less of its inhabitants save when pressed, to which the reply would uniformly be that the ancient and decrepit structure was, as those who resided within it, the House of Yso."

the line you mention is also changed

"On the second full day of the paragon’s residence, Louis Yso began to suspect what his daughter knew and his son was doing. He dragged his son away from some enrapturing tale and issued the rules of the crooked house and the House of Yso – though bastards had been sired in the past, in these dark days when the House of Yso numbered three, such a thing was not allowed. The command was dark and dire as everything Louis Yso did, and backed with a threat of disinheritance – Genevieve was pretty, after all, and if it came to that Louis Yso would find her a husband from the downland humans who did not cross with other sorts."

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"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice."

I have a blog. I review anime, and sometimes related media, with an analytical focus.

I'm a (self) published author now! You can find my books on Amazon in Paperback or ebook!
The Accursed, a standalone young adult fantasy adventure.
Witch Hunters, book one of a young adult Scifi-fantasy trilogy.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 11, 2014 8:06 pm 
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All the rhymes in the story stick out like a sore thumb to me, like the two in this one:
Quote:
On the second full day of the paragon’s stay, Louis Yso began to suspect what his daughter knew and his son was doing. He dragged his son away from some enrapturing tale and issued the rules of the crooked house and the House of Yso – though bastards had been sired in the past, in these dark days when the House of Yso numbered three, such a thing was not to be.

As such, I'm voting for Not As Is on the stipulation of removing the rhymes, most egregiously the Dr. Seuss-esque opening line. It definitely does you no favors and, in fact, set up a situation where I was expecting more rhymes the entire time I was reading.


The opening paragraph (the Lorax open) has been changed.

"In one particular county of the Highlands, itself of no particular distinction, there squatted a solitary manor separated from all its neighbors by a narrow foot-bridge that crossed the gap between the pillar upon which it was constructed and the larger plateau where the rest of the town went about its business. The locals spoke very little of that structure and less of its inhabitants save when pressed, to which the reply would uniformly be that the ancient and decrepit structure was, as those who resided within it, the House of Yso."

the line you mention is also changed

"On the second full day of the paragon’s residence, Louis Yso began to suspect what his daughter knew and his son was doing. He dragged his son away from some enrapturing tale and issued the rules of the crooked house and the House of Yso – though bastards had been sired in the past, in these dark days when the House of Yso numbered three, such a thing was not allowed. The command was dark and dire as everything Louis Yso did, and backed with a threat of disinheritance – Genevieve was pretty, after all, and if it came to that Louis Yso would find her a husband from the downland humans who did not cross with other sorts."

Well, that addresses my concerns. I like the new opening much better (although "squatted" seemed an odd choice) and I'll now vote Yea on this one.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 11, 2014 9:06 pm 
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Well, that addresses my concerns. I like the new opening much better (although "squatted" seemed an odd choice) and I'll now vote Yea on this one.

I as well.

Protip: always check the "Allow re-voting" box when creating voting threads. ;)

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 11, 2014 9:12 pm 
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Hm. I enjoyed this.

Yea.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 12, 2014 11:57 am 
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I think I'm on board at this point. Jacob's worldview still reads as a little implausible to me, but it's possible that the problem is on my end, and anyway he made his exit from the scene in dramatic fashion already, and therefore it seems hard-hearted to hold it against him at this point. (Pun not really intended.)

At the end of the day, I like this story and easily prefer a world which has it to one which doesn't, so I'm about to jam my fat finger on the tiny "Yea" button and hope that this newfangled tablet kajigger does its magic.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:59 am 
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With a majority of Yeas over Nays, this work has been Accepted into the Archives.


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