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.
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
"The wall opposite that one was also bowed outward, though more slightly as though tugging against the other side of the crooked house and preventing it from tumbling down."
Think you could lose the "though more slightly" and the sentence would read more easily without changing the meaning.
"The only insight as to why was that it’s builder, who a bitter old man from his youth onward, had called the twisted mansion “Paragon House”, and so had perhaps built it in its odd, misshapen and leaning way as a commentary against the Paragons of the highlands, who were normally held in quite high esteem in every quarter."
Seems like a word is missing in the "who a bitter" section?
"This was known to the rest of the folk in the town upon the larger plateau to which the pillar that held the crooked house adjoined,"
Had to read that a couple times to get the folk > town > plateau > pillar > house relationship correct. Maybe this part of the sentence is just trying to do a little much?
"Twenty years before, when the current generation had been freshly conceived, the crooked house held near a dozen members of the House of Yso, all but one of which had met their ends, whether by age like the old patriarch and matriarch of the House, by disease, or by some misadventure or other within or around the crooked house itself."
Sounds a little odd to have "which" referring to the people here. Maybe "whom" instead?
"Creeping through the house, now realizing he had more than his own conscience to answer to, he wought the two women who now shared his abode."
Sought?
"Jacob Yso found them in the parlor, his lover sitting with his sister resting her head upon her lap."
A little tough to grok whose head is on whose lap.
"Ellia stood, leaving the blind daughter of the House of Yso to weep alone. Jacob, who had killed for her, who thought he would have died for her, stood dumbfounded as she approached."
Again, just a little pronoun confusion here, since the "her" is Ellia but another woman has been mentioned in-between.
_________________
"And remember, I'm pullin' for ya, 'cause we're all in this together." - Red Green
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.
Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5700 Location: Inside my own head
Identity: Human
Typos and other problems
This line:
Quote:
Though unnerving, the errors of the front and back most walls
would benefit with some dashes (as in, "front- and back-most walls"), because it literally took me several re-reads of that line to understand what you meant.
I may be unused to reading such poetic descriptions, but this line:
Quote:
a stranger and a Paragon alike crossed the rickety bridge that separated the House of Yso from all other men.
Made me question for a minute whether there were two people crossing the bridge or whether it was two descriptions for one person.
Punctuation:
Quote:
That day, which otherwise would have been lost in the echoes of bliss for Jacob Yso was soured by his father’s dark looks and his sister’s poorly hidden reticence.
Needs another comma, between "Jacob Yso" and "was soured."
Typo:
Quote:
he wought the two women who now shared his abode.
Should be "sought."
Typo:
Quote:
no longer golden, they pale blue were oddly familiar.
Not sure what it's supposed to be. I think it's "their pale blue" (in reference to her eyes).
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
And I really don't mean any offense about Skin Deep; but I would really like to see it taken a few degrees further, to see you fully display your talent on/with it.
@ 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?
_________________
"And remember, I'm pullin' for ya, 'cause we're all in this together." - Red Green
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.
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.
_________________
"I'm all for screwing with the natural order. The natural order objectively is awful. The natural order includes death, disease, pain, and starvation." --Sam Keeper
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."
_________________
"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice."
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.
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.
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.
_________________
"And remember, I'm pullin' for ya, 'cause we're all in this together." - Red Green
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