4.5 KiB
Pruning an Infinite Tree: A Magical Girl Rational Mystery
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Author: u/nohat *
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Score: 12
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Created: 2014-01-15T23:03:31
Post:
Comments:
u/nohat [+2] (18 minutes later)
Tokyo is being attacked by monsters, but it is the appearance of three defenders with magical ability and a girlish theme that interests Sebastian. He is looking for an impressive project to leave the shadow of his overbearing and manipulative father, and this mystery presents an exceptional opportunity.
Who are the magical girls? Whence come their abilities, and what does the existence of magic say about the world? Not to mention: why are they so reminiscent of a certain genre of Japanese fiction?
Sebastian wants answers, and has a plan to extract them. He might be young, but he's armed with military hardware and professional training, while the magical girls let a knockoff supervillain monologue in the middle of combat. Can't be that tough.
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I'm the author. The story is complete (71k words) and will be posted Saturday and Wednesday at 8pm EST.
I'm crossposting this with HPMOR, since that, Eliezer's lesswrong postings, and Dungeon Keeper Ami were major inspirations. Specifically I tried to embrace the fast moving escalation and clever solutions to big problems.
I also tried to adhere to the Chandler mystery story rules. You know what the characters know, and can make the same deductions.
You'll probably enjoy it more if you have some idea of the tropes of the 'magical girl' genre, but in-depth familiarity is not required.
u/FeepingCreature [+2] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (6 hours later)
The beginning seems pretty similar to the Artemis Fowl series. :) If you haven't read it, you might want to take a look for inspiration.
Do you have a native-speaking proofreader or editor? You might want to find one - there's some stylistic stumbling blocks and grammatical mishaps in there.
u/nohat [+3] (7 hours later)
I have read Artemis Fowl. Jackson being 'assigned at birth' had some Butler inspiration.
I actually am a native speaker. As far as an editor goes I've had several friends Beta read. I do have someone who has edited a couple books editing it. Stylistically I might have made overly convoluted sentences - sometimes I find it hard to resist. Do you have any specific instances in mind? Thanks for the comment!
u/FeepingCreature [+8] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (8 hours later)
I do have someone who has edited a couple books editing it.
That's. Um.
Er.
My hormones were appreciating it as they fell - they were wearing skirts you see.
(in my defense: at the time my digest feed had somehow slipped and was running celebrity coverage coterminously).
Once I began I didn't stop till
In retrospect the evidence was there, and I had simply failed to update my estimates despite novel evidence.
(evidence, repeated)
Magic? Jacob was dead dead dead
This does not fit stylistically.
Most importantly this is a real way
Wrong tense. Wrong tense! It's not a big deal, but I don't get how it got past a proper editor.
Best to cut off any comment: "Jackson I need you to make some preparations
The demons were a bewildering array of loosely thematic abominations.
themed*
Oh injuries abounded, but perhaps because of their laid back fighting style most civilians evacuated in time.
Comma? Also slightly questionable flow.
The difficult thing about capturing well armed people is typically not accidentally killing them.
Grammar iffy. "The difficult thing is not (killing them)" or "The difficult thing is (not killing) them"? Obvious upon reread, but can interrupt flow.
I also had shaped charge magazines prepared in case shear physical trauma
shear physical trauma
shear physical trauma
I'll stop here. :)
It does get better in the later chapters, afaics, so I don't think it's a huge issue. I'm just surprised an actual editor missed them.
u/nohat [+3] (17 hours later)
Actually I wasn't clear: she hasn't edited it yet (she works on paper, so it'll be in bulk). Thanks a lot for pointing these out. I was on the fence stylistically about the 'dead dead dead,' and the celebrity coverage. Embarrassing that I let a tense error past.