14 KiB
[RT] Glimwarden, Chapter 2
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Author: u/alexanderwales Time flies like an arrow*
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Score: 36
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Created: 2016-05-13T11:06:06
Post:
Comments:
u/CouteauBleu [+13] We are the Empire. (2 hours later)
"Well, I could take over this town and turn it into an efficient autocracy in a couple years, buuut I'd probably get bored after a few months, so no."
I really like this character, by the way. He's maybe a little too similar to Sander (two clinical, detached protagonists), but they only both had one chapter so far, so I can't tell yet.
u/yuridez [+14] (5 hours later)
Philip seems to be somewhat of a high-functioning sociopath. The cold to Sander's (relative) hot. Should be interesting to see if he ends up being much of a "good guy". Even in his thoughts he never quite recognizes altruism as being anything close to a terminal goal for him.
Sure, "he didn’t think that it would be fair to say that he was kind and helpful only because he thought there was something in it for him", but that doesn't mean that such an accusation would not be accurate, even if it wouldn't be fair, right?
u/nolrai [+6] (9 hours later)
His internal monologue makes me want to hug him, punch him, run as far away from him as I can, and be his best friend.
It's interesting.
u/None [+8] (14 hours later)
Philip was confused. He'd never seen someone act like this before, not even the mad. Tenatively, he patted /u/nolrai's back, trying to push him away and out of the hug without making it awkward.
His nose dripped blood, and he noticed that it hurt. It hurt a lot.
Mixed messages. He was getting some very mixed messages.
He pushed again, harder, and then ow he sat on the ground, dazed.
/u/nolrai 's back disappeared over the horizon.
u/TaoGaming [+9] No Flair Detected! (2 hours later)
All alliterative names was weird, but Sam Seaborne is definitely off putting. I kept seeing rob lowe in my mind.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (8 hours later)
Alliterative names are a cultural thing.
I might change Samuel Seaborn if it's distracting, but I'm sort of loathe to change names after the fact, because that's confusing. It's a bullet that would be better to bite now. (Originally their last name was Sandborn, but I changed it to Seaborn because I thought it was more hopeful and slightly less alliterative. I didn't notice the name duplication until later, but figured it probably wouldn't matter since there's no similarity in terms of characterization, appearance, etc.)
u/blazinghand [+4] Chaos Undivided (10 hours later)
I don't find Samuel Seaborn to be a distracting name. It's pretty solid!
u/rochea [+1] (10 hours later)
As long as no one's called Buster Bluth
u/alexanderwales [+8] Time flies like an arrow (3 minutes later)
This chapter sees the introduction of our second viewpoint character, Philip Phandrum, the mayor's son.
I've added the Mistape plugin to my website; highlight spelling or grammar errors, hit Ctrl+Enter, and it will send an e-mail to typos@alexanderwales.com, which goes straight to me. It's not a perfect solution, but I'm hoping that this makes error corrections faster and more trackable for me. (Ideally there aren't any errors at all, but I think I only managed that in one or two chapters of Shadows.)
u/SometimesATroll [+7] (2 hours later)
Woo! The first chapter left me wondering if the darklings targeted animals or if they were only hostile to people. The mention of bears in this chapter makes me think large animals are still around, which would mean the darklings aren't targeting them. I wonder, though, if domesticated animals are much of a thing in this setting. No mention of cows, chickens, or dogs has been made so far, after all.
The previous chapter also had a character use "candy red" do describe Sanders' aura. Does this mean candy apples, which candy red is named after, exist in this setting? That would mean apples and sugar cane are both being cultivated.
The use of "Watts" as a unit in the last chapter was also interesting to me. "Meters" and "miles" are units of measure that a fantasy author could use simply to avoid coming up with their own units of measure, but "Watts" are named for a person. Did this person exist in this setting?
I have a pet theory that this story is in a post-post-apocalyptic future, and took "Watts" and "candy red" to be evidence of this. The statement that radio was invented to measure lantern output goes against this, though. As does the lack of mention of ancient yet advanced ruins.
I don't expect you, the author, to answer the questions here, by the way. These are just things I plan on looking out for.
u/mohammadashworth [+20] (2 hours later)
Beg your pardon, but I asked Mr. Wales if I could have a preface in order to address these very issues and he said that it was "bad enough to have a prologue". Not only that, but my requested notes on translation have been removed due to "technical limitations". I was promised that I would be allowed a preface once the serial work has been completed, but I fear that will take quite some time. As a compromise, I have been allowed a reddit account to answer strictly those questions which pertain to translation.
Translation of units has been a consistent problem, because if left as they are they require notes in place to inform the reader of the exchange rate between their local units. Thereafter, when they encounter the native units, they must translate the units in their head or pick it up from context. It is my belief that off-loading the work of translation to the reader in this manner does them a disservice. Where possible, I have kept my translation to modern English as straightforward as possible. Where it is not possible, I have attempted to use English analogs. "Glimwarden", for example, is a portmanteau of the archaic "glim" (meaning lantern) and of course "warden" (meaning keeper), which I hope lends some of the weight that the word contains in its original Jorónese.
Similar translations have been done to names and places. It is my hope that the overall effect is to draw the reader in rather than to push them out, as I believe preserving the intent of the work is more important than precision, especially since the original work is widely regarded as fiction itself.
Your Humble Translator,
Mohammad Ashworth
u/None [+6] (8 hours later)
I hope this is a real thing and not a joke, because I love metafiction-y stuff.
u/elevul [+3] Cyoria Observer (6 hours later)
Wat
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (6 hours later)
Wait, "allowed" a Reddit account? How exactly would he stop you from posting on the internet whenever you want? Are you one of those translators who can only go out of their basements when they've been good translators (or when it's their birthday)?
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (2 days later)
I assume that using the limited connection of Mr. Wales inter-dimensional network connection for anything has to be cleared with him first.
u/KamikazeTomato [+1] (9 hours later)
ha.
u/DaystarEld [+1] Pokémon Professor (7 days later)
Heh, I'm glad this was kept in some form. Hope to see more of it.
u/biomatter [+3] (3 hours later)
Samuel Seaborn gets referred to as Samuel Sandborn at the end of a certain paragraph. Is this just a play on his gruff attitude?
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (3 hours later)
No, that was a typo (fixed now). Sander got renamed at some point and it looks like I missed two mentions of the old name.
u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (5 hours later)
You may want to rename one of the two. They both have S.S. as their initials and worse of all, the first syllable is San-/Sam- which makes mixing up the two names even easier. Unless the father is going to not appear for most of the story, I would expect the readers to frequently mix up the two.
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (5 hours later)
I thought his name was "Sander's father" :p.
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (8 hours later)
I do that mostly as a point of view thing. If I were writing in the first person, I would probably say, "My father, Warren," on the first time I mention him and then just "my father" or "dad" every time after that. I'm not a hundred percent certain how effectively this comes across, and there's a good chance that I need more variation there.
u/Bowbreaker [+2] Solitary Locust (2 days later)
How do elections actually work in Light's Hollow? The way it is mentioned makes them seem like they are not quite straight forward, especially with the offhand mention of them being few and far between as opposed to "only every X years".
I noticed that you mentioned Samuel having black gore on his clothing, presumably coming from a slain darkling. For some reason I thought that darklings evaporate relatively quickly after death, leaving only their hava heart behind. Did I imagine that part? Especially in the center of town, right next to the central Lantern one would expect any remaining gore to be near instantly torn to shreds. Except if darkling tissue turns immune to the Lantern field's effects after their death that is.
Lastly I find it curious that no one mentions the possibility of building the new Lantern at the borders of an old one, thus forgoing the need for protecting the construction site. I assume you'll explain the reasons for them being built that far apart at some later point in the story?
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (2 days later)
There are four seats on the city council. The first is the chief glimwarden, who is the current most senior (in terms of number of years served) glimwarden. The second is the mayor, who is voted for every nine years by every member of the community above the age of fourteen. Alternately an election can be forced by petition. The third seat is the chief engineer, assigned through internal voting among the engineers, though usually (and currently) someone in a more managerial position. The fourth is the plebian vote, which basically goes to everyone who isn't a glimwarden or an engineer. In theory, there's an election every three years, but in practice if there's an incumbent the seat is rarely challenged so no election happens. (More on all this later.)
The darkling flesh liquifies post-death, but their substance doesn't fade, though it will wash away in the rain. The mechanism by which the lanterns affect the darklings will be gone into with more detail later.
Procedure for building a new lantern will be gone into later.
u/eltegid [+1] (5 days later)
Re: Lanterns placement.
It seems to me that, while more convenient during construction, that placement makes the new lantern much less useful: if it's at the borders of a previous one, about half (maybe more, depending on the additive properties of the lanternfields) of the new lantern's field will be completely redundant.
Thus, you'll gain half the terrain you could have gained. Since keeping a lantern fed seems to take a large effort, you want to maximize the return of each lantern.
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (5 days later)
I admit that it is a risk-reward thing. But some people would think that not risking your glimwardens and engineers is worth a permanent ~39% decrease in efficiency of a new lantern.
u/eltegid [+1] (5 days later)
But I'd say a decrease in efficiency means more future risk for glimwardens or, rather, less return for their risk: if I'm not getting it wrong, glimwardens hunt darklings for hava, which then goes into the lanterns. Less efficiency means more glimwarden risk for less benefit to the village. In any case this seems like a more complicated calculation, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see :)
u/Bowbreaker [+1] Solitary Locust (5 days later)
I guess it depends a lot on how difficult defending a stationary position and personnel is versus hunting individual darklings for hava on your own terms.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (8 days later)
Presumably you could just bring a travelling lantern, seems like there's enough room to construct a lantern in its radius.
u/RMcD94 [+2] (8 days later)
If darklings do spawn in the areas not uncovered, I'm also curious what a hexagon without something in the middle would look like, free darkling farm?
u/4t0m [+1] Chaos Legion (19 hours later)
Hey u/alexanderwales, would you be okay with a goodreads entry for this story, or would you rather a few more chapters be posted first? If it's fine for me to make one, shall I use the brief summary you gave in the comments of the first Reddit post, or something else, and is there a cover image you like (one can be added later if not)?
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
Sure, go right ahead. There's no cover image as of yet.
u/TotesMessenger [+1] (a month later)
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
- [/r/glimwarden] Glimwarden Discussion Link: Chapter 2
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