Comments on: The Old Ways, Chapter One

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 04:40:10 +0000

I actually thoroughly enjoyed it; I love a conversational style of storytelling, and I constantly get the impression that this is a tale being told over a few rounds in a pub to a rapt, if tipsy, audience. This being the first section it’s got the marks of an introduction, yes, but in a way that not only sets up the adventure story, but the pub meta-story as well, if that makes any sense.

Also, the derisive remarks about typical Questing, dragons, and other obvious Tolkien rip-off material being laughably outdated strikes me as just the right kind of snarky commentary. Good show, old bean.

By: roninkakuhito

roninkakuhito — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:43:08 +0000

I love stories set up so that we know that there is more to the world around them than we see. Ideally most of the questions that are raised about things that weren’t directly in the time frame of a story won’t actually be answered, except by implication based on what happens in the story. If someone mentions that something is like “Shaka, when the walls fell” and goes on to explore a paralell situation, sometimes I’m happier constructing the initial story from the rest of the situation. Lovely job with this story so far.

By: Plaid Phantom

Plaid Phantom — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 02:52:45 +0000

Agreed. Something came before this, it seems. There might be a simple introduction of the teller and listener, or this story could sit on top of a complete story-world. Otherwise, it feels…incomplete.

By: dvandom

dvandom — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:01:57 +0000

I think most of the issues people have with tone can be summed up in the observation that the tale is being told to a specific person from the teller’s society. So, the hearer is assumed to know the big stories, but not this bit of background. Like we’d tell a story of a young Erwin Rommel on his first military campaign, we’d tend to jump ahead to things like, “This was, of course, before he earned his reputation as the Desert Fox.”

It can be a bit disorienting, especially combined with the snappy patter style of delivery, but it *is* engaging.

By: Kneefers

Kneefers — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 17:58:44 +0000

I can really see the C.S. Lewis influences, mostly in the way the story is told: This isn’t just a story the author is making up, it’s a story the author was told by the main character. It’s what he did in Narnia and Out of the Silent Planet, and it’s yummy. Very classic.

Also, I like the setting; the kind of late-Victorian style that comes after the sword-and-sorcery epic medieval fantasy that most people write about. It’s cool to think about how such a world would turn out as technology and culture changed.

I like this story, but Polychrome is right, it could use some polish somehow. The dialogue and such is a little awkward occasionally, somehow. But it definitely has a lot of potential, and I’ll keep reading it as long as you keep writing it. Good stuff.

By: Eric A. Burns

Eric A. Burns — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:55:40 +0000

Actually, Mike’s point (and yours, in one sense) aren’t wrong. The wheellock is a refined weapon of this time — elegant. A weapon of society.

As I said in the intro: a tragedy of manners.

By: Moe Lane

Moe Lane — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:34:59 +0000

Too bad, Eric: I was coming to like the idea of Tibetan Prayer Wheel-locks. And Mike has a point about elegance: this is, after all, at least partially drawing from High Fantasy.

Moe

By: Eric A. Burns

Eric A. Burns — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:15:33 +0000

I actually shudder to chime in here, as I don’t want to skew what’s a really cool conversation. However, the truth of the matter in this particular story is pretty prosaic: they have wheel-locks because that’s how far gunpowder technology has advanced. Eventually, barring some cataclysmic event, someone will refine a flintlock weapon and someone else will refine the manufacture of them, and they will displace wheellocks just as they did in our own history.

By: Michael Weaver

Michael Weaver — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:11:27 +0000

Ah, need to correct an odd line in my post, (the “They’re actually less reliable” one): wheel-locks are more reliable, but they require winding; flint-locks don’t, but can misfire.

But I’ll agree, they’re also dirt-cheap to make and repair, and thus win the manufacturing wars hands down. Still, I can dream.

(PS: Michael’s fine. “Mike” would be, too. Your name’s just shorter and easier to type, so I went with the lot the first time.)

By: Moe Lane

Moe Lane — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:54:25 +0000

I’d have to say that simplicity would win out on this, Michael Weaver (is Michael acceptable? I don’t mind people shortening mine to Moe). You can put more flintlocks into more hands in a shorter time than you can wheel-locks: easier to do on-the-spot repairs, too. And, as I said, I left out a few steps between the one and the other. :)

Moe

PS: Mind you, there may be an excellent in-book reason why they have wheel-locks, including “the wheel also spins through a prayer that appeases local spirits.”