Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!

[4wd]

A few possibles:

Chapter 11:
The two occurrences of multi limbed - should be, (I believe): multi-limbed

....what had been dubbed Cavern Ericson

Every other occurrence is Ericson Cavern.

For this staff meeting, Administrator Mephord had summoned not only Dr. Mary Pilsner, Dr. Jaimie Ericson, and Security Chief Mark Shields. He had also requested the attendance of medical doctor and biologist Dorian Graham, one of those who’d been involved in the meticulous dissection of the alien slain in the Shaft on June 11th.

The 'not only' seems to indicate the two sentences should be one:

For this staff meeting, Administrator Mephord had summoned not only Dr. Mary Pilsner, Dr. Jaimie Ericson, and Security Chief Mark Shields, he'd also requested the attendance of medical doctor and biologist Dorian Graham, one of those who’d been involved in the meticulous dissection of the alien slain in the Shaft on June 11th.

Or remove 'not only' to keep them separate:

For this staff meeting, Administrator Mephord had summoned Dr. Mary Pilsner, Dr. Jaimie Ericson, and Security Chief Mark Shields. He had also requested the attendance of medical doctor and biologist Dorian Graham, one of those who’d been involved in the meticulous dissection of the alien slain in the Shaft on June 11th.

.... Twenty-three of our ninety androids have been given a thumbs-up by the team Dr. Pilsner has on this, to date,”

... To date, twenty-three of our ninety androids have been given a thumbs-up by the team Dr. Pilsner has on this,”

In fact, we need a live specimen that we can observe over an extended period of time while monitoring it with equipment.

In fact, we need a live specimen that we can monitor over an extended period of time with our equipment.

Or:

In fact, we need a live specimen that we can observe over an extended period of time with our monitoring equipment.

Along the wall the boring machine had penetrated, scaffolding traversed a long section of the newly discovered cavern’s length.

In the newly discovered cavern, scaffolding now traversed a long section of the wall the boring machine had penetrated.

Near the tops of pairs of massive steel stanchions, spaced every ten meters down the length of the cavern, these triplets were being welded and bonded.

These triplets were then welded and bonded near the tops of pairs of massive steel stanchions, which were spaced every ten meters along the length of the cavern.

[40hz]

@K - did you also want stylistic and related structural suggestions this early in the game - if at all?

And if so, do you feel it would still be better to have us primarily focus on the "mechanics'" (i.e. spelling, punctuation, grammar, vocabulary) for this read through?

[kyrathaba]

Stylistic and structural suggestions are welcomed.

[kyrathaba]

Chapter 10:
Quote
Mephord stood at the podium and looked out over the community...

I think the above is redundant, you stated in the previous paragraph where he was standing, so:

Mephord looked out over the community...

Quote
Our overall population in A-3 has increased by two in ....

“Our overall population in A-3 has increased by two in ....

Quote
“May we continue to increase in numbers, until we again swell to fill this compound. ...

The 'swell' seems to be redundant due to the preceding 'increase in numbers', but it does have a slightly more emotional overtone, so possibly:

“May our numbers continue to swell until we again fill this compound. ...

Quote
... drilled down ever further at at thirty-degree slope ...

... drilled down ever further at a thirty-degree slope ...

Quote
... and she added that task to her implant task list.

'task is possibly redundant:

... and she added that to her implant task list.

The above problems have been fixed in the manuscript.

[4wd]

Stylistic and structural suggestions are welcomed.

-kyrathaba (June 20, 2013, 07:03 AM)

Are the suggestions above OK, it might be just me but I felt like my tongue was getting tripped up on some of sentence structure.

Don't want to go trampling through your book with my big feet though.

[kyrathaba]

All of the following changes were implemented. Thank you!

A few possibles:

Chapter 11:
The two occurrences of multi limbed - should be, (I believe): multi-limbed

Quote
....what had been dubbed Cavern Ericson

Every other occurrence is Ericson Cavern.

Quote
For this staff meeting, Administrator Mephord had summoned not only Dr. Mary Pilsner, Dr. Jaimie Ericson, and Security Chief Mark Shields. He had also requested the attendance of medical doctor and biologist Dorian Graham, one of those who’d been involved in the meticulous dissection of the alien slain in the Shaft on June 11th.

The 'not only' seems to indicate the two sentences should be one:

For this staff meeting, Administrator Mephord had summoned not only Dr. Mary Pilsner, Dr. Jaimie Ericson, and Security Chief Mark Shields, he'd also requested the attendance of medical doctor and biologist Dorian Graham, one of those who’d been involved in the meticulous dissection of the alien slain in the Shaft on June 11th.

Or remove 'not only' to keep them separate:

For this staff meeting, Administrator Mephord had summoned Dr. Mary Pilsner, Dr. Jaimie Ericson, and Security Chief Mark Shields. He had also requested the attendance of medical doctor and biologist Dorian Graham, one of those who’d been involved in the meticulous dissection of the alien slain in the Shaft on June 11th.

Quote
.... Twenty-three of our ninety androids have been given a thumbs-up by the team Dr. Pilsner has on this, to date,”

... To date, twenty-three of our ninety androids have been given a thumbs-up by the team Dr. Pilsner has on this,”

Quote
In fact, we need a live specimen that we can observe over an extended period of time while monitoring it with equipment.

In fact, we need a live specimen that we can monitor over an extended period of time with our equipment.

Or:

In fact, we need a live specimen that we can observe over an extended period of time with our monitoring equipment.

Quote
Along the wall the boring machine had penetrated, scaffolding traversed a long section of the newly discovered cavern’s length.

In the newly discovered cavern, scaffolding now traversed a long section of the wall the boring machine had penetrated.

Quote
Near the tops of pairs of massive steel stanchions, spaced every ten meters down the length of the cavern, these triplets were being welded and bonded.

These triplets were then welded and bonded near the tops of pairs of massive steel stanchions, which were spaced every ten meters along the length of the cavern.

[kyrathaba]

@4wd: In every case, I feel your suggestions have made the sentence structure flow more smoothly. I'm indebted to you. You are definitely not stepping on my toes

[kyrathaba]

My father found three errors in earlier chapters, which have also been corrected in my manuscript.

I'm finding that what I read successful authors writing about proofreaders and copy-editors being absolutely essential is 100% correct.

[4wd]

I wasn't too sure about the last one:

These triplets were then welded and bonded near the tops of pairs of massive steel stanchions, which were spaced every ten meters along the length of the cavern.

As depending on how you read it, it's either:
a) pairs of stanchions every ten meters, or
b) stanchions are ten meters apart and you use a pair of them at a time.

Do we get pictures 

[Perry Mowbray]

I'm reading it out to my wife, so some older stuff I'll just double-check:

Chapter 2:
Page 11.4 "The recreation rooms weren’t much in demand these days. Most of the compounders felt too sick to engage in exercise on any of the machines in the gym section, though one or two people were currently in the large and lengthy pool, here in Rec-area #2" feels duplicated, as that's where we were described back a couple of paragraphs.

Page 11.29 "Three: Not only has Byron been able to use seemingly innocuous maintenance robots to protect our anonymity, but he’s equipped a special model conduit-crawler unit to place passive-monitor interfaces in miles of conduit pipes, some as small as four inches in diameter. So we’ll soon have access to all data flowing into and out of Core." Does this need to be metric?

Page 11.30 "Here’s the most important part: the door is diamond-matrix ceramal, four inches thick, with internal controls that can override those in Core." Metric?

Page 11.32 "Fifth, and finally, " for consistency's sake I'd use ":"

"Within two hours, that section of wall will be visually indistinguishable from the dozens of miles of plastcreted corridors throughout the entire facility. " Metric?

Page 11.41 "That night, Sethra and Veronee stayed in Sethra’s cubicle" maybe "That night Veronne stayed with Sethra in his cubicle."?

[kyrathaba]

Thank you Perry and 4wd. All your corrections/suggestions have been implemented, and can now be downloaded from the OP, or read on the web. Chapter 12 has been added.

Updated word count:

Work on this project began on Thursday, June 6, 2013.

Prologue: 1,932 words {Cumulative: 1,932} uploaded 6/13
Chapter 1: 3,423 words {Cumulative: 5,355} wrote 6/10; revised 6/11
Chapter 2: 3,540 words {Cumulative: 8,895} wrote 6/10; revised 6/11
Chapter 3: 3,485 words {Cumulative: 12,380} wrote 6/11; revised 6/12
Chapter 4: 3,384 words {Cumulative: 15,764} finished initial draft 6/12; copy-edited on 6/13; more corrections 6/14
Chapter 5: 2,787 words {Cumulative: 18,551} wrote 6/13, uploaded 6/13
Chapter 6: 1,281 words {Cumulative: 19,832} wrote 6/13, uploaded 6/14
Chapter 7: 1,993 words {Cumulative: 21,825} wrote 6/14 and 6/15
Chapter 8: 2,130 words {Cumulative: 23,955} wrote 6/15; corrections to Ch 7 & 8 and uploaded 6/16
Chapter 9: 2,222 words {Cumulative: 26,177} uploaded 6/16; revised due to reported grammatical errors, and reuploaded 6/16
Chapter 10: 2,777 words {Cumulative: 28,954} uploaded 6/17; some errors corrected in revised Ch. 11 upload on 6/19
Chapter 11: 3,056 words {Cumulative: 32,010} uploaded 6/18; revised 6/19
Chapter 12: 2,108 words {Cumulative: 34,118} uploaded 6/20

[40hz]

Stylistic and structural suggestions are welcomed.

-kyrathaba (June 20, 2013, 07:03 AM)

Thanks! I was wondering.

Stylistic and structural suggestions are welcomed.

-kyrathaba (June 20, 2013, 07:03 AM)

Are the suggestions above OK, it might be just me but I felt like my tongue was getting tripped up on some of sentence structure.

Don't want to go trampling through your book with my big feet though.

-4wd (June 20, 2013, 07:14 AM)

Indeed. That was my concern too.

[kyrathaba]

Changes to Ch 11:

"It will contain areas for hydroponics, and waste disposal bot that will periodically take trash to Upper A-3 for processing." becomes:

"It will contain an area for hydroponics, and waste disposal bots will periodically take trash to Upper A-3 for processing."


Mary regarded him, interested because he was interested, and he said, “Any help you could be in convincing her would be much appreciated.” becomes:

Mary regarded him. She was interested solely because he was interested. He looked up from his clipboard and said, “Any help you could be in convincing her would be much appreciated.”


This was a departure from protocol that Mephord noticed was not lost on the others in the room. becomes:

This departure from protocol was astutely noted by the others in the room.


“Let me start by welcoming Dr. Dorian Graham and Mr. Grant Thompson. We’re glad to have you with us gentlemen.”    I believe could do with a comma after "us":

“Let me start by welcoming Dr. Dorian Graham and Mr. Grant Thompson. We’re glad to have you with us, gentlemen.”


Everyone’s implant translated quickly revealed that this was the African elephant.     is corrected to:

Everyone’s implant translated this term as a reference to the African elephant.


which could mean that the aliens’ haven’t detected them.    is corrected to:

which could mean that the aliens haven’t detected them.

[kyrathaba]

Notice:

I did some pretty heavy revision of Ch. 11, so much so that the chapter word-count went from 3,056 to 3,354. The online HTML version of the book and the zip file attached to the OP have been updated to reflect this.

[kyrathaba]

Now I'm going to go through Ch. 12 with a fine-toothed comb...

[ewemoa]

I hope kyrathaba will forgive me for the following digression -- has anyone on this thread read On Writing Well?  I heard about it via a talk on refactoring.

[4wd]

Pierre Maybrow... hmmmmm...

 

[kyrathaba]

Pierre Maybrow... hmmmmm...

 cheesy

Yeah, and if you wanna PM me your actual name, 4wd, I've another character that needs naming...

[4wd]

Yeah, and if you wanna PM me your actual name, 4wd, I've another character that needs naming...

-kyrathaba (June 20, 2013, 07:05 PM)

Thanks for the offer but I'm fine just lurking around as a non-entity 

[kyrathaba]

Hmm. Well, then, let's see. There's...

Jesse Reichler, Carol Haynes, Fred Nerd (though I'm sure Nerd isn't the actual surname)...

Some of the existing characters' names are variations on the names of real people. For example, the roboticist's name, Byron Milner, is a variation of my name, Bryan Miller.

[4wd]

Jesse Reichler, Carol Haynes, Fred Nerd (though I'm sure Nerd isn't the actual surname)...

-kyrathaba (June 20, 2013, 07:55 PM)

Aramus De Coderland  (superboyac)

Squire Ortockey (skwire)

[kyrathaba]

Aramus De Coderland  (superboyac)

Hey! I like that one!

Let's see, Araland De Codamus. Hmm...

[kyrathaba]

Two chapters in a single day (uploaded Ch 12 this AM, and just uploaded Ch 13). Available as online HTML via link in OP, or downloadable zip contains Epub and Mobi files.

Enjoy.

Prologue: 1,932 words {Cumulative: 1,932} uploaded 6/13
Chapter 1: 3,423 words {Cumulative: 5,355} wrote 6/10; revised 6/11
Chapter 2: 3,540 words {Cumulative: 8,895} wrote 6/10; revised 6/11
Chapter 3: 3,485 words {Cumulative: 12,380} wrote 6/11; revised 6/12
Chapter 4: 3,384 words {Cumulative: 15,764} finished initial draft 6/12; copy-edited on 6/13; more corrections 6/14
Chapter 5: 2,787 words {Cumulative: 18,551} wrote 6/13, uploaded 6/13
Chapter 6: 1,281 words {Cumulative: 19,832} wrote 6/13, uploaded 6/14
Chapter 7: 1,993 words {Cumulative: 21,825} wrote 6/14 and 6/15
Chapter 8: 2,130 words {Cumulative: 23,955} wrote 6/15; corrections to Ch 7 & 8 and uploaded 6/16
Chapter 9: 2,222 words {Cumulative: 26,177} uploaded 6/16; revised due to reported grammatical errors, and reuploaded 6/16
Chapter 10: 2,777 words {Cumulative: 28,954} uploaded 6/17; some errors corrected in revised Ch. 11 upload on 6/19
Chapter 11: 3,354 words {Cumulative: 32,308} uploaded 6/18; revised 6/19
Chapter 12: 2,108 words {Cumulative: 34,416} uploaded 6/20
Chapter 13: 1,831 words {Cumulative: 36,247} uploaded 6/20

[4wd]

Chapter 12:
I'm really not sure about this one but:

...here by the order of his august majesty’s royal guard...

Should it be Majesty's since we're talking about something that belongs to his Majesty?

Actually, (after doing a quick search online), should it be Majesty's Royal Guard ?

Ugh! Capitalisation of things pertaining to Royals is messy....time for an English inhabitant to join the fray.

...steward lead them through the castle to this grand room.

...steward led them through the castle to this grand room.

The steward now lead them down a richly carpeted central aisle.

The steward now led them down a richly carpeted central aisle.

And torches burned in iron sconces along the walls of the hall, adding more light.

Torches burned in iron sconces along the walls of the hall, adding more light.

Round the ceiling’s circumference ran richly ornamented crown molding of rare lacquered woods carved in intricate designs, and the walls were alternately decorated with obviously expensive tapestries and with weapons and shields that the king had taken as spoils from defeated foes, in his younger days.

Possibly:

Around the ceiling’s circumference ran a richly ornamented crown molding of rare lacquered woods carved in intricate designs. The walls were decorated with obviously expensive tapestries, interspersed with weapons and shields, spoils of foes defeated by the King in his younger days.

He wore chained mail covered in a dark, forest-green cloak. Behind his chair, leaned against the wall, was a bow and a quiver full of arrows.

He wore chain mail covered in a dark, forest-green cloak. Behind his chair, leaning against the wall, was a bow and a quiver full of arrows.

A massive scabbarded great sword leaned propped up against the back of his chair. The girth of the leather strap on which is was strung suggested to Byron that the man normally carried the huge weapon across his back.

I think that having 'propped' makes 'leaned' redundant or v.v.:

A massive scabbarded great sword was propped against the back of his chair. The girth of the leather strap on which it was strung suggested to Byron that the man normally carried the huge weapon across his back.

“Yep, tanks been tumbled, and I triple-checked the mix,” said Grant.

I'm not sure whether 'tanks' is plural for the main and pony tank or is supposed to be contraction of 'tank has' but I'll mention it since the latter was the first to spring to mind, ie:

“Yep, tank's been tumbled, and I triple-checked the mix,” said Grant.

...Jaimie said, smiling, and she helped him carry and attach an anodized aluminum...

Jaimie said, smiling, as she helped him carry and attach an anodized aluminum

...Borneo, where scan revealed no survivors.

...Borneo, where scans revealed no survivors.

Or, if their equipment is efficient:

...Borneo, where a scan revealed no survivors.

[Perry Mowbray]

Pierre Maybrow... hmmmmm...

 

-4wd (June 20, 2013, 06:54 PM)

I'm actually fond of 'Warmboy' myself...