Critique #60 Beth Bernobich
Katharine Kerr August 23rd, 2006
Don’t get me wrong, but yeah, I know everything I need to and a little bit
more. I can tell you who built Lóng City, and why it’s got the Hundred Sewers.
I know about the first kings, the Interregnum, and why our Guild Council let
Prince Xiang back on the throne. Oh, and I can show you sixty-five daggers
strikes and where to find the best meat pies. I even know…
Okay, I don’t know calculus, and my upper-level trigonometry sucks the
Celestial Wind, according to my Mâ mî, who runs a tutoring school for
conjuration and mathematics. Ai ya, does she remind me–at least six times a
day.
“Where are your homework papers, Kai-my-son?” she asked me.
“Which papers?” I said, as sweet as sugar cane.
Mâ mî’s bright black eyes narrowed to slits. She said nothing, but tapped her
ink-stained fingers against the neat stacks of rice-paper where she was adding
up her accounts.
I really, really like this, to the point of envy. It has a clear voice that indicates age and gender right from the start, it’s fun to read and I want more.
The only thing that made me stumble was when I read “sweet as sugar cane,” because I stopped and thought They have sugar cane? But that’s minor.
Like it.
Ditto on what Harry said.
I like it, too.
Okay — I assume purposefully made “daggers” plural so we’d have something to shoot at.
Overall, I like this and would turn the page, but it could use a little tightening up. The string of history details strikes me as “clever exposition”, fed to the reader before said reader needs them all.
The “sweet as sugar cane” bothered me, too, for a different reason. This kid is a real punk, I thought, the kind you want to slap some sense into it. Which made me not care as much about his story.
I really liked this too. The idea of a tutor who handles mathematic and conjuring is very interesting; you got me there. I want to know more. However, you only mention mathematics in the next few lines…. so I’m getting the feeling right now that your main character is there only for math not magic. If I’m wrong, don’t wait too long to mention his training in magic.
Also, we’re technically on line 13 here and I’m not sure if your main character is male or female. I think this is primarily due to the fact that I don’t know if Kai-my-son is a male name or not. I’m leaning toward male here, but it would be good if we had some kind of solid reference.
I liked the quick, fun paced of the prose. I would turn the page to see what happens next.
I really liked this as well and would like to continue reading. I loved the touch of ‘Ai ya’; partly from hearing my partner so often say it with exasperation.
I wasn’t entirely sure of the age of Kai but the hints indicated that he is high school age or older. Maybe because the list of his knowledge and the way he was scolded for homework seemed slightly in oppostion. From the first paragraph and even the second I’d have thought him between 16-18yrs (14 at the absolute youngst) but then that is against my cultural norms and I sort of expect to get corrected if I could read on. ^^
I was uncomfortable with the transition into dialogue. I expected it to be a quote of what she always says but the use of ‘asked’ seemed awkward even if I can’t describe exactly how.
Not sure whether that is useful or not as I might just be having a no brain moment and this would all appear obvious one coffee later.
Thanks, everyone! All your comments are enormously helpful, and I hope to address all your concerns when I go through the story another time.
Erin: doesn’t Kai-my-son clue you in to his gender? (I’m not being sarcastic–what seems obvious to one reader might not be obvious to another.)
Sherwood,
I did have a feeling that Kai-my-son was male because of the “son” ending of the name. I was also thinking that Kai-my-san would probably be the female form of the name, but I wasn’t entirely sure - likely I was just being thick in the head since I hadn’t had any coffee yet. I guess I was also looking for a little more character description that what I read. However, I have a feeling that the description that I want is a few lines after what we’re given.
I think part of the confusion for me stems from my natural caution not to assume m/f of an international name. I work quite a bit with foreign and domestic people and I have learned to be very cautious with names - especially since I receive a lot of calls from international alumni who address me as Mr. Erin Underwood.
I read the “my son” as an addition to the name, like “darling”, say, rather than part of the name.
That’s how I intended it to read, yes.
Interesting character - very cocky, likely to be entertaining. Probably not nearly as smooth as he thinks he is, but we’ll see that by what happens to him, and whether he learns better.
The word “calculus” struck me as odd - you have kings, princes and dagger strikes, the name Xiang, but no overt non-Earthlike references, so that set me thinking China- in the far past. But calculus is a very recent invention, purely Western.
I’d continue to read.
I liked this a lot, but I did find the transition from the present tense of the beginning to the standard past of the second half a little jarring. I went back twice to confirm that there were two different tenses, and to see if there was a signal I missed, but no (unless I missed it). I like the voice over all, but then, I’m a fan of wise-ass kids, which is what Kai sounds to me.
Beth, dropping the hyphens would clear up the name confusion, then. “Kai, my son,” is definitely not a name.
Thanks again for the excellent suggestions, everyone. I’m making one final pass through the story, and will try to incorporate all these points. (Deadline on Friday!)
Too late for my comments for the final pass, but I just wanted to drop in and say I liked this, and the know-it-all sweet-as-sugar-cane attitude of the protagonist seemed completely in keeping with my experience of certain teenaged boys.
I had exactly the same reaction to ’sugar cane’ as Harry did, though. This isn’t necessarily a problem, just that it dropped me out of the story as I asked myself, “they not only have sugar cane but would refer to it as if they were accustomed to eating the entire cane and not just the processed sugar?” Trivia aside: here in Hawaii, one always says, forex, ‘cane fields.’
And my interest was definitely caught by
Just an update to say that I heard from the anthology editor this morning — he’s buying the story, pending final approval from the publisher. Thank you, everyone!
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