rone | e&tg: afterword

First off, the story has been collected into one page and has a title: Axe, Beak and Claw. As dr_strych9 once put it, "Yes, I chose a more permanent title... No, I don't care if you think it sucks. I like it. That's all there is to it." While that's a little more vehement a sentiment than i feel, it'll do.

The final word count is either 22265 or 22253 (depending on whether you believe lynx -dump axe-beak-claw.html | wc -w or copying and pasting the story from my browser into wc -w), which puts it in the 'novella' size category. When i first started writing it, i thought it was a short story. It took fourteen months and one day to complete. The seed idea for this story was the notion of an airborne delivery service run by a gryphon rider.

It's been a fun exercise. I don't think it sucks, but i'm quite aware that it has warts. If i were interested in publishing this, i'd want to plane out the D&D stuff; i'd probably combine halflings, dwarves and gnomes into a shortish race of my own manufacture. Some of the clichés would have to be reworked. And the more obviously ~~stolen~~ ~~lifted~~ borrowed bits would need to spackled. As ever, any and all criticism, editing, suggestions and advice are welcome and encouraged.

Part 2: "dreamgrass" is borrowed from Steven Brust. I doubt i need to explain what it refers to. "Mwaele" came from my idea that the protagonist is racially African (or its analogue in this world), and Mwaele is what my brain produced for an African-sounding name. At the time, there was a single Google hit for Mwaele (some high-school basketball player), so i tried "mwele" (a spelling i considered for the name) and found out that it means "cripple" in Swahili via Yale's Kamusi Project. Needless to say, i felt that was excellent serendipity.

Part 3: The Western Biome Union of Druids and Rangers is what would happen if you crossed Greenpeace, PETA, and a Montana militia. The name Kromalir is a sort of mash of Adrilankha and Ankh-Morpork, and the city echoes to some degree both of those, as well, and perhaps a small amount of The City from Transmetropolitan (although i suspect that many things could be extrapolated by analyzing any large city and how it functions).

Part 6: The salutation "Ser" is borrowed from Frank Herbert's Jorj X. McKie stories.

Part 8: Nallim popped out of my head as an expansion for N'Jeet (ez, of course, is the Spanish patronymic suffix). Upon revising my D&D material, i found its source: one of my brother's characters is named Nallim. I know, i know, apostrophes in fantasy names are a goddam cliché.

Part 12: The Ashen Tongue came to me as a good name for a bar. It was inspired, yet again, by Steven Brust: "Verra, may thy tongue be turned to ash, that should have been the end of it." (Teckla)

Part 13: Rolling with the Swahili thing, the gryphon's name comes from the Swahili words for lion (asadi, which i preferred over the more popular simba, even though i don't know the difference between them) and eagle (koho, which seems to apply to the eagle type [also falcon and osprey] instead of a particular eagle). As for the currency system, ten copper stars to a silver lene, ten lene to a palladium anu, ten anu to a gold sun, and ten suns to a platinum comet. Lene and Anu are the two moons. Copper coins are called stars because a) they're plentiful and b) in this world, the stars are all red. Whether they're all red giants or merely severely red-shifted is a question their astronomers might not settle for millennia.

Part 14: jumu == luck, wadi == son. "dying goose": i know i got this from a Steven Brust book where he describes a character's voice sounding like a swan in heat, or something like that.

Part 15: OK, so calling it the Halfling Mafia is funny in a cheesy sort of way. It's effectively descriptive yet ham-handed.

Part 16: Tinita is inspired in part by Nina from Office Space.

Part 17: I just noticed now that, while i picked Ssthith as a decently sibilant name, i now have a coworker named Sthitha, although it's pronounced Steetta.

Part 19: Gialarçi is a thinly disguised respelling of Jallarzi. I thought i'd picked the name myself, but i idly decided to Google for it and i remembered i got it from Wizards of the Coast's character generator demo software. I've never read any D&D books, i swear it.

Part 21: "Southern brown bean infusion with a dash of spicy red pepper." A shiny nickel if you can figure out what this is.

Part 22: Nahhas is named after Alex Nahas.

Part 23: does a stereotypical character in an out-of-type setting count as a cliché? Anyway, the Stinker is easily identifiable as an agent.

Part 28: Hello. My name is Mwaele, and i have issues.

Part 34: Dakel Yeniri is an anagram of Ariel dinkey04, minus the digits, of course.

Part 35: Awww, he's like a puppy. A puppy that's emo and can kill large game.

Part 45: I chose Ĥ to represent the voiceless velar fricative, like 'ch' in 'loch' or 'achtung'. It turns out that Esperanto uses it in exactly that capacity.

Part 46: Súa is a small city in the southern Amazonian region of Ecuador.

Part 51: I'm pretty sure the "Shall we dance?" bit is another direct theft from Brust.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

1. Hmmm. No "Googlie" ??

2. Part 21: Rone hates this dish?
(It's better with cheese)

I assumed that the infusion in part 21 was hot chocolate with cayenne.

"I assumed that the infusion in part 21 was hot chocolate with cayenne."

It may be; you may win the nickel. I got very literal with the beans-and-cayenne and thought refried beans, but it would be a stretch to call it an infusion unless you drained off the soaking water and flavored it. (gag)

Hot chocolate is not technically an infusion, is it? With coffee and tea, you pour boiling water over the leaves/beans, let it soak, and drink the flavored water. With hot chocolate, you pour water over cacao powder and it dissolves.

But wait. Could the madman add red pepper juice to his COFFEE?
Yipes!

That's now my entry in the contest. Coffee with a splash of hot sauce!

I hope it isn't coffee. Coffee beans aren't actually beans: they are the seeds of something a bit like a cherry, and the "bean" thing came from higgerant Europeans or somesuch. This group of monkeys may make that mistake, but it seems unlikely that it would be repeated in another universe.

Re: chocolate, I was picturing some cruder form, in which the cocoa beans are pounded up and used in a manner akin to filter coffee (or just left as "grounds" in the bottom of the mug/bowl/urn/whatever)...

I suppose we shall just be kept in the dark until

ronebofh tells us. Or, if past experience is a guide, he won't.

Well, if he did tell, he might have to give someone a nickel. ;)

...he might have to give someone a nickel

:snort:

eejitalmuppet is correct and he's earned a nickel. I neglected to include in my exegesis that the "Southern brown bean" is a reworking of Microprose's old Darklands game, where one of the alchemical compounds is cacao, and is called "Eastern brown bean" in the game. The Aztecs would grind up cacao beans, pour hot water on it and add capsicum. The mixture was called xocolatl, meaning "bitter water", thus giving rise to the Spanish word "chocolate".

... and the Europeans substituted cinnamon for chile, and added sugar. And milk. Bless them.

::smug mode engaged::

Googlie? Whut?

I have always heard something Jungle Bookie in the name Mwaele, and when you said you Googled, my brain went from Mwaele and Mowgli to Googlie.

You'd have to be in my head. It was moderately amusing. Last night. For a brief moment.

You are a silly Penny!

Sometimes the gears slip...

the Swahili words for lion (asadi, which i preferred over the more popular simba, even though i don't know the difference between them)

Well, Asadi comes from arabic (cf. the al-Asad family in Syria). Simba, not so much I don't think.

There is something to be said for retaining halflings, dwarves and the like. Yes, they are cliches, but they are also a form of shorthand these days, which lets you focus on moving the story along instead of spending a lot of words trying to paint a picture for your reader. That's why pros like Pratchett still use them. It also allows you to mess with the minds of your readers by exploding cliches in the behaviour of your characters (yeah, I know it's been done often enough, but its still fun[1]).

Designing your own race of short-arses is probably more useful if you want to expand this into a novel (for example, by developing the whole "thing under the city" and the quest to own/control it).

[1] "Grunts" by Mary Gentle contains some of my favourite examples. I mean, an ageing halfling dominatrix, what's not to like?

I'll admit, I got a bit bored with the serialized version - too much time between episodes. But the narrative works well now that it's all in one piece.

Also, sequel please.

I really enjoyed e&tg. The early D&D bent (which could turn off non-gaming readers) wore away in favour of the story as you kept writing.

I probably would have missed it if it hadn't been serialized into "ooh, look rone's posted another episode" chunks. It'd be interesting to read the whole story at a sitting, though I don't know when I'm likely to take a chunk of time and do that.

And go read John Crowley.

"Little, Big"? Or do you mean his journal?

I'd like to start another one, but i think i'd rather focus on the novel right now. It's sat around long enough.

Meant to say, it looked like it would be easy enough to remove the D&D component from the converation with the contractor, and still keep the "accountant shafts soldier" quality. You could use faux military ranks, for example (the friendly mage could be "mana specialist" or something), or have Mr H use the prissy technical terms while 'ele thinks "thief", "mage" and so forth.

Also, the first dialogue between Kohasadi and 'ele didn't quite ring true. Among other things, the bit where Kohasadi immediately pronounced himself not as smart as humans jarred for me, and didn't entirely sit well with the evidence (he's fluent in a human language, even if his vocal equipment doesn't allow him to speak it)... Even if he isn't as smart, would he think that?

The intelligence augmentation still has him a little disoriented. But i hear what you're saying.

Criticism aside, this is good stuff. I've read far worse stories which have seen professional publication.

Congratulations, and thanks - I've enjoyed reading it.

e&tg: afterword

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