SW10: December 2010 #5: Cauldron Book II Part 5 (of 7)

Scott Eiler seiler at eilertech.com
Wed Mar 30 18:52:36 PDT 2011


Andrew Perron wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:10:18 +0000 (UTC), Scott Eiler wrote:
> 
>> The car started rocking. The two nearest creatures were climbing up it! I had to 
>> get out! But I wasn't fast enough. As I rolled out from under, the car came down 
>> on my foot! I must have screamed.
>>
>> It rocked back up. I knew I had to move some more; I just couldn't.
...
> This whole bit, I think, needs more detail and more polish.  "I knew I had
> to move some more" should be something with more emotion to it, something
> less offhand descriptive.  "I knew I had to get away before it came back
> down", for instance, or "I knew I had to scamper out of the way".

Duly noted.  I'll contemplate the wording.  But (1) the woman making that 
observation was in shock at the time; (2) chipmunks "scamper", Summer Morgan 
does not.

>> Margaret Jean said, "We call him Toejam. He was with us before you joined. One 
>> of his golems helped protect you. The others beat up Imperilus, with a little 
>> help from a sonic gun Brett came up with. So yeah, he's good."
> 
> Toe golems. O.o What.

Oh, why not.  I don't have a detailed origin story for this guy, but I've used 
him before, and I like his power set more and more.

>> "They knew about Brain2Web. Imperilus said he dug that thing out of her brain 
>> himself with his own pocket knife. But they must have had a real surgeon ready."
> 
> ...does that mean he *didn't* do that?  I certainly hope so. @.x

The USIB professional interrogator who was observing can confirm:  No, he didn't.

>>      * There's gang warfare up and down the west coast. Gang lords are blowing 
>> up buildings in Seattle... My mom is there. My kids are there, with my 
>> ex-husband. I wish I were back home.
> 
> Ahhhh, keeping things hopping in the background, I see.  Very nice.

Thanks.  I was afraid you'd accuse Summer of not paying more attention to where 
her relatives live before now.

>> I'm bringing some reality merge concepts in, DC 1986 style. Otherwise it becomes 
>> too complicated to describe how my superhumans mostly come from one Earth and my 
>> humans come from another, thanks to a reality shift of 2005. (DC 1986 largely 
>> simplified their own story the same way after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, 
>> even though some DC 1985 stories after the Crisis had the heroes still being 
>> from different Earths.)
> 
> Nuuurgh.  In my opinion, Crisis was a bad idea reasonably well-executed.

I didn't actually have a Crisis.  It was more like Marvel's "House of M", only 
more permanent.  The main victim was probably President Hillary Rodham...  I 
shall have to consider not wiping that history out.  But then I have to ask: 
Was Summer around for the Rodham administration?

(snip the stunning inspiration of how wonderful Life is, based on the X-Men
during Secret Wars II)
> (Mind, I am aware of how cheesy this sounds.  But it works really well on
> the page, due in large part to John Romita Jr.'s stunning mosaics.)

It worked even better in color.  8{D>

So be reassured.  Superhuman World is racking up quite the body count right now, 
but only one world's worth.

-- 
(signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> -------- http://www.eilertech.com/ ---------

Only their myths concerned peace and contentment, and that in such a
coercive, sullen package it was obvious that the Earth humans resented
the very idea.

- from "Passing" by Elaine Radford, Aboriginal SF, May/June 1987.



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