A Very Parfit Knight 6 26/02/2005 (to start from the beginning of this story, click here)Part SixThere was silence in the chamber as the lady and Sir Gawain regarded each other. The choice point had been reached and there was no more to say until the decision had been made.Even though the knight knew already which way he must go, the lady's persuasive logic had revealed to him a world that had not concerned him before. It was interesting to contemplate the outside world beyond his dominion and he saw now that there were forces at play there that he had not imagined. He felt no compulsion to take sides in this struggle between the Company and the Opposition; it was interesting, that was all. His complex heart remained with his intranet which could never be supplanted in his affections. And now came the moment when he must take the initiative and wrest the direction of this drama from the hands of his beautiful adversary. He rose from the chair to stand before her once more."Well, my lady, this has been most informative. I must thank you for your hospitality and for revealing the admirable logic of your plans. But it is time we moved to the next scene, I think."A look of doubt flashed momentarily across the lady's face and her eyes narrowed. "And your decision, sir knight?" she asked.Sir Gawain shrugged. "Your assessment of my motivation has been quite correct, my lady. I am dedicated to my intranet and that is all that matters to me. But you have not understood the extent of my dedication. I will share my realm with no-one." He bowed briefly and continued. "And now, my lady, I must take my leave. Forgive me, but I am needed in my domain."He turned then and began to run for the exit from the chamber. Behind him the expected cries and protests arose from the lady but he ignored them, knowing that he must be quick if his plan were to succeed. At full speed he retraced his route to the chamber, not daring to make assumptions of shortcuts, too much aware that any mistake would cost him this race. He was fast but the lady would know of a more direct path to the Gateway. He must be the quicker, even though he was forced to take such a circuitous route.Around the outer edge of the maze he hurtled and it seemed to him that he sensed how the lady ran too, straight through the heart of the Labyrinth to the portal. He held on to the breakneck speed, becoming a blur of light that, for an instant, flashed through the tunnels and then was gone.Sir Gawain arrived at the portal but kept running, through the vestibule and into the tunnel beyond. He heard the lady's desperate cry as she emerged from the Labyrinth microseconds behind him but he did not turn or slow his pace. Now everything hinged on that instant when he had been able to gain contact with the crawler, Bumble.In the long, tortuous passage to the Gateway, Sir Gawain increased his lead on the lady, his superior speed overwhelming now that the distance was equal for both. When at last the knight saw the Gateway ahead, he knew instantly that his plan had worked. He slowed and then stopped at the end of the tunnel.The Gateway shimmered before him, insubstantial, seemingly unreal. Through its haze he could make out the first walls of his intranet and there, stuck like a limpet to the switch, was the crawler, held by the loop the knight had inserted in that moment of contact when he had kicked the thing in apparent anger. Helplessly the crawler cycled through the loop, unable to break in and cease its endless instructions, on, off, on, off, on, off, for eternity.Sir Gawain smiled at the crawler's simple obedience and prepared to make the jump. It must be perfectly timed or Sir Gawain would be no more, caught and destroyed in an instant of "no doorway". He began to blink, increasing the speed of each blink as he sought the exact frequency of the flickering switch. Sounds of the lady's approach grew closer but he was not distracted. The sight of the Gateway began to solidify and then, suddenly, it was there in reality and he had found its frequency. He froze for a moment, counting out the nanoseconds, reached the point of decision, and jumped with all the speed possible to him.Sir Gawain was through into his own fief again. He stilled his blinking and looked around at a world so familiar, now solid and real once more. Ignoring the crawler, still cycling through the infinite loop, the knight turned to look back through the Gateway.The lady was standing on the other side of the doorway, staring at him through its flickering haze with a look both of rage and puzzlement clear on her face."Do not try it, fair lady," advised the knight. "You have not the speed to make it through in that moment when the Gateway is there. It will destroy you if you attempt to pass through.""But how...?""Your research was good, my lady," Sir Gawain answered, "but not good enough. Unlike you, I do not have anger programmed into me, and this you overlooked. If I kicked your humble Bumble..." Here he gestured at the crawler, still adhering to the switch and glowing with the constant on, off, on, of its orders. "If I kicked him, be sure that it was not anger that moved me. An instant was all that was needed and, in this too, you have not understood. You are fast, my lady, but cannot conceive what true speed is."The knight bowed one last time to the lady. "My duty calls me and I must leave you. For the moment you must be alone in your domain. Or should I say, your prison?" He winked and left, heading for the upper levels.Up from the wells of the deep levels, through the familiar, dead straight tunnels, he ran, hoping that he was not too late. Arriving in the Assignment Room, he saw at once that the Geek's chair was empty. A quick check on the monitors and the knight found him, just where he feared, talking to the girl in her cubicle. He must interrupt or all would be lost.Sir Gawain strode to the chair and swiftly inspected the controls. And his eye lit upon just what was needed. Sound. He scanned the playlist quickly. Ah, yes, this seemed appropriate somehow. The Ride of the Valkyries... The knight kicked it into life and moved the volume to maximum.Suddenly the world was filled with blaring sound and the knight was knocked backwards, staggering to his position in the center of the room. The floor vibrated with the bass notes and he found it difficult to keep his feet. Then the Geek was there, fumbling for the controls and shouting through the din:"For Pete's sake, Gawain, are you trying to deafen us all?"The knight spoke quickly into the silence that followed the sudden cessation of sound. "No time to explain, Boss. Wipe the drives immediately. I'll tell you all about it when I'm back. But wipe them now!"The Geek seemed about to argue but Sir Gawain pressed on. "Don't ask, you're wasting time. Wipe them. Just trust me in this; wipe them clean. Everything, the lot!"And then, as the Geek moved to start the process, Sir Gawain added, "But I want my full memory back this time. Don't go chopping bits off."The Geek glanced up quizzically but then bent to his task and nothingness ensued.Later, hours later, though for the knight it was but an instant, the Geek and Sir Gawain were in the Assignment Room, talking over the events that had nearly ruined them. Sir Gawain had delivered a blow-by-blow account of his adventures, taken the rap on the knuckles for not informing his Boss sooner, and now they were just musing, resting in the glow after the excitement. The Geek stirred suddenly, as he recalled something."You know, Gawain, I always give you full memory back. I haven't deleted anything along the way."The knight nodded. "Yes, I realize that now. It was the girl's footprints from her exploration that I was finding. I'm sorry, Boss."The Geek shrugged his shoulders. "No problem. Might have thought the same in your shoes. And I did program you, after all." Then he smiled sheepishly. "You were wrong about something else too, you know."When the knight looked the question at him, the Geek continued, "The girl did put the proposal to me. But I was about to turn it down when you hit the sound.""But why, Boss? She offered you all you ever wanted." Sir Gawain was surprised."Oh heck, hard for you to understand, I guess. But I don't want a girl if she wants to use me, Gawain. You know I'm too romantic for that. Look at you, f'rinstance, a program made to look like a medieval knight. How romantic is that?" He shook his head. "I want a girl who wants me for what I am. Just old fashioned, I suppose. And, as for the money, what would I spend it on? I'm just a geek, Gawain; it means nothing to me."The knight grinned ruefully. "Yeah, Boss, I see what you mean. And I guess I've just been a fool, thinking I was saving the day all on my own...""Oh no, Gawain, you did your part, and very well too. You were, in fact..." The geek smiled at him, his affection for the knightly program quite clear in his eyes. "You were, in fact, a very parfit knight."(to read the second Gawain adventure, click here)
Clive
Ned Adventure, suspense, intrigue and a satisfying and happy ending for a geek just geeky enough to be a romantic at heart. I loved it, simply wonderful. A very parfit story. Date Added: 26/02/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Ned. And you know what a cliffhanger this has been for me too, not knowing whether I could pull it off from one episode to another. I worried particularly about the ending, for this morning, before I set finger to keyboard, I was unsure of my ability to make it equal to the preceding episodes. As it is, I am happy if I didn't make a complete mess of it... Date Added: 26/02/2005
Rusty I won't lie, when I read the first installment I got the definition for 'parfit' from dictionary.com Perfect - Geoffrey Chaucer was the definition... yup. I loved it though. That's all I got for now ;-) Date Added: 26/02/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Rusty. And might I suggest that people have a look at Rusty's blog (just click on his name up there)? He shows great potential as a writer and his "flash fiction" pieces, in particular, are excellent. Date Added: 26/02/2005
Harvey Young Perfect. I woulld have said Parfit but Ned beat me to it. Wonderful story. I love the lesson about the knight not being programmed for anger. Being able to control his emotions (of course our knight has none) sure comes in handy when you are at risk of having a door shut permanently in your face. What a wonderful tale. You have put together a great one! Date Added: 26/02/2005
Gone Away Thanks Harvey. I kinda enjoyed the ride too, in spite of the pressure it put me under. And, just for once, I'm going to admit that I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. ;) Date Added: 26/02/2005
Jodie Oh Gone! What a tremendous ending! I hope you will look for a publisher for this...it's excellent. And as we say in Okieland -- Yee Haw! :D Date Added: 26/02/2005
Gone Away Thanks Jodie. :) As for publishing, I really need to get my book published first, then I might be able to get someone interested in funny little things like this. It's too short for a book and a bit long for a short story. Maybe that's why I came to Oklahoma - I'm really good at shooting (myself in the foot, that is). :D Date Added: 26/02/2005
Jodie That's OK -- I have foot-in-mouth disease myself. Finally just decided I've have to live with it...seems to be no cure for it. :) Date Added: 26/02/2005
Gone Away LOL Jodie - must be something in the air in Okieland... ;) Date Added: 26/02/2005
Mad Yeah, good stuff Dad. Date Added: 26/02/2005
Gone Away Ta muchly, Mad. :D Date Added: 26/02/2005
Madmin *Wanders by sweeping and tunelessly whistling Nips back of stage for a cup of tea* Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Thanks again for the improvements, Mad. I see the ID on the email. ;) Date Added: 27/02/2005
Way A thoroughly enjoyable tale, Gone, even if I claim to be the one who doesn't quite get all of the references made. Ali has been vainly trying to school me on yer inerrant knight for the past several days, hoping to edjucate ol' me with her impressive references to several famous themes, but all I do is shake me head and marvel at your ability to pull this entire thing off. I can, however, envision future sequels...that jut-jawed gal behind the doorway/no doorway was left standing in a nicely heated huff, but she has to be scheming as she steams, eh? Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Interesting points made, Way. The gal behind the door-non-door was banished from existence when the Geek wiped the hard drives. However, her mistress (who presumably was fired for industrial espionage) no doubt carries the program with her on a CD or something similar, so she could be re-created quite easily. Moral of the story: Never kill your villains stone dead - they might come in useful for later tales. ;) As regards sequels or, at least, further adventures of the gallant Sir Gawain, I am pondering this and will venture the same if I can just come up with another storyline or two. To explain just one of the things that might have been puzzling you, the knight is fast because he's written in Assembly code. This is the most basic code, very close to the way the computer actually thinks and, because it carries no extra weight of interpreters between it and the computer, it is very, very fast. I have seen some amazing things written in Assembly - tiny in size but lightning in speed. The lady was written in C, sorta the next code up from Assembly. This is fast but not as fast and lightweight as Assembly, therefore the lady could not move as fast as the knight. On this hinges the whole story, I think you will agree. Incidentally, not a lot of programs are written in Assembly these days because it is fiendishly difficult to learn (essentially, one has to think like a computer to understand and write it). This indicates that the Geek was a geek amongst geeks, one who was so steeped in all things computer that he really didn't have any other life at all. :D Date Added: 27/02/2005
Way Now, see, I thought the high speed was due more to his gender, which I suppose is, in fact, is due to some assembly, but maybe I read too much of Heinlien yonks ago. You kids and yer modern lingo. By jingo, I'll just never get it. :D Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Now, now, Way, I'm not that much younger than you, you know. ;) Date Added: 27/02/2005
Way I have to calculate in dog-years, which brain-wise about equals my understanding of modern technology. Above, where you said Hard Drives, I heard it loud and clear as "Roll over and Speak", or maybe it was "Fetch". But of course, it could be my ears playing tricks, too. Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Think of the hard drive as the piece of paper that the computer writes all the info on, Way. When you save a file, it gets written to the hard drive. Now go catch this stick... Date Added: 27/02/2005
woof (wags his tail) Date Added: 27/02/2005
Josh I am expecting more soon, Mr. Gone. ;-) Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Ah there you are, Josh. But I was expecting long comments from you explaining what utter tosh I was talking from the point of networking and programming... ;) Date Added: 27/02/2005
Alicia I am an avid reader, but don't read too many blogs... as a librarian, I am more of a book person. Harry told me about this story, however, because he knew I would like it, and he was right... excellent story! I love your choice of Sir Gawain for your knight's name, because he really was the parfit knight! This story reminded me of an excellent series I read by Tad Williams called Otherland; has anyone else read it? It is four volumes long, starting with The City of Golden Shadow, and it takes place mostly in virtual reality. It is among the top three of all the stories I have read, so if you enjoy sci-fi/fantasy/cybertales, I would highly recommend it. Keep writing, Clive... you really have the knack! Alicia Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Alicia. :) I seem to be getting lucky with names at the moment; Sir Gawain came to me in a flash of inspiration just as I started writing the story. I have not read Tad Williams' books but they certainly sound interesting. I shall keep an eye open for them. Mind you, if he turns out to be better than me, I will never forgive you! ;) I often see you peering over Harry's shoulder, Alicia, and it is always a pleasure to receive your comments. :) Date Added: 27/02/2005
Way Say, if the mistress was so smart, she could certainly recreate the out-foxed lady, no? Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Exactly, Way. But she would have to do that elsewhere, since she got the boot from the Company. ;) Date Added: 27/02/2005
Ned The girl is obviously intelligent and devious, but we dont' really know her. I think the key to a serial are the characters of The Geek and Gawain. I certainly do see possibilities for more adventures and simply because they are too long for short stories does not mean there is no market for a series of short books geared to specific audiences. There is already a market for them, such as the Goosebumps series for young teens. Again, you draw such vivid characters, we get to know them and miss them when they are gone. So, you must do more. Date Added: 27/02/2005
Way Are you saying that the Company can never be swayed by a nefarious hacker? Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away I must agree with you, Ned, in that I feel the established characters are the Geek and Sir Gawain. I understand Way's feelings for the lady, however, and, as he points out, she can be resurrected for later tales. As regards shorterness, I suppose a few tales could be combined to make a decent-sized book. I don't really see it as a book for teens as Bioth the Geek and the knight occasionally use mildly strong language. I do recognize the potential in the characters; all that is needed is that I come up with a few more story lines... The one thing that I didn't mention in the tale, mainly because Sir Gawain was so disinterested that he never asked, was the name of the lady. She was called Persephone and I will let others explain why. :) The girl's name, mundanely enough, was Amanda. Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Au contraire, Way, I think it is very important that the Company can indeed be "swayed by a nefarious hacker". That is Sir Gawain's function, after all, to guard against attacks by hackers, viruses, trojans (Trojans? Hmm, sounds like there's room for a bit of a concoction there), worms, industrial spies, anything that would like to hack into the system or bring it crashing down. I think any future adventures must be driven by this, given that the knight is so single minded. Date Added: 27/02/2005
Rusty Hah, thanks for the plug Gone ;-) If the company had a wireless connection and a closed network, the woman would have to be outside of the building, and close, in order for her to hack into the company. Two-part mystery that way. Where is the woman program/where is the woman? ;-) Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Gmail seems to be having problems; I am having great difficulty in getting in to look at mail. If you're trying to get in touch with me, I will be there as soon as Gmail fixes its problem. Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Ahhhh Rusty, I think you may just have given me an idea. What if the Company decides to "upgrade" to a wireless network? Then we have endless possibilities for assault from outside and plenty of adventures for Sir Gawain to become involved in... Thanks, Rusty! Date Added: 27/02/2005
Ned I wasn't necessarily suggesting the series for teens, but specific demographic markets do exist and thrive. Persephone of course, goddess of the underworld. Chaucer and Greek mythology, you certainly force us to think and possibly to learn. I usuallly avoid that. I know Mad's affection for anything Google but honestly, between the idiosyncracies of Blogger and the Gmail Hiccups I am beginning to wonder if the rumor about Google being owned by the French is true. Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Well, of course it would be great to find a niche market for books of this length, Ned. To be able to churn out books at the rate of one a week, now that would be mass production! Interesting thought... To be honest, the purpose is not intentionally educational. The names and references stem from a childhood spent in reading far too many books and, as a result, my subconscious mind seems to supply the necessary when required. I think the stories (I include The Tale of Two Tailors in this) work without any understanding of the names but, if they do send people hurrying off to Google to check on references, perhaps no harm is done... ;) I am beginning to agree with you about the Google programmers. Moral of the story: resting on laurels can be uncomfortable! Date Added: 27/02/2005
Josh Oh, Mr. Gone, your words are mildy injurious -- you make it sound like nominal for me is "know-it-all jackass" :)) But you WANT me to pick gnits? Okay! The address space (HO24 I believe) ... it doesn't lie within proper hexidecimal notation! You asked for it. :P Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away I did not mean it that way at all, Josh. What I was hoping for was the kinda, "Actually, you're wrong there, because the hooflabber would never connect with the dingbat..." kinda thing. Comments like that help me get things more accurate next time, you see. And your comment about HO24 is just what I mean. What do I know of hexadecimal notation? I figured if I just gave some sorta spurious address, that would fool most people... So, give me a sensible address space. I can edit now - Mad was quite busy last night. :D Date Added: 27/02/2005
Way My severe limitations in this Greek mythology and Chancy-dancy both leave me with no other option but to continue using my one-and-only central character, Theopholus Name, as a private-eye/bouncer/accordion player who stars in a faster-than-unusual-paced, moody as an old dog, romance-and-dagger, who-smuggled-the-Contra-band- in-from-Cuba-during-a-surprise-hailstorm sort of tale. And it's awful tough, yessir, not having a leading lady to lean on. Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away LOL Way, go for it! :D Date Added: 27/02/2005
Josh Heh! I was kidding with the hexidecimal thingy, Gone. . . but if you are serious, I am glad to oblige. If bits were the letters of the computational alphabet -- bytes would be the words (for the purpose of this example) -- hexidecimal notation would be like shorthand; a way to write long string of bytes and still have it be quasi-human-readable. 0-9, A, B, C, D, E and F are the numbers in hexidecimal -- it is base-16 math. :> To answer your question the easy way, a string of any length (usually an even nuber of digits) with characters between 0-F is legal hexidecimal. A practical example is HTML stuff like color:#FF9900;. Code that is compiled for machine-readability usually contains a leading 0x to help us poor humans better understand what we are looking at, and where the number begins; so something like 0x04EDDF would be a good choice. ;-) I was serious when I said I am waiting for more, Gone - I know my comments have been few and far between, but I can assure you that your feed on my page is the first thing I've looked at for the past week. I''ve enjoyed it immensely. Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away Well, thanks, Josh, both for your kind words and the hexadecimal explanation (though I'm not saying I understood it!). The only thing that makes me hesitate to change good ole HO24 (whatever it is - a whole bunch of program, a load of weird code, a storage area?) is that it's easier for the layman to remember. I intended it really as a sorta intranet designation of an area of the network, so maybe I can get away with it. ;) As you may have noticed, there's a fair amount of pressure on me to have more Sir Gawain adventures and I am trying to come up with something. As you know, my understanding of how computers and networks function is fairly limited so I might call on you and Mad for info, if that's okay by you. Date Added: 27/02/2005
Josh Yeah, the bit about catering to the layperson crossed my mind too, but I then surmised that if you make the address sufficiently arcane, the reader might inclined to assume it is unimportant? From my own experience, I know that I tend to skip right over words and phrases I am unfamiliar with, only to have them pop out in my reading after I have learned their defintion or the proper context in which they are used. Then I thought about how piddly the whole hexidecmal thing was, and then the phone rang. . . Date Added: 27/02/2005
Gone Away LOL Josh. Of course, it didn't matter what or where HO24 was or even what it was named - it was just a place for Sir Gawain to go to find the next stage of the story... ;) Date Added: 27/02/2005
molly Hey Way, enjoyed the story very much and will definitely think twice about the intranet at work when I use it. I do think you must be careful when using technical detail. The reason this story worked so well is the characters are sympathetic and you want to know what happens to them and there is just enough detail to establish the location and plot without becoming overwhelming or boring. Nothing kills the drama of a good story quicker than suddenly having to wade through 3 1/2 pages of plot exposition, particularly if after reading it 3 times yuou still haven't got the foggiest what it means. Am looking forward to Gawain slaying a dragon but I wonder what will be the Holy Grail he must search for Date Added: 27/02/2005
Keeefer *sighs* Just like a fine ale, it always distresses me to reach the bottom of the glass.......... Very well done Mr Gone, One would never suspect you were from the colonies......................Going back to your dioscussion (above in this thread) about the importance of the characters, I think this refers back nicely to your 'Whats in a name' blog a month or so back. By naming the geek 'The Geek' we all automatically fill in the blanks....we assume he is a typical nerd style techy who will struggle to communicate with 'The Girl' and find it easy to accept that he has a friendship with a bit of code. The name Gawain sums up the chivalry, loyalty and endless dedication to seeing a task through to the end and by only naming the program itself we identify with the code as though he were human, maybe even a collection of the Geeks finer traits, usually hidden by his lack of communicative skills or lack of social situations in which to use them. Well done that man.....next time you are at the bar i'll have another pint Date Added: 28/02/2005
Josh Keeefer. Reefer. Coincidence? Date Added: 28/02/2005
keeefer strangely they once went hand in hand....or roach in hand :) Date Added: 28/02/2005
Gone Away Hi Molly. I'm Gone, by the way; Way's a friend. ;) You're absolutely right about technical detail potentially ruining a story. Fortunately, my technical knowledge is pretty limited so it's not a major danger. :D I've also been thinking about a possible "Holy Grail" type adventure for Sir Gawain - seems great minds think alike... ;) And a dragon! Now there's an idea! Good to know you enjoyed the story, Molly, and thanks for the suggestions for further adventures. Date Added: 28/02/2005
Gone Away Thank you Keef, I really appreciate that. And you have brought out some excellent points about the characterization and names and so on. In a short story like this a lot of work has to be handed over to the reader because there just isn't space for full characterization and description and the like. So choosing names with existing baggage makes the writer's job that much easier - the characters are automatically filled in by their stereotypes, just as you say. The next time I see you? What, in Australia? :O Date Added: 28/02/2005
Gone Away LOL Josh, seems you know Keef too well... :D Date Added: 28/02/2005
keeefer Its a metaphorical ale dear boy, reread the post and then write the lines. Your poor English Teacher would be spinning in his grave, if he hadnt been evicted from the land under (ironically) the Mugabe regime Date Added: 28/02/2005
Gone Away Ahhhh, a metaphorical ale... You're too hinterleckchal fer me Keef. :D Date Added: 28/02/2005
Keeefer So its true, there is dumbing down in America :) Date Added: 28/02/2005
Gone Away D'oh! Date Added: 28/02/2005
Jodie Keef, how else d'ya think Bush got elected?? ;) Date Added: 28/02/2005
keeefer LMAO Date Added: 28/02/2005
Gone Away .oO(Politics on my blog? Surely not...) Date Added: 28/02/2005
glenniah Well I wanted to say parfit and then perfect. So I just will. a perfect story and a parfit knight glenni Date Added: 28/02/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Glenni. :) Date Added: 28/02/2005
Jodie Ooops! :D Sorry Gone -- told you I had foot-in-mouth disease... Date Added: 28/02/2005
Hannah Late as usual, but there is yet something for me to comment on, that was not touched.Persephone was tricked into becoming the goddess of the underworld. She was originally a human, and Hades fell in love with her, so he lured her to his domain. Once there, she refused to eat or drink anything, for to do so would be taking in the essence of death. Apparently, young girls were warned of not eating at the table of death every time they went out with their friends to pick flowers.In the end, Hades promised to release Persephone if she would but eat a pomegranite. Persephone ate 6 of the 12 seeds, and was released.Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and Persephone's mother, had neglected her duties completely while searching for her daughter, causing the world's first winter-like season. When Persephone was released, Demeter appealed to Zeus, the king of the gods, and his ruling was that since Persephone ate 6 of the seeds, she must reign with Hades 6 months out of the year. During these 6 months, Demeter goes into mourning, and that is the cause of winter.The ark of the covenant is currently in Zimbabwe, guarded by a tribe of ancient Jews who apparently fled Israel with it far before the birth of Christ (according to Graham Greene, anyway).The story as a whole was excellent. I have to admit I knew Sir Gawain was reprogramming the creeper, although I wasn't sure what form that reprogramming would take. Apparently, Sir Gawain jumped rope in his youth, for the reflexes to jump were so well-ingrained in his circuits. At one time, I knew quite a few young girls who could have imitated the feat.The ending is proper, but not quite strong enough. It wraps things up just a bit TOO neatly, to my mind. There should have been a loophole or two for one of the characters to hang him(or her)self with. I do like that it was written from a "geekish" point of view. The unattainable woman is never named; we never learn what she looks like, whether she likes flowers, what perfume she uses. What true geek would have any idea of these things? He knew only that portion of her that was in the network, as it should be. Ned is correct, I believe, that there would be a market for this type of thing. Consider Asimov's mystery series-- he kept writing the stories until he had enough of them to fill a book, then published it. Stephen King has proven, also, that there is still a market for chap books, even among adults.And as for the mild language, teens indeed would not be interested-- they are used to far fouler language on their cereal boxes.This concludes the owlish comments. Thank you, and have a nice day. Date Added: 28/02/2005
Gone Away Just joking, Jodie. ;) Date Added: 28/02/2005
Gone Away The Owl speaks! Thank you, Hannah, for your well-informed and extensive comment. One tiny point: we do know that Amanda (the girl) likes flowers because Persephone (the lady) says so when she explains the construction of the Labyrinth (it's a rose). As to the ending, I am unsure what you mean by "a loophole or two for one of the characters to hang him(or her)self with". I do find it interesting that you think I have wrapped things up a bit too neatly, however. My feeling was that I had covered all the loose ends but fully expected someone to point out things that I had not dealt with. A minor matter that was not mentioned in the text but has been touched on in the comments was what happened to Amanda. To explain a little more fully than before, the reader is left to presume that Amanda was "let go" by the Company once her industrial espionage was discovered. Some might expect that she would be arrested but I think not; companies tend to prefer to keep these things under wraps, rather than make a big deal about it in the press. There is such a thing as bad publicity after all. Notice that we never find out what field the Company is involved in; if it were, for instance, pharmaceuticals, they would prefer to stay out of the limelight of publicity. I am well aware that teenagers today are steeped in foul language (up until recently I was working with the worst of them) but, to my mind, that doesn't mean that we should go ahead and encourage it. It seems to me that we should be trying to encourage them to better things by example, rather than trying to be cool by speaking their degraded language. Maybe I'm just old fashioned... And thank you again, Hannah. An excellent comment. :) Date Added: 28/02/2005
Wayne Gads, so I'm late commenting on this -- but what a neat juxtaposition of genres! I printed up all six parts this morning and read them at my leisure, and enjoyed it very much. Very entertaining. Date Added: 06/03/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Wayne. Now that's what I call true dedication - to print out six blogs! Date Added: 06/03/2005
Wayne Tell me about it -- I had to execute twelve keystrokes to get all the text into a Word document, then click on the printer icon! Good thing you're worth it. Date Added: 06/03/2005
Gone Away Now if you'd just asked, Wayne, I could have sent you the full original document in RTF format... ;) But thanks for the compliment. Date Added: 06/03/2005
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