Avatar of Naril

Status

Recent Statuses

6 yrs ago
To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the Devil his due.
6 yrs ago
And when you said hi, I forgot my dang name.
3 likes
8 yrs ago
Everything beautiful is math! Everything beautiful is a problem.
8 yrs ago
But whatever they offer you, don't feed the plants!
1 like
8 yrs ago
Do you like cyberpunk? Do you like stories? Do you like complicated characters, and conspiracies? Take a look! roleplayerguild.com/topics/1..

Bio

Hi! I'm Naril. I write, build things, and I'm incredibly busy, all the time. I'm probably older than you. I'm not interested in isekai, school settings, sandboxes, excessively grimdark settings, or invitation-only threads; I'm very picky about militaria, I don't care for A Song of Ice and Fire, Nation roleplay bores me to tears, most fandom doesn't really catch my attention, and though I prefer Advanced-level writing, I'm not going to help you write your book (Unless you feel like paying my day rate) - which almost certainly means I'm not here. Some day, maybe. Probably not, though!

I am interested in science fiction, cyberpunk, space operas, and stories of working together, uplift, and progress. You'll catch my attention with fantasy adventures in an interesting world, or with almost any modern fantasy. I have a soft spot for superhero stories, and you might find me in the occasional Star Wars or Star Trek fandom.

My standards are high for myself and mild for everyone else; I love writing dialogue and making you feel like you can taste the place I'm creating. I write in the style I like to read, which is the part I find fun. If you want an example of the authors I enjoy, look at Ann Leckie, Tamsyn Muir, N.K. Jemisin, Martha Wells, Terry Pratchett, and Neil Gaiman.

Most Recent Posts

The Kingkiller Chronicle books are some of my yearly re-reads, sort of a narrative comfort food in the Fall.

The big thing to remember about them, to me, is that Kvothe is very probably lying to you. Not all the time; just when it's important. If you take the story at face value, it's just pretty good heroic fantasy. If you assume the narrator isn't entirely reliable, well...
@0 Azzy 0 HEY, LISTEN!

Shadows of Self is the second novel of Mistborn Era 2, which takes the events of Hero of Ages and hits fast-forward until the world becomes an Old West / Steampunk kind of place. I enjoy Mistborn, but I love Era 2.

Right now, Mistborn Era 2 is:

1.) The Alloy of Law
2.) Shadows of Self
3.) The Bands of Mourning
4.) The Lost Metal (announced but not yet released)

If you haven't read Alloy of Law, you will very probably be pretty confused about what's going on in Shadows of Self. :3

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I just finished reading Artemis, the new novel by Andy Weir (Author of The Martian). It's about a heist on the Moon.

I came into this book expecting Ocean's Eleven In Space, and I got something rather different. The story moves quickly - sometimes almost too quickly - driven by our protagonist, Jasmine (or Jazz) Bashara. Jazz scrapes out a borderline existence as a freight porter and sometimes-smuggler in relative poverty in Artemis, the only city on the Moon, where the gravity is low and the prices are high. Her life is made more complicated by an oversize bag of personal problems, a penchant for liquor, and clients in high places. When someone offers her the kind of job that petty criminals only dream of, we get a long, stark look a Jazz's ambition, capability, and stunning brilliance. Like most brilliant people, she also has a tremendous capability to fuck up, and fuck up she does, mightily. Like The Martian, this novel is largely assembled from the idea of "Our Character Is Very Smart, And Lots Of Bad Things Happen To Them," but in this case, almost everything that happens to Jazz is, one way or another, her own damn fault. Jazz's awareness of this fact is one of the most fun things about the story.

In several ways, Artemis does come across like Weir is trying to very directly address some of the commentary from his first novel. Our protagonist, for example, is a smart-mouthed Arabic woman with an abrasive attitude, and the cast is not otherwise filled with Default Characters In Science Fiction. There are discussions of Islam, and how you would face toward Mecca from the Moon (if you were inclined to). Major parts of the worldbuilding center around the idea of Kenya being the site of the mega-industry required to build a city on the Moon.

And, of course, there's lots of stuff Andy Weir made a name for himself with his previous novel. There's a lot of hard science, chemistry, and a surprising amount of welding. There's plenty of sarcasm, lots of quips, and characters whose refusal to panic make them almost superhuman. There's also an extended discussion about a reusable condom and a brief aside regarding guest etiquette when visiting a Ukrainian. And, I have to admit, I have almost never identified with a character so hard as I do with Jasmine Bashara.

I liked Artemis a lot. There's a certain amount of "new author figuring out their longer-term voice" going on in this book, and I would say it's probably not quite as good as The Martian. But the scope is larger, the ambition greater, and it shows that Weir is willing to stretch himself in some interesting ways. I would absolutely love to see more adventures in Artemis, but I'll look forward to Weir's next novel regardless.

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Edit: Since we're doing this, I guess, here's my to-read pile:

1.) All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault, James Alan Gardner
2.) Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer
3.) Provenance, by Ann Leckie
4.) Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman
5.) Dead Wake, by Erik Larson
Popped over 42,000 words last night!

I was pretty lazy over American Thanksgiving, and didn't do a lot of writing on Thursday and Friday, mostly because I was just tired. But I got about 5200 words written last night, and I'm right back on track.

How's everyone else doing?
You know, I did all this work, wrote out all these different character capsules and did all these scene skeletons...

...And I never figured out what our protagonist's abilities actually are. I mean, I know she has some (in a sort of Tony-Stark-meets-Hank-Henshaw kind of way), and that she's going to need to stand up to her sister's frankly almost deific powers, but...well. That took a little while.

I still got my words out, but I kind of wound up staring at my cat for an hour or so, thinking. I kept coming back to the idea that Protagonist doesn't want to destroy her sister or anything she stands for, she just wants to be enough of a threat that she can't be ignored. That means she's going to be built much more for the idea of surviving her sister than anything else, and then I could work from there.

Words are still coming easily. I hope it stays that way. :3


There are things you never really appreciate until you’ve lost them. Or, in Sarett’s case, almost lost. Bedridden for months and the mostly-willing participant in more surgeries than she could count, the novelty of being able to stand up on her own again still had not entirely lost its shine. She raised her left arm and rubbed at the scars around her eye with the ceramic thumb of her artificial hand, a gesture she’d picked up during therapy and had developed, now, into an almost subconscious reaction. Or, at least, something she did when there was more than usual on her mind. With an effort, Sarett caught herself and lowered her arm, wrapping her fingers around a railing.

Artemis was in an orbit the proscribed distance from Attica Station, ‘behind’ the installation in its orbital path. The ship’s bow was pointed just to the side of the station, which meant that Sarett had a breathtaking view through the command deck’s thick transparent forward plating. They were coming over the terminator and she could see the planet below, daubed with lapis oceans, they coasts marked with circular bays carved in continental shelves from orbital bombardments. The night side showed the spray of lights from the world’s single surviving city, along with the bright, ragged ribbons of fires that had been burning for a decade, and would burn for decades more. It was all so abstract, almost beautiful from 2800 kilometers. Ahead, If Sarett looked closely, she thought she could just see the tight cluster of lights another fifty kilometers out, more or less exactly according to the ship’s laser rangefinder. That would, of course, be the Perseus.

Sarett felt a sensation she still wasn’t entirely used to yet, the request for someone else to enter her mind. It had taken a few days, but she and Ava had managed to work out a protocol that didn’t make Sarett’s skin crawl or startle her to the point where she jumped out of her shoes. Part of that had just been time - cybernetics weren’t uncommon among the Empire’s ranks, but there were almost no officers with quite so much equipment shoved in their body, so many machines sharing space in their head. With a thought, Sarett allowed the connection.

“They’re tagging us again,” Ava said in Sarett’s mind, “If I were to guess, someone on the Perseus is trying to find my return sensor with their rangefinder’s laser, see if they can burn it out with a straight shot down the optic.” Her voice was crisp, lightly touched with an accent Sarett couldn’t place. Arabic, maybe?

“Are they close?” Sarett thought. Another bridge officer walked toward her carrying an infopad, handed it over with a nod.

“Not even a little bit,” Ava said, was there smugness in her voice? “They've managed a straight shot down a hull inspection camera - with the shutter closed. I'm going to guess that means they don’t have my plans.”

“And we don’t have the Perseus’ either,” thought Sarett, “That puts us on even ground. Sort of.”

The infopad was a status report from Tolliver, meticulous and almost over-detailed, but she had discovered rather quickly that was something to be expected. There would probably be a time that amount of information would be useful, but damned if she couldn’t figure out what it would be. The exact neutrino emission from the fusion core, the status of the ship’s ablative thruster armor, the exact rad count and tritium storage levels on each of the ship’s fusion warheads - Sarett scrolled through dense pages of information, her finger clicking on the info pad’s screen. She had read the first report, she really had - and she had also noticed that every report thereafter contained the same information, and that it did not change meaningfully from day to day. It made Tolliver happy to know, though, and for the moment the crew seemed happy enough to report that information. If nothing else, it made sure that people actually did visit every part of the ship regularly.

There was an addendum about the negotiations, which in contrast contained almost no information. The doors were still locked, the talks presumably ongoing. Nobody had any reason to believe that it would end any time soon, and there was some speculation that both sides may have walked into the negotiation room with briefcases full of stims. Sarett wondered if a peace treaty written under the influence of spray-injected drugs could be legally binding.

“Captain, we’ve got fighters and suits on approach to the hangar,” said Lieutenant Carys Myles, her voice touched by a Welsh accent.

“Let’s get them landed and put away,” Sarett said, “We have an advanced sensor pod on one of the fighters in the next flight?”

“Aye, the first ship out,” Myles said.

“Good. Maybe we can get some deep data on the Perseus - or maybe even find out if they’re still alive at the negotiation table.” Sarett said. She touched her finger to the infopad, acknowledging receipt, and handed it to another crewman, who left.

Myles turned her head away from her display for a moment, “Begging your pardon, Ma’am, but…Consul Nagwen’s ship?”

“A cat can look at a king, Lieutenant” Sarett said, wrapping her hands around the railing again, “So can 500 kilos of silicon and glass. If we’re wasting this much time, we may as well find some way to waste it productively. I’ll damn well put every mass sensor, every gravity wave observer and interferometer out there I can.”

“No active sweeps, then?” Myles said, and Sarett saw her shoulders relax.

“Not unless we have to. Make sure they keep the system charged and the transceiver active, though.” Sarett said, “If something happens, I want to know where every person is inside that ship.”

“Aye,” Myles said, and started tapping at her control panel, pulling a microphone close to her mouth.

Ava’s voice flitted though her head, “Commander Flynn would like me to remind you that you’ve missed your last two appointments.”

Sarett fought to resist the urge to wave a hand in dismissal, “I’ve been busy."

“And he understands that, but your implants will need checking and adjusting for the next few months at least. He needs some diagnostic data, and the only way he can get it is if you stop by so he can actually get that information.” Ava paused, then said, “Unless you’d like me to collect it, and forward the data on to him.”

“I don’t think we’re at that point in our relationship yet,” Sarett thought, and she couldn’t keep the tug of a smirk off her face, “Wait a minute, can you really do that?”

“I think so,” Ava said, “Although I’m not entirely sure if I can do it without shutting down the neural bridge interface.”

Sarett managed a mental sigh, which she was rather proud of, “Yeah, Flynn can’t do that either. Tell him I’ll see him after we get the pilots rotated.”

“Promise?” Ava said, and her voice held a tone that Sarett hadn’t heard for a long time. It made her smile.

“All right, all right.” Sarett thought.

“You also have a letter from Lara,” Ava said, “But I’m going to keep it until you see the doctor.”

“I could order you to hand it over,” Sarett's thoughts came with the mental equivalent of an arched eyebrow.

Ava’s voice was perky, bordering on insouciant, “But you won’t,” she said.

She was right. At least, for now.
Take care of yourself, Penny. I understand what you're going through.

I, um. You really don't need to worry about this. I'll take the reins if you'd like.
Did you grow this idea in a lab just for me?

I am going to have not even kind of the time to do this, but I hope you get a ton of interest so I can join it in six months or so. :3
@Tybalt Capulet One of my favourite characters was someone I originally wrote to be a Tragic Backstory kind of character, because sometimes you need those. She wound up as one of my favourite characters I ever wrote about, and it's a concept I still play with from time to time.

I'm absolutely certain that one of the sisters in my NaNo story is going to die, though. It's the only way the story can end. They're both proud, intelligent, convinced that they're right and have good personal and narrative reason to believe that. There's no room for daylight between their points of view. The question will eventually be whether I want to write a knock-down, drag-out, Last Act Of A Marvel Movie ending, or whether it's going to be something more like the Chess Courtyard Fight in Hero. I admit I am hugely leaning toward that second one.
I'm closing on on 32,000 words, after a brief stint to write about 7000 words of "a different thing" while I let some unresolved outline and motivation points percolate. My brain eventually spit out what I'm hoping will be a fairly elegant framework for "why did this character do this thing," and flesh out the conspiracy-thriller theme in this weird superhuman story.

I like this story, and I really like the two main characters. I'm real sad one of them has to die.


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