As usual, comments welcome.
I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for general discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)
The Adjusters #34 - A Wedding and an Investigation
(Ravenswood, West Virginia. Six months ago.)
He is fuming by the time he reaches the church. The traffic on the
Interstate was insane, and he had all sorts of difficulty finding the
church, the address he had scribbled in his notebook had smudged, and
he ended up looking for Cross Avenue rather than Crooks Avenue. And he
did not want to stop and ask for directions, not wanting to attract
attention.
Not that he thinks that what he is doing is wrong--but heathens so
rarely understand when confronted by designs beyond their comfort
zone.
He steps out of his car, and freezes. Guests are coming out of the
chapel, large smiles on their faces, congratulating each other.
He is too late. The wedding is already finished.
He swears under his breath. He is too late. And he cannot hit the
reception afterwards, because Lizzie has told him that the reception
is a tightly guarded affair--one of the guests is a well-known local
politician.
Continue reading...
Next month:
Neat, Liked it even more then previous episodes. You seem to put some extra love on this one :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Domein—it did come out more emotional than I thought it would. Not sure why. But glad you liked.
DeleteHello Bulgroz,
ReplyDeletewhen you finished the last book you did quite the ballsy move to kill off most of your cast. Doing that is very difficult and in my own oppinion, you blew it.
You spent, literally, years to create, build up and flesh out your protagonist, supporting characters and antagonists. Persons I had developed connections with and most of your sex scenes where so good and powerful because I cared for those characters.
Further, you had an established set of rules and methods for you mind control, namely the Adjustment process. But then you went and replaced it all with interchangeable brides, a faceless, new villain and even introduced a new methode for mind control. Quite frankly, you blew it.
I can't speak about your other readers, but what I hoped to see was about Serena coming to realize that she was caught in the same web she tried to expose. About Cindy and how she tries to fit in between Serena, Jen and Daniel and last but not least about Jen, the ongoing hunt for her, her struggle to remain sane and Daniel's fight to get her back and patched up.
During the last chapters, I mostly just skimmed over the sex scenes to get to the second part because those scenes felt meaningless, like sex with a hooker. There are countless stroke stories that would fullfil the same thing without reading halve a novel before it.
It's probably too late to change the course of your story now. You basically started a completely new story with your lastest book but I hope you find a way to salvage at least a few remnants of your former books to keep me interested.
Astardis.
Control method doesn't seem new, but rather "expanded and explained". As I understand, doctor figured out how "freaks" control girls, and was able to imitate process with help of drugs and electronic impulses.
DeleteOtherwise, fair points, but I think we will see most of our old lovely characters again.
Thanks for sharing how you feel, Astardis. I did actually think a lot about the issues you're raising and their impact—the Specials, in particular—and the risks in separating my main characters and getting rid of some of them that I had built up, and all I can say is: there is method to my madness. (Although whether I'm skilled enough to pull it off is another debate altogether.)
DeleteI did want the various Books to be somewhat independent in terms of focus, and there is something different I want to explore in each of them, but the delta between II and III might be a bit much. But it is all the same story. That won't become clear for a while, though.
I can't find a good real-world analogy (another series, or something) for how I'm trying to do things. Which maybe should make me nervous, as it maybe indicates that it can't work and other people see it more than I do...
Time will tell.
Final bit before I let it go: everything we learned in I & II is not forgotten: merely on hold until we circle back to it.
Delete@Bulgroz,
DeleteThe reason you have trouble to find another series with a comparable change is that you probable look mostly at published authors and there nobody would try this.
Doing something like this tends to aggravate your loyal readers and fans who buy they books to learn more about their favorite characters and adventures.
A very good author might get away with transplanting their characters into a complete new overall plot setting or majorly change or exchange characters while keeping the plot elements consistent but they would never try both.
Imagine J.K. Rowling had killed off Hermione and Ron in book five and then put Harry into a steampunk world in the next book. I doubt there would have been a seventh book.
I realize that this is a rather drastic comparison but mostly it helds true to what you did and the only reason you can do it is that you write non profitable stories on the internet.
For now, I give you the benefit of the doubt but please get back to some resemblance of your old books soon or you will loose at least me as a loyal reader.
@Domein,
The methode is completely new and so far unrelated to anything mentioned earlier in the books. One is a technological/drug based methode the other a genetical/biological one. Using the latter to explain the development of the former doesn't make it anymore "old".
Astardis, I am *so* tempted to call you the voice of my conscience right now—you're verbalizing many of the doubts that I have (and have had) while writing this. And I appreciate your keeping me honest about it, even it I sometimes sound defensive in my responses.
DeleteYou're probably right that's why it doesn't occur more frequently. In fact, as I thought about it this afternoon, a lot of my inspiration for the structure of the series is as a rather decoupled comic book series (which was the original inspiration for The Adjusters, so it's not that random). And in that context, it's not unheard of to switch settings drastically amongst arcs, although they rejoin after a while. But it doesn't work so well in prose, I'm discovering. But there is a story in my head, and I'm putting down on paper as well as I can.
I'm learning all of this as I go along, as you have undoubtedly figured out by now, and I'll have to make more of an effort to smooth out rough edges, and try not to repeat mistakes. But yes, there is a grand plan, and I appreciate the stick-to-itness that a lot of you are displaying staying with me on this.
In other words: thanks for reading. Really. Thank you.
From danny123
ReplyDeleteI am taking the tack that the first chapters of the new book are setting the scenes for the later chapters. I enjoy the fact that the new book is different than the first. But I still feel the connection or thread of the first book in these chapters. At the moment my favorite scenes are still from the first (but that can (and probably will) change). My personal believe when a story is this long, one has to allow the story to unfold itself. Will it succeed, time will tell, but it is worth the effort to try something new.
Again these are my thoughts for good or bad.
Thanks danny123. I appreciate it, as always.
Deletedanny123 suggested changes and/or corrections
ReplyDeletemy page 14, - "I bet you anything you want that that prom dress you wore back then it still causing hard-ons...."
"...you want that prom dress you wore back then, it is still causing hard-ons..."
my page 26, - "The mechanism required skin contact, although the extent of the contact, the length of the contact, as well a the depth and strength of the affectation depended unknown factors..."
"the affectations depended on unknown factors..."
danny123
ReplyDeleteWell we know that Greg is one of the "specials". So this and the previous chapter are setting the stage for a confrontation between Danny, Shawbank, and Greg. It would appear that this meeting will soon happen and the latest, on Elizabeth's wedding day. It would be interesting to see if Greg would touch Shawbank what would happen.
Again, I do not believe the doctor was a "special." He must have figured out a way to do what the specials do, because we have seen the frat program girls without the doctor around or should I say Bernie did.
Something in the back of my mind is saying that there is some kind of twist coming. Naturally I am very anxious to see what is happening to Jenn but also very curious about what is or has happened to Kyra, Serena, and Trish at ADCorp.
As always looking forward to the next chapter.
Indeed: the Doctor was not a Special. I feel safe in asserting this.
Deleteslightly agree with astradris and danny 123- i like the parts with daniel and shawbank right now- but i feel the other parts are setting us for a confrontations just like danny said.
ReplyDeleteshawbank is very good at interrogation and new that daniel would get that info.
danny has a good point, maybe the doctor and adcorp takes the specials in, captures then and does research on them and that is how the doctor was able to learn the idea behind programming.
can't wait for more book1 and book 2 characters.
If it helps any: in Book IV, we'll get to see what Jenn is up to...
DeleteI guess I'll have to write a post about this in the near future, but right now, our two protagonists, Daniel and Jenn, are separated. And I want to follow both storylines. And one problem is how to interleave those story lines. An installment-by-installment interleaving seems untenable for very long, so I'm going for a book-by-book interleaving (with books of the order of five-to-six installments each). Don't know if that makes sense to you all, but it does in my head. *grin*
will be nice to visit Jenn. sounds like each book will concentrate on either Daniel or Jenn. i would perhaps alternate every couple chapters (2-3 for daniel then 2-3 for jenn)....might that work?
DeleteI may try that at some point, but I haven't been able to get it to work in my head. And the stories that I know that do that tend to not get my attention, so I'm weary of trying it out. But we'll see what the response is to the current scheme, and adapt accordingly if it fails miserably.
DeleteBeen happy with the plot machinations so far in books 1 to 3. Things have been quite unpredictable unlike so many other stories, which I also like. The biggest problem with book 3 is that the 3 chapters released so far have almost felt like variations of the same, certainly the first part of each, with minimal advancement of the plot. We have little choice but to be patient and enjoy the sex scene in the episode ...
ReplyDeleteCertainly far too early to call book 3 "blown". We the readers don't "own" the plot or characters. Personally I feel pleased when authors don't follow predictable or obvious plots. Being able to correctly guess endings is a disappointment to me.
Looking forward to the reappearance of Jen. Hope that Serena in particular will make a magical re-entry. Disappointed if she is truly lost to the story. She was particularly hot! All things are possible in fantasy. Rereading chapter 29 carefully :
"When she (Shawbank) found one of the girls that had been programmed by Doctor Cargyle - she tagged them with a small microchip for later retrieval by Unit Bravo. Had it been up to her, she would have left them to die like the others, but Control had been clear with his instructions." - What instructions? And what of Sam O'Neill?
Shawbank later noted in chapter 30 that all 31 girls had been recovered and/or accounted for (even Duquesne in Bangkok). The only body or person unrecovered was Jen. And the others - disposed of, deprogrammed, brainwashed, hidden, imprisoned, protective custody, witness protection, enlisted, some combination or variation of the afore mentioned?
Given that specials can only effect females and with but a single touch - strange that there are female operatives as they would have to be kept away from specials at all costs. Specials may be crazy, getting crazier but certainly seem to have lost none of their intelligence or cunning. Far too risky letting agents get anywhere near one.
As revealed in the most recent episode there are thousands of specials - and society knows nothing about them? If there are that many, if it is a rare recessive genetic mutation and has been around for a long time then it would likely have "blown" and be general knowledge. Maybe the "special" gene is dominant and has only recently appeared in the sapiens genome or perhaps an escaped genetic experiment perhaps. Anyway, I hope the science of the story holds together. With thousands at large the agency would certainly have their work cut out!
And Bulgroz has just mentioned book 4 and therein finding out about what Jen has been doing in these comments ... I thought as possibly did many others that we were getting a final ending in book 3.
Also, as for saying that I could proof read for you. Completely impractical suggestion given my workload. Apologies.
Thanks for the comments, Crosfyre—a couple of comments back:
Delete>> [quote from #29] What instructions? And what of Sam O'Neill?
Yeah, I'm going to have to explain that one, aren't I?
>> I hope the science of the story holds together. With thousands at large the agency would certainly have their work cut out!
So do I, re: the "science holding together". But I'm trying hard to make it so, within the rules that I made up. And yes, the agency does have its work cut out for it... which I hope to touch on soonish.
>> I thought as possibly did many others that we were getting a final ending in book 3.
Not even close.
>> Also, as for saying that I could proof read for you. Completely impractical suggestion given my workload. Apologies.
No worries. I'm too disorganized to get any sort of advanced proof reading going myself anyways... But the offer was appreciated.