Well, as  best I understand you, I think I disagree.  I also think that there is choice-of-definition here, as well as personal taste, so I don't have grounds, beyond my own judgement, for my disagreement.

Now, if you were to argue, as some have, that a pizza should not be called a pie, I could point to that towering popular standard, That's Amore!, in appeal to authority.

Dagnee's point about the willingful suspension of disbelief seems to be the key point here.  The science fiction part of Dr. Who changed from storyline to storyline but the writers kept the viewer involved.  The categories only tell us something about the assumptions built into the fictional world.

3,203

(74 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

I sure hope so.  I have to hang fine on this.

3,204

(74 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Okay, more edits.  There are enough articles here for me to put a new version up.  And I need to get back to Erevain and to Nikkano, and to my voltage level detector and the pigeon flasher.

==================================================

Stripped of their disguises, Cott and his two witch-acolytes were unnaturally, impossibly old.

"What are you doing here?" Melayne demanded.

Cott threw lightning at her.  She caught it and flicked its Power back.  Cott's staff splintered, sparked, and burned to ash.

"Run!" he shouted.

Melayne gestured.  The witches' feet sprouted roots into the ground.

"Leave while you can, plowgirl!"  Cott snarled, hurling a spell behind Melayne.

It was a Summoning across worlds.  Melayne dropped and shielded, rolling to face the threat.  She threw Barricade spells on the witches to prevent another Summoning.

Where does Cott get Power to Summon across worlds?

Cott's beast was part ape, part tiger, part boar, seven feet of tusk and claw.  Its blast of Elemental Fire just missed her.

The Fire must come from its own world.  Melayne tried Stunning the creature.  It threw more Fire, knocking her back, fraying her shields.  Spells won't stop it.

Melayne's blast of Earth could have pulverized a millstone.  The creature lurched and recovered, attacking as Melayne rolled, grazing her shields.  They unravelled as trees exploded behind her.

She anchored rebuilt shields in the ground, making a sharp edge toward the beast.  Its next blast broke on the edge, spattering the witches.  They caught fire and screamed, helpless under Melayne's Barricade.  She extinguished them.

Sensing her immobility, the creature advanced.  Melayne aimed a huge blast of Earth under its heart.  It staggered and she drove a spell into the ground beneath it.

The beast blasted the ground anchoring her shields.

Ropes of earth wound up around its feet and legs.  It struggled and howled as they stretched up its body.

Melayne freed her shield and rolled as a blast ripped a smoking furrow behind her.  She shaped Fire and Earth, hurling it at the beast's Elemental senses.  Dazzled, it slapped and tore at the spell.

Its eyes still worked.  Melayne sorceled a curtain of rippling light, jumping away as the beast obliterated it.

Trees cracked and boomed behind her.

Her next spells commanded air.  Winds howled, circling the beast, walling it in a maelstrom of soil, debris, and Power.  It clawed the winds, then tried to blast free.  The blast disintegrated, spraying like sleet from the whirlwind.

The witches screamed.  Their injury wasn't flame; it would wait.  The beast was gathering more Power.

Melayne knelt in the furrow, reinforcing her shields and sending more cords of earth around the creature.  Its next blast spattered out around the whirlwind, destroying Melayne's shields and igniting Cott's trio.

Melayne had no time to help them them.  She shaped new shields and used Power to deepen the furrow.

The third blast was stronger.  More trees exploded, spreading thick, sticky pine smoke.  Melayne dug deeper, piling dirt in front of her.  The fourth blast baked it hard.  The fifth broke it.

The witches went silent.

Melayne was tiring.  The beast was getting stronger.

The sixth blast made the whirlwind glow red hot.  Trees popped in a distant drumroll, punctuated by the seventh blast, which pulverized the baked soil.

The eighth blast came before the dust settled.

How long can it keep going?

Backblasts hammered Melayne's shields.  She repaired them with Earth and with Fire spilled from the attacks.

The beast went quiet.  Its blasts got stronger.  The whirlwind writhed, glowing bright red as the flailing creature attacked.  Trees burst in the distance.

Melayne's earthen ropes held.

The blasts stopped.  Melayne looked up from her shieldwork.  The beast's Fire increased.  She dug deeper.

A jet of Elemental Fire tore out from the maelstrom.  Most of its Fire was lost to the whirlwind.  What broke through was devastation itself.

The jet swept the landscape, dropping to blast earth and stumps, rising to shatter distant trees.  The whirlwind glowed orange, heated by the passage of Power.

Melayne burrowed sideways.  The strongest shields she'd ever shaped bent under sidespill off the scattered waste of the beast's Power.

And the ground was heating--fast.  Melayne might survive the direct attack and still bake alive.

With nothing left to work with, she looked down, deep in the earth.  She found Elemental Water, enough maybe to cool, or--

Melayne took all she could.  With it she mustered tangible water from the depths.  Up it flowed, cracking baked soil, erupting as steam, carrying heat into the whirlwind at her command.

The creature shrieked.  Its beam of Fire wobbled up and down, gouging earth and tracing ropes and ribbons of color on the daylight sky.

How can anything handle such Power?

The maelstrom outshone the sun.  Melayne shut her eyes and pressed her face in the earth.  The searing blue flooded her sight anyway.

Then the whole world seemed to shatter, concussing bone and flesh, leaving Melayne stunned, deaf, and blind.

Is it over?

The whirlwind held only her spells.  She let it drop.

Spells restored her sight and hearing.  Her balance returned and she stood up, staggering, exhausted.

Splintered bones radiated from a pile of baked, broken earth.

The witches' secrets were beyond Melayne's reach.  Their only remains were the roots Melayne had sprouted from their feet.  I'll meet them in my nightmares.

Acres of ravaged pines smoldered under the cloudless sky.  Distant flames fed on fresh, standing wood, threatening whole square miles.  Melayne couldn't chase down and extinguish it all.

But this world had a little Elemental Water, more useful now than all the Earth and Fire of the battle.  She knelt in the burnt-sweet, sticky smoke.  Leaning on her fists, she reached deep underground for the Power of Water.

Melayne drew it up slowly, weaving a long, lacy spell that rose and spiralled out under the sky.

She triggered it all at once.  It mustered tangible water, from streams and ponds, up from the ground and from faraway air.  Clouds formed, swelled with vapor, and opened.

Rain came, cold and heavy, drowning fires, clearing away smoke, sizzling on the ruined ground.

Melayne soothed her muscles and stood.  She had just lost another day.

SF came to mean 'Speculative Fiction' for a while.  We seem now to have a spectrum rather than sharply defined categories.  I think the terms are more useful for description than for partitioning.

3,206

(342 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I attempted to go back to erin silverman's Meditations on Murder and got the message Not Authorized//Please join one of these groups (etc): TheNextBigWriter Premium Group.

I don't know whether I am now authorized to read that work, but if I'm not, it's not for the reason given.

I point to Heinlein's post-Time Enough For Love works, where he lets the tech become magic and thumbs his nose at posterity, damaging his 'franchise' enough that nobody is likely to try to cash in on it.

You probably have the truck designed for recycling.  It will be made out of metallo-organic composites that come apart when the magic solution is energized electrically... or else, after the rubber/plastic organics come off in one bath, the remaining intermetallic ceramic composites come apart in a plasma-arc chamber, with the aid of high-energy sound and some ionic species in the controlled plasma.  The material disintegrates like ice in a 200-degree oven.

Only true glass parts remain.  The glass is probably coated with aluminum oxy-nitride (AlON--current trademark) for extreme shatter resistance.  Or-it's all AlON.

Oh, and aftermarket components that were not removed can foul the process.  They're not supposed to, but some people buy counterfeit parts on the grey market for upgrade/customization.  A body disintegrating in the process would probably register as that kind of contamination on the meters.

Guess I can't say 'Break a Leg'!  I hope it all goes well.  That's not something you'd do without pressing need.

3,210

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Amy's got one of them.  What's the other?

3,211

(74 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go ...

3,212

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

That's the title.  It makes at least two allusions to famous works.

3,213

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

The overarching story title.

3,214

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

By the way, I'm surprised that nobody has caught the allusion in my main title.

3,215

(74 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

I see some more possible minor edits.  Maybe later.

Done

3,216

(74 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

I was making some last-minute edits even as you replied.  Get a new copy.

3,217

(74 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Okay.  Actually the first thing I wrote, just to see if I could do it, was a chapter with a sorcerous battle.  It was far too long for this, but I've written the battle down to 1000 words.

Amy, you and I have different ideas about power moments.
      ========================


Stripped of their disguises, Cott and his two witch-acolytes were unnaturally, impossibly old.

"What are you doing here?" Melayne demanded.

Cott threw lightning at her.  She caught it and flicked its Power back.  Cott's staff splintered, sparked, and burned to ash.

"Run!" he shouted.

Melayne gestured.  The witches' feet sprouted roots into the ground.

"Leave while you can, plowgirl!"  Cott snarled, hurling a spell behind Melayne.

It was a Summoning across worlds.  Melayne dropped, shielding and rolling to face the threat.  She threw Barricade spells on the witches to prevent another Summoning.

Where does Cott get Power to Summon across worlds?

Cott's beast was part ape, part tiger, part boar, seven feet of tusk and claw.  Its blast of Elemental Fire just missed her.

Fire?  It must draw it from its own world.  Melayne tried Stunning the creature.  It threw more Fire, knocking her back, fraying her shields.  Spells won't stop it.

Melayne's blast of Earth could have pulverized a millstone.  The creature lurched and recovered, attacking as Melayne rolled, grazing her and unravelling her shields.

Trees exploded behind her.  She anchored rebuilt shields in the ground, making a sharp edge toward the beast.

Its next blast broke on the edge, spattering the witches.  They caught fire and screamed, helpless under Melayne's Barricade.  She extinguished them.

Sensing her immobility, the creature advanced.  Melayne aimed a huge blast of Earth under its heart.  It staggered and she drove a spell into the ground beneath it.

The beast blasted the ground anchoring her shields.

Ropes of earth wound up around its feet and legs.  It struggled and howled as they stretched up its body.

Melayne freed her shield and rolled as a blast ripped a smoking furrow behind her.  She shaped Fire and Earth, hurling it to dazzle the beast's Elemental senses.  Bewildered, it slapped and tore at the spell.

It still had eyes.  Melayne sorceled a curtain of rippling light, jumping away as the beast obliterated it.

Trees cracked and boomed behind her.

Her next spells commanded air.  Winds howled, circling the beast, walling it in a maelstrom of soil, debris, and Power.  It clawed the winds, then tried to blast free.  The blast disintegrated, spraying like sleet from the whirlwind.

The witches screamed.  Their injury wasn't flame; it would wait.  The beast was gathering more Power.

Melayne knelt in the furrow, reinforced her shields and sent more cords of earth around the creature.

Its next blast spattered out around the whirlwind, destroying Melayne's shields and igniting Cott's trio.

Melayne had no time to help them them.  She shaped new shields.  With Power she deepened the furrow.

The third blast was stronger.  The witches went silent.  More trees exploded, spreading thick, sticky pine smoke.

Melayne dug deeper, piling the dirt in front of her.  The fourth blast baked it hard.  The fifth broke it.

Melayne was tiring.  The beast was getting stronger.

How long can it keep going?

The sixth blast made the whirlwind glow red hot.  Trees popped in a distant drumroll, punctuated by the seventh blast, which pulverized the baked soil, kicking up dust.

The eighth blast came before it settled.

Backblasts hammered Melayne's shields.  She repaired them with Earth and with Fire spilled from the attacks.

The beast went quiet.  Its blasts got stronger.  The whirlwind glowed bright red with each attack, writhing as the creature flailed.  Trees burst in the distance.

Melayne's earthen ropes held.

The blasts stopped.  Melayne looked up from her shieldwork.  The beast's Fire increased.  She dug deeper.

A jet of Elemental Fire tore out from the maelstrom.  Most of its Fire was lost to the whirlwind.  What broke through was devastating.

The beam swept the landscape, dropping to blast earth and stumps, rising to shatter distant trees.  The whirlwind glowed orange, heated by the passage of Power.

Melayne burrowed sideways.  The strongest shields she ever shaped bent under sidespill off the scattered waste of the beast's Power.

And the ground was heating--fast.  Melayne might survive the direct attack and still bake alive.

With nothing left to work with, she looked down, deep in the earth.  She found Elemental Water, enough maybe to cool, or--

She took all she could.  With it she mustered tangible water from the depths.  Up it flowed, cracking baked soil, erupting as steam, carrying heat into the whirlwind at Melayne's command.

The creature shrieked.  Its jet of Fire wobbled down to gouge earth, up to trace ropes and ribbons of color on the daylight sky.

How can anything handle such Power?

The maelstrom outshone the sun.  Melayne shut her eyes and pressed her face in the earth.  The searing blue flooded her sight anyway.

Then the world seemed to shatter, concussing bone and flesh, leaving Melayne stunned, deaf, and blind.

Is it over?

The whirlwind held only her spells.  She let it drop.

Spells restored her sight and hearing.  Her balance returned and she stood up, staggering, exhausted.

Splintered bones radiated from a pile of baked, broken earth.

The witches would keep their secrets.   Their only remains were the roots Melayne had sprouted from their feet. I'll meet them in my nightmares.

Acres of ravaged pines smouldered beneath the cloudless sky.  Distant flames fed on fresh, standing wood, threatening whole square miles.  Melayne couldn't chase down and extinguish it all.

But this world had a little Elemental Water, more useful now than all the Earth and Fire of the battle.  She knelt in the burnt-sweet, sticky smoke.  Leaning on her fists, she reached deep underground for the Power of Water.

Drawing it up slowly, Melayne shaped a lacy spell that rose and spiralled out as she wove it.

She triggered it all at once.  It mustered tangible water, from streams and ponds, up from the ground and from faraway air.  Clouds formed, swelled with vapor, and opened.

Rain came, cold, heavy, drowning fires, clearing the smoke, sizzling on the ruined ground.

Melayne stood and soothed her muscles.  She had just lost another day.

We in the US didn't abolish the penny.  We just changed it to zinc with a super-thin copper cladding.

They are also used sometimes for siding and flashing.  Those are large-head nails.

You don't have to eliminate it.  The problem is the real-life fact of copper and live wood where it appears at the start of Acts.  Work that into the how-do-we-fix discussion and you've set the copper up for later in the book.

3,221

(74 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Sigh.  I'm finally making progress on Erevain and Nikkano and you come up with this.  Well, I had some early sketches from a future battle.  I'll see if I can cut it to 1000 words, but there might be no room for the beginning.

But you say that Jaylene (or is is Airen?) uses copper nails to despatch troublesome trees.

Oh, is the plant a once-human monster?

3,223

(8 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

njc wrote:

  (It is simply perverse that saying 'print' does not show me what's on the screen.  What else is 'print' for?)

Let me put this in more positive terms: One of the great principles of interface design, whether of user interface or programming interfaces, is The Principle of Least Surprise.  A PRINT button observes this by printing something that resembles what's on screen.

3,224

(8 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Why would you print out a hard copy?

The user advocate in me says 'What does it matter why?'  (It is simply perverse that saying 'print' does not show me what's on the screen.  What else is 'print' for?)  But okay ...

The screen interface hasn't been invented (save for such ancient editors as Vi) that allows you to see several distant parts side by side.

You can see a larger chunk on a paper page.

Paper is still easier on the eyes.

Paper doesn't run on batteries, so you're not limited by battery life.

Paper is not fragile and nor worth stealing, so you can carry it to mark up or re-read in places where you wouldn't want to carry a computer.  Paper won't be damaged if it's bent.

You can mark up a piece of paper, then throw the mark-up out or disregard it later.  Only the most sophisticated version-control systems allow you to do this.

You can mark up things like text rearrangement multiple times without the risk of losing something in the editing, then make the changes in the on-line text carefully and mindfully once you have settled on a version.

I can probably come up with a few more if you need them.

Something I've thought of and then forgotten several times: Anver uses copper to repair the living roof of rhe guildhouse, but in other places you have copper inimical to plant life.  Sorry, it's the engineer in me ... .