The Archangel Syndrome (Page 10 of 10)

If it's a bother, you might review how many characters live to the end.

Killing a few off nicely reduces the number of threads that need to be resolved. They should be driving in their exits (Cersei, that's not you) so we feel heightened tension going in. Each should try to divert their threads from reaching the final chapter by attaining sufficient closure. Preferably by unifying with the surviving characters. This will bind things nicely

Quick survey for anyone who cares to vote:
- psychiatric wards in the year 4017 are referred to as brainial units, and psychiatrists are referred to as Freudians, which is also the name of the above noted chapter
- the other option is to call the psychiatrists brainials
- brainials would be a reasonable choice if all of this were to be taken seriously; Freudians seems a little odd, so it may be a better choice in this case

Any preferences?

Kafka has a nice ring to it. But I assume most people would have to google it.

The main reason for Freudian was simply name recognition. It doesn't mean that in 4017 they'll agree with his beliefs and methods.

I previously considered shrinker, master-shrink, pill-shrinks, and talk-shrinks but didn't like any of them.

I reread some of the internet writings about Kafka. My favorite is this: ''Kafkaesque'' means ''having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality."   Not sure how I would explain how his name became the future term for psychiatrist. Interestingly, Kafka died of tuberculosis at a fairly young age.

This one looks good, but virtually no one will have heard of him: Philippe Pinel is often considered the "father of modern psychiatry." He is most famous for his humane treatment of the mentally ill, as well as his contributions to the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. Among other things, he advocated not using chains on the mentally ill. Apparently shrinks of the past needed to be told this? Wow! His work paved the way for modern psychotherapy.

Given how kooky my book is, including a number of its memorable characters, I'd like to find a way to get Pinel's name in the book in some meaningful way. Having psychiatrists called Pinels (or something similar) would probably cause nothing but confusion, though. I could perhaps change the Brainial Unit to the Pinel Unit and leave it to readers to google. Meh.

An article on Bettelheim by one of his former patients/students pretty much paints him as an idiotic dick. He's worse than the head shrink of the Brainial Unit where Joseph is trapped.

I didn't read anything that would suggest why some variant of Sacks would be the word for shrink in the far future. Clearly a smart man and a significant contributor to the field, but if readers of my book were to google his name, they'd be scratching their heads as to why I chose his name. Still, future psychiatrists could then be called Sacksons.

Tzan-Tzas is a strong contender. I'd have to get across that these doctors are shrinks, but the reader would have to google the rest. That's the term for the shrunken heads produced by natives of the Amazon region who once practiced head hunting.

Brainial remains the boring fallback term.

I also found Stargate very clean with its terms.

AIs: the Replicators. [Replicator is easy for the reader to parse - presumably, it replicates lol]
Hybrid: "Human-form Replicator"
Weapon: "Replicator disruptor cannon" and "Anti-replicator gun"
Specific Hybrid: Bob -> Replicator Bob

Compare to Battlestar:
AIs: Cylons
Hybrid: Skinjob or toaster
Weapon: (I checked the wiki and went cross-eyed)
Specific Hybrid: One of (15?) models eg groups of clones

Both are fine. I'm not knocking Battlestar. But Battlestar doesn't also have an Imperium to manage. It can devote all the page space it needs into one milieu.

shrinkers and master-shrink <--- I can read these with having to pause and think
tsantsas <--- couldn't parse this one (not without a google or your explanation) As you say, it'd take some setup.

Unit is closer to "thing"... fighting unit, computational unit, operational unit, units of measure, scaling unit, and so on. As a word it conveys little other than the concept of modularity. Wheras for the same number of letters, ward conveys health-care

I'm looking to finalize the name of the global church on New Bethlehem. I've been using the Libertarian Church, which is ok if I wanted to be totally serious. But why on Earth would I want to start now?   The Libertarian Church was founded a few centuries from now based on the Mammonists for Christ Movement of the 21st century, which was begun by the stinking rich for the stinking rich (a tax dodge).

Now, since later supporters of the Mammonist Movement truly came to believe you could serve both mammon and Christ, I figure they would push strongly for that to also be the name of the church: Mammonists for Christ Church. While that may seem ridiculous to outsiders, the members of that denomination believe fervently in their church and its views.

Stranger things have happened, especially in American politics.

Thus, I'm inclined to name it the way its followers would: Mammonists for Christ Church.

Thoughts?
Dirk

I'm just finalizing a few things in act one of Archangel + I have to apply plenty of minor edits I've already received, then I'll stop working on it except for an expected trickle of further feedback from a few new reviewers.

I'm pretty sure you read fairly recent versions of everything in act one of Archangel except the final 3-part chapter. I haven't put all of act one back up yet post-crash to slow the influx of reviews (I'm falling too far behind my reviewers).

I also have plenty of recent suggested edits to add to Connor v1.

Doing all of the above will probably take until the end of August. After that, almost all my time will go toward Connor v2.