Featured Post - Ninja Writer's Story Club - Week 5

The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics by Daniel Abraham

Featured Post - This will stay on top of the page for a week - scroll down for newer content.

Last week's story by Stephen Baxter was not well received.  I'd say it suffered from unsympathetic main characters and while it had a novel plot device, the execution was hampered by point of view.
 

This week we have a tale by one of Lyda's colleagues at SF Novelists, Daniel Abraham.  This story is up against The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chaing, which is a tough story to compete with.  Let's see how it is.  The online reader for this story is a bit tricky, but once you figure it out, you'll find it's more like reading a book than a normal site page.

For as many years as anyone in the city could remember, Olaf Neddelsohn had been the cambist of the Magdalen Gate postal authority. Every morning, he could be seen making the trek from his rooms in the boarding house on State Street, down past the street vendors with their apples and cheese, and into the bowels of the underground railway only to emerge at the station across the wide boulevard from Magdalen Gate.

read the rest . . .

CAUTION - as usual with the Story Club, the comments are going to contain spoilers.

The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics by Daniel Abraham

Featured Post - This will stay on top of the page for a week - scroll down for newer content.

Last week's story by Stephen Baxter was not well received.  I'd say it suffered from unsympathetic main characters and while it had a novel plot device, the execution was hampered by point of view.
 

This week we have a tale by one of Lyda's colleagues at SF Novelists, Daniel Abraham.  This story is up against The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chaing, which is a tough story to compete with.  Let's see how it is.  The online reader for this story is a bit tricky, but once you figure it out, you'll find it's more like reading a book than a normal site page.

For as many years as anyone in the city could remember, Olaf Neddelsohn had been the cambist of the Magdalen Gate postal authority. Every morning, he could be seen making the trek from his rooms in the boarding house on State Street, down past the street vendors with their apples and cheese, and into the bowels of the underground railway only to emerge at the station across the wide boulevard from Magdalen Gate.

read the rest . . .

CAUTION - as usual with the Story Club, the comments are going to contain spoilers.

The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics by Daniel Abraham

Featured Post - This will stay on top of the page for a week - scroll down for newer content.

Last week's story by Stephen Baxter was not well received.  I'd say it suffered from unsympathetic main characters and while it had a novel plot device, the execution was hampered by point of view.
 

This week we have a tale by one of Lyda's colleagues at SF Novelists, Daniel Abraham.  This story is up against The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chaing, which is a tough story to compete with.  Let's see how it is.  The online reader for this story is a bit tricky, but once you figure it out, you'll find it's more like reading a book than a normal site page.

For as many years as anyone in the city could remember, Olaf Neddelsohn had been the cambist of the Magdalen Gate postal authority. Every morning, he could be seen making the trek from his rooms in the boarding house on State Street, down past the street vendors with their apples and cheese, and into the bowels of the underground railway only to emerge at the station across the wide boulevard from Magdalen Gate.

read the rest . . .

CAUTION - as usual with the Story Club, the comments are going to contain spoilers.

Featured Post - This will stay on top of the page for a week - scroll down for newer content.

Last week's story by Stephen Baxter was not well received.  I'd say it suffered from unsympathetic main characters and while it had a novel plot device, the execution was hampered by point of view.
 

This week we have a tale by one of Lyda's colleagues at SF Novelists, Daniel Abraham.  This story is up against The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chaing, which is a tough story to compete with.  Let's see how it is.  The online reader for this story is a bit tricky, but once you figure it out, you'll find it's more like reading a book than a normal site page.

For as many years as anyone in the city could remember, Olaf Neddelsohn had been the cambist of the Magdalen Gate postal authority. Every morning, he could be seen making the trek from his rooms in the boarding house on State Street, down past the street vendors with their apples and cheese, and into the bowels of the underground railway only to emerge at the station across the wide boulevard from Magdalen Gate.

read the rest . . .

CAUTION - as usual with the Story Club, the comments are going to contain spoilers.

Comments

[Lyda Morehouse]

I read most of this, but the reader was very wonky. It wouldn't load one page in the middle and the last three were missing -- which means I got to the "ah ha! I've solved your problem!" moment, but don't know if the exchange rate was clever or not.

What's fascinating to me (even not knowing the ending) is how similar to Chaing story in "feel" this one is. It starts slowly, but the various challenges Olaf faces build the tension level. I found it only moderately satifying (of course, maybe that would be different if I could have read the very ending), but surprisingly CALM in feel (despite the fact tha Olaf and Lord Iron's lives are in danger more than once.)

Did anyone else read it?

[CV Rick]

I've been having the same problem, Lyda. Daniel, if you're reading this perhaps you can help us out. If you can provide a web version of a clean copy of the story, I'll keep it up for another week.

Thanks.

[Cele]

I finally had to print it out, which was a convoluted laborious process. Now I have to read it. The first pages definately held my attention.

more to come later

[jane]

Ugh. That was profoundly annoying. That reader makes the story illegible. I got through 3 pages and decided I didn't care about Lord Iron or Olaf enough to deal with that shite.

To the author: sorry! I'd read your story if you just did a normal non-fancy reader. I'm not even going to try to print it based on the comment above.