Reviewer: gadgetmawombo Signed [Report This]
Date: July 09 2013 10:30 PM Title: Kate – big yet powerless.

Yeah man, I can imagine how much of a bitch it must be to try to have someone THAT big have any sort of interaction without killing anybody. Im having enough trouble myself, and my tinies are much bigger! I feel like this forces the story to boil into a myriad of conversations, but you actually handled this chapter pretty well...I think that now that Ratchel is tiny you have a main character for the tiny-side of things, and its really helping this story along. I also love that you're trying to get normal people into this in some way, and I loved the part with the cute little six year old...I understand Kates pain, especially after seeing that cute little girl, in thinking about all the people she killed and how many cute little six year olds's lives she must have ended in her ignorance.

 

Things are getting a bit more interesting, but I also feel like a great portion of this chapter was spent on people chattering about things the audience doesn't understand. If you wanted to show us how frustrated Kate must feel during the conversations where things go over her head, well good job. But Im not gonna lie, i find myself unintentionally skimming over that, then having to go back and re-read it thinking that it must be important somewhere later on in the story. I feel like these concepts should be more simplified or they should be explained AS they are need by the plot and not just sprinkled in the conversations: that ends up confusing people, namely me...

Author's Response:

Well, the next chapter is an interlude and we'll see some of Gary's thoughts - among other things. I wouldn't call Rachel the "main" little person - not now and not even when Gary dies - she's just.. Rachel. Also, I think You underestimate the emotional significance of that little girl, it was mostly missed by Kate as well, but.. I mean... her father was trusting enough to actually bring his child so close to menacing giantess, who is is still dangerous to them - a simple unaware movement of her hand, such as stretching out, could have killed all those people. She hasn't even thought about that - but they surely must have. An even more important detail is how the girl "corrected" her daddy. Seriously... this particular picture of an honest and simple child ignoring the monstrous size difference is so sweet, that without the lemon of Kate's worries, I would puke...

There's plenty of things that haven't been fully explained - some of them will be soon, some others will be much later and the rest will hardly be mentioned at all. I wanted to show how the world is far more complex than we have heard so far - I mean.. the facility is the pinnacle of centuries of human engineering... Even though there's a lot of questions and uncertainty, the most important fact remains that Rachel was immigrated and they need to figure out what to next. But enough spoilers! It's bad enough that I mentioned that Gary will die a couple times already...

Anyway, it has a nice side-effect that it emphasizes Kate's simplicity - she calls it "ignorance", but we all know it's not that bad (or is it?).

As for the re-reading, I think (hope? I don't know...) that going through the story carefully once should be enough to understand the core topics - and there will be many clarifications later on. Frankly, some subtle details were left for anyone who decides to re-read it once it's complete and see what really happened in various moments. I don't know, just a random attempt to make the story somewhat deeper, perhaps... I know the desire to understand everything while reading, but the world doesn't work like that and why would one assume that a complex story should? :>

And thanks for Your thoughts!