Rich in stones and mud
GD-east backstory.
Intentionally made for there to be more the deeper one dives.
I really hope that didn't cloud the basal plot.
Rich in stones and mud [Posted]
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In terms of major Critiques, I have two:
I. After the raid on the Erlik Cult, I think killing off Ai-mökö would be a better way of tying up a loose end, because after the whole raid he's just kinda forgotten about. So I think if he was either killed during the raid, or by Ivan after he tells him to "fuck off" would work, the latter would also tie into the second critique I have.
II. I think there should be more of a decay of the partnership between Roksana and Ivan, establishing both to have two different, incompatible philosophies which drives home the betrayal at the end when Roksana kills him. I feel like with how it is now, Ivan doesn't feel like that much of a threat in terms of capabilities to provoke Roksana into seeing him as a threat. A detail I think could be built upon is the thematic parallels between Ivan and Fedot, maybe even having Ivan share similar philosophies which I think would help tie it back to the prologue.
I think there definitely could be a scene between them getting the brief from their colonel and them riding on a train where their conflicting ideals are establish, maybe at a bar of some sort (I say bar just so there can be a tie to GD-East's file in which it mentions "Handles long term stress well, however usually intoxicated during long periods of stability.") It could also help to mention both their motivations a little earlier on, because the promotion is mentioned once on the drive to the village and just sort of falls into the background. That's just one of many ways it can be established, but I do definitely think there should be more signs of decay in their working relationship over the course of the story.
There are a couple of minor things I'd like the point out, not necessarily detractors to the story, but things I noticed that I ought to mention.
There are points where things don't flow particularly well, for example:
"… the Colonel to seat himself in the chair behind the grandiose wooden desk, but in front of the two elongated-house shaped windows and their elegant, wine curtains…"
I would drop the 'but' because it makes it sound like something out of the ordinary, when it's just describing the arrangement of a desk. (Also there should be a comma between windows, and.)
There's an inconsistency in how numbers are spelt. For the vehicles the numbers aren't spelled out like 'Fiat 124' or 'GAZ-2424', but there's an instance where AK-47 is written out as 'AK-forty-sevens'. It's a minor thing, I just think it should all conform to the same schema.
This one is very much a personal thing, but I would've liked their to be more descriptives of what Fedot, Roksana, and Ivan looked like.
Those are my critiques, and overall my general thoughts on the story is that it's really superb. A tale following the upbringing of a GD is something I've always really wanted to see and I think this tale does that for Tovarka wonderfully. Her characterization is quite to the letter and near perfect in how she's described in her dissertation, the prolog that establishes her and her differing philosophy compared to those around her is phenomenal, and it serves a vital aspect of her character throughout the rest of the tale. Even though I had some crits about him, Ivan serves as a nice foil to Roksana and I like how there are some parallels in philosophies between him and Fedot, I just would like those elements to be brought out a little more. The visuals in the cave were described very vividly, and I had this really strong mental image of what that all looked like with the green lighting, it was very horrific, but cool. I literally threw my hands up when I saw Jingo make an appearance in the finale, establishing the roots of the lukewarm relationship the two would later go on to have as GDs, even though it was brief Jingo's inclusion elevated the tale for me and it left me with a big stupid grin on my face all the way to the end. Structurally I had no qualms, even though this tale leans into the longer end of things, it never feels like it drags, and every scene feels meaningful. I'm not familiar with life during the Soviet Union, but I this article does take advantage of that setting and I was able to quickly get a grasp on how things looked.
I really love this tale, stuff regarding the GDs will always be interesting to me, and reading through this was definitely a treat, I hope it gets recognized as cannon.
This is a definite improvement over its previous iteration. The story flows better, it's far less confusing, the narratives are tied in a meaningful way, and the text is far more consistent, too! There's no more battle between past and present tense, it's all in present tense. I like this because it feels like GD East is reliving her memories as if they were happening in the present.
That being said, I do have some gripes. Most of them are listed in the LbL, but I will list my two biggest problems here:
1. The relationship between the Iron Initiative, the protagonists and the cultists was made unclear. It seems like they were working together, or if the II was even meant to be in the story beyond that mention, but the idea of a veiled intelligence agency being in the dark about the II is just brought up and dropped promptly. This idea is explored again when she meets Jingo, but I wish more was done with it.
I also wasn't sure if the perspective characters were part of the II or the veiled KGB. Maybe that's an issue on my part, but I think it would benefit your story if you made it more obvious.
2. It feels strange to me that Jingo is still doing field work while being a candidate for GD. At that point, shouldn't he have withdrawn from active duty? I would remove the sentence where he calls himself a possible candidate for GD, keep the rest of the scene unchanged, and have a final scene where GD East and GD West have a conversation at the end of an important meeting, or something similar.
With that command Roksana's game of ball
Suggestion: Add a comma between "command" and "Roksana".
The response is enough for him,
Suggestion: I would slightly enlarge this sentence before moving onto the next. What is it enough for him to do/think?
Irritation reveals itself as wrinkles upon the father's face. "Have some respect, Dunya works hard to keep us fed."
Suggestion: Replace "Dunya" with "Your mother". I've never heard a parent refer to their spouse by their first name instead of "Your mother/father" while talking to their child.
"Would you rather she didn't?" He snaps, slamming the fork into the wooden table and glaring at the both idle and unruly child.
Suggestion: I'd slightly rephrase this sentence to read as follows:
Would you rather she didn't?" He snaps, slamming his fork into the wooden table and glaring at the idle yet unruly child.
Roksana stands together with Fedot awaiting the opening of the milk store. Together with the rising sun they observe a greater and greater amount of people amassing outside the enterprise. During jet of entry they manage to reach the clerk, a young dark-haired woman in a small hat and blue uniform, who supplies milk, cheese and butter. Next come the less urgent groceries, such as fresh bread and gifts of the sea in trucks carrying big tanks.
I have a few issues with this section. Before I get into grammar and syntax, the next section has Roksana talking to a fisherman, but that fisherman isn't mentioned at all in this paragraph. It felt very jarring and I think you should add an extra sentence mentioning Roksana going up to the guy.
Together with the rising sun
During jet of entry
Suggestion: I'd add a commas after these sentence fragments.
One major critique I have is that Roksana's dialog feels like it's coming from someone who's a few years older than she actually is (You told me she was around 8). I'd make her dialog sound less like an attempt at a philosophical debate and more like a child pouting. I know she's smarter for her age, but she's still a child at the end of the day.
"Dosh this ichyot kno howt driv?"
Suggestion: Rephrase this sentence entirely. The story is already translated into English by the narrator, there's no reason to have it be so broken. Ditto for these sentences:
"You be quiets kid!"
"Yo turnet and crash me! Letme see paper!"
"If yo not gif papers, you will arrested."
The Colonel crashes on the chair before reaching for the visor on his dark olive green cap and placing it on the desk. Blinded by the reflection of light from the newly unveiled great white dome, Roksana and Ivan fail to notice how the Colonel opens a drawer and pulls out a folder from which he extracts two documents and hands one to each agent.
Ivan leads his vision across the first page. "Homeland surveillance." He says tonelessly.
Suggestion: Either add the final sentence to the paragraph or have it be separated by another space.
"That is your job to figure out."
Suggestion: I'd reword this to read as follows:
"Your job is to figure that out."
"How do you think we should go about this?" Ivan inquires, looking up from his hardback of "The Communist Manifesto". He'd attempted to pass the time with it, bu Roksana's perfect quiet pokes him more infuriatingly than any whine. She'd find it funny, how this blonde, young and able-bodied man couldn't stand what she though to be but a brief solitude.
Suggestion: Remove the quotation marks around the Communist Manifesto and put it into italics instead.
"I did. Still, don't make me one of them just like that."
Critique: This sentence needs to be rephrased entirely, I don't know what is trying to be conveyed here.
"As I said, I'll handle most of the talking."
Suggestion: I would add a dividing line between this sentence and the following paragraph to indicate a change in location.
He quickly glances over to her direction. "Be honest. You're disappointed by this distant task at such a critical moment."
He's not wrong, but some truths are less useful than lies.
Critique: You forgot to add the space between these two lines.
but among the traces of activity is no man visible.
Suggestion: I'd reword this to read as follows:
But despite the traces of activity, no man can be seen.
"Yeah. Nothing about seclusion in anything I've read."
Critique: I am not sure what is trying to be conveyed here, perhaps you could reword it?
and sees people staring back with a worried expression.
Suggestion: I'd rephrase this like so:
and sees people meeting her gaze with worried expressions.
While they wait, the woman comes back with portions of stew with meat and vegetables. They eat, and Roksana asks questions whose answers are written down by Ivan in the notebook. She tells them of the village's festivals, their mines, their faith and their buildings. When they reach a level of conversation that could be toppled without arousing too much suspicion, Roksana asks the most important question.
Critique: I feel like the story would benefit from having a more drawn out section depicting their conversation rather than merely telling us that they were questioning each other. I want to see how these characters operate, how their methods differ, etc.
Another problem I have with this section is that it's sometimes unclear as to who's talking, who's in the room and who isn't. I'd make it clear when the cultist lady is in the room, and when she isn't.
Roksana drifts through the village like a tumbleweed. Knocking on whatever house she could, playing jeopardy with whoever would answer her plea for conversation. From the herds of fearful expressions and magnanimous statements of grandeur one would think the soldiers of Ulgen would at the very least pose a contemporary threat. She tries grasping every straw, but none within that bar-less prison yielded anything concrete. However, from a hodge-pot, toxic cauldron of lies, ignorance and terror she concocts a miracle, the cut-end of a thread of truth worth following. Just then, Ivan comes back from his own conquest against ambiguity.
Suggestion: This one is a suggestion instead of a full-on critique because I understand why you wouldn't want to expand this section, but I think seeing the dialog between her and one of the villagers would give us great insight into who or what Elrik actually is and how his followers behave.
With her limbs immobilized by a forced embrace of partners, she fails to stand up.
Critique: It's not really clear who or what's restraining her here. People? Ropes? These are important things for the reader to know.
"You're not giving me a choice you idiot. Tell the grunts to put the fucking guns down, this is between you and me."
"How touching. Our little cat-and-mouse may be a bit sentimental, but everything you touch is still our business. Put the staff on the ground."
Another critique: You forgot to put the space between these lines.
"Hich-hich-hich…" Each spike of the laugh is shaved by the absence of moldable lips. It emerges as a rhythmic grumble instead.
Suggestion: I would replace "Hich hich hich" with prose saying he was laughing.
"I expect some people to do as their told. Right?
Critique: They're, not their. Also, the paragraph this sentence is in is sandwiched between two bigger ones, either incorporate it into one of the larger paragraphs or add some more spaces.
Roksana and Ivan face one another, then nod in unison. Ivan shakes his jaw. "O-ok, shit… fuck." Before kicking the door down.
"Hands up!"
Jingo lowers his gaze to the chosen intimidation tool. "PSS… started production in 1980. Your favorite ever since. Piece of shit."
Ivan feels the sweat dripping from and off his forehead, then starts to fear Jingo being able to smell it. He notices himself and in an effort to remove the pathetic sensation, steps forwards towards the trio of enemies.
"Argh!" Ivan had tried to drag himself towards the exit, but only managed to shove the table leg deeper into his own.
Roksana lifted the staff up to look at the jaw, somehow still attached with flimsy rope. She tries to explore where the stream emerges, but discovers nothing.
"Yes, of course, some laws are set in things harder than stone. You know… I've always- well… not always, but often admired
American philosophies."
More spacing issues.
"Ow-ow-ow…"
Suggestion: I'd cut this, it sounds comedic and I doubt that was the intention.
Shakes his head, while looking towards the patch on his right shoulder. "Can't do that. But you haven't heard of us before. That means we're good."
Suggestion: I'd start this sentence off with "The man/He/Grigori" instead of the verb Shakes.
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