C0d3-8r3ak3r - Code One: Avenged.

I'd ditch th3 th33s b3caus3 th3 Am3rican tv show which us3s r3minds m3 of contriv3d nastin3ss - otherwise, this is fine by me. Shelved.

I like the prologue. I think it's great. If it were longer, perhaps I would get fed up with the confusion and close the book. But as it is, it simply conveys to me that things in this guy's head are very mixed up. It intrigued me.

Very addictive read. It is good how each chapter leaves you wanting to read the next. Though I didn't really get the prologue, it just seemed to confuse me. You introduced Hawkesmoor at the right time, allowing the reader the chance to really get a grip on the two main characters before building up the story. You also left me wanting more. What can Lace do to help Jimmy?

Hi Ebbsy,
Do you really know Skeggy? Or was that just a line?
Either your intro is exceedingly clever and I need to be a codebreaker to decode it or it's an intrigueing bit of nonsense. Either way it got me thinking and reading.
I know you can write. I had TGITT on my shelf for weeks. This is just a great bit of characterization. I love Lace. I come across girls like her all the time at school in Skeg. Had to separate two of them in the middle of a fist fight that would have shamed Mohammed Ali. The council house facelift was just perfect too.
There were a few missing conjunctions and other typos here and there but, hey, who's counting?
Wish I had more time to follow this.
Keep on pumping this stuff out.
BW,
Denis.

I'm no professional editor, I have no qualifications that say I know anything about what you might be doing wrong, half the time I talk a load of twaddle to be honest, so I won't even pretend to tell you what you should be doing with your writing. What I will do is give my personal views for you to either take on board or dismiss like yesterday's funky socks.

Your prologue didn't do much more than confuse me I'm afraid. But then that might have been its purpose, so I'll keep reading.

Chapter 1. Possibly a bit of a mix up near the beginning. "Look this isn't really how you want things to carry on do you." Should that be is it? instead of do you?

"Lace was the clothes she wore and that was it." Nice line. It makes me wonder if she's like that by choice or circumstance.

Well, not everyone there, but that was Lace's story at least. This line sounds like the author's voice coming through.

Listing Lace's reasons for punching Ray using a) b) c) brought me out of the story, you don't need it, it'll work perfectly well without them.

I like the richness you've given the place and people in this chapter, it gives me a lot to hang in my brain while I read, but I have to admit that before I got to the social worker saying "Lace?" I was already wanting to move on to what was going to happen next.

You've got me intrigued about Lace, and some of the other characters too. It's got a nice flow, it slowed up a little during your descriptions of the place and its characters, possibly just a little too much at once. You do have me wanting to read on and see where this is all going.

Chapter 2. I like this chapter. It's all nice and tight, with a great progression. I really like the Jimmy character, I have no real idea why, I just do. I found myself in his corner, rooting for him.

One thing though, I would have expected at least an inkling as to what the actual story is going to be about. I like the book but I think you should introduce at least a titbit of direction as to the overall plot.

Chapter Three. You've got a wee blooper here, 'His was face turned up.'

Stumped is starting to stand out as a recurring word, it might be an idea to use a variation.

When I joined Authonomy I decided right away that I would read three chapters of people's work only, otherwise I wouldn't get through many manuscripts. Well, that idea went out the window with this one. At the end of chapter three you had me so intrigued with Zero that I kept reading until I'd finished all you have uploaded. Chapter four had me hooked. You left me with so many intriguing questions I wanted answers to, that even if I wanted to stop reading there was no way I could. Bloody good book!

I love the part where Lace is in her room expecting a fight from whoever is outside the door and then there's a knock. You unfold that event really effectively, you really build expectation then punctuate it with revealing how unusual a simple knock at the door is. Great stuff. There's a few typos here and there, but those are easy fixes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It's really fresh and new, at least to me, and the whole thing seems just that little bit unearthly.

Ok, put my name on a list somewhere and let me know when this is published, I want a copy in my library.
A pleasure to shelve this one.

Paul
This is good. Really good. I like the protagonists. Their characters are well developed and you can associate with them very quickly. I like the story. It has a great pace. I read it through without stopping. A few typo's but they are easily fixed. This flowed well and I wanted to know what happens. No doubts about shelving this one.
Good luck with it.

Have just watchlisted this for reading more later. I actually like the prologue, it intrigued me but then I really hate books where everything is clear right from the start.
I was drawn in by the characters in a way that I wasn't by The God in the Tree. Will read more tomorrow or at weekend if work intervenes.

ps have read more - really liking the characters and haven't lost interest yet! - however I felt that the last chapter shown here could do with a bit more basic editing.

one other thing, i found the prologue impenetrable - is it really needed?

had a read of the first three chapters, as promised. I actually like this better than the God in the Tree because, as you know, i found the inner monologue voice a little wearing. I think the characters of Lace and Jimmy are excellently done, and having worked in mental health years back, the delight of the staff, when violence breaks out, rings very true. I know there is a lot of exciting stuff to come, but as this is (i assume) a YA novel, i wonder if you ought to foreshadow this ominous place Hawksmoor, early on, so it is in the readers mind that this is more than a gritty exposes of life in secure care. Am shelving this on the strength of the pitch and your character development - does need a good proof read however. And finally, a minor point, but as far as i am aware, kids in the UK leave the Care system at 16 (but this may be different for secure units).

Would appreciate a return crit of Impossibly yellow. cheers.

Paul,

Since you asked... here is another unadulterated opinion of someone who obviously doen't know anything. Take what you can use, toss the rest.

Prologue - WTF? I think I can see what you're going for, but I have the feeling this little piece of text could be a liability more than an asset. Me stupido. Me don't understand. Me put the book back on the shelf.
Chapter 1 - at the end, I'm not engaged. Why? Nothing happens. It's all backstory. The social worker is prop, the birthday cake is a prop to hang backstory on and the character of Lacy is a self-indulgent prat and I want to smash her in the face and tell her to sign up for the army.

OK, those are my readerly impressions. As writer, I think the character can be very useful, and can be made to work if you let something happen first, so we can develop sympathy for Lace, or become interested in her. At the moment, she all negativity and passivity. That's fine, but it's not something I find attractive to read about, so I'd either like to know why she's like this, or (preferably) I'd like to see something happen that shows me that she does have some limit of decency. You could start your plot here (that's never a bad idea to start the plot in chapter 1 ;-) ) or you could use a 'save the cat' moment. I haven't read the second chapter yet, so I'm probably waffling like an idiot, but maybe it could be a scene where somebody tries to take something off her that DOES matter to her, something like a trinket given to her by a family member she would like to find(that's probably too soppy, but I hope you get the idea).

Anyway, I'll read chapter 2 later, and see if I can come up with anything else. Maybe it's just a matter of a good wield of the machete to get us in the plot sooner. The bottom line is that this chapter doesn't work for me because there's not enough forward movement.

This is one of the only books I've read half way through and still wanted to read on. Remarkable how people can write on here. I'm backing it purely because I enjoyed it and I think others should enjoy it too.
Good Luck and keep up the good work.
Olympia x

Okay Paul, time for da review.

Pros: once again a highly original premise and setup. Good, fast pacing and no-holds-barred attitude to the entire book. Snappy dialogue, much as I'd expect from you - there never was anything wrong with any of your dialogue.

Con (note singular): you occasionally run out of breath. Case: "She pulled down the blood red Tee over the bulge of belly balanced and reached into the pocket of her combats to retrieve a packet of half eaten Skittles." Now, I know I'm a slow reader (and dimwitted at points) but this sentence had me doing old skool sentence analysis before I got it. I sensed similar dangers, but not as direct, on occasion in the part I read. So in essence, a bit of brakes would help at some stages.

Never mind us nitpicking bollocks. I'll just sit tight and watch you pass me by on the charts once again - well done!

Paul

I am going to give you my comments in the order they came as I read, sounds logical, no?

I bumped you up my list because of the title and its uniqueness with respect to others. Its the sort of thing which would catch my eye and make me pick it up (as it did this time).

Part one had me totally confused and I went back to the pitch to try and figure it out. Still a little confused, I continued.

From Part 2 onwards I was engrossed as the characters developed, and you had me trying to figure out how Lace and Jimmy would meet, why they would be friends and what was the whole number thing, even before the story got there.

The ...counting the square roots of sheep line came just at the right point, as did the explanation of Hawksmoor. Although there is still sufficient mystery about the whole programme and exactly what they want him for in order to keep me guessing.

You've just knocked someone off my shelf with this.

Cheers

Rayo

I must agree, Paul, the title is off putting though clever. I'm not sure of it, most of us are not so good at maths! I think I wouldn't pick it up and then I'd have regretted it because it totally gripped me. Though Lace is a violent gilr, one warms to the poor soul. You feel sympathy for her bleakness and sadness. And Jimmy is just amazing. The dialogue, the characters are all very different to people I've ever experienced so of deep interest. It's going on my shelf soon. I've just put up new ones and will leave them for a bit. This is going to be one of those stories that stays with me as God in the Tree did. Lorri

I like the setup. I've read the chapters you've posted and you do an excellent job of laying out the characters. Even the lesser ones flash reality for their brief appearances. The story line is intriguing.
Nancy

Hi Paul,

This is better than _The God in the Tree_, and not because the second chapter situation is familiar to me (I worked in Crisis Intervention with kids in care -- most of them young offenders -- back in the nineties). No, it's because I feel your third person PoV has more voice than the first person you use in _God_. There's a better energy about the writing, more spark, and the character is more real. Indeed, I'm very interested to see where it leads.

Great stuff, and thank you for sharing.

~Diane.

Well defined, vivid characters. Interesting subject and the beginnings of the plot. Well written, overall. Shelved.

But consider reducing the amount of introspective explanation for Lace's immediate reactions to Jimmy (not her deliberate thoughts about him, though, like when she has time to think); that should have been possible to convey in other ways.

Don't use the "Anti-Hogwarts" term. If the story is done well, it should succeed on its own merit. And if the term is appropriate, then it should be felt throughout the story without you having to name the feeling. But if the story is not done well, then no references to some other successful story would rescue it.

Go easy on the "..." thing in Jimmy's speech when he's afraid. I couldn't get it sound right. When one is sobbing, the speech is interrupted, but usually not for every word; people talk in spurts. Try to read it out loud, with sobs in between. "I [sobs] numbers [sobs] means [sobs] my [sobs] mommy and daddy [sobs]" etc. At the very least, there would not be any pause between "my" and "mommy and daddy."

About l33t in the story. I can see _some_ relevance. But don't overdo it to the point that it is hard to get the title. In the h4XoЯ culture, l33t (derived from "elite") reflects a sense of exclusivity, boastful superiority, collective pride, with not a little bit of arrogance, even disdain for non-h4XoЯ5; it stands for "us" not "me." It suits Jimmy like laughter at a funeral.