Altimexis

Knowing the quality of Chris' writing, I did not hesitate to read this one, even though the Civil War is not a topic of major interest to me. Actually, I read a lot of historical novels when I was much younger, and remember John Jake's serializations quite well. As with Jake's novels, Chris researched his material well and interjected real characters to anchor the story solidly. BTW, this isn't just a Civil War story - if anything it reminds me more of Dances with Wolves. The Civil War serves as a backdrop for an epic adventure that takes the reader from coast to coast. I'm not going to say anything more than that for now. If I've peaked your curiosity, then read Blue and Gray. You won't be disappointed.

Thanks for the support, Mike. One of the challenges in writing a major story or story series such as Naptown Tales is that, as authors, we get attached to the characters. In many ways they are our offspring and, to a large degree, the personalities of the characters we create dictate the directions our stories will take. Earely on, Naptown Tales hinted at a rich future in which my characters would go on to do great things. Turning that future into reality while still making my characters seem real was a challenge in and of itself. Turning teenagers into adults was yet another challenge, but I'm pleased with the results. For those who have avoided reading Legacy because it begins with the assassination of one of the central characters in the Naptown Tales series, please bear with me. Without giving away too much, nothing is as it seems and although the ending may not give you what want - a future in which President David Reynolds was never assassinated, it is a very satisfying, surprise ending.

How quickly they all forgot my dog story, Sandy.

Straightens out ruffled tail feathers. Yikes! I didn't mean to make it sound like I get mired in the details. On the contrary, I focus on the story. However, I can't help myself sometimes. I often notice the little details. I would have never expected Cole to explain precisely how PDF could be used to coopt a computer. Frankly, I'm not sure how I might have phrased things differently and only brought it up specifically because Cole mentioned Macs. The fact that a PDF interpreter is built into the heart of every Mac makes the use of PDF even more stealthy, if anything.

I hate to sound like a spoilsport but most Macs do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. I'm not going to go into details, as that would involve spoilers, but suffice it to say that using Acrobat Reader as described on a Mac simply wouldn't work. I'm not saying it's impossible to use a PDF attachment as such on a Mac, but Apple wrote their own code rather than using Adobe's. PDF is native in OS X - it is the format used by the display rendering engine. Apple did that when they ported the NextStep operating system to the Mac as the core of OS X. This allowed them to get around paying Adobe's licensing fees for Display Postcript, which would have added hundreds of dollars to the cost of every Mac. The PDF format is open source and, hence, free. PDF attachments are directly visible in any program that runs on a Mac - no Acrobat Reader needed. Apple wrote their PDF rendering engine to prevent just the kind of attack described in Doing Something. I'm not saying it's impossible but, for it to work, someone would have to have intimate knowledge of Apple's implementation of PDF. For what it's worth, the issue of exploitable code is at the heart of the bad blood between Apple and Adobe these days. Well that, and perhaps getting around licensing fees has something to do with it too. In any case, Apple banned the use of Flash on the iPhone and iPad because it was too easy for hackers to exploit it for malicious intent. Apple used its muscle to force Adobe to abandon Flash in their longterm strategy in favor of HTML 5, over which Apple could exert some control. One more thing - what if one of the computers in question ran Linux? A lot of computer entheusiasts like Linux because they don't have to rely on Microsoft or Apple.

Yes, the story has a very rural feel to it, but the real neighborhood on which it's based is anything but rural. Woodmoor is a dense suburb with quarter-acre lots and the intersection of Colesville Road, University Boulevard and the Washington Beltway is one of the most congested in Montgomery County. We lived there several years and couldn't stand to sit outside due to the sound of the traffic nearby. Otherwise it's a lovely, wooded area. Actually, there is a small lake behind the dam on the Northwest Branch, just west of Colesville Road, but everything else is fiction. Great story - I'm looking forward to the rest.

Sounds like some vote tampering to me. But Kentucky? Why Kentucky? Is it supposed to be a springboard from which to take Ohio, Indiana and Illinois? So tell me, where can I sign up to join the New York National Guard and fight the secessionist traitors?

Chris, One of the many things I love about your stories is their authentic locations. This one is particularly interesting to me, as I lived in Woodmoore for close to five years while I worked at the NIH. It was my first job, all those years ago. A lot has happened in the twenty years since we left - Montgomery Blair High School has been relocated to the last undeveloped tract on the Beltway, a forested plot of land known to us as the K-tract, the Woodmor Shopping Center has had a makeover and the roadways have all been widened, fortunately without the massive redesign once proposed. Still, the basic landmarks remain the same. Highway 29, also known as Colesville Road, still connects Downtown Silver Spring with White Oak, Columbia and Elicott City to the west of Baltimore. University Boulevard still connects the University of Maryland with the town of Wheaton. And the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia river still serves as the third boundary of the neighborhood where I once lived. I cannot help but wonder if it is the Northwest Branch that served as the inspiration for Woodlake and its environs. Terrific writing, Chris. I can't wait to read next week's installment.

Boy, I hate to add to a chorus of somewhat negative criticism, but I felt the way a lot of the other readers seem to have felt with this one. It was a very enjoyable story and, yet, I somehow felt removed from it. It was a bit like reading the Cliff Notes version. I have nothing against the third person perspective - one doesn't need a first person perspective to convey emotion - but I was left feeling detached from the main character. I'm not so sure this needed to be a serialized story as others have commented. I think that part of the problem was that the author was trying to leave Roland's sexuality ambiguous until the end. Leaving the story devoid of emotions certainly had the intended effect, but there probably was a better way. The key is that Roland himself didn't really understand his sexuality, so it should have been easy to have given the story more depth without giving anything away. Pertinax is a talented writer and I would love to see this one fleshed out a little more.

It's one of my favorites, too. I've read it several times and it always brings tears to my eyes. Glad to see it here.

It's not often I recommend a story that's posted only at Nifty, but this one is so beautifully written. It's only just getting started, but if Sean E's last story, The Bully and the Bullied is any indication of what's to come, I can highly recommend reading When Shadows Pass.

Has anyone else wondered what happened to Keith's father? Is he still in town, or might he at least still be interested in the welfare of his son? As smart and resourceful as Mr. Jenks seems to be, something tells me he's wondered about it. Mr. Jenks might not be able to get Keith away from his whacked out mother, but his real father almost certainly could, especially with Mr. Jenks' help. Maybe Mr. Johnson and Keith's mom could elope together - they seem perfect for each other.

FYI, in Jessie's Loss there is mention of a beautiful Louis Comfort Tiffany window in the Unitarian-Universalist Meetinghouse on North Pleasant, which is in Amherst, MA. Now I'm going to have to make it a point to stop to see it the next time I'm in Amherst. Titled Angel of the Lilies and dating from 1889, it looks like it must be extraordinary. For those who haven't been to Amherst, it's located in the western part of the state and is home of the University of Massachusetts as well as, not surprisingly, Amherst College.

Merkin, I just want to congratulate you on two wonderful short stories, Jessie's Year and Jessie's Loss. Both stories are so poignant and heartfelt. I love the wonderful characters you've created. Kudos, and I hope there will be more stories to come in the series.

Sorry - I can't help it. I just notice things like that. It's in my nature. Cole, if you want to write a story with a 60 year old new father, more power to you. Me - I don't even want to think about caring for a newborn at my age, let alone in another 6 or more years. I truly admire the grandparents that end up raising their children's children - it's not a job for the faint of heart. Above all else, however, raising a child is a labor of love, regardless of the age of the one doing it.

Another wonderful story, Cole. I just have two criticisms. Firstly, you beat me to it!!! I've written a story for the GA Fall Anthology about a couple of septuagenarians who find each other in the twilight of their years. I wrote it in response to a reader who noted that no one seems to write about gay men in their elder years. My second criticism is a bit more important, although still a minor one. Isn't Albert a bit old to have a 21-year-old son? If he's in his eighties now, he would have been in his sixties when Tom was born. Wouldn't it make more sense for Tom to be Albert's grandson? Like I said, it's a minor complaint.

I don't disagree with this or with what Cole said at all. In my profession, I have seen a number of people die but, thankfully, that is not common. The hardest thing I have ever done was to sit with a quadriplegic man after he asked to be removed from his ventilator. I had nightmares in the weeks leading up to the day he was granted his wish. I cannot imagine how horrible it must be to deliberately take a life. I do know, thankfully not from personal experience but from reading research articles on the subject and talking to victims, that it is equally traumatic to watch someone be brutalized. This is only magnified when one knows the victim and particularly if they are a friend or loved one. Mason was twice traumatized in the story (three times if you consider his original outing). He will always remember watching helplessly as his former best friend was brutally raped, and he will of course always remember killing a man. The only difference between being sixteen and being an adult is that an adult has more life experience. No matter how young or old someone is, taking another life is and should be traumatic. What would any of us do under the circumstances? No one can ever know how they'll react until it happens to them.

This is a truly amazing story - more a novella than a short story - and I can only imagine the amount of work Cole put into this. I happened to be up and checking AD about an hour or two after it was posted and, well, to hell with sleep - I read it in one sitting. I then rushed out and posted my thoughts to the forum with a large warning that there were spoilers. Personally, I think that anyone who even looks at the forum entry on a story before reading the story deserves whatever loss of pleasure they get. A spoiler alert should be enough of a warning to keep people away, but then I know there are people who absolutely have to read the forum first, and a spoiler alert only serves to make them more curious. Therefore, when Cole asked me to remove my forum entry on this story, I respected his wishes and did so. What I said initially, however, sparked a bit of an argument between Cole and me and I probably should have taken the story more at face value, although I did make it clear that I loved the story overall. My concern, and it's pretty lame in retrospect, was that most people wouldn't hesitate to kill the perpetrator of a rape. No one wants to take another life, but rape is a very violent and potentially deadly act. A lot of people might hesitate to act because they're paralyzed by fear, but that clearly wasn't Mason's case. He wasn't sure what to do, which is natural for anyone, particularly one so young, and we should probably take that at face value, which I didn't on first read. My initial impression was that he had a clear shot at the rapist when he first stumbled on the scene, but chose not to take it. He was nearly the same distance from the perp at that point as he ended up being from the rifle when he shot at it. So his not taking a shot at the perp when the perp was away from Elan and dropping his pants didn't make sense to me. Sorry to be so analytical, Cole - it's in my nature. All-in-all, you did a great job with this story.

Administrator's Note: Altimexus is correct to publish the spoiler warning below, on this post of his. I am taking the unusual action of alerting members and visitors to read Cole Parker's story first, before contemplating reading this post. Cole is concerned that his story, which took a lot of time and effort should not be revealed by reading this post before his story, and while we encourage discussion on stories, I tend to agree that this review does indeed spoil the story for those who have not yet read it. Cole's story can be found here Poster's Addendum: I attempted to remove this post at Cole's request and replace it with one saying my formal comments would be forthcoming in about a week, but it somehow reappeared with the above administrator's note. In rereading the story, I still feel I have a legitimate point and have explained my reasoning to Cole separately. As authors who post our stories in public fora, it is inevitable that there will occasionally be public criticism - hopefully most of it constructive. I for one wish I received more such criticism rather than just messages of praise. It's easy to laud someone, but much more difficult to tell them that they could have done better. This is still a terrific story, and Cole remains my favorite Net author. Now that the post has been resurrected, I'm not going to take it down again, but I'll try to hide it using the 'spoiler' tag. If anyone goes to the trouble of reading the post withought first reading the story, they deserve any loss of enjoyment they may get. ****** WARNING: Major Spoilers Below ******

Actually, Cole, you should have known your readers are much more aware than that, and not just James. I realized it was the reader's perspective that was distorted from paragraph one. For one thing, with the exception of Josh Evolving, Dominos, The Hamill Academy Stories and a few of your short stories, virtually everything else you've ever written that I'm aware of, you've written in first person. When you do use third person, it's almost always more a matter of being able to control the reader's perspective rather than to provide multiple viewpoints. First person puts the primary character in charge of what the reader sees. Third person puts the author solidly in charge. It was evident from the start of Distorted Perspectives that you were manipulating the reader, controlling what they observed and when they observed it. I was also struck by your use of metaphor. Andy's hobby, photography, was a brilliant literary tool that allowed you show the reader how one's perspective can be controlled, manipulated and even cheated through the careful use of shading, focus and the combination of disparate images. You are just as guilty of the same approach, and just as Andy was an exceptional photographer, you are an exceptional author. This is an outstanding literary work. I've long considered you the best author in this genre and the one I most seek to emulate, but with this story, you've outdone yourself. Congratulations on completing what is now my new favorite story of all time.

This may be your best story yet, Cole. You have reason to be proud!

This one touched me as well. Great story. Great imagery. Poignant ending.

I do sincerely apologize for ranting a bit, and some of my comments were inappropriate - the less said the better. However - this forum has a long an proud tradition of thread hijacking. Are you throwing down a challenge to the status quo?

I dont' know. I mean, I certainly understand how you feel, Cole. I really understand how you feel. I never intended for Broad Ripple Blues to be more than a simple short story, but then I had the idea to write an addition to it, and the Naptown Tales series was born, and I've kept on adding and adding to it. Perhaps it's different because it has been an open-ended project - at least until I decided to put a cap on it in the summer of next year. The amazing thing is that the latest story in the series, Summer Internship, which I just started posting, is nearly as long as my first novel, Love in a Chair! But getting back to the idea of breathing new life into characters, I don't think that writing sequels changes that at all, particularly when we're talking about teenagers. My characters have evolved from story to story, and matured considerably as they've aged. David, my first protagonist, was barely fourteen when the series started, and he's now sixteen in the current story. There's a world of difference between his character at fourteen and his character at sixteen. We all change as we age, so just because you've written about a character doesn't mean they're set in stone.

I'm surprised I never added a comment on this one. I did send Cole a private e-mail to the effect that it's extremely rare for someone with a spinal cord injury to be paralyzed and yet have fully normal sexual function. The sexual organs are innervated by the lowest segments of the spinal cord - well below the lower limbs - and these along with bowel and bladder control tend to recover long after ambulation returns. The one possible exception is something called Cauda Equina Syndrome which is usually even more dire when it comes to sexual function unless the person is extremely lucky. In this scenario, it is the spinal nerves, which look like a horses tail, hence the name, rather than the spinal cord itself, which are crushed in the injury. Usually, cauda equina syndrome has a good prognosis because spinal nerves, unlike the spinal cord itself, can and do regenerate - it just takes a year for the nerve fibers to regrow the length of one's legs, and these people will walk again - after a fashion. If the injury is severe enough to damage the cauda equina sufficiently that the nerves cannot grow back, usually the conus medularis - the bottom segment of the spinal cord - is also damaged and along with it, any hope of sexual function or bowel and bladder control. The bottom line is that this character was extremely lucky - his cauda equina was damaged, but the injury must have just missed his conus medularis. But enough of the technical mumbo jumbo! Cole, this was a delightful story involving two people with disabilities. I loved it!