Test Run by Dan Hollifield

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Lester Curtis
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Re: Test Run by Dan Hollifield

Post by Lester Curtis »

Hmm, looks like something wanting a sequel.

I spotted a few punctuation errors, and there was one place where I got quite confused for a moment:
"Where is the Major and his secretary?" Arthur added. "Off seeing to our lodgings while we do the real work? I spoke to the engineer and the other crew. They seemed to think that they'd have no trouble driving Jenny off the ship and into the local train depot to refuel her for the first leg of our trip."
At first I thought the second part of the quote was a reply by Jones. Had to go back and parse it out. I think the easiest fix would be to drop the 'Arthur added.'

I couldn't help noticing that, periodically, someone would report a location or condition, such as:
"We're clear of the river and back under way,"
"We've finished refueling," Pickworth said. "We've taken on more water and more supplies.
These seemed to become repetitious, but maybe it's only me. Also, some very large expanses of distance got covered with hardly any notice or mention, such as the first leg of the trip from Georgia to the Mississippi. That jarred me a little; a bit of intervening scenery could have made the trip feel more natural, as opposed to them jumping hundreds of miles between scenes.

Lighthearted fun: I had to laugh out loud at:
"Yes sir," answered MacAvoy cheerfully. "We've got a full head of steam, 30,000 gallons of fuel oil, a fully-stocked dining car, 100 pounds of pipe tobacco, 50,000 rounds of ammunition, a train that walks on legs like a centipede, it's a foggy morning, and we're wearing goggles."

"Hit it, my good man! We're off!" Jones shouted, getting into the spirit of things.
Likewise:
"To the Gorge, and then beyond," agreed the Major.
It all moved quite quickly, but maybe a bit too quickly; I'd have liked for it to stretch out and relax more. That would allow for more character interaction and development. All in all, though, it does just what it's supposed to do.
I was raised by humans. What's your excuse?
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