Nightwatch: Seven Years By Ralph Benedetto, Jr.

Tell us What you thought of the October 2006 issue!

Moderator: Editors

Post Reply
User avatar
kailhofer
Editor Emeritus
Posts: 3245
Joined: December 31, 1969, 08:00:00 PM
Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA)
Contact:

Nightwatch: Seven Years By Ralph Benedetto, Jr.

Post by kailhofer »

Rather than a formal critique, here are some thoughts that occurred to me as I was reading:

How many people work at Nightwatch? I've always assumed that it was a big corporation with a large central headquarters, otherwise, everyone would know all about the lower echelon.

This reception area hardly seems like kind of place a big business would have. Nightwatch is a big company, right? So many, many people would have to traipse through here. Where is the room for those people? And what big business doesn't want to screen or check in its guests? Where are the elevators? Simon rode one on the way to the boardroom in the 1st Nightwatch story.

I have to doubt, given her history as the prisoner of a serial… bad guy (whatever he was), and her martial arts training, that Stephanie could be cornered in a closet, even by a trusted friend. It doesn't seem plausible.

How did Tom know the imposter had Simon's retinal scan? Is this something you have to do to get in the building?

Did anyone else picture Bryan as a young Martin Short? I couldn't shake the image of him. And I have to admit, I liked the idea of Simon hamstrung by an intern always in the way. However, given Callow's love of cloak & dagger coupled with his desire to control everything, I can't see him allowing it. There are people further up the ladder than Callow, but he has a lot more pull than anyone lets on. Even if against his will, he would have known where (and who) this suspiciously overeager, overachieving newbie was from and blocked it somehow. At the least, my opinion of Callow is that he wouldn't trust Simon to screen classified information from Bryan without instructing Simon to do so. (Unless Bryan was his idea, that is, in which case he could be either testing Simon's ability to protect intel, or just annoying his subordinate with cruel zeal.)

Eric Flint, Editor of Baen's Universe and noted author, once wrote to me about SMSPOV syndrome, which I was guilty of (and this was one of the reasons he was rejecting my story). SMSPOV stands for "Sudden Momentary Shift in Point of View," and it apparently was one of the things that the late Jim Baen did not like to see.

In Eric's words, " It's confusing and fatiguing to the reader. Here's the basic rule of thumb concerning viewpoints:

EVERY change in viewpoint needs to be preceded by either a chapter break or a line break. There are occasional exceptions to that rule, but not many -- and if you follow it religiously, you won't go wrong. Furthermore, it's almost always very easy to fix. In most cases, it's quite easy to rewrite an episode or a few paragraphs (one, certainly) to keep it in a coherent viewpoint."


Just because something is right for Baen, doesn't mean it's the only way, but I throw it out there as food for thought. POV here seems to change from Simon to Tom and back again many times, as well as to others, without warning. Again, I'm not saying it's wrong, just that I thought SMSPOV was there, and perhaps Eric's words can help others.

Senator Chalmers. Obviously, a name we have to watch out for.

I take it from the exchange with Callow in the library where he tells Simon that operative Chang was killed because of information Mandoramus gave to "them" that operatives being murdered happens often enough to cause anger instead of bringing the whole place to a stunned silence. I guess if I was going to intern at Nightwatch, I'd want to make sure which department I was really going to be working for… Also, that Simon must know how to contact "them", since Mandoramus wouldn't know.

That Simon could be a public figure, even against his will, seems contrary to his existence in all the rest of the series. As far as the rest of the world should be concerned, he's just a mind-mannered civil engineer who maybe would say a few brief words on the project before more professional fundraisers started talking again. I think that puts him in the category of knowledgeable or mildly amusing party guest, not top of the list for speakers at the Foreign Press Association Dinner. The local Rotary, American Legion, or Kiwanis club, maybe, but that's a far cry from celebrity.

Heh-heh. I found myself hoping that Bryan did, in fact, come up with info about a machine that would control the weather…

Credit where it's due. I was disappointed when Mandoramus, King Adelfus, or the Spear of Lightning didn't come up in the Wikipedia. The way it was written made Mandoramus ' history seem quite real, or as real as mythology gets.

I was a it thrown off by the philosophical discourse from Tom on the plane about whether or not persons stowed away, or if judges are influenced in their decisions. It slowed the pace of things, and unless they were foreshadowing for future stories, this might have been best left out. The second discussion showed a bit of Bryan's character, but as the notes in my ever-growing stack of rejection slips tell me, if it's not explicitly needed in the story, don't put it in.

[strong laughter] Even though it contradicts what I just said, I want to know the Saint Bernard, the swimming pool, and the watermelon story. I really do… :D

Is the Bill outside the tent Bill Starsmore, the pilot who supposedly had the bad hand? Seems an odd place for rehab, or for a pilot, for that matter.

I was a little disappointed that Mandoramus gave up so easily, and was resigned for his fate. I felt it robbed the story of a strong climax.

However, I thought the last line was very clever, and a good tie-in to earlier. Good storytelling there.


All in all, I liked Mr. Benedetto's "Rogue Harvest" better, but this certainly was not a poor effort in my view. I wasn't crazy about bits where things seemed to contradict previous tales, but there were some pretty good things in this story.
Hardcover, paperback, pdf, eBook, iBook, Nook, and now Kindle & Kobo!
Image
A cooperative effort between 17 Aphelion authors. No part of any sales go to Aphelion.
User avatar
kailhofer
Editor Emeritus
Posts: 3245
Joined: December 31, 1969, 08:00:00 PM
Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA)
Contact:

Re: Nightwatch: Seven Years By Ralph Benedetto, Jr

Post by kailhofer »

Why do I suddenly have a vision of Simon ducking into a supply cupboard, pulling his tie to one side, and tearing his shirt open?
According to the story, wasn't that what Simon's doppleganger tried to do with Stephanie?  :(

Nate
Last edited by kailhofer on October 30, 2006, 06:33:57 PM, edited 1 time in total.
Hardcover, paperback, pdf, eBook, iBook, Nook, and now Kindle & Kobo!
Image
A cooperative effort between 17 Aphelion authors. No part of any sales go to Aphelion.
Post Reply

Return to “October 2006”