Nightwatch: Transit, by Jeff Williams

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Lester Curtis
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Nightwatch: Transit, by Jeff Williams

Post by Lester Curtis »

Just in time for Halloween, we have extra-dimensional (or Something) werewolves dangerously misbehaving.

This episode definitely takes the reader (not to mention Simon and Stephanie) farther from reality-as-we-know-it than any before. Other than that, there were a couple things I noticed.

For one, I didn't finish this story stomping around the house wishing to slowly kill Callow. I suppose I'll have occasion to grit my teeth over that again, though.

The other thing -- something I hadn't recalled noticing in previous episodes -- was an annoyance caused by a peculiarity in the author's use of attribution, or perhaps just a recurring misplacement of punctuation and/or line breaks. For example:
"Any signal?" he asked as he reached into his jacket. Stephanie shook her head. Around them, under the blue, clear, sunless sky, was a large expanse of pleasantly green grass, and the blades slowly swayed in a gentle, lulling wind. Simon gazed at the reading on his phone. He shrugged his shoulders. "A nice breeze at least," he said, and after a full minute of silence, he added, "This could be my dream, your dream, both of our dreams." Stephanie snickered quietly,

"No, you'd be Johnny Depp circa Pirates of the Caribbean," she said, still laughing quietly.
See that? I stumbled over it; it took me out of the story momentarily and made me backtrack. Here's what it should look like:

*****
"Any signal?" he asked as he reached into his jacket. Stephanie shook her head. Around them, under the blue, clear, sunless sky, was a large expanse of pleasantly green grass, and the blades slowly swayed in a gentle, lulling wind. Simon gazed at the reading on his phone. He shrugged his shoulders. "A nice breeze at least," he said, and after a full minute of silence, he added, "This could be my dream, your dream, both of our dreams."

Stephanie snickered quietly, "No, you'd be Johnny Depp circa Pirates of the Caribbean," she said, still laughing quietly.
*****
All I did was shift the line break; nothing else. Editorial exhaustion, maybe; a minor thing, but I thought I saw this happening more than once. But it is confusing.

Other than that -- enjoy the story. It's really something else.
I was raised by humans. What's your excuse?
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