# Amens of the Hound (Novel)



## tioneph (Aug 11, 2010)

Hi there, first time posting.

I won't be posting the whole load of what i have completed of the novel so far, suffice to say that is focuses on the Hounds of Demos chapter of Space Marines who until not have only been identified by name. I'm hoping to fluff them out and give them some heart.
So here's a small piece, a brief moment at the start of chapter 2 in which a rogue captain named Cado has just executed his leiutenant for insubordination. 
Now i know there will be alot of confusion as to the whole setting and purpose of the story, but just for now, i'm really just posting to get people's ideas on my writing style, how the story flows, whether it works really. 
Thankyou for constructive critisism, i really do appreciate it.

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Cado looked at the body, a momentary thought that maybe he’d been too harsh lapsing across his mind. It lasted only for that moment then melted away, replaced by the gleeful knowledge he would now have less to pay out.
 Still facing the body, he blink clicked, sensors in his eyes picking up the movement and opening a command channel to the ships mainframe. The thought _clean up_ whispered nonchalantly in his mind. Responding to his soundless request, the frigate revealed two dark recesses in the wall of the bridge, the bulkheads smoothly rising up and out of sight. From the blackness stepped two servitors, their bulk glinting in the ambient light.
 The two mechanized servants, commands inlaid in their data-streams, moved forward toward the body, their motions calculated. It showed. Their lack of agility caused their feet to impact ungainly on the deck, distorted, gleaming spinal columns designed for cargo-lifting bending their posture. Massive hunches of machinery weighed them down, servos and pistons adding hundreds of pounds of weight onto the augmented shell.
 Cado watched their lumbering bodies move slowly across to the corpse, still fresh in the automated atmosphere. He shook his head at the lack of workmanship in the cheaper models, older models cannibalised to save resources on servitor creation.
 The captain turned away, focusing his attention on one of the display screens behind him. The screen displayed the swirling fireball ahead of his ship. Sensors on the bow of the ship discerned everything about the star. The various colours denoted elemental compounds, electro-magnetic activity read as it swirled and washed over the de-magnetized hull. 
 A familiar sensation crawled up Cado’s neck, his natural hackles rising. He turned.
 Once more, the deck was quiet, all eyes focused. But not on him.
 The two servitors stood still on the deck, halted in their advance toward the body. Stuck in a macabre half-walk, they bent sideways at the hip, off balance. Apart from a barely audible whine that told Cado their generators still ran, he heard no sound emanating from beneath the chassis. 
 Scanning the room, his eyes passing over sections of his crew, he searched. There was Tiron, the cur in lander-maintenance that always asked for more money. He placed the man in the back of his mind, mentally cataloguing him for a disciplinary later.
 Finally, Cado found the man he wanted, the section mechanic Bilo, a small man assigned to regularly check servitor operation. His hair clumped around his head, the wispy ginger strands almost comical. The soft look hid what Cado knew was an interior of greed and heartless ambition. Meeting his gaze, Cado nodded toward the servitors.
 Still, no one spoke, the events of the last few minutes firing caution in their veins.
 Bilo stepped slowly up onto the decking surrounding the dais and moved to the servitors. He reached out with his hand, touching the metal. Nothing. He pushed harder, the force off-setting the servitor’s balance. With a creak and scraping metal, the massive machine fell sideways to the decking, the weight impacting with a resounding force that made Bilo jump back.
 The tiny mechanic smiled, stepping over the fallen servitor to the other, knocking with his knuckles on the metal head. 
 “Ahh, just a wiring fault, brains not firing” Bilo said, half laughing as the nervousness bled away. He looked down at the fallen servitor, silently questioned them both having the same problem then shrugged it off, still laughing. Cado said nothing, just stared on disapprovingly.
 “No need to worry, I’ll get another set to come and...” Bilo paused, looking down at the fallen servitor’s mechanical hand, now wrapped around his ankle. “I...” the servitor standing before him hummed to life, eyes flickering with bright light as they reactivated. 
 Cado felt cold fingers creep down his spine as he watched the standing servitor raise both hands to it’s face, as though examining them. It moved them for a moment, flexing the joints, then looked at Bilo. If it could, Cado would have sworn it would have smiled. 
 In an instant, the servitor grasped Bilo’s shoulders and pulled up, his body rising to tear at the hip, his ankle still grasped in the iron grip of the other servitor. There was a brief scream before the machine rotated his hold and pulled the mechanic in two.


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

First off, welcome to Heresy Online! It's always good to have more people in the FanFic forums.

Now, to the story. Interesting... very interesting. Having a hapless mechanic torn in half is always a bit of a fun thing to do in writing. It's an intriguiing way to start a work, and I'd be interested in seeing more.

Regarding style (since you asked for criticisms): there are a few places where you have unnecessary repetition.


> lack of workmanship in the cheaper models, older models cannibalised


The wording here is confusing, are they cheaper and older models or are you meaning to say 'cheaper models, as the older ones had been cannibalised?'

With regards to the structure, the piece does both well enough. Your sentence structure is varied so that the reader doesn't have to put up with the noun-verb-object, noun-verb-object repetitiveness that is oh-so boring. You varied the build and lengths of the narrative to keep it, for lack of a better word, 'fresh.'

Flow I honestly can't give you thumbs-up or thumbs-down. This segment flows well, however since this is chapter 2 I have no idea as to how it fits into both your overall idea and plot.

Lastly, something that I noticed (and something I often mess up) are unneeded descriptions. While giving the reader a way to envision the surroundings, some things are just counter productive to plot advancement or character development.


> The captain turned away, focusing his attention on one of the display screens behind him. The screen displayed the swirling fireball ahead of his ship. Sensors on the bow of the ship discerned everything about the star. The various colours denoted elemental compounds, electro-magnetic activity read as it swirled and washed over the de-magnetized hull.


Granted, the importance of these facts may be explained elsewhere, but just with this extract it just begs the question, 'So...?' How is what this monitor does and look like important to your story? How does it advance the plot or give hints as to aspects of Cado?

Hopefully this will be helpful for you, and I'd strongly recommend posting more, since feedback the whole is much more productive than feedback on a part 

Keep writing!

-Boc


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## tioneph (Aug 11, 2010)

Thanks for critisism there Boc, that was exactly what i was looking for. I see exactly what you mean and have noticed these myself before I posted and more now that i have been party to your opinion. 
As to the over-description, i have recieved the same critique from others but up to a point, i kind of like it. As the story has progressed i have begun to tone it down a little but not overly so. I will have to see what it looks like later on.
I'll be posting more up as you suggested as it really does lift the spirits to gain feedback. A brief question, should i post it up on a seperate post or just carry it on here?

Thankyou
Tio


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