I’m nearly done with the 4th draft of chapter eleven. Back in the 3rd draft, Mean had a bit of an easy time beating an enemy. Kim read this and said ‘SO BORING! Brad, you can do better! Give her a worthy challenge! A true struggle!’

So I stepped up! I slammed Mean down into an unwinnable situation. Pain! Danger! I nearly wrote myself into a corner! NEARLY. I can’t say what happens here, but I came up something. YEAH. SOMETHING. No one told me how much spoilers they want so I guess we’re doing weird poems again.

Shadowed eyes follow the woman that flies.

A still rain falls upon them both.

To escape the storm would spell death.

The heat is unbearable. Why not steal it?

In other news I met with my friend David at church. He usually runs the technical side of the presentation in his free time. Once a month, after the sermon, he comes to find me. This Sunday he told me that he was almost done reading Abandonment Party.

There is something you need to know about David: he has the most logical mind I’ve ever experienced. He is an engineer that has NOT worked on flying drones for Walt Disney World presentations, (That was his friend.) but he has a great understanding of aerodynamics and physics. Also, as far as I can tell, he has NEVER lied to me.

So I was quite excited to hear that he was reading the book. If he noticed any errors about physics, I KNOW he would tell me. So what did I find out so far? Let’s look:

“The Eye, yes,” Dark said. “We’re from the planet that orbits this
one. But sorry, no magic.”

David quotes this line and tells me that if the two planets of Overland and the Eye are around the same mass and tidally locked to always face each other, then they are not really orbiting each other. They are, instead, orbiting a point in space somewhere in between the two planets.

That… is correct. But that all seems a bit cumbersome for Dark to say in normal conversation. I might just take the part about orbiting out.

Chapter 2, Concrete Authority
At the start of police chase of Mean and Darklord by Mackaba,
Darklord “fell into the back seat”.  Later it isn’t as clear if he was in the
front seat or still in the back seat, I guess “gripped the front
seat”, would probably mean still in the back seat which is fine.

Yep. Dark was gripping the back of the front seat from the back seat. Again, that was all a bit too cumbersome to type out in the book. So I took the MASSIVE RISK of making Dark’s seating position confusing. I’m glad you figured it out. 😅

Also from chapter two:

“there were popping sounds and sharp flashes coming from the cab.”
If it is close, Mackaba must be a bad shot to not hit a car.  If it
was still far away maybe “there were sharp flashes and then popping
sounds coming from the cab.”  To imply a speed of sound delay.

Ah yes, I do love delayed noises to indicate distance. However, Mackaba’s aim is good. It is just difficult to aim and fire a gun while ALSO driving a vehicle. At least I assume it is. I’ve spent time with firearms, but that was at a shooting range. Gosh, I wish I could try driving and shooting for MAXIMUM realism, but I don’t think the police will take ‘I was writing a book’ as an excuse. So I think this part will stay as it is.

That’s all David has for now. We’ll see what he thinks when certain things in the finale start, uh, flying around. I’m sure EVERYTHING will be scientifically accurate.